Shallow Thoughts : : writing

Article: Arch Linux

My latest article on Linux Planet is a review of Arch Linux.

I've been quite favorably impressed with Arch. It's a good, solid, straightforward distro that's very well suited to folks who like to administer their systems via the command-line -- or who want to learn how to do that.

I've been running it on my laptop for a few months, because it has excellent performance, without a lot of the bloatware you see in a lot of other distros, and it boots fast.

The only real problem I've had involves fonts. I see nasty font artifacts -- sometimes subtle, a line or a few pixels missing from certain letters -- but sometimes severe, as in this screenshot or this one. In the article I talk about some solutions I've found that make the problems less bad, but I haven't found any way to make them go away entirely.

Unfortunately, since the font problems are worst inside browsers and I use my laptop for presentations at conferences, this may eventually drive me off Arch. I hope not -- I hope I can find a solution -- because otherwise, Arch has been nothing short of a pleasure.

Tags: writing, linux
[ 19:36 Jan 13, 2011    More writing | permalink to this entry | comments ]

Snakes on a Couch! Using Python with CouchDB

Part II of my CouchDB tutorial is out at Linux Planet. In it, I use Python and CouchDB to write a simple application that keeps track of which restaurants you've been to recently, and to suggest new places to eat where you haven't been.

Snakes on a Couch, Part 2: Where do you want to eat?

Tags: writing, python, programming, database, couchdb
[ 20:00 Oct 15, 2010    More writing | permalink to this entry | comments ]

Snakes on a Couch! Using Python with CouchDB

I've been learning CouchDB, the hot NoSQL database, as part of my new job. It's interesting -- a very different mindset compared to classic databases like MySQL.

There's a fairly good Python package for it, python-couchdb ... but the documentation is somewhat incomplete and there's very little else written about it, and virtually no sample code to steal.

That makes it a perfect topic for a Linux Planet tutorial! So here it is, Part 1:

Snakes on a Couch! Using Python with CouchDB.

I have a rather fun application for the database I introduce in the article, but you'll have to wait until Part 2, two weeks from now, to see the details.

Tags: writing, python, programming, database, couchdb
[ 10:55 Sep 23, 2010    More writing | permalink to this entry | comments ]

Hugin part 2: Rescuing Difficult Panoramas

Part 2 in my Hugin series is out, in which I discuss how to rescue difficult panoramas that confuse Hugin.

Hugin is an amazing program, but if you get outside the bounds of the normal "Assistant" steps, the user interface can be a bit confusing -- and sometimes it does things that are Just Plain Weird. But with help from some folks on IRC, I found out that a newer version of Hugin can fix those problems, and worked out how to do it (as well as lots of ways that seemed like they should work, but didn't).

Read the gory details in: Hugin part 2: Rescuing Difficult Panoramas.

There will be a Hugin Part 3, and possibly even a Part 4, discussing things Hugin can do beyond panoramas.

Tags: writing, linux, graphics, panorama, hugin
[ 13:58 Sep 09, 2010    More writing | permalink to this entry | comments ]

Painless Panorama Stitching with Hugin

A couple of weeks ago in my Fotoxx article I discussed using Fotoxx to create panoramas.

But for panoramas bigger than a couple of images, you're much better off using the Linux panorama app: Hugin.

Hugin is very impressive, and much too capable to be summarized in a single short article, so I'm planning three. This week's article is a basic introduction: Painless Panorama Stitching with Hugin.

Tags: writing, linux, graphics, panorama, hugin
[ 14:11 Aug 26, 2010    More writing | permalink to this entry | comments ]

Fotoxx: the Greatest Little Linux Photo Editor You've Never Heard Of

Dave stumbled on a neat little photo editor while tricking out his old Vaio (P3/650 MHz, 192M RAM) and looking for lightweight apps. It's called Fotoxx and it's quite impressive: easy to use and packed with useful features.

So I wrote about it in this week's Linux Planet article: Fotoxx, the Greatest Little Linux Photo Editor You've Never Heard Of.

At first, I was most impressed by the Warp tool -- much easier to use than GIMP's IWarp, though it's rather slow and not quite as flexible as IWarp. But once I got to writing the article, I was blown away by two additional features: it has an automatic panorama stitcher and an HDR tool. GIMP doesn't have either of these features, at all.

Now, panorama stitching used to be a big deal, but it isn't so much any more now that Hugin has gotten much easier to use. (My article in two weeks will be about Hugin.) Fotoxx isn't quite that flexible: it can only stitch two images at a time, and can't handle images with a lot of overlap. (But Hugin has some limitations too.)

But HDR -- wow! I've been meaning to learn more about making HDR images in GIMP -- although it has no HDR tool, there are plug-ins to make it a bit easier to assemble one, just like my Pandora plug-in makes it a little easier to assemble panoramas. But now I don't need to -- fotoxx handles it automatically.

I won't be switching from GIMP any time soon for regular photo editing, of course -- GIMP is still much more flexible. But fotoxx is definitely worth a look, and I'll be keeping it installed to make HDR images, if nothing else.

Tags: writing, linux, graphics, panorama, HDR
[ 14:44 Aug 12, 2010    More writing | permalink to this entry | comments ]

Kdenlive part 2: adding transitions, sounds and titles to your movies

I've been so busy with Libre Graphics Meeting -- a whirlwind of GIMP caucuses, open source graphics, free art and sharing of ideas -- that I forgot to notice that part 2 of my kdenlive article was up on Linux Planet.

Making Movies in Linux with Kdenlive, part 2: Spice up Those Kdenlive Videos.

Tags: writing, linux, video
[ 02:45 May 30, 2010    More writing | permalink to this entry | comments ]

Kdenlive -- the easy way to make movies

A couple of weeks ago, I shot a lot of short video clips with my digital camera at an indoor fun fly (in the intervals when I wasn't crashing around with the other crazy pilots).

But then ... what to do with a bunch of disconnected video clips? I've uploaded short clips to youtube before, but never extracted the good parts and edited them together. And most video editing programs look pretty complex.

The answer turned out to be kdenlive, which was surprisingly easy to use -- once I got past one initial bug. So I wrote up the details. Part I, covering the basics of how to get started and combine clips, is on Linux Planet: Making Movies in Linux with Kdenlive.

Watch for part II in a couple of weeks, where I'll cover transition effects, music and titles.

Tags: writing, linux, video
[ 18:25 May 13, 2010    More writing | permalink to this entry | comments ]