At one of the previous MLUG meetings, we watched a movie called Elephants Dream that was created with blender.  A lot has been going on since then and I wanted to make a short article with what those changes were.

The Blender Institute has just released a new project. After releasing under the Creative Common two awesome Pixar quality short subjects Elephants Dream and Big Buck Bunny (get it here in 720p or here in 1080p or just watch it here ), the Institute is now releasing Yo Frankie! , a fully free and open source 3D game under the Creative Common license, everything from the artwork to the code is freely re-usable and modifiable even commercially.

By running the game directly from Blender, you can even modify it and see what happens directly from the software, a nice way to learn how to do your own game.

To run the game, just download Blender for your OS and open the file "levels/start_menu.blend" from Blender, this file and all the needed ones are available from this isoHunt release . You can also support the project by buying the DVD of the game here .

Free CrossOver Office for Linux and Mac - Today Only - Tuesday October 28th, 2008

CrossOver, an incredibly useful piece of software from CodeWeavers, is available free for everyone! For those unfamiliar with the program, CrossOver allows you to run Windows apps on a Mac or Linux box without the need for a more cumbersome virtual machine installation. Sweet!

As you can imagine, the CodeWeavers site is getting hammered right now so don’t go crazy if it takes a while to get your download and free serial.

You can hit the site at: http://down.codeweavers.com/ to download the scripts and to register for your free serial number. Don't fret if the site doesn't come up right away, they are seeing a HUGE amount of traffic from this. Now there is NO REASON AT ALL why you shouldn't be using linux.

Larry Cafiero is sitting in his cluttered office in the Santa Cruz Mountains looking nothing like a revolutionary.

Friendly bearded face. Casual blue jeans. Comfy work shirt with the little penguin logo.

Yeah, penguin logo. See, Cafiero is a Linux guy. Maybe you know one — or a Linux woman. Maybe you know that to love Linux is to live Linux — that you don't just use free and open-source software, you embrace it and evangelize it. Some more than others.

For his part, Cafiero is leading a revolution in the redwood-ringed town of Felton. He's been inspired by others around the country and with them he's dubbed the effort "Lindependence 2008,'' a scheme hatched to turn Felton into an all-Linux enclave.

"There was this Nikon ad a couple of years ago where they gave digital cameras to this small town in South Carolina,'' Cafiero, 50, says, "and it was like, well, what if we gave Linux to a small town?"

And so Cafiero met with the town business association and the chamber of commerce. He sent letters to the town's residents. He tacked up posters and handed out fliers at the weekly farmers' market along Highway 9: Come to the church hall. Learn about free and open-source software. Change your life. OK, your operating system, anyway.

And they came. On three days in July they came from Felton. They came from Scotts Valley. They came from Watsonville and Oakland and who knows from where else?

Read the full article here - http://www.mercurynews.com/5minutemerc/ci_10470746?nclick_check=1

Thanks to MLUG member dick for the article information - sorry you had trouble with the submission

OxygenOffice Professionalis an enhanced version of OpenOffice.org. It includes more than 3400 graphics, both clip art and photos, which are integrated into the gallery and can easily be placed into any OxygenOffice document. Several templates and sample documents are included, as well as over 90 fonts. OOoWikipedia, which can search Wikipedia, is also included. An enhanced help menu, additional User's Manual, and extended tips are great to help beginners get started. You can use more predefined gradients, colors, and other useful elements, run VBA from Excel documents in Calc, and import Office Open XML (Microsoft Office 2007), Works, WordPerfect files, and T602 document.

OxygenOffice Professional is free to download, use and distribute for corporate, enterprise, home and non-profit application. It is easy to use, easy to learn. Check out the additional screenshots. Also you can get the latest information in the news section and from the project summary page.

Argyll Color Management System

http://argyllcms.com/

Argyll Color Management System is our link of the week.

Have you ever created an image in Linux and then printed it to find out that the printed image looks nothing like the image you created? What about working with digital photos and finding the colors are too bright or not indicative of the actual image taken? Chances are, if you are taking digital photos or creating digital images, you may find that your monitor does not display the correct colors....or your printers do not print what is displayed on screen, or even viewing the image on a different computer may look entirely different. Color/Monitor/Printer calibration then becomes an absolute must.......

Argyll is an open source, ICC compatible color management system. It supports accurate ICC profile creation for scanners, CMYK printers, film recorders and calibration and profiling of displays. Spectral sample data is supported, allowing a selection of illuminants observer types, and paper fluorescent whitener additive compensation. Profiles can also incorporate source specific gamut mappings for perceptual and saturation intents. Gamut mapping and profile linking uses the CIECAM02 appearance model, a unique gamut mapping algorithm, and a wide selection of rendering intents. It also includes code for the fastest portable 8 bit raster color conversion engine available anywhere, as well as support for fast, fully accurate 16 bit conversion. Device color gamuts can also be viewed and compared using a VRML viewer. Comprehensive documentation is provided for each utility, and a general guide to using the tools for typical color management tasks is also available. A mailing list provides support for more advanced usage.

Argyll is a collection of source code that compiles into a set of command line tools, licensed under the GNU licensing terms.

• Full EXIF support: The long-waited feature is here, RawTherapee is able to import EXIF data from RAWs and export to the output image formats, including TIFF. RT supports Makernotes, and standards compliance is improved.
• EXIF Browser: Browse, edit, delete the original EXIF tags. The possibility to record additional tags (like author, copyright and comment) is also available.
• IPTC tag support
• More input ICC profile options
• A new highlight recovery method ("CIELab Blending"), that promises better recovery of color information
• Histogram now corresponds to cropped area
  
• Runtime theme switching: The look ("skin") of RT can be changed, and you don't even need to restart the program. RT will be packed with new themes, too.
• Lots of other minor (and not-so-minor) tweaks: bugfixes, eye-candy, some new GUI icons, performance improvements, etc...

Requirements:

• a fast processor with SSE support is recommended (but not required)
• at least 512 MB of RAM.
• Windows version: windows 2000 or XP is required
• for the linux version: gtk+ 2.10 series required

Download:

Price:

The Ultimate Guide to Linux Digital Photography Software - Introduction

I had been using digikam for several years to manage my collection of digital photographs. With the recent purchase of a new DSLR (my first I might add), I was looking to see what else was out there in the terms of software, functionality, features, costs, etc. At the same time, while looking on the net to see what was available, I found many people looking for the same things as I. There was also a lot of mis-information out there. Due to the popularity of our Ultimate Linux Guides to ....I decided to create this one.

In this article, I will list some of the software that is out there along with a basic description and their homepage url's. I will randomly pick the software as I try it out and add to this collection, tentively entitled, "The Ultimate Linux Digital Photography Guide". This guide will help you chose the correct workflow that works for you.

Please use the talk-back forum to discuss this article, make suggestions or recommendations or corrections, add your insight, or add to the articles.

With point and shoot digital camera's I have owned in the past, both F-spot and Digikam have worked well. Now that I have purchased a new DSLR I am looking into other types of software for photo management (and it will be hard for me to change after using digikam all these years....if I even change at all).

With the above being said, I have found blueMarine. It is our "Link of the Week".

blueMarine is an open source application for the digital photo workflow, the blueMarine project will provide you an all-in-one tool for managing your photos, from the shoot up to the archiving and beyond. blueMarine is an expandable, open platform and includes specific support for different photographers communities, as well as the latest technologies.

blueMarine foundation is very similar to existing applications such as Adobe Lightroom or Apple Aperture: a photo browser, which can be explored in different ways (by folder, by calendar, by tags, by galleries). This is just a core upon which different modules can be plugged in. The aim of blueMarine is to fully support the photographic workflow, even before the photo shoot (for instance, trip planning supported by maps) and beyond print or archival. For instance, an ornithologist usually manages field notes about the bird observed and photographed: directly binding them to photos and maybe GPS positioning data is much better than keeping a separate Excel sheet.