Desktop Publishing (DTP) – Scribus
For the last couple of years I have been formatting a newsletter for One Tree Orchard land development project in Islandview (just outside of Fredericton, NB, Canada). The concept is on of Sustainable Community Development (SCD), which differs from standard subdivisions which plow everything and do landscape and plot placement to maximize individual lot size by safekeeping present landscape with communal greenspace and denser population numbers so as to have an overall smaller impact on the land, example with images here. The project now has an administrator that will be (amongst other things) drafting and publishing the periodic newsletter for partners and sponsors. Currently it is fabricated in InDesign, but this Adobe product is not cost effective for such a small distribution, which has lead to using Scribus (Open Source DTP). The shift from InDesign to Scribus hasn’t been without it’s bumps in the road, but it is a very feature rich and mature project and I have high hopes that a professional project will be producible from the template I’m crafting for the aforementioned administrator.
Scribus has a strong community and a number of tutorials and Wiki pages to get you start are out there.
- Apress “Crafting Digital Media: Audacity, Blender, Drupal, GIMP, Scribus, and other Open Source Tools” (link)
- Scribus Video Tutorials (link)
- Scribus Wiki HOWTO page (link)
The template file has it’s general layout done (Main Title & image, Newsletter #, Date, Logos of Partners), now I am looking at making lists and creating hyperlinks for when the file is exported to PDF. Last will be learning how to make the PDF searchable (so people can copy content should they need to paste it somewhere else).
I have also found two Font Families that are GPL (GNU General Public License) that should go along well with the open format concept that goes well with this greener way of land developing:
A book was showcased on the Scribus site for it won a design award, used Scribus for its layout, and also went with the Free Liberation font family exclusively, which prompted me towards a publicly available Font Face, instead some of the closed exdert fonts I had previously used (sorry ACaslonPro, AGaramondPro and MinionPro).
Book Created With Scribus Wins Belgian Design Award
Ah, a new year, and for me a new game. I have been playing Magic: The Gathering Collectable Card Game (M:TG CCG) since Revised (1994), and with the aid of friends have come across a Flash-based game that shares many similarities to this game, Elements (http://www.elementsthegame.com/).
There are a few quests to get you started (sell a ‘card’, acquire a Score of 150, that sort of stuff) that can give you a quick infusion of gold so as to round your ‘deck’ out to your liking. I’m regularly winning in their “Level 3″ games, but “Level 5″/”Level 6″ and Top50 are still beyond my ‘deck’s’ capabilities. After the last quest (Score: 500) you get a rare card (a choice from each of the ‘elements’) you are able to upgrade a card for an exorbitant fee (1500 gold), and so many weeks can be spent getting you ‘deck’ just so. I hope others will enjoy this Free game.
The daunting task of renaming over 100 files to fit my own personal (and maybe anal) naming scheme had me seek out a Windows-based utility and the Freeware “Bulk Rename Utility” fits the bill.
It took over ten minutes to figure out how to make it do what I wanted it to, hence this post, the hopes of expediting the process for any who share this need (renaming multiple files to a consistent naming scheme). Although the power of this utility is staggering (requiring knowledge of Regular Expressions), the example is a simply find&replace coupled with a copy-to-new-location. I’ve washed out the parts of the picture that are not relevant to this example, but do note that the program is all the same opacity&fill. There are both a 64-bit version and 32-bit one, as well a one that supports win98.
Three Interesting forum posts for renaming Audio files (taking track, artist, album, etc into account): 1; 2; 3.
I first learned of this series from Felicia Day’s blog some months back and have only recently gotten around to reading it. I am halfway through the first book and I must say I am impressed by the author’s voice and style. It comes off successfully as a period piece, but it strength is in it’s cultural focus without coming off as a sociological or anthropological textbook. You are quickly invited to care for the lead character, and even if you don’t share the protagonists proclivity you are given enough internal dialogue to see where she is coming from. Although not a sex/adult novel, there are, however, scenes not fit for younger eyes. As a fan of fantasy and sci-fi I am reminded of the Drizzt Do’Urden tales from R. A. Salvatore when he is exploring the Menzoberranzan matriarchal society for the reader. For fans of romance novels they may find a home in this series and be introduced to a much higher quality of writing than they may find in Harlequin romances, but with a similar appeal. For those of an interest in all things non-vanilla you may also find this series to be your cup o’ tea.
Jacqueline Carey is currently best known for her Kushiel Trilogy (Kushiel’s Dart, Kushiel’s Chosen, and Kushiel’s Avatar), based in the fictional country of Terre d’Ange in a period similar to 14th-15th century Provence. Her style is a cross between alternate history and magical realism that delights readers everywhere and has inspired a “Cult of Phèdre” of book-lovers who have gotten tattoos based on the books to show their fandom; some even dream of living their life as the main characters. Ms. Carey was nice enough to take time out of writing her upcoming duology, Banewreaker and Godslayer, and the much-anticipated Imriel Trilogy to answer a few of our questions. For more information on upcoming releases, and the author herself, visit her website. (Beth Oing, 08mar04, article link)
Dexter: Early Cuts
There are some animated webisodes associated with Dexter (TV Series) that I only just heard about and thought to pass along.
Dexter Early Cuts Teaser by TVSpoilersCenter
As many websites that offer streaming video are country locked, here is the direct link, to Showtime’s webiste. For example, I live in Canada, and the embeded code says I can’t view this from my country, but when I go to the website I am allowed/able to see the files fine.
Uplink (video game)
The game Uplink came out in 2001. It’s a simulate hacking à la ‘Hackers’ (1995) variety.
The game was written on a Windows 2000 platform, and supports Vista 64-bit and WinXP 32-bit. Although I know there is a Mac port of the game, and that it supports other OSes, those are the only two I run and so the only two I tested it on.
Back in the day, Doom was all the rage, I remember an Aliens mod (*.wad files) that completely overwrote the game experience, making it a whole new game. I was really impressed with what the modding community could do, and am glad Uplink supports this kind of programming, this game (like Doom) supports home-brew mods.
A FBI mod is popular, and I personally like the fixes Simply Uplink has to offer. I am very impressed that Introversion decided to stay this course. Another company was licensed to sell Uplink, branded as Uplink: Elite Hacker, and they went to the trouble to muck around with the code so as not to support mods, hence it is recommended to avoid that version. I run a v1.3 patch, the higher ones seems to muck around with my WinXP install, too bad too as some v1.32 changes included saving you connection path (many mouse clicks as the youtube version will show you.
Download link seems to be here. Although the game is not expensive, and so if you find you are having a blast, a donation to the writers … and so.
Onlink is an offshoot, written from the ground up.
The place I got my mods for the game was from Modlink. I went with Darkness (3.81 MB) theme (although Deus Ex (858.8 KB) is good, too). Some extra gateways were available for the theme, Darkness Gateways (239.88 KB). FBI (1.85 MB) changes gameplay somewhat and adds a new LAN software (HUD_VDPINView). As I mentioned earlier, if you just want to play the base game, but want some annoyances removed Simply Uplink (644.8 KB) is an awesome choice. An nice update to the Map is antiproanti’s The World Map (390.88 KB).
As a side note, I played Deus Ex: Invisible War on the Xbox, good game, but that there is a Deus Ex modding community I am interested in seeing what they’ve done for PC platform.
Halo: ODST
I was having trouble figuring out how to Zoom in “Halo: ODST“, but finding a picture that has the controller options showed me that you need to click (push down) with the right joystick to add that tactical option to your gameplay.
Also youtube has a number of walkthroughs if you want to see what the game looks like.
The special edition controller doesn’t have the 16 position D-Pad that the Halo Xbox360 sported to my knowledge 
“La scarpa al chiodo” by Michele Pelosi
This photo I found to be very drawing. It’s a fairly static composition with a hegemonic colour scheme. After the inital aesthetic impact you begin to analyse and take in the artifacts within the picture.
You, the viewer, are invited into a bleak world, you can imagine that the room is currently being dwelt in, with it’s jacket haning on the wall, as if the occupant may return at any moment to resume their life within this damaged and spartan room. I find the quality of the image to be in how you are enticed to visualize a world more than what can be witnessed from the pixels, and to me that is a mark of a successful photograph.
Aspects that speak to me on a personal level are that I am reminded of my time in war-torn Croatia in the summer of ‘93. From movies, TV and reading the source is reminiscent of rural Russia, maybe a quickly abandoned Chernobyl homestead. Chernobyl is like a stitch in time as most things had to be left when it was evacuated, and a renewal of wild life (be it gone to feral house cats, or the return of the wolf, or the old ramshackling bear) within a cityscape left to go to ruin … not a smoldering or glowing heap — in my mind at least, and from what footage I’ve been able to see taken of the area and it’s renewed and adapting wildlife.
Source: I found this image on flickr when I was looking at a related link seen on a facebook posting. I have achived the image on another server as U fear a link to the flickr site would not have the longevity I hope for it. This posting is simply a response to the picture, and in no way is intended to take any credit away from the talented photographer, or their rights to this property.
From a ‘Italian to English’ babelfish translation:
Title: The shoe to the nail Date of Shot: 29 August 2009 Location: Ruins of the earthquake in locality Trappeto, Montecalvo Irpino Additional info: Through the pericolanti ruins of the earthquake, Montecalvo Irpino.Star Wars: The Old Republic (MMO)
Despite years of working on computers I had actually never before removed keys from their housing. I still haven’t on the laptop, but now I have on my desktop. Come to find out they are just a friction fit with little tabs pushing out to hold them into a rectangular box shape of plastic (eg: they’re are no clip-on tabs that would break off if you tried to pry them up — my previous worry). I was still worried, so when I tried using a bic pen cap to take off a key I choose the “pause break” one as I never use it anyway. Nothing broke, and I have confidence in key removal now (yay!). Looking at the dust/crud on my four years of use keyboard has me tempted to remove and clean them all … maybe while listening to an audiobook as it’ll take awhile.
Veronica Belmont – How To Clean Your Keyboard
A steam-punk adaptation of an old laptop computer (The Kowal Portable Typewriter and Adding Machine — Jul ‘07) was the first place that made me interested in removing keys, but I never got around to trying until today.
Cool Tools
Waterfalls of New Brunswick
Win7 Keyboard Shortcuts
WIRED Magazine Blogs
ModChip.ca – Console Modifications & Tools
Xbox-360 Hardware Modification (NME-360)
A Premier Jewelry Design Competition
BenchTube — Ganoksin Videos
Claire Drysdale
DMAJ Home Page
The National Ornamental Metal Museum
A macron, from Greek meaning "long" – Wiki
Fench Toast Recipe
Khulsey.com – Blogs and Image Theft
Mouserunner – Firefox Shortcuts
FreePDF XP — Include a Print to PDF Driver
HP Calculator App for the iPhone
IcoFX – Free Icon Editor
Notepad++ Open Source
The Cavern Links Checker
WinDjView — *.djvu Viewer
One Tree Orchard's Weblog
A List Apart
Cascading Style Sheets – Tutorials
Color Hunter
Dream CSS
HTML – Simple Character Entity Chart
HTML 4.01 / XHTML 1.0 Reference
Listamatic: one list, many options
Typechart – Browse Web Type, Grab CSS
Web Type: Font Families