This might be the best open source catalog I’ve seen. Certainly full of high-quality products. Something sites like Sourceforge struggle with (just try a search for a specific type of software functionality if you don’t believe me). In this case, the software is handpicked and makes for a very recommendable site for people looking for options for almost any computer function.
Our Favorite Cheat Sheets - a definition from WhatIs.com
Cheat sheets. Got to love the cheat sheets. One problem with learning/doing things is the bottlenecks created when you hit the wall on remembering or not knowing (not remembering is, in my opinion, the worst of the two) something critical. When learning, having access to information to keep your momentum is crucial to mental health.
I’ve made this one of the permanent links in my bookmarks. Handy to access all of those HTML shortcuts to re-remember specific codes.
ThemBid.com » Blog Archive » Removing Backgrounds Quickly in Photoshop
When it comes to PhotoShop, every little bit helps. I do wonder if this method would work in GimpShop.
Last night I “repaired” a bookmarklet allowing you to search for material in your local library from Amazon.com using John Udell’s code from his LibraryLookup bookmarklet generator. Here’s the code if you live in Toronto: Amazon > Toronto Public Library search. Just drag the link to your bookmark bar (the link bar below your address form in the browser in which you are currently reading this post).
How I “Repaired” the Javascript
Wish I could say I am a brilliant javascripter, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. But, I am very stubborn and had to get this to work after having dinner with someone who’s brother wrote an Amazon bookmarklet for his local library. While most library’s do an excellent job of returning a specific search, Amazon has done a great job of enabling you to “browse” the collection in an “e-tail” environment in place of a “retail” location like Barnes and Noble or Indigo/Chapters.
I knew I had read about Amazon to local library search before but didn’t have much interest because neither Richmond city nor Henrico county had a great library system to search. Toronto has an excellent public library system. If you live here, you should read the Wikipedia entry. It is an impressive institution and, according to Wikipedia, has the largest circulation in North America and the second-highest number of visits per year, in the world, after the Hong Kong library system.
Anyway, on with the fix so you can try to build one for your local system as well.
1. Visit the LibraryLookup Project homepage.
2. Start by visiting the system software links in the 3rd paragraph (Innovative, Voyager, iPac, DRA, and Talis at the time of this post). Chances are your local library system already has a search tool. You can search for your city (or college or university) by using your browser’s page search function to locate the existing link by keyword.
If it isn’t there, then you can do the following:
3. Visit your library’s website and do a quick search for a book you know they have in circulation. Look at the URL. For example, from Toronto:
http://hip.tpl.toronto.on.ca/ipac20/ipac.jsp?session=E18H87367I106.731071&profile=
rs&source=~!rs&view=subscriptionsummary&uri=full=1100021~!3135138~!3&ri=
1&aspect=subtab37&menu=search&ipp=20&spp=20&staffonly=&term=steven+brust&index=
GW&uindex=&aspect=subtab37&menu=search&ri=1
Please note the bold text where it says ‘ipac’ as this is rather important. Your library’s may say something different.
4. Go to the LibraryLookup Generator page. Enter your library’s base URL. That actually didn’t work for the TPL as the search page results have a different parameter. I couldn’t use ‘http://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca’ and had to do a search and replace that with the beginning of the search result page ‘http://hip.tpl.toronto.on.ca’. Simply putting that in the Base URL page might work (and does with the TPL system).
I didn’t catch the simple fix and ended up replacing the ‘index’ text to ’session’ to match the TPL system’s search URL text. I only mention this because there could be some recent changes by your library system from an existing bookmarklet and a quick comparison between the two existing URLs might show you the answer.
5. Visit Amazon.com (or Amazon.ca if you’re in Canada) and dig down to an individual book (or dvd, cd or whatever) entry and click on the bookmarklet link in your browser. The only requirement for the bookmarklet to work is the Amazon page must list an ISBN number. If there is no ISBN number, the script won’t respond even to give a failed response. If the material isn’t available in the library sytem, the bookmarklet, through the library, will generate a page saying the search failed to generate any matches.
6. The current javascript in the bookmarklet (in Firefox on a Mac) will open a pop-up page in the background. So, you might have to move the main browser window aside to see your results.
Anyway, enjoy. Hopefully you can use this to help yourself. But, do buy something from Amazon now and then. They do have a great site for perusing and we should support their endeavor so they don’t eventually get bought out by Walmart and we know how that would end. Nothing, ever, with questionable language.
If anything is missing from this, tell me in the comments and I’ll get an email letting me know to add info.
The Best 80 Photoshop Text Effects on the Web
Nice selection of Pshop tutorials. Always something to learn/reference.
FixMyXP.com - Your One Stop Windows XP Fix It Site - Run Programs Secretly by Setting them To Open Minimized | 08.02.07 |
Yesterday was a productive day. Slowly getting all of my computers set up so I have a very centralized system for backup, access and control. Started turning my HTPC into a full data server. One nice feature was setting up iTunes for access on the network by sharing the iTunes media on the server to our laptops.
To do so, I set the following parameters:
1. Turn shared libraries on in iTunes:
Windows: Sharing your iTunes library across computers
Mac OS X: Sharing your iTunes library across computers
2. Start iTunes on system startup (in Windows). Pretty simple, create a shortcut to the iTunes executable and drag the shortcut into the Startup folder. You can also have iTunes appear in the system tray instead of as a minimized window. Go to iTunes preferences, Advanced tab, General tab. Near the bottom, select “Minimize iTunes window to system tray.”
3. Use these steps to start iTunes minimized.
Now iTunes is pretty much a Windows service in the background in place of a program taking up valuable visual space.
Nice tutorial for creating 2D smoke. I had to work around it a bit to get it right. In the end, I like the inner glow I was able to create. Gives the smoke a luminosity and depth.
Mac OS X: How to mount a Windows shared folder on your Mac - Lifehacker
Mac OS X: How to access a Mac’s files on your PC - Lifehacker
As the owner of both a Macbook Pro and a Windows PVR/server it is nice to find basic articles on how to share data between the two. As always, Lifehacker does a great job of putting together the quick and dirty method in an easy to follow format. Your system may require a bit more work, but this makes for a great start.
ColorJack: Sphere (Color Theory Visualizer)
This is one of the better online color selection tools I’ve seen. Something to keep track of when my next design project comes about.
Travelistic | Online Travel Videos from Around the World | Videos for Travelers
Further proof video is moving to the masses. A site for family vacation videos. But, it is nice for individuals to see places that aren’t professionally filmed and edited (though some looked pretty good).
I still think media will begin to become very localized. Over time, the ability to create media will move to the masses and instead of watching shows about NY, LA and London, we’ll have more options to watch well made (and hopefully well-written) shows about more local locations.
Certainly a nice site to visit and share video through.