Planet Open Clip Art Library
November 03, 2009
This morning when going to work I somehow noticed (I usually don't look for such things) this small poster glued on the wall of a building close to my office (less than 50 meters away):
Noting out of the extraordinary, some small firm advertising for pet services, but what drew my attention was the drawing in the top-right corner with a dog head. It was looking familiar, as it is one of my drawings published at the
Open Clip Art Library and it made my day!
I made it years ago, exercising original drawing made with the mouse, so the result is not great, but I submitted it to
the library anyway, as I do with all my drawings which are not made for a specific project. And I found awesome how a little graphic contributed to an international project found its way back to a few meters away of me. Either the world is very small or what we are doing is really useful for the people.
Now to be honest, I can't say for sure if the image is taken from openclipart.org, from my
own website, where the images are also available, or from one of the many other websites redistributing, grace to the PD dedication, the openclipart.org content. But this is irrelevant, the goal was achieved.
PS: is not wise to base your company logo on Public Domain clipart, but for
very small companies this is not a real problem, they don't have real branding.
November 03, 2009 10:28 AM
November 02, 2009
What a hyperactive last few weeks! Life keeps accelerating it seems. If you missed this press, a couple of great posts about community advising I’m doing with Status.Net. ReadWriteWeb wrote:
The news is significant as it reflects the interest in open-source alternatives to the proprietary microblogging services that currently dominate the market in the consumer and enterprise communities.
Also, please read the big news about Status.Net closing another round of investment which allows for myself, Brion, Evan and more all work on such a great project.
November 02, 2009 07:24 PM
November 2009 Clip Art of the Month salutes the Holiday Season!
Businesses shut down. Productivity slows to a halt. Shopping malls are so full of people they’re bursting at the seems. These are just some of the ideas brought to mind as the end of the year approaches and a new Holiday Season is upon us.
A source of stress, at times, the Holidays can also be a time of togetherness and unity for people. Clip art images by liftarn (above) and bloodsong (below) beautifully demonstrate how simple and effective imagery can articulate these same feelings.
Vector graphics have also been stylistically implemented by mcol’s Christmas tree in the spirit of the Holiday Season.
The Open Clip Art Library is always evolving and welcomes contributions from everyone around the world.
Clip Art of the month is sponsored by Worldlabel.com, a multifunctional label manufacturer.
November 02, 2009 02:28 PM
If there is one word to describe the Fedora 12 wallpaper is "bokeh", the miriad of circles of light (and it was even stronger in early iterations), so with this in mind, no wonder I remembered the wallpaper when shooting a beautiful autumn bokeh, even if the composition and tones were entirely different.
November 02, 2009 12:41 PM
I posted about my difficulties connecting my Samsung Moment to my Mac laptop. If you want to, you can read those trials and tribulations.
If you just want the solution...
After looking for drivers, doing various experiments, and getting feedback from others with the same problem, I just hunted for any and all settings having to do with USB and one finally worked. It may not be perfect, but this seems to help.
Go into Settings -> Applications -> Development
Turn on USB debugging ("Debug mode when USB is connected"). It will recognize that a USB connection now exists.
A widget will pop up on your Mac saying it's recognized a network device and will want to install the phone as a modem. Don't worry about it. It's a red herring. I never configured that, never connected that.
Go into "Notifications" and you'll see a notification under "Ongoing" that says "USB Connected (select to copy files to/from your computer)". Touch it.
You'll get a dialogue with the title "USB Connected" and the text "You have connected your phone to your computer via USB. Select 'Mount' if you want to copy files between your computer and your phone's SD card." It offers options of "Mount" and "Don't Mount". Touch "Mount".
A removeable drive will appear in Finder called "No Name". That's your Micro SD card and you can begin copying files. You'll need to unmount the card for applications on the phone to have access to it. I created a folder called "Music" in the DCIM folder, put a couple of MP3s in there and I'm listening to them now.
Don't know if this will work with Snow Leopard's built-in sync program or third party sync programs, but I'm happily able to move media back and forth which is HUGE for me.
November 02, 2009 07:29 AM
October 31, 2009
I got my Samsung Moment this afternoon and have been enjoying exploring it. I finally got around to connecting it to my laptop via the included mini-USB cable. While it is getting current via the connection and shows it's charging, it is not, OTOH, seeming to get data. My laptop doesn't see the phone and the phone is not displaying the USB icon to indicate that it's connected to a computer via USB.
I'll be researching this and trying to figure out how to get my Android phone and Mac laptop to see each other. In the meantime, I figured I'd set a placeholder blog post now so it can get indexed into the search engines. Perhaps if anyone else finds a solution before I do, they'll stumble upon this page and leave a comment with some useful information.
Update: The Next Evening:
If you read the comments below, you'll see some of the things I tried. A USB mounting program still required the phone to recognize that a USB connection existed, which it didn't.
I hooked it to a WinXP laptop and got the two to see each other without a problem, transferred some files. So it's a problem with the Mac or some miscommunication with the Mac.
The image above is a screen cap of my system profiler app. It shows that my Macbook Pro is seeing the phone, identified as SAMSUNG_Android, but the phone isn't seeing the machine. I've rebooted the phone with the machine connected to it. I've rebooted the machine with the phone connected to it. Still I can't get the phone to recognize that it's connected to a computer.
It's definitely getting current via the connection. I charged it from 60% to full via the USB connection to my Mac.
I've posted a query to the community forums at Sprint's site. We'll see if we get a a response.
Update: Sunday Morning:
The thread over at the Sprint forums has delivered in part. We've determined it's not the Mac hardware because other respondents in the thread have been able to pair it up with Windows and Linux running in virtual machines on their MacBook Pro laptops. So there's some incompatibility occurring with Android and Snow Leopard.
So the question is whether the phone's software needs to be patched, whether Snow Leopard needs to be patched, or if (as I'm hoping), there's a simple config change you can make on OS X that will solve the problem. We'll see.
Update: Sunday Night:
SOLVED! I was going deep through the Moment's menus and found a kludge/workaround that is at least getting the phone to recognize a connection exists and giving me the external drive functionality so I can transfer files back and forth through the USB connection without having to pull the battery, pull the Micro SD card, and plug the card into a reader/adapter.
How to Connect your Samsung Moment to your Mac
October 31, 2009 12:48 AM
October 30, 2009
My son has been disappointed recently because I have decided to boycott Taco Time. Think of it as if you created a Mexican restaurant and applied a Northwestern Scandinavian sensibility to its food. We're not talking Lutefisk tacos, but the food is just sort of boring. That's not why I'm boycotting it though. I'm boycotting it because their drive through is the slowest I've ever encountered, and despite the extra time, they have a tendency to get my order wrong. Last time, they gave me a chicken taco salad instead of a beef taco salad, and their chicken is disgusting. It tastes like it's warmed-over canned chicken and it's just terrible. I'm just done with them.
The one thing was, instead of potato chunks (like Taco Bell) or french fries (like just about everywhere else), they served tater tots (calling them "Mexi Fries"), and my older boy loved to get a kid-size quesadilla and tater tots from them. Since he could no longer have Taco Time tater tots, I thought I'd console him by trying my hand at a recipe I'd only heard of in hushed whispers, a dish that can drive a cardiologist to acts of violence... Tater Tot Casserole. It's the holy grail of fat and starch, and I was pretty sure my kid would love it.
Here are the components:
Equipment:
2.5 quart covered casserole dish
mixing bowl
spoon
Ingredients:
2 lb. bag of frozen tater tots
10 ounce can of condensed cream of potato soup
16 ounce tub of sour cream
6 oz can of french fried onions
2 cups of shredded cheese (packed)
3 bun length hotdogs
1 tablespoon canola oil
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon dried rosemary
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
Put the oil in the casserole dish and use a paper towel to spread it around the bottom and sides of the dish.
Quarter the hotdogs lengthwise and dice into 1/4 inch bits.
In a mixing bowl, combine the sour cream, soup, half the cheese, half the fried onions, the salt, the pepper, the onion powder, the rosemary, and the hotdog bits.
Create a single layer of tater tots in the bottom of the casserole, laying them lengthwise, and try to fit in as many as you can. Spoon the sour cream mixture over that, creating a fairly even layer.
Cover the sour cream layer with the remaining tots and press them in gently. Cover the tots with the remaining cheese in an even layer. Cover the cheese with the remaining french fried onions in an even layer.
Cover the casserole with its lid and put it in the oven for 1 hour. After 1 hour, remove the lid and let bake for another 10 or so minutes to gently brown the french fried onions on top.
Remove from oven and allow to cool for a few minutes, then serve. It's best if you mash all the bits together once it's on the plate so all the flavors get distributed around. It also stands up well to reheating in the microwave.
Enjoy!
October 30, 2009 04:16 PM
A friend of mine is using his free time to teach about Linux and FLOSS at a school - he managed to convince the school to do this on Saturdays.
Recently he did an interesting experiment with the kids: got bootable images for a number of distros and they put those on LiveUSB media and tried to boot and play with them. Unexpectedly, only Ubuntu worked and everything else failed to start, including Fedora 12 Beta, so their conclusion was "the school computer only support Ubuntu".
I was shocked to learn this, I had terrible pains with F11, which failed for every install I tried due to the Anaconda storage rewrite, but in my experience F12 was rock solid from this point of view.
But soon I identified what I believe to be the root of the problem, they used UNetbootin to write the live USB media, a tool which is supposed to work with a large very number of distros. I have no idea if Fedora 12 failed to boot because the media was written with a tool not updated for our new hybrid images or due to general suckiness of the tool, but I was really amused to read on UNetbootin web page (emphasis mine):
"Requirements: Microsoft Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7, or Linux. If you are having trouble with the Linux version, try the Windows version, it usually works better."
Hint for my friend Tibi: next time use
"dd" on Linux. It
will work better (at least for Fedora).
October 30, 2009 11:57 AM
October 29, 2009
One task I been trying quite a few times with Transmageddon is to port it from libglade to gtkbuilder. So far I have always failed for some reason or the other. A big part of it is that I have tons of examples out there for how things are done with libglade, but not so much for gtkbuilder yet.
That said I am also convinced that someone with the right skills could do the port in about 30 minutes or so. Which is the reason for this blog post. Is there anyone out there who would be willing to cook up a patch for me to port Transmageddon to gtkbuilder? (Its written in Python). If so please grab either the latest release or check out git master from GNOME git.
Any help with this would be much appreciated.
Update: Multiple patches received, much appreciated. I will use weekend to try to merge
October 29, 2009 11:25 AM
October 28, 2009
.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; }
.flickr-yourcomment { }
.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; }
.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }
Web Wednesday Guangzhou massive fun, great work to http://kudelabs.com for great event organizing and more!
October 28, 2009 08:16 PM
I just downloaded and watched the new CC-Licensed Swedish full length feature film (Nasty old people) and was amazed by the charm and passion of it, you can legally download here.
please consider supporting the producer and the movie http://nastyoldpeople.org
The story of Mette:
Member of a neo-Nazi gang, her day job is to take care of four crazy old people that all are just waiting to die. Her life becomes a journey into a burlesque fairytale, where the rules of the game are created by Mette herself. Mette is indifferent about her way of life, until she one night assaults a man, kicking him senseless. Waking up the day after, she realizes that something is wrong, and in company with the her crazy oldies she longs for respect and love. She can tell that the old folks are marginalized by the modern society, but together they create a world and a voice of their own.
Trailer:
Get the movie:
Nasty Old People is available to download as a torrent file from either THE PIRATE BAY or by using THIS LINK
Movie license:
Nasty Old People has the Creative Commons license BY-NC-SA. This means that you don't need to ask for permission to copy, share or remix this film, as long as you mention the people that have produced this movie (you do this by linking to http://www.nastyoldpeople.org/, as long as you don't use it for commercial purposes and as long as you allow others to remix your remixes. Also, you have to link to the original license.
October 28, 2009 02:04 PM
Edward pointed my to this blog today which brought up a point I myself have been making in regards to Android. I spoke to several people at the CE Linux meeting a couple of weeks ago about this for one. To quote from the blog:
Android is an island of its own, and useful code sharing is largely limited to the kernel.
At Collabora Multimedia we are currently working with both Maemo and Android systems and while I can see the appeal of Android from a phone makers perspective I can’t help but be a little saddened by how worthless it is to the general linux eco-system. One of the things I always loved about Nokia’s Maemo effort is that since its using so many of the standard components that we use on the Linux Desktop, it means that when a feature is added or a bug is fixed in Maemo, it directly helps also the linux desktop. Nokia and Maemo has had a strong and direct impact on a lot of open source projects, ranging from GStreamer, D-bus, GTK+, Telepathy, Matchbox, X Window System and more. And Nokia’s work on Qt going forward will of course have a direct impact on the quality of KDE.
Android on the other side has a much more marginal impact. I know they have contributed some patches to Webkit, but apart from that they offer little value to the rest of the linux eco-system. Been even told by some kernel developers that an Android kernel driver is about as immediately useful for the mainstream kernel as a FreeBSD or OpenSolaris driver. Meaning that porting is needed.
So for me personally I can’t help but feel a lot more positive about Maemo (or Moblin for that matter as they too share the same kind of philosophy as Maemo) and getting a N900 is definitely on my TODO list. That said Android is a work in progress and hopefully we can get them to abandon their essentially proprietary stack going forward and instead incorporate more and more shared libraries with the server and desktop. Maemo has proved that for a smartphone these libraries works just as well as Googles homebrew. Some of the efforts we are involved with are pushing in that direction and hopefully Google will realize that the secret to the success of open source is synergy.
October 28, 2009 10:55 AM
I learned the series about Linux and FLOSS will start airing on the Romanian national (public) television, with the first part, where Lucian and me talked about what is Linux, the purpose of distros, a comparison of Ubuntu and Fedora and more being expected tomorrow.
The bad part is the show was moved from Saturday morning to Thursday afternoon, so is hard to catch by someone with a full time job like me, the good part is the show will probably be re-run (again and again, at unknown dates and times) on TVRHD, a channel with smaller audience but better image quality (HD).
So if you have the time, watch TVR2, tomorrow Thursday, 29 October 2009 in between 17:00-17-30 to catch our little segment (I believe around 5 minutes long) in the show called Zon@ IT. I don't own the needed hardware, but if someone have a capture device, please share (I didn't saw the record myself yet, will not be able to catch it directly, so I am curious about it first hand, thanks).
October 28, 2009 08:43 AM
That would normally be a mere comment, but since some people do not like the dialog and close the comment forms on their blog, I had to make it into a full blog post.
I see Matthias is very proud about his 5 tweaks for the F12 desktop (it seems he forgot the 6th, the removal of the "hide all windows" buttons), but as soon as one of them, the padding patch hit Rawhide (post feature-freeze) I started seeing people crying on user forums, wondering if it is a bug and other innocent but clueless people advising to play with the DPI settings or other useless things.
When I point this is a deliberate design decision, people thank goodness the setting can be reverted back to the original value, a sentiment I am totally sympathetic with, since myself also prefer the icons/items grouped close to the corners, not spread all over the panel and making it feel even more busy.
Tip: turn the padding back with:
gconftool-2 --type int --set /apps/panel/toplevels/top_panel/padding 0
gconftool-2 --type int --set /apps/panel/toplevels/bottom_panel/padding 0
October 28, 2009 07:34 AM
السيرة الذاتية بأربع جمل
جون فيليبس يعمل في مجال التطوير الإجتماعي والإقتصادي. وقد شارك في عام 2002 في إطلاق أداة الرسم مفتوحة المصدر إنكسكيب ( inkscape) وقام بتأسيس مكتبة الرسومات العامة Open Clip Art. وقد قام بين عامي 2005 و 2008 بالعمل كمسؤول تطوير اقتصادي وعلاقات عامة لمؤسسة المشاع الإبداعي ( Creative Commons )، وهو حالياً زميل للمنظمة. كما أنه يعمل على تطوير شركة الإعلام فابيركاتورز ( Fabricatorz )، ومعارض ( Cantocore ) للفن، وأنظمة صوت ليوبان، كما يشارك في إطلاق مشروع بيئة التدوين المصغر (Status.Net). كما أنه مشهور ببناء علاقات عمل دولية من خلال قيامه بتطوير نظم إقتصادية حديثة في آسيا وخاصة في الصين، كما يسوق لمفاهيم التسويق المنفتح.
Oh, if you can’t see the above, you need to install some language packs. Here is how you can do markup right-to-left.
October 28, 2009 04:46 AM
I was recently approached by a friend of my mothers who was absolutely done with Microsoft, she just couldn't stand Windows any longer. I didn't ask what the specific issues were, but imagine they were the standard problems.
She had heard about Mac, but the problem was that she used some software for her business which was not supported on Mac, which they used to generate labels for products they sold. She was going to check if the software was supported on Ubuntu. I'm not holding my breath.
This is sort of a fascinating niche... people who desperately WANT to change, and most likely would be totally happy with Ubuntu, but they're trapped on windows, locked in by a simple business app.
I don't think this is a very small niche, either. Think of the many small companies built around some pencil ordering app, or that use some wonky windows app to operate their machine tools, or etc.
I suppose every one of us has run up against someone in this niche. Uncle Harry at last year's Christmas party, or that guy you sat next to on the train, or your best friend from college.
This niche seems much like the gamer niche, stuck in a chicken-and-egg situation. The app is developed for Windows because that's what people use. People stay on Windows because that's what the app was developed to run on.
How do we break that cycle and enable these people to gain their freedom?
October 28, 2009 01:55 AM
October 27, 2009
Dutch's baby announcement:
October 27, 2009 10:11 PM
If a while ago I thought there is very little of it, now it seems FLOSS conferences show in Romania like the mushrooms after a rain: first this year was eLiberatica, which this year made some steps in the right direction, towards community and openness, but still remain a commercial event.
Then FLOSSCamp, very fun, open and informal, but still a kind of conference.
Now, this week Bucharest is taking place LOAD, which smells like an incestuous way for some local distributor to milk money from a prominent North American Enterprise Linux vendor.
Next, for December is expected BLUG*OS*CON, which is new, at the first edition, so only the time will tell about it (I will be there, expect a report).
And this is not all, I know at least two other groups having on their agenda a „national FLOSS conference”. Isn't this a bit too much? I believe the natural evolution is supposed to filter this on the long term and promote quality over quantity.
October 27, 2009 08:12 AM
October 26, 2009
My birthday is coming up, so as part of my birthday present, my wife found a parent-child cooking class through one of the local parks and recreation departments and reserved places in it for me and my older boy (who is 4.5). We told him that he was taking me to the class as his birthday present to me.
When I got there, the class instructor was shocked and joyed to have a "daddy" there. Seems men at these classes are a rare and wonderful thing. Out of 9 parents there, I was the only man, and my son was one of two boys out of ten kids. We had some food related games and then the kids helped spread pepperoni and cheese on a class pizza to eat there, then used various items to turn two pieces of naan into "pizza faces" while the class pizza cooked. We took the pizza faces home and cooked them for lunch afterward.
They put out chopped red cabbage for hair, but they also put out big leaves of basil for ears. I borrowed a knife from the instructor's assistant and cut some basil into strips to use as hair. Much cooler... and more flavorful.
Tonight, I defrosted some pork chops and let my son help me do some of the prep work. They're the super-thick chops you get at Costco, so I butterflied them into a more manageable thickness, then he helped me scoop spices to make a dry rub.
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 rounded tablespoon ground cumin
2 teaspoons granulated garlic
2 teaspoons smoked paprika
1 teaspoon kosher salt
I sprinkled the rub onto the chops to make sure he didn't spill it all over or dump half the mix on one chop, but he helped me pat it into the meat. Then we washed our hands, covered the plate with plastic wrap, and let the rub do its magic in the fridge for 45 minutes.
I fried the chops in just enough butter to coat the bottom of the pan. I saw a thing on "America's Test Kitchen" where they said the secret to juicy pork chops it to cook them over lower heat. Bringing them up to the doneness you desire more slowly wrings less of the natural moisture out of them. I've found it works.
And doing it with my rub and some butter leaves this mixture of butter, sugar, pork fat, and just a little bit of pork juices in the pan that's a perfect medium for cooking up a couple of sliced onions while you let the chops rest. I defrosted and drained some frozen chopped spinach, then threw it in with the onions at the end to warm.
Served the chops on a bed of the onion/spinach mixture with a squeeze of lime. Mmmm. This is the second time I've done this rub on pork chops and my wife tells me it's a keeper. The boy likes it too and he likes being a part of the process.
October 26, 2009 05:27 AM
October 25, 2009
A week ago, I got two e-mails from IMVU: one welcoming me, and one asking me to confirm my address for registration. I didn't recall ever registering there. They said in their confirmation e-mail: "If you did not sign up for IMVU, ignore this email. We will not continue to send mail to unverified addresses."
That appears to be an outright lie. A day later, at exactly the same time of day, they sent me a notice that I had a private message... from them... offering me a special deal on credits. Four days later, they sent two more e-mails about an hour apart, again requesting that I verify my e-mail address. Each one bore the claim that they will not continue to send mail to unverified addresses.
Since you have to start an account with their helpdesk system just to complain, I sent an e-mail off to their press contact asking if they could help so I wouldn't have to out them as dishonest spammers.
Then the day after that, they sent me an e-mail telling me my IMVU pet missed me. So, apparently they send plenty of mail to unverified addresses and just lie to people.
I guess I have to go on the offensive, so I'm calling them out as spammers. IMVU... FU.
UPDATE: The press contact passed on my mail and I received a response from IMVU stating that the account has been disabled and giving me a person to contact if I continue to receive mails from them. They didn't make it easy to stop the flow of mail, but once I got hold of someone, they took appropriate action.
October 25, 2009 09:31 AM
October 24, 2009
In Ubuntu’s Karmic and and Debian’s Lenny, sysklogd was replaced with rsyslog. This is fine, since rsyslog will have converted your /etc/syslog.conf to /etc/rsyslog.d/50-default.conf. However, if you modified the (maddeningly strange sysklogd-specific) log file rotation in /etc/cron.daily/sysklogd or /etc/cron.weekly/sysklogd, you’ll want to review the new (sane) /etc/logrotate.d/rsyslog. (Note also that savelog uses .0 as the first rotated file extension, and logrotate uses .1.)
October 24, 2009 06:00 PM
October 23, 2009
We have recently added 3 new members to our growing Multimedia team and GStreamer consulting business. The first one onboard was Thiago Sousa Santos who I think many of you probably already know as he has been a regular GStreamer contributor for the last few years. He also wrote some important plugins for GStreamer as part of the last two Google Summer of Code projects, namely the Quicktime/MP4/3GPP muxer for GStreamer and this year the ASF muxer and ASF RTP payloader. Having been so impressed with his work as part of the community over the last few years we made sure to snatch him up as soon as he graduated from University 
The second person we added to our team was Robert Swain. He might not be familiar to people following GStreamer or GNOME, but he has been an active contributor to the ffmpeg project, working for instance on improving the AAC support in ffmpeg. A lot of the work we do at Collabora Multimedia is of course low level multimedia handling and optimisations and Robert will strengthen our capabilities in that field. Also with his experience with ffmpeg we can hopefully use his knowledge to improve the GStreamer ffmpeg plugin where possible.
And finally we have Arun Raghavan, who will be joining us next Month. Arun comes to us recommended by Pulse Audio maintainer Lennart Poettering and will be part of our effort to officially support the Pulse Audio sound server as part of our portfolio of open source projects we offer expertise and consulting services around. Wim Taymans have been moonlighting a bit as a pulse audio developer over the last year, but with Arun on the team we now have a person dedicated to Pulse Audio development, making sure Pulse Audio works great for our customers on their embedded systems. We also hope his efforts will pay dividends for Pulse Audio users on the desktop too in terms of more features and better stability. The synergy we are able to create between the embedded world and the desktop is part of our core mission here at Collabora and with Arun on the team we hope to continue and deepen the great working relationship we have established with Lennart. As a sidenote Arun comes to us from NVidia so maybe we can even have him help improve the GStreamer vdpau plugins
Speaking of synergies between embedded and desktop work, I hope everyone read Guillaume Desmottes blog post about Collabora’s increased effort behind the Empathy chat,VoIP and video conferencing client
October 23, 2009 01:56 PM
Hopefully pre4 is the final prerelease. Please download the files and let us know if you stumble upon any serious bugs except the infamous crash when undoing changes in live path effects. We probably won't release the final version within next couple of weeks, because we really need the LPE bug fixed.
October 23, 2009 12:00 PM
A very anticipated book on Inkscape called "A Book of Inkscape", written by Dmitry Kirsanov, finally hit the shelves. The book covers features of the upcoming 0.47 version, while explaining how to effectively use Inkscape for many tasks. Both novices and experienced designers will find the book a great help to start using Inkscape.
October 23, 2009 12:00 PM
One of the features listed at every Fedora release is Better Webcam Support and as it does not sound very sexy, it tends to get overlooked, I don't think I mention it myself when translating a summary of the features in a new release. Shame on me.
More than one year ago I got a "free" cheap and poor webcam (read 'crappy', powered by the sn9c20x chipset)- it was thrown by the store at a bonus when purchasing something (IIRC a scanner). My frustration with grew fast and large, wasn't able to make it work on Linux, so I just gave it away to a colleague to use it with Yahoo Messenger on Windows.
Fast forward today, the webcam returned to me and on a whim I said to myself "what will happen it I plug it into my newly installed Fedora 12 Beta?"
Pleasant surprise: it worked! Sure, not the best image quality (the camera is cheap and not new any more), but I don't really need it for anything.
So yes, there are
things to
complain in F12, but also there are a lot of enjoyable parts.
October 23, 2009 11:18 AM
I was reminded about some TPM coding I’d done to get random bytes from the pRNG on my TPM-enabled system from Matt Domsch’s recent post. I’m not fully convinced that the pRNG of the TPM is an appropriate source of entropy, but it does pass my simple FIPS-140-2 test.
I had to find the Intel TPM docs to figure out how to enable TPM on my system. It was under “Advanced / Peripherals”. I was expecting it under “Security”, like every other BIOS I’d seen. After that:
$ sudo apt-get install trousers tpm-tools
...
$ sudo modprobe tpm_tis
$ dmesg | grep -i tpm
[676618.167313] tpm_tis 00:07: 1.2 TPM (device-id 0xFE, rev-id 70)
$ sudo service trousers start
...
$ tpm_version
TPM 1.2 Version Info:
Chip Version: 1.2.2.16
Spec Level: 2
Errata Revision: 1
TPM Vendor ID: WEC
TPM Version: 01010000
Manufacturer Info: 57454300
$ ./tpm-getrand | hexdump -C
00000000 61 07 23 ff 71 3e 25 e8 f0 d5 de a7 a3 07 21 dc |a.#.q>%.......!.|
I could run rngd with a named pipe, but it’d be nice to have a new driver that could run a command instead to get the next 20000 bits.
UPDATE: I’ve implemented this in rngd now.
October 23, 2009 06:43 AM
[ Updated Laoban Logo Chinese Stylee ]
This weekend I’m in Shenzhen, China to work on the second part of the Vision Forum project with Per Huttner, Robin Peckham and Venus Lau’s Kunsthalle Kowloon project, and other artists to do projects in realtime. This is the follow-up set of events and performances after the last ones at Vision Forum Melbourne, Australia.
The events start tonite, Friday, October 23 in the evening outside of OCAT with the Laoban Shanzhai Soundsystem composed of knock-off speakers to do live performances in realtime. I’m going to be doing some mixing as Kidproto, live. Robin and Venus will be there, and many more Laoban crew!
On Saturday and Sunday, we will use the Shanzhai Soundsystem for performances and events. On Sunday, we will spend the day doing Urban soccer, but it should be happening the whole weekend. Here are the instructions for Urban Soccer: Buy a soccer ball, Play soccer throughout an urban area with people, Create new games and play old ones, and Have Fun!
Here is the basic schedule for the weekend
:
Friday, Oct 23
Outside OCAT/C:Union (listen for sounds)
* Xiaoban Shanzhai Speakers, anthem remix (jonphillips as kidproto), other performers to be announced! outside of OCAT/C:Union areas
Neighborhood of OCAT
* Performance by Per Hüttner and others (18 -21:00)
OCAT Loft
* Neno (20.00-21:00) (ask for directions at previous events)
Saturday, Oct 24
daytime, 10:00- 12:00 am, 15:00-17:00 pm
* Natasha (10:00-13:00)- lawn
* Yang Zhifei (all day, few number of places please book in advance)-bookbar
* Dinu (unannounced)- maybe supermarket (let me know what you think about this dinu!)
* Per (unanounced)- in underground/subway
* Neno (unanounced)- in the neighbourhood of OCAT
* Hu Xiangqian (16:00-17:00)
Sunday, Oct 25
OCAT Loft
* Yang ZhiFei, OCAT studio sound with xiaoban speakers with drawings
Daytime, OCAT studio D, 12:00-17:00
* Including documentation/installation of Yang ZhiFei and documentation of unannounced projects from the previous day.
* Jon Phillips presents urban soccer
Here is a bit more text about the event, and you can read the working pages on my IDEA wiki:
Program:
The Invisible Generation
- workshop of the Fourth OCAT International Art Residency
The Invisible Generation: a project by William S. Burroughs filtered through time, Daniele Balit and Per Hüttner.
http://theinvisiblegeneration.blogspot.com/
(Close to OCAT – evening)
Jon Phillips presents Laoban Shanzhai Soundsystem outdoors in the evening and used throughout the weekend in Shenzhen. These will then be used to play a series of contemporary sound pieces, and other realtime performances.
http://fabricatorz.com/laoban
(outside OCAT – evening))
Neno Belchev – Bicycle, Suitcase Performance.
The artist has created a special suitcase with a hidden camera that is connected to a monitor. The artist will be hidden in the suitcase and we can follow his tormented life in the claustrophobic space on the screen.
http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/yourgallery/artist_profile//15669.html
Various unannounced pieces will take place Friday night as well.
(Close to OCAT – evening)
Saturday October 24
Hu Xiangqian – The Movement is the Music (Working title)
Hu Xiangqian is engaged in a research where he investigates music as a source for movement rather than sound. He will carry out a performance where either non-musicians play with professional musicians or where professional musicians do movements with their instruments.
(Close to OCAT – evening)
Natasha Rosling – Performative Sculptures – various public spaces in Shenzhen.
Natasha Rosling has since the beginning of her career created structures that break the boundaries of clothing, sculpture and performance. For Shenzhen, she will produce a series of interactive sculptures that she will mount and wear in a series of public spaces.
http://www.natasharosling.com/
(Close to OCAT – day)
Yang Zhifei – Dream workshops
Amsterdam-based artist Yang Zhifei will realise a series of workshops that are open to the public and that investigate the similarities and individuality of dreams. She has been researching the nature of human dreams as a part of her artistic practice for many years.
(OCAT library- day)
5. Per Hüttner – Deja-vu
Per Hüttner’ performance will be realised by a series of young, local actors of similar height and appearance. They will be dressed in identical clothes and will perform the same everyday actions, creating a kind of real déjà-vu.
http://www.perhuttner.com
(Shenzhen Underground – day)
Neno Belchev – Zebra crossing performance
One of the things that Bulgaria and China have in common is the fact that everyone crosses the street anywhere and at any time. Belchev has produced his own rolled up Zebra crossing which can be unrolled anywhere and that allows its user to cross the street anywhere and at any time.
http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/yourgallery/artist_profile//15669.html
(Close to OCAT – day)
Dinu Li.
Dinu Li will present a Flash mob-like action on the Shenzhen Underground. He will work with a group of workers from a nearby village in Guangdong. case They will appear to be complete strangers will accuse each other of being “the corrupted one”. The performance is totally unannounced.
http://www.dinuli.com/
(Shenzhen Underground – day)
(Big Dinner)
Sunday October 25
Yang Zhifei – Dream workshop exhibition
The outcome of Yang ZhiFei’s workshops in Beijing and Shenzhen will be presented with drawings and sounds in a one-day exhibition in one of the studios at OCAT, using Jon Phillips and Matt Hope’s xiaoban speakers.
(OCAT artists studios – day)
All artists – documentation
All artists will in a very informal way present their documentation and experiences of the previous two days.
Urban Soccer, Jon Phillips presents Here’s the plan: Buy a soccer ball, Play soccer throughout an urban area with people, Create new games and play old ones, Have Fun!
(OCAT artists studios – day)
Ongoing during the weekend and the week that follows
Josefin Wikström – Deep Inside and artist TBA.
Curator Josefin Wikström is developing a project within Invisible Generation where she invites artists to make work in non-traditional spaces in art institutions: toilets, hallways, offices etc. For Shanzhen Wikström will present soundwork by artists such as Yan Jun.
The Invisible Generation: a project by William S. Burroughs filtered through time and Per Hüttner and Daniele Balit is presented in Melbourne, Shenzhen, Beijing and Kiev in 2009 and 2010.
web: http://theinvisiblegeneration.blogspot.com
mail: vfprog@gmail.com
Organized by: Vision Forum in collaboration with OCAT in Shenzhen.
Supporting institutions: French Embassy in Australia, French Embassy in Kiev, Swedish Embassy in Peking, Swedish Embassy in Kiev, the Swedish Institute in Stockholm, The Consulate of Sweden in Guangzhou, Längmanska Kulturfonden in Stockholm and Linköpings Univesitet in Norrköping and FRAC Île-de-France in Paris.
October 23, 2009 02:17 AM
Over at the StatusNet blog, I just announced my role in launching some big things with Evan, Brion and crew! Here is a snippet, but please read the rest over at StatusNet blog:
[ photo by-sa asadal ]
Many of you know me as @REJON, my past endeavours growing the open source drawing app, Inkscape, the Open Clip Art Library, Libre Graphics Meeting, making soundsystems and using Identi.ca as my social playground. Most connect to me here as the Creative Commons Community and Business Development Manager where I hacked, started Creative Commons Salons with Eric Steuer, and served as human inbox for Google, Yahoo, Apple, and other organizations for CC. I still lock-down a title as a fellow at Creative Commons, and am still working on various international initiatives with CC in the Middle-East and Asia. We all love CC!
[ Many of you know me as this disembodied head. I actually smile much more like the photo at the top ]
Without further intro, and as Evan mentioned previously, I’m pleased to announce that I’m immediately taking on a role as Community Consultant for Status.Net to ramp up and help with some large projects Status.Net is building, including an upcoming relaunch and adding capacity to fun roles that Evan had been doing Han Solo. By becoming part of the Status.Net all-stars, Evan will be freed up to be uber-CEO rather than having to wear 50 different hats.
Please read the rest over at the StatusNet blog.
October 23, 2009 01:43 AM
October 22, 2009
To have the party complete, after you installed Fedora 12 [beta] you most likely will want some eye candy back (it was removed during this release cycle), so the first thing you way want to do is to restore beauty/sanity by changing one or two GConf entries:
So check
menus_have_icons and your icons are back, not only in applications but most importantly in Places and System. Being at it, you may consider scrolling up a bit to
buttons_have_icons and cancel the uglification of various dialogs.
Then you can enjoy F12.
October 22, 2009 12:30 PM
As those Windows 7 parties hosted all around the world I decided to celebrate by hosting my own party by updating the netbook from Fedora 11 to Fedora 12 Beta and sharing the photos:
boot, partitions, software selection, install, multimedia, doneUnfortunately, there was no booze as a) it was too early in the morning and b) I am at the office with some work to do in parallel. And unfortunately no booze this evening either, some of the
Fedora guys are out of town and
Ceata is caught in a programming workshop. There is time in the following days.
The install was smoother, as the experience with upgrading the desktop last week helped me to avoid wasting time with dreaded experiences
GNOME Shell.
I think I may continue the party with upgrading a CentOS box tomorrow.
October 22, 2009 09:35 AM
[http://blog.worldlabel.com/category/open-clip-art-library/feed
Copyright © 2005, The Open Clip Art Library
Blog entries aggregated on this page are owned by, and represent the opinion of the author.
Hosted by freedesktop.org.
![[RSS 1.0 Feed]](/images/rss10.png){kind=small}
![[RSS 2.0 Feed]](/images/rss20.png){kind=small}
![[FOAF Subscriptions]](/images/foaf.png){kind=small}
![[OPML Subscriptions]](/images/opml.png){kind=small}