Friday, 13 May 2011

Pogo music player



Having recently volunteered to do a bit of graphics work for a project called Pogo, I thought I should investigate this application a bit more and even give it a trial run. I have to confess, at the time the email came in requesting help with a logo I accepted the challenge without even knowing what the application did.

After briefly reading through the email and several brief conversations between the creator Jendrik Seipp and myself, I took a look at the website, which to my disappointment was simply a launchpad page. So the first thing that struck my mind was that this was, primarily, an Ubuntu project. The choices for download are a *.deb file or the source data in a *.tar.gz file. As I have Crunchbang installed on my system anyway I opted for the deb file simply to make life easier.


The install went smoothly and very quickly I had the Pogo music player (0.4 at the time of writing this) up and running:


The user interface is very simple; a window split into two screens. The left screen is a tree view of your files, this can be navigated quite easily for any music that is in your home folder. However for files that are on a separate partition, you will need to go all the way back to / and manually find the mount point of the drive (usually /mnt or /media depending on your distro). The partition must be mounted already as there is no way to mount it from Pogo.

The right screen is your playlist, to add a music file you can either double click on it in the left screen or drag it into the right screen using the mouse and holding the left button. The responsiveness of Pogo is very good indeed, it is lightning fast and the files play without any delay. Whilst playing, a progress bar appears at the top, which can be dragged to get the position in the file you want, handy for longer podcasts. Also the cover of the album appears in the bottom right of the window.

True to Ubuntu style, whenever a new track starts a notification pops up in the top right of your desktop just under the system tray (again this is depending on your desktop environment, but this is the case in XFCE). These, thankfully, can be turned off with a single click in preferences.


A search function is also included to allow you to look out your favourite bands or songs quickly, however all it kept giving me was a "no tracks found" message. Take a look at the screenshot below, look at the search, now compare the result with the tracks that are currently playing:


There are a few major omissions that I simply couldn't live without with regards to my media player:
  1. The lack of a shuffle option (this apparently is set to be included in the next release)
  2. The ability to add all the files from a folder, instead of selecting the files and moving them over to the playlist screen.
  3. The ability to stream from the internet
This isn't aiming to be VLC. It is a fast and simple music player and, if I'm being honest, it plays files and uses up hardly any resources in the process. The notifications that can't be interacted with are very much in line with the current Ubuntu trend. I feel that this project is best suited to low spec machines and (very early stage) newbie users, those like your older relations who only want to play a few files. Pogo adopts a 'keep it simple' philosophy, the lack of options and buttons make it incredibly easy to use. I'll keep an eye on this project, but I won't be uninstalling VLC quite yet. A bit too basic for my needs at the present time.

Flattr - Twitter logo

Continuing on with my recent Flattr work, I was asked to do a logo that incorporated a combination of the Flattr micro payments site and the ever popular micro-blogging site that is Twitter. Three mock ups were made for this:

Flattr and Fail Whale:


Flattr and Twitter bird:



However, in the above version it was felt that it could cause offence as the bird appeared trapped. It was opted for a friendlier type of enticement where the bird was being tempted or lured towards Flattr, after some work, this was chosen for the final design:



You can Flattr any (or all three if you like) of these pictures by clicking on them, every donation is always appreciated.

Please note that you will not find me on Twitter, if you wish to follow my posts then sign up to identi.ca I'm registered there as @kevie

Supporting open source. All of the above graphics were made exclusively using Inkscape.

Monday, 9 May 2011

Saving BBC iplayer programmes



The BBC iplayer offers viewers a chance to catch up on programmes that have recently been shown on the channels. However this is for a strictly limited period and many of the programmes shown will not be released on DVD. A lot of us still don't have DVD recorders, most of us have disconnected the video recorders, although Sky+ does allow us to store programmes, they can only be stored to the local box and not to portable devices or even other TVs in the house.

However there is an easy way to download the programmes, we only need two applications installed on our home PC:
  1. get_iplayer
  2. flvstreamer
Both of these are available in the Debian/Ubuntu repositories, you can get these by opening up the terminal and entering the command:
sudo apt-get install get-iplayer flvstreamer
Users of Fedora or other distros based on Red Hat will need to make sure that the rpm fusion repository is enabled. Once this has been done then it is simply a matter of opening the terminal and entering:
sudo yum install get_iplayer
The application is now installed on your machine however it is a command line tool and therefore will not show up on your applications menu.

Using get_iplayer

1. To use it go to the BBC iplayer website and select the programme of your choice:


2. Copy the web address of the programme from the address bar.


3. Open up a terminal

4. type: get_iplayer --pid={the web address of your chosen programme} if you want the video in HD then add the command --vmode=flashhigh after the web address


get_iplayer will start to convert the film and it will be saved as an MP4 file.


The file is now saved on your computer, the best part is that it is now DRM free, you can watch it on your media player, phone (you may need to perform a bit of converting/editing) or any other PC in the house. If you want to watch it on your home TV through your DVD player then that is also possible (I personally recommend DeVeDe for that task). Enjoy your videos.


Friday, 15 April 2011

Humble Bundles

Over the past year there has been a collection of games released under the name "humble ...... bundle". they have been released in the donation format, you can pay what you want in order to receive a pack of 4-6 games. The first pack included:
  • World of Goo
  • Aquira
  • Gish
  • Lugura
  • Penumbra (overture)
The second pack included the following:
  • Braid
  • Machinarium
  • Cortex Command
  • Revenge of the Titans
The current collection called the Humble Frostebyte Bundle includes:
  • Trine
  • Shadowgrounds
  • Shadowgrounds: survivor
  • Jack Claw
  • Splot
The continuing arguement is that Linux users will not pay for anything. Well lets look at the facts: over the last three bundles: the average Windows user has donated $6 whilst the average Linux user has donated over $11, almost twice as much. The fact that the average Linux users pay double shows that there is a market out there for Linux gamers. Hopefully this will get some of the established companies taking note that games are important to Linux users. The sad fact is that we are treated as second class. We need native Linux games to be a success in order to promote growth. With the recent expansion of independent gaming companies, this is becoming more of a realistic challenge daily. OK we may never have even close to the number of windoze and xbox gamers on Linux, however the fact that companies are taking note of the needs of Linux gamers is a step in the right direction.

Friday, 8 April 2011

Flattr: a brief introduction



For those of you that have been following my blog for a while you may have noticed that recently each post now concludes with a Flattr button. Following my recent Wikileaks and Flattr design followed by a few discussions with other users on identi.ca, I suddenly became aware that Flattr isn't perhaps as well known as I first thought. Several users asked how the system worked, given that this is very difficult to do in 140 characters or less, I decided to write a blog post about it.

Flattr is a Swedish based micro payments system, which allows users to donate funds to a project or cause of their choice. But is this simply PayPal with another badge and colour scheme? NO. Flattr is done in a way that is probably new to most of us.

Once you've signed up you are required to set your monthly amount; this is what you will pay into your account each month. This is done via MoneyBookers or PayPal and can range from Two Euro to one hundred Euro and is refered to as 'Means'. Now you've got the funds into the account you can start donating (flattring).

To donate simply click on the green Flattr button; these can be in three types:



Every time you click then each donation will become less. Your monthly amount (means) is divided by the number of clicks within each month. For example if your means is set to ten Euro and throughout your first month you click on five Flattr buttons, at the end of the month each thing you've flattred will receive two Euro. However, if in the next month you start to Flattr a few more things that you like, say you've clicked on twenty items: in your second month each thing that you Flattr will only receive 50 cents.

The best way that I've found to describe Flattr to a newcomer is to think of the month as a child's party, the flattred projects as the children and your means as the cake. The cake doesn't get cut and dished out until everybody has arrived (the month's over), once all the children have arrived then all receive a slice of cake. The more children in attendance, then the smaller each slice will be.

If you do not Flattr anything in a particular month, maybe your on an extended holiday or some circumstances arise where Flattr is low on your list of priorities, then Flattr donates your means to a charity of it's choice. A more detailed explanation of the process and the charities involved can be found here.

However this is not the only way to donate using Flattr, there is a one off payment option, similar to the PayPal or bank transfer style. This will allow you to donate up to fifty Euro to the cause or project of your choice.

But we are still not done; what if your work is outside in the real world and not in the virtual world? No problem, Flattr has that area covered too. The user is given the option to print out a QR Code which can then be scanned using a smartphone, this scan has the same effect as clicking on the green Flattr buttons.



This feature is the one thing that gives Flattr huge potential. In today's world, people are increasingly carrying less hard cash and paying by electronic means. This could prove to be a potential problem with people who rely on tips and donations as a major part of their income. However Flattr fills this role nicely, as this busker is proving:



Think of the range, potentially limitless. Going along to an art gallery or museum, seeing something you like and click, you've flattred the creator directly. Scanning a name-badge of a person that served you in a cafe or bar, porters, taxi drivers, the list is potentially endless.

So why is it not in our day to day lives yet? Well people and companies have to adopt it: it's all very well saying you want to Flattr 'Children in Need', however if they do not have a Flattr account then this is not an option. More users have to embrace the technology if Flattr is going to grow to it's potential. Growth will come with demand, if you like it tell your friends and work colleagues, spread the word about Flattr.

Tuesday, 5 April 2011

Teefury: 24 hours only

We often see the signs in various shops, magazines, TV advertisements etc that sales and prices are 'one day only' in a bid to get you to rush out the product. Most of the time if you check back in another month the 'once in a lifetime' offer is repeated. However once in a while you may be told that something is one day only and TeeFury is one such company that delivers on that promise.

TeeFury offers t-shirts for 24 hours only; once the time has gone, the t-shirt is removed from the site. I hear you ask "What makes this site even worth a mention? there must be thousands of t-shirt sellers online." Well the t-shirts for sale are not ones that are usually bought off the rails at the local clothing retailer; rather they have been designed and submitted by the users of the site. All that you need to do is sign up for a free account and you can submit as many designs as you like. The submission process really is simple:

If your more into manual graphics then they will also accommodate you: create your picture, scan it and send in the scanned image. For every t-shirt sold the creator gets $1.

The t-shirts themselves are priced at $10 plus postage and packaging. Now before you switch off here when I start mentioning US dollars: they do post worldwide. The total cost for a buyer in the UK is $19, for a rare t-shirt that isn't too bad a price.

The t-shirt designs change every 24 hours, as mentioned earlier in the post, so if you don't like today's simply check the site again tomorrow for the new design. Most of the time the designs incorporate two themes, but this is not always the case.

Being a child of the 80s I opted for a Back to the Future themed shirt for my first purchase:

The parcel arrived two and a half weeks after ordering it; not rapid, but I've had longer waiting periods for international packages. The quality of the shirts themselves is good, a nice cotton t-shirt; fairly thick but not heavy. However the one thing that caught my attention was the quality of the print: it really was very good. After two weeks and several washes the print is still as good and colourful as when it arrived. From past experience I have found that custom printed shirts fade very quickly after a few washes, but so far this has exceeded my expectations.

The site has a gallery section showing the t-shirts that were previously available. Whilst it is interesting to look back, this is a feature I wish that the site didn't have. It clearly states that once the 24 hours are passed they are not available: why tease the customer by showing us some really cool designs that we have no chance of getting. I looked back and saw this shirt, as mentioned before, I'm an 80s child: Guns n Roses and He Man were two of my favourite things from my childhood, why oh why did I have to miss this one? I still cry myself to sleep and have dreams about chasing the t-shirt but it's always just out of reach. Well no, I'm really not that sad. But I am gutted that I missed that one; now do you see my side of the argument as to why the gallery is not necessarily a good idea?

To be honest, I thought for $10 plus postage that these would be cheap, low quality t-shirts that you may wear a few times and then keep for sentimental purposes. I've been very surprised at the good quality of both the t-shirt and the print. If you see a design you like I would have no hesitation in recommending purchasing from TeeFury.

Flattr-Wikileaks logo

A while back I was asked by Marie Axelsson (@maloki on identi.ca) to come up with a logo for a blog post that combined two things she was going to write about: Flattr and Wikileaks. This was mainly in response to the knee jerk reaction from Paypal and the major credit card companies Visa and Mastercard along with a bank in Switzerland that froze Julian Assange's funds. Flattr has continued to allow support for Wikileaks, you can view the profile here.

But the challenge was to create a logo that would incorporate the two companies. After a good few hours developing roughs and then tweaking the idea, the final logo is shown below:

The image has been created using Inkscape and is made entirely from scratch. Although both logos are widely available on the internet, the beauty of creating it from scratch as an svg (scale vector graphics) file is that it can be blown up to the size of huge banners without any distortion or pixelation. For viewing purposes the files on display in this post and flattrchattr's are png files, these will distort when stretched.

The article in question is located on flattrchattr.com, you can view it directly here

If you like the logo then you can make a flattr donation by either clicking on the flattr button at the bottom of this post or by clicking on the image itself within the flattrchattr post.