Archive for February, 2008

The PDF file format is a little gem invented by Adobe that brought the enormous advantage of a portable file format able to display a document on nearly any kind of display and computer. Unfortunately, the Adobe PDF format and free player are not exempt from problems and this generated a wealth of applications worth knowing to support all your needs around the PDF format.

Here are the best ones solving what were problems (until now):

• PDF documents cannot be modified. Wrong! With the help of PDF Hammer (an online free tool suite), you can perform basic edits like: add, remove, re-arrange one of more pages from one or more PDF files.



• PDF forms cannot be modified. Wrong! Actually, if you use PDFescape (online), you’ll be able to fill PDF forms and make minor modifications to the document.
• PDF documents cannot be restored back to plain text. Wrong! Thanks to free PDF Text online, you can just copy-and-paste text from the PDF file you want. It can even preserve the bookmarks and font of the original file.
• PDF documents are always long to load. Wrong! Actually, it is a problem of the Adobe PDF reader. Despite being free, it became so bloated that it takes days (Ok, I’m prone to exageration) to open and load the first file. The solution is simply to use a free alternative PDF reader like PDF-XChange viewer.
• Opening PDF files on the web is slow. Right, but…, if you are the webmaster, you can use PdfMeNot to transform your PDF files into Flash media that will be easier to handle on your web site.

In a Pantanal fazenda, inside the room, we could find those information signs. In addition to the most usual “Do not disturb” and “make the room”, we could notice the most unusual “Please remove little frog from bathroom”.

As a matter of fact, the little guy was waiting in the shower.

Brazil, 2007.

Scientific thought is a marvellous achievement that accelerated a lot in the last millenium. This graphic timeline will give you access to this recent history.

A lot of information to assimilate.

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Vulture (in flight). Brazil, 2007.

When you’re searching for the best mid-range graphics card (200€ or $200, with the usual conversion rate for computer-software dollar), it is often difficult to find one’s way. This is why a big graphics cards comparison like the one from The Tech Report is more than welcome.

But if you want to run for the result, you can also ask Tom’s Hardware and look at their best gaming graphics card for your budget.

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Yellow-rumped Cacique (Cacicus cela, Cassique à cul-jaune). Brazil, 2007.

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Backlit tree. Brazil, 2007.

… the day dream of all photographers. Instead of spending your nights playing with the setups, knobs and buttons of Photoshop (are any other similar software package), why not simply go through a process full automated, effortless, questionless, and with a nice little result?

ImproveYourImages.com

To be tested right now.

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Black Skimmer (Rynchops niger, Bec-en-ciseaux noir). Brazil, 2007.

Source: XKCD.

 

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Brazil, 2007.

Duck or rabbit?

Pour ceux qui souhaitent le savoir, chaque utilisateur sur le site Rouamzeilles.net peut avoir des droits différents selon le rôle qui lui est attribué (par mes soins). Les droits attachés ne sont pas toujours évidents, même pour un habitué de WordPress. C’est pourquoi j’ai produit le tableau ci-dessous pour expliquer.

Cliquer sur le tableau pour le voir en plus grand.

 

 
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Anhinga (Anhinga anhinga, Anhinga d’Amérique). Brazil, 2007.

If you want to do discreet (if not completely anonymous) P2P, Bittorrent and Gnutella or Kazaa are not your friends. With the advent of more attention from authorities, it is difficult to consider them as good opportunities.

I have been looking quickly at some of the possible solutions to protect your privacy while exchanging files over the Internet. I found the following ideas:

• Omemo is a recent Spanish development. I tried it and it is very obvious that the program is still in beta. Essentially, I was unable to download a file if it was not very small in size or to upload any. Let’s wait until it works.
• GigaTribe seems a good solution if you are willing to pay for the Premium package. It builds a closed network with your friends, but the standard (free) software is not able to grab files from multiple computers at the same time. So performance is very limited for the free version. GigaTribe3 is said to correct a number of issues some time later in 2008.
• Freenet is rather difficult to use at first, but if you run Thaw, one of the applications provided at installation, you will get a large choice of file downloads and performance while limited is not ridiculous: A few days for 2GB of video, it could be much worse. However, some may be troubled by the kind of data found there: While the common P2P data can be observed, you will also find conspiracy-related information and a quite significant load of pornography and child pornography (normally not found on the more open Internet).

I don’t know where the future of P2P lies, but it is certainly around some of these darknets (networks that are protected from external Peeping Toms). Freenet is supposed to be the best and most secured one, even if it is not perfect (it seems clear that some powerful agencies have setup some Freenet nodes in order to be able to spy the traffic).

The stars of show business and other stars are chased all around the world by paparazzis. Sometimes even catch them in X-ray photos. Here are the evidences:

Pamela Anderson

Homer Simpson

Mickey Mouse

(more…)

Boris Bendikov