Saturday, November 1, 2003

Converting Pictures for PDAs -- 8:26 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Sadly, unless you use a memory card, you have to use proprietary Windows software to convert pictures so you can view them on your PalmOS PDA. Thanks to a program called Par, I can convert jpgs into file stream databases that can be uploaded into the PDA's main memory and viewed via SplashPhoto or some other Palm image viewer. Par is powerful, but obtuse. To save you a few brain cells, here's the command I used to convert a file called "LOGOS2.jpg". I managed to view it via SplashPhoto just fine:

par c -a "stream" LOGOS2.jpg.pdb LOGOS2.jpg Foto Foto LOGOS2.jpg

The "c" argument creates the database, -a "stream" makes it a file stream, LOGOS2.jpg.pdb is the filename it creates, LOGOS2.jpg is the name as it will appear on the PDA (SplashPhoto needs the .jpg extension), Foto is the file type, the second Foto is the creator id, and finally LOGOS2.jpg is the file to turn into a database.

It may not be the prettiest thing in the world, but anything that allows me to avoid using Windows makes me one happy guy.

UPDATE! I also created a quick and dirty bash script so I don't have to remember all of this. I called it jpg2pdb.sh. All it does is take whatever filename you pass to it and convert it. It does no sanity checking at all, so don't try anything crazy with it other than converting jpgs. Here it is:

#!/bin/sh
par c -a "stream" "$1".pdb "$1" Foto Foto "$1"

NFL Week #9 -- 7:53 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Well, my beloved Wolverines won one of their two big annual rivalry games, this one against Michigan State. Now they have to beat Ohio State at the end of the year. As far as this week's NFL schedule goes, here are my picks: Colts, Giants, Bucs, Ravens, Panthers, Chargers, Raiders, Seahawks, Bengals, Rams, Eagles, Cowboys, Vikings, Patriots. Oh, and if the Lions do lose as I predict, I'm going to begin my "Fire Millen" campaign.

The Master comments: Eeyore's picks: Panthers, Dolphins, Ravens, Bucs, Giants, Lions, Chargers, Bengals, Seahawks, Eagles, Rams, Cowboys, Vikings, Broncos.

Friday, October 31, 2003

DOOM3 Interview, Part II -- 2:16 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Computer and Video Games posted the second part of their DOOM3 interview. This part speaks about the single-player game in glowing terms. It also has a further interview with John Carmack about some of the technological advances in hardware acceleration and in his latest engine. Thanks Blue's News.

New Linux.Ars -- 9:59 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

The more penguin-oriented folks at Ars Technica have posted their latest version of Linux.Ars. This time they talk about the much-maligned Mandrake 9.2, fun with vi (I know Qbe would enjoy that one), and a brief review of Crossover Office. Check it out!

The problems they note with Mandrake tell you why I'm now running Slackware instead. I've had stability issues with every version of Mandrake I've ever run. Having 300M worth of patches already on a new release of a distro is simply and utterly unacceptable. The CD-ROM problem is LG's fault, but I question adding such a bleeding edge kernel patch into a production distro. Oh well. Slack's been rock solid for me.

Stop New Windows! -- 9:46 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

No, this doesn't mean sending Microsoft a cease-and-desist letter to keep them from inflicting new versions of their OS on us. I just found out from the Mozilla Links newsletter how to stop sites from opening up links in new windows. Sites like HardOCP are notorious for that. Here's how to do it, snagged directly from the newsletter:

Mozilla browsers have a built-in pop-up blocker that is activated by default. However, they don't stop web pages from opening in new windows by using the target="_blank" or the illegal target="_new" properties. To force such links to open in the same window, add the following code to your user.js file:

// disable target="_blank" (open in same window):
user_pref("browser.block.target_new_window", true);

Or, type about:config to access all available preferences. Locate browser.block.target_new_window; double-click it and type "true".

Just another reason why Mozilla is the coolest browser on the planet.

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