Nifty planning tool

Wanderluster has tipped me off to one of the most awesome planning things ever.

Google Notebook.

Seriously. I don't know about you, but I have, oh, 6.02 x 10^23 pages bookmarked in various folders in my internet browser. (Alright, so maybe Avogadro's number is an exaggeration. But I have a lot.) And it can be really hard to find the exact "super awesome red invitation" picture that I'm looking for.

Downloading them to my desktop helps with the organization some, but I'm not always good at remembering where my sources come from.

Cue Google Desktop. It enables you to save pictures and text from websites in your own "notebook" which can be divided into various sections. It automatically provides the source for it, and you can also take notes. All it takes is a simple right click of the mouse to post it into your noteback.

Check it out.

All the information you need, in one simple click.

Look at hte organization possibilities.

And, if you want, you could share it with others. This, I think, would be a perfect way to share thoughts about bridesmaid attire with your attendants- or rehearsal dinner options with the parents.

This is revolutionizing the way that I store my information. Like bookmarks, but better, because I can access it from any computer, it has the citations, and uses Google's search engine.

(All pictures courtesy of the Google Notebook tour.)

Free Software, part 3

Part 1
Part 2

Today I would like to share with you about another free piece of software: Gimp. While slightly complicated to install- you must first install the GTK+ 2 runtime installer, and then GIMP, it is a pretty powerful program once you have it up and running. More like Photoshop than either OpenOffice Draw or Scribus.

Here is an image of what you see when you open a new document:

Note how you can very easily change the size of the document and the resolution. You have the option of RGB or grayscale coloring- no CMYK, which is what is preferred for professional printing.

Here is what I get when I hit "OK" to generate the new document:

The dreaded error. For some reason, as soon as I open a new document, GIMP crashes. Regardless of the specifications of the document. Now, this may because I haven't installed the program properly, or that I am running an older version of GIMP. I have full faith that when up and running, the program is fantastic, but personally was unsuccessful at getting it running. And I have other programs that suit my needs just fine.

I'm continuing to investigate other free programs that would be useful for wedding planning and life in general. Do you have any others you would like to share?

Free Software, Part 2

Part 1.

I would like to share with you another open source program that I really like: OpenOffice. Like Microsoft Office, only free. In addition to word processing, spreadsheet and database features, the OpenOffice suite also has a really nifty (but basic) design program: OpenOffice Draw. Overnight Prints recommends Draw as one of the programs in which to design postcards. Since we will be printing our invites through them, I thought I'd try it out.

Here's what OpenOffice looks like when you first open the program:

Check out the nifty color feature- you can select colors as CMYK or RGB:

I really like how you can work on the document and see a preview simultaneously:

One of the things I really like about OpenOffice is that it saves the document in the OpenDocument format, which means it can be read by any other program in the OpenOffice Suite. You also have the option of exporting the file as a .pdf, which is fabulous if you want to share it with other people who don't have the program or submit your design to be printed.

(And yes, that is a mock-up of our invitation, which will be discussed in a whole separate series of posts.)

Free Software, part 1

There is a tremendous amount of open source software available on the internet. For those of you who are unaware, open source software is free! Which means if you are looking at dabbling in designing invitations or placecards and don't have InDesign or Adobe Illustrator (or want to splurge on it), you can download a similar program at no cost to you.

Today, I bring to you a design program I have worked with: Scribus. Now, documentation for the program isn't fabulous, but there are plenty of good tutorials available on the web. I'm definitely not the most design savvy individual, but I've been able to figure out some of the very basics of the Scribus without too much trouble. And the benefit is that it is easy to do layouts, when compared to using Microsoft Word.

Here are some screenshots.


A basic document. I changed the dimensions to be the size of our invitation.

What the text editor looks like. It is really easy to edit line by line.

Print preview! You can see the document, as welll as what it looks like.

Now, with all free things, there are some drawbacks. Like I said, documentation isn't necessarily the best. There are some bugs- I've found that the text doesn't always change size/font on the first try. And for some reason, it doesn't really like dingbats all that much.

That said, Calvin and I used it successfully to make a cookbook for our families last Christmas.

Despite those problems, Scribus is free, so it might be worth checking out if you are interested in doing some design work and don't want to pay for a program.