Ubuntu Development Week – A Catchup.
The logo for Quickly, a Ruby-on-Rails like application framework.
Well, I mentioned on Sunday that this week I would be (and hopefully you too) taking part in the Ubuntu Opportunistic Developers week. I thought it would be awfully bad form not to show some of my progress (and my overly embarrassing bugs).
A quick word of warning though: I haven’t been able to catch as many sessions as I would like because of school and Game-Engine commitments and the stuff I have knocked together is very buggy. That said, the underlying concept of the program works it’s just the PyGTK programming that’s annoying me.
My First App: FeedMe
The basic idea behind FeedMe is simple. It’s just a couchDB application that fetches all the links from a HTML or XML file and puts them into a nice list. It borrows heavily on concepts and code from Dive into Python, a book for programmers with loads of great source code, documentation and online tutorials for Python and Quickly.
Ubuntu Opportunistic Developers Week
Despite the fact that, under Game-Engine law, it is illegal to post on a Sunday it would really defeat the point if I didn’t post now. The reasoning behind this is because the start of next week (1st March) marks the beginning of the Ubuntu Opportunistic Developers week.
Essentially, the motivation behind it is to teach and encourage new developers to make quick applications for the Ubuntu platform that fill a specific niche. Why am I telling you this? Well, it’s because starting to develop for the Linux platform is confusing and the sessions offered at the developers week will give you the skills to become a GUI developer. I am certainly taking part, I already have an idea for an application knocking around in the back of my head and, after playing with some of the development toys, I am really looking forward to it.
The week will teach you how to use Quickly, PyGTK and the Python programming language to build your apps with elements such as persistent databases and graphics with PyGame.
Why is the name UNIX so damn weird?
For the sake of irony, I'm really hoping this image doesn't 404.
There are some words today that are synonymous with the history of computing. These words may include Linux, GNU, BSD, Mac OS X, Darwin, Solaris, System V, etc. However, what these words have got in common is that they all include, or are related to in some way, the word UNIX. Linux is word play for ‘Linus’, the Linux kernels father, and UNIX; GNU is an acronym for ‘GNU is not UNIX’; BSD and System V were the first UNIX systems; Darwin and Mac OS X are UNIX system-like operating systems and the same is so for Solaris.
Unfortunately, people may know that the words are related to but what they don’t know is how the words are related. The current standard of the UNIX naming system are almost as confusing as the court battles that have been fought over it. The lines between what is and what is not UNIX is no longer over who made the system or what the system performs like but by certification.
In case you were wondering…
We are going to be still putting out our murder madness video series, we’re just in the process of changing the format for next week!
Procrastination: The Lazy Man’s Guide.
Before I get started, a little admission to the reader: Before writing this post, I was dreaming what to put in a column where I put, well, anything I want and my mind was creativity death valley. Now, in the same vein as many of the ventures in my life that have proved to be a little bit difficult, my mind instantly adopted the “fuck it, I’ll do it later (ergo, never)” approach. Laziness, ladies and gents. Laziness.
So, like the self-proclaimed genius that I am, my mind started thinking of how I can factor in my extreme talent for procrastination into a fully blown blog entry. So, after a long (short) deductive process that I have named 2and2 syndrome, I came up with an idea that even rivals the concept of putting ninety-nine red balloons in the same space: write a blog about laziness. More precisely, how it benefits society.
Taking Wikipedia Offline
Picture the scenario: you are in a coffee shop, the wireless is crappy (or costly), you swear to yourself. Suddenly, a zombie-nazi-terrorist bursts into the joint and demands that you tell him about “ze device”. Unsure of what “ze device” is, you quickly struggle for your trusty laptop and blast in http://en.wikipedia.org hoping to find anything that can help you. Bang, no internets and all of a sudden the zombie-nazi-terrorist is firing his AK up the air in rage.
It can happen to the best of us. That’s why having a personal copy of Wikipedia on your computer is a good idea. As with most of these tutorials, I will be using Ubuntu, because it’s easier, and have even thrown in a quick script to do all the dirty work for you. Anyway, let’s get down to it. Read more
Documents, Documents, Sensitive, Documents.
As some of you may have heard, the free press website WikiLeaks has suspended all operations during a fund raising drive (if you want to donate to WikiLeaks, which I recommend if you are familiar with their work, go to http://wikileaks.org). For people wanting access to repressed data then the loss of such a site, even temporarily, is quite a blow.
However, with the fall of one star comes the birth of another and the website http://data.gov.uk has recently been put on public beta (for UK residents) and promises to publish all government published, non-personal, data. Read more
De-Tech-Tives – PDF Metadata
It is undisputed that the PDF file format is THE format for sharing documents. PDF has been employed for years as a convenient way for people to publish a document and know that, regardless of platform, the person who receives it will be able to read it.
What people may not be aware of, however, is how stupidly advanced the format is. The PDF format is a more advanced piece of technology than most file formats from popular office solutions and, you know what, it has to be. Just one file needs to contain not only normal document stuff, such as pictures and text, but tracking data and even JavaScript so it can provide an immense level of interaction for the user.
From an admin point of view, this is really useful as any PDF client can read information about the file, such as author and what produced it, and optimise around it. However, attribution can sometimes not be completely desired on a document. For example, Joe Blogs leaks sensitive data about aliens on the internet. He doesn’t realise, however, that hidden bits of information within the PDF file he published (examples include name, creation date, etc) will guarantee the police will make sure he finds himself on the wrong end of a prison rape in the foreseeable future.
Game Engine Transforms! Into a blog?
Whilst I don't own a PS2 Transformer, I sure as damn want one!
Game Engine, in case you have visited this here internet destination before, has changed. We’ve slimmed down, toned up and hope you get a more rewarding experience, OK that sounds crap, a cool time on the site.
As well as focusing on the gaming related goings on that interests us, we’re also going to be covering a wider range of topics, all really focused on the ‘internet’ friendly mediums. So one of us may look at the latest over-hyped film, whilst the other plays the no-doubt atrocious game tie-in. From game music to musical games, to the technology that is going to help you listen and interact with that stuff, we’ll be taking a look all sorts of things, as well as the occasional look at the most important topic. Stuff.
We’re still going to be rolling out video and of course, will be still having our fabled Ignition Podcast, and you’ll be able to subscribe to all these things through Twitter, RSS and all that madness. You don’t have to sign up to comment on the site’s articles, but doing so gives you a better editor and a little more permanence (you’ll need a gravatar to have an avatar, it’s internet wide)
In the mean time, take a browse through the archive of posts from the last GE site, or comment on what you’d like to see in the future.
