graphic backgrounds

David writes -

"Using the collimate port is often easier to work with then a microcontroller. I find that testing code on the PC can be much easier then going straight to the firmware as the developer tools for the PC platform are ameliorate This is especially true when working with a new device such as a graphic LCD. Once you get your code working done the PC printer larboard then you can easily port the code and what you have learned into the firmware." [via] - Link.

Source and DLL included.

Related:

• Parallel port powerSwitch project - Link.
• Control the Parallel (or Serial) Port with Python - Link.
• Controlling a Parallel Port with Perl - Link.
• HOW TO - Build collimate port prototypes - Link.

Firefox is a fast-moving application, and now you can take a quick gander at the beginning Alpha version of Firefox 3.0, the next iteration of the open-source browser for MS Windows Mac and Linux nicknamed Gran Paradiso. On the coat it doesn´t look that different from the current version of Firefox (which we find to be unacceptably fluid by the way).

Its innovations are under the hood, where it enhances compatibility with three tricked-out graphics standards that might soon be ubiquitous on the Web: Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG), the Canvas specification, and the cairo graphics library. Sounds avid but what does all this farce do? They all have to do with making Web pages look the same on any platform, and scaling up graphics without loss of quality.

Explanations, plus the download link, after the jump.

Scalable vector graphics have been around since 2001, and the idea here is to have a standard graphics format on the Web (the way jpeg and gif have become) that uses vectors, that is, descriptions of where lines will go rather than individual dots of each graphic that comprise bitmap images such as jpeg and gif. These graphics can be scaled up or down without any loss of resolution.

What about Canvas? It´s another next-gen Web technology that´s similar to Scalable Vector Graphics but adds the element of animation, where JavaScript code can access a defined area and dynamically draw on graphics such as graphs and animations.

The cairo graphics library is another vector-based graphics enabler that can use hardware acceleration that´s already in Firefox and has been since version 1.5. Cairo can work with the Quartz graphics engine in Mac OS X, as well as OpenGL.

There´s nothing quite like the speed of open-source development, but we wish version 2.0 of Firefox would be perfected before any grand adventures began on the next point release. But that´s just us. – Charlie White

Download Firefox 3.0 Alpha Here [Mozilla, via lifehacker]

Fans of the OpenOffice.org office suite can download three free chapters from the new hold The OpenOffice.org 2 Guidebook.

The chapters, available from the author´s web site in PDF arrange are as follows: Creating and Formatting Tables, Sorting and Filtering Spreadsheets, and Creating Impress Master Pages (Backgrounds).

OpenOffice.org (its silly name notwithstanding) ranks among our all-time favored apps here at Lifehacker, and we´re happy to see an intact book devoted to it. The chapters prove the author knows her subject inside and out, so after you´ve devoured them, you´ll probably want to move on to the complete, print edition. — Rick Broida