Blender 2.46 – The Power-packed 3D Animator

Blender is an immensely popular cross platform 3D animation creator. The latest version of this software Blender 2.46 has been released on May 17th this year and till date the software has been downloaded almost 158,000 times from Download.com. This information is enough to mark the popularity of Blender. Basically Blender is a 3D animation program released as free open-source software. This is no doubt a powerful weapon for the 3D animation professionals. Some of the features it offers are advanced simulation tools including rigid body, fluid, and soft body dynamics, modifier based modeling tools, powerful character animation tools, node based material and compositing system and Python for embedded scripting. To some extent Blender is as powerful as other advanced 3D software like Softimage|XSI, Cinema 4D, 3D Studio Max, Lightwave and Maya.

Learning the application of blender is easy thanks to various community tutorials and discussion forums available on internet. You can also learn by downloading the software and studying the ready-made Blender models. Such models are easily available on the resource sites like Official Blender Model Repository. There are other useful tools as well like free downloadable BlenderArt Magazine. Each issue of the magazine covers a particular area in 3D development. You can also refer to BlenderNation, the central news site with all the required information, new techniques and features on Blender.

You can use Blender for modeling, UV unwrapping, texturing, rigging, water simulations, skinning, animating, rendering, particle and other simulations, non-linear editing, compositing, and creating interactive 3D applications. This can be operated with different OS including Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris and many more.

For some specific type of websites like sites related to kids, a small 3D animation can increase its visual impact several times. So if you own such a website and want to edit your website by adding some animations, Blender can be a good option. It will save your money not only because it is free, but also you can create some animations on your own with the help of online resources along with some basic technical knowledge.

4 Factors To Check Before Buying A Video Editing Software

Google it and you will find numerous video editing software. Be an amateur or a pro – you might be confused about which software to choose from the huge list. The price range is also vast. It can vary anywhere from US$100 to US$2500. There are some factors that mainly determine the type of software you should buy depending on your requirements:

• Fix your budget – decide how much you can spend for the buy. But if you’re a beginner, complicated editing tools like Adobe Premier Pro is not for you right now. Get experienced with less expensive packages like Roxio or Pinnacle Studio Plus.

• Bundle or No-bundle - Check whether if you are getting bundle of software with the video editing package. You can always go for products like Sony Vegas. This is a complete creation package. If you can manage one such deal, there is nothing better than this as these packages are not very common. If you decide to buy the software separately, it will cost you hundreds of dollars extra.

• Compatibility - Check whether the package supports all the formats you want to export and import. Suppose you want to import RealMedia videos, make sure that your video packages support the import. While exporting, also ensure your package support the formats. Suppose you want to finish a video in Windows Media file. So make sure, your software package supports the format.

• Advance Features - Decide upon the type of special effects you want. If you want more, you need to pay more – this is the simple rule. Less expensive software can provide you with the in built special effects without any scope of customization. But with the expensive software, you can have customization and flexibility of special effects. So if you are professional Roxio is not for you. Adobe Premier is the best option for you.

There are several types of video editing software with several features. Why pay extra for the features that you don’t need? Pay for as much as you can utilize. But at the same time, do not compromise any feature that you really need to maintain a quality video for the money matter.

Who Pays For Your YouTube Videos – Have You Ever Thought?

I was just surfing Internet, when this interesting article caught my eyes. It was on Adobe Flash player. Have you ever wondered how much Adobe gets paid by Google (the owner of YouTube) for using its Flash multimedia software? If you are thinking in billions, you are thinking wrong! Actually, neither Google nor any site that uses Flash to stream a video pays anything to Adobe! Though Flash player is the most widely available software in the world, it generates $0 for Adobe in terms of revenue for playing these videos.

Now it looks like Adobe is in a great mood. They are going to eliminate the fees that phone giants like Nokia, Samsung and Motorola pay for installing Flash in their phone. That means by 2009 billion phones will be using Flash but without paying one single dollar to Adobe!

Well, it must have made you think that those running Adobe are either great philanthropists or poor businessmen. Actually, it is neither of the two. The main money that Adobe makes from Flash is by selling them to programmers and graphic designers who create the program that you view through Flash player! Makes great sense, doesn’t it? People are hooked to online videos and related stuffs and so the companies looking for online consumers will definitely want one to be made for them. Now when they ask the designers and programmers to make them one, they will have to buy Adobe’s multimedia production and editing tools such as Flash, Acrobat, Photoshop and Illustrator, to create those videos!

No wonder this excellent strategy of Adobe saw a 20% annual growth rate since 2002 and turned $3.2 billion dollars in sales last year. The share price of Adobe in that period rose four times higher than Microsoft, its biggest rival.

Audacity - Not At All Audacious

Yesterday while browsing for audio editing software, I happened to see that Audacity, the digital audio editor application is the 9th most popular download from SourceForge.net with 40 millions downloads, as of 30th May 2008. Audacity is a open source software for recording and editing sounds. You can run the application on Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux, and other operating systems. This is a free software licensed under GNU GPLv2. but it may update to GPLv3 after it 1.4.0 version. The latest stable version of audacity was 1.2.6, which was released on 15th November in the year 2006. Audacity version 1.3.5 (beta) has been released already but the work is still in progress. It has not yet turned up with complete documentation or translations into foreign languages. The version is more for advanced users rather than the beginners.

Audacity is a user-friendly software. You can edit the audio part with only cut, copy and paste options with unlimited undo options. You can mix multi tracks here with the software with wide storage of digital effects and plug-ins. The software offers the facility of amplitude envelope editing and noise removal. You can also change the pitch of the audio. I have experienced that this software makes necessary adjustment to the audio speed to synchronize with the video. I could even convert cassette tapes or records into digital tracks with the help of it.

Overall. It’s a good software to check out if you are into audio editing. Do post your comments here if you have already used it.

Facebook Unlinked Google Friend Connect

Recently when Google Friend Connect was launched, Google declared that the application will use Facebook's API to pull Facebook user information. But yesterday Facebook banned Google Friend Connect from using their API stating that this breaches the User Privacy and thus is a violation of Facebook's TOC.

Chris Kelly, Chief Privacy Officer of Facebook, said the issue that is violating their TOC is that after giving permission, its users can not revoke it from the Facebook.com interfce. Also Facebook has no control over the third-party websites where the infomation will be displayed because Google acts as the middletier between them.

David Glazer, Google's Director of Enginnering came up with the counter-agumment that they have an option so that users can "Unlink" a particular social network from the site. Glazer also stated that Facebook's API doesn't have the feature to let Facebook know on exactly which site the user data has been posted. He insisted that Google puts high regards for user privacy.

Let's hope that Google and Facebook will sort the issue soon to make internet more social though as of now it seems unlikely (specially with Facebook Connect around)! The only silver-lining is that both the companies have officially stated that they are keen to sort the things out. While Facebook has shown its willingness to work with Friend Connect provided the privacy factor is well taken care of, Google has also stated that they are in "constant contact" with Facebook regarding this issue.

Don't forget to check back here later for more updates on this drama between Google and Facebook.

Google Friend Connect - Get Social, Get Visitors

Initially there used to be some considerable barriers when websites tried to embed social networking features. Google Friend Connect has arrived to change the whole scenario. With Google Friend Connect, any site can offer “interactive” feel to its visitors. What makes this new Google baby all the more attractive is no programming skill is required to integrate it to websites. Webmasters can add social features on the website even without writing any code.

Google has recently announced the beta release of Google Friend Connect. With the help of this Google product, the websites can now have features like user registration, invitation, members gallery, message posting, user reviews etc. They can also have third party applications built by OpenSocial developer community. When visitors are there on a site using Google Friend Connect, they will be able to see, invite and interact with their existing friends in Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Talk, hi5, Orkut, Plaxo and other social networking platforms.

So let me summarize the key reasons why a website owner like you might be interested to integrate Google Friend Connect to your website:

• You don’t need to write a single line of code. All you need to do is to copy and paste code snippets into your website, sit back and relax. Google Friend Connect will do the rest for you. You do not need to depend on the whims of any programming a team or other social networks. The calculation is simple - Less spending, more profit.


• You will be able to make your site more interactive with social networking features. In this era of web 2.0 and 3.0 revolution, online visitors prefer sites having interactive modules. And it’s a proven fact: The more you can engage visitors to your website, the more chance is that they will keep coming back to your site. Retaining repeat visitors is the key to online success.


• When connected with friends through your site, if a visitor finds anything interesting he/she can refer it to friends instantly. And the process ultimately helps you to increase traffic to your site. If you sell any product or service through your website, more traffic means more potential customers and you get a wonderful opportunity to convert them to your actual customers.

Google Friend Connect is extremely easy to install and offers a very user-friendly interface. The process of inviting friends or to broadcast visitor’s activity is very simple. It is also compatible with several OpenSocial gadgets which makes it all the more interesting.

Currently Google Friend Connect is in “Preview Release” form and is available only to limited number of site owners. You can sign up for it to be selected as a partner.

So, website owners, get ready, it’s time to get social.

WYSIWYG HTML Editors – My Life Savers

I own a couple of websites. I simply love them and yes, for the obvious reason that I make money from them. But it’s a headache for me to edit or update them for several business needs. I am a total dumb when it comes to web designing skills like HTML coding and manipulating them. WYSIWYG editors are my life savers in those situations.

If you don’t yet know what WYSIWYG stands for (Please don’t bang your head on computer screen to punish yourself!!), it is the abbreviation of What You See Is What You Get. Used in the computing world, the term actually describes a system through which you will be able to see the final outcome during the editing phase. With these sophisticated tools you do not need to edit the source codes. Instead just edit the actual page elements directly and you can see the end result in the display pane. These are like a boon for non-technical persons like me and save me from spending money on web designers to get small changes done on my websites.

There are so many such WYSIWYG editing tools – and all of them are one-of-its-kind. So therefore hailing one as the best will be injustice to others. Here is a collection of individual reviews of 25 such WYSIWYG editors, though it’s a bit disappointing that this list doesn’t include my favourite WYSIWYG HTML editor as it doesn't cover online editors. This list can be a real help for people who want to know more about and try out WYSIWYG editors.