Desert Musings

Friday, October 31, 2025

Canva moves Affinity photo-editting + to a free model

https://www.windowscentral.com/software-apps/canva-affinity-to-free-model

"Affinity, one of the only tools that competes directly with Adobe's photo and design suite, is now completely free. It arrives as a single, reimagined app that unifies photo editing, vector design, and layout tools in one place. According to Affinity, it is free forever for everyone on Windows and macOS, with an iPad version coming soon."

" There are strong alternatives across other creative categories, too. Davinci Resolve continues to dominate in the video space for many editors, and there are plenty of other tools out there if you are willing to look."

Wednesday, October 29, 2025

Setting up a FreedomBox server

FreedomBox: take your online privacy back! https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/Introduction
FreedomBox is a ready made personal server, designed with privacy and data ownership in mind.

A list of Applications available with FreedomBox: https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/Features

Unlock Your Online Freedom with FreedomBox on Raspberry Pi:

https://www.howtogeek.com/unlock-your-online-freedom-with-freedombox-on-raspberry-pi/

FreedomBox allows users to host services like chat, Git, and MediaWiki on a Raspberry Pi, prioritizing privacy and security.
FreedomBox is well-supported on Raspberry Pi 3 and 4, making it an excellent option for setting up services at home.
After flashing FreedomBox onto an SD card for the Pi, users can access the web interface to set up, configure, and monitor various applications.

FreedomBox forum: https://discuss.freedombox.org/t/zoph-setup-and-use/3443

"Zoph is a FreedomBox application that helps you store, organize, and share photos. Is it a replacement for the big photo website? Not completely and mainly for the lack of rich editing tools..."

Friday, October 24, 2025

Tinkercad design tool for 3D printing

"Tinkercad is a free-of-charge, online 3D modeling program that runs in a web browser." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinkercad
"Tinkercad uses a simplified constructive solid geometry method of constructing models. A design is made up of primitive shapes that are either "solid" or "hole". Combining solids and holes together, new shapes can be created, which in turn can be assigned the property of solid or hole. In addition to the standard library of primitive shapes, a user can create custom shape generators using a built-in JavaScript editor."
"Shapes can be imported in three formats: STL and OBJ for 3D, and 2-dimensional SVG shapes for extruding into 3D shapes. Tinkercad exports models in STL or OBJ formats, ready for 3D printing."

Autodesk Tinkercad: https://www.tinkercad.com/
Online training is available ... (create a personal account).

Getting Started Guide: https://assets.ctfassets.net/jl5ii4oqrdmc/4nMtGEJi53o3n7V2KJKG7a/0b1818fdecff4868bebc74ebeaf925cf/Tinkercad_Getting_Started_Guide_printable.pdf

Tinkercad Wiki: https://tinkercad.fandom.com/wiki/Tinkercad

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/explore/search/keyword/?q=tinkercad%20tutorials
https://www.instagram.com/explore/search/keyword/?q=tinkercad%20platform