Older blog entries for e8johan (starting at number 181)

I've just put some hacking time into SpeedCrunch and that feels great! First time hacking for fun in the last couple of weeks.

What I've done is that I've worked a bit on the conversion from Qt 3 to 4. The code works, I'm just removing Q3Xxx classes now and then to clean the code. Also, I've added the support for an optional keypad, meaning that the application is no longer only a really nice tool for those of us that like to type formulas and hit enter - the average user can just click the sqrt button to get the square root...

Also, as an effect of converting from Qt 3 to Qt 4, SpeedCrunch is also available for Windows. It worked almost flawless from the first moment. Just a simple focusing problem in the function completion popup that had to be sorted out.

Merry Christmas to all! I'm far to busy right now to write anything longer, but hopefully, I will have some happy Qt-related news ready for all of you in January!

Finally my winter expedition with work is over and I'm going home tomorrow. It has been great fun, but also far to cold for my taste (-7 to -35 centigrades).

I'm at a expedition at Kiruna, Sweden. I've never been this far north before, and I'm not really longing to be here for long either. The sun is up for about 2 hours a day, it is -22 centigrades and lots of snow. I you wonder, I work as a consultant for the car industry and we are performing cold climate (no kidding) testing.

The only advantage of being here is that you really don't have anything except work to do, so you're pretty effective. That is, counting per day, not per hour.

Also, I've got some good reading and coding time here at the hotel when I try to kill of some of my free time. Tomorrow will be a free day, so I'll try to visit Esrange or the mine here. The ice hotel hasn't opened yet and going on a wale safari means getting up at 3:30 am and spending 4 hours in a car... call me boring, but I'll rather stay here.

Well, the hotel has a free WLAN with decent bandwidth and I've got Qt 4 installed on my company laptop, so I guess I have a chance to try out some of the news in Qt 4...

For the first time in months, I've actually updated the Independent Qt Tutorial. It is just a minor correction, but it feels good to keep the project alive.

New car! Finished two dead-lines today! Feeling great and reliefed...

The last two weeks have been busy - to say the least. Now, finally, things are starting to slow down and I can do some focused work towards our (i.e. my customers) release on next wednesday.

This hopefully means more time for coding and writing.

Other happy news: I get my first brand new car tomorrow. Will be a nice feeling, I hope!

Swedish politics below, ignore if you're not interested.

The current Swedish government has misunderstood the difference between ability and doing. I have to examples that are highly relevant today:

#1 maturnity leave. When having a child, the government wants the father to take a bigger part of the leave. All good this far, but they want to force this on the parents by reducing the time that the mother is allowed to stay home (with pay, that is). The problem is that the opinion is against them, and the two most common reason for fathers not staying home longer is the difference in income (the father earns more, thus loses more from staying home) and/or the mothers wants to spend more time at home when the kids are really small (we're talking about the first year here). So, the real issue is that a) people don't want this and b) the difference in pay. The latter is a completely different problem that needs to be solved in other ways. This is just reducing the symptoms, not treating the problem.

#2 The ruling side in Gothenburg (2nd largest city of Sweden), which is the same as the national government, provides a card that provides cheaper exercise - for girls. This is because girls are not training as much as boys. What they fail to see is that a) this could be because boys and gilrs have different interests and priorities and b) because the things considered training is more compelling to boys. Since all have the same choice and ability to try, there is no need to try to change the current situation. Nobody is disadvantaged in the current situation.

Phew... nice to get that off my mind. And remember, the important this is to provide the freedom of choice, not to make sure that the utilization is completely even.

I've got a plan! A monthly, or perhaps bi-monthly newsletter covering a couple of Qt widgets and an application.

Why is this? Because each time I ask for material for the Qt 4 Resource Center I get a couple of mails from people with a widget or a really nice solution - nice, but too small for a full article.

So, what has this got to do with you? I need you and your solutions, widgets, applications, etc. Have you got something small and useful laying around - tell me! You can reach me at e8johan at the wonderful gmail service. I'll setup a list of interested projects, pick two or three each month and contact you. This means links and traffic for you, so don't hesitate, drop a mail!

Today we are playing two games:

• Trying to get Win2k to play nicely with qemu. (I will try to run the Free Qt 4 - Windows Edition there).
• Preparing an order for three customers, trying to pick good but cheap components and not loosing money from the deal.