If reading my last post has gotten you jumping on the LibreOffice train, you may be finding yourself thinking right now: “Eww, that thing looks like Office 97!” Because, well…yeah, it kinda does. While a UI overhaul is a frequent topic for discussion in LibreOffice circles, to date the makers of the software have been reluctant to incorporate any significant updates to the office suite’s look and feel. But this is open source software. It exists on your terms, not the other way around. While the ...

How to Make LibreOffice Look Awesome

I’m not being facetious, that’s a legitimate question. There’s no doubt that Microsoft Office has been king of word processors and slide presentations pretty much since the beginning. Office was what put Microsoft on the map in the early days. However, it’s also well-known to fall a little on the pricey side, so it’s no surprise that as time has gone on and technology has matured we’ve seen more and more cheap or free alternatives crop up. Initially these alternatives weren’t even worth the ...

Who Needs Microsoft Office Anymore?

Technology imitates life. Even in cases when it wouldn’t necessarily have to, it often does. It’s just what comes naturally to both the people making the technology and the people using it. But just because some aspect of technology is functionally similar to what you and I already know and experience every day doesn’t mean it’s immediately obvious precisely how, or how to use it, or even why we’d want to. Port Forwarding is an excellent example of this kind of scenario. While the name may sound ...

Port Forwarding – What, Why, and How (Tutorial)

It’s long been debated whether videogames count as a legitimate form of art or not. Early on the size and average age of any given game’s audience and the limitations of the hardware it ran on made gaming easy to dismiss as just a line of toys. But today things are a bit different. Gamers have grown up and the games have grown with them. Major new releases eclipse movie premiers. Production budgets number in the tens of millions, and many high-profile actors lend their voices and motion captures to ...

Why Videogames are the Ultimate Art Form

Right from the start I said 2015 would be a big year for ThinkBoxly, and here’s another piece of evidence to prove it. I’ve already mentioned Simple Display Scaler, the first actual product to bear the ThinkBoxly name, but that was last year. This year Simple Display Scaler has been updated and integrated into a larger project: Edge Engine, the ‘version 1.0′ if you will of Yugen::Engine, a previously featured ThinkBoxly Project. If all that makes your head spin a little bit, well, don’t worry ...

Edge Engine Splash — Now Available from ThinkBoxly

Why hello there, 2015. It’s nice to meet you. I think we’re going to be great friends. It’s almost strange to see the number 15 on all the calendars of the world, but not for the usual reason. Sure, it’s hard to believe and a little sobering to think the only Year 2014 the world will ever see has already come and gone, but at least for me 2015 is a little different. Lots of interesting things will be happening around here that directly tie in to my personal life, but besides that, my favorite ...

5 Games to Look Forward to in 2015