I could not answer the question right away. Part of me was thinking that he could have answeed that quite easily. But not really. One of the first things he asked is: “Is WordPress a light enough solution?”

It is indeed worth noting that WordPress is fairly light. The download from the website is never bloated. Just several MB. Here’s the catch though: It runs on Apache and you need MySQL and PHP as well. For those who are using Apache, MySQL and PHP to test applications locally on their machines, this is fine. But for those who don’t, then I don’t see the reason to download something like WordPress. And my co-worker pointed that out too.

What are possible solutions?

On Linux, there are several. If you’re using Ubuntu, you could get Tomboy by default. Each note could have the date of the day as a title and then you could file everything together. One downside of Tomboy is that the notes are saved as text files but with mark-up that might not be friendly to read.

There’s also ZimWiki. I know I wrote about how to use ZimWiki to write your masterpiece. But seriously though, you could also use this in a different way. Like blogging on your very own laptop. You could treat local blogging like writing your own novel and you could customize the organization of your notes. And it should be fairly easy enough to have a bunch of links on your pane because you could make the name of the month as a section and put a summary when the month is over. Then you could still have each page as a day in that month.

And then there’s always Emacs Planner-el. Not everyone is comfortable with Emacs, but for me, this is still one of the best ways to record what happened during the day.

These are just three tools I could think of at the moment. If you’ve got other ideas, then let me know. I am sure others would also want to learn about this topic.

Post from: New Linux User

Image Credit: jppi. Via MorgueFile. Click on the image for the original.

Rapid Photo Downloader has documentation that is also reader-friendly. It gives you tips on how to get started. It has a practical approach to installing the application. Here are the basic considerations you must have when considering starting to use Rapid Photo Downloader:

• where you want your images downloaded
• how you want your images named
• where to download images from
• if and how you want your images backed up
• if you want image filenames to be compatible with other operating systems
• how you want to handle any image name conflicts or missing backup devices

So you see, your considerations as users of this application are also considered and the documentation guides you through using it. It even has the explanations for the different things that you might have to use/consider when using it. After all, one of the features of Rapid Photo Downloader is that you could generate file names that are descriptive and you could create a filter for them. This way, you could deal with the files as an entire batch that has to be renamed. A great solution to a cumbersome task, right?

Another neat thing about this photo downloading application is that you could have backups of your images while you’re downloading them. And you could also automate tasks if you so wanted them.

I am sure my friends who are aspiring photographers will love this application, especially because of the options they have. Whether they’re using GNOME, KDE, XFCE or something else, this is said to run but because there’s so many out there, you might have to take a shot at using this to confirm it. Now you can be happily clicking your files and so on.

Post from: New Linux User

Using GIMP

GIMP has a function to get screenshots. It is awesome because you can set the delay of the screenshot. I use that when I am taking screenshots of a particular application. You could get screenshots by going to the “File” menu of GIMP. Select the item “Create” and then look for “Screenshot” because that is what you want to create. After that a dialog box will appear asking you for your options. You could select a region, an entire window, or the entire screen. The delay for the screenshot could also be set.

GIMP is great because you could get all sorts of screenshots using it. You don’t even have to crop a region because it could be selected in the first place. Same thing goes for those who only want to get screenshots of a particular application running on the desktop.

Firefox’s Screengrab plugin

This is one of the most useful things I’ve ever encountered. It lets you get screenshots of entire webpages or just a specific region. This is a very convenient tool for everyone who needs to put screenshots of web-based applications on their blogs or documentation. Who says you have to get several screenshots before you get the screenshot with the whole length of the page? This is really an awesome plugin.

Use Aviary

Aviary is a web-based application akin to GIMP because it allows you to manipulate images. One of the great things about it is that it’s as if you have GIMP on your browser. That’s why even if you don’t have GIMP installed you can still take a screenshot of the web-based application. And it’s as easy as appending “aviary.com” (without the quotation marks) before the URL of the site you want to take a screenshot of. I just learned about this today. And it looks very nifty too. For more details, you could view this article on how to capture screenshots without any software.

What are your tools and techniques to get screenshots that you need? Could you share them here too?

Post from: New Linux User

For the e-book worms

If you have an e-book reader, you have an application you might want to consider. Calibre is an open source application made for those who love reading e-books. This e-book management system can support a lot of e-book formats such as EPUB, FB2, OEB, LIT, PDB, PML, RB, PDF and TXT as output formats. For input it supports CBZ, CBR, CBC, EPUB, FB2, HTML, LIT, MOBI, ODT, PDF, PRC, PDB, PML, RB, RTF, TXT. This means that users have more formats possible for them to read and aside from that, conversion is possible. If I have LIT files, I could convert them to something else I could read in my DS. (LIT to TXT will be a good example, I think. Too bad there’s none for XHTML so I’d still have to use Tidy to do the work for me.)

Another thing about Calibre is its support for its users to add information about the ebooks through a ‘jacket’ for convenience.

If you need an e-book reader, well, Calibre has one too. You could verify if the conversion of your input files to your specified output files went well.

A book, my old phone and my old DS Lite. What do they have in common? They all feed my reading habit. There are times Ioad e-books on my phone and DS.

And for the writers…

And then there’s Writer’s Cafe. If you want your own ‘writing environment’ it seems that it’s a useful application. You can keep notes, get writing prompts, get tips, check the dictionary, etc. You could even keep a journal, write down your storylines, etc.

When you’re writing a story (or want to start one) sometimes you wonder if you’d be able to write anything at all. Sometimes you need to ask someone for help on names, locations, other details that matters when making a character. You could actually generate names in Writer’s Cafe. Amusing, right? But it’s true. It’s hard to come up with names every once in a while and it’s nice to have something supply you with one.

You could even have a place to stick pictures, etc. so you have references. It’s like having a board to play around with but it’s just on your computer.

I’d love to use Writer’s Cafe when I want to practice writing fiction again. It’s a nifty tool as well as an interesting environment that would really let me focus on writing and all related activities to my writing as well.

Post from: New Linux User

Almanah

Using Almanah is simple. Just run it and note down the things you want by typing them on the big space it shows to you. By default it would save all these things you’ve typed in the current date’s page. If you want to note something in advance, maybe a birthday, then go to the date you wish to specify. Write down the birthday celebrator’s name.

Apparently Almanah is also capable of noting the tasks and events in Evolution. But I don’t use Evolution as a mail client so I can’t really show that to you. In any case, that’s a nifty feature.

Also, if you’ve got important notes, URIs or files you want to associate with the date, it is possible. Just add a link. There’s a sidebar for all of the links and above it is a calendar to help you navigate throughout the diary.

I hope that Almanah would help you remember the important things in your life whether it’s personal or related to work. Even if it looks very simple, what it could do for you could be a lot.

Post from: New Linux User

• Drivel – Who says blogging can only be done via the web browser? Drivel supports WordPress as well as LiveJournal. Whether I need to blog here, my personal blog on LJ, or elsewhere, Drivel makes it easier for me and I don’t need to launch another webpage and wait for everything to load. I could type my drafts on Drivel and post them at a later time. This is especially for moments when the internet provider fails.
• Pidgin – The application that used to be called Gaim. This all-in-one messaging client is still the most useful for me. GyachiE works and there’s also Empathy but I like my keyboard shortcuts on Pidgin a lot. It is easier and faster for me to use Pidgin because I could easily launch a conversation with my contacts.
• Firefox – My favorite web browser. I love the fact that it has many plugins and extensions. Not to mention personas and themes. Whether I want to use it easily with StumbleUpon, delicious or something else, Firefox makes it easy.
• Emacs planner mode – Because I am back to using Emacs, I can’t help but include Planner mode. I like taking down notes with Planner mode because I don’t think about what it will look like as it’s just going to be stored as a text file. Because it’s in Emacs, I could customize Planner mode too.
• Gnome-Do – If you want the ultimate launcher, Gnome-Do is awesome. You really have to try it so you know what I am talking about. It could launch conversation dialogs, launch your favorite apps, and so much more.

What are your top 5 apps? Maybe there are applications out there that I must try so let me know.

Post from: New Linux User

Mew's logo/splash screen

Mew is an email client you could use with Emacs. Emacs is a text editor with a lot of potential for extensibility. You could add a planner to it, an outliner and so much more. There is actually a number of email clients for Emacs but I chose Mew because it looks straightforward compared to Gnus.

Mew can be configured to download your mail via IMAP or POP. The manual shows you how to do things and if ever you’re doing this for the first time, it might be weird. Why? Because this is Emacs and there’s a way of doing things.

For starters, you need to Emacs 21.4 and later versions. It doesn’t make sense to use Mew without Emacs. Also, you need to download and install Mew. It’s in the Ubuntu repositories as well as in Fedora, apparently. So you could just probably use the application installer tool in these distros.

How to install it from scratch:

1. Download Mew’s source.
2. Extract the source.
3. In the directory of your soure, type ‘./configure’.
4. Type ‘make’.
5. Type ‘make install’.

Now it’s time to tell Emacs that you’re going to use Mew. If you already have a .emacs file, just add this line:
(mew)

That would automatically load Mew for you.

But before you even use Mew, you need to set up Mew first. You need a config file for it. Let’s call it .mew.el. Create a text file with that name. I will just share with you my .mew.el file in case you have a similar set up. I am using Google Apps, so basically this is a Gmail Account using a different domain name.


(setq mew-name "my name") ;; (user-full-name)
(setq mew-user "username") ;; (user-login-name)
(setq mew-mail-domain "domain.com")

;; Set using IMAP
(setq mew-proto “%”)
;; (setq mew-imap-user “your IMAP account”) ;; (user-login-name) ;; this has been commented out
(setq mew-imap-server “imap.gmail.com”) ;; if not localhost
(setq mew-imap-ssl t)
(setq mew-imap-ssl-port “993″)
(setq mew-imap-user “username@domain.com”)

;; send email via SMTP
(setq mew-smtp-server “smtp.gmail.com”) ;; if not localhost
(setq mew-smtp-ssl t)
(setq mew-smtp-ssl-port “587″)
(setq mew-smtp-port “587″)
(setq mew-smtp-user “username@domain.com”)
(setq mew-ssl-verify-level 0)
(setq mew-tls-smtp “smtp”)
(setq mew-smtp-auth-list ‘(”PLAIN” “LOGIN” “CRAM-MD5″))

;; cache the password
(setq mew-use-cached-passwd t) ;; so I won’t have to type the password all the time.

For the address book part, it’s easy. Just create a text file. called Addrbook in your Mew’s Mail directory. In my case it’s in ~/Mail. The text file is more or less like this per line:

eclair eclair@domain1.org, eclair@domain2.org eclair “Clair Ching”

This is how I set up my Mew account. At least it’s easier for me to send emails from Emacs. I am still looking at other things like searching email, etc.

Post from: New Linux User

OpenOffice.org

There are a lot of people in my office who prefer to use it for everything. Although one thing I’ve noticed is that they just open it as if it’s any other text editor. But I don’t think they’ve seen it as an outliner before.

Dmitri Popov of Linux Magazine has shared tips for us on how to use OpenOffice.org as an outliner:

The easiest one is to press the Numbering On/Off button in the main toolbar or the F12 key. This turns the current line in the documents into a numbered entry and displays the Bullets and Numbering context toolbar which offers basic outlining tools.
….
Another approach requires a bit more work, but it allows you to use OpenOffice.org Writer as a two-pane outliner. This solution is based on the Outline Numbering feature which lets you specify a hierarchy of heading styles and then manage them using the Navigator. By default, OpenOffice.org Writer uses the built-in heading styles (i.e., Heading 1, Heading 2, Heading 3, etc.) for each level, but you can easily change that using the Tools -> Outline Numbering dialog window.

Two options to help us use OpenOffice.org in a different way. I personally like outliners like emacs-org mode because it helps me organize my thoughts better. I also help write training materials so this is a great help to me.

For those of you who like making lists, check this out. These awesome tips might help you work better with an existing application instead of downloading a separate outliner.

Again, thanks to Dmitri Popov for the tips!

Post from: New Linux User