Kasperian Moving Parts

Congratulations, everyone!! Awesome work!!

Also, Lubos has done up a really nice write-up on KWin4’s features, setup, technical explanation, why KWin4 didn’t use Compiz, etc., etc. And I totally agree, Lubos, your release notes are far more important than the nifty KWin compositing showcast video! =:)

There is so much health stuff in the news these days and it is soooo expensive. Try these simple home remedies instead.

1. Avoid cutting yourself slicing vegetables by getting someone else to hold while you chop.
2. Avoid arguments with the Mrs. about lifting the toilet seat by using the shower. Going in the yard works too.
3. For high blood pressure sufferers: simply cut yourself and bleed for a few minutes, thus reducing the pressure in your veins

   Remember to use timer.

4. A mouse trap placed on top of your alarm clock will prevent you from rolling over and going back to sleep after you hit the snooze button.
5. If you have a bad cough, take a large dose of laxative. Then you will be afraid to cough.
6. You only need 2 tools in life WD-40 & duct tape. If it doesn’t move and should, use the WD-40. If it shouldn’t move and does, use the duct tape.
7. If you are choking on an ice cube, simply pour a cup of boiling water down your throat. Presto! The blockage will instantly remove itself.
8. Remember: everyone seems normal until you get to know them.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: SOME PEOPLE ARE LIKE SLINKYS, NOT REALLY GOOD FOR ANYTHING BUT THEY BRING A SMILE TO YOUR FACE WHEN PUSHED DOWN THE STAIRS.

Okay, now seriously, #5 made me just about spit water all over my keyboard. And I totally agree with the thought for the day! =:)

Happy Almost KDE Launch Event! =:)

This evening, some of my geekly gadgets gathered together to greet their grandiose new gregarious guest. <G> =;)

I was unable to hold out any longer, apparently. I was able to sell my last-year’s model PSP (the 1000) for $125 on Ye Olde eBay (first time eBayer, woot!), with the intention of buying a new one if I managed to sell the old one for a decent-enough amount. Being that GameStop only gives you $50 for a trade-in, I got $75 more than that with this sale. Which means that the new PSP only really cost me $75. Serious wootage!

I’ve read plenty of reviews about the new PSP, saying that it’s not all that much better, not worth the money if you already have a PSP-1000, flimsier, more-cheaply made, etc. And there’s a lot of truth to all that. They definitely did make the PSP slim models much less sturdy than the old PSP-1000’s. I think they used much thinner plastic all around, and I’m a little worried about dropping it and having it shatter. I mean, the PSP-1000’s had a metal frame and all of the components felt like much higher quality.

All that being said, though, what I was completely shocked by was what a huge difference in weight there is between the slim and older PSPs. WOW! I mean, it makes sense, being that the battery is smaller, the plastic is thinner, there’s no metal frame, etc. But seriously, WOW. Really nice. I read that it weighs 33% less, but it sure feels like more than that.

The screen does seem a tad bit brighter too, which is cool. And being able to charge the battery via USB connection is one thing I was really drawn to, being that I’ll be doing a bit of traveling over the next year and having one less charger to lug around is a very nice plus. Theoretically, I can kick over another ~ $20 and output the video from the PSP to an HD TV or the like, and that’s a nice potential plus, whether I’ll end up doing it or not.

Plus, the ceramic white is altogether downright sexy!

Oh–and I ended up going with the Star Wars pack instead of the “better-value” Daxter pack because:

1. I already have a 4-gig card and the 1-gig card in the Daxter pack would have been nice, but not completely necessary.
2. I looked at the Daxter game and I just really don’t think I’d like it all that much. The Star Wars game is already loved by my progeny, so I’ll be if not the coolest Dad in town for a while, at least able to practice up on my Star Wars skillz and wipe the floor with them when next we play, muahahahah.
3. The silk-screened Darth helmet on the back of the PSP looks really cool!
4. And the kicker: the included “Family Guy” UMD disk would have been completely useless to me being that I don’t watch the show and have no intention of starting now. Had it been The Matrix trilogy, or Office Space, or even Donald in Mathmagic Land, I would have made a different choice, but such is not to be.

So… yeah… I have a new toy. I need to go buy a big plastic bubble
to put it in so I don’t drop it and break it or scratch it or
something.

Note to my 700p: Um. I may not be talking to you much this next month….

Really cute comic (sinfest)!

You did it! Another lap around the sun! Good job! *pat* *pat*

Just discovered this really cool site that allows you to scrobble/tag/etc. to your last.fm account while you’re listening to Pandora. SWEET!! The only wrinkle is that it doesn’t seem to work from within Firefox. So just use Konqueror and you’ll be happy, like me.

Oh, and I know I’m getting ahead of myself by 1 minute, but Happy New Year!!  =:)

Haven’t been very good at all lately on keeping my blog up to date. *sigh* Well, for that matter, I haven’t been very good at all lately on keeping up with much of anything. But I digress…

After a friendly post from Pablo Yepes about some address book goofiness, I removed the ugly kludge that had been in KPilot for quite a while now:

r754992 | vanrijn | 2007-12-30 21:49:50 -0500 (Sun, 30 Dec 2007) | 10 lines
Changed paths:
M /branches/KDE/3.5/kdepim/kpilot/ChangeLog
M /branches/KDE/3.5/kdepim/kpilot/conduits/abbrowserconduit/abbrowser-conduit.cc
M /branches/KDE/3.5/kdepim/kpilot/conduits/abbrowserconduit/kabcRecord.cc
M /branches/KDE/3.5/kdepim/kpilot/lib/options.h

* Fixing bug reported by Pablo Yepes on kdepim-users mailing list. We did
severe goofiness with middle names… The Palm can’t handle them, so we
blindly tacked firstname + ” ” + lastname and stuck it into the Palm’s
firstname field. The problem is that whenever a copy from palm->pc is
done, the kludged first name is transferred to kabc (“firstname middle”).
And, it’s compounded by every change in either direction. It’s an ugly
hack and I’ve removed it. The only way to work around it would be to add
an additional check for !firstname.endsWith(abEntry.additionalName()),
but that’s even sillier. Stop the insanity!

I’ve also forward-ported the fix to trunk (KDE4), so as soon as I can get around to re-enabling the addressbook conduit in trunk, at least this problem won’t be there…  =;)

Speaking of KDE4….  I keep finding myself with zero time to hack on KPilot for KDE4, but if ever I do, I think I need to approach it more different and more betterer than I have in the past. Bertjan has put a lot of work into unit tests for the new base conduit and keyring code, and I absolutely love it. Haven’t taken the time to understand it completely, but I LOVE it. I think that the goal going forward should be that everything in KPilot is unit-test-driven. I need to be able to test all code and code changes without having to physically connect a Palm device to test it with. We’ll call that a New Year’s resolution.

Oh, also, rumor on the streets all over Americana is that the world-famous Adriaan may just possibly be coming to our little KDE4 launch party in January! Oh, that would but rock.  =:D

Blef! Finally found a fix for the awesome Tab Mix Plus Firefox extension and the iFox (and associated) themes! Sheesh. Can’t believe I tried to ignore that for so long!!

Follow these steps to fix the problem:

– Open a new tab
– Type about:config
– Create a boolean (Right click >> New >> Boolean)
– Name it: extensions.tabmix.useGreyCloseButton
– Set it as false

And your problem should be fixed.

Okay, well, I mean, it’s always been cool.  I’ve been using it for a few days instead of Firefox and it’s nice to see some of the new things in the Opera camp since I had last used it.  I like the widgets idea, although I can’t find any widgets that will let me post to my blog.  And I miss the del.icio.us buttons/extension that is available for Firefox.  I definitely like the feel and organization of Opera.  It just feels better and more solid.  Like the theme and appearance management.  Seriously… having to reboot your web browser to just change a theme or add in an extension… seems… really… silly.

Then again, Opera seems to have some quirks with Gmail (“#” doesn’t delete always??  keybindings stop working
until I click on the page often? textareas don’t linewrap sometimes? in fact, Wordpress’s textarea editor is now
not linewrapping, grr…).  *sigh*

Anyway, it’s nice to have a little variety every once in a while.  =:)

Oh, and I found a nice little technical comparison of the PSP and the new PSP slim at pspzine.  Verdict: seems like there’s no good technical reason for me to be lusting after a new PSP slim, so why am I jonesing for one so badly?  =:/