Guide - Upgrading Ubuntu 10.04 to 10.10

This post describes the not-so-smooth update from Ubuntu 10.04 to 10.10. The "One Click Upgrade" did not really work here :P Took me several hours to get this right, and I used several backups to restore my system after bad attempts. Hopefully I'll save you some time and effort on how to do this =)

If the usual upgrade works for you, follow it - the steps here were done because the regular upgrade didn't work (slow internet connection, and some more problems).

Info: I'm running 32-bit Ubuntu, inside Virtualbox (a VM) under Windows XP SP3 host.

[Quick-Tip][GIMP] Rounding any selection

One thing I was asked how to do several times, in GIMP, is how to round a selection which is not rectangular. For example, if you have start shaped selection and you want to round it's corners - how do you do this?

Today I'm going to show you a quick and dirty way to do this:

1. Load the selection that you wish to round. Save it to a channel so that you will be able to undo what we are going to do.
   

   

   Step 1: Load the selection

2. Shrink the selection by the radius you want to round it (i.e. if you want to round your selection by 10px, shrink it by 10px).
   

   

   Step 2: Shrink the selection

3. Create a new layer. Now stroke the selection with round caps/joins and set the stroke width to double the radius of the rounding (Since I shrunk the selection by 10px, I'll stroke it by 20px).
   

   

   Step 3: Stroke the selection

   

   Note the settings of the
   "Cap/Join Style"

4. Fill the selection (on the same layer you stroked the selection).
   

   

   Step 4: Fill the selection

   

   This is how your layer
   should look (without the
   selection)

5. Now, transfer the alpha of the selected layer to the selection (aka "Alpha to Selection") and delete this temporary layer.
   

   

   Step 5: Transfer the alpha
   of the layer to the selection
   and get rid of the layer

That's all - A very neat result, even if the technique is a bit ugly :P

Tip: If you want a smoother result (some of you may notice small jags on the resulting selection) try the following instead of step 3:

1. Convert the selection to a path (aka "Selection to Path").
2. Deselect the image.
3. Stroke the path (with the same settings as above).
4. Make a selection from the path and delete the path.

Does anyone want a script to automate this? If so, leave a comment and I'll write one =)

Squeezing your Filesize (KB) - Tutorial

There are lots of cases where you want to squeeze a picture's filesize. Sometimes a small picture can be 250+ KB while a bigger picture can be only 10KB. This is because of the different filetypes. Today I'm going to teach you, how to choose the optimal filetype for your picture. Although this tutorial uses GIMP (all the instructions about plugins and menus are for GIMP), this should help users of other programs that have basic understanding of their program.

GIMP Path Tool (aka Pentool) Tutorial

In this tutorial, you will learn the Path Tool (aka Pentool) in GIMP. The Path Tool is used to create complex shapes and curves. Many people don't use it since it's too complicated, However today I'm going to show you that it's not.
Note: This tutorial was transfered from my old website, and it's now updated with more information