Trustworthy.net

Here’s another addon that I simply cannot live without: Fetch Text URL.

Here is what the author has to say about this simply elegent little addon:

Fetch Text URL – Firefox Extensions
“Sometimes there are webpages with URLs that aren’t in “clickable” link form, especially in forums or text documents like the episode capsules at SNPP.com. Thus, if you want to open it in Firefox or Mozilla, you have to highlight it, copy it, maybe open a new tab or select the location toolbar, and then paste the link. Using keyboard shortcuts in Windows, this involves ctrl-c, ctrl-t or ctrl-l, ctrl-v, and enter. If you’re lazy like me, then the Fetch Text URL extension allows you to simply highlight the text URL and open it from the context menu by right clicking.”
http://www.cs.utexas.edu/~jchien/code/ftu.html

I used another Firefox addon “Copy URL +” to paste that last quote citation. ;-)

I highly encourage donations to the authors of these wonderfully trustworthy little addons.

Cheers!

One of the reasons I gravitate toward searching out free cross-platform applications is that it matters less and less which operating system I happen to use. I can become familiar with an application that performs a certain essential function for me with the confidence that both my expertise and my data is platform neutral and portable.

So today I’ve set out to look at a solution for doing simple video editing of home videos I’ve taken with our little digital camera (Canon Powershot). My intent will be to successfully perform all the essential functions necessary in Linux Kubuntu where the same codecs and software interface are also freely available for MacOSX and Win32 as well.

• The software I researched for this task is called “Avidemux”, and it can be located at Sourceforge.
• Here is the brief description from the project homepage on Sourceforge:
  

  “Avidemux is a free video editor designed for simple cutting, filtering and encoding tasks. It supports many file types, including AVI, DVD compatible MPEG files, MP4 and ASF, using a variety of codecs. Tasks can be automated using projects, job queue and powerful scripting capabilities.

  Avidemux is available for Linux, BSD, Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows under the GNU GPL license. The program was written from scratch by Mean, but code from other people and projects has been used as well. Patches, translations and even bug reports are always welcome” (source).

  What’s nice about running Kubuntu 7.04 (Feisty Fawn) is that I was able to install this software with one easy command:
  

  sudo aptitude install avidemux

• Basically all I really want to do is the equivalent of cropping my pictures, except with video. In other words I just want to trim off those parts that don’t contribute to the story very well such as some of the very beginning or at the very end. Well for this kind of simple work Avidemux is just what I need.

Here are some notes I took while learning how to use Scribus to create our first family email newsletter.

Here’s a little bit about Scribus from the home page:

Scribus :: Open Source Desktop Publishing for Linux, Mac OS® X and Windows®

“Scribus is an open-source program that brings award-winning professional page layout to Linux/Unix, MacOS X, OS/2 and Windows desktops with a combination of “press-ready” output and new approaches to page layout.

Underneath the modern and user friendly interface, Scribus supports professional publishing features, such as CMYK color, separations, ICC color management and versatile PDF creation.” (http://www.scribus.net/).

Basically what follows is an emphasis on optimizing the output for an email sized attachment after I enjoyed using Scribus to do the layout of the newsletter.

1. Layout newsletter
2. Install latest version of Ghostscript

   sudo aptitude install gs-gpl

3. Export as PDF (1.3 or 1.4)
1. General Tab:
1. Resolution for EPS Graphics: 300
2. Compress Text and Vector Graphics: [X]
3. Compression Method: Automatic
4. Compression Quaity: Maximum
5. Resample Images to: 115 dpi
2. Fonts Tab:
1. Embed all fonts
3. Save file to news.pdf [~ 315KB]
   1. If size and quality are good enough then you are done, else
   2. Re-process the pdf file through ghostscript [~70kB]

      gs-gpl -r115 -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -sOutputFile=newsletter.pdf news.pdf

      (-r115 sets the resolution or DPI to 115 pixels per square inch)

4. If you feel like it, you can also use pdfopt to linearize the PDF, so Acroread can start showing the first pages while the rest is still being downloaded.

So here’s a chance to provide some interesting input. Dell computers wants to know what flavor of GNU/Linux would be most desirable for them to support. They’ve even posted a survey for all to participate:

As posted at ITWorld.com:

“Dell posted the survey on a company blog, asking PC users to choose between Linux flavors such as Fedora and Ubuntu, and to pick more general choices such as notebooks versus desktops, high-end models versus value models and telephone-based support versus community-based support.” (Ben Ames, IDG News Service, Boston Bureau).

The survey is only available until March 23, so please take a moment to provide your input if you are interested.

All the best,

Steven

I think I’ve found a better way to both keep track of my favorite Firefox addons while also keeping some content flowing through my blog… I’ll dedicate one post to each addon and tag the post in such a way that my list of favorite Firefox addons will never be further away than a simple click on the tag they all share in common.

So with that here is another Firefox addon I’ve known about but not always had installed. However, for the simple ease of the undo feature when I accidentally close a tab, or for those online classes and web sites that I want to have my session persist, I definitely view this Firefox addon as another one I want keep around.

Session Manager

by Morac, zeniko

More previews…

Session Manager saves and restores the state of all windows – either
when you want it or automatically at startup and after crashes.
Additionally it offers you to reopen (accidentally) closed windows and
tabs. If you’re afraid of losing data while browsing – this extension
allows you to relax…

This extension replaces SessionSaver and Tab Mix Plus’ session manager.
It stores more data than both of them and should be more reliable in
saving and restoring. Although it is not recommended to have more than
one session related extension installed, Session Manager is compatible
at least with Tab Mix Plus.

Works with:

Firefox

2.0 – 3.0a3

ALL

Install now (71 KB)

Version 0.5.3.2,
released on Feb 13, 2007.