Do you have a brand new digital camera or are you going to pony up the money to buy one this year? Then you know you will have lots and lots of images to save on your hard drive. And you know you are going to forget what the images are about – even if I keep a nice, neat directory structure, my images almost never fit into nice neat categories. Instead, I recommend you use EzGallery to create HTML files with little versions of the images that you can actually look at! Since the files that the thumbnail size images are embedded into HTML, then you can use your Web browser to actually view them. Now if you want to share you images with loved ones, just send them as an HTML file and let them ooh and aah over your great masterpieces.

Now if you want to create albums (but not necessarily HTML pages) and you’re willing to live with a PHP based solution, then Full Decent Camera Life (FDCL) is another app that is right up your alley. Just think – you can learn PHP and categorize all your digital images at the same time. Everything is Open Source but you have to install PHP on your Windows computer first.

For the programmers out there who do not have the luxury of programming for a single platform, I have just the way to help you out of your porting blues. General Graphics Interface is an Open Source set of libraries that support (take a really, really deep breath):

Darwin/MacOSX v2.0.2 (needs Apple X11)
FreeBSD v2.0
Linux v1.0
NetBSD 2.0
OpenBSD v2.0
Solaris v2.0.2
Windows v2.1
IriX v6.x (since GGI v2.1)

Another way to go is the Fox Toolkit, which supports:

Linux (gcc, INTEL C++), x86, IA64 (Itanium), x86-64 (Opteron).
Windows XP, 2K, NT, Windows 9x, (VC++, Cygwin, MinGW, Borland C++, Digital Mars C++, OpenWatcom C++, … )
Digital Unix/COMPAQ Tru64 OSF1 3.2, 4.0x, 5.0x (gcc and DEC cxx).
SGI IRIX 5.3, 6.1, 6.2, 6.4, 6.5 (gcc and MIPS Pro C++)
SUN Solaris, SunOS (gcc, SUN WorkShop Compiler, SUN Forte C++)
HP-UX PA-RISC 9.x, 10.x and B.11.00, (gcc and aCC).
HP-UX B.11.22 Intel Itanium (IA64) using aCC.
AIX 4.2, 4.3
FreeBSD
Sequent DYNIX/ptx 4.4.7
IBM VisualAge C++ 3.5 (Windows)
Apple MAC OS-X. You will need an X-Server, either Apple’s or XFree.

And if that doesn’t help, then we have the Granddaddy of cross platform development, the GIMP Toolkit. This GUI toolkit supports so many languages on so many platforms that to list it in all its combinations would take more time to type than I have life left in me.

So go take a look. If you find something you like, then use it and bask in the glory of your project’s cross-platform abilities. So you can easily move from Windows to some other platform when it dies! (Yeah like that is going to happen in the near future) . Who knows? The time you save may be yours or your next generation’s. [Steven Leach]