Science meets Art – new Website released

By TeK, August 29, 2010 04:17

www.sciencemeetsart.net

.. is a project of berlin based artists and university scientists in cooperation with prohelvetia.ch

Aritsts and Scientists colaborate for some weeks and present the results in an excebition.

They are going to post their latest results in this new blog during the next weeks: sciencemeetsart.net/blog

If you are based in berlin, checkout the events: Science meets Art —  Pilotprojekt Termine


Projekte

Ping Qiu

Web-Administration und Projektkoordination

bees&butterflies. artists in (e)motion, Carola Muysers

Grafik
Synoptx Webentwicklung, ZBognetti,  www.synoptx.net

Programmierung
Synoptx Webentwicklung, www.synoptx.net

Beratung / Suschmaschinenoptimierung
Synoptx Webentwicklung, www.synoptx.net

btw.: Have a look to this blog for more cultural berlin info: www.berlin.woman.de

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Scroogle.org Anti Surveilance Searchengine

By TeK, August 28, 2010 22:35
Scroogle Cookie Killer

Scroogle Cookie Killer

I use this google (TM) frontend since long time.

By using this site (as a ~proxy), google (TM) does not receive your cookie and cannot track your behavoir, as they normally do over long time periods. Scroogle stores the logs 48hours, but without IP. I just don’t find the info page..help!

Use this this link for your homepage and you will find a comic strip with info about Google (TM) every time you scroogle!

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Amarok Remote for Android

By TeK, August 28, 2010 22:08

What a great tool!

Amarok Remote Screenshot

Amarok Remote Screenshot

This amarok plugin + Android App lets you control Amarok Mediaplayer over WLAn / …

I just wanted to start to code, but typed amarok into the market and: somebody did it already

Android Amarok Remote Homepage

just follow the install instructions – its done in 5 minutes, enjoy!

BugFIX:

rename the downloaded file to android.amarokscript.tar.gz or you cannot open it in amarok plugin manager!

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Datenschutz und Web 2.0 – Heise Artikel Serie

By TeK, August 28, 2010 14:27

Nächsten Monat wollen wir bei der Korrupta Hackers Lounge im Samacafe über dieses Thema informieren.

Dazu passend hier einige interessante Artikel aus der CT — komplett online verfügbar!

Datenschutz und Web 2.0 – Heise Artikel Serie

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How to build a Hackerspace

By TeK, August 25, 2010 19:05
F'Hain LinuxUserGroup @Nerdcafe in Vetomat

F'Hain LinuxUserGroup @Nerdcafe in Vetomat

We watched a lecture from CCC congress 24C3 at Samacafe yesterday to get ideas how to organize hackerspaces and linux user groups. It was presented on the congress in 2007 by Lars Weiler and Jens Ohlig.

“Design Patterns” are presented in the lecture: many typical hackerspace-orga problems are identified and a possible solution is presented.  Some design patterns also match for living together in communities, others are optimized for nerds and their special lifestyle.

Video of the lecture:                     Building a Hackerspace MP4

Here is the PDF of the slides:     Building a Hackerspace PDF

Info WIKI:                                         Hackerspaces.org WIKI


btw: there are 100s other interesting videos of the CCC lectures!  fem.tu-illmenau.de

Notes by ZBog:

What could be better than the solution presented in the lecture::

Be culturally neutral
-> I can say clean and white walls, then we are anyway fine with a specified target

Plenum is suggested a weekly appointment not irregular and not more then 1 daily meeting
-> Ill suggest the weekly plenum must be maximum 3 hours long

4 years is a good time to consider if the hacker space is running or not
-> in our case will be an office, then 2 years are necessary to calculate the income, first year there are to many expenses to count really

Decision with Direct Democracy
-> again we are speaking about an Office, so I think that Decision making should be divided in 3 levels , on the beginning I planned 2 levels Plenum and team, but we all know there is no democracy in 2, you ll need the 3rd vote to break the war, any group counts as 1 vote

  • Plenum democracy
  • Working team, who is directly involved
  • Director / main developer / Art director and so on

How to resolve problems

  • do not attack people before the deadline, they are already stressed, just wait for  the release party or organize a meeting after release to discuss how the work went and what needs to be improved next time
  • if you are sharing a project, wait until the project is finished or you break the team mood
  • In plenum you should generally not speak about somebody, but about “what will happen if”, do not use names or the war will start
http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/
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Debian Appreciation Day!

By TeK, August 17, 2010 17:35

Thank Debian http://thank.debian.net

or burn some CPU cycles for debian! ;-)

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://valessiobrito.info/projetos/debian/others/dad/happydebian.js"> </script>
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Viper Video Editor Review

By TeK, August 15, 2010 19:24

Kollege Helmchyn programmed a video editor in python: VIPER

It uses mplayer and mencoder to play and encode videoclips. this way, it reads almost every video codec and can create various outputs. The frontend is programmed in Python and TK GUI-lib. you can combine multiple videoclips in a timeline and select their length and in/out points.  it plays all those clips in preview windows – very nice TK video widget!

so far the interface is not complete and there are no effects or transitions built in. if you know mencoder/mplayer options, you can put your own filters by specifying  command-line parameters. i like the timeline, but there are no multiple layers and its not so easy to define the length and start/end points of the clips without seeing at which frames they will cut.

the export works very well and the dialog gives useful hints on the codecs and encoding options. It is already stable and you can use all functions of the interface.

this software is specially interesting for me, because i want a VJ player in python with mplayer, to trigger clips live on parties..  i go investigate the source code… :-)

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Color Scheme Generator

By ZBog, August 15, 2010 11:28

I personally preferr to choose the Color Code by myself but when you suggest multiple sketches can be an help to dont repeat yourself.
the best tool is free to use online:
colorschemedesigner
with Html / Css / text / ACO (photoshop palette) / GPL (Gimp palette!) generator to save the color scheme
note: in the [Adjust scheme] when you rollOver one color variant name on the list it shows a preview of the text over this color, white gray and black easy trick but good to show it

Linux tools:
Firefox Plugin: Palette Grabber 0.4.1 [testing now come back visit us to know more!]

http://registry.gimp.org/node/15833 [Python plugin!]

AGAVE
ich spiele gerade mit diesen color code generator Agave
Agave is nothing special is only 1,262 kb big

I have found a Python plugin to let Agave run in Gimp ::
Color Scheme Helper for Gimp

A Python plugin that start the color scheme designer Agava for creating a new color scheme. The created color scheme can be saved as a Gimp color palette and loaded into Gimp.
In den software engine die einzige dinge das toll ist es das contrast texte-background calculation…
changing the color it shows if is better a white or a black text on top of this backg color
but nothing more
#tk: based on math – hmm naja interesting algorithm anyway
#Gitschiner: this thing is good: Agave calculate if the color has a number higher then 555555
THEN the text is visualized and suggested to use black and the opposite when the coosed gamma color is darker then 555555 the text will be white
#tk: hehe ya should generate for special things like: body-font, screen-bgcolor, …
i want some faders that automagically apply like livestyle to the site :D with correct pi and phi equations

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Timetracking Linux and Web Tools

By TeK, August 15, 2010 04:04

Here’s a comparison of some programs in debian/ubuntu repositories, that help to keep track of your worktimes

KTimetracker
This is in the Debian and Ubuntu repositories. it is programmed for the KDE window environment, but if you have all the KDE libraries already, just run this in a terminal:

wait! update first

it’s best practise to update the repositories before installing something, to get the latest versions:

sudo apt-get update

btw: sudo is only required in ubuntu, in debian type ‘su’ to get root access

sudo apt-get install ktimetracker

++
+ Nice and simple interface.
+ Timers
You can start and stop a timer when you begin and end a working session so you get the exact time.

+ It can even watch your desktops, including the virtual ones, so you can put all your work windows for example on desktop 2 and switching to 1 is enough to do something else and stop the counter. you will wonder about the short times it tracks (without mailchecks, etc.) !

must test the export..

For me this wins, because of the desktop tracking and  (sub) timers!


Gnome Time Tracker

Installation in Debian / Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install gnotime

++
Nice interface with description and “diary” textfields. Nice list of projects and timers to count worktime on a daily basis are integrated.


Some things in the interface are broken or not understandable: export does not allow to select a file, maybe something must be created first?

Subprojects? must test..


Tine2.0 Web Groupware

++
Nice webinterface. Besides Todolist, Calendar, CRM and few more modules, a Time-tracking tool is built into this web groupware.

+ So called “Time-accounts” represent the different projects. You can add “time-sheets” to these projects for every session or ideally the hours of every day. There are filters to show only one project or a relevant period or user. You can save these filter options as a favorite view. That’s really cool and flexible! One problem is, that you cannot redefine the default favorite, which it show at first.

+ Tine can store € per hour, “billable” and more billing infos, so you it automatically calculates the full time and price of a project.


There is no counter to start and stop the session times. You can only enter the periods, after you finished the day work. Its useful to keep track of the works of a team, but if you want to track the exact times, you need another timer-software and enter the periods from there to tine  :-/

Must test:  Exports!   It ~should~ export .ods, which would be reaaaaally helpful to present the time-sheet to clients directly or put it in a bill! But maybe i have to fill a bug report on that..


eGroupware

Is a good, old PHP web groupware with many, many modules. The project module interface is not easy to understand, but when you get it, you can even use time counters online.

++
Many functions in the projects module,…


EGroupware is a huge system, only for timetracking you do not want to install it. There are many options to setup, specially if there is more than one user, it gets really complicated to give correct permissions to everyone.


OpenOffice Table with Formulars

still the easiest and best solution?

++
+ Table calculation software offers a nice overview with dynamic calculations: Press [F2] in a table cell and you can enter formulars for calculation. This way, you can, for example, enter exact minutes and get hours by [cell] * 60.

+ In OpenOffice Writer you can keep track of times in a simple table inside a odt text-office document. No need to use Calc, the Table calculation

Also the other programs offer ways to enter billing info like € per hour.


- Teamwork? Its not easy to work together on stupid office documents. They are practically always locked by other users ;-)

.odt file coming soon..

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Video Editing with Open Source

By ZBog, August 14, 2010 11:35

After 4 years in the Open Source scene I m finally able to generate a complete video with Open Source Software.
Was an hard work, many video editors are started but none is complete.
Guys cooperation! please!
Do not try to do only your own stuff, if there are some developer reeding this post, please start to develop Blender features.
YES after my testing, Blender is the best Video Sequence Editor the open market propose:
- stable, Blender dont crash [ if you dont change the CPU usage settings and at the same time rendering (:P) ]
- has many functionality and easy to add FX when you know the technical words that the software use
- Is planned to render, so the dimension of the output has completly individual setup. You can choose between standard formats, but also choose the dimensions of the video in pixels AND the dimensions of the pixel individually, mix up the settings, things that in Kdenlive & co I did not found, there are in Kdenlive many choises between different format and pixel dimensions, no more paranoia about strange web video format, you can make your video with your own custom format
- with particles engine and video texture can be used for post production and compositing like After Effects
- Titles and credits, the text is already editable in EDIT MODE
- Good windows Customization, you can combine the editing windows, but you can choose between 5 view mode in a quick drop down menu, again also the drop down menu has ADD NEW to personalize.

I tought was banal speak abuot Blender video editor but then I have recognize that not all the nerds are informed about, then soon I will post more info about video editing on Blender.

All the other free software I tried have some gap to fill.
There is no chance, I can proudly say
I m a Blender!

Italian article that thinks the same as me:

http://blenderedintorni.blogspot.com/2006/12/situazione-del-video-editing-in-linux.html

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