Become a 'new media titan' for only 7 bucks a month

Maybe I'm just tired. But after thumbing through 48 odd online pages of Blogger & Podcaster magazine, I feel intensely bored.

The web - in the raw, all by itself - is chock full of content (entertaining or otherwise), opinion, knowledge, and opportunities. But hearing from the same dozen people about what they do, and reading about how to profit from it all just doesn't hit any of my buttons - no matter how slickly presented (my heartfelt wishes to anyone venturing to that magazine with dialup connectivity).

If you had any lingering thoughts about 'A-List' bloggers, podcasting pioneers, web 2.0 empire builders or the whole circle-jerkyness of it all, look no further than B&P.

Oops, I just noticed the magazine's tagline: 'For Aspiring New Media Titans'. I'm clearly in the wrong room... Carry on.

;)

Upgraded to Feisty - no problemo! .. yet

About to apply some recent updates this morning, I spotted the 'new release' note at the top of my package updater dialog. Hmm. I know Feisty was released yesterday and knowing full well the Ubuntu servers would be getting pounded today,  I still decided to take the plunge and start the upgrade before I left for work.

Getting home tonight, I had to answer about 5 dialogs which asked whether I wanted to replace specific configuration files or not. I answered yes to all of them (I ran into problems in the last upgrade when I decided to retain my old config files). After about 2 hours of chugging away, the system was ready to reboot. I crossed my fingers...

After noticing the prettier boot splash screen, and the nice ubuntu splash bar after logging in, I was suddenly running Feisty. No problems so far (although I've only been running it for an hour or two).

This may be temporary since I've been contemplating a re-install of my whole machine, wiping out the windows partition completely and running XP in virtualization only when I absolutely need to (CAD and video slideshow apps are still problems for me in Linux). I know almost nothing about VMWare or other virtualization methods, so if you've got any good sources for newbie info on this stuff, post it up in the comments.

I've never been completely happy with my dual boot setup. The running speed of linux on this machine has been consistently inconsistent from bootup to bootup. I think it has something to do with the fact that I've got ubuntu booting from a SATA drive. I've never been able to pin it down to any specific source. In any case, I'm in the market for an external HD to back up all my data and then boom, I'm going to wipe it out and start with a fresh full install of Feisty on this machine.

But until then, I'll be kicking the tires on Feisty and will report any problems I have.

Green Alligators and Long-Necked Geese...

Great. My mother has turned my 5 year old daughter into an Irish Rovers fan. Now I find myself humming the bloody tune here at work. And no, I don't think the unicorn is the 'loveliest of all'.

What's next? Lawrence Welk? Nana Mouskouri?

Sheesh.

Doc spells out the next challenge for Linux

Leave it to the inimitable Doc Searls to frame the bigger picture when it comes to Vista, OS-X and Linux. His recent Linux Journal article is definitely a worthy read, offering up the possibility that we're reaching for the wrong prize entirely. Here's a couple of snippets:

A few weeks ago I was talking with folks who worked inside one of the large hardware OEMs. Somewhere in there they told me about their "Linux strategy". I told them they needed a "Linux strategy" about as much as a construction company needs a "lumber strategy".

If you're going to have a Linux strategy, make that strategy about getting past an OS-bound view of the world. Because the big difference between Linux and Windows is that you can build anything you want with Linux. With Windows you can only build what Microsoft lets you build.

And it doesn't end there:

The Linux community also has to get past the belief that Linux is mostly an alternative to other OSes. The Windows vs. Mac choice is between two silos that both do their best to lock customers in and maximize the dependencies of developers on proprietary platform SDKs and the like. Linux is not an alternative to any platform. It is an alterative to platforms themselves. It is the path to an open marketplace, not just another silo.

An article full of smart, thought-provoking ideas, and not aimed at the typical Linux zealot either. Give it a read right here.

Why do you use Linux? (aka Wufoo testing)

I was listening to one of Leo Laporte's recent TechGuy podcasts and they were discussing a site called Wufoo, which let's you build forms online and put them on your blog (or in other places). They give you 3 forms with the free registration (there are pay versions), so I thought up a quick poll to test it out.

There's a wide variety of controls and fields you can choose from and the layout is very much point and click in it's simplicity. In about 3 minutes I threw together this straw poll about the biggest reason you use Linux (if you use Linux). If you don't, pretend you do, and give it a shot anyway. ;)

I can monitor the results and generate reports over at the wufoo site. So if visitors to the blog start filling it out, I'll report back how the results are shaping up.


Powered by Wufoo

New Car Shopping - Rio5? Or am I crazy?

I'm new car shopping at the moment. My current beast is a 95 Integra sedan. It's still a solid little car but at 340,000km it's already cost me some money and with an intermittent squeal from the water pump lately it's scaring me a bit. I don't want it to turn into a money pit.

I'm a small car guy through and through. If only I lived across the pond where the compact/sub-compact segments are a lively market. My wife drives a Nissan Murano, and while it's a nice comfy SUV, it's far too big and bouncy for my tastes - nevermind the gas mileage and running costs (ever price out a set of 4 SUV tires?)

I've looked at the smaller cars from BMW/Mini, Hyundai, Kia, Honda, Toyota, Mazda, GM(Saturn), VW and even Ford (Chrysler is just not a consideration to me), and I have to say I'm favouring the Kia Rio5 Ex Sport model at the moment:



I really like the euro-hatch clean look of the Kia. And for a very reasonable list price of $20,700 CAD (18,250 USD) it comes fully loaded with things like:

15" Alloys
P195x55 tires
4-wheel discs w/ ABS
6-airbags (2 front, 2 side, 2 full side-curtain)
heated front seats (it gets cold up here dontcha know)
heated side mirrors
fog lights
sunroof
6 speaker CD stereo with MP3/WMA, Aux and USB inputs
A/C
alarm system
a kick ass 10yr/100,000km (or 160,000km extended) comprehensive warranty including roadside assistance

The list goes on and on and is actually pretty damn complete. The gas mileage is pretty darn good as well considering gas here has been teetering around $1.03 a litre lately (about $3.50 USD per gallon for you Yankees).

A quick first test drive also showed that Kia has really stepped up the quality game. The car felt and sounded very very solid. No squeaks, rattles or shimmies over various bumps and around corners. It handles very nicely. And while it doesn't have the street cred of a Mini Cooper, it's only shy by about 8 less horsepower. The interior looked and felt very solid as well. The back seat had significantly more room than my Integra 4 door too - although I think I've had only one adult passenger back there in the last two years anyway.

I chuckled the other day when I read a Motor Trend article that said that the Rio5 was faster through it's slalom course than both the Audi A3 (which a co-worker just bought at more than $40k) and the Mitsubishi Eclipse.

I also liked the fact that they didn't bother giving me a price where I had to add on things like floor mats, electric windows and mud guards to get a final price. They offer preselected no-fuss model selections which made calculating a price literally a 90sec affair.

If you're familiar with the 06 or 07 Kia Rio5 and have info to give me or if you want to dissuade me, please leave me a comment. I'd love to hear some opinions before I buy.

Is that your logo or are you just happy to see me?

Another great post by David Airey asking the age old design question... Is your logo design phallic?


:)

Theming Google Reader

I'm not big on Firefox extensions. It's not that I don't like them, I've just never spent a lot of time fooling with them. I have Greasemonkey installed, but don't do much with it. I've also got Google Notebook installed which I use from time to time. But upon reading a digg link today I spent a few minutes fooling with an extension called Stylish. It seems there's a whole crowd of people who want to skin different pages (or all pages) with different themes.

I tried out a few Google Reader themes, but actually came to the conclusion that I like the stock gReader theme better than any of the several I tried. I've said before that I like the functionality, simplicity and look of Google's Gmail, Reader and Calendar. I'm not sure I really want (or need) to theme them. But in case you're into that type of thing, you should install the Stylish extension and visit userstyles.org.

[that being said, I see that userstyles.org might be suffering from the digg effect right now so be patient]

CNN frothing at Virginia Tech

Terribly sad story at Virginia Tech yesterday. CNN is frothing at the mouth.

I watched an interview this morning with a young guy who helped barricade his classroom door, quite likely saving the lives of his classmates. Towards the end of the interview the reporter asked him what he thought of people calling him a hero. He couldn't speak. And the reporter seemed very uncomfortable at the silence. Tears welled up in my eyes at what he must be feeling. I know it had nothing to do with him being called a hero. There was just fear in those eyes.

I bet they'll be running that one all day long.

Poor kids.

Openfontlibary.org logo contest winner announced... and he's devilishly handsome too! ;)

They picked one of my logo entries for the new openfontlibrary.org logo!! Going to bed tonight, I am a truly happy camper!

:)

Sketching, Creativity and the Design Process

I'm a big fan of the design process. Almost more than the result itself.

I remember when I first got my hands on the wonderful book Driving Ambition, and I found myself quickly drawn not to the high quality photography, but to Gordon Murray's initial sketches and the drawings involved in developing various ideas. It's something that has always fascinated me - how people create the things we see and enjoy. If you're at all into car design I can't recommend it enough.

Recently, David Airey had a great post on logo design where he made the point that sketching was a vital ingredient in the design process. He also posted many design options for a project he was involved in.

While reading that post, I was in the midst of posting logo submissions for the Xmms2 graphic contest. And I was, in fact, doodling ideas in a hardcover notebook I keep for jotting down ideas and sketches. So after reading it, I decided that after I was done submitting logos, I'd post up the various doodles and sketches.

Now, I'm far from an accomplished artist, but I had fun generating ideas and transforming them into digital form with Inkscape. Hopefully this will encourage others to post things that illustrate their design process (whatever process that might be). It's something that I don't see enough of on the web (if you know where it is, then point me to it). There's a lot of inspiration in seeing how people create things, even if they're just pencil sketches on a knapkin.

Here are the various ideas I played around with. You can see a fair number of my xmms2 logo submissions that come directly from these sketches. Others never quite went anywhere....

[click on the image(s) to see larger versions]

Cool 3D photo collage modelling

Now no one can accuse me of not being an equal opportunity blogger:

[Via a recent episode of Leo Laporte's KFI podcast]

Just in case you thought Microsoft wasn't full of smart people (ok, maybe acquired smart people), wanting to push the envelope, check out the demo videos of the Photosynth project.

Think Quicktime VR but formed from a mass of normal digital photographs. From what I understand, they've got software that analyzes a group of photos of a specific location, recognizes datum objects, figures out camera position and angle of view, transforms them to account for parallax errors and assembles them together in a sort of 3D collage model. Put that inside a nice viewer with cool pan and zoom navigation and you have something really really interesting.

You can't get this software yet (I don't think), but it does show some really interesting possibilities for all those millions of photos being posted to the net. A use for photos in aggregate.

Now if only I could find the open-source equivalent.. ;)

*My* Code of Conduct

While I think Kent Newsome was right when he wrote: "Blogs are like cars- they create a false sense of invincability that releases your inner asshole .", I also think that not all people are assholes, inner or otherwise.

If a blogger needs a code of conduct to treat people with civility and respect, then likely that person's problem runs deeper than any code from on-high will address.

Plainly, if you act like an asshole, even anonymously, then almost invariably, you are an asshole - at least to some degree, despite what your alter ego might project.

Conversely, if you consistently treat people with respect and civility, chances are you are not an asshole.

I fall into the latter category (you'll have to take my word on that). But life has taught me that I might not be in the majority. ;)

When I started blogging I made a couple of mental notes: I would write what I thought and own what I wrote. The second part of that means looking forward and determining whether or not you'd be proud of what you're about to publish, whether that is a blog post, comment or forum posting.

Maybe that is *my* code of conduct.. mehh, it's enough for me.

Keys to a better Keyboard - what do you think?

So there's a war on about moving or getting rid of the Caps Lock key.

What about the Scroll Lock and Pause/Break keys? They sit pristine and untouched on my Dell keyboard here at work and on any keyboard I've ever used for that matter.

And while I would prefer a more OS-agnostic glyph for the 'Windows' key, I do find it useful (Windows+D on XP and a multitude of Beryl controls combinations on Linux).

However this Dell keyboard I'm staring at also has a key with a menu symbol on it. It's just to the right of the right hand windows key. Pressing it brings up the right-click context menu in your current app. Completely useless in my mind. The right-click context menu is one of the few mousey things I think is pretty efficient.

So out with Caps Lock, Scroll Lock, Pause/Break and the mysterious Menu keys. (The print screen key is good for screen captures).

Any others we should pry off and throw out?

What do we replace all those missing keyspaces with?? (a double question-mark key??)

Gmail lagging behind?? Bahhh!!

Ron K. Jeffries gives his thoughts about Gmail and cites a PC Magazine review of web-based mail services that disses Gmail and a response here.

I agree with Ron. I love GMail too. The 'search and tag' metaphors are so much more my style than 'folders and drag n drop'. But there is another simple thing that makes Gmail win hands down (for me):

When I log into Yahoo Mail I see my folder list, top news stories, a big  f a t  animated ad on the right hand side, and a few other ads on the left, under my folder list. My actual inbox is another click away . When I log into Gmail, I get... wait for it... my inbox. No ads, no flashing, blinking things.. just my email.

The simplicity of the interface doesn't insult me. It's relatively speedy, clearly readable, and the colours are muted and unobtrusive. It's kind of like comparing Visual Studio to Vi. I'm in the Vi camp.

And I find Google's Reader and Calendar the same. I like the lack of shiny faux-3D bars and stripes. They're functional interfaces, with minimal, unobtrusive advertising. If I were Yahoo or MS, I'd seriously review what it is they're aiming for.

I've demonstrated GMail to probably a dozen people in the last year or so. Three of those were already on Yahoo Mail at the time. Those three are now avid Gmailers. Once you get past the fact that it doesn't work like Outlook, you begin to realize that just might be a good thing.

On a more general, application-wide note, I think keyboard shortcuts are seriously underrated. People somehow take keyboard controls as an indication of antiquated, simplistic and somehow limited application behaviour. But I find myself frustrated when I can't easily find a keyboard shortcut for an often-used command.

Down with Feature-bloat, Up with Functionality!

Facebook - ewww (?)

I had a co-worker ask me a question about uploading a photo to a web service the other day. He was having trouble resizing (shrinking) the image. I asked him what it was for and he told me that it was for his Facebook account.

Then a few days later I receive an invite from a family member to join Facebook.

Ewww.

While I've only seen glimpses of Facebook, it just doesn't seem like my type of thing. I may be wrong, but with the very limited glimpses I've seen of it and from what these guys have told me, it sounds like classmates.com meets myspace.

Ewww.


Maybe it's my age. Social networking in that form just doesn't appeal to me. I have a fairly small circle of good friends. And though it might sound antisocial, I'm not all that interested in expanding it by using a service designed to expand it. Seems a bit unnatural to me (but obviously not to many many others).

Sure you expand relationships by blogging and the commenting and linking that comes with it. But you seem to earn those relationships through providing information or entertainment and getting the same in return. Much more my style.

So I've got a Facebook invite. What do you think I should do? Am I completely wrong about Facebook? Set me straight.

I'm ..err.. twitting...

With a slight nudge from Brad Kellett over at Pantsland.com, I've signed up to Twitter. I don't fully get it yet, and the last thing I really need is yet another distraction to dilute focus, but I'll give it a shot anyway.

So for a peek into what it is I'm doing (or avoiding doing), check out this stream of semi-consciousness..

Texting isn't my thing, so being able to do it from GmailChat was the only viable way for me.

Incidentally, I see move afoot tonight about a mass exodus from Twitter to Jaiku.  - I must have scared them all away.  ;)

Inkscape Screencast 8 - Perspective

My 8th Inkscape screencast is now posted. This one involves the perspective effect in Inkscape. I tried to just illustrate the basics of using it. With a little imagination you can achieve some neat things with it. I've been using it for a few of my entries in the xmms2 logo contest.

I had a bit of trouble using the effect on my linux machine. It would work fine, but always popped up a warning dialog. Not great stuff for a screencast. A developer named acspike helped me out by creating a fix to suppress the messages. Good stuff!

The intro as always, was fun to make, and while speeding it up achieved what I wanted, I had a little trouble joining it up to the main screencast portion because they differed in frame rates. However a little playing around with avidemux let me match the frame rates and all was well in the end.

Hope you like it and find it useful.

[Update: Thanks to Joe H in the comments. He pointed out, quite correctly, that you don't have to combine paths into one before applying the perspective effect. You can just group them. This lets you 'perspectivize' paths with differing fill, stroke and colour properties without losing those properties. - Thanks Joe! and check out the sample book and cup image he posted in the comments - awesome!]



Click right here to see the other screencasts I've posted.

Google Analytics - first impressions

Gee whiz. After only half a day since switching to Google Analytics and a single visit to their site tonight, it feels like switching from a 1974 Chrysler Cordoba to a 2007 Audi.

The lack of blinking ads, actual 21st century looking graphical displays and the various tools and options for displaying data simply leads me to believe that spyware cookies or not, Sitemeter just completely sucked.

And while I won't give Google Analytics a ringing endorsement quite yet, they've already raised the bar completely on what I had been using.

Stats Up - Sitemeter Out

Dear Sitemeter,

Vamoose, scram, before I slice you into ham!

Yours truly, without love,

RQ


Like many other bloggers out there, I've been using Sitemeter to track visitor stats. Rumblings today indicate that they've been installing cookies into the browser of visitors to this site - with no mention of it whatsoever to me or any of their other users.

Apologies to you readers out there. As you well know, we bloggers are a notoriously fickle bunch. As of 10 minutes ago, Sitemeter is out and Google Analytics is in.

Speaking of site stats, I've been quite happy of late. While I've always tried to provide some interesting content and decent writing, generating traffic has not been a goal for me. I've never run any ads on this blog so that's not a motivator. I love seeing traffic go up, but I don't write with that in mind. However I've seen a 400% increase in page views since the beginning of January. And while the numbers are still incredibly small by most blogging standards, it's the increase that's pleased me.

Why the increase? Well, I don't think it's just coincidental that I started posting my screencasts partway into December just before the steady rise in traffic. Maybe content really is king. But I do it for the enjoyment of it, not for the traffic. Right now, it's linux, open-source, inkscape, and the graphic arts that I find most interesting.

In a flagrant transgression of blogging etiquette - where traffic flow cards are always held so close to the chest - (what do *I* have to lose), here's the final screenshot from the offending Sitemeter showing the increase:

BumpTop demo video - very cool

Via Ron K. Jeffries' great blog Cloudy Thinking:

Just when you thought the well of neat UI and desktop metaphor ideas might run dry, here's a very cool video of 3D desktop prototype called BumpTop. Very very cool. Some of the concepts like the 'lasso and stroke' command interface could be applicable in a wide range of applications not just desktop organization. It's kind of like mouse gestures (something I could never quite get the hang of) only with visual feedback which vastly improves it.

Nine Days of Screwing...

Now there's a post title that'll drive some traffic....pr0n seekers -  sorry to disappoint...

It is remarkable how stressful and distracting it is when you get your car broken into, and then you proceed to get bent over and screwed by your insurance company, insurance broker and two different mechanics. It's 9 days later and I still don't have my car back from what is supposed to be a 4 hour repair.

This little descent into hell began when I found out I was not (and never have been) covered for a rental car. Then the first mechanic told me the parts were back-ordered to the end of March. I felt he was lying and that he thought I was some sort of idiot (no - that was the guy who started all this). After 2 days of unreturned phone calls from my broker and insurer, I managed to get the car to my own mechanic who told me they could get the same parts within 2 days. Now it seems the 2 days has turned into 4 days.

The most frustrating thing is that everybody I've talked to (other than the mechanics) tells me it's a 4 hour repair. Nine days for a 4 hour repair??

Okay, maybe there's a delay getting parts. But NINE DAYS!!?? C'mon people!

I'm a nice guy (trust me). I absolutely hate getting angry with people. That's why I almost never ever do it. But if I don't get my car back tomorrow (as has been promised as of this morning) I'm going to be very ashamed and guilty of my behaviour.

To top things off, my insurer now tells me that my aftermarket car stereo depreciates in value 10% per year (which is fine) PROVIDED I have the receipt for it. Grrrrr. Otherwise they only reimburse for 50%. I have the box. I have the manual. Cripes, I think I still have the remote control!! (provided Idiot didn't take that too). But the receipt? C'mon. We'll be sparring over that one folks.

Sorry for the venting post. Be glad they're few and far between for me.

Go look at some nice XMMS2 logo entries if you need some happy-fying like me. Inkscape doodling has been a saving grace for me this week.

I'll go get a coffee now and see if I still hit 'send' when I get back...

I Bought a Nokia 6265i - opinions wanted...

One of the other things stolen from my car was the car charger for my cell phone. My desktop charger was ruined a year or so ago in a kitchen sink mishap (don't ask), so the car charger was my sole means of keeping my trusty 5 year old Audiovox 8300 phone ticking.

Well since the battery was almost completely spent, I decided to head to a local Telus store up the road from my work. It turns out that the only charger for this phone was in a Telus store somewhere in Quebec and it was gonna be several days before they could get it. Aaargh - frickin car stealing idiots!!

So instead I decided to get a new phone. With my service plan unchanged and renewing for a 3 year contract (I've been satisfied if not happy with Telus for the past 9 years) I picked up a Nokia 6265i for zero cost plus the activation fee.

I am not a convergence device guy. I wanted a good phone that I would be using probably only as a phone. It would be nice to have data capabilities if I need them in the future, but it wasn't crucial. I probably only text message a couple times a month so that wasn't a key feature either. It's got what is supposed to be a good 2 MP camera, but being a DSLR owner I know I probably wouldn't be overly impressed and truly, it wouldn't have been a deal-breaker if it didn't have a camera at all.

So it has a slew of fancy features, most of which I probably won't ever use (mp3 playback and an internal fm radio too).

It's sad to say, with me being so interested in technology and the information age, but what really sold me was the sliding keyboard and internal antenna. Everyone and their grandmother has a flip phone these days - I wanted something different. And hey, you've got to admit those phones in the Matrix were kinda cool :)

Now if Brad Kellet or others could just chime in here and give me a much more educated opinion on my purchase it would be much appreciated!

Indefatigable?

I've been called a lot of things in my 39 years on this planet, but indefatigable hasn't been one of them - until now. That's what I was called on the XMMS2 Logo contest blog today. While I assumed (correctly) it was a compliment, I am nothing if not honest about the fact that despite what my daughter might think, I do NOT know everything, and that includes the definition of indefatigable.

Did I ever mention that the Google search keyword "define:" is one of my best friends? Well me and the Google define: keyword have been intimate for quite some time.

A quick search yielded "showing sustained enthusiastic action with unflagging vitality". Not bad. Quite nice actually.

While not really wanting to toot my own horn, it is quite remarkable how a single word compliment can raise your day.

Check out the XMMS2 contest blog for the slew of great entries so far.

New 4GB CF Card - $129 Not Bad Eh?

On a lighter note, the day before Idiot broke into my car, I picked up a new 4GB compact flash card for, get this, $129.00 CDN.

I took a look at an old Shutterbug magazine from November 2003, its cover story touting the news that Lexar had released the worlds first 4GB flash card. At that time, it's street price was $1500.00 USD!!

I heard just a few days ago that flash memory pricing has taken a real dip as of late. So if you're interested in a new card, maybe now's the time.

Idiot breaks into my car steals stereo, leaves DSLR

At work today, sometime between 8:50am and 12:20pm, I was paid a visit by a person henceforth known as "Idiot". Idiot proceeded to punch out the door lock on my car and enter the vehicle. Then Idiot hammered in the ignition switch on my steering column and twisted the steering column housing. After this, Idiot ripped out and stole the my cheapy $140 car stereo. And in a final despicable act of sheer cowardice, Idiot took my cell phone car charger.

After a couple of hours and phone calls to my insurance company, police and auto shop, I was in a tow truck on my way to a 300 dollar deductible and a rental car.

One thing I didn't know was that while my insurance policy has comprehensive and collision coverage, it doesn't foot the bill for a rental car (hence the low-buck Hyundai Accent rental currently sitting in my garage). I guess that's the price I pay for a circa $100 monthly car insurance bill. ;)

And while I could think of a million other creative names to call the offender, I think 'Idiot' is the most appropriate only because there was a knapsack-style camera bag holding my Canon Rebel XT DSLR, 3 Canon lenses and a miniDV camcorder in the front passenger side footwell which Idiot somehow missed.

Needless to say, when the camera bag accompanies me to work, it's coming into the office with me from now on.

Hopefully my car will be fixed up in a day or two. Twelve years and 330,000km aside, the car's still in very good shape, but I think I'm only a few months away from a new car purchase, so I don't think I'll spring for a car alarm system on this one (not that it necessarily would have stopped Idiot from being an idiot anyway).

Hope everyone had a better day than I did.

Formula 1 - 07 goes tonight!

Jeez.. I almost missed it. The 2007 Formula One season is already underway and Round 1 in Australia is on tonight!

Better yet, I can finally cheer for Ferrari (not that I necessarily will) once again now that Schumacher is gone. I've been sworn enemies of Ferrari's F1 effort ever since 1997 on that dark day in Jerez, Spain when  the German intentionally tried to drive Canuck Jacques Villeneuve off the road.

I haven't followed much if any of the pre-season shenanigans, but I've always like Kimi and cheered for Alonso in his battles with Schumacher (no surprise there).

I'm still not behind any specific horse at this point. Let's see what happens down under tonight.

Develop your Inkscape chops (and maybe win something too!)

Seems like everybody and their grandmother are holding a logo contest these days:

create.freedesktop.org is a project whose aim is to facilitate the sharing of things like code, media and infrastructure between various free and open source creative applications (think Inkscape, GIMP, cinepaint, scribus, Audacity and the like). They're going to be holding a logo competition. It's supposed to start soon. If you're looking to improve your Inkscape skills and stretch your creative muscles at the same time, then have a go when it starts. It'll accomplish both things. The contest is supposed to have started, but I see no confirmed details posted about it yet, but there are some tentative details over in the  openclipart.org wiki.

Xmms2 as you might imagine is a project aimed at providing a followup to the venerable xmms media player application. They're holding a logo competition too. And in this one, they're offering a $400 Amazon Gift Certificate to the winner! This one has already started and entries are being accepted until the 13th of April. Drag your butt over to the Xmms2 Logo Competition page for details.

If you think you haven't got what it takes, I've got a small piece of advice for you:

Just drawing *something*. Anything. Don't go into it as something you have to submit on the first go-round. Once you come up with something, go get a coffee and stare at it for a while. Play with it. Before long you'll see what you like and don't like about it and you'll refine it (or even scrap it). But by that time your creative juices will at least be flowing. You'll then likely see off-shoots or completely different ideas. And even more importantly (IMO) you'll figure out different way of achieving the results you want. All the while, you'll be building your chops bit by bit. What is the worst thing that can happen by trying?

I am absolutely killer at throwing up obstacles to getting unappealing work started. I can be extremely creative in finding ways to avoid scary or potentially daunting tasks.  But if I just summon up the willpower to do something (usually the easiest, shortest portion of the task), I quickly find myself achieving more and more progress. It's getting the boulder rolling that's tough. Once it's going you'll find it's a lot easier to keep it moving.

Cheers and good luck.

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?