Freeware World

The GIMP is one of the best free image editing tools for Mac. It’s the closest thing you’ll find to Adobe Photoshop without paying big bucks. However, a frequent complaint by those switching from Photoshop to The GIMP is that the interface isn’t exactly easy to use.

The GIMP has been designed in a rather awkward way, so that anyone used to Photoshop quickly gets confused by menu layout and the different naming conventions that The GIMP uses.

An excellent solution to this problem is GIMPshop.

GIMPshop is a modification of The GIMP which gives it an Adobe Photoshop style interface so that you can enjoy the best of both worlds. All of the functionality of The GIMP remains the same with the bonus of a much easier to use Photoshop style interface.

GIMPshop features menu layouts, dialogs and naming conventions that all Adobe Photoshop users will be familiar with.

However, there are a few issues to be aware of when trying to install it on Mac. Firstly, you’ll need Apple’s X11 to run GIMPshop. Secondly, the main problem that Leopard and Snow Leopard users will have is getting GIMPshop to remain stable. Although GIMPshop is supposed to officially support Leopard and Snow Leopard, the reality is quite different.

It can easily be made to work properly though by modifying a library file. Instructions of how to do so are here and the libraries you need to make it work are here.

Of course, GIMPshop isn’t a replacement for Photoshop but it’s probably the closest thing you’ll ever get for free.

I’ve always professed that I’m no oil painting, but Aviary’s new Facebook app has proved me wrong - because now I actually am. Aviary Effects allows you to turn your Facebook photos into works of art, quickly and simply.

The application lets you apply effects to any photos of you from your Facebook albums and even get creative with photos of your friends. There are six different effects to choose from. Besides Oil Paint, you can also select Pop Art, Etch-a-Sketch, Warhol, Sketch and Lego. Each effect can be customized, changing the intensity via a slider, as well as altering the background colors and amount of brush strokes.

I should point out that Aviary Effects seems a little unstable at the moment, and it managed to crash Firefox a few times when trying to apply an effect. Nevertheless it’s a fun way to breath new life into all those profile pictures that have been there for years.

The early build of Bunnies Of Fury 2 currently features neither Fury nor Bunnies, but is absolutely fantastic. You need the Unity plugin for your browser, then you’ll be left to your own devices in a 3D rainbow world of blocks. You have two weapons, toggled with the Q key, otherwise the controls are a pretty standard First Person mouse/keyboard setup. F1 puts the full controls on screen.

For a few seconds, you might not get Bunnies Of Fury 2. Press Q, and shoot down with the left mouse button, and you’ll quickly understand! This is abstract sandbox gameplay at its best - big, free and dramatic. It’s completely aimless, but excellent fun. You can either build your own constructions, or mine your own caves, or both. It’s very hard to know when to stop!

[via bytejacker]

Artistic online community deviantArt may be well known for pretentious black and white portraits and drawings of emo-fairies, but there has always been some interesting stuff there and it’s a really well-made website. Adding to this is their new drawing app, Muro, a great artistic tool you can use in your browser.

You could spend hours creating pictures in Muro. It’s unlike most simple drawing tools, in that it has a range of cool brushes with interesting effects and also supports layers like Photoshop.

Muro has two main settings, basic and pro, which just flips between having layer options activated or not. Anyone can make a pretty nice image after just a little practice. Most importantly, it’s a great timewaster, as it’s relaxing, constructive, and can waste a hell of a lot of time if you’re not careful!

What’s even more interesting about Muro is that it’s been made in HTML 5,  so you can use it from things like Apple’s iPad too! Check it out at deviantArt.

Asterisk is a really relaxing puzzle game, where you have to expand shapes so they collect all the stars on screen. Expand the wrong shapes and you won’t reach all the stars, and will have to try again, although once you’ve got a feel for it, finding Asterisk’s solutions are not too hard.

With smart, simple graphics and a chilled out soundtrack, Asterisk it a great way to zone out and collect your thoughts for a few minutes. There are 20 level, which is just about right for a game like this. Check it out at Kongregate, and remember you’ll need the Flash plug-in

When you create a new Twitter account, the first thing you do is adapt the account’s configuration options to your taste. Name, language,  time zone, geolocation of tweets… and of course, design. Twitter lets you customize the background image and the account colors, so that each user can create a truly unique Twitter profile. The service includes twenty readymade designs to choose from, plus the possibility of uploading your own images, and also create Twitter backgrounds with Themeleon.

Themeleon is a cool online app that helps you design original and colorful Twitter backgrounds, and combine them with a personal color palette. All the elements in Themeleon are fully customizable, meaning you can combine patterns and color palettes anyway you like, as well as change the pattern’s original colors if you don’t like them. There are more than 900,000 patterns and a million palettes to choose from, so we could pretty much say that the possible combinations are almost endless!

Using Themeleon is really simple. The tool has two main tabs, Patterns and Photos. With the first one you can design seamless Twitter background patterns, while the other helps you create Twitter backgrounds out of a photo, or using a plain color. In every case, Themeleon features a bunch of options to customize the background: pattern templates, color palettes, and tools to search for similar colors - or shuffle them, if you’ve run out of inspiration. The best thing is that you can preview changes in real time!

Once you’ve created the perfect design for your Twitter profile, you need to sign in to your account and authorize the Themeleon application in order to save changes.

Your newly created Twitter background will be applied right away! Whenever you want to change it again, go back to Settings > Design and give Themeleon another go.

Collages are an awesome way to display your photos. They work great as desktop wallpapers, and also look nice printed and framed, on a shelf at home. But collages are always so hard and tedious to create… well, not anymore!

With Photovisi’s online tool to create collages, you’ll be enjoying beautiful photo collages in no time - without having to install any software. Just follow these simple steps:

1. Load up the Photovisi online collage maker and click the big Click here to start button. Then select the appropriate template for your collage.

 2. On the next screen, click the Add items button. You can add images from your hard drive or screenshots taken with your webcam right on the spot. There are also a couple of options to customize the collage: changing the background color or adding a background picture.

 3. Once the images are loaded on the template, you can reorganize them any way you want: drag them to a different position on the page, make them larger or smaller, double click on them to bring them to front, etc.

 4. When you’re happy with the photo layout, click the Save button, and select your preferred resolution. The collage will be displayed on the screen and you can save it to your hard drive by right clicking the image and selecting Save image as. Beware though that it’ll display a Photovisi watermark.

When finished, Photovisi displays a link to an online shop where you can buy all sorts of merchandising with the collage you just created: magnets, mugs, mouse pads, postcards and more.

Last week I told you about Nokia’s new Ovi App Wizard, which allows anyone to create their own Symbian applications. Today, Google has launched something similar in the shape of App Inventor, which allows budding developers to make Android apps without any technical knowledge.

App Inventor features a graphical user interface that lets you design and build applications by dragging and dropping elements onto the screen. Google has literally gone back to school with App Inventor, working with junior and high school kids to help ensure the editor is as easy to use as possible. In fact, it promises that making programs with App Inventor won’t require a single line of coding.

I’m still waiting on my invite for App Inventor and will be curious to see what the scope of this development tool is. On the face of it, App Inventor certainly looks more advanced than the Ovi App Wizard, which essentially just serves web feeds. My fear though, after watching the promotional video, is that the Android Market is about to become the biggest repository of crap apps on the planet.

Windows: If you use iTunes to listen to music but your keyboard doesn’t have media keys, controlling the playback can be a pain - unless you use iTuner. This awesome iTunes plug-in not only lets you control the player with customizable keyboard hotkeys, but also displays a desktop notification with each new song and gives you access to ratings and lyrics.

iPhone: Want to remote control your computer from your iPhone? LogMeIn Ignition is an app for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad that lets you access your Windows or Mac OS X machine(s) while you’re away from base. And we don’t mean you can just see the files - the software actually displays your computer’s interface in real time and allows you to control it as if you were sat there!

Mac: Animations made with a couple of videos, pictures and music can really look great if you take the time to prepare them. PulpMotion gives you everything you need to prepare a stunning moving slideshow. It includes a number of visual themes you can choose from to start working with. The interface itself is very easy to handle working in a similar way to iMovie.

iPhone: PES 2010 brings the magic of the Pro Evolution soccer sim to the iPhone. The game translates pretty well from the console and PC versions, thanks to some interesting control systems.PES 2010 offers a range of game types, including the Champions League and Europa League, quick match, exhibition, league, cup, and training.

Windows: If you use Windows Media Player to play music or videos, you’re going to love this plug-in. Windows Media Player Plus adds interesting new features and improvements to Microsoft’s player, including an advanced tag editor, more customization options for the interface and a powerful search tool that finds songs and movies as you type.

Mac: Bulkr is an Adobe Air-based app for backing up your Flickr stream. Some of us have had Flickr accounts for years now, and Bulkr offers a simple way to download sets of photos we don’t have on our computers. Not only can you easily back up your own account, but you can also download any cool pics you find elsewhere on Flickr.