Inkscape Growing Feature Palette
Posted by A R Baboon in Graphic Design, Linux and Systems on March 23rd, 2009
One of the lead developers of Inkscape, Jon Cruz has been advocating for better color management in the Libre Graphics projects a lot recently. According to a post on Jon’s blog today, Inkscape is going to grow its support for swatches and swatch books. If it includes strong support for spot (solid) colors these changes will definitely affect graphic designers quite a bit. Some of the efforts listed include enhancing the swatch UI including more drag and drop, including gradients in swatches, and support for swatch book swapping and sharing. The description seems to indicate that switching a swatch book/set will replace the color on all objects that used swatches. The would allow a designer to explore and present different versions of the same work without any change to the objects at all. Sweet.
Freshmeat.net Finally Updates Site
Posted by A R Baboon in Code, Graphic Design on March 15th, 2009
Freshmeat 3.0 Screen Cap
Freshmeat.net has updated its site after many years of stagnation. It is such a shame because they were very well positioned to have really good marketshare any they mostly sat on their laurels. For example they should have been on top of the code search business. Maybe they will take over the extension/addon business from dysfunctional services like Addons Mozilla Org (AMO) [shakes fist]. AMO is a very well designed site/service with a crappy moderation process behind it (and I have personal experience).
The old design was an example of good design at the time with a not overcrowded feeling and convenient but mellow quick link icons. I In any case, my biggest dislike with the old site was the search. It may have been ok in a pre-Google world but if you cannot beat Googles search you need to embed it.
Freshmeat 3.0 Design Close-up
In this new design the listings are nice and compact. Textual buttons appear on mouse over to remove some clutter (I kind of liked the icons as opposed to text for repetition). Unfortunately they have removed a quick way to visit the homepage or full change log. They replaced some of the info effectively with a more modern tag construct but other info is missing. The search is much better but the language of a listing does not display in the results. The language was pretty important to me when browsing for a library. I have not seen if there is a good set of syntax for the search. Google codesearch like lang:c license:MIT syntax would be nice.
Local Parking Fail
Posted by A R Baboon in Area Happening on September 14th, 2008
I have a hard time believing the there is not some larger story but while searching for some fire department info I came across this gem.
EVESHAM RESPONDERS DEAL WITH PARKING MISHAP
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
On Wednesday August 5th, Engine 221 and EMS 229 were dispatched to the parking lot of the Promenade Shopping Center at 500 Route 73 South for a Motor Vehicle Collision. Units arrived to find a parking mishap whereby one vehicle jumped a curb and sidewalk, knocked down a light standard, and drove on top of another vehicle. EMS 229 checked the occupants of the vehicles for injuries while Engine 221 ensured that no ruptures of the oil pan or fuel cell occurred. Both units stood by while the tow company carefully removed the vehicles, so as to prevent further damages and environmental hazards.
Second McCain Green Screen Challenge Begins
Posted by A R Baboon in HaHa Funny, Poly-Sigh on September 9th, 2008
He did it again and the entries have started. Here are my favorite so far:
Google Picasa Face Recognition In the Gutter
Posted by A R Baboon in Computer Science, HaHa Funny on September 7th, 2008
Google’s Picasa web service has an excellent new person tagging and face recognition features. Some times it gets a little confused. The above example, which is particularly comical, is one of the extreme examples. Most of the bogus faces are close ups of ears. I do really like these features (when they are working). I was primarily using tags for people so this removes a lot of work.
The social enhancements have a long way to go yet. There a whole bunch of sharing cases that are not covered.
Terribly Mysterious Convention Speeches
Posted by A R Baboon in HaHa Funny, Poly-Sigh on September 5th, 2008
The Sphinx Speaks
I think several speech writers were watching mystery men prior to the conventions this year. Here are a couple of quotes:
In politics, there are some candidates who use change to promote their careers. And then there are those, like John McCain, who use their careers to promote change.”
Palin
People the world over have always been more impressed by the power of our example than by the example of our power.Bill Clinton
There were a few more that I am having trouble finding moment. Here are some I made up (not necessarily my views). I hope none of them have been used.
We must bring the fight to our enemies before the fight brings our enemies to us.
We need to raise our interest in inflation before our inflation raises our interest.
We will withdraw our troops as soon as possible but it is not possible to withdraw our troops soon.
Instead of doubting the the benefits of drilling, we need to give drilling the benefit of the doubt.
We have changed the way individuals donated millions to millions of individuals donating change.
Attacks:
My opponent asks you to believe what he says but does he say what he believes.
Our opponents don’t believe you deserve change so they only offer the change they believe you deserve.
UPDATE: Doug tipped me Slate was inspired by my story or had the same observation. More likely the latter. The name for it is apparently Antimetabole. To borrow from bond I always knew Bill Clinton was a cunning linguist.
Handlers Where Are You?
Posted by A R Baboon in Poly-Sigh on July 31st, 2008
Ok, first McCain does a speech in front of a green screen. Now I see him packing in his lunch with Lindsey Graham at Schmidt’s Sausage and Fudge Haus (not kidding). Of course that is probably better than air lifting onto a failing oil rig (doh).
Gtk Pie Chart Widget
Posted by A R Baboon in Code on June 10th, 2008
I needed a pie chart widget for a project so I made one. I used cairo for rendering of course. This API has add_segment and remove_segment functions but I will change that to take a tree model. There are almost no options or style at this point which would obviously be important but I have got the basic outline down I think. I am considering writing an entire charting widget set. There are several packages focused on plotting but they are not presentation oriented.
Code Follows:
ACM Awards
Posted by A R Baboon in Computer Science, Music on May 19th, 2008
I noticed CNN is running an footage of this year’s ACM Awards. It looks like they managed to book some high profile country music singers for the ceremony.
How South Park Ruins Things
Posted by A R Baboon in HaHa Funny, Our Little Bundles of... on April 26th, 2008
We taught my son that if gets a “boo-boo” all he has to do is get it kissed and everything feels all better. It has worked out really well. Instead of major crying fits he just walks up to us calmly presents the injured area and says “kiss it”. The problem is south park has some prior art on a presentation of a body part and saying “kiss it”. I almost choked on a pretzel when he fell on his bottom and requested my healing powers.