I recently decided I'd be interested in trying to do some 3D modeling, but I don't really have any software that is good for that sort of thing. I'm on a tight budget, so all of the stuff from AutoCAD won't really be suited for me, but autoCAD is probably far more than I need anyhow. Anyone have any suggestions on a decent free program that is beginner friendly?

Personally, I love computers, and do quite a bit of projects at the computer. A good workstation can definitely make a big difference. Unfortunately I don't have a whole lot of money on hand, but given I had the resources, my dream workstation would be...

Desktop with
16GB DDR3 RAM
Intel i7 CPU
3TB Hard drive for data, with 300GB SSD for storage
Dual-boot with Windows 7 ultimate and some linux distribution
Two monitors at 1920x1080 pixels

Laptop with
8GB of RAM and another i7.

And of course the really awesome extras of a decorated desk area with neon lighting, printers, lighted keyboards, and what not.

Of course a setup like that would be ridiculously expensive. My actual workstation looks nothing like that. So, what would your dream workstation look like?

000webhost is one of the few free webhosts that has been around for an extended period of time. They offer generous bandwidth and disk space limits on the surface, but like all free webhosts they will suspend your account very quickly if you use any real resources for your website. They don't put ads on your website, so they really can't make much money off of what they do. In addition, many accounts are created for malware purposes, so 000webhost will often suspend accounts just because they suspect something going on when there is no problem whatsoever.

So, I figured since some of us here have some experiences with free webhosts I'd start a discussion on it. What's your experience with them?

Ajax chat is a popular ajax IRC script that has many basic features using an ajax protocol, making it very simple for users without the need for flash or an IRC client. It's generally more advanced than many ajax IRC bridges, so for users who don't know a whole lot about IRC, it has many advantages.

On the other hand, Ajax chat clients can be very server intensive on older servers when hundreds of people are online at a time, and don't have many of the advantages that committed IRC users have come to love in IRC. Users usually don't leave their ajax chat open like they would leave an IRC client open, and for multiple channels at once it is inconvenient.

What's your preference?

Triumph was a hard/progressive rock band from the 70s and the 70s. They wrote many songs that became popular hits, especially in the US and Canada, including "Fight the Good Fight," "Never Surrender," and "Follow your Heart". After their lead guitarist left in the late 80s, they went downhill and broke up shortly after that. They actually came back together recently for touring purposes, but haven't really been writing any new content, and they can't really play like they used to be able to play. Even still, their older hits left quite a legacy.

Any other triumph fans here?

Recently, the presence of technology in education has significantly increased. In the last decade, many new websites have come up with completely new and innovative ways of reaching the uneducated with great resources with huge success. It looks like the concept of using iPads instead of textbooks is becoming a popular debate subject for schools today. While iPads may be significantly more expensive than the paper used to print textbooks, will it end up being of benefit to technology?

Personally, I find textbooks very expensive, but they aren't expensive because it costs a lot to print them. They are expensive because of the high charges from the publishers, so using iPads won't really save money. I don't really mind using textbooks, but I'm open to more futuristic ways of bringing education in both schools and colleges.

What is your opinion?

I know that wordpress is pretty much the standard when it comes to blogs. I've always found it very resource intensive and very insecure, however. Joomla and Drupal tend to be a little too much for a simple blog or CMS, but my attempt at finding a good alternative hasn't turned up too many good results.

Does anyone in here have any experience with a good, simple alternative to wordpress for simple purposes?

There's a fierce competition between various supermarket chains. Some are good, others aren't. It's a waste of money, because no chains are going anywhere anyways.

So that said, which one do you prefer?

LESS is a CSS extension language, as described on Wikipedia:

Quote: LESS is a dynamic stylesheet language designed by Alexis Sellier. It is influenced by Sass and has influenced the newer \"SCSS\" syntax of Sass, which adapted its CSS-like block formatting syntax. LESS is open-source. Its first version was written in Ruby, however in the later versions, use of Ruby has been deprecated and replaced by JavaScript. The indented syntax of LESS is a nested metalanguage, as valid CSS is valid LESS code with the same semantics. LESS provides the following mechanisms: variables, nesting, mixins, operators and functions; the main difference between other CSS precompilers being that it allows real-time compilation via LESS.js by the browser. LESS can run on the client-side and server-side, or can be compiled into plain CSS.

PHP may be the most common language used to program websites today, but it also has some disadvantages as a language. Many people don't particularly love it as a language, but it still gets the job done, it's free, and it's very popular. That alone has been an incredible advantage for the language, and is why I choose to program in PHP myself.

So for the fellow web designers here, what's your take on it? Be sure to vote in the poll!