Microsoft Visio has long been the standard for drawing flow-charts and other diagrams, however things have changed rapidly and now the open-source application Dia is mature enough to be an alternative.
Dia can be used for a variety of tasks; flowcharts, UML-diagram, network diagrams and electrical circuits. There are also several shape repositories available online to extend the program further.
The user-interface in Dia is similar to Microsoft Visio, which has a solid user interface by default. It is easy to understand and work with. Sometimes it is even more intuitive than more powerful and commercial applications. The toolbox is easy to understand for most users and the way Dia handles shapes is intuitive.
Flow-charts are often not drawn in a bubble, they usually have some other usage, for example in an application, or on the web. Dia has a number of export options, including .SVG, .PNG, .WMF etc. However the export options are not as well developed as in Microsoft Visio. For example it isn’t possible to create clickable flowcharts, which can be displayed in a web-browser. There is obviously a lack of Microsoft Sharepoint integration in Dia but also integration with open-source content management systems.
Dia also has a limitation when it comes to assigning characteristic and other information to shapes. Other applications have the ability to integrate data with the shapes, for example if a shape of a computer could contain processing power etc. This might not seem like a big draw-back but when drawing complex flows and networks it is actually a huge benefit being able to assign information to objects.
Overall Dia is a pretty good light-weight program for drawing flow-charts, network diagrams and what not. It is not as powerful and integrated as commercial alternatives such as Microsoft Visio, but it is still a viable alternative to get basic drawing done quickly. When on the road I was using my net book, it didn’t have Microsoft Visio installed so I downloaded Dia for the first time. In just a matter of minutes I was up and running drawing flow-charts, that is how powerful open-source software can be. Dia is available for Windows and Linux. With a little tweaking it can also be compiled on MAC OS X.
Microsoft Visio has long been the standard for drawing flow-charts and other diagrams, however things have changed rapidly and now the open-source application Dia is mature enough to be an alternative.
Dia can be used for a variety of tasks; flowcharts, UML-diagram, network diagrams and electrical circuits. There are also several shape repositories available online to extend the program further.
The user-interface in Dia is similar to Microsoft Visio, which has a solid user interface by default. It is easy to understand and work with. Sometimes it is even more intuitive than more powerful and commercial applications. The toolbox is easy to understand for most users and the way Dia handles shapes is intuitive.
Flow-charts are often not drawn in a bubble, they usually have some other usage, for example in an application, or on the web.Dia has a number of export options, including .SVG, .PNG, .WMF etc. However the export options are not as well developed as in Microsoft Visio. For example it isn’t possible to create clickable flowcharts, which can be displayed in a web-browser. There is obviously a lack of Microsoft Sharepoint integration in Dia but also integration with open-source content management systems.
Dia is limited when it comes to assigning characteristic and other information to shapes. Other applications have the ability to integrate data with the shapes, for example if a shape of a computer could contain processing power etc. This might not seem like a big draw-back but when drawing complex flows and networks it is actually a huge benefit being able to assign information to objects.
Overall Dia is a pretty good light-weight program for drawing flow-charts, network diagrams and what not. It is not as powerful and integrated as commercial alternatives such as Microsoft Visio, but it is still a viable alternative to get basic drawing done quickly. When on the road I was using my netbook, it didn’t have Microsoft Visio installed so I downloaded Dia for the first time. In just a matter of minutes I was up and running drawing flow-charts, that is how powerful open-source software can be. Dia is available for Windows and Linux. With a little tweaking it can also be compiled on MAC OS X.
The average mobile user is not looking for a Photoshop-like experience when editing their beloved photos; instead most are trying to find apps were they quickly can edit photos of their latest night out or birthday party before posting them to Facebook or Twitter. This pose a problem, most basic photo-editing apps are cheesy, with loads of unwanted features, with only fair results. Thankfully times are changing.
Snapseed was originally developed by a company called Nik Software, primarily based in Germany. During 2012 Google bought the company and the Snapseed app, and we are already beginning to see the fruits of the acquisition, recently Snapseed for Android was released, and all versions of the app are now free.
Using Snapseed is really a breeze, it is designed to be quick to operate and easy to share photos to different social networks. There is automatic contrast and color correction, but also various filters, such as vintage, drama, grunge and black and white. Each filter can be further adjusted in different ways to create effects. The gallery on Snapseeds' website features some remarkable results.
The sharing options in Snapseed include most standard social networks, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Google +. However since Google bought Snapseed Google+ has a more prominent shortcut than other social networks.
While the desktop version of Snapseed probably isn’t what most users are looking for, it includes the possibility to edit RAW-files.
So far Snapseed is very similar to the features in Instagram (which is in fact why Google probably bought the app in the first place) and loads of other apps available, but the ease of operating Snapseed, the fact that it’s free and the actual results outpaces much of the competition.
SketchUp is a 3D modeling application, there are two versions one free (the one we will be testing) and a Pro version with more file-format options among other things. The pro version is $495. Both versions of SketchUp are integrated with Google Earth, allowing you to create 3D-models of buildings and then exporting them.
By nature 3D modeling apps are complicated; mastering suites like 3D Studio Max, Lightwave or Blender takes lots of time. SketchUp on the other hand is pretty easy to learn, and is one of few 3D applications where you can start experimenting almost right away.
The interface is easy to grasp, to make it even easier Google added some neat help texts for each tool that shows up in the upper right corner. There are some basic shapes you start with, such as rectangles, circles and polygons. In SketchUp you first create a 2D surface and then make it 3D, so for example if you want to create a wheel you first create a couple of circle surfaces, make them 3D and then flip the thing however you want it.
Most of the common tools are located in the upper part of the screen. The more advanced functions are hidden inside the menus by default, so it takes a little bit of browsing to find the good stuff. It is possible customize the desktop to see the tools and features that you want.
SketchUp has the features built in to work with layers, sort of like Adobe Photoshop. Outliner is a similar tool but creates a tree of the different objects in the model, it makes it a lot easier navigating models with many different objects involved.
Another very neat feature is the components, if you have created an object that you will use in many 3D models, for example a door. You can save the door locally as a component, then when you want it in another model you just fetch it from components browser.
SketchUp comes with Google Earth integration; it was however a bit flaky as my test computer started to install updates to Google Earth when I clicked “Get current view” from Google SketchUp. The problem was that the installation files that Google Earth was looking for could not be found and the computer locked up in an endless installation process. Then after restarting SketchUp the import from Google Earth worked flawlessly.
Even-though SketchUp are simple to use it does take time to master it fully. Opening the 3D warehouse makes you fully aware of that. The warehouse contains a number of user created models, many of them quite beautiful. They can easily be loaded directly into your scene; your model can also be uploaded to the warehouse. All of the models are rated by other users, and there are also comments attached to them, so in a sense SketchUp is one of a few 3D modeling apps with social web capabilities.
A drawback with SketchUp is that it does not render the 3D models itself, more expensive tools does this. In the pro version it is possible to export models in a number of different formats, the model can then be imported into a third party rendering engine. For example Blender.
[ad#Content Adsense]
SketchUp is a surprisingly fast program and nimble program. Large models run very well on an average computer, so there is no need for extra hardware such as memory when using this program. To fully master any 3D-application you often need to buy expensive books or online courses, sometimes even attend courses. SketchUp has a vibrant community and a load of free video tutorials. The tutorials ranges from the basics of learning the different tools in the program to making CAD-drawings and other advanced work.
Of course SketchUp is not a general tool that fits everyone, it can be used by game designers, engineers, architects or people interested in developing 3D-models for Google Earth. It is however relatively easy to get started with, making it broader in scope than many other similar applications.
Creating 3D models is perhaps not as hyped as the entire social and web 2.0 stuff that is going on right now. But SketchUp is a very good example what happens when you make something easy to use and add social capabilities in the background, it becomes great.
