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Photoshop was first sold as Barneyscan XP
Adobe's Photoshop, the all-conquering image manipulation software that now anchors the subscription-based Creative Suite, was originally written in Pascal and distributed under the name "Barneyscan XP"...
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Browsh: a modern text-only web browser
Browsh is a modern text-only browser which "renders anything that a modern browser can; HTML5, CSS3, JS, video and even WebGL."
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3D printed guns just cleared a major legal hurdle
Last week, Defense Distributed founder Cody Wilson won a major ruling in his quest to distribute gun-printing software. The video above from February outlines the background of the case. Via Reason:...
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WordTsar: WordStar updated "for the 21st Century"
In an age before Microsoft Word, even before Corel WordPerfect, WordStar ruled the DOS word processing world. Beloved to this day for its simplicity, power and wealth of keystroke commands, some...
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Microsoft gives classic Skype a stay of execution after user complaints
For years, I maintained a Skype number that'd forward to whatever phone number I happened to be using at the time. It was the only way to make myself reachable on the phone, despite my switching to a...
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TripMode 2 helps me keep my tethered data usage under control
Unless I'm in a cafe, hotel or staying at someone's home I connect to the internet over a tethered connection to my smartphone. I've got an unlimited data plan–but only the first five gigabytes of...
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Windows 95 turned into a native app
Windows 95, that most beautiful of operating systems, has been turned into an application. It's available to download for MacOS, Linux and, indeed, modern editions of Windows. Tom Warren writes: Slack...
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Learn about adjustment layers and layer masks in Photoshop
I've been using Photoshop for years, but I don't know what I'm doing. When I get stuck, I often turn to the YouTube channel Phlearn to learn how to do something. In this easy-to-understand 10-minute...
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Big list of open-source MacOS apps
Serhii Londar (Patreon) maintains a list of open-source applications available for MacOS. Unlike some similar guides, it's exhaustive rather than curated, and easy to reference in a single,...
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What the hell are Git and GitHub?
Have you ever read about an interesting app, only to click the link and find yourself on a GitHub page? If you're a coder, then you will be happy about it, but if you're like me, you will scratch your...
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Adobe: to read the Terms of Use, you must agree to the Terms of Use (Update:...
I tried to start Adobe Acrobat today, part of the Creative Cloud suite, and it wouldn't start unless I agreed to new Terms of Use. But to read the Terms of Use, I had to agree to the Terms of Use...
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Two free or cheap alternatives to Adobe Illustrator
If you're a professional illustrator, podcaster, or filmmaker, a $53 a month subscription to Adobe Creative Cloud is a fair price to pay. But if you're just interested in having a good vector graphics...
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These ten software innovations transformed scientific research
When I was a mechanical engineer in 1990, I faced a stubborn problem with the design of a disk drive baseplate (an aluminum base that the disk motor and actuator motor were mounted on). When the...
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Collapse OS, an operating system for after the apocalypse
Collapse OS is an operating system that no-one should ever have to use. It's designed to be useful after worldwide catastrophe destroys human civilization: able to run on junk and easy to work with,...
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My favorite little-known Mac apps
[The following is from my newsletter, The Magnet. You can subscribe here.] Last year I started using a Windows PC after being a long-time Mac user. Originally, I planned to stop using my Mac, but a...
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A refined 90s-style operating system you can actually use
SerenityOS (github) is "a love letter to '90s user interfaces with a custom Unix-like core", wedding the simplicity and style of Windows 9x with all the features (and security) you'd expect from a...
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Adobe DMCAs third-party project that provides security improvement to Flash
Flash is dead, finally taken out back by Adobe after many years of increasingly insecure and obsolete service. As disliked as Flash was as a technology and advertising medium, though, it was loved as...
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Software was expensive as heck in the 1980s
Inflation and market growth hide from us the true prices of old things, and software is no exception. Rob Griffiths charts the high cost of software in the 1980s. Want to play Ultima, an open-world...
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This 1987 video demonstrates the first version of Adobe Illustrator
Lucky buyers of the first release of Adobe Illustrator in 1987 received a VHS cassette with creator John Warnock's demonstration of the exciting new drawing software. I couldn't afford a Mac or...
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Windows XP Delta Edition revives the world's second-most beautiful OS ever
Windows XP Delta Edition is not one of those web-based aesthetic dream OSes evoking a more perfect inflection point at the cusp of the new millennium. Nor is it a clever theme for Linux evoking a...
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CP/M is now open-source for real
CP/M, the more capable of the two operating systems offered for the popular Amstrad CPC range of home computers, is now unequivocally open-source. Though it has been purportedly open source for some...
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John Carmack describes his programming setup
In this clip, Lex Fridman's interview with John Carmack gets right to the point: his programming setup! I love his thorough attitude toward using debuggers—"your head is a faulty interpreter"—and his...
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At long last, Microsoft takes Internet Explorer out back
Windows users on version 10 or later will have their copies of Internet Explorer disabled in the next update. Attempts to start it will be redirected to the company's replacement browser, Edge. In June...
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The Japanese factory that uses 40-year-old software to design its traditional...
This is fascinating. Miyata Textile Co. is a Japanese company that's been making fabric for a hundred years, and since the 1980s they've been using the same software. They use this four-decades-old...
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Windows 11 now has pop ups straight-up telling users to get rid of Google
Described by The Verge's Tom Warren as "malware-like popups," Windows 11 now instructs users to switch to Bing. The browser wars–and the monopoly-exploiting shenanigans that got Microsoft in legal...
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Judge orders Intuit to stop lying about TurboTax being "free"
Among America's obscenities is the existence of its "tax-filing industry," wherein normal everyday folks pay through the nose to file their taxes. The corporate circus of rent-seeking and regulatory...
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Avast fined $16.5m for selling private user data
Avast, the company built long ago by offering Windows users the privacy and security Microsoft didn't care for, was fined $16.5m for storing and selling customer information without consent. Cory...
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Bazzite is a Linux distro for gaming
Bazzite is a cut of Linux customized to be ready for playing games, including Steam integration and compatibility with popular handhelds. Bazzite comes ready to rock with Steam and Lutris...
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Re:AMP implements classic music player WinAMP on modern Macs
Re:AMP is a modern implementation of the fast, simple, handsome y2k-era music player Winamp, by Alexander Vasilchenko. To whip this llama's ass you'll be needing a Mac. For Windows, check out WACUP. On...
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U.S. sues Adobe over shady subscription plans and hidden fees
Adobe, makers of Photoshop and its Creative Suite of design-related applications, is being sued by the U.S. government over hidden fees in its subscription plans and the contractual obligations it...
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