Paul Naudé

Born and bred in South Africa, Pretoria.
Christian, husband, dad, engineer, managing director, DIYer, Fix-it-aller, photographer,
tutorial and course writer, web designer,
software tester, FEA specialist and analyst,
Lexus driver, Tesla enthusiast,
dog and cat owner,
​home owner, wine drinker, thinker,
painter, electronic tinkerer,
app lover, technology embracer, gadget freak
movie lover, series follower, semi-serial traveller
​and inventor.
My biggest frustration in life:
​What to focus on with the little time I have available on earth, while there are so many things to learn and do?

Handy Resources

Here are a number of websites and products I can't go without:

1) Ken Rockwell - I trust Ken for his honest and detailed reviews on cameras and lenses. What I admire the most is that if he touches on a controversial issue (such as his view on using RAW format) he will even publish links to those strongly apposing his views to let you decide for yourself. And did I say he is detailed? Man, you just can't ignore the effort he puts into his reviews, and you can support him by using links to your favourite online stores on his pages (he earns an income from the stores, not the camera suppliers) which makes him pretty objective.
2) SourceForge - Open source software. There is a lot of rubbish to be found here but all the gems are here as well. This is the number one site I come to to look for open source software with a specific function I need.
3) Pixabay - my number one goto website for free high quality photos and vector graphics.
3) GIMP - Number one alternative to PhotoShop, and FREE! Very powerful if you start to learn the basics and work your way up the learning curve.
4) Inkscape - The best for creating vector graphics (images that have infinite resolution). Download and easily edit SVG files.
5) Audacity - Great audio recorder and editor, also free.
6) CompareIT - An amazing file compare utility, especially handy when comparing text files for differences. We use those a lot in the simulation world when exporting solver ready model files. Finding differences in these huge files can be impossible without CompareIT
8) WinTail - a must for long simulations when a logfile is continuously being updated. WinTail keep on refreshing the "tail" of the file, thus showing you a live update of what is being added to the log file during the simulations. A handy way of monitoring the progress without needing to continuously open and close the log file.
9) Google Forms - the easiest and quickest way to setup a quick poll online ore even a test! Participants don't need a Google account (unless you want to ensure you capture their correct email address) and you get a very nice summary in graphs or detailed spreadsheet with the results.