(click the picture enlarge)

p.s. I’ll be dropping a mail to pixmania about this

R

The other reason for the scanner was to create contacts sheet from negatives that I have, to prep some scanning sessions on the negative scanner I got for my Dad recently. So then I got an idea…

What if I simulated, my own scanner, well sort of!

• The idea goes as follows.
• Create a white image that fills the entire screen
• View the white image in full screen mode, you might need to maximise the level of brightness and contrast
• Blue tack the negative holder to the screen
• Take a picture with regular camera of the whole sheet, or individual sections of the negative sheet.
• Load pictures onto PC
• If working from black and white negatives, convert the image to greyscale
• Invert the image – hey presto!
• Depending on the quality of your negatives, you will have to adjust a) levels b) curves to get the best out of the image.
• The overall result does not give you highest quality image, but it is certainly not bad for no extra cost or extra hardware.

Here are some example shots

Original shot

The original shot of the negative

End Result

End result of home made negative scanner

Overall, a rather good result
R

This tutorial “Stay in Sync with GCal and Thunderbird.” makes it easy, and in early road testing seems to work very well – which is always nice.

Also featured on Life hacker

R

Say you want to open a man file on ls, then simply type:

$man ls --html=firefox

That will open the man file in firefox – nice and easy (and of course firefox can be replaced by browser of choice).

R

So based on that post, and the graphic of course, this has to be the greatest baby eater ever!

Baby eating aside, the slurp project looks really nice

A very good post (including link to video of show in question) on the Panorama episode this graphic was alludes to, can be found here

For the heck of it, I hit the Suspend button, and then wondered what that would do to installation process… “hmmm, will I have to start again?” was my worry. To find out, I hit resume and hey presto, the installation resumed just fine.

Nice.

R

It turns out to be rather simple, as liferea provides a DBUS interface script to add feeds automatically. From firefox, click on the RSS icon (orange icon) that appears in the address bar. A page will load with a yellow header from which you select a number of predefined applications (or webservices).

Select ‘Choose Application‘ from the ‘Subscribe to this feed’ drop down. In the file locater that appears, enter ‘/usr/bin/liferea-add-feed‘.

If you select the button that reads ‘Always use liferea-add-feed’ – anytime you click on the rss feed icon – that feed will automatically be added to liferea.

R

interesting way of generating income – with a test page!

R

It is with interest that I note the following story, and that I look forward to seeing more on the development of “Indiana”:

Sun hopes for Linux-like Solaris: News – Software – ZDNet Australia
In an effort to spur adoption of Solaris, Sun Microsystems has begun a project code-named Indiana to try to give its operating system some of the trappings of Linux.

This should help in the greater adoption of OpenSolaris, which I believe will be a strong contender in the future, especially thanks to its Containers (Zones) technology .

R

As the description of their site says:

TreeHugger is a fast-growing web magazine, dedicated to everything that has a modern aesthetic yet is environmentally responsible. Our goal is to make sustainability mainstream and to be the one-stop for the environment. If you want doom & gloom, this is not the place. We are looking for solutions, constructive developments and positive initiatives.

They also have a job with categories of jobs listed as green or not green, should you wish to guide your career in a greener line.

Its worth taking a look every so often, or subscribe to their feed.