There’s new (after at least few previous ones) action to bring down the world most hated browser – IE6.
You can read why IE6 is bad and what you can do to improve it (and that’s educating people by making the sites non-IE6-friendly).
Check bringdownie6.com for more info.
btw. BlackMoon Design site is not supporting IE6 at all (and never did).

Some time ago I realized I need second tablet – in case I would feel sudden creativity flow late in the night or during the weekend. Since it was supposed to be “second” tablet only – I’ve chosen the cheapest option available – Wacom Bamboo One.
I had some doubts – would tablet for 50 Euros be suitable for anything serious? Let’s find out.

Opening the package
Bamboo branding is very nice and clean – there are loads of stuff in the box, which makes you feel cosy about buying Bamboo. From the more usable thing – there’s full version of Art Rage 2.5 (value $25). Personally I’m not a fan of this painting software, but it has some good opinions over the web.

Checking the tablet
Bamboo design and workmanship is also very high, “wacom” standard.
The pen feels solid and handy.

Let’s draw something
And here’s where it all goes bad.
First of all – in my case Bamboo drivers messed up with Intuos drivers, which caused both to stop working. After solving all this mess it was even worse.
The biggest problem of Bamboo is that the working space is very small – one small hand movement – and suddenly the cursor is in the other side of the screen.
It’s even worse than that – if you move the cursor fast, the cursor starts to jump. If you were drawing a line – it’ll appear dotted.

The final line
If you plan to use Bamboo as secondary tablet (like in my case) – I guess it’s doing ok.
(my Bamboo lies peacefully on the shelf for the most of the time – or children play with it).
But if you’re looking for professional tablet – it’s far better to save for Intuos.

The question is – should we put down our stand alone versions and move to online alternative?
What are the features of the online version?
Well – for me Photoshop Express is a very poor option actually.
It’s aimed for very amatour uses. It offers only the photo retouching – with very basic set of options.
There are no tools to authorize graphic in Photoshop Express.

If we’ll look at Photoshop Express as a basic photo retouching gadget (so it’ll look better on flickr or facebook) – it’s pretty nice and useful.
Especially the 2GB storage space and flickr/facebook integration are worth mentioning.

The sad truth is that it’s no use for any professional work though.

It’s a web application to handle to-do list.

It’s simple and easy to use – yet extremly effective and flexible.
You can setup different priorities for tasks, add tags, notes – and at top of all – you can share them with others (it’s great with such small business like ours – communication between client, project menager, designer and programmer is much faster – everybody knows what should be done and when).
The only small disadvantage is that you can group tasks in project (not directly – you can add the same tag to all project’s tasks – and than browse tasks by this tag).

Our overall experience with RememberTheMilk is very good – it’s much easier to have the things done with a tool like this.

It provoked a little discussion about the subject – you can check it here.

No true space explorer can live without his robotic friends.
Robots can be multi-functional or can specialize in one single activity.

Here are some great sound robots:

found at:
http://www.gadgettastic.com/2007/10/18/cool-gadgets-r2-d2-speakers/

If you would like to find some protection while exploring new planets – here’s perfect
defence droid for you:

found at:
Very, very long link that needs to be shorted

Here’s another multi-functional robot. Although it’s a older model – it’s still pretty handy for young space explorers (especially if your expedition is on tight budget)

found at:
http://www.timemachinetoys.com/robots/

Crew

Any daring captain can live without his loyal and hard working crew. Of course the best and the bravest are already enlisted in BlackMoon, but there still a few good professionals for hire.

Those cyborgs are absolute must for any space mission

found at:
http://retrothing.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/spaceexplorer.jpg

You can’t have Al onboard, but Jurii still don’t have a home. Would you adopt him and take on your mission?

found at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gagarin

Sometimes it’s good to be strong in numbers

found at
http://threads.rebelscum.com/

Aliens

Aliens are usually mean, ugly and want to conquer your world. So – if you’ll ever happen to spot the Aliens on your space journey – remember – shoot first, ask questions later.

found at:
http://www.atariage.com/2600/carts/c_SpaceInvaders_Picture_front.jpg

Vehicels

You need some kind of transportation to get you into the space.

If you only can afford it – it’s the best way to travel through the galaxy.

found at
http://www.blueharvest.net/images/pr/

You can also build something from scratch (Qba prefered way)

found at:
http://www.jitterbuzz.com/toyfil/rocket_bank_patent.jpg

Of course when you’ll get to the planet you want – you need some kind of transportation on the surface as well.
Although traditional vehicles are fine – we suggest this new way of travelling

found at:
http://blog.modernmechanix.com/category/impractical/page/10/

Weapons

It’s not good to wander through the space without a piece on you.
Here’re some destructive items to defend yourself (see section about Aliens)

Nice Ray Shotgun

found at
http://www.retrothing.com/2005/09/remarkable_ray_.html

Here’s a beautiful piece of devastating art – it’s simply beautiful. I am saving to get one;)

found at:
http://www.wetanz.com/holics/index.php?itemid=19&catid=4

Now you’re fully equip for any space exploration you might like to do.
Good Luck;)

GIMP

It’s graphic editor both for Windows and Mac (I don’t need to mention anything about it for Linux users – they all know it). If you need very short review – the Gimp is now where Adobe was with Photoshop 6.0. And this means that Gimp is a very powerful tool – you have all the blend modes, masking and effects. You can also read .pdf files with Gimp (but you won’t see any layer effects though).

Positives: powerful, free graphic tool.

Disadvantages: Gimp don’t support CMYK colors (so it’s totally useless if you design for print), Gimp don’t support .psd files in 100% (so you need to ask people to save the files as legacy psd in order to open it with Gimp).

Final opinion: Gimp is great if you need image editor as support software (for example – you’re developer – you write the code 80% of the time – but sometimes you need to scale an image, cut out some layout element or create a button). Having Gimp as core design tool is also possible – but it sometimes might be problematic.

check Gimp official site here

Quanta

Quana is web development environment that can be counter option for Dreamweaver. Actually, you have all the features needed – most developers in here use Quanta.

Advantages: powerful web development environment

Disadvantages: you don’t have built-in two way ftp.

check Quanta official site here

Blender

Blender is open source professional 3d renderer. We don’t use Blender that much to give you full review here – but if you check what you can do with it – it’s quite impressive. And it’s quite easy to learn it (I’ve made my first model in about 15 minutes).

check Blender official site

Open source can really save you a lot of money – and deliver professional software that will boost your creativity. So – I think it’s worth trying.

Inkscape

Inkscape is open source vector graphic editor – like Adobe Illustrator. It uses SVG as it’s main format. It’s quite powerful (although it’s early version). The main Inkscape disadvantage is that it only allows saving in other formats (.ai / .eps) – you won’t be able to open those files in Inkscape. This make it quite useless for bigger projects – but it’s great to create some logos or icons.

check Inkscape official site here