My Life in Practice

Mount ISO Image in Linux

Victor Wiebe — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 14:05:42 +0000

Ever wanted to mount an ISO image in Linux in a directory, instead of burning it to a CD/DVD first? Here’s how.

mount -o loop -t iso9660

For example:

mount -o loop -t iso9660 /tmp/filename.iso /mnt/filename

Photo of the Day: Midwinter Moon

Victor Wiebe — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 04:01:50 +0000

I snapped this picture really quickly. In hindsight, I should have used a tripod, tightened up the aperture, and took a longer exposed shot.

Camera: Sony a100

Focal length: 300mm

Effective focal length: 450mm

Aperture: f/5.6

Exposure time: 1/100

ISO: 400

The HTC Tilt 2

Victor Wiebe — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 00:07:18 +0000

We upgraded cell phones last week. Our contract with AT&T had expired, so we started to shop around for a new provider. As it turns out, for what we need, AT&T is still the least expensive carrier.
A couple years ago I had purchased the HTC Tilt from AT&T, and really liked it. The only downside was its small 320×240 touch screen. This time I got the Tilt 2, with an upgraded O/S – Windows Mobile 6.5 – and a much better touchscreen – 800×480.
I happen to like Windows Mobile – I am familiar with it, and the TouchFLO interface is really nice. This post, in fact, was posted using Windows Mobile and MoBlog.

Photo of the Day: Berries in Snow

Victor Wiebe — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 11:52:35 +0000

Camera: Sony a100

Focal length: 300mm

Effective focal length: 450mm

Exposure time: 0.002s (1/500)

Aperture: f/5.6

ISO: 320

Photo of the Day: Lone Birdhouse

Victor Wiebe — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 11:49:51 +0000

Lone birdhouse against the snow. For some reason this photo reminds me of winter on the prairies back home, despite it being taken in a back yard on the east coast.

Camera: Sony a100

Focal length: 300mm

Effective focal length: 450mm

Exposure time: 0.008s (1/125)

Aperture: f/11.0

ISO: 100

Linux as an O/S

Victor Wiebe — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 12:33:16 +0000

I have very recently switched the Operating System on my home desktop from Windows Vista to Linux – Ubuntu 9.10 in fact. I did this not out of some hatred for Windows (which I do not have), but rather due to the fact that my Windows installation suddenly Quit Working. It was very strange. Without warning, it suddenly quit allowing me to add new hardware via USB, and would instead demand the driver for each and every device, including a USB mouse and hub, which should have the most generic drivers about. After messing with it for about a week with no cure in sight, including at least two full restores from the restore partition, I decided that I had to take drastic action.
My biggest concern, of course, was whether I would be able to actually use the system after it was re-imaged with Ubuntu: essentially, would I still have access to decent applications that let me do what I normally do with the computer.
That said, my computer requirements are not all that demanding. I do not play any heavy 3D games (in fact, I don’t think I play more than flash games on the computer at all), and I have been trying very hard to perform a lot of my work “in the cloud” with web-based applications (Google Docs, Zoho, etc). My primary requirements with Windows and Linux alternatives are listed here.
Office Suites
Windows: Microsoft Office and Google Docs
Linux: Open Office and Google Docs
Really, there is no issue for me to deal with here. Open Office and Google Docs do everything I need from an office suite. There are some formatting differences, and I might run into a problem at some point if I ever need to provide a highly formatted document to an Office only user, but so far I have no issue. In fact, I have been performing all my work so far with Google Docs and have been very happy with it. My one biggest wish for it is that it provided better paragraph and line formatting: it does not appear to have the ability to double-space lines, while I believe Zoho does. Open Office, of course, does as well
There are other office suites available: there is KOffice for the KDE desktop and “Gnome Office” for the Gnome desktop, both of which are very feature rich. I really like the look and feel of the KOffice applications but don’t think they are yet quite as full featured as Open Office.
Notekeeping
Windows: Evernote desktop client
Linux: Evernote web client
I use the free version of Evernote and find the web client does all I need it to do.
Internet
Windows: Firefox, Chrome, Internet Explorer
Linux: Firefox
There are actually a tonne of web browsers available for Linux, many more than I have ever found for Windows. The key one is Firefox. Also, with Crossover Office from Codeweavers, it’s possible to cleanly install a good copy of Internet Explorer.
Graphics and Photo Software
Windows: Picasa, Artweaver
Linux: Picasa, Gimp
I’m an amateur photographer and really like to take photographs. I like to really push my camera to the limits. Now, despite that, I really don’t do a lot of heavy photo-editing to change the look and feel of a photograph; I might do some minor touch ups to correct contrast, and may touch up a face to remove some blemishes, but otherwise my belief is that a photograph should be as close to an actual representation of what the photographer sees as possible. So, I don’t need Adobe Photoshop, and have never found the need to purchase it. Picasa and Artweaver (which has a nice free version) have always been good enough for me. Though Artweaver does not have a Linux port, Picasa is available from Google (due to the magic of wine) and Gimp is a more than acceptable alternative for Artweaver.
Cartooning
Windows: Manga Studio, Genius Pentablet (hardware)
Linux: , Genius Pentablet (hardware)
Now I begin to have problems. I did purchase a version of Manga Studio for Windows to help me in my very amateurish cartooning attempts. Manga Studio has way many more features than I need, but the primary requirement I have is to do away with pen and paper – I like to draw directly onto the computer using the pentablet. Unfortunately, there is nothing like Manga Studio available for Windows. Fortunately, it seems to install nicely (mostly) with Crossover Office. There have been a few hiccups, but mostly it appears to work.
The Pentablet took some work to get working too. There are instructions located on Ubuntu Forums, but I found what worked a lot better is running the debian package and rebooting. Works nicely.

GeniusMousePen-Driver_0.7.0_i386.deb
Video Editing
Windows: Pinnacle Studio 12
Linux: Openshot, Kdenlive
Now we really begin to get into features where Linux has a ways to go. There are a lot of good video editors for the beginner/amateur like me available for Windows. There are not so many for Linux. Granted, the biggest difference is that the main video editors for Windows are commercial products, but they are available. I have a version of Pinnacle Studio 12 that I really do like. I have yet to try installing it on Linux with Crossover Office, but I’m also not holding my breath for success.
The two Linux editors I’ve had some success with are Openshot and Kdenlive video editors, and even these leave me with a quandry: Kdenlive seems to have more features, but Openshot has so far been better able to export a movie to a format I want. What I might end up doing is using Kdenlive to edit the movie and save in AVCHD format, then import into Openshot and convert again. Or maybe I can find a converter.
There is also cinelerra, which is, from what I have been told, a “production ready” application for editing and compositing. It looks, to me, very complex to learn, and I don’t have that much time. I like “plug and play” applications, so to speak.
Blogging
Windows: Windows Live Writer
Linux: Scribefire (Firefox addon)
I will actually very much miss Windows Live Writer. I like it a lot. Scribefire is good, but doesn’t really compare. All my blogs use Wordpress, so perhaps I’ll start really using the interface that comes with it for blogging.
What I Will Miss
I have a Zune and am currently wondering how I’m going to sync it: there is no Zune software for Linux. I might need to move all the music to my wife’s computer.

Photo of the Day: Icicle Falls

Victor Wiebe — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 11:45:54 +0000

I’m back to icicles again. They surround my house and I find them really pretty, especially on this one tree.

Camera: Sony a100

Focal length: 55mm

Effective focal length: 82mm

Exposure time: 0.013s (1/80)

Aperture: f/5.6

ISO: 400

Photo of the Day: The Quiet Side of Gaming

Victor Wiebe — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 11:43:11 +0000

Every now and then the Wii is so intense that not even the boys remember to jump up and down.

Camera: Sony a100

Focal length: 60mm

Effective focal length: 90mm

Exposure time: 0.010s (1/100)

Aperture: f/5.6

ISO: 400

Photo of the Day: Bagel Face

Victor Wiebe — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 11:39:27 +0000

Yes, the baby does love food.

Camera: Sony a100

Focal length: 70mm

Effective focal length: 105mm

Exposure time: 0.008s (1/125)

Aperture: f/5.6

ISO: 400

Photo of the Day: Baby Cookie Jar

Victor Wiebe — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 11:34:32 +0000

Caught the baby today with his hands in the “cookie jar,” so to speak.

Camera: Sony a100

Focal length: 50mm

Effective focal length: 75mm

Exposure time: 0.031s (1/80)

Aperture: f/5.6

ISO: 400