HOWTO print multiple photos in one page with Linux

If you need to print photos with conventional printers, one photo per page probably is not always good idea, because it is either too big, or waste too much paper and ink.

Luckily, in Linux there are at least 2 choices:
After select the photos you want to print:

1. Shotwell: File->Print -> Page Setup.
   And in “Page per side”, you can choose how many photos you want to put in a page.
2. Gwenview: Plugins -> Images -> Print Assistant -> Select page layout.

Quick comparison between Astrid and Producteev

Astrid is acquired by Yahoo. LifeHacker does not seem to keen on it.

While I am quite satisfied what astrid android app generally, it is always good to check some alternative. Producteev was my favorite before astrid provided their own interface, so today I spend a few minutes to do a quick comparison.  I haven’t tried the voice task assignment because I never use it.

My finding:

Astrid

Pro:

• Very impressive client.
• It encourages you to finish tasks.
• Good recurrent support: Daily, Weekly, Fortnightly, Monthly, and so on
• Snooze function to postpone reminders and tasks.

Con:

• Some of widget do not work.
• Server-> Client sync does no work: Client still remind you the tasks which you ticked-off at server.

Producteev

Pro:

• Professional looking Web UI
• Multiple workspace support
• Server->Client sync does work: though it might be slow.

Con:

• Client looks exactly like the trim down version of WebUI.
• No so good recurrent support:
  • It does not support fortnightly recurrent
  • It does not update to the next date when you finish the current one.

Seems like I will stay with astrid for a little while.

libchewing-0.3.4 Update

終於騰出手來把 libchewing-0.3.4 推入 Fedora。

libchewing-0.3.4 本身的更新有：

• 增加了 THL-Pinyin (台灣華語羅馬拼音) 和 MPS2-Pinyin (注音二式) 鍵盤
• 把原先在 /usr/share/chewing 的資料檔搬到 /usr/lib(64)/libchewing，解決了multilib conflict
• 修正了部份 data/tsi.src 的問題

我自己在  Fedora 那邊又把 data/tsi.src 理一遍，以解決 Problem in phrase 的錯誤。

當詞的發音沒有包含在字音列表，就會產生這個問題。

如「統統 ㄊㄨㄥ ㄊㄨㄥ」，因為「統」本身只有「ㄊㄨㄥˇ」，所以會報錯。

我主要是按照下列規則來修的：

增加字音：

1. 教育部辭典有
2. 平常人發音會「轉音」，比方說前面講得統統。
3. 台語有這個音。比方說「哭爸 ㄎㄠˋ ㄅㄟ」

要是不符合上面的，那就把詞中的音換成其他的，像是

「油桐花 10 ㄧㄡˊ ㄊㄨㄥˊ ㄏㄚ」換成 「油桐花 1 ㄧㄡˊ ㄊㄨㄥˊ ㄏㄨㄚ」

 

 

 

 

Add xmonad-xfce to gdm

It is easy to find instructions of how to make xfce to use xmonad as window manager. However there is no article I aware that adding a xmonad-xfce to GDM, yet keeping the original XFce.

Step by step:

As root:

1. cd /usr/share/xsessions; cp xfce.desktop xmonad-xfce.desktop
2. Edit xmonad-xfce.desktop and make following to change
   a. Search Xfce and replace with Xmonad-Xfce (case sensitive)
   b. Change the line Exec=…. to Exec=PREF_WM=xmonad startxfce4

As normal user:

1. Having a a following script file, assume its name is ifvar

   VAR_NAME=$1
   VAR=$(eval echo \$${VAR_NAME})
   THEN_CMD="$2"
   ELSE_CMD="$3"
   
   if [ -n "${VAR}" ]; then
   	eval ${THEN_CMD}
   else
   	eval ${ELSE_CMD}
   fi

2. Edit ${HOME}/.config/autostart/WM_Selector.desktop as following

   Encoding=UTF-8
   Version=0.9.4
   Type=Application
   Name=WM selector
   Comment=Window manager selector
   Exec=ifvar PREF_WM "exec ${PREF_WM} &" "exec /usr/bin/xfwm4 &"
   StartupNotify=false
   Terminal=false
   Hidden=false

3. Logout, you should see the xmonad-xfce in your GDM menu

ibus-table-chinese-1.4.5 Released

本次更新：

 

- Fixed Bug 855250 – Change the default filtering for Quick and Cangjie
- Fixed Google Issue 1405: failed to build ibus-table-chinese due to missing db files
- Fixed Google issue 1507: Add CJKV Extension C/D support for Array30
- Merge GitHub Pull request 3: Added the inter punct
- Merge GitHub Pull request 4: Give Cangjie and Quick users 9 candidates per page

感謝 Caius, maxiaojun 及 bochecha  等人的貢獻。

ibus-chewing-1.4.3 Released

本次修正：

加入了 buganini 所提供的兩個修正：

1. https://github.com/definite/ibus-chewing/pull/31

2. https://github.com/definite/ibus-chewing/pull/30

感謝 buganini 的辛勞。

 

Hey, Spammers do evolve!

I receive a reply looks like following:

I do believe all of the concepts you have offered to your post. They’re really convincing and will definitely work….

Problem of this post is, I wasn’t making any concepts but the functionality I want.

I did not find any link in the reply body, then what are they trying to advertise? What do they use to carry the advertisement? The answer: his/her user name, which link to some adult website.

Nice try.

How to temporarily block a web site for testing lost connection

At my work, I need to test whether a web application return proper errors when the connection is lost.

I searched and tried several site blocker add-on for Chrome and Firefox, however, most of them are design for blocking the site that aren’t work related, but I need to find the one for work related web sites. In other words, I am looking for the add-on that provide an easy way to toggle the block/unblock function, so I can work.

I have tried the following:

1. StayFocused (Chrome): This one let you set time limit on the web sites that you try not to spend lots of your time on. However, it does not provides the easy toggle.
2. Temporary Site Blocker (Chrome): This one is pretty close what I need, it has a button and a clean menu to let you enable and disable the blocking. However, it does not block the action on current page, i.e. you can pretty much to anything before you leave the page. Not I want.
3. BlockSite (Firefox): This one does not provide a cute icon in the UI that do the toggle, however, I can check/uncheck the “Enable BlockSite” in other tab to achieve the same.

So far I am using BlockSite for this purpose. But I guess there should be some better add-on for this.

ibus-chewing-1.4.2 released

ibus-chewing-1.4.2 已經釋出，可在  https://code.google.com/p/ibus/downloads/detail?name=ibus-chewing-1.4.2-Source.tar.gz 下載。

本版改進之處：

• 被選擇的字串不會在切換輸入法時被截去。
• Shift 不會再送重複的字串
• CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX 不會被鎖定為 /usr
• 若在非Fedora 運行，ibus-engine-chewing 會被裝在 /usr/lib[64] 以符合 FHS

感謝 Buganini 的辛勞，多次提供修改意見。

cmake-fedora-1.0.5 is released

Change from 1.0.2:

1.0.5

• Fedora 18 support.
• Source tarball filename is changed back to name-version-Source.tar.gz to avoid confusion between source generate by cmake-fedora (which contains ChangeLog? and projectName.pot) and tarball generation service from hosting site (which does not contain generated files)
• koji-build-scratch: rawhide build target does not always have suffix -candidate.
• README updated.
• TODO updated.

1.0.4

• Source tarball filename is now name-version.tar.gz instead of name-version-Source.tar.gz
• after_release_commit depends rpm_changelog_prev_update if RPM supported enabled.
• Corrected the ‘FORCE’ of cmake CACHE
• Update the error messages when cmake-fedora is not installed.
• Fixed target: zanata_push_trans.
• Fixed zanata arguments.
• fedpkg clone is now triggered if the clone directory does not exist when doing the fedpkg_commit, it no longer the listed OUTPUT of an ADD_CUSTOM_COMMAND.
• Add target: translations as an universal easy target to generate/update translation files.