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After a long autumn working on various embedded linux related contracts, writing way to many version of a business plan, trying to get some order back in my life (still working on it), and various other thing ... most of them family and looking for a job kind of stuff ... Read More

Friday is my last day at .gov where I will be moving on the bigger and better things. For the past 14 months Ive been through three natural disasters (Indian Ocean tsunami, Katrina/Rita hurricanes, Pakistani/Indian earthquake), watched a few funerals on TV (Pope John Paul II, Rosa Parks, Coretta Scott King) and scandal galore (too many to list). Read More

... because you pressed this button? [image:1800 align=center width=320 class=showonplanet] The Defaults button in KDE's Configure... dialogs resets all application settings to the factory defaults. In a tabbed dialog design, this does not become clear at all: The label does not tell if it refers to the current tab or to the whole dialog. For the user, this is especially difficult to learn as KControl behaves differently: Here, the Defaults button refers to the currently active tab only. Read More

hmmm... not sure if I should really leak it. Because it is totally untested. I've currently only a remote connection from a Windows/PuTTy box to a SUSE Linux server with no FreeNX or NX server installed. So I couldn't test it. But I used isaac's Debian packages (not knowing if they are for Sarge or for Sid -- I'm assuming Sid) to update the klik://wesnoth-latest recipe. Previously it built a Wesnoth 1.0 klik image -- meaning it wasn't really "*-latest". Now it builds a 1.1.1 image -- it is really latest! :-) Read More

I'm in Santa Clara for the XDevConf. Flying from cold and rainy Philly to sunny Santa Clara is quite a change. I wish I brought my skateboard. I couldn't get WIFI working in the hotel which was a little disappointing and I forgot to bring an ethernet cable. I went down to the reception and noticed that they charge $5 for renting a cable. I decided that I need to get something good to drink to forget that I'm about to pay $5 for renting something that I could buy for about $1. There's a neat juice store across the street so I went there. I started a conversation about the naming scheme they had for the juices (which was just sad) with the girl working behind the counter and I got my juice for free ("berry blitz with immunity boost" was the name). Equipped with that I went back to the hotel where I started talking to the girl behind the counter and got the ethernet cable for free. Can't complain. Next time I'll be aiming for not having to pay for the hotel ;) Read More

Seele, I understand that you are a big Pittsburgh fan and are understandably happy they "won", but I can't imagine how you can call it a "great game to watch." See, unlike most of the country and unlike most of the people at the stadium in Detroit and unlike all of the referees on the field, I was hoping for a Seahawks win. That game was horrible. But, don't take my word for it... read just about every account of the game, anywhere. Read More

sorry for the caps, but i am yelling :) this weekend justin and i went home and watched (and later celebrated) the steelers play in the super bowl. for those of you who are not familiar with the super bowl, it is the championship game for american football (you know that weird game that is nothing like soccer). for those of you who are not familiar with me or the steelers, you should know that i am from pittsburgh and so are they ;) Read More

I've been busy with the KOffice-1.5.0 Beta klik packages. Most of the initial b0rkenness is gone now: missing dependencies, differently named libraries on different distros, etc. Thanks to isaac (who built Debian Sarge compatible .debs (for Sarge as well as for Sid) and who tries to update them from time to time too), klik and Debian users have access to well done (yet unofficial) packages. Here is the list of klik links: Read More

Today I took some time to configure an nx server on a system for which I am the administrator. It is a server in a library behind a firewall server. Actually I have to access both a linux server behind that firewall and a windows server as the application they are using is windows based (and even if it runs just fine through wine, it is not enough in every case). So first I had to solve the direct access from myself to the linux server. With some iptables rules I did it (first time in my life!). It is not perfect as I am using a dial-up connection, so my IP address is not fixed and I had to enable ssh access from a wider range, but it works. ssh to the server behind the firewall worked on a non-standard port. Time to try nx. I had some problems running nxclient. For me, on SuSE 10, it showed an empty xmessage window with an OK button. :-0 I checked, I have everything installed, still nothing happens. As a last resort I downloaded the client RPM package from NoMachine. And the wonder happened: it works. Now I could enable the encryption for all traffic, meaning that theoretically I must be able to access the nxserver with only the custom ssh port open in the firewall. And for my surprise, it worked: I could log in to the KDE desktop from the library. The speed is quite amazing, I would say. I may tweak this even more for the future, but even now with a 800x600 screen it is fast enough. I run krdc to connect to the Windows server: works and fast again. So basicly I have now my KDE desktop, inside that another KDE desktop and inside that the Windows desktop. Amazing, I would say. The latency is a little bit high, but this is because of my modem connection (it is a 3G wireless modem, ~128kbps upload, ~300kbps download). Read More

A while ago I did an article on Cosmopod on KDE Dot News. Cosmopod do remote KDE desktops via NX supported by an advert down the side. Before publishing I asked the Cosmopod man if he was sure he would be ready for the influx of users this would bring. He said he was but 10,000 registrations later and the poor server came to a grinding halt. Well they're now back up and running, the About Us page has some interesting comments on the future of computing. Read More