Car Wheel Tutorial
I am really impressed with the Blender Guru site. And I love the new tutorial up there on how to make realistic tires.
It uses mirroring and the array tool. Very nicely done!
Boxee and Hulu Desktop
There is a great article over at MaximumPC about how to build your own rig (power pc) that sits in your living room and allows you to watch movies, online TV, and other goodies.
This used to be the reason for MythTV but Boxee and Hulu Desktop are making it possible for every pc user to run a customized cable/movie/DVR system from their own computers. All be it - you need a nice rig to handle the power and HD playback.
I would love nothing more than for “Big Cable” to disappear.
Linux for DVD Burning
I was attempting to put some video onto a DVD. Instead of having an ISO image, which is pretty easy to put onto a DVD I had Video_TS folders in Windows. I attempted to use Imageburn and Deepburner to get the data onto a DVD, but in a way so that it would play in a DVD player, and hopefully keep all the menus intact.
After a few issues, I gave up and booted into Ubuntu and used K3B, a very nice burning software built for linux. I was actually able to simply highlight all the video files in the Video_TS directory (which I could access because Ubuntu mounts the windows partition) and drag them into a project in K3B. After burning I had a DVD that played back in a DVD player and had working menus and everything.
It was that straight forward. Get Ubuntu!
Joomla for Church
Very happy to see a Geeks and God podcast on Joomla for the church. We just put up a Joomla site for our church and it is working out well.
Just a quick thanks to Christian Templates Online for providing Joomla made themes for ministry.
Confricken Windows
I love this. http://www.itworld.com/security/65031/free-tool-capture-conflicker-scans-and-probes
You want a software tool to scan and capture the Conficker worm spreading through Windows operating systems? You can download a linux tool to do just that from MicroSolved.
Use the Penguin to save Windows.
This is Cool!
I have always had this idea of using blender3d to make a kids show or cartoon. I had an artist friend one time draw up some mock sketches of some characters we came up with.
Check this out - http://www.blendernation.com/2009/03/20/jellibots/
Someone actually took a stab at a kid’s show. The real site is linked from inside the blendernation article. These jellibots look great. They have great shine, they seem to be animated very well, and I think it’s a real cute concept to have jellies that take on robot exteriors. You could do a lot with that concept.
I will look forward to seeing these episodes.
Ubuntu Intrepid Server Glitch
There is a glitch I have found in installing Ubuntu Server 8.10 - Intrepid. There is a “bad sector” error that appears when you try to install the server ISO. I made sure I used two different ISO’s and I burned each of them separately and still got the error.
The issue was that the server install does not like two hard drives on one IDE cable, or even a hard drive and cdrom on one IDE cable.
The most success I have had in installing Intrepid Server is to use the live CD to install Intrepid desktop and then install Apache2, Mysql, and PHP from the terminal. With this method I was able to get a full server install with no errors and no issues.
Gotta love the live CD!
Facebook Extremes
Wow…talk about doing a 180. From gaining rights of everything you submit to going open-sourced, Facebook is still in the news.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10173972-16.html
How Great Ubuntu Is
I had to test out some Joomla and Ubuntu server issues the other night so I did a fresh install of Ubuntu 8.10. Then I installed Mysql 5.x, PHP5, Apache2 from command line after that. Then I downloaded Joomla 1.5.9 and used the “unzip” command in the terminal for the first time. That was fun. I am liking the terminal more and more.
Ubuntu is great. I did not have to get any LAMP component to talk to the others. They all worked great off of a terminal install, even after a full desktop install. I did however install PHPMyAdmin so that I could add databases and users to Mysql through a gui. So I guess I chickened out there!
Xubuntu is suppposed to be a lighter, better version to run on older machines. But Ubuntu Intrepid is actually running faster and better than the Xubuntu install I previously had on it.
Just so you know my box is:
AMD Duron 1.6 Ghz, Gigabyte Mobo, old Geforce 2 Mx400 Video, 1 GB Ram — Intrepid is smooth on this box.
Great Place for RAM
There isn’t a pc around that couldn’t use a tad more (or a lot more) memory. The people at Memory Up have good prices and a nice database to search for the right kind.
I have used them a few times for my employer and for other people and they have been great. Usually more RAM makes gaming and surfing that much better.