Useful pieces of software

Raphaël Leave a comment

Here below is a list of very handy OpenSource or Free Softwares. I am using all of them, and consider them as a good alternative to professionnal and sometimes expansive softwares.

None of them contains advertisement or spyware, and they are fully operationnal. Some of them doesn’t have the very same functions than their “pro” sibling, but learn how to use them correctly, and you won’t have to buy or illegally download the “pro”.

Daily Use

OpenOffice : The main challenger of Microsoft Office. Free!

Firefox : One of the best web browser. At least, way better than IE as far as I’m concerned

7Zip : A multipurpose archiver. Can open rar, arj, zip, and many others.

uTorrent : A simple and yet very accurate bitTorrent client.

Security

Avast! : Avast! Is a free antivirus. You will need to register, but their Home Edition is absolutely free.

ZoneAlarm : ZoneAlarm is a very effective firewall. The firewall+antivirus suite is not free, but the firewall itself is.

Network

FileZilla : FileZilla is a FTP client. Just as good as others, but free.

Wireshark (former ethereal) : THE network sniffer/protocol analyzer. A must-have if you have to work/test networks.

Putty : Putty is a lightweight and standalone tool to connect remote servers via telnet/SSH. Useful for server administration

Development

Visual Studio Express Edition : An excellent development environment.

NVu / Kompozer : An offline HTML/CSS editor. Free alternative to DreamWeaver

PSPad : The ultimate text editor. Syntax coloring, spelling suggestion, TextDiff, hexadecimal editor, and fully integrated in Windows Explorer…

NSIS : NSIS is a script based setup generator. Very convenient to release your apps.

2D Design, photo edition

Gimp : Gimp is a fabulous Image manipulation software. The interface is a little perturbing at first, but you will be able to do in no time exactly what you liked to do with photoshop.

3D Modeling & Rendering

As for this section, I must say the free softwares here below are quite good, but nothing is even close to 3D Studio Max, Maya or LightWave. 3D modeling/rendering is the only domain free apps are no match for the commercial apps.

TrueSpace : TrueSpace became free only recently. It’s a modeler/animator/renderer, and it’s worth trying!

Blender : soon.

Music & Sound

ModPlug Tracker : A nice tool to compose soundtracks

Feel free to suggest me some free/opensource software you liked, I’ll update this post regularly!

Binary?

Raphaël 2 Comments

This riddle has been taken from the excellent book “Empire of Ants” from Bernard Werber. If you never heard about him, I strongly recommend you to try at least once. (Ants are great, but so are Thanatonautes and many others)

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Will you find out what’s coming next?

Mr Noone & the bears

Raphaël Leave a comment

Mr Noone is lost somewhere. He has no map, no water, nothing but a compass. He decides to take a nap, and then think about the way to go.

After waking up, he takes his compass, and start walking south. After approximately 1Km, he changes his mind, and head west, during one more km.

After a short break, he finally decides to head north. He keeps walking 1Km, and noticed… that he just came back to the place he had a nap.

So the question is…

What color are the bears? (and of course, why?)

GXView

Raphaël Leave a comment

There it is! GXView 1.0 beta is released!

GXView is a simple tool designed to make life easier for game developers. Particularly if you work with XNA, this tool is made for you. There will be more later, but the current version already contains many cool features. (xml editor, xnb reader/compiler, 3d viewer, texture resizer, screen capture…)

By the way, it’s still a beta version, so any feedback will be appreciated!

GXView Infos & downloads

The faraway monastery

Raphaël Leave a comment

Since I love riddles, I’ll try to post the one I enjoy from time to time. Good luck for solving!

The story takes place in a faraway monastery. This monastery is located in a high mountain, and rules are really drastic: The monks cannot communicate each one with each other, in any way. (chat, written, signs, sounds… all of this is prohibited) And the second rule is the absence of any mirror. The monks are supposed to reach a very high spiritual level, and thus, are not allowed to think about their physical body anymore.

All the monastery has been built on those rules. There are not many big places, so it makes meeting hardly possible, there are no mirror, no reflecting objects, and the water in the well is low enough to prevent any water mirroring.

The only exception Is the diner time. Everyday, all the monks meets up arround a round table, and have diner there. While they still cannot communicate during this time, at least they can see each other.

But once, during the diner, the priest stood up and said:

My dear brothers. I come with a sad news today. I am sorry to break my silence vow, but I feel I had no other choice.

Some of us got a deadly virus. There is no antidote, and the infected people will undoubtfully die. As soon as we noticed the presence of this virus, we added a potion in your wine, so we could stop the epidemia.

However, this potion cannot cure the affected people. The affected brothers won’t feel anything. The only visible sign of this decease is a big red spot on the forehead.

So I’m asking all the sick brothers to leave the monastery, and try to go to the nearest hospital.

However, since we already broke our rules tonight with this speech, no more exception will be tolerated. From now, you shall keep on your vows.

So… How will the sick monks notice they are actually sick?