SciTE --- Firefox of text editor

SciTE is a light-weight, cross-platform, fast text editor I always use. For example, on windows platform, it can be a single exe file you can copy to anywhere you like, and smaller than 500k, which is much smaller than editplus and ultraedit.

Despite of its small size, it is highly configurable, there are menu items to edit its default properties, e.g., whether to show line number, where to wrap long line, etc.

For example, the following four lines make scite wrap and show line num automatically, and prompt a user to reload a file when the file is changed out of scite.
wrap=1
line.margin.visible=1
load.on.activate=1
are.you.sure.on.reload=1
For more documents, please refer to http://www.scintilla.org/SciTEDoc.html

Google's Analytics

This blog is desolated for more than one month, which has never happened before. Too busy. Now, I cannot help posting sth.

Google analytics's invitation came finally, and then I installed it into my blog. Although I hear it is not as good as measuremap, it is better than none. So far, it collected one week's data, and show really comprehensive reports to me. Due to these reports I saw, Netstats is discarded from my blog. ;-)

Its geo-map provides info that is much more detailed than the one I am using in my right panel. Regretful, it cannot be integrated into the webpage.

Writely Invitation Available Now

In another post, I introduced some online writers. Today, I got invitation from writely finally.

Now, this is the 1st post I write using writely. From the toolbar, I can see it supports to post to blogger from writely. So, I first try to create some complicated format here, and publish to blogger to see effects.

1. A table:
this is 70% width table with size of 3x3

The 1st	how about it?	good
it is easy to set all format	i like it	do u?
	not bad, just like word

ok, seems table is easy to create and modify, then let's try to upload image:

2. image

I upload an image from my PC, very easy huh. Then I put it to the right part of this post.

I do not know where this image will be stored, if I publish this post to blogger. If writely can host the image, wow, I will love writely more. ;-)


3. font
Try some font effects here.
Bold, Italy and Underline
Good, so simple.

Now, let's try what fonts are supported by Writely.
FOnt1, Font1, Font2,

Ok, lots of fonts (about 15) are there. I only wonder what are the real effects in Web browser.

Let's publish the post now. Good luck to me and all writely users.
:D

I add the following comments in blogger, instead of writely.
1. writely hosts all pictures you uploaded. great
2. How to change corresponding HTML CSS style in writely is left to study
3. the HTML codes generated is ugly
4. if want to modify more, can only in blogger, I think

If you like the effect of easiness of writely, u can ask invitation from me now, if more invitations are left for my account. Good luck

atspace and awardspace

These two sites (atspace.com, awardspace.com) are really great. atspace provides 50M space (without traffic limit) and 99.9+% time on. It promises to offer the free service without ads forever. Its configuration is easy and simple.
The only regret is the lack of php/cgi support, although they said they will add soon. That is why I change to awardspace. awardpace provides 200M (2G traffic limit p.m). With php support, I built message board, hyperlink management, and counter to awardspace. I think this may improve the web page loading speed, as the page does not need to load services from lots of web sites. The only regret is awardspace reserve the right to add ads to your web pages.
So, hope atspace support php support, and when awardspace push ads to my web pages, I can back to atspace. :-D

[SoftwareRec]: Screen Cast Software for Linux (screen record)

Last time I record some tips to create software video demo, based on vnc techniques.
Compared with windows counterparts, e.g., BB Flashback, these tools cannot produce satisfied results. But now, we have more choices on Linux, like wink and Istanbul.
I am trying them.

Hitmaps now is ClusterMaps

I have been waiting this gadget to open register for long long time, util I find it reopen and renamed to ClusterMaps. I registered my own account, and this tool can show a thumbnails of world map, annotated with points. Each point presents how many ppls visited your site from the location it is placed.
You can see it from my right panel. ;-) seems it is updated daily, thus, need to wait to see result.

[SoftwareRec] Install Ubuntu on Acer Travelmate 3000 (3002WTCi)

Before reading all contents below,

for those are still struggling to install ubuntu 5.10 onto the Acer Travelmate 3000 series, I strongly suggest that it is time to try Ubuntu/Kubuntu 6.06. In another article, I wrote my experience of using 6.06 on the Acer. 6.06 can be installed and run smoothly and easily. Of cause, If you enjoy kernel patch, recompilation, etc., please go on.


Actually, I donnot like the Acer Travelmate very much. The last time when I was a acer travelmate customer is 5 years ago. I remember the acer babi is really hot, especially in room without air-con. Last week, I got a new travelmate 3200WTCi from company, rather disappointed to find it is still as hot as 5 years ago.

'Hot' is the first impression it brings to me. Compared to my previous old laptop Toshiba Portege4100, which has similar weight and computing power with travelmate at the same age, the Acer is just like a oven.
However, I must agree I donnot hate its industrial design. It is cute. Now, the problem is how about its linux support. If it supports linux good, I will love it much more. I will record the process of installing and setting ubuntu at the following parts. The ubuntu is 5.04 hoary, some problems are resolved in 5.10 breedy already, which I will introduce later.

1. Install from CD

I am not sure what happened when I use default parameter (just press enter), the kernel just hangs. But it is easy to bypass the problem. You can install with parameter:
linux acpi=off noacpi
After that, it will go smoothly, everything will be detected (not just work), including wireless card and video card. But both of them cannot work properly. Soundcard also cannot work by default.

2. Video Problem

The widescreen's native resolution is 1280x800. but ubuntu can only detect 1024x768 from BIOS. In this model, everything is too short, a bit ugly. 915resolution is a program modify the BIOS setting on fly. I grab it and run:
915resolution 49 1280 800 24
then, the resolution is OK, much more beautiful.
To let it run on startup, you need to put it into a startup script. I forgot what is the default runlevel, and I am lazy, thus, I do the following steps:
#vi /etc/init.d/915resolution
/* insert 915resolution 49 1280 800 24*/
#chmod a+x /etc/init.d/915resolution
#update-rc.d 915resolution defaults
In ubuntu 5.04 hoary, xorg is 6.8.2, which doesn't support DRI acceleration. But in breedy, xorg is 6.9, and supports intel 915GM's GMA 9000 video card very good (Unfortunately, I found the DRI is broken again, after I reinstall 5.10 today, although it is OK yesterday. Totally no idea).

3. Wireless Network

Ubuntu can detect ipw2200 directly, but I am not sure whether it works by default. As bringing up the wireless module is quite tricky.
Anyway, I suggest to install the latest ipw2200+fireware:
wget http://heanet.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/ ipw2200/ipw2200-1.0.4.tgz
wget http://bughost.org/firmware/ipw2200-fw-2.3.tgz
sudo mv ipw2200-fw-2.3.tgz /usr/lib/hotplug/firmware
tar xzf ipw2200-1.0.4.tgz
cd ipw2200-1.0.4
make
sudo make install
cd /usr/lib/hotplug/firmware
sudo tar xzf ipw2200-fw-2.3.tgz
sudo rm -r /lib/modules/`uname -a|awk '{ print $3 }'`/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/ieee80211
sudo rm -r /lib/modules/`uname -a|awk '{ print $3 }'`/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/ipw2200
sudo depmod -a
sudo rmmod ipw2200 firmware_class ieee80211 ieee80211_crypt_wep ieee80211_crypt
sudo modprobe ipw2200

When u run 'dmesg', you may see:
ipw2200: Radio Frequency Kill Switch is On:
Kill switch must be turned off for wireless networking to work.
I just push the wireless enable button (in ur laptop front panel), and then:
modprobe -r ipw2200
modprobe ipw2200
ifconfig ethxx up
dhclient ethxx
then it is OK.
Another trick to bring up the wireless card is to push the same button during startup, just after hotplug service is up and before the network service start.

4. Sound Card

To bring up the Intel HDA sound card, we need to repair the broken apic support in kernel.
I am using linux-image-2.6.12-6-686, and assume all following steps are executed on linux-source-2.6.12:
a. Download io_apic.c and mpparse.c to /usr/src/linux-source-2.6.12/arch/i386/kernel/
b. compile kernel (make menuconfig; make; make_modules_install; cp System.map /boot/System.map-xxx; cp arch/i386/boot/bzImage /boot/xxxx; mkinitrd -o /boot/initrd.img-xxxx; etc.
(for ubuntu 5.10, kernel 2.6.12-9-386, need change the line: #define WORKING_SET 1024 in scripts/kallsyms.c to: #define WORKING_SET 65536 )
then apic support is repaired, after this, you can delete acpi=off parameters from your grub menu.list. After grabing latest alsa and install, the sound card can be detected and run.

In breedy, after I upgrade linux-686, the acpi support is broken again. Thus, I removed those linux-686 related packages, as I think I do NOT need them any more.

5. Firewire CDROM

just work

6. ACPI

You can downloaded DSDT file ACER-Travelmate_3000-3C18-custom.asl.gzfrom acpi.sourceforge.net to repair ACPI. I download the DSDT.aml from Tilo Lutz, and then do the following steps:
a. echo -n "INITRDDSDT123DSDT123" >> /boot/initrd.img-2.6.12
b. cat DSDT.aml >> /boot/initrd.img-2.6.12
Here, my initrd table is /boot/initrd.img-2.6.12, For more information, please refer to http://gaugusch.at/kernel.shtml and http://acpi.sourceforge.net/dsdt/index.php
After patch it to initrd, my ubuntu can now show battery power left, cheers.

After I upgrade to ubuntu 5.10, the above method failed, as 5.10 replaces initrd with initramfs. To use DSDT.aml in 5.10, just execute:
mkinitamfs -o /boot/initrd.img-2.6.12 2.6.12
cp DSDT.aml /etc/mkinitramfs/
The DSDT.aml from Tilo Lutz does not work. I do some modification and you can download my DSDT.aml.

7. Modem

Below is the modem info. ATI3
Agere SoftModem Version 2.1.47

ATI5
2.1.47, Intel, HDA, 14
Somebody say Agere arranges only 1 programmer (Soumyendu Sarkar) for linux, somebody say Agere has start to write linux driver for 4+ years without any release. :-D, I am not sure what is true, but seems can only give up. You know, my old toshiba portege 4010's modem (AT3: TOSHIBA V.90 Data+Fax Software Modem Version 3.1.100; AT5: 3.1.100, AMR.ALi MB, AC97 ID:SIL REV:0x27,19)has never work in the past 3 years.

IR

Copy the nsc-ircc.c to drivers/net/irda, and compile kernel. Copy the nsc-ircc to /etc/modprobe.d/
Then, modprobe nsc_ircc seems no problem, except some warning in 'dmesg'. Again, no IR toy to test it.

Bluetooth

Seems it works from 'dmesg', but I have no bluetooth productions to test.

Cardreader

nothing to test

Hibernate

Doesn't work Post-Configuration

1. For chinese support, plz refer to:

tip1
tip2
Other acer laptop tips for linux1 Other acer laptop tips for linux2

stardict on debian (voice problem)

My stardict on debian has never output any voice util 10 mins ago. You can see the problem here > > >
> > >
> > > On Fri, 2004-10-22 at 11:31 +0800, Zhao Li wrote:
> > > > hello,
> > > > i'm a newone of debian. moved from fedora just now.
> > > > and now i met a problem about audio.
> > > > i installed kernel 2.6 and enabled alsa modules.
> > > > seems everything is ok before i try stardict, i.e., i can use aplay,
> > > > alsaplayer, active arts based on alsa, etc.

(gnome-sound-recorder does > > > > not work, i think it is normal, as i start arts, right?)
> > > > i installed voice files for stardict, however, i cannot hear any
> > > > voice from it, while i can use artsplay to play these .wav files. ( i
> > > > can hear voice from stardict under fedora core 1-2 with alsa+arts)
> > > >
> > > > who can help me, highly appreciate.
.................
I ask the author of stardict-ed () why?
Thank him so much, the reason is quite simple.

stardict use two methods for playing wav files:
on Windows it use PlaySound (WIN32 API)
on Linux gnome_sound_play (Gnome API).
So if you not use Gnome and use Window Manager/Desktop Environment which
have its own API for work with sound, may be some problems with sound
output. For example, if you use KDE it blocks /dev/dsp, so
gnome_sound_play didn't work.

stardict-ed use three methods for playing wav files:
all that use stardict +
if it compiled without gnome support for play wav files
((./configure --disable-gnome-support))
it execute "play" utility ("play" utility is part of sox package).
You can change play command for whatever you want,
just change in preference dialog appropriate value,
but before doing make certain that it play wav file,
if you call it with wav file as argument.
For example in KDE "play" command didn't work:

$play /usr/share/stardict/sounds/buttonactive.wav
sox: Can't open output file '/dev/dsp': Device or resource busy

Photo Album Software

Just now, found albumshaper from kde-apps.org, which can generate HTML album and then share ur photos. Seems there is lack of enough template for album generated, compared with those commercial counterparts, e.g., mosaic.
Anyway, it is not too bad, worth trying.
there is a list of similar softs, haven't tried them, if u know, u can put ur review here. :-D
ImgSeek - http://imgseek.sourceforge.net/
AlbumShaper - http://albumshaper.sourceforge.net/
gthumb - http://gthumb.sourceforge.net/
kphotobook - http://kphotobook.berlios.de/

vedio under linux

It's not a happy experience to find all encoders to watch movies. even more, we know, media player won't play rm and realplay won't play wmv, as they are adversary. although i seldom watch movies on my linux box, i am still very happy to hear that there is no such boring issues if you installed xine and mplayer. The two players solves all. actually, on fedora i only use mplayer, on debian i only use xine, and i have almost never need to consider where to grab encoders -- they can all be apt-gotten or downloaded from mplayers's homepage. i donno what's the underlying architecture of vedio players under linux, it's a bit strange that xine can use encoders provided by mplayer with a small trick. (just copy all encoders to /usr/lib/win32)

Debian

just replace fedora on my desktop and laptop with debian, as there are some debian mirrors in singapore and they are highspeed, with apt, to install debian is really a enjoyment. it's easy to config and easier to get various softwares, i love it.

Another blogger tool (i like it)

Do you know PyQlogger? I found it at kde-apps.org just now. PyQlogger is based on python, u can see from its name. After disappointed by those blogger clients that cannot edit post title, pyqlogger appears finally. It even can save posts as local draft copies. Seems it have some bugs, maybe only on my box. Check out here. WebLog Madness and hereis a very complete list of blog related stuffs.

Linux Software

I found there are so many excellent tools on linux, however, always forgotten by me time and time again. So, I start this page to record my favorite tools.

• Document Reader
  • CHM files: KChmPart plugin for konqueror, xchm (the only one i found print feature, still weaker than MS), gnochm.
  • MHT files: MAF plugin for firefox is good to open and save .MAF and .MHT files, unfortunately, it is only compatible with itself (not with MS). kmhtconvert is a tool convert mht to format understanded by konqueror, still in beta status.
  • PDF files: lots tools to read PDF files. pstill can concat multiple pdf files, extract pages from pdf, etc. It is free for educational purpose.
• System Tools
  • GMailFS: We all know gmail provide 1G to each user, can u imagine how to use the 1G space? huh, mount it as a local hardisk? Here it is.
• Document Editor
  • HTML editor: everybody may know quanta, there is a lighter WYSISWYG editor nvu
• Entertainment
  • Video Player: MPlayer is a movie player for Linux (runs on many other Unices, and non-x86 CPUs), Windows, Mac OS X. It plays most MPEG, VOB, AVI, OGG/OGM, VIVO, ASF/WMA/WMV, QT/MOV/MP4, FLI, RM, NuppelVideo, YUV4MPEG, FILM, RoQ, PVA files, supported by many native, XAnim, and Win32 DLL codecs. You can watch VideoCD, SVCD, DVD, 3ivx, DivX 3/4/5 and even WMV movies, too (without the avifile library). PS: must known, debian does not provide official repositories for mplayer for some reasons i donno know. It's OK, here is a repository you can find mplayer for debian:
    deb ftp://ftp.nerim.net/debian-marillat/ unstable main
    To record streaming media get a URL of a stream and use command line strings like in the following examples:

        mplayer.exe -dumpstream URL
    

    After recording you will get the file stream.dump. You should rename it to .rm, .ra, .asf, .wmv or other format you are using. MPlayer supports HTTP, RTSP, MMS protocols to record Windows Media, RealVideo/RealAudio, QuickTime Video Recommended free MPlayer package with GUI for Windows: MPlayer + frontend by Gabor Szecsi (When using it enter your URL in a Media file editbox and "-dumpstream" (without quotes) in MPlayer Extra parameters editbox, then click "Start" button to start recording process). For other tools, plz read here.
• Anti-Virus
  so far, i do not know who care anti-virus software on linux, although i download one just now: f-prot
• Miscs
  • springgraph, graphviz: Springgraph is a small tool that will read in a .dot file description of a graph, which, for each node, specifies its name and which other nodes it is connected to, and then renders a graph; e.g., apt-rdepends -d springgraph >1.dot; springgraph <1.dot>1.png; will generate dependence graph of springgraph binary package. Graphviz is much more comprehensive than springgraph, and generated graph is more beautiful.
• Graphic Editor
  • IPE: Ipe is a drawing editor for creating figures in PDF or (encapsulated) Postscript format. It supports making small figures for inclusion into LaTeX-documents as well as making multi-page PDF presentations that can be shown on-line with Acrobat Reader. So, what's the difference between IPE and xfig? I love IPE much, as it integrate latex macros seamlessly, which means u can draw tables, write formula in a convenient way (which cannot be done by xifg so far, i think).
  • QtiPlot: I used it to do my thesis graphs
  • More...更多
  • Must know, none of them has no weakness, e.g. IPE cannot import eps and pre-defined items. Another problem is although most of them can export to eps/pdf, they cannot import eps and pdf with fine effect. To combine them is a good choice, pstoedit is such a good util that can convert eps/pdf to vector format (xfig, dia, etc.) that can be used to do this.
• Development
  • gnome source navigator: have similar features as source insight on windows, of cz, it is totally free. u can also get all reference of a function, what the function refers to, etc.
• A quite old windows alternative software table: The table of equivalents / replacements / analogs of Windows software in Linux.