gale

GraphicsGale 1.93.22 Review

GraphicsGale is an inexpensive, easy-to-use raster graphics editor for spriting, pixel art, and animations. It can animate images, create and edit custom icons and cursors for Windows, and batch-convert files. Its Onion Skin feature lets you view sequential animated frames in place. The separate GaleBrowser manages files. You can also use GraphicsGale to draw and paint like other graphics tools--it offers layers, effects, TWAIN acquisition, and more--but its primary focus is for producinganimated graphics for games and similar applications.

GraphicsGale works in any edition of Windows likely to be running, from 98 to 8, though obviously newer systems will better … Read more

Samsung Galaxy simpler than iPhone, survey says

I like to think I'm very simple.

Lovers have told me I'm not -- often while they toss my Golden State Warriors T-shirts out their apartment windows and curse quite loudly.

So simplicity is an entirely subjective concept.

In my own subjectivity (and that of many others), Apple's phones have always seemed so very simple to grasp. Both physically and emotionally.

But now, very vast brains have come along to declare that this might not be so.

Branding agency Siegel+Gale -- motto: "Simple is smart" (sigh) -- claims it used a proven (and presumably … Read more

Take the rover for a spin around a virtual Mars crater

We've been exploring ways to immerse yourself in Mars without having to sign up for an experimental one-way space trip. You can play with a photo panorama, but you can also put yourself in Curiosity's shoes and take the rover for a crater ride.

NASA's Explore Mars: Free Drive online experience puts you in command of the rover in a virtual version of the Gale Crater on Mars.

It's fun to watch the rover's wheels react to the landscape. I made mine do doughnuts. There are plenty of points of interest available for exploration, including the landing site, a series of fractures, a canyon, sand dunes, and a phyllosilicate trough.… Read more

Great Scott! 'Back to the Future' game debut trailer

Though it's not as blasphemous as talk of Justin Bieber supposedly playing Marty McFly in some ill-conceived "Back to the Future" remake, the fully licensed video game does seem like a promising extension to the classic story of Marty and Doc Brown.

Developer Telltale Games (Sam & Max, Tales of Monkey Island) plans to episodically release five chapters of Back to the Future: The Game, the first of which is titled "It's About Time." Not much regarding the game's actual gameplay has been disclosed, but the debut trailer does hint that Marty will … Read more

Capable photo editor

Tons of image editors try to compete with Photoshop and other top sellers. However, not everyone needs all the bells and whistles that come with the big programs, nor their costs, which can run to hundreds of dollars. GraphicsGale isn't as sleek and precise as its costly counterparts, but it performed well as a free image editing tool.

GraphicsGale's look didn't do much for us. The user interface is pretty bland, with tiny command buttons running across the top of the window. We had to hover our mouse over each one just to discover its function. We … Read more

The turntable as a centerfold

In the esoteric world of turntables, it sometimes seems that the most complicated assemblies are the most valued. That was certainly the case, for instance, with the "Transrotor Artus"--a $150,000, 485-pound beast.

Few have approached that in either price or gross tonnage, but a vintage "Gale GT2101" now being auctioned on eBay is no slouch either as far as moving parts are concerned. This 1975 model looks more like a finely tuned laboratory instrument than a vinyl spinner, not unlike some retro-style tube devices we've seen recently.

No matter how well this turntable … Read more