Harsh J

On Windows, when I got to use my Webcam (Once every 3 years?) I got to fish out its disc from the archives, go through the tedious “Next” button processes and then face warning about the device drivers not being signed and that it could wreck my Windows (’sif it doesn’t auto) and then finally, the best part of Windows Installation processes, RESTART.

Ok, so instead of that I just plugged it in while running Linux and a nice popup saying a camera was detected (DETECTED, not “wanna detect and face the peril”) comes up and asks if I wish to import photos from it. My webcam is one of those Mercury junk (Kobian in some countries). Its a “3 in 1 Pencam”. Can be used as Webcam, a standalone battery sucking camera or video source.

Now to the reason of using it - Cheese. Been hearing about this application for a long time and that it was even included in many of the popular distros running GNOME got my curiosity running high. And when I finally did use it today, it was really worth it! The effects are fabulous, quick and exactly as goofy as one would desire. I loved the Warp effect personally

Of course, using it is just as easy as using any other Linux application. All you got to do is plug in your cam, start Cheese and you have its amazing effects at your disposal without any hassles.

You can easily install Cheese via your Linux flavor’s repositories. I currently use Ubuntu and for that you might just click this to get it done. Happy posing!

P.s. No comments on my photography unless you are talking about my screen-shot taking abilities.

Discovered that PowerISO has a free Linux CLI tool for opening .DAA (Direct Access Archive) files and allowing conversion to other formats as well. Can be downloaded and installed from the .tar.gz package available at their website here or click here for a direct download!

College’s been pretty hectic, or I instead have been very lazy since my last blog post (27th January).

Other stuff am trying these days are problems, both old and new, from IIT-K’s Bitwise (Of course, in Python!). I did try the still-alive Krypton but I got fed up of it at the 6th level, lost my touch I guess.

Also trying to learn nasm bit by bit (Pun intended) but I can’t be an avid user of it any time soon, its hell mighty! .Net is going into my brains too, as my College’s Lab projects require it. IMO .Net’s pretty good to use, with its heavy abstraction, its very easy to build stuff with it. Strictly NO for efficient applications though. Its a dependency hell (sort of) too but thats okay with me.

Well thats all for now, more on what movies, etc I’ve seen, later! Darn records.

Hope you’ve had a wonderful 2007 until yesterday. If not, or not if not, make this one better any way.

Wishing you all a very happy new 2008. Its a leap year as well, so enjoy you February 29th borns. For rest of us, its just another year, another Olympics, and so on.

Am still too cryptic for myself. And yeah, 1024×768 is mine, what’s yours?

Heh, yeah. Randomize once again!

These are the comics I subscribe to and enjoy:

• AppleGeeks - Full and Lite - Both are awesome!
• Ctrl+Alt+Del - Who doesn’t know this one? Ethan’s the Gaming God!
• Decorum - Too much of *-tons but funny nonetheless.
• Evil Inc. - Everything evil, and funny.
• Explosm - The BEST comic online! Nothing, absolutely nothing beats its crude humor!
• Least I Could Do - Absolutely hilarious! One can never match Rayne’s way of thinking.
• Little Gamers - Another one of the very best Gaming comics. This one runs very high on sarcasm too.
• PC Weenies - Tech Humor Toons, and a pretty old running one at that!
• Penny Arcade - Yet another
• PVP - Slightly Apple oriented but good, very good!
• Sheldon - The drawings there are pretty humorous in itself.
• Starslip Crisis - One of the very few Sci-Fi humor comics I’ve found online
• Questionable Content - Lots and lots of sarcasm.
• Perry Bible Fellowship - Tiny strips but very deep!
• The Warehouse - Explosm-like drawings and nearly the same sort of crude humor applied.
• XKCD - God of all web-comics. Enough said.

Do share yours too!

In other news, I found it a bit surprising about how dumb some people can be at times. Totally pissed my evening off today, the things that went about. Sigh, I need to be calmer and quieter.