Month: May 2020

HOWTO: Set laptop screen brightness in Lubuntu

Some laptops have function keys that can be used to adjust screen brightness. These may not be supported on all laptops, however. In that case, there may be the controls in monitor settings or power management to adjust the brightness. In my case I wasn’t able to find anything, so I discovered how to adjust…

2020-05-28
NZ Rail Maps: Using Gimp To Georeference Retrolens Aerial Photos [6]: Alternate Overlaying Technique

Today I am going to look at an alternative way of stitching together the source layers. I have to do a set of mosaics for the station of Kamo, which is the northernmost part of Whangarei. From a rail perspective there were two stations there. Just a little south of Kamo there was a coal…

2020-05-25
NZ Rail Maps: Using Gimp To Georeference Retrolens Aerial Photos [5]: Overlaying Multiple Layers

So in my last post I showed how to get started in georeferencing with the first overlay. In that post I put the second layer in to show how it would join onto the first layer. The aim of this part is to show how to add additional overlays and how to deal with the…

2020-05-24
NZ Rail Maps: Using Gimp To Georeference Retrolens Aerial Photos [4]: Getting Started With Overlaying

So now we can look at how we actually do the georeferencing. This happens as a multi part process, and explaining the steps gives you an understanding of how it all works. The basic of georeferencing a historic aerial photo, is that by aligning it to a current aerial photo, of which we know the…

2020-05-24
NZ Rail Maps: Using Gimp To Georeference Retrolens Aerial Photos [3]: Getting Imagery Into Gimp

So let’s get this rolling. First thing I need is to download the layers from Linz Data Service. Which in this case is at the following URL: https://data.linz.govt.nz/layer/53399-northland-01m-urban-aerial-photos-2014-2015/ The layer is called Northland 0.1m Urban Aerial Photos (2014-2015) and covers the stations of Whangarei, Portland and Kamo. It also covers the port area of Whangarei,…

2020-05-23
NZ Rail Maps: Using Gimp To Georeference Retrolens Aerial Photos [2]: Preliminary Considerations

So I aim to write one post every day about this topic (this post was supposed to be finished last evening but has stretched through until this morning) until all the parts are completed, there are probably three or four parts. This is easy because I am doing georeferencing at the moment on a particular…

2020-05-23
NZ Rail Maps: Using Gimp To Georeference Retrolens Aerial Photos [1]: Introduction

OK so here is another post in the NZ Rail Maps category and this post will explain how I carry out the georeferencing of the historical Retrolens aerial photos to produce the maps for the NZ Rail Maps project. This is a very rewarding aspect of the project but it does take a lot of…

2020-05-21
Ubuntu LTS vs non LTS releases

Good day. As I install various versions of Ubuntu on a few virtual machines and computers and also use Debian on some as well, there is naturally an important comparison to be made between the Debian and Ubuntu release cycles. Ubuntu has stabilised on a twice yearly release cycle but the LTS releases are every…

2020-05-21
Facebook moves to grab even more share of key markets.

There are two things in particular that Facebook is working on right now so they can increase their intrusion, data gathering and control over businesses and market places. These are video conferencing (Zooming) in the wake of Covid-19 mandated quarantining requirements around the world, and their new Facebook Shops feature that is designed to provide…

2020-05-21
Steam Mopping Vs Chemical Cleaning [1]

I’ve decided to take a foray into the world of steam cleaning your house and household items due to the obvious need that we will all have to do a lot more cleaning because of Covid-19 risk. Of course we can also use vinegar instead of chemicals to clean our houses, but using steam is…

2020-05-06