Make Abstract Photographs with Out-Of-Focus Photography

Every photographer craves for razor images. Have you ever wondered out of focus images can sometimes be good than razor sharp ones? Fascinated with blur in digital photography, I thought what if I blur the subject? I love the kind of hazy cinematography portrayed in movies showing the vision of a drunken character. I thought if it did wonders on video it should do the same in still photography too. I went ahead & the results were a treat to watch.

Software Management under Linux(Fedora/Redhat) – Part 2

Earlier on we had walked through managing software packages under Debian Linux. In this post we look at managing software under an RPM based Linux distro. RPM stands for Red Hat Package Manager. As the name suggest this format was developed by Redhat but now it is not confined to Redhat Linux. Now many Linux distros like OpenSUSE, Mandriva etc have incorporated the RPM format. There are many graphical utilities out there which can help you manage software on your RPM distro but as always command line will offer you total control & flexibility over the process. Let’s go ahead & learn how to manage software on an RPM linux distro. Below foobar refers to an example application. Replace it by the name of your software package.

Boost your Productivity with Workspaces in Linux

Most often its not the case that you have only one application open at a particular time on your computer. With hardware becoming cheaper & faster, multi-tasking has become a norm. Its a common sight today to have a media-player, web browser, chat client & an image editor all running in real-time on one’s desktop. Though the computers can handle such multi-tasking the user’s productivity most often than not gets crippled. Blame it on to the cluttered desktop for the decrease in productivity. Half of the user’s time is wasted in finding the right application window. Grouping similar windows is handy but still not too much either. However, most of the user’s are unaware of the feature called ‘Workspaces’ in Linux Desktop Environments. Almost all desktop environment offer this feature enabled by default. It is set to 2 or 4 workspaces by default but can be altered to provide many more.

The logic behind workspaces is to shift the applications across multiple virtual desktops. A virtual desktop is identical to your default desktop. With Workspaces, you can divide the open applications across different desktops(virtual). For e.g. You can group all Internet programs like Browser, Chat Clients, Torrent Clients, FTP Clients etc on Workspace 1, Media Players & Image Editors on Workspace 2 & so on. Applications can be shifted from current workspace to other workspace in many ways but the simplest is to right click on the panel where the running applications are listed, right clicking on them & then selecting “Move to another workspace” under GNOME.

You can switch between different workspace by clicking on the tiny boxes(Workspace Applet) which appears at bottom right on panel in GNOME or next to K Menu in an KDE environment. Alternately, press “CTRL+TAB+Right arrow” to shift to right workspace or “CTRL+TAB+Left arrow” to shift to left of the current workspace(The shortcuts may vary & you’re advised to check the applet’s settings for default shortcut setting). Workspace behaviour can be altered by right clicking on the workspace applet on GNOME panel & selecting “Preferences” from the sub-menu. The options there are self explanatory & so I leave it for you to explore & set as per your preference. There you have, an organised & clutter free desktop to work on with improved productivity.

Software Management under Linux(Debian) – Part 1

Installing software under Linux doesn’t require one to hit the console anymore. Thanks to the graphical package managers available which have made the job of installing, uninstalling & updating software packages a child’s play. Still knowing how to manage software via console is necessary to make yourself a competent Linux user. In this first post I will cover installing software under Debian Linux. I will follow this post with installing softwares on Redhat, installing from source etc.

Beginning with Tabletop Photography

I love photography. I love to shoot different genres of photography but my favourite is ‘Tabletop Photography’. Under tabletop photography one is required to photograph an object on a table as the name suggest. Though it sounds a piece of cake its not so easy to do considering you’ve to visualise a lot of things beforehand. Sometimes you may get a perfect picture you want within a few seconds & at times you may end up waiting for hours. I like the challenging nature of tabletop photography & that’s the reason why I love tabletop photography. Recently I shot a tabletop photograph to express my love for the badminton sport. Here is an account of the same which will help you to begin with tabletop photography. I advise to begin with minimal equipment & then jump on to complicated setups. If you’ve a good vision then the possibilities in tabletop(or for the matter any type) photography are virtually endless.