Free Software Links

Free Strategy Games

2009-11-26T05:58:00.000-08:00

If strategy gaming is your thing then here are some great free games to consider. There are generally two types of strategy game, turn based and realtime. With a turn based game you will wait your turn to make a move whilst your opponent or opponents are completing their move. A realtime strategy means your opponents are playing against you at the same time as you. The following is some great free strategy games available on Linux, Windows and OS X.

Wormux
This is a turn based game quite blatantly styled like the classic Worms games. At the beginning of the game you select your team from a list of open source mascots, such as the Firefox fox and Tux the penguin. Wormux is pure comical violence. You choose your weapon of choice and set it upon the enemy. The weapons include bazookas, grenades and baseball bats.

Widelands
Back in the old days of computer gaming their was a great little gem of a game called The Settlers made by a company called Blue Byte Software. Widelands could be considered a clone of this. In Widelands the objective is to conquer and expand the land around you. By harvesting and mining the land you can expand your tribe and take over competing tribes. Widelands has many similarities to Settlers but also offers multiplayer game play, had it's own tribes and graphics as well as a map editor so you can build your own maps.

Battle For Wesnoth
Battle for Wesnoth is a turn based strategy game set in a fantasy environment. It mixes elements of RPG games and strategy and has a fully developed world to get engaged in with over 200 unit types, 16 races several factions. There are many campaigns and maps to play to keep you busy for quite some time. The music in Battle for Wesnoth is probably of the best quality ever heard in a free game. There is also a multiplayer option where you can battle with up to 8 opponents.

Scorched 3D
Scorched3D is based on a very old game called Scorched Earth that is the basis for many games like Worms and Wormux. Scorched3D is set on a randomly generated island where you get to launch explosive attacks on your opponent using weapons like lasers and napalm. The game is in 3D so you can rotate around the map to get good views of your target. Scorched3D also has a fantastic multiplayer aspect complete with a ranking system.

FreeOrion
This is a great epic turn based strategy game set in a randomly generated galaxy. In Free Orion the objective is to move across the galaxy and settle and/or conquer other planets and become the overall ruler of the galaxy. There are many borrowed elements of gameplay from the likes of Masters of Orion, hence the name. There is also a nice looking research and customisation facility where you get to choose what technology you want to research.

All these games are totally free and have regular updates and improvements with great communities around them so definitely worth checking out.

Open source tools to design your own website

2009-11-20T04:37:00.000-08:00

There are many ways to create a website. There are expensive ways and then there's the alternative free way.

This is not a tutorial but an outline of the procedures involved when it comes to typical web design.

Two great tools to allow you to create an initial design of a website are Inkscape and the GIMP. Inkscape is vector drawing application in a similar vein to Adobe Illustrator. The GIMP is an image manipulation tool comparable to Adobe Photoshop. But they can both be used hand in hand. There is also Fireworks also from Adobe which is a powerful program and can do everything pretty much from one interface. But it's not the free way!

First of all you may have drawn a website on a scap of paper. Problem is you'll be itching to do something with it. Ideally you will want to load up Inkscape and start drawing your website. If you have a hand drawn design you can either recreate it in Inkscape or scan it in and then trace it in Inkscape.

The advantage of Inkscape is that you can draw lines and boxes and move and scale them without introducing artifacts like you would get when stretching a photo. There are many helpful drawing tools available within Inkscape to help achieve the look you desire. There are also many Inkscape tutorials around if you need a bit of help getting started with vector drawing.

When you have achieved your perfect design you will probably want to slice up the design so you get your logo, icons and background images. This is where the GIMP comes in. From Inkscape you will want to export your full page design as a bitmap image. This will be saved as .png. Load this into GIMP and then you can start slicing. It seems a bit fiddly at first as you have to add multiple guides so set slicing points. But the fun part comes when you run the slice tools. You can use either the guillotine or the slice filter to slice your design. Although it seems the slice filter is not included by default in the Windows version so follow this guide to installing python for GIMP.

The slice tool is the best way to go as it will create the necessary HTML and image for you.The guillotine will work but you will need to put more work in to saving the images and constructing the HTML yourself.

Inkscape and the GIMP make great companions for making a design for your own website and all for the grand total of nothing. Each has there pros and cons and they both have plenty of special effects filters to play around with and should help you get the design you want.

Free RAW Software

2009-11-18T03:41:00.000-08:00

There are a number of choices available when it comes to processing RAW files produced by dSLRs and an increasing range of compact cameras.

A RAW file is essentially a digital negative. To get the most of out of processing an image produced by your digital camera then access to the RAW data can be essential. Most compact digital cameras will process the image for you and produce a JPG image based on presets. But a dSLR will give you the option of producing a RAW file.

To process the RAW file involves more than using a photo editor. Most digital cameras will come with software to allow you to process the RAW data which you would then load into a photo editing package such as the GIMP. Unfortunately a lot of this software are just free trials or cut down versions.

But fortunately the world of free and open source software comes to the rescue with a few available free RAW processing applications

All of the following applications utilise a library called DCRaw so the actual processing features will be the same. What differs is the approach taken and the user interface. These also process their images in 16bit which is important when lots of changes are being made.

UFRaw
The most popular is UFRaw which is mainly used as a plugin to the GIMP. Although it can work standalone. UFRaw has been around for quite a while and probably the most mature out of the bunch. However it does lack a few features, for example a sharpening tool. However it does provide good exposure correction tools

RawTherapee
RawTherapee is a nice looking application and has quite a nice clean user friendly interface and is also actively developed. RawTherapee features a nice thumbnail based file browser for easy image selection and allows easy adjustment of an image with use of sliders. So for example shadow and highlight recovery is as easy as moving a slider left or right.

dlRaw
dlRaw is a newcomer to the free RAW processing software world. dlRaw has a different approach to the other software on offer. Generally you load your photo into your chosen application and tweak it to then load into something else. Whereas dlRaw has many features to do most tasks within the software. For example there are built in creative filters which allow you to add rectangular or circular vignettes, black and white conversions and film grain effects. The final image can then be saved as a jpg or tiff or it can be sent to the likes of the GIMP for further processing. Changes can be tracked on dlRaw's blog.

RawStudio
Although it seems it hasn't been updated in a while, RawStudio has kept up momentum in the background where daily snapshots are available. Rawstudio also features a nice clean interface for processing RAW files.

Out of the above the only one that is not open source is RawTherapee but it is rumoured that it could be opened up in the near future. However they are all free to use without restriction.