http://www.digitalmediaminute.com/article/1816/top-ruby-on-rails-tutorials

I have been using DVD::RIP to convert VOB Files to MPEG. But, with the older version for some reason I kept getting a  strobe effect along the top for the first 20 seconds. weird? But, when installing the latest version of ffmpeg it converted like a champ.

http://allblackberry.com/news/category/blackberry-friendly-sites/

How to Install Compiz Fusion on Ubuntu

– For GNOME and KDE users

By: Marius Nestor, Linux Editor

Enlarge picture

We talked a few days ago about the Compiz and Beryl mergence and the name of the newly born project resulted from this fusion, Compiz Fusion. The Compiz Fusion project tries to bring us all the latest 3D technologies, such as Cube reflection, paint fire on your desktop and a lot of new eye candy animations.

The following guide will teach you (step by step) how to install Compiz Fusion on your Ubuntu (Kubuntu) 7.04 operating system. Be aware that Compiz Fusion is still in heavy development, so it may not be very stable. For me (at this moment) it’s pretty stable, as I didn’t encounter any bugs.

Open a terminal (Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal for GNOME users or KMenu -> System -> Konsole for KDE users) and type:

CODE


sudo apt-get -y remove compiz-core desktop-effects


Leave the terminal open and go to System -> Administration -> Software Sources, click on the second tab (Third-Party Software), then click on the “Add” button and paste the following code:

CODE


deb http://download.tuxfamily.org/3v1deb feisty eyecandy


Click the “Add Source” button after you pasted the above code and do the same for the following code:

CODE


deb-src http://download.tuxfamily.org/3v1deb feisty eyecandy


Don’t close the Software Sources window yet!

In the terminal window, type:

CODE


wget http://download.tuxfamily.org/3v1deb/DD800CD9.gpg


CODE


sudo apt-key add DD800CD9.gpg


Now click the “Close” button on the Software Sources window and you will be asked if you want to reload the information about available software, so click the “Reload” button and wait for the window to disappear.

Copy/Paste the following lines in the terminal window:

CODE


sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get -y upgrade


FOR GNOME USERS:

CODE


sudo apt-get -y install compiz compiz-gnome compizconfig-settings-manager compiz-fusion-plugins-extra libcompizconfig-backend-gconf


FOR KDE USERS:

CODE


sudo apt-get -y install compiz compiz-kde compizconfig-settings-manager compiz-fusion-plugins-extra libcompizconfig-backend-kconfig


Now, if everything was correctly installed and you didn’t encounter errors, press ALT+F2 and type:

CODE


compiz --replace


That’s it! Enjoy the latest 3D eye candy effects on your (K)Ubuntu OS.

Some quick tricks:

- Hold CTRL + ALT keys and with the left mouse button rotate the cube
- Super + E activates the Expo plugin
- Hold Super + Shift and with your mouse paint fire on your desktop
- Super + Shift + C will erase the fire paint
- Super + Tab activates the Ring Switcher plugin

There are many false benefits of XHTML promoted on the Web. Let’s clear up some of them at a glance (with details and other pitfalls provided later):

• XHTML does not promote separation of content and presentation any more than HTML does. XHTML has all of the same elements and attributes (including presentational ones) that HTML has, and it doesn’t offer any additional CSS features. Semantic markup and separation of content and presentation is absolutely possible in HTML and is equally easy. In terms of semantics, HTML 4.01 and XHTML 1.0 are exactly the same.
• Most XHTML pages on the Web are not parsed as XML by today’s web browsers. With typical server configurations, browsers will parse your XHTML as HTML (tag soup) instead. The vast majority of XHTML pages on the Web cannot be parsed as XML, since they were only tested with these HTML parsers. Even many valid XHTML pages cannot be parsed as XML. See the Validity and Well-Formedness article for details and examples.
• XML parsers do not typically check documents for validity. They only check them for well-formedness, which is a separate concept. If you leave out a required element, use deprecated or nonstandard elements or attributes, or put an element somewhere it isn’t allowed, the XML parser will provide no indication of the error, and the browser will have to silently deal with the error like HTML parsers do.
• HTML is not deprecated and is not being phased out at this time. In fact, the World Wide Web Consortium recently renewed the HTML working group which is working to develop HTML 5. The developers of Firefox, Opera, and Safari have pushed very hard for the development of HTML 5 and have largely ignored the development of XHTML 2. The Safari development team has even opted to take no part in the XHTML 2 development process. The CTO of Opera said in an interview, “I don’t think XHTML is a realistic option for the masses. HTML5 is it.”
• XHTML 1.x is not “future-compatible”. XHTML 2, currently in the drafting stages, is not backwards-compatible with XHTML 1.x. XHTML 2 will have lots of major changes to the way documents are written and structured, and even if you already have your site written in XHTML 1.1, a complete site rewrite will usually be necessary in order to convert it to proper XHTML 2. A simple XSL transformation will not be sufficient in most cases, because some semantics won’t translate properly.HTML 4.01 is actually more future-compatible. An HTML 4.01 document written to modern support levels will be valid HTML 5, and HTML 5 is where the majority of attention is from browser developers and the W3C.
• XHTML does not have good browser support. In typical setups, most browsers simply pretend that your XHTML pages are regular HTML (which presents a number of problems). Some major browsers like Firefox, Opera, and Safari may attempt to handle the page as proper XHTML if and only if you include a certain special HTTP header. However, when you do so, Internet Explorer and a number of other user agents will choke on it and won’t display a page at all. Even when handled as XHTML, the supporting browsers have a number of additional bugs.
• Most browsers do not parse valid XHTML dramatically faster than valid HTML, even when they’re parsing XHTML correctly. This is partly because most browsers only support a small subset of the HTML/SGML standard to begin with, so the real complexities of proper HTML parsing are mostly ignored anyway. The only major additional complexity of HTML that is well supported is tag omission, but most browsers use hardcoded rules specific to HTML in order to cheat through that with minimal performance impact. The browser can lose some minor shorthand logic with XML, but it now has to use extra logic to confirm that the document is well-formed. Although XHTML, when parsed with an XML parser, may be slightly faster to parse than typical HTML, the difference isn’t very significant in most cases. And either way, download speed is usually the bottleneck when it comes to document parsing. Whether it’s HTML or XHTML, by the time the page finishes downloading, the whole thing is already parsed. The users won’t notice any speed difference.
• XHTML is not extensible if you hope to support Internet Explorer or the number of other user agents which can’t parse XHTML as XML. They will handle the document as HTML and you will have no extensibility benefit.
• XHTML source is not necessarily any “cleaner” than HTML source. If your prefer using lower-case tag names and attribute names, you can do so in HTML. If you prefer having quotes around all attribute values, you may do so in HTML. If you prefer making sure all of your non-empty elements have end tags, you may use end tags in HTML, too. In fact, these are considered best practice markup principles with HTML. The only real markup differences between an HTML document following best practices and an XHTML document following the legacy compatibility guidelines are the doctype, the attributes on the html tag, and the /> empty element tag ends (which are actually just SGML shorthand constructs). It’s strange that so many people seem to think shorthand constructs in HTML cause the markup to be “unclean”, while many of the same people seem to love these shorthand constructs in XML. There’s no objective reason behind it; it’s just a matter of perception.If you prefer cleaner code and would like the validator to enforce clean code in HTML as well, you can use Web Devout’s HTML Good Practice Checker.
• Using XHTML does not encourage better support by web browsers and it is not “a vote for a better Web” if you are still supporting Internet Explorer and various search engines and other user agents which require text/html. If you serve it with the typical text/html content type, you are giving all browsers a thumbs-up to treat it exactly like classic HTML, meaning absolutely no progress is made. Even if you use only application/xhtml+xml and shut out Internet Explorer and various other user agents entirely, it won’t mean anything: Microsoft already plans to support real XHTML in an upcoming release of Internet Explorer; they just want to make sure they support it correctly from the initial launch. Even still, XHTML 1.x is a dead-end standard, since it’s completely incompatible with XHTML 2.0 and all other future HTML/XHTML standards, as explained aboved, and since the majority of XHTML content on the Web today cannot be safely parsed as XML.<!–

http://www.webdevout.net/articles/beware-of-xhtml

Web Developer’s Handbook | CSS, Web Development, Color Tools, SEO, Usability etc.

1. Create a file ~/.fonts.conf

2. Paste:

<?xml version=”1.0″?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM “fonts.dtd”>
<fontconfig>

<!– Give all fonts light hinting and subpixel smoothing –>
<!–
<match target=”font”>
<edit mode=”assign” name=”rgba”>
<const>rgb</const>
</edit>
<edit mode=”assign” name=”hinting”>
<bool>true</bool>
</edit>
<edit mode=”assign” name=”hintstyle”>
<const>hintslight</const>
</edit>
<edit mode=”assign” name=”antialias”>
<bool>true</bool>
</edit>
</match>
–>

<!–
<match target=”font”>
<test qual=”all” name=”rgba”><const>unknown</const></test>
<edit name=”rgba” mode=”assign”><const>rgb</const></edit>
</match>
–>

<!–  Do not smooth Fixedsys  –>
<match target=”font”>
<test name=”family”>
<string>FixedsysTTF</string>
</test>
<edit name=”antialias”>
<bool>false</bool>
</edit>
</match>

<!–  Do not smooth Tahoma 8pt and under  –>
<match target=”font”>
<test name=”family”>
<string>Tahoma</string>
</test>
<test compare=”less” name=”size” qual=”any”>
<double>9</double>
</test>
<edit name=”antialias”>
<bool>false</bool>
</edit>
</match>

<!–  Do not smooth Times New Roman or Courier New for 12pt and under  –>
<match target=”font”>
<test name=”family”>
<string>Times New Roman</string>
</test>
<test compare=”less” name=”size” qual=”any”>
<double>13</double>
</test>
<edit name=”antialias”>
<bool>false</bool>
</edit>
</match>

<match target=”font”>
<test name=”family”>
<string>Courier</string>
<string>Courier New</string>
<string>Courier 10 Pitch</string>
</test>
<test compare=”less” name=”size” qual=”any”>
<double>11</double>
</test>
<edit name=”antialias”>
<bool>false</bool>
</edit>
</match>

<!– Do not autohint Courier New, Fixedsys, Tahoma, or Times New Roman –>
<match target=”font”>
<test name=”family”>
<string>Courier New</string>
<string>Times New Roman</string>
<string>Tahoma</string>
<string>FixedsysTTF</string>
</test>
<edit mode=”assign” name=”hintstyle”>
<const>hintslight</const>
</edit>
<edit mode=”assign” name=”autohint”>
<bool>false</bool>
</edit>
</match>

<match target=”pattern”>
<test qual=”any” name=”family”>
<string>Bitstream Vera Sans</string>
</test>
<edit name=”family” mode=”assign”>
<string>Arial</string>
</edit>
</match>
<match target=”pattern”>
<test qual=”any” name=”family”>
<string>Helvetica</string>
</test>
<edit name=”family” mode=”assign”>
<string>Arial</string>
</edit>
</match>
<match target=”pattern”>
<test qual=”any” name=”family”>
<string>Palatino</string>
</test>
<edit name=”family” mode=”assign”>
<string>Georgia</string>
</edit>
</match>
</fontconfig>

Works like a charm.

Okay, here it is. For the first time since the Avalanche have been in Colorado, we did not make the playoffs. I am writing this a month after we lost the final playoff spot to the Calgary Flames. It took me a whole month to actually calm down and realize that everything is going to be okay.

Joe Sakic, everyone thought was going to “be considered” over the hill. Not a chance. Way to go Super Joe. He was there everytime we needed him. In that last stretch I didn’t think any could stop Sakic, Stastny or Hedjuk. The unstoppable force. With the play of Peter Budaj and our younger stars stepping up, I can only be positive for next season. It cannot come soon enough.