Open source developments in technology

Make your own logos for free

noreply@blogger.com (aravind) — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 05:34:00 -0700

The Logo Creator includes many templates for developing logos or modifying existing ones. However, the tool's time-consuming download and complicated functionality are hard to slog through.First, the big 34MB installation takes a while to load, since it includes an enormous amount of PNG and JPEG files. Then you have to set aside more time to actually launch the program. In our tests, we managed to do that only after one hour of desperate attempts. However, designing logo has been made easier thanks to the "element setter".Fortunately, your troubles won't all be for naught--the highly varied and customizable features can help you build a unique logo. Then, you can save the log as a template for re-use. However, the program is still too simple for professional logo makers, not to mention entirely too frustrating for those who wish to generate a logo quickly and easily.
Create professional looking logos that look like a Photoshop guru spent hours laboring over. Sell the logos you create to your own clients! Play around with these free logo templates and experience what The Logo Creator has to offer. Improvements: each and every modifiable logo has been updated for this new release. More logo elements have also been added. Faster rendering: the engine has been enhanced.

You can also save your own logo templates. (Choose Save Template from the FILE menu). You can now choose a logo element from the element setter (the top window that appears over the Canvas). Drag and drop an element onto the Canvas.

Download Videos twice your speed

noreply@blogger.com (aravind) — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 05:29:00 -0700

Internet Download Manager is a full-featured package that handles downloading tasks with aplomb. It conveniently integrates into your browser, even if you use Mozilla or Opera.It automatically sorts incoming files by file type and puts them in the appropriate folder. Most importantly, it supercharges download speeds (it doubled ours). Its windowed interface is clean and easy to understand. Power users can take advantage of the command line interface to resume file transfers, schedule downloads, connect through dial-up, or log on to password-protected sites. Experienced users also can limit the number of connections, the download speeds for specific sites, and even create an exception list to block specific, user-defined sites.Other features include automatic virus checking and the ability to download all files linked to a page. The new version has a Web spider that can analyze a site and retrieve, for example, all the images on it.
Internet Download Manager strikes us as a natural choice for users in need of a trusty transfer tool. Version 5.11 build 5 added FLV grabber that can be used to download videos from YouTube, Google Video, MySpaceTV, and other popular sites.

Download youtube videos with youtube downloader

noreply@blogger.com (aravind) — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 05:27:00 -0700

YouTube Downloader is software that allows you to download videos from YouTube, Google Video, Yahoo Video, and many others and convert them to other video formats.The program is easy to use, just specify the URL for the video you want to download and click the Ok button!It also allows you to convert downloaded videos for Ipod, Iphone, PSP, Cell Phone, Windows Media, XVid and MP3.You can use YouTube Downloader to download the videos of your choice from home, at the office or in school.Download YouTube Downloader now and get started downloading your favorite videos from YouTube.
This simple freeware application works pretty well, given how basic the interface is. It has two main features: to download FLV files from YouTube, and to convert them to most major formats. If there's a YouTube URL in your clipboard, it will automatically paste it for you when you click on the dialog box. From there, just hit OK and the downloading will commence. One more left-click is all it takes to load the file in the converter, which supports iPhone, iPod, PSP, cell phone, AVI, MP3, WMV, and Xvid. Surprisingly, there's also a basic video editor for cropping videos by time stamp. You can also cut out the sound when converting.This is one of the lightest editors around, but the simplistic interface belies its functionality and it performs exactly as advertised. We'd like to see support in future editions for hunting down missing codecs, and version 2.1.5 and earlier won't work because of embed code changes on YouTube itself. Still, the YouTube Downloader is proof that not only is video-making accessible to everyone, so is video downloading and editing.

Create pdf files from pdfforge

noreply@blogger.com (aravind) — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 05:09:00 -0700

OpenSource projects that will help you in creating PDFs just as they are supposed to be. To get an overview have a look at PDFCreator or our other projects.PDFCreator is one of the best known programs to create PDF files from any application. Start converting your documents and add encryption with PDFCreator to secure them again modifications.
Create PDF's from just about any program that prints using Windows printers.
Create documents in the following formats: Portable Document Format (PDF, PDF/A, PDF/X), PNG, JPEG, BMP, PCX, TIFF, Postscript (PS), Encapsulated Postscript (EPS), Text, Adobe Photoshop (PSD), PCL, RAW and SVG (experimental).
Combine multiple documents into one PDF.
Password protect and apply up to 128 bit encryption to your PDF documents.
Automatically save PDF documents with current settings without being prompted for information

Uses GPL-Ghostscript 8.71 now.
Added the feature to set the color\grey compression factor manually to get the best realtion between file size and quality of pdf files
Improved print after saving (color printing, set maximum resolution)
Improved the signing feature (set signature on page is freely definable)
PDFCreator can handle signing and encrypting in one step
Improved the setup: 64bit printer driver installable on a 32bit system
Added a better dialog for the certificate password
Added the font dialog to the options dialog again
Improved the PDFCreator class (check for an existing printer in cPrintPrinterTestpage, check for an existing file in cPrintfile)

Thunderbird 3 a better browser from mozilla

noreply@blogger.com (aravind) — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 04:03:00 -0700

Tabbed email lets you load emails in separate tabs so you can quickly jump between them. Perhaps you’re responding to an email and need to refer back to an earlier email. Tabbed email lets you keep multiple emails open for easy reference.Double-clicking or hitting enter on a mail message will now open that message in a new tab window. Right-clicking on messages or folders will open them in a tab in the background.
When quitting Thunderbird, visible tabs will be saved and will be restored when you open Thunderbird the next time. There is also a new Tab menu on the Tab toolbar to help you switch between Tabs.

The new search interface in Thunderbird 3 contains filtering and timeline tools to pinpoint the exact email you’re looking for. Thunderbird 3 also indexes all of your emails to help you search even faster. Your search results are displayed in a tab so you can easily switch back and forth to your search results and other email.

Message Archive

If you think you’re going to need an email in the future but want it out of your inbox without deleting it, archive it! Archiving helps you manage your inbox and put your email into a new archive folder system.
Selecting the Archive button or hitting the ‘A’ key will archive your email.

Thunderbird Look & Feel

With Personas, lightweight "skins" allow you to change the look and feel of Thunderbird in an instant. Hundreds of skins are available from the latest movies, famous landmarks, and Japanese tattoos. You can also choose from several Themes that dress up all the different icons in Thunderbird.

Smart Folders

Smart Folders helps you manage multiple email accounts by combining special folders like your Inbox, Sent, or Archive folder. Instead of going to the Inbox for each of your mail accounts, you can see all of your incoming email in one Inbox folder.

Add-ons Manager

Find and install add-ons directly in Thunderbird. You no longer need to visit the add-ons Web site—instead simply fire up the Add-ons Manager. Not sure which add-on is right for you? Ratings, recommendations, descriptions and pictures of the add-ons in action help you make your selection.

Mail Account Setup Wizard

Prior to this new feature you had to know your IMAP, SMTP, SSL/TLS settings. Now all you need to provide is your name, email address, and password and the new email account set up wizard will check our database and find the email settings for you.

One-click Address Book

One-click Address Book is a quick and easy way to add people to your address book. Add people by simply clicking on the star icon in the message you receive. Two clicks and you can add more details like a photo, birthday, and other contact information.

Attachment Reminder

The new attachment reminder looks for the word attachment (and other words like file types) in the body of your message and reminds you to add an attachment before hitting send.

Activity Manager

The Activity Manager records all the interactions between Thunderbird and your email provider in one place. There’s no more guess work. You only have to look in one place to see everything that’s happening with your email.

Cutting Out the Junk

Thunderbird’s popular junk mail tools have been updated to stay ahead of spam. Each email you receive passes through Thunderbird’s leading-edge junk mail filters. Each time you mark messages as spam, Thunderbird “learns” and improves its filtering so you can spend more time reading the mail that matters. Thunderbird can also use your mail provider’s spam filters to keep junk mail out of your inbox.

Robust Privacy

Thunderbird 3 offers support for user privacy and remote image protection. To ensure a user’s privacy, Thunderbird 3 automatically blocks remote images in email messages.

Phishing Protection

Thunderbird protects you from email scams which try to trick users into handing over personal and confidential information by indicating when a message is a potential phishing attempt. As a second line of defense, Thunderbird warns you when you click on a link which appears to be taking you to a different Web site than the one indicated by the URL in the message.

Automated Update

Thunderbird’s update system checks to see if you’re running the latest version, and notifies you when a security update is available. These security updates are small (usually 200KB - 700KB), giving you only what you need and making the security update quick to download and install. The automated update system provides updates for Thunderbird on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux in over 40 different languages.