I’ve had several hours to play with Inkscape 0.46 since it was released, and despite the minor version increment, a lot has changed.

New features

• A “fill” tool, making it trivial to turn bitmaps into vectors quickly
• 3d drawing shapes (including perspective)
• A tweaking tool, making it easy to nudge/blur/soften shapes
• Several new effects (including path effects)
• Many performance improvements, including huge improvements in blur speeds
• Better gradient tools
• Dockable tool windows (nicely done too)

I’m especially excited about the “fill” tool, as it simplifies tracing scanned sketches and logo bitmaps. The tool creates vectors using a flood-fill algorithm, based on the zoom level and configurable limits (fill method, threshold, gap-closing, etc.). In my tests so far, I’ve been able to turn pencil sketches into vectors quickly¹, as well as scans of real-world-objects.²

1. Normally tracing complex sketches takes me hours ↩
2. I created the fuji logo by scanning + fill-tracing an old, decaying T-Shirt logo ↩

Git is the next Unix, a developer’s perspective on how Git revolutionizes file systems.

A Subversion to changelog script, a handy analog of cvs2cl.

Firefox 3 to support offline web apps? (via kottke).

HOWTO write changelog entries.

A summary of the Debian frustrations with Firefox/Mozilla. Most of the changes sound good, and the non-freeness of the logo is silly.

A large set of animated GIF activity throbbers. Useful for showing busy Ajax calls.

Taking Advantage of Concurrent Programming for Windows (part 1 and part 2). The shift to multiple core CPUs changes what’s possible for application scalability.

How Simple Sharing Extensions Will Change the Web. This is one of the fudamental fantasies of Web2.0, that it will change the web. Hello, the web has already changed (and will) — outside of Microsoft, VC funding, or any of the Web2.0 madness. Get with the program: Microsoft and Web2.0 are a reaction, not the cause.

The Costco Challenge: An Alternative to Wal-Martization?
“When companies like Wal-Mart are setting the standard, we have to ask: Do we want to live in a country where the largest employer pays below poverty-level wages, whose workers cannot afford health care?” says Paul Blank, chief spokesperson of Wake Up Wal-Mart, the United Food and Commercial Workers’ new campaign to change the company’s practices. “Or do we want Americans to enjoy a decent income and a sense of security in return for their work?”