creative blog

I’ve got a new harddrive purchased from toycat with 80GB of free space I thought I can put it inside my box just as a data drive but I did not realized that I already have all IDE channels occupied (10GB+40GB+DVD-ROM+DVD-RW) so I decided to put there new linux distro and give that 40GB hdd to Jana(10GB HDD has Windows installed on and I need it for some really strange reasons).
First install was bad, I told ubuntu to save grub to /dev/hdb0 (yes, it is primary slave because of stupid Windows) and then it refused to boot. After some detective work I have given it up and reinstalled it and told it to place grub to the right place (/dev/hda0). Then the customisation part has begun.

TV card (Leadtek Winfast 2000) works like a charm even with remote controller! (Jana accidentally almost turned off my computer when she was shutting down her by the same remote ) I use TVTime app to watch tv btw. After that I updated some sources in /etc/apt/sources.list and accidentally deleted “main” strings in repositories definitions… Nomed and Roxville, thank you guys for help with realizing how stupid I am After that I installed some of my favourite apps like Abiword to write some text, f-spot to organize photos, GIMP 2.3 (thanks Josh for link to .deb of GIMP 2.3) and Inkscape (an autopackage of SVN version - it has really nice new feature, I do recommend it) for some graphics stuff, Epiphany for browsing and Gnome-gmail script as default mail application, gajim as jabber client…and more and more other packages. (yes, I am making a list of my favourite apps from this blog entry )

There were some troubles getting mp3 and DVD movies working but with a help mibo at ubuntu@conf.netlab.cz (czech ubuntu help) I’ve got it working now For tomorrow, ehm, for today now I am going to customize system a bit more and transfer all data from the 40GB HDD to the new one. I hope I will have time to finish some illustrations I work on. For now the dapper on my box looks like this:

Ubuntu Dapper Drake

Yeah! I’ve felt absolutelly in love with this piece of software. The grouping of MUC and ordinary chat windows into single and tabbed one, ability to create multicontacts, invisible mode, avatars in the rooster, (new icq transport icons by me ), simple and well-arranged GUI… these and other features caused that I’ve tried to install Gajim 0.10 also on my laptop with Windows and it works!

After some attempts in the past, I’ve been afraid that it will not work(as usually when I install/work with any python using software; that language does not like me) but it simply works(TM) I’ve downloaded the installer package without GTK+ libs because I have them already in the system because of GIMP and installed. What a surprise it was when it run like a charm And it is confirmed now that tt can use these latest GTK+ libs from GIMP with no problems(at least it looks like).

Things I am thinking about now are to draw my own full iconset for all default/transport statuses and some kind of smileys unification…but it is on the list, I have to finish my and a few another websites first.

Update 12.5.2006: Well, it works until you click any link inside the chat/message window, then it segfaults. It is known bug and the solution is to use latest GTK+ 2.6.10-rc1 libs from gladewin.sf.net. The bad side of this is that GIMP cannot run with these libs so you have to install GTK 2.6.10 from gimp-win.sf.net to enable it. This makes a mixture of all gtk libs and can cause unexpected hangs/segfaulst in both, Gajim and GIMP and maybe other GTK+ apps. The solution would probably be the same as in case of GAIM. Use GIMP’s GTK+ libs as default for Win32 builds.

Via gfxartist.com I’ve found out that there is a new version of graphics software for real painting on the computer, ArtRage 2.0. This new version exist in two variants whereas the commercial version($19.95) has some new tools which are not in the free version.

But this is not the main topic here; thanks to that article I’ve found amazing cartoonist Chad Essley (his site) and his blog showing so nice illustrations created on the tablet pc in Alias’s Sketchbook2. And among any other articles he made a comparison of the new Artrage 2 with Alias Sketchbook 2. And the result? Artrage 2 still needs some improvements but in this stage is still very useable for illustrations; So, download and illustrate and enjoy Chad’s blog&illustrations

Well, just at the end of the previous month, two czech students started a web server called HumanART.cz which focuses on similar things like servers DeviantART.com, CGTalk or GFXartist. But, in this case, in czech language. The web application and gallery categories still require some tweaking but it is growing. I’ve joined this project and wish them to build such a big community of czech artists like communities around above mentioned sites.

I’ve also started to work on a series of illustrations for a kids’ book I have in my mind for a time… First of them is called “Oscar the octopus and his friends” and besides my DA.com gallery you can see this and future ones in my HumanART.cz gallery too. Oh, and as you probably guess, I am not the one who writes the story for the book I had asked roxville for a help on this. While he is a singer and writes his own songs(check out on his website I think he can write a really nice story

The previous illustration has been made in the vector graphics editor Inkscape. Thanks to that I was able to create a colouring book’s version a day before yesterday. This version had been put under a heavy testing procedure, kids have it in their hands and god only knows what result will I recieve from these critics

I do plan to create a “Making of” of this illustration and the colouring book, so stay tuned (I will probably publish it bi-lingual, here in english and in czech on humanart.cz. Just need some time to write it

And at the end, only a short mention about new features in the Inkscape. Since .43 Inscape’s development had moved from cvs to svn versioning system, there are some UI improvements(swatches integrated int othe UI, new and pretty icons’ set by Plácido André Sousa), Outline mode under the View menu, snapping notifications and some more I did not remember

Hem, it could be everything for now Oh, I could nearly forget, I have not been aimed as a target for “Four things” thing yet And I still have some Google’s Mail’s invites, so if anyone wants one, comment here .

Eeeeeek, and of course, If anyone watched Rallye Monte Carlo 2006 in January, the design of prints of the car of Tibor Cserhalmi is my baby, completely done in Inkscape (so much for my ego)

Yes, this post uses that weird language and is about czech site for graphics editor Inkscape.

Czech content below

Pod Vánoční stromeček jsme se zeměkoulan, Runer a má maličkost rozhodli spustit pro Vás nový web věnující se vektorovému grafickému editoru Inkscape a to jak jinak než v češtině a samozřejmě s fórem pro Vaše všetečné otázky o tomto editoru

Zatím jsme ve stádiu rozjezdu, úprav šablon vzhledu a postupného vytváření kategorií a článků, ale i tak můžete svůj browser nasměrovat na http://inkscape.prosim.org a svými připomínkami ve fóru a nebo svými články nám pomoci ve výstavbě tohoto webu.

Trochu mé polívčičky, ve fóru na http://inkscape.prosim.org/ je též sekce týkající se překladu programu, takže pokud máte nějaké připomínky, návrhy či jiné nápady týkající se tématu překladu Inkscape nebo dokumentů s ním souvisejících, už se nemusíte omezovat na komentáře na mém blogu, ale můžete je poslat tam, budu Vám povděčen za jakoukoliv pomoc při zlepšování překladů.

Několik málo fotek ze sobotního setkání příznivců GNU/Linuxu, mírně protříděných, najdete v mé fotogalerii, kdo se poznáte, pište se do komentářů pod příslušnou fotku (Doufám že budou fungovat) Už teď se těším na další podobnou akci, mohli bysme to měsíčně opakovat

I did an upgrade of wordpress on my site to v1.5.2 including the upgrade of The Referal tracker plugin to the latest version. I did this step just before the move to my own domain. Yes, the move After a week maximally, this blog will not be existing anymore. The new domain will be blog.vybiral.info and of course, cornelius.gimp.cz will be re-linked to point there. So be prepared to change feed in your RSS readers and your bookmarks

Upgradoval jsem wordpress na tomto blogu na verzi 1.5.2 a to včetně pluginu The Referal tracker plugin na poslední verzi. K tomuto kroku jsem se odhodlal těsně před samotným přesunem blogu na vlastní doménu. Ano, přesun nastává Za týden nejdéle přestane tento blog existovat. Nová doména bude blog.vybiral.info a samozřejmě link cornelius.gimp.cz bude upraven aby ukazoval na správné místo. Takže, buďte připraveni na změny ve vašich RSS čtečkách a oblíbených

A week or more ago, I found one extraordinary artistic blog which is, besides of traditional art, aimed to work with Inkscape. Popolon writes articles about usage of the Inkscape mainly for illustration purposes there and some of his articles are simply amazing with their ideas. Last time he published a mini “how to” to show how a man can do illustrations in Inkscape, from basic concept on a paper until a final result. So if you don’t mind that the most of articles is in French language and only some are in english, read in get inspired.

The question “How can I wrap text around inside the circle?” seems to be frequent on #inkscape. I did this little visual tutorial how you can get this working in Inkscape 0.41 and higher(or any tool with Text to path capability). Enjoy

Můžu hrdě oznámit, že Inkscape verze 0.41 má konečně plný překlad(a když říkám plný tak ze 100% ), včera jsem ho dodělal a cs.po už je mezi patchi do cvs stromu.

Pro aplikaci na již existující instalaci doporučuji stáhnout soubor inkscape.mo ode mne a přepsat s ním ten co je v původní verzi. (Windows: c:/program files/inkscape/locale/cs/LCMESSAGES; Linux: /usr/share/locale/cs/LCMESSAGES ) Samozřejmě se zazálohováním původního souboru! ) a inkscape, pokud nespadne, bude česky Překlad je v kódování UTF-8 tak doufám, že nebudou problémy.

Ocenil bych případné odezvy na ten překlad pro opravy a doplnění a to buď do komentářů nebo na mail(viz kontakty)