Creative Busy Hands Techie

PSD Files - Thumbnails for Photoshop PSD on Jaunty

2009-11-24T21:52:00.000-08:00

I can finally "preview" in Nautilus my .psd files. Horray!!!

I tried several things. For instance, this post mentions to install Gloobus. I tried to install from the list on the post, but there were some errors. I could find another site, where I could load Gloobus using Synaptics. The site is here. I install the Gloobus Preview, used the two commands gconftool-2 commands mentioned.

Unfortunately, it did not work. By that time, my hopes were getting pretty small.

Then, still trying to make it work, I tried to open a psd file with gthumb (I think). I got the MIME type for the psd file as "vnd.adobe.photoshop", and the message saying that it could not open. . At least, I had some more terms to research :-) (I was running out of ideas for researching a solution).

Back to "almost step zero", I could find this site. I know that I used gdk-pixbuf-psd before (the previous ubuntu install), and it had worked with the previous Ubuntu version.

So, downloaded the patch, installed the patch, compiled the code, ran make (I ran make clean first), and did the necessary moves for the .so file (mentioned in the README of the gdk-pixbuf-psd package).

Nautilus did not work, however PICASA did!!! At least, I am half happy. Beside, something happened...

When I was trying the other options, I actually learn quite a bit about gconf. So, may be that was the rest of the solution. So, I entered:

gconftool-2 --set /desktop/gnome/thumbnailers/image@vnd.adobe.photoshop/enable -t boolean "True"

and

gconftool-2 --set /desktop/gnome/thumbnailers/image@vnd.adobe.photoshop/command -t string "evince-thumbnailer -s %s %u %o"

As magic, Nautilus displayed the preview of the psd file. I am really happy.

If you are running into the problem, hopefully you can use this solution.

Thanks for looking,
-luiza

Problems with HP Printer after Ubuntu update

2009-10-04T12:30:00.000-07:00

My printer, HP 1018, decided not to work... I am not sure why. My suspicion was the update to Jaunty that happen this week. It was an awkward update... for the first time ever, the update manager crashed! Not sure why. There were several packages to be updated, and after the crash there were very few: I think 4-5 packages.

So, I decided to reinstall some packages using Synaptics... Nothing changed: the printer did not work.

Because I think that something went very wrong with the update, I decided to manually install HPLIB. That solved the problem!!! I am happy now.

Here is the link for the HP installation, in case you are running into the same problem:

http://hplipopensource.com/hplip-web/install/manual/distros/ubuntu.html

Hope this helps!

Ubuntu Jaunty and Nautilus crashes, Camberra error

2009-09-15T18:25:00.000-07:00

Ready for my saga of Jaunty, Nautilus and the "Canberra" error? It was too much frustration, so it will be long :-) If you are having these problems, continue reading, and see if you can apply the same solution.

Yesterday, I decided to update my machine to Ubuntu Jaunty (9.04). The installation went very smooth, unlike the previous one. I was in heaven .... until....

One of the first thing I did was to open Nautilus. Well, the :computer was not allowed. I said to myself... ok, can I work around this? Sure..., who cares where it starts, I said to myself.

Next time, I try to find the "Empty Trash" under the File options... It was not there. However, "Trash" was there. So, I said to myself, just open "Trash" and empty it. Well, :trash was not allowed either.

Then, next time I tried "Preferences" (I use .psd files because of the scrapbooking). I could not see a "thumb print" of them. So, I said to myself: just open the preferences, and see what you can do. Well, Nautilus crashed.

I try to find a solution. Googled a lot! Found something to try... Nothing worked. I also noticed the error ( the "canberra" error... (if you had this error, you know what I am talking about)) showed up in pretty much every single application.... Google for that. Lots of pointers, but no solution.

Close to midnight, I decided I was just going to re-install today, and see what happened.

Before I tell you what I did, let me tell you a little about partition details. I only format swap, and "/". I have 2 other partitions: /home and /usr/local. I do not format these.

This morning, I reinstall. Things were still not working, but the updates did not popped yet, and the Nvidia driver installation did not popped either. So, I told myself, be patient... It might be that. In the meantime, I decided to move usr/local to /usr/local/oldlocal. Not sure why, but it was just a feeling (I call "Mother's feeling :-)
Waited for all the updates, nvidia, etc... Installed everything, restarted, and voila... Nautilus working like a charm. All the other applications that were giving the "canberra" error, stopped giving it. Life was good. Looked at the files that were installed in /usr/local. Not much... So, copied /usr/local back to where it was. Installed a whole bunch of things. Restarted (do not remember what was the reason).. and voila... Everything broken again.

I told myself: I am sure (:-) it was one of the applications. So, I try to trace back what I had done in the last few hours... Of course, I do not remember everything :-) But I tried. The errors were still there. Solution: install again :-) Ok, after reinstalling at least 4 more times (may be I think that the machine will have pity of me :-) ), I decided to move the /usr/local to /usr/local/oldlocal.

Yes, you guessed, that was the problem. So, to make things clean, that is, being able to use something that as actually care from /usr/local, I ended renaming /usr/local/bin to /usr/local/bin-old, and the same for sbin. Why? Check your path. Mine the first is to look into /usr/local/bin and /usr/local/sbin. Did this solution works? It did not for me (the preferences in Nautilus still).

So, back to the oldlocal solution until, one day, I figure out what is in there that causes the problems. That is the only one that allows me to press "preference" in Nautilus without crashing it.

So, if you are installing Jaunty and preserving the /usr/local partition, you may run into the same problems that I did. Let me know if this helped you. It will make my day if it did.

-luiza

Gimp and Picasa

2009-03-20T22:01:00.001-07:00

I can finally have an environment to deal with my Digital Scrapbooking. Before you keep reading, I have to alert you that it kind of techie... But I wanted you to know what I been up to.

As some of you know, I love Digital Scrapbooking. I have lots of material. But I did not have an environment that really help me to get productive, and organized. Something that if I type give me, for instance, all the papers that are blue, and it would display for me all the papers that are blue! Simple concept, but few environments that support the two categories: being a paper, and being blue.

So finally I decided to put all my stuff in Picasa. It is great! It will be a lot of work to get into the shape I want, but I know I can do. Picasa can deal with several file types, including psd's (something that gthumb, fspot do not handle, even after all the hacking I did). Ok, I forgot to mention that I use Ubuntu - a linux distribution.

I use Gimp, as my image manipulation program. I could not get Picasa and Gimp to talk. That was a big road block. I almost gave Picasa up!

For the last 2 days (and I mean full days, probably more than 20 hours of research, test, and investigation), I figure out a way to get these two applications to "talk". Trick stuff, but it is done. Had to:

edit the file /google/picasa/3.0/desktop/picasa-hook-mimehandler.sh.template,
remove the .template and move to a place under my path (I moved to /usr/local/bin)
I added the lines
gimp-2.6 "$@" &
exit 0
remove the exit 1 line from the file.

Worked like a charm! However....

The last bit was Gimp not being able to re-use the opened instance.... even under Linux. After research, I found out that the way Gimp under Linux figures out that has an instance open is through D-Bus. It turns out that the D-Bus library in the Ubuntu distribution did not get recognized by the compiled version of Gimp (I compile it myself). This last bit was solved by downloading the source of D-Bus and compiling myself. As a by-product I got Gimp 2.6.6 up and running too.

I am happy!!! Now, it is time to take some pictures of the projects that I've been working on. I am spending just too much time with the Digital Scrapbooking stuff, including my other blog.

Thanks for stopping by.

Please, be Aware when Booking Through Hotwire

2008-12-28T17:59:00.001-08:00

I decided to share this bad experience, so the same thing does not happen to you. I just had a terrible experience booking a hotel through Hotwire.

I have been booking through Hotwire car rental for several years and never had a problem regarding the description of what I am paying for. That is, the bill you pay has everything spelled out.

It turns out that the same clear business does not happen when you are booking a hotel. I wanted to book a hotel close to the rest of my husband's family in Colorado. Well... got the daily rate, taxes information, and whatever fees. I liked the price, and decided to book. After confirming, one of the "info" things "tells" me that I will have to pay $20 more for every night I spend at the hotel. This is after you confirm and cannot cancel your reservation. Called customer support and it was worthless. (Only tells me that it part of the small print in the agreement.)

So, I hope this never happens to you. Be aware when you are booking through them, at least hotels.

Gimp 2.6.3 on Ubuntu Intrepid 8.10

2008-12-04T15:12:00.001-08:00

I could finally install Gimp 2.6.3 on Intrepid!!!!!

All started when I was doing the Christmas Layout. (Kind of the story behind the making of the Christmas Layout- not always only Scrapbook related issues....)

Intrepid comes with Gimp 2.6.1, and that is great! However, during the layout making, I was using a template. To use the "elements" in the template in Gimp, you need to do the alpha to selection, choose the other layer, invert the selection and cut. It always worked in the versions of Gimp previous to 2.6.1 . Well, it was not working any more in Gimp 2.6.1

So, I decided to install Gimp 2.6.3, and check if the newest version was going to solve my problem. It only got me other problems: The problem of installing Gimp from the source code!

I was running into lots of problems (started with complaints on BABL).... Solved that one. Than run into the GTK2.0+ (I think that it was what was called). Asked hubby. I got the answer I did not wanted to hear: " Yeah... I read that it was a nightmare to install Gimp from source code).

I wanted to do my layout so badly!!! His answer was definitely not going to stop me :-) Googled a lot, but nothing really helped. I had to make lots of guesses. After a few hours.... : I installed!!!! Yeah!!! I felt so good!

The only problem was that after ALL the effort, Gimp 2.6.3 did not do the alpha-to-selection- invert - cut the "right" way. Oh well... Too much for all the installation effort (LOL).

But, fortunately, I figured out a solution!!!! And that was the way the Christmas Layout was done.

Thanks for "listening". Questions?

Digital Scrapbook Search Engine

2008-11-13T21:48:00.000-08:00

Yehh.... I could finally post the first results of the search engine that I am developing. I am still developing the software, but I was able to publish "rough" results. I know there are other search engines for this kind of stuff out there. But I thought I could do better :-)

Anyway, if you have time, and you love digital scrapbook, check it out. The blog is:

digifreebieslist.blogspot.com

Let me know what you think.