February, 2006

  1. Wobbly windows in Dapper

    February 18, 2006 by Eddie Gonzalez

    There were a lot of upgrades today in Dapper. And it turns out compiz is one of them. So I installed it and xserver-xgl. Here’s how I got it running.

    First install the xserver-xgl and compiz packages using apt-get or synaptic

    (Originally taken from the instructions at http://doc.gwos.org/index.php/Installxgl)

    Then edit /etc/gdm/gdm.conf-custom

    and make the empty [servers] section look like:

    [servers]

# Override display 0 to use Xgl.
0=Xgl

[server-Xgl]
name=Xgl server
command=/usr/bin/Xgl :0 -fullscreen -ac -accel xv -accel glx:pbuffer
flexible=true

    then add “compiz –replace gconf decoration minimize move place resize rotate scale switcher wobbly zoom cube” and “gnome-window-decorator” in sessions (under System>Preferences).

    Then ctrl+alt+backspace and pray! Only the basic things work for me. I can’t do the cool cube effect for example. But the windows sure do wobble, and the switcher work just fine.

    Category General, Linux | Tags: | No Comments

  2. Multi-input touch screens

    February 14, 2006 by Eddie Gonzalez

    Multi-input touch screen demos (Flash required).  This is probably the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.  The more I watch it the more I want to make it work.  It definitely feels like that’s going to be the next generation in computers.
    I want one for my Desktop, and more importantly I want to make sure X supports it.  I wonder if my laptop’s synaptics touchpad could support this with some tweaking of the driver.  It could be interesting if I could make two finger movements different scrolling axeses/window management shortcuts.  (Two finger outwards movements stretch the current window, two finger parallel movements could move the window.)  I like how in my iBook two finger parralel movements is how to scroll.

    Category General, Linux | Tags: | No Comments

  3. Planet categories

    February 12, 2006 by Eddie Gonzalez

    Well, mpop is back on the planet because he showed me how I can just subscribe to his technology category on his blog. I have since learned that wordpress is able to do this too. Ive been thinking about adding a Planet category that I can post everything I want to appear on the planet. I wonder if any of ther other WPLUG planeteros want to have only a specific category show up on the planet. If you do just let me know.

    Category General, Planet | Tags: | No Comments

  4. SoundConverter

    February 11, 2006 by Eddie Gonzalez

    We’ve all had an MP3 or FLAC that we’ve wanted OGGed and I’m sure we’ve all made bashscripts to do this for us but there’s an easier way! SoundConverter is a GNOME gui application that allows us to transcode our MP3s, OGGs, FLACs, and WAVs into any one of those formats in high or low quality (great for fitting more songs into your flash-based MP3/OGG player) Best of all it’s available in Ubuntu Dapper (not sure about Breezy). You can find it in Programs>Add Programs under Sound & Video programs.

    Category Linux | Tags: | No Comments

  5. Copyright Infringed

    February 9, 2006 by Eddie Gonzalez

    So the author of Listen has taken code from Quod Libet (including code from my lyrics plugin) and ripped the copyright section (and my name) out and used it in his software. Now the code is GPL so I’m completely fine with him using it, it’s why I write open-source code, but removing my name from it is not cool. Unlike Joe I’m not mad at him, I’m sure he was just confused on how this all works. I’m really glad the Listen author didn’t make a big scene over the thing and started fixing it. I know Joe’s language in his open letter was pretty harsh, but that’s the way he is–Especially when he’s mad. He’s called me a moron on countless occasions because I was being a moron. In Abaakouk Mehdi’s case, Joe called his program ugly, and to be frank it is. One of my friends (Julie) looked at a screenshot of Listen and said “That music player looks way too busy and complicated for me.” and she’s by no means a computer illiterate. I don’t mean that comment to be stop-energy I mean it as a constructive comment. From the screenshots Listen looks like it can be a very cool program. The iPod support is definitly something I’d like to check out.
    I think the reason Joe brought this up in an open letter was to shed some light on the whole GPL version 3 issue. Joe, Linus and many others don’t like it. So it’s really important to nab this problem of GPLv2 and GPLv2 and up issue while it’s still small. The licenses are the foundation of our comunity, and have a tremendous power to change the world. It’s a bigger issue than most of the people who commented on Joe’s blog realize.

    Category General, Linux, Programming | Tags: | No Comments

  6. Saturday Night

    February 5, 2006 by Eddie Gonzalez

    Last night was looking light it was going to be another boring Saturday night. Extreme boredom calls for extreme measures so I e-mailed the Kobe ESS mailing list asking if anyone was doing something. Turns out my friend Jose from Argentina was going clubbing that night so I was saved. I read the e-mail at 10 and luckily for me Jose and the gang were still in Kobe looking for an ATM so I reached Osaka just in time to meet them.

    The club we went to is called Underlounge. It’s a techno club, which was interesting I hadn’t heard techno in forever. I can’t say I liked it but I’ve long since learned how to have a good time in a club even when you hate the music.

    Happenings of interest were a really cute girl with glasses (and a fiancee) who bought me a couple of rounds of tequila shots, and while I was feeling the effects of those shots I showed one of the waitresses (of a bar we went to after the club closed) how Puerto Rican’s dance reggaeton. :D

    Category Japan | Tags: | Comments Off

  7. Test 2

    February 3, 2006 by Eddie Gonzalez

    I botched something up in WordPress by using the Google toolbar’s spelling function. But I think it’s fixed now… Nope

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  8. Ubuntu Dapper

    February 3, 2006 by Eddie Gonzalez

    The next release of Ubuntu version 06.04 is called Dapper. Because my friend Joe was upgrading Quod Libet to use version 0.10 of the Gstreamer framework and needed help testing it I decided I’d upgrade to Dapper. The upgrade went smoother than any upgrades I’ve done before. Debian’s system really puts OS X and Windows to shame. I’m really happy with the direction Dapper is heading. It’s a good candidate for the five-year support release and it represents the current state of Linux technology fairly well. The future technologies of OpenGL accelerated X, Mono 2.0, Python 3.0, and Gnome 3.0 look pretty promising and exciting. I can’t wait!

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  9. Testing… Testing…

    February 3, 2006 by Eddie Gonzalez

    Well, looks like there’s finally been a release of the LivePress plugin for WordPress 2.0.  I can’t edit my LJ account settings in it but here’s to hoping it still works.

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