Monday, August 13, 2007

One main advantage of using/programming in KDE

IPC is a common problem for system programming. If IPC mechanism is designed poorly, the cost comes when the software needs scalability. However, designing full blown IO framework upfront is painful. ( Blocked forever is the worst case, and I may not want to think of non-blocking or asynchronous by signal yet. ) If this bothers, I recommend using DCOP interface.
Example will explain better. I am reading documents using 'kpdf'. And I want to trace my reading on this document. One application of this log will be my reading speed on this document.
If you are running KDE, dcop server is already running. If not, dcop server can be still manually started. Assuming we have dcop server, try this command.

$dcop

Then, a list of dcop(pable) application will appear. Then,

$ dcop kpdf-6961 kpdf currentPage
223

Walla. It gave me current page that I am on. If you play with dcop a little further, you will be amazed that it can be a better way to talk to another process. Registering a function to dcop(pability) isn't hard either. If IPC should be considered for local application, this approach should be very appealing.

Wednesday, August 8, 2007

krusader

I used konqueror as my file manager. konqueror supported enough features that I needed. A few days ago, I read something about KDE. I think it was about KDE4. In the article, krusader was mentioned and today I installed it. It was amazing. It had more than I needed, however having these feature in hands definitely should help.
I love KDE. Mostly this preference comes from my laziness.

Monday, August 6, 2007

compiz-fusion.

I have succeeded in installing compiz-fusion. I liked shift-switcher. I am greedy that I want shift-switcher to provide a mode change by short cut key. Currently only way to change mode from 'cover' to 'flip' can be done through menu, only. I hope this can be done ;)
In the meanwhile, I bound a short cut for CompizConfig. Ctrl + Super + Alt + 'C'. Couldn't bring any other unique combination without conflict.

Saturday, August 4, 2007

KDE struggles on my new hardware

I am so depressed. I hope I know KDE framework better to fight through my favorite KDE applications. I sent a bug-report about amarok and konqueror, but I know I just gave them a burden without much of useful information. I couldn't attach any useful clue.

When I brought up amarok for the first, it gave me a pop up of 'want to install MP3 plugin?'. At that time, my wireless was struggling. So, 'not now' was my answer. After that, amarok wouldn't respond at all. I thought it remembers my network carrier as a wireless. So, I dropped ndiswrapper and plug in for eth1 (wired network). Not working still.. I am using audacious instead.

Konqueror is better than this situation. But, I can not bring many features as I expect. It is a big cost for very young and new hardwares.
To make all this worse, my right hand wrist is picking up a soaring pain. I am still young to have a joint problem :(

Friday, August 3, 2007

I am alive

I know that I am not a popular blogger, and nobody cares if I haven't pinged to my readers. But, I do anyway. Hey, I am alive :)

Okay, I got my new laptop which dragged me several days. I audaciously tried gentoo linux on brand new Dell 1521. It has 2x64bit turion with 2GB of memory. ATI Xpress 1270 onboard VGA. I was very brave to give gentoo on it, and I struggle, now.
Dell 1521 is introduced in the market only 2 months ago and its HW parts are very new. And it is 64bit processor.. sigh..