Last time we looked at free software for downloading and viewing web pages on Palm organisers. This time, a very cool paint program for children.

TuxPaint



I'd been looking for a while for good software for young children. I'm still looking for software for very young children - what I really want is a paint program that draws patterns on the screen when the child moves the mouse, but which doesn't require you to click the mouse button - then my 18-month-old could play with it.

Anyway, I did discover TuxPaint which was perfect for my 3 year-old to design his own birthday party invitations on. It's free, very easy to use, and is available for Windows, Linux, MacOS X, NetBSD and Solaris (respec' to all the pre-schoolers out there using Solaris!)

You can also make your own stamps for it very easily - all you need is some image manipluation software that can make PNG files - and if they have transparent backgrounds you can make stamps that are shapes other than square. You can even add sound effects. So we made stamps of Henry, his younger brother William... and Kate Winslet. I do wish she'd leave me alone. Tap, tap, tapping at my window...

You can download TuxPaint free of charge from www.newbreedsoftware.com.

Next: A free audio editor and mixer.