Author Archives: benfranske - Page 25

Vertically Centering with CSS

Posted by on October 11, 2005 Comments Off on Vertically Centering with CSS

It’s always been a challenge to get vertical centering to work using CSS. I recently located a solution which supposedly uses valid CSS for centering in a div or a window. Cool stuff.

More Open Source Software Finds

Posted by on October 11, 2005 Comments Off on More Open Source Software Finds

This morning I found a few open source software projects I had not seen before and which look interesting. Scribus is an attempt to create an Adobe InDesign or PageMaker like experience. Primarily for Linux, Mac OSX and Win32 ports are in the works. The screenshots look promising I’ll have to take this one for a test drive some day.

Bluefish is billed as an advanced web editor. Looks like a great tool for doing PHP site programming but it’s definatly not a WYSIWYG editor like Macromedia’s Dreamweaver. For that you should probably take a look at Nvu which I’ve written about in the past.

The new TSS?

Posted by on October 10, 2005 Comments Off on The new TSS?

For those fans of the now defunct tech show “The Screen Savers” formally of ZDTV, TechTV, G4TechTV and G4 I have exciting news. Patrick Norton, Robert Heron and Jim Louderback (all of former ZDTV/TechTv fame) have been working on a new project for ZiffDavis called DigitalLifeTV. It’s still getting started and has rough episodes occasionally but production value is consistently increasing and it is a lot like the old TSS format. The show is streamed live on the web and is also availible for download after the fact in a variety of formats. If you’re a former ZDTV/TechTv fan or just someone interested in technology but not looking for something over your head I encourage you to check this out!

Canon offers to repair defective CCDs in digital cameras

Posted by on October 10, 2005 Comments Off on Canon offers to repair defective CCDs in digital cameras

In April 2004 I purchased a Canon PowerShot A70 from Amazon.com to experiment with a digital camera. By December of 2004 I noticed problems where the LCD on the back of the camera would flicker periodicially and picture quality was decreased. While at the January 2005 Consumer Electronics Show I attempted to show this to a Canon rep who gave me the brush off and no real suggestions as it was an intermittant problem. As time went by the problem got progressivly worse but didn’t bother me because I had purchased a Canon RebelXT just after it hit the market and that had become my primary camera. Over the summer I noticed the LCD was doing a lot more flickering and would even go black or show random patterns and colors at various times. Today I found out that Canon has issued an advisory notice about this problem and has offered to repair any units with problems, even those out of warranty. I called Canon this evening and everything is set to get my camera fixed. To find out what to do if your camera has a problem check for notices posted in the “Service Notices” section of the Canon support website for your camera. Even though I’ve upgraded to a RebelXT I do like having the A70 as a carry around camera and something to keep in the car or with me for imprompu photography.

U.S. residents are kindly directed to contact the Canon Customer Support Center for further assistance at 1-800-828-4040. Support hours are Monday thru Friday – 8:00 AM to 12:00 midnight; and Saturday 10:00 AM to 8:00 PM (all times EST). Alternatively, if electronic support is preferred, please send your email to carecenter@cits.canon.com

The CCDs in question are used in the following models.
Digital Cameras
PowerShot A60, PowerShot A70, PowerShot A75, PowerShot A300, PowerShot A310, Digital IXUS V3, Digital IXUS II, Digital IXUS IIs

Digital Video Cameras
MV600i, MV630i, MV650i, MV700i, MV730i, MV750i, MV5i, MV5i MC, MV6i MC
ZR60, ZR65 MC, ZR70 MC, ZR80, ZR85, ZR90, Elura 40 MC, Elura 50

Web Based OS

Posted by on October 3, 2005 1 comment

Today I happened across the eyeOS project which aims to create a browser based personal content management system. It is PHP based, has partial AJAX support and is GPL. Cool idea, it could be an easy way for web newbies to create and maintain websites.

From the site:

EyeOS is a free, cross-platform Personal Content Manager System based upon the style of a Desktop Operating System. The base package includes the whole Operating System structure and ten apps, as a Calendar, a File Manager, a Text Editor, an Internal Messenger, a Browser and a Calculator.

VoIP and Conferencing

Posted by on October 1, 2005 Comments Off on VoIP and Conferencing

I’ve been working on my Asterisk server again cleaning up the configuration and peering with various VoIP services so today I signed up for the Gizmo project. Gizmo is a lot like Skype in that it provides an easy way for the VoIP novice to get online, chat with friends and make and receive calls from the phone network. A big reason I like Gizmo much more is that Gizmo is based on the open SIP protocol which means it’s easily interfacable with Asterisk and other VoIP devices. Be sure to check it out.

While I was setting up the Gizmo account I also ran across the FreeConferenceCall site. My guess is the free service gives you a long distance number to call in while the paid service gives you a toll-free number but it’s still a cool idea and a nice way to get a big conference call going, especially with those free nights and weekends on your cell phone plan. They also have a way to dial in via Gizmo (and thus any SIP client) so you can get free access that way too.

Postfix SMTP AUTH support for relayhost

Posted by on September 6, 2005 5 comments

Tonight I changed my relayhost for my outgoing home mail server to one that requires me to use SMTP AUTH so I needed to modify my main.cf on the outgoing server as follows.

Added the following settings to /etc/postfix/main.cf:
smtp_sasl_auth_enable = yes
smtp_sasl_password_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/sasl_passwd
smtp_sasl_security_options =

Create /etc/postfix/sasl_passwd as follows:
my.mail.relay.net username:password

Because the password is in cleartext make it root only:
# chown root:root /etc/postfix/sasl_passwd && chmod 600 /etc/postfix/sasl_passwd

Create the hash file:
# postmap /etc/postfix/sasl_passwd

Make the hash file world readable:
# chmod 644 /etc/postfix/sasl_passwd

Reload the Postfix config:
# /etc/init.d/postfix reload

2002 National Public Radio Documentary on New Orleans Hurricane Threat

Posted by on September 1, 2005 Comments Off on 2002 National Public Radio Documentary on New Orleans Hurricane Threat

I found something the other day which I found very interesting to hear so I’ll share it with you. In 2002 American RadioWorks (NPR) recorded a documentary called Nature’s Revenge: Lousiana’s Vanishing Wetlands. The fourth and final part of that series was about the possibility of a hurricane hitting New Orleans. Even at that time there were some very serious concerns by scientists stating what would happen with a near hit by a powerful storm. Of course we can now see that much of what they predicted can and is coming true. I think we’re going to see some serious questions raised in the coming weeks and months about why we were as unprepared as we were with this clearly documented risk and what we should do now with the problem that is New Orleans.

The audio from this story is still availible. If you have Real Player installed you can hear it by clicking this link. It’s only about twenty minutes long and I found it quite interesting to listen to earlier this week so I encourage you to listen if you get the chance. When listening remember that this was done three years ago!

Digital Pro Photo Printing

Posted by on August 30, 2005 1 comment

I’ve been looking for a good pro lab where I can get my digital photos printed. For film processing I’ve been using Dale Labs but they really specialize in film and not digital processing. So far I’ve heard good things about WHCC, Printroom.com, Mpix.com and Winkflash. I’m also trying Snapfish, Costco and Target just to get a good mix. I’m looking both for a high quality/low cost option and a more expensive super quality. If you have any suggestions or comments please let me know!

Gmail Invitations

Posted by on August 25, 2005 1 comment

I was lucky to get a Google Gmail invitation early on and now anyone in the US can sign up. If you’re outside the US and need an invitation for an account you can get one at this useful site or if you have a bunch of invitations you don’t know what to do with you can share them by sending the invites to gmail@swal.org