Often, when I hear from OStatic readers, they express interest in open source graphics tools. Many of them already use some of the best tools, but there are actually many, many good, free resources in the open source arena for adding to your graphics arsenal. There are also free tutorial resources for getting started with them right away. Whether you want to produce a full-length animated movie, desktop publish good-looking graphical booklets, add a "galactic" brush set to GIMP (for effects like the one at left), work more efficiently with Flickr, or create eye-catching logos, check out our updated collection of 12 free graphics applications and resources here.

We've written about Scribus, a popular open source desktop publishing application before, and it recently came out in a new version 1.3.5.1. This update is the result of "almost 2 years of intensive work," according to Scribus' community, and it has a number of new features that people wished for in previous versions. It's downloadable now for Windows, the Mac and Linux, and I've been putting it through its paces. Here's what's under the hood in the new version.

Even if you have the perfect idea for the next Great American Novel, getting it down on paper is never easy. While you could always use standard word processors like OpenOffice Write or AbiWord, they don't have the bells and whistles that make writing books, manuals, and theses as easy as possible. Fortunately, there are a few open source applications that help budding authors get stories out of their heads and into the hands of readers.

Kabikaboo - This recursive writing assistant is perfect for managing large documents, technical manuals, and long novels. It arranges data in tree-form so parent modules, their children, and their grandchildren can be easily moved around and rearranged. Though Kabikaboo won't help you with text editing, it's perfect for getting your thoughts in order before diving into a complicated writing project.