Uncategorized

Spent most of yesterday being driven out of my fscking mind… Would have a better chance of surviving walking in front of an on coming 18-Wheeler then getting work done :

Hopefully with an early start today, I mihgt be able to get stuff done before hell breaks lose again.

After a little bit of research into the idea of recording my desktop to video for some tutorials I got to thinking. I expect this post will probably take a draft of an essay like feeling to it lol.

Some people are down right insane when it comes to the issue of open or closed in the software world, rightly so in some cases. The idea of which is ethically better MP3 or OGG is irrelevant to most people, they just want to listen to music.

When it comes to selecting or using a given file format for media I am generally indifferent to what it is in so far as it works without giving me headaches. I don’t care if it is a .wmv or a .gnu as long as it does what I need it to do. And often the user-perspective is what prevails when people look at file formats, just as it should be.

However the world is not so nice. One thing I like about the Open Source side of the software world is often things are developer centric, users second. Although a great deal of software is done with users in mind – developers should come first in my humble opinion. Because without developers there is no software.

Open Formats are by definition open, you can do what ever you like with them. One reason that OGG has gotten to be as common as it is with Game Developers is because it is essentially free. Need to read OGG Vorbis files and play them as audio? BINGO You can code it, want to create them? BINGO You can code it. Want to create an MP3 Encoder and all hell breaks lose !!!

Because the creators of proprietary formats generally own the format they can do any thing they want. With the proper patent, copyright, and intellectual property protection… Company Foo could create the BAR format for handling audio or video files. What if Company Foo says “Gee, every one seems to be listing to music on .bar files.” And decides you have to pay them $1 for every .bar file? Absurd but sadly it is not so far fetched in this wonderful age. Of course most people want their stuff to actually get used – that is one thing I tip my hat to the creator of the RAR Archive format. Any one can create a tool to extract .rar archive files and give it away for free, code included. But no one is basically allowed to do that with programs to create .rar files. Which I think is a fair compromise personally, any Joe can extract the .rar file but the programmer that owns the format gets to make some money off people wanting to create the files.

From the user perspective, who cares what the format is? You want to have the ability to read (listen/watch/extract) and write (create, encode, compress e.t.c.) files in a given format and without having to pay for software and bend to licensing terms just ‘because’ some one wants to control the format.

From a developer point of view put into users perspective… Developer Ham wants to create some thing to write .bar files out for a program he is using and wants to give away for free along with the code to do it. But Company Foo puts an end to it because they own the BAR format.

If all users were developers, they could create their own open formats — heck already done ;-). Developers write the programs that end users use. Without users who don’t code owning a format is useless because the customers being developers themselves could create their own open formats to share.

From a developer perspective, do you want to have to pay licensing fees to Company Foo to encode support for .bar files in your program whether or not you will be making money off your program? Using a different (free) format versus paying any thing they want to use .bar sounds like a good idea to me.

If there was 1 developer in the world and all the others were users, you could be a millionaire overnight or go flat broke selling closed software 😉

(mutters enough rambling)

Generally for multi-media formats all I care is that it does it’s job. Acceptable file size to content quality ratio – 200MB for life like quality of Audio and Video or 20MB for a pile of junk, gotta balance it for the task.

The one thing I do expect, is to be able to use the files fairly and without headaches. I don’t have problems with .WMV files because they are very easy to play with the right codecs. Now trying to create and edit WMV files can some times be a different story :o)

Today, well really yesterday since it is now 0438 local… Was my parents wedding anniversary, number 20 I think. It’s also the day my Father died… guess that would be 1989-01-12 for a date: I was born 1988-06-20.

So needless to say, it is not a very happy day in my family…

http://minhasgloves.trustpass.alibaba.com/product/11927433/Combat_Assault_Glove_Military_OPS_Gloves/showimg.html

recommended by radical ghost for use with sas skin

So freaking tired…

A thousand and one interuptions, annoyances, and aggrivations later…

3 of my exams are ‘almost’ ready to be mailed, one Q left to answer on the last one.

And a prototype of the new searchlet module grows a menu bar and context menu; I’m testing to see how to set it up that one can select a given port from the list and choose to install/e.t.c. from the menu. Progress is only limited by time constraints (e.g. the till I pass out limit and people driving my batty all day problem).

Great progress but so freaking tired… family should help getting school done not hinder it and every thing else if you ask me…

The battle continues even if they make it an uphill one.

Some how it figures… I try to work during the afternoon and I end up with a splitin headache… that is my family for ya !

In the past hour I’ve almost completed 3 exams in my ‘home work’ stack. Tomorrow I need to finish them, I just need to dig into my text books to look up a reference.

Yesterday I had 2 finished and sent them out this morning.

I might not make it to a Diploma, but hell I am not going out without a fight 😉

The fire is lit,

like a bull seeing red,

it’s feet ready to charge,

the obstacles that lay ahead,

will give way to,

the horn of my desire,

crash the gates, let the

fires burn as I charge,

the fire is lit,

oh how hot it burns.

The fire is lit,

nothing to stand in the way,

like a bull seeing red,

it’s feet ready to charge,

the gates begin to fall,

my desire knows no relent,

as the obstacles disappear,

the fires burn,

oh so hot do they burn,

one by one, the objectives

shall be complete.

— Me, on the course to completing my education

OH how sweet it would be to have the freedom to get through even one day without any headaches……

Did some major clean up to the prototype for configuring build options tonight as well as experimented with a few solutions. I just wish I didn’t have to cram every thing into such a narrow time slot.

The main problem is I’m so zonked out by the time I get to start, I may as well try and code drunk (mm interesting idea… not!).

As hard as I try to get things done my family twarts me at every turn.. It’s like they have some kind of magic radar =/.

During the day, I’d have a better chance of surviving jumping in front of an on comming 18-wheeler then getting stuff done in day light…

At night, I can only work until my brain crashes from lack of sleep.

I can’t even remember the last time I had a good nights sleep any more…

At least for today I’ve managed to get Radio 1 working, although I can play real media in mplayer it konks out after awhile in konqueror.. So I opened it in realplayer rather then keeping the web interface in.

Guess I’ll read some doc’s before I start snoring with my eyes open….