So, without getting real wordy about how I came across this (it all has to do with the new website), let me tell you about a cool open source photo-editor I just came across.

It is called

the GIMP. That stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program. GNU is one of the open source licensing protocols. I guess it would be best summed up as the open source equivalent of PhotoShop.

If you aren't familiar with open source, it is a movement (sorry, but it really is) of mostly software geeks and engineers that create programs and then allow anyone to have them, and anyone that would like to modify the program to pop the hood and dive into the source code. The community makes revisions, as well as hacks and add-ons. (Hacks are modifications). It is really a cool idea, even though the capitalist in me wants to scream "You could be making money".

This isn't my first foray into open source. I use SMF (Simple Machines Forum) to run my real estate forum and the forum for my 4wd club. I also have recently started to use Joomla to build my new website. So far, I have been pretty impressed with each of these products. I will say that many of the open source products don't have the same prettiness as their high dollar counterparts, but they still seem to have the performance.

Floating around this post, you will see the results of a couple of minutes of editing. It didn't take me as long to edit this image as it did to write this post.

Not too ba

d for something that is free to use, free to upgrade, and I haven't even looked at a manual yet.