All posts tagged: replaced

I replaced Lightroom with this free app and I only miss it a little

I replaced Lightroom with this free app and I only miss it a little

Published by skeptic

If you’ve been using Lightroom for as long as I have, Adobe’s subscription model starts looking a lot like you’re being held hostage. Gone are the good old days when Lightroom used to be a one-time purchase. Now, it’s a subscription where the price keeps bumping up every few years, often at the cost of Adobe’s more affordable subscription offerings. So if you’re tired of spending hundreds of dollars, at the very least, to be able to edit a few photos, you’re using the wrong program. There’s a photo-editing app so good that it can easily replace Lightroom, and you give up only one thing in return. Related This desktop app is like Photoshop but actually free Discover this truly free photo and design app for desktop that rivals Adobe’s creative suite Pro photo editing—without the price tag Why Darktable feels closer to pro-grade editing than you’d expect Yadullah Abidi / MakeUseOfCredit: Yadullah Abidi / MakeUseOf Darktable is a free, open-source photo editing and RAW processing program that runs on Windows, Linux, and macOS. It’s been …

Will Ferrell Predicted Actors Being Replaced by Robots

Will Ferrell Predicted Actors Being Replaced by Robots

Published by Daniella Wilson

It seems Will Ferrell can add predicting the future to his list of talents. Molly Shannon made a recent appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, where she opened up about her decades-long friendship with the beloved actor. She recalled working at a “cappuccino, scone place” in Los Angeles in the mid-1990s, when she was introduced to Ferrell through the Groundlings comedy troupe. “We clicked right away,” she said, noting that they met for the first time at the restaurant where she worked, and that she served him a scone and a latte. “We’ve been friends ever since. 30 years.” They were later hired on Saturday Night Live in 1995, which not only launched them both into stardom but also became a defining era for the NBC sketch comedy series. While reflecting on her early SNL days with host Jimmy Kimmel, the Divorce actress remembered one conversation she had with Ferrell that was surprisingly predictive of modern-day Hollywood. “One night when we were at SNL, we had just started, and I was so excited like, ‘Oh my …

This free design tool replaced my Canva Pro subscription overnight

This free design tool replaced my Canva Pro subscription overnight

Published by skeptic

Canva Pro is one of the subscriptions I’ve had for a while. It has helped me do more than just create designs and edit photos; I’ve also hosted websites and presented PPTs using the platform. Lately, however, I have been thinking about whether I am using the Canva Pro subscription to its fullest and whether I can find cheaper alternatives for the things I do in Canva Pro. While I could find many Canva alternatives, answering the big questions meant I would have to stop using Canva for at least a short while. Only then would I be able to find whether the alternative was worth it. When I came across a viable, free alternative to Canva Pro, I decided to proceed with this experiment. Related Why Photoshop Is More Value Than Canva Pro for Creatives Why settle for templates? I canceled Canva Pro and felt nothing Turns out, most of what I was paying for just sat there Photo by Ruby Helyer, author. No attribution required.Credit: Ruby Helyer / MakeUseOf Like most people, I upgraded …

I replaced my entire streaming setup with a device and free apps

I replaced my entire streaming setup with a $30 device and free apps

Published by skeptic

I spent the holidays overseas, with no access to my regular paid subscription services, and to be honest, I didn’t feel like I missed them all that much. Sure, it was nice to come home and catch up on my favorite shows, but it got me thinking about how much time and money I spend on streaming TV and how often I experience “burnout” from having too much content at my fingertips. I wasn’t prepared to stop streaming TV entirely — that would be unthinkable — but I wanted to reach a happy medium that would allow me to dedicate more time to hobbies and interests and save some cash on the side. The answer lay in my trusty Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K, which I purchased for the bargain price of just $29.99, as it would give me access to a range of high-quality free apps without paying for subscriptions. Related Why I Stopped Using My TV’s Built-in Apps and Bought a Streaming Box Instead Suddenly I don’t feel so frustrated anymore, and I …

Replaced review – nostalgic cyberpunk tribute has few ideas of its own | Games

Replaced review – nostalgic cyberpunk tribute has few ideas of its own | Games

Published by Sam Flores

For all of cyberpunk’s cautionary tales of shady corporations and transhumanist folly, it is the genre’s arresting imagery that looms largest in the pop culture imagination. Petroleum flares light up the perpetually rainy Los Angeles of Blade Runner; in the novel Neuromancer, the sky is the “colour of television, tuned to a dead channel”. Replaced, a new 2D action-platformer from Belarus-based outfit Sad Cat Studios, leans into the steel and sprawl that the genre is famed for. The game also offers a wrinkle to cyberpunk’s longstanding, somewhat overfamiliar visual palette: it floods the screen with softly diffusing sepia and warm primary colours, particularly in the densely populated residential areas you’re able to explore. The mood is comforting rather than ominous, cosy rather than clinical, as if this dystopian sci-fi has been touched by an unlikely hand – that of cottagecore godfather Thomas Kinkade. These soft, nostalgic visuals breathe life into a simple, sentimental story. You control a lanky, athletic scientist named Warren working on a powerful AI for the Phoenix Corporation. But something goes amiss …

I replaced Task Manager, Startup apps, and Event Viewer with three better Microsoft tools

I replaced Task Manager, Startup apps, and Event Viewer with three better Microsoft tools

Published by skeptic

If something goes wrong with your PC, be it sluggish performance, slow startup issues or even frequent crashes, Windows offers a few built-in tools to know what’s wrong. For instance, Task Manager can tell you if sluggish performance is due to high disk or memory usage by a process, and Startup apps lets you measure and fix slow startup issues. Event Viewer, on the other hand, helps you know why and when your system crashed. But these tools only scratch the surface. You get the what, rarely the why. You could install third-party tools to fill that gap, but I didn’t have to. Microsoft’s own Sysinternals suite already has sharper alternatives to all three, built by the same people who know Windows internals better than anyone. Process Explorer, Autoruns, and Sysmon have replaced Task Manager, Startup apps, and Event Viewer on my setup for a while now. Process Explorer shows you what Task Manager hides A proper process tree with color-coded internals Task Manager is fine for the basics. I can glance at the Processes …

I replaced these 4 popular Android apps with much better, lesser-known ones

I replaced these 4 popular Android apps with much better, lesser-known ones

Published by skeptic

For the longest time on Android, I have relied on the Play Store to get my apps. Little did I realize at the beginning that the app recommendations were based on brand recognition, not the app’s actual quality. As a result, my Android smartphones were filled with so-called popular apps from the Play Store. While these apps worked okay, they never quite lived up to expectations. Fortunately, however, I got out of this popularity fever, and my productivity and privacy are thankful for that. These days, several lesser-known Android apps have replaced the most popular ones for me, and I am happy to recommend every one of them. Here are, however, the five best non-popular Android apps I can vouch for. Related 5 open-source Android apps that put Google’s defaults to shame These alternatives to Google’s default on Android are feature-rich and privacy-focused Ente Photos replaced Google Photos It does everything Google Photos does, minus the privacy compromise. Google Photos is undoubtedly the most popular app for managing and backing up photos on Android. Because …

I replaced Notepad++ with this lightweight editor and never looked back

I replaced Notepad++ with this lightweight editor and never looked back

Published by skeptic

I’ve used Notepad++ for years; however, lately it’s been a bit laggy. What’s making it worse is that it remembers the open files, so each time I launch the editor, all the previously open tabs come back by default. While tab persistence is needed for some, and Notepad++ does offer a way to disable it, that fix didn’t work for me. VSCode is naturally the better alternative to Notepad++ if you write code all the time. But for my use case, I needed something a little more lightweight that doesn’t compromise too much on the feature set. That’s when I stumbled upon Kate, a KDE-backed editor I’d only ever seen on Linux. Turns out, it runs just as well on Windows, and after a few weeks of daily use, it has quietly replaced Notepad++ on my HP Pavilion. Kate is a fully open-source, advanced text editor A capable editor that runs everywhere Kate is the KDE Advanced Text Editor, a free and open-source project that has been around since 2001. It’s available on Linux, Windows, …

Research Finds That AI Has Already Replaced Work for 20 Percent of Jobs

Research Finds That AI Has Already Replaced Work for 20 Percent of Jobs

Published by José Betancourt

Sign up to see the future, today Can’t-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech A new survey from Epoch AI and Ipsos has found that one in five full-time American workers say AI has already taken over parts of their job, in the latest piece of data adding fuel to the burning debate over AI automation. The poll, which surveyed 2,000 US adults, found that about half of all respondents used AI in the past week for either personal or work reasons. Among full-time workers, 20 percent said the tech had taken over tasks they used to do themselves, while 15 percent reported AI has created new on-the-job chores they wouldn’t have taken on otherwise. In a word, this suggests that AI displacement — where AI leads to less available work for humans — is outpacing AI augmentation, where human workers become more productive as a result of access to AI tools. “When one in five workers say AI is already replacing parts of their job, we can start talking about labor …

I replaced my entire Windows workflow with Linux apps — and only hit one wall

I replaced my entire Windows workflow with Linux apps — and only hit one wall

Published by skeptic

Over the past few months, I’ve been using Ubuntu on my secondary devices. I use it for personal projects, testing self-hosted apps, and helping friends set up machines where all they need is a browser, email, and YouTube. It’s not my primary OS, but I spend enough time in it that I need my everyday tools to work. The biggest criticism I hear about Linux is that installing and using programs is painful compared to Windows. And honestly, there’s truth to that. You’re dealing with Flatpaks, Snaps, AppImages, package managers, and sometimes compiling from source just to get a single app running. On Windows, you download an .exe and double-click it to install the app. But when it comes to replacing core productivity apps, I was surprised by how well Linux alternatives held up. I found solid replacements for almost everything in my Windows workflow, with one exception that genuinely broke things. LibreOffice replaced Microsoft Office A full office suite that doesn’t need a subscription Yadullah Abidi / MakeUseOfCredit: Yadullah Abidi / MakeUseOf Microsoft Office is …