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Linux Squared – Gimp – E-Book Design

Jeffrey — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 02:42:44 +0000

Man, ……… I’ve had a couple of weeks of hectic “Extreme Blogging“. So extreme in fact that I’ve had to skip a week, while I got it together enough to be able to post. It all started with my trying to update an E-Book template that I had found on the web, when I first started out Blogging. No matter how I tried, I was confronted with the fact that I was going to have to re-design the whole thing. I sure didn’t have time to do this, but throwing caution to the wind, I jumped in and Googled until the cows wouldn’t come home.
Nothing!

Now, I was confronted with having to come up with my own design code. I’ve seen some tricky code before, but this takes the cake! I spent 40 hours trying to hammer out the details over three days, seriously backing me up on my Blogs. When finished I got ready to use the code for a post over here at Blogging Extreme only to be over-ruled by the editor stating that I had spent so much time refining the thing, that I should now place it on the Blog as an E-Book. Man, ……… I’m wasn’t even ready to do that! 20 hours later, here I am. READY; SET; DOWNLOAD!

You can now download from the homepage, the price is $9.95. I’ve run several tests on the coded instructions and they work fine. It does assume that you have some basic experience with GIMP. Once you play around with the coded instructions for a couple of hours, you will see how it easy it is to do whatever you want it to do. I’ve really just laid the ground work, with some improvisation, you should do just fine. You can really design any type of E-Book with any type of back ground; any size you want.

As for now, the manual does not cover how to design round CD’s or multiple books in one image. As I have the time, I will update the manual to include these types of images. If you have an hints or tips on the subject, be sure to leave your comments below. And yes, I did do the image you see on the homepage with these same instructions in the manual. Pretty cool, huh!

Dealing With WordPress TV

Jeffrey — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 10:08:19 +0000

For those who follow this blog, you are probably aware that I’m not a big codex fan. Dealing with the endless forums and broken links, I can honestly say that I don’t think I have ever found a solution to my problem through the codex. I am however, kinda impressed with WordPress TV …….. kinda.

While I’m pretty sure that the codex is a lost cause, I have hope for WordPress TV. Video after all is the going rage these days for the blogger. However, while working with WordPress TV I have noticed some bugs that you should be aware of.

I just can’t put my finger on it. How is it that the WordPress software is bullet proof, but the support is so weak? I just don’t get it. I digress !

One of the cool things about WordPress TV is the ability to actually embed the video inside your post. Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Youtube this ! But WordPress TV is at least a little better in quality than the other video services that allow you to embed. To control traffic to their sites some of the better one’s don’t even let you embed. So to have a good quality video to embed inside your blog about blogging is like kinda cool.

When you reach the video that you want to embed, you will see the word “embed” in the top left of the video. Once you click on the control menu button, you will see a drop down menu that gives you several choices. Unfortunately, those choices don’t include anything that will fit your template more than likely, so you will have to adjust the dimensions in the embedded code. I’ve provide the code so that you can check out the dimensions change.

width=”585” height=”400” allowscriptaccess=”always” allowfullscreen=”true” flashvars=”guid=NBZ853Xn&width=400&height=224&qc_publisherId=p-18-mFEk4J448M” title=”Introducing WordPress 2.9 Carmen”>

The “Copy To Clipboard” thing is kinda cranky too, so be patient. It doesn’t always want to copy or paste for that matter.

Here it is for those who need a quick look see: