resize a directory full of images using imagemagick

Posted on September 2, 2007 by munzli

people wo have image galleries on the net know that the images that come from your digital camera are usually to big. even gallery scripts that do resize the images might fall into a timeout when uploading alot of images. i used to batch resize my images with a GIMP script, but why? i don’t know. using imagemagick is ten times simpler!

mogrify -resize 800x600 "*" *.jpg

easiest possible way to go…
and with the option -quality you can also set the quality… check out the mogrify man page for more information.

canon g7 fun…

Posted on August 27, 2007 by munzli

playing around with my canon g7 again… from 4am ’til about 6:30am we went out on friday night (saturday morning would be more correct) and shot about everything possible…

we had more fun than a barrel of monkey with just a lighter and some long time exposures!

like mentioned in my old post this is not an SLR camera, but it’s macro abilities and everything up to exposure times are amazing!

wcmsblog for phpwcms 1.3.3

Posted on August 15, 2007 by munzli

well i’ve seen lot’s of people having problems with this and since i’m setting up a new phpwcms 1.3.3 and need blog support i’ll describe how i’m getting wcmsblog to run.

well after downloading from the site, looked at the contents of the archive. this includes:
include/ phpwcms_template/ scripts/ blogrss.php

the include directory and blogrss.php file can be moved into your phpwcms without any worries. notice that the new default directory for the templates does not have the “phpwcms_” prefix anymore! so move the containing files into the template folder of phpwcms.
now, i don’t like the idea of having even more javascripts laying around than there already are, but for making this easy, just copy the scripts folder with moo.fx and prototype over too. (i might change this since prototype and libraries similar to moo.fx are already laying around in phpwcms 1.3.3)

well on to the next step, now open phpwcms.php and at line 96 look for
case "modules": //modules

at line 105-106 the part for the graphical text mod is done, right below this add
$subnav .= subnavtext("Blogs", "phpwcms.php?do=modules&p=6", $p, "6", 0);
make sure you don’t have another module using the ID 6 or else change it.

and around line 403 ( since you’ve added a line or two it could be around 405 ;) ) after the graphical text mod part (ca. 408-410) add
if ($p == 6) { // Blog MOD include_once "./include/inc_module/mod_blogs/main.inc.php"; }

NOTE: that the ID has to be the same as above if you changed it.

now if you log into phpwcms under modules you have a working version of the wcmsblog backend, hopefully!
the database is created the first time you enter the “Blogs” module.

if you are not using the GT mod, make sure you open the file blog.module.php in template/inc_script/frontend_render and look for
$s = preg_replace('/\{GT:(.+?)\}(.*?)\{\/GT\}/ei', "get_gt_by_style(\$gt, \"\$1\", \"\$2\")", $s); this should be around line 215.

here replace the line with an “if” to check if the gt mod classes exist, like this
if(class_exists('get_gt_by_style')) { $s = preg_replace('/\{GT:(.+?)\}(.*?)\{\/GT\}/ei', "get_gt_by_style(\$gt, \"\$1\", \"\$2\")", $s); }
if your GT mod is enabled and in use (added fonts and writable gt folder for images) you shouldn’t need to do this, but it’s needed if you don’t use the GT mod, just enabling in the config file doesn’t work!

now add the replacement tag to an article {BLOG:yourblogname} and it should show up in the frontend!

i’ll be showing you how to get the captcha working soon… if you have question feel free to ask!

canon powershot G7

Posted on July 27, 2007 by munzli

i recently bought myself a Canon Powershot G7 and i’m really pleased with it. great camera with the retro looks of an old analog cam.

it handles macro shots really good, i was playing around with it for hours and made a bunch of nice pics which i posted in this gallery.

i also bought the WP-DC11 marine kit.

which is loads of fun. we tested it at a friends pool party and made tons of fun pictures (this example doesn’t have the best colors but you get the point)

for anybody that doesn’t want to buy a single-lens reflex (SLR) camera this is one that gets pretty damn close to it!

enabling desktop effects ubuntu 7.04 nvidia

Posted on May 16, 2007 by munzli

well since ubuntu has the new little desktop-effects menu in system -> preferences i wanted to try it, but i kept getting this:
munzli@freddy:~$ /usr/bin/desktop-effects modinfo: could not open /lib/modules/2.6.20-15-386/volatile/nvidia_legacy.ko: No such file or directory modinfo: could not open /lib/modules/2.6.20-15-386/volatile/nvidia.ko: No such file or directory modinfo: could not open /lib/modules/2.6.20-15-386/volatile/nvidia.ko: No such file or directory nvidia hardware not available Segmentation fault (core dumped)

my system has been upgraded from previous releases and already had beryl and compiz running before upgrading to feisty and has tons of dead entries and packages. the solution was actually quite simple, but here’s all the steps i did.

first i removed the nvidia restricted modules (as you can see i still had others from previous kernels so i removed them as well) and nvidia kernel drivers (this step is probably not necessary but i did it anyway to make sure)
sudo apt-get remove --purge nvidia-kernel-common linux-restricted-modules-2.6.15-23-386 linux-restricted-modules-2.6.17-10-386 linux-restricted-modules-2.6.17-11-386 linux-restricted-modules-2.6.20-15-386

then i reinstalled the packages (you can take the generic package but i used the 686 package since i have a P4 here at the office)
sudo apt-get install nvidia-glx-new linux-restricted-modules-686

make sure you have the nvidia specific stuff in your xorg.conf, if you don’t, the easiest thing to do is run:
sudo nvidia-xconfig --composite sudo nvidia-xconfig --render-accel sudo nvidia-xconfig --allow-glx-with-composite sudo nvidia-xconfig --add-argb-glx-visuals

restart X and you should see the nvidia module, easiest check is running System -> Administration -> Restricted Drivers Manager. it should look like this (you only need the nvidia driver in there):

well i didn’t have it loaded at first and noticed that it was still missing the /lib/modules/2.6.20-15-386/volatile/nvidia.ko file, so in that directory i noticed the nvidia_new.ko so i just made a symbolic link:
ln -s nvidia_new.ko nvidia.ko

after that it still wasn’t working! well here’s the final and real step that made it work and you might only have to do this!

check the gconf-editor and make sure that no dead plugins are loaded, mine looks like this now:

mine still had “animations” and “3d” in there, and after removing animations it worked!

a nice way to waste some time ;)

if your cube doesn’t rotate, then also make sure that the key /apps/compiz/general/screen0/options/hsize is set to 4 or more. for others plugin go check the compiz site.

google’s personalized startpage (iGoogle)

Posted on May 15, 2007 by munzli

today i noticed that google changed it’s personalized startpage to the name iGoogle (it’s probably been like this for a while, i just didn’t notice). it’s themeable now, here’s a screen shot:

the background image changes every two hours ;) for example, the teahouse theme at 10am and then at noon

go check it out! there’s a bunch of new content that can be added and you can now even create new tabs.

ubuntu dist-upgrade with an iso image

Posted on April 23, 2007 by munzli

well since ubuntu feisty fawn 7.04 is out, i thought i’d go for the distribution upgrade… so i downloaded the iso.

upgrading through the online repositories usually is pretty time consuming so i wanted to upgrade through the iso without burning a cd, who needs cds anyways ;)

the only way i got this going was to mount the iso into a directory (in my case: /media/ubuntu)
sudo mount -o loop -t iso9660 /path/to/my/iso/ubuntu-7.04-desktop-i386.iso /media/ubuntu

then edit the sources.list in /etc/apt and replace “edgy” with “feisty” and add this line to the top
deb file:/media/ubuntu/ubuntu feisty main restricted

not very nice but the cdromupgrade is missing in feisty!

now do a:
sudo apt-get clean sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get dist-upgrade sudo apt-get -f install # optional sudo dpkg --configure -a

HINT: “sudo apt-get -f install” is only needed if you get errors during the dist-upgrade.

for some reason i also needed to uncomment the normal “main/restricted” package source because it still wanted to download every package.
# deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu feisty main restricted

if anybody has easier ways, please tell me!

replacing the display of your iAudio X5

Posted on April 21, 2007 by munzli

well i ruined my display and finally was able to get a new one.

since i thought it was no biggie to replace myself i started disassembling my X5.

after opening the next step was removing the hard drive.

i had to complety remove everything to reach the display.

the replacement display in place i put it together to check if it worked. i wasn’t carefull enough so i had to solder the battery cable back on, because i accidentally tore it off (so be careful if you plan on doing something like this too).

and when i turned on the device the backlight seemed to work but my display didn’t. :(

looks like i’m gonna have to send it in for repair anyway since the display controller seems to be broken too. always fun to look into electronic devices though ;)

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