- Welcome From The Chief Editor

1. GParted: Manage Your Partitions

2. Convert Video Files To Animated GIFs Easily

3. PCLinuxOS Family Member Spotlight: Agust

4. GIMP Tutorial: Editing An Image

5. PCLinuxOS Recipe Corner

6. ms_meme's Nook: PCLOS Candy

7. PCLinuxOS Puzzled Partitions

8. KDenLive: Part Three

9. Some Handy Terminal Tips

10. Make Your Own Online Photo Album With Album Shaper

11. Make Your Own Custom Photo Calendar

12. Ad-free Browsing With Privoxy

13. Enhance Your Home Brews With Brew-Target#, Part Two

14. Game Zone: TeslaGrad

15. Screenshot Showcase

Welcome From The Chief Editor

We hope everyone has survived the holidays. Now, it's time to start paying on the credit card bills that you might have ran up buying all those holiday gifts. With the holidays behind us, it's time to look forward to Spring and all the things that go along with it: Valentine's Day, Easter, baseball, warmer temperatures, putting in a garden ... well, at least in the Northern Hemisphere when it comes to the latter two.

Spring is typically viewed as an annual time of renewal. But then, isn't change the one constant we can all count upon? Nothing remains the same. Ever. Things evolve, and PCLinuxOS is also always evolving to bring us all a modern, stable operating system. Version 3.12.x of the Linux kernel is currently undergoing testing, and Texstar is working on updating the Xorg server to version 1.12.4 (supposed to be the latest version that still supports the fglrx-legacy video driver).

What's so ironic is that, as human beings, we're most resistant to change. Yet, the one thing we can count on most is that things will change. We tend to line our nests and surround ourselves with things that make us feel comfortable -- then get royally irritated when change finds its way into our comfortable little corner of the world.

If you were around when PCLinuxOS made the change from KDE 3.5.10 to KDE 4.2.x, you might remember the fervor that exploded over the change. Never mind that the change was inevitable. Never mind that KDE 3.5.10 was being discontinued, in favor of the newer 4.x releases. It didn't have to make sense. The old and familiar was being tossed aside, in favor of the newer version. Along with that newer version came new ways of doing things. Some of the old ways didn't work with the new version. Plus, there were new ways to learn to do common tasks.

With that change a few years behind us, it's sometimes difficult to even remember what KDE 3.5.10 was actually like (aside from booting into an old Live CD from that era). As reluctant as some were to make the change, the change did eventually happen, even if some users were reluctant to embrace that change. Even the most stalwart holdout has moved on.

See? The only thing that we can count on remaining constant is that nothing will remain constant. Things will change. They always do.

Until next month, I bid you peace, happiness, serenity and prosperity.

GParted: Manage Your Partitions

by loudog

Recently I was faced with a dilemma. You may empathise with me, possibly having faced similar circumstances at one time or another. I was happily computing along, browsing Synaptic for magazine article ideas when I came across a particularly interesting looking program that I had not noticed before.

Hmmmm, this must be new because I doubt my subconscious would have allowed me to skim past it without triggering a red flag. I quickly clicked on it to read the description. Yep, I had found my next article. Cool. As I selected it for installation my subconscious now signaled me with the red flag.

Okie dokie, what am I missing here. I scrutinized the package more closely and soon realized it would require a substantial amount of the remaining free space on my root partition. I had already run bleachbit which netted me only 11.5MB of space, deleted a number of unneeded packages and old kernels, gaining another 300MB or so, but I had already used up most of that. It was time to face the facts. My root partition was busting at the seams and in dire need of expansion.

A sinking feeling went through me. If I load the package, then I may not have enough room for some future updates, let alone more programs down the road. Let's see, what options do I have other than make a backup, reinstall, reconfigure the desktop and preferences to my tastes, load and configure all my extra programs etc, etc.

Ewwww. Not what I wanted to do. Hopefully, next time I'll remember OP's advice and add some extra room to the default size of the root partition when installing the OS. I guess I'm paying for that lapse in judgement now. Well, Boogers.

Hey! That reminds me. There was this prank I have been planning to pull on my wife (did I mention I'm a stinker?) I sat and thought about the steps involved and slowly choreographed the prank in my minds eye. Yep that should be a good one. Hmmm, this is not the appropriate place for practical jokes but I believe the forum sandbox should be okay. Ill post it there just for fun. And voila! There you have it.

While my conscious mind was distracted, contemplating my dastardly deed, my subconscious came up with the solution to my problem. Works every time. I can use GParted to move my partitions around and resize them at the same time. Hoop! There it is!

For the sake of my screenshot program (Shutter) and to properly illustrate the article, I will be using a hard drive in an external swap dock that has been mocked up to look like my original install. This way, I can load GParted's GUI from the repository and use it on the desktop.

Originally I used a Live CD to make these alterations, but the steps are basically the same. Backing up your data is the single most important step to take before starting this process. You have been officially warned.

When starting GParted on the desktop, you will be asked for your root credentials. The Live CD version will not. Looking at the GUI, we see the program first scanning all disks and their partitions. From the dropdown menu at the top right, I will select the mock drive.

Looking at the information provided, I noticed that GParted says there is 630.10 MiB free on the root partition. For those of you who don't know MiB (mebibyte) is different than MB (megabyte) and can be a little confusing if different programs report sizes in differing standards. This gives you a little homework research if you are so inclined: I was. I can see dolphin reports size in MiB also. Oops getting off topic, sorry.

Now, where were we? Oh yes, hey! Now wait just a cotton-pickin minute here, Dolphin just reported that I only had 157 MiB free. I guess I'll take GParted's word for it, as it is a partition editing program, whereas Dolphin is a file manager. I'm, though, a little confused as to the reason for the size discrepancy, and a rather large discrepancy at that. Hmmm, I wonder what Filelight would report?

Anyway, moving on. Even though it appears I may have half a GiB more room than I first thought, I believe resizing the root partition is still in my best interests in the long term. I also think I will expand my swap partition while I'm at it, which should be easy enough. The first thing I want to do is decide how much extra space I will need to swipe from my home partition.

After deciding on 14 GiB for root and 5 GiB for swap, I came up with 6GiB needed. First thing to do is move/shrink the last partition on the drive, "/home" in this example. Right clicking the last partition, I unmount it first. Now that the partition is unmounted, the resize/move option is no longer greyed out. Selecting the resize/move option, we want to look closely at the configuration window that is presented.

Notice my mouse cursor grabbing the left side of the partition. Thats because we want to create the free space before /home so we can keep shifting it back to the swap and root partitions. You can also see I have created a little more than 5.5 GiB of free space (free space preceding). Looking at the minimum size the partition can be shrunk to, we determine that we have roughly 14 GiB of data on the partition already. The minimum size requirement is equal to the existing data on the partition. Since the advent of super size drives and ssds, I always align my partitions to MiB, rather than to cylinder. If your drive was originally aligned to cylinders, I would use that setting. Next, clicking the resize/move tab triggers a warning.

Failure to boot is most likely to occur. Quite the ominous little snippet there. Reading on, we determine that since this is not the root partition that contains /boot, I can ignore this. If you have a large home partition, this will take quite a bit of time as is stated in the warning. After clicking ok, you will see something new appear at the bottom of the main window, the operation scheduler. This gives you an overview of what exactly it is you have instructed GParted to do.

We will continue to add operations to the scheduler until we are done. The next thing to do is move swap over to the beginning of the /home partition, so I'll select it. As the swap partition is grabbed by the cursor in the middle this time, we can move the entire thing at once over to the right. Make sure the "free space following" reads zero. Examine the space before and after the partition as I move it over. It's only partway over at this point. You will also notice the actual size of the partition is about 4 GiB (4009 MiB) in the "new size" readout.

Now we simply grab the left end of the partition, like we did with /home, and expand it to the left until we see the new size we desire show up in the "new size" section. We still have 4.8 GiB of free space to allot to root (free space preceding). Good.

Clicking the resize/move button gives us the same warning as before and again, not being the root/boot partition, we ignore it. The swap space moving/resizing will go very quickly during operation execution. The modifications are queued into the operations window, and we move on to our root partition. Selecting that, we need to unmount it first then resize. Grabbing the end of the partition in the same fashion as the others except from the right side this time, we expand it until the readout for "freespace following" is zero. Clicking the resize/move button does not generate an error message this time because we are not moving the partition, just expanding it.

In some cases when manually resizing/moving partitions, the align to MiB option will leave one or two MiB's of empty space between them as you can see in the image. This is normal. After we look over the operations section and accept that all is well, we click the apply button. This will bring up the operations window. In this window all the operations are mapped out for you to observe in real time.

If we click the details button, we can get a glimpse of what is really happening in the here and now. With the expandable menu, many of the menu options open to reveal sub-menu options so that a precise and detailed record of what has/is being done and when, can be scrutinized. I see we have 3hrs 23mins remaining until the first operation is completed. Wow. It's a good time to get some lunch and check back later.

Ahhh, nothing like a nice relaxing lunch chatting and laughing with the wife to bring out the sunshine. Ohhhh, shoot! Nothing like coming back to an error message to change the forecast to partly cloudy. Houston, we have a problem.

Although I did not plan on this happening (who does?), it is a prime example of why we always make a backup of our data first. Imagine Clint Eastwood pointing his .44 Mag at your hard drive and saying "feelin lucky punk." If you have your backup, you can look ol' Clint in the eye and say "Yes, I am". Seeing the error message is bad enough. Why add the "All your data is fubar" to the mix?

Once, in my early years, I accidentally deleted my entire /home directory with no backup. I expected YouCanToo to rub my face in it, as he had warned me numerous times about data loss and the need to have regular backups. To my surprise, he was very sympathetic, leading me to believe that a similar thing may have befallen him in the past. Data loss is simply not funny, no matter how you slice it. Just say "no" to data loss with regular backups. Well, in this case, it looks like the hard drive is having issues. After a number of ignores it became apparent that all was not well so I selected cancel out of curiosity, as I have never encountered this situation before. That brought up this window.

Selecting retry, the program restarted the operations from the beginning. Since I was 104.4 GiB and 2hrs 50 mins into it before the error, I didn't want to go through all that again just to encounter another error. What I wanted to do was check the drives SMART status. I cancelled the GParted program, opened Gsmartctl, and was presented with the blood red hard drive icon that Indicates imminent death. MY, my, my, I wonder what happened here? The drive wasn't that old either, according to the SMART data.

Suddenly, I remembered where it came from. This drive was removed from a laptop that a motel guest had owned. One day after becoming totally frustrated with Windows, he threw the laptop from the parking lot into the laundry room almost hitting the maid. Since the maid on duty at the time was my wife, and he was fairly intoxicated at the time and primed for a fight, I obliged him. He ended up beaten, and I ended up with 2 broken ribs and a broken laptop. Eventually I fixed the laptop by replacing the hd and returned it to him with PCLinuxOS in a dual boot configuration. We later became good friends and he respects PCLinuxOS for its stability. Nothing like fighting for converts. He no longer throws his laptop. Realising this drive was unfit to finish the article with, I quickly dug up another one and prepared it to take over where we left off. Now that GParted has finished the modifications to the drive, let's look at the operations window again.

I simply love the detail that GParted gives us in the report section. You can see that all operations completed successfully, but with three warnings. The warnings are flagged with the yellow caution symbol at the right side of the report. I have the first one expanded and the warning is that checking is not available for this type of file system. Hmmm. This is the swap partition and we all know that swap is a completely different critter than normal filesystems, so I'm betting all is fine. The actual hard drive I originally performed these modifications on is what I'm using now to write this article. Since it was my main OS disk, I used GParted's Live CD ISO, which you can download from here. In the end, all was good as the open source community continues to supply quality software in the modern age. PCLinuxOS is simply the best!

Convert Video Files To Animated GIFs Easily

by Paul Arnote (parnote)

The GIF graphic format was, at one time, avoided like the plague. Compuserve, which created and patented the one-time popular graphics format, along with Unisys (who owned the patent of the LZW compression algorithm that the GIF format employed), defended their "property" like a hunger-ravaged junk yard guard dog. As a result, developers steered away from creating programs that output GIF files, fearful of being slapped with cease and desist orders and forced into having to pay exorbitant licensing fees. Some developers incited open rebellion against the GIF format, with such activities as "Burn The GIFs" campaigns. In fact, there are still some computer users who feel bitter about the "GIF War" of nearly 20 years ago.

Meanwhile, users tended to shy away from using GIF files for other reasons. First, standard GIF files are limited to a 256 color palette. There are other formats out there that provide a much larger palette that contributes not only to a much higher color resolution, but that also appear much more lifelike in appearance. Second, GIF files -- especially animated GIF files -- tend to be relatively large in file size, especially when compared to the sizes produced by other graphic file formats.

As a result, the PNG graphics format was created to help circumvent the patent issues that encumbered the GIF format. Ironically, Compuserve helped spearhead the development of the PNG format. The PNG format offered a larger color palette and avoided the LZW licensing trap, as well as offering more options than the original GIF format. Most importantly, the PNG format was created to be an open format, free of patents.

View animated version here.

Fast forward to today. GIF files are experiencing a resurgence in popularity, and they can be found all over the internet. Animated GIF files are now being used as a replacement for video clips in a lot of cases, especially on social media sites. The resurgence can also be partially linked to the fact that the patents that initially made GIF files taste like soured milk have now expired in 2003 in the U.S., and in 2004 in most of the rest of the world. As a result, the GIF format can now be freely used without fear of licensing headaches.

Fortunately, there are a few ways you can create your own animated GIFs from video files. Most of these methods involve using the command line, but their use is relatively simple and straightforward.

Method 1: Free Online Conversion Service

Using the search term "free video to gif conversion" in Google, you will find over 305,000,000 hits. Wow! That's a whole lot of online services (nearly all serviced by ads that undoubtedly want to track you) that are lined up to convert your video to an animated GIF. If nothing else, it's a testament to how popular animated GIFs from video files really are.

The requirements may vary from site to site, however. Some require you to upload the video file you want to convert. Others require you to provide a link (e.g., a YouTube video URL) for the video you want to convert. For what it's worth, you can use the youtube-dl command line utility or the Firefox Video DownloadHelper plugin to download videos from YouTube (under both utilities) or just about any streaming video site (in the case of the latter). The youtube-dl utility is available in the PCLinuxOS repository, and the Firefox Video DownloadHelper plugin is available from the Firefox plugins page.

In either case, you will be provided a link to download your newly created animated GIF file.

Method 2: Using ffmpeg

With ffmpeg (installable from the PCLinuxOS repository, if you don't already have it installed), you have all that you need ... well, almost. You'll use ffmpeg, followed by the ImageMagick convert command, to create the animated GIF.

My test file is this YouTube video, which I downloaded with the Video DownloadHelper plugin. I chose to excerpt 10 seconds of the video, starting at the 00:01:28 mark. Here is the command I used (entered all on one line):

ffmpeg -i FunnyAmeriquest.flv -ss 00:01:28 -t 00:00:10 animated-gif2.gif

The -i FunnyAmeriquest.flv part of the command specifies the name of the video file I want to use as the input file. The -ss 00:01:28 part of the command tells ffmpeg to start the conversion at that particular point in the video. The -t 00:00:10 part of the command tells ffmpeg that I want to convert the next 10 seconds of video. Finally, the animated-gif2.gif part of the command tells ffmpeg the filename to use as the output file.

Now, we could simply stop right there, as we definitely have an animated GIF file. However, the file size for that 10 second animated GIF is 6.3 MB. One way to make a smaller file is to reduce the frame rate. Add -r 13 to the command, just before the output file name, and the frame rate will be reduced from the typical 24 fps, to 13 fps. Another way is to resize the output by adding -s 320x240, for example, to resize the output image. Again, place the resize command right before the output file name.

However, we can get it even smaller, and that is where using the ImageMagick convert command comes into play. Enter the following command, all on one line:

convert -layers Optimize animated-gif2.gif ani-gif-opt2.gif

This causes ImageMagick to optimize the GIF file. The result is a significant reduction in the file size of the animated GIF. The file size is reduced from a hefty 6.3 MB, to a much more svelte 3.4 MB.

Below is the final result of my conversion. Readers of the web version of the magazine will be able to see the file without any problems. Readers of the PDF version can download the animated GIF from here (3.4 MB) and view it in their default web browser. Reducing the frame rate to 8 fps caused a further reduction in the file size to 2.1 MB, after the ImageMagick optimization.

Method 3: Using mplayer

Ffmpeg isn't the only game in town, when it comes to managing and manipulating multimedia files. Fans of mplayer can use their favorite media player to make the conversion from video to animated GIF.

The command to convert to animated GIF from a video file is as follows (entered all on one line):

mplayer FunnyAmeriquest.flv -ao null -ss 0:01:27 -vo gif89a:fps=8:output=animated-gif3.gif -vf scale=320:240 -endpos 11

The FunnyAmeriquest.flv part of the command specifies the input video file to use. The -ao null part of the command tells mplayer to forget about outputting any audio. The -ss 0:01:27 part of the command tells mplayer to start at the 1 minute 27 seconds spot in the video. The -vo gif89a:fps=8:output=animated-gif3.gif part of the command tells mplayer to output the image portion of the video file as an animated GIF, at 8 frames per second, and to write the output to the animated-gif3.gif file. The -vf scale=320:240 part of the command tells mplayer to rescale the output to 320 x 240 resolution. Finally, the -endpos 11 part of the command tells mplayer that the output will be 11 seconds in length.

Below is the result. Readers of the PDF file can click this link to view the animated GIF in their default web browser. The file is 2.9 MB.

I skipped using the ImageMagick convert command on this file. In all of my tests, the optimized version of the GIF ended up larger than the GIF file output by mplayer. Perhaps it was my choice of videos, but who knows. Your mileage may vary. I would recommend that you try the optimization of the GIF file with the ImageMagick convert command, then choose the smaller file, whichever one that may be.

Comparisons & Caveats

There are other methods to create animated GIFs. One I explored involved installing gimp-gap from the PCLinuxOS repository. Gimp-gap is designed to make animated graphics from video files. However, I found it to be so clunky and unreliable during my testing that I decided against including it in this article. It couldn't even find mplayer, which is installed on my system. There are also other programs in the wild world of Linux, such as gifsicle, but they were excluded because they are not in the PCLinuxOS repository -- and we all know (or should know) by now how installing items from outside the official PCLinuxOS repository is frowned upon.

For whatever reason, the animated GIF files created with mplayer are bigger than the files produced by ffmpeg, even when the same frame rate is used. Notice that in our mplayer example above, the frame rate has been decreased to 8 fps. The lowered frame rate makes the animation a bit choppier and less fluid. But even at this slow frame rate -- which is one-third the normal frame rate -- the animation is still acceptable, albeit barely. The file created with ffmpeg at the same frame rate of 8 fps -- and subsequently optimized with the ImageMagick convert command -- is only 2.1 MB, still a significant 0.8 MB smaller than the animated GIF file created with mplayer.

Also, if you look closely at the two animated GIFs, you will notice that the ffmpeg image is dithered, while the mplayer image lacks the dithered appearance. Even with the dithering, ffmpeg appears to have a quality edge. One video file I was experimenting with produced a very acceptable animated GIF with ffmpeg, but the mplayer result was horrendous. The dithered image produced by ffmpeg definitely has more forgiveness and latitude to work with a greater range of video image quality than mplayer, where the image colors look blocky and sometimes smeared.

Already, the animated GIF files produced with ffmpeg have a definite edge when it comes to producing significantly smaller file sizes. This is significant, since most sites restrict the size of animated GIFs to 5 MB or less. Also, be careful, as it's very easy to create animated GIF files of VERY large size.

Of course, the old adage "garbage in, garbage out" definitely applies when creating animated GIFs from video files. Starting with higher quality image files will produce higher quality animated GIF files. Whenever possible, opt for higher quality MP4 files, over lower quality FLV files. Also, video files that utilize higher bitrates are going to inherently be of higher quality.

Summary

As is usual under Linux, there is more than one way to accomplish a task. Creating animated GIFs under Linux is no different. If you think this is complicated, think again. It's actually quite easy to create animated GIFs under Linux. Have fun with this, and try your hand at creating some animated GIFs of some of your favorite, short video clips.

PCLinuxOS Family Member Spotlight: Agust

As told to smileeb

May I introduce you to Agust.

How old are you?

I am 47 years old.

Are you married, single or what?

I am married. Next year, in August, we will be celebrating our silver anniversary - 25 years married.

Do you have children or grandchildren?

I have two children, the oldest (Agustin) is 22 years old and the youngest (Miguel) is 13 years old.

Are you retired or working and for how long and at what.

I have worked in the same job since I was 12 years old selling Italian coffee, and for 22 years I have had my own company (Bravi Caffe Spain).

What is the area you live in like. (Weather, Quietness, Scenery?)

Live in Burriana, which is a very quiet area of the region of Valencia. It is an area almost entirely devoted to the cultivation of oranges and the manufacture of tiles. My house is just about 50 meters from the sea, and it is fantastic.

Are you handy with your hands and have any hobbies.

Linux with e17 and fishing.

What is your education level?

Well, the truth is that work and study are bad companions. Plus, my studies are very basic, but I do have a graduation diploma.

Do you like to travel, go camping?

Traveling logically, if it is my job. Do I like camping? No!

What caused you to try Linux and join this forum?

Well in 2005, I was fed up with Windows, and I saw some pictures of Linux and wondered what is that? I tried it and I liked it, and the only distro that worked well on my computer was PCLinuxOS, so between the forum (Old) in mid-2006, what made me stay was an e17 testing repo. The first user who helped me in Linux was "KDulcimer", and since then I have considered myself a "PCLinuxOS-User."

PCLinuxOS Family Member Spotlight is an exclusive, monthly column by smileeb, featuring PCLinuxOS forum members. This column will allow "the rest of us" to get to know our forum family members better, and will give those featured an opportunity to share their PCLinuxOS story with the rest of the world.

If you would like to be featured in PCLinuxOS Family Member Spotlight, please send a private message to smileeb in the PCLinuxOS forum expressing your interest.

GIMP Tutorial: Editing An Image

by Meemaw

We've made bunches of pretty things with GIMP! We've also done a little bit of photo editing, but I know there are more tips to editing digital photos than the ones I've covered already. When a digital photo is opened for the first time, even expert photographers will do something to improve the shot. From Chapter 10 of the GIMP Manual, "Most commonly the things that you want to do to clean up an imperfect photo are of four types: improving the composition; improving the colors; improving the sharpness; and removing artifacts or other undesirable elements of the image."

Let's look at some things we can do to improve our photographs. I will follow the four topics listed in the GIMP Manual's Intro to Chapter 10 above. I have a folder of photos from a recent trip to edit. I am going to copy all of them into a sub-folder called Originals before I start, just in case I really mess one up! Also, remember, anything you do to a photo can be undone just by pressing <CTRL> + Z or clicking on Edit > Undo. Make sure you have your photo the way you want it before you save.

Improving Composition

No matter how hard you try, sometimes you just haven't held your camera absolutely level. If you are scanning a photo for saving, you haven't placed it in the scanner straight. Rotating your image will remedy that error. GIMP's rotate tool looks like this: When you click on it, then click inside your photo, you will find your photo covered with a grid, and the rotate window will appear.

If you need to rotate clockwise, you should click the up arrow next to the angle, and if you are going counterclockwise, the down arrow should be clicked. You can do it by hand with your mouse, of course, but this is much more precise. A tip is to rotate a bit, then click OK to see how you did. Clicking in the center of your photo will replace the grid squarely and you can see if you have it rotated enough (or too much!) I rotated this photo -2.00 degrees, then another -1.5 degrees. I wanted the signpost to be straight, and I wasn't happy with it the first time. I clicked the photo a third time, and the signpost was straight, so I canceled out of that window. To keep from accidentally starting the rotate tool again, I chose some other tool.

Notice that the edges of the photo now have some transparent sections. That's because Gimp rotated the photo, but there wasn't anything to place in those corners. One option is to crop the photo.

Choose the Rectangle Select tool and draw a rectangle around your desired area. Click on Image > Crop to Selection and everything outside the rectangle will be eliminated.

Another cropping tool is the actual Crop tool. Your cursor will change to a cross and you will be able to draw a rectangle around the area you want to keep, then press Enter or click on your selection.

On either tool, you are able to adjust the sides of you rectangle before you actually crop your photo, just in case your rectangle isn't quite where you want it. (This photo is of the entrance to the Miniature Railroad Museum at Balboa Park in San Diego, CA.)

Improving Colors

Exposure Problems

Heaven knows I'm not a perfect photographer! Most of us aren't, so we take loads of photos and then weed out the bad ones, leaving us with the ones that are most promising. Sometimes a photo will be really good, except that it's just a bit dark. We'll want to do a little color correction on that. The easiest tool to use is the Brightness-Contrast tool. You can slide the sliders or use the up and down arrows, which will be easier if you only have to adjust a little bit.

I have a few photos that are just a bit dark, so I will open one in GIMP and choose Colors > Brightness-Contrast. A window will open that shows sliders for brightness and contrast. You will also see a checkbox that says "Preview." Make sure it is checked. As you slide the sliders or use the up & down arrows next to the values, your photo will reflect the change.

If you are tempted to use only the brightness setting, I should warn you that some of your photos will look washed out or way too light if you don't adjust the contrast as well. See the difference below:

(This is a photo of part of the bay in San Diego, CA.)

The Levels tool is another tool that can help you adjust your highlights and shadows. I opened this picture. It turned out really dark when I took it, and after I used the Brightness-Contrast tool on it, I got this result:

I said it was really dark! Then I chose Colors > Levels. When the window appears, there are three arrows below the histogram, one at each end and one in the center. Adjusting the arrows below the histogram, I was able to lighten the photo up considerably.

Please be aware that large adjustments here will not only lighten the photo, but add noise. However, a slightly noisy photo where you can actually see Uncle Jimmy and Aunt Sally is better than a dark photo where you cannot.

This is a photo of one of the rooms in Whaley House at Old Town, in San Diego, CA.

Adjusting Sharpness

I don't know about you, but I can't always hold absolutely still while taking a photo, and it come out a bit blurry. Many of those aren't repairable, but sometimes a blurry photo can be helped with a couple of tools. One is Filters > Enhance > Unsharp Mask and it might be able to reduce some of the blur.

Something else that might help is Filters > Enhance > Despeckle. With both tools, you need to play with the settings until you get the result you want. Be very careful here, adjusting only a bit at a time, as over-sharpening looks glaring and artificial.

If it seems too sharp, then you might try Filters > Blur. Sometimes a photo will look better if it is softened a bit.

Removing Unwanted Objects

I have taken a photo in the rain before. Then, when I look at it, the rain detracts from the photo quality, of course. Using Filters > Enhance > Despeckle may be able to remedy that. Here, I took the photo through a dirty windshield... despeckle didn't take everything out, but it looks better (right).

We have already learned how to remove unwanted items in a photo using the Clone tool, which will help fix the photo above, too. The Healing tool should work as well. There is also the Resynthesizer plugin available for Gimp, but it isn't included in the default Gimp installation. You can install it from the repo through Synaptic.

Many photos have the dreaded red eye effect. To remove it, use Filters > Enhance > Red Eye Remover. You need to outline the area you want to change with the lasso or ellipse select tool first. Another method is to choose a brush (paintbrush tool) with soft edges, and size it a tiny bit larger than the red you want to remove, then paint a dark color into the red. If it doesn't look right, use <CTRL> + Z to undo it, and try again.

Wow! We've covered a lot of tips. I am sure that your photos will be even more beautiful now!

PCLinuxOS Recipe Corner

Baked Blooming Onion

Ingredients

Preheat oven to 375 degrees

1 large onion (Vidalia is best but any onion will do. I used a regular yellow onion)

1/2 cup all purpose flour

1/2 cup milk

2 Tbsp vegetable oil

spray oil

1 tsp paprika

1/4 tsp garlic powder

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp xanthan gum

1 large ziplock bag

It is very important to note the diagrams outlining how far down to cut the onion. Failure to leave enough uncut at the base will result in the onion bloom to fall apart. No big deal, just try again :)

The solid black lines are the first main cuts. The red circle on the bottom will be where you need to stop cutting. The black dotted lines are the additional cuts to create the petals.

1. Cut 1/4 of inch off the top of the onion. Peel off outer skin. Turn onion upside down, roots up.

2. (BEFORE you cut, make sure to leave at least 3/4 inch from the roots for all cuts).

3. Make 4 equal cuts or quarters. Start your cut from the top (near the roots) where the red circle would start.

4. Cut each quarter 2 more times. A total of 12 sets of petals will be created.

5. Gently spread the petals to open the bloom. Soak in ice cold water will do the same.

6. Combine all dry ingredients in ziplock bag. Add onion and gently shake to coat.

7. Take onion out of bag and shake off excess flour in a bowl.

8. Pour remaining flour from ziplock into bowl; add oil and milk.

9. Batter should be fairly thick. Add extra flour if batter is runny.

10. Use your hands to coat all individual petals with batter.

11. Place on a pan lined with parchment paper. Lightly spray entire onion with oil.

12. Bake for 18-20 minutes. Allow to cool before moving and serving.

13. Serve with your favorite dipping sauce. I'd serve it with a creamy ranch dressing :)

ms_meme's Nook: PCLOS Candy

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PCLinuxOS Puzzled Partitions

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PCLinuxOS Crossword Puzzle: February 2014

Office Suite Terms

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Office Suite Word Find

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KDenLive: Part Three

by loudog

Now that we have a nice stable platform of basic knowledge in Kdenlive, we will begin to dissect each of the many effects in a much more detailed manner. With that said, we want Kdenlive to be using our prefered editing software for its effects stack and MLT framework. Here is an image of my selections. You may choose what suits you best.

As you will see, just one effect will require many pages of instruction and guidance. Consider yourself graduated to middle school at this point. With graduation into higher learning there comes some added responsibilities, namely homework. Well, what can I say, like any good teacher I will be assigning a little homework at the end of certain articles, so you will be fully prepared for the next lesson.

In this months article we will be building on our previous work with single clips and more importantly single images. Videos are just lots and lots of pictures basically, and so the need arises often to edit singular images. This knowledge will not be required in this tutorial, but for next months installment, you will want to have the basic skills needed. The last consideration we need to explore before we move on is image quality. Obviously an image of 2160 x 1440 pixels will have twice the detail of a 1080x720 image. After much experimentation, I try to only use images in this type of undertaking with no less than a 1920x1080 resolution. When zooming in, it is desirable to keep pixelation at a minimum so the video looks more polished.

This month, we will be learning a few different effects and a few quick editing tips. Let's start with the quick tips. The first thing we will do is insert an image into the timeline. Next, we want it to play for longer than the default 5 seconds, so we stretch it out in the timeline. I like to stretch my images out to roughly 30 seconds or so and cut them down later, if need be.

With that done, you may notice that Kdenlive has added an effect by default. Since we are wanting a different effect, we will remove this one. Click on the effect (or video clip, or sound clip) and it will be highlighted in red.

Hitting the delete key on the keyboard will remove the selection from the project timeline, but not from the project tree. If deleting an effect, it will be removed from the effect stack.

Now you know how to stretch out an image clip and delete clip/effect from project timeline. Let's get to the meat and potatoes, shall we? Our plan in this tutorial is to set the hook, so to speak, on the picture taking generation. We are going to teach you how to breath some new life into those still images of yours. Select three or four images that you like and import them into the project tree (I will be using only two for this tutorial, beginning and end). Drag the first image into video track 1. Stretch it out, right click it and select: Add effect/crop and transform/pan and zoom. The effect will appear in the effect stack monitor.

At the top, we see the keyframe timeline with marker and mouse cursor preparing to move the timeline marker to the right. Over a little farther towards the top we find the "save stack" etc. icon and the "delete effect" button. Below that we see the "go to previous keyframe" button, the "add/delete keyframe" button (green + = add, red - = delete), the "go to next keyframe" button, the "options" button and the timeline "time" readout. Below those we have the "align image" buttons, the "adjust to original size" icon, "fit to width" icon and the "fit to height" icon.

Moving on, we have the "size indicator readout" (hereafter referred to as zoom), the distort checkbox, the background color indicator and the color pallette. On the right hand vertical column, starting at the bottom, the zoom slider (this does not alter the project as far as I have experienced but is an extremely helpful tool, you'll see later), "fit zoom to monitor size" icon, "origional size" icon, "update parameters" icon, "show previous keyframe" icon, and finally the "show path" icon.

As we progress through the tutorial, we will be visiting most of these controls. The ones we do not use, I will leave to you to play with and discover what they do. The pan and zoom effect defaults with the first keyframe queued into the timeline, as indicated by a small black diamond above the keyframe timeline. We may begin to manipulate the image at the very start of the clip. First, lets take a look at my beginning image (I have stretched it out to about 30 seconds long in the project timeline).

As you can see the image does not fit the monitor. The color on the sides is the color as shown in the "background color indicator," which indicates transparency (checkerboard pattern, default). The black color you are seeing is actually the back of the monitor screen. To change the background color, you can a) click on the background color indicator, which will bring up a color selection screen, or b) click on the color palette, move the palette cursor over to the image and click it on any color in the image you choose to change the background to that color. In this instance I will select the "fit to width" option, as this particular image is of high enough quality and will not suffer from resizing. However, the top and bottom will not show until we start panning up/down and/or zooming in/out.

The cursor in the monitor (in the shape of a hand) means that you have the option to grab the image and position it manually, much like you would do in Google Earth or Google Maps. The yellow "+" in the monitor indicates the center of the image, and this center target is what is referenced in the "X" (left and right) and "Y" (up and down) position readouts. Now that we have the image fit to the monitor width, lets synchronize the project timeline marker with the keyframe timeline marker. Click the "options" button, and from the dropdown menu, select synchronize with timeline cursor. Now both markers will move in unison with each other.

Lets add a keyframe. I will move the keyframe timeline marker over about 5 seconds (the time readout shows 5.16 seconds in the example). Click the "add keyframe" button (green +), and zoom in to about 135% or thereabouts (size indicator readout or "zoom"). Note: To add a keyframe you can also just double click anywhere on the keyframe timeline or to delete, just double click on the little black diamond keyframe indicator.

When using the zoom feature, you can either type in the desired size (I generally highlight the value I want to edit), or initiate a slider action by holding the cursor on the "size" text until it shows as a pointing hand. At that point you may click and hold while "sliding" the cursor left and right to zoom in or out.

If you use the keyboard method you must hit the enter key on the keyboard to view the newly resized image in the monitor. After the image is resized, I will recenter it in the monitor using the "align image" control buttons. I will center the image vertically and horizontally.

This sequence of keyframes instructs the camera to zoom in on the center of the image, from the first keyframe size (100.00%) to the next keyframe size (137.03%), over a period of 5.16 seconds (actually addresses but we covered that in last months article). Now lets add another keyframe about 8 seconds or so into the timeline and zoom in again to 300.00%. Recenter the image. Add another keyframe of about 2 seconds. For this short duration between keyframes, we just want the camera to hold steady for the 2 seconds, basically a pause, so we add no effects. Next, add another keyframe about 6 seconds further down the timeline. Zoom out to 200.00%, and then, grabbing the image in the monitor with the cursor, move it to your desired position for that keyframe. This time I am instructing the camera to zoom out a little, and at the same time, pan to the left side of the image and hold on the face I see in the tree trunk. I will add another pause here with a new keyframe. Next, I will add another keyframe of 4 seconds or so and zoom in on the perceived "face". Note: The longer the duration between keyframes, the slower the zoom/pan action will be, and visa versa.

Do you see the face?.... Yes?... No?... Hmmm, must be the beverages. Why don't we give the audience another 2 second pause here to examine the image and see if they discover the face looking at them (add each keyframe as you go) and then a 4 second zoom out to 75%. Note: It is much easier to add the zoom first to the keyframe and then the desired "pan to" position. Another 2 second pause. Now play the clip in the monitor (click rewind then the pause button to reset the player) and decide if you like the effects so far. Note: The playback will appear very choppy in the monitor until the project is rendered and viewed in an appropriate video player.

Using the go to next/previous keyframe buttons will speed up the editing process, allowing you to switch from one keyframe to the other very quickly. Go ahead and click on them, toggle back and forth between keyframes, get comfortable with them; they will become your buddies later. If you decide that a keyframe needs to be added, all keyframes beyond this should be deleted (reset) and done over.

In my experience, the effects sometimes get messed up if you do not do this. That's why it's important to review the project often in the monitor as you create it. If, on the other hand, you decide to remove a keyframe, just navigate to it and click the red "delete keyframe" button. After reviewing the video, I have decided to add a keyframe partway through, so I will reset all keyframes from that point on (all keyframes including the one the marker is on will be deleted/reset). To do this, I will select which keyframe I want the reset to start with. Then, using the options icon again and from the dropdown menu select, reset keyframes After cursor.

Now that I have added the extra keyframe I wanted, and recreated the deleted ones, lets have a quick look at our selected camera pan path. First rewind the player. Next, click the "show path" icon. You will see the established path show up in the monitor. As the camera pans to the left, the center target moves to the right. When panning up, the target moves down. This center target's path is what is represented by the red line. Play the clip and watch the image center target follow the path.

Now it's time to prepare for the transition to the next image. I will zoom in to 850%, over a period of three seconds (I want the zoom in to be very quick), and then I will position the white foggy part of the image in the monitor. I have decided on a rather ominous looking thunderstorm for my next image. The white foggy part of this image will transition nicely to the light part of the thunderstorm clouds in the next image. For the last keyframe, I will need a 10 second pause to allow more than enough time for the transition effect to be edited in effectively. Since I don't have enough time left in the clip on the project timeline, I will simply stretch the clip out a little more. After reviewing the video one last time and being happy with the way the effects look, it's time to render this "project". I will be using these settings. Since the project does not contain any audio yet the audio bitrate is ignored by default, even though the readout says 384.

I have named the output file, and it will be saved as an .avi video. What? Not again! Yes again, review the rendered .avi file in your favorite video player and look for errors before moving on. Note: Never delete your project or clear the project timeline until rendering has finished and you have reviewed it in your video player, so if need be, you can make small edits to the existing project instead of rebuilding the whole thing from scratch.

Now that we are happy with the first clip, lets clear out the project timeline, drag our next image into the project (our ending image in this tutorial), stretch it out and add the pan and zoom effect. Note: It can be quite helpful to have the audio file in the audio track timeline so you can get an idea on how long you need to stretch out the last image to match the audio length. This image does not fit the screen either, much like the first one, but instead of using the "fit to width" option this time, we will click the distort checkbox. Uhhh huh, something new.

This effect will fit the image to the screen, but because of the stretch/compress qualities involved, it does not work well with all images. Some images may end up looking "overly distorted." Since I desire a rather large blurry white background to transition to, I will start by zooming in on the image to about 800%. Now, instead of grabbing the image and manually positioning it this time, or using the centering tools and groping around from there to find my whitish spot, I will use the zoom slider at the right hand side of the screen to find my sweet spot. Yep, video editing is a game you learn as you go.

When I zoom out from the image with this tool, a small box with a red border appears in the monitor. This small box is what will show in the monitor when it is "actual size." You probably already recognize the center target and diagonal center line, as well as the grabber hand.

If you zoom out even more?....... Yessss,,,, you gettin all this?

The box with the yellow border is the full image. While you drag around the yellow box the red box updates the selected section. With this tool you can quickly move to any part of the image and have a good idea of what will be displayed when it is zoomed back to the proper size. This slider is invaluable for time saving edits on pan positioning and zoom. Play with it, discover all that it can do to help you speed up the creation process. Note: The editing options on the side of the effect stack window are designed to be complementary tools, to be used in conjunction with the zoom slider, experiment with them.

Now that I have quickly found my whitish transition section, its time to move on. Setting the next keyframe for a four second pause, I will then zoom out to 100% with the next keyframe. I want the image centered and I also want the zoom out to be very slow, so I allot 15 to 20 seconds between keyframes. The closing effect will be a fairly quick zoom out to 1% (about 3 seconds) giving the "poof," bye-bye, all gone ending.

After the traditional review, I render the file and again, review the rendered file. Okay, things are going well and we are happy with the rendered file so lets clear the project timeline. Import the two .avi files, place the first one in track 1 and the second in track two. Overlap the videos a little, and place the cursor at the bottom right corner of the top clip. When the cursor changes to a pointer hand and the corner starts to blink green, click to add the default effect.

The default effect using this method is dissolve. The first track dissolves away while the second track materializes. After the effect is set, review it and make adjustments as necessary for a fluid transition. I have discovered that the static ending of my first video is too long for a smooth transition, so I will need to cut it. To do this, I will first move the bottom clip over to the right so it is out of the way, then position the project timeline marker at the point I want the cut, right click on the clip and select cut clip from the menu. Note: Any tracks that are covered by the project timeline marker will be cut.

After the clip is cut, its a simple matter of selecting the unwanted part, and deleting it from the timeline. The effect may have to be shortened.

Now I will reposition the clips to overlap again, and adjust things to my particular tastes. After the review, I will add the audio (and my standard intro clip), render the file, review the rendered file, and then send it to friends. At this point, you can imagine all the possibilities with this single effect. Give it a try, create, have fun, and enjoy the toys the the open source community has gifted you. Any questions you may have can be posted to the software section in the forum. To view the video we created in this tutorial, go here. The YouTube player is not near the quality you will get in house. So Alice, you ain't seen nothin yet. If you want me to show you just how deep the rabbit hole goes ... then I suggest you do your homework. Next months article will be as much, if not more, fun and informative as this month, if you read these two articles featured in previous issues of the PCLinuxOS magazine. (Lesson 1) (Lesson 2). Until next month, later tater.

Some Handy Terminal Tips

by Paul Arnote (parnote)

OK ... I know that the GUI Linux desktops have gotten really good. And, I know that there are many users who avoid using the Linux command line -- at all costs. But learning to use a terminal emulator, and the Linux command line, is not only fun, but it also gives you more power and control over your system. Below are some assorted tips and tricks that I use, and that will give you greater control over your terminal sessions.

Close Terminal, Keep The Program

If you start a program from the command line, closing the terminal session will typically also end the program you started -- unless you started the program to run in the background. Certainly, you can run any program in the background, simply by adding " &" to the end of the command, like this:

gcalctool &

But what if the program is already running, and you want/need to close the terminal, but want the program to keep running? Fortunately, Linux gives us a way to change whether a program launched from the command line is running in the foreground (default) or placing it in the background after it has already been launched.

To specify for a running program to run in the background, do the following:

On the keyboard, hold down the Ctrl + Z keys (will show up in the terminal as ^Z, with "Stopped [name of program] on the very next line). This will temporarily suspend the running program (the program you started from the command line).

Next, enter the following at the command prompt:

disown -h %1

bg 1

Now, the terminal will be "de-listed" as the parent process or owner of the program's process, and the program will be moved from being a foreground process to a background process. After it is moved to the background, the program will resume its execution, but as a background process. You can now close the terminal session without stopping the execution of the program. Also notice how, after the issuance of the "bg 1" line, gcalctool is listed as gcalctool &, signifying that the program is now running in the background.

Open Terminal Where You Want

On most desktops, your terminal will open at the upper left corner of your screen when you select to open it from either a launcher or the applications menu. Most of the time, this is fine. But what if you find it more convenient to your style of working to have the terminal open up at a different location?

Fortunately, this is easy enough to do. Most of the popular terminal programs allow you to specify the width (in characters), height (in lines), along with the X and Y screen coordinates where the window will be placed. For most of the popular terminal programs -- except xterm -- the format is as follows:

--geometry=[width]x[height]+[X-coordinate]+[Y-coordinate]

Simply add this command line switch to the end of the command that launches your favorite terminal program. If you typically launch your terminal program from a launcher, edit the command in the launcher. If you typically launch your terminal program from your application menu, you may have to edit either the menu (in the case of KDE), or the .desktop file (in /usr/share/applications as the root user) to include the command line switch.

Now, remember that I said that xterm was the exception. If your favorite terminal program is xterm, the command line switch is slightly different ... yet very similar. Simply eliminate one of the leading dashes and the equal sign. For example, xterm -geometry 80x20+100+100 will open the xterm window, 80 characters wide, 20 lines tall, at X-coordinate 100, and at Y-coordinate 100.

Exclaim it!

It's not at all uncommon to issue multiple commands while working at the command line, but nothing is more cumbersome than having to retype the same command over and over. Fortunately, there is a shortcut. Just type ! followed by the name of the command and it will be recalled. Just press the Enter key to execute it again.

For example, let's say we were using the command line to open a specific configuration file in your favorite text editor. My favorite text editor is Xfce's Mousepad, so I'll use that in my examples. Typing !mousepad will recall the last command that launched Mousepad from the command line, and pressing the Enter key will launch it.

REALLY Exclaim It!!

While the previous shortcut depends on the name of the command you want to repeat following the single exclamation mark, the double exclamation mark allows you to recall the previous command, and doesn't require the name of a command to function.

Where this is especially useful is when you need to preface the last command with another command. For example, let's say that you opened a configuration file as a regular user for editing, but then realize that you need to open that file as the root user. Simply typing "gksu !!" (or "kdesu !!" under KDE) will execute the command after gaining root access with either the kdesu or gksu command.

Get Historical

One extremely powerful command to use while working on the command line is the history command. Executed by itself, it will list all of the commands you have used on the command line. If you use the command line regularly, you will have a lot of entries. Each command line entry is assigned its own unique number. On one of my computers, I have over 1,000 entries! Scrolling through all of those commands is not only tedious, but it increases the chance that I will miss the command that I'm looking for when scanning within the long list.

Fortunately, you can improve your chances of finding the command you are looking for. Let's say that I'm looking for the times that I've used the convert command (part of the ImageMagick command line tools). Use the history command combined with the grep command, like this:

history | grep convert

Since I already know what I'm looking for, I can weed out all of the other commands in the command line history. Now, all I have to do to re-execute the command is issue the command "!728", since 728 is the number assigned to the particular command I'm seeking in the history command's log.

The last time ...

Another way to access the last iteration of a command is to use the Crtl + R key in a terminal session. Keep in mind that this shortcut will ONLY recall the last use of the specified command.

Notice that the command prompt now changes to (reverse-i-search) and as you start typing (I typed in "mou" without the quotes), the last command that I used the mousepad command in is shown. Simply pressing the Enter key will re-execute that command.

This is especially helpful if you just used the mv command to move a file to another directory, and you want to check the path where you moved the file to. It's also especially helpful if you can't remember the exact syntax of a command that you previously executed successfully.

Moving between directories, the easy way

It is tedious, to say the least, to use the cd command to move between directories, especially if the destination directory is several layers deep. The deeper the destination directory is, the longer the command to move there, and the greater the chance of making a typo.

Fortunately, there are some shortcuts you can use. First, cd - will switch between two directories. Note the space between cd and the trailing dash. Second, cd ~ will automatically take you back to your /home directory, no matter where you are in the file structure. Just as with its cousin, note the space between cd and the trailing tilda.

Using the pushd command, instead of cd, will cause the current directory to be written into the popd variable, then take you to the specified directory. To return to the previous directory, simply type popd. Unfortunately, this only works once. You can easily circumvent this restriction by simply using the cd - command. With it, you can switch between two directories ad nauseum, forever ... if you wish.

Kill it dead

Sometimes, you have a program hanging around and refusing to close. Fortunately, there are a quartet of Linux commands at your beck and call to show the stubborn program just who the boss is.

The kill command, issued from the command line, heads up these four commands. The only argument it takes is the PID (program ID) of the program that's misbehaving. What? You don't know where to find the PID? Well, you could issue the top command in your terminal. The first column lists the PID of the running programs. Or, you could just type pidof [program name] and the PID will be returned. Then, just use the PID as the command line argument for the kill command.

The killall command takes only the name of the program as a command line argument. So, if you have several windows on your desktop that are all under the control of one program -- let's pick on Firefox -- then issuing the killall firefox command will close out all of the windows under the control of Firefox. Similarly, if you have multiple copies of a program open, all of the instances of the specified program will be closed.

The pkill command is a shortcut way to close a program, and it takes only a portion of the program name (or the entire name) as its command line argument. In the example above, I used the entire name, but using pkill gcal, pkill tool or pkill lcto would have also closed the program gcalctool. Thus, pkill fire, pkill fox, pkill iref, pkill firefox would all close the Firefox browser.

The xkill command only works on an X Window system, and isn't installed by default in PCLinuxOS (the other three are). However, you can install it via Synaptic. When executed, your cursor will change to an X. Simply click the X cursor on the window of the program you want to close. The program under the X cursor will close, and your cursor will revert back to normal.

Heads & Tails

If you're working in a terminal session, there's no reason to leave that environment to read a simple text file -- and on Linux, there are a ton of them. Most of the configuration files on Linux are nothing more than simple text files.

Of course, I'm talking about the head and tail Linux commands. One (head) reads the first part of a text file, while the other (tail) reads the last part of a text file, all without opening or loading them into a text editor.

Their usage is very similar. You simply issue the command, followed by the name of the text file you want to view. Issuing either command, coupled with the name of a text file, will display the first 10 lines of a file (in the case of the head command), or the last 10 lines of a file (in the case of the tail command).

You can also change the behavior of both commands to display more lines than just the paltry default 10 lines. Simply insert -n[number of lines] between the command and the name of the text file to display. So, if I wanted to view the first 20 lines of a text file, I'd issue the head command as head -n20 mylist.txt. Similarly, if I wanted to view the last 20 lines of a text file, I'd issue the tail command as tail -n20 mylist.txt. You can view however many lines of the file you want, simply by specifying the number of lines to display. If you want to view the entire file, just make the number larger than the number of lines in a file (100? 1000?).

Summary

Whatever you do, don't shy away from learning the Linux command line. A few years back, I viewed the Linux command line as something that I had to sometimes reluctantly use. To me, it was the great black hole. But after setting my mind to learning it, the veil of mystery lifted from the Linux command line, and I soon realized how valuable it could be. In a lot of instances, the command line is much faster than using the GUI version of a program. Plus, the Linux command line can be fun.

Make Your Own Online Photo Album With Album Shaper

by Meemaw

A couple of years ago, I did a series on photo viewers. Over five months, I covered more than twenty different photo viewers. However, I haven't noticed this one before. Album Shaper is a photo viewer program that lets you build albums from your saved photos, and even generate a web album. It is installable from Synaptic.

Album Shaper has a different organizational system. An album can be divided into sub-albums, called collections, as shown below:

Album

|_ Collection 1

|_ Photos

|_ Collection 2

|_ Photos

One album could be called "My Vacation", then each collection could be named by date, so if a vacation lasted several days, as they usually do, you can keep the photos in chronological order without possibly doing some intensive file renaming.

When you open Album Shaper, you will see the main window, which has a section for album name, description and author as well as one for collection name and description. The album name is the one that will name the entire group, while the collection name will name the first sub-group. Also notice two tabs at the top of the largest section of the window. One says Organize and, when you get photos there, the other tab says Edit. Let's start adding photos first.

First, I named my album Vacations, and named my first collection Colorado 2012, just to give myself somewhere to start. Clicking the "Add Photo" button, I was presented with a window to browse to the folder where my Colorado 2012 photos were stored. From here I can add as few or as many photos as I want, simply by choosing them one at a time, selecting a range of photos using the Shift key, or holding down the <CTRL> key and clicking on the photos I desire.

Notice at the bottom a checkbox that says "Use filenames for descriptions." If you had already gone through your photos and named them something meaningful, you can check that box and those names will be added to the description with your photo. If you have filenames from your camera, as I obviously do, you can add descriptions to your photos. We'll do that in a bit.

If you added several photos, but you have discovered that you forgot a few of them or want to exchange a few, don't worry. In your thumbnail window (the Organize tab), you can still add to the collection by clicking the Add Photos button again.

They're out of order now? That's ok... grab one of them by clicking the mouse and drag it over to the correct spot in the thumbnails. Also, if you find one you didn't mean to add, select it and click Delete Photo at the bottom of the window.

If your file name isn't very descriptive, you can add a description to each photo by clicking the blue icon you find when you hover your mouse pointer in the bottom right corner of each thumbnail. When you click on that icon, your photo opens a bit and a space appears below or to the right of it which allows you to add the description.

Buttons also located at the bottom of the main window are the rotate buttons and the wallpaper button. If you find that one of your photos needs to be rotated, just select it and click the appropriate button. If, in your photo organizing, you decide that you would like to set a certain photo as your wallpaper, you don't have to go any farther than the bottom of this window. However, so far, I haven't gotten this feature to work.

If you haven't saved your album yet, you need to do so. Click on File > Save As... You will see a window where you can choose a location to save. In this case you are naming a new folder in which to put all the information and thumbnails that go with this project. NOTE: This means that your original photos are not changed or deleted. The program makes thumbnails of each photo you add, and all work is done to the thumbnails. As you can see, I named my folder Vacations. Now my Pictures folder has a subfolder named Vacations. The theme at the top of the save window will be the appearance of the web album, if you generate one.

For your album and each collection, you can choose a photo to be a "cover photo." Simply choose the photo you want to use, right-click it and choose "Set album image" or "Set collection image." The thumbnail will appear to the left of the album or collection name above or at left. Alternatively, you can choose a photo and drag it to the desired spot on the left of the album or collection name.

While you are in the program, there are several editing tools you can use. From your Organize tab, double-click on a photo, and you will be taken to the Edit tab with your chosen photo in the center.

You see three sections. At left, the Frame section contains Rotate (clockwise & counter-clockwise), Flip (horizontal & vertical), Straighten (the green arrow) and Crop (on the second line and includes some default sizes in the drop-down). I'm sure most of these are self-explanatory, but the Straighten button is interesting. In my GIMP article (elsewhere in this issue), I discussed rotating a photo just a few degrees. This button makes it easy. Simply click the button and, using the tool that replaces your mouse, draw a line through the object that needs to be straightened. When you let go of your mouse button, the program will straighten that photo along the line you drew.

The center section, Enhance, contains editing tools for color, contrast, red eye, levels and grain. Experiment with these to edit your photo. Remember that small adjustments at a time are more likely to give you what you want.

The right section, Manipulate, gives you several effects to give variety to your photos. You can alter your thumbnail six different ways:

I changed one of mine to a sepia tone. Remember, this is done to the thumbnails, so the original photo is untouched. By the way, if you apply an effect or edit and decide you need to undo it, there is no Undo button. However, clicking on Photos > Revert to Original will give you your original thumbnail back.

From the File menu, you can generate a web album or a set of photos to be printed. From the File menu, choose File > Export > Small Web Album. You will again be asked where to save it. I used the same folder, Vacations. I got a subfolder called Vacations_WEB. Opening that folder, I see an HTML file called index.html. That file will open in my web browser.

Here you see my album cover photo at the top with the collection cover photos beneath. Clicking on one of the collection photos opens the collection for viewing. You can see the whole thing here. If you lack a website to host your photo album, you can also use the Public folder of your Dropbox account.

You can export photos for printing by clicking File > Export > Images for Printing. This is probably the thing I like least about this program. I haven't found anything in the program that will actually print the album: it just puts all the photos in the album in a single folder.

Overall, this is a kind of neat program. The albums look good, and the editing tools work well. If you haven't found a program to do your photo albums, this one may fill your needs. The good thing about the web album is that you can share your photos with your family and friends on the web, no matter what operating system they use.

Make Your Own Custom Photo Calendar

by YouCanToo

As 2013 was coming to a close, PCLinuxOS community member izto posted his desire to be able to print a photo calendar, but he wasn't familiar with how to do so.

After searching for a calendar making program, I came to the conclusion that they all had some drawbacks. Some of the ones I found on the web took longer to watch the instruction on how to create them than it did for me to make my own. Photo-cal was a nice stand alone program, but was seriously out of date. It only made calendars to 2013. Then there is Digikam, which would work for most anyone. But, to add things like holidays, it sent you on a wild goose chase to another website, which had no download link!

So, what is a person to do, if they just want something simple with no big thrills? Create your own using LibreOffice Draw!

I set off to work to see what it took to create a simple, usable calendar.

First, I had to decide just what I wanted my calendar to look like. I chose a simple picture over the calendar on a single sheet of 8½ x 11 inch paper.

Now that I had chosen my layout, I decided that I needed a table of seven columns and seven rows.

Next I had to decide on how many different templates of this I would need to make to account for the different starting days of the months. I quickly opened in a terminal and typed in cal 2014 and started counting them.

I started by writing every day of the week and marking which months started on which days. This is what I found out.

Sun - June

Mon - September, December

Tue - April, July

Wed - January, October

Thu - May

Fri - August

Sat - February, March, November

I would need seven different templates to make a full year's calendar.

I opened LibreOffice Draw and got to work creating my template. I created a simple template with the basic layout of a table with seven rows and seven columns and then saved it for the seven different layouts I would need.

I grabbed and dragged the table box to fit the size of my paper.

Now I chose the properties I wanted for the table cells.

The top row of cells will hold the days of the week. I then entered the days of the week in each cell. I then highlighted the cells and, left clicking on the cell, then I chose format cell and align to the center. Then, while the cells were highlighted, I chose my font and selected bold.

Now I save my basic layout by clicking on File -> Save as Template -> clicking Save in the template manager window and entering the filename. In my case I choose the filename 'basic-plain-box-with-squares'.

Now, using my basic layout, I will create 7 layouts for each day of the week using the following information.

The months that start on the following day of the week.

Sun - June (30 days)

Mon - September (30 days) , December (31 days)

Tue - April (30 days), July (31 days)

Wed - January, October (31 days)

Thu - May - (31 days)

Fri - August (31 days)

Sat - February (28 days) , March (31 days) , November (30 days)

Using my basic layout, I highlighted the last six rows and and chose to align the cells to the top and set the font to Bitstream Vera Sans Mono with a point size of 18. I then saved this as a template file. I repeated the above process, creating each of my weekdays.

Now I used the appropriate daily template to create my monthly calendar template. I added the name of the month and date to the top of each monthly template.

Choosing the text tool at the bottom of LO Draw, I then selected my font Bitstream Vera Sans Mono with a font size of 36 point and bold. Drawing a text box, I typed in the month and year, and then centered it above my calendar layout. Once I was satisfied with the way it looked, I saved it as a template using the name of the month. I repeated this for each month of the year, using the proper starting day of the week.

Now I was all done, except for an image for each month. First, I chose the images I wanted for each month, and then opening the said monthly template. I added the image by clicking in a blank spot in the template, selecting Insert -> Picture -> from file, and selecting the image I wanted, then clicking open.

I then sized the image to fit the upper portion of my calendar page.

That looks good to me.

Have fun making your own personalize calendar(s). To make it simple for you, I have made my templates available here: http://pclosmag.com/Misc-Downloads/calendar-templates.tar

To use these templates, save the file to ~/.config/libreoffice/4/user/template. Then, from a console window, enter the following command to untar the file: tar xvf calendar-template.zip

Now your new templates will show up in LibreOffice Draw.

Ad-free Browsing With Privoxy

by Paul Arnote (parnote)

Internet users across the globe -- except for some webmasters -- definitely have one thing in common: they hate and despise the tons of advertising that is crammed down our throats on a daily basis. Do the advertisers really think people click on those ads? Does anyone except for the most computer illiterate user actually click on them? For me, they provide a cause to avoid those products. After intruding on my space, those "products" will be the last ones I consider when making a purchase.

Sure, there are browser specific extensions, such as AdBlock and AdBlock Plus, that help eliminate the continual assault of the endless advertising barrage. Sure, you could install one of the aforementioned browser extensions. But the problem is that they aren't an across the board cure. If you install AdBlock Plus in Firefox, that single extension is exclusive to Firefox. To accomplish the same thing in Chrome or Chromium, you have to turn around and install a version of AdBlock Plus that's exclusive to that particular browser.

But wait a minute! There is another way. The "other way" works across the board, and you only have to install one program from the PCLinuxOS repository. Install just one program that works across any web browser that you may happen to be using. Put an end to installing multiple, browser-specific versions of the same extension. It's called Privoxy.

Getting Started

First, install Privoxy from the PCLinuxOS repository, via Synaptic. The typical and usual advice to insure that your computer is fully updated before installing programs from Synaptic should go without saying.

The first time you use Privoxy, you will need to manually start it from the command line. As the root user, issue the following commands:

service Privoxy start

netstat -nap|grep Privoxy

Take notice that the second command provides the proxy address and port that Privoxy is using. The default value is 127.0.0.1:8118 (listening in on localhost, on port 8118). On subsequent reboots, Privoxy will be set to start when you boot your computer. You only have to perform this step the first time you use Privoxy.

Now, if you use Firefox and ONLY Firefox, you can use this information to setup Privoxy's proxy information within the Firefox settings (Edit > Preferences). Go to the Advanced tab, then the Network tab. Click on the top button, marked "Settings."

Select the radio button next to "Manual proxy configuration," then fill in the HTTP: Proxy field with 127.0.0.1, and set the port (immediately to the right) to 8118. It probably is a good idea to place a check in the box immediately below, labeled "Use this proxy server for all protocols," as well.

This is all good and fine, if as we said, you used Firefox, and only Firefox. But then, you're handcuffing the abilities of Privoxy. Very few users use only one web browser. I personally have four installed on most of my computers: Firefox, Chrome, Chromium and Midori. Even an out-of-the-box PCLinuxOS KDE installation will have a minimum of two different browsers installed (Firefox and Konqueror).

So, let's skip setting up Privoxy only in Firefox. Within the dialog box above, set Firefox to the "Use system proxy settings" instead. Rather, we'll go into PCC and set up a system-wide proxy that will work not only with Firefox, but any web browser you have installed on your computer.

Open the PCLinuxOS Control Center (a.k.a. PCC, or Configure Your Computer), and go to the Network & Internet tab on the left side of the window. About halfway down the right pane, click on Proxy. Enter "http://127.0.0.1:8118" on the first line, and place a checkmark in the box in front of "Use HTTP proxy for HTTPS connections" setting. Click the OK button at the bottom right corner of the window, and OK in the next window. Now you will need to logout and back into your computer for Privoxy to be active and able to perform its duties.

KDE (and Gnome) users will have one extra step to perform, since those two desktop environments add another layer to the use of proxies. Select "Configure Your Desktop" (a.k.a. KCC), then go to Network and Connections > Network Settings > Proxy. Select the radio button next to "Use system proxy configuration," then select the "Auto Detect" button. Then, select the "Apply" button at the bottom right of the window.

Tweakin ... Not Twerking

As it sits, with its default settings, Privoxy works. Below are some examples.

The Omaha World Herald site without Privoxy (top) and with Privoxy (bottom).

My hometown newspaper without Privoxy (top) and with Privoxy (bottom).

In the images above, notice the lack of ads on the pages displayed after the use of Privoxy. It's proof positive that Privoxy works.

However, Privoxy can do so much more. To get an idea, check out Privoxy's online user manual. There are many settings you can tailor to your internet browsing needs. While we're not going to go over all of those (everyone's tastes and needs can vary widely), let's talk about what you need to do to give yourself the option of changing Privoxy's settings.

First, check out Privoxy's built in web-based configuration page, which allows you to control Privoxy from within your web browser. Don't worry -- you're not connecting to anywhere on the web. The configuration page is right on your computer, so you are accessing only your computer. Select the first link under the Privoxy Menu section (near the top). By default, you can only view the settings (as in the image above), so let's change things so that you can tailor your copy of Privoxy.

As the root user, open the file /etc/privoxy/config in a text editor. About half way through the file, look for the "enable-edit-actions 0" entry. Change it to "enable-edit-actions 1" and save the file. Close out your text editor. Now, refresh the "showstatus" configuration page. Your page should look like the one below.

Now, when you select one of the "Edit" buttons, you will see all kinds of settings, similar to that displayed below. Clicking on the third "Edit" button down causes the following to be displayed (you may have to scroll down the page a bit).

Clicking on the displayed "Edit" button will bring up a window similar to the one below.

Scrolling down the page, you will find many, many settings you can enable or disable. Read through them and enable (green column) the items you want to block -- and disable (red column) the items you wish to allow. The blue column leaves the item set to the default values in Privoxy.

Summary

Overall, Privoxy is an outstanding way to block unwanted advertising when you're browsing the web. But don't be afraid to dig into the other capabilities of Privoxy, which can even serve as a parental content filter. You just have to set it up.

Privoxy is a complete solution for filtering out the web content we don't want to view -- or that we don't want users on our computer to view (like little Johnny and little Susie). With Privoxy, you can now set up ONE content filtering solution that works on all browsers, as opposed to having to install a separate one on each browser you use.

Enhance Your Home Brews With Brew-Target#, Part Two

by loudog

For this tutorial I will select one of my special recipes. Note: Brewing alcoholic beverages at home may not be legal in your area. Please check your local laws before brewing.

Now that the recipe has been loaded, let's check the style parameters.

OK. Everything looks within the style parameters so let's get started. We will begin by selecting the brewday tab and see what step 1 has to say, but first some pre brew day orders, aah, I mean, information. For your first brew, plan on having at least 4 hours to set up, boil your brew and to clean up the mess. Make it easy on yourself, allowing plenty of time with as few distractions as possible. Don't worry too much about mistakes as extract beer brewing is generally very forgiving, and many a great recipe has been discovered through mistakes. Keeping a log of everything you do, including the mistakes, will enable you to recreate the recipe again if it turns out to be an exceptionally good brew. Remember, this is an extract brew, much easier and more forgiving than the traditional all grain brew, the perfect, "first brew".

1) Yeast preparation: Remove your yeast from the refrigerator 1 hour before you start. It's important to let the yeast warm up gradually to room temperature before you pitch it into the wort. 4 to 6 hours is ideal.

2) Steeping the specialty grains: Place the cracked specialty malt grains (such as Crystal Malt, Chocolate Malt, Roasted Barley etc) in the steeping bag (mesh or cheesecloth). Fill the boil pot with 3.5 gallons of cold water, and place the bag in the pot in such a way that it does not touch the bottom. I generally tie it off to one of the pot handles to keep it suspended. Heat to 170 degrees Fahrenheit over medium high heat. Turn off the heat, cover and allow the grains to steep for another 10 minutes or so.

3) Dissolving the malt extract: After you have steeped the specialty grains, remove the bag and allow it to drain into your pot. I use a metal colander over the top of the pot for this. Do not squeeze the bag out, as this will release unwanted tannins into the wort. Throw the steeped grains away or compost them. While stirring briskly, pour in the malt extract and mix until dissolved completely. Any undissolved extract will settle to the bottom of the pot and possibly burn or caramelize. This is undesirable, as it will alter the final product quality, possibly for the worse.

Lactose is a sugar derived from milk. Yeast cannot convert this type of sugar to ethanol. It is used to make some cream and stout beers sweet. Now that we're done with this first step, let's see what the second step has for us.

4) Boiling the wort: You may be tempted to try bringing the wort (beer without yeast) to a boil over high heat, thinking as long as you stir constantly to avoid burning, it will be OK. This is not recommended, as the chances of a boilover are substantially increased. It's best to use medium high. When the wort starts to boil, reduce the heat a little to avoid a boil-over. The potential for boil-overs is high, so find the sweet spot with the heat. After you are comfortable with the pot boil, add the bittering hops. Now you may set the timer for the additives.

Note: some recipes call for longer boils and different timings for hop additions, additives etc., so some adjustment may be necessary for your particular recipe. Warning: leaving a boiling pot of wort unattended is risky, you may return to a substantial hot sticky mess that your significant other will not look upon favorably (you will instantly recognise..... the look), possibly putting the skids on future brews, not to mention that caramelized malt extract is very, very, very difficult to clean up! Take it from someone who knows.

Generally speaking, once is enough to learn your lesson. At the beginning, the boil coagulates the proteins into a cruddy sea-foamy kind of floating crust, which is called the hot break formation. This is important, so the beer can be relatively clear of solids in the end product. The cold break, another important phase for clarifying the beer, happens later. The hops are weighed on a digital scale before adding.

5) Adding the hops: In beer, hops add bitterness, flavor and aroma. The longer a hop is in the boil the fewer flavors and aromas it will provide as heat degrades the flavor and floral qualities of hops as the lupulin oils isomerize into bitterness. Also, the longer a hop is in the boil the more bitter the beer will become. Hops added for 60 minutes will produce only bitterness. Hops added at the last 15 minutes of the boil will produce a minimal amount of bitterness, lots of hop flavor and a little aroma. Hops added at the last 0 to 10 minutes of the boil will add no bitterness, very little flavor and lots of aroma. Add your hops according to the times and amounts listed in the recipe. Be sure to stir in the hops, making sure they are fully saturated and rolling with the boil. Hops that are not fully saturated tend to float at the top and create a thermal blanket, a common cause of boil overs.

6) Irish Moss: Irish moss is not Irish or moss. Then what in tarnation is it? It is a seaweed. It helps coagulate proteins in the wort during the cold break to further clarify your beer. As a general rule, add the Irish moss to the last half hour of the boil, if the recipe calls for it. I have had good results without it, but for a light steamer beer, or amber ales, it does make a noticeable difference in the final clarity.

7) Gypsum: Gypsum increases the hardness of water and aids in the clarification process. Gypsum also helps to accentuate hop profile. Depending on your local water chemistry, you may or may not need to add this. I have had undesirable results on each and every occasion I used this in a DME (dry malt extract) and LME (liquid malt extract) recipe. Note: In my opinion, this product is more targeted toward all grain brewing and Brew-Target# reflects this.

You see, the reason that there are many different styles of beer originated mostly from water chemistry. A beer brewer would move to a different location, brew up a batch of traditional beer, only to find it was terrible. With experimentation, he would change different parameters of the recipe until he found something that would produce a palatable product. In all grain brewing, (the traditional brewing method) water hardness and pH could and would change everything. The first pilsner came about this way. If memory serves me correctly, the pilsner fiasco is when they started to examine the water as the possible cause of traditional recipes working in one geographical location and not the other. All grain brewing is an art unto itself and my hat goes off to all who brew using this method. Step 3 says stop boiling the wort. Easy enough. So, all knowing Kenobi, what next? Let us consult Brew-Target# for step four, shall we?

Now before we get to the wort cooling information etc, it's time to discuss, 8) Sanitation: The primary fermentor needs to be sanitized just prior to using it. There are many commercial grade sanitizers on the market for brewing, and they all appear to work well. I have had excellent results just using pure grain alcohol (190 proof) on a rag or in a spray bottle and wiping things down and or soaking them thoroughly. This is my preferred method and have never had an infection since I started using it. Chlorine bleach is not personally recommended but I know it is used by some brewers.

Sanitation is important especially with beer as the wort is not usually as acidic (pH of 5.5 - 6) as say a wine must or a whiskey mash, so bacteria tend to really love the worts. On the other hand, yeast enjoy a rather acidic environment, with some whiskey mash and rum wash recipes having a pH clear down to 3.5. Yeast will compete with the bacteria for the food in the wort. Yeast double their colony size about every three hours whereas bacteria will double every 30 minutes or so. Sanitation gives the yeast an edge in this race. The yeast wins the race by converting sugars to ethanol and carbon dioxide which kill the bacteria before they can spoil the wort. It's important to sanitise the fermentors. Be sure your fermenter bucket is food grade quality.

9) Cooling the wort: When the boil is done, it is time to cool the wort. At a certain temperature the solids in suspension suddenly cling together and precipitate to the bottom of the fermentor. This is known as the cold break. If the wort is too hot it will kill the yeast. We want a temperature of 68 to 75 degrees (ideal) although I have pitched yeast up to 80 degrees without any problems as long as things were sanitised properly.

Now we are back to the yeast vs the bacteria race again. Bacteria love the 90's and really hit the race a running at those temperatures, but slow down drastically as temperatures drop, whereas yeast stay at a good jog from 68 to 78 degrees. Henceforth the need to give the yeast another advantage by quickly cooling the wort below 80.

Typically, you can put the pot in the sink or bathtub with cold water or an ice bath. This works fine for most home brewers, but it takes a bit longer than I am comfortable with. There are many wort cooling gadgets out there too, and they all work fine, although some are rather expensive. This is how I do it on a budget. Start the water running in the sink or wherever you have decided to cool the pot so the water is as cold as it can be before filling it. Put the boil pot in the cold water and let it sit for about 15 minutes.

The primary fermenting bucket and a colander should be ready nearby. If you recall, we are trying for 5 to 5.5 gallons of beer and we only boiled 3.5 gallons of wort to begin with, so that leaves us with (minus hop absorption, steeping grains absorption and evaporation) 2.75 to 3 gallons of boiled wort. We still need three gallons of water. The morning before brew day, I boil three gallons of water, cover it and let it cool until evening. Before bed, I put it in the refrigerator. In the morning of brew day I put it into the freezer checking occasionally that it's not freezing. I take this prepared, sanitized, ice cold water and pour it into the primary fermenter, put the colander on top of the bucket, and carefully pour the wort through the colander.

Using a potato masher, I gently press all the liquid I can out of the hops that are trapped in the colander. Then, removing the colander, I stir the bucket of wort fast and furiously for a couple of minutes to aerate. The purpose of aeration is that when you boil water, it loses oxygen and the quickest way to get it back is to stir it hard and frothy. The yeast need this free oxygen in the beginning of the race. You should now get a temperature reading of about 68 to 80. We have successfully completed step four.

This will bring up the subject of 10) Pitching the yeast. Yeast need free oxygen in the first phase of their life to grow quickly and multiply. This is called Yeast Respiration. Be sure that the wort is stirred to a froth before adding it. If in doubt, do it again. And again. During the fermenting process, the yeast quickly use up the available free oxygen and start looking for another source. That source comes from the sugar molecule. The yeast break the molecular bonds of the sugar molecule and harvest the now free oxygen molecule. That leaves a carbon dioxide molecule, an ethanol molecule and some others.

When the wort is properly aerated, pour the vial of yeast into it. If using dry yeast, sprinkle it over the top of the wort. Now that you have added the yeast, you have officially made beer. Snap the lid on the primary, add the airlock (don't forget to put water in it) and put it in a place where the temperature stays around 60 to 75.

Step 6, per Brew-Target#.

Final gravity is important in that, if the sugar has all been used up, then we know the yeast is going dormant. If you don't have a hydrometer or refractometer, you can take a small bit out with a sterile cup and taste it for sugar. This will not work very well for a sweet beer. Some brewers I know just leave it in the primary for a couple of extra days before racking it to the secondary.

11) Fermentation of your beer: Your ale yeast will be happier if kept out of the light. A dark shirt or paper bag wrapped around it will aid in this if you don't have a dark place for it. Check the airlock after 24 hours to see signs of fermentation (the airlock will bubble or something ... like this).

The forces yeast are capable of producing can be moderately explosive. Fermentation usually takes around seven to 10 days. After seven days, monitor the airlock, looking for the bubbles to come about one a minute or less. When this happens, you are ready to rack the beer to the secondary fermentor. It's pretty simple really, keep it warm, dark and let it sit. Our final step is step number 7.

12) Secondary fermentor: Carefully siphon off the beer into the secondary, avoiding sucking up debris from the bottom of the primary bucket. This is called "Racking". Add the airlock to the secondary fermentor. This stage is for the mild aging and clarifying of the beer in a clean, oxygen free environment. This can last from a couple of weeks to a few months, depending on how clear your beer needs to be. This is why a glass secondary is preferred. Some of my primary buckets have a spout mounted a few inches from the bottom so I can transfer the beer that way, instead of siphoning, and they double as bottling buckets. Here are some pictures of transferring to the secondary and a full secondary (glass carboy) with the airlock in place..

After the aging and clarifying stage is done, it's time to begin 13) Bottling your beer. Have ready at least 48 12 oz, or 33 22 oz clean sanitized bottles. The easiest way to sanitize bottles is in the dishwasher, just don't use soap. I usually shake up some 190 proof in each bottle. At this point your beer will be flat, without carbonation. To get the beer carbonated, we need to prime it with some sugar or DME (dry malt extract). In a saucepan, bring one quart of water to a boil, add ¾ cup sugar or 1 ¼ cup of dextrose (corn sugar) or 1 ¼ cup DME. Add 1 teaspoon of lemon juice (lemon juice is optional but makes for a creamier head). Boil for 10 to 15 minutes. Let cool. Now it's time to rack the beer into the bottling bucket. When racking from a carboy a racking cane is very useful.

Remember to suck up about a tablespoon of the yeast from the bottom of the carboy into the bottling bucket. Slowly pour the priming sugar into the bottling bucket while gently stirring to ensure proper mixing. Using the bottle wand, fill each bottle to within 1/2 inch of the top and place a sanitized cap on it to avoid any contamination.

You will notice that when you pull the wand out of the bottle. it will leave some air at the top. This is called headspace. When all the bottles are filled, crimp or snap the caps in place depending on which style of bottle's you have.

14) Storing your beer: Keep the beer at room temperature for the first week to ensure proper carbonation. When the first week is over take one beer and put it into the refrigerator to cool before serving. If upon opening you hear the telltale pfffft sound then your beer is properly carbonated. If not, take each beer and give it a gentle shake once a day for another week and retry. I have never had a batch of beer fail the carbonation process.

15) Aging your beer: Beer requires some time in the bottle to mature, some styles longer than others. Age your beer in a cool dark place (45 - 60). Check the maturation time in your recipe. When you have reached the bottle aging minimum, take a beer and put it into the refrigerator. Taste it to see if it has matured. You will know if it hasn't. Wait another week and try again.

Now beer is a funny critter when it comes to maturing. One day it tastes terrible, and a couple of days later it is totally awesome. I have experienced this very phenomenon. When storing your beer for periods longer than 6 months, it is important to refrigerate it to prevent spoilage. Beer does not have enough alcohol content to keep forever. The average alcohol content of beer is 4.5%. Winemakers know that an ABV (alcohol by volume) of 12% minimum is required to ensure long shelf life. Now crack one open, and enjoy what Brew-Target# has helped you make with your own hands! One final word of caution. While sharing your brews with Tux be advised, after a few he quickly transforms into SuperTux, ten feet tall and bulletproof, ready to save the planet from software slavery.

Game Zone: TeslaGrad

by daiashi

About The Game

Teslagrad is a 2D puzzle platformer with action elements, where magnetism and other electromagnetic powers are the key to go throughout the game, and thereby discover the secrets kept in the long abandoned Tesla Tower. Gain new abilities to explore a non-linear world with more than 100 beautiful hand-drawn environments, in a steampunk-inspired vision of old Europe. You play as a young boy who suddenly finds himself embroiled in a long-forgotten conspiracy, involving the despotic king who has ruled the nation with an iron fist for several years. Jump into an outstanding adventure told through voiceless storytelling, writing your own part. Armed with ancient Teslamancer technology and your own ingenuity and creativity, your path lies through the decrepit Tesla Tower and beyond.

History

Teslagrad was originally conceived as the world of Chroma evolved, derived from another casual-focused multiplayer game called Minute Mayhem. Rain Games stopped the development of the first game, on which the team worked together, in order to focus on Teslagrad, a completely different idea. After getting some funding and moving to a better office, Teslagrad development continued. PlayStation 3 and Wii U versions of the game were announced on May and June 2013, and a first playable demo for the PC was released on August 2013. Later that year, Teslagrad attended indie game events, such as PAX Prime 2013 and Eurogamer Expo 2013, gathering invaluable feedback and being warmly received by players and press.

Features

- Complex puzzles! Put your sense of logic to the test and cleverly manipulate the world around you using electricity and magnetism.

- Explore! Make your way through rich 2D hand-drawn surroundings as you journey into - and beyond- Tesla Tower, picking up use amazing new items as you go.

- Visual storytelling! Tired of all those words in your video games? Have no fear, Teslagrad features not a single snippet of text or squeak of dialogue. Everything is purely visual, and the entire story is told through what you see (and sometimes what you don't see).

- Steampunk powered! Discover a dystopic and mind-blowing rainy-and-brainy setting, presenting a steampunk vision of an old Europe-inspired new world.

- No disruptions! That means no loading screens, no GUI, no cutscenes. Just the game and you.

- Mesmerizing soundtrack! Awesome mix of classical orchestra, with a touch of Russian inspiration and a myriad of metal bits and electrical stuff.

System requirements:

Fully updated PCLinuxOS and Steam

Hardware:

Minimum:

OS: PCLinuxOS

Processor: 2.2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo

Memory: 2 GB RAM

Graphics: Hardware Accelerated Graphics with dedicated memory

Hard Drive: 1 GB available space

About The Company

Rain AS is an Indie video game developer based in Bergen, Norway. Founded in 2010, they are a relatively young company, growing forth from a cooperative community of local artists and programmers.

The games they produce are small, smart, simple and elegantly designed. Being comprised of people who all enjoy many different aspects of gaming allows them to blend these different elements together until they find something that sticks, all in the name of creating an enjoyable video game experience. Everyone on their team is passionate about gaming, and strive to create games that are not only fun, but challenging.

Some Gameplay Screenshots

Getting It To Run

Install Steam via Synaptic (if you don’t have it installed already), then start it. You will need to create a new account, if you do not already have one. Once you have Steam up and running, go to the store tab. Click on the Linux tab if you wish and search for Teslagrad. Click on and download the demo. If you have updated your system, including graphics drivers, you should be good to go.

Screenshot Showcase

Posted by bones,   running KDE

Posted by daniel,   running LXDE

Posted by ff103,   running KDE

Posted by Linuziod,   running Cinnamon

Posted by parnote,   running XFCE

Posted by Ramchu,   running KDE

Posted by Stephen,   running KDE

Posted by TerryH,   running Mate

Posted by xredded,   running KDE

Posted by Yankee,   running LXDE