Building PyGTK for MyPaint

Continued from here. MyPaint require that PyGTK (GDK) to support numpy otherwise mypaint won't run. The debate is people said that the proper way to build python module is by using MSVC compiler since that's what python windows used with. While there is officially a library for GCC named libpythonXY.a some argue how stable a mixed build is.

IMHO gtk binding is bridging python and GTK, so what's the point using MSVC if GTK Runtime was build with GCC(MinGW)? Nah that's just my excuse because I don't know how to build it with MSVC :)

I've tested that I can use MinGW's pygtk with MSVC's pygobject with MinGW's GTK with MSVC's Python 2.6 and MinGW's MyPaint.... errr

Alright lets make it all MinGW's except for python shall we:

Building GTK2 for MyPaint Windows

This post explain more detailed Windows port of MyPaint situation. I hope my english is understandable :)


MyPaint, the package

• In windows mypaint use py2exe for bootstrapping and bundling with minor change in favor mypaint's builtin logging.
• Mypaint is currently targeted only for win32, win64 is in experimental stage
• Mypaint consist of a small portion of C++ library (which is why it need to be compiled) and the rest is in pure python. Mypaint require pygtk (with numpy support), numpy, GTK and optionally a particular version of psyco (a python accelerator)
• Mypaint is squeezed! I kind of proud with this :) I have made mypaint stay around 8MB since version 0.7. All executable is packed with UPX at brute level. Furthermore brushes preview images have been pngcrush'ed.
• Mypaint installer use NSIS with solid lzma compression. I believe this should be changed to msi

Windows 8 DP, too soon isn't it?

Woah I must be a stonehead living in a cave using XP playing freecell! Windows 8 developer review? its migration should be smooth though with competitor remain to be the dying XP (if it released before XP support ended) Oh does it drop 32-bit support too? wow I should change my blog title to survive...

The future is tablet pc, there is no point of making another resource-hog generation of Vista, they should make XP-like with NT 6 kernel! And make one same Windows for all devices (says 32bit for mobile and 64bit for desktop/server)

One funny thing, M$ has confusing versioning, they said 7 but actually NT 6.1 and 8 when it's NT 6.2 but they keep Server version with year version. However the build revision does relate a.k.a 7600 for 7 then  8x00 for 8 so they are analogue to Macintosh versioning where minor version update is a "new" mac (don't forget that 10 is mac major version).

GTK 3.2 still not quite there...

In my last quick review GTK seems take major change from 2.x (or it was just old windows specific bugs?). With version 3.2 from last September, things a little bit sketchy and raw now which I do not even dare to post a screenshot. Some issues that I quickly spot (from gtk3-demo):

- It's surprising that Glib 2.30's "make check" fail in almost all tests using GCC 4.3 but build successfully with GCC 4.6.
- Pango's win32 module (2.29.4) is broken so we got no text.. umm no glyph
- GTK native win32 theme still broken too (oh yeah that's important aesthetic aspect)
- DnD not working
- Problem with clipboard? pasting empty data trigger crash...
- The dreaded gdk window toplevel issue is still there.. So I doubt if tablet is working.. too bad for MyPaint

I'm not sure if most of them were windows specific or not...

The good news is gobject introspection (1.30) is almost there, I can build it but I'm stuck with gir generation. This is cool! ever since pygi merged in pygobject, the new win32 pygobject is meaningless cause pygi isn't there. With pygobject 3.0 and proper pygi in near future (hopefully) we can finally say goodbye to pygtk and other bindings and bring python 3.x too. But right now it's not quite there...

SMS-an Gratis saka Gmail

Aku wis njajal sms-an nggo akun gmail, enak tjuk! pertama nganggo 'ntuk jatah 50 sms gratis, ra mung kuwi tapi yo 'ntuk nomer cantik cuma 'nem digit (rung ngerti yen iku di-share po ra sih).

Umpamane dewe'e sms sepisan (nomer Indonesia: indosat, telkomsel, three) jatahe kelong siji, yen dibales 'ntuk jatah 3, yen ra tau dibales nganti 'ntek jatahe dienteni ae 24jam (sedino) ngko bakal mbalek dadi 50 meneh. Enak tho? Namung yaiku kudu ol terus tjuk!

Citranipun ngene (saka perambah chrome):

URL leeching with turboupload.com

I have use it for about 2 weeks now, and found it very useful for me (men with 128Kbps). First, it is (as this writing) the only one that offer free 999MB (yeah) of space and bandwidth/day (free registration needed for url leeching).

Goodies:
- While its autogenerated link is tied to your IP and limited for 8 hours, it does a *resumable link*. Meaning you could use curl or wget or other download manager to continue download with the a renewed link.
- Fast leeching! I don't know what most people say about 500KB/s in average but I'd say that's fast!
- Your account isn't tied to IP or any kind of that mechanism. Meaning you can operate multiple turboupload accounts from each browser you have simultaneously.

Cons:
- No executables allowed. Hmm.. actually that could be a showstopper :(

Usecase:
- You need to download a (supposedly big) tar snapshot from a git server like gitorious or github (aka non resumable download)
- Says it's about time for you to inquire some stuff from slow underground ftp sites you found at proisk.ru
- Your connection can't keep with the hourly changing file update like MSSE

Some tips for downloading wiki using WinHTTrack

I'm on my way updating several chm release now: Sketchup 8, Blender 2.5 and others. I use WinHTTrack rather than wget to download more complex sites like wiki pages. Here some important scan rules to get relatively clean offline wiki site:

+*.css +*.js -ad.doubleclick.net/* -mime:application/foobar -*title=* -*Category:* -*Org:* -*Meta:* -*Talk:* -*User:* -*Special:* -*File:* -*action=* -*section=* -*Dev:* -*Help:* -*Template:*

It's important to make sure you don't have "+*.png" or any other image types scan rule! instead use "Get non-html files related to a link" option in links tab to get images. Wiki is known use fake link to image file which actually a html file which confuse the spider.

Edit: since we don't download the intermediate html file, a regex like this could be used to clean the broken link on all images:
 <a href="http://.*?>(<img.*?)</a>  replace with $1

Offline download for gtalk labs edition

GTalk Labs Edition http://dl.google.com/googletalk/labsedition/1.0.267.233/GoogleTalkLabsEdition.msi

Url seems keep updated/changed though so better use a sniffing tool (nah no need wireshark to do this, smartsniff should be enough) to spot that url inside network packets... yeah I hate these crap nowadays "download an web-installer that download full installer during which sometime embed another installer (internet toolbar thingy anyone?)". What a pile of **** just give us clean msi please!

EDIT:
discontinued?

Portable IBM Lotus Symphony 3 Fixpack3

Update 26 May 2012:
- now if somehow symphony stopped working (not started), deleting 'IBM' folder will reset settings
- revert to use soffice.bin since some featured hardcoded to this, thus do not run openoffice with symphony
- in 64-bit windows symphony didn't quit cleanly, fixed
- workaround for path with spaces 

Update 12 May 2012:
Apparently IBM has discontinued Lotus Symphony, what a shame :( (last version is 3.0.1)  so I decided to update this:
Portable Lotus Symphony 3.0.1 fixpack 1 All languages 194 MB or
Launcher only (to run pre-installed symphony 3.0.1 unmodified in portable mode) 678KB

Notes:
- Although this was less than half smaller of original installer (570MB), it is really full version :)
- All jars and zips were unpacked so you may experience slightly better responsiveness
- Startup (as older version) also has been tweaked, it should be significantly faster than the original, especially after first run
- Although IBM has offered Symphony to Apache OpenOffice as open source, do note that this download remain illegal except the launcher download


A continuation of my guide here, I made small launcher (basically a 7-zip SFX) to make Lotus Symphony a little more portable. This is based on version 3 with fixpack 3, the SFX installer will extract to PortableSymphony3 folder from there run launcher.exe (symphony.exe.bak - the original launcher- has been renamed as I don't use it).

Unlike the original Symphony this one will kill soffice.bin (file has been renamed to prevent conflict) after exit to make it usable in removable drive. One caveat: don't run multiple instance of it... but that shouldn't be an issue as it was a multitabbed office anyway.

If you wish you could manually extract it with 7-zip

Portable Lotus Symphony 3 125 MB
md5: 8c85538e10d804136e4d394f6b8a93cb

How To Try OpenVMS under ES40 Emulator

After reading some information about mainframe I'm directed to an opensource emulator for Alpha system called es40, which unfortunately halted. The main developer move to commercial project called Charon-AXP which also offer Personal Alpha (freeware but limited in performance). I'm quite interested with OpenVMS and it's possible similarities with Windows NT (remember Dave Cutler?). It would great to run this super reliable "relic" on plain XP :)

Steps:

1. Download es40 first here (you can pick last release or the snapshot in preferred variants)
2. Get your free DECUServe membership:
  - Start > Run > telnet (make sure you don't disable telnet service)
  - Inside telnet console, type decuserve.org and enter
  - You will greeted with username: prompt, now type REGISTRATION and enter