Meet the GIMP!

The next show will be released from the new server and not from the reliable podzilla.de machine. Marcin has implemented some safeguards - but who knows.
For you it’s business as usual. If the load is to high for this server I’ll switch the load back to podzilla. Everything is prepared for the worst case this time…..
Just a number to get an impression of the load: on the two days following the show release about 160 Gigabytes are pumped into the net. Let’s see how well the new pump works.

EDIT: 1:15h and 240 downloads after publication: Made a test download and got 800kB/s! WHOW!

…. 107.67€ and I had to pay 107.10€ to rescue the domain. 

Everything that lands in the hat from now on will be used for running the servers.

Thank you to the 8 who have contributed up to now!

Edit: On June 30th there are 166.24€ in the hat from 15 donors. That means electricity for the server up to September 15th.

 Podcast Video (32.6 MB): [25:56m]: Download (7359)
 Torrent: Play in Popup | Download (43)
 The images used: Play in Popup | Download (25)

Get this show via  BitTorrent!

As nothing catastrophic has happened this week I’ll continue trying to make simple graphics with GIMP. You see one of them on the left.

This is done with the selection tools, working with paths and gradient fills.

If you need something more complicated, go to inkscape and the tutorials from Richard and heathenx. You know the proverb about screws and hammers….

One tip: Always use layers. If in doubt, add a new layer and work on that. It gives you some of the flexibilty of a vector based program, you can move, rotate and scale parts of the image without much effort.

This hat is here with a purpose. I had to shell out more money for this project as planned. And a lot of you have offered assistance. So here I am putting the hat on the street.

My account at PayPal is under the ID “rs@gorfnet.de”. I tried to make a button here, but the thing always bombs out with some decryption errors. Perhaps Wordpress messing with the code?

Does somebody know a different micro payment system? Perhaps a better one? A GeekBank would be a nice thing….

If you want to give me some money via the European bank system, ask me for the IBAN/BIC number per mail. I don’t want to put them up here. And as I said in the video, I like stuff from ThinkGeek.com and Amazon.DE.

More about lowering the running costs by sharing the server will follw in time.

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Germany License.

All the torrent stuff is working again. The last episodes are uploaded.

Get the BitTorrent for the last show! (Does this work? Please comment - I have no idea if I did this right. If this works out, there will be a torrent link in each episode.)

David gowers wrote here about the new polygon select tool. The UI expert working on that tool read that and then wrote about how he came to the solution David had written about. I read that blog posting and am writing this here…..

(Hope I have got all the grammar right…. )

Have a look, interesting read!

 Podcast Video (11.7 MB): [11:26m]: Download (7558)
 Torrent: Play in Popup | Download (42)

This one is really short and made in a hurry. I show you a surprise parcel and my plan for a vacation in Croatia. Then it is a bit about GIMP - how to draw simple figures. I start with a straight line and end with a curved path. While editing I found a lot missing that should have been told here. Well, there will be a next episode.

You can order the DVD from Derek Shaw. Price per DVD is £5.00 pounds sterling plus £1.50 pounds sterling for postage and packing. They will be on eBay too soon.

The Free Festival (festival of free technologies and new community practices) in Croatia is here. There will be also a guest speaker from the Blender crew, a great program.

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Germany License.

Get the BitTorrent! (Does this work?)

All you “Copyright infringers” have to wait until Marcin and I have found time to reinstall the BitTorrent stuff. It will be real soon now….. but don’t hold your breath.

It is planned to host all the video files also on this server and to give up the space at podzilla.de. (BTW, their service is good - but Marcin’s machin can handle the load and so it gets cheaper.) But this needs TIME, a thing not in big supply here at the moment.

BitTorrent is a valuable form of distribution for me, even if it reduces the number of subscribers. And it will be back - now even easier for me to maintain.

The domain is restored and the 90€ max were 107.10€. Ok, we hadn’t talked about MwSt (VAT).

The story in short words:

I had the server at a small virtual hosting company in southern Germany, called Korypet. Excellent service for a reasonable price. No comparison to the big guys in the business, the server was nearly always performing very well and had enough room in his host to breathe.

Mr. Hovorka, the owner (and main worker) was very friendly, helpful and super fast in fixing stuff. Once I thought that I had to upgrade and instead of taking the money he took some time to tell me how to squeeze more out of the machine. No extra charge.

Well, he got very sick and the company collapsed around him. With Marcin’s help the missing server was replaced in no time. But I had also registered my domains with Korypet. They had promised to keep their service up until 2009, no renewals please, but fulfilling old contracts. I wanted to switch to a different registrar after my class trip and the grading hell I am just in.

Well, while I was on the class trip, Korypet must have collapsed fully. The domain was unknown to the root servers and up for deletion, my other domain had also vanished. Someone must have panicked and pulled all plugs. I don’t want to imagine what has happened there - nothing nice, I am sure.

I found out that key-systems.net was the registrar through which Korypet had registered my domains and contacted them.

No problems with my .de domain, but the .org was a different story. It had to be resurrected from the dead by the top registering body - not possible by automatic processes. So they would have to charge me these ominous 90€. Alternative: wait 30 days and re-register. This please, before someone other picks it up. I took the costly option.

On the other side a lot of positive stuff has happened. More in tomorrows show!

When the provider closed shop the domain was deleted. I am now in the process of restoring it - can cost me up to 90 €.

Well, I would have to wait for 30 days and run the risk that someone grabs it before me. Just waiting now for the form to fax back to the registrar.

This is getting on my nerves!

… the title of this post is an important word for us here in northern Germany. Figure it out.

New trouble. The domain registrar has problems and the domain is unknown to the root servers.

If you see this, either you have tweaked your hosts file or the problem is solved.