Zombie cream cheese?

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I was dreaming that I was testing a simulator of a huge roller coaster, quite nice but not as good as the real thing; even in dreamland =/

The guys running it left some thing behind when I hopped out and tracked me down later to find it. I told them where I saw it land and tried tot ake them to it.

The only problem was that every thing on display was alive and mighty pissed off…

Dodging zombies, chainsaw packing nutter, and very funky tow-truck from hell among other parrals I managed to get to the simulator but couldn’t get it in time and was forced to retreat… I did acquire a battle ax from one of the creatures on the rampage.

Not scarry, I have not really been scared by any of my dreams in ages. It was just that you can’t stop moving or your toast kind of thing =/

Fleeing to the control room, the operators told me it wasn’t real so I set out. So they set me back out on the quest… Now armed with the battle ax I started cleaving through zombies trying to fight my way through to the simulator.

A battle ax is a very powerful offensive weapon because you can put a lot of force behind it but unlike a sword (which is more my style) you have very little defensive ability… The ax is only good while attacking, if you’ve got to block you are doomed against multiple enemies who other wise would be scared crap less.

The strange thing is the Zombies were made out of cream cheese!! Now I know I’m getting weird dreams lol. Bull dozing the nut with the hocky mask & chain saw and chopping the truck to bits I made it to the simulator and got the thing the operators lost.

Returning back, I heard sounds… as if it was penetrated. Crouching @ the corner and slicing the pie in, I saw no one.. Then found one of the operators hiding; handing over the items (and stupidly the ax!). He sliced me with the ax leaving 2 black streams; like in Spaceballs when they accidentally take out a camera guy during the fight. And I deflated like a balloon. The two operators put on Christmas hats and started to look like elves and walked off.

I really have some crazy dreams eh? That one was like the ending of a good horror book but a bit funky =/

After that… I started to dream some thing else but some thing…. More private then I would like to post in public view… lol. A dream that worries me but is not as strange as my normal dreams. Funny to be saying that rofl :S.

I normally don’t place much meaning on my dreams because they are usually so crazy but this one was one with a straight face.

tinkering

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click to enlarge
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Last night I was trying to figure out a little bit about trying to display a suitable array of checkboxes for letting the user select the ports options. I checked out the QWidget class, looks like a nice time saver but a bit of over kill for what I need. I’m also sorry to see it’s deprecated in QT4, for the heck of it I started trying to write the examples in the QT4 doc’s for replacing it, in PyQT but I’ve got QT3 C++/Python bindings on my laptop and the same for QT4 on my Desktop so I didn’t have time to finish it completly. I find it rather werid using C++ doc’s for Python but I am starting to get pretty used to working with Python although I think Ruby and Perl handle regular expressions better along side strings. Not sure if QT3 has a Regex Engine le talong if PyQT has it if there is one =/. It is good to know how to use many different languages though.

For right now I’ve been tinkering with getting the checkboxes laid out and displayed, like in the screen shot of my mock up above. It is not done yet but once the mock up is finished I can set to work on doing more; most interestingly integrating it with the more robust code in the alpha directory (yes I’m to lazy to set up CVS for working from one machine).

In the end I’m likely to use QT Designer to take care of it, so it can be made to look nice. And after feeding it through pyuic use that and the mock up to create some thing to work in a more complete version. For right now though I need to get a little rest, it has been a very busy day. I would like to rest a little bit and finish the movie. Then get back to working on this stuff when I’m more relaxed but I am liable to fall asleep… I’m off until like Tuesday so I suppose it doesn’t really matter when I wake up… And a quick run of xgalaga is a good mental re focuser hehe

*Yawn*

Sneaking a peak at KDE4

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I downloaded The Kubuntu-KDE4-RC2 live CD tonight, was only about 422MB of ISO.

I am sorry to say that although I think KDE4 will be a fenominal success (as long as most KDE3 users stick to it) but I am rather disappointed by KDE4 RC2 =/

I do not care much for the Oxygen look and feel as used by default in the Live CD and I especially dislike how there is little distinction between the window and it’s title bar / decore thing. That top bar with the mini/maxi mize buttons and close, e.t.c. or what ever you call it. I did like however the up/down looking buttons for minimize and maximize rather then some of the other things I have seen. As long as Keramik is still available (it was on the live cd as a window decore) I’ll probably be happy.

Konsole seems little changed other then settings->configure konsole it is replaced by editing ones profiles; This will probably cause a small level of new-user confusion but it is worth the clean up to the actual configuration dialog.

I don’t know if it is the way konqueror is done in KDE4RC2 or the way Kubuntu has it set up on the disk but loading any webpage seems to cause a massive flood of download boxes as it loads every page (probably image files). I suspect the problem is Kubuntu’s configuration but didn’t take the time to poke around, got other things to attend to tonight. I was also happy to see that Konquerors configuration system is still very abundant but a lot better organized now in regard to using it as a File Manager, Web Browser, or Both 😉

Kontact id almost the same as I remember it only looking better. Kwrite worked well, did not see Kopete or KOffice apps so I can only guess it is Kubuntu, I’ve often heard that Kubuntu is often pretty bare bones compared to Ubuntu when listing in #kde; which is why I would probably use Ubuntu and apt-get KDE if I swung that way 😉

The panel applets seem to be smoothly and very nicey integrated into the system, I plan to look further at them when I have more time to ‘play’. I fear that KDE4 RC2 seems to show less configuration options to the user then the KDE 3.4.3 through KDE 3.5.7 that I am used to…. However the Control Center has a make over that makes it a lot easier to find what you are looking for, much appreciated in my case but I don’t think it blends in with other or past KDE apps very well. It actually reminds me of the classic style Windows control panel but done in a more integrated way.

The K-Menu is drastically different, not sure if it is an improvement or not… I like the tabbed thing but dislike the focus-follows mouse usage there; it also remembers what ‘sub’ elements you were in when you reopen it, a matter of taste if you like or hate it. But it is rather nice to see a new idea! Or at least, as new as I’ve never seen it before, I used to collect Window Managers for a brief time, along with Terminal Emulators and Shells before settling on my current styles.

I like how the task manager thing in the panel had an icon and a label, I did not try to run a lot of applications to see how it collapses but it is nice the way they show it.

The only thing that really annoys me about the K-Menu is the ability to configure it by a quick right-click didn’t seem available… I don’t think that I will like KDE4 as much as KDE3.. Yet when we get to KDE 4.2 or KDE 4.3 it might be more to my style.

I got to try dolphin the new file manager…. From screen shots that I had seen of its KDE4 port I thought I would love it but after trying it on KDE4RC2 I am very un-amused. It presents a very nice user interface, I always found Konqueror a bit cluttered without stooping to custom profiles for file management and web browsing — A very damn nice feature of konqueror!!! The big killer for dolphin for me, was seeing a large lack of configuration options compared to konqueror or most major KDE applications. Which I could probably stand since it looks like a great program for being able to use effectively for it’s task (file management). The lack of a traditional type the file path address bar was a big let down; I will have to dig deeper into it to see if I can enable that. The alternative method I found in Kubuntu’s setup is a great setup compared to Windows Explorer, which I guess defaults to none… Looking at my moms user settings =/

For me, it is critical to be able to type /path/to/directory/ and go there in any file manager because it is what, like 1,000 times faster then clicking your way through? At least for me — I type at around 70 WPM on typing tests I’ve tried and when composing my self, I can type as fast as I can think; and some times faster as my speeellling show cases often enough on Forums. The primary reason use the Command Line Interface (CLI) for 99% of file management tasks on *nix systems is because the CLI is so much more useful then command.com/cmd.exe that it blows even konqueror away for file management: Most times I do things with file management I would really much rather type it out and use tab-completion then click 20 thousand times to do things. Dolphin and Konqueror however are *very good* file managers as far as GUI File Managers go and I have never found one that I like more then Konqueror (with a custom profile xD) unless I do actually drop to a shell prompt.

I’ll probably end up using KDE4 when it becomes the norm but I think so far, I’d rather have KDE3 as my Desktop with KDE4 applications around it if I could…. Amarok on Windows would probably be worth the concession since the only decent media players I have used are Amarok, MPlayer, Kaffeine, and VLC (which crashes a lot on me in Windows XP).

KDE is one of the projects that I would really like to help in the future, like FreeBSD and Ruby. The main reason I have never tried to get involved with KDE is that I hate C++ and doubt if I could be much use without touching any of it. For KDE I could almost stand working with C++ because I really love KDE. I don’t think I am looking forward to using KDE4 =/ I do however hope that it is the biggest greatest thing to hit the Unix based Desktop since OpenBSD in 1996, Vim (text editor) and the Linux kernel in 1991. Which are the best things I’ve ever bumped into hehe.

Gnome, is not my style and is contrary to my way of doing things. Although Ubuntu 6.06 had a very attractive look/feel with it hehe. I am a KDE User and most of my favorite graphical programs are KDE based or merely front ends to other ones or both in KMPlayers and KPlayers cases xD.

I think for a world of people KDE 4 will revolutionize the desktop when it matures but I am not to sure if it can beat out the matured KDE 3 in my books 🙂

wrapping make config

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I was trying to work on creating a simple pop up window that would list of a ports configuration options, same as the dialog you get when doing a make config on a port with options. But for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out how on earth to nab it because of it being a multi line variable.

With the bird screaming my head off and Ma trying to bake (including calling for help). I gave up on even trying.

Tonight I sat down and tried to *concentrate*, it sucks that I’ve got to wait till everyone else is asleep to ensure I can work with my brain on my thoughts… But the anwser to the problem it me quite quickly once I started tonight.

Don’t think about it as grabbing the OPTIONS out of th Makefile, think of it as if I was the make program!

So obviously if I was make(1) I would want to look through the Makefile in order to find all variables declared. Storing them in a simple data structure and relying on the @ EOL continuation syntax that is used — So I would be getting the ‘whole’ thing when storing a variable for later reference.

Stepping back to the problem at hand, I made it look exclusively for Options by wrapping it in a regex check for the specific variable rather then any. I’ve converted the routine to be able to hunt for an indicated rather then specific variable so it is not so closely tied to the problem it is actually solving for me.

Next up, figuring out how QT handles check boxes and adusting the routine for a ‘nicer’ way to use it.

When I can just sit and work/read, I can in-hale a problem/book but when I’ve got to do things so late at night, I am limited to how long I can go until my brain just conks out of logical thinking… Do to the requirement for sleep.

open default browser

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for KDE:

$> kfmclient exec

this will open the file with the default binding if at all it exists…i.e. any app that associates itself with .swf MIME type.

for GNOME:

$>gnome-open

^ open file in proper program.

Blissful reading, uhh cramming.

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Finished off the last of my library books.

I only read the sections of Upgrading & Repearing Servers that I was interested in, didn’t have time to even open the book on TCP/IP… I probably don’t need that level of information right now, filled for ‘check out again later’ hehe.

Skipped most of the book on Java and like last time I read a book on Java. I’ve also managed to avoid writing a lot of Java code, not a language I am very fond off… but would likely prefer Java to C++, then again I generally prefer C to C++ too hehe. The goal however was not to get into writing Java programs but to see how much the language had changed since the mid-late 1990’s.

Most of my interest in the books I checked out was the Linux Programming Bible, which was useful for a few of the things common to Unix like OSes. For which the only good examples I have been able to dig up in the past, has been reading my Operating Systems user land programs.

The Security book, heck I would by that sucker if I had the cash; especially if there was a 5th edition xD

I generally inhale information when I am free to just do so, so polishing them off was not a problem.

Flockzilla

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Installed Flock 0.9.0.2 on my laptop today, quick and easy as root:

Dixie# pkg_add -r linux-flock
Fetching ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/i386/packages-6-stable/Latest/linux-flock.tbz... Done.
Fetching ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/i386/packages-6-stable/All/linux-hicolor-icon-theme-0.5_1.tbz... Done.

And it is installed as linux-flock in my search path, very useful. I have used Mozilla based browsers for a long time. Years ago I started with Firefox 1.x, it was a great improvement over IE5 and 6, tabbed browsing – I was hooked instantly xD

As I got to spend a lot more time on the computer, I soon came to find Firefox less then perfect. The big bonus to using it had become greater portability between websites and OSes, some thing that is a bit of a must for me. I alos use Konqueror and Opera a lot among other browsers.

I tested Flock 0.7.x on my windows box awhile back and was rather impressed, while not perfect it was still pretty great. With a bit of that ‘surfer’ feel to it 🙂 I did not think though that it would scale to my laptops hardware quite well though. On a Pentium D 930 with 2GB of RAM, to a Sempron 3300+ with 512MB of RAM… But so far it has actually scalled a lot better then Seamonkey or Firefox 3.0 snap shots !

The main reason I discontinued working with Seamonkey and (Netscape) Navigator (9) was because while I liked them quite a lot, Navigator is actually a nice set up IMHO. The lack of responsfulness, particularly while editing text in fields like this and on forums made it less them ideal on my hardware. Even on the faster Desktop I occasionally noticed slow downs during text editing. On my laptop, even Firefox 2.0.0.x and 3.0a builds had the same issue on my laptop.

So far, Flocks Linux version does not, and it is starting faster then Netscape or Seamonkey ever did. And the funky font issues of using Linux Firefox and friends on PC-BSD no longer seem to apply to PC-BSD v1.4.x systems:-)

The thing I enjoy the most about Flock is the web clipboard and services support, especially for ma.gnolia. Being based on Firefox, Flock is still pretty easy to use but I find most of its shortcomings are inherited from Firefox! All of which seem to relate to configuration options…. But it does add enough other capabilities to be a bit of an improvement over Firefox 2 and 3a imho. And like Netscape Navigator 9, should work fine on Google Doc’s and friends hehe.

I think most of the Firefox extensions and add ons should work with Flock, doubt most themes would but Flock has a very nice default theme unlike Firefox. I have never really used much in the way of Firefox Extensions and Add Ons, although I keep several installed in my Desktop; I usually don’t use them ^_^.

Now if only Flock didn’t use the same crappy Spell Checking technology that Firefox does……… *sighs* I really wish Vim or Google would create a portable spell checking library based on their code, because they offer the best spell checking I’ve ever found =/

Night module

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Unfortunitly it is 0430 and I’ve got to get up early for work :'(

Finally had free time to day to shave off that infernal beard.. After so many months it is kind of nice to be reminded I’m more human the Wookie haha.

Spent tonight doing some light but thoughtful work,

Terry@Dixie$ pwd; /bin/ls -1                                               9:26
/home/Terry/code/Python/src/neo/testing/alpha
dialogs.py
main.py
neo.py
options.py
translate.py
Terry@Dixie$                                                               9:29

I have arranged things from the testing directory to it’s own work dir to clean up. Not to mention to continue work in a more module oriented pattern then the monolith and scratch files I have been using to test the first mock up of the programs UI.

  • dialogs -> will hold code common to user interaction through ‘pop up’ windows.
  • main -> the begining of it all, will probably be wrapped in a shell script
  • neo -> the GUI’s mock up code for the main window, need to split stuff off into sub modules when more work is done.
  • options -> the option subsystem, currently part of a config parser; to be expanded greatly
  • translate -> quick references to tools we will need later (subject to changes)

There is also a .neorc INI file for the testing 🙂

My near-future to do list right now is, in no particular order:

experiment with improving the wrapping paper on pkg_info; regex might be an improvement to the current process what ever the possible speed changes are. It might also be beneficial to look into using a pipe in order to ease start up times.

expanding dialogs into some thing more complete, currently it only has a routine for an error message.

Figure out how we can create a suitable display area for the output of a shell command (such as ‘make’).

I think I could probably do double the amount of work per day on this, if I didn’t have to do it before bed… Which has the bad limit of only being able to do things until my mind gets to the point that I just have got to sleep or the clock passes a point where I need to hit the hay, in order to get enough sleep for work in the morning.

I am lucky though, I’ve had almost 3 day’s off and only light duties tomorrow.

searchlet test level 7

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Almost finished my work on npm from early this afternoon.

Took care of getting the mock up to actually search the ports tree for a given string, considering incorporating a simplified version of psearch but I can worry about that later.

Did most of the right view of installed software today, it still has a problem but this is good progress:

Click to enlarge

Some of the listings are screwed up and trigger a TypeError, I know I’m doing some thing wrong some where but not sure where yet…. At the moment I am about ready to hit the hay.

Some future tasks include fixing that, adding a toolbar to the mockup, a place holder (or working) msg display area. And moving on to other mock up’s.

So far, it is not pretty but the mock up is doing quite well. Hopefully fiddling with layout management and spacers will not be to much heartache under QT3 without having to use the Designer tool. Hmm, you know it might even be possible to make things a bit more flexibble rather then choosing one of the mock ups as the basise of the final forms overall appearance.

Any way one slices it though, it is time for BED.

An automatic wall paper changer for wmakerAn automatic wall paper changer for wmaker

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I recently switched to using Window Maker on PC-BSD, one of my favorite window managers actually. But it does have a few dis advantages over KDE when it comes to session management…

I went though my large wall papers collection and found several that I would like to use, the WMaker theme I have set is a dark one. 


Terry@Dixie$ ls ~/Pictures/Wall_Papers|wc -l                               6:38
     657
Terry@Dixie$ ls ~/GNUstep/Library/WindowMaker/Backgrounds|wc -l            6:40
      57
Terry@Dixie$                                                               6:40

Many didn’t scale right and I don’t know of any batch image scaler, so I had my shell open each in kolour paint so I could do this. Using a graphical file manager I would have to double click each file at the least level of effort… With the shell, it was simple loop in my backgrounds directory:

for i in `ls`
do
        kolourpaint $i
done

This opened kolourpaint to a file, allowing me to do a quick ctrl+e and set it to smooth scale it to 1280×800 to match my LCD’s native resolution. And then to ctrl+s save it, X out of it and volia, kolourpaint would start again with another file as it continued through the loop.

Having done this, I was thinking how to I get it to change after awhile? I thought about a symlink that would be changed to a different wall paper every now and then, tested it no go. Then I found wmsetbg and the -s (-scale) option, so yeah I wasted my time scaling them all lol.

So I removed them and made symlinks to the original files in my wall papers directory:

for i in `ls`                                                 6:40
do
        ln -hfs /home/Terry/Pictures/Wall_Papers/$i /home/Terry/GNUstep/Library/WindowMaker/Backgrounds/$i
done

Like I am going to stand here and create 50++ shortcuts myself? NO WAY!

After that I set to look into hooking up a shell script that could run in the background and change the wall paper for me. I figured that I would want some thing acline to the sleep() function out of unistd.h but I didn’t really want to use a C program or any other programming language to do it. Because while looping over the directory in C might be faster then /bin/sh by the time the compiler tried to optimize it. Having to invoke a shell for every call to system() (for running wmsetbg) would probably be a bit wasteful. At least in a shell script, there should be no need to create a new /bin/sh process on each pass. Didn’t find a built in shell command for it but /bin/sleep works fine, so I wrote the following script to change my wall paper every 10 minutes:

#!/bin/sh
# A simple automatic wall paper changer for window maker.

while (true)
do
    for p in `/bin/ls /home/Terry/GNUstep/Library/WindowMaker/Backgrounds/`
    do
        wmsetbg -u -s $p
        sleep 600
        continue
    done
done

And to run it on window makers start up, I added this line to my ~/GNUstep/Library/WindowMaker/autostart file:

/usr/home/Terry/sh/setbg &

and Hooah ^_^

And here is a python script that displays it in a random order,

#!/usr/local/bin/python

import commands
import os
import random
import time

li = os.listdir('/home/Terry/GNUstep/Library/WindowMaker/Backgrounds/')

while (True):
    x=random.choice(li)
    commands.getoutput('/usr/local/bin/wmsetbg -u -s %s' % (x))
    time.sleep(600)

Hmm, I wonder if I could do this on Windows XP to,under explorer of course hehe.