note from the baker

Hi all, been real bizzy with normal stuff. Baked another batch o'video cards. First batch in August of 2012 and I was real excited. One card lasted only 2 months the second 5 months, not bad. Imagine how long if it were made out of Twinkies!! Now I know I need to get online and buy a new/used card or a new machine, I'm stall'n.

Any way I preheated the oven to 385 degrees and baked for 10 minutes. I used bamboo kabob skewers poked thru paper plates to make a rack to rest the cards on.

The only words of caution, off gassing of circuit board materials are probably not cool in a cook stove used for cooking meals. And if the circuit board has can capacitors do not cook, they might explode.

So here I am staring at two working laptops again, and again I do not know how long they will last. They look clear and glitch free.

Other things happening I am always butting heads with Abode product users at the Art Gallery. Converting things into formats they can use is trying if you convert from Linux app formats to Adobe like formats. I say "like" because often the Linux or open source version of Adobe formats is not always a good fit. I blame this on Microsoft and Adobe. They are companies who change their propriety stuff and don't always think about the open source programs. I have few problems with PDF, JPG or PNG, but Inkscape's SVG (a vector format) doesn't get over for Adobe fans.

I just completed a slide show in a Linux app called Imagination. It takes many kinds of media files and turns them into MP2-3 files to be burnt onto a DVD or VCD. 69 different transitions, various amimations and sound track, it is loads of fun.

So I use different programs to work on the parts of this project, like Audacity to trim an audio file to fit my slide show. Gimp and Inkscape to make and size each picture. Then Imagine to arrange it all and make the final slide show file.

We do get PC donations at the Gallery (sometimes dumped). The older PC's are only cool if they can do graphics. We discovered that even my slide show file requires a little power to do the transitions smoothly. Still slide shows are a great way to make an older PC useful.

OK. I've got to go do the dance of joy and gloat over my two laptops, later!