After some more hacking on my new little project, I am pleased to release the XAMPP Control Panel version 0.5. I have bumped the version to 0.5 as it is fairly complete, but needs some decent testing. In addition to fixing some bugs, I have also added a large button to start and stop the entire stack. It now looks like this:

Feel free to send over patches and comments. I would like to get this to a state where it can be included with the XAMPP release if possible.

Just spent a couple of hours hacking on a front end for starting the different components in XAMPP.

This is going to be useful for my own use of XAMPP as well as when teaching PHP/MySQL courses. At the moment you can set your installation path (saved in GConf) and you can start/stop any of the XAMPP components. There is still lots to do, and I want to clear some bits up before I release it. I am going to get it into a basic state for release and then if anyone wants to submit a patch to bolt on the various other XAMPP features, so be it. 🙂

For many people, Subclipse (a plug-in for Eclipse) has been either really good or really bad. Reports have ranged from not getting it to work at all to it being a breeze. This kind of discussion appeared on the PHPWM list today as I was trying to fix it. Luckily, I found the solution.

Subclipse relies on a tool called JavaHL. The Windows version of Subclipse (I never knew there were different versions as I installed it inside Eclipse itself) includes JavaHL with it. Unfortunately the Linux version does not. The Subclipse site does not exactly shout about its dependence on JavaHL, and it seems a lot of people have been caught out by this. On the Subclipse site there is a Debian deb source that can be used to get JavaHL. The problem is that the packaged version requires a new version of Subclipse. Argh!

Anyway, Elliot discovered that you can install JavaHL from with the Eclipse software management module. It is installed as part of the JavaSVN plugin, and you find details about how to install it here. Simply install it, then install Subclipse using these instructions and you should be rolling. 🙂

Subclipse is not bad. It provides a nice means of managing a repository, but it also seems to abstract the common needs behind a wall of bad usability. As an example, checking out code should be an up front and obvious feature. This is hidden away in the plug-in and it took me a while to find. Also be careful about how you specify the repository. Many people would specify their subversion repository as svn://foo.com/myproject. If you use that, you will only see the subdirectories that are inside myproject and not be able to check out the entire module. To solve this, use svn://foo.com/ as the repository and then you can check out the myproject directory.

After today I am taking a week off. Its been a busy time recently and Sooz and I are going to kick back and relax. Of course, this translates as more drumming, guitar playing, hacking and working on my new site. I don’t think I am physically able to sit still for longer than a few minutes…
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I have decided I am going to do some running. The reasons for this are twofold. Firstly, I wouldn’t mind clearing a bit of space and get the Bacon love battery downgraded a bit. A few too many beers and pies have created a battery with a little too much power. Unfortunately the battery is wired directly to the donut lobe in the brain. The other reason, and possibly the main reason, is that I want to get fit so I can drum faster. I have been playing a lot recently and my speed is steadily growing. To progress further I think I need to be fitter.

Had a chat with Jake from Senokian about Enterprise Groupware System (EGS) today, a new GPLed CRM that is due for release on Sep 1st. It is looking like the release may actually happen at our offices at OpenAdvantage. I saw a quick demo of EGS a while back and it is looking quite nice. They are opening the project up when they release it and it has a great opportunity to become the de-facto CRM. It looks nicer than Sugar feature-wise, and its GPL licensing means it feels a bit free’er too. Sugar is pretty darned free, but silly requirements such as displaying the SugarCRM logo are a little odd. My dream is that EGS will be merged into a desktop that is aware of CRM at the desktop level.

Today I finally got Breezy up and running. After the initial problems with the dri X.org driver, I got a system that runs but there was no GNOME panel. The current system works OK (the panel bug is fixed), but the default kernel will not boot /dev/sda1. I am sure this will be resolved soon. Breezy is looking nice. The add/remove software tool has been improved quite a lot and it provides a nice method of managing software. All it needs now is some kind of software ratings system to cut the wheat from the chaff. It will then be pretty nice. 🙂

Last night Sooz and I watched The Firm. Pretty decent film, and part of it was filmed near the Mailbox in Brum – about 5 minutes from where I am sitting now. It also has Jim McDonald from Coronation Street in it, not that that is a selling point. Speaking of films, it seems that the Lost In Translation hate campaign is growing. I never realised so many people thought it sucked.

Last night I hacked my site some more, fixed a long running problem I have had with HTML_QuickForm and made some progress. The new incarnation of the site will feature a ratings system for songs and support comments on songs.

Today we bought the largest bag of dog food I have ever seen and we (Seraphidian) had the first band practice in about three months. We have been out of action due to an injury with our drummer. We are now back and raring to go. The new stuff is sounding awesome. 🙂

The anouncement of Project Ridley seems a step in the right direction and I weighed in on the subject. I will be keeping track of this.

Also, congrats to the gasman on his awesome Hula frontend work. Can’t wait to see this in action, and the bulk of the code should go into the CVS this week. The task is then to make it work with the rest of the server. 🙂

Back to work tomorrow, but I am only in for two days as I have booked the rest of the week off as holiday.

Thanks for the interesting comments about the vim shenanigans. I am aware that ubuntu-base is a meta-package for the essential bits and bobs in Ubuntu, but I find it unusual that vim is in there by default on a distribution so focused on the GUI. As for the suggestion to simply use vim, I doubt that will happen. 😛 Oh, and no, I won’t be using emacs. 🙂

Last night Emelye (of cello fame) and Jon came over for some Pizza. It was supposed to be dinner, but Sooz and I got stuck in a huge traffic jam and the usual 40 minute commute home took 2 /12 hours. It was not nice and my bladder felt the kind of pressure to unload that a bladder should not normally undergo.

After they left, Sooz and I went to bed and I played with Eclipse for a few hours. Eclipse is one of those things I feel that I should learn. It offers so much functionality and it also provides a consistent base for all of my development. I installed PyDev and attempted to install Subclipse, but Subclipse failed to work correctly. PyDev seems quite nice, but it only seems really suitable for large projects. As an example, if you want to knock up a quick script, you need to create a special Run Configuration and this just gets in the way of being productive quickly.

After helping Sooz with some CSS today for her new site and then submitting a bug to the Nvu developers, I started fiddling with GStreamer Python code. GStreamer is an awesome platform, but at the moment I am finding it difficult to get started with my code. This is largely because I am tracking CVS HEAD (GStreamer 0.9) and I am reluctant to write for the older 0.8 version as it will outdated soon. The main problem is documentation. There is literally no documentation for the Python bindings, and this is making development difficult. The guys on the GStreamer IRC channel have been really helpful, but it is still a challenge if you are largely unfamiliar with the framework.

I am now sat on the couch and Lost In Translation has just finished. Thank God. I would rather skewer myself in the face than watch that pile of crap again. Boring. Boring. Boring. I am not joking here – that film is a huge, incessant pile of utter tosh. I am disappointed in the usually brilliant Bill Murray that he was happy to take part in such utter crap. Boring. Boring. Boring. Did I say it was boring? What a waste of my life…

Finished up the PHP and MySQL course today and the feedback was good. I enjoyed this one – the group was enthusiastic, fun and encouraged each other.

The other day I saw PIDA and I am quite intrigued by it. Before the course started this morning, I was chatting to one of the core PIDA developers, and I was trying to encourage him to push the IDE’s dependence on vim back a little. Sure, vim is great for many people, but having vim as the editor by default seems nuts. Mind you, it seems there is no generic GEdit type generic editor widget for GTK/GNOME. Implementing something akin to GEdit will require reimplementing the functionality. Nevertheless, the project looks interesting, and Gazpacho integration is a good thing. Python has so much opportunity at being the VB for Open Source systems…

While investigating PIDA I tried to install the PIDA deb from the website. The site says it is compatible with Ubuntu, so I tried to install it on my Hoary laptop. It said that the package required vim-gtk, so I tried to install it. I was then greeted with a big fat dependency error. I thought I would remove vim and re-install, but removing it gave me this astonishing reaction:

jono@ubuntu:~$ sudo apt-get remove vim
Password:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  ubuntu-base vim vim-common
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 3 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 0B of archives.
After unpacking 15.2MB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? n
Abort.
jono@ubuntu:~$

Removing vim will remove ubuntu-base?? What?

In other news, an article I wrote for the O’Reilly Network entitled Linux for Video Production. The article talks about how multimedia and video production on Linux is getting so much better with GStreamer and PiTiVi. Go check it out. 🙂

Today I was teaching seven people the relative joys of PHP and MySQL. They are a good group and it is a joy to see people getting excited about Open Source. There is a particular moment when all the different pieces just fit together and the student knows exactly how they can do some really cool things with the technology. Little things like being able to create PDF files and images in PHP are big boons and the Web Developer Toolbar definitely hit the spot. Oh, and of course, they learn’t some of the special Bacon Ninja Magic (this will only make sense if you have actually been on one my courses).

Finished off todays session and then legged it back to go to Karate with Sooz. After Karate I cooked dinner and we spent the evening relaxing. I am going to try and take things a little easier over the next few months. I think I have been doing a bit too much and need to relax some more. Next week I have booked three days off to sit back, chill out, jam some tunes, hack some code and eat some donuts. Yes please.
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Worked from home today as we were having a fence built because some scrote was wandering past our house and decided to have a crack at kicking our fence in. The pathetic excuse for an individual knocked one fence panel down. Our fence was pretty flimsy anyway, so we decided to get a decent one knocked up.

So, I got up today, made myself a huge cup of tea:

I worked on various bits and pieces including some research, some hacking and also caught up on some email. This week I am giving a PHP and MySQL training course and I also prepared for that. I do enjoy doing training. I definitely get a buzz when I see people learning and getting enthusiastic about Open Source. 🙂

Today I have also been trying to get Breezy up and running. There is one particular package holding up hundreds of others. I have been running an update and dist-upgrade every hour all day and it is definitely a bug in the package. This is a shame – I am looking forward to playing with Cairo in Breezy. GTK 2.7 was in there when I last used it, but it seemed that the cairo.gtk Python module had gone amiss.

While working at home today, I worked downstairs in the dining room. Next to me is Banger’s bed and he was asleep most of the day. At one point I got up to go and get something, and I quite obviously woke him up and pissed him off:

Before getting Banger I never would have thought dogs could have facial expressions. Is that one pissed of dog or what?

Oh, and last night I finally mixed a song that has been resident in my studio for a while. This one is about remembering those who offer sacrifices for us. It is an acoustic instrumental and I am really pleased with it. Go and listen to Remembered now!

Wandered in a little weary this morning after no breakfast and staying up late working on the book. Before I went to sleep I fixing a stack of bugs I inadvertently merged into the code when I applied some decent validation. Fixed that, read a bit of my book and fell asleep with my specs on. Sooz had to take my specs off while I was asleep and move them out of the way. Good job they didn’t get crushed really.

Lunched it with the man of ginger dreams and the baldaroon. We discussed some ideas for Season 3 of LUGRadio that will kick off after our summer break. Various ideas are flying around at the moment; some good and some insane. Rest assured though people, we won’t let Matt inflict the pub quiz on you. 😛

You know, the snapshots feature in VMWare is excellent if you want to run Breezy – the packages are broken so often that I can simply roll back to a Hoary snapshot in VMWare, apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade I am there. This makes testing Breezy much easier. As many of you will be aware, last Christmas I dist-upgraded to Hoary and ran it as my main system. I had a particularly hairy couple of months using the system and I don’t think I will be doing that again on my main machine.

Spent some time today learning a bit more about the OpenOffice.org release process. I had a chat with Michael Meeks about some of the issues and also garnered some input from the OpenOffice.org IRC channel. It was interesting getting some decent feedback about the desire for a six-monthly release process and how it could improve the software. The difficulty is that the current release schedule is tied together with the StarOffice schedule. Most commercial software has a slower release process and as such it conflicts with the Open Source OpenOffice.org process. This can certainly be improved and Michael is keen to see a shorter release process implemented.

There is so much potential for OpenOffice.org, but I really feel sorry for 100 or so developers who grapple with the 8 million lines of code that they hack on. I never realised that OpenOffice.org actually includes its own libc and its own Python tree. On modern distributions such as Debian and Fedora it can use a shared library on the system, but the entire suite is still a huge engineering undertaking. I am going to be writing an article about this and hopefully encourage some more people to join the project. Michael assures me that there is so much that non-l33t hackers can do. Translations, documentation, artwork, simple one-line fixes and much more. If you have some spare time and want to contribute to a really important project, go and help OpenOffice.org.

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