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There is an unfortunate climate of fear in the software community today. It is primarily in ephemeral video interviews and podcasts that we get any semblance of coherent criticism and even then it is reticent. Worse than the fact that this criticism is relegated to verbal discussions is that it is later renounced by the very same designers and developers when they are interviewed in the more permanent-seeming medium of the written word. In written interviews, these fair-weather critics go on to reverse their opinions and praise the products of modern minimalist UI design because it is more convenient not...

Since my 8-year-old copy of Microsoft Money has finally decided to unceremoniously stop working, I've decided to start shopping around for a new personal finance program. My needs are relatively small. I really only use it to track my checking account and mortgage. I looked into Intuit's Quicken software, but the reviews were pretty bleak. It seems that Intuit hasn't learned and continues to churn out garbage software that people just learn to live with and then are forced to upgrade 2 years later. On top of that, it's my understanding that you have to sign up for an account...

Heads up: you can currently download a free copy of onOne Software’s Perfect Effects 9. It’s a $60 program that can be used as a Photoshop or Lightroom plugin or as a standalone tool. Inside are customizable filters and hundreds of presets that allow you to quickly apply custom looks to your photos.

I need some advice from Freeperland folks who are savvy with computer issues. Last evening, I received a call from a "Windows Security Center". They knew my name and obviously my phone number. Gave me a spiel that Windows software security had been compromised/corrupted and according to their records, knew I had Windows 7. To prove they were legit, they had me start my computer and prompted me through a series of commands to bring up my specific Windows license number. She read it off and that license numbers was listed on my machine. She prompted me to run a...

I started a thread on this years ago, been too busy and forgot about it.TERRAGEN generates landscapes. Depending on your effort they can be amazing.

The other day at work I was working on Windows 7 and opening an XML document by right-clicking on the mouse and going to the menu to choose “Windows XML reader” and then, once it was open, to save it to Excel. At some point during the process, I noticed a menu item appear that read “Use SnagIt.” I thought this was interesting since the last time I had used SnagIt, was when it was a proprietary stand-alone application. And I thought to my self, first, “Hey, that’s great! I’m glad it’s available”...and then, coming to, “Hey! Wait a minute!...

Back in 2013, Adobe began posting a series of short video tutorials on YouTube called the “Photoshop Playbook.” The series has since grown to contain fifty how-to videos showing how some of the most popular and fundamental edits are done in the photo editing program.

Respected developer Marco Arment is worried about Apple's future. In a blog post he writes: "Apple's hardware today is amazing — it has never been better. But the software quality has taken such a nosedive in the last few years that I'm deeply concerned for its future."Arment was CTO at Tumblr before he left to start Instapaper, the first app that let users save stories to be read later. He also launched Overcast, an increasingly popular podcasting app. He records his own podcast, which has a devoted following in Apple and developer circles. Arment is not an alarmist. He dislikes...

Software engineering is one of the most in-demand and best paying careers, but learning computer science can also pay off even if you don't do it professionally. Google has a guide on the courses and experiences future software engineers should consider. --SNIP-- Although intended for college students, anyone can follow these recommendations, which include skills like coding in C++, Java, or Python and learning cryptography (along with online resources to aquire those skills). It's not as in-depth as the bachelor's level computer science curriculum we've seen before, but it covers the basics, and the non-academic suggestions such as contributing to...

 The worst rub is the learning curve. There needs to be a hierarchy of the most common tasks.  Audacity is free, open source, cross-platform software for recording and editing sounds.   "Audacity is available for Windows, Mac, Linux; and other operating systems. Check their feature list, wiki, and forum."  Audacity is a great success, a user-community produced and managed application program that does what it's supposed to. Years ago you used to have to pay for this software, now it's free, but you have to invest your time in learning how to use it. The worst rub is the learning curve. So many...

Jonathan Frakes and the Enterprise-D appear in this 90's ad for the (now defunct) software company Boole & Babbage.

October is stacking up to be a bumper Patch Tuesday update with nine bulletins lined up for delivery — three rated critical. Cloud security firm Qualys estimates two of the lesser "important" bulletins are just as bad however, as they would also allow malicious code injection onto vulnerable systems. Top of the critical list is an update for Internet Explorer that affects all currently supported versions 6 to 11, on all operating system including Windows RT. Vulnerabilities discovered in most versions of Windows Server, Windows 7 and 8, and the .NET framework are covered in the other pair of critical...

--snip-- Texas Health contracts with Epic Systems for its electronic-medical-records (EMR) system. Epic was founded by billionaire Judy Faulkner, a top Obama donor---the dominant EMR player in the US health-care market. The firm’s Top 10 PAC recipients are all Dem/lefty outfits: DCCC got nearly $230,000; DNC Services Corp. nearly $175,000.......Obama campaign-finance bundler, Faulkner, served as an adviser to WH health-information-tech guru David Blumenthal--in charge of dispensing EMR subsidies. Faulkner also served on the same committee Blumenthal chaired. Epic and other large firms lobbied aggressively for nearly $30 billion in 2009 stimulus subsidies. Epic has been the subject of rising industry...

The Dallas Hospital that sent Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan home said a software flaw, and not human error, caused doctors to miss the diagnosis, NBC News is reporting. The electronic health records (EHR) system that the hospital uses has a separate workflow for physicians and nurses. The travel history of the patient was located in the nursing portion of the workflow within the EHR, but not in the physician's workflow.

I need to create a rather long,involved punch list for a volunteer event. I need to be able to add,move, and remove tasks. I need to be able to assign or re-assign tasks to individuals. Any suggestions on a simple software package for the not-so-computer-illiterate person ?

I'm trying to get Remote Desktop on my home network to work. I have 2 desktops and 2 laptops. One desktop is my main box and I have 4 screens and use it to serve media to my TV over a web box. I have 6 drives on it and it needs lots of maintenance. I can remote each laptop and the other desktop from each other, but I can't access my main box from anywhere. I've done all the help fixes, but no joy yet. I can even access the laptops and other box from my main desktop, but...

The current job market has been very good for software developers, especially those with experience in several programming languages. The unemployment rate for software developers was 2.8 percent in Q1 of 2014, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This is a notable drop from the 5 percent unemployment rate in Q2 of 2009, the quarter when the economic recession ended, and 5.5 percent in Q1 2010. This quarter's report by Dice.com reveals the most-requested skills and platforms, and notes that those with expertise in clusters of language skills are in demand. Furthermore, the Dice report looks at what skills may...

Now when you hear babbling on about the Koch Brothers, you can see the hypocrisy and look at who he is bankrolled by. From Engadget: The murky world of lobby groups bankrolling politicians is garnering more attention, but is there a way to find out which representatives are in the pocket without a lot of tedious research? A 16-year-old programmer has developed a browser plugin that, when you mouse-over the name of a US lawmaker, will serve up a list of which parties have donated to their campaign funds, and the quantities. Greenhouse (geddit?) is currently available for Chrome, Firefox...

The abrupt announcement that the widely used, anonymously authored disk-encryption tool Truecrypt is insecure and will no longer be maintained shocked the crypto world--after all, this was the tool Edward Snowden himself lectured on at a Cryptoparty in Hawai'i. Cory Doctorow tries to make sense of it all.

We sort of expected this to happen after the appeals court for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) held its oral arguments back in December, but CAFC has now spit at basic common sense and has declared that you can copyright an API. As we noted, back when Judge William Alsup (who learned to code Java to better understand the issues in the case) ruled that APIs were not subject to copyright protection, his ruling was somewhat unique in that it was clearly directed as much at an appeals court panel who would be hearing the appeal as it was at the...