Free Reservationless Phone Conferencing
Free conference calls are simple and easy to use, requiring only a name and an e-mail address to receive an instant account. Once you enter your name and e-mail address, you will be instantaneously provided with a dial-in number and access code for immediate phone conferencing.Your teleconferencing line is available to you 24/7 and there is no need to schedule or make reservations. Each conference call account accommodates 96 callers on an unlimited number of 6 hour free conference calls.
It works - it's free - it's available.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Friday, January 8, 2010
UFRAW and GIMP
If you edit photos, GIMP is worth trying out. GIMP is far more capable than any low priced photo editors I have come across and is at least as good as Photoshop Elements. In some ways, it approaches the capabilities of Photoshop CS. However, the usability is clunky compared to the Photoshop variants. For example, GIMP does allow for bulk processing but you need to write the script. On the other hand, Photoshop allows for the easy recording of a set of actions that makes bulk processing a breeze.
If you shoot RAW, GIMP has the free UFRAW plugin available. This is well worth having even if you have the latest versions of Photoshop CS and Adobe Camera RAW (ACR).
My current DSLR came with a Silky Pix based software and even the internal JPEG engine is Silky Pix based. Silky Pix is a great stand alone RAW converter that many do prefer to ACR. The problems are that it is not cheap and it can not directly export the converted photo to photo processing software. I do prefer the look of Silky Pix to ACR but would like the abilities of RAW to fix things before making the final photo. Being able to go from the RAW converter to the photo processor is close to being a must as well.
UFRAW is DCRAW with a good GUI. This GUI is on par with that of ACR. Like ACR, you do need to work with it a while to really understand what is going on. On the other hand, UFRAW is more capable although it does not perform sharpening and may take longer to understand. Also, do not forget to load the color profile for your camera. This should be somewhere on your camera's RAW converting software CD.
UFRAW has sliders for both gamma and linearity. The combination of these two can provide a very nice fine tuning of the photos tonality. Setting the gamma to 0.45 to 0.50 and the linearity between 0.90 and 1.00 will produce natural, Silky Pix like results. I do see a little more colder but more realistic rendering with UFRAW. A slight boost on saturation or a slight boost in the warmer colors through GIMP can take care of the colder look.
I also found that I can get a more dramatic film like look by cutting the gamma slightly and boosting the linearity past 0.1. This look is further improved by the push button option for a more film like handling of highlights. This tones them down slightly and brings out a considerable amount of highlight detail.
After one is done with the RAW conversion, the photo can be opened directly by GIMP. GIMP does perform the standard photoshop tasks which makes using UFRAW preferable for me over converting in Silky Pix, saving as a tif file and then opening in Photoshop. Although GIMP is not quite as nice to use as Photoshop I much prefer the UFRAW/GIMP combination if I shoot RAW. ACR is good but UFRAW works better for me with the files from my camera.
If you shoot RAW, GIMP has the free UFRAW plugin available. This is well worth having even if you have the latest versions of Photoshop CS and Adobe Camera RAW (ACR).
My current DSLR came with a Silky Pix based software and even the internal JPEG engine is Silky Pix based. Silky Pix is a great stand alone RAW converter that many do prefer to ACR. The problems are that it is not cheap and it can not directly export the converted photo to photo processing software. I do prefer the look of Silky Pix to ACR but would like the abilities of RAW to fix things before making the final photo. Being able to go from the RAW converter to the photo processor is close to being a must as well.
UFRAW is DCRAW with a good GUI. This GUI is on par with that of ACR. Like ACR, you do need to work with it a while to really understand what is going on. On the other hand, UFRAW is more capable although it does not perform sharpening and may take longer to understand. Also, do not forget to load the color profile for your camera. This should be somewhere on your camera's RAW converting software CD.
UFRAW has sliders for both gamma and linearity. The combination of these two can provide a very nice fine tuning of the photos tonality. Setting the gamma to 0.45 to 0.50 and the linearity between 0.90 and 1.00 will produce natural, Silky Pix like results. I do see a little more colder but more realistic rendering with UFRAW. A slight boost on saturation or a slight boost in the warmer colors through GIMP can take care of the colder look.
I also found that I can get a more dramatic film like look by cutting the gamma slightly and boosting the linearity past 0.1. This look is further improved by the push button option for a more film like handling of highlights. This tones them down slightly and brings out a considerable amount of highlight detail.
After one is done with the RAW conversion, the photo can be opened directly by GIMP. GIMP does perform the standard photoshop tasks which makes using UFRAW preferable for me over converting in Silky Pix, saving as a tif file and then opening in Photoshop. Although GIMP is not quite as nice to use as Photoshop I much prefer the UFRAW/GIMP combination if I shoot RAW. ACR is good but UFRAW works better for me with the files from my camera.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Brothersoft
A clean download site you can depend on. Lots of really good software sits here before going commercial.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Flowgram
Create interactive guided presentations by combining web pages, photos, PowerPoints slides, and more with voice, notes and highlights.
Viewers can control the pages, scroll, click on links, view videos and more.
It is worth a look.
Bill
Viewers can control the pages, scroll, click on links, view videos and more.
It is worth a look.
Bill
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Zotero
Zotero is another plug-in for Firefox. Where Clippings allows the user to have multiple clipboards unlike the single one in MS - Zotero allows the user to keep a reference card file of web sites and information.
Zotero [zoh-TAIR-oh] is a free, easy-to-use Firefox extension to help you collect, manage, and cite your research sources. It lives right where you do your work — in the web browser itself.
Works with Windows, Mac, or Linux. A part of Open Source. Works in over 30 languages.
Take a look.
Bill
Zotero [zoh-TAIR-oh] is a free, easy-to-use Firefox extension to help you collect, manage, and cite your research sources. It lives right where you do your work — in the web browser itself.
Works with Windows, Mac, or Linux. A part of Open Source. Works in over 30 languages.
Take a look.
Bill
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