Blogger still doesn't want to post to my site. I wonder why... not that it really matters, I still haven't finsihed updating the site. Iv'e moved a few files around and fixed some links but thats about it. I still haven't finished the new menu yet. Maybe I'll get that done tonight. Maybe...

Update: I just realized why blogger wasn't asking me for my ftp password. I had turned off unrequested windows in mozilla. I geuss that feature has problems with some sites.

It looks like some of my posts have not made it to site. Ah well it doesn't really matter. I've just started my site update. Currently that means a few file names have changed. The next step will be to use xml entities to get the effect of SSI. Then I will add some alternate color schemes as well as a printing layout.

I finally figured out why gimp was not getting pressure data from my graphire2 pad. I was completly un-aware of the Input Devices dialog. All I had to do was go in there and activate the pen and eraser. Now it's working perfectly, well gimp doesn't seem to use it properly for opacity but the other settings work. FYI my XFree86 setup has the pads pen, eraser, and mouse sending core events, I just didn't know I had to enable them in that dialog to get the pressure to work.

I finally got around to burning a cd in linux. I was suprised at how easy it was using GnomeToaster. Now I just need to get back to ripping my cd's.

On the Gimp front, I've decided not to persue the gamma problem with the png plugin. What Gimp really needs is the concept of a working color space a-la PhotoShop. And that is beyong my abilities as well as probably requiring a major change to Gimps internals.

Almost forgot, I got a Microtek 4800 scanner. The scans look good under windows, now if we can just get it to work under linux....

I've finally added some new pages to my site and also corrected the colors to conform to web standards. These deal with color and gamma issues when viewing or creating graphics for the web. Actually these pages do cover a little bit more than that. They also have a link to a gamma calibration image. One link I left off was to the Little CMS Engine a small cross-platform library for doing color conversion.

I've also determined that my ftp problems with kernel 2.4.18 only ocur with passive transfers. Strange considering that web browsers ussually use passive mode yet it downloaded a file. Still I was able to use ncftp in active mode to upload some new stuff.

I just looked at the code for Gimp's png plugin to see if it had any support for gamma. There is no gamma support when loading png images even though this should be easy with the gimp_levels function. Saving a png is strange. It does allow saving the gamma value, however, if the gamma reported by Gimp is 1.0 then it uses a default of 2.2 which messes up the use of gamma. This really needs to be fixed.

I just finished calibrating my monitor, well under linux I still need to check under windows. The main reason to do this is to see images properly. The first step was to set the black level and picture. I did this with the lights off to get a better result. It's also likely to make Deus Ex and Thief look better since I play them in the dark. The next step was to set the gamma for my monitor. An interesting note here, according to mutliple sources the normal monitor gamma is between 2.35 and 2.55 mine was 2.5, my monitor however reported its gamma to be 2.85. Of course it's also not quite right about its dpi either, vertical is correct horizontal is to low. Now I just have to set the gamma in windows.

The update is done and I was finally able to upload the web pages. I'm begining to wonder if the problem I had a week or so ago was really related to the kernel. This time I was using 2.4.16 which I know works, but I was having the same sort of problems. Maybe my ISP was just having server trouble, after all I was trying from 2 to 6:30 this morning.

I just found out that my web pages were not quite properly formed. So I'm going to take this opertunity to re-design the underlying xhtml. There shouldn't be much of a change to the sites appearence though. Althoug it might print better.

Well, I just posted a new version of my API. It has a number of cleanups and fixes. The main change is that I put the common headers into the message object instead of leaving them in the GMimeMessageHeader. This should speed up operation on remote servers. I still have a few functions to add as well as all the examples. I think I have completed the client side of the API. I still can't find any usefull info on the new GType system so it looks like I will leave my interface as actuall classes.

Well, I finally got the new API docs uploaded. It appears to be a problem with kernel 2.4.18. When I went back to 2.4.16, the last version I have, I had no trouble ftp'ing the files. Hopefully the ftp problem is fixed in 2.4.19 whenever that one comes out.

Well it looks like the problem is on my end since this is getting posted. Perhaps there is a problem with the firewall and nat settings. I'll just have to wait until the next kernel release I guess.

I've been spending a lot of time trying to learn about the GTK 2.0 API. The main reason for this is that I am trying to port my mailbox API to it. The GType and GObject stuff looks useful but there is not enough information on it. The API docs are only 46% done and I haven't found any information on using it. How does one define an interface type and how do you use it? Ah well, for now my API is derived from GObject, not the best solution but it will do for now. The real question is can I post it on my website. I don't know yet if it's my system or the server but the ftp connection either dies or hangs when I try to post the files. When it gets posted it will be here.

I tend to be a bit lasy regarding data backup, a problem which recently bit me when I accidently deleted some API documents I have been developing. Ironically I was in the process of starting to put them into cvs for both versioning and backup. Part of the reason I haven't been doing this regularly is that I tend to move and rename files and directories as I restructure things. Anyone who has used cvs knows that it does not handle that at all. I've been following a cvs replacemnt called subversion for a while and it does handle those situations. I'm not currently using though since it has not reached v1 yet and they are planning some changes to the repository. Once it hits v1 I'll probably switch over to it.

Why are locales so complicated in linux? Since xhtml defaults to utf8 encoding and python is also heading that way I decided to see if gvim supported utf8. It does. It also mentioned utf8 locale support in both the terminal and X, so I decided to see what locales my system supports. It turns out that glibc stores locales in both /usr/lib/locale and /usr/share/locale. The first one stores the actuall locale stuff and has a bunch of utf8 entries. The other apparently stores the message translations for various apps. Then there is the locale data for X, it gets stored in /usr/lib/X11/locale and /usr/X11R6/share/locale or at least those are the ones I've found. They appear to serve the same functions as the two from glibc. What's making things difficult is that glibc has en_US and en_US.utf8 while X has en_US.UTF-8. Of course both have locale.alias files so...

I just read a note in locale.dir that the utf8 locales may not be working yet in X. Oh well I guess I can play with that some other time.

Hard to beleive its been so long since I last posted. Ah well, I've completed my move to a new server. Geocities will no longer be accepting FTP access to there free accounts. Besides, I was tired of the adds. I'm actually keeping some of my pages there mostly because I won't be updating them that much. The really important stuff, however, will be at my ISP's server.

Lets see, anything else of note.... I want a GeForce4 Ti card, been thinking about water-cooling my system to make it quieter, still haven't burned anything with my new burner yet other than that nothing.

I caught TechTV's selection for best of CES on Techlive earlier an dit got me to thinking about the state of PVR's. I like them and would like to get one but none of them seem quite right for me. I decided to look into them again and here's what I found:

TIVO was the first in the field and unfortunately they're showing their age. The capacity still tops out at about 30 hours and it only records one show. They do have a 60 hour unit comming out in Feb. for $400. I seem to recall some mention of dual recording being available later this year but now I can't find it.

The ReplayTV 4000, now here is an interesting PVR. Capacity starts at 40 hours and goes up to 320. Add in an ethernet interface for streaming video from one unit to another and you have an even better device. The only problem I have with it is that it can only record one show at a time. Price starts at $700.

And now the best of CES Moxi. Now here is a company thats strting to get it right. 2 to 4 tuners, mp3 support, 1394 based storage expansion, support for wireless networking, and its able to share any combination of live and recorded A/V with up to 4 TVs. Unfortuanetly Moxi will not be making these boxes just licensing the tech. It will be up to the makers such as Echostar to determine the exaxt capabilities including the recording options. It remains to be seen how good this will really be.

Of these, the Moxi system comes the closest to being perfect but it could be killed by poor implementations. Add a second recorder to the ReplayTV unit and you've got something that could handle my viewing habits. Still, none of these is quite right yet so I'll continue to wait and keep using my trusty VCRs.

How about that new flat panel IMac, now that is a good looking computer. I'm not a mac user myself, but between that computer and Mac OS 10 I'm tempted. Apple has certainly done a good job creating a multi-media system.

Been watching some of the CES coverage on TechTV the past few days. So far my favorite product is the Rio Riot mp3 player, deffinitely a direct competitor to the Apple IPod. They're about the same price, the Riot is larger and has a larger drive while the IPod has a 1394 interface for fast transfers and can fit in a pocket. I can't decide which one I prefer. Anyone want to buy me one? PLEASE......

I'm currently working on starting a new blog for other favorite pastime, Anime. The main question right now is whether or not to put it on geocities with this one. The main reason not to is that I would like to add support for comments. Ah well, not rush. Might as well read some of the blogger how-to's and see what others have to say.

I just finished another round of site updates. Mostly I just added in a missing div tag to my pages, as well as an extra text based nav system at the bottom of most of my pages (for the search engines, hehe). It didn't really bite anyone since it was at the end of the page.

Well I decided to open up my own vstore, Shanara Computers: Yet Another Computer Technology Source, just to see if I can make a little extra money. I don't really expect to get anything from it though, it's really just an experiment. Well we'll see what happens.