To make your greencard passport photo 600 x 600 pixels on Ubuntu/Linux using Gimp

Do you use the good ol' Ubuntu? Have you tried to make your photo 600 by 600 pixels (you and I know what it's for!) without success? I have made a simple video, unfortunately it has no sound, but unless you are dumb you will follow the easy steps. You will need to install Gimp image editor from your software centre for Ubuntu. Just type “Gimp” and when it comes you know what to do. Gimp is the equivalent of Photoshop (may be they are not even equals). I find Gimp easier to work with. This is my first tutorial, and I hope it helps you.

1. First know what photo you're going to use, a photo that can make a passport photo. This means that when you take your passport photo you should not first crop it elsewhere, or using any other program (like Shotwell image viewer). Just leave it as it is. Also, make sure your background is plain, and that there are no objects behind you. It is always advisable to make a copy of that. You can place the copy in the desktop or wherever is convenient for you. Right click on your photo so that you specify what program you want to open with. I am using Ubuntu 11.04 Natty N. so on the options that come, “Open With . . .” comes second. Hover your pointer over it (“open with”) so that the options on the arrow can be shown. If you installed Gimp already then you should be able to see it. So 'open with' Gimp. Wait until it loads and your photo appears. It will open two windows, one named “toolbox”, and the other containing the name of you photo. Remember we said that you should not have cropped this photo before. Here we are not resizing but we are doing the real cropping which will give you that 600 by 600.
2. On the Gimp “toolbox” window on the third row of those small icons representing the different tools, you will see the “crop tool”. I am using Gimp 2.0 so if it is not on the third row in any other version just hover you pointer over the icons until it shows you the crop tool. Click on the crop tool and move to your photo. Click on any point in the workspace of your photo that you would like to start. It can be anywhere inside the window containing you photo. The most important thing is to make a square 600 X 600 which you can later drag to cover any features of your photo that you need. So click on a starting point. Then, holding down the right button, drag your pointer to size your rectangle while reading the bottom of that window, where the pixels are shown. (The video shows me doing that so it should not be a problem). On the left of that you see two figures separated by a comma (,) moving with px after those figures, e.g. 345, 765 px. That is not what you should check. On the right of the same figures it says Rectangle: 700 x 427 (0.176:1), something of the sort. Now that is what you check for. Size and resize your rectangle until you make it a “rectangle” of 600 x 600, that is until it shows that it is Rectangle: 600 x 600 (1.00:1). (These figures are not visible the moment you release your mouse but to see them you just go to the edges of your rectangle and click on the lines.) It then tells you to “Enter” to crop.
3. Do that and after your photo is cropped right click and choose file and then “Save As . . .” not “save”. After that choose “Save” on both windows that appear, including the second which asks to save in JPEG. There you go! And photos cropped in this way rarely cross 80 KB so do not worry about the size. After saving, right click and select “properties” down at the bottom. The window opens on “basic” at the top. On Basic, you see the basic properties of your photo including its size, and on the “Image” option, you see the size and all . I hope this helps.

A Very Modest Proposal to the Government

Kenya is a country in East Africa that has, like many other democracies, faced its hard times. We have had a dictator, Moi; a founding father that was never much appreciated, Kenyatta, and I also hold the same opinion that yes he was a founding father but the very people who made him what he was continued to suffer after he was president. He amassed wealth that you can only imagine. His family is rumoured to own land the equivalent of some provinces in Kenya, and it is not only him but many others. The Mau Mau, who fought for that independence, continued, and still do, to languish in poverty. And we have had a modern day hero, Kibaki. The Kenyan economy has grown significantly under Kibaki's watch. We now boast of having one of the best banks in the world, Equity, which, if you do not know, serves over six million customers making it one of its kind south of the desert. Back when I was still the same size as our goat I never knew what a bank is, and that was the Moi days. Banks were for the filthy rich. Interests charged then were enough to exhaust your money in two days, if you belonged to a background like mine and my whole family tree. Mama told me that it was even prohibited for poor people to go near a bank for they were mistaken to be bank robbers, and yes there were many in those days. Nowadays, everybody owns a ATM card, thanks to Equity. Safaricom's M-Pesa was a thriller, so to say. It thrilled the world coming from a third world country to beat Western Union in terms of transactions. Kenya is literally a paradise, though we are not there yet. The roads that were tarmacked during colonial days and the Kenyatta days served Moi's twenty-four year rule. When Kibaki came in, Kenyans realised that uh! Roads are supposed to be tarmacked! We have overpasses and underpasses that we thought were supposed to exist only in South Africa. All I am saying is that the current government under the watch of the one and only, has made gigantic progress.

But, in the same government, I am made to understand that the Parliament, the Judiciary, and the Executive; form the government. I wonder why the general population, which to me is so vital, is not included. So, this government has some people who continuously eat our money. Then later on they come with excuses, or fake budgets on how they spent that money. What has prompted me to speak my mind is the recent scandal about the Kazi kwa Vijana money. That Swahili phrase stands for an initiative that was started to employ (kazi means employment) the youth (vijana), and “kwa” means “to”. One honourable member, like they like being referred to, though they cannot pronounce “honourable” itself correctly – and I guess they are honourable too in their deeds of stealing Kenyan money. Well, one of those fellows said that they spent 700 or 900 million (I forget the figure, not being used to hearing such money being mentioned, leave alone spent); that they spent that amount to fuel government vehicles that went around the country inspecting the initiative, which I must say was a phantom project. I heard that in the news and I said, Christ!

The reason I was surprised is that I have never heard of fuel/gas costing that much. It means that they imported all the oil in Nigeria. That was too much. And at the time Kenya was experiencing the drought of the century, they were too busy inspecting their “projects”. Sometimes I wish that when they were all in parliament an earthquake sent from heaven hits just that house and they all perish. We would mourn them for real. Condolences from world leaders who are friends of Kenya would flow in and we would have a month of national mourning. Our flags would fly at quarter mast. But the happiest thing about that would be that we would get to elect a new government, in all senses of this term, which we hope would be more responsible. Though I praised Kibaki before, so many scams have come and been let go in his era. I wish he had that charisma of his plus an iron, no, iron is too hard. Aluminium is fine. If he had such a hand and convicted those involved in the scams himself we would be a prosperous country. Africa does not need a democracy like the one practised in Kenya. Kenya is way too democratic. We need an iron fist for other politicians to fear because they are the ones that ruin our great country. If only Kibaki had a little bit of what we see in the first lady, no one would be corrupt.

I am African and so when I tell a story I might “wander” off but it is with intentions. My aim was to give the government a proposal which I am quite sure they will like. When Uhuru Kenyatta was going to read his first budget, he used a VW Passat, which according to the experts consumes less than its Benz counterpart. That was good. Then the budget after that he walked. That was good. The only question that remains is if he still walks around when it is necessary to do so, or if he got rid of his Benzes and bought Passats. By the way you can never meet politicians in Nairobi because they are always ferried in Benzes with deafening sirens, they are always in a hurry to go steal our money whenever the IMF sends some. Actually, my proposal is that the government bans those type of cars in Kenya, except for private individuals who are not in politics, and opens a school of riding where they are taught how to ride bicycles and motorcycles. They can use these to move around Nairobi because ironically, that is just as far as they usually move, even if their constituencies are thousands of miles away. This will be a great favour to our economy because bikes and motorbikes are cheap to maintain, plus they can never spend close to a billion on fuel even if they were transporting our honourable ministers to the moon for they do love exotic tours. This move would also reduce traffic incidents because these bikes would not have sirens. That would mean more peace in our roads where all would be equal. After that Kenya will prosper. Britain has prospered as it has because it had monarchs who were dictatorial. These laid down the foundations for their future. Kenya can do the same.

Fart Deferred

What happens when a fart's deferred?!

Are you kidding? Everybody knows!

The gas goes back

To the stomach,

It feels swollen.

Then, rumbling occurs,

Everybody hears it.

A silly look in your face,

You act like it wasn't you.

You move uneasily in your seat.

It's best to just let go –

Afraid of the sound?

Just don't let it explode!

My tea's gone cold I'm wondering why I..
got out of bed at all
The morning rain clouds up my window..
and I can't see at all
And even if I could it'll all be gray,
but your picture on my wall
It reminds me, that it's not so bad,
it's not so bad..


From the Song "Thank You" By Dido

An unfinished mud hut

Walking in rural Africa

I saw an unfinished mud hut.

I laughed softly.

Question myself I couldn't resist:

What could they have run out of?

Could it be mud?

No.

We had lots of mud everywhere,

The road was practically mud

Drove any driver mad!

May be it's sticks?

Sticks? But they are the essence;

What Africa is made of – sticks!

Or may be grass to thatch?

I really could not tell.

But when I looked more

I saw it:

Neglect!

From the government!

Tears flowed from my eyes.

When you're independent for decades

And nothing comes from it,

That breaks you down

Even mud will be scarce!

The very sticks

That make our fragile continent

Are nowhere to use!

But you know?

That unfinished hut . . .

Is Africa!