Tag Archives: desktop

See a new wallpaper after every suspend

My ubuntu 14.04 is getting crusty and I don’t think that Mate helped it out greatly, but I marginally like Mate better than XFCE. However, whenever my computer wakes from suspend, my wallpaper background image is all black and kinda messed up. So I read this example of making a suspend-resume hook. And here is my own:

jreynolds@cholla /etc/pm/sleep.d 
 > cat 20-desktop 
#!/bin/bash
wallpaper="/home/jreynolds/Pictures/wallpapers/paradise-hills-01-3840x1080.jpg"
case "$1" in
sleep|hibernate)
   ;;

resume|thaw)
   pgrep mate-session \
      && Esetroot $wallpaper &
   ;;
esac

And it seems to work pretty well.

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Two 3x Monitor Backgrounds from Deception Pass

I had good fun with my camera on Memorial Day. Been a while since I filled up a memory card.

Since I have such a nice computer at work, I’ve decided that I refocus my photography towards landscapes, and put out multi-desktop wallpapers.

Bellingham Air Museum

I like the phrase “starter crank.” I loved planes as a boy, but now I’m bitter about the symbolism. Is this an attempt to poke at jingoism? I love the tone of the shiny metal, truly.

Image

HIgher res available.

Whatcom Creek, 2010

I was able to prop the camera against a signpost and get this 1 second exposure with my 28mm lens. Sometimes I’ll start some post-processing, get a bit frustrated, and come back to it after puzzling it out in the back of my head after a while. It getting texture I visualized for the water involved playing with grayscale layer for a while, coupled with a dodging layer on the top to restore the level of the mist that morning.

Whatcom Creek Bridge 2010

Whatcom Creek Bridge 2010

Print version.

I’m going to start making all the desktop pictures 1680×1050 now.

Thistles, Bellingham, 2010

I enjoyed the tiny bit of “sun” today and cruised some alleyways. I’ve gained a used Vivitar 28mm f2.5 M42 lens. This is the first lens that I’ve noticed a big difference in “quality” of the light. I mostly use modern lenses with smooth aspherical properties that make a picture seem evenly bright. The low-exposure areas drop off pretty steeply, and it meters the highlights differently. So with my Sigma zoom, I’ll get a 1/10th exposure at f2.8, but it will appear brighter than the 1/15th f2.5 exposure with this Vivitar. (I’m sure you think I’ve been swindled.) There are some homely reasons I like this vivitar lens, though. It’s focusing is stiffer, and the minimum focusing distance is about 4 inches…I can treat it like a macro lens and I’m not so afraid I’m going to wear this lens out as with the Sigma. The Tamron and Sigma lenses I have feel very fragile.

Thistles, Bellingham, 2010

Thistles, Bellingham, 2010

Order a print.

This is also the first picture I’ve used a map/distortion filter on. I mapped the picture to a tilted plan in order to reduce the parallax in the picture. That was my biggest problem with the composition, the “looking down at” point of view in the picture made it look a lot cheaper. If it still looks cheap, let me know…I can take it.