Category Archives: graphics

9 Essential Design Tools for Non-Designers by https://is.gd/ktvPhr

Content and design work better together – in fact, your content marketing efforts really won’t achieve optimal success if they don’t include a solid design component to bring your words to life. Not convinced your content needs design?

Regardless, you’ll need to work on a design project at some point, and there’s no need for you to look like an amateur when you do it. Here are nine easy-to-use tools that can help any non-designer accomplish common design tasks.

from https://is.gd/ktvPhr

Selected by Galigio via Computer Borders

Pick, un minimalista selector de color para Ubuntu, Elementary, Linux Mint y derivadas by https://is.gd/IcvzFn

Ya sea porque te dedicas al diseño o programación web, porque haces aplicaciones, o por cualquier otra razón, es muy común querer conocer averiguar el código del color en una imagen, web o donde sea.

Por este mismo motivo, hace algún tiempo implementé mi propia aplicación Dropper, un selector de color para Ubuntu.

from https://is.gd/IcvzFn

Selected by Galigio via Computer Borders

The good third choice: MATE desktop environment. The traditional but rock solid solution for the Unity unhappy users (when also Gnome fails)…

2 Replies

My first Linux OS was a Knoppix but I had so many problems with the hardware drivers, the LAN configuration and the monitor settings that I was really discouraged. After many tests I decided that Ubuntu was the right OS for my notebooks and I continued to use it without any particularly matters till Unity.

Unity is nice to see, intuitive but if you use your OS in a stressful way (I mean doing three or four different tasks all together: reading emails, talking with Skype and writing on LibreOffice), you spend too much time looking for the icon you need to launch the right program. The vertical monitor space has not enough room to visually show all the icons related to programs I use everyday. Surely this is my personal matter but I actually prefer the “old” graphic interface. For this reason I decided to install Gnome 3 but my vetust IBM Thinkpad crashed a couple of time in a week.

To my surprise also the Gnome Classic option encountered some crashes due to the amount and diversity of the software I installed on my laptop during the last years.

As usual, after some web searches I found a solution: MATE. This particular desktop environment is a fork of Gnome 2 and it really looks very intuitive and easy to use. If some software conflicts with the MATE environment, a pop-up message will appear on your sceeen and, if you have the patience to read the Details contained in it, you will able to solve your problems. In my particular case (don’t ask me why) it helped me to focus my attention on Conduit which caused the crashes on Gnome.

To easily install MATE, on almost every Linux distribution, you can read its wiki dedicated page or directly follow the below instruction if you use Ubuntu 12.04.

– open Terminal and type these command lines:

sudo add-apt-repository "deb http://repo.mate-desktop.org/ubuntu oneiric main"

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-getinstall mate-archive-keyring

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install mate-core

sudo apt-get install mate-desktop-environment

When the Terminal finishes all the upgrade stuff, reboot your Ubuntu 12.04 and select MATE on the login screen (click on the upper right “gear” and choose MATE).

That’s all! Have a good week!

How to install and manage Screenlets on Ubuntu

1 Reply

Screenlets are small applications to represent things such as sticky notes, clocks, calendars around on your Ubuntu desktop. You can launch a pre-installed screenlet from Screenlet Manager, or install a new one into the Manager for launching it. Here are the steps for installing and launching a screenlet, for example, WaterMark System Information.
– Install Screenlets Manager if it has not been added.
– Go to Applications (or Main Menu) > Ubuntu Software Center.
– Enter screenlets in the Search Box.
– Select Screenlets, click the “Install” button.
– Download the screenlet e.g. “WaterMark System Information” to a folder.
– Go to Applications (or Main Menu) > Accessories > Screenlets.
– Click Install, select Install Screenlet and click OK.
– Browse to the folder, select the file downloaded and click “Open” to install the screenlet into the Screenlets Manager.
– Select the screenlet “WaterMark” and click “Launch/Add”. (Tips: you can add more than one WaterMark screenlet and set it to display other system information.)
More screenlets are available for installation from screenlets.org.

Video – Install Macbuntu on Ubuntu 11.04 by seaner992

Leave a reply

How To Install and Configure Conky by DarkJediHacker

Leave a reply

Install Conky system monitor for Linux and configure it in few basic steps

Leave a reply

Conky is one of the most powerful and versatile system monitors for Linux desktops. It allows you to monitor and display all the information about your hardware, top processes, network, emails and more. At the moment more than 300 different feature has been built for Conky and searching on the web you always find the perfect feature already developed by someone.

– Installation on Ubuntu:

in Terminal run: sudo apt-get install conky

– Configuration:

In Terminal run: sudo nautilus

Go to File System: /etc/conky/conky.conf

Save a copy of the original conky.conf in another location and open the original file with Gedit Text Editor

First of all change: own_window yes to own_window no

Choose your preferred alignment (some samples below…):
alignment top_right
or
alignment middle_right
or
alignment bottom_right

Play with: update_interval 1.0
and change the interval value till you find the right ratio to obtain the best speed for you (in my case it was 0.80).

Add this line to eliminate any flickering:
double_buffer yes
but, on some computers, all the icon on your desktop will be hidden and you need to use (move) the mouse to discover them if you will not add this parameter: own_window_type normal

Add, as last line (or in other position if you prefer):
${color red} ${cpugraph} to have a clear graph about cpu (obviously you can choose the color you prefer)

For automatic start of Conky at startup, please follow the following instructions:
Run Startup Applications in System –> Preferences
Click on Add and save after updating the following instructions
Name: Conky
Command: /usr/bin/conky

Restart Ubuntu to check your new Conky “applet”

Link to Conky: http://conky.sourceforge.net/

For more info about Conky’s variables: http://conky.sourceforge.net/variables.html

Find online some pre-compiled Conky configuration files, searching, for example, on: http://gnome-look.org

How to Install Inkscape on Linux (with special instructions for Ubuntu)

1 Reply

Inkscape is an open-source SVG editor with capabilities similar to Illustrator, CorelDraw, Visio, etc. Supported SVG features include basic shapes, paths, text, alpha blending, transforms, gradients, node editing, svg-to-png export, grouping, and more. Its main motivation is to provide the Open Source community with a fully XML, SVG, and CSS2 compliant SVG drawing tool.
These are the founding goals for Inkscape:
– Full SVG (plus XML, CSS2) compliance
– Core written in C/C++
– Gtk-based user interface following the standards set out in the GNOME Human Interface Guidelines (HIG)
– Emphasis on a small core and extensibility. Usually Inkscape’s extensions are always first-class so we can say “no” to features in the core without guilt.
– Open, community-oriented development processes
– Baseline is the Sodipodi Hydra codebase
Where a better solution cannot be found, default to the way Illustrator does it.

Installing on Ubuntu Linux

Probably the easiest way to install on Ubuntu is to use the apt command.
Open a terminal and type;
sudo apt-get update (enter)
sudo apt-get install inkscape (enter)

Ubuntu Linux Development Versions

As it approaches release, nightly i386 and AMD64 builds of the latest Inkscape development version are provided at http://ubuntu.cafuego.net. On that site, one should select the appropriate Ubuntu or Debian release, then the Inkscape link, and finally the provided package.

Enable Windows 7 Aero Snap in Ubuntu

1 Reply

In Windows 7, you can click and drag a window to the left or right edge of the desktop and it will fill half of the screen, or snap a window to the top edge of the desktop and it will be maximized.

In Ubuntu, you can click and drag a window to the left, right or top edge of the desktop to achieve the same result.

In addition to CompizConfig Settings Manager, install WmCtrl if not added:
– go to Applications (or Main Menu) > Accessories > Terminal.
– enter sudo apt-get install wmctrl
– enter password when prompted.
– go To System > Preferences > CompizConfig Settings Manager.
– select “General” from the left panel and click “Commands”.
In Command line 0, 1 and 2, paste the following codes:

Command line 0, paste:

WIDTH=`xdpyinfo | grep ‘dimensions:’ | cut -f 2 -d ‘:’ | cut -f 1 -d ‘x’` && HALF=$(($WIDTH/2)) && wmctrl -r :ACTIVE: -b add,maximized_vert && wmctrl -r :ACTIVE: -e 0,0,0,$HALF,-1

Command line 1, paste:

WIDTH=`xdpyinfo | grep ‘dimensions:’ | cut -f 2 -d ‘:’ | cut -f 1 -d ‘x’` && HALF=$(($WIDTH/2)) && wmctrl -r :ACTIVE: -b add,maximized_vert && wmctrl -r :ACTIVE: -e 0,$HALF,0,$HALF,-1

Command line 2, paste:

wmctrl -r :ACTIVE: -b add,maximized_vert,maximized_horz

In the same window, click “Edge Bindings” tab.
Change Run Command 0, 1 and 2 from “None” to “Left”, “Right” and “Top” respectively.
Click “Back” button and select “General Options”, change “Edge Trigger Delay” to about 500.

Set your Ubuntu Desktop Fully Transparent Panel

Leave a reply

When you set the panel to be transparent in the default Ambiance theme in Ubuntu 10.10 or 10.04, you will find that some panel items’ backgrounds are not transparent, but you can make them transparent and consistent with others, following these steps:
– Go to Applications (or Main Menu) > Accessories > Terminal.
– Enter: cp -R /usr/share/themes/Ambiance ~/.themes/
– Enter: gedit ~/.themes/Ambiance/gtk-2.0/apps/gnome-panel.rc (for Ubuntu 10.10) OR gedit ~/.themes/Ambiance/gtk-2.0/gtkrc (for Ubuntu 10.04), to open the file with gedit.
– Search for this line bg_pixmap[NORMAL] = “img/panel.png” (for Ubuntu 10.10) OR bg_pixmap[NORMAL] = “panel_bg.png” (for Ubuntu 10.04)
– Comment out the line by placing a # at the beginning of the line, like this: # bg_pixmap[NORMAL] = …
– Save the file.
– Go to System > Preferences > Appearance, switch to the other theme and then back to the Ambiance theme.
Note: If you’d like to change to the Radiance theme, replace Ambiance with Radiance in the above command lines, but you’d like to change to the New Wave theme, then enter: cp -R /usr/share/themes/”New Wave” ~/.themes/ in step 2, enter gedit ~/.themes/”New Wave”/gtk-2.0/gtkrc in step 3, search for and comment out this line bg_pixmap[NORMAL] = “Images/Panel/PanelBarLong.png” in steps 4 and 5 respectively.