watermark

Should download when you click that link, but you might have to right-click and “save as”

Remember, this still needs some stream-lining, but I thought I would get it out there. Leave a note if it is working (or not) for your project.

In a post I made last year, I suggested that although I was an avid Ubuntu fan, I was still hooked to certain Adobe products that forced me to live a dual-existence using Windows and Ubuntu. Well, after some effort I am now using Ubuntu and Native Linux applications only for all of my work.

I code WordPress sites for a living, so I needed a code-editor, and a graphics application. Surprisingly, my coding editor of choice has turned out to be a simple Text Editor that comes pre-installed in Ubuntu. Gedit is fast and light. At first glance it looks very plain, but with a few options turned on under preferences, it transforms into a lovely code-editor:

From this screen-shot you can see I that my code has line numbers, color-coded, and a side-bar that shows my sftp folders from all of my projects. This was all very easy to set up and best of all it integrates right into my operating system. I love it.

Since using Gedit broke my DreamWeaver habit, all that was left was to find a replacement for Photoshop. I had tried to use Gimp previously on two other occasions, but there were some features that were not quite working for me.
With the release of Gimp 2.8rc1, I am thinking that the time has come where I will be able to whole-heartedly embrace the Gimp. There are now Layer-folders, single-window view, and the text-editor has been vastly improved, although my text design has not quite  been working for me yet.

Since I am using Ubuntu 12.04, I was not able to find a package for installing directly, so I had to install from source. I kept track of what I was doing so I could post here. From what I understand, using this method that I am going to show will keep your installation in your home-folder, and will not interfere with installing Gimp from the software-center once it is officially released.
There is a script floating around online that will install Gimp2.8rc1 for you. That may be a more simple method; however, the below method will install Gimp2.8 into a directory in your home folder that can be deleted later on, or you can just leave it there…it will not interefere with installing Gimp from the repositories or software center.
If you do use that script, I would just make sure to open the script in a text-editor first and browse through what and where it is installing things, in case you ever need to undo that.

Anyways, here is what I did, presented as a list of commands to be ran from the terminal one by one:

Firstly, I installed these packages in a single command:

• sudo apt-get install gettext libglib2.0-0 libglib2.0-dev \ libgtk2.0-dev ruby intltool libtiff4-dev python-gtk2-dev \ libjasper-dev libexif-dev libmng-dev liblcms1-dev \ libxpm-dev librsvg2-dev libwmf-dev libasound2-dev \ libdbus-glib-1-dev libaa1-dev libwebkit-dev libhal-dev \ libpoppler-glib-dev

Nextly, ran these commands:

• cd
• mkdir -p ~/gimp.2.8
• cd ~/.gimp-2.8
• wget ftp://ftp.gimp.org/pub/babl/0.1/babl-0.1.10.tar.bz2
• wget ftp://ftp.gimp.org/pub/gegl/0.2/gegl-0.2.0.tar.bz2
• wget ftp://ftp.gimp.org/pub/gimp/v2.8/gimp-2.8.0.tar.bz2
• tar xf babl-0.1.10.tar.bz2
• tar xf gegl-0.2.0.tar.bz2
• tar xf gimp-2.8.0.tar.bz2
• mv  babl-0.1.10  babl
• mv  gegl-0.2.0 gegl
• mv  gimp-2.8.0 gimp
• rm  babl-0.1.10.tar.bz2
• rm  gegl-0.2.0.tar.bz2
• rm  gimp-2.8.0.tar.bz2

• PREFIX=$HOME/.gimp-2.8
• export PATH=$PREFIX/bin:$PATH
• export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=$PREFIX/lib/pkgconfig:$PREFIX/share/pkgconfig
• cd babl
• ./configure –prefix=$PREFIX
• make
• make install

• cd ../gegl
• ./configure –prefix=$PREFIX
• make
• make install
• cd ../gimp
• ./configure –prefix=$PREFIX
• make
• make install

• mkdir ~/.gimp-2.8/dynamics
• mkdir ~/.gimp-2.8/patterns
• mkdir ~/.gimp-2.8/gradients
• mkdir ~/.gimp-2.8/palettes
• mkdir ~/.gimp-2.8/tool-presets
• mkdir ~/.gimp-2.8/brushes

Finally, I ran gimp with this command:

• ~/.gimp-2.8/gimp/app/gimp-2.8

A tad on the verbose site, but it worked for me and gimp 2.8 is running. The new splash-screen is a much-needed improvement:

and the single-windows mode is a long-awaited feature that will bring joy to the whole family:

I have been reading my way through this nifty online manual: Beginning Gimp: From Novice to Professional although it is written for 2.6. I have seen rumors that an updated version is slated for this June, probably to coincide with the official release of 2.8: Barnes and Nobles pre-release sale.

This is all very exciting for me because I have always wanted to switch over to Linux, but was held back by school, work and certain application needs. With the progress of Linux as a desktop, I am finally achieving one of my life-goals. Now if I can just learn to speak Esperanto I will be complete.

My first thought was “Why the heck are swamp-coolers not already doing this!”. It really makes perfect sense if you think about it. Why have two electric motors when one is already chugging away and supplying the motion needed to do both jobs. The idea seemed so obvious that I had to try it, so I quickly placed my order.

After about a week I received my eco-pump in the mail. The box contained:

• The Pump
• The base thingee that sits in the water
• Some hose-clips
• A coupler for attaching the pump to the fan-axle
• A hex-key for the coupler
• some adapters in case your axle is smaller than normal
• Directions

The pump itself is made from heavy-duty plastic. Installation was easy enough, and my particular swamp-cooler is just about average size, so everything fit without having to use the adapters. I had to pick up some extra hose from the hardware store since normally the electric pump would sit right down in the water, where the eco-pump sits up on the fan-axle so I needed about 1.5 feet of hose to reach the water.

During installation the pump needs to have the proper nozzle pointing up (so the water is pumped up). This is not clearly marked on the pump (it should be!), instead the directions say to “Make sure the earth is pointing up” so you have to take a close look at the earth-logo and you can see the continents should have North pointing up. This is the sort of thing that should be labeled with clear arrows emblazoned on the plastic so when the sticker falls off I won’t have to guess.

Installing the pump onto the axle was simple..just put it on and tighten the coupler with the hex-key. I wrestled the hoses on and pinched them tight with the hose-clips. The pump sits perfectly and does not get smashed against the filter holder like I thought it would. Rather it sits exactly where it should. Here are my snap-shots:

So far I am impressed with the Eco-Pump. It has a one-year warranty and seems like it will last for quite a while, not to mention saving my electric bill. Having said that, here are some other thoughts I have:

• Will the extra strain reduce the life on the fan-motor? Before I installed the Eco-Pump, I made sure the fan-belt was replaced and I also greased the axle up nicely, so time will tell.
• Would it be cheaper to make one of these myself? I looked into this because I like to invent. I was able to find the parts online that would have allowed me to put something like this together, but by the time I ordered everything and had it shipped, the savings would be less than $10.00, so I figured I would save myself the time and just order the Eco-Pump.
• Since the Eco-Pump runs off the fan-motor, I no longer have the option to just run the fan. This is not a huge deal because we rarely run the fan-only mode; however, during the winter we sometimes turn the fan on (and I have the water drained out), so I will have to disconnect the Eco-Pump during the winter when I drain the water out.
• The Eco-Pump makes a sort of low whine.  I cannot hear it when the fan is on full-blast (which is how we run the swamp-cooler 90% of the time) but on low I can make it out. I wonder if this will go away after the pump has worn in a bit. It could potentially be annoying at night when I am trying to sleep because the swamp-cooler is really close to our bed.
• This does not seem compatible with a smaller cooler. I have a smaller Swamp-Cooler I purchased for my shed (where I have my computer work-station set up). The shaft on the fan is sort of recessed. For the Eco-Pump to work I would need a way to extend the fan-shaft another 5 or 6 inches. If I come up with something I will post it here.

In closing I will just say that if this lasts at least two years it will have been worth it, since that seems to be the life-span of the electric pumps I buy.

There could also be many other uses if this idea. A home-site that listed all of the sub-sites on the network by an easy to use taxonomy, much in the same way you can now create custom taxonomies with custom post-types.

I thought I had finally found a way to do this through a plugin called Blog-types, created by the team at WPMUDev.org; however, the plugin is sort of half-baked. Although the basic functionality works (it does create a way for you to add categories and even sub-categories to each of your sites), it does not provide a way to easily access those categories. So unless you are a dev, you will be kind of stuck on how to make those categories work for you.

If you have been trying to figure out how to use the Blog Types plugin, then you already know all of this, and probably found this page googling around for a solution.
I, with my puny PHP skills, decided to try my hand at writing a few functions to access these categories so that this plugin might actually be useful. So far I have managed to eek out a function that will return a list of each of the site categories, with a list under each one of the sites that are within that category.

I am currently working on another function that will list the sub-categories with links to all of the sites under each sub-category. These functions will be able to be added to a page template.

Once I have the code ironed out I will turn it into a plugin for ease of use…

++++++++++++++++++UPDATE ON 11-22-2011++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Okay…After some requests I have just bundled the Blogs-Type plugin along with my additional file I created. You can download it here:

blog-types

Once you have downloaded:

IF YOU ALREADY HAVE BLOG_TYPES PLUGIN INSTALLED:

then just go into the zip and get the file called get-blog-types.php and put it into your plugins folder and network activate.

IF YOU DO NOT HAVE BLOG_TYPES PLUGIN INSTALLED:

Then unzip the folder and place the entire folder into your plugins directory and then network activate the Blogs-Type plugin in WordPress. That will activate everything.
Please bear in mind that you have to go into the blog-types-config.php file and manually add the Blog-Types and Sub-Types you want to use. Currently I have it set to use names of Counties and Cities in my area.

Once you have activated the plugin, you can then add something like this to your page template where you want to show the list of categories and sites:

++GET BLOG TYPES++
<div id=”sites”>
<h3 class=”pagetitle”>A List of Blog-Types</h3>
<?php blog_types_list(); ?>
</div><!– /sites –>

++GET BLOG TYPES WITH SITES++
<div id=”sites”>
<h3 class=”pagetitle”>A List of Blog-Types and Sites</h3>
<?php get_blog_types(); ?>
</div><!– /sites –>

++GET BLOG SUB-TYPES (just a list of available sub-types)++
<div id=”subtypes”>
<h3 class=”pagetitle”>A List of Sub Types</h3>
<?php blog_subtypes_list();; ?>
</div><!– /subtypes –>

++GET BLOG SUB-TYPES with related sites++
<div id=”subtypes”>
<h3 class=”pagetitle”>A List of Sub Types with related Sites</h3>
<?php get_blog_subtypes(); ?>
</div><!– /subtypes –>

This last one someone requested so they could add it to Google Analytics code on each site. It displays the blog-types for current site separated by dashes.
<?php current_blog_types(); ?>

will output: calaveras-tuolumne

I am open to feedback on ways to modify this, but I wanted to make it available in case anyone wanted to give it a try or modify it.

Once the acorns started dropping, I spent a little time each day picking up the nice big acorns off the ground. The next day there would be more. There are still more dropping, but I had enough to get started with the next step, which is leaching out the tannic acid.

• After collecting the acorns, I stored them in a small burlap sack that used to hold Basmati rice.
• Once the bag was full I found a chunk of time, put on an Audio book, and started shelling.
• I use a razor knife to cut the ends off the acorns, and then a single slit up the side makes the shell peel right off (don’t cut thumb!)
• Some of the acorns had worms in them. The goats get all of those. They love them.
• After I had shelled a nice big bowl full of acorns, I took them inside for the next step: Grinding
• Using our little food-processor, I ground the acorns into a course powder
• An old pickle-jar is perfect for the amount of acorn-meal I have, which fills the gallon jar about half-way
• The rest of the jar gets filled with water, and put in the fridge
• Each day I empty the water out (carefully so as to not pour out the acorn-meal with the water)
• After a week or so, the acorn-meal will be free of tannic acid. The water will be clear-ish after sitting overnight

Next week, once this batch of acorn-meal is leached out, I will write about making bread!

The engine came out of a square-back vw, but the core is basically the same as my bus engine: a 1600 sized engine. Once completed, I should be able to take out my existing engine (which is going to need to be rebuilt soon) and this newly rebuilt engine will slide right in and start up with no problems.

On the advice of the VW Gurus on thesamba.com, I have ordered Tom Wilson’s How to Rebuild Your Volkswagen air-Cooled Engine, which will guide me through a complete rebuild.  Meanwhile, I built a lovely scrap-wood bench and have completely taken the engine apart and cleaned all the components…ready for Phase 2: