Web design & FOSS

I tried to edit an Adobe Photoshop file the other day. It had sparkling stars created using Layer Effects, so I couldn't use GIMP. I found out this is what you have to go through to get a trial version:

1. Create an Adobe Account.
2. Install Adobe Download Manager, which requires Java (TBH, I gave up here).
3. Start downloading the 815.5MB file.
4. Have a cup of tea.
5. Come back and take a while to install.
6. After 30 days, pay £614.10 in the UK for a license.

Or you can download GIMP:

1. Download 16.1MB (and that's including GTK).
2. Install. For free. As in price and liberty.

I know, Photoshop is more feature-rich than GIMP. But that's not the point. It is bloatware, proprietary bloatware that has a monopoly.

On a similar note, is it illegal to install Photoshop on a virtual machine, and then revert to a snapshot when the trial period runs out? Not that I can be bothered...

I've started a couple of weeks work for a MegaBuck MegaCorp, hacking my way through a jungle of CSS with Geany, the machete of the Linux text editor world. There are a few interesting signs:

1. I'm being paid exactly the same amount as when I started out as a web builder proper back in July 1999. That's 10 years at the front-end coalface. Time to shift sideways into training perhaps. Training is more fun (if you like explaining, informing, cajoling and entertaining complete strangers) and it should pay more.

2. Unbeknownst to me, I'm sat in exactly the same seat as an old colleague Stu@ vacated just 2 days ago! It's a small world, and he reckons that there is no more than 10 front-end developers in the whole of London.

3. I am using my own laptop, as apparently there isn't the budget even for mices. This doesn't bother me overly, though it does strike me as a tad cheeky. The upside is that I'm using Ubuntu in a shared production environment for the first time ever. This includes GIMP, Geany, Evolution and Firefox.

4. I have had to find a GUI Subversion version control client for Linux. I had a look at RapidSVN but this is a standalone program. Then I found RabbitVCS, a Subversion client that integrates nicely with [Nautilus]. All is looking rosy, they're using the Subversion hosting service Beanstalk (which is new to me), apart from there's an error importing the repository. If at first you cannot fix it, then try again tomorrow...

5. I am by far the oldest in this glass-walled cube they call an office.

I'm teaching a Graphic Design with Inkscape course on Thursday, and had hoped to debut Kentish Motley Net, my collection of old skool Dell Latitude c640 laptops, lashed together with a dash of Karmic Kola and free open source creative apps.

But alas, I have landed myself a couple of weeks work at another huge corporation with too many faces, hand-crafting microsites for the pop-paying public. The workaround is fantastically simple and only achieveable with the ethos and practicality of Free Software: the Live CD. But which one?

I plumped for pure:dyne, leek+potato flavor. This used to be based on dyne:bolic, a rad, principled, media Live CD distro, and is now based on Debian. The pure in pure:dyne comes from Pure Data, a high-level development environment for creating real-time music and visuals, along the lines of Max/MSP. It also comes chocka full of other media apps, including Inkscape. And GOTO10, the people responible, are a very nice bunch.

Thanks pure:dyne :)

After reading Adrians blog post Mind mapping software as a lifecycle management tool, I thought about how much of a mess my life is. Not a bad mess, I hasten to add, but a diaphonous morass of must-do's, could-have-beens, maybe-one-days. I would like to do so much.

So it was with a degree of self-interested interest that I came across GTD. This stands for Getting Things Done, a “lifecycle management approach” that Adrian would be proud of.

Essentially there are 3 parts: workflow, framework process and planning. The core idea, at the heart of the workflow, is to get everything down, all ideas, get them out on a regular basis. Dump your brain. You then use the tool of your choice (paper, index cards, software) to process the ideas into actions which you do, delegate, schedule or transform into projects.

The framework process is each week to take time out to focus on different levels, from current actions through to life goals.

The planning, as far as I can see, comes in useful examining and shaping your projects.

I have come across some very exciting software called Thinking Rock, a cross-platform Java application which has been designed for the GTD approach. It takes a while getting used to, as you are supposed to add everything regularly in the Collect process rather than firing off like a loose cannon. My hopefully most helfpul tip is to use the Projects view to organise your actions into some sort of framework (see screengrab below).

I am also trying out the Novell Evolution PIM (Personal Information Manager), which is very Gnome-like in its simplicity/lack-of-customisationism. The integrated calendar is pretty swish though, next step is to integrate it more with Thinking Rock.

What I have found is that using my previously-mentioned The Google Mail-Hosted IMAP Email Anywhere Experience, it's really easy to set up a new email client. The only bugbear is setting up new rules. Also, Evolution plays ball pretty well with Google Calendars.

Now, what was I supposed to be doing...?

I've written a MegaListOne of all the things I needed to do when creating a new install of Ubuntu GNU Linux for my workshop laptops that I'm setting up. I was actually quite amazed at how long it takes and how much there is to do once you're out of the box.

Configuration, eh?

• Create "guest" - full rights
• Sound theme: No sounds
• Nautilus: list view, smaller icons
• Touchpad: disable mouse clicks, scrolling disabled
• Theme: Dust Sand controls, New Wave Window border, icons dark humanity
• Change selected color
• Clock: 24 hours, display with seconds
• Install Simple CompizConfig Settings Manager, choose Minimal + simple switcher
• Install fonts into /home/guest/.fonts (arial, calibri, cambria, candara, comic, consola, constantia, corbel, courier, droid, franklin, georgia, impact, lucida, palatino, profont, symbol, tahoma, times, trebuchet, verdana, webdings)
• Install software
  o Install add-ons (including xmarks & html validator, and Benjamin Drung's workaround ppa)
  o Install GNOME Do
  o pyRoom
  o pyRenamer
  o Inkscape
  o create resources
  o Scribus NG 1.3.5 from appnr.com
  o Scribus doc
  o Scribus template
  o Tux Paint
  o Filezilla
  o Dia
  o Freemind (and openjdk)
  o Geany & plugins
  o Jack
  o Audacity
  o VLC
  o Pure data 0.41-4-1
  o Avidemux
  o vrms
  o supercollider
• Add .gimp preferences
• Add System Monitor to panel
• Clean up startup applications
• Create same settings for guest user