The Final Zone project

My venerable Toshiba Satellite C650D got upgraded from Fedora 18 to Fedora 19 branch using yum because fedup-cli command could not update the kernel with either --instrepo or --skipkernel paramenter. The upgrade also fixed an outstanding issue related to the lagging Nautilus file manager while opening inside Gnome Shell (now version 3.8). A welcome change on that release is the ability to control notification messages, search and privacy (better late than never). Switching to different keyboard input is much easier with Super+Space (English, French, Japanese). The new user interface for system setting seen on Network, is easier for the eyes in term of readability. The crash report known as ABRT received a new interface but needed some refinement layout side although it is much better than the previous version found on Fedora 18. An year and half annoying issue is the inability of Calendar to recognize Thunderbird Lightning. I installed Ligthning extension and still no dice...

English Initial revamping of Design Suite is completed with approval from Design Team. Nightly compose is currently broken but the local built currently resulted an "Oh no!" message. I took over gpick (much needed)for review but no reviewer yet. gimp-seperate+ is underway but the submitter is currently ill. I guess making Design Suite more professional is still a long way...

After taking maintainer-ship, the challenge is much bigger than expected with outdated information on the wiki and unmaintained ks file for a long time. Worse is the current spin on Fedora 18 has broken login authentication which I did not have a chance to test it. Learning from these lessons, here is some high goals: Rewrite the entire wiki of Design Suite. Select new default packages. Include fonts used by Fedora Design Team. Rework the entire ks file using desktop media(Gnome Shell) as a base. Increase the maximum size of livemedia to 4GB.

English 2012 is over, 2013 has begun.  I recently accepted to take over Design Spin from Fedora Project and immediately worked on packaging overhaul for Fedora 19 Release taking advantage of Gnome Shell features like. The goal is to set Design Spin as a nearly professional free and open source suite. Martin awoke Echo Icon project with some revamped iconset. Task will be challenging but it can be done. Français 2012 est terminé, 2013 a débuté. J'ai récemment accepter de saisir Design Spin du Projet Fedora et immédiatement effectué des changements d'empaquetage en prenant avantage du bureau Gnome Shell pour la sortie Fedora 19. L'objectif est d'établir comme une suite infographique professionelle que possible en utilisant les logiciels libres. Martin a réveillé le projet Echo Icon avec des icones redesinées. La tache sera hardu mais surmontable

English It has been a while I wrote on this blog because I am busy running my own design business. Aside that, I recently plug an Apple iPad 2 to import pictures and videos on a Fedora 17 running Gnome Shell 3.4 out of box. It is remarkable what a free and open source software network can do to a device intended to primarily run on iTunes software. Français De retour après le manque d’écrit sur ce blog en raison d'affaire professionnel relié à l'infographie. J'ai récemment branché l'iPad 2 d'Apple pour importer les photos et les vidéos sur le système de Fedora 17 roulant sur Gnome Shell 3.4. C'est remarquable qu'un réseau de logiciels libres peut supporter sans problème un dispositif conçu pour l'usage du logiciel iTune.

My very first online tutorial is an adaption from Chris Design Drawing Hairs article using both Path and Path Editor tools which requires Inkscape 0.47 or newer. Start-up Inkscape application which should open a new blank page and set the document into landscape.  Create a path Select the bezier tool or press either Shift+F6 or B on the keyboard. Draw a line to approximately 800px or more. You can also use rectangle tool ( R or F4 as shortcut key) as a thin line illustrated in grey. While the line is selected, convert into path from the menu Path -> Stroke to Path or press Ctrl+Alt+C on the keyboard. For the rectangle, Path -> Object to Path or Ctrl+Shift+C . The result will show grey diamonds on each corner. Create a pattern On the menu, Extensions -> Modify Paths -> Add Nodes . Set the Max Segments Length to 5px. On the menu Extension -> Modify Paths -> Jitter Nodes . Leave the default settings and apply effects. ...

English Fedora 17 Beefy Miracle is recently released. Be warned that some system with Nvidia Geforce 400 series and above might encounter a nasty bug from nouveau driver crashing anaconda, the Fedora installer. Workaround is to use VESA driver for the remaining of installation. Français Fedora 17 Beefy Miracle vient de sortir. Sachez que certains syst&egrav;mes équipés des cartes seacute;ries Nvidia Geforce 400 et ultérieurs risquent de rencontrer un bogue sérieux causé par le pilote nouveau plantant l'installeur anaconda. La solution temporaire est d'utiliser le pilote VESA pour le reste d'installation.

English Meta-key (Windows or Apple logo key) on Gnome Shell is very useful for this trick:  Point the cursor on an application (for example, a browser)  Hold the Meta-key and press either left or right arrow key set the application windows to either left or right of the half-screen  Wile still holding the Meta-key, press up to maximize the window of application. Français La touche Meta (logo Windows ou Apple selon les claviers) est très utile sur Gnome Shell avec cette astuce: Pointer le curseur sur une application (par exemple, editeur de texte) Enfoncer la touche Meta et appuyer soit la touche flèche gauche ou droite ce qui placera la fenêtre selon la direction choisi de la moiti&eacut; de l'&eacut;cran. Toujours en tenant la touche enfoncé, appuyer la flèche haute pour maximiser la fenêtre.

Desktop CPU: AMD Phenom II(tm) X4 Processor 940 AM2+ Memory: 8GB DDR2-RAM GPU: Nvidia Geforce GTX 460 v2 Preupgrade failed due to a bug related to anaconda. I downloaded the DVD version of Fedora 17 Beta RC4 and attempt to upgrade the system. It turned out nouveau driver is broken for Nvidia Geforce GTX 460 v2 forcing the use of vesa driver. As a result, Gnome Shell ran on fallback mode until I installed Nvidia driver from rpmfusion repository. Laptop Toshiba Satellite C650D APU: AMD E-350 with Radeon 6310 Running preupgrade was smooth. The newer kernel seems to resolve a battery consumption issue.

English Thanks to two people (VICODAN and tflink) from #fedora-qa helping me resolving the networked scanning issue with HP all-in-one printer, it turned out that hpaio driver name was missing in /etc/sane.d/dll.conf despite the installation on libsane-hpaio package. Once added, scanning applications like simple-scan will automatically detect a network scanner. French Grâce à VICODAN et tflink du canal #fedora-qa, j'ai pu résoudre le problème de réseau du numérisation (network scanner) des imprimantes HP type "all-in-one". Il s'est avéré que le pilote hpaio manquait dans le fichier /etc/sane.d/dll malgré l'installation du paquet libsane-hpaio. Une fois ajouté, les applications comme simple-scan pourront automatiquement détecter un numériseur en réseau.

Dowloaded Character Creation from Phantasy Star Online 2 (PSO2)  (not released yet) and installed via Wine version 1.5.1 from Fedora repository. The test was done on Phenom II X4 940 CPU powered with Nvidia Geforce GTX 460 v2 which replaced the aging Nvidia Geforce 8600 GTS (if a Nouveau driver driver is interested to get that videocard, please contact me . The side effect was a much smoother navigation on Gnome Shell. With nouveau driver, PSO2 Character Creation is only rendered with a plain blue-grey sphere meaning the free and open source driver still has a way to go. For the first time in 2012, I installed the nvidia driver from RPM Fusion repository with its quirk . Hopefully, RPM Fusion team will find a way to automatically switch from nouveau to nvidia. Firing PSO character creation through Wine provides this result: Test was done in window mode at 1280x960. Wine is very impressive with its support to a recent Windows base games which could bring atte...

Reading an post about CMYK support on Gimp is fascinating. For years, GIMP is my image editor of choice in completion of Krita for web publishing, photography and desktop publishing. The CMYK support debate shows how many designers forgot they mostly work screen in RGB and CMYK is mainly for printing. Because of the different process of ink, there is no guarantee the colours from CMYK will be the same on every printers. Thankfully, majority of printing computer requires RGB file to avoid headache.

English January is already over. For 2012, here is the goals I set: - Improve productivity for design department from identity to magazine. - Daily icon design inspired from artists like Jakub Steiner and more. - Sponsor some free and open source project like Blender with its incoming movie codenamed Mango and Gimp for fully switch to GEGL engine. - For business part, fully expand the use of free and open source tools. - For Fedora Project , work on opened tickets, active participation on Anaconda UI with more refinement, more fonts packaging and active usage of Synfig . Français Le mois de janvier est déjà terminé. Pour 2012, voici les objectifs que je me suis établi: - Amélioration des productivités sur le département infographique de l'identité au magazine. - Dessin quotidien des icônes graphiques inspirés des artistes comme Jakub Steiner et plus. - Subvention des projects des logiciels libre comme Blender pour leur film nom de code Mango et Gimp ...

I chose to review my 2011 years now. Although I have played minor role with Design Team, I realized my impact with them was important especially with the porting of Gimp 2.7.x in rpm format because the stable version does not cut it anymore. I keep a close eye to anaconda redesign learning about planning, meeting and some terminology for user interface face though not the first time since my participation to One Laptop Per Child project. The lack of blog is due to my focus on my own design business which was very challenging because it was an uncharted territory for me. The beginning was frustration with, for example, the selection of content management system (I ended up with CMS Made Simple) bringing demotivations sometime. I am currently working on a magazine project with a partner only using FOSS tools like Gimp, Inkscape, Scribus. I saw the post about Interaction Designer but chose not to apply due to my priority as part-time self employee. However, I will still contribute to t...

English It has been a while I wrote a blog. The reason is my intense work on a magazine project for my local area in Vancouver. I set my own challenge to only use Free and Open Source from Gimp to Scribus via Inkscape. Français Il y a longtemps que je n'ai pas écrit un blog. La raison est un travail intensif sur le projet de magazine pour la region de Vancouver. Mon propre défi est d'utiliser seulement les logiciels libres de Gimp jusqu'au Scribus via Inkscape.

English Both desktop and laptop are now running on Fedora 16. Gnome-shell extensions are removed due to crash prone the interface. Français Le bureau et le portable roulent maintenant sur Fedora 16. Les extensions de gnome-shell sont ôtées en raison des crashes dans l'interface graphique.

English The current maintainer of Gimp package for Fedora, Nils Philippsen, has opened gimp-unstable repository which I recommend to use.  You can view all the details on the development mail list . My own version will still be available for users wanting to keep it. Français L'empaqueteur de Gimp pour Fedora, Nils Philippsen, a ouvert le dépôt gimp-unstable que je recommande l'usage.  Les détails sont sur la liste de diffusion du développement . Ma propre version reste disponible pour les utilisateurs désirant le garder.

English Upgraded my Toshiba Satelitte C650 from Fedora 15 to Fedora 16 Alpha Switched from Grub to Grub2 as bootloader. Edited video clip using both OpenShot and DVDStyler. PiTiVI needs transition effects. Learning more about UX Design for Ananconda, Fedora installer. Français Mise à jour de mon portable Toshiba Satelitte C650 au Fedora 16 Alpha. Transition de Grub à Grub2 comme outil de démarrage. Edition des vidéos à l'aide de OpenShot et DVDStyler. PiTiV a besoin d'effets de transition.  Apprentissage de graphisme d'interface pour Anaconda, l'installeur de Fedora

English New development release of Gimp 2.7.3 is now available in rpm format for only Fedora 15 and above. This new version requires higher release of babl and gegl which are sadly not found on Fedora 14 and below. Please read the release note . Français Un nouvelle sortie de Gimp 2.7.3 est maintenant disponible en format rpm pour seulement Fedora 15 et ultérieur. Cette version a besoin de versions supérieures de babl et gegl qui ne sont malheureusement pas fourni sur Fedora 14 et inférieur. Veuillez lire la note de sortie (traduit sous Google).

English Already three months I have not written on this blog? Sorry about that. Here is what I did on 2011-08-18 Built a new system with a brand new Antec Tower, AMD Phenom II X4 940, Asus M4N78 Pro Motherboard, 4 x 2GB Corsair DDR2-RAM memory and Nvidia Geforce 8600 GTS. Not much a powerhouse but enough for big images and video editing including rendering on Blender 3D (starting to learn modelling). Took care of local business with almost only FOSS applications. Practised capoeira session  Français Déjà trois mois sans écrire sur ce blog? Navré. Voici les activités recentes pour 2011-08-18 Assemblement d'une nouveau système avec une toute nouvelle tour Antec, un processeur AMD Phenom II X4 940, une carte-mère Asus M4N78 Pro, 4 x mémoires 2GB Corsair DDR2-RAM et une carte graphique Nvidia Geforce 8600 GTS.Ce n'est une superpuissance mais suffisant pour les grosses éditions d'images et video et aussi les rendus sous Blender 3D. Prendre soins des affaires locaux. ...