Ari's Blog

Moving...

2008-08-07T09:18:00.000+02:00

I'm moving this blog to a new Google account. Therefore it will have a new address:

http://sgmlguru.blogspot.com/

I won't be updating anything on this page from now on. See, I have a new(er) Google account that I've been moving my stuff to, and I'm trying to cut loose ends.

Oxygen 9.0 Is Out

2007-11-03T23:22:00.000+01:00

Version 9.0 of my favourite XSL IDE, Oxygen, was released yesterday. Of course, I downloaded and installed it as soon as I could, having waited for an upgrade since 8.2 came out, some six months ago. I've written about Oxygen before; it's the first decent XSL IDE available for Linux, and the more I've used it, the more I've come to depend on it. See, what I especially like is the fact that I no longer need Microsoft Windows to do my XML/XSL work. Oxygen works very well in Debian/GNU Linux.

And now, it looks like I can finally re-evaluate my XML editor needs, too. So far, I've run XMetaL in wine, which kind of works except that right-clicking the workspace still crashes the program (but that's fairly OK since I seldom need to right-click anything while writing). As most things in wine, it's beta quality, no more.

Now, however, Oxygen 9.0 comes with a semi-WYSIWYG view, with CSS formatting and start- and end tag symbols, making it the first real alternative to running Windows software in wine. It is reasonably fast, too, from what I've seen so far, and certainly more stable than anything run in wine. You do need an official Sun Java JRE, though; it will complain if you use some of the Java replacements available for Linux, and it doesn't work with the GNU libgcj Java Virtual Machine.

I'll give it a more thorough test run within the next week or so, but I'm hoping that it can deliver what it promises.

Long Time No Blog

2007-10-25T11:26:00.000+02:00

Anyone missed me? Don't lie; you didn't. It's the Internet and there are a gazillion blogs out there. Some of them are probably even better than mine.

I'm back now, though, and I will once again be offering my views on things that matter to me on this space. Hope you'll read.

XMetaL 5

2007-04-26T11:19:00.000+02:00

I've spent the last few days tinkering with an XMetaL authoring environment for a client. The XMetaL version is the latest, 5.0, which is actually a lot of fun, but unfortunately it means that I've been forced back to Windows. What's worse, it also means that I'm forced to develop in Microsoft's exceedingly bloated Visual Studio .Net, surely a punishment for a previous life.

It's beyond me to understand why JustSystems, the Japanese company that bought XMetaL from Blast Radius, insists on this dependency.

An XMetaL developer doesn't need all the bells, whistles, and bugs that is Visual Studio, he needs a reasonably flexible scripting environment, easy access to modifying CSS stylesheets, writing (XML-based) toolbars and customizations, as well as the occasional form or dialog.

The thing is, different developers have different preferences. While I do believe that there are people that actually like Visual Studio .Net, not all of us do. Maybe we prefer other languages, or maybe we believe that forcing us to use the same tool for everything just isn't the right way to go. After all, even if you own an 18-wheel truck, you don't use it to drive to the supermarket to buy groceries. You use a car or a bus or a bike. Something that doesn't get in the way.

Because that's what Visual Studio does. It gets in the way, and more so when all you want to do is to tweak a CSS stylesheet. And I haven't even mentioned how hard it has become to change the DTD and then recompile it and import it into your project.

And I won't, because my blood pressure is important to me.

So while XMetaL in its latest reincarnation is very nice, I still consider version 3.1 to be superior for a number of reasons, of which one important one (to me) is that I can run it in and wine and Linux.

Oxygen

2007-03-04T17:18:00.000+01:00

Yesterday, I finally gave in and bought Oxygen, a Java-based XML/XSL editor available for Linux. While it's not an editor I'd choose for authoring XML documents (I still prefer something like XMetaL for anything beyond a page or two), I've fallen in love with it while writing XSL stylesheets for Arabic/Persian/Hebrew output for a client.

Until now, I've used ActiveState's Komodo for the purpose but I have to admit that Oxygen is better. Obviously, there's content completion for XSLT, but also for XSL-FO, which is very nice. You can also set a DTD or XML Schema of your own choice as the target output, which makes it a lot easier and faster to write stylesheets.

But the best feature is one that I don't really expect to use commercially: Oxygen's got Relax NG support, both for writing Relax NG schemas and for writing instances. It's really cool, but unfortunately, nobody seems to use Relax NG. It's just me and a few mates.

And no, I'm not affiliated with the company behind Oxygen in any way. I just like the product. A lot.

Global Warming for Gore?

2007-02-24T18:54:00.000+01:00

This is the Oscars weekend, and one of the nominated films is The Inconvenient Truth It's now speculated that an Oscar could be his first step towards the White House., former US Vice-President Al Gore's eye opener on global warming and the climate crisis threatening us all. The dramatically inclined even suggest that he could announce his candidacy on the podium, Oscar in hand.

I think it's a great idea. Gore would probably be the best candidate in years, if he runs, a candidate with an agenda as important to the resat of the world as for the US. In his words (with diagrams of water flooding Manhattan in the background), is it possible that we should focus on other dangers than just terrorism?

KDE CD Player Woes

2007-01-09T00:36:00.000+01:00

Until recently, I've been using kscd as my CD player in the KDE desktop environment. Some time ago, however, kscd caught a bug. After a few minutes' worth of playing a newly inserted CD, the CD stops and resets to track 1. If I press Play again, it will now play the CD flawlessly, from start to end. However, if I eject it and insert a new CD, the bug reappears.

This has been driving me nuts.

After some unsuccessful Googling, where I did find others sharing the same problem with me but no solution, I listened to a friend's advise and switched to Amarok, a media player that handles MP3s, fetches lyrics, builds playlists and helps me compile them in a MySQL database, among other things. Amarok is really nice.

But the kscd bug bothers me, and I want it solved. If anyone out there reads this and knows what happens, and why, please leave a note.

Microsoft Vista Praise Could Go Here

2006-12-29T01:49:00.000+01:00

It seems that Microsoft is giving away brand-new Acer Ferrari laptops as Christmas gifts to some bloggers out there. These people have apparently been praising the upcoming Microsoft Vista operating system in particularly clever (and objective, I'm sure) ways, and so now get their rewards.

If you haven't had the chance to drool over an Acer Ferrari yet, have a look and tell me that you don't want one.

Look, Mr Gates, I know I wrote a little something about the Vista EULA some time ago, and I know I've been blogging about Linux every now and then, but is it really too late for atonement? Perhaps I could write some positive words about the XML-based new layout format you hope to backstab, I mean, replace, PDF with, or maybe I could join the MS choir about the benefits of the Office XML format? Or I could just write a blog about the Microsoft-Novell agreement where you hope to short-circuit the open source market?

Call me.

Blogger Beta Problems

2006-12-08T23:55:00.000+01:00

It seems that I cannot reply to any comments on my blog entries. The word verification system is messed up and I cannot solve the problem now. Therefore, I will post any comments here, for now...

Comment/Reply to My Entry on Social Stories(TM):

Yes, social stories are indeed very useful. We use social stories to help my son with various day-to-day chores and such.

In this case, I couldn't get past the TM symbol. I would probably buy that book if it weren't for the TM inserted everywhere... It's the autie in me speaking, and that particular detail is all I can see now.

There's still the TEACCH workbook also authored by Carol Gray. Thankfully.

Cheers,

/Ari

I'm Rediscovering C with K&R

2006-12-08T23:11:00.000+01:00

Lately I've been rediscovering C. The programming language, that is. Mostly, I've been doing it by reading Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie's classic tutorial on the language, The C Programming Language. By today's standards, it's a rather thin book, only 272 pages, but it's the best book ever written on the subject, and vastly superior to any 1,000-page Learn C in 21 days and the like. If I was allowed a single computer book to emulate, it would be it, the classic K&R.

They don't get any better than K&R. The book's concise yet thorough, easy to read, and never wordy. And it was the first book to showcase a Hello World example program.

Now, I'm not a real programmer by any means. While some of my code is actually used out there, and I've been paid good money for it, most is rather bad, wordy, and overly ambitious. Which brings me to another book I'm craving at the moment: Code Complete, by Steven McConnell. It's a general-purpose volume from Microsoft Press (of all places) on writing good, professional-quality code, containing best practices of all sorts, from tips on testing to the pseudo-code method, and much, much more. I've been reading it at the local bookstore for days now, and while it's way too expensive to buy there, it's more reasonably priced at Amazon and other online Meccas.

It's my current #1 obsession to get that book, and while I really don't have the money right now, I fully expect to give in to the temptation shortly. A few abstract clicks late one night, a PayPal message, and it's mine.

I'll let you know.

Social Stories

2006-12-04T00:56:00.000+01:00

Social stories are often used to explain the intricacies of social interaction and other abstractions to autistic people. They look a lot like a comic book; rather than using complicated words and thus the inevitable abstractions, often beyond the autistic mind, they use pictures and sometimes text to explain a concept.

A good example of a typical social story is the image to the left, developed to explain some simple similes for autistic children. Often, parents of autistic children will have ready-made images for various purposes, from brushing your teeth in the morning to welcoming guests to the house in a proper manner. Social stories can be an excellent, often invaluable, tool, and have saved the day for probably countless families with kids on the spectrum.

Jessica Kingsley Publishers, a company specializing in part on Asperger/autism literature, publishes a sizable portion of the available books on autism spectrum disorders, so it came as no big surprise to me to find Revealing the Hidden Social Code by Carol Gray prominently displayed. The book promises to explain "key elements of Social Stories^TM, review the guidelines for writing them, and help writers to structure and develop their stories", and indeed, it would have been one of the more authoritative guides on the topic since Carol Gray is the originator of the concept, had it not been for a little detail.

TM.

Everywhere, those two letters. T and M. And Social Stories, capitalized. Jessica Kingsley Publishers or Carol Gray, or both, regard the concept as trademarked, and so, everywhere where the two words Social and Stories are mentioned in each other's immediate vicinity, the letters T and M follow, superscripted. Bla bla Social Stories^TM bla bla bla bla Social Stories^TM bla bla. Bla bla bla bla Social Stories^TM bla bla bla Social Stories^TM bla. Social Stories^TM bla bla bla bla bla.

See what I mean? Once you've noticed, it's impossible to not see it. See how those two letters stand out, see how they destroy whatever context the author wished to dwell in? You can't not see it.

So, for me at least, it's now impossible to buy that book because I'm afraid I'll learn not about social stories as such, but about how important it is to preserve your questionable trademark, no matter the cost.

Blogger in Beta

2006-11-28T00:24:00.000+01:00

Oh, and in addition to upgrading to Iceweasel, I've also taken the leap to the new Blogger. It's still in beta, but I've already noticed significantly faster editing and publishing. There's a seemingly nifty layout function that goes beyond static CSS hacking, but I've not dared to try my hand on it yet.

A possible downside is that instead of a separate Blogger logon, they've integrated it with memberships and stuff. I'm not sure I like that, since it would appear that to have multiple Blogger accounts, I need a distinct email address for each and every one. (Why would I want that? Glad you asked; if I want to use and display different personal profiles, that's what 'll need.)

So all I need now for my Google-induced happiness is a GMail account. But that's not yet in widespread release so I guess I'll just have to wait.

Iceweasel in Debian, Part Two

2006-11-28T00:20:00.000+01:00

After a few days of procrastinating, I finally upgraded to Iceweasel 2.0, that is, Firefox 2.0 minus the trademarked logo. Mysterious are the ways of militantly free open source, but it's a very nice browser.

The MS Windows Vista EULA

2006-11-22T10:37:00.000+01:00

Microsoft's version of the brave, new world was never more apparent than in the Windows Vista EULA:

You may not work around any technical limitations in the software.

In other words, you're prohibited from downloading and installing any patch or driver to your shiny new Windows Vista OS, unless the patch or driver is provided by Microsoft. Where do you want to go today? Me, I want to run away screaming.

I think I'll stick to Debian GNU/Linux, for now.

Iceweasel in Debian

2006-11-21T23:30:00.000+01:00

Long time no blog. Shocking as it may seem, I've not blogged since September. I'm sure you've all missed me.

Anyway, here's why I blogged today. To put it simply, the Mozilla Foundation uses a trademarked Firefox logo that Debian team cannot distribute with its upcoming Etch release of the Debian OS, and therefore decided to rename the browser Iceweasel. The current license (of the logo) does not allow the reselling of software that includes the Firefox logo, so the renaming was the only option available to the Debian team if they wanted to distribute the browser. (For those of you not in the know, Debian is free software, and you can do whatever you want with the OS, including reselling it for a hefty sum of money.)

Unfortunately, Debian's taking a lot of heat for the move. The decision to let Debian remain free and untainted by non-free licenses is called anything from "lame" to "disruptive", and people are arguing that Debian's strict license policy is hurting the open source movement since Firefox is its flagship product, soon to run on every desktop there is. And the policy is supposedly extra dangerous now, when Microsoft finally decided to upgrade Internet Explorer.

Unfortunately, people are missing the point. This is what open source really is about. The whole development model is about the freedom to do whatever you want with the software, including reselling it. It's the "free" part that enables fast development, quick and efficient bug tracking, and new versions as fast as you can type apt-get.

Don't let the open source ideals get lost because of some stupid image that will be changed and forgotten in a few version bumps, anyway.

Back in Action

2006-09-28T11:24:00.000+02:00

wine 0.19-1 has now reintroduced XMetaL in my Linux apps repertoir. However, it still crashes if I double-click on a word in the edit window. This rather limits the usefulness of the editor, for now.

XMetaL... Not!

2006-09-12T09:19:00.000+02:00

wine 0.9.17-1 breaks XMetaL 3.1. So there.

I don't have the strength to go back to wine 0.9.16-1 right now, so I think I'll just wait until the Debian package folks catch up. At WineHQ, the current version is 0.9.20...

The Project for the New American Century

2006-08-13T01:28:00.000+02:00

I was pointed to this by a friend. Scary. Very scary.

No Viruses Right Now, Please

2006-08-09T23:23:00.000+02:00

ClamAV, my virus hunter for Linux, stopped working today, after an unfortunate update of it and LSB Base ("Linux Standard Base"). Therefore, please don't send any viruses my way until the fix is in place (the updates are supposed to be uploaded within the next few days; have a look at the bug report).

Weird XMetaL Bug in Wine

2006-08-01T00:40:00.000+02:00

Up to, and including, wine 0.9.15-1, my installation of XMetaL crashes if I double-click somewhere in the writing area... I wonder if this is because of the reimplementation of the Internet Explorer Active X APIs in wine? I think I have to find a way to continue using Internet Explorer in wine, for now. Or downgrade to 0.9.11-1.

By the way, Internet Explorer doesn't start in wine 0.9.15-1 but you knew that, didn't you?

Prenatal Autism Test, Part Two

2006-07-04T10:03:00.000+02:00

I just wanted to add the above image, from the Autism Prenatal Test site. If you want to use it on your site/blog/car bumper sticker, feel free to do so.

Eugenics and the Autism Prenatal Test

2006-07-03T21:36:00.000+02:00

It's now possible to test for autism in your unborn baby. A blood test, so far with a very limited availability, can be used to scan the fetus for possible autism genes. So the question is: if you knew, would you do it?

Before you start arguing for the parents' right to choose, please have a look at this site. I won't force you to read all of it, but at least consider if, given the choice, you'd have allowed Bill Gates to be born. Yeah, I know; I'm a Linux user myself, and a question such as this, even if it is rhetorical, is almost impossible to resist.

Eugenics, anyone?

Would You Give Electric Shocks To Your Child?

2006-06-20T09:17:00.000+02:00

Would you give electric shocks to your child?

I'm asking because while most of the so-called civilized world would react in horror at the mere suggestion of torturing children to alter their behaviour, this is exactly what's discussed by the State Education Department at the University of New York, right now. The issue at hand is whether or not to allow aversion therapy to alter or hinder unwanted behaviour in children, especially in disabled children. Sounds abstract? Uncivilized? Let me give you an example.

Autistic individuals sometimes display seemingly involuntary body movement such as arm flapping, rocking, or tics of various kinds. They call this stimming and while such behaviour can certainly appear bizarre to "normal" people, it is actually a sensory coping mechanism and allows autistics to deal with outside stimuli and reduce overall stress. The fact that stimming works is well documented in autism research.

Adults with autism and Asperger Syndrome can often avoid stimming noticeably in public, knowing fully well that NTs (Neurologically Typical, in other words normal people; a term coined by autistics on the Internet) have difficulty accepting such deviant behaviour. Autistic children, however, often don't realize this and happily stim whenever they need to.

But, as I said, many "normal" people consider stimming deviant behaviour; some even think it should be forbidden.

Which brings us to Judge Rotenberg Center in Canton, MA, an educational facility where aversion therapy is used. They use a Graduated Electronic Decelerator or "GED", a device of their own design, to regulate the students' behaviour. The GED is basically a zap box complete with two remote electrodes to be attached on the hapless student, up to six inches apart to increase the "therapeutic value". Every time a student displays unwanted behaviour (stims are the prime time example here, but talking without permission is perhaps easier for most readers to relate to), the educator pushes a button and shocks the student.

Now, unless your children have special needs and must be educated outside the public school system, they are safe. You see, the Judge Rotenberg Center is a special needs facility, serving "both higher-funtioning students with conduct, behavior, emotional, and/or psychiatric problems and lower-functioning students with autistic-like behaviors". Also, it is privately held, and here's the key: aversion therapy is not approved for use in public educational facilities.

I ask again: would you give electric shocks to your child?

Downgrade!

2006-06-10T23:52:00.000+02:00

Just downgraded wine to 0.9.11. Everything works like a charm, including XMetaL, Internet Explorer, and my newly installed FrameMaker 6.0!

wine 0.9.12

2006-06-05T10:33:00.000+02:00

Just upgraded to wine 0.9.12. It broke my XMetaL installation. It seems that wine now wants to handle ActiveX using built-in libraries, but unfortunately the new library either doesn't implement OLE properly, or there is a bug somewhere. A quick Google search didn't tell me anything earth-shattering but confirmed that others are having problems as well.

On the other hand, the Debian wine still lags behind; 0.9.14 is the latest version out from Wine HQ.

References

2006-06-01T08:58:00.000+02:00

I talked to a friend yesterday. He works at an IT consultancy that is best left unnamed here, a well-respected one, I might add, and yesterday, they had a job ad in the paper. They have everything, the ad claimed, but they need to grow. They need a few more good men (and women).

My friend and I, we have a mutual acquaintance, a developer who's one of three or four top developers in his field. He's also a nice, likable guy, and so my friend recommended him to his bosses at the well-respected IT consultancy. Of course, they asked to see his CV, and so far, so good.

Except they said no. He isn't what they're looking for. He's got the wrong profile.

So I started to think about this, and realized that the people who hire other people are usually the ones who are the least qualified for the job. They're executives, salespeople, or perhaps HR people in som cases, but most of them have never done any dirty, hands-on work in "their" fields. They lead, and they hire people, and they make executive decisions, all of which is fine and dandy, but they don't know the details of what their companies do.

Therefore, they shouldn't be the ones hiring other people. In this case, everyone in the field but the bosses know the value of our mutual acquaintance. We all know he's top notch, he's a real find, he's proven his worth many times over. Yet, the bosses are the ones doing the decisions, and they say no. Why?

A part of what's supposed to make a leader great is the ability to listen, to trust those working for you. Why is it that this trust is so rarely extended to the employees?

XMetaL, Again!

2006-05-23T13:57:00.000+02:00

Turns out that once I sorted out the localhost resolution problem, outlined below, wine and everything with it works like a charm. Therefore, today I pressed my luck by reinstalling XMetaL, according to my set of instructions from a February blog entry, and it also works like a charm.

Now I'm anxiously waiting for the Debian maintainers to update wine to the latest version. The unstable wine lags two versions behind...

Wine Solutions

2006-05-22T15:00:00.000+02:00

It turned out that my wine problems, mentioned in previous posts, were pretty easily explainable: Somehow, my local DNS resolution was out of order, meaning that I couldn't map localhost to 127.0.0.1. wine, just as many other programs, use localhost just about everywhere. All it took was a reconfiguration of my LAN, easily achieved with dpkg-reconfigure etherconf.

Tomorrow...

2006-05-15T23:16:00.000+02:00

...could easily be my last day as a projectionist, as my theatre, the Draken, has its last scheduled commercial screening. It's at 7 p.m., and it's a Swedish classic by Bo Widerberg; it's old, it's black-and-white, and it's boring, and for the life or me, I can't recall its title.

See, the Swedish Film Institute is moving its Cinemateket film classics screenings to the Capitol theatre after eleven years with me and Draken doing their dirty work, and there's very little I can say about the whole affair without losing the PG rating of this blog.

All of this has come about on a very short notice; a day or two before my theatre's 50th birthday on April 26, I was still confident that the Draken still had many years left in public service. It was only on the day before the anniversary that I first heard about their plans, and this was an accident. I wasn't meant to know. Nobody was.

Anyway, if you want to complain, the contact information is easily found at the Swedish Film Institute's home on the Internet. There are laws against me publishing phone numbers here, apparently.

I suppose all this gives me more time to write.

Corrective Measures

2006-05-07T16:46:00.000+02:00

I mentioned below that I haven't been able to blog due to technical problems at Blogger. This is not entirely true. Yes, Blogger had problems, but I also have discovered that changing my router's MTU from 1492 bytes to 1500 bytes makes all of my Blogger-related problems go away, including the intermittent connectivity problems...

Makes me wonder, now. Can my wine problems (also outlined below) be at least partly caused by the router problem? Watch this space.

More Wine!

2006-05-07T00:47:00.000+02:00

wine is behaving more and more strangely. The timeouts have continued, and Internet Explorer won't work properly. It starts, but crashes when it connects to anything outside my LAN.

There are a couple of possibilities here. First of all, I've switched to an older ADSL modem/router combo because my D-Link G604T keeps on losing DSL sync every few hours and behaves erratically in between, and so I suspect that this new (well, old) hardware doesn't like IE on Debian, for some strange reason. (I mean, what's there not to like?) Second, I've upgraded Xorg to 7.something, and the something might interfere with wine. Or it could be any random C library I've upgraded recently. I'm a dist-upgrade junkie and I need my fix practically every day.

In any case, I got tired of the whole mess today and removed wine and every Windows application I've installed. Yes, folks, that includes XMetaL.

BTW...

2006-05-04T12:58:00.000+02:00

Blogger has been experiencing some problems lately, which is why I haven't posted anything for awhile. Or maybe they've read my blog.

Weird wine Timeouts

2006-05-04T12:38:00.000+02:00

I've had some weird wine timeouots lately. My Windows apps take up to two minutes to start. It could be my recently upgraded Xorg but I'm not sure... Stay tuned.

More E.T.

2006-04-18T20:05:00.000+02:00

Göteborg Film Festival just added a third E.T. screening to celebrate the Draken theatre's 50th anniversary on April 26, at 7 p.m. Stay tuned; I'll update with further details when I have them.

Why I Write Blogs

2006-04-18T00:06:00.000+02:00

I had an interesting conversation about blogging a while ago. A friend of mine who also blogs suggested that I'd get more readers if I'd focus on a select few topics instead of, well, writing whatever crosses my mind. I've thought about it, and it's probably true.

I'd probably get the Linux/XML geeks interested if I focused on Debian and getting my favourite XML tools to run on wine. I'd get the movie buffs if I wrote regularly on the classics I screen at the Draken every week, and I might even get some of the Aspies out there if I gossiped on Wrong Planet more. And there are dozens of other subjects I could focus on, stuff that I know enough about to write blogs.

But you know what? I don't care. I don't write this to satisfy any particular group out there. I write because it's a great way to let out steam while honing my writing skills. If a post can help someone to set up XMetaL on Linux, well, good for you, but that's not why I write. I write because I like to write, and blogging is better than hiding the results in drawers.

Those of you who speak Swedish, on the other hand, can jump to my Swedish-language blog, where I actually try to stay on topic. It's my commentary on local stuff, the kind that only matters to the Swedish-speaking population.

As for the rest of you, well, WYSIWYG!

Fanny & Alexander

2006-04-11T20:42:00.000+02:00

I rather like "Fanny & Alexander", director Ingmar Bergman's final theatrical epic. It's a classic story of evil, with great actors and stunning, Academy Award-winning photography by Sven Nykvist. However, once is quite enough, and I'm painfully aware of this since I still have 4 reels to go. I love being a movie projectionist but I'd pick Arnold Schwarzenegger any day if I got to choose when doing my time in the booth.

The WP Daytime Soap, Part 294

2006-04-03T14:41:00.000+02:00

The daytime soap that is Wrong Planet continues. I heard that other members have been banned from the site as well, and in the mean time, again a thread was deleted, this time the one that got me banned. The "owner" is cleaning house, blindly following advice from The Admin Zone, a forum for forum owners and such.

Obviously, I no longer wish to link to WP from my blog, and so removed the link.

Wrong Planet Heading for Disaster

2006-04-02T22:22:00.000+02:00

Wrong Planet, the AS/autism forum I've been reading, is heading for disaster. Today, I became a persona non grata there after daring to compare the latest developments on the forum with a bad daytime soap. Now, this in itself is hardly a disaster; most people there won't probably even notice that I'm gone. However, it also seems that Alex Plank, the site's owner, today fired every moderator and every admin in sight. With more than 4000 members, this is certainly a recipe for disaster.

WP is therefore now more of a soap opera than ever before. And it's still a bad one.

wine 0.9.10 Fixes the Disappearing Font Problem

2006-04-02T22:14:00.000+02:00

Well, like the header says, wine 0.9.10 fixes the annoying disappearing system font problem in wine 0.9.9. Finally! I've been holding back a full Debian dist-upgrade until the wine libraries catch up with what I need...

Unfortunately, the file path problem is still very much in existence. Stay tuned, though, because I just checked Wine HQ and it turns out that version 0.9.11 just came out.

E.T. In 70mm

2006-03-31T22:52:00.000+02:00

"My" theatre, the Draken, will turn 50 on April 26. To celebrate, we're going to screen E.T., in 70mm! If you happen to attend a school in the Göteborg area, I think you should bug your teachers until they give in and contact Skolbio Göteborg for free tickets. You won't regret it!

Valley of the Wolves - Iraq

2006-03-19T17:39:00.000+01:00

As I write this, I'm screening the turkish film Valley of the Wolves - Iraq, a controversial account of what happened after 11 Turkish soldiers were abducted by American troops near the Iraqi border. The abduction as such actually occured; what happens later in the film probably falls under an artistic license of some sort.

Be as it may, the Americans are supposedly less than happy about the film while Turks line up for seeing the movie, the most-seen film in Turkey, ever. At least, this is what I've been told by the enthusiastic Turks in the audience tonight.

I love controversial stuff, and the film appears to deliver more than its share of that. Unfortunately, a Swedish premiere isn't more likely than an American one...

Wine System Font & Versions Problem

2006-03-12T15:03:00.000+01:00

I upgraded my wine version to 0.9.9-1 the other day and discovered that some system fonts used by wine for Windows dialogs went missing. The dialogs opened without any text whatsoever in the various GUI objects, including the all-important XLink dialog in my X4 XMetaL installation.

This was very annoying and rendered X4 unusable.

I did some research on Google, without coming up with anything particularly conclusive, so I downgraded to version 0.9.8-1 (winelib had to be downgraded as well, of course, as the library version follows the main package version), and the font problem went away.

XMetaL Linux Update

2006-03-09T09:59:00.000+01:00

I've been toying with XMetaL on Linux and Wine, with varying degrees of success. It's quite obvious that the XMetaL/Wine/Linux combo isn't ready for prime time just yet, but it's so close.

I've had some interesting problems along the way, most importantly that the Save As function isn't reliable. Or rather, it doesn't work with relative paths. If you want to save a file, but only enter a filename in the dialog, XMetaL says things like "File is read-only" or "File doesn't exist". A little investigating shows that the save component is unable to fill in the correct path to the file, and therefore cannot find the location. This problem is cured by entering a Windows-like path to the file, for example, D:\myfile.xml. (Note that your home directory is D:\ in Wine.)

The absolute path problem can be a character encoding problem (for example, the save component could very well use some weird Windows keymap scheme instead of pure Unicode; XMetaL is supposed to run on Windows 98, an OS not known for its Unicode capabilities) but there are other variables in the equation, too. For one, I suspect that Wine's file path translation also matters.

A lesser, but still annoying, problem is that a saved XMetaL window size (when starting the application) doesn't work at all if you've set Wine to Windows 98 mode. It works more often in Windows 2000 or XP modes, but not every time, which I don't understand at all. Also, XMetaL forgets the view mode (tag view, normal view, etc), for some reason, not necessarily the same.

On the other hand, I've successfully been able to use (most parts of) X4, an XMetaL authoring environment that we developed at Information & Media a few years ago. This is good news since while I can live with writing in OpenOffice, it doesn't beat a real XML editor with a decent authoring DTD and environment.

I expect that Wine 1.0, when out, can solve some of the current problems. I'll keep you posted.

Wrong Planet to an Elliptical Orbit

2006-02-28T20:48:00.001+01:00

Wrong Planet, the autism/Asperger forum I wrote about the other day, is a bit shaky at the moment after some issues concerning privacy, censorship, and moderation policies. It's still a great, great resource but right now, things are a bit tense. It's quite possible that the events of the last few days--of which you can't form your own opinion since the relevant posts are no longer there--will hurt WP and other forums, such as On the Spectrum, will gain increase their membership counts fast.

We'll see. The situation's as close to a soap opera you'll get among Aspies and Auties.

XMetaL, Later Versions

2006-02-24T23:23:00.000+01:00

Running XMetaL in Debian is cool. Very cool, even, and I have loads of fun right now. However, I need to point out that the version I installed is 3.1. In other words, Corel's first XMetaL release. Earlier versions should work, even though I doubt 1.2 or 1.0 will prove meaningful because of the problems early versions had in general.

Later versions, however, will give you problems in Wine. I think XMetaL 4 Author could be forced to run, but since Corel struck a deal with Microsoft and integrated the developer parts of the editor with Visual Studio, you'd better be prepared for a long night. Visual Studio requires a lot of patience, and I won't even try to install it since the very idea sort of negates the point with running Linux in the first place. Microsoft, the empire of evil, and all that...

However, if you decide to go ahead, please post a note about it. Or better yet, email Blast Radius, the current keeper of the XMetaL flame.

Yet Another Rant on XML Tools

2006-02-24T00:20:00.000+01:00

Being an XML developer isn't always easy if you're running Linux, not if you aren't happy with emacs and nxml-mode. Not that I don't like emacs; I do, but there are limits to what it can do. But before I go on, let's get some things straight. This post is basically a rant on XML tools so if you aren't an XML geek, or if your particular flavour of geek-ishness differs from mine, then go read something else, say, Henrik's Ruby articles.

So anyway, moving on... If you develop DTDs, for example, you need something to visualize the DTDs with. I always liked Near & Far from Microstar, even though the product is dead and gone, and it's impossible to buy it anywhere. Luckily, I have a copy (which I'm not selling, thank you very much), and even though it's Windows software, it runs just fine on Wine/Linux.

Not that I'd want to actually create DTDs using Near & Far. It's not good enough; for the actual writing, a text editor, say, emacs, is still by far the best choice. Near & Far will ruin any modularization you ever wanted for your DTD, it likes to normalize anything and everything it sees. But for pure visualization, it's great.

It's somewhat worse with XSL software. There are IDEs for XSLT available for Linux, but most range from bad to awful, and I've given up on all but one of them. The remaining one is ActiveState's Komodo, a payware IDE that you can use for your Perl and Python stuff, too. The version I have, 3.01 is somewhat dated, but runs great on my Debian box. And newer versions are supposed to handle Ruby and PHP, too, but don't take my word for it.

Unfortunately, it doesn't do XSL-FO natively. Sure, you can write your transformations to FO in it but there's no help for the target FO namespace, only your basic XSLT. It's possible to write a macro to couple your debugging with, say, FOP, to get PDF output right off the bat, but that's not the real issue. I want FO namespace help. Context-sensitive help, thank you very much.

XML Spy does this help-on-FO-namespace part, but I haven't managed to install it; yes, I know it's possible because it's listed on the various Wine compatibility lists, but I've failed miserably so far. I'll try again, one of these days, now that XMetaL finally made it to Linux.

And also, I never liked XML Spy. I know, people hold it in high regard, but I bet all of them are codeheads (you can't join if you have to ask; I'm a dochead myself). XML Spy is just so... not document-oriented. It's for programmers, the kind I'm most certainly not.

Then there's Oxygen, a payware IDE that is available for Linux as well as Windows. Unfortunately, it's yet another tool created for (and by) those codehead people. It's like a text editor on steroids, only it's a bad trip and I prefer emacs if I must go down that road. Also, there's an Eclipse plugin available but the last time I tried a demo version, it messed up my Eclipse installation beyond all reason, and I had to remove both to recover my sanity. I'm not going to try again unless there is a very, very good reason for me to do so. Like if a client pays me to.

And that's that. There are a few other tools available for Windows that I'm going to try one of these days, but since this was basically a rant, I'm not going to waste time and space on them now. Cheers!

Of course, there are lots of command line XML tools available, and I'm not complaining there. I've got just about everything there, from OpenSP to Jade (yes, every now and then it's nice to have it to do DSSSL), and to, of course, FOP.

Finally, XMetaL on Linux!

2006-02-23T14:53:00.000+01:00

Wine (Wine Is Not an Emulator, the open-source Windows environment available for Linux) is nearing 1.0, after some 12 years (or is it 13?) of development. The current Debian version is 0.9.7, and it's actually pretty darn good. So good, in fact, that I decided to try installing XMetaL again. The avid reader of this blog might remember my last tirade about the sorry state of XML editors available for Linux, when all my attempts at installing XMetaL had been unsuccessful and I was losing hope.

But I tried again today, optimistic as ever, and here's the result:

Pretty cool, huh? It's XMetaL 3.1, running peacefully on my Debian box. It's not perfect yet, not by a long shot, but it runs!

Here's what to do (and mind you, I'm not going to list the trivialities of installing Wine or its helper apps, you'll have to do that part yourself):

Set Wine to Win98 mode. It's the easiest mode, by far.
Install Internet Explorer 6 SP1 by following the instructions at Frank's Corner. The DLL overrides are important; don't forget them!
Install Microsoft Active X Control Pad. It's available as a download from Microsoft, but it's also on the XMetaL CD.
Install Windows Scripting Host 5.6 from the XMetaL CD. This went like a charm, BTW, in stark contrast to my attempts using earlier versions of Wine. I don't know why it's that difficult; others have installed WSH before on older Wine versions...
Then install MDAC from the XMetaL CD. Use a version no newer than 2.1, if you use another source.
Install XMetaL using Custom options. Do not forget Templates and Samples. The XMetaL installation might complain about WSH missing; in that case, reinstall it after completing the XMetaL installation.

This should be all. In other words, it worked for me. There are some weird bugs, though (if you try this, and figure out why the weirdness is happening, contact me):

If you choose Tools->Options, you mess up your KDE taskbar, for some strange reason. Change any settings using the configuration file in the XM directory instead.
Customized toolbars do not always work. I suspect there are things in WSH not recognized by Wine, as of yet.
In a similar manner, some Insert Elements events will not work, probably because WSH is doing something weird.

Obviously, I'm not going to offer any support on this, even though I will most likely respond to a polite query. And I'm not, repeat, not, responsible for any damage you might cause to your computer when following the above instructions.

It certainly looks like I finally have a decent XML editor for Linux, though. I'm going to tinker with Wine/XMetaL for a while, and post any success stories here.

Klytus I'm Booored

2006-02-21T20:23:00.000+01:00

Anyone remember the Flash Gordon movie from 1979? No? Well, I do, that's how bored I am.

Look Ma, No Bugs!

2006-02-21T19:23:00.000+01:00

I recently delivered a bunch of XSLT templates to a (very) large client. They replied today, after a day or two of testing, stating that there are no bugs! Almost automatically, I was reminded of Lars Wirzenius' priceless list of programming truths. For example, If it runs, it doesn't have any bugs. But especially A 1% crash rate is actually pretty darn good.

Footnote: Lars Wirzenius is less well-known than Linus Torvalds, but probably fairly important to the overall development of linux. They are friends, and have been so for a long time.

Get Rid of That Rain Man Image!

2006-02-16T09:30:00.000+01:00

I've been reading www.WrongPlanet.net a lot lately. For those who don't know, it's a site for those afflicted with autism or Asperger Syndrome, and for their families and loved ones. There are articles and various resources available, as well as some high-traffic forums devoted to every aspect of autism and Asperger.

The forums, of course, are what makes Wrong Planet fun to read. If Dustin Hoffman is what pops up in your brain whenever somebody says "autism", do yourself a favor and go read Wrong Planet. These people are opinionated, intelligent, and articulate, and just about as far from Rain Man as you can get.

It's Over!

2006-02-07T15:58:00.000+01:00

The film festival, that is. I screened 55 feature films in 11 days, some good, many bad, and some just boring. I would like to see the Canadian film C.R.A.Z.Y., though, instead of just screening it and watching bits and pieces. Great music and some very funny moments.

Anniversaries...

2006-02-01T23:47:00.000+01:00

Next year's supposed to be the 30th anniversary of Göteborg Film Festival. Only, it isn't. I was present in the projection booth when what was to be the 13th festival was relabeled 14. Superstition was quoted as the primary reason by the then-festival-general Mr Gunnar Bergdahl, who could make a career at certain airlines with similar ideas.

Just a friendly reminder; I dislike history rewrites.

Black-and-White, Again

2006-02-01T23:44:00.000+01:00

This B&W thing really bothers me. I screened George Clooney's movie about the McCarthy era, Good Night, and good Luck earlier tonight, and of course it had to be in black and white. It looked pretty good, admittedly, but still... Wasn't the world in colour then?

B & W

2006-01-29T18:46:00.000+01:00

Black-and-white films are supposed to look artsy. Me, I think they look cheap. But maybe it's the same thing.

The Audience

2006-01-29T18:44:00.000+01:00

Movie theatre patrons are a lot like children. They--

Never mind.

Moviemakers

2006-01-29T18:39:00.000+01:00

Moviemakers are a lot like children. They are constantly bothering projectionists with questions about the wrong things or just plain repeating themselves, put way too much value in their toys, and are only rarely self-reliant. There's nothing like a film festival to make these traits obvious.

Kids have an excuse, though; they're kids and there's still time to learn.

That Time of Year Again

2006-01-27T20:55:00.000+01:00

The festival is rolling, again. The first film was an Icelandic epic, Beowulf and Grendel. Unfortunately, the print was somewhat damaged; reel 3 appeared to have been exposed to light while still being developed. Ugly as hell, and the soundtracks, SRD and optical, sounded just awful. Oh well.

Four Days and Counting...

2006-01-23T19:01:00.000+01:00

...to the annual Göteborg Film Festival.

Lucky Me

2006-01-19T17:53:00.000+01:00

I won a free cruise to the Caribbean, again!

I mean, what are the odds? Now, I wasn't at home, and my wife didn't want to answer a f0reign, unknown number, 009724900000. I was more than willing to check the answering machine when I got home, however; I knew the number.

Sure enough, my old friends at Best US Promotions had left a message, offering another free cruise. We are to call 0014078300147 (a Florida number, I believe) with the code cruise.

Feel free to claim the price. I won't.

misc.writing

2006-01-15T00:26:00.000+01:00

I used to participate in a Usenet newsgroup called misc.writing, a group supposedly about writing in all of its forms but in reality about anything but. The people there were writers, though; most had never published, but quite a few had. These were the ones that kept themselves off topic the most; usually, the wannabes contributed actual writing-related posts.

There were also trolls. One I remember in particular called herself Chelsea and claimed to be a published writer; her merits consisted of about 800 Usenet posts. She also thought I was George Lucas. Really. I won't tell that story now, but if you're interested, do a Google groups search on "Ari+Chelsea+George+Lucas".

The other night, after a three-year absence, I visited misc.writing again. The place hasn't changed at all. Sure, there are some new names and many of the old ones are gone, but it's scary how little the place has changed. The same trolls, the same endless political discussions, the same insults.

But the scariest thing of all is to realize that all of this time, I've thought of a Usenet newsgroup as a "place". Virtual reality is here, folks.

Kallokain...

2006-01-15T00:10:00.000+01:00

...is a book by Karin Boye, an old Swedish TV series with Sven Wollter (based on the book, obviously), and now a blog by my old friend Henrik. Those of you interested in programming in Ruby, eXtreme Programming, or perhaps a quirky interest in software development methodologies in general, go have a look. But the blog's not based on the book, not the way I remember it.

Henrik never does things half-heartedly, I can tell you that, but when I suggested him to write a blog, I never thought I'd help create a monster.

Jamie Cullum...

2006-01-13T23:09:00.000+01:00

...is probably the most talented person in jazz right now.

Film Festival, Any Day Now...

2006-01-10T10:02:00.000+01:00

17 days (and counting) left before Göteborg Film Festival. And about 18 days before I'll again sip coffee in the projection booth, wondering why I'm putting myself through the whole thing again.

And, of course, 28 days (and counting) before it's all over again.

On Autism

2006-01-08T22:37:00.000+01:00

Here's an article you should read if you read and cared about my last two posts. If not, well, glance through this instead and get back to me.

Autism Clock, Part Two

2006-01-05T09:43:00.000+01:00

Apparently I'm not the only one to see similarities between the autism clock and eugenics. www.autistics.org reacted pretty much the way I did, only they have graphics.

Autism Clock

2006-01-04T23:42:00.000+01:00

The good citizens of the US can now peruse an Autism Clock. Is it just me, or does this remind you of eugenics? When are they going to attack the crippled and the old?

Debian Sid... Spread the Word

2005-12-28T22:01:00.000+01:00

I'm upgrading a friend's laptop to Debian Sid, as I write this. It's so much more fun to upgrade somebody else's machine instead of your own.

I did check the bug reports first, though.

Fischer and Anti-semitism

2005-12-16T09:13:00.000+01:00

My pointing out Bobby Fischer's home page, below, does not mean that I condone his views, especially those pertaining to his anti-semitic tirades that are, at best, tiring. Fischer is a tragic figure, more to be pitied than hated. His views may be offensive, but he is basically harmless and should be remembered for his chess rather than his outbursts in later years.

The same cannot be said of Mr Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the President of Iran, who has publicly, and repeatedly, claimed that the Holocaust is a "myth". The only thing tragic in his case is that he was elected in the first place. And, I suppose, that many innocent people could die if he is allowed to continue.

Best US Promotions Are At It Again

2005-12-15T16:46:00.000+01:00

The travel lottery scam I wrote about is picking up speed here in Sweden. Another wave of phone calls from the Haifa area in Israel hit us and at least one lady was relieved from about 8,000 SEK in "travel taxes" from her VISA card, according to Swedish morning paper GP.

If you want to call Best US Promotions and tell them how you feel about travel scams, the number is +9724900000.

Bobby Fischer in 17 Boxes

2005-12-13T17:05:00.000+01:00

Chess-related items belonging to former chess world champion Bobby Fischer are up for sale in an eBay auction, with bids starting at $15,000. How the collection ended up on eBay isn't entirely clear but Fischer's version is on his home page. The page is rather large so search for "Ellsworth", about halfway down.

I'd urge anyone interested in chess and with the necessary cash to buy the items and return them to Fischer.

Fischer is now a resident of Iceland, after a year-long detention in Japan.

My Swedish Blog

2005-12-13T14:23:00.000+01:00

I'm Swedish, as those of you who've read my profile may have noted. Therefore, I also write a Swedish blog, where I usually focus on matters of interest in, you guessed it, Sweden, and have thus added a link there.

So how's your Swedish?

Criminal Law

2005-12-10T22:40:00.000+01:00

What's criminal about it? Now, there's an amusing phrase.

Fighting Terrorism, Part Two

2005-12-07T09:32:00.000+01:00

One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.

Fighting Terrorism

2005-12-07T08:57:00.000+01:00

What good does it do in the war against terrorism to kidnap innocent people outside your own jurisdiction, against local, international, and US laws? How does it help to transport them across the globe to torture then in secret prisons, in a supposedly "liberated" third country?

I was kind of hoping that the US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would have at least some answers, but unfortunately, her European PR tour has given preciously few answers so far. See, some of us stupid, backwards Europeans think that people, even suspected terrorists, are innocent until proven guilty. Many of our laws build on that assumption. We think it's important, a cornerstone of what we think is fair and just.

I guess what I'd really like to say is f*** you, Ms Rice (and Mr Bush, now that I think of it), but this is a family-oriented blog, thank you very much, so I won't.

Too Good to Be True?

2005-12-05T21:45:00.000+01:00

A nice lady who called herself Ashley rang me today. Ashley, who claimed to work for a Florida company called Best US Promotions (please have a look at our web site at www.bestusvacations.com, sir), informed me that I'd just won a free Bahamas cruise!

She talked fast and the phone line was pretty bad, but basically I was the lucky winner of not only a free Bahamas cruise (3 days), but also a week at Disney World, 2 days in Daytona, and another 2 in Fort Laudardale. With all, or at least most, expenses paid (the exact terms of my dream vacation escape me for the moment; like I said, the phone line was bad and she talked fast). The whole thing really sounded too good to be true.

And it was. After a description of my up-and-coming vacation (with my family, of course), I was switched to another nice lady who wanted my name, address, phone number, and... VISA card number.

I told her that this I didn't like, but she assured me that it was OK. I was protected, they'd tape the conversation (sic), and she fully understood my scepticism. She would react in the same way. Oh good, I said. Would she send me a detailed agreement with all the necessary information through snail mail? No sir, that is not possible. We only have three cruises left and there are others who will surely accept the terms without this kind of complication. And anyway, I'm insured through VISA, don't I know that?

That's funny, I told her. VISA's quite explicit about this kind of thing. You must never reveal your credit card number through a phone line. Never. And so I won't do it, free cruise or not.

She became upset. If you don't know the terms of your international credit card, sir, she said, you shouldn't be allowed to use one. Again, I said thanks but no thanks, so she hung up on me.

After telling my wife that I just said no to a free Bahamas cruise, I checked Ahley & Co's phone number (I have one of those thingies that log incoming phone numbers), and sure enough, the call was from Israel, not Florida:

(00) 9724900000

If you get a call from them, hang up.

The web site, I found out, was registered by Domains by Proxy, Inc., a Scottsdale, Arizona company that helps domain owners conceal their identities from the public by registering their domains in the name of Domains by Proxy. They've helped quite a few, from fake talent hunters to, well, fake travel lotteries.

A Google search (scam+travel+US+Promotions) also explained how this kind of scam works. It's a shame, though; I could have used a vacation.

Boycott Everything Sony

2005-11-29T12:59:00.000+01:00

Sony, the well-known manufacturer of consumer electronics products, likes to plant rootkits in your (Windows-based) computer without asking for permission first. You see, they assume that you are a crook, they assume that you live for stealing other people's intellectual property whenever given the opportunity. They assume that you need to be controlled, and they think it's their duty to do so.

Groklaw's put up a page gathering all Sony-related information to one place so please, don't take my word for it, read for yourself.

If you really are like that, if you agree with Sony, then by all means, continue buying their products. But if not, boycott everything Sony. Start now!

FOP, Part Two

2005-11-28T15:54:00.000+01:00

Sometimes it helps to complain, apparently. A day or two after my somewhat annoyed comment on FOP, the FOP team released an alpha from the development branch. Most of the properties I've missed in 0.20.5 are there, and seem to work. Ain't life grand?

Debian Sid

2005-11-21T19:40:00.000+01:00

Debian Unstable, a k a Sid, has been, well, a little unstable lately. First, grep broke during one of my wildly optimistic dist-upgrades and I had some trouble booting and starting X, then xscreensaver and nvidia couldn't agree so X crashed. Cost me half a day, all in all.

Lesson: When working anywhere near a deadline, do not dist-upgrade. And above all, do not reboot.

FOP

2005-11-21T19:35:00.000+01:00

Oh please let there be a new (stable) version of FOP while XSL is still a viable technology. I've been busy writing stylesheets for a system running FOP the last few weeks, see, and I'm not too happy with some of the bugs. I'd contribute to the project if I knew enough Java but I don't, so all I can do is to whine.

(For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, please feel free to ignore me.)

Phishing

2005-11-19T23:20:00.000+01:00

I got another one of those fake Ebay "check-your-account" emails the other day. The technique's called phishing and, in short, it's basically an email with a link to a fake website made to look like Ebay, Paypal, or whatever. You're supposed to believe that your Ebay, Paypal (etc) account needs to be renewed so if you'll just be kind enough to follow the link and fill in your bank account details, you'll be up and running again in no time. Phishing is quite common, in my inbox at least, and a real pain.

For years, I've deleted these things without a second thought, but this time, I followed the link, entered a fake name, a fake bank account number, a fake PIN (as if Ebay would need it), a fake address, a fake city... you get the idea. The thing is, I went to some lengths to ensure that the information wasn't obviously made up, hoping that the fraud at the other end wouldn't immediately see what I was doing. And prayed to the net ghods that he would actually use the information to create a credit card, and attempt to use that card in an actual store.

Why not do the same the next time somebody sends you an email asking you to update your Ebay account? Make some trouble. See to it that these people are kept busy. I'm sure that sooner or later, somebody will try to use the information to make that fake credit card, and to try to use it. Just think of the fun you've created. It's not going to stop them all, but it's a start.

Backwards Bush

2005-11-10T23:02:00.000+01:00

My friend Deck (read his blog, it's good) got a gift from his wife Alma (another good friend), a clock that counts the hours left of George W Bush's presidency. I'm definitely going to order one; have a look at http://www.backwardsbush.com/. However, if the FAQ is right, the battery must be replaced at least once before it's time. The battery life is only two years.

I'm sure that's more than enough for at least one more war.

Star Wars III

2005-11-10T16:38:00.000+01:00

Just dusted my living room loudspeakers with my brand-new Star Wars III DVD, and I've got to tell you, the sound is excellent. A lot better than in that pathetic excuse of a cinema, the Palladium in Göteborg, where I last saw the film. Why is it that an eight year-old Dolby processor for home use can run circles around a state-of-the-art Dolby Digital thingie?

I'm going to fully enjoy watching the whole film tomorrow. Don't even think about calling me.

Using the GIMP

2005-11-10T16:22:00.000+01:00

The Gimp is a free graphics software package, available for Linux among others. I did an upgrade recently but the configuration is a little scary. Just take a look at what it wants to do. User installation...?

The US Patent Law...

2005-10-27T16:41:00.000+02:00

...is by far the stupidest piece of legislation that I've ever come across. Or maybe not, but in that case, the authorities handling the practicalities of the law are obviously incompetent.

How else would you explain this? (In case you wonder but are too lazy to follow the link, some bright young mind now wants to patent XML. The question of prior art has obviously not come up yet, or we wouldn't have to bother. Or has it? Can they really be this stupid?)

If they do manage to patent XML, I guess I won't have to bother trying to find a decent XML editor for Linux. Now that's something.

XMetaL (The Revenge of the Bride of the Mutant Ninja XML Editor, Part Two)

2005-10-17T13:45:00.000+02:00

Speaking of XML editors, my favorite, hands down, is XMetaL. It's user-friendly, fast, and easy enough to customize. I've written tens of thousands of pages with it, and if I had a choice, I'd continue using it without a second thought.

Unfortunately, XMetaL is only available for Windows. There's no Linux version, no *nix whatsoever. This is probably not going to change, either, because BlastRadius insists on coupling XMetaL Developer (the version you need if you want to customize the product) with Microsoft Visual Studio. This is probably the single most limiting business decision they've imposed on the product: none of the developers I know likes the Microsoft IDE. In fact, most avoid it as the plague. Believe it or not, there are far better IDEs available.

Also, XMetaL doesn't work in Wine, the fake Windows environment found in Linux. I've tried, but I can't make it work. Most of the lesser XML tools work, but not XMetaL.

It's about time someone developed a decent XML editor for Linux.

XML Editing for Linux

2005-10-17T09:56:00.000+02:00

A friend and I tried a couple of XML editing packages for Debian Linux the other day. They ranged from the totally unusable to unusable and buggy.

Why is this?

I can live with the "buggy" part; I run Debian unstable and get my share of bugs and early alphas so it's OK. I can wait. (Even though I do think that early alphas should at least survive through a File->New...)

But I don't get the "unusable" part. All of the editors we tried were useless for actual editing and the user interfaces ranged from the messy and the ugly to the utterly pointless. In many cases it was even difficult to enter text; you had to bring up a dialog to do this...

So what are these editors for? Is there a use for XML that we've missed? Is it too much to ask for a text editor that you can actually use for editing text?

Unfortunately, then, there's still no decent XML editor available for Linux, apart from nxml-mode for emacs that really isn't an XML editor more than it is a kitchen sink.

2001

2005-10-10T23:39:00.000+02:00

2001, the pitiful 35mm print Warner insists on distributing instead of a proper 70mm print, was depressing. Yes, the film is still good, yes, the transfer from 65mm negatives was sometimes decent, yes, moviegoers of today deserve to see this timeless classic, and yes, it's a fact that there really aren't that many 70mm installations left. Even though I have one in my garage.

But.

It's not what Kubrick wanted, is it? If Warner Brothers had actually respected his life's work, his legacy, they would have presented the audience with that 70mm print whenever and wherever possible. But they don't respect Kubrick, they never did, and they don't care about his old films. The guy's dead, after all, so he isn't complaining. Warner Brothers care about money, and there's money to be made even from old films if you're careful not to spend too much.

This is why cinemas are dying all over the world.

Object Orientation...

2005-09-28T08:56:00.000+02:00

...is a silly, silly pair of words that gets even sillier when authors use it as an adjective without the hyphen (object oriented instead of object-oriented).

How can you trust these authors to show you how to write code, when they mistreat their first language like that?

Drag me, drop me, treat me like an object (as a friend used to say).

Kubrick and 70mm

2005-09-21T10:16:00.000+02:00

I showed another Kubrick film yesterday, Spartacus. Unsurprisingly, the print was a new-ish 35mm print with optical SR stereo. In other words, the 70mm print of this classic film was left to rot in the Swedish Film Institute's freezer.

Now, admittedly, the 70mm print doesn't have much colour left (and yes, the 35mm print yesterday does; colour-wise, it was very nice), but for crying out loud, Spartacus was shot in 70mm (well, 65, if you want to be picky) and the restored version has been shown to the rest of the world in that format. With new prints.

Why not Sweden?

Linux Ready for the Desktop, Take Two

2005-09-19T09:56:00.000+02:00

Of course it is. It is on *my* desktop.

So there.

alt.all.spammers.should.be.hunted.down.and.killed

2005-09-16T10:18:00.000+02:00

The title says it all.

Linux Ready for the Desktop?

2005-09-16T09:22:00.000+02:00

I found a rather long article by Kim Bauters, a 20-year old computer science student, about Linux on the desktop. Her conclusion is that Linux isn't ready yet (and, between the lines, that it'll never be ready). I won't bother you with details, but one paragraph near the end stood out:

Lastly, I would once again encourage those who evangelise Linux to start using self-criticism. To tell you the truth, Linux has not made any advancements when you compare it to Windows. Windows has gone forward with leaps and bounds towards becoming a secure and productive system. Linux hasn't made such advancements. Linux has only made some small steps, and there can only be hope that one day, Linux will actually start to make some leaps. Windows is a lot better than Linux because in the past, Windows has learned from their mistakes. Linux hasn't. And OS X, well, they play in their own league.

"Windows has learned from their mistakes"? Really? Let me tell you a story, Kim. I have Debian GNU/Lnux (which I'm using as I write) and Windows XP installed on my PC. My Debian installation is of the "unstable" flavour which basically means that everything in it is bleeding edge. The very latest software Debian has to offer, and thus not always very stable. I use it for lots of things, from work to play, from programming to writing, yet the OS itself has yet to crash on me. No kernel panic, no blue screens of death.

The Windows installation, on the other hand, is an XP Pro with all the service packs, patches and such that Microsoft has made available. It should be "stable", in other words. Now, I tend to use XP less than Debian but when I do, it's for about the same stuff. Work and play. Programming, writing, and, of course, gaming, which is the one area where XP is better. Or rather, the availability of games is better.

Anyway, some months ago I thought it would be a cool thing to run BOINC, the Berkeley client software that uses your computer in screensaver mode to find aliens, the cure for cancer, and a number of other tasks suited for distributed computing. Not long after, inexplicably, XP started to try to shutdown itself, and whatever software that happened to be running, when emerging from screensaver or standby mode. It turned out that my particular version of BOINC was causing this so the cure was easy enough: once an update to BOINC was available, I installed it and voilà, the problem vanished.

But BOINC never was the real problem. Windows was. What kind of OS allows an application, a screensaver at that, to access such core functions as system shutdown or killing other processes? I've had my share of unstable applications in Debian crash on me, simply because they are of early alpha quality, untested or simply not very well designed. But none of them ever managed to bring the OS down with them. And none of them ever tried.

Why? Because a well-designed OS separates user space from kernel space, sees to it that the running privileges of any given piece of software never interleaf with the privileges of another, independent piece of software that happens to be running on the same OS at the same time. Yet, in the Windows world, the mix-up of user and kernel spaces is a time-honored tradition, there from their very first attempts at a multi-tasking OS. They've learned to hide the mix-up, yes, but the basic design flaw is still there and often readily apparent.

Considering her age, Kim Bauters probably wasn't using that many computers when the first versions of Microsoft Windows appeared (or, for that matter, the first versions of MS-DOS), but I can assure her that the kind of thinking that allowed BOINC to try to shutdown XP was there, just as it is now. In this respect, Microsoft has learned very little. Linux, on the other hand, has never had this problem (and thus no reason to "learn" from its past) since its solution is not that hard and is present in just about every *nix version ever designed.

But Kim Bauters is entitled to her opinion, even though I wonder what they teach to computer science students about OS design these days.

It's O'Reilly's Fault

2005-09-14T23:59:00.000+02:00

Want to read a good book or two? Have a look at O'Reilly's Open Books site. I was just browsing around on the Net, thinking that five minutes browsing the O'Reilly website probably wouldn't hurt my C studies. Now, three hours and an anthology on open source later, I know that I was naive to the extreme.

I'd better unplug the network cable tomorrow I want to get through that chapter on looping.

Emacs and C

2005-09-12T09:28:00.000+02:00

I've compiled my first C program. Successfully! And I wrote the thing using GNU Emacs.

(Those of you who fail to see the implications of these both factoids can safely ignore this post.)

Speaking of Kubrick...

2005-09-07T08:46:00.000+02:00

Warner, who owns the rights to most of Stanley Kubrick's old films, apparently thinks that a new 35mm print of "2001" is what the director would have wanted for the Draken screening later this fall. Why else is the magnificent 70mm print of the Kubrick classic left to rot in the Swedish Film Institute's freezer? Or do they think that nobody will notice the difference?

It's a shame nobody told Stanley this during the sixties. MGM could have saved a lot of money. Maybe, just maybe, they would have survived "Heaven's Gate" 15 years later and none of this would have happened.

A Clockwork Orange, in Stereo?

2005-09-07T08:30:00.000+02:00

Once a week, I show "classics" at the Draken cinema. Yesterday, it was time for "A Clockwork Orange", again. The film is overrated, to say the least, but some 200 patrons attended the screening anyway.

This I expected. Kubrick has his followers (and I expect more people to attend "2001" in a few weeks' time). What I didn't expect was the new print, with restored colours, an SRD (Dolby Digital) track, and, it seems, stereo sound.

Since when is "A Clockwork Orange" in stereo?

alt.all.spammers.must.die

2005-09-05T10:17:00.000+02:00

The downside of blogging becomes readily apparent when reading the comments to my blogs:

Spam.

C'mon, spammers, do you really think I'd buy stuff advertised in comments posted here? Get real.

I'd Really Like to Upgrade Now...

2005-09-03T23:22:00.000+02:00

...my Debian Sid box, that is. What did you think?

Only when I try apt-get dist-upgrade, apt wants to remove most of my KDE desktop. Apparently, they are switching to a later gcc version and need to recompile just about the whole distribution, which means that the dependencies are a mess right now. I can live with KDE 3.3 (in fact, I'm in no hurry with most of the other stuff I've got either), but I'd really like to install klineakconfig to get all those extra buttons on my MS wireless keyboard to work. Without messing with specific older versions, and certainly without manually writing that config file, thank you.

So, please...? This is as good a reason to learn C as anything I've heard.

English or Swedish?

2005-09-03T00:12:00.000+02:00

I'm Finnish by birth, live in Sweden, but write this blog in English. Why?

A vast majority of the world's Internet servers run on old *nix variants and will choke on just about any character beyond ASCII in a URL. There's a reasonable chance that the Swedish vowels å, ä, and ö aren't displayed correctly in your browser, even if you happen to live in Sweden and use a localized browser and a ditto OS. And, of course, even Swedes seem to prefer English to their native language, judging from TV commercials, newspaper ads, and whatnot.

We can send people to space (yes, I know, we may not always get them back in one piece so there's stuff to be perfected there, too) but is all this really beyond us?

Then again, a potential readership of more than a quarter of a billion readers instead of a little less than nine million does have its advantages, too.

Six Weeks of... Nothing?

2005-09-02T23:48:00.000+02:00

Today was my last day on a project in which I wrote some XSLT and an XML Schema for this web service front end thingie for a large service information database. I've been doing this for six weeks, or about two months calendar time, and while it hasn't been the most rewarding of projects in terms of intellectual challenge, I've had some fun in the process.

Today, on my last day, they changed the design of the whole application. No more XSLT, no schema. We won't need them, thank you very much. Actually, no web service beyond an ftp service left masquerading as one, either, but I was never involved in any of the Java coding, so I don't care about that. What I do care about is that I just spent six weeks of doing, it turns out, nothing.

This is what you live for when you're a consultant. Usually, they won't throw away what you've done until you've left, but it does happen, and it just did.