There are many creative and fun ways to show your Dad some love this Father’s Day. You can go skydiving with him, create a podcast of his favorite songs, home-cook his favorite steak for him, or go to Mass with him and the rest of the family. And if you want to celebrate fatherhood with something digital, these free Android apps might help you put a smile on your Papa’s face. Continue reading
In this week’s roundup, we’ll see why Pope Benedict XVI considers priests as a gift for the church and for the world. If you are a Linux newbie you’ll surely find the next link useful as it shows you 5 things new users of the free operating system should know. Would you like to know what it means to call God “Father”? Then the third link is just right for you. This may raise a lot of eyebrows but the Vatican endorses the “Blues Brothers” film. Curious? Then click on the fourth link. The fifth link will show you that where you start your digital day says a lot about you.
The featured website this week is Kuya Mac’s Kuwaderno and the featured short film is Joaquin Baldwin’s “Sebastian’s Voodoo”.
URL: http://kuyamac.tumblr.com/
Kuya Mac’s Kuwaderno is the blog of Michael Vivas. Among other things, Michael is a youth leader, an artist, a musician, a prayer warrior, a web designer, a user interface engineer and a usability practitioner. His blog is both eye candy and inspirational.
Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ePWK0qfisE
A voodoo doll must find the courage to save his friends from being pinned to death.
The director, Joaquin Baldwin, is an Annie Award nominee director and animator from Paraguay. Living in Los Angeles, he is now finishing his MFA in animation at UCLA. He has received over 50 international awards for his animated films Sebastian’s Voodoo and Papiroflexia, and also several grants including the Jack Kent Cooke full Graduate Scholarship in 2006.
SMILE is a Free Software that allows you to create video slideshows using images and videos. The name SMILE is acronym for Slideshow Maker In Linux Environment. The best way to start using SMILE in Ubuntu 9.10 is to install this package from getdeb.net because it installs all the required components with a couple of clicks. Users of other Linux distros can download SMILE here.
SMILE allows you to create slideshows either in PAL or NTSC format and you can render the final output in XVID, MPEG2, FLV, DV and MPEG4 HD formats. You have about a hundred transitions at your disposal. You also have an array of choices when it comes to effects: image rotation, slide opacity, motion blur, resize, transition speed and many others. As you might have guessed it, this powerful application also lets you add and edit titles.
In this weekend’s roundup we’ll see how an atheist defends his claim that humanity is better off with religion than without it, find the reasons why everyone is crazy about vampires, learn how to install Ubuntu 9.10, browse more than a hundred brilliant tilt-shift photos, take our first glimpse at the Google Chrome Operating System and understand why couples should pray before making love.
In the world of computers, an avatar is a graphical representation of a user. Avatars come in different sizes, colors, dimensions and shapes. I like avatars so much that I use one as my profile image in my Facebook page. There are many tools to create a personalized avatar, but in the world of Linux the one that I like best is MeMaker.
MeMaker is a Free Software that allows users to create customized avatars and use them in social networking sites, forums, chat rooms and other virtual places. And yes, of course, you can use the avatars offline. While the application itself is tiny (only 4628 kB), it can do the work of giants. MeMaker provides seven styles to choose from: freestyle, artistic, plastidudes, glyphface, plazmoid, cocohead and animal-crackers. The avatar in the screenshot above is of the artistic type.
You can also choose the pigment and style of your hair as well as the color and shape of your face, eyes, mouth, ears, nose and eyebrows. You can even add eyeglasses, hats, beards and other accessories to your avatars.
The current stable version of MeMaker is 1.5. The easiest way to install it in Ubuntu 9.10 is to launch Ubuntu Software Center and find the free application under the “Graphics” category. If you are using another Linux distro, you can download the package here.
There is currently no Windows version of MeMaker.
I was browsing the Vatican Library website when I chanced upon this bit of interesting information. The Information Technology Center (C.E.D.) of the Vatican Library uses Red Hat. The site’s info page reveals that C.E.D.’s networks “are protected internally by two first-level firewalls in a Linux Red Hat environment”. But that’s not all. Of the 27 servers the Center uses, 19 are in a SUSE and Red Hat environment. The rest are running in a UNIX AIX environment and in a Microsoft environment (virtualized on Linux systems with VMWare).
A variant of the Red Hat distro is also employed in the Digital Photographic Laboratory of the 500 year-old Library. According to this page, the operating system used for the storage equipment in the Digital Photographic Laboratory is Centos.
More technical information here about the systems they use in the Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana.
Established by Pope Nicholas V in 1448, the Vatican Library is one of the oldest libraries in the world. It contains more than 75,000 manuscripts and over 1.1 million printed books from throughout history, which makes it one of the most important repositories of knowledge in the world. The Information Technology Center of the Vatican Library was set up as early as 1985.
I am overwhelmed to know that the Church’s most important library uses the most secure operating system in the planet.
Most of my day is spent in front of the computer. Thus a perfectly functioning machine is of vital importance to me. I do not want to worry about viruses and spyware. I do not want to have to defrag my harddisk every now and then or reboot everytime I install a new application. I do not want to worry about some malicious software or hacker gaining control of my computer. Since I multitask all the time, I do not want to be limited to a single workspace. In short, I want a computer that is secure and gives me what I need.
Thankfully there is an operating system that gives me the security and ease-of-use that I need. My laptop currently runs Ubuntu 9.10, a wildly popular Linux distribution. I’ve been using Linux (Red Hat, Mandriva, OpenSuse, PCLinuxOS and other distros) since 2004 and I can say that this free operating system helps me enjoy a stress-free life. And it’s because:
1. Linux makes me forget about viruses.
2. Linux allows me to update my system and all my applications with a single click.
3. Linux allows me to give copies of the OS for free
4. If I need to install an application I do not have to scour the web for it. In my Ubuntu-powered machine, all I have to do is run the Ubuntu Software Center
5. Linux allows me to use multiple workspaces. Great for multitasking
6. Linux comes pre-loaded with an office suite, media player, graphics programs, and many other essential applications
7. When I need help, the Linux online community will never forsake me
If you want to know more how Linux can make your life easier and why is it better than Windows or Mac, please go to this site.
Image Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/denniswong/3867706307/
In this weekend’s roundup we’ll take a look at stunning photographs, heed the Pope’s call to use digital technologies to spread God’s Word, find a good reason to install Ubuntu 9.10, rule the internet with Firefox add-ons, pray for the faithful departed, discuss Dan Brown’s desire to meet the Pope and download awesome Christian wallpapers.
A friend of mine recently bought a SmartBro Prepaid USB stick (Huawei E156C). She asked me to help her set it up. You might think that you need to be a Linux geek to configure the mobile broadband to work in Linux. It is so easy anyone who knows how to use a mouse and a keyboard can do it. Here is how I made it work in Ubuntu Jaunty.
Once you connect the USB stick, you are prompted with this dialogue box. Just click “forward”. You may also click on the images for full view.
You choose “Smart,” of course. Then click “forward” again. Continue reading
I have a 4th generation iPod. It is ancient, I know, but it still functions without any problems. Well, I’ve never had problems with it ever since I purchased it in the summer of 2004, except that it does not allow me to play free and open source audio codecs like OGG and FLAC. I am a free and open source advocate, so using open codecs is very important to me.
I found the solution to my problem in Rockbox, a free and open source firmware replacement for the iPod and other digital audio players. Aside from supporting the OGG and FLAC codecs, Rockbox includes a wider range of sound settings, plugins, games and applications than the iPod’s original firmware.
Installing Rockbox using a Windows machine is as simple as downloading, unzipping and running this software. Everything is graphical so you do not have to mess around with command lines. Mac users have to use this software while Linux users should get it from here.
Rockbox does not erase the iPod firmware. It coexists with it. Thus I can choose either to boot Rockbox or the original iPod firmware. First generation iPods up to iPod Video are supported. Of course Rockbox is also proven to work in other digital audio players. For a complete list of supported players please follow this link.
Some of the sound settings that I find particularly awesome are gapless playback, crossfading, replay gain, 5 band fully parametric equalizer, and crossfeed. It was not until I tried the demos included in the software package that I realized that my grey iPod 4G could actually display 3D animation. It might also interest you to know that Rockbox includes the following popular games:sudoku, solitaire, minesweeper, and pong. Rockbox also allows users to change the font and the theme of the user interface.
If you want to know more about Rockbox, you should visit this site.