Tux Love

Xbox users banned (Updated)

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 17:07:34 +1300

Any local users caught up in the great Microsoft Xbox switch-off? According to overseas reports (here, here and here) somewhere between 600,000 and million Xbox 360 users have had their Xbox Live access cut because their machines contain "mod" (modified) chips.

Yes, mod chips may be used to play pirated games, but many people just use them to play games purchased in other regions. And apparently even having a non-Xbox hard drive will lead to a ban.

It appears that the consoles themselves are banned, not their users. That could lead to a flood secondhand ones on sites like TradeMe, so if you're in the market, caveat emptor!

Mind you, I reckon caveat emptor applies to all corporate-controlled hardware. In the real world you'd be allowed to know what your crime was, be given some means of redress and even have the right of appeal if the powers that be got it wrong. But not in corporate court.

Updated: (2009-11-15)
Looks like the ban is permanent:

Thousands of Xbox 360 owners who have been cut off from Microsoft's Xbox Live service will have to buy a new console if they want to play online again. [more]

This has a number of implications. As I suggested earlier, expect more Xboxes to hit the online auction sites, but what interests me more is that since modding takes a degree of technical savvy and that since Microsoft has essentially 'bricked' thousands (or possibly millions) of consoles, Xbox Live hackers now have nothing to lose. Something in those machines - possibly a Palladium-like hardware key - is coming up with a UUID for the console. Hack the console, spoof the UUID and you're back in business. There's plenty of stuff online already about hacking the Xbox - like this 56-minute presentation on The Xbox 360 Security System and its Weaknesses - so I don't expect it'll take long.

Of course, you could always upgrade your Xbox to run something useful ...

Hidden Linux : What the fsck?

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 17:55:06 +1300

Linux's file system check utility fsck is little recognised and largely unloved, no doubt because it seems to know whenever you're in a hurry to boot your machine. Then - and why is it only then? - it starts doing what it was designed for: checking the consistency of the filing systems on your hard drives and making any necessary repairs.

Since Ubuntu 9.04 users have at least had the option of hitting the Esc key to cancel the process, (users of earlier versions might like to consider Bonager), but what's actually going on and why does the checking seem so intermittent?

All file systems accumulate errors over time, often the result of application crashes, improper shutdown or bugs. Checking and recovery tools should be run periodically and fsck simply automates the process by setting a counter and checking off how many times each filing system has been booted. (It has to be done at boot as fsck can't be run over a mounted partition.) And that apparent randomness actually isn't. fsck typically sets the default boot count at 30 meaning that with daily boots your file systems will be checked once a month.

In Linux of course you can control everything. If you want all your file systems checked next time you boot simply enter the command;

sudo
touch /forcefsck

That simply adds an empty file to the root directory ("/") called forcefsck, the presence of which instructs the kernel to check everything.

You can also change the checking interval or even turn it off completely, but before you do anything else type

sudo
fdisk -l

to remind yourself of what's mounted where.

The key command in controlling when fsck runs is tune2fs. You can use either count-dependent or time-dependent checking;

sudo
tune2fs -c 15 /dev/sda1

will check the filesystem on /dev/sda1 every 15 mounts while

sudo
tune2fs -i 60d /dev/sda2

will check the filesystem on /dev/sda2 every 60 days. (This interval could also be written as -i 8w - every 8 weeks or -i 2m - every 2 months.)

You can even turn off checking completely by setting either the count or interval to 0 or -1

sudo
tune2fs -c 0 /dev/sda3

but this is not recommended!

Bad disk drives, cables, memory, and kernel bugs could all corrupt a filesystem without marking the filesystem dirty or in error. If you are using journaling on your filesystem, your filesystem will never be marked dirty, so it will not normally be checked. A filesystem error detected by the kernel will still force an fsck on the next reboot, but it may already be too late to prevent data loss at that point.

The -C option is used to set the number of times the file system has been mounted, meaning you can use it to stagger when they're due to be checked. Assuming you've just re-booted after setting

sudo touch
/forcefsck

...

sudo
tune2fs -C 1 /dev/sda1

sudo tune2fs -C 2 /dev/sda2

sudo tune2fs -C 3 /dev/sda3

... will change the counts so that the partitions will be checked on consecutive boots, not all at once.

<--Previous Hidden Linux Next Hidden Linux -->

Why does upgrading to Win 7 cost so much?

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 14:36:43 +1300

Why does a Windows 7 upgrade cost so much? Robert X. Cringely thinks he has the answer:

Microsoft doesn’t actually want you to upgrade to Windows 7 at all. Microsoft wants you to buy a new Windows 7 PC instead.

and

...have you actually done a Windows 7 upgrade? Mine took seven hours! It shouldn’t have to take that long unless part of the goal was simply to discourage upgrading.

Read the full story here ...

Windows 7 : Reasons not to upgrade

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:13:23 +1300

Cyber Cynic Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols has come up with a list of seven reasons not to upgrade to Windows 7. Here's his list (in brief);

1) Windows 7 still has all the security of a drunken teenager in a sports car...

2) Windows 7, no matter how you buy it, is expensive. Does your budget have the extra cash to buy a new and improved taskbar!?

3) Upgrading from XP to Windows 7 will require that you do a clean install. That means everything on your hard disk gets vaporized during the 'upgrade.' ...

4) You'll need to reinstall your old programs and device drivers. Then, you'll need to update all those programs and drivers. Doesn't that sound like fun? Doesn't that sound like hour after hour per PC of migration work?

5) XP already works ... I'll be darned if I can think of a single, significant change that you'll get from running Windows 7 instead of XP.

6) If you're an XP user you'll need to learn a new user interface. ... if I'm a CFO or CIO, I want to know what I'm going to get out of re-training people to the new interface and I'm left thinking there's really nothing game-changing about the Windows 7 UI.

7) Finally, if you have an older PC, forget about it. I know there are people who swear that Windows 7 will run on low-powered PCs. Yeah, right. I've used Windows 7 on netbooks. It wasn't pretty.

Bottom line. If you want something that's really better than XP, and you're willing to go to the trouble and expense of moving from one platform to another, you'll get real improvements like better security and low up-front costs, from a desktop Linux like SLED (SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop) 11 or Ubuntu 9.04. Windows 7 is certainly better than Vista, but XP... not so much.

Check out the link above for the full details. And by the way, Ubuntu 9.10 is out today ...

Hidden Linux : Learning to love KDE 4 (part III)

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 22:37:33 +1300

To conclude this mini series on KDE 4 I'm going to let you on a few tips and tricks I've picked up in the course of my explorations. Note that all comments apply to Kubuntu 9.10 and KDE 4.3. You distro mileage may vary!

Desktop Search
"Pervasive searching" allows you to search the contents of your files in the same way that Google searches the contents of websites but activating Nepomuk and Strigi in System Settings / Advanced / Desktop Search didn't do anything for me, so I searched out the answer and found it here. After a few straightforward tweaks Nepomuk started indexing ...

Task Manager Tweaks
Task Manager isn't just cashew-controlled. Right-clicking on it gives you a even more settings, amongst them the ability to group, sort and stack open tasks so, for example, instead of this ...

you can have this ...

Plasma and Panel Themes
Want to change your Desktop theme? Don't go to System Settings / Advanced / Desktop Theme Details! Yes, yes, I know it's got a button to Get New Themes but it won't do you any good. You can add new themes, you can select them but you simply can't apply them. I wasted ages trying to figure out why Apply stayed greyed before finally discovering the place to go is Desktop Settings under the desktop cashew.

Don't go here ...

Go here!

Krunner Kraziness
Krunner -- invoked by hitting Alt + F2 -- is a quick and useful way to kick off programs but it has a ton of other functions too. You'll start to get the idea if you click on its Settings button ...

Amongst other things you can use it as a calculator ...

... a unit convertor ...

... a website launcher ...

... or simply click the System Activity button to see what's eatiing your CPU.

But wait, there's more! Add the plasma-runners-addons package and you'll get spell-checking, contacts lookup and assorted other goodies.

Zooming Desktops
Linux has had multiple desktops since Adam was a cowboy but under KDE 4 you can have multiple-multiple desktops. Confused? Bear with me ...

Start by setting just one desktop under System Settings / Desktop / Multiple Desktops. Now click on the desktop cashew and choose Zoom Out. You'll get something like this ...

Note how that central menu conveniently covers half the window controls making it impossible to zoom back in! Nice. (Actually, the trick is to click and drag on the background. You can move it around that fixed central menu so you can get back out. Phew!)

On the central menu choose Add Activity. Pow! A new desktop appears.

You can now zoom in and configure this one with whatever settings and widgets you like, completely independent of the first desktop. I find this great for switching to a widget-free workspace but going backwards and forwards via the cashew / Zoom Out / Zoom In route is a pain. And the shortcut (under cashew / Shorcut Settings) doesn't work on Kubuntu either so I configured my own:

Click the cashew and choose Shortcut Settings.
Find Next Activity and click the arrow head under the Alternate column.
Select Custom, click the None button, then hit the keys you want to use. (I chose Meta + RightArrow.)

If you don't like shortcut keys, add the Activity Bar widget (cashew / Add Widget). That'll put a mouse-clickable activity bar on your desktop, but forget to put it on both!

(Of course you don't have to restrict yourself to a single desktop to for this or even a single activity. I've just done so to make this illustration a little clearer.)

That concludes this three-part tour of KDE 4, but if you have a favourite tip or tweak I'd love to hear it. Maybe we could do a Part IV!

<--Previous Hidden Linux Next Hidden Linux -->

Toolbox: Roadkil's Unstoppable Copier

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 00:14:19 +1300

Digging around on an ancient home-burnt DVD I discovered a couple of large video clips that simply weren't readable -- in any of my three machines -- and of course they were the very clips I wanted. I covered recovering audio CD data a while back, but what about DVDs?

A quick search turned up Roadkil's Unstoppable Copier, a free program that claims to recover files from disks suffering physical damage.

The program will attempt to recover every readable piece of a file and put the pieces together. Using this method most types of files can be made useable even if some parts of the file were not recoverable in the end.

Test #1 was on a file from which I could only copy or play the first half. That went brilliantly. In fact it took Unstoppable Copier only a few minutes to recover the whole thing. Woot!

Test #2 was more taxing. The file showed on the directory but there was no way to so much as get a look-see at it. This took all night but by morning it had been recovered. There are one or two glitches in the video where data is apparently gone for good, but they're easily editable and it's relief to something back!

And the other good thing about Unstoppable Copier is that it's available for Linux, Linux 64-bit and all flavours of Windows.

Hidden Linux : Learning to love KDE 4 (part II)

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 21:08:58 +1300

The main difference between KDE 3 and KDE 4 is that the former is fixed and static while the latter is dynamic and interactive. For a trivial example of that go to System Settings / Desktop / All Effects and activate Snow. Now hitting the Meta+Ctrl+F12 keys (or Win+Ctrl+F12) will fill your desktop with falling snowflakes.

KDE 3 always displayed the contents of the user's Desktop folder on the desktop but in KDE 4 you can use plasmoids to display any containment on Plasma. Say what? Yeah, that's part of the problem: KDE 4 has a whole new lingo.

OK, let's start with the basics.

Plasma is the screen you see when you start KDE 4. It includes the panel -- that's the task bar running along the bottom -- the Plasma toolbox -- the thing up in the top right-hand corner that looks like a cashew nut (it's also known as the cashew), and in the example above a containment -- the shaded translucent area displaying the contents of the user's Desktop folder.

Perhaps a more practical example of KDE 4's desktop dynamism is that it doesn't just restrict you to displaying the contents the Desktop folder. You can display the contents of any number of folders, even networked ones, and changes to them are displayed in real-time. If you run an automated daily backup for example you can open view of the server's backup folder to provide a handy visual check that everything's working as expected.

The other major feature of KDE 4 are its widgets and plasmoids, which are almost one and the same. Widget is the generic term for any small application that directly manipulates specific data. They may come from a variety of sources such as Google Gadgets and the Mac OS X dashboard. Plasmoids on the other hand are Plasma-specific widgets native to Plasma itself. Here's a widget/plasmoid that displays network activity ...

... and here's one showing the weather forecast ...

(Yes, I know it's tilted. You can position and resize widgets any way you like!)

Add widgets by clicking on the cashew and choosing Add Widgets. Then just drag-n-drop to the desktop. If you want to find more, click the Install New Widgets button at the bottom of the Add Widgets window and select Download.

What sorts of things get widget-ised? All sorts of things! At the time of writing the highest rating widgets included a notifier that sits in your panel telling you how many unread messages are in your GMail account, a plasmoid to stream audio from the internet, a Facebook viewer, and one for send fast SMS via a Greek mobile provider! And heres some more cool ones.

But what use are all those widgets if you can't see and monitor them when you apps are full-screen? Easy. Ctrl+F12 toggles the widget dashboard, darkening your application and bringing them to the foreground.

Almost everything's a widget in Plasma, including the K menu. If you don't like the Kickoff or Classic menus, try something different. Lancelot's very popular. And because it's a widget you can run it alongside the K menu to see which one you prefer.

In short, Plasma and KDE 4 allow you to build your own interactive desktop. If that seems a little daunting, check out what others have done ...

You'll find even more here.

<--Previous Hidden Linux Next Hidden Linux -->

Hidden Linux : Learning to love KDE 4 (part I)

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 22:21:36 +1300

There seems little doubt that KDE 4, the flagship desktop environment used by many Linux aficionados, was released too early. After seven years of solid, steady KDE 3 deployment, KDE 4 was released amidst the much media hoopla and near-universal user disappointment. It simply wasn't ready for userville. There was too much missing and too many differences; it felt like a retrograde step. To be fair, the KDE team did describe it as a work-in-progress, and some of the fault lies with distro packers who slapped essentially beta code into their latest releases. As a result many users simply avoided it. Including me. At least until recently.

Since its ill fated inception in November 2007 KDE 4 has undergone a number of significant upgrades. Version 4.1 came out in July last year, 4.2 in January this year, and for the last month I've been working with version 4.3 which was released in August. I reckon KDE 4's now ready for the big time, and with Kubuntu 9.10 ("Karmic Koala") due shortly, it's time to throw off the shackles of KDE 3.

Moving from 3 to 4 is a big shift. There's lots of new stuff and many unfamiliar concepts so to start with I'm going to show you how to make it all look familiar. We're going to make KDE 4 look and act like good old KDE 3. That way you can ease into the new environment without losing productivity.

(Note 1: The following discussion ignores all the new stuff for now. We'll get to that next time!)
(Note 2: If you're already running KDE 4, I strongly recommend upgrading to version 4.3!)

Menus
The new menu style is known as "Kickoff". If you want to make it eff-off and go back to the traditional K Menu, simply right-click the K button and choose Switch to Classic Menu Style. Right-click again to switch back to Kickoff.

Desktop icons
The absence of desktop icons has caused no end of concern. By default they're replaced by a "containment" -- a semi-transparent window displaying the contents of the Desktop folder. (We'll talk about some of this new terminology in Part II.) To get your icons back, proceed as follows;

Move your cursor into the containment and a handle will appear, either to the left of right of it.
Click on the X to make it go away.
Now right-click a blank area of the Desktop and choose Appearance Settings.
Under Desktop Activity click on the Type droplist and select Folder View.

Click OK.

Adding icons to the Desktop or Panel
To do this you first need to switch to the Kickoff menu style. (See "Menus" above.) Then you just navigate to the desired application, right-click it and choose Add to Desktop or Add to Panel.

Modifying the Panel
The bar at the bottom of the screen is officially called the "Panel". To modify it, right-click in an unused area and choose Panel Options followed by Panel Settings. This will open an extra GUI. with extra controls.

The arrowed sliders immediately above the Panel allow you position and size it horizontally. Click and drag Height to adjust its height. If you want to move the Panel to the left, right or top of the screen, click and drag on Screen Edge. And you'll never believe what's under the More Settings button. Yup, more settings including auto-hide and how windows interact with the Panel.

You can also reposition things on the Panel by hovering your cursor over them and left-clicking and dragging when the four-pointed arrows appear.

Defaulting to Konqueror
If you don't like Dolphin, KDE 4's new default file manager, you can switch back to Konqueror like this;

Hit the K button and open System / System Settings. (Or Computer / System Settings if you're using Kickoff.)
Choose Default Applications, select File Manager and click Konqueror.

I prefer the Details view as my default but until KDE 4.3 there was no way to lock this in. There is now though!

Choose View / Adjust View Properties.
Choose Details from the View Mode droplist.
Under Apply View Properties To select All Folders and tick Use as Default for New Folders.

What the hell happened to ...?
* KControl now has a more meaningful name: SystemSettings. (Or "systemsettings" if you want to run it from a console.)

* KCron is now part of System Settings. Choose the Advanced tab and click on Task Scheduler.

* Ctrl+Alt+Backspace to restart the X server is disabled by default. You can either use the more awkward Alt+SysRq+K combination or type sudo dontzap -d in a console window to re-enable it.

* Compiz is still around but you might like to check out Desktop Effects under System / System Settings / Desktop first. (I particularly like the Fall Apart option for closed windows ...)

In the next part we'll explore some of KDE 4s core concepts -- and what makes it different and sooo exciting. Stay tuned!

<--Previous Hidden Linux Next Hidden Linux -->

Endless alternatives

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 19:27:15 +1300

There's plenty of good software out there -- it's just a question of finding it. AlternativeTo bills itself as a new to doing just that ...

Tell us what application you want to replace and we give you suggestions on great alternatives! Instead of listing thousands of more or less crappy applications in a category, we make each application into a category. Think of it like forever evolving blog posts about good alternatives to the software that you're not satisfied with. And the "blog posts" are generated by you through suggestions, comments and votes.

It covers desktop applications (for Windows, Mac, Linux and online services) as well as mobile applications (for iPhone, WinMobile, Android, Blackberry and S60). You can even add AlternativeTo searches to your browser.

So dump that crappy app and find something better!

Hidden Linux: Say after me ...

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 22:24:42 +1300

Festival is a Text-to-Speech (TTS) converter developed by the Centre for Speech Technology Research at the University of Edinburgh. It’s shipped with most Linux distributions and released under a license that allows unrestricted commercial and non-commercial use.

To install it, simply search on "festival" in your usual Linux package installer. And to run it, open a terminal and type something like:

echo "Hello PC World" | festival --tts

to hear your computer’s very first words.

Alternatively, you can have it read from a file with the command:

cat myfile.txt | festival -tts

or more simply:

festival --tts myfile.txt

(Note that Festival can only read formatted text files. Attempting to read from non-text formats such as .pdfs won’t work.)

In this mode, any input gets read out loud. So a command such as

date '+%A, %B %e, %Y' | festival -tts

will tell you today’s date. That means you can incorporate it into batch files. Add it to our MP3 ripper script for example, and your computer will say what it’s up to and when it’s done. Or what about downloading a book from Project Gutenburg and have Festival read it to you?

Command Mode
Festival’s default mode however is command mode, which you’ll slip into if you just type ”festival„ on its own. Here you’re greeted with a command prompt:

festival>

The usual command mode features are available here such as TAB-completion and history, and to exit just hit Ctrl+D. Type ”help„ for help.

To say a phrase in command mode you need to prefix it with ”SayText„ and surround the whole thing with parentheses:

festival> (SayText "This is a little more complicated.")

To read from a file you enter:

festival> (tts "myfile.txt" nil)

Why bother with command mode? Because there’s a lot more you can do with Festival. The manual gives plenty of details along with some fun examples - such as singing! Try this;

festival> (tts "/usr/share/doc/festival/examples/songs/daisy.xml" 'singing)

Priceless! (Especially if you're a 2001: A Space Odyssey fan.)

Other voices
Lots of work's been done by third-parties to create new and better voices for Festival. You can read about where to find them and how to install them here. You could even computerise your own voice. Check out FestVox, a project that ”aims to make the building of new synthetic voices more systemic and better documented, making it possible for anyone to build a new voice.„

<--Previous Hidden Linux Next Hidden Linux -->

DIY handcuff keys

Sun, 20 Sep 2009 22:24:25 +1300

Sometimes the uses to which technology can be put just make me go "Wow!" ...

At the recent Hacking at Random conference in Holland, a German handcuff fanatic named Ray demonstrated his prowess by printing the official handcuff key of the Dutch police on a 3D printer.

This site has more details, photographs and a link to the STL file if you fancy your own official Dutch police handcuff key. And yes, the printed key did work ...!

Silly billers

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 16:37:00 +1300

Computer billing systems can be immensely stupid without a little human oversight. A few months ago Telecom XT customers got just three days worth of calling out their prepaid cards, and in July a Wellington pensioner had to battle to get her money back after Genesis Energy direct debited her $3,600 for a months' power.

They can go the other way too.

Late last year I switched my landline from Telecom to TelstraClear. I already had an account with them for cable broadband, so when they opened a second account and billed me 19 cents I ignored it. I expected someone would spot the mistake and amalgamate the two, especially as all subsequent charges went on my old account. But I soon went from, "How long till they fix this?" to "How long will they keep this up?"

Every month for the last ten months they've sent me a bill for the overdue sum of 19 cents.

The postage alone -- even at bulk rates -- must've cost more than 30 cents a pop. And each bill contained a postage-paid envelope to return my payment.

I've joked to friends about burly debt collectors tracking me down and demanding payment, but this month TelstraClear changed tactics to deal with wicked miscreants like me. From October, all overdue accounts will get slapped with a $15 surcharge.

Okay, they win.

This afternoon I wrote out a cheque for 19 cents and sent it off. But I get the last laugh -- even ignoring the postage-paid envelope I sent it in -- because to deposit my cheque will cost them 25 cents in clearance fees!

The return of eDay

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 10:06:27 +1300

Bring out your dead! Dead computers, that is.

If you can't use 'em for file servers, resurrect them as Linux boxes [link1, link2, link3] or turn 'em into MP3 jukeboxes, it's time to ditch 'em -- ecologically -- and eDay's the day to do it.

Last year more than 87,000 items ended up at eDay collection depots around the country. That's almost 1,000 tonnes of electronic waste -- most of which was subsequently recycled. eDay returns this Saturday, September 12 2009 so it's time to drag out your unused electronics.

(For details of your nearest drop-off point, click here.)

What can be disposed of:

computer hardware
monitors
networking equipment (e.g. modems, routers, hubs)
scanners
keyboards, mice, speakers
laptops
printers
game consoles
toner and ink jet cartridges
mobile phones
fax machines
digital cameras

What can't be disposed of:
Basically anything not related to computers or mobile phones. Thss includes:

televisions
radios
stereos
DVD players, video recorders
other home appliances
furniture
software

What to do before eDay:

Wipe all data from your computer's hard drive and remove any removable media such as floppy disks or PC cards. (See here and here.)

Ensure that your mobile is disconnected by your service provider and that contacts and other stored information are erased from the phone's memory. Also remove your phone's SIM card if it has one.

Hidden Linux: Metapixel magic

Fri, 04 Sep 2009 09:10:55 +1300

Some people make them out of toast, some use newspaper clippings and some even use toothpicks but Linux users have it easy. When it comes to making mosaics, all you really is Metapixel.

Metapixel is a command-line tool that creates photomosaics -- pictures in which the original image is rebuilt using a series of much smaller images. The effect can be stunning ...

... when you look closely ...

(Check out this link to see the original in its full glory.)

You need two things to turn an picture into a mosaic; a source image -- obviously -- and a library of "tiles" from which to build the final picture. But first, the software ...

Installing Metapixel
Ubuntu and Debian users can simply open a console window and type:

sudo apt-get install metapixel

Other Linux users should check their repositories. Metapixel seems to be a standard addition, but if all else fails check out their homepage.

Creating a tile library
This single-stage process actually does two things; it scales images down to a manageable tile size and computes various factors that will be used to match pixels in the source image. The bigger the source library, the better, and in Linux we have an ideal one in /usr/share/icons.

First, create a new directory in which to store the tiles:

mkdir tile_library

Then tell metapixel to populate it:

metapixel-prepare -r /usr/share/icons tile_library --width=32 --height=32

The switches:

-r tells metapixel-prepare to recurse all sub-directories under /usr/share/icons.
tile_library is our newly created tile directory.
--width= and --height= set the width and height of the tiles. (I find the default, 128x128, a little too large!)

Notes that Metapixel only recognises JPG, PNG and GIF files, anything else generates an error message and is ignored. After several minutes processing, I found my library filled with more than 10,000 "tiles". Perfect!

Creating Mosaics
Now for the fun bit. Building a mosaic is as simple as typing ...

metapixel --library tile_library --metapixel original.jpg target.jpg

... but depending on the size of your original, the results may not be too spectacular. Allow me to demonstrate. Here's my original:

(It's the 128x128 pixel penguin.png icon given
a white background and renamed penguin.jpg.)

And here's the result :

When you think about it, it's not too surprising. We're mapping 32x32 pixel tiles onto a 128x128 pixel image. The most we're ever going to get is four tiles across and four down!

There are two solutions. The first is to use smaller tiles. We can force this be declaring their height and width:

metapixel --library tile_library --metapixel original.jpg target.jpg height=8 width=8

This produces a much more satisfactory result:

The other alternative is to use the "scale" parameter to resize the original before the tiles are applied.

metapixel --library tile_library --metapixel original.jpg target.jpg -s 20

will scale 20x, meaning Metapixel will work from a 2560x2560 image -- and generate one of that size! Here's the result, squeezed down to a mere 400x400 to fit on this page:

(To study it's full splendour, just click on the image.)

You can of course combine both scale and height/width parameters for even more detail.

There's one other option to be aware of. By default Metapixel produces "traditional" mosaics that use evenly spaced tiles, but add the --collage parameter and it will overlay them to get the best resolution. Here's a couple of examples to demonstrate the difference. Both are details of the penguin's eyes and upper beak ...

"Traditional" Metapixel

The same area using the --collage parameter.

Processing takes a little longer when using --collage but I reckon it's worth it.

Check out some of the examples here, here and here. (Click on the images to display them full-size.) Awesome!

<--Previous Hidden Linux Next Hidden Linux -->

Google's book grab

Sun, 30 Aug 2009 22:29:53 +1300

Time is running out for local and international authors -- including dead ones. September 4th marks the deadline for opting out or objecting to Google's Book Settlement -- a settlement that, if ratified, could effectively give the corporation the rights to every book ever published.

According to Pamela Samuelson: (my emphasis)

The Google Book Search settlement will be, if approved, the most significant book industry development in the modern era. Exploiting an opportunity made possible by lawsuits brought by a small number of plaintiffs on one narrow issue, Google has negotiated a settlement agreement designed to give it a compulsory license to all books in copyright throughout the world forever. This settlement will transform the future of the book industry and of public access to the cultural heritage of mankind embodied in books.

Local author Dr Lynley Hood has an excellent backgrounder on how this absurd situation has arisen. A couple of snippets;

For hundreds of New Zealand authors the alarming truth is just beginning to sink in: Google has stolen our intellectual property (and in doing so has stolen our most valuable possession and our livelihood) ...

In theory, this settlement should not concern us. Under New Zealand copyright law, and under the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Work (to which New Zealand and the US are signatories), copyrights for creative works are automatically in force upon their creation. As soon as a work is written or recorded, its author is automatically entitled to all copyrights in the work and to any derivative works, unless and until the author explicitly disclaims them or until the copyright expires. In New Zealand, copyright lasts for 50 years after the death of the author. This means that if anyone wants to use our published work during our lifetimes, or for 50 years after our deaths, they have to check with us, or with our literary executors, first. ...

But that’s not how Google sees it. ...

FAQs of special interest to New Zealand writers include the following:

9. I am not a United States citizen, or I live outside of the United States. Am I included in this Settlement?
Yes, most likely you are. If you are a citizen of another country or live in another country, you are likely to own a U.S. copyright interest if:

Your Book was published in the United States;
Your Book was not published in the United States, but your country has copyright relations with the United States because it is a member of the Berne Convention; or
Your country had copyright relations with the United States at the time of the Book’s publication.
You should assume that you own a U.S. copyright interest in your Book, unless you are certain that your Book was published in, and that you reside and are located in, one of the few countries that have not had or do not now have copyright relations with the United States.

At this point we need to remind ourselves that this is a settlement between private parties in the US, yet to be ratified by a court. Nonetheless, according to Google, the settlement includes authors who are not parties to the agreement, and who do not live in, and have never published in, the US.

Read Hood's full article

According to the NZ Society of Authors, rightsholders have four options;

Negotiate a separate deal with Google under its partner program. For those that already have, the Partner Program agreement will take precedence although it may or may not cover all the rights that Google gets under the settlement agreement
Opt out by formally notifying Google. The deadline for opting out has been extended to 4 September 2009.
Opt in. If you opt in and lodge a claim in respect of a book prior to 5 January 2010, you will receive a share of the $45 million that Google has put aside to pay rightsholders (the exact amount will depend on how many people claim but will be between US$60 and US$300). You will also receive 63% of any revenue received by Google (e.g. from advertising around your book search result or if it is made available on subscription to a library or other institution).
Do nothing - in which case you will lose the right to sue Google in the US even if Google does digitize your book and publish excerpts and you will not receive any revenue for that use.

The point is that authors must make a decision, because doing nothing is also a decision!

Speaking personally, I reckon the whole electronic book market is too new to be signing away any rights. It's still uncharted territory; the first truly mass-market electronic book reader's barely 18-months old. That's why I opted out.

Full opt-out details are here and you can opt-out online here.