Getting Frutiger Font for Free [Typography]

One of my favorite escapades recently is to uncover the mystery behind some of the most well used fonts for Apple and Microsoft so that i can develop better UI for my programs.

And one of the good looking ones are Frutiger. Its old but it stands the test of time and it bears an uncanny resemblance or rather, Segoe UI bears an uncanny resemblance to Frutiger. There was a lawsuit coming their way for Microsoft when they decide to use Segoe UI as their main Vista UI font.

Frutiger is a sans-serif typeface by the Swiss type designer Adrian Frutiger. It was commissioned in 1968 by the newly built Charles De Gaulle International Airport at Roissy, France, which needed a new directional sign system. Instead of using one of his previously designed typefaces like Univers, Frutiger chose to design a new one. The new typeface, originally called Roissy, was completed in 1975 and installed at the airport the same year.

Frutiger's goal was to create a sans serif typeface with the rationality and cleanliness of Univers, but with the organic and proportional aspects of Gill Sans. The result is that Frutiger is a distinctive and legible typeface. The letter properties were suited to the needs of Charles De Gaulle – modern appearance and legibility at various angles, sizes, and distances. Ascenders and descenders are very prominent, and apertures are wide to easily distinguish letters from each other.

The Frutiger family was released publicly in 1976, by the Stempel type foundry in conjunction with Linotype. Frutiger's simple and legible, yet warm and casual character has made it popular today in advertising and small print.

A workaround for those who like this font is that you can get this font for free. Apparently,Frutiger is released as one of the reading fonts for Microsoft Reader (version 2.1). Thus this presents an easy opportunity to get and sample this font for free.

Just install the reader and you can find it in your control panel > font control.

[Get Frutiger from Microsoft Reader here]

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Inkscape: Opensource replacement for Illustrator and Draw [Image Editing]

I am all for freewares since its the bad times and we should try to cut down on things that matters lower priority to us.

If you are a blogger and developer like me, you will appreciate well design open-source replacements like Inkscape. granted, many of these softwares do not reach the full capability of what Adobe Illustrator and Corel Draw allows, for the normal folks like us what they offer should suffice.

Inkscape maintains a gallery at Deviant Art to show off work submitted by users, worth checking out if you'd like a quick peek at the capabilities of Inkscape. For more free image editing goodness, check out GIMP. Inkscape is open-source, with installation packages available for Windows, Mac OSX, and Linux.

[Get Inkscape here]

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Virtual Box new version supports 64bit guest OS [Virtualization]

Now this is something new. I have been using virtualization technology for a long time and there are many benefits to this. Particularly, it enables me to try out different operating systems and not compromise my main desktop setup.

At work, we use it to simulate many clients to server setups,with limited physical hardware. But this release is quite good i feel.

Among the new features introduce:

• Ability to load 64-bit guest operating systems on host machines running 32-bit operating systems
• Experimental 3D acceleration via OpenGL on 32-bit Windows guest systems
• Easier setup for networking on Windows and Linux host systems

3D acceleration! not sure if this is a first but maybe i can experiement by playing some 3D games in it.

[Download Virtual Box here]

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Remember the Task [Remember The Milk]

I stressed alot that in task management, it is important to have easy assess to task list. Some one actually created this desktop client for remember the milk which i feel is very good as you can use alt-tab to bring your task list to view easily. 

The more easily you have access to a concise list the more you will fulfill them. Remember the Task is an Adobe Air Client (you need to have Adobe Air) that puts a streamlined view of your RTM tasks on your desktop. You can minimize it to the task tray or have it always glaring at you with the things you aren’t getting done.

[Check it out or download it at the Adobe Air Marketplace.]

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GnuCash:Out with a new version [Personal Finance]

Times are bad and we all need to watch what we spent on and its a good time to thing about using one as it really helps in managing your budget, spending and investments.

GNU Cash is open source and it is very flexible. But what i don't like about it is that it is not as intuitive as those more popular ones, such as Quicken 2008, which I use, and Microsoft Money. do give it a try and you might be satisfied with this opensource software.

You can do double-entry accounting in GNUcash, with all the bells-and-whistles needed for a small business, and very professional reports. Among report types for businesses, you can produce statements of cash flows, income statements, balance sheets and more. You'll also find a lot of pre-built financial documents that are useful, such as good-looking invoices. GnuCash will track tax liabilities, and can even help track the age of receivables for depreciation purposes. You can also track accounts based on different currencies.

For individuals, the checkbook-style register in the program is a main area of interest, but GnuCash also tracks mutual fund, stock and other types of investment portfolios. You can do online banking, automate your scheduled transactions, and use pre-built reporting options to see graphically how your money is flowing each month.

 

 

 

 

 

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