Categories
Misc Open source / Freeware

Essential Fonts for Designers – 300 free truetype fonts you should have

A while back I found (or somebody posted in a blog …) a link to a site where a designer posted 300 free truetype fonts.
I was interested so I bookmarked it, but for some reason I didn’t downloaded any of the fonts.
Probably because I have my set of favorite fonts.
But after a while a became curious if the designer had a nice set of free fonts I could recommend to my friends. I couldn’t find the site in my bookmarks but that was because the site wasn’t the site I remembered (http://www.goodfonts.org/).
And nobody on the internet could give me the list the designer posted. So after some digging in Internet Archive: Wayback Machine a found the list, but the url’s didn’t work any more.
So I did the best I could do, I made it possible to view the list en find the freeware font with google.

For this purpose I have made an oldkool frameset frameset which makes it easier to search for the fonts.

And if you want to help me to create a complete ZIP; you can find my hotmail email address here to send your files.

Remember this: I have no idea who the designer is/was, and his/her choice of font are not necessary my choice of fonts.

Update #1: Vitaly Friedman has a very good list of serious license-free fonts, check it out!.
Update #2: And Vitaly Friedman has also a very good list of 25 best license free pixelfonts, he is doing a hell of a job.

Categories
Firefox extensions

Firefox extensions, the list becomes bigger and bigger

I’ve written about the Firefox extensions that I use. Some new extensions are added and some not so usefull extensions are deactivated.
So I desided that the new extension should be added to the list.

PDF DownloadFirst I want to talk about PDF Download. But why use it? I use it because Firefox freezes up when I open a PDF, this because the Adobe Acrobat Reader plugin takes al lot of time to start up. So to make this plugin work even beter, I advise to download Foxit PDF Reader (sadly only for Windows…. I’m currently working on an Apple because my PC is dead…) which works exactly as Acrobat Reader but is smaller, faster, portable and free.
Read more about this extension at www.pdfdownload.org.

Mouse GesturesThe second extension is Mouse Gestures which only works on a PC. With Mouse Gestures you execute commands by mouse “drawing” over the webpage. For now I only use the gestures for forward/backward (draw a horizontal line from left to right / right to left) but for only two gestures it is also very usefull.

Categories
Misc Open source / Freeware

Wp-slimstat gives a fatal error

Update #1: I forgot to explain what wp-slimstat is. Wp-slimstat is a simple web statistic wordpress plugin, which means you can see how many visits you get and from where/how many/etc. But the good part is that you can see it when you login there will be an extra tab on the Dashboard to the statistics “Slimstat”.

Update #2: RTFM ….. in the README.txt (chapter 8. LOCALIZATION) there is an explanation about this “fatal error”

make sure you have set your blog’s default language in wp-config.php,
e.g. : “define (‘WPLANG’, ‘en_US’ );â€? and that the corresponding
localization file exists in wp/slimstat/lang folder.

I found my error on the wordpress.org support forum… the solution I describe here still works.

Today I tried to install wp-slimstat and all I got:

Fatal error: Cannot instantiate non-existent class: cachedfilereader in [snipped]/wp-includes/wp-l10n.php on line 67

hmmm…
I could not find the answer to this problem on the site of the creator of this wp-plugin but it seems that all wordpress-2.0.4-users have this problem!
So I try good old google …. and found the answer..
http://mu.wordpress.org/forums/topic.php?id=888

try open wp-config.php or wp-config-sample.php
edit this lines:
define ('WPLANG', '');
to
define ('WPLANG', ' ');

And now I have wp-slimstat, so I know what you did last hour!

Categories
Flash

FabLabs

At Fabrique [the company I work for] I’m working on a project called FabLabs.
Fab[rique]Lab[oratorie]s is create to build stuff which is technically chalanging, could have commercial use but (for now) are no paying clients for.

My project is a webcam navigation using the Flash plugin. When this project is finish we will be able to navigate without a mouse or keyboard using only a webcam and the Flash plugin.
We are also looking at Red 5 so we can also use the webcam for recording video. It’s a very exciting project which I started in my spare time and I’m very glad that I get the opportunity to finish this project for Fabrique.

It’s still very much “work in progress” but I’ve made a FLV file where u can see me…. and the methode of activation.

I started with a proof of concept, and I think its from protozoo but to be honest I’m not 100 percent sure.

Categories
Open source / Freeware

How to capture your screen in a movie

I use AviScreen to capture screen activity. I’ve used it to make tutorials, record google sketchup, webcam, etc.

Update #1 I have an example in this post.

With Aviscreen classic you can capture fullscreen, predefined sizes, an object or resize the capture area in any rectangle you want.
You can decide which video compression to use, framerate and a delay before capturing.
When it starts to record the program will “hide” in the taskbar so it will not show in your capture.

Did I mention it’s freeware…

Categories
Flash video player

How can I make FLV with freeware / opensource software

I have written about the creation of FLV (Flash Video) with freeware/open-source software before. But I’ve made the mistake to talk about to many different aspects of the FLV: the encoder, the offline flv-player and the web flv-player.

This will be corrected in this post, so after reading this you will know:

  1. Which programs you can use to encode FLV but don’t have to pay for.
  2. Which program I would use.
  3. And why I would use this program

I know of these freeware/open-source projects you can use to encode FLV:

  1. Riva FLV Encoder
  2. Digitalgroover FLV Encoder
  3. Super
  4. Mediacoder

I’ve been testing them on a couple points.

And the winner is: Riva FLV Encoder!
But it was a close race with number 2: Digitalgroover FLV Encoder
Both of these programs are very easy to use: they can do only one thing: create FLV, which makes them very powerful and useful.
Riva FLV Encoder wins because it can save presets (settings), has some documentation and runs immediately on my home computer. Digitalgroover FLV Encoder could win with the next round (version) if: it runs on my home computer (it works fine on my computer at work…) and save/load presets (settings) in XML.

The other programs can be used to encode more than one at a time (batch) but both don’t write FLV1.1 (no MetaData) so you will need to update this with Buraks FLVMDI (FLV MetaData Injector) which also has the capability to batch.
The combination of complex interface, possibility to encode more than only FLV and no MetaData, makes Super and Mediacoder more programs for professionals.

Categories
Flash video player

Why do I need MetaData?

So the first question that I have to answer is:
What is MetaData?
MetaData is information stored in the video file itself (FLV-file) and is not immediately visible.
Typical information stored in the video is the video’s duration, creation date, data rates, but this depends of the encoder.

Second question would be:
Why do I need MetaData?
Well you don’t need MetaData for anything. The FLV-players need it. The MetaData is usually used to create the position of the playhead. Which makes it easier for the viewer of the video to determine how long the video will be, or skip to a specific place in the video. But can also be used to search through video with a specific creationdate, framerate, filesize, width or height. So with MetaData you will make it easier to view your video!

Some other questions:
Do I need to worry about MetaData?
No, if you use a encoder which creates FLV 1.1, it will also create MetaData.

How do I know if my video has MetaData?
If you play your video and the playhead doesn’t move, your movie probably doesn’t have any MetaData.

How can I make/repair MetaData?
To put MetaData into a FLV file you can use Buraks FLVMDI (FLV MetaData Injector)
FLVMDI is free to use, but you can’t distribute it. It looks very intimidating; [it’s a command line application] but there’s also a GUI which makes our lives much easier.
And the Digitalgroover flvplayer has a repair button to fix your FLV. It will not show the seekbar if there isn’t any MetaData.

Will repairing MetaData change the quality of the video
No, it will change in filesize (about 2kB on a file which was 2.014kB) but won’t change any video or audio quality.
Yes, it will change the viewing quality because you can see the playhead-position and the ability to search/skip parts.

Categories
Misc

Logo design [mck]

I’m still busy creating a new look for this blog.
But I’ve finished my logo (well at least the shape of it)
[mck] logo version 2
And if you compare it with my previous post you will see that there isn’t al lot of change in the design.
As I said before: I wasn’t satisfied with the “m”. And all it took to change that was a little triangle…

Categories
Misc

Started on my wp design

I’ve been working on my wp design. And one of the first things I had to do is create a new logo!
So here it is: the first version of my new “logo”
mck logo version 1

I’m very happy with the “c” and “k”. The “m” is always difficult and I am not entirely happy with it.
But for now it wil do.

Categories
Firefox extensions Open source / Freeware

Bookmarks cleanup

I’ve been collecting bookmarks for about 7 years now. I started in IE and imported them later in Firefox.
Started to make categories to make it somewhat managable… But it seems that some of the sites I collected 7 years ago are no more… sadly.

So I wanted to clean up my bookmarks (it must be the time of year with spring and all….)
But before I start check 1500+ bookmarks by hand, I search for some help:
and this is what I found:

Firefox

extensions:
bookmarkddClean up dublicate bookmarks:

bookmarkdd is a very useful extension that helps you manage your bookmarks. (homepage bookmarkdd)

It not only helps you to clean up dublicated bookmarks but notices also when you bookmark if it’s already bookmarked
Check your bookmarks for broken links

Bookmarks LinkChecker detects updated, redirected, and broken links in your bookmarks list by adding icons within the drop-down bookmarks menu.

More Firefox extensions I use.

Freeware:

For Pc and Internet Explorer, Opera, Mozilla and Firefox users:

AM-DeadLink detects dead links and duplicates in your Browser Bookmarks. If a Bookmark has become unavailable you can verify it in the internal preview and delete it from your Browser. Additionally you can download FavIcons for all your Favorites and Bookmarks.

I like this program a lot: it does the same thing as the two firefox extension but can be used for different browsers. Its very easy to use and has some other useful features like creating a backup for your bookmarks.