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djotaku's twitter feed
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- just started playing WarCraft III: Reign of Chaos. http://raptr.com/djotaku
- video did NOT kill the radio star. Radio is still around. MTV, on the other hand, no longer plays music videos. RIP TRL.
- Yay MD for the $170 electric bill credit!
- @harajukuroxy that stinks. My mom used to get a lot of migraines.
- My latest computer animation: http://server.ericsbinaryworld.com/dtbp/node/48
- My latest computer animation:
- Nearly done with my latest animation
- @minimoniotaku: the old momma joke was hilarious
- Using akmod-nvidia, built the latest drivers for nvidia and 3D works again! w00t w00t! Blender here I come!
- Dagnabbit. Nvidia doesn't support Xorg7.4pre so no Blender for me for a while
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Jan
18
After having tried drupal for a couple of years on an unrelated site, I came to see that it would be a great way to develop a new site for drop the bomb productions. After about two days of converting the site over, you can now see the results. I think it results in a cleaner, easier to navigate site and I think it’ll be easier for visitors to find what they’re looking for.
So go check it out!
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Tags: drupal, dtbp, drop the bomb productions
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Jan
14
Haiku Vs Syllable Part 2
Category: Haiku OS, Syllable | 
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I’ve tried a bunch of times, but apparently something’s wrong with the Syllable VMWare files and LiveCD because I was unable to get either to run. They both appear to be missing a bunch of necessary files.
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Jan
13
When most people think of the GPL, if they think of it at all, they tend to think of Linux and perhaps other operating systems. However, there are many benefits to using the GPL for programs on a smaller level. For example there is a Go Application in Facebook. This programmer could have gone through the near impossible headache of creating an implementation of Go.
However, as Wikipedia mentions, it is very tough to create sofware to play go, “While the strongest computer chess software has defeated top players (Deep Blue beat the world champion in 1997), the best Go programs only manage to reach an average amateur level.” This has to do with the high complexity level of the game’s strategy.
But someone has already created a game to play Go, called GNUGo. Since GNUGo is licensed under the GPL, the developer of the Go Application for Facebook is able to use the work which has already been done instead of having to replicate it. So in addition to the ethical/moral reason for licensing software under the GPL you can also add efficiency. It’s not efficient for people have to reimplement software just so they can mash it up with some new technology.
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Jan
12
KDE 4 is out!
Category: KDE | Leave a Comment
KDE 4.0 was released today! After seeing screenshots like the ones I want to share with you, I can’t wait to try it. Too bad Fedora won’t be including it until Fedora 9 in April.
All of the following images were produced by/for KDE.org. I’m just borrowing them for illustrative purposes.
First of all, here’s the default GUI:
Not too shabby. Looks pretty similar to KDE3, but with a “Vista Black” thing going on. But here’s where I really got excited:
What’s going on here is that the desktop is being hidden and the widgets are being brought to the forefront. This is precisely the answer to my problem with widgets - they’re always hidden behind the Programs I’m using! Now they can become a lot more useful to me!
They appear to have appropriated (as is OK in open source) the K Menu setup from SuSe. I tend to really like menu systems which emphasize favorite/most used programs because I tend to use the same 5 or so programs on a daily basis. So there are only two solutions - add shortcuts on the taskbar, taking up precious space, or have a favorites menu.
As you can see here, Compiz Fusion is no longer necessary in KDE as KWin now supports compositing. Here’s an effect similar to Expose on the Mac and with Compiz.
Finally, a screenshot of one of my favorite KDE games, Konquest. It’s been graphically updated and I’m sure it’s still as fun as ever.
To learn more, visit the KDE 4.0 Visual Guide.
(Note to KDE.org - I used Flock’s Web Clipboard to obtain these screenshots and didn’t realize they’d be inlined. I’ll fix it ASAP)
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Tags: KDE4
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Jan
11
Haiku Vs Syllable Part 1
Category: Geek Love, Haiku OS, Linux, Syllable | 8 Comments
(Note: I did the Haiku Part of this review in June of 2007, and didn’t get around to posting it, so some of these issues may have been resolved by now)
Everyone knows Windows, Apple, GNU/Linux and the BSDs. These computer operating systems have been around for 10-20 or so years and people know what they provide and how they function. However, there are two other OSes that sound as though they come from English class: Haiku and Syllable.
Haiku is a free software version of BeOS, an operating system that existed in the 90s around the time of the tech boom. Originally they ran on PowerPC processors and, even though they were considered to be superior to most other OSes at the time, it did not gain significant market share. This is not the first time this has happened. Betamax, for example, was technologically more advanced than VHS - but VHS offered other advantages. In the realm of computers, Amiga was superior to everything else around. It was the best for audio and video and still is used by a large number of users. At the time, its hardware was so awesome, people created “demos” with it to showcase the amazing graphics and sound. Yet, a mix a horrible management and the entrenchment of Apple and Windows caused it to lag behind until the other operating systems (and hardware) finally surpassed it and it no longer had any advantage for use.
BeOS was another awesome OS. Neal Stephenson in his essay, “In the beginning was the command line“, called BeOS the Batmobile - the ultimate power computer. According to people who still use it, 10 years later, BeOS was so well coded that, with the hardware of the time, it was able to do amazing things like decode more than one video stream at once. It was known for being very good for multimedia applications and video editing. In fact, there are still some companies which make dedicated video editing and compositing machines based upon BeOS.
With all this heritage, many people are anxiously awaiting the release of Haiku. They can’t wait to harness all of that power. BeOS was unable to get Apple to buy them and use them as the basis for OSX, so they went under and eventually had their copyrights and trademarks acquired by Palm. Palm did not continue to release BeOS - so people were left without an alternative. Haiku will avoid that because it is free software so if these guys don’t feel like maintaining it anymore, others can take it and continue to work on it.
I don’t know as much about SyllableOS. I do know it sprung up from AtheOS.
Both SyllableOS and Haiku do not have legacy code - in other words - while Windows was built on DOS and Linux was built on Unix, BeOS and Syllable were built with new technologies already existing. What does this mean for the end user? Well, since Windows is built on legacy code, it has to continue to support old technologies and patch in new technologies. Other than make it easier for virii to attack Windows, just think of how anything works when you have to patch it to work with new capabilities. Look at cars and other things where you add new functionalities - it just won’t be as stable and functional as if it were built it. Similarly, Linux and its GUIs are built upon the command line. This causes certain assumptions which mean that running Linux with a GUI will not work as well as the command line. Is this a large effect? I don’t know enough about computer science to answer well, but BeOS and SyllableOS have the GUI technologies built in, so it SHOULD be more efficient.
So, those of us who use free software are used to operating systems coming with useful software built in. Unlike a default Windows install that doesn’t come with any functional software, Linux and FreeBSD come with office software, many games, educational games, graphics software equivalent to Photoshop instead of the crap that is MS Paint, FTP software, IDEs, and more. Thus I wanted to see how viable these new OSes are. There are a lot of operating systems out there and people want something they can be productive and have fun with.
Which of these two OSes is ready for primtetime? Might one of them steal the desktop thunder from Linux? (Thus leaving it for the server and other stuff) So I will test them in terms of internet, chat, email, graphics, playing music files, watching videos, and playing with games. This is a very basic set of functionality and if the OS can’t do this - it might be falling behind.
I tested these in VMWare so your mileage may very in terms of functionality if fully installed on your hardware. Also, Haiku cannot currently be installed as a primary OS. Here we go….
First up is Haiku.
Here’s the default GUI:
You can see a couple of icons and the Leaf menu on the top-right corner. This functions as the taskbar in Windows, Linux, and other OSes. It also opens up a defaul terminal shell. So, while Haiku has the GUI built in and optimized, the terminal is there for you to do things just as in Linux and BSD. To open up a program, either click on the leaf menu or right click on the desktop.
Internet
Haiku does not seem to have an Internet Browser built in. There are Firefox builds for BeOS that should technically work, but I was unable to get it to work with the Haiku VMWare image. The problem is that the VMWare image was made with only 100 MB of disk space with only 20 MB available. That’s not enough space for untarring and installing Firefox. I am only using VMWare Player (not one of the more advanced VMWare programs) so I am unable to increase the disk size. If there’s a way to do it, I certainly don’t know about it. However, I was able to get one of the textual broswers to work. Still, I think it’s very important for an OS to come with an internet browser, especially with how important the Internet is nowadays. It can be a rebuild of Gecko/Firefox such as Epiphany, a rebuild of KHTML such a Safari, it can be their own native program, or it can be Firefox, simply compiled for BeOS. I think they need to solve this by the time they start releasing their milestone release.
Chat
Haiku appears not to have a native chat program. Perhaps I am wrong, but I couldn’t find one. Feel free to leave me a comment with corrections and I’ll fix it up.
Graphics
Here you can see that Haiku is able to open up PNGs. I took a screenshot of Haiku from within Haiku (thus demonstrating even another ability) and was able to open up the PNG. So you can open up images - again - a VERY basic functionality, but when recoding from scratch - it should not be taken for granted that any certain functionality is there.
Playing Music
I loaded up an ogg because if you can’t play the free, unencumbered format - then you can’t. It looks as though the media player can read the file and see which library to load. However, I fail to hear any sound or have any indication that it’s playing. Perhaps that hasn’t been implemented or perhaps it’s because it’s vmware. For the purposes of this test, it can’t play music.
Watching Videos
For the video test, I wanted to use one of my Xvid-encoded videos. However, there was not enough space on the VM.
Playing Games
Haiku does not appear to come with any games by default. Of course, it may be that they are waiting to include those until after they reach their first milestone. Alternatively, they may be relying on people using games from BeOS, since there is binary compatibility with the last version of BeOS.
I will continue with Syllable, hopefully this weekend. But as a preview:
Here’s the default Gui:
You can see it has a few icons and a taskbar at the top of the screen. It looks a bit like a Windows desktop, but with the bar at the top like in a Macintosh or a Gnome desktop in Linux.
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Tags: Syllable, Haiku-OS, Haiku
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Jan
10
iPod Shuffle
Category: DRM, Linux, Music | 2 Comments
For years I had been saying that I would not buy an iPod product. After all, they sell music in the iTunes music store with DRM on it. All of my music on my Linux computer is in the OGG format and it can’t be played with iPods. However, when it came time to buy an audio player I did a bit of research. It had to be something I could buy at the local Best Buy because I had a coupon and gift card. Of the players sold at Best Buy, the players which supported OGG were, ironically, not well supported on Linux. In fact, the best supported and integrated player in Linux was the iPod. That’s important to me since I use my Linux computer for serving my main audio needs. All of my podcasts come in through Rhythmbox. The second requirement I had is that it had to be of the same form factor as the 2nd Generation iPod Shuffle so that it could use it at the gym clipped onto my shirt or shorts and not weigh me down at all. I used to work out with an iPaq in my pocket and it was not very comfortable at all.
First I installed gtkpod onto my computer. Then I plugged the Shuffle into Mario, my main Linux computer, and Rhythmbox promptly crashed. I tried a few different combinations such as plugging in the iPod first or starting Rhythmbox first. Then I ran gtkpod and realized that something was not setup correctly on the file system of the Shuffle. So I plugged it into my Windows computer and ran iTunes and the first little setup wizard. I named it 1UPMUSHROOM to go along with my Mario theme.
After that everything worked perfectly. So even though everyone was scared that with the latest updates, iPods wouldn’t work with Linux, the gtkpod people got it working - at least it worked for me with an iPod I just bought from the store. I’ve been enjoying it for the past week or so and am able to listen to my podcasts at the gym instead of those stupid radio programs they usually play.
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Tags: iPod, gtkPod, Mario, Rhythmbox
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Jan
9
Long time readers will know how much I love building computers. And I have been given the chance to build another one! This time it’s for Danielle’s aunt who saw the one I built for my father-in-law. Her old computer is not fast enough for what she needs it to do so she asked me to design her a new one. I decided to go with a nice, sleak Shuttle case since they don’t have tons of room in NYC for the uber-towers I typically use for myself. Also, it’s pretty much 100% likely that she isn’t going to upgrade it - ever.
Mathematically this is also a pretty special computer for me. It’s my sixth computer and her Aunt is referred to as Aunt #6. Also, equally half of the computers I’ve built have been for others. I can’t wait until the parts get here!
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Tags: BuildingComputers
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Jan
7
Recent Quotes
Category: Quotes | Leave a Comment
“He was talking with what’s-his-nuts….” - someone at work
“I’m not a snow bunny, I’m a snow fox. I eat snow bunnies” - Danielle
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Jan
2
Mario Galaxy
Category: Video Games | Leave a Comment
I received Super Mario Galaxy for Christmas and I must say that I’m quite happy with the gift. This is the most talked about Wii game for the end of 2007 and not without reason. Everyone who’s into gaming kept mentioning that Mario Galaxy is the true successor to Super Mario 64 on the Gamecube. Pretty much everyone, myself included, thinks that Mario Sunshine was a piece of sod that should never have been made. Mario Galaxy, on the other hand, has a lot of the same charm that made SM64 so much fun to play. My only complaint, and this is a very tiny one, is that the puzzles are a bit easier than Mario 64. I remember racking my brain with my brother trying to figure out how to get the each of the stars for SM64. With Mario Galaxy, I feel that most of the stars are a lot easier to get. However, as I write this blog post I realize that I played Super Mario 64 approximately 10 years ago, so it’s possible that the puzzles that were so hard for me back then would not be quite as hard now. That said, I beat the game in two days with about 20 hours of gameplay. That is, I beat the final Bowser, but was only about half way through collecting all of the stars.
The second thing I wanted to address was the second player mode on Mario Galaxy. Some people have decried this as merely a gimmick. I’m here to tell you this is not so! Yeah, the primary thing for the second player to do is acquire star bits for you, but that can be immensely helpful. There are some really tough levels where the floor is shifting below you and it can cause you some lives to be worrying about whether you’re getting all of the star bits. Also, I tend to get star bits in a circular pattern which causes Mario to spin around. If you’re holding a turtle shell this will send the shell flying away - very annoying. Finally, the second player can stop certain bad guys from moving, allowing you to progress through the levels much more quickly. They can also cause Mario to jump if they want to be annoying little wankers.
The ending is decent, but nothing special. Then again, when has any Mario game ever had a good ending? Suffice it to say that my sister-in-law’s boyfriend lost a significant portion of his motivation to play the game.
Finally, the graphics are pretty awesome. Just look to Mario Sunshine and it looks 10-100 times better. And the final FMV sequence has a very beautiful HD-ish quality to it. I’d have to say that this game proves that the Wii is capable of beautiful games.
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Tags: Mario, Mario Galaxy, Wii, Nintendo, Mario 64, Mario Sunshine
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Jan
1
This year I decided to mainly support technological causes. I donated to the Free Software Foundation and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. I think that rms and the rest over at the FSF are really doing a lot of great work to preserve our freedoms. I especially like the Defective by Design campaign they’ve been running. So this year they get the lion’s share of my money.
The EFF has been doing a lot of work with other things I care about such as opposing the broadcast flag and overall protecting our electronic and Internet freedoms.
Finally, I donated to NPR because I enjoy their programming every day and I thought it was time to help keep them afloat. This was especially urgent as Congress has recently been reducing the mount of funding they give to public broadcasting, a real shame.
I was going to donate to the Gnome founda