Tuesday, December 22, 2009 12:36 PM | rahel luethy | 2 comment(s)
As much as I hate clip art, wingdings and the like, using circled digits to annotate screenshots is really handy, especially for bug reports.
because these characters don't really have a keyboard-key-equivalent, typing them is a pain. thus, as a note to myself, this is how to insert circled digits in gimp:
- select the wingdings typeface ((zapf) dingbats or (open) symbol on mac/linux)
- lookup the unicode of the symbol you'd like to insert
- in gimp's text editor: press Ctrl-Shift-U (to enter unicode mode), enter the respective code (e.g. 2776 for the circled one), press Enter
as a programmer i'm quite puzzled by the fact that the mapping starts with the circled one (and zero doesn't seem to be available?), but probably i'm just missing something — apparently i still don't understand the concept behind unicode...
Thursday, December 03, 2009 4:24 PM | rahel luethy | 0 comment(s)
i've just completed this year's family photobook (preview) and wanted to share how extremely pleased i am with the blurb book publishing service.
this is how creating a blurb photobook works (and trust me, it just works):
- download and install their BookSmart software (geeks: it's a java client, deployed via install4j)
- import all your photos (from harddrive, flickr, etc.)
- select an existing theme — in contrast to other vendors, the blurb themes are actually pleasing to the eye
- add pages, assign layouts, drag & drop your picture on to the layout — scaling, alignment, picture tracking: all just works automagically
- preview your book & upload it to your blurb account — this is where it can rest for a while (no money involved so far)
- once you actually want to order: log in to your account on the blurb website, order your book, and it will be printed on demand (you can also publish it, so it can be ordered by your friends, relatives, anyone you choose)
unless you explicitly delete them, the books will stay on the blurb servers, and you can order copies of "old" books anytime. you have plenty of ordering options (softcover, black linen hardcover, premium silk paper) and the quality is excellent. at the same time, the shipping deadlines are quite impressive, and with the current dollar exchange rate, prices are highly competitive (about 40 swiss francs for a 50 page book).
so if you're still short of presents, there's a few days left to create your own book and get it deliverd just before christmas...
the latest version (0.47) of inkscape can export SVG drawings to JavaFX — nice!
