GIMP 2.4 making 'doze more survivable already...

Grabbed a copy of The GIMP 2.4.0 for Windaz to tweak some colours on & scale an image on this machine.

The changes all appear small, but they do add up to a lot.

Little things — like being instantly able to scale a paintbrush — make ordinary life easier, but there’s a lot of stuff which new (& PS) users will find amazingly obvious simply because it’s right in front of them rather than tucked away in a menu somewhere.

Today’s interesting products included extending Tullah’s sense of humour a little. As you walk over Mount Farrell & first glimpse Lake Mackintosh on your way to seeing Lake Herbert (tucked away at the top), you’ll find a plastic chair there, placed perfectly to rest on & view Mackintosh.

Now there’s a second one just where the forest gives way to grassy stuff on the way up, & soon (Sunday?) there will be a pair at the top, then also a pair at the break.

The chairs are adorned with genuine Leon handiwork, to wit, the words “VISIT | TULLAH TAV | MUSEUM & CAFE” in neat black Sharpie, & it really is quite a good idea. They cook well, they’re friendly, & they know what’s going on locally.

(03)6473-4141 or stop in on the main highway just across from the fuel station.

Oh, yes, & they do accomodation so you’ve got somewhere to sleep after the 3-hour trek up to & back from pretty little Lake Herbert. (-:

One Windowzism which I still find annoying is that you have to do the Ctrl-C/Ctrl-V thing to copy & paste, whereas I’m accustomed to select/middle-click instead.

Comments

every-application-is-part-of-a-toolkit at work

I have a LibreOffice Impress slideshow that I wish to turn into a narrated video. 1. export the slideshow as PNG images (if that is partially broken — as at now — at higher resolutions, Export Directly as PDF then use ‘pdftoppm’ (from the poppler-utils package) to do the same). 2. write a small C program (63 lines including comments) to display those images one at a time, writing a config file entry for Imagination (default transition: ‘cross fade’) based on when the image-viewer application (‘display,’ from the GraphicsMagick suite) is closed on each one; run that, read each image aloud, then close each image in turn. 3. run ‘Imagination’ over the config file to produce a silent MP4 video with the correct timings. 4. run ‘Audacity’ to record speech while using ‘SMPlayer’ to display the silent video, then export that recording as a WAV file. 4a. optionally, use ‘TiMIDIty’ to convert a non-copyright-encumbered MIDI tune to WAV, then import that and blend it with the speech (as a quiet b

new life for an old (FTX) PSU, improved life for one human

the LEDs on this 5m strip happen to emit light centred on a red that does unexpectedly helpful things to (and surprisingly deeply within) a human routinely exposed to it. it has been soldered to a Molex connector, plugged into a TFX power supply from a (retired: the MoBo is cactus) Small Form Factor PC, the assorted PSU connectors (and loose end from the strip) have been taped over. the LED strip cost $10.24 including postage, the rest cost $0, the PSU is running at 12½% of capacity, consumes less power than a laptop plug-pack despite running a fan. trial runs begin today.

boundaries

pushing the actual boundaries of the physical (not extremes, the boundaries themselves) can often remove barriers not otherwise perceived. one can then often resolve an issue itself, rather than merely stonewalling at the physical consequences of the issue.

Plantagenet Penguinista

Search This Blog