Realistic computer-animated movie scenes have been around for years, but hair, water, and fire are still difficult for 3D programs to handle. The new Maya 8.5 stands above the crowd.

We’ll introduce you to Python, an easy-to-learn scripting language, and also help you get started creating your own practical Python scripts.

One of the first things you notice about the free video-editing software Jahshaka is its unconventional controls. But once you master the learning curve, Jahshaka turns out to be a useful tool with professional features.

Looking for a softphone? We compare five Linux-ready VoIP clients.

Video jockeys (VJs) are a by-prod-uct of music TV. Instead of juggling with LPs, VJs projected colored images onto the screen. Today, all you need to be a VJ is a standard PC and the right effects program. To get started, you just need a couple of snippets of original video material and the free effects program, Veejay. According to the ads on the project homepage, Veejay “allows you to ‘play’ the video like you would play a piano.”

Programming multimedia applications in Linux used to be a tedious process, demanding specialized libraries and even custom code for addressing hardware directly. The OpenML library offers a simpler approach.

The CuteFlow document circulation system supports cross-platform document exchanges. CuteFlow is easy to install and configure but still has a couple of weak areas.

Users log on to services such as SSH, ftp, SASL, POP3, IMAP, Apache htaccess, and many more using their names and passwords. These popular access mechanisms are a potential target for brute-force attacks. An attentive bouncer will keep dictionary attacks at bay.

Once you only needed a command line to access remote computers, but today’s networks sometimes require a graphical connection. The VNC protocol provides a practical cross-platform screen sharing solution. We’ll take a close look at VNC and show you some leading no-cost VNC applications.