(Click for more Screenshots)

I planed to finish this theme before i rebooted this site, so that I'd only have to worry about customizing my own version of it. instead, life got crazy, and i stopped working on it for a few months. So I've had to backport some things from this site, and i've developed a bunch of features for the theme, that i have yet to put to use here. So a month late, here it is: A fluid width, light on dark theme with lots of CMS features. Based on the rich semantics of the Sandbox theme

Read about the features | Check out the Demo Blog | Download

Derek Powazek is one of those household names for the internet generation. So when he releases a wordpress theme, people sit up and take notice. Especially when it's based on such beautiful typography and a solid grid. But for users, the first thing noticeably missing was widgets.

so, I took the time to widgetify it, including widgets for the about blurp, books, and quotes. The books and quotes can now be edited inside the "theme editor" page in the dashboard, in the books-quotes.php file. I also fixed the dependency on flickrrss.

it still needs a lot of work, IMO (i18n, non-hard-coded "About" link, etc.), but that's an exercise for another day.

Download:

Depo-clean 0.4.1

H/T no, 2 self

Except as noted, these programs are all open source. meaning that the source code is freely distributed, so anyone with the know-how can change or improve the software. it also means that these programs are free (like free beer), and that the current version will always be free.

Instant Messaging
GAIM
everyone hates ads. so why do you let AOL (or MSN or yahoo!) serve them to you every time you want to talk to your friends? for that matter, why install 3 different programs just so you can talk to friends that aren't all on the same network? GAIM chats on AOL's network, Yahoo!'s network, and MSN. easy.

Web Browsing
Firefox
if you're still using internet explorer, you haven't been listening to a word i've said for years now, i'm not sure why you would start now, but here goes. every spyware toolbar ever written, was written for internet explorer. you know that saying about "don't give the devil a foothold"? apply it to your web browser.

Anti Virus
AVG Free
Not Open Source. i mainly like this because it isn't nagware, it's just free. microsoft's onecare seems to do too much, and i'm not a fan of the firewall built into windows.

Firewall
all the free firewall options are gone. i use sygate, which symantec bought. figures. symantec's firewall is top notch. black ice is no longer free, either. Zone Alarm is the only one left. zone alarm will give you better contol over your ports and which programs are trying to reach the internet. but i haven't used it.

Email
Thunderbird
when i used an email program, i used thunderbird. it's better and safer than outlook express. by a long shot. but i don't use an e-mail client anymore. i use Outlook Live, which is like thunderbird plus sunbird plus a bunch of other stuff. There is an open source competitor to Outlook, but it doesn't run on windows. i have used it on linux, and it works well. on top of all that, i barely use outlook for email, since i have a GMail account. personally, i think gmail is better than thunderbird, but i know some people need their email offline.

Office/Word Processing
OpenOffice.org
back before microsoft started requiring activation for it's office products, all the cool kids in school had cracked copies of it. all the losers were stuck with the wordperfect that came with their dell paperweights. that's over now. openoffice a full office suite: presentations (read:powerpoint), word processing, spreadsheets, page layout (read:pagemaker). the only complaints about it are that it doesn't have a database (read:access) program, and that not all macros translate perfectly. given that i'm an architect, and none of my documents are that complex, none of this has affected me. I've been using this at work and at home for two years, and haven't had any issues. Bonus: when a vius decides to delete all your files, it won't bother with OOo's native format. (anything you've saved as a microsoft format for sending to coworkers is fair game, though).

PDF Creating
PDF 995
Not Open Source. this is shareware. it's free ($), but it will nag you to pay $9.95. nagging aside, this is the best and simplest PDF writer there is. it installs itself as a printer, so you can use it from any program. handles multiple page PDF's easily. don't forget to install both PDF995 AND the free converter. the converter is free because it's based on ghostscript.

Photo Editting
The GIMP
Image Editting is my stock and trade. giving up photoshop was such a pain. but it is possible. caveat: the learning curve on this program is BRUTAL. ESPECIALLY if you are already used to photoshop, fireworks, photopaint, or any commercial software. but all the tools are there, you just have to dig. if you want to edit PDF's (like photoshop), you'll need to install ghostscript, and add its directory to $PATH (usually C:\gs\gs8.50 )

Photo Managing
Picasa
Not Open Source. i know your digital camera came with photo managing software. that doesn't mean you have to use it. i know way too many people who have tons of pictures in their camera's software, and have no idea where to find the file if they need to email it. Thanks, Kodak. i wouldn't recommend this software if it weren't for that. this is how google does photos: Simple.

Music Player
Realplayer
I actually use windows media player, because it runs on my xbox, but realplayer connects to my minidisc player. and it's built on an open source core. and it runs on linux (and plays mp3s!). winamp never made the jump from mp3 player to media library. realplayer did it, and did it more gracefully than any other program.

RSS Reader
NewsGator
Not Open Source. let's be real here. i don't use an RSS reader. they all suck. they all cost more than a browser, and provide no added value. i use Akregator on linux, for it's lightness, the fact that it sits in my system tray, and it's integration with konqueror. none of the windows readers have that. i use newsgator's online reader because it's gui doesn't suck (yes i'm refererring to bloglines there) and because it integrates with their media center reader (which is free, and is the "desktop" reader i use). and i actually like their feedstation. i click "add to my podcasts" at work, and feedstation downloads it at home. but i'm not going to pay for a reader until it also includes an XMLRPC blogging client (that actually works, like a real wordprocessor). and it has to work better than akregator.

Web Design
Nvu
i'm lying. i do all my web design in a text editor. but i'm trying to let myself use this.

FTP
FileZilla
you remember when we all used to do filesharing over FTP on audiogalaxy with ws_FTP? yeah, 1998's gone. filezilla is a proper ftp client. i also use WinSCP for SFTP.

Bittorrent
Azureus
if you're ever going to make the leap to linux, you'll need a bittorrent client. if you're using it for anything else, i don't wanna know.

i use a lot of other software, but most of it isn't applicable to anyone else.