Make images into a movie

Boy2 has been making stop-motion videos using Lego mini-figures.  I found a slick little Linux utility to convert a series of images into an AVI.  VERY useful if you then want to use `kdenlive` to add audio to said video, or edit it otherwise. 

mencoder "mf://*.jpg" -o movie.avi -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mjpeg

At some point, I'll post some of his videos.

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Confessions

I was a bit surprised/amused this morning when I read that there is now an app to assist people with their examination of conscience in preparation for the sacrament of confession... The story from the BBC explains, "Now senior church officials in America have given it their seal of approval, in what is thought to be a first."

That American bishops are on the leading edge of the integration of technology in the Church is somewhat surprising as they don't exactly have the reputation as being techno-evangelists (of either stripe), but I'm glad to see the Church reaching out to people of my generation in ways that don't involve "guitar Masses", or other such "innovations". 

Of course, I'm not about to pull out an iPhone (or any other phone) in the confessional, but if this helps someone then I'm in favor of it... call me old fashioned, but I made my kids learn the Ten Commandments.

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Latin Vocabulary

I've been looking for a Latin vocabulary testing module... that was free... because I'm a cheap-ass.  Well, I couldn't find one.  SO, I wrote a little chunk of code to parse a latin dictionary I found on-line into an XML format suitable for KWordQuiz.  I put it all on-line here if you're interested -- all you'd really need is kwordquiz (which is free) and my kvtml file.  I don't think the dictionary I found was very good, but it was unrestricted by copyright, so I can't complain.

I included the little bit of perl I wrote to mangle the dictionary into XML.  If you're interested.

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Predictions for 2011

I may not be Nostradamus, but I have a couple of predictions for 2011...

1) Symbian OS, Microsoft Windows Mobile, HP Palm, and Blackberry will all try to regain market-share by releasing new version of their operating systems.  They'll fail.  The lead Apple and Android enjoy is too substantial.

2) Tablets will become the dominant personal computing platform towards the end of the year when the second generation tablets start hitting the market.

3) Security on mobile and tablet devices will become a real issue -- the limited bandwidth of mobile devices and the complete absence of security software on mobile devices makes mobile networks particularly vulnerable to a wide spectrum of security threats.

4) Accessories for tablets and mobile devices that foster "real" computing (e.g. keyboards and other similar input devices) are going to become an emerging market.  Even better, why not have a slide-out keyboard on tablets, just like on mobile phones?  (It makes sense, right?)

5) the really necessary and cutting-edge market will be for devices that allow people to interact with technology without a keyboard and mouse. (This is probably more like 2015-2018, but hey, as long as I've got my crystal ball out, why not look further?)

6) Microsoft will continue its trend of non-standard "standards", and in so-doing will seal the fate of their browser as a second-class internet access-device, like AOL, back in the day.

7) Net neutrality isn't going to happen -- the FCC, ICANN and every other regulatory body will capitulate to strong-arm of communism and capitalism.

8) Fox News (particularly Glenn Beck and Bill Orielly) will beat the "e-terrorism" drum and they will create a whole new vocabulary around "e-terrorism".  To those of us who know about such things, this will be hillarity!



We'll see how I did in a year.

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Sexify Your Linux Desktop

I have been playing with beautifying my Linux desktop, and I think I've made pretty good progress, in large part thanks to three little apps: adeskbar, synapse, and Emerald Theme Engine.

aDeskBar provides me an OS X style "kicker" (as its called in KDE).  Its really light-weight, and easily customizable. 

Synapse is like KeyLaunch or Gnome-Do, both of which provide ready-access to apps via a quick-key.  Very useful stuff.  A simple press of Ctrl+Space and you can type any app in and it will launch.

And, then there's the Emerald Theme Engine, which is glorious and beautiful.  I am fond of it, in particular. 

To be frank, I have been using Linux for almost fifteen years now... and I will tell you, a great many of the applications I had encountered many moons ago have either disappeared or have matured into marvelous creations.  I'm fairly sure I have used aDeskBar back when it sucked, but neither Synapse or Emerald are known to me. 

So, its pretty cool to see Emerald in action -- its the epitome of theme engines.  In fact, it contains many different rendering engines.  Even better, most of the really awesome themes available from the various Gnome theme sites, are for Emerald.

Synapse is a rocking replacement for Gnome-do, which as near as I can tell, is the chief replacement for Gnome-Do.  Gnome-Do was basically an experiment, and was never developed to its full potential. 

Between Synapse, aDeskBar, and Emerald, I have achieved a right-sexy desk-top.

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Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick) & VMware Workstation 7.1

My employer is a VMware partner and I've been a long-time VMware fan; I have ESXi on a white-box server at home, and run Workstation on my work laptop.  Since upgrading/installing Ubuntu 10.10, I've been dragging my feet about getting Workstation installed again, but this morning I fired it up and like always I had to hunt-down a patch to get the modules to build.  *sigh*

Fortunately, some kind soul has made a lovely patch available and has further made it very easy to install!  W00t!  I love the Open Source community.

So, my VMware Workstation is back up and rocking.  Hooray!

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Native USB tether for Android Phones!

I've been a Linux nerd for many years, and today I discovered one of the most amazing hacks I have ever seen.  By "hack", I do not mean something cobbled together in a haphazzard fashion, but rather and impressive feat of skill.  This particular hack, by Shannon Van Wagner, allows you to natively tether your android phone in Ubuntu!  This is remarkable because of the diversity of pieces that had to be put together to accomplish the feat.

I am willing to bet that while some other hacks I've seen may have been more difficult, none required a broader base of knowledge, and as such this one takes the cake in my Ultimate Hack list.  I emailed Shannon to see if I could give him a tangible reward for his hard work.

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