Entries Tagged 'General' ↓

Bugs are usually relatively clear. Given clear enough description of the symptoms one can usually quickly, at least roughly, get a feeling where the bug could be. Today was somewhat exceptional, though. I got one obscure bug: change matchbox theme and (maemo-style) submenus stop working.

Of course it’s not that simple a bug. Switching window manager themes should have zero impact on such behavior to begin with. The bug also doesn’t raise its ugly head with all menus; the View menu in the same application works just fine, but trying to open the Tools menu briefly flashes something that looks like a submenu and immediately closes the whole menu. For increased fun factor, run matchbox with MB_SYNC=1 and the whole application closes.

This bug has gotten me and mallum rather stumped. So far the real culprit has managed to avoid detection. We do have some ideas, though, need to check them next week.

I’d like to upgrade to Ubuntu but there are some things I need that are holding me back. In my current installation they came either preinstalled or were trivially (read: at most an apt-get install away) available. For Ubuntu things are seemingly much, much more complicated (relatively speaking, of course.)

The wishlist:

• encrypted (root) filesystem
• VPN using secure ID
  Apparently there’s a Debian package to make VPN work

• Lotus Notes (using wine probably)
• Citrix ICAClient (or equivalent, for when wine simply is not enough)

Setting up an encrypted filesystem seems far from trivial (ignorance is bliss I guess) and doesn’t seem to cover root filesystem either. Maybe later.

Tuesday was fun. Started with some strategy sharing, some presentations being more boring than others. Naturally I can reveal our strategy, but it might have something to do world domination. That wasn’t the fun part.

The fun part started afterwards when we went to Linnanmäki amusement park. I haven’t been to Linnanmäki in years, there was lots of new cool stuff. We didn’t have too much time, but I think we saw the best parts. Except for Tulireki which was under maintenance.

Rides we took: Helsinki Ferris Wheel, Hurjakuru, Kieputin, Express Train, Rocket, Rainbow, Wooden Roller Coaster.

I had to skip Kieppi, which seems the worst of them all, thanks to Carlos for making me sick in the ferris wheel by spinning it around :-/

After Linnanmäki we had dinner at Kultti Cafe. I was slightly disappointed not seeing Jesus in DJ action, but Ari saved the day and played the piano. The rest of us with no talent (only speaking for myself) were just fooling around.

Tuesday was a good day. The next day was again just work, work, work…

• Nokia launches mobile Linux device
• Apple switches to Intel
• Sarge is released

Satan was unavailable for comment regarding current temperature in Hell…

Is more spam getting through the filters in general these days, or is it just me?

Not so long ago I switched from SpamAssassin to bogofilter mainly for two reasons. First, SpamAssassin is a CPU hog, at least feels as such, and I had heard only good things about bogofilter. The triggering event was Andrew Cowie’s mail to evolution mailing list explaining how to integrate bogofilter as nicely, more or less, to Evolution as SpamAssassin currently is. The spam/ham buttons are quite handy.

My initial impressions were only positive, bogofilter seemed to be much faster with comparable accuracy so what’s not to like. But recently much more spam is finding its way to my inbox. Wonder if it’s general trend that spammers are starting to grow a brain. More likely I’ve just managed to screw something up, wouldn’t be the first…

Camera is something one doesn’t need every day, but there are times one would be useful. Thinking back and looking at the photos from GUADEC makes me wish I had had a camera myself. Something small enough to fit comfortably into a pocket might be nice.

Evil Google is luring unsuspecting students to ruin their summer vacation with this Summer of Code project and GNOME (among other) bounties. That’s just wrong, doesn’t anyone think of the students?

Now, I need to discuss with maemo guys about setting up some bounties of our own…

GNOMiE, the N770 is focused on mobile browsing. It’s not phone (you most likely already have one, why not use it?) and it’s not a PDA either. Given the choices it’s better to have something today that does one thing well, rather than wait indefinitely for something that does many things poorly, wouldn’t you agree?

Not that I’m too intimate with patents and stuff, but when licensing technologies from other companies there are clauses prohibiting you to reveal some things related to those technologies. And distributing Ogg/Vorbis might be violating some of those clauses. Checking the legal issues takes a whole lot of time and we just don’t have a definite answer yet. And it’s not worth to take the risk by rushing things.

Sex is like free software: it’s better when RMS is not involved.

Dirk is a funny guy. I can only wonder what some brits are thinking about when referring to him as Dirk Diggler (from Boogie Nights…)

GUADEC was great, need to get into one again. Stuttgart was pretty nice. I even managed to refresh a tiny bit my German which I’ve totally forgotten even I spent three years studying it. There’s no place like home, though.

• Stuttgart: sunny and warm, even hot
• Helsinki: rainy and cold

I’ve been glancing at maemo-developers archives. Seems like my inbox at work is about to explode.