mray's blog

Hype? - no. I certainly don't want to Skhype anything or anybody, but jingle is a nice xmpp (jabber) specification for simple VoIP. I have been testing this for a long time with various clients and finally came to the conclusion: it is really usable. Empathy (standard in Ubuntu), Psi (also free & cross platform) and the Google Talk client (closed Windows only) work together! These are only three big players that offer free VoIP on the major operating systems - and they are easy to use! (Nothing you can say about setting up a SIP client) Now let's see when video is going to follow...

Maybe you have heard about the free film "Sita sings the blues", a film that is completely free available under the creative commons by-sa licence. You may even know it is available in any format and quality on archive.org. But what really matters these days is: what do the persons behind those projects think and say? - Hear the answer of Nina Paley, the author of the film; an interesting insight into a cultural landscape everybody can appreciate.

Seems like we have a release row! The 3D editor Blender has released its new alpha version 2.5.0 with an amazing new set of features. The most obvious new feature is the new UI - but as always there are tons of other new things to explore in this release. Expect improvements in those areas:

• Custom keyboard shortcuts
• Data access
• Tool system
• F-Curves, Actions, NLA
• Animation Editors
• Spline IK
• Smoke Simulation
• Particles
• Volume Rendering
• Ray tracing optimization
• Other rendering features

actually don't bother with that list and have a closer look already on their homepage - it illustrates the changes, but remeber: it's only an alpha version!

The vector editor now has:

• timed autosave
• Spiro splines
• auto-smooth nodes
• Eraser tool
• new modes in Tweak tool
• snapping options toolbar & greater snapping abilities
• new live path effects (including Envelope)
• over 200 preset SVG filters
• new Cairo-based PS and EPS export
• spell checker
• many new extensions
• optimized SVG code options
• tons of bugfixes

and much more.

This incredible list makes me feel like christmas and birthday together. Go and check the new features for yourselves now! This is really a big step forward - again. Thanks to the developers for this present.

Want to see a deluxe, modern, quality font? Don't hesitate and watch how Titillium applies to your workflow! This is really an amazing font under an amazing licence - the OFL. I'm looking forward to find more fonts like this on the new openfontlibrary project page.

Oh, and don't forget to check once in a while - Titillium will soon have an extra-black version...