Older blog entries for pcburns (starting at number 7)

It was a really nice sunny day today; I saw pelicans flying overhead.

I did a bit of work on my cd player. The user interface is just about complete. I've added a little slider so that you can change the current playback position. The status display is updated by a timeout callback from fltk every second. My cd driver doesn't seem to support CDROM_DRIVE_STATUS or CDROM_DISC_STATUS, which makes checking that there is a cd present a bit of a problem. I'll have to try to find a way around it.

The only thing left is to implement cddb support. xmcd and kscd seem to use the same code written by Ti Kan. They both use the same local database in /var/lib/cddb . The cd player that comes with gnome uses a different code base and maintains a separate local database. The cd player that comes with windows doesn't support cddb. Its stores user typed information in one .ini file. The creative playcenter cd player uses a different database to store user typed information, it doesn't seem to support cddb either. I downloaded a copy of the sdk license from www.cddb.com and wasn't impressed with it. I don't think that I will try to use the official sdk.

I uploaded a snapshot of the code to my page on xoom.

My sample editor is coming along nicely. I have implemented cut and paste, and ironed out the bugs - still a few left. I have been thinking about how to make the filtering operations more configurable. Adding a new filter graph dialog seems to be the best option.

I've been trying to think up a name for my sample editor should it ever get into a state that is fit for release.

I have created a small fltk application for my module player.

I'm thinking about writing a cd player too. It would be nice to be able to use the same cd player where ever I am. I've got the basic functionality to play cds implemented in PenguinPlay. I'll have to find out about the way cddb works, so that titles and tracks can be displayed.

I'm going to see telemetry orchestra and others perform at newtown rsl tomorrow night. I might try and see sub bass snarl at frigid on sunday.

After using fltk for a short time, I have come to really like it. Using fluid, a usable application can be whipped up in an extremely short amount of time. The speed of development comes as a bonus, on top of its portability and speed.

A number of my friends have been departing for trips overseas. One sent a surprise email from Bangkok airport on his way to Israel for an archeological dig as part of his ancient history degree. I had lunch on sunday with another friend. It was her last chance to see her friends before she heads off to the Northern Territory as the cook for a safari. After that she's heading off to Papua New Guinea.

I'm going to skirmish this saturday.

I caught a snippet of an interview with 5000 fingers of Doctor T . They started out writing music using trackers on the amiga.

Ran across an interesting project called gnu octal. The name seems easy to get confused with gnu octave.

I have been looking at various cross platform user interface toolkits. I aim to target win32 and linux.

QT seems ideal but as my project is unlikely to generate revenue I don't want to fork out money to purchase the non- free win32 version.

I started off looking at the win32 version. I spent way too much time mucking around getting it to compile, I still haven't been able to get a working application to use the library.

I decided to look for an alternative toolkit. While I was looking somebody submitted questions about crossplatform toolkits to both kuro5hin.org and slashdot.org and I was given valuable suggestions.

I decided to evaluate both wxWindows and fltk. I opted out of evaluating wxWindows after it required a hefty download of 9 MB.

fltk on the otherhand is impressively lightweight. It was a breeze to compile under linux and win32. I did run into strange filename problems under windows 95 (fl_color.cxx appears to be the same as fl_color_chooser.cxx etc..), but was able to build the project after carefully checking that all files were extracted and their contents were correct. I had no problems under windows NT or linux. FLTK comes with numerous examples and copious documentation. All in all it is a very impressive offering.

I ran across an interesting quote from J. Robert Oppenheimer in James Blish's "Cities in Flight":

We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it, that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. We know that in secrecy error undetected will flourish and subvert.

I met a lunatic in George street while waiting for some friends. He hung around outside of Planet Hollywood, telling people he was going to marry a movie star and showing off his nonexistant muscles. He seemed to calm down when he found someone to talk to.

The other day on a crowded train I saw a young female drug addict sit prowling up and down the carriage. She sat down next to a woman and start harassing her - asking for a fight. The girl threw a punch at the woman. The woman grabbed her umbrella and started bashing the girl over the head. The girl ran off the train. The woman claimed she was nearly a blackbelt in tai kwan do, and regretted that she didn't get off the train to fight the girl. The girl sitting next to me said "oh no she did it again". I wonder if this is a regular occurrence.

I saw the same girl again a few days later talking to her friend. The old couple sitting opposite her were relieved when she left.

I opened up "Advanced c++ styles and idioms" by James O. Coplien to see what it had to say about iterators and functors and was amazed to find that it used a filter (a low pass filter) as a example.

When I across this page about Stallman and Doctress Neutopia I began to wonder about what people would find out about me if they did a search for me on something like google. I managed to find at least 3 other people with the same name, but my gtkmod page was displayed at the top.

After reading an old interview with Stepanov I decided to do a bit of programming using iterators.

I wrote a collection of simple time domain audio filters implemented as functors. It proved to be a remarkably easy and elegant way to do things. I also modified my opengl graph display class so that it uses iterators. I am thinking about modifying the audio mixing functions in PenguinSound so a filter can be placed on each channel.

PenguinPlay has died from lack of interest. I think from now on I'll simply write code in my spare time (which I don't have much of) for own enjoyment, rather than as some sort of service to others.

I'm currently playing with a packet sniffer at work to try to diagnose a problem with tcp/ip connections for an application between an NT box and an os/2 box.

ps: Despite what the date on the website says its actually the 26/05/00 for me.

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