Tag clouds please step to the right...

Astute visitors to this blog will now notice a nice tag cloud over on the right. Please direct your applause to phydeaux3. About 3 cut and pastes and 5 minutes later, my template was modified to show the cloud in all it's glory.

Now onto the task of revamping my blogroll and adding the Flickr zeitgeist....

Speaking of Logo Design

The Open Font Library logo contest closes tonight. I've made a dozen entries (although a few are just reworks and revisions of others). There's 5 days of judging and then a decision. It was fun coming up with ideas and I learned a good chunk more about Inkscape along the way which is good.

In a related note, in one of my Technorati search feeds, a link to a site called LogoPond.com came up. Man, if you're looking for inspiration and interested in seeing oodles of high quality creative logo work, check it out. I was blown away and completely humbled at the same time. There are *very* few logos on that site that I didn't find appealing. It's amazing how much good colour and design work can influence the quality of a logo. All my contest entries look like absolute $#*% to me now. ;)

One of my favourites (and one of the simplest) is this one for Tidy Tom's Cleaning Company. Awesome.

Inkscape Screencast 7 - Funkified Text

My 7th Inkscape screencast is up. This time I used inkscape to produce the "Funkified Text" [ patent pending ;) ] you see above.

Like all the others, I had a fun time doing it. I hope somebody, somewhere finds it useful.

The Bigger, Badder Desktop

I am a rational guy. I consider things objectively and hopefully take the time to weigh things on their relative merit.

But bring in a big honkin' faux stainless steel PC case with glowing lights and black venting and I'm all a shudder.

You could almost hear the screams of petrified laptops and notebooks everywhere scurrying for cover when my co-worker unboxed his new Dell XPS 710 desktop.

I haven't seen a pc-case so tall and massive since we got rid of our 486 towers from 10 years back. It's so ominous and evil-looking that it's a crying shame that it'll be tucked under a desk. You want this baby out in the open - just to intimidate people.

To add insult to injury, he also got a 24" Dell LCD monitor to go along with it. Cripes it's nice. Now I squint at my 19" LCD as if it were a postage stamp.

Such is the pissing match that goes on in a small office full of pseudo tech guys.

It almost feels like the equivalent of a 16 cylinder Bugatti in a room full of Honda Accords. And don't get me wrong, I know that in another 2 years it will be strictly middle of the road. There will be faster laptops sold at Staples for 500 bucks, but damn is it nice. ;)

And as garish as front panel lights, ominous black grillage and faux stainless steel might be, they've actually done something smart which I haven't seen before (although this might not be a first..): they put white LED lights on the *back* panel shining down on to the peripheral ports. So when you're hunting around under desk to plug something in, you can actually see what you're doing - although the power must be running to do so.

It's a crying shame that XP (64bit) will be put on this machine. I'd love to smuggle it home and Ubuntify it. But I'd likely need a pickup... ;)

The Upside of Further Template Meddling

Back in November, moments after switching to the new Blogger, I espoused the greatness of having categories or 'labels' at my disposal:

"...But I'll be keeping it simple with pretty standard tags like 'photography', 'linux', 'family', etc... Keep an eye out for those labels..."

So now, having switched to a new style Blogger template, I now have a neato list of labels over on the right sidebar. Keeping it simple? Huh? I've got over a hundred different labels created over the past 90 or so posts. This is a terrible example of 'keeping it simple'. But at least it's sorted by frequency so you can easily get a glimpse of what I write about most.

Besides, I knew going into this that I'd likely be all over the place with my posting, and you can't cover 'all over the place' with 10 different labels now can ya.

Other nice tidbits so far:

While messing around with my template's html, I decided to widen the main body of the blog. I always found this limiting but never bothered to change it. I can now post larger pictures on my posts. Limiting them to 400px wide always bugged me.

There's a cool outliner style archive of blog posts on the right (Dave Winer would be proud) that also lists quantities, so I (and you) can easily see how much I've posted in each month and in the course of a year. Maybe not terribly useful, but neat for me just the same.

I'll be updating the blogroll as well. If there's one thing I never bothered to keep up with, it's updating my blogroll. I think I'll be revising that to better reflect who it is I'm following.

Avert your eyes dear reader...

Over the course of my lunch here at work, I managed to do two things: eat my lunch, and mangle my blog layout.

I chose to switch to the new layout template format in Blogger and silly me, didn't realize I would wipe out the customizations I had made. Luckily I have a saved version of the old template to work back from.

In any case, it should be back to normal (with some nicer stuff like labels on the right hand side) by tonight.

For now, please avert your eyes.. Keep Moving... Nothing to see here...

;)

Are You Using GMail for Taking Notes?

While I'm big on pencil and paper, and I enjoy sketching and planning ideas on paper, I'm also deadly good at losing papers in the quagmire that is my desk. So I'm looking for a way to take quick notes (like documenting phone conversations) electronically. Ideally, the solution should be:

- cross platform
- accessible from anywhere (ie. online)
- searchable
- simple to use


While I found a vast number of note-taking solutions, I'm leaning towards using Gmail. Here are some reasons why:

- I already use it extensively. No additional tools in the belt.
- I always have it open at work and at home, so it's quick to access.
- It's inherently dated and timed by virtue of being an email.
- It's Gmail so it's searchable and can be filtered.


I'm interested in making it a little more useful to me as a note-taking tool, so I'm trying to hone my use of shortcut keys, and I'm looking into how I can organize the subject line to make the Gmail filtering into a useful system.


Do you take notes? What do you use? Any ideas (or other sources) for using Gmail in this way? I'd appreciate the input.

Colour Scheme Tool - Or How Not To Make Nauseous Colour Combinations

If you've been reading this weblog for any length of time, you'll certainly know that I like to pretend to be a lot of different things. Depending on factors such as my current hobbies, projects and interests (and the phase of the moon) I might pretend to be a photographer, programmer, tech pundit, writer, or any number of other things.

Lately, I've been running around with a beret and palette doing a bad impression of a graphic designer. Let's be clear. I'm no graphic designer. But I do enjoy pretending to be one and sharing what I learn.

In that vein, my sense of colour coordination is not finely honed. I can draw things, but when it comes to making things look attractive with splashes of colour, I'm not your go-to guy. I need a little help.

I did a fair bit of reading about colours and web design in the days immediately prior to starting this blog (at that time I was pretending to be a web designer and HTML codemonkey). I read enough about colour theory to know I had no sense of taste when it came to combining things - I know a relatively tasteful colour combination when I see it, but for me to come up with one is quite painful.

But that little bit of research did explain that there was a method to colour-combination madness. Things like colour wheels and triad combinations told me that there actually was a science to this, and that it wasn't all black magic.

Since racking my brain to submit some decent logos for the Open Font Library logo contest, I went in search of a free colour combination tool to help me out. I found Color Scheme Generator 2 which seems to do what I need it to do at the price I like the most ;).

So if you really are a graphic designer (or just playing one on the web like me), you might find it a useful tool if you're all thumbs when it comes to colours.

I know there are lots of other similar tools on the web. If you've got a suggestion for a better one, please post it in the comments.

Open Font Library - Logos Wanted Baby...

As you may have read on other Inkscape and open-source related blogs, the Open Font Library is holding a contest to come up with a logo. Since the rules require submissions to be in SVG format, Inkscape is generally the tool of choice.

The goal of the Open Font Library project is to: "... collect public domain fonts so that they may be used freely."

I've been having fun coming up with ideas and have submitted four so far. I've learned quite a few new things about Inkscape, most notably nodes, curves and what you can do with them. It hasn't made for anything interesting enough for a screencast, but it's fun figuring things out. Just like with programming, writing or other creative pursuits, it's amazing how much you can learn when you've got an interesting problem to solve.

There are lots of good entries. Check them out.

Sowing the Seeds

An update to my post a few weeks back about turning on a co-worker to Ubuntu...

Today I hear a grumbling conversation between my colleague and the person who looks after our computer systems here (he's a structural engineer too, but just happened to draw the longest straw when our previous IT-type guy left us). There's some moaning from my colleague about problems updating his XP machine. Seems he had to download 46 updates and it failed on the last one...

Long story short, my colleague's final statement of the conversation was:

"Jeezus.. no wonder people are moving to Linux..."

Consider the seeds sown. ;)

"100+" Another Thing I like About Google Reader

I have really fallen behind in my blog reading over the past few weeks. Being so far behind has made the Firefox tab title "Google Reader (100+)" an all too common sight in my browser.

I have to thank Google's engineers for sparing me the sight of '253', or '576' or heaven forbid '1152' unread items. Instead it just says '100+'. Kind of like "Hey man, you're getting behind here, but we won't rub your nose in it".

I appreciate that because whether it's 100+ or 1000+, you can bet dollars to donuts that I will be leaving a pile of unread but discarded blog posts in my wake.

Maybe they should take a page from Flickr, and instead of capping it at "100+", they could change the tab to read "A Lot", "Too Many", or "Fuhgeddaboutit".

Posting via email once again... maybe..

I've been put off posting to my blog via email since moving to the new Blogger system. Every time I tried posting via email it either seemed to take a full day for the post to appear or it didn't appear at all. It didn't take more than one or two failed attempts to dissuade me from using it.

But alas, I miss the convenience of it. So forgive me for taking up space in your aggregator (and 2 minutes you'll never get back), with what is, in essence, a test post. ;)

If it works you might see more frequent posts popping up here than in the recent past....

Toodle-doo...

Inkscape Screencast 6 - Polaroid Pin-up

I've created yet another screencast (with yet another cobbled together sucky intro). This time I've shown how to use Inkscape to create a 'polaroid pin-up' effect with a photo. Hopefully somebody will find it useful and enjoy it.

Now that I've got a little more of the Inkscapy-ness out of my system, I might actually get back to writing some actual blog posts. ;)

P.S. As sucky as the intro is, I still had fun making it. And that's what really counts isn't it? :)

Inkscape Screencast 5 - Photo Popping Fun

I finally managed to find some time and figured out some (very) rudimentary video and audio editing skills so I put together my 5th Inkscape screencast. A few weeks back I read a post at instructables.com which described how to create a 3D effect with your photos using the GIMP or Photoshop. Naturally I thought I'd give it a try in Inkscape and lo and behold it was pretty darn easy. The toughest part is finding a suitable photograph that works well for this effect.

You'll also have to indulge me for about the first minute or so of the screencast where I've created a *really really* hacked together intro using only 3 ingredients:

Inkscape + Beryl + Music

This past week, I found some really cool music by Arthur Yoria over at Magnatune. I purchased the album and used track 10 for the intro music **. Then I decided I'd simply use Inkscape to create a screencast video intro. I spiced it up a bit using the Beryl zoom feature as well ;). It's a little over a minute of hacked together badness.

Don't laugh too hard! And let me know how much you liked it or hated it. ;)

I also figured out how to use Avidemux to extract the audio tracks, Audacity to mix in the music and adjust levels and then Avidemux once again to create the final video. Hopefully you'll find it somewhat interesting and helpful.

** If you watch the screencast and like the music, Magnatune allows me to legally provide full quality copies to 3 people. If you're interested in getting the album (for free), send me an email (rfquerinATgmailDOTcom)and I will provide you with the link so you can download the album which is available in a wide variety of formats too. I've listened to it quite a bit this week and I really like it. Magnatune rocks!

Also, huge thanks to Alan Pope for his great post on creating screencasts which let me know exactly how to use Avidemux for my purposes - great stuff.

Here's the screencast...

Vista Speech Recognition .. er.. Demolition

You may or may not find this video funny. Personally, my ribs were absolutely aching after about 4 minutes.

Perl Scripting With Vista Speech Recognition

I've always considered myself to be a patient person. But for me, the test would have been over within about 20 seconds... :)


"Delete lower case open the helpful..."

Increasing the Linux user base by 1

About two weeks ago, right around the launch of Vista, I had a few conversations with various colleagues here at work about Microsoft's new product. This gave me the opportunity to let them know that I was running "something called Linux" at home. And while they might have heard the term "Linux" before, they sure looked puzzled when I mentioned that the specific system I ran at home was called Ubuntu.

Anyway, nothing much came of it, except that a couple of days later, a colleague of mine asked me about Ubuntu. He said that he'd checked it out online and wondered if it would run on a machine he had at home. It was a PC he had put together himself about 5 years ago.

While no computer expert, he is a very intelligent guy (a structural engineer like myself) and quite enthusiastic in terms of technology for someone probably 35 years my senior.

I asked him about the specs of the machine, and while he couldn't recall much detail he did tell me a few things: he thought it was a P4, it was something like 1.5 GHz, it had a 40GB hard drive and was currently running Windows 98 - poorly.
He also said it wasn't connected to the internet. He wanted to be able to do some basic office and digital photo work on it.

I told him I thought Ubuntu would *probably* work ok for him, and then explained what a live CD was and asked if he wanted me to burn one for him. He agreed and would give it a go.

I gave him the Ubuntu Edgy live CD. I got him to reboot his work machine just to show him the menu system and how to install it at home if he wanted to. I showed him that the CD would give him basic photo management, image manipulation, office productivity apps and other basic things.

Based on my experiences with creating a dual boot setup (and my assumption that he knew nothing about partitioning), I advised him to back up his existing windows 98 data and wipe out the old drive completely if he decided to install it.

He didn't take my advice...

Arriving back at work on the Monday, he told me that he installed Edgy no problem and that it ran great on his system - miles better than Windows 98. To be honest, I was relieved. I asked him if he'd backed up the data or just scrapped it. He told me he'd done neither. I looked puzzled. He told me that when it asked him if he wanted to create a dual boot system, he agreed, confirmed the partition sizes, and it worked like a charm.

He was a bit puzzled by my visible relief. I have been bitten several times before getting dual booting to work on my system (a dual drive configuration with a Sata and IDE drive)

He came to me a day or two later and said it was running great, but asked if he needed to install something special to work with his digital camera (a Nikon D70). I told him to just plug it in and find out. The next day he said he couldn't believe it just worked so simply and correctly.

He really didn't think there was an alternative to Microsoft. A real happy camper.

I know that not all stories of this nature are so positive. And I'm no Linux zealot here at work (I can't afford to be a tech support guy either). But it really isn't that difficult to spread the word about Linux.

And when I say spreading the word, I don't mean touting that it's so much better, not shouting that it's all about the freedom, I just mean making people aware of what Linux is. Making people aware that there are completely viable alternative systems to run on their computers.

Burn a linux ISO of a live CD. Keep it in your desk. You'll never know when it might come in handy. :)

Now that's a keynote!

I listened to an inspiring keynote yesterday by the FSF's General Counsel Eben Moglen. The recording is from the O'Reilly Open Source Conference. This is one of the best talks I've heard regarding the state of open source and licensing (or any other subject for that matter).

Besides being about a subject that fascinates me, I have to say: Damn! - is that guy ever well-spoken. Knowledgeable, passionate and inspiring, all in one go. If you're into free and open source software, or just want to hear a great keynote, you owe yourself a listen.

Coming here from inkscape.org ?

I've noticed a nice large bump in traffic to the site over the last day and a half. A quick check of the site stats indicates that it's all down to a quick mention on the inkscape.org page in the news section. Thanks guys!

If you're coming here from there, take a look around and you might find something interesting. Since I tend to jump around a little bit (sometimes a lot!) from topic to topic and if Inkscape is your thing, here's a shortcut to my inkscape related postings to save you some time.

Inkscape Screencast 4 - Shiny Black Button

I received a comment from Scott earlier today on a post I did about a month ago that dealt with creating shiny black buttons with Inkscape. I thought about answering in the comments and quickly realized that maybe it should be done in a separate blog post so I could include some screenshots to describe the process he was inquiring about. But as I started to create the post, I realized that it would be much quicker for me to record a short screencast showing how I created one of the buttons. I figured it would be much easier to understand (and much easier to create) than a blog post with screenshots and description.

Five or ten minutes later I had recorded the screencast and was uploading it to YouTube. It was definitely quicker to record the screencast than to prepare screenshots and write up a quick tutorial. I guess that illustrates the power of video.

I've also got another more interesting inkscape screencast in mind, but I'm trying first to figure out how to add a second track to the avi to have some intro-outro music. I think avidemux is what I need to use, but I'm still in the process of figuring out how to do it. Maybe you'll see it posted up here in the next few days if I'm lucky.

Anyway, here's the screencast Scott, hope it helps. :)

[Note 1: I just re-watched it and realized that I incorrectly used the term 'layer' several times during the screencast. I was referring to how objects can be brought above or below other objects, not that anything was placed on a separate Inkscape layer.]

[Note 2: Sharp listeners will undoubtedly hear Jacob, one of our cats, crying out just after the 3 minute mark. So much for noise cancelling headsets! ;) ]

[Note 3: While creating the screencast took all of 5 or 10 minutes, as always it took about 7 or 8 hours for YouTube to process and serve the screencast :( ]

Antibiotics and Another Source of Inkscape/Gimp Goodness

It's amazing how many people are getting sick around here these days. Both at work and at home I've watched people suffering with the flu, colds, pinkeye, and now I end up with a top-notch, Grade A ear infection. It's so easy to forget how much a throbbing earache can stand in the way of getting things accomplished.

Anyways, I'm poppin' the antibiotics as of this morning and I feel another Inkscape screencast in me waiting to get out. Look for something this weekend (maybe).

On the subject of Inkscape, check out Ryan Lerch's blog which gives a good dose of GIMP and Inkscape goodness to those interested.

Gimparoo!

From the "Why hasn't this been done before?" file...

If you're a fan of the GIMP image editing program, you might want to check out Gimparoo! which, besides having an ultra-cool name, is a new blog dedicated to "Adapting Photoshop tutorials for The GIMP". I found it via the Ubuntu Blog. He's currently basking in his new found popularity so give him a visit and continue to make his day :)

It looks to be a very useful feed for those looking to expand their GIMP repertoire.

Do you have "The Knack" ?

People who know me say I have the knack. Do you?

I Want A Linux/Unix Utility To...

Via Rich Burridge, here's a great Linux/Unix applications list he's maintaining and improving. Good stuff!

Eyedrop Hell

I never thought it could be so hard to administer eye drops to a 5 year old girl. With a case of pinkeye recently picked up, my duty today was to keep the little one out of school and give her a drop in each eye three times. It's amazing how the survival instinct kicks in when you approach someones eyes with an object.

First I took my typical common sense negotiating route. For two hours we bandied back and forth:

Me: You have to take the eyedrops. It will help get rid of the pinkeye. If you don't, you might not make it to so & so's birthday party on Saturday.

Her: No thank you daddy. I don't like eye drops.

I hate it when she pulls the politeness card.

We struggled. We yelled. I tried ultimatums, bargaining, dares, humour, every trick in my admittedly skinny book.

After two hours, Daddy's patience had worn razor thin. A quick google search yielded a Yahoo discussion thread suggesting something like the following:

1. Sit on the floor or bed.
2. Lay the child flat on her back, between your legs with her head between your thighs.
3. Place (or more accurately wrestle) her arms beneath each of your thighs.
4. Utilize your lower legs to pin hers if required.
5. Using two hands (and a modicum of force) administer said eyedrops.
6. Praise the child and deal with your guilt.

It worked flawlessly. What also amazed me was that once she blinked a few times and received several kisses from her pop, it was like it had never happened.

The next time was only slightly easier. Still a struggle, but less so. And papa's guilt was more easily buried.

You'd really think after all these years there'd be a better way.

Rawstudio 0.5 is out!

Another great release announced today is Rawstudio 0.5. There are several improvements, the most important to me being the incorporation of batch processing. I've been using a development version for a while now and I have to say as a Linux user who shoots almost all my stuff in RAW format, it's a great project. I find the workflow very efficient. It's nice to see so much work being done on this front.

Like all good open source projects, the developers are eager to improve the project and are willing to discuss all sorts of suggestions and ideas on the mailing list. If you're currently using ufraw or another application for your raw photo conversions you should really check this out, you might find it's just what you've been looking for.

Job's Thoughts on DRM

Interesting posting about DRM and music by Steve Jobs today. While I agree with much of what he says, I'm not so sure about:

"Perhaps those unhappy with the current situation should redirect their energies towards persuading the music companies to sell their music DRM-free."

Coming from the principal of a company that controls 80 odd percent of the personal digital music player market, it seems like he himself is indeed situated in a good spot to exert pressure on the big four music companies.

About the DRM-free alternative, he writes:

"This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat. "

He clearly forgot the ending to that statement: '... if we weren't making millions with the status quo.'.

His posting is almost successful at putting Apple onside with DRM-free music (and against DRM) but then ends up putting the onus on everybody else to somehow exert pressure.

Why don't we exert the pressure on ALL OF THEM by supporting things like Creative Commons and Magnatune instead.

Google Reader Shortcut Fiesta

Over the last year or so I've become a fan of keyboard shortcuts (think Vim, Inkscape, Gmail, etc..). But I've largely stuck with mousing around in Google Reader... until now.

Lifehacker has a post with some really kickass Google Reader tips. The g+s and g+h shortcuts are time-savers, but the g+u+feedname is really really top notch.

If you're a Google Reader user, you really should check out that post.

Seinfeld in Oz

If you like Seinfeld, and you've ever watched Oz (the series about life in a prison), then you should check this video out. Very well done.

Inkscape 0.45 Officially Released

Inkscape 0.45 was officially released today. If you're interested in a high quality open-source vector-based graphics editor, you can do no better. The latest version has an SVG gaussian blur feature along with several other enhancements and improvements. For more details and info on how to get it, visit inkscape.org.

Funny Pseudo-Anti-Mac Article/Rant

What do you get when you mash together sweeping generalizations, top-notch writing, sharp wit and the mac vs pc debate?

This article. [and hundreds of Digg comments as well ;-)]

He spends much of it taking the piss out Mac owners, so if you're sensitive in that respect, be forewarned. ;)

Google Reader Acting Up?

Is it just me or has Google Reader been notoriously buggy as of late? I've had numerous red 'Oops...' messages, feed lists that don't load first time around, and general buggy-ness over the past several days.

Perhaps some growing pains?

Inkscape Screencast 3 - Reflected Text

I finally figured out how to increase the levels of my recently purchased Logitech USB Headset last night - originally I didn't see the menu choice to switch between devices in the sound dialog. And in light of getting it working, I decided to record another quick and dirty Inkscape screencast to test it out. The sound is miles better than the last one, but still not perfect. Anyways, if you're new to Inkscape you might find it useful.

USB Headset and Card Reader On Linux

I used a Christmas gift certificate to pick up a couple of toys at BestBuy today. I bought a Logitech 250 USB Headset and a LaCie imatumi multi-card reader.

The Card Reader:

I needed the card reader since we bought little one a Disney Digital Camera which of course wasn't recognized by Ubuntu, so to get the pictures off of its SD card I figured I'd get a multi-card reader and that way I could also pull pictures from my Rebel XT's CompactFlash card.

There was no installation to speak of really. I plugged my USB cable into the back of the card reader (it didn't come with one) and it was immediately recognized. I tried it with my Canon's CF card and it placed an icon on the desktop labeled "EOS_DIGITAL". Also, the normal Gnome dialog box asking me if I wanted to import the photos appeared immediately. Very slick. I also checked if F-Spot would see the card reader and it did without a hitch as well. I haven't done much with it yet so I can't comment on the speed, but it seemed to work fine.

The USB Headset:

I bought this with the intention of possibly doing some more screencasting. The second Inkscape screencast I posted on YouTube has generated almost 300 views and several positive comments. Quite gratifying actually. ;)

Anyways, based on some prior reading in the ubuntu forums, I didn't set my hopes too high on the Logitech USB Headset being recognized and fully functional. Then again, you are going to find mostly problematic stories on a help forum now aren't you.

I decided to shut the machine down, plug in the headset and restart. Upon login, I checked the device manager and sure enough the headset was there - nice. Next, I double clicked the speaker icon on the Gnome panel to check that the input levels were not muted and set to full. Firing up Audacity, there seemed to be some background sound but not coming from the headset mic. Turns out the old analog mic I had used the last time was still plugged in! Ripped that out and checked again. Still no audio showing up in Audacity... hmmm.

I then checked the Edit->Preferences in Audacity and under the Audio I/O setting, I saw a dropdown list for recording devices showing /dev/dsp and /dev/dsp1. I changed it from the former to the latter and voila! The sound of my silky smooth voice (okay...not so smooth, and more like polyester than silk) showed up on the meter and played back with surprisingly little background noise.

I then tried recording a quick screencast using ffmpeg (see my post about doing that back here) and soon realized it wasn't recording any sound. I checked the ffmpeg documentation and found that there is a switch which you can use to set the audio capture device. So I added "-ad /dev/dsp1" and presto chango I now had a screencast with nice clean audio.

Problems? Yes. I can't seem to get normal audio (mp3 playback etc.) to come through the headphones. While Audacity and ffmpeg will playback my recordings through the headphones, I can't get gxine, xmms, moc, or anything else to play back sound through them. I've posted about it on the ubuntu forums so hopefully this one will be solved soon.

Also, the recording levels in Audacity are set at max but the sound, while clear, is too low. The same thing for ffmpeg. I can't seem to find a setting in ffmpeg where I can set the audio levels. In terms of screencasts, I might be able to amplify the audio track in post processing, but it would be nice to get the levels up from the start.

I'm also interested in capturing my daughter's voice for posterity. Where my uncle used a leather cased cassette recorder 30 odd years ago to capture mine, I'd like to capture some of my daughter as well and getting the recording levels up in Audacity is pretty much required for that.

All in all, I'm very happy with the purchase (after only spending one evening with them) . I was able to set them up easily and they function as expected. Who knows, you might even see another screencast from me in the near future. ;)

Oh, I almost forgot. I was surrounded by Vista boxes while I was in there today. Vista here, Vista there, Vista everywhere! Everywhere I turned there seemed to be a VHS-looking case with a rounded corner! I didn't realize but the (cue monster-truck announcer voice) ULTIMATE edition was $499.00 CAD !! Yikes! I should have went in there and left a dozen Ubuntu CD's lying around on the shelves just for fun. ;)

Now Here's Someone With Some Actual Talent!

To see some really talented cartooning and learn a few Inkscape related tips, check out John Bintz's post which has a screenshot image that gives a brief tour of some of the things John does with Inkscape to create his "A Moment of Clarity" comic. Neat!

Vista DRM - Educate Yourself

Sticking to the Vista-ish nature of a few previous posts, here's a link to New Zealand Computer Science researcher Peter Gutmann's paper "A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection". It spells out in great detail the potentially crippling nature of Vista's DRM system.

While this is potentially good news for the Linux community (the more Vista sucks, the better for us - at least on the face of it), the section on the potential elimination of open-source hardware support is very worrying.

In any case, if you're at all into finding out what DRM limitations are present in the newest version of Windows, you should give it a read.

Linux vs Vista

If your interested in Vista vs. Linux comparisons, Earl Moore at Meandering Passage sent me a link to an ongoing series of articles over at eWeek. Thanks Earl!

Flickr changes - Much Ado About Nothing?

While I would prefer that Flickr not set limits on the number of contacts a user can have, or the maximum number of tags that can be placed on a photo, after reading the arguments for and against in the Flickr forums I find myself coming to a few conclusions:

1. Yeah, merging the Flickr and Yahoo logins sounds wishy-washy. But after doing it, logging out and logging back in, I fail to see what difference it makes. Sure I go to a Yahoo login page, but I enter my username and password and I'm in. As simple as before. No URL changes to my photo stream. Why is this such a pain for some people? When I switched to the new Blogger I had to change my login to my gmail login info. No complaint here. No fuss anywhere else it seems either.

2. The 3000 contact per user limit is so well and truly above what I'll ever need that it simply doesn't register as a problem to me. How anyone could effectively follow the work of 3000 other photographers sounds ridiculous to start with. But there just has to be a better, more efficient way to do this if that is your goal.

3. Applying 75 tags to a photo seems outlandish to me. Sometimes simplicity is a benefit. Maybe this will force people to be a little more efficient with their descriptions. I think if you can't adequately describe your photo in less than 76 tags, you have a few too many subjects in your photo.

4. It appears that these changes will affect a minute (but vocal) portion of the Flickr user base. It is being done in the name of site performance. You either believe Flickr or you think they're liars. If you think they're liars, you should move your photos somewhere else now.

5. Blogs seem to be reporting on this as if Flickr users everywhere are in the midst of revolt. Thomas Hawk (who it should be said, is also the CEO of a competing service and a Flickr user) is probably the most prominent blogger engaged in this issue. But if you go read the Flickr forums you will find that there are quite a few Flickr users who are NOT in revolt, but who are perfectly content with the coming changes. Don't be misled by antagonistic blog posts telling you otherwise.

6. This is how a market is supposed to work. If Flickr ends up screwing it's users and the users get pissed off enough, they'll move to a competitor. That's the way it should work. If Flickr makes the changes and users remain happy, then it succeeds.

7. Just because Flickr is a social networking site, doesn't mean it's owned by the users. I'm have a paid Pro Flickr account, but I make no insinuations that I should have final call on business decisions. As long as they are not violating the Terms of Service I agreed to, I have no argument.

Currently Flickr is providing a great service for me. If they piss me off enough, I leave. Simple.

Enough With The Insane Beryl Demos Already!!

It's no secret that I run Linux. More specifically I run Ubuntu 6.10 and use Beryl. I'm quite happy and satisfied with it.

Now since Vista has launched, can somebody point me to a good demo video touting it's interface features? While you're at it, please provide a link to a good video demo of the OS-X desktop.

W-w-what the hell? - you might ask. Why would I ask for these things?

I'll tell you why. I believe that Beryl and Linux can provide at least the equal of the visual desktop experience of Vista or OS-X (and with much lower hardware requirements). Compiz and Beryl have come so far so quickly in their development that it's hard to imagine they won't surpass the capabilities of the other two in fairly short order. But here's the rub:

Almost every Beryl demo I've seen cited on Digg and other sites has been a mish-mash of anime wallpaper, speedmetal and hyperfast cube-spinning and window switching. I'd like to be able to show a co-worker or friend a well produced demo of the actual practical capabilites of the Linux+Compiz/Beryl desktop without resorting to the goth-wallpapered, death-metal soundtrack demos I see all over the place.

What better way to convert would-be Vista or OSX users than by offering real-world high production value demonstrations similar to those produced in their own camps. Let's make the demos match them not only in capabilities, but in taste and style as well. It's hard to argue when you can demonstrate the same functionality.

Burning menus down in flames or exploding title bars might be neat, but they don't exactly bolster the argument for our side.

Anybody got any OS-X or Vista demos they care to hold up as shining examples of what a desktop OS should be?

Or of course, if you can point me to a Beryl or Compiz video that already does this, all the better.

Snap Previews or How To Annoy Your Readers

The relatively recent advent of the Snap Preview plugin seems to be annoying just about everyone. Although it does have its defenders.

You can immediately chalk me up as hating them. It's almost as annoying as those double-underlined thingys that are annoyingly prevalent on some sites (like linuxquestions.org) which pop up adds when you hover on them. (what are they called anyway?)

As an aside, I haven't been linking nearly enough in my posts as of late. Expect to see more links here in the future. None of them Snap Previews and none of them double-underlined either.

Underwhelmed But Happy About It

Earl Moore is underwhelmed by the relatively quiet launch of Vista. Actually I haven't been paying much attention to Vista simply because I'm almost well and truly Linux-ized (is there actually a term for that? - there should be..)

However I did know about it since I caught 5 minutes of CNN this morning where Miles O'Brien talked a bit about it, showing an interview clip with Bill Gates and discussing it very briefly with their financial guy. I shook my head a little and chuckled when Miles ended the segment by stating that a lot of people were saying that Vista brought the Windows desktop experience up to OS-X standards and perhaps more importantly ended off with the comment that people could upgrade to Vista or "just get a Mac". I betcha Microsoft PR was just gleeful hearing that comment this morning. ;)

I also had a couple of co-workers discussing Vista with me today. Of course I took the opportunity to nod repeatedly - yes it looks quite flashy... yes it supposedly requires lots more hardware power... yes it supposedly really cracks down on pirated applications and media.. ever heard of Linux?... I actually run it at home...yes it is actually free...

The impression I get is that while Vista will be no outright failure (it'll be installed on virtually every PC you buy) there are more and more Linux and Mac types who will have more and more conversations with their non-techie co-workers and friends just suggesting (not pushing it down their throats) that there *are* alternatives out there. My feeling is that while MS is not ceding it's king of the hill status any time soon, the earth is slowly eroding under their feet. It may take a long while, but I think it is happening right now.

Combine all those water cooler conversations with the fact that the OS itself might be of diminishing importance as more and more services reside on the net irrespective of OS. The resurgence of gaming consoles at the expense of PC-based gaming also makes switching from Windows to something else significantly easier.

The fact that the launch didn't seem to generate much fanfare only bodes well for the future in my mind. It would be nice to see some real market competition in OS's again.

Some Cross-Border Observations

Back from the annual trek down to Myrtle Beach. As you can see from the photo above, we didn't let the mid-50F weather hinder us too much. It's going down to a balmy 5F here tonight, so you can see how to us, mid-50's was A-ok.

It was kinda funny sitting on the beach barefoot, making a couple of sandcastles, my daughter running knee-deep into the icy Atlantic to get water. All the while, people were trudging by with heavier coats (some even wearing winter hats!) giving a polite smile to the two lone crazies on the beach.

At the risk of generalizing far too much, here's a quick, completely un-researched set of observations (some serious and some silly) I made about the U.S. while I was down there this week. Hopefully it might generate some comment, and hopefully not any harsh feelings. Take these with a grain of salt, and of course preface just about everything with 'in the small part of the US that we were in...'

In no particular order:

1. You seem to have pre-pay for gas everywhere that we went. I never seem to have to do this up here. Although I don't frequent downtown Toronto gas stations that often, I don't ever remember having to pay before I pump (unless it's via debit/credit card at the pump).

2. Southern hospitality is definitely not a myth. The hotel, airport and restaurant staff we dealt with seemed significantly more friendly and helpful than they are around here.

3. Maybe it's just me, but it always seems like the US is lacking in middle class. There seem to be a lot of people with large cars, large homes and money to burn, and a lot of people with very little. Homes seem either huge and pretty or small and decrepit. A lot of people at each end of the scale and not so many in-between. Up here it seems like there are a lot more people "in-between".

4. There are a lot of abandoned buildings and malls. Stores move to new locations and the old malls remain partially empty or completely abandoned. This seems more prevalent in Western NY, but I saw the same thing in Myrtle Beach. In southern Ontario old buildings get torn down and replaced, they're not just left to sit. I'm not sure why this is so. Maybe it's the real estate laws, or maybe something else.

5. People in the states seem to eat out at restaurants *a lot*. In Cheektowaga I was mystified as to why the IHOP was full of people at 9pm. Granted Myrtle Beach is a bit skewed as it is full of tourist-types, but even the smallest, greasiest looking places seem to be doing a brisk business on week nights.

6. Portions in US restaurants are huge compared to those here. My in-laws love this since they are all about the portion vs. cost relationship. I won't lie. My belly loves this also. But when you order a plate of spaghetti from the kid's menu you get a full size heap of pasta along with a huge side of fries. My daughter is currently in veggie rehab since arriving back. It does seem like you're getting ripped off when you get back here. ;)

7. Quality fruits and veggies seem in short supply in the grocery stores. And the stuff they do have is significantly more expensive than it is here. I noticed this in Western NY as well as down south. Maybe something to do with the freeze in California?

8. This is weird, but I noticed a lot of people buying food in gas bar/convenience stores. To me it is strange to see a guy perusing the hot cashews or hotdog rollers in a gas bar. I had to line up behind 6 people at a convenience store when buying some milk. Four of those six people were buying food to eat (Little Debbie cakes, microwaved sandwiches and the like). Our gas bars have a small refrigerated section holding microwavable sandwiches, but I've never in the past ten years actually seen anyone buying or eating them.

9. Gospel shows and Evangelicals seem to clog the Sunday morning cable channels. While we have our fair share of evangelicals on Sunday mornings, you definitely see and notice how religion seems to play a much more prominent role in the US. The alternatives seemed to be infomercials out the wazoo. It was either finding God, getting ripped abs, or running whole meals through a juicer!

Americans and Canadians share so much culture that it's hard to believe you could ever tell the difference. It's actually quite surprising that there are any differences at all, but there are.

Have I generalized too much, have I got it all wrong? Please educate me.

Rawstudio, partitioning, screencasts and more!

In the midst of fending off pre-vacation work overload a few bits and bobs have been occupying my spare time. Think of this as my pre-vacation brain dump:

Another call to my ISP confirmed that they had already sent me a replacement DSL modem. It arrived this past Wednesday, was installed that evening and seems to have cured all that ails me in the connectivity department.

I've also been learning a little about partitioning in Linux. I've shrunk my ntfs partition and created a separate 60GB partition for my photos. It took a little doing, but with a little (ok..a lot of) help with the great people on ubuntuforums.org I managed to get it accomplished and learned something in the process.

I've also joined the Ubuntu screencasts team (at the behest of Will Simpson) to see if I can contribute something to the community there. We'll see if I ever get the time (and the USB mic), but hey, I'm always up for a challenge.

Another thing worthy of noting is that Rawstudio is *really* coming along nicely. This is a free and open source app that handles RAW image conversion for Linux. The latest patches have implemented batch processing - something Rawstudio users have been waiting for a long time. Kudos to AndersK and AndersB for creating such a great app! It's still a small group, so any issues I've brought up on the Rawstudio mailing list have been answered very quickly. Clearly digital photography workflow on Linux is already well developed and like everything else in the Linux space, things are progressing at a fast and furious pace. It's kind of nice to be somewhat involved the process too. ;)

Again, the world of Linux is broadening my knowledge. With Rawstudio, in order to get the latest patches I had to get accustomed to checking out the source from subversion, applying patch files and compiling. With a few quick questions to the friendly guys on the Rawstudio mailing list, I was up and running the latest patches no problem.

So that's where I sit at the moment. Living, learning and not blogging about it often enough ;) Some things never seem to change.

Pre-Vacation Stress Disorder

Is there such a thing as pre vacation stress disorder ? (No doubt there is.) Why is it that so many clients somehow sense that I'm about to go away for a week and decide on Wednesday to ask for meetings and drawings to be ready for Friday? E.S.P? Bahh.

Half a day at work tomorrow to clean up some last minute stuff and we're off for the annual trek down to Myrtle Beach SC. Yeah yeah, I know, the weather's not the greatest right now. But for us to walk along the beach - even in a sweater or jacket - in January is still a treat. Remember, January for us is regularly well below 0C (32F) so anything in the 50's is ok by me.

This time we're driving to Buffalo (only a couple of hours) and then staying over night and catching a plane to (I think) Charlotte and then direct into Myrtle. Last time we flew to Raleigh-Durham and it left us with a 4 hour drive. Better than 17 hrs of driving but still a pain. This time we'll be leaving Buffalo by 8am and into Myrtle by 12. Fuddruckers here I come!! :)

If I'm lucky I might even find the time to throw up a post or two while I'm gone. ;)

Random Notes on Random Notes...

Reading through Hugh McLeod's random notes on blogging, I realized he had both missed something and illustrated something at the same time. Blogging with humility *and* blogging with authority are not mutually exclusive.

Humility builds respect and adds to your authority, arrogance and snarky-ness take away from it.

Hugh's list reads very snarky to me. Almost snarky for snarky's sake. Good for building readership maybe, not so good for building authority IMO.

Doc Searls (and Jon Udell) on the other hand, are masters at blogging with authority sans arrogance.

Clever 90's Flowchart

I think you probably have to be from a specific generation to even get this, nevermind find it funny (which I did):

More Inkscape Fun - Subtle Adjustments Can Make Big Changes

With Christmas, Little One's birthday, New Years and Evelyn's 100th birthday, it feels like the holiday that will never end! Tomorrow is Em's birthday party with her classmates and friends. So maybe, just maybe, I'll find more time to put towards this blogging endeavour once again.

In the meantime, a couple of Inkscape related things...

The About Inkscape 0.45 contest over on deviantArt has closed and a winner has been chosen!! No, I didn't get shortlisted or picked, but it was fun creating a few entries and there are some real nice ones. Congrats to molumen who created the winning entry. Very sharp!

Over the holiday I did manage to do a little noodling with Inkscape 0.45 (which is not officially out yet). One of the main updates in the latest version is the blur functionality. How it get implemented in a vector-based drawing tool is way over my head but I love it just the same. ;)

Here's a series of buttons I created which illustrate how very simple and subtle changes can have a significant impact on graphics:

All of these buttons are created in Inkscape with only either 3 or 4 objects. The button itself consists of a solid circle, a highlight semicircle (made with a simple boolean intersection of a circle and a polygon) and a text object - the letter. I've used an additional blurred circle object for buttons B,C and D.

Button A looks kind of shiny because I've left the highlight grey object (which is actually a solid white object with its opacity reduced to around 40%) as a solid color - that is without any gradient. So you see the hard edge from grey to black. This button only consists of 3 objects, the black circle, the grey (transparent white) highlight object and the green text. Looks ok I guess.


Button B isn't a heck of a lot different from Button A. I've made 2 simple changes here. Actually the first is just to change the text from A to B. Inkscape is nice in that you can just double-click on the text and immediately edit it in place. The second more meaningful change is to duplicate the black circle, blur it and set it back behind the button (but above the blue background). This gives more of a photorealistic look in my opinion. It's not quite a drop shadow but I think it enhances the button. You can use this method to enhance many different kinds of graphics when you want to maybe add impact, depth or emphasis to some object and yet be subtle about it.

Button C is identical to Button B except that I changed the blurred circle underneath to a light blue colour instead of black. this kind of gives a backlit effect. Not so subtle but maybe useful in moderation when you're looking for that effect. I see a lot of building signage with this look. They slightly raise the letters off the building and light behind them. You can go quite brazen with this effect or keep it subtle as I've done here. Again, it's just a simple blurred circle beneath the base button object.

Button D looks significantly different from the previous ones, but is the result of only one simple change. In fact it is exactle the same as button B, except that I've taken the grey highlight object and applied a gradient so that instead of a solid grey, it goes from a solid grey at the top to transparent at the bottom. You can see here how a simple change to the highlight gives a completely different feel to the object. Instead of shiny you get something a lot more matte. Again, a very simple change makes a significant difference to the image.

Button E is really just academic. I've taken button D and removed the blurred black circle behind the button. So it is effectively button A with a gradient applied to the highlight shape instead of a solid grey.

Hopefully someone will find this useful. Inkscape makes it so easy to experiment and play around that you find new things out all the time. If you spot some graphic or effect that you love while cruising the net, don't think it's impossible to create. Just stare at it and imagine how you might achieve those effects in something like Inkscape. It's usually much easier than you think. ;)

Brief Revisit to XP - DSL Problems and Kudos to Earl

I've been having intermittent problems with my DSL service over the past couple of months. After behaving itself through most of December, it seems to have reared it's ugly head again in the past couple of weeks. I won't go very far into it except to say that it sometimes drops the connection and resyncs every 30 seconds. Other days it stays up steady for hours.

Tonight I got frustrated enough to call technical support. But before I did, I decided to boot up into XP so that I wouldn't frighten the tech support staff away by telling them I'm running Linux. Of course my worry is that once they hear I'm running Linux they'll claim that they don't support that OS and possibly put the blame for my troubles squarely on that.

Now it's been months since I've booted this machine into XP and after 10 minutes I noted three things:

1. Man.. does it ever take a long time to get to a workable desktop!

2. Man.. does it ever load a gi-normous amount of applets into the system tray!

3. Man.. does it ever hound you about updating spyware databases, anti-virus updates, windows system updates, and firewall software updates!

It's amazing how many little bubbles can pop up once you don't boot XP for a couple of months. If there's one thing I love about running Linux (and the Mac guys are no different) is that you don't have to be running 5 different third party security apps every time you boot up. I made the mistake of double-clicking Firefox before all the applets were loaded, so it took almost a minute for it to appear - all this on a P4-3GHz machine with 1GB of ram. Good god man!

Now just like when you hear a rattle in your car for a week but it seems to disappear when you bring the car in for service, my DSL seemed to be working fine almost the whole time I was on the phone with tech support. But after 10 minutes of describing and discussing the problem, he noted that my line was showing NO DSL service at all from his end. All this while I was clicking and browsing the web. So definitely something is up with the line. He created a ticket (whatever that is) for me and told me my problem was a level 2 tech support staff issue and that they would contact me within a few days. I guess it was out of his league.

So in the end I never had to run through the usual check of DSL settings and connectivity settings in the OS, which means I never really had to boot into XP anyway but at least it reminded me of why I started running Linux. :)

In a related note, Earl Moore has a nice writeup of his opinions on running Ubuntu. He gives some honest and practical comparisons between XP, Ubuntu and OS X. And while he prefers OS X (yes Earl, it *is* a slick interface, I'll give them that), he's honest in his criticisms and praise of Ubuntu. And kudos to him for trying it out before giving his opinions - nice to hear some realistic non-fanboy real world comparisons.

I've never really criticized OS X either way since I've never tried it (apart from clicking around on a few machines in the Apple store a couple of times). I'm not a huge fan of Apple's proprietary nature (nor Microsoft's) but I do realize they've set the bar for UI design. It, (along with honest criticism like Earl's) gives the desktop Linux community something to shoot for. I think it's getting there, it's only a matter of time.

A New Lens for New Years

With a little help (actually a lot of help) from the camera store gift certificate my wife gave me, I picked up a Canon 85mm f/1.8 lens last weekend. I haven't had a lot of time to play with it other than shooting my favourite subject (my daughter).

As is becoming tradition, we headed across the border and stayed two nights in Lockport NY over New Years. It's a short drive and my wife tells me the shopping is mucho fantastico ;) Anyways, I managed to take some shots at the pool, most of which turned out pretty good. One unfortunate mistake was that I had originally set the camera for ISO 800 in order to freeze some splashing fun, but forgot to switch it back until many shots later. So the digital noise in some of them is a little annoying. I haven't managed to convert or upload any of them yet, but here's a quick sample of what was probably one of the best shots, and a 100% crop to give an idea of the sharpness:

Crop at 100%:

Things I Learned:

1. When you play with a high ISO, don't forget to switch it back.

2. I have a tendency to shoot wide open (f1.8) too often. A shallow depth of field is effective but overdoing it is not. I have several shots of my daughter with one eye nice and sharp and the other quite soft. Doesn't make for the greatest photo.

3. Kind of related to #2, using an extremely shallow depth of field can also throw off the focus. Even though the autofocus is good, I still sometimes ended up with soft faces and sharp backgrounds, especially on the moving subject shots. Using f2.8 might have minimized this problem.

4. Don't be afraid to take a lot of shots. I probably have 20 shots of my daughter getting into and out of the pool (nevermind all the close-ups). Probably 3 of those 20 are keepers. If I hadn't taken all those shots, I probably would have ended up with no keepers. Don't forget you can always delete them. Not every shot is going to be a good one. Increase the number of shots you take and increase your chances.

Big Gramma turns 100!

[Update: Evelyn and the clan made the evening newscast! Click here to check it out. Also make sure to see our little one tap dancing at around the 1 minute mark!!]

My wife's grandmother turns 100 today! Up until about 7 months ago, she was still living on her own in her own house, and up until a few years ago, was shovelling her own snow (until neighbours and family finally gave her enough guff about it to stop). My esteemed brother-in-law, who posts far too infrequently, but is never short of words when he does, gives a nice summary of the wonderful lady right here. If you'd like to leave good wishes, head over there and comment.

If there's one thing I treasure about Evelyn, it is her sense of humour. While as prim and proper as you'd ever want while out socializing, she could always be trusted to trade crude humour with yours truly.

A few of the wonderfully naughty sayings (mostly Welsh in origin I'd imagine) that she's taught me over the years:

1. She was like shit to a blanket. (describing a whining needy child)
2. He couldn't drive a stiff dick into a tub of lard.
3. Short and thick does the trick, but long and thin will get it in.
4. It was so long that you could wrap it around and make a jug-handle out of it.


Ev's had some trouble with the hearing aids lately, and has moved into a retirement home in the last few months, but she's still pretty mobile. And as frail as she might be getting, her spirit is still fully intact.

Watching her enjoy a healthy shot of Baileys while we opened gifts during the holidays was truly a wonderful thing.

Hope everyone had a wonderful past couple of weeks too.

Inkscape 0.45 About Screen - Final Entries

The Inkscape 0.45 About Screen deadline for entries has passed and now votes are being tallied on the submissions. While it doesn't look good for my three entries, there are some very very talented people out there. So many awesome entries! Check them out.