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Photoshop presets like brushes and patterns get more attention, but custom shapes can be equally useful. Because custom shapes are vectors, they can be scaled to larger sizes with no decrease in quality.

In this post we’ll link to some of the best custom shapes sets that can be downloaded for free. As always when working with freebies, be sure to read the terms of use or license details to make sure that you are using it in accordance with the designer’s guidelines.

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For most of us, using the web, online email and other connected services goes on all day long, but how often do you step back and consider the subterranean technology that powers the web. Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) is one of the core components of the Internet Protocol Suite, and is fundamental to how data, media and communications travel across the web. TCP is also a core component in many messaging platforms. Now, Google engineers are calling for an upgrade to TCP, in order to speed up the web at the most fundamental level.

In case you didn’t know, Google actually has a “Make the Web Faster” team, and you can get some thoughts on deficincies in TCP in this Google Code post.  In it, Yuchung Cheng writes:

“To deliver content effectively, Web browsers typically open several dozen parallel TCP connections ahead of making actual requests. This strategy overcomes inherent TCP limitations but results in high latency in many situations and is not scalable. Our research shows that the key to reducing latency is saving round trips. We’re experimenting with several improvements to TCP.”

If you haven’t tried language translation technology in a few years, it’s worth revisiting it. As we covered here, it’s become much easier to automate multilingual websites, there are very useful translation programs for mobile phones that you can use to communicate in foreign languages on the fly, and open source machine translation tools are flourishing. So it’s notable that Mozilla will help deliver Tuesday’s U.S. State of the Union Address from President Barrack Obama in multiple languages worldwide, translated in real time.

In a post called “Crowdsourcing the State of the Union,” Mozilla notes that it will employ people and technology to achieve the real time translation:

“Tuesday’s State of the Union Address from U.S. President Barack Obama will include something special: crowdsourced captions and subtitles provided by everyday citizens around the world. Using new web tools from the Participatory Culture Foundation, supported by Mozilla, participants will transcribe and translate the President’s speech into dozens of languages in a matter of hours, making it more accessible to those with disabilities and in other countries across the globe.”

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Portfolio websites are a major marketing tool for most designers and design agencies. The portfolio site allows you to showcase your work, provide information about your services, and receive inquiries from those who are interested in your services. Portfolio sites are often examples of quality design work, as every designer wants to make a positive impression through the design and usability of the portfolio site.

In this post we’ll showcase 30 fresh examples of well-designed portfolio sites for your inspiration.

Aylis

The fate of Mandriva is still in flux today as Jean-Manuel Croset posted of yet another delay in determining the future of the once popular Linux distribution. He said, “The deadline for the decision on the proposal has been extended by the proposing entity upon request of some shareholders.”

Mandriva has had a long history of financial trouble. This latest bout was revealed on the Mandriva Forum that Mandriva S.A. needed further investment capital to continue, but one investor refused the injection. It was thought at that time that Mandriva would most likely have to cease operations on January 16, although primary parties were and are working to avoid that doomsday fate. Folks were advised that a decision would be made public by that date.

Unfortunately, nervous users weren’t comforted on January 17 by the post from Croset stating no resolution had been reached. He then said to expect a decision by January 23. Today, January 23 brought only news of further postponement. Croset said today that a decision should be forthcoming on January 27 now.

While the company’s future is in limbo, it seems like plans for Mandriva 2012 are on hold. The development wiki hasn’t been updated since December 19. Those early 2012 plans included reviving the Aurora bootloader, the integration of Bumblebee, and adopting prelink by default (for improved startup times). Right now, according to said wiki, the release engineer for 2012 is still undecided as well.

For any operating system or software platform to succeed, the key is winning majority interest from application developers, and that’s been proven many times historically. For example, Microsoft’s dominance in desktop computing operating systems is directly tied to winning over many more application developers in its early days than other operating systems were able to attract. That’s what makes a new report from Ovum Research notable. It predicts that Android will replace Apple’s iOS as the most important platform to developers over the next 12 months.

Ovum’s annual survey of developers placed Android on top of other mobile platforms. “A smartphone platform’s success is dictated not only by the pull of consumers and the push of handset vendors and mobile operators but also by a healthy economy of applications delivered by third-party developers. Therefore, it is important for all players in the smartphone ecosystem to understand the choices developers are making today and the downstream impact of those choices,” said Adam Leach, devices & platforms practice leader at Ovum and author of the research, in a statement. 

Notably, Ovum’ survey also revealed changes in cross-platform development trends:

“The research also shows a move away from traditional cross-platform mobile application development approaches (e.g. Java, Flash, WAP). Instead, developers are focusing their efforts on web-based standards (e.g. HTML5), which seem to be the preferred approach to building cross-platform applications.”

For years now, Google has gained a reputation for launching many new projects at a scattershot rate, only to shut many of them down when they don’t succeed at hoped-for levels. In fact, some have said that the company’s strategy is to throw spaghetti at the wall and see which noodles stick. Now, in a post that makes references to keeping New Year’s resolutions, the Google Blog has announced the latest series of company projects that will be “merged, open sourced or phased out.” You’ll recognize some of the names.

In 2011, Google shut down a number of projects, including Buzz, Jaiku, and Code Search, among others. In the latest Google Blog post, the new projects to be reshuffled are named. They include: Google Message Continuity (support will be ended), Sky Map (to be open sourced), Needlebase (to be “retired”), Picnik (to be “retired”), Social Graph API (to be “retired”), Urchin (to be retired).

Of these, Sky Map and Picnik may be most familiar. Google acquired the online photo editor Picnik in 2010. “We’re retiring the service on April 19, 2012 so the Picnik team can continue creating photo-editing magic across Google products,” says Google’s post. 

The news on Sky Map may be welcomed by the open source community:

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The same scene captured in a photo at night will have a completely different feel than one taken during the day. Night photos can be intriguing and amazing, but the low levels of light make them a challenge to master.

In this post we’ll showcase 25 examples of beautiful nightscape photos taken by various photographers. To see any of them in a larger size simply click on the image to be directed to the source.

You may also be interested in Showcase of Night Photography.

As a systems administrator, I tend to think about source code and computing platform in large numbers. Computers however are getting smaller and more powerful, and the reality of computers that we put in or on our body as a normal daily routine is coming closer, and for many is already here. When our safety, our liberty, and our sense of humanity are tied to programmable devices, should we not only hope, but expect that we should have the right to examine how these devices function?

Last August Karen Sandler, the executive directory of the GNOME foundation gave a short talk about her implanted defibrillator, a device which can shock her heart to revive her if it stops functioning. After hearing the news that she would need to wear the device, she asked the manufacturer for the source code, and was denied. To make matters worse, she found that the FDA does not review or have access to the source code. She also found that she had no legal recourse against the manufacturer to force them to release their code. To top it all off, the manufacturer ignored her Freedom Of Information Act request. Twice.

Karen wished to know how the device implanted on her heart functions. Since her life, quite literally, depends on the device functioning as advertised when she needs it. Software has bugs, and since the source code is not reviewed by anyone outside of the company, Karen’s understanding of how software works increases her anxiety. Karen is obviously not the only person with one of these devices implanted, but her story is a good starting point for discussing when and where releasing source code for public scrutiny should be mandated by law. American lawmakers have the time to discuss how the public should have access to movies, isn’t the public health and safety far more important?

I would suggest three areas of software which should be available upon request, without question.

I saw a post on the Xfce blog Tuesday or Wednesday about changing versioning scheme of the next Xfce release. I saved the URL knowing that I’d want to write about it. Just thank goodness that a storm blew in and caused my computer to shut off. Otherwise, I might have never seen the Update 2. Dirty rats.

The Update 2 was a link to post on the Xfce mailing list post where Stephen Arts explained (and thoroughly enjoyed, btw) it was an early April Fool’s joke, and I fell for it. The clue was supposed to be the final release date scheduled for April 1. I noticed it, but still didn’t take the post as joke until I clicked the Update link. In fact, here’s what my post almost was:

The Xfce developers (and interested parties) have been discussing the version scheme of their popular light-weight desktop environment. They are rapidly approaching 4.10, but that particular number could cause some upgrade issues. So, what’s a project to do?

The problem with 4.10 is that developers view that as “4.1 with an extra decimal for precision.” But 5.0 would confuse users thinking the desktop has taken some big jump forward – or as Stephan Arts said, “we pulled a ‘gnome-3′ on them.” A hexadecimal system was discussed but quickly dismissed. So, again, what to do?