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Do it with Fedora
In this series of tutorials, we'll walk you through fun projects you can create using Fedora.
Have a photobooth party!
All you need is a webcam and Fedora, and you can do all sorts of
cool photo tricks, including turning your friends into The Hulk. :) Take
fun snapshots and videos!
The perfect setup for your party
You've got a big party planned, and want something fun & unique
to offer your guests. Why not set up a photobooth with Fedora?
The application we'll be using to do this is called Cheese. You'll also need a webcam connected to your computer. There's a lot of webcams that work out-of-the-box in Fedora; here is one list, and here is another.
If you don't have a webcam, you want to be careful to buy a supported
model when you go to the store and these lists are great resources.
You can open Cheese up by going to Applications → Sounds & Video → Cheese Webcam Booth in the main desktop menu. In the Cheese application window, select the Cheese → Fullscreen menu item to set Cheese fullscreen. Leave cheese set up this way at your party and let folks have fun!
The basics
Cheese lets you both take photos and video.
You can switch between these two modes in the lower left corner of the
screen - the photo icon is for photos, the movie reel icon for video.
You can press the spacebar key on your keyboard or the 'Take a
photo' (or 'Start recording' for videos) button in the center of the
screen to take a snapshot (or to start recording a video.) Thumbnails of
all the photos and videos you've created appear in the little strip
along the bottom of the camera view (see the screen on the right.)
Sharing your photos and videos
Once you've taken a set of photos, perhaps at the end of your
party, you can review the photos by double-clicking each one to view it
full-screen. If you'd like to delete a photo or video, you can
right-click it and select 'Move to Trash'. You can save a photo or video
from Cheese onto your hard drive or a USB key by right-clicking its
thumbnail in the bottom strip and selecting 'Save As' in the menu...
Sharing the photos and videos you've taken is really easy. Right
click the photo or video you'd like to send in the strip along the
bottom of cheese, and select 'Send to' to email it, or 'Export to
Flickr' to upload it to a Flickr account.
Apply crazy effects to your photos!
What makes Cheese really fun is its set of effects. You can use and
even combine these to add a bit of fun and sparkle to your photos!
Here's the full list:
- No Effect - this clears any applied effects for a normal, boring photo.
- Mauve - as you might guess, this tints people in the photos to a nice mauve / pink color!
- Noir/Blanc - star in your own black & white movie using this effect!
- Saturation - the saturation effect amps up the color in the photo, making the colors in the photo much bolder and vibrant.
- Hulk - This effect will turn you and your friends
into the Incredible Hulk! Hulk smash!!!! Don't smash the camera though,
the green is only an effect! - Vertical Flip - dance on the ceiling with this fun effect.
- Horizontal Flip - make a mirror image of what the camera sees!
- Shagadelic - everything is spinning... and colorful... is this a dream?
- Vertigo - with this effect, your movements leave ghostly trails in the final image.
- Edge - this effect makes everyone seems as if they are thin neon, or drawn in chalk on a chalkboard.
- Dice - as if you were looking through patterned glass, this effect dices up your image!
- Warp - my, what a big nose you have - one false move and your nose disappears and your eyes grow huge! This effect warps your image.
Building beautiful color palettes for your home and wardrobe
Installing Agave
If you have never used Agave before, you'll need to install it:
- Open up the Add/Remove Software wizard by selecting the System → Administration → Add/Remove Software desktop menu item.
- The Add/Remove Software wizard will appear. (See screenshot on the right.)
- In the search box in the upper left, search for >Agave and click the "Find" button.
- Check the Agave checkbox on the right, and click on the "Apply" button in the lower right of the Add/Remove Software wizard.
- Once the Add/Remove Software wizard finishes, you should have Agave installed on your system!
Now that you have Agave installed, go ahead and open it up by selecting the Applications → Graphics → Agave desktop menu item.
Picking a base color for your first palette
At the right, you'll see a screenshot of Agave. Your Agave window
should look something like this, although you likely won't have any
favorite palettes saved in the right panel.
The first thing you'll want to do is to choose a base color for
your palette. From this base color, Agave can automatically generate a
number of different harmonious color palettes using multiple techniques.
So let's pick that base color!
There are two main ways to pick a base color, using the color
chooser button or using the palettes along the bottom of the window.
Color chooser methods
Click on the small button on the left side of the Agave window, immediately above the 'Palette' label. That will bring up the Pick a Color dialog.
Want to visually explore the color possibilities?
You may drag the small black circle within the triangle on the left of the Pick a color dialog to change the color's shade, and drag it circularly around the rainbow to change the hue of the color.
Want to pick a color you like from a photo or other graphic?
Keep the Pick a color dialog open. Open up the
graphic you'd like to pick a color from. It can be in a browser window,
image viewer, or email client - it really doesn't matter, it just needs
to be on screen. Now, click on the small eyedropper icon button in the
lower left of the Pick a color dialog. Your mouse
pointer will turn into a little color dropper icon. Hover your new
dropper mouse pointer over the graphic you want to pick a color from,
and click on the area that has the color. The Pick a color dialog will update and show the color you picked.
Have a specific color code in mind?
Using the Color name: field in the Pick a color
dialog, you can enter in HTML Hex color codes (They look like this:
#FFCC00). You may also enter in manual Hue/Saturation/Value or
Red/Green/Blue color values. This is helpful if you've picked a color in
another graphics program or in HTML and want to generate a palette of
more colors that will work with it.
Finishing Up
Once you've picked the color you like, click on the OK button in the lower right of the Pick a color dialog to set the color.
Palette methods
Agave comes pre-loaded with a set of large color palettes. They
include "Visibone," "Tango Icon Theme Palette," "GNOME Icon Palette,"
and "Web Safe Colors." There is a Palette dropdown in
the lower left of the main Agave application window. You can pick
between these palettes from that dropdown. Once the palette is visible,
you can hover over the colors in the palette to view their HTML hex
codes, and you can click on any color with the hand icon to set that
color.
Exploring your first palette
Now it's time to dig into your base color and discover what kinds
of color palettes you can create with it. There are three main ways you
can work with your base color to generate palettes - changing the color
scheme of the palette, changing the saturation of the palette, and
changing the brightness of the palette.
Changing the color schemes
You can change the number of colors in the palette associated with
your base color by changing the scheme between the colors. Depending on
the relationship you choose, Agave will select between one to three
companion colors for your base color. Here's a summary of the color
schemes you can choose from. Choose between these via the dropdown in
the center left of Agave.
Complements - complementary colors are opposite each other on the color wheel.
Split-Complements
- A split complements color scheme is a three-color scheme, involving a
base color, and two colors that are equidistant from the base color and
its complement.Triads
- Triad color schemes involved three colors that are equally spaced
along the color wheel, and you can draw a regular triangle between them.Tetrads
- A tetrad color scheme in Agave simply involves four colors evenly
spaced around the color scheme, such that you could draw a square
between them.Analogous - An analogous color scheme in Agave is a three-color scheme of three adjacent colors.
Monochromatic - Monochromatic color schemes in Agave involve three colors, all of the same hue, but with different brightness levels.
Changing the saturation of the palette
Once you've picked a color scheme you like, you can tweak the
saturation of the palette by pressing the up and down saturation icons
in Agave as shown in the screenshot. Toning down saturation in a color
palette can convert your palette from having very deep rich colors, to
having very delicate and slight tones. Changing the saturation of a
palette is a technique you can use to change its mood.
Changing the brightness of the palette
Tweaking the brightness of a palette is another way to change the
mood and feeling of a color scheme. By pressing the up and down
brightness icons in Agave as shown in the screenshot, you can turn the
brightness of all colors in the palette up or down.
Saving your palette & using it!
Once you've got a palette you're happy with, the simplest way to
save your palette is to press "PrtSc" on your keyboard to create a
screenshot of the color scheme that you can print and bring to the store
to pick out clothing or decorations for your home.
However, it's very useful to keep a list of your favorite colors
handy in Agave. You'll notice a screenshot of the Agave favorites pane.
To save your full palette here, color-by-color:
- Double-click on the first color of your palette. It should have a thick black border around it to indicate that it is selected.
- Press the + icon on the bottom of the "Favorites" pane on the right of Agave's window.
- Repeat this process until you've saved each color in your favorites pane.
- If at any point your color palette changes during this process, you can press the Back button in the upper left of the application to go back to your color palette.
You can save all of your favorite colors in the Gimp palette file format (GPL) by visiting the File → Export Favorites... item in the Agave main menu. You may import this palette into the Gimp graphics application - the Gimp manual has more information on this process.
3 ways to unclutter your life using Gnote
Get organized! Here are 3 ways to unclutter your life and build a personal database with Gnote.
Gnote should come pre-install with your Fedora installation, so we
haven't included installation instructions here. To start using Gnote,
simply click on the yellow post-it note icon that appears in your
desktop panel, as shown here.
1. Keep daily and master To-Do lists
You may have read some personal organization books, like Gettings Things Done
by David Allen, that advocate keeping lists of all the tasks you've got
on your plate. One problem I've experienced using the system advocated
in Getting Things Done is that you end up with a few very long
lists that can be really de-motivating to look at - all that stuff in a
big, long list can be overwhelming.
Using Gnote, however, you can store a comprehensive (and long)
'To-Do' master list, a full 'Waiting On' list of tasks you're waiting on
other folks to follow up on, and a 'Someday' or 'Tickler' list of tasks
you'd like to do someday - and you can also store daily 'To-Do' lists
that break off a very small, digestible chunk of your longer master
lists. This can be a whole lot less de-motivating, because you're
accomplishing tasks off of your separately-stored master list, but in a
way that shelters you from the overwhelming amount of tasks you haven't
slated to work on today!
Setting up your 3 main master to-do lists
What you'll want to do first is to transcribe any of your master
to-do / waiting on / someday tasks lists from your current filing system
- perhaps a paper notebook - and create a Gnote note for each. If you
don't have any pre-existing lists, here's a basic process for creating
them:
- Go through any notes, emails, and papers you might have, and your
brain, and write down everything you need to do. Groceries, projects at
work, phone calls to make - all is fair game. Jot it all down in one
Gnote note; title the note "Master To-Do List." I recommend using a
bulleted list format - simply add a "*" character before your first
entry in the note, and hit enter to continue on to the next bulleted
item. - Create two more Gnote notes, one titled, "Someday To-Do List," and one titled "Waiting On To-Do List."
- Start going through your list item-by-item, For each item, decide
if it is something you need to do in the immediate future, something
that you'd like to get done but have no immediate plans to get done, and
things you're involved with but are in someone else's hands now. - For items that you have no immediate plans to get done, remove
them from the "Master To-Do List" Gnote and paste them into the "Someday
To-Do List" note. - For items that you are waiting on someone else to continue on,
remove them from the "Master To-Do List" Gnote and paste them into the
"Waiting On To-Do List" note.
Now you have three main master to-do lists!
Daily workflow
Here's a daily workflow you can use to make this system work!
- At the beginning of the day, create a new note and put the date
in it. E.g, the naming format I like to use is, "To Do: 8 Nov 2010." - Open up your "Master To-Do List" note and pick one or two items
you think you can accomplish today. Copy them into today's To Do note. - Open up your "Waiting On To-Do List" note and pick one or two
items you think you could follow up on today. If Joe's had that proposal
on his desk for two weeks, now might be a good time to remind him that
you're waiting for him to review it! - As your day progresses, try to work on the items you set out for yourself. As you complete items, highlight the item and press Ctrl+S to cross it off of your list.
- Things outside of our daily plans always come up, and sometimes
we have to give up on our plan and attend to these more urgent,
unpredictable issues. Don't worry about it! - At the end of the day, jot down anything you may have
accomplished or spent time on outside of the scope of the to-dos you
planned for the day. Create a fresh To-Do note for tomorrow, and copy
any items you didn't accomplish today into it for your plan tomorrow.
For any items you completed today, cross them off your "Master To-Do
List" as well.
You can keep all these lists always visible in the Gnote notes
list by clicking the little thumbtack icon next to them in the list.
Keeping daily to-do lists using Gnote is a great way to review what
you've accomplished at the end of the week, and makes it easy to write
weekly status reports if your job requires that.
2. Clean up those sticky-notes all over your desk!
Tear them all down! That's right! Gather up all your sticky-notes,
scraps of paper, notes written on the back of other papers, and make a
pile. One-by-one, go through each piece of paper and transcribe it into a
new digital Gnote. Now your desk is much neater, and you can search
across all of your notes.
Searching across your notes
Click on the Gnote icon in your desktop panel, and select Search All Notes in the menu. You can search across all of your notes or just notes in a specific 'Notebook.'
3. Keep great meeting minutes and send them out!
Get into the habit of opening up a new Gnote note for every meeting
you attend and you'll soon have a database of all the meetings you've
attended. I recommend you use the meeting's subject and the date of the
meeting in the title of the note.
Want to be a hero to your fellow meeting-goers? You can easily
export your meeting minutes to html or PDF and send them out in an
email.
Exporting to HTML
- Open up your meeting minutes note.
- Click on the 'gears' icon in the note's toolbar towards the top of the note.
- Select 'Export to HTML' in the menu.
I recommend saving the HTML export to your desktop, then going to
your desktop, right-clicking the document, and selecting "Send To" in
the menu to email it out.
Saving your note as a PDF
- Open up your meeting minutes note.
- Click on the 'gears' icon in the note's toolbar towards the top of the note.
- Select 'Print' in the menu.
- In the Print dialog that appears, select "Print to File" at the top of the list of printers.
- Fill in a name for your PDF in the "Name:" field, and click on the "PDF" radio button towards the right.
- Choose a folder to save the PDF to in the "Save in Folder:" dialog and click the "Print" button to create the PDF.
For emailing the PDF, I similarly recommend that you save it to
your desktop, go to your desktop, right-click the document, and select
"Send To" in the menu to email it out.
More Gnote tips
Here's some more suggestions for ways to organize your life with Gnote:
- Event planning: Any web addresses or email
addresses you paste into a note will become clickable links. If you're,
say, trying to book a reception hall for an event, you can create a note
of possible places, gather their phone numbers and web addresses
together in one place, and as you call each place you can take notes
inline inside the note and have quick and easy access to their website
to review as you talk. - Shopping lists: Throughout the week, as you
notice items you'll run out of or items you need for recipes you want to
try, add them to a running 'shopping list' note. When you're ready to
go to the supermarket, simply print off the list and bring it with you. - Storing recommendations: Friends are always
recommending restaurants to try, books to read, movies to see - but when
it's time to eat, go to the library, or pick out a movie, I can never
seem to remember those recommendations. No more! I keep running 'To Try'
lists in a variety of categories in Gnote - restaurants, books, movies,
travel destinations, recipes, music albums - and during those moments
where I'm not sure what to try I bring up one of these lists.
Create custom app launchers
This quick and easy tutorial will show you how to create custom
app launchers, on your desktop or on your panel, using any icon you
like. Keep the apps you use the most close at hand!
Basic Launcher Creation
In this tutorial we will create a custom desktop launcher for
Firefox. You can use this method to create a launcher for any
application you like, though.
- Right-click on an empty area of your desktop.
- Click on the Create Launcher item in the desktop right-click menu.
- The Create Launcher dialog will appear:
- The "Type" should be "Application."
- The "Name" should be "Firefox._"
- The command is what you would type on a terminal to run the
application. In most cases, the command is the name of the application.
So go ahead and type "firefox" in this field. - In the comment field you can type anything you want
- it's not mandatory. I suggest using "Browse the Internet" as the text
here. This is the text that will appear in the little tooltip box when
you hover your mouse over the icon. - As the finishing touch, you can click on the spring icon (which
may have refreshed to be the Firefox icon) on the left of the dialog and
pick an image file on your hard drive as a custom icon for your
launcher. Note that there's a lot of good icon artwork under the
/usr/share/icons folder of your system.
- Click the 'OK' button and you will find a new launcher on your Desktop.
Once you've created your launcher, you can keep it on the desktop, or you can drag it up onto your desktop panel.
Application menu method
There's an even easier method to creating a desktop launcher in
Fedora, but you'll be limited to only the applications that appear in
your desktop Application menu.
Open up the Applications, Places, or System menu, and find the
application you'd like to create a launcher for. Click and hold down on
the application's menu entry, and drag it onto your desktop. Voila! You
can even drag it onto your desktop panel.
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