As we like to say at FOSS Force, open source is taking over the world. It’s everywhere you look. The Video Screening Room Bryan Liles,…
Posts published in “Tutorial”
Have you often considered quitting your day job to begin an exciting career as a filmmaker? You don’t need the resources of a Hollywood studio anymore. In fact, you can do it all with free and open source software.
The Video Screening Room
Blender is a very popular 3D animation program, but not many people know that this open source, cross platform software also works well as a video editor. Some people consider Blender to be the best open source video editor available. (See the comments at the end of this article on Opensource.com).
To quickly get you up to speed, this well-done 23-minute video explains Blender to people who are already familiar with Final Cut Pro video editor — as well as with others.
For the past 10 years, Phil has been working at a public library in the Washington D.C.-area, helping youth and adults use the 28 public Linux stations the library offers seven days a week. He also writes for MAKE magazine, Opensource.com and TechSoup Libraries. Suggest videos by contacting Phil on Twitter or at pshapiro@his.com.
Even you could become a world famous blogger. The lightweight blogging platform Ghost and a Raspberry Pi is all it takes.
The Raspberry Pi Report
I’ve read that a fun and easy thing to do with a Raspberry Pi is to set it up as a dedicated blog server. I’ve never really had my own blog, so I decided I would give this project a shot. I hope that this article serves as a guide for those of you who would like to start a blog or who have a Raspberry Pi that’s not doing anything and are looking for a worthy project.
Hardware: I’m using a Raspberry Pi Model 2 B with a 32-bit SanDisk micro SD card. The reason for using the Model 2 B is because I happened to have one that wasn’t currently being used. Also, I wouldn’t need any of the extras, like Wi-Fi. that the Raspberry Pi 3 brings to the table since it will be connected via Ethernet and SSH.
In addition to hosting a Raspberry Pi meetup in Washington D.C., Isaac Carter is a co-host on mintCast. He’s also a software engineer who enjoys working with Java, JavaScript, and GNU/Linux. When he’s not coding, you can find him reading on any number of subjects or on the golf course.
Around since 2005, and with its Kiki the Cyber Squirrel mascot since 2012, Krita is a free and open source raster graphics editor designed to be a digital painting application similar to Corel Painter.
The Video Screening Room
The popular Krita painting program keeps getting even better. This new beta release of 3.01 includes features added from Google Summer of Code programmers. This screencast does a very good job explaining the new features, including new animation tools.
For the past 10 years, Phil has been working at a public library in the Washington D.C.-area, helping youth and adults use the 28 public Linux stations the library offers seven days a week. He also writes for MAKE magazine, Opensource.com and TechSoup Libraries. Suggest videos by contacting Phil on Twitter or at pshapiro@his.com.
Would you like to use a Raspberry Pi as a topflight security tool? Here’s how to install BlackArch Linux on a Pi to get you on your way.
The Raspberry Pi Report
Currently Kali Linux is the de facto OS for those looking to do security research or penetration testing, but that could be changing in the months and years to come. This month BlackArch Linux, another penetration testing OS, released new ISOs that could put it ahead of Kali. BlackArch now includes over 1,500 tools for penetration testing and security research as well as support for kernel 4.7.1. In the months to come, I’ll write about using select tools from BlackArch on the Raspberry Pi, but in order to get to that point, we first need to install it. Instead of taking any credit for the install steps or reproduce them over again, I’m simply going to provide links to the same steps that I found and followed which lead me to a successful install of both Arch Linux and BlackArch on my Raspberry Pi 3.
In addition to hosting a Raspberry Pi meetup in Washington D.C., Isaac Carter is a co-host on mintCast. He’s also a software engineer who enjoys working with Java, JavaScript, and GNU/Linux. When he’s not coding, you can find him reading on any number of subjects or on the golf course.
These days, thanks to Apple’s move to Intel about a decade back, bringing new life to an old Mac by installing your favorite Linux distro is just as easy as it is with a standard PC, as you will see in this video.
The Video Screening Room
All Macintosh computers from about 2006 onwards were made using Intel CPUs and installing Linux on these computers is a breeze. You don’t need to download any Mac specific distro — just choose your favorite distro and install away. About 95 percent of the time you’ll be able to use the 64-bit version of the distro. On CoreDuo Macs, from 2006, you’ll need to use a 32-bit version.
Here is a screencast video I made on a revived Macbook that came into my hands recently. I downloaded Linux Mint 18 Xfce 64-bit ISO, burned it to DVD, inserted it into the Macbook (after the Macbook was turned on) and then booted the Macbook from DVD by holding the the letter “C” (which tells the Mac to boot from the optical drive).
For the past 10 years, Phil has been working at a public library in the Washington D.C.-area, helping youth and adults use the 28 public Linux stations the library offers seven days a week. He also writes for MAKE magazine, Opensource.com and TechSoup Libraries. Suggest videos by contacting Phil on Twitter or at pshapiro@his.com.
In this video, web developers can learn how to get their hands dirty with the PHP dependency manager, Composer.
The Video Screening Room
If you’re a WordPress developer, Sal Ferrarello (@salcode) of Reading, PA, explains how to install Composer, use it with a plugin or a theme and use it with a WordPress project. This video is from his WordCamp Philly 2015 talk.
For the past 10 years, Phil has been working at a public library in the Washington D.C.-area, helping youth and adults use the 28 public Linux stations the library offers seven days a week. He also writes for MAKE magazine, Opensource.com and TechSoup Libraries. Suggest videos by contacting Phil on Twitter or at pshapiro@his.com.
Chromebooks are really nice laptops, except for one tiny problem which is…well, Chrome OS. This week, our contributing video editor found an easy to follow step-by-step guide for installing Ubuntu on a Chromebook Pixel. Problem solved.
The Video Screening Room
The Chromebook Pixel of 2013 is a lovely computer. Want to make it even lovelier? Install Ubuntu on it. This well-done tutorial video shows and explains all the steps.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Girn7mgoRco?feature=oembed&w=500&h=281]
In three years time, the Chromebook Pixels of 2013 will be six years old and you’ll be able to buy one quite affordably on eBay.
For the past 10 years, Phil has been working at a public library in the Washington D.C.-area, helping youth and adults use the 28 public Linux stations the library offers seven days a week. He also writes for MAKE magazine, Opensource.com and TechSoup Libraries. Suggest videos by contacting Phil on Twitter or at pshapiro@his.com.
Many free and open source projects put power into our hands that once was reserved for elite players with deep pockets. A great example is the Moodle mobile app, which could be a big game changer for all sorts of small organizations.
The Video Screening Room
Moodle is a very popular free and open source learning management system, like Blackboard, used extensively around the world. Back in 2004, a very smart friend of mine, Gina Russell Stevens, explained to me that Moodle is so useful it could be used for many purposes beyond education. Her comment stuck with me. When I noticed that Moodle now has a free mobile app available for Android and iOS, it occurred to me that this app could be customized for many civic communication purposes.
For the past 10 years, Phil has been working at a public library in the Washington D.C.-area, helping youth and adults use the 28 public Linux stations the library offers seven days a week. He also writes for MAKE magazine, Opensource.com and TechSoup Libraries. Suggest videos by contacting Phil on Twitter or at pshapiro@his.com.
Tatiana Kochedykova If you’re looking for a free and open source replacement for the convenience and functionality offered by the likes of Google Docs and…
Sometimes applications have capabilities that go beyond their primary use. Our contributing video editor found this excellent video tutorial on editing videos in Blender, an app that’s primarily used for creating animated films.
The Video Screening Room
Blender is well-known for its 3D animation features, but did you know it also contains a very fine video editor? This explanatory screencast shares a lot of tips and tricks. I especially enjoyed when the screencaster made mistakes and then explained them. That can add a lot of value to a screencast. In fact, I’d pay good money for mistakes.
For the past 10 years, Phil has been working at a public library in the Washington D.C.-area, helping youth and adults use the 28 public Linux stations the library offers seven days a week. He also writes for MAKE magazine, Opensource.com and TechSoup Libraries. Suggest videos by contacting Phil on Twitter or at pshapiro@his.com.