Ubuntu users out there will recognise the title as flavour names of Ubuntu Linux. Recently, as you'll know if you read it, I have installed Kubuntu on my laptop. This, however, messed up today. Not quiet sure why or how but it did. So the reinstalling began again and again... and again... and again... and, well you get the picture. Namely my graphics drivers keep messing up then Compiz Fusion messes up and I have to reinstall everything. Tain't great really. Anyways, I've now decided to use Ubuntu to see if this works a little better. The difference between Kubuntu and Ubuntu? One uses KDE and one uses Gnome as the windows manager, I'll let you work out which uses which.
I've had to reinstall twice so far because it lost a compiz package and then wouldn't reinstall it because of dependancies. Still fingers crossed this time!
For those interested I'm currently using version 7.04 (Feisty Fawn). Though looking to upgrade to 7.10 (Gusty Gibbon) once it's stable! Ubuntu has also released the name of their next flavour (surely they should move out of Alpha on the last one before doing that...?), it's called 'Hardy Heron'.
Well, wish me luck in getting my Fawn to work with beautiful eye candy! Ifyou haven't seen Compiz then I suggest you search it on You Tube and take a look, puts anything Windows and Mac users have come up with to shame...
Wednesday, 29 August 2007
Friday, 24 August 2007
Of Wizardry and Widgets
Today I've been pulling apart some widgets again. There are some amazing ones out there. For example, I downloaded one today that had an extremly simple interface showing the remaining space on my hard drive. But when I popped it open and had a look at the code... blew me away. Several large scripts behind, obviously created by a level 50 or above Wizard! All I wanted to find out was how to gather the informatin on the hard drive, had to scan through lines and lines of code... not sure I've found what I need either!!
After pulling apart several widgets on different things, clocks, network monitors, multi CPU watchers, etc I sat down and started doing some designs for the widgets I want to create for the Uni. So far I'm looking at a CPU watcher, maybe one that can see duel cores, a hard drive watched that, hopefuly, will be able to check whether you are on a university computer (and thus watch the student drive) or at home (thus watching your C drive), bog standard RAM watcher, battery watched for those on laptops, a WiFi watcher for those on a wireless connection, a clock (that hopefully syncs with an atomic clock server and has an alarm) and email checker that will log in to the university emails (hopefully). I was also looking at doing a widget that would let you drag a file onto it and then upload it to your student drive. However, I don't think that it will be possible unless the user is on a uni computer and then it would render it pretty pointless!
As you can see, most features are labeled as "hopeful" at the moment, simply because I just don't know if I will be able to connect up to the servers! But heres hoping!
I have had someone complain about using Yahoo Widgets however because they currently don't run on Linux and who knows when the Konfubulator engine is going to be ported to that! If anyone has any info on that though, please let me know!
So anyway, sketched out a couple of designs on paper today, tried to get them all to fit together, at least the important ones. But I think I'm going to go with a fairly simple layout. Just because not everybody is going to use every widget so I might as well make them all look nice as stand alone widgets. Gona start designing them at home as it's alot easier than doing on my laptop (no mouse and pen isn't too good for this sort of thing). Then I shall start coding them!
After pulling apart several widgets on different things, clocks, network monitors, multi CPU watchers, etc I sat down and started doing some designs for the widgets I want to create for the Uni. So far I'm looking at a CPU watcher, maybe one that can see duel cores, a hard drive watched that, hopefuly, will be able to check whether you are on a university computer (and thus watch the student drive) or at home (thus watching your C drive), bog standard RAM watcher, battery watched for those on laptops, a WiFi watcher for those on a wireless connection, a clock (that hopefully syncs with an atomic clock server and has an alarm) and email checker that will log in to the university emails (hopefully). I was also looking at doing a widget that would let you drag a file onto it and then upload it to your student drive. However, I don't think that it will be possible unless the user is on a uni computer and then it would render it pretty pointless!
As you can see, most features are labeled as "hopeful" at the moment, simply because I just don't know if I will be able to connect up to the servers! But heres hoping!
I have had someone complain about using Yahoo Widgets however because they currently don't run on Linux and who knows when the Konfubulator engine is going to be ported to that! If anyone has any info on that though, please let me know!
So anyway, sketched out a couple of designs on paper today, tried to get them all to fit together, at least the important ones. But I think I'm going to go with a fairly simple layout. Just because not everybody is going to use every widget so I might as well make them all look nice as stand alone widgets. Gona start designing them at home as it's alot easier than doing on my laptop (no mouse and pen isn't too good for this sort of thing). Then I shall start coding them!
Thursday, 23 August 2007
Of Exams and Webpages
Well this morning I did a resit exam in Internet Systems, Applications and Technologies (ISAT). Chances are I've not done enough for a pass... again. Only answered two out of required three questions and I don't think those were very well written! Left as soon as I could as well. No point in staring at a question you can't answer right? Isn't it funny how some question are simply impossible to bullshit?! It's like they want you to fail... haha.
Anyway, back at work today. Yesterday was the last day of notice at my last job, thank god!! So today I've been playing in BlackBoard learning how to set up a "My Community".... community area thingy... Basically I've been asked to set up an area for placement students and pre-placement students that has loads of content about placement opportunities and such. Pretty much done the basic shell, just need to talk to the people who want to populate it with content now to find out specifics!
Anyway, back at work today. Yesterday was the last day of notice at my last job, thank god!! So today I've been playing in BlackBoard learning how to set up a "My Community".... community area thingy... Basically I've been asked to set up an area for placement students and pre-placement students that has loads of content about placement opportunities and such. Pretty much done the basic shell, just need to talk to the people who want to populate it with content now to find out specifics!
Tuesday, 21 August 2007
Of Linux and Trailers
Just to cover what happened at work today. Had a meeting with Andy's boss about doing a student placement website within Blackboard. Looks like it's going to be pretty straight forward. Can't see any massive problems with it. Spent an hour or so going through different tools, etc with a guy called Tim that I can use in BB for this project.
Now on to todays content... Linux. Namely Kubuntu. Decided I'd chuck it on my laptop as a dual partition with Vista. So far I've had no problems booting into either or using the grub booter. Kubuntu is Ubuntu with the KDE window manager instead of Gnome. I personally prefer KDE as I think it looks a little better. Ubuntu has been heard alot recently as the 'easiest' distro of Linux to use. It's supost to be a good point at which to transfer over from Windows to Linux. So far I must say I've been fairly impressed. I've used what used to be Mandrake Linux and Debian (of which Ubuntu is based upon) before. I found both to be great distros. However, from a 'how the hell does this work?' stand point, Ubuntu beats them. The main version you can download is the Desktop CD. This is a Live CD which means it can be chucked into your CD/DVD drive (it's only a normal CD, so pretty small compared to some others that are now on DVDs). This boots up into Ubuntu (or Kubuntu in my case) so that you can give it all a good long test run. If you like it installation is as simple as clicking the "install" icon on the desktop. You choose a few options such as language and time zone and it does the rest. A reboot later you have Linux installed and ready to go.
I'll post more about it as I use it, but as I say. So far it's looking good!
Now, onto something completely different... has anyone seen or heard about this mysterious trailer thats been playing in cinema's recently? It's produced by JJ Abram, the co-creator of Lost. You can view it by going here. As yet nothing has been released about it. Plenty of rumors and ideas are running wild from a robot film to a remake of Godzilla to a brand new monster. Some people think that the guy towards the end of the trailer (as they all run outside) is shouting "it's a lion! It's huge!". Personally I hear it as "I've seen it, it's alive! It's huge!". Which makes more sense to me, why would they drop "it's a lion" in a trailer that is designed to give nothing away?
What ever happens, it's grabbed my attention. Really looking forward to seeing more about it!
Now on to todays content... Linux. Namely Kubuntu. Decided I'd chuck it on my laptop as a dual partition with Vista. So far I've had no problems booting into either or using the grub booter. Kubuntu is Ubuntu with the KDE window manager instead of Gnome. I personally prefer KDE as I think it looks a little better. Ubuntu has been heard alot recently as the 'easiest' distro of Linux to use. It's supost to be a good point at which to transfer over from Windows to Linux. So far I must say I've been fairly impressed. I've used what used to be Mandrake Linux and Debian (of which Ubuntu is based upon) before. I found both to be great distros. However, from a 'how the hell does this work?' stand point, Ubuntu beats them. The main version you can download is the Desktop CD. This is a Live CD which means it can be chucked into your CD/DVD drive (it's only a normal CD, so pretty small compared to some others that are now on DVDs). This boots up into Ubuntu (or Kubuntu in my case) so that you can give it all a good long test run. If you like it installation is as simple as clicking the "install" icon on the desktop. You choose a few options such as language and time zone and it does the rest. A reboot later you have Linux installed and ready to go.
I'll post more about it as I use it, but as I say. So far it's looking good!
Now, onto something completely different... has anyone seen or heard about this mysterious trailer thats been playing in cinema's recently? It's produced by JJ Abram, the co-creator of Lost. You can view it by going here. As yet nothing has been released about it. Plenty of rumors and ideas are running wild from a robot film to a remake of Godzilla to a brand new monster. Some people think that the guy towards the end of the trailer (as they all run outside) is shouting "it's a lion! It's huge!". Personally I hear it as "I've seen it, it's alive! It's huge!". Which makes more sense to me, why would they drop "it's a lion" in a trailer that is designed to give nothing away?
What ever happens, it's grabbed my attention. Really looking forward to seeing more about it!
Monday, 20 August 2007
Of Web 2.0
Second post today because the previous one should have been in the weekend... haha.
So I've been looking up websites that are "web 2.0". Web 2.0 is just the next step in the evolution of the World Wide Web. It begins to incorporate things like communities, podcasts, social networks, etc.
Example sites are Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, you get the picture. However there are plenty of sites that take the idea of Web 2.0 alot further than just being social (without having to meet anyone).
People search engines are starting to appear, I know of two now. One that recently started is Spock. You can search a name or avatar and it should pull results from the web relating to the name you've put in.
Interactivity is another big area of Web 2.0. Google is one of the fore fronters of this with iGoogle. I suggest you have a play with it if you haven't already. It's practically a virtual desktop that you can stick loads of different widgets to. I personally have my G.Cal, Email, weather and several news feeds running. AJAX is beginning to shine as fantastic technology and will, I think, be employed in many different aspects of Web 2.0. There is even a website that builds an AJAX website for you!
There are even online word processors and spreadsheet programs on the net now. Most people will have heard of Googles Google Docs (which are in another language at the moment... at least for me) or Thinkfree which have a word processor, spreadsheet program as well as a presentation program all online and all free to use. Saving your files is a breeze and can either be done as a PDF or an MS Office file.
One last thing I'd like to mention is a website called Vidoop. This company has created a new way of logging onto a website (that supports OpenID) with the use of pictures instead of a password. This may sounds completely stupid but if you are interested watch their video to find out how its all done.
All in all Web 2.0 looks pretty good and definatly the way forward. The Uni is looking at taking a Web 2.0 approach by using Blogs and Wikis within the Uni as well as externally for assignments and such like. I'm looking forward to playing with that!
So I've been looking up websites that are "web 2.0". Web 2.0 is just the next step in the evolution of the World Wide Web. It begins to incorporate things like communities, podcasts, social networks, etc.
Example sites are Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, you get the picture. However there are plenty of sites that take the idea of Web 2.0 alot further than just being social (without having to meet anyone).
People search engines are starting to appear, I know of two now. One that recently started is Spock. You can search a name or avatar and it should pull results from the web relating to the name you've put in.
Interactivity is another big area of Web 2.0. Google is one of the fore fronters of this with iGoogle. I suggest you have a play with it if you haven't already. It's practically a virtual desktop that you can stick loads of different widgets to. I personally have my G.Cal, Email, weather and several news feeds running. AJAX is beginning to shine as fantastic technology and will, I think, be employed in many different aspects of Web 2.0. There is even a website that builds an AJAX website for you!
There are even online word processors and spreadsheet programs on the net now. Most people will have heard of Googles Google Docs (which are in another language at the moment... at least for me) or Thinkfree which have a word processor, spreadsheet program as well as a presentation program all online and all free to use. Saving your files is a breeze and can either be done as a PDF or an MS Office file.
One last thing I'd like to mention is a website called Vidoop. This company has created a new way of logging onto a website (that supports OpenID) with the use of pictures instead of a password. This may sounds completely stupid but if you are interested watch their video to find out how its all done.
All in all Web 2.0 looks pretty good and definatly the way forward. The Uni is looking at taking a Web 2.0 approach by using Blogs and Wikis within the Uni as well as externally for assignments and such like. I'm looking forward to playing with that!
Of XML and JavaScript
Today I've been playing with the Yahoo! Widgets a little more. Infact, I've ripped one apart to take a look inside to see what makes it tick. Mostly, XML. With JS sprinkled here and there for painful, twisted satisfaction.
However, I have found that they are fairly simple! The Widgets are built from the ground up in XML, positioning of the images you create in Photoshop can be automatically set using the script that Yahoo! have created. It runs directly through PS and creates all the folders and basic XML code for you. Then all you need to do is add some more plus a little bit of JS to give it functionality. In fact, I created a CPU watcher (gives percentage in use).
It's basically three layers of images with the XML+JS creating the text. It has some basic "options" with it as well. Again these are all set up via XML. It's such a simple platform to build from that it's almost a pleasure to use!
Anyways, I'll be positng again later about my job description and the Web 2.0 meeting I have today.
Thursday, 16 August 2007
Of Widg-Away
Today I've unpacked a Widget or two to see whats going on inside it. Unfortunatly however I don't have Dreamweaver installed on my laptop at the moment so viewing the XML/JS file in notepad is a nightmare!
However, I have played with Yahoo!'s Widget Creation script that plugs straight into Photoshop (CS+). All you do is create your image, load up the script and you are presented with a dialog box. Input Widget name, author, version, etc. Hit OK and it goes off and creates the widget folder for you. This holds all the XML, JS and resources. The main file is a .kon file that holds the main XML and JS stuff.
Hopefully in a couple of weeks Andy and will be pulling apart some more widgets and reskinning them, playing with the scripts.
Off for now...
Tuesday, 14 August 2007
Of B and his Dogs
Thought I'd add a quick explanation. I have a fetish for dog's, sticks and B. So I took a photo, then found the "upload to blog" feature on my phone (SE K810i) and tried it. Then moved it across to this blog as it went to another one. So there.
Of First Days
Well my first day of Uni Placement went pretty good. I've been given a list of things to start on so I should keep busy! Seem to be getting on alright with my boss, Andy too.
Man... feels weird writting thing... what do I talk about?
Well three things I've been told to do are,
1. Create a BLOG Done
2. Have a gander with SecondLife Done, but slow net connection at home :(
3. Look at Yahoo! Widgets and see how they work
SecondLife seems alright, though I can't work out what do to on the "tutorial" island... The stone statues at the start are out smarting me. Thats right, virtual stone statues out smarting me. Blogger seems good, if not... weird writting about this. But, as Andy said earlier, if I do this I practically have my log book sorted.
Next couple of weeks is going to be spent learning the ins and outs of BlackBoard, so when Andy comes back from holiday we can start work on it straight away.
Nowt else to say really...
Man... feels weird writting thing... what do I talk about?
Well three things I've been told to do are,
1. Create a BLOG Done
2. Have a gander with SecondLife Done, but slow net connection at home :(
3. Look at Yahoo! Widgets and see how they work
SecondLife seems alright, though I can't work out what do to on the "tutorial" island... The stone statues at the start are out smarting me. Thats right, virtual stone statues out smarting me. Blogger seems good, if not... weird writting about this. But, as Andy said earlier, if I do this I practically have my log book sorted.
Next couple of weeks is going to be spent learning the ins and outs of BlackBoard, so when Andy comes back from holiday we can start work on it straight away.
Nowt else to say really...
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