Software

If you've ever thought about making professional-quality animations but decided not to because of the cost of the software, your excuse just got up and walked out the door. Blender is a free, open-source 3D rendering program that puts the power of the medium back into the hands of the artist.

Blender features a laundry list of animation essentials that can be broken down into categories: Interface, Modeling, Rigging, Rendering, Animation, UV Unwrapping, Shading, Physics and Particles, Imaging and Compositing, and Real Time 3D/Game Creation. The interface, though loaded with complicated tools, is remarkable for neither obscuring nor … Read more

If you've ever thought about making professional-quality animations but decided not to because of the cost of the software, your excuse just got up and walked out the door. Blender is a free, open-source 3D rendering program that puts the power of the medium back into the hands of the artist.

Blender features a laundry list of animation essentials that can be broken down into categories: Interface, Modeling, Rigging, Rendering, Animation, UV Unwrapping, Shading, Physics and Particles, Imaging and Compositing, and Real Time 3D/Game Creation. The interface, though loaded with complicated tools, is remarkable for neither obscuring nor … Read more

If you've ever thought about making professional-quality animations but decided not to because of the cost of the software, your excuse just got up and walked out the door. Blender is a free, open-source 3D rendering program that puts the power of the medium back into the hands of the artist.

Blender features a laundry list of animation essentials that can be broken down into categories: Interface, Modeling, Rigging, Rendering, Animation, UV Unwrapping, Shading, Physics and Particles, Imaging and Compositing, and Real Time 3D/Game Creation. The interface, though loaded with complicated tools, is remarkable for neither obscuring nor … Read more

If you've ever thought about making professional-quality animations but decided not to because of the cost of the software, your excuse just got up and walked out the door. Blender is a free, open-source 3D rendering program that puts the power of the medium back into the hands of the artist.

Blender features a laundry list of animation essentials that can be broken down into categories: Interface, Modeling, Rigging, Rendering, Animation, UV Unwrapping, Shading, Physics and Particles, Imaging and Compositing, and Real Time 3D/Game Creation. The interface, though loaded with complicated tools, is remarkable for neither obscuring nor … Read more

If you've ever thought about making professional-quality animations but decided not to because of the cost of the software, your excuse just got up and walked out the door. Blender is a free, open-source 3D rendering program that puts the power of the medium back into the hands of the artist.

Blender features a laundry list of animation essentials that can be broken down into categories: Interface, Modeling, Rigging, Rendering, Animation, UV Unwrapping, Shading, Physics and Particles, Imaging and Compositing, and Real Time 3D/Game Creation. The interface, though loaded with complicated tools, is remarkable for neither obscuring nor … Read more

Take Google Reader, integrate it with the Adobe AIR platform, and enjoy the result of the happy union--a tidy newsreader that lives on your desktop and shares nearly all the attributes of Google Reader with a cleaner interface written to mirror Mac OS X. Users can access all feeds from their account or just favorites and shared stories; search by keyword; and add or remove feeds and tags. About the only thing ReadAir doesn't carry over so far from the online reader is Google's trend analysis, though there are folks who won't mind the omission one bit. … Read more

This parental control software protects kids from inappropriate Web sites, though it misses some common security features.

You'll first need to register the program by submitting your name, e-mail, address, and phone number to create parent and user accounts. TUKI Scout Kid Safe Browser has a skinnable interface with a user-friendly Microsoft Agent to guide navigation. Alas, it does consume quite a chunk of memory.

You'll find several pre-approved sites for fun and learning, and you can add your own list of Allowed/Restricted sites. Search tools and a web-based e-mail service give youngsters the feel of any … Read more

MP3 Rocket is another LimeWire source code fork, like FrostWire, and as such it functions exactly the same. When you search for a file using MP3 Rocket, you get results from LimeWire, and vice versa.

However, the user experience differs in a few ways. Although the name suggests the program only searches for MP3s, that's not the case. This has all the capabilities of the parent program and is capable of searching for and downloading all file formats. This includes the recent addition of torrent support to the main LimeWire code. The most MP3-centric feature here lets users share … Read more

MP3 Rocket is another LimeWire source code fork, like FrostWire, and as such it functions exactly the same. When you search for a file using MP3 Rocket, you get results from LimeWire, and vice versa.

However, the user experience differs in a few ways. Although the name suggests the program only searches for MP3s, that's not the case. This has all the capabilities of the parent program and is capable of searching for and downloading all file formats. This includes the recent addition of torrent support to the main LimeWire code. The most MP3-centric feature here lets users share … Read more