Create simple ANSI based UI with Python-Newt

I stumbled across this simple UI, Python-newt.  Newt which is common to many non-graphic installs on various Linux flavors. Newt is a simplistic UI that lets a programmer specify entry fields, radio buttons, ok/cancel buttons. You name it…

The Python extension is called Snack. Read more on support here. Two examples come with the docs, showing how easy it is to assemble UI entry request pages/forms.

Chumby here it comes…

I have a tendency to buy Gizmos and let them sit on my desk.  I’ve had some things torn apart like breadboards, multimeters, microprocessors, wires hanging out, half mounted LCD’s, and things entact but still collecting dust like PDA’s, USB sticks, iPAQ’s, scattered around my desk.

So when Ken first showed me the site chumby.com and told me what Chumby’s were all about, I was impressed and shocked at the same time.  But then the sinking feeling of uh oh another gadget fell into my head.  I mean spending $179 would buy me a fun weekend of skydiving (or 8 jumps — skydivers measure how much something costs by how many jumps it would buy).

The other day Ken mentioned his was shipped.  Damn you Ken! I went back to the website and decided yes I too wanted to have this under my Christmas tree this holiday season.

Tonight while I was working, I came up with yet another idea I could use the Chumby for.  And then I received an email stating my Chumby had been shipped! I am going to look forward to playing around with the flash interface and writing up a sample little idea I have.

I guess the one great thing about this gadget is it was made to sit where I want it to, and can do virtually anything.  I eventually see my son wanting one in his bedroom as an alarm clock to wake him, then to tell him the scores of last nights sporting event he couldn’t stay up to watch.  I see one in the kitchen to let my wife browse her recipes, check the weather or keep tabs on that Ebay auction while cooking, perhaps displaying an IM from me when I have locked my desktop at work for the day and am on my way home?

Thanks Ken! 

digiKam review

I have tried numerous image archive software programs on Kubuntu and have finally settled on digiKam for several reasons I will point out. But if you think that digiKam is perfect, check again. I found one annoying thing with the program, that I wish was handled a little better.

QT by Trolltech

Qt-Apps.org and Qt-Prop.org was launched back in April.  I’ve always been a fan of QT development since I wrote my first QT application for the iPAQ using QTEmbedded.

Gizmo vs Skype on Linux

I have been working hard on a project with a colleague of mine who lives about six hours from me. Initially we spent a lot of time talking on our cell phones. But talking on cell phones some times in a house ends up plaguing you with disconnects.

We decided to use a voice over IP product. I was leaning towards Gizmo, and he wanted to use Skype. He wanted to use Skype because all of the people he knew or needed to talk to were already on Skype and it was yet another application he had to install and run on his computer.

Vim Tip: Comment out multiple lines

Commenting out a bunch of lines without a vim plugin:

Select your lines with VISUAL BLOCK (CTRL-V), then press I to insert before all highlighted lines. Next type your comment character, # (for python, shell, etc). Last press ESC.

I forget not frequently used, but helpful VIM commands from time to time. Why not blog it?

You can alternatively select your lines with VISUAL LINE (SHIFT-V), then type : s/^/#
This tells the selected lines that you wish to substitute the start of the line with the # char.

OpenSourceParking.com

I parked some new domain names I just purchased at opensourceparking.com.

If you have any unused domain names, you can park them there too. It gives you an ad-free (other than open source projects) parking lot. Domain owners are also doing this to take a stand against Microsoft’s struggle to dominate the web with IIS statistics. Petty? Sure, but why would M$ and Go Daddy go through all the trouble to park all unused domains on IIS? (Go Daddy use to park them with Apache?