20 October 2012

Visual BASIC 6 GPL?

Long time ago I've heard  (from digg/slashdot, I forgot which)  a plan to release VB6 as open source which later denied by MS staff. But now I found this: http://sourceforge.net/projects/dvb6

It is a real full GUI VB6 (by microsoft) with "about" dialog still showing serial number (lol) but mention new license under GPL-3 (hmm.. they usually using their own Public License). Suspicious sources also available (more like a decompilation though) and as expected it's 32 bit only, not that there is a free 64bit compiler anyway.

The installer also bundling unregistered version of Bytessence InstallMaker and famous Angus' Resource Hacker.

The project already generate thousands download/week since 10/10/2012

Curious?

13 October 2012

finch in windows (failed)

This weekend I want a little chat client like irrsi but want YM support (quite common here) too. Finch (part of pidgin) seems fit to this. I got libpurple compiled and appear to work. Finch however is a bit unix (even its glib stuff), so i try to strip most that hurdle compiling and able to get it linked (static build mingw).

Problem is somehow pressing two sequence keystrokes will register as exit signal or sort of, making it impossible to even configure a pidgin account.

here is what it looks like:
version 2.10.6 in CMD fitted window

and the failed build
finch.exe 1.43MB

meh, what am i doing posting a failed attempt :-(

10 October 2012

NTFSLink 64bit version

NTFSLink has been around for quite long time, but no 64bit binary found (at least by me), sometime I had to use 64bit windows which I use Link Shell Extension as NTFSLink replacement. But I prefer much NTFSLink for its simplistic (smart) context menu and how it show the origin of a junction.

ntfslink64.7z source is from https://github.com/miracle2k/ntfslink

To install use the included ntfslink.inf (right click, install), I wrote that cause I'm too lazy to make an installer, sorry.

Notes:
- NTFSLink do not support symlink (native in Vista/7 or later), so using XP64 is more preferable (which also my case)
- This is not compiled by me but a friend (here it's far easier to find pascal/delphi programmer than C/C++, lol), I've asked why was the dll size was too big and explained that the old version may be compiled with much older borland.

POV Ray 3.7rc3 Console Edition

Sometime at work, colleague start discussing about the new renderman (v17) and the would it be fit for architectural pipeline musing, it's been a while since I tested PRMan (pirated edition of course :), that time I already accustomed with V-Ray's "one click render" way and thus feeling upset with what PRMan produce by default (speed and quality).

It's only when I found pov-ray (again not used in architectural) that I finally realized the power behind both renderers, their scene description language: RI and RSL for Renderman and SDL for POV-Ray. Sure they are two different thing just about how both are different too. But comparing any of the two with the rest (older V-Ray, KT, LuxRender, Yafaray, etc) is even bigger mistake and obviously unfair. But people usually only care the result and leaving the "how" question subjective to user's skill.

Revisiting povray site is a little worrying, I think it was 2008 the first time povray support multi-threading (v3.7) and yet final version still not arrived. However considering their novel idea behind povray it maybe not as easy to accomplish than other renderers (which usually already multi-core aware since inception). I mean imagine how those procedural models, CSGs and all different exotic primitives blend in the threads? they aren't plain meshes, even Maya use post rendering for PFX.

So there I go try dig more about SDL (still personally not much interested) using Scite which has pov api/syntax support and try to find non interactive way to do batch rendering, yeah using python I could do stealth subprocess, but I want a pure one :). If I'm not mistaken povray for linux is a console app, so I tried to build that one from its unix source (which somehow more updated than windows' source) but failed when using mingw... continuing with VS2008 express way and surprisingly there is a project called "console" which turned out the one I'm looking for.

povconsole32.exe

notes:
- exr support is disabled, I can build static openexr 1.7.1 with VS (need a little change) and completing its tests but somehow with povray, it crashed during writing.
- this is just the renderer, standard libraries (includes) files still needed (point that in POVINC environment) but no installation required (portable), no registry nor settings files.