John LeMasney

"Like LEGOs come to life, it was only a matter of time until somehow thought (literally) big about how to apply similar principles at the scale of real people – modular pieces to make furniture for actual human use." - John LeMasney from Bookmarklet

Spicy vegan chickpea and potato samosas healthier and a snap to make with phyllo. Don't forget the tangy-sweet tamarind dipping sauce! craving more? check out TasteSpotting - John LeMasney

QuickFox Notes is a multi-tab note taking add-on for Firefox that uses the integrated bookmarks system to store the notes. Therefor, a bookmarks synchronization add-on (e.g. Xmarks or Mozilla Weave) can be used to synchronize notes between computers. - John LeMasney

The Perfect Desktop - Fedora 12 i686 (GNOME) This tutorial shows how you can set up a Fedora 12 desktop (GNOME) that is a full-fledged replacement for a Windows desktop, i.e. that has all the software that people need to do the things they do on their Windows desktops. The advantages are clear: you get a secure system without DRM restrictions that works even on old hardware, and the best thing is: all software comes free of charge. - John LeMasney

mypictr provides a free picture resizing service, which allows you to create a custom profile avatar for your favorite social network. You don't need to install any programs, plug-ins or any other software, just upload your picture, resize it online and download it from our server. - John LeMasney

HandBrake is a free, open-source video transcoder for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. It supports any DVD-like source and most multimedia files and can convert into the following formats: File format: MP4 and MKV Video: MPEG-4, H.264, or Theora (1 or 2 passes or constant quantizer/rate encoding) Audio: AAC, MP3, Vorbis or AC-3 and DTS pass-through (supports encoding of several audio tracks) Among HandBrake features are: Chapter selection"Soft Subtitles" (not permanently rendered to frame)Integrated bitrate calculatorPicture deinterlacingCropping and scalingGrayscale encoding. HandBrake 0.9.4 was released a few days ago, and it includes over 1,000 changes since the last release, including soft subtitles (rips subtitles and you can turn then on or off), constant quality encoding (for better quality video and no need for 2-pass encoding), a live preview mode (so you don't waste your time encoding only to find you had a setting wrong) and something many people have been waiting for: 64-bit... - John LeMasney

Inkscape, a SVG-based vector graphics editor for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X has finally reached version 0.47. This new version (thanks to unixmen for the heads up) brings improved performance and tons of new features, some of which are as follows: timed autosave, Spiro splines, auto-smooth nodes, Eraser tool, new modes in Tweak tool, snapping options toolbar & greater snapping abilities, new live path effects (including Envelope), over 200 preset SVG filters, new Cairo-based PS and EPS export, spell checker, many new extensions, optimized SVG code options, and much more. Full release notes. Also, the revision of "Inkscape: Guide to a Vector Drawing Program" book is out and you can download it for free! Install Inkscape 0.47 final in Ubuntu Karmic To install version 0.47 final in Ubuntu Karmic, you must add the following PPA: sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ricotz/ppa Then upgrade Inkscape to the latest version: sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade If you are installing Inkscape... - John LeMasney

When ex-banker Michael Dwork was doing an internship in India, he observed the local women gathering up dead palm leaves and forming them into platters by pressing them in roadside ovens. "They looked absolutely horrible, covered in mold," recalled Dwork. "I totally fell in love with them. There was no design, there was no sanitary production, there were no 50 other things, but at the end of the day, the concept was really cool." Dwork now runs VerTerra Dinnerware, a Brooklyn-based company that produces compostable flatware made from leaves in a factory in India, to the tune of a million units per month, distributed by the likes of Whole Foods. And his raw materials are largely free: Workers at their Bangalore facility collect fallen palm leaves from nearby plantations, turning them into plates rather than their usual method of disposal--being burned in piles. Read more about VerTerra's story, and process, here. via reuters (more...) - John LeMasney

"We are excited to announce the three winning students from this competition. Their entries were a hit within the Personas community and received high marks from a panel of judges. Top Design: Space Station Holiday created by John LeMasney" - John LeMasney from Bookmarklet

Wordoids are made-up words. They look nice and feel great. They are good for naming things. And more... - John LeMasney

"Inkscape 0.47 brings a host of important improvements all across the program: * Timed autosave: no more lost work * Spiro splines: an exciting new way to work with paths, fully supported in Pen, Pencil, and Node tools * Auto smooth nodes: a new type of node that keeps the path as smooth as possible as you move it or its neighbors * New modes in Tweak tool: pushing and jittering whole objects, scaling/rotating objects, deleting and duplicating using the "soft brush" * Reworked, much more usable snapping system and a Snapping toolbar * New path effects, including sketch, hatching, envelope deformation; effects can be stacked and assigned to groups * A huge collection of preset filters in the new Filters menu * New cairo-based PS and EPS export: improved quality, more features supported, fallback rasterization for filters and transparency * Spell checker for text objects in a document * Many new extensions: restacking, calendar, printing marks, cartesian and polar grids, interpolating... more... - John LeMasney from Bookmarklet

We finally got around to prepping a USB key so we could boot to Chrome OS natively, and let us tell you: it's a world of difference. Of course, running something natively instead of virtualized is always going to be a treat, but what we're seeing with Chrome OS is actually on par performance-wise with our crazy expectations for a stripped-down OS. It boots in mere seconds and loads websites with the best of them. The build we're using, courtesy of @hexxeh on Twitter, who made all this possible with some great instructions and a masterfully-built chromiumos.img, was also able to log into the apps pane -- something we didn't pull off on our virtualized rig. We wouldn't call this our main Linux jam just yet, but even as we strut cockily back to our "big people computer," it's hard not to feel the love for something this simple and swift. If you want to do this with your own netbook, hit up Hexxeh's instructions at the read link below (we found the Windows how-to easiest to follow, for... - John LeMasney

During the week one of our readers – wedding photographer Martin Whitton – shot me a list of his ‘10 rules for editing digital images’. I thought I’d share them today as a discussion starter for readers. Martin comments that ‘these ideas may seem a little elementary, but sticking to the basics keeps our editing focused, maintains consistency from image to image and keeps our clients happy’. - John LeMasney

"Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that most epic triumph of human engineering and physics research has finally taken place, and strangely enough our planet's still in one piece too." - John LeMasney from Bookmarklet