Stuphi

As I may have said before, I like to use LaTeX for writing reports for work. Often, these reports include some images. Simple. Take a photo, edit and crop the jpeg, and then convert to Encapsulated Postscript to add to the report.
Now if someone was to ask me how to convert from one format to another, then I would suggest to them ImageMagick and its convert utility. Sure enough, this is what I have been using for some time. The only problem is that the EPS files it creates are huge.
Playing around with the options, and I have managed to get by for some time. Now I have a new answer. sam2p.
This is a great little program that does just what I need. Fantastic!

I connected my Epson Stylus Photo R285 printer to my main computer after reorganizing my network. This time I wanted to share the printer with my laptop, that duel boots Windows and Ubuntu. Like a fool, I dove into the guts of the CUPS configuration files. Tried to work out what I needed to edit on the host machine to get it to share the printer, and on the client machine to get it to connect. Eventually, I found a couple of check boxes I needed to put a tick in, and viola! It worked!

If only editing policykit or consolekit or whatever it is called. For some time, I have put up with having to enter my password on shutdown as some policy will not allow the machine to close while other users are logged in. It would appear that Mythtv runs as a logged in user. I understand why this would be a default setting on a server. However, on my computer it makes no sense. I want my wife or kids to be able to turn the computer on, do some stuff, and shut down without needing admin privileges. I guess the problem is with Mythtv, but it would be nice to have some policy editor where I can simply turn on and off what I want.

Fortunatly, someone ponted me towards required edit.

I was browsing through the manual for my new TV, when I saw a reference to the GPL.

This product uses some software programs which are distributed under the GPL/LGPL license. Accordingly, the following
GPL and LGPL software source codes that have been used in this product can be provided after asking to vdswmanager@samsung.com.
GPL software: Linux Kernel, Busybox, Binutils
LGPL software: Glibc, ffmpeg, smpeg, libgphoto, libusb, SDL

Now, how do I get root?

The other day, Google released its open source operating system. This has been expected for some time, and I was keen to have a look.

Well following some instructions, I managed to fail to compile my own image of the new operating system. Having quickly bored of trying, my next option was to download a pre-compiled version. This was easy to find, and ended up with having a VirtualBox appliance on my hard drive.

Now this is very early software, so it would be unfair to be critical. However, it does look promising. For someone who only used a computer to email and surf the web, it would be great.

It has been suggested that it will another year before this becomes a full release. In the mean time, I intend to keep an eye on it.

So I have started playing with Mapnik and Openstreetmap data. A number of times in the past when I have attemped this, it has fallen over. Finally I have got it up and running. Now all I need is to find a suitable application for this.

In the meantime, I can play around creating animations such as this.

Youtube Link

It is that time of year again.

Google used to tell you how to do this on their website. I cant find it now, so maybe they are no longer supporting this. However, at the time of writing this, it still works for syncing contacts at least.

On the phone, goto Organizer->Synchronization->New Account

Give it a name, such as “Google Sync”

Then under App. settings, select Contacts and then for Database name use contacts

That should be it. Now you can set it to sync on a schedule. Don’t forget to back up your contacts on both your Google account and on your phone first just in case it all goes wrong.

Well it has been expected for a while. It is now official. This is the first I have seen from Google about them creating their own operating system.

Will it be any good? I don’t know, but I will give it a try, when it is available.

For a product that I am working on, I need to attach a rope to the product. Simple, I thought, tie a knot. My first feeble attempts fell apart. Later attempts did the job, but looked a mess. A quick Google later, and I had a knot that seems to do the job. The tucked double overhand. Three simple images are enough to explain how the knot works. Moments later I had the knot off pat, and decided to show the production department.

All of a sudden we hit a problem. For some reason, no one else is able to tie this knot! I can’t believe that I am particularly gifted in this area, but maybe I am not a dumb as I think sometimes. Is this a hard knot?

This animation was done in Povray. I got fed up of trying to show the knot to people, so next time they ask, they will get a link to this.

Ok, so I doubt anybody who stumbles across this will really care, but here goes anyhow. The alarm function on my mobile phone is great. It makes sure I get up each morning. However, it could be better. At the moment it is scheduled to wake me up at the same time each work day, and do nothing at the weekend. Every now an then, pesky things called ‘bank holidays’ come along, and the last thing I want is to be woken up early when I could stay asleep a bit longer.

What is needed is a function that disables the next alarm only. Then when I go to bed the evening before the bank holiday, felling good about not having to get up in the morning, the alarm can be disabled for the next alarm only without the fear that I may forget to turn it on again the next night.