Bloggy

So, I went down to visit my sister the other day. When I called to ask if they were going to be there they informed me that it was a good thing I called. Her grandmother had been using an old computer for her to use for school and email, which crapped the bucket.

Grandma goes to the store to see about replacing the computer with something inexpensive. Really inexpensive. Cheapest thing you’ve got that can check email and browse the Web. I’ve got the monitor, printer, everything, I just need the PC.

The KMart store clerk looks around and shows off the $600 or so PC, which was not in her target price range. After a bit more asking the clerk goes, “Well, we do have 1 machine in the back. Every store has only gotten one, but it’s only $200.

She asks to see it, and he brings it out. Says something about having Firefox, goes onto Facebook, Google Mail, has office tools, etc. She goes, “that’ll work for me” and promptly buys it.

Of course, it turned out that it runs Linux, not Windows, which my uncle gave her some ribbing about. When I asked how useful it had been they replied that my sister didn’t seem to have any trouble getting onto the Internet or using Firefox, but they had one page that wouldn’t work, and could I look at it? I told them I would, and that they might even see something with my name on it. (No, as it turned out).

So when I went down it turned out that it was running something called gOS, a Ubuntu derivative. My sister knew the passwords and stuff and had been able to half-navigate around the desktop. I installed Java and tested the site… and it still didn’t work. I don’t know if this is a gOS or Ubuntu (or Debian) hiccup but after installing the javaplugin package for mozilla I still had to symlink it into the plugins directory. After that, the Java site worked fine and my sister and her friend were able to play some game called Runescape. Only other software package she wanted to see was “that fish screensaver you showed me“. I didn’t want to install kdelibs just for one screensaver so I looked for the original. But the system didn’t have Term::Animation packaged and I didn’t want to mess with CPAN. Maybe next time though.

I also had to make their printer work. gOS actually came really close but since there was no driver included for her model printer it defaulted to Generic Text Only. A similar driver was available which I tried, and worked. There is a specific driver to use from Canon but you have to go through a bunch of hoops to get it to work so I simply didn’t bother.

Other than that, from my use the system was responsive enough, included enough software, and seemed at least reasonably achievable to browse around for someone who had never used Linux. I explained some Linux concepts for my sister and put an xterm icon on her desktop. I also ran the Synaptic Update process… and saw 117 or so security packages, including the OpenSSL fix. I don’t know what else the gOS guys are doing but they really need to make security packages update by default, or at the very least auto-download and then start blaring sirens saying that an update is needed. Windows is much better in that regard on default installations so that’s pretty embarrassing.

However, given all that is included, my grandmother and sister were pretty ecstatic. My uncle (a long time computer nerd) was kind of off-put by not being used to the system and pointed out everything that didn’t work but in the end it was either a 90% useful system for my sister or nothing and so both my grandmother and sister were pretty happy to have the system. I pointed out the support bookmarks in Firefox for my sister so she can mess around and other than that I guess I’ll have to train her a bit whenever I go down. But as long as an update doesn’t break anything they should have a useful system for quite a few years now, which makes me feel good about the work I put in supporting Linux and the F/OSS ecosystem as a whole. We’re not on top yet but for a lot of people we are certainly better than merely good enough now.

Posted by mpyne under Computing Troubles & Personal | 5 Comments »

I’ve been improving JuK a lot over the past week or so trying to get it into better shape for KDE 4.1 (and 4.0.5).

What I’ve worked on today was the issue with crossfading where the volume differential between the songs would go haywire initially. I think I’ve got it as good as I can get it from JuK, but now there’s something else I need.

I have posted an email to kde-multimedia detailing my problem, but basically I want to use the gstreamer phonon backend to test whether the problem lies with JuK or with phonon-xine.

The first problem was that JuK wouldn’t work with phonon-gst because JuK made some inaccurate assumptions about when Phonon would actually start playing after being told. (Hint: Not immediately, the backend has to setup first).

That is fixed in both the 4.0 and trunk branches now. But when using phonon-gst to playback a song, any time I switch to the next track JuK crashes on an assertion in phonon-gst. This happens even if I do not allow crossfading. This does *not* happen if I slow it down in gdb by single stepping. So I think it’s a timing issue.

Anyone out there use phonon-gst and could tell me what I’m doing wrong?

Posted by mpyne under Computing Troubles & KDE & Programming | No Comments »

So on Planet KDE there is a bit of discussion regarding usability, discussion brought on by an article on a programming weblog.

The topic of the article was a group that decided to make a copy of Pidgin, the most popular open-source instant messenger. The copy is called Funpidgin and was essentially created because the people making the copy feel the Pidgin development team are not listening to the needs of their users.

Celeste Lyn Paul, one of the KDE team’s usability designers (the group that tries to make the software we make actually usable by the end user) noted that the Funpidgin project needed to be careful with how much they allow the user crowd to drive the direction of the project.

Derek Kite made a comment about the amount of issues that people bring in the name of usability. He then later posted a followup where he says that usability is fine to get inexperienced users acting but tools for more advanced tasks are usable because they work, and that those tools with usability design are usually not useful at all because they are designed by those who don’t use them. i.e. the user would be the best designer.

I don’t disagree but I have an alternate viewpoint based on some of my experience operating two of the most advanced “tools” in the world, nuclear reactor plants:

I first qualified on the S5W nuclear reactor plant. This plant was very old by the time I qualified on it (MTS-626, used to be SSBN-626 U.S.S. Daniel Webster, commissioned April 1964). It was also very well understood, tried and true. The plant I’m currently qualified on, S8G was a quantum leap above. Many things I used to have to verify were done were either not required or performed automatically. The capabilities were more impressive, the plant design was easier to understand. It was better in most every respect, as it should have been, what with all the operational experience the designers were able to integrate from S5W and later plants. Neither of those two plants however, were designed by it users, the nuclear operators and supervisors.

Now, the users of these plants were certainly involved in the design of the follow-on plant. It would be foolish not to get the input and experience of the people who actually use the plant which you design. But the design is still left to the smart guys at Naval Reactors and their contractors. I’m not kidding about smart either. It seems like at least once a week either by looking around or digging in the books that I’ll notice something which had to be designed in to solve or prevent a problem. Even as much as the operators understand the plant, their knowledge is dwarfed by the designers and engineering who designed and maintain (but don’t actually operate) the plant.

Users have only their own experience, however great. By leaving the design to other engineers, who have access to many users and their own expertise, Naval Reactors is able to use that big picture view to develop better designs, which future generations of operators will be able to use. In much the same way, software designers need to use the input of the users of their programs to develop better programs. But completely user-driven design can be hazardous. Different users want different things, sometimes with conflicting demands.

For example, there is a performance issue in KDE (and now in Firefox) due to the fsync() and fdatasync() system calls. Those calls are there to prevent data corruption. Some users aware of the issue disable those system calls (and thereby risk data corruption in the event of a computer crash) in order to increase performance. You can’t make both users who demand performance and users who demand data integrity happy in instances like these. Well, you could perhaps add a checkbox… ;)

You can’t always just add an option though, and sometimes you can’t make everyone happy. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t base your work off user feedback though! Just as the designer may have the overall big picture view, the users will see things in actual use that the designer would not have thought of, either actual bugs or better ways to do things. This, in my opinion, is the process of usability. The work and value of the actual usability experts shouldn’t be diminished just because of people who make bad suggestions in the name of usability. I’ve seen quite a few programs noticeably improve after a usability review with no loss in functionality. (Edited 18 May to fix spelling)

Posted by mpyne under KDE & Navy & Personal | 3 Comments »

So I’m a pretty big fan of the Amazon MP3 Music Store. It has had very few tracks which I wanted to grab which weren’t available. It’s cheaper than the iTunes Music Store as well. I realize this is the case only because the music labels are tired of getting their terms dictated to them by Apple so they decided to open up the competition and make the deal more enticing. But that works in my favor so that’s awesome. Only thing I’m afraid of is that that music labels will try to do something dumb and try to start adding DRM copy protection to the music again (which breaks the music on my players). But anyways, back to my original point: Amazon’s MP3s even come with the cover art built-in to the track.

I noticed this when I tried playing some of my purchased tracks on my laptop this past underway with Amarok, and noticed that it displayed the cover art just fine. After a bit of work now that I’m back in port I’ve managed to add display of built-in cover art to JuK as well. The patch is available as an attachment to KDE bug 103118. In addition (what the bug was reported against) if no cover is present JuK will look for cover.jpg in the same directory as the music file like many other media players do. No screenshot, it looks just like normal JuK cover art support, only JuK pulls from more sources with the patch.

As far as where this lands I’ll have to email core-devel. I returned to port way too late for the 4.1 feature list :) so this may have to wait for 4.2 (depending on how much toward “bugfix” people are willing to lean). But if people want to test that’s fine. ;)

On a related note, if you’ve been using JuK and notice a bug that is egregrious (i.e. you can’t even play audio because JuK always crashes when you click Next, you can’t add files, etc.) please leave me a comment so I can prioritize. I have limited time so I’d like to make good use of it in time for KDE 4.1.

I already know of the fact that you can’t seem to drag-and-drop tracks to playlists anymore for instance (which hampers my routine at least so I’ll try and fix that soon).

Posted by mpyne under KDE & Programming | 4 Comments »

So Mario Kart Wii came out the other day. Given that every Mario Kart ever has been at least a great game, we picked it up immediately.

I’ve only played it in versus mode, both competitively and cooperatively with my wife, in racing and both battle modes, and I can definitely say that this is the least pleased I’ve been with a Mario Kart title ever. I’ve actually thrown the Wiimote (luckily a mattress was in the way) :(

My major gripes? Well, let’s list:

• I’m actually not upset at the Wiimote-as-steering-wheel controls. They take getting used to and I don’t think they’re as precise as normal analog stick controls (I haven’t tried yet however) but as long as you recognize that about 350 degrees full left to full right is the complete range of motion you’ll adapt. Try to push more and you’ll simply confuse the game into steering the wrong way. This is something that could be improved by a stand or something that has a mechanical stop, at least you’d know when you hit the full range of motion. But again, you’ll at least get used to this.
• The first major concern for me (and this is huge) is that they seem to have drastically changed power sliding. In Mario Kart 64 and Mario Kart Double Dash when you power slide you can kind of adjust the direction you slide. They seem to have significantly reduced this in Mario Kart Wii. This significantly ramps up the difficulty. Turn too early and you are pretty much guaranteed to go over an edge or run into the wall. Turn too late and you are pretty much guaranteed to go over an edge or run into a wall. Even if you don’t spill out you’re likely not going to be pointed in the right direction once the turn is done. Probably the safest bet is to never power slide (or leave it in Auto) but then you will slow down a lot through every turn.
• Oh, and when you do run into a wall (and it will be frequent), you are practically guaranteed to lose 2-3 places each time. This would have been OK as a difficulty-enhancer had they not combined it with the penalty on power sliding.
• One thing that I hoped they would fix at some point is the rubber-band logic that allows the CPU to basically completely annihilate you just for doing well in a race. Do too well and all of a sudden you will have disasters rained down upon you as if from on high (and then you will no longer be in the first half of the leaderboard). In previous Mario Karts it would go from happening randomly to conveniently happening on the second or third lap. Now it just seems to happen all the time instead.
• Also cool is when you get hit by an item, and then get hit by a passing kart, and then get hit by another item (or two, you’re already hosed at this point). This happens in every Mario Kart game. But I think I’m already up to about half the number of times that it happened to me in Mario Kart 64 and Double Dash combined.

It’s not all bad news. I watched my wife play one-player and even though she made a lot of mistakes playing through her first time, she rather easily took first in all 4 races she played. Apparently my strategy will have to be trying to stay in 12th the whole time and hoping for good items. In addition the stages are inspired, both for racing and battle modes. I’m going to stay away from online play because that merely leads to me getting my face stepped on by someone I can’t so much as throw my soda at, but it’s nice that it has the option.

I’m going to go try playing it one-player and seeing if I can at least get some entertainment out of it in solo mode. It’s not like I can return it and get my money back. :-/

Posted by mpyne under Personal | 5 Comments »

So before I went underway our car had developed a trouble causing the Check Engine light to come in continuously. No abnormal sounds but being nuclear-trained has taught me not to live with “locked-in” alarms or warnings. I wasn’t able to troubleshoot it in the limited time I had before deploying so I asked my wife to make sure it got investigated when she had free time.

She took the car to the dealership. She actually had to make two trips; apparently there were two separate faults that would have caused the light to come in by this time. Nothing mechanical luckily, but apparently at some point while the dealership was troubleshooting the issue they had to unhook the battery. Doing this activated the anti-theft feature of my radio; it would not play music unless I typed in the anti-theft code. This code was included on a card which I was supposed to remove from the car and keep in a safe place. Needless to say, I had removed it from the car, and it is still in some safe place, nowhere to be found.

So my car radio has been silent for about a month and a half now. I finally got the time to really dig into this issue since the dealership apparently is completely unable to figure out what the unlock code should be. A little browsing on the Internet and apparently many people have had the same issue, and the unlock codes are few enough to list in one paragraph.

So I went and wrote them down and typed them in one by one. After about a dozen tries the radio started working again. Yay! I will record the code in my KWallet this time; it is the only thing which I reliably can count on being there. In case anyone else develops this issue with a Chevy Aveo, I found these posts helpful: automotive forums and Yahoo! Answers.

Posted by mpyne under Personal & Useful Tricks | 3 Comments »

I think I blogged earlier about the Dell Inspiron laptop I bought with Ubuntu Linux pre-installed. I managed to use it sparingly underway (had I known beforehand how little free time I would have I wouldn’t have bothered but that’s a different story). It was cool showing some of the other officers the programs where I’m listed in the credits though.

Anyways, one of the first things I did when I got back of course was to make sure it was fully updated. And wouldn’t you know it, they had just released Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron), and would I like to upgrade it asked me. Well I’m a sucker for upgrades so I went ahead and clicked OK.

It actually went 99% smoothly. The 1% this time was that my sound no longer worked afterwards, which was unfortunate. Luckily a little searching around revealed a post on Ubuntu Forums from someone with a different laptop but an identical problem. It appears that the pre-loaded Dell driver for the modem replaces the audio driver so that when the kernel was upgraded but the driver wasn’t, sound broke. Uninstalling the Conexant HSF Modem driver (hsfmodem in Adept Package Manager) reinstalled the correct driver and things were fine. I didn’t even have to reboot.

If the Dell-added weirdness hadn’t been added this probably would have been a seamless upgrade. The differences appear strictly cosmetic at this point however. I know PulseAudio is now floating around in here somewhere but ALSA still works so that’s fine.

Posted by mpyne under Computing Troubles & Personal | 1 Comment »

So now I’m back in town again, after a fairly harrowing (for me) patrol. Apparently being chem-radcon officer is a lot of work for inspection. The final grade is apparently classified so I won’t remain on the topic for too long, but I didn’t do too bad at least, which is all I can do really.

Tons more fun was had; I think I actually slept more and saw more movies when I was qualifying than I did this run. (You are supposed to neither watch movies nor be sleeping for no reason until you are qualified ;) Once, I actually got 12 consecutive hours of sleep… and promptly got the nickname “12 down” for the rest of the run. *sigh*

Either way though if you’ve sent me email or left me a comment and I haven’t replied back, well, that’s the reason. I’m living in a different house now so I’ll probably still be busy unpacking but feel free to drop me an email if you need something now that I’m back.

I have noticed much improvement to KDE 4, which is exciting to see. Unfortunately my sound still does not work, but I haven’t troubleshooted (troubleshot?) it at all yet. I’ve also applied the usual 15 or so security upgrades I seem to usually have waiting for me when I pull back in. Now it’s time to think about what computer upgrade I will treat myself to after this last patrol.

Also, two thumbs up to Super Smash Bros. Brawl. If I can figure out how to stop running into the walls I may eventually give two thumbs up to Mario Kart Wii. TODO: Make a TODO list for the new house and stick to it.

Posted by mpyne under Personal | 3 Comments »