Advogato blog for Gimptek

25 Jan 2001

Thu, 25 Jan 2001 18:27:32 GMT

4 May 2000

Thu, 4 May 2000 18:08:34 GMT

Hacking!

Finally!!! I have something to contibute. I have some ideas for Gimp 2.0 (We're not going to see that one for a long time) and I need to learn how to use CVS, get access and make the changes. I'm using XEmacs on Win2000 (From school because Home computer is dead right now). I'll pick up some documentation for it. If anyone can point me to some useful documentation for CVS though XEmacs then I would be really greatful. My address is gimptek@yahoo.com

OS X

I don't know how they swinged it but, somehow a local computer store got an alpha copy of Mac OS X. Damn that is sweet. On a G4 450 no less. Everything is butter from the drop shadows down to the translucency of the dialog boxes.
The new OS even has a Unix style directory structure. It's going to rock. The only thing I dislike about it is that the little icons at the bottom grow when the mouse is over them. (A cool little effect) but, it doesn't do it smoothly. You see jaggies as it grows. One could do a cubic transform and smooth everything out but, that would be slow even for a G4.
The new look also makes everything alot slower than OS 8. It's not slow but, you can see a slight jerkyness when you drag a window. It has to move the drop shadow after all....

2 May 2000

Tue, 2 May 2000 21:59:53 GMT

I LOVE California

It is currently around a nice 72 degrees here in La Mirada, CA. The sun is shining without a cloud in the sky. Everyone just came back from easter break yesterday and so they are happy.

Work

Sucks. But, now it sucks on an Open Source Platform. I'm running Linux from a .gz file in a dos partion. It's suprizingly fast, especially with the Gimp. I'm using the 1.0 stable at work at it's amazing how much that one doesn't crash. It's horribly slow when opening large images but, that's what happens when your filesystem is a zip file.
I would have just dual booted but, the damn machine has something running in the background I can't defrag it. Pisses me off. I am NOT going to format it though. Too much of a hassle trying to get my boss to back everything up.

FreeLance
Hopefully getting my first freelance job today or tomorrow. Making a travel site. Pretty cheese work but, hopefully I'll be able do something artistic. Don't know what to charge the guy though. I a new computer would be nice (or at least an upgrade for the aging beast). I car is what I need but, a computer is so much more... I can get a crappy car for $2000 but, a kick-ass computer.

School

I'm seriously thinking of dropping out of college and going to a technical school or something. It's hard to pass up a free ride though. I know of of more than one person who would have my neck for that. Just cause one has a scholarship doesn't mean that they have to go to college. At least the girls are cute here (even if they are unaccessable.

Easter Break
Sucked. I had the joy of coming to all these grand conclusions over spring break. Stressed about what I'm going to do, what my major is going to become and who I am as a Christian. My cable got disconnected, my cable modem stopped working, only to get fixed and then the FAT on my hard drive gets corrupted. So, now I had a perfectly good cable connection without the ability to watch cable TV and no web as well. Life was truely sucking. Yeah, people have greater things to worry about but, that's what I had at the time. I'm not starving but, it pisses me off that I was bored all of spring break.

FAT Recovery

Does anyone know any utilites for recovering the FAT on a 32bit Windows partion? That would really help me out. You can e-mail me at gimptek@yahoo.com.

7 Apr 2000

Fri, 7 Apr 2000 19:22:35 GMT

Advogato

I find myself reading advogato more than slashdot now. I think that's a good thing. Slash is kinda overpopulated now. No good thing can last so, I guess I'm riding this advogato thing until it's through too.
Meta--Since everyone else is doing it...
I'd personally like to see someone make scripts for getting the diaries off other websites. With their permission, it would be cool to have Miguel's, Alan and Telsa's diary as well. It would be cool to see them side by side on a per day basis. It would be nice to have them all in one place so I wouldn't have to go looking for them. Of course the rest would be nice to have: linkable entries and all the rest. I was thinking that diary entries should have a sort of meta language. Something so I wouldn't have to type out blockquote all the time.
Side note:Block quote is really useful. I've never really used the tag but, now I know.

And knowing is half the battle

I never appreciated that as a kid, watching G.I. Joe. But, the more I live, the more that's true. I know how to design but, I don't make sites like I know I should. I know I should finish this paper and stop making incessently long diary entries but, I don't. I know but, doesn't mean that the battle is won. Life is like that more and more like cartoons. I'm just waiting for Gundams to come flying out of the sun and take me away to the rest of my delusions...

7 Apr 2000

Fri, 7 Apr 2000 04:22:32 GMT

A Bit of Certification

I just Certified Diskzero as Journeyer. It is obvious if you read his diary from today (April 6th). It was a pretty blatent attempt at certification which in my mind is kinda gutsy. Anyways, he's obviously worth the cert so, I gave it to him. I'm honored to do so. I'm only repaying the favor bestowed upon to me from April 1st. Thanks again ajv.

Source Forge: A (Somewhat) Working Solution

For those of you have been following up on my little "adventure" to get a sourceforge accout, good news. It's finally let me in. I tried making the account but booted me out at the last second saying I didn't fill in a field but, I didn't see that field to fill out. Anyways...

I'll try again tonight but, I have a date of sorts. I'm meeting this girl to go watch Star Wars: The Fantom Menace at 8:30 and it's 8:11 right now. It looks like the Open Source Movement has lost another night's work the evils of a social life.

Speaking of which, I haven't watched a movie for months and even then not regularly. Tonight will be the first time watching Star Wars: The Fantom Menace ever! And I like Star Wars. I really need to study less. I don't even hack yet! What hope will I have to go to make it through college, contribute to my open source project and still have time left for a social life.

Update:

With family like this, I won't need to worry about a social life. It's currently 9:00 p.m. and I sit at home doing nothing while my brother and my dad refuse to drop me off at Biola. (My college about 5 min. away) so that they can do their own things. Should have had better luck with just asking her to pick me up like a little scub.

I Started Form Factor

I started formfactor today here at advogato.org. It's a real open source project so that the journey certification given to me by ajv would be satisfied and that I can say I do more than just rant about the imperfections of Open Source. Now, I'm one of them.

It won't be long before I'm on source forge with some real site space and some room to do some scripting. It should be really interesting. I have some really cool stuff I've seen on other people's websites that I've been too modest or intimdated to try on one of mine but, I think I'm going to go for it with formfactor.

Keep posted to the next exciting chapter to see what develops!!!

2 Apr 2000

Sun, 2 Apr 2000 19:58:35 GMT

Didn't go to church today. My friend never came to pick me up. That's the problem with not having a car, you never know if your going to be stranded. Oh well, at least I'm here and ready to get some stuff done today. Time to fine up the gimp, Synedit, a browser and get going.

Source Forge is still not letting me log in!!! I don't want to bite the hand that feeds me but, it's not feeding... Sourceforge has all these supposed super servers and they can't get a simple thing like web- based login working? What's wrong with them? Is it my side? Do I have to use telnet just to log-in? No point to all this maddness. It's stuff like this that makes more projects just kinda dwindle away.I'm staying strong though.

Well. Now I have a project idea, now all I need is a name.

The Name:System 17

System 7 would be better but, it would have copyright issues with Apple. Now how to type it. (By the way these are my thoughts in natural streams, lightly formated for syntax)

System17-Pretty cool with no space. Kinda distinctive but, kinda overdone.

system17-Liking the lowercase but, somehow, it doesn't quite work for me with the no space.

system 17- Lowercase works. But........... No.

System 17-Seems like some big important project.

System17. Good enough. Now all we need is a website and some content. (and sourceforge's login to come back online.)

Alternative Name: Formfactor

This is probably taken somewhere on the net. But, it's such a sweet name.

Another Possible Variation: Formfactor5

I just had the idea of a core team of people known as formfactor. I'd be like formfactor1, though I like formfactor5 better. What's up with me and names with sur-numbers? Hmm. I just kinda like them.

I'm babbling on Advogato when I should be making a website or getting content or even doing my schoolwork...

If anyone works at sourceforge or knows someone or anything to get the login working (it's been busted for 2 days now) could you tell them about it? It would be helpful.

2 Apr 2000

Sun, 2 Apr 2000 07:40:13 GMT

Just went into Sourceforge and low and behold, the login doesn't work. That's some irony.

I'll do it tomorrow if I have time. Realisticly, that means it will take upto a week for this project to even get off the ground. Oh, well. I'll start making the website tonight.

It's 11:34pm and I'm starting. I have church tomorrow at 8:45.

Oh, and how the night streches ahead of me...

2 Apr 2000

Sun, 2 Apr 2000 07:10:35 GMT

Just having a few thoughts about open source. An opensource type foundry just came into my mind. I was just visiting Shy Fonts and I thought, hey why don't we get some type people together and do this.

Good fonts are kinda hard to find. There are some good "freeware fonts" but, that's not open. Shyfonts is a great example of this. Shyfonts puts out great, high quality fonts. They are hand kerned (spacing between the letters for those that don't know) and most incredibly, include the fullset done. What I mean is that if you get the Williamette font, the package usually includes Strong (otherwise known as bold), Oblique (Italic) and Condensed versions and combinations of two of the three yields about 8 different hand-made fonts for typeface. They even have outlines of the fonts sometimes. The site is a very good design. Simple to the point. I'm telling you, high quality stuff. Go check them out at Shy Fonts.

Linux and all of the opensource projects need something like that but, on a user contributionary basis. This is total ripoff of what I was reading on slashdot today by someone but, VA or someone should start a repository of art and media useful to people making programs. This is arguably just as important (or since it hasn't been done and needs to be done, more important) as any software project right now.

So important, I'm going to start it right now. I keep saying stuff and saying stuff but this is something I can do right now. I'm going to sourceforge and starting this project. I have a couple of things that would be useful and I think should go up there. One piece of artwork right off the top of my head are these trees that Tigert did in fractal format in Gimp a while back. Cool stuff. Couldn't get it to work in my version of gimp but, that's alright if I have his file. Just have to get premission to use it now.

Thanks to Rasputin and joey for boosting me up to an apprentice. It's incredible to have people respond to my journal entry so fast. It's really corny but, the fact that there are other people out there is incredible. It's the internet and all but, I requested something and someone came and helped me. If someone needed something, I'll be there to help now. At the heart, isn't that what opensource is all about? The freedom to ultimately help each other, whether with source code or just a good deed?

I can post now, I'll be active but, respectful of my new power.

I'm off to sourceforge now.

2 Apr 2000

Sun, 2 Apr 2000 05:06:54 GMT

GUI need to be designed for normal people. That's one of Open Sources greatest problems. Design. Most coders aren't designersand most designers aren't coders. I'm majoring in both but, I'm rare.

(There's some interesting things happening at Carnegie Mellon University as far as preparing Graphic Designers for UI thinking and design. Too bad I don't have the money for it. Biola, where I'm going, isn't too bad though. )

Programmers need to realize that they can't naturally design a good UI and that it should be given to a designer. All major open source projects should look for a UI guy for everything.

Let the hackers code. That's what they do best. Let the designers design. Or at the very least, O'Reilly should release a UI book. Make it under the GPL and release it to all the hackers so Linux wouldn't be such an eyesore as far as UI. This isn't flamebait but, my honest opinion.

I book would help but, Linux will still be lacking until every major project has at least one person just for UI (if not a whole team on this). User Interface is just another variable to think about. Coders already have enough work. You know all of Microsofts products must have some UI people. You know Apple is packed to the gills with UI people.

Consistancy would also be nice. Consistancy beyond just a set of icons to use as buttons. Consistancy in dialog size, composition and location. Things should work the same. Most normal people can't grasp computer concepts that fast so, if we make dialogs and menus that work similarly across all (or most) major

This is badly need in KDE, GNOME and all of Open Source.

Could someone rate me above Observer? It's pretty annoying.

2 Apr 2000

Sun, 2 Apr 2000 04:10:30 GMT

I see so many different things that are missing from the whole GNU spectrum. Mostly little things but, in the end, that can end up being a major stumbling block for Linux and GNU.

I also want to see more open source software in Windows. Yes, windows. Last time I remembered, windows software wasn't banned from being in the GNU, though you would think that from all the bias and propaganda that surrounds Linux and the BSDs.

Lite Step (www.litestep.net), perfect example of a GREAT project with almost zero visisbility in the Linux/Open Source community.

Projects like this need to be visible and talked about. They need to be supported and coded. Linux coders can code in Windows. They can learn about how windows works. Like it or not, most of the world runs on windows 95. That isn't going to change soon. The sooner people realize that instead of living in a pipe dream that Linux is going to sweep the world all of a sudden instead of a slow gradual acceptace that will have set-backs and may never totally outshine windows.

Linux might not win. Linux might just be useful and part of the solution for an end user. An end user. A novel idea. Someone who just uses the OS and the tools and doesn't hack code! Is this so bad? At least 90% of people will never even think of touching source code. They aren't bad people, they just have stuff to do.

Linux and GNU needs to start tailoring itself to them. If Linux is going to take over the world, it must understand the world it's going to take over. Alot of coders may never want that. Mainstream. Isn't that a scary thought? If kernel traffic got bogged down with stupid questions now, think if Joe Q. Public was just a click away from ranting about every little problem to the likes of Alan Cox and Linus himself.

Bill Gates has a staff of people to answer his e-mail. Linus still hand reads all his as does almost all linux developers. I say that Linux isn't quite ready to be mainstream. Hackers aren't quite ready to be rock stars. They may end up not even wanting the fame and all the stupid things that come with it.

This is just open ranting now. Unorganized but, hopefully you see that this isn't flamebait but, rather things that I think that the community needs to talk about. It you are interested in some dialog about this, e- mail me. I'm not here to be flamed and all flames will not recive any reply.