Free programs/utilities

This is the place where you’ll find the fruits of my programming labor. Whenever I find anything frustrating, or annoying, I feel compelled to come up with a better solution, and that usually involves coding something. Then, when I’m done, I don’t want anyone else to suffer my frustration, so I give it away.

I’ve been having fun with Apple's Dashboard lately, and came up with a few totally useless Widgets of my own.* Gibberish is a nonsense phrase generator that takes buts of phrases and throws them together, kinda a MadLibs for the computer age.

Haiku is similar, but instead generates random haikus.

I hope that you find them useful (although I’d be amazed)...

* Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger is required. If you’re using Safari, click the download link. When the widget download is complete, show Dashboard, click the Plus sign to display the Widget Bar and click the widget’s icon in the Widget Bar to open it. If you’re using a browser other than Safari, click the download link. When the widget download is complete, unarchive it and place it in /Library/Widgets/ in your home folder. show Dashboard, click the Plus sign to display the Widget Bar and click the widget’s icon in the Widget Bar to open it.

Unpremultiply2003.lsc is an Image Filter LScript that unpremultiplies a Lightwave rendered image. In addition, if it encounters a light effect like a lens flare that has no alpha, it generates one based on luminance.

LW Sequencer is a free application for setting up a LWSN -3 render, to be used with LightWave 3D; a 3D modeling, animation, and rendering software sold by Newtek, Inc. As most of you know, you can hand edit the LWSN cmdline file, but I find it cumbersome to type in the paths, and correctly enter the syntax of the commands. This program attempts to make this an easier process.

LW Sequencer Features:

• Extracts first frame. last frame, and frame step from selected scene file.
• Extracts file name and file format from selected scene file.
• Extracts content directory from selected scene file.
• Extracts available file formats and Command Directory from config directory files.
• Allows you to edit all of the above information, and saves changes to preference file on quit.
• Starts LWSN with the above information.

System Requirement:

Mac OS X 10.2 or better. It may work in earlier versions, but has not been tested.

Fee:

This is freeware for your own personal use. This software may not be repackaged or sold.

History:

v0.9 - First general release

v0.92 - Removed annoying “done” message. Allowed choosing LWSN location. Still can’t start multiple instances.

v0.93 - Now will allow you to start multiple instances of LWSN (if they exist on disk) for use with machines with multiple processors.

Download from here (216Kb).