Got lots of photos that have red eye that you would like to fix? The GIMP to the rescue.
The GIMP (The GNU Image Image Manipulation Program) is an open source image editor. It’s almost a free version of Adobe’s Photoshop. While it may look different, The GIMP is just as powerful as the expensive Photoshop.
GIMP Guru has a lot of excellent tutorials for The GIMP, but the one I have found the most helpful is Removing Red Eye with The GIMP.
Something I’ve always wanted was an RSS feed of my friends’ birthdays in Facebook. You see, I don’t login to Facebook everyday, but I do open Google Reader (my RSS reader of choice) everyday. And the only way (until now) to see who’s birthday is today is to login.
But now, problem solved!
The Facebook application is fbCal, and it is magnificent. You install it like any other application with Facebook, and it creates 4 different feeds you can use in any application you like (iCal and RSS feeds for both birthdays and events). Snazzy!
Firefox 3 was released this morning! Get excited, because version 3 is amazing. I’ve been using the betas since January, and I love it.
Firefox 3 has amazingly low memory usage and loads javascript so fast. Want that in non-tech terms? Firefox 3 runs really fast and loads websites like Gmail, Facebook, Yahoo! Mail, Remember the Milk, ect. really fast.
See Mozilla Links 5 Minute Review of Firefox 3.
They are doing having a contest to become the most downloaded program, so make sure you download Firefox today!
PS-One of my favorite websites, Lifehacker, has lots of Firefox 3 coverage and tricks. See here for all of the LH coverage.
In honor of my all-nighter tonight, I am posting a link to a great howto: How to pull an all-nighter. This is good stuff, I follow most of these tips.
I’ve been using Firefox 3 for about a month now, using the same method Lifehacker explains in this article, with Portable Firefox 3. This allows you to keep your normal Firefox 2 install and not have to install Firefox 3 until it comes out of beta.
BTW, Firefox 3 is absolutely amazing. The speed is incredible, especially with the javascript heavy web applications I always use, like Gmail, Google Reader, and Remember the Milk.
And second BTW, PortableApps is amazing also. It keeps me from having to install the plethora of open source applications I use periodically, leaving me with a slender hard drive with fewer applications installed.
Chrismlindsey.com is now using WordPress 2.5, the latest stable release of the venerable open source blogging software. The release notification is here, screencast of the new admin panel here, and the download and install information is here.
I really like the new admin panel in WordPress 2.5. Most used items are placed prominently, while little used links are placed out of the way. WordPress 2.5 also runs considerable faster for me, which is always a plus.
Now, if only Eng would update his Akismet Spam script to WordPress 2.5, I would be in heaven.
I recently realized that my new theme doesn’t display author comments in a different color than regular comments, so I struck out to fix the issue.
I regard author comment highlighting as a major feature or lack thereof for any theme. It should be mandatory, as it makes it easy to scan and find the original author’s comments. It also keeps a rude commenter from posting under your name and having readers believe it is actually your comment. You could also use colored comment highlighting on a multi-author blog to note comments by writers from the site who didn’t actually write said post.
Anyways, on to the details.
Continue reading
Make sure to download the new version of jMemorize if you use the nifty open-source tool for flashcards.
FYI, if you use iCal, Google Calendar, or any calendar software that allows the use of the iCal format, you can subscribe to UGA’s schedule.
The links:
A little information, if you are interested. I maintain this public calendar in Google Calendar. It is probably most helpful to UGA undergraduate students, as it does not contain several dates important to graduate students. I cannot guarantee the accuracy of this calendar, nor can I guarantee that it will be updated.
Cross-posted from UGA Key News.
I do all of my school papers in OpenOffice.org (for more on OpenOffice, look in Wikipedia) these days, specifically in OpenOffice Writer (the open source equivalent of Microsoft Word). I come upon the same problem fairly frequently, so I am posting my solution here for everyone.
Many paper formatting guidelines call for no header on the first page, with a header that includes the page number (and possibly other information, including name and professor) on subsequent pages. While it may seem difficult to do this in OpenOffice Writer, it is rather easy.
Create a header as your normally would; usually this is by clicking Insert -> Header -> Default and then Insert -> Fields -> Page Number. You should see your header on all pages of your document, including the first page.
Now, place the cursor within the first page of your document (ie- click within the first page of the document and then make sure you see a blinking cursor on the first page), and then select from the menu Format -> Styles and Formatting. Select the fourth icon at the top of the dialog box (if you hover over it, it says “Page Styles”). Now, double-click on “First Page”.
Once you double-click on “First Page”, the header on the first page will magically disappear, while keeping the header on each subsequent page intact.
For even more customizability, you can create an entirely different header for the first page instead of leaving it completely off.
To do this, again make sure your cursor is inside the first page of the document. Then click Insert -> Header -> First Page. Now, a header will appear on the first page of your document and you can place any text or fields (page number, etc.) within this first page-only header.
If you have any problems with this quick fix for headers in OpenOffice Writer, please leave a question in the comments section below and I will try my best to answer your query.
Also, look forward to more of these How To’s (for Open Office and other applications) in the near future.
Lastly, if you would like to try out OpenOffice, you can download it for free from the OpenOffice website or your can download a portable version here which you can unzip locally and delete after trying out this amazing piece of community-produced software.