Archives for the month of: January, 2009

Ole’ Faithful – The Pentel P205

January 29, 2009 //

p205 While almost all of what I post about here involves techy matters like Linux or more creative subjects like graphics and photography, I am by profession a structural engineer. And like many engineers (structural and otherwise) I value my mechanical pencils.

I’ve tried all kinds both expensive and cheap, but I always keep coming back to Ole Faithful: The Pentel P205. Today I picked up a two pack after muddling along with a three pack of very similar looking (but very different acting) Staple’s house brand Metrix pencils. They looked very much the same as the Pentels but broke off leads with alarming frequency.

It turns out that the P205’s have quite a good reputation. Doing a quick search, I found a very interesting site for fellow mechanical pencil afficionados aptly titled: Dave’s Mechanical Pencils.

The niche-ness of the internet never fails to amaze me.

Categories drawing, life, technology

A Really Fast Way to Compose a Gmail Message

January 29, 2009 //

gmailtip Yesterday I was trying out a very useful sounding tip for adding a bookmarklet that would very quickly (in 1 sec or so) pop up a gmail compose window without all the contact and inbox stuff. Better yet, it would have all the auto-complete contact info as well so it’s very useful if you want to fire off an email without getting distracted by all that other inbox and chat stuff.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t seem to get it to work. I think it required having a Google gadget of some sort (I don’t use Google Gadgets) or iGoogle or Google Desktop or some other such nonsense. In any case I couldn’t get it to work in Chrome (my main browser here at work). But luckily in the comments to the post, someone provided a script to enter into the bookmarklet url (once the bookmarklet is up there in the bookmark bar, just right-click and choose edit). Once I pasted in that script it works like a charm. Supposedly it works in Firefox too (although I haven’t tried it). Here’s the script I pasted in:

javascript:(function(){var a=window,b=document,c=encodeURIComponent,d=a.open("https://mail.google.com/mail/?view=cm&fs=1&tf=0"+c(b.location)+"&title="+c(b.title),"bkmk_popup","left="+((a.screenX||a.screenLeft)+10)+",top="+((a.screenY||a.screenTop)+10)+",height=420px,width=550px,resizable=1,alwaysRaised=1");a.setTimeout(function(){d.focus()},300)})();

ps. Okay I give up. I’m not sure how to get the above code snippet to display properly in my blog. I’ve tried the ‘pre’, ‘code’, ‘blockquote’ and even tried the CodeHighlighter plugin. All to no avail. Is there something I should be putting in my CSS file to tame the above monstrosity so that it obeys wordwrapping on my blog?

Categories Uncategorized

How I edit videos using Blender (maybe part one?)

January 26, 2009 //

A little while ago, Heathenx and I decided to investigate the use of Blender for editing video. I’ve played around with Kino, Kdenlive, and Cinelerra among other things for basic video editing on Linux, none of them has worked for me as well as Blender. If there is one area where Linux currently falls short, it is in the area of video editing. Although I don’t doubt that this will change, I have found that Blender is what gives me the most stable and intuitive way to accomplish what I want in this area.

And what I want, is to be able to do some basic edits of the video from my Flip camera. By ‘basic’ I mean that I want to be able to edit clips, splice them together with some basic fades, add a music track, maybe add a title and a fade-to-black or two. Nothing earth-shattering, but that’s what I’m after.

I’ve used it now on two or three of my Flip videos with great success. Now while it’s fresh in my mind, and after @tmray asked me about how I did it, I thought I’d put together a quick screencast on a whim. A couple of notes first:

1. Yes, Blender is a bit daunting at first. Sure, there is a learning curve. But it’s not all that steep for what we’re trying to accomplish, but it’s there. I won’t lie to you. But I think there is a learning curve with any video editing application regardless of platform.

2. I am no Blender expert. I am well and truly a Blender newb. So if you watch this and have any Blender experience, you’ll likely find things that I’m doing wrong, or things that could be done much quicker. Don’t hesitate to post suggestions in the comments. I’m all about the learning.

3. In this screencast I cover only a couple of basic things: How to import videos into Blender, how to shorten and move them, how to create a cross fade between clips and how to output the final video. I may do a couple more screencasts on this to cover things like creating a title screen, fading to black and adding and editing a soundtrack.

Anyway, enough of the blather. You’ll find the screencast right here.
Update: I’ve now done 3 Blender screencasts. Here are the posts with part 2 and part3.

Categories blender, linux, screencast, technology

Increasing my productivity in 4 clicks

January 14, 2009 //

Little did I know I was only 3 or 4 clicks away from a big increase in my productivity…

1. Open Google Reader.
2. Select “Digg” from my list of subscribed feeds on the left.
3. Click Feed Settings at the top.
4. Click “Unsubscribe”.

It’s surprising how much time I have gained for other things by doing that. Don’t cherish your big RSS subscriptions. They ain’t going anywhere. Turn one off and see if you miss it.

Categories life, technology, web

Some Dell M1330 questions and a retarded screenshot

January 12, 2009 //

I am seriously thinking about getting a laptop. After briefly pricing out and looking at a Dell Mini 9 (or 12), I’ve gone back to wanting the Dell M1330. There has been no shortage of good reviews about it and it still has my eye. I do have a couple of lingering questions that I still have to research though.

But first, a super-retarded screenshot of me configuring the system on the Dell website. I can almost forgive Dell for not putting an Ubuntu logo on the OS configuration page, but damn was I annoyed when I saw this:

C’mon people! It’s not even one of the available options on this page. Sheesh.

Anyway, the few questions remaining are:

1. How much better is the T7500 processor than the T7250? I’m not going to be rendering the world on this thing.. in any case it will be orders of magnitude faster than my present P4 desktop, but how much real-world difference is there between the two upgrade options?

2. They offer 2 displays. A standard LCD with 2.0MP webcam and a “Slim and Light White LED Display with VGA Webcam”. To me, it sounds like I’m trading off LCD quality for webcam resolution (what resolution is VGA anyway?). Not something worth doing I would think. I’m thinking the White LED is the way to go. But not sure.

3. Okay.. 7200 vs 5400 rpm hard drives. I know 7200 was almost a must-have when you were talking about capturing Video from a camcorder. But I no longer need to do that. Am I going to be sacrificing significant battery life by going the 7200 route? Is it really necessary?

4. 6 cell vs. 9 cell battery. I’m not an air traveller. I’m not someone who’s going to be using this thing on battery for hours at a time. I don’t see it. I’m assuming you pay for this in extra weight too. Any reason I should go 9-cell?

I’ve never owned a laptop before. Never. I’m way behind the curve on this and I need some edumacation. Anybody got some good advice on the above?

Categories linux, technology

Blathering on about creativity and an icon set

January 8, 2009 //

icon_blank For quite a while now I’ve been harbouring a desire to embark on a longer term graphics project. I love diving into a variety of smaller projects, like the recent Lumiera logo entries, playing around with a gPodder logo and even more recently contributing a little of my play time to Crunchbang linux.

However I would like to stretch my right brain a little further by coming up with my own icon set. Now, I know pretty much diddly-squat about actually creating an icon set, but I imagine it’s somewhat tedious, time consuming (if done well), but entirely possible. So since I have been secretly wanting to do this, why post about it now? There are two reasons:

First, very recently (like on the drive home last night) I listened to an interview with Merlin Mann by Leo Barbauta. While it was an interesting interview, the highlight for me was a question that Merlin asked of Leo (and I’m paraphrasing here of course): If you woke up tomorrow with 60% of the required materials, knowledge or information already in hand, what creative thing would you do?

So knowing you would already be 60% of the way there, what would the project be? Forget about starting from scratch, forget about facing that mountain of initial effort to get moving - what would it be if you were already more than halfway there? Now, I’m nowhere near 60% of the way there (more like 0.1%), but it really gets you to question yourself about what to do creatively.

The second thing that prompted this post was a fascinating post that popped up over on VectorTuts this morning about 10 Tips For Effective Icon Design. It has some really inspiring examples and great useful advice for people who are designing icons.

So I’m really putting this post up to get myself started on this little project. I’m not sure what the scope would be, but it can’t hurt to try. You know there might even be a potential screencast in there somewhere too, you never know.

At least I now have something I know I can put in my Moleskine knockoff.

Categories design, graphics, inkscape

Lumiera’s new logo concept – tweaks part deux

January 6, 2009 //

Based on the great constructive comments on my previous post from Thorsten and Troy about Lumiera’s new logo concept, I thought I’d make another slight tweak to what I had already posted and came up with this:

lumiera_tweak02

I added (somewhat crudely) the additional film sprocket hole and used the mgOpen Cosmetica type with slighter tighter tracking (which is the spacing between letterforms across the whole word). I think it looks pretty cohesive as a logo. One of the things I liked about the winning concept was its simplicity and the way it could be used on both dark and light backgrounds.

Anyway, I’m not sure what the Lumiera guys will end up doing, but I think it’s an interesting and attractive concept nonetheless.

Categories design, graphics, inkscape

Lumiera’s New Logo Concept – and a couple of suggested tweaks

January 3, 2009 //

Back in mid-November, I posted about Lumiera’s logo contest over on the screencaster’s blog. I made several entries, some of which are below:

lum_entries

The winning concept (which I really liked) was this one by anamii:

lum_winner_orig

Now the aim of the contest was to select a “concept”, so there is some ongoing discussion about tweaking the logo. While I loved the concept and it’s simplicity, I never really liked the typeface that was used. It seems somewhat unbalanced or unfinished to me. Over at Thorsten Wilm’s blog he proposed using a significantly heavier typeface. I wasn’t crazy about the results. And he also made some alternative suggestions of a slightly lighter weight. I would propose something light too but definitely thicker than the type originally proposed. I’ve shown two options, one using mgOpen Cosmetica, and one using Gentium. I like both.

lum_winner_texttweak

But something else has bothered me a bit about this logo from the start. I love the concept, but the geometry seems very non-square and maybe a little too flattened for my tastes. So as another idea, I propose simply stretching it upwards to give it a more square geometry. I think it makes it look more dynamic as well. Remember that this symbol will have to suffice from the largest graphic sizes way down to 16px favicon sizes. Having something more square in nature might help that. Here’s a quick and dirty attempt at it. It would still need some additional polishing - like the missing sprocket hole near the upturned corner:

lum_winner_geomtweak

Of course these are all just opinions. But now that’s exactly what blogs are for right?

Categories design, graphics, inkscape

Facing down a perfectly blank Moleskine alternative

January 2, 2009 //

We spent a few days down near Buffalo (Cheektowaga to be exact) just prior to the new year to do a little swimming, resting and shopping. Now when I say shopping, that means my wife and her mother hunt down various bargoons (at least 80% off or fuhgeddaboutit) for several hours at a time. For me (and my daughter) it just means a quick trip to Borders and maybe Barnes & Nobles to have a look around. It all amounts to about 15-20 minutes of shopping time for me. Which is plenty. I grabbed a copy of Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, a copy of Car magazine (what the hell did everybody do with the latest version of TopGear anyway??!!), a word search book for Emily and on the way out I spotted some Picadilly notebooks at Borders. Hmm.. looks like a Moleskine, but costs significantly less. I picked up a plain medium notebook (5”x8.25”) for a little over 7 bucks I think.

Now I know nothing about Moleskine notebooks, never owned or used one. But when I have seen them, they always seemed a little too overpriced to me. At least these Picadilly things are a little more reasonable. And they seem to be perfectly capable competitors, at least thats what these guys think. And they seem to know a lot more about notebooks than I do.

Anyway, I’m now sitting with a nice pretty notebook with absolutely nothing in it. I’m almost afraid to sully it. Maybe I should have bought a ruled version instead so I could at least jot some semi-important notes. Ahh.. but I guess I bought this thing for doodling (y’know, logos, graphics and the like). We’ll see if it fills up with anything substantive in the coming weeks. I hope so.

Categories design, drawing, graphics, life, web

What Xmas and a reasonably fast (and cheap) prime lens will get you…

January 1, 2009 //

The holiday season always seems to give me the much needed opportunity to take a lot of photographs. Mostly they’re snapshots, but now and again you get something impressive.

Once again I implore any DSLR owners to go out and purchase a fixed length, fast 50mm lens. I bought a 50mm f1.8 lens for my Canon 350D a while back and it almost always brings with it some impressive shots. Just set it to Aperture priority and use the widest aperture you have. This lens cost me just over 100 bucks (brand new) and I know Nikon produces a similar cheap but very useful fast prime lens too.

For those who don’t know, a wide aperture can give you a nice shallow depth of field. This is nice for portraits when you want the subject in focus, but the background nicely blurred. By chance I got one of my niece with some nice blurring of the Christmas tree lights (the fancy term for this blur is ‘bokeh’ btw). She’s eating jelly beans if you were wondering. I really liked this shot and thought it was worthy of a post here.

Which reminds me how little I post about photography any more. In fact I don’t do nearly as much photography as I used to. I gotta get back in the habit. There’s a resolution for me I guess. Anyway, here’s the shot:

Categories family, photography