joi, 30 aprilie 2015

Giveaway - ThunderSoft Flash Gallery Creator

ThunderSoft Flash Gallery Creator
Create an interactive flash gallery or a business photo gallery with ThunderSoft Flash Gallery Creator. It is one of the best programs, that provides more than 70 transition effects and professional templates. You can publish swf movie on your webpage, create a screensaver, video files and share them via Internet.

Download link available today: http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/thundersoft-flash-gallery-creator-1-8-3/

Sample gallery: http://www.thundershare.net/flash-gallery-creator/samples.html

Alternative (with support for non-flash galleries):  http://jalbum.net/en/ - previous versions are free - see http://jalbum.net/en/software/download/previous;jsessionid=1j0tn84j3lsdgk49ab3cavcp9

Free alternative (with support for non-flash galleries): https://picasa.google.com/, Picasa tutorial - Create photos webpage

marți, 28 aprilie 2015

Giveaway - AOMEI Backupper Pro 2.5 - backup software for windows

Giveaway - AOMEI Backupper Pro 2.5 - backup software for windows
AOMEI Backupper Pro is an easy-to-use backup program for Windows. You can easily choose what files to backup and how to backup. With this software you can be sure that your data is reliably protected and can be restored any time.

Key features:

  • System, disk, partition, files and folders backup and restore;
  • Restore a system backup image to dissimilar hardware;
  • Support full, incremental, differential, and automatic backups;
  • System and disk clone for OS migration or upgrading HDD;
    Giveaway - AOMEI Backupper Pro 2.5
  • Backup using command line prompt or batch scripts;
  • Merge full backup and its associated incremental backups into a single image;
  • Backup disk space management helps delete old backups automatically;
  • Create WinPE or Linux boot recovery environment in case of system fails;
  • Compress, comment, split, encrypt, explore, and check backup images;
  • Support dynamic disk, MBR/GPT disk, and EFI/UEFI boot mode.
Download link available today:http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/aomei-backupper-pro-edition-2-5/

Download.com review for AOMEI Backupper Standard (free edition #3 in backup software) http://download.cnet.com/AOMEI-Backupper-Standard/3000-2242_4-75833997.html
Edition comparison Free and Pro (today giveaway) http://www.backup-utility.com/free-backup-software.html

 Free alternatives:

luni, 27 aprilie 2015

AutoHotkey - scriptable automation

AutoHotkey is an open-source utility which can automate almost anything by sending keystrokes and mouse clicks. You can write macros by hand or use the macro recorder. You can also create hotkeys for keyboard, mouse, joystick, and handheld remote controls. Virtually any key, button, or combination can become a hotkey. Similarly, you can define abbreviations that expand as you type them. For example, typing btw can automatically produce by the way. Finally, you can create custom data entry forms, user interfaces, and menu bars.
Other features include remap keys, change soundcard settings (like volume or mute), use a joystick or keyboard as a mouse; make any window transparent, always-on-top, or alter its shape; manipulate the clipboard, customize the tray menu's icon and menu items, run existing AutoIt v2 scripts, and convert any script into an EXE file that can be run on any PC.

Donwload link: http://www.autohotkey.com/
Donwload.com review: http://download.cnet.com/AutoHotkey/3000-2084_4-10279446.html
Tutorials: http://www.autohotkey.com/board/forum/61-tutorials/,  https://www.youtube.com/user/ahkTuts , http://lifehacker.com/316589/turn-any-action-into-a-keyboard-shortcut

AutoHotkey for Beginners:



AutoHotkey for Advanced Users:



Q&A:


Another free alternative just for mouse clicks: http://download.cnet.com/Free-Mouse-Auto-Clicker/3000-2084_4-75221696.html

miercuri, 22 aprilie 2015

Giveaway - Ashampoo WinOptimizer 11

Ashampoo WinOptimizer 11
If you want your computer to be fast and secure, WinOptimizer will be a very useful tool for you. It will give maximum security and performance fast, easily and efficiently. Save your time and get work done with WinOptimizer 11.

Key features:

  • Frees space by deleting temporary files, finds duplicate files and makes them disappear;
    Ashampoo WinOptimizer 11
  • Fixes errors by cleaning the Windows Registry, fixing file system errors, and monitoring the health of disk drives;
  • Steady performance – auto-tune your applications for maximum speed and optimize your Internet connection with the powerful Live Tuner;
  • Privacy protection – wipe all Internet traces from your system and encrypt sensitive data safely. Now, you decide what information is automatically sent to Microsoft on a regular basis;
  • Customizes Windows to your needs – get more flexibility by adjusting hidden system settings, altering file type associations or adjusting context menu entries easily.
Download link available today:  http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/ashampoo-winoptimizer-11/

 Download.com review (5 stars - spectacular): http://download.cnet.com/Ashampoo-WinOptimizer-11/3000-2094_4-10224281.html

Free alternative:
http://download.cnet.com/CCleaner/ - #1 in Maintenance & Optimization (Download.com)

sâmbătă, 11 aprilie 2015

Giveaway - Cyberlink Photo Director 5

CyberLink PhotoDirector
CyberLink PhotoDirector 5 is an award-winning photography software, which combines photo management, editing and adjustment in a seamless workflow. With native 64-bit support, non-destructive tools and RAW support for popular DSLRs, PhotoDirector is all you need to turn your photos into works of art!

Key features:

  • Easily manage your photo with smart albums and Face Tags;
  • Giveaway - Photo Director 5Create flawless portraits by removing wrinkles, smoothening skins and whitening teeth with People Beautifier Tools;
  • Adjust color, saturation, tone, white balance and curve with powerful regional and global adjustment tools;
  • Enhance scenery photos by applying dramatic HDR effects;
  • Remove unwanted objects in your photos with innovative Content-aware Removal tools;
  • Apply one-click presets to instantly alter the atmosphere of your photos;
  • Instantly showcase your photos on Flickr, Facebook or create photo slideshows.

Download link available today:  
 http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/

Download.com review (ver. 6)
http://download.cnet.com/CyberLink-PhotoDirector/3000-2192_4-75451800.html

Free Alternatives:

luni, 6 aprilie 2015

Giveaway - Tilt Shift Generator 1.2

One of the best programs for creating photos with a tilt-shift miniature effect. You can find a lot of applications that claim to apply similar effect to images, still most often the algorithm is improper, e.g. they use Gaussian blur instead of much more complex Lens (optical) blur which produces an effect identical to real bokeh; or they apply semi-transparent overlay, using wrong type of transition from focused to blurred areas, etc.
Tilt Shift Generator renders the original image pixel-by-pixel with the highest accuracy. This utility offers additional settings which help the output images to be better in comparison to photos taken by high-priced “tilt and shift”  lens to simulate the miniature effect. Tilt Shift Generator surpasses Photoshop tools and popular cameras’ built in filters by result.

Download link available today:  http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/tilt-shift-generator-1-2-5/

Free alternatives:

What is bokeh (lens blur): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bokeh
Tilt-shift photography Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilt%E2%80%93shift_photography
Bokeh photography tutorials on DIYphotography: http://www.diyphotography.net/?s=bokeh

If you have Lightroom or Photoshop:
Lightroom 4 tilt-shift (bokeh) tutorial:

Photoshop tilt-shift (bokeh) tutorial:

vineri, 3 aprilie 2015

Free pattern making software Valentina 0.3 released

Free pattern making software Valentina 0.3
Valentina is an open source pattern drafting software tool, designed to be the foundation of a new stack of open source tools to remake the garment industry.
Small-batch and custom-sized clothing manufacturing is essential to create a sustainable future, preserve small- to medium-sized textile spinning and weaving manufacturers, enable independent and small designers and manufacturers to scale up to make a decent living, rebuild local garment districts, and reduce or eliminate slave labor.

Download link: http://valentinaproject.bitbucket.org/

miercuri, 1 aprilie 2015

Blender 2.74 - open source 3D modeling, animation and rendering software

The Blender Foundation just released Blender 2.74 - http://www.blender.org/download/

viewport compositing features in Blender
The new viewport compositing features in Blender 2.74 add ambient occlusion and depth of field controls to Blender’s viewport, much as Viewport 2.0 did for Maya. The release also improves Blender’s hair dynamics.
  • Cycles got several precision, noise, speed, memory improvements, new Pointiness attribute.
  • Viewport has new cool compositing features, outliner now manages orphan datablocks better.
  • Modeling now allows custom normals, and transferring data layers between meshes!
  • Massive improvements to hair dynamics and editing tools: a big step forward with more to come…
  • A new tool “Cavity Mask” was added to  sculpting painting, along with other improvements.
  • Great memory consumption optimization in Freestyle NPR stroke rendering.
  • Grease pencil and Game engine improvements, and more…
2.74-cycles_pointiness

Cycles Render

Several improvements for BVH like making it watertight, solving several precision issues and reducing noise
Optimizations: black world backgrounds are now removed from the shader graph, resulting in great speed improvements, many great memory optimizations
Nodes: new Pointiness attribute for the Geometry node, control texture space of one object by another.


2.74-Viewport_FX

User Interface

New Viewport Compositing brings Ambient Occlusion and Depth of Field right into the Viewport!
View-depth can now be picked using an Eyedropper
Outliner: orphaned Datablocks Mode was added for datablock management, now allows deleting of entire object hierachies, drag & drop objects to groups.
The Node Editor can now show text-blocks in frames
Customizable camera safe areas

2.74-custom_normals

Modeling

Support for Custom Normals was added, and transferring data layers between meshes is now possible thanks to a new Mesh Data Transfer operator and modifier.
Tools:
  • UV handling for Edge/ Vertex Slide was improved
  • new inverse-square blending for proportional-edit-mode
  • “Fit Camera View” now works for orthographic cameras as well
  • new “Split Concave Faces” tool to ensure a convex geometry was added
2.74-shape_cut_AFTER

Particles

Hair dynamics and editing tools were massively improved:
  • Support for hair collision with meshes
  • Simulation now happens using volumetric calculations for more realistic results
  • Strand bending uses a more realistic approach
  • Controlling of child hair shapes using curve widgets
  • New “Spiral” kink mode to generate spirals at hair ends
  • Toggle buttons for render and viewport visibility were added to the particle settings in the Properties Editor
2.74-cavity

Sculpting/Painting

Brushes/Strokes:
  • Improvements to rake and random mapping
  • Line strokes now support constrains to 45 degree increments
Texture Painting:
  • Support for dithering for painting on byte images
  • A new tool “Cavity Mask” was added that creates masks based on mesh cavities or hills
2.74-Freestyle_BNPR_NY2015

Freestyle Non-photorealistic Rendering

A great memory consumption optimization in stroke rendering was done. 2.74-anim

Animation

Grease Pencil:
  • New Editing tools like copy & paste strokes, duplicating active layer, …
  • Enable eraser on the fly while drawing with “Continuous Drawing”
  • Various UI tweaks such as color swatches for Stroke and Fill colors
  • Grease Pencil data layers are now shown in the Outliner
Other:
  • Improvements to the action management to reduce the cases where unused actions are deleted
  • Pasting keyframes can now be done flipped
  • Using a new “Follow” option, the animation editors can now follow the time indicator
2.74-Steering

Game Engine

Physics:
  • The first contact point of colliding can now be accessed from Python
  • Usability improvements
New option “Lock Z Velocity” to avoid micro-jumping

Add-ons

  • A new Auto Tile Size Add-on helps setting up the fastest tile size for Cycles rendering
  • Import images as planes now works for Cycles as well
  • POV-Ray Renderer now supports volumetric rendering
  • FBX and OBJ now support custom normals import
  • New Python API functions

More Features

  • .blend Files & Libraries: generation and saving of previews for materials, textures, lamps, world and images datablocks.
  • Background images can now be rotated and flipped.
  • Compositing: Plane Track Deform, Multilayer EXR nodes improved; memory usage optimization.
  • Sequencer: Slip tool, Setting proxies improved; preview individual strips (feature back from Blender 2.4x)
  • Added gamma node support for Blender Internal
  • Added MotionTracking operator to filter tracks based on how smooth their motion is
  • Many other small Improvements

Feature Videos

For a visual demonstration of some of the new features in this release, check out the feature videos created during the development of this release.

Bug Fixes

In addition to the new features, hundreds of bugs that existed in previous releases have been fixed.