Blrg - Technology

AppInventor being handed off to MIT

keilaron@keilaron.ca (Keilaron) — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 17:45:39 -0500

So this is hardly news at this point, but I figured I'd comment on it now that things have progressed a little and I've exported my projects.

For those of you who don't know AppInventor: It is a web application created by Google to facilitate the creation of Android apps. The premise was that you wouldn't need to know how to code: It was a drag-and-drop creation environment, and sadly it didn't get terribly far.

It's not that it was terrible, mind you, it's just that.. well, there weren't many employees behind the creation of this tool and it wasn't open source, so development and bug fixing was slow, and there were two glaring flaws: Apps that were created were large (one of mine, which was essentially a predefined phone book, was 1.3MB), and these apps could not be uploaded to the Market: they weren't actual apps yet (they do not "compile" to bytecode) and required a helper to run.

I'm sure this can be fixed and AI can become a great tool, but I believe the main issue is one that has been a thorn in Google side for a while now: They're spread too thin and are trying to do too many things at once. Google may have the money for it, but they don't have the manpower. Thankfully, they seemed to have realized this and have not only open-sourced the code instead (or will) and have funded a new MIT Centre for Mobile Learning; This, to me, is a great idea as it gives Google a certain amount of control while not requiring them to directly manage it.

(Oh, and it being open source means others can contribute, but I don't see too much of that happening soon. Call me sceptic but those who can develop will probably not notice the tool at all and be directly trying to create their own apps. Then again, beginners could still be stuck in that middle zone, and perhaps advanced developers will still see it as a useful RAD tool ... if and once you can create actual source with it, I'd imagine!)

LUbuntu and the case of the disappearing menubars

keilaron@keilaron.ca (Keilaron) — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 11:03:00 -0400

tl;dr: Remove "Indicator applets" from your panel.

I've been using Ubuntu on my netbook for a while. With things getting crazy with recent versions of Ubuntu and GNOME, however, I find myself not wanting to stay with Canonical's Unity and rather keep a classic desktop-like interface to my netbook.

The easiest way to do this, I figured, was to simply use another version of Ubuntu. KUbuntu was already out; I'd tried a live CD of it on another system and it didn't seem ready to me, nor did I like the direction they were going. It's not that it's bad, it's just not my style. Okay, so that leaves a few other editions to try out, like XUbuntu and LUbuntu.

Since I was already familiar with XFCE (XUbuntu), I decided to try out LXDE (LUbuntu) first to see if I'd like it. It's pretty nice, but at some point I noticed something was off - I don't know if it was always like this and I hadn't noticed, or it happened after an update - and that is that my menubars were gone!

In some cases I could call them up with Gnome's hotkey for that - default F10 - but it didn't work with certain apps (naturally, didn't work with KDE apps, for example). This didn't cause the bars to show up, just for the menus themselves to, so it was at best a workaround and not a good one at that.

I noticed at some point that whenever the panel crashed and reloaded, I briefly had menubars showing up. I couldn't pin it on a particular item at the time, so I figured that was just a side-effect; That some other service in relation to the panel was causing the issue. I searched high and low, and repeatedly blamed Ubuntu and GNOME for it... but it turns out it's one of the Unity additions that was doing it. In relation to the panel, indeed!

Removing the "Indicator applets" did the trick, but at least on the first try, not immediately. It was only after I opened a new application that all the menu bars reappeared in a kerfuffle of activity, with each application bringing itself to the front as though to proudly proclaim, "I've got a menu bar now!"...

Now I just need to pick a theme with smaller menu bars.

Gentoo, PCRE, and PHP

keilaron@keilaron.ca (Keilaron) — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 17:42:28 -0400

I recently ran into an obscure issue with PHP's preg functions:
Exception: preg_match(): Compilation failed: unknown option bit(s) set at offset 0
This error message would show up whenever a PCRE function was used with the u (unicode/UTF-8) flag set. This is apparently triggered by using a new version of PHP (>5.3?) and an old version of libpcre (<8.1?). The only solutions I could find on the 'net were:

old version of PCRE is lying around, get rid of it (no, both Portage and php -i | grep -i pcre reassured me this was not the case)
PCRE and/or PHP needs to be recompiled for UTF-8 support (I see no such options in the packages and have to assume they're on by default in Gentoo)
PHP needs to be recompiled because PCRE was upgraded after it (this made sense, but genlop -lu ,| grep -E '(pcre|php)' assured me the proper order had been followed)

But guess what? One emerge -1 libpcre php and one /etc/init.d/apache2 restart later (though it occurred to me maybe I hadn't done that previously! Try it yourself, maybe that's why you're getting this!), and I was good to go.
Sometimes, you just have to double-check.

Nexus One!

keilaron@keilaron.ca (Keilaron) — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 15:25:30 -0400

So I've gotten myself a Nexus One, an Android-powered cell phone, hoping to have a good platform to test Android apps on (Only to learn that months ago, Google was giving away phones to developers).

Anyway, so far it's been great. The only gripes I have is that the touchscreen seems to be a little off and the wifi has issues remaining connected now (it used to work fine), but the Wifi Fixer app works as a work-around for the latter.

Furthermore, I've gotten the phone connected to WIND Mobile, and so far my experience with WIND has been OK. Even ignoring the issues getting started (the people signing me up were kinda new, so I forgive them), every now and then I seem to drop out of their towers' reach and be considered roaming! Also, in some situations where other providers would manage to get *some* signal, I get none at all - but I shouldn't be too surprised, I guess. These situations are the usual suspects - elevators, bus network basements, etc..

On the bright side, though, the cost is fairly small (~30$ for voice+voicemail+data) and I have unlimited texts for a year.

Updating Rogers HTC Dream

keilaron@keilaron.ca (Keilaron) — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 22:03:58 -0500

Yeah, so I have an HTC Dream from Rogers because my boss wants me to be able to get e-mails and calls when things go wrong - expensive for an on-call phone, eh? - and I was having difficulty updating it. See, Rogers has been for the past month demanding that users update their phone due to a bug concerning dialling 911 (apparently, if you have GPS enabled and try to call 911, the call fails or somesuch; but I never have GPS enabled anyway, since Google tracks you if you have it on and I have no use for it - besides, the cell location works better), and they disable your data plan until you update. After trying to update it on two Windows systems and trying to manually put the firmware on it as well as calling Rogers tech support, I finally found these instructions:

Windows 7 Instructions for Rogers HTC

It's actually pretty simple, but here's the real problem I was encountering:

I had mistakenly assumed that since it was a new device, the SD card was formatted FAT32, as they need to be for the update. However, it was not (Good job, Rogers). After getting everything off the card and formatting it to FAT32 then replacing the firmware onto the card, I was able to update the phone without a hitch.

I'm still disappointed that it took Rogers so long to update the HTC Dream... ...and didn't even provide a real update. Geez, guys, get with the program already.

Firefox 3.6 themes and autocomplete

keilaron@keilaron.ca (Keilaron) — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 20:14:18 -0500

Okay, so it turns out you CAN use themes with 3.6 — the theme just has to be correctly updated for it. Simply version bumping does not work for this version, it seems.

Phew!

Oh, and since 3.5, the auto-complete behaviour changed, so for those of you who liked browser.urlbar.matchOnlyTyped, you may want to read about changing automcomplete behaviour in Firefox 3.5/3.6.

That is all for now.

Firefox 3.6: Goodbye, themes; R.I.P.

keilaron@keilaron.ca (Keilaron) — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 17:42:15 -0500

Just a quick note:

I've upgraded to 3.6 on my main system, and again, while most extensions work, a few still do not and I'm waiting on them to be upgraded. The biggest change, though, is that themes no longer work (even if they lie about their compatibility); Instead, there are "personas", which work like Chrome's "themes": They're basically background images, which you can switch between instantly.

Which look good often depend on your configuration, but I've managed to find a few that I like and work well with my layout. However, this doesn't stop it from reminding me of the infamous Hotbar infection for IE. (With notes that all you need to do this in IE is to use TweakUI - at least, until Vista/IE8, which I don't know if they have any such settings.) While this change makes it easier to develop a look for Firefox, it does drop the overall customizability of the look a whole lot.

Goodbye, themes. Rest in peace.

A whole lotta notta

keilaron@keilaron.ca (Keilaron) — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 11:09:48 -0400

So, as a few of you know already, I've moved out. In fact, I moved out on the 1st of Feb, so I've been here since a month and a half. We've got most things set up, but I've still got a few boxes to unpack mostly due to not having anywhere to place this stuff.

Though some of it is due to not having put up the shelving units I've gotten from my brother.

So, things have been set up, moved in and so forth; The apartment is, while expensive, very nice and spacious (we've got TWO bathrooms) and has some niceties to it that I'm sure will come in handy (like a pool and an exercise room). We've got the pre-paid billing and electricity billing set up, yaddi yaddi yadda... the only negative thing so far is that the windows need replacing since they leak air and get condensation all over them - but we're not too worried about that, since we've never had to use the electric heating so far ^_~

I've gotten my laptop replaced; Eurocom finally decided, when I returned my laptop again, that they'd give me another model and this one seems somewhat better-behaved, though I still need to figure out if it's the way I configured the system or if it's the system itself that's giving me issues.

I've finally got a new phone which I think I will like, and it's all set up with a pay-as-you-go service... only that it's got unlimited browsing and unlimited text messaging. Quit looking at me that way! I only activated it yesterday at midnight, so that's why I haven't told anyone yet what my new number is ^_~

I'm considering changing my career, I suppose you could say, as I don't find I can do programming as an active job. The problem's that I'm not that enthused about it, and I want to do it as more of a hobby than my job. The problem with all this is that I haven't really got anything else to get into; I could go into writing and editing, but with writing I'm generally uncreative and with editing ... well, I haven't tried that much so far. Perhaps it would go well. The only problem is that a sudden career change would likely be rather harsh, especially on the wallet, so I'm not sure I want to do that just yet. Perhaps taking a part-time job first would help, especially r?sum?-wise (i.e. job experience).

Socially, things have gotten a little better, a little worse. I need to start thinking about others like it's a natural things, as memory and such things aren't at all natural for me. I'd grown into the need to ignore yesterday and tomorrow as though today was the only day, the only day I'd have to live the torture of being alive.

But I've lived past 20.

Busy... or not busy?

keilaron@keilaron.ca (Keilaron) — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 16:38:57 -0500

I've got a tough few months ahead of myself.
I keep looking at various things and wishing I'd done something similar. I have to concentrate on one thing and stop spreading myself thin... which is really hard, considering I have immense trouble with concentrating on any single thing for long periods of time.
That, and I have to move out. I've located an apartment and have to start packing, assuming nobody else takes it (haven't signed yet: I want to see it before I sign, damnit!). It's a really good spot, too... I may just throw caution to the wind and grab it, since the other apartments I've seen so far were absolute crap (and what we saw of another apartment in the same building was pretty damned nice).
Grr.
On the upside, I've gotten my laptop back and it appears to be working just fine.

Suggestive advertising, anyone?

keilaron@keilaron.ca (Keilaron) — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 16:36:55 -0500

This was supposed to be posted a while ago; Not sure why I didn't, but I couldn't pass up on this anyway:

http://www.naturellementpulpeuse.fr/

If you don't know French, here's a quick guide to the ad in question (and you don't need to know french):

Click on "Entrez ...", then the top of fridge, then the 60 second version.

Stop the widescreen craze!

keilaron@keilaron.ca (Keilaron) — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 16:13:54 -0500

I don't understand this obsession with widescreens. I don't.

No, I don't like widescreen at all. It has it's uses, but for me, I'd rather it stick to TVs. Leave my monitors and especially my laptops alone! Arg!

The only laptop I could find that was still being sold that isn't a widescreen is Eurocom's D700T Enigma. A fine laptop, but I'm having an incredible amount of difficulty with them and getting a working laptop. (When I bought it, I had to bring it back the "next" day to get it fixed. Only about three weeks later did they finally stop trying to fix it and basically gave me a new system; Even so, the video card appears to have issues and I may have to bring it in again!)

I'm still looking for a portable media player that can be truly customized. First one to suggest an iPod will be shot. It may seem silly, I want to load the 10+ different file types that I use and not have any problems playing them (companies looking for small codecs may be interested in looking at the source code of foobar2000). Bonus points if it comes with (or there is, somewhere on the internet) software that can re-encode certain formats to lower bitrates (since you aren't going to get full sound quality from a P.A.P. anyway) automatically and still manage to handle changes on both sides transparently (e.g. if, on another computer, I change the tags or add/delete files, those changes will affect the library on my main system).

What? I can dream, can't I?

On a related aside, I've been looking at the GP2X (official) (which has found it's way into my wishlist) and VirtualCogs - specifically, the Portable Computing COG which I may yet use to build and sell a mix between P.A.P. I'm looking for and the GP2X. Hmm, I could sell that. I wonder if Virtual Cogs Embedded Systems Inc. has anything against that sort of thing.

Palm m500, Spybotics, and Linux

keilaron@keilaron.ca (Keilaron) — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 15:46:21 -0400

So I've gotten a new Palm.

My reasoning for this purchase was that I could use it to write while on the go, or even just if I felt like writing somewhere other than at home. Naturally, I got a keyboard for it as well as I wasn't going to be able to write all that much using the stylus (it has character recognition (at least technically), but I don't enjoy handwriting). Sadly, I neglected to notice that it didn't include a sync cable/cradle in the bundle, and had to get that separately. While waiting for it to arrive, though, I've been fairly impatient about getting programs on there.

Especially the driver for the keyboard!

Thus, I decided to try the only two other methods available to get data onto the Palm: infrared and SD card. I don't have a card reader/writer, so I thought that option was out (turns out it isn't quite - more on that later), so I proceeded with trying to communicate using the infrared port. You see, I eventually remembered that the Lego Spybotics kits that I have came with infrared transceivers; I figured they'd be good enough to transmit data to the Palm.

I first thought of trying it with my Windows system, but the transceivers connect on the serial port and I didn't bother putting a panel for one (the onboard ports of this motherboard don't actually include a serial port), and didn't feel like going through the hassle of adding it (not that it's that much effort, mind you). Instead, I used my laptop, which currently has Zenwalk Linux installed on it. Getting the infrared support was fairly simple (new kernel config plus the tool package), and one reboot later I was in business.

Sort of, anyway.

Linux seems to receive the data from the Palm just fine, and it seems to respond in kind; However, the Palm makes no sign of receiving anything, and eventually gives up on the connection attempt. It seems the problem stems from the most unlikely-seeming source: The Spybotics infrared transceiver. It's not meant for this sort of thing, really; When you use it to transmit data to a spybot, it's actually plugged in directly. I think you can use it to "broadcast" infrared signals to it too, but I don't really remember how that works and if it actually transmits any information. Therefore, I believe it's only meant for really short distances, and the problem with that is that the transmitter and receiver on the Palm aren't spaced the same as the ones on the Spybotics transceiver, and thus one doesn't see the other in one way or another.

I might try putting a much larger distance between the two and see if that works better... infrared is supposed to be able to do more than an inch or two, after all, but unless I had a very specific distance between the transceiver and the Palm, nothing showed up on either side... it's weird.

DRM in Canada? Why of course...

keilaron@keilaron.ca (Keilaron) — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 13:07:07 -0400

Vito Pilieci from The Ottawa Citizen states in a Canada.com article titled "Copyright board OKs levy on iPods, MP3 players":

The Copyright Board of Canada is again backing a tax on Apple Inc.'s iPod and other MP3 music players that could boost the price of the devices by almost 30 per cent.

This is truly unfortunate and ridiculous. It's becoming into some odd fight against the innocent consumer, the computer-illiterate consumer that has no way to do anything about this. Those who're pirating aren't going to care about this (and computer-literate users are going to see this "tax" as an encouragement that says "Oh, don't buy it from the store - buy it from Ebay.ca") since they likely already have portable audio players or they don't have nor want one and only use their computer for music anyway.

Despite all that, it doesn't surprise me in the least: Big Suit types never want to research anything, they just want a quick fix and they want it now. Anything they can do to justify their salaries and make it seem like they're actually doing something productive. The sad part is, it'll injure them in the long run.

And since when are recording devices taxed, anyway? Were tape decks ever taxed this way? Ghetto-blasters? Stereos? And what's next - CD/DVD recorders get taxed since they're "recording mediums"? Copyright is an outdated system for outdated governments (and don't get me started on patents) - I realised the futility of it as a child, and I realised the ridiculousness of it when a teacher at college copyrighted a code skeleton file, and I now realise the obsolescence of it as it lacks any real structure or system.

Experts-exchange.com getting a bit desperate?

keilaron@keilaron.ca (Keilaron) — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 16:46:56 -0400

Experts exchange, a website where some people go to resolve IT-related problems, used to show web visitors the solution to the problem being viewed. That is, they let you see the first one, and then set a cookie that wouldn't let you see the next ones you visited without registering first. Naturally, there was a simple work-around to this: Just block all cookies from their site, and you could view anything.

It seems, though, that they've recently changed this: Now the solution can't be seen at all - instead, a block saying "View this solution in just 30 seconds!" shows up - and the other comments to the problem are obfuscated in a few ways:

All text is encoded with ROT13, meaning that even if you viewed the source, you'd have to, uh... use Leet-key or something like.
A grid-like image is placed on top of the text, making it hard to read even if it weren't encoded.
When you hover over the comment, the text is replaced with a block that says "You must sign-up to view this comment".

This, however, is just what you see at first glance. Paying attention, you'd notice the solution is actually still there, oddly enough. The site used to be laid out in such a way that you'd see the question/problem, with a button at the end of it offering to show you the solution (which would then bring you to a registration/log-in page), followed by a list of categories for questions and answers (or problems and solutions, whichever you prefer), and then the comments given by others (including the solution itself).

The new layout, however, has the question, a short ad, the "encrypted" comments and hidden solution, then the categories, and finally the comments and solution in plain view. Very bizarre.

Well, at least they're not doing stupid things like trying to restrict the right mouse button (easy to circumvent, is amateurish, and often also blocks the middle button and other buttons too). I don't understand why sites continue to think they can hide their HTML (no, obfuscation by Javascript doesn't work - What, don't you realise all someone has to do is RUN it?).

It's... been a while.

keilaron@keilaron.ca (Keilaron) — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 18:55:37 -0400

Time flies. I really don't know what it is, but it seems I've little time for anything these days. I guess it's more a matter of prioritising things, and I haven't been doing that; Problem is, that's a task on it's own. I figure, though, people deserve an update, especially a certain someone out there who doesn't seem to be fairing too well and probably doesn't have the time to contact my directly. My heart goes out to you and I hope things get better... and yes, I'm na?vely thinking they will.

Well, let's see - my posts have been far and few between, as well as rather bare. I'm going to take what is probably going to be a few hours, and try to give some detail on what's going on. Knowing myself, though, I'm probably going to get tired of it halfway through or forget things I wanted to mention.

On the job front, I now have no job. My time as a casual ended in mid-may, and for the next month I was working as a contractual worker. Thankfully, I was still able to apply for EI and that seems to have gone through without a problem - either I applied correctly, or they were able to mistake my misunderstandings. Either way, seems to be just fine there. I just have to keep in mind that EI's only going to pay me if I can prove I've been trying to get a job - sometimes I get lax about these things for over a week, and it seems that's not going to be an option ;> It's possible that I get a permanent position at my old job, though, which is kind of interesting. I have mixed feelings about that, honestly, but I'm not sure how in-depth I want to go about that in public - maybe I'll write another protected entry for that.

I've been trying to add some content to my forum - hopefully I'll get a few more interested people. I'm not certain whether I want to keep the politics (et al.) sections hidden to members only, though; I'm thinking of opening them up until I can get some regular (if sparse) traffic. By the way, I've resolved the spam issue for the time being. Until the Akismet plug-in for punBB matures, I won't be using it: It apparently does not have any setting other than "ban immediately" - I don't care how easy it is to unban people, I don't think they deserve to be banned outright. It's bad enough that punBB claims that hidden forums are "invalid" (I wish that were an option, but I may just manually hack that in myself) and don't suggest that maybe you need to log in.

I've just updated my copy of Windows Live Writer; Functionally it seems mostly the same, but they've added their fancy UI to it now. Seems a slight bit more sluggish due to that, but that may also be because I had to lower my hardware acceleration setting (My mouse does not move if I have hardware display acceleration set to the maximum. Not sure why, and I really don't know what caused it. I may have to get myself a new... uh... sheesh, I don't know. I'm at a loss on this one.). Sadly, my hardware woes don't end there; About as recently (But no, not simultaneously) my DVD drive has decided it no longer wants to eject - and before you try to help me with it, I'm convinced that it's a mechanical issue; It seems to be the same problem that "Drive X" (for lack of a better name) had: when the tray attempts to eject, something gets in the way and instead it just goes "clunk" and fails to move forward. This one doesn't have a pop-open door, though, so the only way I'll be able to inspect it is to open it up. For the curious, I have a LITE-ON DVDRW SOHW-1633S finally showing it's true colours, and it's way off the warranty (not sure it ever really had one anyway).

Interestingly, it seems I didn't post on my birthday. Hmm. Don't remember what I got; I'm sure I updated my wishlist, though. Speaking of getting things, ... wait, I did mention the camera. One thing I didn't mention was the 160 GB USB drive I got (Wee~!). I'm actually planning on taking the drive out and replacing it with a 20 GB, and using that; The 160 GB will likely go either in my PC, or in a future NAS that I'm planning to build when I move out (or right before, since that might help with moving). On that subject - I'm now the one that has no job, and now Eth has to put up with me :P

On the technology/news side of things, ignoring the over-hyped piece of crap that is iPhone, Apple has announced that it will offer non-DRM music in it's iTunes store at a higher price - but I think what's more interesting is that EMI says people love it. I'm reading between the lines when I say this, but, I get the impression Steve Jobs is doing this intentionally as to try to give DRM a shove away from domination. If so, I've more respect for the man than ever, to be so bold as to actually consider the option.

(Certainly more respect than I've got for a particular worker from Futureshop, at any rate, but I'm going to blog about that only later once I've got a response from him about his blatant goof - much to Futureshop's shame I might add - and know whether or not he was letting himself get hot-headed on the subject.)

Among my other findings on the Internet are an interesting view on global warming, which if you are about to watch I strongly suggest you watch all videos posted by the same person (It really doesn't make sense to only get half his opinion - people are entitled to correcting themselves, as the above paragraph demonstrates ;>).

And finally, one last thing and this one's from the paranoia department: Why use email encryption? It's an interesting view on e-mail encryption, though personally I believe that encrypting every e-mail might be a tad overdone - but then again, since once you've got it set-up it's mostly a "fire and forget" type of thing (Not that you can't change it's settings, mind you), you almost might as well. I currently force all e-mails going out on my name-e-mail-address (Yes, I have an address that's my first@last name) to be digitally signed, even if the recipient can't necessarily verify that signature, since I use this for official contact (e.g. work, applications, etc.).

Phew! On the project side of things, I've gotten a co-worker (well, was-co-worker since my contract ended) interested in helping me translate Ozy & Millie - I think I'm going to write to the author and webmaster again soon once I've got a steady stream of strips going and tell them that someone's actually going to get things going for the French version ;> (It seems a few other people have already gone at it - sadly, there's not even fifty strips translated yet! Arg! What a sad state it's in!)

I've been really tempted to buy myself a GP2X - but there's four things holding me back:

The cost - Buying a GP2X, though possibly worth every penny, costs about as much as a PSP right now. And that might even be without taking shipping into account.
The lack of stores having it in stock - The only store I know that stocks the GP2X in Canada is one I've never heard of, GamerSection. It appears to be a Qu?bec company, but oddly the French translations are poor if even present. On the other hand, there is a representative from TigerDirect who tells me he can get it custom-ordered for me; We'll see how the price ends up looking like soon.
The apparent lack of quality games, as playing games that already exist on other platforms seems to be one of the few quality options. The fact that it would be possibly to port any SDL-based game as well as easy develop my own games for it is nary a comfort.
I'm not even sure I'd use it! I've not finished the games I have for my PS2, never mind the ones on my GBA, and I hardly use my portable audio player during this time of joblessness. Speaking of joblessness, I'm also not sure I want to spend money while I have no job.

Eh, it finally happened. I forgot what I was going to say. Good enough for today, I dare think.