All of this stuff is freeware.

Graphics Projects

IrfanView

For image viewing and very simple editing (such as cropping, scaling, rotating, etc)



GIMP

For raster artwork/editing. Like Microsoft Paint on super steroids.

It does have some vector editing tools.



Illustrator (ok, this one's not free)

For vector artwork.

This is also usually my main workspace for a new project, where I add all the different pieces into the final layout.

A freeware alternative would be Inkscape



LibreOffice

This is an office suite similar to Microsoft Office. It has equivalents to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc. It also has a vector drawing program which I have not really used on its own, but it can draw boxes and things within PowerPoint and the other programs in the suite.

Slideshow Projects

Here's various free software that can be used to make slideshows. The Microsoft ones are probably easiest to use. DVD Slideshow GUI is a bit more complex, but the most configurable.



Microsoft Live Movie Maker

Create a WMV video file from images.

   Download: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/products/features/movie-maker

   Tutorial: http://voices.yahoo.com/create-slideshow-microsoft-movie-maker-tutorial-2724966.html



Microsoft Photo Story

Create a WMV video file from images. This is an older product, but some people find it better in some ways than Movie Maker.

   Download: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/photostory/default.mspx

   Tutorial: http://millie.furman.edu/mll/tutorials/photostory3/index.htm



IrfanView

Create either a script that reads images out of a folder or create a single executable file containing all of the images. If you just want to read a bunch of files out of a folder without an intermediate output, this is probably the way to go.

   Download: http://www.irfanview.com/

   Tutorial: http://www.butterscotch.com/tutorial/Creating-A-Slideshow



LibreOffice Impress with PhotoAlbum plugin

Create a PowerPoint presentation from images.

   Download (LibreOffice): http://www.libreoffice.org/download/

   Download (plugin): http://extensions.services.openoffice.org/en/project/PhotoAlbum

   Tutorial (old): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-DMrYi0yvs



DVD Slideshow GUI

Has a whole bunch of different output options, including video file, upload to YouTube, or burn to DVD.

(Note: Durations are in number of frames, not seconds. Using one of the NTSC options, one second is 30 frames.)

   Download: http://download.videohelp.com/tin2tin/

   Tutorial: http://download.videohelp.com/tin2tin/tutorials.html



Flash Slide Show Maker

   Download: http://www.flash-slideshow-maker.com/myspace-slideshow-free/

Tags

Selecting PHP command line version on HostGator shared host

This took me a while to find, so I'm saving it somewhere I can find it again.

The easy way to select the PHP version used for web applications is to use the CPanel configuration tool. However, that doesn't work if you're using SSH and need PHP on the command line. Also, on HostGator, you can't create a symlink outside of your directory (such as to the global php).

You can find out what version you have with

$ php --version

If that's not the version you want, try a specific version like this (php55 is 5.5, etc):

Book Scanning Process

 

Just to document this for next time. For reference, my books are 8 x 10.75 inches and other dimension below work for this. For approximately 100 pages, It takes me about 45 minutes to scan, an hour to crop and rotate, and 30 minutes to organize and generate the PDF.

Fixing features for hotfolder

Here is some documentation about the process I used to solve some issues with hotfolder and the features module. I was doing this partly through the web interface and partly through a console, so this is a reconstruction of what I remember and the console log. 

 

I was getting the following error message when I tried to check hotfolder watches (see https://www.drupal.org/node/2453659):

Notice: Undefined property: stdClass::$field_watch_config_scheme

 

GIMP for Kids

 

My daughter likes to draw on the computer. I don't remember exactly how it started, but she draws in GIMP using my Genius pen tablet, on my secondary monitor. I used to have Linux running in a VirtualBox with GIMP running on my second monitor for her, but VB doesn't completely work in Windows 10 yet. A while back I tried running GIMP on one of my Raspberry Pi's but it was just too sluggish to be useful, frustratingly slow for a (then) 3-year-old. It runs much better on a Raspberry Pi 2. It still lags if she goes crazy with a big brush, but it works.

Die Fly: Designing a better fly swatter

I was looking through some of my old stuff for something and ran across this gem. If you need to put together a quick flyswatter, try this one I designed for a class in college (the famous Rube Goldberg project).

Here are a few excerpts from the attached PDF. If this doesn't convince you to build one (perhaps with several improvements as noted in the document), I don't know what will.