Daily Bytes

KDE 3.5

>>> emerge (1 of 254) kde-base/arts-3.5.0 to /

254 frigging packages :-O

Gnome 2.10

Gnome 2.10 is out and there is at least one new feature that will make me upgrade asap: ‘Mozilla style typeahead in Open/Save dialogs and other trees’.

By the way, I just found that Acrobat Reader 7.0 for Linux is also available.

K700 and Linux

It’s been a while since I posted something so I guess I’ll post something usefull for a change.

I finally managed to find some time to get my K700 talking with my Gentoo box. Here is a crude how-to:

• Tweak your kernel

 Bluetooth subsystem support
 L2CAP protocol support
 RFCOMM protocol support  
<*> RFCOMM TTY support
Bluetooth device drivers --->  HCI USB driver

• Add the following USE tags: irmc, evo, bluetooth
• emerge:
• • gnome-bluetooth (adds send via bluetooth item in nautilus menu)
  • kdebluetooth (allows remote file browsing)
  • obex-server (to receive file via obex)
  • multisync (allows syncing with evolution - still have to find a way to sync with SunBird)
  • bluez (bluez-libs, bluez-utils, bluez-sdp)
• If multisync doesn’t find your irmc plugins add a ‘.so’ extension to the libs in /usr/lib/multisync/
• Use the T68 defaults in multisync imrc options but uncheck ‘don’t tell the client we are syncing’
• Use the following apps to talk with the K700
• • konqueror
  • nautilus
  • gnome-obex-server
  • multisync
  • evolution (finally recurrent events)

Next step:

• Make an application for the K700 that comunicates with my homebrew jukebox (Java Bluetooth How-to).

References:

• K700 & Linux
• Not finding plugins
• Gentoo Bluetooth How-to

One more step towards a better Office

One of the features Linux needs to address in order to be a real alternative to the other OS is a decent Officce suite. Every day we are getting closer to a usable alternative. The three major components that need to be addresses are, in no particular order: Text Processing, Spreadsheet and Presentations.

The Text Processor

According to Slashdot, AbiWord 2.2 has been released today and besides numerous bugfixes it has some great new features like Mac OS X support and Text Wrapped Images.

IMHO AbiWord its still not ready to work with Real Documents ™. For that I still use LaTeX and its nice frontend Lyx.

The Spreadsheet

Suprisingly the spreadsheet has been the first issue to be taken care of with Gnumeric. Gnumeric really is one of those Open Source projects that are one step ahead of the others.

Presentations

What we didn’t have was a Presentation Application. But that seems to be changing. As today I found out there is a new (old?) project ou there calles Criawips. Criawips seems to be a very active project and going in the right direction although it’s still a very imature product.

The Suite

What’s even nicer is that AbiWord and Gnumeric already have some kind of interaction between them, with users being able to copy objects from one into the other. This two products already are part of a bigger picture: GNOME Office. Maybe will see Criawips joining in the near future.

The Footnote

And for those that are wondering: Yes I know OpenOffice, but for me, a cramped application suite that takes 5-10 minutes to open isn’t even an alternative.

Database Filesystem

Changing the way we organize files:

Onne Gorter - Home/projects/dbfs/
Database File System; It is a new type of file system that does away with places where you store your files. Actually do not think of it as a file system, instead think of it as a document system. And while being precise, it is not database system either, it is a faceted system. It is a file system geared toward serving the user and is meant to make your live easier. It supports ‘locating’ files the way you think about them.

Gmail Filesystem

It had to happen some day:

GmailFS - Gmail Filesystem
GmailFS provides a mountable Linux filesystem which uses your Gmail account as its storage medium. GmailFS is a Python application and uses the FUSE userland filesystem infrastructure to help provide the filesystem, and libgmail to communicate with Gmail.

Smaller Factor

What about this really small bluetooth web server running Linux Kernel 2.6? It accepts MMC cards but it should work with external usb hard-drives too.

Think of the possibilities it brings …

Uptime

I had my desktop computer at work running for 134 days. I just had to turn if off because I was getting a memory upgrade. Kids dont try this at home with a Windows machine

RSync

How to synchronize files between 2 computers without:

• Using timestamps
• Sending files between the computers for comparison
• Sending more than only the parts of the file that have really changed

Seems impossible? Then read Andrew Tridgell’s PhD Thesis page 49 for a cool explanation on how he managed to do it with the rsync protocol.

Latex Introduction

This one is an oldie but still usefull. Blogged for future reference:

The Not So Short Introduction to LaTeX 2e (PDF)