Playing MIDI with Gstreamer

Yay this is cool! I finally understand how to use wildmidi.cfg :lol and playing pachelbel canon midi.


This is GPL Gravis Ultra Sound pats: http://freepats.zenvoid.org/ (download freepats-20060219.zip)
edit: and someone will release CC-BY 3.0 GM set here
for reference the original wildmidi binary can be found here

gstwildmidi (already patched, see update)

Now take a look at ".wildmidirc" inside wildmidi.7z for a while, this is a modified wildmidi.cfg from freepats which contain standard instrument channel assignment with optional tweak (amplification, sound panning etc.) at the top you'll find "dir C:\Users\Public\APPLIC~1\WildMidi" which told wildmidi where you put GUS pat (the freepats). This path by default is "C:\Documents And Settings\All Users\Application Data\WildMidi" in english Windows XP. This file need to be placed in C:\Documents And Settings\[username] a.k.a %USERPROFILE% or %HOME% or what whatever equal in your Windows.

Making a self contained PyGTK installation

Tired of figuring out dependencies? Me too
PyGTK *could* be easier to install if they adopted the way WxPython or PySide installed, which sadly this is inherently impossible. However I think there is a trick for this!

Look at pygtk.pth under [Python]\lib\site-packages folder, a pth (stand for path?) is read by python interpreter as initialization before user start importing stuff. The idea is inject PATH insertion in pygtk.pth. Note that unlike py file pth file accept only oneliner script like in "python -c" command.

Here is my modified pygtk.pth:
for python 2.7:

gtk-2.0
import sysconfig; pygtkpath=sysconfig.get_path('platlib')
import os; os.putenv("PATH", os.path.join(pygtkpath,"gtk-2.17.2") + ";" + os.environ["PATH"])
gtk-2.0
import distutils.sysconfig, os; os.putenv('PATH', os.path.join(distutils.sysconfig.get_python_lib(),'gtk-2.17.2;') + os.getenv('PATH'))




Now put GTK runtime in [Python]\lib\site-packages\gtk-2.17.2 and you're done!
note that if you keep bin folder of GTK (not put it outside) then use "gtk-2.17.2/bin" instead of "gtk-2.17.2"

Therefor a true all-in-one installer is possible by put GTK runtime (just the dlls without redundant C devel files) together, maybe one day I'll make one...

Better lockup your ftp.exe

The trend of trojan now is to download chain of actual virus (many directed to .cn domain) initiated by short innocent-look batch file then bang a fresh trojan break lose and your AV just unable to detect them :D. The use of ftp.exe (ftp command line tool in C:\Windows\System32) become more prevalent being ftp is part of Windows.

But we could still lock this downloader from being executed by applying deny (execute) rule from security tab to not only all users type but also system (hopefully the virus wont reset the acls :s). For Windows Home Edition users they must use cacls.exe command line tool to provide the same effect. Renaming or deleting it wont helped cause this operation will trigger Windows' protected system files restoration.

Chrome OS soon to be released?

At least for the first time today Chromium OS reach 0.9.x version which naturally smells like beta/rc to me, visit hexxeh's snapshot build here and try it. Still downloading... this would be my first experience with Chrome/Chromium OS :)

Oh when it fully done I desperately hope SketchUp will get ported there! umm no? oh it's netbook OS not workstation :sigh:

An optimistic dmraid?

It's great when ubuntu lucid detected my fakeraid several months ago though I have slight suspect it was also broke my one of array disk later. Now for stupid reason I need to move my ubuntu from dedicated OSes disk into one of my storage disks (now non-RAID). Surprise! it can't find root partition... The RAID is gone (from BIOS) but finally after googling a while there is a metadata that written in array disk that need to be cleared.

OK so how I able to type dmraid if I got no accessible Ubuntu? Tell me if I can use Ubuntu rescue mode... but I already use OpenRC liveCD instead. And here is how:

dmraid -r
--> this should show where raid metadata written in the affected disks
dmraid -r /dev/sda -E
--> this should strip metadata on each disks mentioned before

you need sudo if not root already

At first I was scare to enter those commands as I've no backup supply at the moment (what if it erase my partition table / bootloader?) but hey it works! it's totally safe :)

Good experience with GooCanvas

Today I just finished my client software to design a t-shirt and the likes. Not sure why she don't just buy legal but cheaper general-purpose graphics software rather than hiring me. Anyway I'm back on pygoocanvas to deal with this basically compositing image software, previously I ever tempted to make usable 2D CAD software that way beyond my ability that time.

Pygoocanvas is really a time safer library should you ever make graphics application based on Python and GTK. With basic animation support (not as robust as clutter though) I can imaged a presentation software would benefit from it. And cairo canvas also make PDF generation a snap. Really like this library!

Django-1.2.3 Docs in CHM

Meet Django

Django is a high-level Python Web framework that encourages rapid development and clean, pragmatic design.

Developed four years ago by a fast-moving online-news operation, Django was designed to handle two challenges: the intensive deadlines of a newsroom and the stringent requirements of the experienced Web developers who wrote it. It lets you build high-performing, elegant Web applications quickly.

Django focuses on automating as much as possible and adhering to the DRY principle.

They will prepared for version 1.3, right now 1.2.3 is the last stable version. Ning in this site has made a bookmarked and clean chm version (download). Great for windows user!
I decided to made it myself it's plain easy actually: "make htmlhelp" and let Html Help Workshop do the rest!
For Django 1.3:
Djangodoc.chm

Two monster that beat 7-zip

This is just a remark for my experience way back 5 years ago. That time I just barely heard about 7-zip and found a monster called WinRK (still in version 2.16). I conduct a benchmark (just a little) to my amusement today.

The test file is unfortunately just one: emule.exe (damn that WinRK is too slow for my processor). Here is:

emule 0.50 : 5.49MB
WinRK : 1.25MB
Uharc : 1.65MB
7-zip : 1.68MB
WinRAR : 1.79MB

All set at best (slowest) setting, WinRK did insane deep analysis for an exe file and took 6 min. to complete! (not multi-threaded) while game warez cracker's de-facto choice UHARC is the one that better with a little time overhead. I choose Emule because it is already a composite file, have few megabytes of unicode text, dozens bitmap images and the binary itself. Zip and BZip2 result is more than 2MB.

Analysis did take important part of compressing especially in solid mode. While 7-zip and others separate executable from data file by file extension (not by actual content) then sorted based on similarity (again only by filename) this often lead to inefficiency (in compression not time) due to mis-detection unless you came up with your own filelist. WinRK took this seriously, maybe their compression method isn't much better than LZMA (7zip) but their analysis did! It has some passes where it will chop most file into more edible chunks before compressing like no others. Imagine if I had to compress the whole Gimp with WinRK! probably will take the whole night :)) on my E2160.

If you are someone with obsessive-compulsive personality disorder try WinRK! maybe version 3 have multithreaded support? (note: it's not free)

Portable GTK theme selector

I modify the old gtk2_prefs.exe (GTK theme selector) to only able to modify host application's gtk (a.k.a per apps setting), for example if you put this on inkscape installation you can only modify theme for inkscape and wont affect other (e.g Gimp). This is great for portable apps? or admin user who have privilege over %programfiles%.

The original version defaulted to current user setting which effectively render all GTK based apps you're installed to obey it. If you already apply this setting you must delete %USERPROFILE%\.gtkrc-2.0 (note: this is a file not folder).

gtk2_prefs.exe  (place this along side main executable e.g gimp.exe, inkscape.exe, mypaint.exe)
Refer to this post to add some themes
Enjoy

New PyGTK for MyPaint?

I've been playing PyGTK 2.22 for a while now, and I think it could make its way into next MyPaint, no more major bugs (of user interface) as far as I know and windows theme bugfixes already there. Finally a real successor of 2.16.x version after skipping 2.18 and 2.20

I'd like to see PyGTK team build this version with Numpy support though, but if not I will uploaded it here. Still waiting official binary...

edit:
Ah and the answer is absolutely NO, it turn out that pressure sensitive tablet has problem

edit:
gtk.Recentdocument assertion failed... my my I'm a bad tester am I? Folks of linux said it has something to do with specific Icon Theme! Well gtk win32 doesn't even have such! what should I do then? :)

IBM Lotus Symphony 3 Released

Get it here also available for Mac and Linux
Additional spell check dicts here

Review will come later.. but from changelog, IBM seems didn't do their homework to speedup their most undergone OpenOffice variant, one thing for sure they are more OOO 3.x compliant and that's how version 3 jumped from 1.3. Do we go for LibreOffice?

Hmm.. so far this version is more responsive than 1.3 but startup still slower than any OpenOffice 3.2 notably Novell's and still only offer the basic trio of OpenOffice. Strangely if you quit Symphony it left soffice.bin process hang in there, maybe for startup caching purpose?

I will keep this as the sleekest OpenOffice for my hackintosh.

MiniTools for XP

I made a complimentary package for PimpShell (yes, this is for XP only) containing very useful selection of freeware that less than 1Mb each.

M$/Sysinternals Regmon and Filemon, a good educational tool (newer replacement is much slower)
M$ CalcPlus
M$ Tweak UI
Powerquest Partition Table Tool (also available here)
PowerOff, automate power off (homepage)
ResHack, the old still popular executable's resource tool (homepage)
ProcessHacker (OSS), why? Process Explorer is overkill
Regshot (OSS), monitor what happened to your Windows before and after an event.
Greenshot (OSS), the best screenshot tool whether commercial or not! (need dotNET)
Name Generator, generate random username (homepage)
Notepad2 (OSS), this is what notepad should be
Mike Lin's StartUp CPL, there are something more out there but this one much smaller (homepage)
GrepWin (OSS), Search files and content with RegEx power
Showin, the old tool to show window handler of application
Angry IP Scanner 1.9 (OSS) (newer version is Java based)

Warning: Partition Table Tools is not for casual user, don't mess around unless you know MBR concept
No need admin right to install, but you'll need it when running most of them
To uninstall go to Add/Remove Programs

MiniToolsXP_Silent.exe (2Mb) Enjoy!

Week of mess

And who couldn't agree that virus is Windows' biggest disadvantage. While my RAID ruins, I try to backup everything then after. When I reinstalled Windows XP and setup SteadyState, I didn't knew if a virus (viking) lurking on my frozen OS is awaited for a break and when I slept (yeah) it infect all (almost) 32-bit executables. The benefit of MSI installer shown in this case.

In the morning at 4:00 AM I generally check my leeching session and I found a corruption of one of exe file. Well of course it's far too late! Tried to trace the originating infection later and it's came from a warez keygen that I downloaded a while ago. Reinstalling and redownload (some) again.. a whole week of PITA. I finally give up and decide to setup a free antivirus until I get better solution, now my PC is as slow as hell!

My hackintosh also can't wait. With my recent comeback to warez world (since the release of AutoCAD for Mac) I need to finish the VoodooHDA problem and yesterday I got it works. I think the urge to move platform is bigger now and while it's fun combating virus (the new one especially) I can't stand a breach like this. Now my hackintosh is ready to kick, everything work as good as Windows in hardware and software terms. Oh why into warez? hmm I don't know but don't worry I still seeing the future is OSS but as a cross-platform solution.

I might give a try to make MyPaint as Python App dmg there, though I still noob to Xcode toolchains.

BTW If you have a spec similar to me, just shout I'll give my patched driver

Mobo: Abit Fatal1ty F-I90HD
CPU: Intel E2160 @ 2.9Ghz
Chipset: ATI X1250 (not working) and AMD SB600
SATA/PATA: Both IDE or AHCI mode works but not the "fake" RAID
Soundcard: "properly" known as HDA ATI SB work with VoodooHDA but not with AppleHDA
Radeon 4650: tested VGA interface only, but DVI should even easier to work. Full QE/CI yeah!
LAN/NIC: Works but need a patch for FlexLM to work
Modem: CDMA VT-12 USB. I experienced occasional Dc, still investigating whether it's a driver issue
Camera: Logitech E3500. works out of box (UVD mode)
Printer: Canon Pixma i1700
Tablet: Genius 800x600

Distro: iAtkos S3 updated to OSX 10.6.4

This FAQ really funny

http://pages.prodigy.net/daleharris/5_00.htm

It tells all about $5 LOL and I don't believe if that was really a FAQ, I found it when try to find the usefulness of DOS in modern day. Well, sometimes you just can say "it works for me!" and skip the whole evolution.

In many case DOS still much well reserved than the newly revived eComStation (OS/2) like BIOS updating, low level format tool, emergency tool (in LiveCD form) and tons of artistic pixelated games. Hmm I might can skip until Windows 7's EOL... XP for another decade?

Going with hackintosh

My experiences with quad boot OSes before my RAID broken
PCBSD 7.1.1 In short I will choose being forced to use CLI (among four main BSD variant) all the time rather than using GUI desktop there. All BSD derivative is IMO still a specialty OS (Server, Router, Firewall etc) that works its best when you glued with CLI otherwise it's no match for Linux and that obviously above my head.


Ubuntu Studio 10.04 While KDE is more intuitive than Gnome, Ubuntu is so responsive. I could spent all time on it while not doing CAD jobs. Pre-emptive kernel, AMD Catalyst driver and Synaptic play important role in my experience. A decent workstation OS indeed!

Windows 7 The more time spent there I realise 7 give some valuable benefit over XP, but I will give score 5 out of 10 for compatibility and 3 for privacy. Sure I still want to play some games there.

Mac OS X 10.6.3 I like it more! When I get Quartz Extreme enabled everything changed dramatically, and once I get VoodooHDA works this will become a real deal. I also impressed by HFS+ performance (handling so much files more efficiently and faster) over NTFS. One problem, OSX's dual personality. Its console and plist editing is a hardcore feature while GUI layer offer too simplistic noob experience thus the lack of in-between tools can be frustating (for me).

Prediction: With more increasing port of industrial-strength apps (like AutoCAD, Smoke) and the flourishing hackintosh community, OSX is on the way to slaughter Windows ahead of Linux. The big problem? Apple is a platform company just like Sun with Solaris+SPARC (though Sun is dead and Solaris had been offically ported to PC) which bring tendency to a more greedy monopolist than Microsoft. While OSX virtually runs on PC hardware, Apple strictly maintain the Macintosh term consistently and how hackintosh community keep their pace also remain to be seen. The goodness? OSX's high tide popularity may also brought Linux within and when thing does get worse (monopoly etc.) Linux is there to takeover.

About Indosat IM2

I kind of reluctant to publish this information... but I hope this would be useful especially to fellow Indonesian who too poor to afford the valuable internet. For a record I'm a loyal IM2 (ISP) customer for 2 years now. But somehow it is possible to lower the subscription cost from Rp. 125.000 ($14) / month into merely Rp. 5.000 ($ 0.6) / month.

How? first it's a GPRS modem based service (the one I owned but can be a 3G). It's a good idea to choose GPRS here. The following facts exposed how ridiculous the IM2 services is:

1. You buy initial SIM card for  Rp 150.000 and ALL YOU GET is account. Yeah, the card is unable to make a call right? that's because its pulse (analogue to SMS pulse). The fact is you could use any regular CDMA card (for CDMA modem) just to dial #777 and login.

2. Account is NOT bound to anything but Indosat's billing system (a RADIUS based server), that means: Not your SIM card nor your modem will be used for identification.

At minimum you just need to buy a cheap CDMA modem, regular CDMA SIM card (starone is a good candidate) and get some accounts.

My Degrading RAID 0

When configured for the first time my paired 160GB WDC SATA drive could duplicate 100MB file in a mere second. Now suddenly write speed is around ridiculous 20MB/s! I tried change data/power cable, defrag, cleaned up MFT record and change SATA channel but no avail. If I split them as normal IDE, I notice that my second HDD has degraded quite a bit from ~100MB/s to ~70MB/s of transfer rate, but how come a RAID 0 make them even slower?... It's SB600 controller (of AMD 690 chipset). Yeah the driver sucks too (no WHQL)

Guess I will backup the whole array and back to AHCI mode as neither Mac OS X nor PCBSD recognized the RAID disks anyway.

Index of files

Funny how this search phrase will effectively filter-out most filesharing sites and give you 90% direct link download assuming you know (at least partially) the filename. Type "index of" [filename] in google yeah

Why people don't like KDE?

Does Ubuntu (Gnome) really that good? Till most Gnu/Linux distro use Gnome?
Yeah it's lightweight desktop but so does fluxbox (even more). Today I try OpenSUSE 11.2 KDE4 Edition and I find it much cooler than Windows 7 Aero or more like a mix between OSX and 7. IMO that's the most sane and intuitive desktop I've ever seen in Gnu/Linux platform. Why KDE has less userbase? QT 4.x is certainly better than GTK in many case... But why such beautiful desktop is considered inferior? Amusing, I don't get it...

Just wondering

PyGTK-2.21.0 Unofficial Win32 Binaries

This page is obsolete!  updated here (complete installer)

I finally able to test GTK 2.90.5 which has windows-theme fixed since 2.90.3. This version is actually unstable GTK 3.x but the rundown is Windows native theme is back! As with PyGTK 2.21 unstable released, I try to apply the patch onto GTK 2.21.5 which seems to be working also there is a windows-specific issue with GDK Pixbuf 2.21 (now separated) that pixbuf apparently not using HModule to find its basepath instead rely on hardcoded compile-prefix path. I try to fix this issue and seems going fine too. I don't know whether they will release version 2.22 and fix these or go straight to 3.0 but it seems the previous.

WARNING: These are unofficial yet UNSTABLE VERSION binaries. No installer will ever provided.
read this page for installation and general notes

PyGTK-2.21.0.win32-py26 compiled with Glade and Numpy support (463KB no docs)
PyGObject-2.21.5.win32-py26 compiled with ffi support (192KB no docs)
PyCairo-1.8.8.win32-py26 (19KB no docs)

WARNING: If you mix dlls, you're on your own way.
GTK-2.21.5-Runtime (5.18MB no docs) contains:
gtk+-2.21.5
gdk-pixbuf-2.21.6
glib-2.25.13
libglade-2.6.4
glade3-3.7.0
cairo-1.8.10
atk-1.30.0
pango-1.28.0
freetype-2.4.1
fontconfig-2.8.0
libxml2-2.7.7
libffi-3.0.9
librsvg-2.26.3
libcroco-0.6.2
libgsf-1.14.18
libwmf-0.2.8.4
jpeg-8a
jasper-1.900.1
libpng-1.4.2
tiff-3.9.2

Localisation (3.54MB)

Update:
Now this is sucks for Windows platform!, GTK-2.21 while get theming back is still has many bugs in UI area, tablet and other possibly lurkings

Notes:
- I decided to move bin\*.* outside to root as it seems more Windowish-way
- PyGObject 2.21 actually a bit too old for current PyGTK 2.21 or Glib 2.25.x but seems to work (compatible) anyway
- Be advised that some dll are quite common (zlib, bzip, etc) and often available and used by other software. If you ever experienced "missing procedure error" try to test it with M$ Depends, it might just another same name but different dll file gets on your way instead of mine. Generally you can fix it by re-arrange PATH environment.
- If your have problem with py2exe when building package, you might want to see here for some common pitfalls and example.
- There are missing icons in glade (spinner) see here

How to retrieve locked temporary flash video

I just watch GRASS: The History Of Marijuana at youtube and as usual I simply left it to complete then take the result from firefox's cache folder. But it's not there anymore because my cache setting was far below the video size so I need to repeat the loading process which is so much waste of time. I though that maybe an application that able to directly access harddrive (bypassing windows) may get locked file (those fla*.tmp file under user's temporary folder). I quickly searh some installed freeware on my starmenu and only find Recuva as a candidate to do this, despite inappropriate tool Recuva does the job perfectly nonetheless, here is the screenshot:

recuva settings

Result

First you need to put filemask like fla*.tmp in the search input, press scan, wait for a while (depends on harddrive size) and select the file and recover. That's how to get locked files in Windows. edit: Umm you can unlock with Unlocker :-/ but my point here is "tools that have direct access to harddrive" will show you everything underneath. edit once again: unlocker can't unlock it! shit! now I lose my file forever! What a crap! I can just killing the right process too with Process Explorer if that what Unlocker do.. Crap! I'm pissed off I'm really on slow connection here not work

Optimized FFMPEG with AoTuV

Newer binary ffmpeg 0.9 moved here

In my previous post I have demonstrate a wacky batch conversion from mp3 to ogg (vorbis). Unfortunately today aac is in charge to unset mp3. So this time let's set it once for all, Let's convert all kind of inferior lossy format to ogg vorbis! Alright.

This time I compile a special FFMPEG that use AoTuV instead of vanilla libvorbis. The change was dramatic, when encoding very low bitrate (32, 48 Kbps or quality -2,-1) AoTuV is up to 4x faster, higher quality and regular vorbis simply can't do that low bitrates. Thus with ogg emerged as one of prefered format for HTML5 AudioVideo, it will provide bandwidth-starved streaming ability in.

Download
FFMPEG-SVN-r24538 w/ AoTuV 2.67MB (win32 binary with MT and proc. runtime detection)
VorbisGain (from rarewares)
FFPLAY 1.76MB
FFPROBE 1.68MB
FFMPEG docs and presets file

License: GPLv3

Put them (vorbisgain.exe & ffmpeg.exe) to a comfortable place like C:\Windows or anywhere you've defined in PATH variable. Use ffplay to test WebM video

A simple batch to convert know audio files (excluding lossless/flat format like flac, wav):
from command prompt under root folder where your music located, type:
for /r %f in (*.mp3 *.aac *.m4a *.vqf *.mp2 *.ac3 *.wma *.ra) do ffmpeg -loglevel quiet -i "%f" -acodec libvorbis -aq 0 -map_meta_data 0:0 -y "%~dpnf.ogg" && vorbisgain -q -s -f "%~dpnf.ogg" && del "%f"

Meaning: for every those kind of files in current folder and all subfolders, run ffmpeg silently to convert it into ogg vorbis at quality 0  also copy source's tag (metadata) into target file, after that run vorbisgain to apply replaygain on encoded file then if everything is fine delete source file.

Or you can do it over video clip files too:
for /r %f in (*.avi *.wmv *rm *.asf *.mov *.mpg) do ffmpeg -loglevel quiet -i "%f" -vn -acodec libvorbis -aq 0 -map_meta_data 0:0 -y "%~dpnf.ogg" && vorbisgain -q -s -f "%~dpnf.ogg"

Output will have tag fully transfered and replaygain enabled. -aq 0 is roughly equal to 64kbps (-ab 64k)

Notes for audiophile people:
- I'm aware that vorbisgain have somewhat lower than expected value (loudness) but IMO it's more likely a safe bet.
- I've no HQ ears nor sound system so IMH ears those quality between SOX and FFMPEG is not too dissimilar.

Notes for existing ffmpeg user:
- This build is roughly the same as official autobuild one except I use vorbiscommet patch and AoTuV instead vanilla libvorbis else it also bundling latest encoders: x264, Theora, Lame, WebM and so on. see the msg for detail

Stardict edisi KBBI

Beberapa bulan lalu seseorang bernama Steven Haryanto mengunduh seluruh halaman2 web dari http://pusatbahasa.diknas.go.id/kbbi/ memakai perl (regex?) untuk dikonversi menjadi format IFO (Stardict). Nah aku jadi tertarik unutk membuatkan installer Stardict yang khusus Inggris<->Indonesia; isinya antara lain: Kamus kosakata+sinonim Inggris (US) WordNet, Kamus Indonesia<->Inggris MasNDon dan Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia versi online itu sendiri.

Aspek legalitas: Menurutku versi IFO tersebut tidak bermasalah toh pada situsnya memang diperuntukkan untuk semua orang yang penting namanya tetap sama yakni Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia, Edisi III (2005). Hanya saja tidak setiap orang kan punya internet dan lagi bukunya mahal, jadi ide mas Steven ini patut dikasih 4 jempol!

Stardict adalah program kamus open source yang dibuat oleh Hu Zheng

Installer: Stardict 3.0.1 edisi KBBI untuk Windows (12.9 MB)

Thoughts about wikipedia xml dump

They are the BIGGEST single plain text file that I've ever seen in my life! and I'm talking about the 27GB english version.
So they choose bzip2 why? OK they recently move to 7z anyway (but I still got the bz2 one)... 7zip decompression is far faster than bzip2.

They provide a python library called mwlib to work with the dump. This is where I getting interested with. For my country Indonesia, I think this is a great asset for education. People here are mostly (even in Java island) are still alien to the internet. Worse, when recent videotape scandal of local artist boasted over the media, most people set a negative feeling about the internet. Even our minister are outspoken about his plan to censor the internet! LOL talk about China. Anyway with a little mindset changes, for example: instead of forcing to buy secondary bike which mostly for show off, people should better invest on computer even the cheapest one they can get. At least it doesn't eat gas. With the idea of making portable wiki in flashdrive like wikitaxi. People get access to one of the best knowledge source legally for free. Youngster can be forced to "read" more than foolishly chatting on facebook and playing oxymoron games.

Downloading huge file under slow dial-up modem

Today I'm progressing 70% of wikipedia download and I've found a good setting for downloading this 6GB monster of science. http://download.wikimedia.org/enwiki/20100622/enwiki-20100622-pages-articles.xml.bz2

When a download stuck for a long time it seems a sign that a corrupted data has take place. At least that what happen during the first 800MB download using Free Download Manager (FDM). I switch to curl after the prolonged glitches didn't stopped, and continue the unfinished download. After patching 10 corrupted areas, I found later that curl didn't hampered by the same issue. And here is how...

Pimp your GTK application

Fact: Visually ugly application will get poor acceptance in Windows world (even with blessed functionality)

PyGTK/GTK applications in windows are commonly distributed with its own version of GTK runtime. Why? cause Windows' user hate bloated dependencies, even when official GTK runtime available for download it's still a bad excuse there even more than one source, the one at sourceforge and other one at gnome's ftp which add more confusion. Eventually every developer start abandoning shared GTK runtime (those that installed in Programs Files\Common Files\GTK or Program Files\GTK). In short, there is no strict convention to follow since GTK ported on Windows.

This situation should bring good chance for developer to pimp their apps indepedently since there is a gtkrc for each apps. The de facto theme is MS-Windows which took windows' native theme. But there is much more! visit http://gnome-look.org/ for user contributed theme or http://art.gnome.org/themes/ for official distribution, some major linux distros also often design their own theme too. If you want to make your own theme visit http://live.gnome.org/GnomeArt/Tutorials/GtkThemes

Two most valuable and gigantic download for FREE

1st is wikipedia monthly database dump currently sized 6GB and growing (I still downloading and fighting corrupted data) : http://download.wikimedia.org/enwiki/

2nd is about my hobby -observing maps- of Blue Marble NG satellite imagery from NASA Observatory. currently I have the level 4 which I got it 3 years ago by secretly implanted emule on public cybercafe :). Now (a year ago) NASA publish 500m/pixel which each month globe image sized more than 3GB (totaling almost 40GB). Of course it's not as detailed as google earth not even google maps. But you can get it offline for free! no fuss no compromise! : http://mirrors.arsc.edu/nasa/ or http://worldwind28.arc.nasa.gov/public/

To open very high resolution png/jpg, I use nip2 (other than WorldWind itself)

Blender 2.4 Documentation in CHM

This is my first attempt to create CHM format of Blender's Wiki pages. I use HTTrack with some deliberate scan rules (filter) to only include Manual, Reference, Books and Tutorials in english. Later I use some simple regex to trim and strip unnecessary part.

However I want to keep the navigation feature to aid the poor bookmark so I need several regexes to be applied. Once completed, I start to realize that it was too big, the images alone consume 180MB.
I've managed to optimize images file to almost half of original. Now it's 100MB CHM (with images)
PNG: First, files > 50KB converted to 8bit depth, then all PNG optimized with optipng
JPG: Optimized with jpegoptim 75%
GIF: Optimized with gifsicle

Here is how I fetch it from blender's wiki using HTTrack
At first, I don't know how the sitemap looks like so I start it without filter and downloading only html pages. After some hours HTTrack finished with very messy result. I browse it quite a while to find out which important, which should be included etc. And here is the scan rules for English documentation:

+*.png +*.gif +*.jpg +*.css +*.js -ad.doubleclick.net/* -mime:application/foobar -*title=* -*BlenderWiki:* -*Category:* -*Org:* -*Meta:* -*Talk:* -*User:* -*-Flag-* -*Special:* -*File:* -*:2.5/* -*action=* -*section=* -*stylish.swf* -*Attic:* -*Robotics:* -*Dev:* -*index.php/BlenderDev* -*Template:* -*/invalid_files/* -*Help:* -*index.php/AR/* -*:AR/* -*index.php/BG/* -*:BG/* -*index.php/BR/* -*:BR/* -*index.php/CA/* -*:CA/* -*index.php/CZ/* -*:CZ/* -*index.php/DE/* -*:DE/* -*index.php/DK/* -*:DK/* -*index.php/EL/* -*:EL/* -*index.php/ES/* -*:ES/* -*index.php/FA/* -*:FA/* -*index.php/FI/* -*:FI/* -*index.php/FR/* -*:FR/* -*index.php/ID/* -*:ID/* -*index.php/IT/* -*:IT/* -*index.php/KO/* -*:KO/* -*index.php/MN/* -*:MN/* -*index.php/NL/* -*:NL/* -*index.php/PL/* -*:PL/* -*index.php/PT/* -*:PT/* -*index.php/RO/* -*:RO/* -*index.php/RU/* -*:RU/* -*index.php/SV/* -*:SV/* -*index.php/TH/* -*:TH/* -*index.php/TR/* -*:TR/* -*index.php/ZH/* -*:ZH/*

The language filter could be much simpler if HTTrack support regex...
After refetch the wiki for second time, I have relatively clean dump.

Here is the files: (dedicated to all users who CAN'T afford internet connection, somebody please mirror but only with direct links not rapidshit, ziddumb or other craps)

Preview

Blender249Man.chm Contain manual in English, 30MB (This is the main file and linked to 4 files below)
Blender249Books.chm Books that converted to html, 32MB
Blender249Tuts.chm Tutorials and Theory, 31MB
Blender249API.chm Python API and Game Engine API for Blender 2.49, 1MB
Blender249Ref.chm Contain Reference, FAQ and Scripts Catalog, 6MB

To decompile use 7zip or run hh -decompile [chmfile]

Blender249Doc.chm (july 13, 2010) the whole text only version and very basic, 6.8MB

Enjoy!

NSIS on Linux?

NSIS is Open Source Installer made by the folks of ex Nullsoft. Today I just found "cross nsis" was floating on http://ftp5.gwdg.de/pub/opensuse/repositories/windows:/mingw:/win32/SLE_11/src/ What it means? I would say in near future many cross platform application developers on Linux will able to release Windows installer version on their own independently without touching M$ Windows. Umm probably touch WINE abit more :) though some windowish aspect should to be discussed with windows' user manually.

How To Make Bootable DVD/CD with CDRTFE

This is a list of boot image file of Windows and several popular Linux along with how to re-mastered Bootable CD/DVD using ONLY opensource software 7zip and CDRTFE.

Windows Vista, XP, 2000, NT4?, ERD :
Boot image: Generic*
Filesystem: ISO Level 4
BootCD option: Check all except "create boot info table" (as this corrupting boot image), use sector count 4

Combo UbuntuStudio and Windows 7 bootable DVD

First, both OS (32bit version)  if combined togather it fits 4.7GB DVD. Ok I'm out of idea  if there is another benefit...

I once (long time ago) experiment to create All In One DVD contain multitude Windows, Linux Live Distro, OpenBSD, FreeDOS and several odds like Mikrotik, QNX NC etc. All cramped in single DVD and of course it works. Today, OS is getting bigger and giganteous not to mention excessive during the adoption of DVD standard.

The basic multiboot CD/DVD is to have bootloader that chain another bootimage file. I'll take isolinux for this guide, simply because it's open source and customizable. This method as I mention previously is not limited to Ubuntu + Windows 7 it could be (almost) anything.

Software needed:
7Zip, If you have ISO images
CDRTFE

1. Do we have isolinux?
Chance is if you have Ubuntu DVD/ISO then you already have it, look for "isolinux" folder. Just note this..
2. Dump Ubuntus ISO Images into empty folder say "D:\ISO\RemixDVD"
Use 7zip to extract the file or if you only have DVD just copy all files.
3. Dump Windows 7 ISO Images into same folder above using the same method.
4. Find the bootloader of Windows 7
I'll cover this maybe in separate post but for now it is "etfsboot.com" under "boot" directory. Copy this file into isolinux folder and rename it to 7.bin (in isolinux, all bootloader must be explicitly in *.bin files)
5. Delete any [Boot] folder under "D:\ISO\RemixDVD" in this case we don't need them.
6. Edit Isolinux's Boot Menu File

GTK 2.90.3 : XP theme comeback?

Just checked GTK logs:

Overview of Changes from GTK+ 2.90.2 to 2.90.3

-------

* Win32: XP theming is back !-------

I will back to complete this post with quick review after try compile it... BTW they are getting closer to 3.0 :)

uh oh failed to build glib... guess I'll wait for stable tree :(

INF Path Variables and Values

These are complete translated value of predefined path variables taken from Windows XP that can be used in INF Packaging/Installation:

10=CSIDL_WINDOWS=C:\WINDOWS
11=CSIDL_SYSTEM=C:\WINDOWS\system32
12=C:\WINDOWS\system32\DRIVERS
17=C:\WINDOWS\INF
18=C:\WINDOWS\help
20=CSIDL_FONTS=C:\WINDOWS\fonts
21=C:\WINDOWS\system32\viewers
23=C:\WINDOWS\system32\spool\drivers\color
24=C:\
25=CSIDL_WINDOWS=C:\WINDOWS
51=C:\WINDOWS\system32\spool
52=C:\WINDOWS\System32\spool\DRIVERS\W32X86
53=CSIDL_PROFILE=C:\Documents and Settings\qwerty
54=C:\
55=C:\WINDOWS\System32\spool\PRTPROCS\W32X86

Unleash Winamp 2.x Power

When someone suggest me to use foobar, my reason basically (untill now) still the same: It doesn't bear a music player! IMO it's like WinSCP that able to play music... cluttered, complicated not like a jukebox. If it's not about player I will say "I want the most complicated software, I'll mastered it after a while" but no please not a player.

Since 1999, I always use Winamp for music only while I keep changing video player till I found MPlayer. Being a diehard XP user, Winamp 2.9 which dated back in 2003 was satisfied me. So does playing music need big resources? It just a matter of decoder and the rest is UI.

Pretty cool for 7 year old player!

Today I want to share my fully loaded Winamp 2.9 silent installer.

What special about this installer:
Core
- Winamp based on 2.95RC except the disputed in_mp3.dll file has been replaced by 2.91 version.
Plugins
Visualization:
- MilkDrop 1.04 preconfigured (add 5% CPU usage of my E2160)
DSP:
- edcast3 : a transcoder for icecast and SHOUTCast with ogg vorbis, mp3, flac and aac support
- VST Host : bring Winamp with unlimited possibilites of Sound FX. preconfigured using EffectChainer
- MuchFX2 : Multi DSP rack
- Enchancer : Light yet decent SFX (default DSP)
Input:
- Line-in : use input from your soundcard with winamp as amplifier
- Tara : plugin to support Real format, bundled with RealAudio 8 (audio decoder only)
- iTunes : plugin to play protected aac (mp4) files, need iTunes
- Other decoders:  mp3pro, aac, vqf, mp4a, als, flac, ogg vorbis, speex, musepack, monkey APE, FLAC, optimFROG, wavpack, AC3, DTS, vtx and WMA
Output:
- ASIO : low latency audio system, need special driver or use free ASIO4All
- KS : Kernel Streaming (skip windows audio system)
- Null : Mute output, useful for broadcasting
- Crossfading : also useful for broadcasting
- AAC : convert output to aac file based on libfaac
- FileWriter : convert output to FLAC, APE, OggVorbis (AoTuV) or MP3 (Lame)
- WMA : convert output to WMA
- KB5 : convert stereo to Dolby
General Purpose:
- DIMIN Hotkey: assign any key for global hotkey, useful if you dont have multimedia keyboard
- YMStatus
- Time Restore and Autoplay: make winamp resume playback after restart. disabled by default
- Alarm
- Advanced Control: preconfigured to display winamp mini control on systray
Twelve complete skins :)
Addons
- IceCast Server 2.3 : Turn winamp into Internet Radio Broadcast
- SHOUTCast Server 1.9.8 : Similar to icecast, more limited feature but much popular
- Acon EffectChainer : Free excellent VST and DX Chainer, preconfigured for using FreeVerb
- FreeVerb : Opensource set of Multithreaded VST SFX that sonically much powerful than Enhancer. To use it, choose VST Host as your DSP or can be chained in MuchFX2 (chaining chainer), note that any use of VST is CPU intensive (add 5% usage of my E2160 processor)

Enjoy!
Winamp 2.9 Silent installer (10 MB)
notes: 
this is silent install just wait for a few second then check in startmenu if it already installed, need XP and administrator account. Won't work on Vista/7!
realaudio 8 codec is bundled as illegal as realalternative did, cause surprisingly it ruled to be not redistributable.

XP re-dead on upcoming October

Funny.. How many times Microsoft restate this?
Certainly an OS that living (and thriving) for a decade isn't a bullshit at all. I have done it over and over again to prove what 7even's could be better than XP's yet I always stuck with "The future is 7". It's like a headshot

But who cares? people behind opensource software always care about compatibility (and a virtue too) it's a discipline that must be adhered by programmers. Some major OSS even still consider Win98 to support! so XP's time should be extended faraway after it's end of line.

In fact I just finishing unattended XP CD (still reviewing in VM), An installation of XP with all latest updates after SP3, All drivers, All favorite OSS and freeware, All of my settings and preferences totaling 10GB stuff (after install) was completed in one step (that is inserting CD and choose partition) uh ok that's two step lasting in a mere 45minutes. Ah how the fuck I do that in 7even? Impossible... And people like me will always yearning for "Power of Administrator" that differentiate XP from 7, XP from Mac OS X and XP from Linux.

Does Linux anti crash? No, I can recall 7 years ago when I digging up a SuSe system configuration as root I was rebooted  for a total OS kamikaze, and after unsuccesful login I rebooted the system for a total harddisk suicide when an error in LILO ruin the MBR. Yes I'm a stupid root that time.. no doubt. But I'm probably learn my mistake later right? and it's a PC afterall...

In Win7 the system isolate the user by providing a seatbelt with minimal yet confusing button and a sweaty leather but in XP I make my own safetybelt with custom button and confortable leather as I gaining experience. It takes time but all is not lost when one day I transfer everything into an Unattended XP CD or should be a DVD today. And in a snap I got my safetybelt back plus a working ferrari ready to ride :) with me driving the car not by another driver. Yeah that's how I describe it, a system that flawed, insecure but a huge success if you know how to deal with the responsibily of given power. Smells like C cause XP isn't that complex compared to Linux and seriously sometime we need no complexity.

When I satisfied with the setup I will  start a legacy XP champaign by sharing many of my unattended installer specific for XP like a full powered Winamp 2.95 for example. And of course many OSS stuff.

note: XP means XP-32bit  just throw away that XP64 joke. Oh this post is a repeated rant

CabIt : A Re-Interface of Makecab and Expand

Recently during updating my unattended Windows XP CD, I create a small utility (eek written in batch) called CabIt. That time I try to achieved a much compressed DRIVER.CAB for the CD and find out that cabtool (an opensource utility) didn't satisfied me.

Later I'm puzzling with makecab.exe a builtin tool in Windows to create Cabinet file. No luck.. it always generate *.??_ file :(  only after googling a while I found Cabinet SDK from M$ that dated way back in 1997!

But guess what I found? Cabinet format indeed support "solid archiving" at that time! "Solid" which is a (marketing) term that popularized by WinRAR and followed by 7Zip is what M$ called (an ambiguous term) "folder" to explain the same functionality (Compressing a set of files as a union). Also I found out detailed info how to make a DDF file that needed by makecab.exe to properly produce .cab file. So CabIt is born, basically as an automatic DDF generator.

Offline Valadoc and CHM

Finally after 3 days, wget has now completely retrieved http://www.valadoc.org
Inside this 7zip archive is localized-link of valadoc and vala-draft, I also supplying HtmlHelpProject for compiling into chm format (requires HtmlHelpWorkshop). All you need is load the project file and click compile, valadoc.chm will be created after a while. Due to filesize (around 50MB) I was unable to upload it for now.

valadoc-051510 (valadoc.org as retrieved at May 15 2010, 453MB uncompressed; 52MB as CHM)

Recover Corrupted Archive Download with cURL

This post actually started in late April...

It never cross my mind till bad thing happened. I was start download a nostalgia "DBZ" game called Bid for Power 5.0 (a mod of open source quake 3) several days ago. For my 128Kbps connection it took several days to complete. Worse, the file is single 2.2 GB file of rar archive (luckily not an installer).

I have once downloading ISO DVD of CentOS 5 before and that time due to corruption I need to re-download dozen of individual packages and rebuild the ISO image file from scratch using cdrtfe (It really painful). So it's not surprising if Bid for Power also corrupted too. Initially I start to blame Free Downloader Manager for letting it happen since it has rollback feature which should prevent such thing occurred. Anyway, the download is multipart (2) mode across 2 different server source.

Multiple Dropbox (Do It Yourself)

Great chance you know already how to run multiple dropbox... the very easy way
Yes, by using run as (that is right click on the dropbox shortcut choose "run as.." then select user other than current user) in XP, best candidate for "other user" is administrator because it's ghost user (not shown in login screen by default)

Or you can use dropboxen

But let me tell you another way, no need additional programs, no need to create another users, much flexible, portable and more DIYer :)

Right click on dropbox shortcut in startmenu, click properties, in target box look for where dropbox.exe installed in my case:

7-zip reveals thumbs.db content for you

Once again I was shocked by 7-zip tremendous decode ability. Especially the compound format or I'd say "the custom way to pack something with/without compression", other known 7-zip ability is to unpack chm file.

So what I have here? first choose thumbs.db somewhere in explorer (make sure you've checked "show hidden file" option).

Got one? Now right click and choose open with.. select 7zip archive manager. Tada! inside it you'll see numbered files there and a catalog file (where the number being mapped to a filename that got thumbnailed, probably with other info).

Convert your MP3s into Ogg Vorbis

It's seems downloading valadoc.org is like downloading a CD image :D. So lets do something fun...

This is not about how to use fancy converter like mediacoder. I'll show "the hardway" to convert all of your MP3s to Ogg Vorbis using open source tools only.

I'll assume you have a quick access to command prompt from explorer. If you don't have it, try googling "Command Prompt Shell Extension" and install it.

1. download the CLI (Command Line Interface) tools here. Inside the zipped file, you'll find:
lame.exe -> Mp3 encoder version 3.98.4 (with mpg123 decoder builtin)
venc.exe ->AoTuV(Aoyumi Tuned Vorbis) encoder 2.2.2
oggd.exe -> ogg vorbis decoder 1.0.1
vorbisgain.exe -> vorbis replaygain version 0.34
tag.exe -> universal audio tag writer version 2.0.52
m2v.bat -> recursive mp3 to vorbis batch command
v2m.bat -> recursive vorbis to mp3 batch command

Wget 1.12 for windows

I know it kind of old version. but I've been given up with stupid unclean yet inconsistent Teleport while trying to mirror valadoc.org. I'm planning to make chm version of the sites, but there is some gotchas with retrieval process currently (could be fixed with v-grep though).

For anyone interested  here is win32 binary wget-1.12  (545KB builtin OpenSSL 1.0)
Alternate build (see update notes below) wget.exe

Wget source is available at http://www.gnu.org/software/wget/

February 23, 2015
Updated downloads moved to main page 

October 29, 2014
wget-1.16 (with openssl 1.0.1i, pdf manual, wget.ini sample, locales and ca certificate)
Use 7zip/WinRAR to extract the archive

January 22, 2014
wget-1.15 (with openssl 1.0.1f, pdf manual, wget.ini sample, locales and ca certificate)

August 11, 2012
wget-1.14 (openssl 1.0.1c) optional files (locales, ca-bundle)

February 1, 2012
wget-1.13.4 (openssl 1.0.0g) locales ca-bundle-crt (expired 2018) [patch]
- wget should lookup wget.ini and locales relative to where wget.exe located not from current directory
- by default search for curl-ca-bundle.crt for secure protocol when ca-certificate-file not defined

December 7, 2011
wget-1.13.4 (openssl 1.0.0e) locales
- fixed gnulib stat() that return invalid filesize >2GB (patched mswindows.h)
- use wget.ini in current directory for default wgetrc
- apply apache's dirlist patch

End of FLV player?

Wow the buzz getting louder recently, some days ago I just found really nice (and pretty damn small) open source flv player http://flv-player.net/ but now everyone is talk about HTML 5 video already. Started by IE9's plan to support H264 and AAC. IMO that's good decision though I hope at least vorbis get supported, cause it (ogg) undoubtly kick AAC's butt at EVERY bit rate comparison.

That tag will eliminate requirement to install flash player in most situation but that's not the only attack from HTML 5. When SVG & SMIL matured, HTML 5 is serious contender to Flash technology entirely. We'll wait when that time come...

The video format itself seems has been an internal decision of each browser. For example webkitgtk will rely on Gstreamer which stand for the whole multimedia framework ever imaginated (from midi, video, sound and a lot more). Even with Flash player adoption to H264 some time ago HTML5 video is unavoidable, Adobe eventually given up for sure and preparing a decent HTML 5 editor instead.

Good thing not much effort has ben put on creating open source alternative for Flash IDE. Inkscape in fact is on the right path (going to SMIL).

Yet another backdoor: lsasvc.exe and csrss.exe

Due to my stubborness of ignoring Antivirus for the sake of "performance", once again another backdoor under filename lsasvc.exe in (C:\Windows\system32) and csrss.exe (C:\Windows)  infiltrate my aging XP. Not sure which browser that let them break free :) but they always appeared together every reboot (which is rare) and like most backdoor they break some winsock policies and eat my internet bandwidth for their own activities.

What can I do? simple! since they always use the same filename and path I create a folder named "lsasvc.exe" under Windows\system32 and "csrss.exe" under Windows directory. done, it's just impossible to create that filename there anymore

Python in MinGW, a "FREE" purist attempt?

Ever since Python 2.5 bring msvcrt71.dll along its installer things are kind of inside M$ territory because that dll used to not bundled with Windows and distributing it means you (who compile) must legally own the product where that file came from aka MSVC++ 2003. With M$ releasing Express Edition (2005, 2008 and 2010) for free without particular restriction on its compiler (generally free compiler is restricted to provide Non-Commercial application only), this edition have rocketing MSVC as a build tool and has gaining more attention than MinGW (the open source alternative) for many open source project.

I have seen Python 2.6 being cross-compiled by opensuse in their repositories, the build system is fully automated (source is feed alongside patches) and updated at least every a couple of day (yes that's true). Though they don't provide static libraries and they also build the packages in more Linux-style in absolutely dynamic linking way of DLL. Which soon I realized will confused many Windows user who prefer more compact and portable binaries (by statically linking everything that possible). Directory structure also look ridiculous to Windows which never have the bin-etc-lib-share structure.

Proisk.ru, The Hideous Internet

Does google always find what we want? almost..
Are you a leecher? or download mania? umm or are you a pirate?

If you haven't try http://proisk.ru, you should! :)

I'm a long time user of it, formerly I just want to find an old Mahabharata movie. Then, surprise! proisk.ru reveal to me a dozen of ftp sites (mostly russian) that you won't even found in google. Some of the sites are ftp only interface and some have http (website) interface at its IP address.

Interestingly, many are actually (or maybe) a private share (among people who knows the IP of course) but get spidered by proisk.ru. I even find one that once being unprotected ftp only site but later transformed into full fledged website and no longer accessible anonymously! thinking it like someone who have just prepared materials for a website but not yet published it to the world wild web.

Porting MyPaint for Mac OSX

There is an attempt to port MyPaint for MacOSX in this forum. So far binary has been succesfully made, with some (or yet to be found) problems.


Today MyPaint team is looking for a Mac developer and/or packager. If you are interested in helping them, send an email to their mailing list use IRC (#mypaint @ irc.freenode.net). 

It will be a cool port! :)

Optimized Build GLib Gives Boost?

I've been optimizing some GTK-related library in my Gimpscape installer without having actually benchmarked them. Today I found interesting demo called "mv-scalability-demo" from goocanvas (canvas based on cairo) which really squeeze your CPU alot, the program draw hundred thousands of simple box with text inside it into ultra-huge canvas. Visually, nothing complex from its GUI though.

GLib is the underlying library of GTK and some other too, so its reasonable that optimizing it will enable other library to gain the benefit too. In my build I try to limit my setting as far as Pentium 3 compatible (mmx+sse enabled).

The result:
vanila glib binary :  4.6s
Os+p3(mtune) :  4s
O3+p3(mtune)+fastmath* :  3.5s
O2+mmx+sse :  3.2s
Os+mmx+sse :  3.4s
*) not significant
GLib version 2.23.5
CPU E2160 1.8Ghz OC'ed @ 3Ghz
RAM: 2GB

Times are averaged from 3x benchmarks. Now something odd there!, I though that setting march/mtune as pentium3 is the same as add mmmx + msse yet its yield strikingly different. O3 is considered to be the most intense optimisation but not safe, as in my test it crashed on Python GObject binding. The best and safest setting is O2 which give us not so large binary size yet very fast indeed (30% faster).

In this case optimizing GTK didn't give much effect probably due to demo's simple interface. Strangely enough, though goocanvas use cairo as rendering engine optimizing cairo also didn't give apparent advantage anyhow.

A Brief Test of GTK+ 2.20 for Windows

After bitter experience with 2.18, I check out gtk+ 2.20 which is just newly released. I really hope it fixed some apparent issue in 2.19 (I start to felt windows platform seems a bit neglected for some time).

Nah, from its changelog I have come to realize that this will be the same as 2.19! It is. Once I build it, I do quick test on MyPaint and GIMP. Here is some "highlights"

1.Native theme (wimp) still not working, though you could still use libwimp.dll from 2.16 if you want (will get screen corruption)
2. Peculiar interface behaviour still occured. For example, once you exploring sebmenu item (in menubar), the exposed submenu wont be disposed untill you click again from the parent menu. It used to disappear whenever you click on other window, click on titlebar or if you wish to quit the program or if you click anywhere outside the submenu infact.

PyPoppler, PDF rendering in Pythonic way

PyPoppler viewing Blender Wiki Manual PDF

Poppler Library has been used by Inkscape and GIMP to render PDF document nicely. PyPoppler is a bindings to Python using PyGTK for its user interface. It's analogue to PyWebkitGTK.

In this PDF reader screenshot, pypoppler demonstrate simple page and zoom control. In my test, rendering speed is quite responsive compared to Acrobat for pdf document with light graphics and rich text. But when handling pdf with rich layered graphics (that contain transparency), it starts to choked up though. Also it seems the demo fail to recognize page width & height (clip box?) correctly in some case, that's it drawn a smaller white rectangle like shown in 2nd shot and notice how scrollbars are missing there while inkscape correctly import the page with the same poppler.

Nonetheless this is probably the fastest way to integrate a PDF previewer or reader in your python apps rather than calling acrobat that might not installed, especially if you also using PyGTK. Or it could become a neat internal help/manual viewer (alternative to CHM eh?), hmm.. as long as it searchable :-).

Blogger Comment Deletion URL

Huh, I just realized that I lose the trash can on blogger's comment
http://www.blogger.com/delete-comment.g?blogID=xxxx&postID=yyyy
where yyyy is comment id (permalink)

Sometime Linux is the wrong forefront on OSS migration

I try to reflect this to my country where something is quite wrong (not working properly) with its OSS movement. Namely IGOS, a popular distro of indonesian Linux. The distro mainly target Internet Cafe by using its own somewhat "not user friendly" billing application that have been endorsed quite loudly by many activists. But where is migration?

Personally I never took IT/similar education in my life so my guess might be inaccurate. But I see this as the cause of self centered Linux userbase that flourished in IT institutions. They are thinking: just because they felt comfortable with Linux, so should the rest of people. The truth is: majority people didn't/not need to care about Linux's strength, thats particularly true for Indonesia where user just want their job get done. So what they need is kicking ass productivity software that works and reliable. I have tried many free OS as much as those IT guys (I think) and mostly what I do is comparing files inside etc folder across FreeBSD 4.8, some GnuLinux and QNX4 inside shell years ago. And I practically do nothing of creative work.

Still hanging on a dead OS?

Till now I still on Windows XP 32 with a lot of happiness. I still kicking on Sketchup for daily use and OSS for the rest, though I will get Win7 anyway once I buy a new netbook. What I missed then if I stayed on this venerable OS?

Win7: Easier to use and more organized. This seems the main mantra in Se7en, every user will agree including me. But don't misunderstand the meaning, it didn't mean to be faster.

Years of XP usage did give me a lot of understanding in XP's internal that remain the same as in 7. Some are:
We are still dealing with registry
There is Run command box (though hidden)
There is cmd box too
Same directory structure (there is some junction that handle compatibility if you don't know already)

Clutter, a robust animation libraries

After given review to Chrome OS, I read more that Google use clutter in some of its window manager part. Generally google always carefully choose open source component in their projects, I guess clutter is no exception. Previously, I just heard a bit about clutter from cairo website so why don't give it a try! I'm so pleased by the demos, the script is clean and the animation is smooth and sleek. Clutter and PyClutter is like GTKGLExt and PyGtkGlExt, but more general purpose (I think) with expanded animation capabilities (no wonder goggle choose it). It could use cairo too in some operation.

Overall, Clutter is one of the best OpenGL framework with python binding (the other is PyGame2) that do more than most available libraries. With good documentation this should appealing for many developer, though few project that seems use them. I wonder where do clutter implemented outside Chrome OS, from goggle I just get moblin (mobile linux) that sounds popular. Given me impression that Clutter will be more spread in embedded platform (using OpenGLES).

Visit Clutter Site

Chrome OS vs Windows ?

Last time I read a computer magazine (I rarely read them), most headline was musing around chrome os. What the heck? All I know about chrome is it's a chromium based browser, and if there is an OS born , it must be web/browser based. Yet the buzz is louder than before, that keep me thinking if Chrome OS was really a brand-new OS. Man thats blazing fast! if that's true

After read here, OK I'm wrong but still IMO it looks less than what Apple have done with their first Mac OS X. The difference is that OSX use (more secure) FreeBSD while Chrome OS use Linux. Oh and Apple still do lot more work on GUI. But of course, Chrome OS could make better Window Manager than currently Linux has.

OpenSource matter
Fine. Count me on it, but more or less could we get only the window manager and newly-ported chromium browser as paskage? and install it on dozen of different Linux distro that optimized for speed and older hardware? Now is that the buzz of the new OS?

Comparing it with Windows
Cloud computing is a different story than desktop computing (Yes, It's still alive, kicking and unreplaceable in many case) and I'm sure M$ or other browser/desktop apps vendor has their own answer for cloud. But replacing Windows with Chrome OS is major buzz that hyperventilating. No no, again the answer is not came from Google but from heavy desktop apps vendor like Adobe, Autodesk etc. Unless Google make SketchUp for Linux (have they even do their own homework? Jeez), Autodesk port Max & AutoCAD, Adobe take more serious on Flex and so on, IMO it's an ignorant buzz. It just similar to Linux++ vs Windows

Yeah, thats my point of view as heavy desktop-computing user.
Afterall broadband connection isn't happy with 3rd world, even my gmail get choked frequently on ajax mode.

I'm still see Open Source VS Proprietary in desktop apps as bigger influence to the whole world rather than this loud buzz.
But still, I love chromium browser as I love k-meleon very much :)

More about GIMP environment and portability

In a packager view, current Gimp installer has interesting drawback of its installation method. That is installer put two absolute path during setup:
default.env : Path=C:\Program Files\Gimp-2.0\bin
pygimp.interp : python=c:\python25\pythonw.exe

So why static absolute path is bad? Because nothing can't automatically fix/update it when gimp folder moved (unless you reinstall it of course).. and will render all plugins unusable which also meaning make file association harder. Moved? Yes this post lead to portable thingy. Which currently put my combo gimpscape installer in pending state >,<

Note that "program files" might be taken from %PROGRAMFILES% of system variable. In most case, modern windows application heavily rely path configuration to registry -said, it's faster to initiliaze- but we know that OSS programs especially those ported from linux didn't rely on registry by default.