KPilot – Kasperian Moving Parts

Desktop, KDE, KPilot, Linux, Open Source

Goodbye, for now at least, Linux Desktop

Sunday November 13, 2011

I’ve been an Open Source developer and hacker for a loooooong, long time. It has become far more than a part of what I do. It has become part of who I am. At first, it was mostly about the freedom to run what I want, where I want, how I want. Desktop Linux has always been exciting to me for that reason. But then it grew beyond that and enabled me to contribute back. Open Source allowed me to teach myself new programming languages. It allowed me to make friends literally all over the world. It became the thing that I enjoyed doing most, technically, especially since my daytime jobs didn’t let me do the kind of programming and Read more…

KDE, KPilot, Music, Open Source

The Palm Is Dead. Long Live The Palm!

Thursday May 28, 2009

I believe I am one of the last few die-hard nutjobs on the face of this earth who still use (and “use” here is a highly subjective word meaning that I have a bunch of Palm devices lying around, am currently the only semi-active (and “semi-active” means that I get probably a good 2 hours of KPilot hacking in per year =:( ) KPilot developer, and occasionally even turn some of them on) Palm PDA devices. I have successfully resisted the siren call of the iPhone for the last 2+(?) years–partly because there is no functional synchronization solution between my Linux desktop and it, partly because it’s pretty bloody expensive, partly because Cingular has atrociously high data plans compared to Read more…

KDE, KPilot

KDE 4.2 Released!!

Tuesday January 27, 2009

Woohoo! KDE 4.2 is released!! I only wish the last few KPilot bug fixes would have made it into the 4.2.0 release, but we were too late. Still, if you think you knew what KDE4 was all about, think again. Check out KDE 4.2.0. =:)

KDE, KPilot

KDE 4.2 KPilot coming! (how to both be excited and have realistic expectations)

Monday January 19, 2009

I just sent this to the KDE PIM mailing lists, but I know not everyone who uses KPilot subscribes, so I’ll re-post it here… Howdy all, I just wanted to get a note out to as wide a distribution list as possible to spread some important news about the upcoming KDE 4.2 release and KPilot’s (exciting!!) part in it. If you don’t care about KDE PIM, data syncing, Palm devices, or KPilot, you may stop reading now and I won’t be offended. =;P For the last 2 years, the talented Bertjan Broeksema and I have spent our Google Summer of Code months doing some major rework and redesign for KPilot. You can see our sync algorithm redesign Use Case here: Read more…

KDE, KPilot

KPilot 4.2 Progress (woot!)

I spent a crapload of time this weekend, going through all the old and crufty KPilot bugs we’ve done a really horrible job of keeping up-to-date on, and triaged the bejeebers out of the list. I think we had ~ 150+ a few months ago. I went through the last 100 of them individually today, and was able to close out 93 of them, woot! A lot of them were problems that had been fixed in KDE 3.5.x, or had been directly addressed more recently in our KDE 4.2 work, or had been indirectly fixed via our KDE 4.2 work. A lot of them were also the low-hanging fruit you’d expect with “it don’t work so good” and not much Read more…

KDE, KPilot

KPilot 4.2 progress

Tuesday January 13, 2009

I discovered a nasty little data corruption bug in KPilot last night and have put some fixes in for it just this morning. The good news is that we didn’t lose any data. We just gave you a lot more data. =:) So, if you’re helping to test KPilot for our KDE 4.2 release looming Any Day Now (TM), please update from svn (branches/KDE/4.2/kdepim/kpilot) and test again. There is still one little nasty behavior that I see that I need to find a fix for tonight, though. With our new core conduit design for KDE 4.2, KPilot keeps its Handheld -> PC mappings in its own XML file–one per conduit. This is a Really Good Thing (also TM). However, it Read more…

Google, KDE, KPilot, Video Games, Work Stuff

Random Musings About a Good Week

Saturday January 10, 2009

It’s been a while since I’ve blogged (I blame Twitter), and I had an interesting week, this last, so I figured I’d blog about it. Probably should be a bunch of individual posts, but blef and here goes…. Yesterday was an awesome end to an otherwise already pretty good week. I got to play Tetrinet with my team at work and while this may not seem like a big deal, it was to me. Being that I’m currently working remotely, it’s very easy to feel isolated and alone and disconnected most of the time. Until I figure out how to build a virtual presence robot (like Twiki, maybe, except instead of Dr. Theopolis hanging around his neck, it would be Read more…

Desktop, KDE, KPilot, Open Source

KDE 4.2 is flat out going to rock

Tuesday November 11, 2008

That’s my prediction. Of course, the truth of the matter is that KDE 4.2 (trunk) flat out rocks today. Seriously. I have never been more excited about the Linux desktop than I am right now. And this, 2+ months out from our actual KDE 4.2 release. I’ve been running OpenSUSE 11 for a couple of months now, and thanks to the awesome nightly/weekly KDE 4.2/trunk packages, I’m thoroughly enjoying pretty-darned-bleeding-edge 4.2/trunk packages, but with half the carbs, and I am loving what I’m seeing! Recent KMail improvements are awesome. Plasma is getting more and more bullet-proof and gorgeous by the week. Kwin just keeps getting more and more stable and purty. Kdevelop4 and Kate are getting some SERIOUSLY cool enhancements Read more…

Google, KDE, KPilot

KPilot IS ALIVE!

Friday August 15, 2008

So I spent a couple of hours tonight hacking on KPilot instead of going to bed like a smart little boy (sorry, honey!!! =:( ), and I fixed a couple of nagging problems that’ve been bugging me for months that I’ve just not been able to find the time to dig in and investigate. I think that’s the problem. At this stage in my life, there simply is no time unless it is forcibly wrenched away from my family or sleep. Blef. Anyway, I digress… As this year’s Google Summer of Code winds down to an abrupt end (Pencils down on Monday?? Already??), I am once again very satisfied and impressed with the job that Bertjan has done. He’s continued Read more…

KDE, KPilot, Movies, Music

Getting Excited about KDE4 All Over Again

Tuesday April 15, 2008

It started to hit me yesterday as I spent 3.5 hours in this year’s KDE Google Summer of Code mentor’s meeting (thanks again sebr!!). KDE4 just plain rocks, and it feels good to start getting excited about it again. And I don’t just mean KDE 4.0. Don’t get me wrong, KDE4.0 is a nice little release. It’s not perfect and there are some things that are irritating about it and keep me from using it as my main DE. But like Aaron has been saying over and over and over again, KDE4.0 is not KDE4. KDE4.0 is more of a preview of things to come, and what I see coming just plain kicks butt. I am finally getting excited about Read more…