existence trainer

Installing Speach Recognition in Kdenlive on Linux Mint 22

2024-08-07T10:23:00.000-04:00

After struggling to get the the dependencies needed for speech recognition within Kdenlive on Linux Mint, here is a brief tutorial of what I did:

First, I couldn't get the debian package working, so I installed the Flatpak of Kdenlive instead.

Then you will need to install the required dependencies for speech recognition:

$ sudo apt install python3-srt

$ sudo apt install python3-venv

$ sudo apt install python3-pip

(Although pip3 doesn't work the way it previously did in Linux Mint, I do believe you will need to install it).

Then, in order to get Whisper and Torch installed, you do it within the Flatpak itself:

$ flatpak run --command=/bin/bash org.kde.kdenlive

$ python -m ensurepip

$ python -m pip install -U openai-whisper torch

$ exit

That is it! Open Kdenlive and see if it works. Thanks to the following source.

Sharing files from Linux Mint 20 on a Home Network

2020-10-07T13:48:00.002-04:00

I'm annoyed over the difficulty of sharing files in Linux Mint 20 over a home network. Here is what you would expect you would have to do:

Right-click and select "Share this Folder"
Done! It works.

Except that it doesn't work. :( Here is what you actually appear to have to do (note that not even all the required packages are installed by default):

1. In the terminal: $ sudo apt-get install samba
2. Right-click and select "Share this Folder"
3. In a terminal, type (to set your samba username password): sudo smbpasswd -a yourUserName
4. Edit /etc/samba/smb.conf and right under the workgroup = WORKGROUP line add these:

client min protocol = NT1

server min protocol = NT1

5. Reboot

6. Done! It works (finally).

Converting pdf files to black and white

2019-11-28T06:38:00.004-05:00

I recently downloaded a book from archive.org, and it was off-color and not easily printable (they used to provide black/white pdf files for books, but apparently they stopped doing so). I needed to convert it to a monochrome file so I could print it. This lead me down a number of dead-ends, and so I want to explain the best way I found to do this.

First, convert each page to a separate PNG file. Here is the command I used:

pdftoppm Hutchings.pdf file_prefix -png

Note that you can make the file_prefix anything you would like.

Next, you will need to determine the "threshold" at which point these pictures become black and white. Play around with it using this command:

convert file_prefix-1.png -threshold 35% testing-1.png

When you have determined the threshold, now it is time to batch processes all your PNG files (any files that need a different threshold can be individually adjusted using the above convert command. I use mogrify to do this, and I also make sure to include a separate path for the new files so I do not overwrite the original PNG files:

mogrify -path temp/ -format png -threshold 50% *.png

Next I use gscan2pdf to combine all the files into a single PDF again, and finally, I use the command ocrmypdf to ocr my file and prepare it for archiving:

ocrmypdf input.pdf output.pdf

Quick MIDI Synth Guide

2019-08-18T16:49:00.002-04:00

Plug your MIDI controller into a USB port.

Run aconnect -o, and look for your MIDI controller in the output:

$ aconnect -o
client 14: 'Midi Through' [type=kernel]
    0 'Midi Through Port-0'
client 20: 'AKM322' [type=kernel]
    0 'AKM322 MIDI 1   '

The controller’s client number here is: 20

Run aseqdump -p 20 (replace 20 with the client number) to verify it is working

Then:

1
2
3

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install fluidsynth fluid-soundfont-gm
$ aplay /usr/share/sounds/alsa/Noise.wav

This last command should make a noise through your speakers.

Then, for my computer, the following setup seems to run best:

$ fluidsynth --audio-driver=alsa --gain 3 -r=22050 -c=16 -z=64 /usr/share/sounds/sf2/FluidR3_GM.sf2

In a second terminal, run:

$ aconnect -o

client 14: 'Midi Through' [type=kernel]
    0 'Midi Through Port-0'
client 20: 'AKM322' [type=kernel]
    0 'AKM322 MIDI 1   '
client 128: 'FLUID Synth (1179)' [type=user]
    0 'Synth input port (1179:0)'

In terminal 2:

# xx is your midi controller, yy fluidsynth
$ aconnect xx:0 yy:0

Play some notes on your keyboard - you should hear some piano sounds come out of your speakers!

Setting Up Syncthink by Command Line on a Server

2017-11-06T02:43:00.002-05:00

Props to this site for the info I based the following on!

First, install syncthing:

$ sudo apt-get update

$ sudo apt-get install syncthing

$ syncthing

You will need to change the address of the web gui by editing the syncthing config.xml.

$ sudo nano ~/.config/syncthing/config.xml

<gui enabled="true" tls="false">
<address>127.0.0.0:8384</address>

[to]:

<gui enabled="true" tls="false">
<address>192.168.1.119:8384</address>

systemd is a system and service manager for Linux that runs as PID 1 (Process ID 1) and starts the rest of the system. It uses a script file called a Unit for each service, they are located in /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/ to get this to work you need to put this file into that directory.

This is the Unit text

***********************************************************************

[Unit]

Description=Syncthing - Open Source Continuous File Synchronization for %I

Documentation=http://docs.syncthing.net/

After=network.target

Wants=syncthing-inotify@.service

[Service]

User=%i

ExecStart=/usr/bin/syncthing -no-browser -no-restart -logflags=0

Restart=on-failure

SuccessExitStatus=3 4

RestartForceExitStatus=3 4

[Install]

WantedBy=multi-user.target

***********************************************************************

Copy this file into the etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants directory and name it with the service username you login as:

$ sudo systemctl enable syncthing@username.service
$ sudo systemctl start syncthing@username.service

That's it, reboot your server to check syncthing starts and then you can start setting up the folders you want to sync from the webgui.

Samba Setup

2017-11-04T17:23:00.000-04:00

Installation and Setup:

First install the following:

apt-get install samba-common smbclient samba-common-bin smbclient cifs-utils

Next, authorize users to access samba shares:

sudo smbpasswd -a

Make a safe backup copy of the original smb.conf file.

sudo cp /etc/samba/smb.conf /etc/samba/smb.conf.bkup

Edit the file "/etc/samba/smb.conf"

sudo nano /etc/samba/smb.conf

Add this to the end of the file:

[folder_name]

path = /home/user_name>/folder_name

valid users =

read only = no

Restart samba:

sudo service smbd restart

Use this command to check your smb.conf for any syntax errors.

testparm

Determine the LAN address of the computer:

sudo ifconfig

List all shares:

smbclient -L /// -U

Connect:

smbclient /// -U

Mounting Local Shares:

smbclient -L XXX.XXX.X.X -U username

Then, create a local directory and mount the remote share:

mkdir /mnt/abc mount -t cifs //server/share /mnt/abc

Depending on the access you give to your windows share are the credentials required: if you give your share 'Everyone' read (and write) access nothing else is required, otherwise you must add credentials at mount time:

mount -t cifs //server/share /mnt/abc -o user=user,pass=password,dom=domain

When finished just dismount the share:

umount /mnt/abc

Testing Moodle on Debian 9

2017-10-22T15:35:00.000-04:00

So I bought a Raspberry Pie and put Debian 9 on it so that I can play around with it as a home server. Currently I am configuring Moodle on it, so here are my notes:

Debian 9 (stretch) has 2.7.17 in the repositories. This is fairly old, so I will be installing the git version instead.

First:

sudo apt-get update

Second:

sudo apt-get install apache2 mysql-client mysql-server php7.0 libapache2-mod-php7.0

Third:

sudo apt-get install graphviz aspell php7.0-pspell php7.0-curl php7.0-gd php7.0-intl php7.0-mysql php7.0-xml php7.0-xmlrpc php7.0-ldap php7.0-zip php7.0-soap php7.0-mbstring

Forth:

sudo service apache2 restart

Fifth:

sudo apt-get install git-core

Sixth:

cd /opt

Seventh:

sudo git clone git://git.moodle.org/moodle.git

Eighth:

cd moodle

Ninth:

sudo git branch -a

Since the guide I'm following is installing Moodle 3.1, and I don't want any incompatibilities, this is what I will be installing as well.

10th:

sudo git branch --track MOODLE_31_STABLE origin/MOODLE_31_STABLE

11th:

sudo git checkout MOODLE_31_STABLE

12th:

sudo cp -R /opt/moodle /var/www/html/

13th:

sudo mkdir /var/moodledata

14th:

sudo chown -R www-data /var/moodledata

15th:

sudo chmod -R 777 /var/moodledata

16th:

sudo chmod -R 0755 /var/www/html/moodle

17th:

sudo mysql -u root -p

18th:

CREATE DATABASE moodle DEFAULT CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci;

19th:

create user 'username'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'passwordforuser';

NOTE: Make sure to change 'username' 'passwordforuser' to whatever password you would like. (to change the password, you can used the following command: set password for moodle@localhost = password('newpassword');)

20th:

MariaDB [(none)]> GRANT SELECT,INSERT,UPDATE,DELETE,CREATE,CREATE TEMPORARY TABLES,DROP,INDEX,ALTER ON moodle.* TO moodle@localhost IDENTIFIED BY 'password';

NOTE: Again, adjust username and password.

21st:

MariaDB [(none)]> quit;

22nd:

sudo chmod -R 777 /var/www/html/moodle

23rd:

sudo chmod -R 0755 /var/www/html/moodle

24th:

Open your browser and go to http://IP.ADDRESS.OF.SERVER/moodle
Follow the prompts:

Change the path for moodledata: /var/moodledata

Host server: localhost
Database: moodle
User: username (the user you created when setting up the database)
Password: userpassword (the password for the user you created)
Tables Prefix: mdl_

25th:

sudo chmod -R 0755 /var/www/html/moodle

Setting Up Mopidy, Ncmpcpp, and Spotify on Debian Buster (Updated)

2017-10-14T23:39:00.005-04:00

In Debian Buster, the main thing that caused me problems was that I had mpd installed, and it caused havic with, but once I uninstalled it, things started working. Here is the breakdown of what I did:

Add the archive’s GPG key:

wget -q -O - https://apt.mopidy.com/mopidy.gpg | sudo apt-key add -

Add the APT repo to your package sources:

sudo wget -q -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mopidy.list https://apt.mopidy.com/buster.list

Install Mopidy and all dependencies:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install mopidy ncmpcpp mopidy-mpd mopidy-spotify

There are two configuration files that need to be adjusted.

First, there is the Mopidy configuration file: ~/.config/mopidy/mopidy.conf

Here is my configuration file:

[logging]
color = true
console_format = %(levelname)-8s %(message)s
debug_format = %(levelname)-8s %(asctime)s [%(process)d:%(threadName)s] %(name)s\n %(message)s
debug_file = mopidy.log
config_file =

[audio]
output = tee name=t t. ! queue ! autoaudiosink t. ! queue ! audioresample ! audioconvert ! audio/x-raw$

[local]
enabled = true
library = json
media_dir = ~/Media

[spotify]

enabled = true

username =

password =

client_id =

client_secret =

bitrate = 320

You put your username and password, above as requested under the Spotify section. Then you need to now go to https://www.mopidy.com/authenticate/ to get your client_id and client_secret.

Finally, you need to edit (or create) the following ncmpcpp configuration file in order for visualizations to work ~/.ncmpcpp/config

Here is what I have in mine (replace "password" with your user password):

mpd_host = "password@localhost" mpd_port = "6610" visualizer_fifo_path = "/tmp/mpd.fifo" visualizer_output_name = "my_fifo" visualizer_sync_interval = "30" visualizer_in_stereo = "yes" visualizer_type = "spectrum" visualizer_look = "+|"

Most Used Shortcut Keys for Ncmpcpp

1 - Current playlist
2 - Filesystem browser
3 - DB search
4 - Library
5 - Playlist editor
6 - Tag editor
7 - Output selector
8 - Music visualizer
= - Clock
F1 - Help

Other UI keys

q - Quit
f - Seek forward
b - Seek backward
\ - Switch between classic and alternative views
i - Show song info
I - Show artist info (saved in ~/.ncmpcpp/artists/ARTIST.txt)
L - Shuffle between available lyric databases
l - Retrieve song lyrics for current song Show/hide lyrics
> - Next track
< - Previous track
p - Play/Pause
a - Add item to playlist
S - Save playlist
c - Clear playlist
r - Toggle repeat mode
z - Toggle random mode
+ - Increase volume 2%
- - Decrease volume 2%

Additional Backend Extensions:

mopidy-scrobbler - sudo apt install mopidy-scrobbler

[scrobbler]
enabled = true
username = your_username
password = your_password

mopidy-soundclound - sudo apt-get install mopidy-soundcloud

[soundcloud]
enabled = true
explore_songs = 25
auth_token =[go to https://www.mopidy.com/authenticate/ to get it]

mopidy-youtube - I had trouble getting this one to work using the repositories. I had to use 'pip' instead:

sudo apt-get install python-pip [if you don't already have it installed]
sudo pip install --upgrade pafy
sudo pip install --upgrade mopidy-youtube

mopidy-tunein - Install: sudo apt-get install mopidy-tunein Then modify ~.config/mopidy/mopidy.conf by adding the following lines:

[tunein]
timeout = 5000

mopidy-internetarchive -

mopidy-somafm - sudo apt-get install mopidy-somafm

That's it!

mopidy-podcast -

booklet creation and imposition in linux

2017-01-09T02:03:00.000-05:00

in this post, i will go over how to create "signatures" from pdf files in linux so that you can print them out for your bookbinding projects. these booklets are the result of "imposition" - rearranging pages so that when printed and folded together - produces a series of signatures (booklets) that can then be bound together in books. there does not seem to be very good documentation on how to do this in linux, as far as i can tell.

the sizes

here i will only be focusing on booklets of eight printout pages - meaning that the signatures are 32 pages long (two pages on each side of the paper multiplied by eight), but the same reasoning can be applied to signatures of different sizes.

since the minimal signature is four pages long, the length of signatures need to be in multiples of four. i prefer 32 pages signatures generally (eight pages), but others may prefer shorter signatures. if total book you are printing is 247 pages, and you have 32 page signatures, then you will have eight booklets (the last booklets will have blank pages).

the commands

you will need to install: pdfjam

once installed, here are he commands you can use (depending on the type of duplex printer you have, and in particular, whether it prints things "upside down" on the back of the paper [the first command], or "right-side up" [the second command]). this command will produce a file with '-book' suffixed to the document (example: applied to a "document.pdf" file, this command will produce a new file "document-book.pdf" in the same directory):

$ pdfjam --landscape --suffix book --signature 32 -- document.pdf -

$ pdfjam --landscape --suffix book --signature 32 --preamble '\usepackage{everyshi}
          \makeatletter
          \EveryShipout{\ifodd\c@page\pdfpageattr{/Rotate 180}\fi}
          \makeatother' -- document.pdf -

if anyone knows how to do this with djvu files, i would much appreciate the information!

ubuntu vs xubuntu

2012-10-10T22:31:00.000-04:00

in this post i am basically going to explain why i am unhappy with the direction of ubuntu, and why xubuntu - and the xfce way - appeals to me so much more.

ubuntu, unity, and xubuntu

for the past few releases (basically since maverick), the company behind ubuntu has tried to redefine how we interact with our desktop through the development of unity. i've been very supportive of these efforts overall. making design decisions is tough and treacherous, and if anyone has a vision to improve the desktop linux experience, then i applaud their efforts. now i want to evaluate these efforts. does unity improve the desktop experience?

meh. definitely a mixed bag.

the main problem is that everything feels half baked right now, and the improvements in the next version of ubuntu (quantal) don't really fix most of the issues i have. when analyzed from a user experience point of view, the changes canonical has brought to ubuntu can be largely divided into the following categories (i'm not trying to cover everything, just the most bits that we are likely to interact with the most):

notifications
the top panel (which, in ubuntu, includes the global menu and the status menus)
the launcher (including right click menus)
the dash and hud

the problem is that each of these components, both individually and taken together, include a number of design decisions that do not make sense to me (nor do they work well with my work flow). i will consider each in turn and then compare it with xubuntu's xfce analogues.

notifications in ubuntu and xubuntu

the way notifications are implemented in xubuntu make a lot more sense then how they are implemented in ubuntu. in the quantal version of xubuntu (i don't know about previous versions), system notifications are sensibly placed in the upper right hand corner of the screen, close to the status menus, and they include a little 'x' to close them if they are in your way. on ubuntu, they are placed about an inch lower for no apparent reason, and there is no way to close them until they finally fade out (which can be very annoying at times).

xubuntu definitely wins this one.

the top panel

in ubuntu the top panel includes both the global menu on the left and the status menus on the right.

global menu

first, i have to admit, on my fairly small screen, i really like the global menu. but i also fully acknowledge that on big screens it makes considerably less sense, and it takes more time (and often more clicks) to do things than when the menus are attached to each individual window (for example, i don't have to switch windows and then click on the menu item in the global menu, i can just click the menu item directly). also, there are some inconsistencies in ubuntu's implementation, as has been pointed out in the ars technica review of precise:

The global menubar, which is one of the defining characteristics of the Unity environment, still poses a number of problems. The global menu model simply isn’t compatible with the window-specific menu system used in Linux applications. The effort to bolt these conflicting paradigms together could be executed better.

Despite displaying the menu contents outside of the window, the menus are still window-specific. By design, the global menu bar displays the menu of the focused window. This proves awkward in some applications with dialogs and multiple windows.

specific problems are then enumerated in the article (go and check it out). in other words, the implementation of global menus has introduced odd user experience inconsistencies into the picture, one's which are going to be really hard to fix (and, imho, probably won't be).

so... i really like that the global menus reduce chrome clutter, but they do so at a price. this breaks even for me.

status menus

overall i like the design of the status menus, though they still feel inconsistent/unhelpful in a number of ways. the sound menu i haven't been able to get much use of, it is easier to just use rhythmbox or clementine directly, and when multiple music players are installed, it becomes cluttered fast. the email/messaging menu doesn't play well with pidgin (empathy isn't good enough for my needs), i dislike that i can't close thunderbird to the menu so i don't have to have it open as a window, and lots of applications that would generally install something in this panel are blocked from doing so. at least xubuntu doesn't block these applications, and it plays well with pidgin. also, the weather indicator in ubuntu dies pretty much every single day, whereas i've had a lot less trouble with the weather indicator in xubuntu. and, finally, the calender indicator in both is pretty useless in both - i sure it would tell me about upcoming appointments and birthdays.

the launcher

the launcher in ubuntu pretty much drives me crazy. i liked how, in oneric, it would hide when i pushed a window up against it or made a window fullscreen. this default behavior was eliminated in precise - now i must keep it always open or have it automatically hide - and neither option i like. i could work around this, i think, if i were allowed to move it either to the bottom of the screen or the other side. but nope, this is not allowed (thanks designers for knowing what works better for me than i do :/). and it is buggy. like really buggy. open applications don't show up when they are open (especially libreoffice), right clicking on the menus have caused my system to freeze, and sometimes there is a little arrow next to applications that are not open for some reason. plus, i can't press the icon to minimize an application. in xubuntu, the launcher at the bottom just does what it is supposed to do - launch applications. it doesn't try to bake in a whole bunch of functionality that doesn't work all that well (yeah, i'm talking to you, unity). it hides the way i want and i can move it around if i so choose. also in xubuntu, i keep track of the open windows in the top panel. when i click on an application indicator there, it minimizes it or brings it back into view. it is simple, straightforward, and works well. much better than unity's launcher.

the dash and hud

the dash was one of the things i really liked about ubuntu until they polluted it with the integrated shopping lens.now i won't go near it. in fact, it is the main reason that i have given up on unity - canonical, DO NOT send my queries to your servers without my express permission. the end. the dash is trying to be the place to search for everything. no thanks. there is a huge divide between searching for my own files and going online, and i do not want the two to mix.

finally, the hud.

this is probably my favorite improvement that unity has contributed to the user experience, and i have no complaints about it other than wishing it were modular enough to be ported to xubuntu. and if it is not modular enough, then this only shows that canonical is not really helping the open source community, only producing applications that it uses for its own distribution. and this pretty much seems akin to vendor lock-in to me.

why ubuntu has soured on me, and my move to xubuntu

2012-10-09T11:05:00.000-04:00

a couple of weeks back, there was a huge community backlash to the news that the newest version of ubuntu (quantal 12.10) would send ALL queries made in the dash, via the shopping lens, to canonical as a way to help build revenue. that's right, EVERYTHING you type into the dash (when you search for programs or files or anything) will be sent to canonical for the purpose of advertising directly on your desktop. i protested as loud as anyone. canonical's response (besides defending their position) has been to include a program that can disable all internet activity from the dash. unfortunately, i find this solution unsatisfactory for the following reasons:

it is opt-out vs. opt in

this angers me. it works to build revenue by relying on people's ignorance of what canonical is doing with their queries. not everyone pays as much attention to the development of ubuntu as i do, and most will be ignorant of what canonical is up to. this is shitty. and unethical.

it is not separated into its own lens, but is integrated into the dash home

if i am looking to buy something (or even looking for music, videos, or programs) then I can understand offering search results from third-parties in separate lenses, but NOT when i am merely searching my own computer for programs, files, or whatever.

it is a security breach and a violation of privacy.

sorry, i can't see it any other way no matter how canonical apologists try to reassure everyone that our queries are anonymous and that our privacy is being respected. i do not trust you canonical, and if you truly respected your users, then we wouldn't have to (and your money-making scheme here has only shown how untrustworthy you are).

...so, all of this is to say that i'm done with ubuntu, and i will actively discourage its use (which is sad, since i have been a huge supporter of ubuntu for many years). there are many options for linux desktop users, and i'm glad that this fiasco has given me an opportunity to explore other options. one option i'm particularly happy about is xubuntu, an xfce based, community run distro built on top of the ubuntu software infrastructure. in my next post, i'll explain the reasons for this.

the easiest way to get aircack-ng and reaver working on ubuntu 12.04

2012-08-25T17:03:00.002-04:00

neither aircack-ng nor reaver is in the repos in ubuntu 12.04. aircrack was dropped in the precise cycle because it was dropped by debian temporarily in order to sort out some licensing and maintenance issues, and reaver is fairly new and just didn't make it in time. fortunately both packages are in 12.10. by far the easiest way to get these packages to work in 12.04 is to download the quantal versions and install them in precise. i've done so, and i haven't run into any problems. :) the packages can be found here:

http://packages.ubuntu.com/quantal/aircrack-ng

http://packages.ubuntu.com/quantal/reaver

once installed, run:

ifconfig

to figure out your wifi interface. then put it in monitor mode:

sudo airmon start wlan1

next, run 'airodump' to figure out the BSSID of the network you are aiming to penetrate:

sudo airodump mon0

when you have found it, cntr-c to exit. then run 'wash' on it to see if reaver is possibly going to be successful.

sudo wash -i mon0

if so, then let reaver do its magic :)

sudo reaver -i mon0 -b BSSID -v

making a high quality djvu file/ebook from somewhat crappy pdf scans

2012-08-23T18:54:00.000-04:00

i am assuming you either you have a hard copy of an article/book/etc., or else a pdf file of a scanned in document that you wish you clean up and make into a high quality djvu file. also, i am a linux user, i have no idea (and couldn't care less) how to do it on windows/mac. here is how i do it.

tools

gscan2pdf (my fav scanning program presently)
scan tailor (brilliant piece of software)

steps

if you have a hardcopy, i recommend using gscan2pdf (the name is deceiving, it also outputs djvu). it may, in fact, do almost everything you need to get your documents cleaned up. play with it; it is a powerful tool.

if you have a pdf file, the first thing you need to do is to convert it to a multipage tiff file. the highest quality way to convert it that I have found is by using the following ghostscript command:

gs -SDEVICE=tiffg3 -r600x600 -sPAPERSIZE=a4 -sOutputFile="output.tif" -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -- "input.pdf"

this seems to output a much higher quality tiff file than the easy to use "convert" command:

convert input.pdf output.tif

now create a work folder that you put the tiff file you created into, open up scan tailor and open up this work folder. scan tailor is an amazingly powerful application. it will split pages, straighten things out, center the content, de-speckle, and more. again, play around. by the time you are done, you will be able to output a very nice, clean djvu file.

recommendations for using scan tailor

even for books, i recommend looking at each page briefly to make sure that the content is properly selected (often it selects more than is needed on marked up pages).

after the content is selected, i center the content on each page, so the margins are the same.

i output in 600dpi.

next

scan tailor creates an "out" folder in the work folder you created. there are a number of ways you could convert the output files (one for each page) into a single djvu file. this is not my preferred way, but here is a command line way of doing this:

for i in *tif; do cjb2 $i ${i%tif}djvu; echo $i; done

instead, i prefer to re-open gscan2pdf, and select all of the tiff file you just generated in the "out" folder. this way, i can see the output files in a scrollable way and notice any corrections i need to make back in scan tailor before producing my final product.

when things are ready, select the djvu output option, and you should have a really nice djvu file.

post-processing

it is often nice to have both a djvu file and a pdf file. to make this conversion, in my experience the best method is the following command:

ddjvu -format=pdf input.djvu output.pdf

finally, when i print a document, i often want to save paper by creating a "2x1" document, where each page i print has two documents printed side-by-side in landscape orientation. unfortunately, i only know how to do this with pdf files.(p.s., i wish i knew how to output such a document directly into another djvu document. i do not. if anyone has any tips, please leave a comment!). you need "pdfjam" installed, and then run the following command:

pdfjam --nup 2x1 --landscape input.pdf

this will output a file of the same name with "-pdfjam" appended to it.

other resources

here are some very helpful resources i used to figure things out:

http://www.danielstender.com/granthinam/564/
http://askubuntu.com/questions/46233/converting-djvu-to-pdf

t-moble short prompt vs. standard prompt?

2012-08-21T13:16:00.002-04:00

anyone know the difference between the two? does it cut out all the rubbish before someone can actually leave a message?

overview of your legal rights with the websites you use

2012-08-14T08:49:00.001-04:00

http://tos-dr.info/

Thinking ahead to the next LTS ubuntu release (after Lucid)

2010-02-14T22:19:00.001-05:00

This post is purely speculative, but I like to speculate. I'm thinking ahead to the next LTS release. If the past reflects the future, then the next one should be 12.04. Of coures Lucid isn't out yet, so its hard to judge exactly how it will turn out. But besides some social networking stuff, the usual application updates, and hopefully more stability and hardware support, its not going to be a very exciting release. I'll probably use it though for a year or two while some really big changes come to the Ubuntu distro. It is my thinking about this that leads me speculate about the next LTS.

One of the biggest changes will beGnome 3.0, which, from the screenshots I've seen, seems to incorporate a number of fairly radical usability changes. It will be interesting to see exactly the shape it will take - esp the shell part.

Which applications will likely gain more prominence in the distro? I'm sure Banshee will finally become the default music player, and maybe the default video player if the Banshee folks devise a nifty way for it have a standalone video player (and I've never really liked Totem player anyway - I've always been a VLC guy). Openoffice might get around to overhauling their UI according to all the feedback on their Project Renaissance prototypes (even though the first prototype as uuuugly) - and maybe it be ready in by 1012. Hopefully Empathy will be feature complete - offering things like the ability to change the font stuff in rich ways, but more importantly, I hope it will be able to compete with Skpe on the Linux platform.

There are lots of little applications I'm excited about that aren't quite ready yet (though they are developing rapidly). For example, I want a damn good task manager (and the one in Evolution sucks hard), and it looks like GTG might step in and fill the gap. Presently I use Tasque, but the development of it looks to have stopped, so I have little hope for it. I'm looking forward to the single window version of GIMP, because seriously its presently a pain in the but to use. Video editors are starting to take off on Linux, and I'm keeping my eye on Pitivi and Openshot (though I also really like Kdenlive) - I'm hoping they will become a lot more feature rich in the next couple of iterations.

By god, I hope most of the issues will PulseAudio will finally be worked out. Many, many of them have since Hardy (thank goodness), but there still seem to be a lot more. Will Evolution finally get an overhaul? Probably not, but here's to hoping. I also wonder whether or not Netflix will finally be playable on Linux. I really hope so, but I have a hard time seeing Microsoft handing over the info on their DRM stack. Fuckers. And speaking about fuckers - fuck you Poulsbo guys. Get your shit together and put out a decent Linux driver for the hardware.

Let's see, what else? Maybe Songbird will figure out how it get in the Ubuntu repos (and hopefully by then the Linux client will have feature parity with their Windows client), along with Handbrake. Maybe Nautilus will finally give more information when copying over files (this one just makes me mad - its been years of annoyance and nothing from the developers besides petty disputes).

Oh, and lets not forget another biggie: Btrfs. I'm pretty sure this will be the default file system for the next LTS release, and I'm looking forward to it.

I'm hopeful with the release of Lucid, Linux will start to get a big up-tick in use by people who haven't really considered using anything besides Windows or OS X before. Although Linux systems still lack many of the very robust applications that Windows and Macs have, for daily use it pretty much has everything you need. The only thing that needs to change is the perception, momentum, and fear of change that a lot of users have about switching to Linux. I'm pretty excited about the release of Lucid, but I'm really excited about all of the big changes that are likely to happen over the next two years leading up to the next LTS.

What I want from 10.04

2009-12-18T09:15:00.000-05:00

Only two things really: More bug fixing and more hardware regression testing.

I think the Ubuntu community at large would take very kindly to pushing the release back to 10.06 so that there would be a couple of solid months of doing nothing else besides testing and fixing.

I really want Ubuntu to succeed. 9.10 was way to buggy to be a proper release, and I'm afraid that Canonicals commitment to a regular schedule will trump making it as solid and bug-free as possible.

Consider that Windows 7 had what seemed like almost a full year of beta testing, a couple of extra months to make Lucid the best Linux distro release to date would be a refreshing and appreciated change.

Consider it, please.

Demagogue

2009-12-05T16:21:00.000-05:00

From Merriam-Webster:
demagogue: a leader who makes use of popular prejudices and false claims and promises in order to gain power

There is probably no better description for what it is that Rush Limbaugh does.

The Afghanistan Decision

2009-11-30T14:53:00.000-05:00

I don't know what Obama has decided, but I'm very very worried. Its a terrible decision to have to make, and it will haunt his presidency either way. War is a horrific thing, and I can never really truly support a war, even if I think it is necessary. But I don't know if what is about to happen is necessary. I don't believe its largely about combat missions (though I'm sure its implied), but more about patrolling, providing security, and building a strong army/police force to combat the Taliban. Nonetheless if he increases troop levels, it will become a defining moment of his presidency.

Not only he is going to have a very hard time with the base of his party, but it might taint all the good that he is trying to do (and prevent much of it if - and when - we get mired in a long, violent struggle). The Republicans will continue to lie about him - relying on the stupidly inane memes that Democrats don't support our troops, that he's cutting the military budget, that he hasn't done enough to secure 'victory' (for whatever the fuck that is). They lie about him constantly, will continue to do so, and there is nothing he can do to change that.

I know Obama made the war in Afghanistan a part of his candidacy, I was slightly troubled by it then, but I'm especially troubled by it now. I even admire his resolve to keep to his commitments, but I'm sure this alone is not enough to go to war. No doubt this would be a promise that would be joyful to break if the conditions no longer called for it. I know the mission has changed - and being very explicit about what the mission is is of utmost importance. If its no longer about tracking down the Al-Qaeda terrorists that attacked us - and how can it be since Al-Qaeda has largely moved from the region? - then is it mainly about preventing the Taliban from regaining control (and thereby being a safehaven for terrorists)? Or is it about Pakistan somehow? And if so, wouldn't it just be better to support them directly? Sure its all of the above, but fuck, is expanding the war effort the best way? There are lots of nasty and corrupt regimes out there that don't like us very much - but that doesn't justify sending troops in.

I was very impressed when Obama came out not that long ago and rejected all of the proposals that were presented to him regarding Afghanistan. It was a sign of real leadership to demand something better, and not simply choose from a list of bad options (like Bush the 'decider'). But was a better option really presented? If not, then despite all Cheney's blathering stupidity about 'dithering', he should continue to work to find the best possible option even if it takes longer than his detractors say it should. I will listen closely what he has to say, but I'm already scared by the rhetoric being used - 'finish the job'. I can only interpret this as meaning that we need to secure a truly democratic government (as opposed to a merely corrupt sham) that has both broad appeal to the populace to engage with and also has enough power to sustain itself from incursions of the Taliban. But even when I put it in words it sound idyllic, and have a hard time believing that we can 'finish' this - even if we are there for a lot lot longer. And they know we won't be there for a lot longer. And we shouldn't be. Fuck.

Brief Review of Karmic and Hopes of Lucid

2009-11-19T15:38:00.000-05:00

Karmic Koala is out! I've been using it though the beta release, and overall I'm really impressed. There are a LOT of changes under the hood, which has given rise to some unfortunate instability, but the direction the distribution is going in seems to be good. There are the beginnings of a visual refresh going on as well - I hope for more in the future! The main annoyance I have is the large number of serious bugs that came in Karmic. For example, I couldn't burn a CD from Rhythmbox (it has subsequently been fixed, but for a couple of weeks was an annoying regression). There are also reports of data loss do to the switch to the new ext4 filesystem (bug report here) - this makes me very worried about switching to ext4.

For the rest of this post, though, I want to discuss what I hope for in the next version of Ubuntu, codenamed Lucid Lynx. Given that this is an LTS release, I think that, along with the normal package/application updates, the main foci of this release should be: (i) being as stable and as bug-free as possible, and (ii) provide a more thorough revamp of the look and feel of the desktop.

Be as stable and bug free as possible

This is essential. Application developers have come a long way in providing the necessary functionally for getting things done using free and open source software. By in large Ubuntu has done a good job of integrating these applications into the distribution in a stable, easy to access way. That said, there are plenty of bugs that plague the distribution, and it would be nice to see a concerted effort (more than usual) to eliminate as many of these as possible. I shouldn't have to wait for a subsequent update to burn CDs from Rhythmbox - it should work out of the box (and missing obvious stuff like this indicates a lack of quality control). A small bug that I find crazy annoying is that glipper dies most of the time I login. Really?? This bug was reported over a year ago, and yet never has been fixed. Is it really that hard to find a fix for an application that crashes every time I login? Annoyed, I am.

I think that the decision to sync with Debian testing rather than unstable is a good decision in that various communities can cooperate on eliminating as many of these as possible at the same time (and, as implied by the name, there will hopefully be considerably more testing as well). That said, given that this is the first time Ubuntu developers have decided to sync with testing I'm sure unanticipated issues will arise, and they should not be unwilling to change the release date from 10.04 to 10.06 to make it as stable as possible.

The main reason for this is that if Canonical is serious about partnering with the corporate world, they need releases that can be relied on for a long time to provide a stable computer platform. And Hardy was a failure in this respect - annoyingly buggy to an extreme. But to this day I have to use Hardy on my Mini 12 because this is the only version of Ubuntu that Dell supports on this netbook (I have come to hate GMA 500).

I'm also wearying of updating my computer every 6 months. I want a stable operating system that I can rely on for a year or two without problems or a need to update. This brings me to another problem I've run into. Some applications require regular updates to remain functional. Yahoo, for example, changes its IM protocol on occasion - breaking Pidgin. When this occurs, Pidgin should be automatically updated to restore the functionality before the change. I shouldn't be required to sync up with an experimental PPA to get it to work again (in fact, I don't even think I should be required to use the unsupported backports repo). And this should apply to any application that would have problems like this. Don't leave me less functional because I want to continue using a stable supported release over multiple release cycles.

Provide a more thorough revamping of the look and feel of the desktop.

If you nail down the bugs, I'll be happy. If you make the user experience more satisfying and the visuals more pleasing, then I'll be enthusiastic. I can already start seeing some of the work of the design team that Shuttleworth hired to work on the user interface (for example, i love the new icons). The colors are better, but haven't yet found a sweet spot, and the desktop feels a little to blocky rather than slick. I don't exactly have a lot of good ideas, but I'll know it when I see it. I for example really like the refreshed look of KDE 4, though I'm not really inclined to use it.

The 100 paper-cuts was an excellent idea. I hope this will be continued! It definitely improved the distribution in lots of little respects. Do it again! In fact I'd say expand the idea a little. Maybe target, say, 75 trivial fixes, 20 fairly simple (though not trivial) fixes (like this one in particular), and 5 larger fixes. If all of these were related to the user experience, then over the next couple of iterations of the release cycle, huge strides in usability will be made.

Once people see how slick, functional, and easy to use Linux is, they will realize that, with the exception of things like gaming, they have very little reason to stick with Windows and might even get hooked on Ubuntu

Fuck, lost a lot of pictures!!

2009-09-15T21:10:00.001-04:00

I'm so pissed at myself. My computer totally crashed (because I was using a development version that wasn't very stable), and I forgot to backup my fucking pictures. I'm super pissed. For future reference, here is what I need to backup on a crash or before big updates:

Photos folder
Music folder
dev folder
.purple folder
.tomboy folder
.tmp2 folder
scribefire.sqlite file

Splitting mp3 files on Ubuntu (esp useful for audiobooks)

2009-08-18T17:49:00.001-04:00

check out mp3splt. Its not in the Jaunty repos, but it is in Karmic!

Tools lacking on Ubuntu

2009-08-18T14:43:00.001-04:00

Here are some tools that Ubuntu, or Linux generally, seems to lack:

A good WYSIWYG html editor.

Up until about a year ago, I was pretty satisfied with quanta plus. Since then I have become increasingly disappointed with it, mainly because no one seems to be porting it to Qt4, or developing it substantially. What had such great potential seems to be languishing.
KompoZer crashes a lot - I'm waiting for the new version to come out (still in alpha), but I'm less than certain it will be better (and NVU is dead).
Bluefish - although its not a WYSIWYG editor, I still think it could be good if they'd ever release a new version that updates a lot of antiquated crap in there (like not knowing how to open a browser easily)

Decent blogging software

Mainly I use scribefire (I'm using it now) - its ok - but it only offers the simplest options for blogging. If I want any type of formating that goes beyond a bullet point, I've got to know my html (which it visually formats in a very unreadable fashion).
There is an extension for OpenOffice called Sun Weblog Publisher. With it, its possible to format your blog post in openoffice and then upload it to your site. Unfortunately, its closed-source, and only seems to be updated sporadically when someone at Sun feels like it. If I knew there were an active developer community, then it would make me somewhat happier, but it doesn't seem like there is. I expect it to become increasingly antiquated the longer its not updated (and I wish they'd freaking open-source it).

Ubuntu LTS Support

2009-06-12T17:15:00.000-04:00

I'm beginning to get frustrated with certain aspects of the Ubuntu development cycle, and in this post I'm going to try my best to spell out my complaint and what I think should be done about it.

My Complaint

First, let me say that I'm a huge Ubuntu fan. Since Gutsy (when I first started using Ubuntu) each of the iterations of Ubuntu has made large, important strides to becoming a preeminent OS. Many of the things that annoyed me about the desktop experience have been have been fixed or minimized, and with the release of Jaunty I've had very few complaints about things not doing what I want/expect them to, very few crashes, and less annoyances than at any other time using a linux based OS. As I've written before, Jaunty is the first time a Linux vendor has released a distribution that I'd pretty much recommend to anyone. As you can see, I'm a very happy user.

So my complaint then isn't about the great work being done on Ubuntu, its rather an end-user complaint about what the distribution requires me to do to use the latest and greatest releases of software applications. In particular, my complaint is specifically about LTS releases. Take Hardy, for example. Hardy, being an LTS, has three years support, whereas the non-LTS releases (like Intrepid, Jaunty, and Karmic) only have 18 months support. In both cases the support is pretty much limited to security fixes and does not include application version updates except through the Backports repos. Even then, the Backports repos offer a limited number of application updates often not including the application updates that I most desire (like the newest versions of Openoffice), and they are accompanied with the proviso that they are not supported by the Ubuntu team. This the background, now let me get to my complaint.

There are two main types of Ubuntu end-users, which I'll refer to as enthusiasts and lay-users. The enthusiast does not mind reinstalling or upgrading to a new version of Ubuntu each release cycle. In fact, they often start early with one of the alphas to watch the progress of Ubuntu development (this is what I do). They are generally careful about backing up their data and they generally are more familiar with the risks of updating than lay-users. Lay-users, on the other hand, don't want to have to worry about reinstalling or upgrading an OS, they just want what they already have to work, and they want to be able to easily update certain applications when newer versions come out. Not only are less aware that updating can go wrong in any number of ways, and often do not properly back up their data, they don't want to spend hours updating, and they definitely don't want to trouble-shoot anything when things go wrong. But the only way they know how to get new versions of applications is if they upgrade or reinstall.

This is where LTS releases come in, or at least where I think they should come in. Given their extended support they would be perfect for lay-users - except that their support is way too limited. Security patches are needed, but they are not enough. LTS releases also need to be able to allow for the easy installation of new versions of programs. This way lay-users can install an LTS version of Ubuntu, and then not have to concern themselves with the six month release cycle of the Ubuntu developers. They can live content with it until a new LTS version is released.

Solutions?

In my view, LTS releases should work in the following way. As it does now, an LTS release should offer a stabilized API for developers to work with along with a continuous supply of security fixes for the supported software, but it should also widen what it considers supported software for an LTS release to include newer versions of important programs that are released through the LTS lifecycle. I'm thinking of certain programs in particular, ones like OpenOffice, Firefox, and Pidgin. There should be an option to upgrade to the newer version of the programs, but no compulsion to do so. In other words, Ubuntu should offer a way to update to the newest versions of certain programs (which programs can be a mtter determined by demand) without relying on more risky options (one's they don't often even know about) like installing PPA repos, using getdeb, or waiting for backports to offer it (which it may never). Various versions of these programs need to be officially supported in an LTS release so that users can gain the benefits of these updates without having to upgrade their entire OS or rely on less safe deb repos. In this way, lay-users can be happy with an LTS for years without becoming frustrated that they are not getting the latest applications developers have to offer. Let the developers worry about the changes in undelying OS, this is largely invisible to most lay-users anyway. Lay-users care mainly about the applications, and they want an easy way to keep up with new releases of them.

Lakhdar Boumediene

2009-06-08T20:27:00.000-04:00

I hope he does sue the US government - and I hope to hell he wins. This is so outrageously unacceptable.

7½ Years For Being Muslim ~ The Story Of Lakhdar Boumediene