cristian tibirna 

OpenPrinting summit in Montréal

Monday, 24 September 2007
The Linux Foundation organizes this year's OpenPrinting Summit in Montréal. I will be there on Monday and Tuesday, trying to represent KDE.

KDEPrint JJ (n.b. JJ=junior jobs)

Saturday, 14 July 2007
In order to heal some of my procrastination-induced bruises, I decided to do a little social experiment, that tends to prove to myself (once again) that we, humans, are inherently good, only sometimes misguided (read below for the excitement). Read More

Apple bought CUPS

Friday, 13 July 2007
News here and here /me wide-eyed but neutral (still). I don't have a good knowledge of the internals of the CUPS community, but from my ignorant viewpoint, Michael Sweet had the largest hand in that code. Read More

The first mockups of an eventual future main KDEPrint dialog

Friday, 13 July 2007
Rutger Claes, KDEPrint's GSoC student for the new UI design, published his report on today's most common forms of printing interfaces. He also offers the fruit of his analysis of how the main dialog should appear in KDE. Read More

Work on support for online OpenPrinting drivers progresses

Friday, 13 July 2007
Gavin Beatty, GSoC student for the KDEPrint's online OpenPrinting drivers fetching and installation, provided his latest report today. It's refreshing to see enthusiasm and excitement from new young faces joining our community. Read More

kAudioCreator

Thursday, 12 July 2007
It's quite long since I want to write about this: I used to use the audiocd: ioslave to rip my CDs. But since almost a year, I started to constantly use kAudioCreator. Read More

gsoc midterm

Wednesday, 11 July 2007
Yes, time passes too fast. It's almost time for this year's Summer of Code midterm evaluation. During the week-end I "met" my two students online for a more in depth checkpoint than what we usually have and I'm quite pleased! Read More

the year of the linux desktop *g*

Wednesday, 11 July 2007
I've got pointed to http://www.ehomeupgrade.com/entry/4030/first_look_asus Look! KDE as default on a laptop! And a meant-to-be-very-popular one! Big thanks, ASUS.

There is hope

Saturday, 17 March 2007
I'm a juk kind of guy. Yet a few weeks ago, frustrated with my inability to make akode or arts play the 50 mp3s from my collection of 2000-odd pieces (mostly ogg, personal CDs-ripped), I gave Amarok a new try. Read More

SQIL 2006

Sunday, 19 November 2006
This year's SQIL seems to have attracted less attention from the local Linux community. I was invited to provide a conference on a topic of my choice. I decided on a much more philosophical discussion compared to last year: Qui? Read More

Zoom widgets

Tuesday, 7 November 2006
In a small poll (or sorta), Albert asks what kind of values are better in the zoom combobox for oKular. IMO, zoom is best represented by either: a slider with major ticks in almost logarithmic scale, going from 10% to (wishful thinking) 10000%, with a spinbox or constrained textedit next to it to show the slider value and allow manual editing a zoom out button and a zoom in button (with the classical icons and obeying bidirectional gui guidelines) with a constrained textedit inbetween. Read More

10 YEARS

Sunday, 15 October 2006
Ten years ago tomorrow, I was sitting in my office at the university, at 1AM, and, tired of many hours of difficult coding, I decided to take a break and read some of my building up mailing list subscriptions. Read More

What's in a name

Saturday, 12 August 2006
Kurt promptly provided me with a nice surprise. There are(!) GUI (even KDE) applications that print labels. But... what's in a name! I know about KBarCode since long (and, being old, don't remember exactly since when). Read More

Printing labels

Friday, 11 August 2006
I use linux since 1994. I pride myself into thinking I know well what kind of tool linux can be. I am accustomed with (and get quite thrilled about) the notion that I will learn something new every day of my life, right until the last one. Read More

smart

Friday, 9 June 2006
Today I started to use smart on all the suse-10.1 systems I use and, in the joy, I installed it on my suse-9.3 systems too. Life is better now.

Food for thought

Wednesday, 7 June 2006
A good friend of mine recommended to me What Mind–Body Problem?, an excellent read on the age-old puzzle of consciousness. His recommendation came interestingly as a complement to the book of John D. Read More

wtf?

Saturday, 3 June 2006
Seele found that KDE got caught on thedailywtf. Thanks to this, I learned that there exists something called "kflickr". The other KDE mention there seems to involve kdeprint. Well, I grepped for those rather tongue-in-cheek error messages in the kdeprint code but I couldn't find any trace. Read More

KDE at CLLAP 2006

Saturday, 27 May 2006
I'm "back" from CLLAP 2006 (quotes around the word back because it was a 15 minutes drive to home) (ed. 2006-05-26: I started to write this on 2006-05-24...) Although the conference was international and addressed to governments, the expo that accompanied it (and in which we had a KDE booth) was very small. Read More

freedom

Monday, 22 May 2006
Aaron tries to wake back up the old (and perpetual) discussion about freedom in software. I can't agree more with his perspective. It will make well over 8 years now that I continuously preach, to anybody patient to listen, the social importance of the essential notions of collaboration ingrained in free software. Read More

It ain't broke, don't fix it!

Saturday, 20 May 2006
More and more often, I get the occasion for a violent rant. This means one of two things: either a) I become older and crazier or b) this world becomes too stupid and too crazy for me. Read More

Linux in government: CLLAP 2006

Wednesday, 17 May 2006
Some time ago, I got a personal invitation to represent KDE with a booth at CLLAP on May 23-24 2006. Altough this event happily intersects with my work and my (already legendary) lack of personal time, I decided to give it a go (read more. Read More

Pride

Monday, 15 May 2006
Seeing a body of the size of Gouvernment of Canada do the right thing can be a reason of pride. Statcan introduced web-based census this year. But they had a limitation as to what browsers can be used. Read More

KDEPrint ideas for Google's "Summer Of Code"

Saturday, 6 May 2006
The KDEPrint team is willing to mentor two projects in the frame of Google's Summer of Code". We would like a student to work on streamlining and improving, usability-wise, the KDEPrint user interfaces. Read More

At LWCE Toronto 2006

Wednesday, 3 May 2006
With a 7-days delay, here is what I still remember ;-) of my activity at LWCE Toronto 2006. I went there pushed by George Staikos (who couldn't go this year) and sponsored by the organizers (Plum Communications of Canada). Read More

Kurt about LPS

Tuesday, 18 April 2006
LWN published a writeup of first two days of the Linux Printing Summit in Atlanta, most excellently written by our own Kurt Pfeiffle. A great collection of information complementary to his previous blog entry. Read More

Back from the Linux printing Summit

Sunday, 16 April 2006
I finally find some time to write on my being at the Printing Linux Summit in Atlanta from 10 to 12 April. I was kindly invited by Till Kamppeter from linuxprinting. Read More

the fine touch (tm)

Saturday, 8 April 2006
In the last months I bought two T43 laptops for my work. Nice machines. We use them for road warring/presentations and even for a bit of FEM development. So, I usually just shrink windows and insinuate geeko onto them. Read More

Here, there, everywhere

Friday, 31 March 2006
I will be to the Printing Summit in Atlanta in a few days. Then I will be at the LinuxWorld Conference in Toronto in a few weeks. The work required before (and for) these is much more than I thought and planned initially. Read More

Trivially complex.

Thursday, 19 January 2006
I found a sound clip. OGG. I wanted to listen to it. Just listen. So I clicked on it. KDE offered to open it with Kaffeine. I accepted Kaffeine started and promptly gave me an error dialog but no sound. Read More

Speaking to government

Sunday, 15 January 2006
On January 10th 2006 I was offered the opportunity to speak to the directors of IT services from the Québec gouvernment. Québec is one of the provinces of Canada, with rather important economic and cultural power in North America. Read More

Ugly KPresenter templates

Monday, 21 November 2005
I want to use KPresenter. Really, I do. And of course, this being a presentations software, I want to do with it a presentation. By its very own implicit definition, a presentation has to be attractive yet simple, suggestive yet discrete. Read More

SQIL-tested

Sunday, 20 November 2005
Well, SQIL came, has been, and passed. As I was saying, I presented KDE yesterday afternoon at the Laval University chapter of this pan-provincial manifestation. I dare say all went well. Read More

KDE present at SQIL

Monday, 14 November 2005
I will make a general presentation of KDE for the public that will attend the events of SQIL (Semaine Québécoise de l'informatique libre - Quebec's Week for a free computing). I was very kindly invited for this by LINUQ the LUG of Québec City. Read More

This world is so small

Tuesday, 8 November 2005
I found on Hans Nowak's "Effectos Speciales" a mention of the map of SoC mentors and students This is the first time I see it. OK, no deep philosophical reflections on this, but let me put out a few observations: Read More

Ricoh supports KDE printing

Wednesday, 19 October 2005
Ricoh USA just delivered to me (as representing KDE) a nice color laser printer (CL4000DN). It looks very impressive and it prints like a fairy tale charm. The hero in this is George Liu, Linux engineer at Ricoh, believes in KDE's technologies and wants Linux to succeed (printing aspects withstanding). Read More

Books start to arrive

Wednesday, 28 September 2005
I got very nice word from Jure Repnic that the books started to get to destination. And Jure says "... I hope we se a similar book for KDE 4 . Read More

The pinnacle of usability

Friday, 16 September 2005
Just saw a Yes/No dialog (in KDE, I specify, to avoid confusion) with tooltips installed on the Yes and No pushbuttons. The tooltips read "Yes" and "No" respectively. I'm flabbergasted!

Bug reports

Thursday, 15 September 2005
(Yes, blogs are slowly becoming what mailing lists always were anyways... It's my secret theory that blogs were invented by people a) discontent with their visibilities on dedicated mailing lists and b) not willing to mix their greatness with the commoners ;-) Read More

My leaving the bug reports discussion

Thursday, 15 September 2005
Wow! I'm glad I'm not in Calgary tonight, or Aaron might have come down to my place and beat me up ;-) ) Anyways I will refrain from wielding back at him my (past century) sarcasm and irony weaponry. Read More

Tsync

Friday, 2 September 2005
An interesting thing to have: James Anderson's G-SOC sponsored TSync. I didn't look at the code yet, but the principles are clear enough and are definitely attractive when related to synchronizing collections of (KDE) settings, a long time wish/request from our users. Read More

Twisted brain

Wednesday, 31 August 2005
Since the move to SVN, I have a perception problem that was not present with CVS. I physically cringe when I realize I have to fix a commit that I somehow botched (e. Read More

It still surprises me, after 10 years (re: KDEPrint junior job)

Thursday, 25 August 2005
After posting a very short announce about the available KDEPrint junior job 5 days ago, I received no less than 5 offers to help from Andre Gemuend, James McArthur, Arnould Brice, Alfredo Cerutti and Steve Starr. Read More

Summary display in KMail

Saturday, 20 August 2005
Since a few days, I feel the lack of a summary mode in KMail. I have many tens of folders and subfolders, on three accounts (local, work, uni) and I have KMail filters putting things al overy this stuffy arborescence. Read More

Junior job for improving documentation of KDEPrint

Friday, 19 August 2005
This message says it all. This is a really easy opportunity to start contributing to your favorite open source project.

Transmeta?

Friday, 19 August 2005
It is quite some time already since I think about getting myself some powerful PDA or a very light laptop. My boss at work wants a lightweight laptop for our research group too. Read More

Semiotics

Thursday, 18 August 2005
We use all sorts of signs and symbols to communicate. And quite often, communicate we don't. I was brushing quickly through a few useless magazines I inadvertently collected while at LWE-SF last week. Read More

Books sent

Wednesday, 17 August 2005
I was writing about my extra copies of the KDE 2.0 Development book. Three people asked for them. I shipped them today to Jure Repnic, Reuben Sutton and Lex Hider.

Discipline

Wednesday, 17 August 2005
I started rather late in my life to work for a gain, at age 23. This was so given the political organization of the place I was then in and thanks to the invaluable care of my parents, who wanted us (me and my sister) to get solid education and be nondisturbed by external difficulties of any kind in the process. Read More

LinuxWorldExpo San Francisco 2005 - day 3

Monday, 15 August 2005
After describing how I traveled to San Francisco and the first and second days at the LinuxWorldExpo, here comes a brief synopsis of the last day on the Linuxprinting.org and KDE booths. Read More

LinuxWorldExpo San Francisco 2005 - photos

Monday, 15 August 2005
KDE and LinuxPrinting.org at LWE, now in color: Setting up the booths in the .org pavilion Visitors in the first day: Charles Samules (right) and David Johnson at the KDE booth: Kitch: Charles Samules (left) and Jason Katz-Brown at the KDE booth: Commercial floor: . Read More

LinuxWorldExpo San Francisco 2005 - the day after

Monday, 15 August 2005
LWE-SF 2005 is over. I'm back to the normal schedule now. Here is the fasttrack of getting back home. 5h30 - wake up, shower, check room, check baggages. 6h30 - breakfast, alone. Read More

LinuxWorldExpo San Francisco 2005 - day 2

Sunday, 14 August 2005
Now I'm back at home, after a very well filled-up days in SF then in Québec. I didn't manage to write down about the happenings in SF while still there and I'm a bit whisked about that. Read More

LinuxWorldExpo San Francisco 2005 - day 0

Wednesday, 10 August 2005
Yes, I'm in SF now. Since yesterday. Which was day zero. Here is how it went: 4h00 - After 4h of sleep (at the end of a hectic week with only 5h sleep/night), I leave Quebec towards Montreal to get the plane from there. Read More

LinuxWorldExpo San Francisco 2005 - day 1

Wednesday, 10 August 2005
Here is the story of my day 1 at LWE-SF. The morning: Finally, the important part of my trip here is starting. Immediately after the breakfast, we meet all (Till Kamppeter, Kurt Pfeifle, Uli Wehner, Patrick Powell, David Suffield, George Liu, and me) at the booth for the latest preparations. Read More

Propaganda

Sunday, 7 August 2005
Today was a nice day. I ran around for a good part of it for the last items I'll have to bring with me to LWE-SF. I spent some quiet time with my family. Read More

Kurt's series on NX

Saturday, 6 August 2005
The third part of Kurt Pfeifle's NX series in Linux Journal just hit the web. It is a very instructive piece of writing. It provides rich information about motivations, history, technology and utilisation of NX/FreeNX. Read More

En avant!

Thursday, 4 August 2005
I gave today the presentation I prepared for the last few weeks for a work-related international conference. I'm pleased with how things went. Tomorrow the conference ends. From then on, I'll go in 6th gear on preparing for the trip to San Francisco LinuxWorld Expo. Read More

Emotional

Tuesday, 2 August 2005
I'm not the emotional type. But... In a very distant past, I was co-author to the "KDE 2.0 Development" book. One colateral outcome of this happening was that I got 5 copies of the book. Read More

FreeNX hurries up!

Thursday, 30 June 2005
Isn't it nice? FreeNX hurries up! There are things for which I care more than for most, simply because I feel that they are bent to drive the world as we know it to become a much better place. Read More

(KDE and FreeNX) Better together

Tuesday, 21 June 2005
A few days ago, Kurt Pfeifle very kindly offered me the opportunity to test NX. I'm an old guy and I thoroughly dislike buzzwords, but sometimes it's simply no way around particular ones. Read More

Mmmm... C++

Friday, 17 June 2005
(This entry is, of course, in relation to logs by ruurd, ruurd and mpyne) I find it troubling that after so many years, C++ still needs such detailed explanations about fundamental functionality. Read More

Wolfpack syndrom

Friday, 17 June 2005
I call what njaard observed the wolfpack syndrom. The human being is a competitional animal (as any product of natural evolution) but with a twist. We premeditate the way we compete, we're not doing it instinctively. Read More

Back and bracing myself

Wednesday, 25 May 2005
It's "official" now, I'm back to more than lurking in the KDE virtual world. I reactivated today, after almost a year of interruption, the mail flood from cvs and kwin. I also set myself a cap of minimum 1h and a max of 2h per day for coding and manual reading. Read More

Finally woken (again)

Thursday, 19 May 2005
After 7 years with my own (almost famous ;-)) build scripts and almost a year with kde-build, I switched today to kdesvn-build (many thanks, mpyne). It's definitely worth it, be it only for the colored output and for the progression notification. Read More

Oughta... write... some... applications.

Thursday, 19 May 2005
Yes, it's already bad to be forced to own and run 16 different linux distros just so as to have one's application available for "linux". But it's even worse when there isn't an application at all. Read More

"Selling" KDE

Friday, 13 May 2005
Among my other numerous and intricate tasks at work, I also play the temporary role of informatics djin in our research group. I herd machines, mold users (yeah :-| ), tend for software (both sickly commercial licenced stuff and marvelous free gems), test compilers etc. Read More

The bitter failure named "safari and khtml"

Friday, 29 April 2005
It's a sad thing to read intelligent people uttering frivolous and unsubstantiated affirmations, harpooning around with caustic near-to-arrogance addressings and pulling a Demostene from the "height" of their perceived more inner understanding of the "grand scheme". Read More

Down

Tuesday, 12 April 2005
My general mood is down. I'd like a "Personal Rant" category here... I am now compiling for the last time the KDE CVS HEAD source. No, I don't intend to kill myself. Read More

searching frenzy

Wednesday, 5 May 2004
You know that a framework is great when adding a new feature (like, say, searching in a listview) takes under 5 minutes. I got annoyed of never being able to easily find offending keybindings in the kkeydialog's listview so I decided to use Scott Wheeler's ListViewSearchLine widget to fix the problem. Read More

bad at weaving?

Friday, 23 April 2004
I was reading the PyCon presentation at LJ (very interesting stuff) and got idly browsing the very cool SubEthaEdit notes (I will probably comment at some other time on my fascination with Python and about the enticing principles behind SubEthaEdit). Read More