Productivity Sauce

Fix "Improved" Saving Functionality in GIMP 2.8

Sep 27, 2012 GMT

GIMP 2.8 is a fine release, no doubt about that. But along with a plethora of improvements, the new version brought several changes that not all GIMP users appreciate. Chief among these changes is the modified save behavior. Previously the Save command saved the file in its original format. In version 2.8 the save feature saves images in GIMP's native XCF format. This means that if you open a PNG file and then hit Ctrl+S (or choose File | Save), GIMP prompts you to save the file in the XCF format. To save the file in its original format, you have to use the File | Overwrite or File | Export commands. If you find the new behavior annoying, the Save/export clean plugin is for you. To...
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Productivity on the Move: Android Tablet vs Notebook

Sep 26, 2012 GMT

As an experiment, I've been traveling for three weeks with an ASUS Transformer Pad TF300 Android tablet instead of a regular notebook. I really, really wanted to like the tablet as a travel companion. After all, schlepping around a heavy shoulder bag most of the day is tedious, to say the least. However, next time I hit the road, I'll most likely take my trusty HP dm1-4000 machine with me. Here is why. A tablet is supposedly perfect for checking email, reading ebooks and RSS articles, posting updates to Google+, etc. Yet, I often found myself reaching for my Samsung Galaxy S III when I felt the urge to consume content. Being an amateur photographer, I take a lot of photos, and I rely...
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Imgur Mushroom: imgur Uploader App for Android

Sep 25, 2012 GMT

If you happen to use imgur as your preferred image hosting and sharing service, you'll appreciate Imgur Mushroom. This little open source app allows you to tweak and upload images from your Android device to imgur with consummate ease. Imgur Mushroom can act as a standalone utility for uploading images, or as a helper tool accessible via other apps. When used in the standalone mode, Imgur Mushroom lets you pick an image stored on your Android device, or take a snap using the device's camera. The Edit button gives you access to the app's editing tools for rotating and resizing the image. Once you're done tweaking the image, tap Save and upload the file using the Upload button. The app also...
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Using Raspberry Pi as a Photo Station

Sep 24, 2012 GMT

Although Raspberry Pi (RPi) is not powerful enough for heavy-duty image processing, you can still put it to some photography-related uses. For example, as an amateur photographer, I take a lot of photos when I travel, and I upload the photos to my Raspberry Pi at home which neatly organizes and keeps them safe till I get back home.To turn RPi into a photo station, I opted for the Debian Wheezy minimal image. The only thing I needed to install was the usbmount tool which automatically mounts and unmounts external USB storage devices. Although it's possible to save photos on the SD card, I decided to keep them on a dedicated 16GB USB stick which usbmount tool mounts at /media/usb0. Since...
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Simple URL Shortening Solution Using Redirect Pages

Sep 21, 2012 GMT

Using an application like YOURLS, you can host a link shortening solution on your own server. But if you need to maintain only a handful of shortened URLs, installing a full-blown URL shortening application is overkill. Instead, you can use a dead-simple solution based on HTML pages containing the REFRESH metatag. For example, to set up a shorter link to my Wikimedia Commons gallery, I created the following HTML file and saved it as a gallery page on my server: <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <html> <head> <title>Redirect</title> <meta http-equiv="refresh"...
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Mosh: Shell for Users on the Move

Sep 14, 2012 GMT

The ability to connect and control remote machines via SSH is a boon for users on the move, but an unreliable and slow Internet connection can turn an SSH session into an exercise in frustration. Enter Mosh, a mobile shell that works wonders even on a shaky and anemic Internet connection. This tool offers several features designed to deal with challenges posed by unreliable Internet connections. For starters, Mosh provides a mechanism for handling dropped connections. This means, among other things, that when you put your machine to sleep and wake it up later, Mosh resumes the connection. In addition to that, the tool supports connection roaming, which can come in handy when you hop from...
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Transfer Ebooks Wirelessly to an Android Device with FBReader

Aug 31, 2012 GMT

FBReader is undeniably one of the best ebook reader apps available on the Android platform. Besides a comprehensive feature set, the app also lets you obtain ebooks from different sources, including the Calibre library stored on your machine. This is, indeed, a nifty feature which can be used to effortlessly transfer ebooks from an existing Calibre library to your Android device. To make use of this functionality, you need to enable Calibre's built-in content server first. To do this, launch Calibre on your machine, press the Connect/share button on the main toolbar, choose the Start Content Server command, and note the IP address of the content server. Launch FBReader on your...
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