Category5 Technology TV - Self-Publishing Your Book With Free Software

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Notes:
When Robbie said he used two RAID 1+0 arrays in the broadcast server, he obviously meant RAID 0 (whoops!). He had opted for speed rather than redundancy in the broadcast server only because the files themselves are not stored on it.

This episode is sponsored in part by: Netflix, Eco Alkalines and Cordery Electric.

Topics Covered:

Robbie Ferguson and Eric Kidd present from the Category5 studios in Barrie, Ontario.
Remembering Eric's spoof of Robbie on Episode 226.
A picture of Eric playing guitar outdoors.
Send in your postcards.
{play 7:59}Prize Giveaway - a Jawbone Icon Bluetooth headset.
{play 11:41}Viewer Questions
Remembering the drawing competition between Robbie Ferguson (using GIMP) and Rachel Xu (using Photoshop).
Viewer Comment: Happy 5th birthday! I wish I was able to come celebrate, but it's a long trip from Australia. In regards to Google Maps giving wrong directions, take a look at what Google gave me to get to the 5th Anniversary Celebration and how long it's meant to take.
Viewer Question: How can I install Flash Player on Debian Squeeze?
- Why Debian Squeeze doesn't come with the Adobe Flash plugin.
- Activating the contrib (non-free) repository on Debian Linux from within Synaptic Package Manager.
- Reloading your repository information.
- Searching for the flashplugin-nonfree and installing it on your Debian Squeeze system.
Viewer Question: What is the flashplugin-nonfree-extrasound extension?
Viewer Question: I can get compiz to run, but I lose my taskbar. Are you able to help?
- Resetting compiz settings to default using compizconfig-settings-manager.
Viewer Question: Who needs compiz?
Viewer Comment: Compiz runs really nice on ZorinOS.
Viewer Comment: Happy 5th birthday! Thank you to Robbie for encouraging me to do my backups! It really paid off this week when my SD card suddenly died, but then I realized I had a backup which I did just after watching Episode 259, so all my files were okay!
Viewer Question: Once you have your home folder on a separate drive, how can you set it up on a new install? For example, if I am running Ubuntu 10.04 and want to install ZorinOS but still have my home folder, how do I achieve this?
Viewer Question: Does it really make a substantial difference switching from a regular hard drive to SSD? (Please see Notes above for correction).
Viewer Question: What size SSD do you need for a standard desktop system?
The concerns about large Solid State Drives. See Robbie's Blog for more thoughts.
Viewer Question: How can I block torrent sites on my network?
{play 45:02}Top Stories from the Category5.TV Newsroom
{play 50:14}Feature: Self-publishing your novel or short story using nothing but free software and Cafepress.
- Download the templates and learn more: cat5.tv/publish
- Creating a Cafepress account.
- Creating a PDF file from your OpenOffice/LibreOffice source document.
- Using the GIMP to create your cover artwork.
- Removing the bleed lines in your source images for your book cover, back and spine, and saving your artwork as PNG files for use on Cafepress.
- What sets Cafepress apart from vanity press: no printer setup fees and no minimum orders (sure! go ahead and buy just one copy if you'd like).
- Adding a new product (a book) to your Cafepress store.
- Uploading your document to Cafepress for use within your book.
- Ignoring the [ahem] unintuitive errors on Cafepress.
- Uploading your cover, back and spine images for use on your book's design.
- Tagging your artwork for your book will help you come up in searches within the Cafepress web site.
- Saving your book to your Cafepress store and putting it up for sale.
- Cafepress is a lot more than just books.