Found a page with some neat GIMP tricks for photo manipulation.
Linux Focus, GIMP Manipulation.
Don’t be worried by the Linux Focus part, it’s just where the article was written and is just as relevant for Windows versions.
I’m in the process of building an arty website for one of my modules. Truth be told, almost every other one of my modules includes building a website but this one is quite nice as I get to have some fun with it… infact the website ones are always more fun, certainly more fun than computer networks or social research theory. Anyway, I digress, the point here is the arty bits.
Ubuntu coming to a Tesco near you.
http://linkpot.net/kidnap/
http://linkpot.net/chastened/
For one of my school projects I have to write programs for Microsoft (R) Windows (TM). I know that this makes sense, lets be honest its in most peoples homes. The problem I have is that I didn’t have it in my home. I’ve been using Ubuntu (a linux thing) on all my machines for more than six months now and have barely touched anything with Windows since. So, I knew that a new version of Ubuntu was coming out on Thursday so yesterday I decided to wipe my laptop and replace it with Windows XP in order to make school a little easier (I’ll also get more BBC content, as a bonus). And here is where the problems started…
Correct drivers were not included. Why is this something the the OSS boys do so well with so little help yet a company with so much money for research do so badly? I mean, the drivers were available on the internet, I just couldn’t get on the internet to find them because the first set of drivers I needed were network drivers! Even when I used other machines I found the documentation was atrocious. I got that annoyed with it I had to give my computer to someone else to fix before I started beating it.
I’m not saying life’s a beach as soon as you go open source, infact its far from it. To be honest, my other problems were things that I would have just been used to before. Things like programs organised by manufacturer rather than what they do. Maybe this is why its hard to go back, you get used to something and you’re happy. Its like trying to revive an old relationship I guess, lets be honest, you broke up for a reason.
So in a couple of days Windows will be partitioned off and placed in a back corner of my machine. I’m not going to completely delete it this time but I’m afraid to say I can never embrace it again.
Lying in bed with my thoughts I have stumbled across a problem. It looks like this:
revel - lever team - meat nib - bin tip - pit real - lear made - edam desserts - stressed
What are they?
Now, I know that they are palindromes when placed together, what I want to know is the name of a word that changes its meaning when reversed. If you know the answer then for the sake of my sanity please post it in a comment. Also, I’d be interested to see any others that you can come up with.
Today Eastcliff Richard and I became ‘friends’. I think this is a familiar expression in the world of social networking. In this instance it was on probably the most highly publicised site of recent months, Facebook. This has got me thinking a little more about a site which I once thought was pretty neat but I now avoid like Margate!
I like to think of myself as an early adopter. I certainly try to be, signing up to many new social webservices before anyone else has signed up and as such unlikely there being any point in being there. With Facebook I’d tried to sign up a couple of years ago but you needed a uni email so I couldn’t. When I came to Oxford though it was just at the start of the Facebook wave so naturally I signed my name on the dotted line.
I’d spent some time in the garish environment of MySpace for a few years (the de facto social site of Thanet rock) and so enjoyed the simplicity of Facebook. It had plain white pages, minimally organised small photos, a wall, some groups and the occasional poke. It was simple and I thanked it for that.
Then at the same time as the wave of new uni kids they opened up registration to the site to anyone with an email address. Now we get all the guys who are using it at uni telling their friends back home to come join and things started to snowball. As of today Facebook is now in the top ten global Alexa ranked sites. Its still not caught Myspace but its not got much further to go and if the rate that my new friend requests come in I doubt it will be much longer.
So here is where I think the problem lies. Facebook was successful because it differed from Myspace. It did offer a more peaceful approach to social networking but now they have opened up the site to third party applications, the likes of Zombie Biters, Booze Mailers, Super Pokers and any other stupid thing you can think of. Here is where the problem of being open to anyone with an email comes in. These applications are further propagated by people who are wasting away their work day. Now when I go to a users page I struggle to find their wall for all the other trash that’s littered over it. Infact, I can’t even use my own inbox without having to spend half an hour clearing it of stupid invites.
Facebook may not yet have reached user saturation, but it is certainly reaching the end of its usability. It makes me wonder what site will be the next big thing, its certainly time to start looking out for it. Hopefuly people will come back to blogs and forums, at least they have some substance and in many cases proved sustainabilty.
And the heavens opened. Does the summer really have to end so abruptly?
I’d always wanted to see what an underground map would look like and the other day I remembered whilst infront of the computer. Now, the one I have below is not totally accurate insofar as exactly where the tubes are laid, but it is more so as far as the stations sit. This map was generated as part of the London Underground geographic maps project by software written by ed g2s and James D. Forrester utilising GPS data.
You may want to see the large version.
I doubt many of you will have heard of Compiz or its one time rival Beryl. These are add-ons for Linux desktops which, though they have their advantages for making your computer more productive, are very much fancy eye-candy. Basically, whenever my friends ask why I use nix I show them some Compiz features, they then exclaim how cool they are and ask how to make their computer do that. They can't of course because they use archaic operating systems.
Anyway, I digress. Compiz is a window composting manager project (you'll see what I mean when you watch the film) which had some infighting, a common thing in open source communities where everyone has the right to say their piece. A group split to go form the Beryl project. Now, though Beryl was often the more exciting project, I preferred Compiz for its stability.
Since then the two groups have decided to re-merge, thus pooling their knowledge and avoiding doubling their work. I'll admit that I was skeptical about what the result would be, would Compiz stop being stable? Would Beryl become less exciting? The following video shows that Compiz Fusion (as the joint project is now known) has certainly become even more exciting than Beryl was alone. I'm now looking forward to installing it to see if its still as stable, even on my cheap integrated graphics card.
