In my google reader assisted web roaming, I stumbled across a wonderful web suite of products under the umbrella Aviary. You can visit them at Aviary.com – I would strongly suggest doing so. Their offering includes four very trendy (yes, beta) programs called Peacock, Phoenix, Raven, and Toucan. In reverse order a swatch processor, a vector editor, a graphics editor, and an acid-esque adventure in image manipulation. I would encourage you to adventure throughout each program but I will here focus on the Phoenix and the newly launched Raven.

In addition to their incredibly original bird themed names [cough* Firefox (originally Phoenix, then renamed Firebird), Thunderbird, Sunbird, and Songbird, etc…], they have at least one major (and I do mean major) advantage over other comparable free products I have suggest on this blog: GIMP for image manipulation, and Inkscape for vector graphics. This advantage is that the Aviary suite is completely web-based. This means that you can use them, with identical functionality, on any computer in the world absolutely free. Not only that, but a web-app delivery method means that you have no complicated download. Just wait through a short load screen, and you are on your way, editing with some very powerful tools.

That is pretty much it for now. I would like to have a few tutorials on these programs in the future but for now take a minute to poke around and see what you think.