This entire PDF is licensed together under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License as a whole, and nothing is to be separated, added on to, or modified in any manner.
Clarification on what no derivatives means:
No changes may be made in any way including but not limited to:
the material content and design must be copied as a whole (everything contained in this pdf file)
must be kept in its original form with no additions or subtractions to
And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpiller, and the palmerworm, my great army which I sent among you. And ye shall eat in plenty, and be satisfied, and praise the name of the LORD your God, that hath dealt wondrously with you: and my people shall never be ashamed.
In that day, saith the LORD, will I assemble her that halteth, and I will gather her that is driven out, and her that I have afflicted; And I will make her that halted a remnant, and her that was cast far off a strong nation: and the LORD shall reign over them in mount Zion from henceforth, even for ever.
Behold upon the mountains the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace!
3 M y last 9 years of experience with computers are partially expressed in the following articles.
I stopped using Word within a year because of it crashing so often. That is what interested me in coding (so I could fix the errors) until I found that there was free software available that had over 90 percent of the functionality. And if there was an error, at least I didn’t have to pay hundreds of dollars to call Microsoft or for buying it in the first place. Then when OS X came out, I found that you could buy commercial software from small companies, whose software is much cheaper and their support is much better. A large company should be able to support their products much better and have the money to test it in more conditions for errors, yet they don’t. I have a strong suspicion that the bigger the company, the bigger the scam. It is a similar problem to how the US can possibly lose a war when they are at least 20 years ahead of the other most advanced Army in the world (of the technology that isn’t classified). You can have overwhelming firepower, but if you don’t have the intelligence to focus it at the right place and time, you can be defeated by a much smaller force. I would buy products from Microsoft if they would certify that they hadn’t coded anything on them. People aren’t switching to Linux because of the licenses; they are doing it because Microsoft products don’t work right. Microsoft’s poor quality makes the whole industry look bad and holds back innovation. Why buy new software or a new computer when it doesn’t provide any more real value and the support is still unaffordable?
For $500 I could either do the following
I would open my computer up to the most common virses. Every document I opened could contain a virus. I could lose all the information on my computer.
Word has 20,000 features, but does nothing well. I could get any number of word processors that would perform better for as little as $25 as well as the free one that came with my computer. Word also corrupts your important data, so you lose information. This software made my computer crash all the time. I got rid of it and hardly had any crashes.
Sending other people files in Microsoft formats says I have no respect for myself for my freedom and for the choices of others. Everybody should have to make the same mistake I did. Everybody else who wants to see your documents with all the formatting has to buy the same program because Microsoft uses its monopoly illegally by not sharing its specifications with others so they have a fair chance of competing.
Microsoft has millions of people’s data held hostage in their hidden formats and can at any time demand anything from you for your information, sell it to anyone they want, give out your secrets, and leave you out cold when they decide to no longer support your version.
Microsoft, despite being on certain standards bodies officially, has done many things to hinder open standards. Hiding behind the technicality that Office Systems uses XML, they hide the fact that this will actually hinder the sharing of the data (as there is no formatting in the XML version as well as the ability to make custom structures and now that they are using DRM it is actually a crime to try to write filters for Office Systems) On the HTML standards front, Microsoft continues to add there own way of formatting in where there are already established methods thereby corrupting standards. On the streaming digital video front everyone agreed on the price of mp4 encoding, including Microsoft, but then Microsoft undercut the price for its exclusive format. These are just a few obvious recent examples.
Description Make a PDF from any Windows program that can print from within the print dialog
License
Open Source = free in cost plus not dependent on any company. As
long as a programmer has access to source code which is given away freely,
the idea/software cannot be killed by Microsoft. Of course no spyware or
viruses.
Compatibility
Windows 95and higher
Description Make a PDF from most moderately complex Microsoft Word, Excel, or Powerpoint documents with little need to reformat
License
Open Source = free in cost plus not dependent on any company. As
long as a programmer has access to source code which is given away freely,
the idea/software cannot be killed by Microsoft. Of course no spyware or
viruses.
Compatibility Windows 98 or higher for latest version
Description
Create, Combine, Rearrange, and add Footers and Header from the print dialog
in any Windows application that can print
License
Freeware. No spyware or viruses. Free for as long as the company stays in
business.
Compatibility Windows 98 or higher
Description Advanced PDF creator. Can create PDFs from common file formats and even directly edit PDFs.
License Commercial. You pay to use the software until the company goes out of business. No viruses or spyware.
Compatibility
Windows 95 and higher
Description Create lean PDFs quickly and efficiently from any Windows application that can print from the print dialog
License Commercial. You pay to use the software until the company goes out of business. No viruses or spyware.
Compatibility
Windows 2000 and higher
Description Do anything you can imagine with any PDF and create PDFs from any format and more.
License Commercial. You pay to use the software until the company goes out of business. No viruses or spyware.
Compatibility
Windows 2000 and higher
(They include more powerful features)
L owest End Mac which is equivalent to a mid-range PC now costs $599
There are Mac Mini machines in stock and available in the lowest cost model which you can receive at that price and are fully functional. Dell has only a couple computers in stock and available at the the prices they claim you can get one for. Good luck competing with all the thousands of other customers for those couple PCs. And they still keep on pushing you to add on features which before you reach what the Mac has you will be paying more money.
With bargain PCs you only get a crippled OS. Apple puts the same OS that runs their servers for millions of users on their desktop computers. There are thousands of easy to use, advanced, and inexpensive applications available for the current version of Mac OS X as well as many Mac only applications that cost hundreds less and do design work that isn’t possible on a PC and is of cinema quality. You can run many applications at one time, without any crashes. There are no viruses or spyware circulating on the Internet that will install without you deliberately doing so manually. Mac OS X is easy to fix and does not require extra work to make it secure or fully functional. You can also find any file by what words are in that file instantly.
Apple now uses Intel processors in all their consumer machines models instead of PowerPC which will run a standard Windows XP Home or Pro or Vista on the same machine (the Mac) at the full speed of the machine with no limitations and you can run them simultaneously, share files, and be able to run any software which can run on Windows and your Mac keeps its full warranty even after installing Windows. You can run Windows at exactly the same speed as on the other few PCs with as fast a processor as the Macs come with.
All Macs come with a network card for high speed Internet access and for networking with other computers in your home or office. Macs easily integrate into Windows networks and even auto-detect it while still being secure. Bargain PCs do not come with the capability to network or do high speed Internet and the modems they have for slow Internet access are missing basic components and instead use software to perform basic functions, so your whole computer locks up, when you connect to the Internet. Mac OS X includes a heavy duty web browser, email client, calendaring, and address book that work in any application. Mac OS X also ships with Adobe Flash Player. There are actually more choices in web browsers for Mac OS X than for any other OS.
You can backup your music and your photos to a CD-ROM with one click as well as make CD-ROMs of other data by drag and drop onto the disc and then choosing burn disc from the file menu. You can also backup data automatically with Mac OS 10.5. All you have to do is plug in a USB hard drive. You can get any version of any file ever created through a point and click and instant search graphical interface after the external hard drive is plugged in.
Macs come with a DVD player and DVD- ROM support, so you will be able to install programs that come on DVD-ROM and play DVDs on your Mac. Macs also come with decent microphone, speakers, and soundcard as well as the leading programs to organize photos, movies, TV shows, music, audio books, podcasts, and Internet radio. Macs come with software that allow you to create your own music, movies, podcasts, blogs, and publish photos, movies, and songs to your website or to iPod, iPhone, and Apple TV with a few clicks.
Mac OS X comes with PDF viewing and markup software, PDF creation from any application that can print, and can turn any EPS or Postscript file into a PDF by double clicking on it. You can compress PDFs with one click as well as make industry standard PDF/X-3s. Digital tablets work in any application. Mac OS X gives small developers the ability to create graphics that have cinema quality graphics.
OS X includes Java including the developer suite, the Xcode world class programming software for creating Mac applications, and X-Windows for running Open Source programs that don’t have a complete Mac version available. Mac OS X has optimized access for any Mac application for audio, graphics and video effects, 3d, animations, sql databases, instant search, instant incremental backup, and many more Mac only features that rival anything Adobe can come up with. Cocoa is what Java and .Net are a cheap rip off of. A developer who programmed in .Net and considered an expert spent 1/3 the time developing an application with Xcode even though he had never used it before. Small developers can have the same potential market for their applications when they make Mac only software as they would making Windows only software. They could either have 50% of the Mac market or 2% of the PC market.
Apple support is rated higher than any PC maker and you can talk to Americans who speak without heavy accents, so you can understand what they are saying. This is something you can not do with even the so called superior PC makers. Support only costs $150 for consumer models for 3 years and they cover the hardware, software, and the OS, so there is no passing the buck. This support includes telephone support, on-site repair, parts, and labor warranty. You also have up to one year to pay for the warranty and all Macs ship with a 1 year warranty for free that covers everything but telephone support. To talk to Microsoft for one incident, it costs $200 and they will blame your hardware manufacturer which will blame third party software which will blame Microsoft and the vicious cycle has just began. You get free shipping with Apple products over $100. Dell chargesyou $100 to ship its computers.
by Ben Huot
used in production, design, and publication of Benjamin-Newton network on my Mac
The following are the current tools I use to complete my designs - primarily web based. I use PDF, DjVu, Flash, JPEG, PNG, MP3, OGG, HTML, and CSS to publish my work on the web.
The major brands of software are harder to use and have many bugs. They require a much larger financial commitment all at once. You cannot buy just what you need. It is a one size fits all approach.
Paying more for an application does not make it better. While you can usually return computer hardware (tangible devices and components) with receipt within a month without problems or longer if there is a manufacturing deformity and it is recalled, with software (the stuff you download off the web or buy on a CD-ROM) it is very hard to return for any reason because the software company usually believes that you are asking for a refund to scam them while keeping the product on your computer.
If you’re buying for web design, you can get by with cheaper hardware, for instance. If you are only printing out in black and white or just text you can save money too. You will also often times need different products. Laser printers print out text sharper and have cheaper volume printing costs, but for photos and computer drawings, inkjets do much better.
If you only have $400 to spend on a digital camera, there is no point in finding out how good the ones are that cost more. If you need a 4 megapixel camera, don’t buy one until you have enough money saved.
Make sure it says ”built for OS X and universal”. OS 9 only compatible drivers are not going to work.
Buy a name brand that is good quality and does a good job of supporting Macs. Apple, Canon, Epson, LaCie, Lexmark, and Wacom are good examples.
If your buying something that is on display, try it out first. I found drawings with colored gradients are the most strenuous on printers (my still life drawings are good examples) and digital cameras can almost always get good enough pictures for email or web, but not all print out so well.
Get good deals on hardware at Apples Hot Deals website (updated weekly). These are the leading resellers of Mac hardware and software (although buying from the manufacturer is not a bad idea too. Be sure to read up on the product specifications first and be careful about buying software as it is almost impossible to return.)
Try to get one that integrates with iLife (for digital cameras and portable audio players)
W hy I use and support free software
by Ben Huot
I am a poet, essayist, philosopher, teacher, artist, designer, and disabled veteran. I use the my website to create and deliver content to stimulate people to think. I have written 7 text books and authored 2 picture books to challenge what people think the Bible says and inspire people to think for themselves.
The reason why I use free software is similar to some of the reasons why people began to form languages, why people began to create art, and why people developed unified systems of thought. I use standardized formats to store my work so it will stand the test of time, be accessible to the most people possible, and to guarantee the integrity of my work. I use free software to put this content in a standardized format, because standardized and free define each other.
A common language is important for people and animals to communicate ideas to one another. How would we know what happened in the past if we didn’t have language? How would we work together for common goals without a common type of communication? How would we express feelings to others if we didn’t share similar types of non verbal communication?
When monks wanted to preserve the Bible they did it in a language that wasn’t controlled by one person and they didn’t rely on just one person to copy the text. They used a language that was spoken throughout all of Europe and they could use any tools they could think of to create the Bibles because the grammar for the language wasn’t hidden and managed by a few people.
Art is a form of communication that is greater than the sum of its parts. The arrangement of commonly recognized components makes a powerful message if they are juxtaposed effectively. Words meaning very little when put in the right order can convey complex ideas. Lines, shapes, and colors mean little when standing alone but can motivate a person to action when combined in a certain order. Art is based on common symbols and can spread new ideas which are based on previous ideas which were spread through common symbols. Art multiplies the more it is understood by the greater number of artists and patrons. What if traditional Christmas carols were copyrighted or colors were patented, how would this impede self expression?
When developing a new way of thinking to discover truth, it is fundamental to be consistent. To ensure consistency language and other symbols must be used to mean the same things throughout the entirety of the work. Debate and philosophy are about defining words - primarily nouns, as compared to literature where the bulk of the information is conveyed through adjectives and adverbs. The only way to control the ideas that you want to communicate is to have it free from the control of those in power who are interested in the status quo and not in progress. Having it in a freely distributable format that the powers that be are not in absolute control over is the way to keep the ideas pure.
Why should people who base their work on the freely available discoveries and inventions of others be allowed to keep others from using their work freely? What if someone had patented addition or the wheel, how would we be able to afford an information revolution? Patenting software code and not sharing it with others are similar ideas.
Imagine what it would be like to build on your house without knowing where the electrical wiring was or not knowing what walls were structural. This is the world of Microsoft. The only choice for freedom is Free Software. Where the only standard is price, then free (as in quality) is free (as in freedom).
and am Happy with the Mac
by Ben Huot
My experience with PCs and Macs can be summed up in the following short story by Tolstoy: Walk in the Light while there Still is Light.
The story is about the early church in the Roman Empire. Two friends grew up studying together and one left to start a cooperative community. The other went on into government and business. They continue to meet by chance as they grow older every decade or so and the friend who went into business was convinced to go with his friend to the coop, but was talked out of it every time by a philosopher. Finally, as an old man, he runs away from the philosopher and joins his friend at the coop. He mourns that he waited his whole life to join the coop, but a fellow worker there says ”Walk in the light while there still is light.” While he is still alive he makes the most of his remaining years.
That is the way I feel after seeing the light of the Mac. Remember - it is never too late to give up PCs and go to the Mac.
by Ben Huot
My first reason for leaving Linux was the lack of commercial support. There are now a number of commercial options available for support from several experienced and reputable companies:
For High End systems
For Standard Powered computers
Ubuntu
My second reason for leaving Linux was lack of graphic design applications on the same level as intermediate level commercial programs. There are now graphic design application for all the major areas that I use for my creations that:
Match the commercial programs in terms of:
Excel in the areas of:
Here are some examples:
Kompozer and Bluefish for web design
Text Processing
Graphic Design
PDFs
Publishing
Gedit or Kate for text file editing
Also useful as well for graphic designers as well as most users there are:
Internet
Firefox, Opera (commercial/free), and Konqueror for web browsing, with:
Other Internet
Others
Longevity of content while still keeping it in an editable format
This is the most important part. As an artist it is not just the cost of your tools that matters, but what is most important is that your creation produces the most inspiration and enjoyment. And part of having the most impact is that the creation lasts the longest and others can enjoy it in the future. It would be even better yet, if others could build on it and restore it to its original glory. On other platforms you may be able to save part of your creation into a content that will survive the test of time, but you will not be able to retain all the information and to add to it they will have to use the same tools you have. Most importantly when you use traditional tools, others have to pay, many likely more than they can afford, to access all of your creation. And finally the vendor that sold you your tools will likely go under some time, the bigger they are - the harder they fall, and then you will have lost part of your creation forever.
Why I prefer Linux over Mac OS X Apple reasons:
Macintosh Developer reasons:
Linux reasons:
What Linux doesn’t do that the Mac does
Linux Box Specifications Computer
Note: This time I am going to keep my Mac Mini on hand just in case.
By Ben Huot
BibleTime Neat Bible program. Has all the features of many of the highly rated commercial programs like Logos and Accordance but it is available (by different names/graphical interfaces) for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. The one downside is that it doesn’t contain copyrighted titles like the NIV, but fortunately most of the best works existed before copyright laws were in place or have been done by groups without big publishing houses financing them so they didn’t copyright their work. Also the Linux version allows you to download the books without having to go to your browser (from within the program).
Cinepaint This program was designed from Gimp code to be a video editor for the Movie Industry, but I haven’t figured out how to use it that way, but now that they included brushes from Creative Mac, you can use it very much like Painter.
DebugMode Wink This is not an open source program. It is freeware for anyone, but you cannot distribute it and there is no access to the source code, so if this company gets bought out or goes under all we will have is the binary, so we won’t be able to compile for different platforms or future versions of Linux. Otherwise it is a great program. It is kind of like a $300 program for Linux called Viewlet Builder.
Digikam I recommend Digikam for downloading from a digital camera and organizing photos - to get them out of Digikam, just select the ones you want to export and drag and drop them to another folder. You have to add a camera before it will allow you to import from it.
Flash 7 PlugIn This Flash plug-in works great on any site I have used that needs Flash 7. I think people are running into sites that require Internet Explorer or Netscape to function and are hard coded in. If a developer is dumb enough to limit itself to only Windows/Internet Explorer users, then I would prefer not to use their websites. Check out my site which requires Flash 7 and works perfectly with this plug in.
GFTP I wouldn’t call it easy to set up, but it is fully featured and fairly straight forward to operate once you have configured it.
Good Weather Great application for seeing an entire forecast on the desktop. Just the right size too. 3 downsides though - it is see through, so it is hard to read through dark wallpapers, it is unclear on how to get the code for the city - I think it is the zip code, and you have to right click and select move to get it to move.
HTMLDoc I started using this product in 1999. The really unusual and cool thing about this product is in how it creates PDFs. You make an HTML page with heading 1, subheading 2, subsubheading 3 and it will create bookmarks in the side panel of the PDF file as well as a table of contents and title page. It also supports lists, tables, images, and links. If you want to link from one part of the document to another you can use name anchors and then link to them and they will work within the document. You can also link to pages not in document. I recommend using one long HTML page as that is the easiest way to do it. You can also save all your settings in a file, so you just open that and all your settings are saved for that project. This product is also available for Mac OS X and Windows. It uses the Fast and Light Toolkit for its interface so it is very memory efficient and fast.
Inkscape SVG Vector Illustrator Great intermediate level vector drawing program. Not quite as many features as Illustrator or Freehand but for most uses more than enough features. Very high quality results. You can export to pure SVG to import into Scribus for conversion into a PDF. Also directly exports to PNG.
Jalbum For creating photo galleries I recommend Jalbum which could handle hundreds of files at once and although it is a Java application it worked very fast. It had many beautiful and very customizable themes which displayed perfectly at varying resolutions. You can even choose another language other than your default one for the gallery with some templates. You would want to specify 100% quality jpeg compression too as it defaults to 75%.
Komics A great little application and great selection of comics, but when I first loaded this up it loaded 33 instances of the Gimp -one for each comic. Once I set my image files especially gif to open with Kview by default it worked fine. You have to launch it and then right click on it in your system tray and I recommend just selecting one comic rather than double clicking on the icon and having it open all of them at once.
Nautilus I use Nautilus CD creator to burn data CDs and DVD+Rs. You just open two windows - one with the source directory and the other the CD creator and then drag and drop and then choose burn disc. It really is that easy. If you don’t want to reuse the same files for the next burn, uncheck that options when the dialog pops up.
Nvu I am very impressed by what Linspire was able to do with Netscape Composer as it was very difficult to use as it would link everything in absolutely, so when you saw your web page online it looked fine from your computer, but not anyone else’s. This NVU is a totally different beast. It can handle even very complex stylesheets correctly and you can do everything through graphical menus as well as edit the code by hand when you want to. The one downside is that its stylesheet editor is not easy to use, so I would design your stylesheets separately.
Opera I not only use Opera for testing my website to check it with another browser, but because Opera renders the HTML more faithfully according to what the code actually says than the Mozilla-based browsers do. In other words, if you screw up your code, Firefox will usually figure out what you were trying to do, but not with Opera. This is how Opera helps me as a web designer to develop better code.
Quanta Plus I am very pleased with the capabilities of this HTML editor. The downsides are that its inline preview looks very ugly and it doesn’t have the right schema built in for WML for web enabled cell phones. Also its image map editor does not create all the code you need to get the image map to work through a graphical interface/dialog. You may just want to do imagemaps in Gimp. Also when you load Quanta Plus again it loads a separate instance of the same files so you can end up with two versions of the same file - it can be very confusing and a mess to clean up.
QtFpro Anti Virus I am very happy with QtFpro after trying this one and ClamAV. I like it much better as you have all the options and thereby control you need. And it searched my whole hard drive in 11 minutes. It is also rated much better at finding and eliminating viruses then KlamAV. Remember it takes a number of very stupid decisions to get a Linux virus and they are not circulating in the wild either, but the reason to have anti virus software on Linux is to help out your Windows using friends who are vulnerable to virus attacks.
Spreadsheet Pro/Kspread I don’t use Spreadsheets very often and am not that demanding of them, but I was pleased at how easy it was to use. And I was able to arrange rows alphabetically, after entering them in out of order, under its sort command and I was able to export it with clean HTML markup.
Superkaramba Liquid Kalendar Nice little widget - like dashboard on Mac OS X. Very convenient and useful.
Thunderbird Great easy to use email client with the features most people use like HTML mail and junk mail controls from the makers of Firefox. Has an easy to use and attractive interface and is available for Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X.
Write Pro/Kword I have had trouble with OpenOffice.org crashing and bringing down my desktop when just doing routine editing, so I tried Kword hesitantly as I had used it a number of years ago and then it couldn’t open its own file formats. I was *very impressed* this time. Not only was it very stable, but I was able to use it as a regular word processor by choosing the text document template and it has a print to PDF function like in OS X and can be saved to numerous formats including Palm Doc format and WML for web enabled cell phones. You can also use it like a page layout editor too.
Ximian Evolution Great product like Outlook without the crashes and malware. I use it for basic calendar functions only. If you don’t like its email abilities, try Thunderbird.
gnome desktop environment Hosed my installation. Had to re-install. I think it is Debian specific.
Lphoto I couldn’t even export 80 photos to a gallery. It kept on crashing on me. The Flash template would never load my images. Flash Player works fine for me otherwise and I have the latest version.
Lsongs Nice interface but the audio playback stinks. I played a brand new CD in it and it sounded like it was an old scratched vinyl CD. The CD played fine in Amarok and my Panasonic MP3/CD player. My soundcard is fully supported by Linux as I got my computer pre-installed with Linspire. Go with Amarok - you will be much happier. I do like the Internet radio feature which ironically sounded perfect.
passepartout You have to create a separate XML file for each block of text you want to have in the document. You cannot enter text in the text boxes as with Scribus or even insert a plain text file into the frame. Also there is no way to create a PDF of your file within the program or export it in any standard format. The only way you can get it out of its own format for others to read is to print it out on paper or print to a Postscript File.
by Ben Huot
Now you can get some of these programs either in Synaptic or via Add/Remove Programs, but to get the latest or a different version, do the following.
I found the best way to install the Flash Player from Adobe is to
Java comes with Ubuntu by default as far as I can tell, but can also be downloaded via Synaptic - get the Java Common package.
do not upgrade kernel even when prompted to
if you plan on doing so, do not install via the synpatic multiverse repository
for D esktop Computers
by Ben Huot
A Mac Mini survived 38 hours on the Internet and 4,000 login attempts without being compromised even though it was widely publicized. Secure shell remote login and the web server ports were open. Neither one of these ports are open by default - they have to be manually and purposefully turned on. The only person that got through already had a local account on the machine.
Well I have had no viruses, spyware, or any other malware on my machine and I haven’t done anything for security other than make regular backups. But of course I have a Mac and I have never used a file sharing program. I also don’t have to worry about what I download from the Internet and I could use the included browser that comes with Mac OS 10.3 and higher and still not get any malware. I have also done a major OS upgrade from 10.2 - 10.3 and had no issues at all. I must have had to reformat and install Windows every few months when I had a PC.
You know that a anti-virus program is not a proactive security measure but just a clean up after the fact. You have to wait for the virus to be in the wild for a while first and be infecting machines - maybe yours - before they come up with the fix, then you need to download it and pay money for this capability and then scan everything, hoping of course it is not hidden by a root kit or some other common way to hide the virus from the anti-virus software assuming of course that the anti-virus software works flawlessly every time. Then when you find a virus you want to verify that all your software doesn’t have viruses in it and reformat and reinstall from scratch because just deleting the virus you find may not be good enough because you could get reinfected if part of the virus wasn’t found. Then you need to restore all your data from backups after you scan them for viruses and then verify every piece of data you have on the backups and make sure it is all there and nothing was modified. Basically if you care about your data, don’t use Windows or MS Office.
Then of course you can run into problems how Windows corrupts software or how you can lose data when you run defragmenting software if there is a power outage - another thing not necessary on a Mac or any other form of UNIX.
by Ben Huot
I used ink on rice paper at first to do my first Chinese Watercolor, a bamboo branch. First, you have to soak the brushes until they lose their shape - I did it for about an hour. Then, you have to clear off a desk and put felt underneath where the paper will go to shield the desk from the ink. Next, you grind the ink stick on the stone block very quickly for 3 minutes using the same end every time and the water overflows. Then you have to cut the rice paper - preferably at least 10 to practice on. Then you hold the brush vertically - the brown one - and draw a straight line with one stroke across the paper while letting the brush rest slightly at even intervals. It is very hard to get the thickness right as the ink either spreads out too much on the paper or not enough and it is also hard to get the ink dark enough but not too dark. Next, you grind the ink stick on the stone block very quickly for 3 minutes using the same end every time and the water overflows. Next you draw little branches by just dipping in a tiny bit of ink and sketching dear horn shaped branches with the same brush. The difference in size is about 10 to one. Next, you grind the ink stick on the stone block very quickly for 3 minutes using the same end every time and the water overflows. Then the hard part is barely touching the brush at first and then pressing down more firmly and gradually tapering your stroke in one motion. If you are good you will make it after starting from scratch only 10 times. You drawing will look like a blob. Then you have to dry all the ink on the stone and throw away 90% of your work.
I found that it was easier painting on the computer with the free software program GIMP. It is available for Windows, Mac, and UNIX. It took me about a tenth the time to do it on the computer even with all the time to set the settings for the brushes as follows.
Use the Ink tool that looks like a pen with the following settings
The technique is the same except it is easier to control, you don’t have to mess with getting the ink right, or cutting the paper and starting from scratch. The size I used was the default but I changed the resolution to 300 dpi, so the size quadrupled to about 1000 pixels squared. I drew it at 50% view. To undo, right click on the painting and choose ”edit - undo” and save by right clicking and choosing ”file- save”. The first time specify the file name - I chose bamboo.xcf - this saves it with the layers if you decide to work with those. When I was done I right clicked on the drawing and chose ”filters-artistic-apply canvas” to get it to look like you drew it on paper. You might want to change the opacity for the branches to 50% and choose 75% for the stalk, so you can outline it at the joints at 100%. I cropped it at the end by clicking on the knife tool and selecting the area I wanted to keep and then clicking on the ”crop” button. I then saved it as a bamboo.png for my portfolio. I then reduced it by right clicking on the drawing and choosing ”image-scale image” and then putting in 72 dpi for the resolution and changing the horizontal value to 200 - in that order.
This is my first painting on the computer and one of only two things I have ever painted in my lifetime that I remember. I did this on a laptop with a touch point.
by Ben Huot
Always
Possible
Not Possible
by Ben Huot
LaTeX is a professional typesetting language like Postscript. It is a type of structured document format like the XHTML and Cascading Style Sheets combination where the content is separated from the layout, but it is specific to page layout and includes formatting and content in one file like HTML. This is especially useful in technical writing like scientific journals and technical manuals. It can output to the more easily displayed Portable Document Format (PDF). Like HTML, It can be coded with a text editor like TeXShop or laid out graphically in a What You Mean is What You Get (WYMIWYG) editor like LyX (both with native Mac versions) as with most web languages. It is an open source language so it can be used with low cost tools, it has longevity, and it works cross platform. It is also very stable as it has been around for over 20 years.
There are 3 major types of documents: Article, Book, and Report; which all have Title, Author, and Date headings. The structure that works with all three is Section, Subsection, and Subsubsection. There are three major types of lists: Description - which lists the items with a descriptor to the right of it, Enumerate - which numbers the list items, and Itemize - which puts bullets in front of each list item. There is also a simple automated system for footnotes and quotations.
There is also an easy way to style arbitrary text in the familiar bold, medium, italic, plain text, small caps as well as relative font sizes reminiscent of HTML. LaTeX commands start out with a back slashes and make frequent use of curly brackets, so to make single spaces after line endings, you just enter 2 back slashes in a row at the end of each line. This works great for poetry.
I recommend using a specialized text editor that has LaTeX functions built into it, so you don’t have to actually type the code freehand. TeXShop on the Mac uses the built in OS X service that spell checks on the fly which is nice too. So far LyX doesn’t handle changes in formatting without throwing out errors. LaTeX is very good at mathematical formulas but doesn’t display photos at a clear resolution. If you are inserting drawings, put them in either Encapsulized Postscript format or PDF. The TeX and Ghostscript system of required software is a couple hundred MBs, so you need a broadband connection to download it.
by Ben Huot
Vector drawing is a way of creating art on the computer. Drawings programs differ from painting programs. In drawing programs, all attributes of every object are always editable. In painting programs, once you put down a brush stroke, you can’t cut it out very easily and cleanly. In painting programs, you can use similar techniques to what is done with paint on a canvas, but with drawing programs you have to understand more about how the computer works.
In vector drawing, the illustration has a certain structure to it like a skeleton and it has attributes that hang on it like flesh.
The first step is to create the structure or outline. I use three techniques, depending on the complexity of the shapes. For the most basic shapes, I use rectangles and ellipses which I join together in different patterns. For more complicated outlines, I draw freehand with my digital graphic pen and tablet. For the most complex patterns, I draw a draft outline with straight lines and then cut out the corners and attach pieces of ellipses in to make a delicately curved piece.
After the outline is complete, then you can choose a fill - a solid color, gradient, or pattern and then a stroke - watercolor, pastel, oil, ink, etc. You can also choose a bevel or a soft edge. You don’t have to have a stroke if you don’t want to.
Then if you want to change any aspect of the drawing, you can at any time and it will still look clean and the change can be made easily. When you finish the drawing, in order to share it on the web or send it by e-mail, you have to save a copy of it as a bit map - most likely a PNG at 300 DPI for printing or JPEG 100% quality at 72 DPI for display on the screen. Make sure you add the appropriate extension to the filename.
by Ben Huot
One of the most important steps to take in order to share your completed work to as wide an audience as possible is to save in standardized and free formats. There are different formats for different types of files. Some are primarily for text and layout for printing while others are primarily moving formats for display on the screen, and there are a number that fall in between these two extremes. These formats are common on the Internet and can be viewed freely by anyone on most any computer with a variety of software. Remember to save your work first in the native format and then either export or save as in the free format after you have completed the work.
The most widely used free formats for text and layout are HTML and PDF. HTML is primarily suited for display on a wide variety of different sized computer screens and PDF is optimized for printing and precise layout. Putting graphics into a HTML page works well for picture galleries designed for fast loading on the web or for logos, while embedding graphics in PDF files works better for complex layouts especially ones that have special sizes and are made to be printed out. For short articles filling one screen, HTML is the best format, while text taking up more than one page is easier to save, view, and print in PDF format.
There are two major free formats for still pictures. JPEG at 72 DPI and at 100% quality works best for viewing on the screen as it takes up less space and PNGs at 300 DPI are the smallest size that retain all the quality necessary for printing at high resolutions. The most widely used formats for interactive or moving content are Flash and Quicktime. Flash is useful for simple animations and for moving logos. Quicktime is good for precise layout on the screen and for combining MP3 and MIDI audio, Flash animations, text, and JPEG pictures. It also can be navigated interactively or can be used for motion pictures.
by Ben Huot
I started out with a plain text LaTeX file and then converted it to many other formats. All these conversions can be done most easily on Ubuntu Linux.
Finding the Command Line To run a command line program, you need to find a Terminal, Console, Konsole, or X-Term entry in your programs menu, if you are running KDE, GNOME, or XFCE desktop environments. Once you open the Console/Terminal, you will see either a solid black or solid white background upon which you will see the name of your login and the name of your computer (prompt).
How to Enter Commands You type commands (program names) after the prompt. Most command are structured like this program_name -options filename. To get exact syntax for command line programs, enter man command or command --help with command being replaced with the name of the command. Replace the word filename with the name of the file you wish to convert.
How to Copy and Paste You can also copy and then paste commands from web pages or any other format that has selectable text. To so this, you highlight the command sequence and then middle click after the prompt and then click enter.
How to add programs to Ubuntu via Synaptic