Having a large collection of images that need resizing or rotating.
Old solution
Open Gimp, re-size, re-save. A very slow method.
New solution
Gnome Nautilus plugin. Here you highlight all the photos you want to resize and an option comes up in the right-click menu for "Resize Images..." and "Rotate Images...."
How to install
On Ubuntu it's very easy.
sudo apt-get install nautilus-image-converter
nautilus -q
The "nautilus -q" command should quit nautilus, and Gnome should restart it. If that doesn't happen, just log out and log back in again. Then you should have the new plugin installed.
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I had long ago transferred the music on my computer to Ogg format, this meant my 3G iPod (not well supported by Rockbox), became redundant. Ogg players are few and far between. Xiph.org try and help by providing a list of players that support Ogg.
The Xiph.org list, pointed me in the direction of a Mpman MP3 player. This is a cheap (~£15-20), simple 1 Gb MP3/WMA player, that acts as a USB removable storage drive. What it doesn't tell you anywhere in the official documentation is that its a secret Ogg player! For those that are cautious about different versions of hardware that have different chipsets, the model/serial number is MP-FUB34. I find it strange when companies forget to mention, or purposely leave out features. A quick google search for "fub34" brings up quite a few results, and currently some are being sold on Amazon.
I have been using it for a while now, with the music I have encoded from CD to Ogg, and podcasts that I have downloaded. The music I encoded myself using SoundJuicer, with the default settings, works fine on the player. Sometimes the ID3 tags don't display correctly but the music works fine, skipping, fast forward, all the usual functions you would expect. Problems arise when I put Ogg podcasts on the Mpman, it seems however many podcasts encode their audio just chokes the Mpman, so I have to default back to MP3 feeds.
The player is great for simple day to day usage, but the buttons feel tacky and cheap. And it does consume a lot of batteries, buying some recharable AAAs and a charger would be a good investment. But remember to have the batteries charged! There's nothing worse than when you are in a rush, and your music dies because you forgot to charge a battery.
Being strapped for cash means that alternatives are limited but I have my eye on the Cowan iAudio 7, which seems to be a popular choice for freedom lovers.
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