April 1st, 2005 §
Long time users of Photoshop, the image editing program (so to speak) may have a problem getting used to Gimp.
The first problem is the that it takes some time to get around the question, “Why the heck is software that is so much better than Photoshop in some respects, available totally free?”. I leave you to work your way around that problem.
What I can help you with is the other problem – relearning how to accomplish different actions in Gimp. The gimp project has called the GUI the Graphical User Irritation or something in the past, if I recall correctly. Back in the days when I was a novice Linux user (not that I am any better off now, really), I found it interesting that the whole Gimp menu appeared when I right-clicked on the image. I thought that was neat, but it had it’s problems and all that. Now Gimp has windows-style menus and all that jazz, but some of the features or tools in Gimp have names that are different from Photoshop, and the menu is differently organized.
Now, with Scott’s GimpShop, Gimp behaves like Photoshop(Go ahead, check out the screenshots if you don’t beleive me). There is a Linux port of GimpShop too, if you need one.
So save the $649 for something better. Use Gimp.
(If you were a smart ass like me, you’d be using Ubuntu as your OS already 
, and saving and feeling good about being smart. )
Note: The author of the above article acknowledges that rising at 4 A.M. to work, and then taking a break after just 3 hours is not too smart.
March 3rd, 2005 §
Now what sort of an error message is this?:
Error: Success! (like it was not supposed to succeed at what it was trying to do)
Notice the other error message, which is still sane. This used to happen occasionally, and I had saved a screenshot for later.
March 3rd, 2005 §
I upgraded to Ubuntu Hoary, which is the next release, coming out sometime in May 2005. It is bleeding edge software under development for the most, but from my experience using it on the work desktop, I know it to be pretty stable. No problems so far, with anything critical. I guess I can take any problems it throws at me.
The reason for the upgrade was so that I can use Tomboy and F-spot, or at least try them out.
Tomboy is a desktop-note taking app, which I already find mighty useful, after 2 days of using it. An icon (Tintin) sits on my taskbar, and pops up an easy to use list of notes, and a link to Recent Changes. I can link to other notes from a note, so it really is a small note-taking wiki, which is el neato.
F-spot is for managing photos, you can tag snaps and export them to Flickr, or your own gallery. The gallery export feature did not work for me, and since it is a product currently being developed, there isn’t too much documentation or details at the website. It’s not complete by any means, but it interesting nevertheless. I need a way to organize all the photos I have on my computer. A lot of the more recent snaps never made it to my gallery, really, and I have been postponing the upload until after I have organized the pics locally. Why, oh why, is organizing such a chore?
February 6th, 2005 §
Who would have guessed that http://www.no-name-yet.com would lead to http://ubuntulinux.org now? That is a good “working URL” (like one has “working titles”). I noticed no-name-yet.com when I visited http://www.no-name-yet.com/patches/ .
The Hindi word for anonymous (or literally “the one without a name”) – Anamika (A = No + nam = Name + ika = “qualifier meaning ‘the one’ (or something of that sort)”, always sounds good to me, whenever I hear it. Wouldn’t it be nice to name your kid “Anamika”, now? The hypothetical kid could then be called “Ann” or “Anna” in the U.S.
How many of you know that I had a nickname “Cash” during my undergrad days, fairly popular among my friends? “Cash” is a shorter version of “Carthik Sharma” in case you’re wondering. I hesitate to say, “You can call me Cash” in the U.S. only because it seems to make folks believe I made it up, and ’cause I hate it when people adopt a new nickname after they get here, like the many “Zhang”s who become “Shawn” and “Rajendar”s who become “Roger”s.
By the way, why are almost all the Indians who work at gas stations called “Nick”? I may know the answer, since in one particular gas-station they only had two name tags, and both said “Nick”, and whoever’s working the shift would just pin it on, regardless of what their real names were. But why “Nick” everywhere? Why not “Jack”? I am thinking that maybe all the Indian gas dealers of Central Florida got together and worked out a bargain deal for 100 pieces of identical name tags or something.
