Photo Harassment - Popey get's it this round...

I've had a couple of long 14hr + days, the world has it's problems with Japan, and Libya etc... So I like to find solace with my friend the GIMP. I like to explore what I can do, and figure things out with it. I still don't know what all of the filters mean, and what to expect from them. (Note to self, maybe I ought to make a chart for them, if one doesn't exist... Remind me, will ya? )

OK, on with the post...

Popey.

For some reason his photo from identi.ca 

made me think of Elvis Presley... 

So, today, I'm harassing Popey from the Ubuntu UK Podcast.  

Popey IS the Crowned King of the Ubuntu UK podcast..... 

• pope /pəʊp/ n 1 : a prelate who as bishop of Rome is the head of the Roman Catholic Church 2 : one that resembles a pope (as in authority)
• popey /pəʊpi/n 1 : a blogger 2 : a prolific micro-blogger on Twitter 3 : a social animal 4 : an IT professional 5 : a strong advocate for Ubuntu 6 : a podcaster 7 : a geek through and through
• popeye /pɒpaɪ/ n 1 : A tattooed, corncob pipe–smoking comic strip character who eats spinach 2 : he is what he is and that's all what he is 3 : not popey

Now you can go back to the other things on the internets to entertain and learn you... 

Favicon fun

The guys over at Meet The Gimp  did a nice little article [Episode 155:] Favicon] about how to create a Favicon image with the GIMP. - You might want to check it out, as it relates to my other post about FAVICON.ico files. :)

Blog on!
R_

PS. I hope everyone had fun at the Indiana Linux Fest this weekend...  I forgot to mention it in a recent episode of the Juiced Penguin... Doh! 

Blogger vs WordPress? I'll take Blogger, you might not.

HA! Right there in the title, I give it away. There is no CLEAR winner with the WordPress vs Blogger debate.

Brad, AKA kPulsed has created a very nice Comparison chart that I'm tempted to steal and post here, but... Well,  someone already asked, and he didn't really say "OK".  I don't blame him. But it IS Really GOOD. It's got that Lovely "Long Tail" or is it Long Trail? That an excellent blob, er Blog Post should have.

Alright. Are you still here? You didn't get lost on that chart? Did you?  But there were a few other items or concerns that weren't listed or mentioned on his chart that I'd like to go over.  Mainly, what if you wanted to host your own blog, on a shared hosting site like GoDaddy or 1and1.com. His chart mainly goes over what you can expect for the free services of Blogger.com or Wordpress.Org.

If you haven't noticed. You're reading this on a Blogger Blog. With it's own glitzy domain name.  That Glitzy and handy, domain name cost me $10 bucks a year, and I registered it through the Blogger Dashboard.  It was pretty simple.  It also comes with it's own a handy Google Sites website, if one needs it. But you can get those for free anyway too.  The Google Site, Site (oh man, I'm going to get delirious if I have to keep saying Site, Site) fills the need hosting oddball files, like a handy Linux Reference Card.PDF Or simply a Picture.ZIP. Of course YouTube hosts its onw video files, and Archive.org can host other media files for you too, if you wish.

• You don't have to FTP to the site with some kludgey FTP client.
• You don't have to update your Blog or it's Widgets every other day
• You don't have to worry if your Shared Hosting server neighbors are sucking up tons of bandwidth, and handing out 404 error's to your site's visitors. 
• You've got the power of Google Servers.
• You don't even have to purchase a domain to get all of these benefits. 

Blogger is getting a little more love from Google, and they're adding many more features as time moves along. 

Now from an open source point of view. WordPress IS Open Source, and Blogger is not. I doubt if it ever will be. But either platform will work well. It all depends on if one works better for you then the other.  But for me, I like the ease of use, and stability of Blogger. 

Personalize Your Blogger.com Favicon

I was wondering the other day, if could change my Favicon on blogger. I was please to find out I could with a post over at Happy Blogging.  His Post was fairly clear, but thought that I'd do one with my spin on it.  As Intend to do a few Blogger related posts in the near future.

It's fairly simple if you know your way around in Blogger and HTML. If not, I hope this post helps.

First, you're going to want to have a favicon already posted somewhere on the web.  Preferably on a site that is yours. :)  You CAN easily upload the icon in .PNG format to a Blogger Post, as blogger won't allow you to upload a .ICO file, the Microsoft extension name for an icon. If you have a Google Sites account, you can upload your image there instead of Blogger. But for the sake of this post, lest say your image is located at:

http://linuxnuts.org/files/wanker.png

With your favorite text editor, well, ok, actually I don't care if its YOUR favorite text editor, but with a text editor that won't "hold" all the HTML code and formating, if you were to cut and paste to it. Replace the "real" place your image is where the {image url} is in the code below.  I find that the Find and Replace function comes in real handy at this point in my Text Editor. 

The HTML Link Code:

<link href='{image url}' rel='shortcut icon'/>
<link href='{image url}' rel='shortcut icon' type='image/vnd.microsoft.icon'/>
<link href='{image url}' rel='icon'/>
<link href='{image url}' rel='icon' type='image/vnd.microsoft.icon'/>

So this should give you something like this in your text editor:

<link href='http://linuxnuts.org/files/wanker.png' rel='shortcut icon'/>
<link href='http://linuxnuts.org/files/wanker.png' rel='shortcut icon' type='image/vnd.microsoft.icon'/>
<link href='http://linuxnuts.org/files/wanker.png' rel='icon'/>
<link href='http://linuxnuts.org/files/wanker.png' rel='icon' type='image/vnd.microsoft.icon'/>


Oh, and Happy Blogger also has a Favicon Link Generator that you can use.

Then, you'll want to go to your blogger dash board, such as the one displayed below. Dashboard > Design > Edit HTML 

I do a CTRL-F to search for the </head> tag  while I'm in Chrome and place the code directly above it. As in the example. 

And that will give the results like I've got here on Pimping the Penguin. No more Orange Blogger Icon for your Blog.  

If you Change your template, you stand a chance of loosing your modifications, so keep that in mind. 

Blog on....! 

From The Blender Guru | How to Make a Realistic Asteroid in Blender

How to Make a Realistic Asteroid in Blender


Hey FOSSY and FREE fans... Andrew Price has done an excellent job over at Blender Guru with a Tutorial ( That's another word for "How To"  for you people in Adobe Land" )

In his words "This tutorial will demonstrate the importance of the displacement
modifier and how using it can produce amazing results in just a few
clicks."

So grab a cup of coffee (using a Photoshop CD as a coaster, of course)  and watch this video, and maybe even fire up a copy of Blender!

And Keep Pimpin' that Blender FOSS Andrew!! 

Yugma = Linux Friendly Videoconferencing Software

https://www.yugma.com/

Hey there. I keep hearing people talk about Go To Meeting, but Go To Meeting doesn't support Linux users. I figured that even though I haven't used Yugma (and don't ask me how you're supposed to say it, maybe it needs a little better branding, mabey?..)  I'd post a screen shot, and put it here, so I can easily find the link to them again.

I'm still trying to find the time to do the 100 things that I've got on my mental list to do for all my blogs. - One thing that I was thinking about for here, was to do some Blogger Tutorials, along with some Google Love...