Maintainer wanted for sum

I code because i like to do that. Writing new code, trying new things, learning.
So it began with SUM. Somewhere along the way, it stopped being interesting and started feeling like work, so I lost interest. So I am more or less abandoning this project for now. If anyone is interested in taking over, send me an email. You can probably figure out where to find the address.

Trolltech and Nokia

So Nokia is buying Trolltech.

Personally, I think this is bad news. I don’t trust Nokia for various reasons.

Why did Nokia buy Trolltech? Well, this article called it a strategic hat trick. They gained control of Qtopia while harming Motorola. The purchase was strategic for the phone/embedded market.

But what about Qt Desktop?
Nokia has promised to keep Qt development the same, they will also become a Patron of KDE.
Qt is also self-supporting financially so it may come true.

On the other hand, desktop toolkits/apps are not a Nokia core business so Qt development could be halted and Trolltech engineers moved to tasks more beneficial to the core business.

This would make the free Qt foundation kick in and make Qt BSD licensed. But then what?
If no other company picks up Qt, Qt and KDE will be left in a pretty bad shape.

Currently, all Qt development is being made by Trolltech. Also, some core KDE developers are sponsored by Trolltech.
In the worst case scenario where Nokia abandons Qt, not only will KDE be hurt by the loss of some of its full-time core developers.
The remaining KDE developers will also be spread even thinner since they would also need to develop Qt. Basically, that would mean KDE development would come to a screeching halt.

All in all, this acquisition could bring a few good changes if Nokia behaves: More funding into Qt, and possibly a switch to LGPL/BSD to accelerate adoption.
But it could also bring many bad changes if Nokia goes evil on us, which would basically mean crippling KDE development really bad.

Another quiz

Dream Career Quiz

Scientific
A scientific job is most likely to be your dream career. You’re probably the type who can assess a situation logically, get that hamster wheel in your head spinning, and come up with an answer no one else would have thought of. You enjoy a mental challenge so maybe you’ll find a cure for cancer working at a pharmaceutical company. Maybe you’ll be an electrical engineer who helps a human to set foot on Mars. Or maybe you’ll have a career at an ice cream maker creating the first zero calorie sundae. Whatever it is, your smarts will take you far.

Now, based on these last two quizzes and my apparent interest in computers and programming, can anyone take a guess at what I do for a living?

Here it comes: I work at a grocery store.

Testcolor personality test

This is cool.
Pick the colors you like, and you get a profile like this:

Result of your test :

Your results present a correlation ratio with our model superior to 92 % .
( In a general way, a result can be taken into account if this ratio is superior to 30 %.)

Your Profile :

You are 45 % extrovert and 55 % introvert.

Independently of any order of importance :
You are intellectual and intelligent, you wonder and you inquire before taking any action.
You are also creative, you always have new ideas, and your inspiration comes from the inside.
Finely you are a manager and a structured person, you know how to take into account the needs of each person while leading them towards the set goals.

Your attitude towards the environment :
At first, at 37%, you are centered on your thoughts and your actions are determined by your knowledge and your experience.

Then, at a rate of 37%, you are attached to moral values and feelings, and you have an emotional relation with the environment.

Finally, at 25%, you are centered on the facts and on the reality of things at 32 %, Your actions depend on the real facts.

Your highest qualities today :

At 22 %, you are intellectual and intelligent, you keep wondering and inquiring before setting up your next step or defining your values.

At 22 %, you are a creative person, with always new ideas, and you know how to apply them.

At 19 %, you are creative, you know how to see beauty, you are intuitive and your inspiration comes from the inside.

At 18 %, you are thoughtful and deep, you think before getting into action and you know how to communicate your knowledge.

At 17 %, you are a manager and a structured person, you know how to take into account the needs of each person while leading them to the fixed goals.

Finely, you are a manager and a leader, and you know how to organize groups of people and how to give them your energy, you are open and good communicator, you know how to attract people and engage them.

No gaming puter after all

Hm, usually my gaming periods last for a good month or so. Now, I am already tired of it again. Played through the crysis demo and cod4 demo, some americas army and then i am sick of it…

That, added to some frustrations with XP, and windows is gone again. Vista - bleh, how could I ever think about it?
I had some dissatisfaction with Linux lately, but I had simply forgotten how much better off I am without windows.

And when windows and games are out of the picture, I can no longer see a need for a new computer. Everything works fine as it is, no more computing power is really needed.

Xp stole 30 minutes of my life, and I want them back

As I said in the previous post, I have gotten into a gaming period. I installed Windows XP yesterday, and a bunch of games.
Anyway, I had to fill and print out a pdf form. Instead of booting into the Ubuntu partition, I thought I would save time by doing it in XP.

First, open the pdf… Bummer, XP does not bundle a pdf viewer. So off I went to adobe’s site to download, no I do not want a free toolbar, thankyouverymuch. So the reader is installed, and I fill out the form. Now to print. Power on the printer, new hardware detected… do you want to connect to search for drivers online? Sure, whatever is needed. I cannot be bothered to find the driver disc.
Search for drivers automatically… and fail.

Go to HP’s site, they seems to have some tool to auto install drivers. Whatever. Install activex control? Sure. Just install the fscking driver already…. And hang.

Download the driver installer directly, and run it. After it chugging on, getting extra software for 15 minutes, I had had enough.
Try to reboot… Oh no, it wont let me do so until installation is complete.
Ctrl-alt-delete, try to shut the installer off. Does not respond, click to kill, no go.

Then I tought the stubborn XP not to mess with me and my mighty reset-button of doom and fury. Goodbye, sucker.

Booted the freshly installed Ubuntu, opened the pdf, powered the printer on, filled the form, printed it in just a couple of minutes total.

Having a cold… and thinking about a new computer

I am having a cold, yesterday evening I had rather high fever and was unable to do much more than watch tv and sleep.
Anyway, today I am feeling a bit better and am able to use the computer, at least.

So I got back to thinking about selecting parts for my next computer. I got a laptop recently, but I want to play some recent games such as crysis. Neither my laptop with integrated Intel graphics nor my soon three years old desktop with an amd64 3000+ and a nvidia 6600gt are really up for the task.
I tried the crysis demo on the desktop a while ago, and I was able to play through it on low settings, but that is not really playing, now is it?

Anyway, back to the new computer. This will be a gaming machine, so I think I will buy Vista with it. Yes, I know Vista is a hog. Xp is more easy on the resources, and games such as crysis can still be tweaked to run on it with maximum settings.
Still, Xp is on its way out, and soon new games will have reduced support for it and its directx 9.

So Vista it will be, 64 bits to support enough memory for eventual future upgrades. Perhaps in a dual-boot with Linux but here is the other decision: I will not spend any effort at all to ensure Linux compatibility. That would make too many factors to consider and I want to focus on price/performance and quality. Selecting a linux compatible printer is enough research, I have enough problems choosing hardware without thinking about linux. Still, if I choose between two components equal in everything else linux support could be the tipping point.
Not that I am too worried, most part are compatible nowadays. Plus when I selected the current desktop I had not yet discovered Linux, still every part works perfectly with it.

So, on to the hardware. This is where I am at right now:
I have pretty much decided on the case and PSU: An Antec Performance P182 and a Seasonic S12 Energy+ 550W.

My main deciding factors were in order:
Quality. The antec case has had many positive reviews, plus antec is one of the best when it comes to enclosures.
Seasonic is one of the(if not the) best when it comes to power supplies.

Power efficiency. Not much beats the s12 energy+.

Noise level. Both the s12 energy+ and the P182 are in the top in the tests I have read.

So, that was the easy part I guess.
Now on to the more difficult stuff. This is where I have not really decided yet.

The platform, AMD vs Intel?
Intel is ahead, even of the new amd spider series, from what I have read. So that should be a no-brainer: Intel.

Motherboard: I want a good quality motherboard that has the features I need, but not an overpriced peice of junk that has a gazillion features I will never use such as built-in wireless for example. If I would ever need that in my desktop, I would rather get a separate wireless card. Less pieces that can fail in the same unit.
Oh, and it needs to have a lot of heatpipes since they look cool.
I have had good experiences using Asus motherboards in the past(other than their terribly slow servers when downloading drivers, have they fixed that yet?) so it will probably be asus.
My current candidate is an Asus P5K.

Cpu: dual-core vs quad core? That is tricky. Currently, dual-cores give more bang for the bucks, while quad-cores have the potential to beat them when new games and applications take full advantage off all cores.
I am currently leaning towards getting a dual-core now, and possibly upgrading when quad-cores are better supported and have dropped a bit in price. A Core 2 Duo E6750 is chosen for now.

Memory: I have not researched a lot yet. Vista takes it fair share of resources, so perhaps Corsair TWIN2X 6400 DDR2, 4096MB.
Or possibly stick with 2 gig for now and upgrade later if needed?

Video card: Oh, this is difficult. I would say a nvidia 8800 gt with at least 512 MB memory.
Asus? XFX? Gainward? EVGA? Someone else? Efficient/silent cooling would be a plus.

Other:
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 500GB
NEC sata DVD burner, no more IDE cables for me.
And possibly an external usb floppy drive, if the motherboard has a retarded bios update procedure.
Monitor, I think I can use my current 1280×1024 LG flatron for a while longer. That is, unless I sell my current desktop instead of keeping it around collecting dust. Then I could sell the monitor along with it and buy a new one… Why would I keep the old desktop anyway? I can still not use more than two at a time(the desktop and laptop).

Online quizzes

Which OS are You?

Which Programming Language are You?

This one made me laugh out loud:

Which Website are You?

Sometimes, a reboot is what it takes

Was going to ssh from the laptop into the desktop. Got a “No route to host”.
Tried to ping it. Got a “Destination Host Unreachable”.
Tried to ping the laptop from the desktop. Dito.

Went into the router web interface. Nothing wrong that I could see.
Both computers connected fine to the router.
Tried disabling the firewall. No luck.
Turned on logging. Nothing strange.

Almost given up, I rebooted the router.
Suddenly, everything works.

Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow…

…unless they have to do with gtk and buttons.
Let me introduce:
The famous, six years old and counting:
Gtk bug 56070 : http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=56070