Patrick Catanzariti

Putting a measured path back into Google Earth

I’ve recently updated my blog post about measuring path lengths in Google Earth as the old tool I’d used disappeared.

For some reason, this blog won’t let me add the following information to my previous post about paths in Google Earth so I’ve had to add a continuation here in this new post.

Using that data in Google Earth

Remember that question in my other post which asked if you wanted to update the KML Path file? As I said above, if you click “Yes, update” it updates the path you have stored in the clipboard with your path’s distance. Below explains how to use that in Google Earth

After the distance is shown, you can go back into Google Earth and go to Edit > Paste: Once you’ve pasted in the path, it’ll appear under your places in Google Earth (the same area your other paths appear in). It appears under the name “KmlFile”. You’ll likely need to expand it out by pressing the + icon next to the “KmlFile” path. As you’ll see, when you expand the view of the path the distance is now visible:

Extra bonus info – using KML files

Alternatively using the Google Earth Path Measurer you can save the text [...]

Zombie Wallpaper Collection

Many who know me well will know of my strange fascination with zombies. Today I had the urge to go on a search for zombie themed wallpaper on DeviantART. Thought I’d share the best of the bunch that I found for other zombie enthusiasts

Zombie X-ing Nice, simple and effective! It’s my current wallpaper.

http://nuked-whale.deviantart.com/art/Zombie-X-ing-119854207

Zombie Wallpaper Much darker of a feel but really cool!

http://nintendorevolution.deviantart.com/art/Zombie-Wallpaper-95179629

Knock knock zombie apocalypse Great concept!

http://sharpjet.deviantart.com/art/Knock-knock-zombie-apocalypse-141570547

Zombie Warning Little disappointed it’s only available in 1024×768 but otherwise absolutely love it!

http://psylentnight.deviantart.com/art/Zombie-Warning-74882436

Survival Tracking Guide Not totally zombie based but I thought it was hilarious.

http://beti-88.deviantart.com/art/Survival-Tracking-Guide-165350460

Dead is the New Alive Love the colours and textures in this one.

http://asylumactas.deviantart.com/art/Dead-is-the-New-Alive-170303083

Zombie Apocalypse Love the detail and textures in this one!

http://rubenz87.deviantart.com/art/Zombie-Apocalypse-156160207

Zombie Love Zombies totally need love too.

http://lunaqueen333.deviantart.com/art/Zombie-Love-154134935

Firefox rendering colours incorrectly

I’m sure i’m not the first to come across this issue but it had me confused for a little while! The background image on my music blog was not fading correctly into the background colour of the site. This issue only seemed to occur on Firefox (and not every Firefox either…).

The explanation is here! According to Firefox’s documentation, it appears there is a “color management” feature which renders these images differently. For some reason this has been set to be the default option from Firefox 3.5. So on Firefox, my background image and the background colour were not matching up.

To change this setting back in Firefox:

Type in about:config into the address bar Find “gfx.color_management.mode” Change the value from 2 to 0. Restart Firefox

Before:

After:

How do I fix images so that they display correctly in Firefox 3.5+?

It looks like it might be a PNG issue in Firefox. After a bit of Googling, I came across the following steps:

Download TweakPNG from here: http://entropymine.com/jason/tweakpng/ Run it and open your image Delete the lines which start with gAMA, cHRM, iCCP and sRGB (these seem to be the chunks of colour profiles which mess up in Firefox) Save and replace your image on your site.

How to disable Flash in various browsers

Wondering where to go to disable Flash in your browser? I thought I’d put together this list as a bit of a reference both for myself and for anyone else who needs it

Firefox 3

Tools > Add-ons > Find Shockwave Flash and click Disable

IE6

Tools > Manage Add-ons > Find Shockwave Flash Object > Click the Disable radio button on the bottom left

Then refresh any pages you are viewing (Press Ctrl + F5 if it doesn’t appear to have disabled Flash).

IE7

Tools > Manage Add-ons > Enable or Disable Add-ons > Find Shockwave Flash Object > Click the Disable radio button on the bottom left

Then refresh any pages you are viewing if IE7 doesn’t do this for you (Press Ctrl + F5 if it still doesn’t appear to have disabled Flash).

IE8

Tools > Manage Add-ons > Make sure the “Toolbars and Extensions” button is selected on the left > Find Shockwave Flash Object > Click the Disable button on the bottom right

Then refresh any pages you are viewing (Press Ctrl + F5 if it doesn’t appear to have disabled Flash).

Chrome

Go to chrome://plugins/ in your address bar

Find Shockwave Flash and click the Disable link underneath it (the item should go grey).

After this it [...]

Restyling the web your way in Firefox

Ever wanted to change the way your favourite website looked? Sick of Facebook being blue? Sick of the one part of a site you use being so small on the page while all that other stuff you never look at takes up all your window space? Want to play hilarious pranks on your friends by changing the way sites appear to them? If so, read on.

What you’ll need

To change styles on websites using Firefox, you’ll need the following:

Firefox (duh.) Stylish – The Firefox extension which makes all of this possible Either a basic knowledge of HTML and CSS A basic knowledge of finding elements on a website (do you know what a div is?). I use the Firebug extension for Firefox to find which styles are on different elements I want to change.

Once you have the above prerequisites you can move onto the steps below. If you don’t know HTML or CSS and can’t be bothered learning, you can always use other people’s ready made styles.

How to restyle a website your way!

In my example, we’re going to be changing the boring blue bar on the top of Facebook.

Go to the website you’d like to change in Firefox. Get to the page on the site [...]

The What and How of Lucid Dreaming

About five years ago I found a pretty interesting and different interest – lucid dreaming. After watching Inception, my friends and I got onto the topic of lucid dreaming. After a pretty interesting discussion, they were quite interested in trying it out. I thought that while I could just send them a few links to various sources I used, it would be a lot more useful if I wrote up a summary for them as a bit of a beginners’ run down on the basics. Then I thought it would be a lot more useful if I put it on my blog so that others might also find use out of it. I’m also hoping that writing about it might get me back into it as well so I can start to do it again too! Also, if you haven’t seen Inception – you really need to… it was amazing.

What is lucid dreaming?

Lucid dreaming is dreaming while knowing that you are dreaming.

What is the point of it?

If you can learn to identify when you are dreaming, you can learn to gain a greater sense of clarity and control in your dreams. Imagine a world where everything is completely under your [...]

This is why I love basketball.

Loved this highlights reel… especially Grant Hill’s shot from over halfway!!!

Softpedia, control your ads?

I was on Softpedia.com, a software download website, to get an ISO image burner so I could burn a Linux (Ubuntu for those interested) DVD. When I went to download this program I was completely amazed by the awful ads surrounding the download pages. They all seemed to decide to also have a big “Download” button within them to fool you into clicking them instead of your actual download.

My question is – why wouldn’t Softpedia control what advertisements appear on these pages? Wouldn’t these ads negatively affect the user experience on the site? I clicked on one at first while not really paying much attention. I didn’t start the download because I saw the filename and knew it wasn’t right but other less careful or less tech savvy users would be totally confused by this.

Surely as a download website, you’d ensure these sorts of advertisements aren’t on your site. I just felt like I had to rant about that. Rant finished

My new music blog

Just to avoid cramming absolutely everything in this one blog (which already seems to jump from topic to topic each post), I’ve made a new music blog for the musical journey I’m embarking on. I’ve decided to start a bit of an experiment and listen to as many random albums and bands that I can. Just to get a bit of a break from mainstream music and broaden my musical horizons. I also thought it would be fun to blog about what I listen to and share the random thoughts that go through my mind!

It did also gave me a chance to put together a new blog design and play around a bit . Not totally happy with the design at the moment but hopefully I’ll find a way to adjust it a bit over time.

The blog is here: http://www.patrickcatanzariti.com/musicvacancy/

Any music suggestions (and I mean ANYTHING) are totally welcome. Send me an email or tweet at me.

My first photos now online

After getting a new DSLR camera for my 21st birthday and finally being able to let the inner photographer in me roam free, I’ve spent some time taking photos around Sydney.

First was the Vivid light show/festival where they light up various buildings around Sydney with various designs. I’ve got about two photos up online from that first outing (the rest… aren’t likely to be different from what anyone else took really). The next set of photos were from my own little adventure around Sydney on Sunday.

Anyway, if you are interested, the photos are up at: http://patrickcatanzariti.deviantart.com

I might put them up on Flickr at some point too. Or make my own gallery on this site.

Soon i’ll be talking fluent photographer and shall have a wonderful collection of photos to display