Picture Frames and Captions with ImageMagick

This article discusses some of the caption and border effects available with the ImageMagick image processing package. ImageMagick is freely available for Linux and Windows. It offers a huge number of image processing options, so many in fact, that using the program can be a little tricky.

The following examples were evolved from the ImageMagick online documentation, plus a good deal of trial and error to get the details right. I used Linux, but the same commands should work under Windows. Continue reading

Simple Picture Gallery on Raspberry Pi

The Raspberry Pi is a small Linux computer designed to help children learn programming. Being a full Linux System, it can also be used as a server or as the basis for various projects. The Pi’s low power consumption makes it particularly suited to the role of always-on web server.

This post describes how to create a simple photo gallery on the Pi, which can be shared over the internet with or without password protection. While not as polished as Flickr, Smugmug or similar services, it allows you to retain ownetship, control and security of the shared images. Continue reading

Fast Installation of AIX on to IBM LPARs

An LPAR, or logical partition, is an IBM virtual machine. LPARs run on a variety of IMB hardware and provide strong isolation between partitions. This article describes a method for quickly building LPARs running AIX on IBM pSeries hardware

AIX can be installed onto an LAPR using the distribution CDs (or rather, since this is a virtual machine, the ISO image files derived from those physical CDs). There are, however, two drawbacks with this:

  • it does not include site specific customizations. If a piece of software like Apache or ssh is required on the LPAR, it must be installed separately – a pain if you have many LPARs to build.
  • it is a slow process. AIX is supplied spread over several CDs. The administrator must swap CDs several times during the installation. This means hanging around and typing commands needed to mount and dismount the cd ISO images on the target LPAR, something that will have to be done several times during the installation.

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Upgrading the Sheevaplug to Debian 6 Squeeze

The Sheevaplug is is a very small computer made by Globalscale. It is designed to offer standard computing functions in a very small space. Consuming just a few watts of power, the Sheevaplug makes a good home server, with applications ranging from network storage to web hosting and home security.

This article explains how to upgrade a Sheevaplug to Debian 6 using a pre-built image available from New IT. It is a quick and simple procedure, requiring less technical knowledge than, for example, installing Debian from scratch. Continue reading