Un peu de math...: Installing and using Sage just got even easier.. - and that's it, just a git pull and a make. Ok, and large amounts of coffee while waiting for the build. Way cool. If you don't know Sage: a mathematics package with similar complexity and focus as Mathematica, which is entirely based on open source projects that are all integrated with Python as the "glue" language.
software
Black and White - Hugos House of Photo Horror. I've been playing around with Koken again and I still like it quite a bit. I have housed my black and white collection there as a test album first and now as a permanent fixture, because updates are much easier there than in my main blog. At the moment I'm still thinking about how to cleverly integrate this into my main blog, but for now it will happen via links.
Sim-on-a-Stick. If you want to try OpenSim, this is probably the easiest way with ready-to-use installations for a USB stick.
EverythingServerUbuntu - Ryzom - Ryzom Core Development Site. I should take a closer look at this - at the moment I'm playing a bit of Ryzom, just for relaxation on the weekend, and that has been open source for some time now - you can set up your own server with your own little world. It's not connected to the main system as far as I can see (which is a shame, it would be funny to jump with an avatar from there into my own little world), but still maybe something to play around with. Even if it's probably more complex than OpenSim to build something like Lilliput inside it.
Since I was just talking about Koken, I switched my photo test site and uploaded some pictures: Hugos House of Photo Horror. I must say, I'm impressed. The included themes are really good and the backend is light years ahead of what Wordpress has to offer in media management. And the Lightroom integration works perfectly. This could really be something for the long term, let's see how it behaves in operation.
Koken - Creative website publishing. Already tweeted about this yesterday, find this quite interesting - looks good and the Lightroom Publish Plugin sounds very interesting as well. I'm considering whether I might need a photo-centric system instead of WordPress, at least for all my pictures. And a usable integration with Lightroom would make a lot of things easier. Especially since the last WordPress update destroyed my photo workflow.
Slic3r is Nicer - Part 1 - Settings and Extruder Calibration provides good tips for calibrating and configuring 3D printers.
Reconstruct your world with ReconstructMe. Hey, cool, 3D scanning with Kinect. This actually makes it suitable for hobbyists - although the question is whether you can meaningfully scan things smaller than head size with it, as the Kinect is designed for larger scanning areas.
foosel/OctoPrint at devel · GitHub. Also nice - a 3D printer control program that runs on a web server and can be installed on a RaspberryPi. Add a WiFi module and a small nice case and you can set up your 3D printer in the next room or basement and print comfortably from the sofa. Then connect a USB webcam and you can also watch it print from there.
Cura. This would be software that can make the printing process more efficient - an all-in-one package with integrated model preview, slicing, printing and all kinds of parameters. And also available across systems (which I am always excited about: almost all software in this area is available across systems).
FreeCAD: An Open Source parametric 3D CAD modeler. And since I'm currently collecting 3D software, here's another free (this time also Open Source) software for technical models. I should definitely take a closer look at it.
Pixologic :: Sculptris. Another modeler and this one interests me particularly - it is a stripped-down, free (as in free beer) version of ZBrush. I do have an older ZBrush license floating around, but for my plans this one would probably be more than sufficient.
OpenSCAD - The Programmers Solid 3D CAD Modeller. Not uninteresting - a parametric, non-interactive CAD system. Basically, you feed in a base and write scripts that then use this base. Or you work directly with scripts that combine models from solids. For technical elements, this can be much clearer and more flexible than interactive CAD systems.
Repetier Software | The software driving your 3d printer. Interesting, this is software that combines all the steps of printing in one interface and is said to be significantly faster than pronterface. There is also a Mac version, so it might be worth a try. It also comes with its own firmware, so I naturally need to find out first whether the Robo3D can work with it (but since it is based on open source printers in principle, this could very well work - and their FAQ already states that they want to use Repetier-Host directly, so the chances are good).
Slic3r - G-code generator for 3D printers. Oh yes, another important 3D printing software. Slic3r is used to create the actual print plan from the STL model, which the printer then uses to produce the workpiece. This is about the layer thickness, how the head moves, what the infills should look like, etc.
LightZone | Open-source digital darkroom software for Windows/Mac/Linux. Just remembered, it's now free. And because it's Java, it's available on multiple platforms. During my experiments back then, it was quite a cool alternative for Linux. Specifically, the contrast control through a digital zone system is quite cool, and the program saves JPEG previews and the editing steps directly in the previews, so you can easily exchange them between computers. Attention: currently, Lightzone still requires a license key. The whole licensing stuff still needs to be removed, but the source is already on Github, it's just a matter of time.
repetier/Repetier-Host-Mac · GitHub. And the necessary software to control the printer.
Postbox — Awesome Email. I was never really enthusiastic about Thunderbird, so the announcement that it would no longer be developed didn't bother me much. But the fact that Sparrow now belongs to Google and, according to the announcements, nothing more is to be expected from it, really annoyed me - it was one of the faster clients for gmail and also had usable feature support for it. The Apple Mail client is rather stiff in comparison. Postbox claims to support gmail features, so it might be worth a try if Sparrow can no longer be used reliably due to bit rot.
Soulvers Features | Acqualia. "Calculator" rethought. I wonder why so many desktop computer calculators desperately try to replicate the UI of old pocket calculators. On mobile devices, it makes sense - the pocket calculator UI with multi-function keys is quite efficient for such small form factors - but on the computer, I much more often simply use a Python shell or an iPython notebook. Soulver is a bit like that, only focused on classic calculations and with linking of lines, so that you can build spreadsheet-like solution sheets. Quite clever.
JWBs blog: Ema Personal Wiki for Android and Windows. Since I was just talking about Markdown - here's a personal wiki that uses Markdown for various systems, including Android. According to the description, it's quite similar to Vim Wiki.
Mumble. It's somehow funny when you get your software tips from a political party, but never mind. Mumble is something like Teamspeak (or also a distant relative of Skype group chats or Google+ Hangouts), only open source and for self-hosting. Clients are also available for OSX, Windows, Linux, and iOS. By the way, there are also efforts to integrate mumble as an alternative to Vivox in OpenSim as a voice system.
Amazon.com: Send to Kindle for Mac. Could be quite nice to easily "print" the various online documentations to the Kindle and read them comfortably there. In addition, they might also end up on the iPhone for on the go ...
645 PRO app for iPhone offers access to lossless camera output but not Raw. Sounds quite interesting, but not so much because of the pseudo-RAW - there won't really be such huge differences - but because of the user interface, which is much closer to a normal camera and also provides a few more pieces of information. According to comments, however, it does drain the battery quite quickly.
forger the digital sculpting app for iPad. 3D modeling on the go on the iPad following the clay shaping model. Could be interesting for one or the other who wants to bring it over to Blender to Collada to import it into Second Life, for example.
Pixelmator. Cheaper, smaller and visually much more appealing than Photoshop Elements Editor. And it has the Healing Brush (and an interesting alternative, where you simply paint a selection and then heal this entire selection). And supports Lion features - so versions, full screen etc. I got it, PSE will probably be filed under "paying tuition" in the round file.
Adobe Carousel: Mini-Lightroom for iPhone and iPad available. Hmm - from the description, it sounds like what Apple offers with Photostream. Ok, Photostream doesn't have non-destructive changes, and the editing options are significantly larger, but you can also handle this with Snapseed, just like sharing. On the other hand, Carousel has the clear advantage that it is foreseeable when Android and Windows will also be supported - and Android support could be quite interesting if Apple doesn't get the iPhone 4S problems under control (or Deutsche Telekom doesn't get the SIM problems under control - it doesn't matter who is to blame). I would be interested to know if you can bring Lightroom Presets into Carousel and make them available on your devices - that would be quite an interesting thing, because you could use your preferred looks everywhere. And then it would be easy to use it for taking pictures on the go.
Pixelmator 2 Sneak Preview. Hmm. Sounds like it could be a good alternative to Photoshop Express - the Healing Tool and content-aware Fill would be exactly the two features I use in PSE (and which are not provided by LR or other tools). I really should try it out - the over 1G disk space usage just for PSE is somehow quite annoying ...
Oh, Apple… oh, Aperture… | massenbelichtungswaffen.de. Since I often wonder if I should try Aperture - this article has cured me from spending the 70 euros for a longer time. Because what good is an image manager and image editor that might have problems with my (current or future) cameras ...
AirPrint Activator v2.0 « Netputing. Bookmarked for later - this allows you to share your network printers and the PDF converter on the Mac as AirPrint printers, so you can print from the iPad on the couch (and since you can also print to a PDF converter, you don't even have to waste paper).
Textastic – Syntax highlighting text editor, FTP, SFTP, Dropbox – for iPad. I use this editor on the iPad - also integrated with PythonMath, as it has "open in..." and Dropbox integrated.
trunkdesk - Mac desktop companion for Trunk Notes - Google Project Hosting. Since I keep playing around with desktop wikis and generally have the problem that I also want to access data on the go - and not just for viewing, but also for making changes, and with comparable features and not just limited (which unfortunately rules out VoodooPad because the iOS version only supports plain text versions and these are not rendered properly on the desktop, but are also only displayed in plain text there), this could be interesting - it's a simple desktop client for TrunkNotes. Basically, I'm doing this right now with VimWiki, but I wouldn't mind having somewhat more complete support for TrunkNotes features on the desktop.
Launchpad-Control | chaosspace.de. Poorly blogged, because the Launchpad's auto-layout sometimes annoys me and a bit more control would be good. With this, you can at least influence the Launchpad a bit, filter out icons, etc.
Adobe announces Carousel - cloud-based image service: Digital Photography Review. Doesn't sound uninteresting at all. The engine used should be the one from Lightroom, with everything fully automatically synchronized between devices and editing possible on all devices. It will be interesting to see if it offers integration with Lightroom - that's my main image editor - and whether it also supports automatic offloading or external drives (for all the many gigabytes of images I have).
EL34 - The home of Eddie - About. Hmm, I should check that out too - the MPW-inherited Worksheets sound interesting, the ones from BBEdit are unfortunately always more clunky than really smooth. Maybe Eddie is better equipped there. But "SVN Integration" as the only version control? Ouch. Come into the current millennium, people! (found on the shockwave, the link)
Elements+. Fun - apparently, Photoshop Elements is not really a cut-down version of Photoshop, but in reality only a cut-down GUI for the Photoshop kernel - many functions are still available internally. And with the patch, you should be able to make these functions accessible again.
Scripts Tagged fluid - Userscripts.org. Badly linked, as Fluid is a really cool site-specific browser for OSX and, for example, the Google+ Dock Badget is really practical. And with the separate cookie storage of Fluid, you can also keep multiple Google+ profiles open (or other sites that use cookies).
Circus Ponies NoteBook for iPad - Take Great Notes. Hmm, Circus Ponies NoteBook is one of the most powerful notebooks (with built-in outliner) on the Mac - but the reviews for the iPad version are not so great. And there is no decent sync - I really wonder why productivity app manufacturers don't just initially integrate the Dropbox library, because without usable sync, the apps are not really usable.
OmniOutliner for iPad. Wow! Why didn't I notice? There's now an OmniOutliner for the iPad! OmniOutliner is my preferred outliner on the Mac, among other things because it can be configured in many ways very similar to the Frontier Outliner (especially splitting a point with a simple Enter is something that surprisingly is not supported directly by many outliners - but essential for me when I want to write texts in the outliner). Unfortunately, only cumbersome iDisk import/export instead of a usable Dropbox sync.
SparkleShare - Sharing work made easy. Badly blogged, but this looks quite promising at first glance - a simple Git server is used. Unfortunately, it seems to be based only on SSH Git, not HTTPS, at least I don't see anything about it in the docs - HTTPS would be more universal (even if passwords would then have to be stored). What is still missing is an iOS or Android client (Android is apparently in the works), but OSX is already supported. It seems that the most activity in the open-source alternatives to Dropbox is happening here - but I'm still wondering how the server behaves with massive file additions and deletions - for example, I have the current raw photos of the last few months in my Dropbox. A "raw" Git repository grows very quickly to unimaginable sizes ... (and you probably also have to do regular packs so that changes to DNG files don't blow up the repository). One small detail on the side is still important: SparkleShare uses a public IRC server for synchronization messages - so even with self-hosting, all clients are on this server and exchange their triggers via it. Should be kept in mind, because this would be a classic attack vector (and if the IRC server fails, the self-hosted system also hangs). SparkleShare is open source, so you can certainly also plug in your own IRC server here and simply use your own packages.
SONY PRS-505 Firmware-Update + Customizing - MobileRead Forums. Important for the Russification of my old PRS 505 - after that it now works completely in Russian and with Russian eBooks. And it wasn't that complicated after I found it. The Russian menus only appear after you have gone to the Locale settings once. And don't forget the unicode font so that the menus and books can be displayed at all. And generally convert books to LRF, not to ePub - for incomprehensible reasons, ePub still shows garbage when displaying Russian books. Calibre easily converts to LRF.
Download Adobe Lens Profile Creator Preview - Adobe Labs. At the bottom of the page are download links. Once the mentioned Profile Creator, with which you can create your own profiles for cameras and lenses. But almost even more interesting is a Profile Downloader - with this you can download profiles from other Lightroom users. This can be useful if there is no profile from Adobe for your own combination yet. I also need to check if there is already a profile for the Zeiss C-Biogon (although it hardly needs one, it behaves so kindly when used).
VirtuaWin - Virtual Desktops for Windows. Because someone just asked if there is such a thing. I don't need it. I use an operating system.
philikon / weaveclient-chromium. Not yet tried, it is a Chrome extension that integrates Mozilla Sync into Chrome and Chromium. With this, you could finally exchange bookmarks between Chrome and Firefox without having to go through XMarks. If someone now also builds this extension for Safari, I would be happy - the fact that I cannot properly sync between browsers, but each one cooks its own soup, is highly annoying. Mozilla Sync is free to use and behind it is a company that I trust much more in this area than all the others.
Video LightBox - embed videos with Lightbox effect on your website!. I don't do anything with video, but it looks quite interesting - it's a standalone tool that generates the files for video embedding and can send them somewhere via FTP, for example. Mac and Windows versions.
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 * Exporting using Publish Services. Well, Adobe has Photoshop.com - and just expanded it. And promotes it as a better alternative to Flickr. How serious Adobe is about this can be seen in the Publish Services in Lightroom 3. Facebook, Flickr, and SmugMug are offered out of the box. Even on the Lightroom Exchange, I found nothing about connecting to Photoshop.com. Well done, Adobe. Very convincing.
ShutterSnitch. Interesting little app with which you can receive images via WiFi on the iPad and automatically tag them with metadata and geocoding - could be a rather interesting combination with an EyeFi card in my Sony or my Panasonics (the M8 unfortunately cannot be used with EyeFi - the SD slot on the M8 is too narrow for the EyeFi and the metal body blocks too much of the weak signal). Simply connect the camera, put the iPad in the backpack and walk around and take snapshots and occasionally use the iPad as an extra-large lightbox.
blueMarine is a project I was previously unaware of, taking inspiration from Lightroom and Aperture. However, it currently has no RAW editing functions (while Darktable has non-destructive editing), but focuses solely on image management. This might actually work in my favor for Linux, as I usually just want to view images there, with editing mostly happening on the Mac.
darktable seems to have completely passed me by unnoticed - an open-source alternative to Adobe Lightroom for Linux. I should really take a look at it. I really like Lightroom, but it's always good to know an alternative, as there's no guarantee that I'll always like Adobe in later versions ... (and for Linux I will always need an alternative as long as Adobe doesn't support Linux)
Bracketeer: Exposure Processing Software. Hmm, I've only played with the built-in HDR in the Sony NEX so far, and with HDRTist (I think in the free version). But I could try this one as well. Currently available for 5 Euros in the AppStore.
Sparrow - The New Mail for Mac. Looks really good and is the first mail client that makes me consider switching from MailPlane. Because MailPlane does support - necessarily - all GMail features, but also looks exactly like what it is: a website. If Sparrow also implemented a "universal inbox" like iPhone/iPad, it would be pretty perfect.