Google SketchUp

In the last few weeks I came across Google SketchUp. It looks like an easy to use 3D drawing program. I have had it installed for awhile but haven't found alot of time to play with it yet. The other night I went through the tutorial and looked at the quick start page. It seems pretty simple to use yet produces great looking 3D drawings. It really is like sketching with the mouse as far as simplicity. You are quickly rewarded with nice results too. The tutorial is short and worth the few minutes to go through it.

Open Source is Good!

I have come across several very good free open source programs on SourceForge.net

Audacity - Cross-Platform Sound Editor
Lame - MP3 encoder / transcoder
TrueCrypt - disk encryption software for Windows XP/2000/2003 and Linux (for a good description of TrueCrypt listen to SecurityNow episode #41 or read the transcripts)
GIMP - GNU Image Manipulation Program with features similar to PhotoShop
FileZilla - Fast FTP client and server
FreeNAS - NAS (Network Attached Storage) server with a Full WEB configuration interface. Fit on a 32MB Compact Flash or USB key.
7-Zip a file archiver with high compression ratio.

... and some I've been using for a while
DBAN Deriks Boot and Nuke - Secure harddrive erasure.
OpenOffice - Cross-Platform Office Suite

Another Fun Reference

The things you can find about yourself on Google. Here is a Sacramento Magazine photo of Julie, Anna and I that was published in the magazine February 2005 Sacramento Magazine

One of my Photos is being used.

I was just playing with Google Suggest and searched on my name. I found this reference to one of my public flickr photos being used. It looks like the Creative Commons license works because they did attribute the photo to me as required by the license. ;-)

http://www.43places.com

Well, it appears I just got lucky with my initial link. On return visits I've had to click on view more Photos then click on my photo. It's the one that looks like this.