Older blog entries for jono (starting at number 116)

Gotta be quick today as I have to get going.

Today I have done some usability stuff. I am starting an assessment of KControl's usability. It truly seems a mess and could do with clearing up.

I have begun developing a document and some solutions and I have created a research paper to run over some people at home and at the LUG tonight. The plan is to get a nice varied view of what people think of KControl's organisation.

LUG meet tonight. :)

Seeya later all!

Spent lots of time today doing some work at work. I actually worked too much today. :P

I compiled KDevelop CVS from the KDE_2_2_BRANCH and it is cool. The code completion is nice. :)

The camera is still working nicely - despite the fact it was off all day today as I forgot my laptop cable. :(

I sent a proposal to kde-usability for an official board. Chris Howells likes the idea and it may be a good thing for the KDE Usability Study. We will have to wait and see.

Seeya later all!

My new webcam arrived today. I opened it and the shiny thing is all nice. It clips onto my laptop screen fine also.

After some research last week I suspected it used the cpia driver - after some kernel compiling I realised this was not the case. Some posts that my buddy google discoved showed that it was an OmniView ov551 driver that was needed.

I compiled it in after finding the maintainers site and viola - video! Video...yes...good quality...no. It was dark and grainy and not very good.

I read on a little more and realised that my cheap, bargain busting cam needs a bit of special attention and needs the ov551_decomp module. It turns out that these cams are so cheap they need to compress all the data so they save on ram to keep the cost down. I suspected this was the issue - it was actually not...I had misread the instructions and not included some things. :D

Nevertheless I compiled in the ov551_decomp after patching 2.4.17, and I added it to modules.conf. The maintainer admits some parts o fthe driver are a bit shaky, but on the whole it works fine and the development is fast so it should all be fixed soon.

I then set up camserv to stream some video onto a webpage - creating streaming jpg for browsers that understand it, and a javascript enabled page for those who don't. The links to the JonoCam are at the top of the diary.

I had a band practice last night and we all went to the pub as a band for the first time. We had a good laugh and things are going well. We got lots done and we are building ourselves up for beginning gigging on March 22nd.

Right, I am off home for relaxation, rotisserie chicken and the usual dollop of madness.

Seeya later all!

Great gig last night. Blaze played a hell of a set - and I had a chat with Blaze Bailey and the drummer Jeff Singer at the end of the show. Nice chaps.

We saw Savatage walking down the street before the doors opened - Jon Oliva said hi. Cool stuff. They played a great gig and Chris Caffrey has had a serious effect on my playing. :)

After the gig, I was walking out with the other guys and I saw the lead singer from ShadowKeep - Rogue M. Vox. It turns out Rogue is a "big fan" (his words!) of my work in Linux Format. A bit surprised at him knowing me and saying this I had a chat with him about music and Linux. :)

All in all a pretty cool night...oh looking forward to band practices.

Today I decided to sort some more email out and finish writing another article for Linux Format.

Jamming with Steve tonight, so I better get going.

Later all!

Had a band practice last night - it went well as ever - things are really coming together. :)

After the practice we went to see Steve's old band. They played quite well.

I got in after dropping steve off and layed in bed - I then saw a WebCam on QVC - so I bought it. :) It is Today's Special Value. :)

It looks like this cam will use the cpia driver. I have seen a couple of compile issues but I don't think it iwll be too much of an issue - it seems well supported. This will all aid my addiction to all this H.323 madness.

Havent done much today as I am going to London to see Savatage / Blaze / Vicious Rumours. I just answered some mail and discussed some education related stuff regarding Linux on KDE::Enterprise.

Seeya tomorrow all!

I had a more relaxed day today - did the usual email thing and played with Gnome Meeting some more. This whole H.323 stuff is cool.

We managed to get it going on the local LAN - it connected to a NetMeeting session and worked pretty well. We were going to test the video output but the machine the webcam connects to is shafted.

I tried a few other places and it seems to connect OK, but I have had mixed success. I assume this is due to (a) bugs (b) an older release as it is from Debian Testing (c) me b0rking it up.

Thanks to Telsa Cox for mailing me about Gnome Meeting. I did'nt even think people read my diary. :D

I have got a band practice tonight, then off to see a band at a local venue, then off to see a band tomorrow in London. Busy busy busy!

Seeya later all!

Wow what a fast and furius few days. here is a summary:

Thurs - went to London with the crew to see Kamelot. What an amazing band. A truly great metal thrashing mad gig. :)

Fri - relaxed after work. Subscribed to yet more KDE mailing lists. Man, I love email. :)

Sat - Spend the day relaxing and then went out on the evening to a metal night with the two steve's and sooz.

Sun - band practice. Went well. :)

Today I have been doing a *lot* of email to various projects. I have got quite interested in the whole voice over IP thing. I had a go with Gnome Meeting and it seems nice, although I was told by the guy who maintains the project that I need Alsa. I will look into this. also saw Konference; I have subscribed the mailing list and I am gonna keep track of this. I checked out their CVS code but it only compiles with KDE 2 and not KDE 3. I sometimes forget I run KDE out of the CVS and it is not in general use yet. :P

I had an interesting chat last night with a guy who works at Ximian. I was asking some stuff in #gnome and he was there. A genuinely nice guy and I look forward to ask him for help again. :P

I am looking into a few things here and there with regards to promotional material and KDE/Linux. I am looking into writing a couple of HOWTO's or reports. I am planning on getting some of this stuff out soon.

I have a fair few plans I want to get done soon - mainly KWebStat - I want to get it ready for KDE 3.0 final...I may try and get it in the CVS again. It was blocked last time by Stephen Kulow who thought it ws not useful. :( I disagree, but then he holds the CVS strings...

Well, I am gonna just relax tonight. I am giving a guitar lesson tomorrow and have a band practice and should hopefully get some coding done in between.

Oh, just beforeI forget...I added an interview to KDE::Enterprise. Check it out, and use the forum!

Seeya later!

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Well, a major hacking session has resulted in a huge hump in progress for KWebStat. I have virtually finished the rendering engine for the pages and I have implemented the activities tags. The tag engine is fully working and seems pretty smooth. I did most of this in VNC and my fonts are a bit screwed but ignoring that see some screenshots here.

Right, band practice and LUG meeting tonight. Seeya later!

Productive day today. Did lots of coding. Not all of it on KDE either bizarrely.

I did do some hacking on KWebStat tonight. I got the tags in the QMap now being created first time when KWebStat is started and read in from the config file on each subsequent execution.

Well, band practice tomorrow and LUG meeting...lots to do...

Seeya later!

Had a decent weekend - saw little Elliot - the new addition to the Curtis clan, and got the guitar. I also had a band practice and that went pretty well.

Today I hacked at KWebStat and added a dialog which is displayed when KWebStat is first run. The dialog indicates that the tags are being created for the config file which are later read into the QMap.

Right, I better get some kip.

Seeya all later!