Michael J. Hammel

Building a better today…because tomorrow is in question…

Writing

Writings, fact and fiction.

My wife picked up a really interesting gift for me this holiday season. It's a copy of the first book I can remember checking out of a library as a kid. It's called Pat and the Iron Horse. I don't actually remember the story that well. It has something to […]

Not all gifts are new

Mon January 02, 2012 in General / Personal / Writing

Work is finally getting under way on the 2nd edition of the Artist's Guide to GIMP Effects. I've updated the text of sections 1, 2 and 3 to match the current state of GIMP development on the 2.8 release. I shipped those off tonight for review by the editor – […]

Artist’s Guide 2nd Ed. Progress – Sections 1, 2 and ...

Mon February 28, 2011 in Art and Graphics / GIMP / Linux / Open Source / Writing tagged 2nd ed / Artist / Artist's Guide / GIMP / Guide

I've posted a page linking to my Slideshare presentation on Crunch Cloud, a product my company (or rather the software group) is working on. This presentation has the added bonus of audio – my voice reading from a script I wrote for the slides. Kind of a cool process to […]

New slide presentation with audio: Crunch Cloud

Tue January 19, 2010 in Audio / CEI / General / Links / Writing tagged Cloud / crunch / slide presentation

I’ve added copies of the final image from each of the last four tutorials I did for Linux Format’s GIMP column. These are the last of the series, as Linux Format is putting the coumn to sleep for now. They said it might come back later. For now, however, I’ll […]

LXF Gallery updated and updating my

Sun November 22, 2009 in Art and Graphics / GIMP / Linux / Open Source / Writing tagged GIMP / Linux / linux format

I found an interesting story online about a producer at CNN who got canned for blogging – mostly about stuff that didn’t pull the corporate line. It’s interesting to read from my point of view because it mirrors (to an extent) the pitiful way in which Dell treated its employees […]

Big media (along with corporate stupidity) must die, die, die.

Thu February 21, 2008 in General / Personal / Politics / TV / Writing tagged dell / graphics

I just released the companion website to my new GIMP book, The Artist’s Guide to GIMP Effects. I hope to make it a a place for general GIMP discussion along with tutorials and other useful end-user information. The book, which is a collection of tutorials similar to the Photoshop WOW! […]

The Artist’s Guide To GIMP Effects website goes live

Sat July 21, 2007 in GIMP / Writing tagged GIMP / graphics (updated 6676 days ago)

I have a tool I wrote called MuseSig that appends random quotes to my email signature. I saw one today that I particularly like: Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty or safety. Nor, are they likely to end up with […]

A favorite quote from Benjamin Franklin

Thu February 22, 2007 in General / Politics / Writing tagged ximba (updated 6825 days ago)

I was digging around the ABC website tonight after the season finale, rumaging through the forums. I found a link to The Lost Experience Blogspot and started reading. In there was a clue posted on the Hanso site (which I can’t read with Firefox for some reason – Arggghhh). There […]

Decoding a Hanso clue (re: fun with Lost)

Thu May 25, 2006 in Lost / TV / Writing tagged GIMP / graphics / Lost (updated 7098 days ago)

I’ve resigned from writing for Tux Magazine. I only wrote for them for the first 5 issues, but the anti-GNOME sentiment really started to bug me. While I have nothing against KDE, I just don’t use it much. I mean, after all, I was there when GTK+ was born – […]

Tux and the anti-Gnome sentiment

Wed October 12, 2005 in General / Writing tagged GIMP / gnome / GTK+ / kde / Linux / linux format / Open Source / Writing (updated 7323 days ago)

My new book on GIMP is going well so far. I’ve received a template with styles for OpenOffice from the publisher that I need to use. Up to this point I’ve been doing everything in vi. They probably wouldn’t appreciate the book being submitted that way, though I do get […]

The book writing process

Sun February 27, 2005 in Art and Graphics / General / Writing tagged GIMP / Lost / Writing

This past weekend marked the official start of the holiday season in the US. We call it Thanksgiving but it’s really just a 4 day weekend to prep for the craziness of the end-of-year festivities. My family celebrated with dual Thanksgiving dinners – one on Thursday with my inlaws and […]

Holidays and projects

Sun November 28, 2004 in General / Linux / Software Development / Writing tagged GIMP / graphics / holiday / Linux / rpm / ximba / xnotesplus (updated 7641 days ago)

I guess it’s okay to say this now since they officially announced yesterday, but my new writing gig will be with Tux Magazine, the new magazine being put out by Linux Journal. I’m about 3/4 complete on my first article for the magazine, but the first issue isn’t due out […]

New gig: Tux Magazine

Wed November 17, 2004 in General / Linux / Writing tagged Linux / linux journal / Writing (updated 7652 days ago)