Anyone who wants a cheaper / free alternative to Adobe’s Photoshop (I couldn’t imagine life without it though) can give the Gimp a chance.

I’ve only took it for a test run once and for a free / open source (I believe?) application, it is incredible.

There’s also loads of tutorials on the Internet, showing you how to use it and achieve almost exactly the same effects as Photoshop.

Like I said, this is definitely one of the best alternatives. On that note, The Gimp has been updated to 2.5 it’s been announced to today!

Softpedia.com published a first glimpse at what exactly The GIMP 2.5 is capable of… Check it out.

Update: Ok, I’m intrigued once again, I’m going to download it.

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Well I guess this is another one of these things that won’t actually be hailed as a fantastic application.

A Tel Aviv University student has apparently developed a software which rates female facial beauty. It uses 98 parameters that showed up in the faces ranked most beautiful by 30 test subjects and actually is completely useless if you ask me.

I haven’t got a clue what this could possibly be used for and I really that this software could in any way determine whether or how beautiful you are.

People are getting too worked up over the whole beauty issue. I wouldn’t even want to try it.

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Technorati Tags: gmail,email,google,software,opensource,freeware,free

I openly admit that I love Google’s free webmail service. Although I have seen others, I wouldn’t trade in my Gmail accounts (emphasis on plural ).

Since I’ve come to use Gmail everyday, I’ve also learned a fair bit about the service. Some tips and tricks to make it even more powerful and productive.

One of the best things about Google mail is the POP and IMAP support allowing you to retrieve your email messages in any POP/IMAP client. That’s certainly one option.

I don’t normally check my email every so often, perhaps once - twice a day and I cannot stand clutter on my desktop computer, which is why I usually try to avoid downloading any messages. It works fine.

If you’re not willing to set up Google mail with any email client, but want to be able to continuously check for new messages, the Gmail notifier is a great solution.

The lightweight application features a custom install and notifies you (in your system tray) whenever you receive a new G-mail. If you however have Google Talk installed on your system, the notifier becomes obsolete, since you will receive alerts about new emails from Google Talk anyway.

Single G-mail account? Who are you kidding? I have over 10!

So it is commonly known that people who are really into G-mail have multiple accounts… which is kind of OK…the big BUT rolls in when it comes to managing multiple email accounts. Unless you are using an email client such as Thunderbird or Outlook, juggling multiple addresses is just tiring and fiddly.

Of course Google mail being such a fantastic invention, I may have mentioned this fact before, it’s also possible to combine several G-mail accounts in one.

But that’s going off topic… So here’s another to deal with more than one accounts:

The GmailAssistant or alternatively if you prefer to keep the alerts in your browser, the Gmail Manager Firefox extension.

I haven’t tried the GmailAssistant yet, but I’m more than willing to. GmailAssistant is a free, open source application for multiple accounts and apparently also very customisable.

On the negative side: It doesn’t support Google Apps on your domain

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Technorati Tags: im,instant messenger,pidgin,open source,skype,voip,8hands,integration

All-in-one IM messenger, Email and Social Network application Digsby emerges out of private Beta and is available to the public, includes Twitter support. I really hope this is just the beginning of Digsby, it could grow on me…

Whilst looking for a way to integrate Skype into a messenger (I was actually hoping to find something that’ll allow you to use Skype within Gchat, but no luck as of yet), I found a Pidgin plug-in.

The Skype API Plugin. It adds your Skype contacts plus phone numbers to your buddy list inside Pidgin, but doesn’t let you take or make phone calls though and both applications (Pidgin as well as Skype) have to run at the same time anyway…This feature works best for people who use the VoIP service mainly for instant messaging. So um, “a bit” obsolete I guess… but it’s a step forward!

8hands, which at first glance, looks neat and more focused on Social Network (consolidates MySpace, Facebook, Blogs, Flickr, YouTube etc.) than Instant Messaging. I’m going to give it a try! (thanks, Dave!)

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Technorati Tags: aggregator, application, chat, community, desktop, download, social, email, software, im, instant messenger, all in one,

How excited I was to finally get to try the nouveaux chat and social network application Digsby. As a long time Pidgin user, I got used to having my instant messengers all aggregated in one place… However, in the age of web 2.0, everyone’s socializing like there’s no tomorrow.

Even though I have a MySpace and Facebook page, yes just like pretty much every other living (or deceased, or non-living) being, but I just hardly ever find the time to check back on my accounts.

Emails – I hate having email applications running. It distracts me. Too many windows, browser tabs and unread virtual letters can seriously drain your productivity. Having said that, back to the actual topic of this post: Digsby.

I love it. Simple. The interface reminds me of Pidgin, which is open source – Digsby is not, and the changeable skins make me think of Trillian, but, Digsby is a better choice by a mile.

It covers all major instant messaging service like Yahoo, MSN, ICQ or AOL and brings you all the latest updates of your MySpace and Facebook profile. In addition, Digsby lets you add virtually any POP or IMAP account for email as well as Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo Mail.

The application is currently in private Beta and in order to use it, you’ll require an Invite (which you can easily obtain just by sending them an email or searching the web).

I haven’t regretted downloading the all-in-one client yet and I can truly recommend it as stable software to consolidate IM’s, Email and Social Networking. Thumbs up!

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