Monthly Archives: August 2007

The GIMP

Open Source

The GIMP is an open source photo editing and image manipulation program.  The home page is http://www.gimp.org/  An on-line book “Grokking The GIMP” is available at http://gimp-savvy.com/BOOK/

To install GIMP on Windows you will need to down load and install two files from http://gimp-win.sourceforge.net/stable.html  The first is the GTK+ Runtime Environment, the second is “The GIMP for Windows (version 2.2.17)”

Versions of GIMP are also available for Linux and Mac.  You can support this project by purchasing their software on CD.

OpenOffice

Open Source

OpenOffice is a open source (ie. free) alternative to Microsoft Office. It includes the “Writer” word processor, “Calc” spreadsheet, and “Impress” presenter (ie. PowerPoint). It also includes a database, math equation editor, and vector graphics program (ie. Visio). You can download the latest version (for free) at http://www.openoffice.org/

It can open and save Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files. Occasionally some of the formatting is off, especially with tables, but overall it does a great job. I have been using OpenOffice as my main (95%) word processor and spreadsheet at work since the spring of 2005 and at home (100%) since the fall of 2006.

I do not find the Impress presentation program as easy to use as PowerPoint, mostly because of the lack of built-in templates, although many can be downloaded at http://ooextras.sourceforge.net

Overall OpenOffice is a great product and the price is right.

-Prof. Lehman

Always something new to learn (Welcome)

misc

One of the things I enjoy (usually) about teaching computer science is that their is always something new to learn. Things never stay the same.

I have been using the Internet since the fall of 1991 when I learned how to ftp, telnet, and e-mail (I only knew two people at the time with e-mail outside of the university). Gopher appeared soon after and then the world wide web. Archie & Veronica searches gave way to yahoo, Altavista, and then Google.

The first computer we owned at home was a Radio Shack Color Computer II (about 1984) with 16K of memory (yes that is K, not MB, not GB). It used the TV as a monitor and cassette tapes for storage. I used to type-in programs that came in a monthly magazine. I remember thinking “if I just had 32K I could run anything!”.

Blogs have been around for quite a while it was time for me to give it a try.

-Prof. Lehman