inkscape

Getting started with new software can be overwhelming. It's even more frustrating when you transition from one tool to another, because you have to unlearn some habits in order to make room for new ones. But, there are huge benefits to switching from closed software to open source alternatives. » Read more

Starting this past December, the GNOME Outreach Program for Women (OPW) welcomed a new crop of promising young female contributors to several open source projects. These women are currently halfway through their internships, working to improve open source projects across a number of disciplines including code development, visual and UX design, internationalization, documentation, and community-building. » Read more

Inkscape is a magnificent open source vector graphics editor, with capabilities similar to Illustrator, CorelDraw, or Xara X, using the W3C standard Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format.

It is used for many purposes like designing icons, textures, cartoons, graphics, etc, but did you know that you can now print what you draw in Inkscape on 3D? Thanks to TinkerCAD you can! » Read more

If you're a big-time open source fanatic like me, you probably get questions about open source alternatives to proprietary tools rather frequently. From the 'Alternatives to Microsoft® Visio®' department, here are three tips that should help designers who use Visio in an open source environment. If you need an open source option for opening Visio files, a revived open source application for creating diagrams, or a lesser-known open source tool for converting Visio® stencils, these tips are for you. » Read more

I work at a public library with 28 Linux stations made publicly available in four separate rooms. The room in which I spend most of my time has 10 computers, and elementary and middle school students stop by daily after school to use them. About 90 percent of the children use the computers for games, and about 10 percent use them for doing homework. Very few use the computer for creative graphics applications. I'm bent on changing that. » Read more

I have many Linux-using friends who have no plans whatsoever to buy an iPad, and I respect them for having that stance. They are opposed to closed, locked, proprietary systems. I share their general values, but have chosen to buy a third-generation iPad and plunge headlong into creating iBooks using iBooks Author. I see the iPad as a exquisite tool for getting the word out about FOSS - free and open source software.

Apple is expected to sell 65 million iPads (or more) in 2012, according to analyst Canaccord Genuity. That's 65 million people I can inform about FOSS opportunities, such as the amazing Inkscape vector drawing program and OpenShot video editing program. Inkscape already runs well on Mac and Windows, and OpenShot is coming to Mac and Windows, so why not seize the chance to inform people about these programs? » Read more

One of the fun parts of blogging for PCWorld.com is getting reader response e-mails from all over the world. You never know who is going to read what you write. Sometimes they'll spot the blog post on the PCWorld Web page, or as a link in a tweet or even as a Google search result several months after the blog post was published.

I've blogged previously about Inkscape, the free vector drawing program for Linux, Macintosh, and Windows, so I was thrilled to receive an e-mail from Sheena Vaidyanathan, who teaches Inkscape to elementary school students in Los Altos, California, in the heart of Silicon Valley. Here is how Sheena explained her teaching to me: » Read more

Congratulations to our first People's Choice Award winner, Máirín Duffy.

Máirín is a senior interaction designer at Red Hat. She's highly creative and a great artist, who is also is also passionate about open source. For her the two intersect in Inkscape, an open source SVG graphics program. Read how she used it to introduce middle school students to open source. » Read more

In the first half of this two-part series, author, artist, and hard-working mom Beverly Pearl discusses the challenges (and rewards) of creating of a collaborative, inexpensive, self-published art show book with open source tools. This project provides a way for the artists and community to work together, gain new skills, and deliver a professional-looking product—while hopefully raising some money for a good cause. » Read more

This is an old story--two years old, to be specific. But it was new to me when I heard it at LinuxCon, and it was new to a lot of others in the room too. And it was a great story, so I wanted to share it further.

In 2008, the Dutch Ministry of Finance held a competition to design a coin that would honor the country's architecture.

To briefly describe the coin, on one side is a portrait of » Read more