my sometimes-skeptical social commentary

Archive for the ‘free’ Category

Last week, the Code Weavers company made good on its promise to give away licenses to use its Cross-Over program, which lets users run software applications designed for one operating system on some other operating system.

Code Weavers promised that if gas prices came down below $3/gallon during President Bush’s term, they’d give away licenses that normally cost $40 each.

I got a license so that I can run Windows programs on my Mac, and today I finally got around to installing it.

Right of the bat, it offers to install a bunch of programs that are in its list of “supported” programs, and those are most of the popular programs people use, such as all the Microsoft Office programs, and a bunch of other stuff. (Note: Microsoft Office for Mac is fully compatible with all the files created or opened by Microsoft Office on a Windows computer, so it is probably redundant to have both.)

I didn’t install any of the supported applications, because I generally have what I need on my Mac already, such as Office for Mac, for example. I used Cross-Over to install a Windows-only program that I bought a while ago, a photo/clip-art program that came with thousands of royalty-free stock photos.

So far, so good, and I’m glad I upgraded my Mac’s RAM to 2 GB, because Cross-Over uses the WINE emulation code-base to act like Windows, but it is running on top of the Mac OS, so it is a little like running to OS’s at the same time. I don’t think my Mac would be very happy doing that much work on the 1GB of RAM I had when I bought it.

The first thing I did after browsing through the photos on the CD was start exporting them as GIF’s into a folder on my Mac’s hard drive, so that I won’t have to run this program every time I want to select a stock photo for the projects I’m doing.

Here’s one of the photos from this collection:

David Monroe moved to Buffalo and found he missed rockwiki – the people’s guide to Rochester, NY – and decided the way to stop missing it was to create a similar resource for his new home town. He invited me and a few other people to help get it started, and you know how I feel about building new web sites to connect people!

In fact, I’ve been mulling over the idea of a wiki about Buffalo for a while now, but recently, when folks from out of town were going to visit me, they asked me for a list of things to do while in Buffalo, and my Google search didn’t find any one web site that was dedicated to an encyclopedic description of our fair city. So I was ready to help, and that day I set up the framework of a wiki site so that we can start filling in the blanks.

On his blog, David wrote:

To that end, I’ve started a Google Group http://groups.google.com/group/buffalo-wiki?hl=en that is made up of Buffalonians, and computer savvy folks from outside of Buffalo to create a wiki just like the one I know and love. So far, we have some excitement and interest. If you want to lend a hand, join the group and give your opinion.

What do you say, are you the wiki type? Want to start writing wiki entries about the Buffalo topics you love?

Well, what is a wiki type, anyway? To write entries for a wiki, you just need to know about your topic, you don’t have to be a computer nerd. You just log in, do your best writing, and then wait for someone else to come along and try to prove that they know even more about the topic than you do.

Just be sure to proofread your work carefully, because otherwise, you’ll be one of the writers we post about on ShamefulTypos.com.

When our friend moved out of town, he gave us this couch, but it turns out we don’t need it, so we’re giving it away so that it doesn’t go in the landfill (yet).

It has a floral pattern, very comfy cushions, and the back is four large pillows that you can rearrange any number of ways. There are two smaller pillows in a plaid fabric that complements the floral pattern.

There is minor wear at the edges of the armrest, but they are not very noticeable.

And here’s the deal-clincher: I can deliver it to local addresses and will help you carry it into your first-floor living room. Call me: 563-9325.

“Boots” was adopted today by a someone who has a pet rabbit, too. I’m sure they’ll get along fine.