Category: Technology

Found a great how to on installing Suse via FTP and APT. Useful information for managing and using Suse. One of the most interesting parts of the article is when they tell you to install kynaptic. Yes, there is evidently a KDE APT front-end much like Synaptic. The version linked to is pretty old (Suse 9.1, about 8 months old) but I have not been able to find the repository for the Kynaptic main… yet!

While I was hunting down Kynaptic, I found another interesting link. Apt Indicator is a system try applet that works like Redhat’s up2date or Suse’s Watcher. It informs you when there are updates available in your current apt repositories.

Finally, I discovered that Kynaptic might not even be necessary. KPackage (KDE package management tool) works just fine with apt4rpm. It even auto-configured itself to work with my current apt sources. Funny, I could never get KPackage to work on Redhat. Heck, most of the time it would not even install.

Kiosk Mode is a feature (mentioned previously) that allows administrators to setup groups to manage limiting of user rights within KDE. The functionality is basically required in small business, school, and company environments. The link above is to an outstanding tutorial on using Kiosk. Like all KDE functionality, its a feature that is automatically inherited by any KDE applications.

One of the necessary evils of the *nix world is vi (or more preferably vim.) Suse 9.2 has been a wonderful distrobution for me to use; but one of the HUGE annoyances of it is the busted-ass-pain-in-the-butt way Suse 9.2’s Vim handles the backspace key. You would think that the backspace key… ya know.. deletes stuff to the left of your cursor. Well in Vim on Suse 9.2 you would be wrong.

For some reason that continues to remain a mystery to me, Suse has decided that the backspace key should beep at me. Its not enough that the key would not work, but it actually has to annoy me with loud beeping noises. A quick check with the vi homepage FAQ shows that the correct behavior of the backspace key is… to delete stuff to the left of the cursor (will wonders never cease.) In fact they are so infuriated by this change of behavior (justifiable, I might add) that they have created a vim command to fix any problems vendors may have introduced into the beloved backspace key.

Ktoon is an SVG editor and animator created by Toonka Films, focused mostly on the Cartoon Industry. The SVG format is roughly equivalent to Flash.

And while we are on that subject check out vnc2swf a application for making flash movies of vnc screen captures. For those interested in making screen capture movies O’Reilly has an article on doing it a slightly different way.

The head of documentation for the KDE project has listed a couple FYI points for anyone thinking about doing KDE documentation.

• Docs are strings. When strings are frozen, so are the docs. The dates for string freezes are noted in the release schedule.
• Screenshots are not strings. They are not frozen during the string freeze.
• During string freezes, you can always send patches to kde-doc-english@. They will be applied after kde-i18n is ready, so they will be included in the release tarballs for your application, but they will not be translated until the next point release.
• You do not have to write docs in docbook, if you send plain text content to kde-doc-english@ (or attach it to any open bug reports about your application documentation) we will mark it up for you.
• Documentation should not be optional. Missing documentation is a bug, and may already be filed as such.
• A command/menu reference is considered required for all docs, but it is a bare minimum. Do try to write more useful content if you can.
• There is a questionnaire available to fill in with questions about your application. This can serve two purposes:
• If you are a developer who wants to write your own documentation but you are not sure how to start, the questionnaire will help you clarify the important points that must be covered.
• If you are not able to write documentation, answering the questions will give a good head start to anyone who volunteers to help you out, and will save them a lot of time asking questions, and you a lot of time answering them.

And be sure to check out my desktop image directory. There are some pretty freggin cool screenshots of my KDE 3.4 beta2 desktop. XFree86 is dead, long live X.org!

Linux Journal has an article discussing independent publishing and the role that Linux and open source applications can play in making it cost effective for independent authors.  It discusses the publication of an independent RPG by Clinton Nixon titled “The Shadow of Yesterday.”  The game seems to be fairly solid, but not necessarily widely popular.  Nixon published the game both on line and in book format.  “The Shadow of Yesterday” had a print run of only 150 books, but Nixon was able to recoup all this publishing costs within five weeks of publication. 

Much of print publication cost was saved in the actual printing (Nixon works for a printing company) but a surprising about of the cost  was saved in the use of web technologies, Linux, and open source publishing applications that allowed him to manage (CVS),  word process (OpenOffice.org),  format the print layout (Scribus), and create/manage/edit graphics (The Gimp.)  Combine these tools with current print-on-demand solutions and you have a powerful combination.

This is amazing news that has the potential to opens up a wide area of innovation in the print publication world.  Think about the opportunity that is available to independent authors if the financial limitations of print publishing are in the $1000-2000 range. 

When I was ten I created a RPG that my brother and our friends would play.  Thats the kind of price range that make me think about publishing some of my old work, and working on some new ideas.

A common questions from system administrators concerns the ability to turn off functionality on computers systems installed in a group usage environment.  Something like an internee cafe or a library.  Kiosk Admin Tool is a KDE management tool for exactly such needs.  Kiosk Admin Tool gives system administrators the ability to lock down a desktop by say, removing command line functionality or disabling the file manager.

DataKiosk is a KDE database tool that lets you (through an series of Kdevlop style wizards) create custom database query API styles for data access.  Anyone familiar with Juk will understand how well this kind of functionality works on generic table structures.  Here is a flash demo to help convey the concept.  Currently it in KDE CVS (kdeextragear-1)and available for testing.

Another site claiming to be “The Vault” has a quick how to on setting up KDE Public File Server (aka kpf.)  Kpf lets you share files with other users across a network using http.  Its basically a personal web server that doesn’t require administrator rights to use and is fully manageable from your KDE desktop.   The tutorial is light on information but has screen shots.  Oh, and FYI yes those Max OSX looking dialogs are KDE dialogs.  KDE/Kwin can be made to look like almost any desktop; OSX, Solaris, CDE, or even one from a company in the northwest United States (who shall remain unnamed.)

A particularly useful KDE application when developing, testing, or debugging is kdebugdialog. It is a single dialog box that lets you turn on/off all of the various debugging, error, and stderr messages for each KDE application and each debugging level. Thankfully, the dialog includes search functionality.