Pros

Brush selection toolbar - Much simpler to use than Photoshop's scroll menu. Also the edit brush option is very easy to use. There are also some cool default brushes like the clover.

Layer option - There are a lot of layer options in the toolbar including an easy way to create a layer mask

Extra tools - Tools like the rotate tool, shear tool etc make it easier to manipulate whole layers.

Cons

Brush Options: Although the option to create your own brushes is there a lot of the defaults I use in Photoshop are missing. Most of the basics are there at least.

Text Input - A major pain in the butt, when trying to move your text, resize the box etc. The default text box is very finicky and if you select the wrong spot you often go back to the actual text edit. Did I mention that the text edit is in another mini-window that pops up? It can be very frustrating when you are simply trying to resize the box.

Lack of tabbed images - I find it more efficient when cutting out parts of an image and moving them to use tabbed images like in Photoshop. GIMP unfortunately doesn't offer that.

Overall I found GIMP 2.6 to be a fairly decent program for minor image creation. I haven't delved to much into photo editing yet so we shall see the final results.

If you intend on building a PC based on simple tasks such as word processing, the price of the components all together should cost around from $800 to $1 000.

If the computer is intended for the gamin or video editing, you may need to consider from $1 500 and possibly all the way up to $3 000 and more.

REMEMBER: You (supposedly) want to build a PC that is pretty up to date and can support programs from the upcoming 2 to 4 years. So consider spending more than $1 500 if you are not going to change PCs every 2 or 3 years.

So now that you've decided what kind of PC you want to build, the next step is choosing what type of system components you would need in order to build your new PC.

If your system is aimed towards basic tasks such as word processing and media playback, your system's minimums should be:

CPU - Intel Pentium Core 2 Duo E6000 Series and higher

RAM - 2GB RAM (Generic will do) DDR2 is recommended for its price and performance

Graphics Card - NVIDIA GeForce 6000 Series and onwards

Motherboard - Gigabyte EP35-DS3L and upwards

Operating System - Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium or Microsoft Windows XP Professional

Why Vista? Sooner or later you are going to want or need to upgrade to Vista but XP currently is not a bad choice

Keyboard and Mouse - Any quality brands will do according to your budget (eg. Logitech, Microsoft)

Monitor - Any size from 19” and onwards is fine, though do consider a widescreen monitor if you constantly use Word so you can view pages side-by-side, but of course, this would depend on how much you are willing to spend

Speakers - For listening to music inside a room, you can get a set of 2.1ch speaker system for less than $50

Extras - Webcam, Microphone

Chassis - Any quality chassis with good ventilation and that suits your taste (as in design) is good

Power Supplies - I personally DON'T recommend generic power supplies that came with the chassis and suggest that you purchase your own (e.g. brands such as Cooler Master, Antec, Corsair etc are recommended) with 450watts or higher

Hard Disk - A 250GB Drive should do you fine unless you're intending to rip libraries of movies and music albums, your new PC's HDD space is dependant entirely up to you

Optical Drive - A DVD burner should be enough for most users - with LiteScribe if you wish

If your system is for gaming or video editing, start considering more on the performance than the price. Below are my minimum suggestions:

CPU - Intel Pentium Core 2 Duo E8000 or better (E8500 recommended) or if you have the money, Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 or better

RAM - 4GB branded RAM for gaming and 8GB branded RAM for video editing (Corsair Dominator would be excellent and DDR3 would be awesome)

Graphics Card - NVIDIA GeForce 8800 and better (NVIDIA GeForce 8000 or 9000 Series are ideal for extreme gamers)

Though a good video card is not entirely necessary if you intend on just video editing, I still advise that you still purchase one that is at least capable of handling Vista Aero smoothly without causing too much system drawback, plus you might decide to do 3D rendering in the future

If you are an extreme gamer, think about a SLi configuration or Crossfire

Motherboard - Gigabyte GA-965P-DQ6 or better (the motherboard does not necessarily have to be from Gigabyte, but it's just one of my favourites

Operating System - Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate or Microsoft Windows XP Professional 

Why Vista? Sooner or later you are going to want or need to upgrade to Vista but XP currently is not a bad choice

Keyboard and Mouse - Shop around for gaming keyboards and mice, there are plenty from Logitech

Monitor - 22” and larger with at most 5ms - consider a widescreen

Speakers - I suggest that you purchase higher end set with at least 5.1ch but if you're not really bothered about the sound 2.1ch should be fine

Extras - Webcam, Microphone, Gamepad, Joystick etc

Chassis - You might need to consider a gaming chassis - major brands such as ThermalTake, Cooler Master and Antec provide chassis purposely designed for gaming systems to provide good ventilation systems

Power Supply - A power supply from major brands such as Antec, ThermalTake and Cooler Master with at least 1000watts if made for gaming and at least 750watts for video editing

NOTE: These are just suggested, if your graphics card requires more or less than I said, please follow what its manual says!

Hard Disk - 1TB of HDD space should be enough for a gaming PC though if you're also doing video editing or have media libraries, I would advise that you put some money into purchasing quality hard drives - Seagate and Western Digital suggested - and the PC should total up with at least 2TBs especially if it is like a family's central PC

Optical Drive - DVD burners are probably the way to go, though if you are into Blu-ray, I would get a DVD burner alongside with the Blu-ray drive personally, particularly if I'm burning lots of DVDs (Blu-ray drives tend to burn REALLY slowly with DVDs)

The Thumb Drive

Another name for the USB flash drive is the thumb drive. That is probably the reasoning behind this thumb designed flash drive.

The Teddy Bear Drive

This is a modded drive that you probably won't find for sale. The either gutted the drive and inserter the contents where the head should be, or they just stuck the casing and all in place. It's not exactly portable, and would almost make a portable hard drive more practical, but it would still be good for a few laughs at work or school.

The Swiss Army Knife USB

This new Swiss Army Knife USB has to be one of my favorites. While it would not be acceptable for minors to be carrying around, it would be a nice USB drive for those who actually carry a Swiss Army Knife anyways. These come with storage capacities of 64mb to 1gb and are sold online.

The USB Watch

Nothing like carrying and displaying your USB drive on your wrist wherever you go. You probably won't forget this at home, but it would be very strange to be walking around with a USB on your watch.

The Lego Brick

This was one of the original modded USBs that got people thinking, but I believe you can now purchase them online for about the same price as a normal USB. What can a Lego brick not do or make?

The NES Controller USB Drive

These controllers are used more for geek oriented mods than they are for gaming at the current time. This is just one of the many USB styled drives made from a NES controlled. If you mod it correctly you can even still use the controller.

Backspace USB

Another common modded drive would be with old keyboard keys. They give it a real computer styled look. If you have a friend who isn't computer savvy you can use the enter key with the arrow pointing to the side you stick into the computer to pick a joke at their inexperience with computers.

Chapstick USB

A common item you'd find in your pockets was turned into a USB. It was a custom mod that you may need to order a special sized USB to get it to fit. It's not the front part that would be cutting it close, rather the insides of your USB.

Chewing Gum USB

Rather easily done, but unique to say the least. There are several different gum and mint containers that are easily transformed into a new USB case. Simply cut a hole for the front to stick out, and secure your USB with glue or tape.

Disposable Lighter USB

Do you have a bunch of these disposable lighters lying around that don't work anymore? You can turn them into a cool looking USB drive with little work. Just gut the insides and cut the hole and you're finished.

Every week people are creating more unique variations of the USB. There are two ways to mod a current USB to create one to your style. You can simply secure it in its current casing, or remove it from the casing completely for the tighter fits. Experiment with different casings until you find one to match your style. Who knows, maybe if you put a picture of it up on the internet you'll see it going viral on the tech blogs.

HyperStudio4 is a software used to create multimedia projects. The HyperStudio4 project contains hyperlinks, sounds, pictures, animations, videos, etc. The project is made up by many pages, each page will have buttons to go to the designated page. Hyperstudio4 have a numerous of powerful tools to create and present the information to the audiences in an innovative way, and it is as simple as you snap your fingers.

So, now, I will introduce how to create a Hyperstudio project.

1. After you have ran the Hyperstudio4 program, you will see a main page where you would find 3 option buttons: New stack - to create a new stack; Open stack- to open a stack that you already edited and saved; Go to home stack.- to visit the help of HyperStudio4. At this time, we chose new stack.
2. After you have clicked on the New stack button, you will receive a dialogue box. This dialogue box contains options of the size of stack and quality of colors. You need choose those options upon your desires. For example: I always choice Hi quality colors and 700 by 600 because it is easy to edit.
3. After you have chose those options, click on OK, you will see the first page of your stack. This stack would always be your cover page of you stack, the home page, than you can create many new pages if you wish. You can go to edit menu to create new card, or just press Ctrl + N, then you can go to Move menu to order your cards.
4. Now, you can edit your cards now. First, you need put a background to your stack. You can implement backgrounds by using following two ways: -Go to object and click on graphic option, then you will receive a dialogue box, then click on disc file, then chose your graphic file. Second way is you go to your file and copy the graphic and paste you're the graphic on your Hyperstuido page. Photos and graphs can also be added by those two ways.
5. After the background is added with perfection, you may add text by using following two ways: go to Tool menu and click on the big “T” icon, then click on the page of where you need to enter the text. You also can chose the color from Color menu, and the format on Format menu. Note that you cannot re- edit this kind of text once you have pressed on “enter”. If you wish to enter a long text object, you can go to Object menu, then click on Text Object, then you need to adjust the size of the text field and enter you text. The text field is re-editable. You also can add sounds and movies by click the “add” icon in the shortcut menu.
6. Now you have finished your cards, all you need to do for the touching is to add button and make connections to your cards, like the hyperlinks, so the readers can press the buttons and go to the page that you wish they to go. To make your dream come true, you can go to “object” menu and click on “Add a button”.

This is a brief instruction of how to create a HyperStudio4 project. Like other multimedia software, you could always embellish your project with innovative things to make it unique, the tools are there and it is up to you to use them well.

1. Create a new RGB color picture. Make sure that colors are default (black and white).
2. Select Horizontal Typetooland type any text. In the layers palette press on the text layer with right mouse button and press Rasterize Type.
3. Go to Layer/Layer Style/Inner Glow and in Blend Mode select Difference. Other values should be: Opacity - 100, Noise - 0, Technique - Softer, Source - Edge, Choke - 45, Size - 6, Range - 50, Jitter - 0.
4. Go to Layer/Layer Style/Bevel and Emboss and in Style select Inner Bevel. Other values should be: Technique - Smooth, Depth - 100, Direction - Up, Size - 3, Soften - 0, Angle - 95, Altitude - 30, select Use Global Light command.
   
   In the Highlight Mode select Screen, make sure the color next to it is white. Opacity must be set to 75. In the Shadow Mode select Multiply, Opacity - 75.
5. Go to Layer/Layer Style/Gradient Overlay and in Blend Mode select Normal, Opacity - 100, Gradient - Metal, Style - Linear, Angle - 90, Scale - 100.
6. Press CTRL+J to create layer copy. Now go to Edit/Transform/Scale. Here W and H must be set to 101.
   
   Repeat this step seven (or more) times. Just press CTRL+J/CTRL+SHIFT+T.
7. Now you must merge all layers except the background layer. Just make the background layer invisible by removing the eye icon, which is next to it and in the menu select Merge Visible.
8. Now you must create a new layer and after that go to Layer/Arrange/Send Backward. This will push the new layer into the middle (between the text layer and the background layer).
9. Hold CTRL and press on the text layer icon. The text will become selected. Now using Paint Bucket tool fill the selection. Now press CTRL+D to remove the selection
10. Now you must go to Filter/Blur/Gaussian Blur and enter 5 in the Radius.
    
    Make the shadow smaller by Edit/Transform/Scale. Now make a Perspective effect with Edit/Transform/Perspective.

1. Create a "New Folder".
2. Press on it with the right mouse button and select "Rename".
3. Now hold ALT and type 0 1 6 0.
4. Press on it with the right mouse button and select "Properties".
5. Select "Customize" and press "Change Icon".
6. Select Invisible Icon and apply it.

If you've never programmed, this is probably the hardest part. But don't fret, there is tons and tons of resources out there for this exact purpose, not to mention all the books that have been written. Also, when you've first learned one programming language, all the others will be that much easier to learn too.

My recommendation for a beginning language is C#. This can be used in a safe mode, which means you don't have to worry too much about which objects you created and where you are referencing them (which can get ugly, to say the least). It is a Microsoft language, which usually means Windows only (and XBox with XNA), but if you don't mind this, then go for it (there exists extensions for other platforms to be able to use languages like C#, but if you really want cross-platform compatibility, you will probably be better off with a language like Java or C++, where Java is easier, and C++ is more flexible).

To develop in C#, you will probably want to download the free edition of Visual Studio, namely Visual Studio Express (you can use this for C++ too, for Java I recommend Eclipse).

You must also get comfortable with either OpenGL (cross-platform) or DirectX (Windows and Xbox), or you can start off with an existing engine like ExoEngine (C#) or Ogre3d (C++), which is easier, but still requires you to learn the engine API.

2. Develop a small game clone

This is an often skipped step, but it's almost as important as learning the programming language in itself. Start out with a clone of Tetris or Space Invaders or whatever tiny classic game you'd like (as long as it is really simple). This will really help build up your understanding of how a game should be assembled (with different states, loading of graphics and sounds, handling input, and more), and will help you get some well-needed experience with a real project. Once you have finished (and I mean finished) a game like this (it doesn't have to be the prettiest game in the world), you have so much more knowledge about what creating a game is all about.

3. Develop the RPG of your dreams

This step will take time, it will be difficult, you may not make it on your first go, but that doesn't mean you won't make it at all. Let me give you a list of advice:

• Plan before you code (preferably the whole program structure, time line and milestones)
• Don't expect it to be easy (it won't be, but with effort it's possible)
• Don't set your goals too high (keep it simple and straightforward, a simple and plain game can have the best gameplay in the world, and the most sleak and fancy games can be the most boring games to play after you get tired of looking at those wind-affected tree leaves)
• Don't give up at first obstacle (if reading this article was too much, then maybe you should rethink the whole idea)

Conclusion

There is no quick and dirty way to get into real game development (unless your insanely rich dad has a game company on his paylist), and all those game making tools will not get you into the business, and will probably not give you enough freedom and possibilities to create your game with a unique battle system, intriguing story-line and brilliant graphics (however, if you want none of these, go for it).

Don't give up though. Many people are making a living out of this, and they probably started out a lot like you, with nothing other than a dream.

In this step we make all ready for the video. We need some programs to take the video from the screen. You can use what you want but i prefer Avi screen. You can download it at bobyte.com as i did it. When the download is ready we start to configure it.

First we have to make the video to the same frame rate (pictures per second) as most video programs.So after starting Avi screen you go to Video and raise the framerate .

Now you have to start the thing you like to make a video of. So we choose where Avi screen should take the video from and we go to the „Capture area“ tab to choose the fied. Most easy way to configure it is using „Custom“ and then press „Set“. Now you can choose the area as simply as changing pictures in Microsoft Word or anything else.

we have finished the first step

Step two - making the video

We are ready to start to make the video so why we don't ? Right ! Let's start !

Look ! 2 of three steps done ! Was this hard ? So let's start with step three

Step three - The making of the video

Now we need a video editor and start it. Good that Windows has one (anyway Windows XP). I'm German so i can only explain what you have to do now (not exactly what is written there).

1. Import Video (Data -> Put into my collection)
2. Add a title ( You should find it below jobs (i didn't find a better word for it))
3. Paste clips to the story board
4. Go to the time line view
5. Now you can shorten it by moving the start and the end
6. Do the steps 3 to 5 as often as you wish. .

Now the video is ready to be created. So go to the jobs again and click on anything like "save on drive“ and choose where to you like to save it then. Of course you can upload it anywhere now if you wish.