Ubuntu has a vast array of authoring tools. You can do a search for “DVD” (sans quotes) in the Software Center and you will see a bunch of DVD related tools. 2ManDVD was one I tried first because it was recommended back on Karmic. However I never really was able to get it to work right then and it still wouldn’t work right now. For some reason I could never get it to pick up the movies or figure out how to produce a playlist of multiple videos to have a “Play All” option. When I thought I had it, the software produced a zero byte ISO and just wouldn’t produce the DVD at all.

So I furthered my search for a decent editor. I tried QDVD Author, DeVeDe, Brasero (the default in Ubuntu even would not work), and tovid with the todisc ui. None of these worked right or was to convoluted to get to work right.

I had also read a recommendation for DVDStyler so decided to try that out. This was definitely the right choice! I had to make a series of DVDs for my girlfriend’s cousin’s kids so I loaded 4 episodes of the show I was making the DVDs for. The software put them in, set up a Play all option and a separate menu for individual episodes in a pinch!

I added a fan art image I grabbed off of The TV Database and made some modifications for the text and added a label to the individual episodes so you knew what they were. Then I began the burning process. BOOM! It created a preview in Xine which looked perfectly fine (hey that rhymed!) so I exited out of the preview and it started the encoding process then the burning process.

I really recommend DVDStyler for authoring DVDs it’s quick and simple and really works under Lucid.

I don’t know if the reason the others didn’t work is because I installed them through the software center instead of the command line apt-get method or not. But DVDStyler is perfect for quick and dirty DVD authoring. I will play with it more for sure. I have a lot of DVD’s to make before we head on down to Georgia to give them the DVDs. Let’s hope I can get it all done before then!

I am trying out Blogilo to post this article right now. It’s a little like Microsoft Live Writer from what the description boasts. When I loaded it I noticed that it’s a KDE based application and you have to set up KDE Wallet. No big deal, but a little annoying I guess.

I would have used BloGTK orginally however in recent times it seems some of the packages that are required to run it are no longer available under Lucid. the gtkhtml2 package I believe is what is was screaming about. Something that gPodder also uses for show notes but it seems to work fine without it.

One thing that is nifty about this application is that it can pull your style sheet from the server so when you preview it within the application it gives you an idea of what it will look like on the site. Really nifty.

I think I may use this to post things. Testing it out more. I even have added an image to see if it will upload it and post properly.

Note: This post went up fine. Just the time zone difference caused it to be late so I editted the time. And it seems the image was not formatted right. Probably something I missed. I may be using the application more in the future!

My opening theme for the show lasts about a minute and a half. For the video I felt I needed to make it shorter just to get the point across that it was for my show. So I edited the audio under Audacity and kept it down to about 30 secs.

The artists I played in the video I needed to get the videos off YouTube.  There are many ways to do this, but one utility that is just awesome is DamnVid. This multiplatform application allows you to download and encode videos into many different formats. So I used the YouTube URL for the videos of the artists I highlighted in the video.

For the actual video I played around with PiTiVi and Openshot. PiTiVi lacks transitions and effects at the moment, which the community has been screaming for them to put in. Openshot is great, but there was some things I feel it’s still missing.

I checked out KDEnlive under Nixie Pixel’s review and recommendation and I have to say, this is a VERY powerful little video editor. A lot of effects, transistions, and easy to boot! I started making titles within the software, but I wound up tweaking them more using Inkscape. Nothing spectacular, just quick and dirty creation because I need to learn to use InkScape more to be honest.  But aside from that I think the final product is pretty damn good for a beginner.

So let me know what you all think! Here’s The Video: 

I reinstalled all the applications and within a few hours I had everything back to “normal” However, there has been some bugs that have been bothering me as of late. Mainly with Gwibber. It seems facebook accounts are not able to be added any more to the application. As well as a few other things I noticed.

I wish there was a native app that handled more social networks. Although Gwibber has some great features, I have been finding apps handling all different options. I have been adding more social networks into my profile of networks but it seems not one app handles them all. And it would be great to have them all in one bundle. The networks I am on now are:

• MySpace
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Identica
• Tumblr
• Flickr
• FriendFeed
• Plurk
• LinkedIn

I have my IM’s all in Empathy at the moment, but in order for me to post to certain networks it’s like I have to go through Ping.FM or some other service to post to them all. That’s not too much of an issue, it’s more or less getting the updates of the people and groups I follow on these service to show in one place.

I have tiredly searched for solutions for this. I just hope that someday soon someone will come up with something.

Aside from that things are pretty stable. I just need to play more with some things to get back into the swing of things.  I need to bone up on GIMP, Inkscape and Audacity some more so that I can begin working on graphics again and also post a new episode of VooDooRadio.

I am looking into getting a Vidcast put up using Openshot but in order for me to do it I need to get the HD with the VooDooRadio logo on it and work on title sequences.

Seeing this is a new era for me, I am considering on changing the theme music for the show, however I have been using the current music for over 2 years now and it’s been branded into peoples ears. Maybe some minor changes on the intro.. I dunno I just want to get something shorter than the 1.5 minute intro.

Alright I think I bitched enough. If anyone has any solutions to a native client or AIR app that handles all the aforementioned social networks, please comment here or contact me through twitter, AIM, Identica. All are named voodoostevie.

Now I know I can rip to OGG or FLAC and convert them to MP3 using Audacity, LAME, and a shit load of other convertors, but that is 1 extra step! I’ve tried Sound-Juicer and K3B and looked at tutorials for each of them and still no go!

So I went back to Gnome. Long Live the Foot!

One thing I noticed is when I installed UbuntuTweak the Add/Remove Programs app on the Gnome Menu generates no programs in it at all. So I have to go through UbuntuTweak or Synaptic to install programs now. No big issue, but hopefully when Karmic comes out this will not happen.

I’m going to add a Page that lists all the programs I use as a reference to myself and to anyone else who wants a similar system. Also I will post tips to install stuff. WHEE!

I got this setup from the Ubuntu Blog website which it was very helpful, but seeing how I am wireless more I needed more variables to add to my setup. And this information was easily obtainable from Conky’s Sourceforge site more specifically the variable section.

The one thing I have been finding out about conky is that is is very tedious to really set it up. There is no “user friendly” GUI to configure it like the Screenlets so you have to do a lot of text editing to get it to work right. And you have to really ignore word wrap.

Another little thing about conky is when you make changes you can kill the process (I use top in the terminal to kill it) and restart it, reboot the machine, or log out of your Gnome session. I have used all three and logging out seems to be a little quicker than the other two. Go fig.

Also I learned that gPodder has an option to skip podcasts when syncing them to your iPod. So the Ubuntu Podcast has been set to that because of the file format issue with the iPod.  You can also set up an autodelte ever 30 days or whatever you want. I prefer to manually do it, but that’s just me. Also you can save the files somewhere else if you please. This is  a nice option because some shows I like to archive or edit to get bits for my show (ala “This is Why we’re Fat” from Nobody Likes Onions being inserted into my show).

I have been shutting down the machine lately so I don’t log in from work too much. But I still think I got some things done in the short time I did them.

Still bummed about the mixer. Thinking of picking up a headset soon as I can. Just can’t right now. Maybe I will pull out the original USB mic I used on the show MANY moons ago.

After  I installed it I loaded up a bunch of podcasts. It got 99% of them fine. For some odd reason it hates Talkshoe RSS feeds (so the Awful show’s feed was defunct).  After downloading all the current epidodes of the 45 feeds I added manually (suck it doesn’t have an OPML import function), I tried syncing, it didn’t add any new shows on there. I then removed the podcasts off the iPod manually from it’s list within the program.

I tried syncing again. Nothing. I went into gPodder and now it couldn’t even read the device. WTF? I headed over to the windows machine and restored the iPod thinking I messed up somewhere. Hooked it back up, still nothing.

So I finally just gave up.  Stay tuned for the outcome of this in Day 5.

After that fail, decided to play around with the screenlets and AWN some more.

Opened up Audacity and made a quick opening sound for my next show (which I need to work on). I was able to recreate and improve on the walkie talkie sounding thing that you hear in the opening. Originally that is made with Audition’s Multiband Compressor Filter but seeing I am not using Audition anymore, I have to take more steps. Annoying to some extent, but the outcome I think is AWESOME.

I also played a little with torrents which work fine… Yo Ho!

Nothing much today, maybe more later on. But I so far have not returned to Windows.

I think I need to try out Banshee to see how well it handles podcasts. gPodder works, but just trying out some other things to see what feels better. Banshee was recommended as an iTunes replacement. We shall see.