Playing with Puppy 4.3.1 with seamonkey with the OS running on my USB...
With this version, you can take screenshots easily with the build-in mtPaint 3.31 software.
Since the SeaMonkey browser is no longer supported by websites such as blogger, I am unable to upload pictures of the screenshots taken... I also can not give the post a title and don't know whether I will be able to publish it...
Interesting... seemed to have no problem doing in it back then...
Anyways, I sent the screenshots to my own gmail instead and the attachment interface did work on SeaMonkey for gmail.
I came back to use this Ubuntu machines these past two days.
So I thought there is no need to be learning anything new... I was wrong...
One problem I have been encountering is that, when you press the enter key, sometimes the cursor would appear to locate at the beginning of the sentence you were typing rather than at the beginning of a new paragraph. Other times, it would stay at the end of the sentence and does not move at all. It is not until when you start typing again would you know where the true location of the cursor is. In addition, sometimes the cursor would move to the beginning of some other random paragraphs as if it really has its mind.
Although I have no solution to this program, I suspect this might be mainly an issue associated with either the blogger interface or blogger-like design.
Another issue that was really bugging the hell out of me is that I was having such grieve switching between English and the ibus Chinese input methods (e.g., Chinese chewing input method).
I had better luck switching to the Chinese input methods when in OpenOffice; however, I kept on having problem getting the Chinese input to work when inside of a browser.
Finally, by exploring the preferences window... I found out...
Dumb dumb... all that I needed was to press down control+space to switch among these different input method. Of course, one can also go on and do whatever customization one's heart desires. For me, control+space is good enough for now.
I decided to do a simple usability testing... involving my mom and ubuntu...
I set up this machine for my mom cuz this guy could hardly move when running XP.... Therefore, I put ubuntu on it instead.
Then, as I was messing around on this ubuntu machine, I thought of puppy... I have always liked the baby blue color of the default puppy interface... at least that version I got...
So I thought... because it is so cute... it must be more usable for my mama. (some logic here... 8-O lol)
Just before I wipe the machine out and put puppy on... I decided to do a "usability testing" on my mama using ubuntu...
End result: It worked perfect because I left only one icon on the desktop... all that she had to do is to turn on the computer, double-click on the Firefox icon, and, the Taiwanese stock market page of Yahoo will be loaded by default. I was having some difficulties getting her to turn off the machine when trying to have her retest it again.... 8-O lol
Regardless, the following really boring clip as the end product...
Step 1:
Importing the clips.
When the camera is connected to the computer, you should see the pop-up window asking you which software program to use for further processing.
If you select F-Spot, you should be presented with the next window.
Select the pictures to download... Chinese version.
Select the pictures to download... English version.
Once you selected the files you want to download, click "Copy."
When the process is done, you would see the window like the following...
Download complete window in Chinese.
Download complete window in English.
Editing the video
I have used the PiTivi program to edit the video. The process is straight forward... with the only trick... for reason known, on the desktop where I have installed the Chinese version of Ubuntu, to import video, you have to use the import icon that looks like a green cross.
However, when testing it out running the os directly from my usb drive using the thinkpad laptop, it did allow me to drag and drop the videos into the program...
The PiTiVi program that came with the ubuntu install.
Drag and drop videos into the PiTiVi program.
Drag and drop videos into the timeline in PiTiVi program.
Converting from .ogg file to avi file
Unfortunately, the output of the PiTIvi program is in ogg format.
After I uploaded the file to youtube, it would only play the sound but not the images.
As a result, I had to use the mencoder program to convert the .ogg file into an avi file.... after a lot of trial and errors, it finally worked...
I was thinking of switching from ubuntu to puppy because I like the baby blue desktop of puppy....
Then, I thought... I am really あちまショト (阿達媽秀逗 or the head is short-circuited)...
Did some simple usability testing yesterday... asking my mom, the designated user of this computer, whether it is simple enough for her...
She thought it is fine...
Yet, on a second thought, at resolution this high, it might be more difficult for my mom to see and read things..
So, I decided to lower the resolution.
The process is simple and straight forward using the GUI interface:
The following screenshots are in traditional Chinese:
Click system and select preference. Choose "Screen" from the second level drop-down.
Screenshot on how to locate the monitor setting (Chinese Version).
Screenshot on how to locate the monitor setting (English Version).
This window will pop up...
The screen resolution window in Chinese version of ubuntu.
The screen resolution window in English version of ubuntu.
After you click on the current resolution (e.g., 1280x1024 (5:4)), you will get a list of all available resolutions in the dropdown. I selected 1024x768 (4X3))
The screen resolution window in Chinese version of ubuntu.
The screen resolution window in English version of ubuntu.
And click Apply.
Another pop up would show up asking you whether you want to keep the setting. In this scenario, I decided to keep the setting.
The confirmation window asking you whether you want to keep the new setting.
Chinese version.
The confirmation window asking you whether you want to keep the new setting.
English version.
After you close out the second pop up, the screen resolution window would still be open. At this point, simply close out this window.
Thought of this question that I have been asked many a time...
Does Nvivo run on Macs?
Depends on how you define "running on Macs"... and Intel-based Macs...
As of today, Nvivo can only run on Microsoft Windows OS... and, of course, nowadays, there are many different ways to run Windows OS on Macs... parallel, boot camp, VMWare... etc...
If this is what you mean by... "Does Nvivo run on Macs? or "Can I install Nvivo on Macs?"
Since this machine runs really slow... after I got my sister and brother in law's consent... I turned it into a Linux machine... running Ubuntu....
Well, all else this machine is incapable of... at least... people, especially my mom, could use it to browse the web....
Yet... come to think about it... since it would be computer-phobics like my mom... maybe the cute interface of puppy might be more appropriate for my mom?
In addition, this old desktop is in a far better shape and far more functional than that really old laptop I was playing with earlier this year or the other one about 10 years ago (which I never made it to connect to the internet)....
Boot back into Puppy to see whether it was some sensory illusion that this machine works much slower on PCLinux...
Seems to run much faster on puppy...
Apparently, if you use the "mtPaint Snapshot screen capture" program to take screenshots, you have to save the file first before you can go and perform simple tasks such as cropping an image.
Last Christmas is an absolute nightmare... stalling frames and audio... on this old laptop with PCLinux... through firefox... Again, my laptop at fault...
Since Konqueror wouldn't run without fine-tuning, I have to use firefox... the good thing... flashplayer already installed and there is no need to manually do the update....
Chopped the hard drive of the Satellite into four parts and got PCLinux installed on one of them... in addition to Puppy....
Unfortunately, this machine is not really capable in terms of running PCLinux...
Some problems I have encountered so far...
Kde desktop crashes at least twice upon starting up...
When trying to take a screenshot, same thing happened again... it just keeps on coming... new windows with snapshots keeps on popping up....
Also, when trying to make this post using Konqueror browser, I simply could not get into this textbox that allows me to make this post... Might have something to do with Javascript not enabled... Yet, takes too long to explore... given that the system is running slow...
Substantial delays as well in typing and you press the key down once, the letter comes up multiple times...
Think I might have to forgo this OS since this Satellite can't seem to be able to handle this OS...
The other day, as the laptop was trying to finish up installing Puppy, I decided to take a shower while the installation was in progress...
After the shower, I happily got onto the laptop with only a piece of the towel wrapping around me...
Yet, puppy simply wouldn't not start....
So I thought...
Naked woman in technologies...
I am too sex for da puppy for after a clean install? 8-O lol
(And, come on... guys... like you have never done it before....)
And... of course, the puppy's failure to launch has nothing to do with my having gotten dressed or not... as evident by the fact that even after I got dressed, the laptop still failed to boot up from the hard drive...
If the boot CD for puppy linux is still in, it could boot up from the CD and run the OS from the hard drive... Yet, it simply wouldn't boot from the hard drive...
Ended up, after hours (ok, exaggeration) of trying to figure out how to troubleshoot, it turned out to be... I wiped out the whole hard drive, had it reformatted and created a new partition... without making the drive bootable...
Didn't got it figure out until I popped Ubuntu CD in again and found that... the solution was as simple as a click... on the checkbox next to "bootable"... hours of killing my naked existence after... 8-O lol
Puppy must be thinking to itself... "Old lady... you are barking at the wrong tree..." 8-O lol
And, next time, shall it be you, getting all excited about having puppy etc installed on your antique computer after coming right out from the shower and finding puppy Linux etc wouldn't boot from the hard drive....
Question number one to ask... is the hard drive bootable? Did you just wipe it out without making the drive bootable?
If so, how do you make a hard drive bootable without having to do the scary command line kinda thing? Pop in an OS that could run from a CD etc such as Ubuntu and run the disk utility program to make the drive bootable.
Unfortunately, it stubbornly refused to load on the Satellite machine with the installation stall at the message
"scanning for hardisk partitions and creating /etc/fstab..."
I tried burning the ISO image from the same source to two different CDs.... Same result...
I tried downloading the ISO file from a difference source and burn it to a different CD... Same error message...
Eventually, I dicided to see whether it is simply due to the config of da Satellite machine by booting into this old Dell laptop instead...
Within seconds... the desktop loaded....
Not quite sure what the problem is but at least I got it to load and get to see the interface myself...
Apparently, you could use the mtPaint program to create screenshots....
Launch the application under "Apps"-->"Graphics"-->"mtPaint"
Once in the application, click File-->New
The new image window would pop up... select "Grab Screenshot" and click "create."
The only problem I am having now is that... I am not sure how to lose that mtPaint application in the screenshot... 8-O lol
Another way to take screenshot is by using the "X window snapshot" program ("System"-->"X window snapshot")... except for I yet have to figure out how to convert the x-window-specific xwd file into a jpg file...
Yet, at this poinst, I think I am going to go with Puppy since I like the baby blue desktop.... 8-O lol... this should be enough of the experiences for me.
Was trying to see how Slax might work on this laptop.... Unfortunately, the process of installing the OS seems to take up more steps then simply clicking through some buttons and pressing down on the enter key...
So many fish in the sea... I might just have to leave my Slax experience to simply testing it out through booting up from a CD.....
As demonstrated in the pix here... Slax runs K Desktop... and taking screenshots with it is as simple as pressing down on the Print Screen key... The only irony is that... the first time I booted into Slax and after the desktop was loaded, I tried to take a screenshot of the desktop only to find that the program just keeps on taking more and more and more of the same screenshot and there ain't no way to stop it from coming... (since what I know as CTRL+ALT+DELETE does work here...)
So I complained earlier about how I couldn't take screenshots with Ubutu lite and now I am complaining about too many screenshots being taken? Woman (like me)... can't stop complaining.... 8-O lol
In addition to the screenshot delimma I had with Ubuntu lite, one more reason why I decided to switch to a different OS is because of the "Shrunken screen" phenomena on the old Toshiba Satellite (as well as the fact that I couldn't figure out how to find system information after hours of exploration)...
After I did a whole lot of research, tried out the FN+F11 keys, Esc+space+... a million times... there remained to be this black things on the outter side of the laptop monitor and with the resolution set to be something like 640X480....
Tried to find ways to increase the resolution including typing in th xrandr command directly into the terminal except for it kept on telling me even resultion such as "800X680" is not available...
In any case, the problem is solved after I switched to Puppy...
With puppy, the video detection kinda utility seems to be much user friendly and no longer am I facing a huge black frame on the screen with 640X480 resolution...
Of course, might have nothing to do with Ubuntu or xrandr... simply me dumb... 8-O lol
Done with Middlemarch
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An accomplishment of mine during the time of waiting for my book to be
edited... I finally finished reading the Middlemarch by George Eliot.
God bless ...
Whit
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Whit sounds like wit and according to dictionary.com, it means
a particle; bit; jot (used especially in negative phrases).
I have changed not a whit. I do...
A dream: Backpacking
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On my way back from NYC to Taipei in April, I managed to get myself an
extended layover (over 2 weeks) in Japan, landing at and exiting from the
Narita Air...
Ratprincess in Technology not lost?
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Given my sick-in-the-headness, sometimes it's hard to trust my LTM. Did
Ratprincess in Technology really exist or was it my false memory?
As I was marv...
Traces of the past
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A link I found that has been live online from the Down with Meds age.
Apparently, the past has always been there whether I knew it or not.
