MonoBlog - Monoman's Blog

About "Convergence" TV/Computer Devices

2011-12-08T11:19:00.001-02:00

From my G+ post: https://plus.google.com/u/0/117788095721240811664/posts/gurPTpYzMGm

The problem is: if you have a general-purpose computer doublying as your TV set, the interactions for some computer-like usage scenarios become a lot harder:
Have you ever tried to type on a full keyboard standing on your lap on a common sofa, or worse to mouse-around with no plain surface or having to stretch your arm to touch on a far away big screen, not even Siri can help you while you interact with office suites, drawing programs, email clients, sophisticated web apps/sites, and other high complexity applications.

You really need simpler more focused apps, like you have in mobile, to work in such a configuration, and that is the whole point, it is really software that is holding up the "Convergent" (to use the old word) TV+Computer.

We need a base platform that uses news interaction mechanisms like Siri, Kinect, remote touching, etc... And more focused apps to exploit those mechanisms to bring it truly to live.

I'm working on it, as many others, but I don't think even Apple can really make it happen in the next year, and I would say it could cause a bad 'First Impression' to launch a not up-to-the-task device...

Commenting on a Chris Davies post citing Apple TV-enabled iMac tipped for 2012 television attack - SlashGear

NugetCracker 0.10

2011-10-24T18:29:00.002-02:00

Screenshot on MacOSX

Reengineered the BumpVersion command:

Now it bumps all dependent versions numbers and only after that, it builds all needed projects so that a build error can be fixed and the build be restarted without have inconsistent version numbers.

NugetCracker building/bumping itself on Linux, Version 0.6.1

2011-09-11T14:21:00.001-03:00

laptop:~/Projects/active/NugetCracker$ ./nugetcracker
NugetCracker 0.6
See https://github.com/monoman/NugetCracker

Using /home/rafael/Projects/active/NugetCracker/MetaProject.NugetCracker
Scanning '.' > '/home/rafael/Projects/active/NugetCracker'
.
Scanned 144 directories
Found 2 components
Sorting...
Finding dependents...

Ready > l
Listing all components...
[0001] Commons.Prevalence.1.0 - Minimal prevalence support for .NET [C# Nuget Project]
[0002] NugetCracker.0.6 - A builder for versioned nugets within a web of dependencies [C# Project]

Ready > help
Available Commands:
BumpVersion Bumps up a version for a component
Help, ? Show this list of commands or an specific command help
List List components, optionally filtered by regular expression
Quit, Exit Stops interactive mode
Rebuild Rebuilds current version for a component

Ready > r Commons
Rebuilding component Commons.Prevalence.1.0
XBuild Engine Version 2.11.0.0
Mono, Version 2.11.0.0
Copyright (C) Marek Sieradzki 2005-2008, Novell 2008-2011.
Build started 9/11/2011 2:13:20 PM.
__________________________________________________
Project "/home/rafael/Projects/active/NugetCracker/Commons.Prevalence/Commons.Prevalence.csproj" (default target(s)):
Done building project "/home/rafael/Projects/active/NugetCracker/Commons.Prevalence/Commons.Prevalence.csproj".
Build succeeded.
Time Elapsed 00:00:00.8898590

Ready > r Nug
Rebuilding component NugetCracker.0.6
XBuild Engine Version 2.11.0.0
Mono, Version 2.11.0.0
Copyright (C) Marek Sieradzki 2005-2008, Novell 2008-2011.
Build started 9/11/2011 2:13:46 PM.
__________________________________________________
/home/rafael/Projects/active/NugetCracker/NugetCracker/NugetCracker.csproj: warning : Cannot import project '/usr/lib/mono/4.0/Microsoft.CSharp.targets' again. It was already imported by '/home/rafael/Projects/active/NugetCracker/NugetCracker/NugetCracker.csproj'. Ignoring.
Project "/home/rafael/Projects/active/NugetCracker/NugetCracker/NugetCracker.csproj" (default target(s)):
/home/rafael/Projects/active/NugetCracker/NugetCracker/NugetCracker.csproj: warning : Cannot import project '/usr/lib/mono/4.0/Microsoft.CSharp.targets' again. It was already imported by '/home/rafael/Projects/active/NugetCracker/NugetCracker/NugetCracker.csproj'. Ignoring.
/usr/lib/mono/4.0/Microsoft.Common.targets: warning : Found a conflict between : 'System.Core, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089' and 'System.Core, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089'. Using 'System.Core, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089' reference.
Done building project "/home/rafael/Projects/active/NugetCracker/NugetCracker/NugetCracker.csproj".
Build succeeded.
Warnings:
/home/rafael/Projects/active/NugetCracker/NugetCracker/NugetCracker.csproj: warning : Cannot import project '/usr/lib/mono/4.0/Microsoft.CSharp.targets' again. It was already imported by '/home/rafael/Projects/active/NugetCracker/NugetCracker/NugetCracker.csproj'. Ignoring.
/home/rafael/Projects/active/NugetCracker/NugetCracker/NugetCracker.csproj (default targets) ->
/home/rafael/Projects/active/NugetCracker/NugetCracker/NugetCracker.csproj (default targets) ->
/usr/lib/mono/4.0/Microsoft.Common.targets (ResolveAssemblyReferences target) ->
Time Elapsed 00:00:04.7531090

Ready > help bumpversion
Usage:

BumpVersion [options] pattern

Bumps up the [AssemblyVersion]/Package Version of the component and rebuilds/repackages.
The [AssemblyFileVersion] attribute also is kept in sync with the [AssemblyVersion].
If component generates a Nuget it is not automatically published unless the --cascade
or --publish options were specified.

Options
-part:major|minor|build|revision|none
Increments the major, minor, build, revision version number.
If option is ommitted the default is to increment build number.
-dontcascade
Update all dependent components to use the new build/package, and them their dependent
components and so on. If some components generate a Nuget, the Nuget is published to
a temporary output 'source' and the dependent components have their package references
updated, if all goes successfully packages are them published to the default or specified
source.
-publish
Specifies that package should be published if successful.
-to:
Specifies source other than the default to publish nugets to.

Ready > b nug
Bumping component 'NugetCracker' version from 0.6 to 0.6.1
==== cascading
Setting new version to 0.6.1
Building NugetCracker.0.6.1
XBuild Engine Version 2.11.0.0
Mono, Version 2.11.0.0
Copyright (C) Marek Sieradzki 2005-2008, Novell 2008-2011.
Build started 9/11/2011 2:15:27 PM.
__________________________________________________
/home/rafael/Projects/active/NugetCracker/NugetCracker/NugetCracker.csproj: warning : Cannot import project '/usr/lib/mono/4.0/Microsoft.CSharp.targets' again. It was already imported by '/home/rafael/Projects/active/NugetCracker/NugetCracker/NugetCracker.csproj'. Ignoring.
Project "/home/rafael/Projects/active/NugetCracker/NugetCracker/NugetCracker.csproj" (default target(s)):
/home/rafael/Projects/active/NugetCracker/NugetCracker/NugetCracker.csproj: warning : Cannot import project '/usr/lib/mono/4.0/Microsoft.CSharp.targets' again. It was already imported by '/home/rafael/Projects/active/NugetCracker/NugetCracker/NugetCracker.csproj'. Ignoring.
/usr/lib/mono/4.0/Microsoft.Common.targets: warning : Found a conflict between : 'System.Core, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089' and 'System.Core, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089'. Using 'System.Core, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089' reference.
Done building project "/home/rafael/Projects/active/NugetCracker/NugetCracker/NugetCracker.csproj".
Build succeeded.
Warnings:
/home/rafael/Projects/active/NugetCracker/NugetCracker/NugetCracker.csproj: warning : Cannot import project '/usr/lib/mono/4.0/Microsoft.CSharp.targets' again. It was already imported by '/home/rafael/Projects/active/NugetCracker/NugetCracker/NugetCracker.csproj'. Ignoring.
/home/rafael/Projects/active/NugetCracker/NugetCracker/NugetCracker.csproj (default targets) ->
/home/rafael/Projects/active/NugetCracker/NugetCracker/NugetCracker.csproj (default targets) ->
/usr/lib/mono/4.0/Microsoft.Common.targets (ResolveAssemblyReferences target) ->
Time Elapsed 00:00:04.2109010

Ready > q

Pinta needs help, and I decided to lend a hand...

2011-09-09T10:42:00.002-03:00

Pinta is a nice bitmap editing tool, simple and yet powerful, for Linux/MacOSX/Windows

http://www.pinta-project.com/

Jonathan Pobst it's creator and maintainer is focusing his energy on some other ventures and left it untouched for some time know.

Cameron White forked and started to make it tick again, and now Robert Nordan and other people in the project discussion list http://groups.google.com/group/pinta?hl=en, including me , are starting to organize a full project team around it, at github (my fork https://github.com/monoman/Pinta).

I approach this with a more systemic view to have something like the MonoMagic App Wall (chose another name because a store would emphasize a commercial offering), with apps that may be easily installable/usable on any of the miriad platforms where Mono/.NET is available, Pinta could just be the forerunner.

Imagine an iPad/Android version of Pinta, with your drawings/photos synced to your personal cloud storage, so that you can take your editing session back at your Linux notebook later...

Wild ideas...

NugetCracker 0.5 - Runs on Mono 2.11 on Ubuntu

2011-09-07T18:35:00.000-03:00

Kind of self-explanatory...

monoman:~/Projects/NugetCracker$ mono NugetCracker/bin/Debug/NugetCracker.exe -c list
NugetCracker 0.4
See https://github.com/monoman/NugetCracker

Using /home/rafael/Projects/active/NugetCracker/MetaProject.NugetCracker
Scanning '.' > '/home/rafael/Projects/active/NugetCracker'
.
Scanned 128 directories
Found 2 components
Sorting...
Listing all components...
[0001] Commons.Prevalence.1.0 - Minimal prevalence support for .NET [C# Nuget Project]
[0002] NugetCracker.0.4 - A builder for versioned nugets within a web of dependencies [C# Project]
Done!
monoman:~/Projects/NugetCracker$ mono NugetCracker/bin/Debug/NugetCracker.exe -c bumpversion -part:minor nu
NugetCracker 0.4
See https://github.com/monoman/NugetCracker

Using /home/rafael/Projects/active/NugetCracker/MetaProject.NugetCracker
Scanning '.' > '/home/rafael/Projects/active/NugetCracker'
.
Scanned 128 directories
Found 2 components
Sorting...
Bumping component 'NugetCracker' version from 0.4 to 0.5
Setting new version to 0.5
Building NugetCracker.0.5
Done!
monoman:~/Projects/NugetCracker$ mono NugetCracker/bin/Debug/NugetCracker.exe -c list
NugetCracker 0.5
See https://github.com/monoman/NugetCracker

Using /home/rafael/Projects/active/NugetCracker/MetaProject.NugetCracker
Scanning '.' > '/home/rafael/Projects/active/NugetCracker'
.
Scanned 128 directories
Found 2 components
Sorting...
Listing all components...
[0001] Commons.Prevalence.1.0 - Minimal prevalence support for .NET [C# Nuget Project]
[0002] NugetCracker.0.5 - A builder for versioned nugets within a web of dependencies [C# Project]
Done!

NugetCracker 0.4

2011-09-02T17:14:00.000-03:00

Version 0.4 - BumpVersion now increments version, builds project and packs nuget
Uses new color-capable indenting console-logger

Sample session:

NugetCracker 0.4
See https://github.com/monoman/NugetCracker

Using C:\Projects\MetaProject.NugetCracker
Scanning '.' - 'C:\Projects'
..........................
Scanned 6454 directories
Found 36 components
Sorting...
Ready - l inad
    Listing components filtered by 'inad' ...
    [0001] ManagementPluginAD.2.5.35 - ActiveDirectory Management Plugin [C# Nuget Project]
Ready - help
    Available Commands:
        BumpVersion     Bumps up a version for a component
        Help, ?         Show this list of commands or an specific command help
        List            List components, optionally filtered by regular expression
        Quit, Exit      Stops interactive mode
Ready - help b
    Usage:

    BumpVersion [options] pattern

        Bumps up the [AssemblyVersion]/Package Version of the component and rebuilds/repackages.
        The [AssemblyFileVersion] attribute also is kept in sync with the [AssemblyVersion].
        If component generates a Nuget it is not automatically published unless the --cascade
        or --publish options were specified.

        Options
        -part:[major, minor, build, revision}
                Increments the major, minor, build, revision version number.
                If option is ommitted the default is to increment build number.
        -cascade
                Update all dependent components to use the new build/package, and them their dependent
                components and so on. If some components generate a Nuget, the Nuget is published to
                a temporary output 'source' and the dependent components have their package references
                updated, if all goes successfully packages are them published to the default or specified
                source.
        -publish
                Specifies that even if not cascaded package should be published if successful.
        -to:
                Specifies source other than the default to publish nugets to.
Ready - b -part:revision inad
    Bumping component 'ManagementPluginAD' version from 2.5.35 to 2.5.35.1
    Setting new version to 2.5.35.1
    Building ManagementPluginAD.2.5.35.1
    Packaging ManagementPluginAD.2.5.35.1
        Attempting to build package from 'ManagementPluginAD.csproj'.
        Packing files from 'C:\Projects\ManagementPluginAD\bin\Debug'.
        Using 'ManagementPluginAD.nuspec' for metadata.
        Found packages.config. Using packages listed as dependencies
        Successfully created package 'C:\Projects\ManagementPluginAD\ManagementPluginAD.2.5.35.1.nupkg'.
Ready -

NugetCracker 0.3

2011-09-01T18:46:00.001-03:00

Committed to Github version 0.3 of NugetCracker now with Help command, and some real parsing of project files:

Sample run:

NugetCracker 0.3
See https://github.com/monoman/NugetCracker

Using C:\Projects\xxx\MetaProject.NugetCracker
Scanning '.' > 'C:\Projects\xxx'
..........................
Scanned 6454 directories
Found 36 components
Sorting...
Ready > help
Available Commands:
BumpVersion Bumps up a version for a component
Help Show this list of commands or an specific command help
List List components, optionally filtered by regular expression
Quit, Exit Stops interactive mode
Ready >

Starting a new project: NugetCracker

2011-07-14T16:13:00.001-03:00

Well lately I've been a heavy user of NuGet packaging, trying to tame versioning issues in some proprietary projects I work on that evolve, and partly reuse, near to a hundred libraries (many of them in vertically-dependent sets aligned to 'plugins' in the applications).

Let's put it bluntly: IT'S A NIGHTMARE.

First of all, we have many solutions as it is unfeasible to load and work with a single one containing hundreds of projects.
Also we needed to organize source in a hierarchy of folders, for subsystems, for specific plugin trees, for product, separating test projects, etc... So it means we have tree of folders with projects in leafs, nested 3,4, or more levels down from the solution that uses them.
Finally, we have solutions that share some projects (one of the purposes of adopting NuGet is to avoid this pattern, but we aren't there yet).

Summing up the above points, we are very very far from the NuGet assumption of a single-solution, with all projects nested just one level, and mainly using external NuGets from the standard source feed.

<digression>
The standard NuGet feed is rarely used by us, because most packages there just don't support .NET 2.0, which our projects are still bound to, the sole package we could use from there was log4net, which is stable for some years, The rest we needed to cook our own versions of nugets for Npgsql, nHibernate 1.2, Castle.ActiveRecord 1.0RC3, and so on. All of this is published on a server shared folder, as we doesn't have time allowance to setup a NuGet server
</digression>

Let's just exemplify what all that means...

A contrived and simplified scenario:

Library NugetCracker.Core 1.0.0.0 depends only on framework assemblies.
Library NugetCracker.CLI 1.0.0.0 depends on NugetCracker.Core 1.0.0.0 and framework assemblies
Library NugetCracker.Web 1.0.0.0 depends on NugetCracker.Core 1.0.0.0 and NancyFX and framework assemblies
Program NugetCracker 1.0.0.0 depends on NugetCracker.CLI 1.0.0.0 and NugetCracker.Web 1.0.0.0

Now if we allow the Package Manager to get away with forcing bindingRedirects in the app.config (or web.config), we could publish a new nuget for NugetCracker.Core 1.0.1.0 and update just the NugetCracker program. Now, this may work if the changes are non-breaking, but if, for example, you need to add a new method to some interface in core that the other libraries must implement and the program uses, we will have to update the intermediary nugets, build and publish new nugets, and them update the program.

I think that now you can easily extrapolate that for my real scenario that means many iterations of building/publishing/updating across many solutions.

Well time to fast-forward to what I expect to be able to do when my newest project NugetCracker 1.0 is done:

In the command line:

> NugetCracker
Scanning for solutions in .
Found NugetCracker.sln
-- Project NugetCracker.Core generates nuget for version 1.0.0.0
-- Project NugetCracker.CLI generates nuget for version 1.0.0.0 depends on NugetCracker.Core
-- Project NugetCracker.Web generates nuget for version 1.0.0.0 depends on NugetCracker.Core, NancyFx
-- Project NugetCracker generates program for version 1.0.0.0 depends on NugetCracker.CLI, NugetCracker.Web
No nugets sources specified using default feed
No publishing feed/share specified, publishing to folder .\NugetPackages
Command > BumpVersion --minor --cascade NugetCracker.Core
Bumping version of package NugetCracker.Core to 1.1.0.0
Building NugetCracker.Core
Packaging NugetCracker.Core.1.1
Publishing NugetCracker.Core.1.1 to .\NugetPackages
Updating Package Dependency on NugetCracker.Core to 1.1 in NugetCracker.CLI, NugetCracker.Web
Bumping version of package NugetCracker.CLI to 1.1.0.0
Building NugetCracker.CLI
Packaging NugetCracker.CLI.1.1
Publishing NugetCracker.CLI.1.1 to .\NugetPackages
Bumping version of package NugetCracker.Web to 1.1.0.0
Building NugetCracker.Web
Packaging NugetCracker.Web.1.1
Publishing NugetCracker.Web.1.1 to .\NugetPackages
Updating Package Dependency on NugetCracker.CLI to 1.1 in NugetCracker
Updating Package Dependency on NugetCracker.Web to 1.1 in NugetCracker
Bumping version of program NugetCracker.Core to 1.1.0.0
Building NugetCracker
Packaging .\NugetCracker.1.1.zip for zip installation
Command > PublishTo -Apikey xxxxxxx -Source http://nuget.mycompany.com/
Publishing NugetCracker.Core.1.1 to http://nuget.mycompany.com/
Publishing NugetCracker.CLI.1.1 to http://nuget.mycompany.com/
Publishing NugetCracker.Web.1.1 to http://nuget.mycompany.com/

Becoming reality soon...

Tiny Membership Providers

2011-05-11T16:15:00.000-03:00

Tiny Membership Providers

I've needed to move an ASP.NET MVC project away from using SQL Server for logon (SQLMembershipProvider).

Searching for 'membership' on Nuget's "Add Package Library Reference" dialog, I've stumbled upon Artem.XmlProviders40 package that implement the trio of providers (memebership, roles, profiles) using xml files as storage. Nicer, the Nuget even updated the web.config to add the providers in the application.

Dumbly I deleted the SQL providers lines and tried to run, after inspecting the users file to find the password for some user there, and pressed F5 to run the app. Clicked on "Log On", and CRASH!!!

Needed to peruse the Web.config of the SampleWebSite project in the sources (http://tinyproviders.codeplex.com/SourceControl/changeset/view/6d50b098f088#SampleWebSite%2fWeb.config).

To find out that I needed to add the defaultProvider attribute to the membership element (and the other two), naming the specific provider to use as being the Xml... part, as named in the providers/add child element.

Also I needed to set the applicationName attribute to "/", as this is an MVC app able to deal with all paths...

Why do I need to get hid of SQL Server, on these days of SQL Compact marveldom? To be able to run in Linux, of course.

Also as the system has just one non-anonymous user: the famous "admin", it is just overkill to have a database even when deployed on a Windows server...

littlelover. A sequencer in "click-your-notes" easiness

2011-04-18T09:20:00.000-03:00

littlelover.

Guy Kawasaki sent me to Holy Kaw for this "Mesmerizing music gizmo" and in a couple of minutes I've came up with this kind of "Caribbean-dreamy" pair of musical phrases.

Entertaning...

Blogger Dynamic Views are HOT, but doesn't work on this blog :( . Yet?

2011-04-08T15:07:00.000-03:00

I followed all the steps to enable the dynamic views for this blog but it isn't showing...

Brings a temporary alert page:

Sorry, dynamic views aren't available for this blog.
You'll be redirected to the blog homepage momentarily. Learn more

And then gets back to the old home view... :(

MoonVorbis - monogatari

2011-04-08T14:32:00.001-03:00

MoonVorbis - monogatari

Learning a bit more for doing the WebM on Moonlight project.

Thanks to the commenters that pointed me to this other project.

Update: It is Atsushi Enomoto, from Mono's team who is behind that blog and project. Nice to know...

A very sensible movie, The Story of Electronics - MUST WATCH

2010-11-09T11:54:00.001-02:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sW_7i6T_H78&feature=player_embedded

Managed Commons including WebM subproject is at Github

2010-09-03T16:22:00.000-03:00

Sorry, forgot to update here that the Managed Commons project now resides at Github: http://github.com/monoman/Managed-Commons

It includes the WebM subproject, that will allow reading/writing WebM files/streams generally and decode/play such streams in Moonlight.

Little time to work on it, so the progress is very slow, but if you want to contribute, please do: Fork it at Github and send those fantastic Pull Requests.

Also please post issues there to help guide/prioritize development, I'm trying to first be able to read the Matroska files, them I'll start the decoder and pump some video data, and last plug it into Moonlight. Writing streams/files has low priority at this point, unless someone really want to develop a video producing app, or a slideshow-to-video converter and want to contribute code and testing to that end.

Trying to Bring WebM Support into Moonlight

2010-05-24T22:37:00.001-03:00

First step: porting Matroska's JEBML (a Java parser for EBML) to C#. EBML is the "binary xml" format that is the basis for the Matroska (thus WebM) container.

I tried to convert libebml2 (written in C) to C#, but it is too "unobjectifiable" and so I searched a bit more for some easier path. Didn't look at some of the C++ parsers available, but JEBML although looking a bit abandoned of late seems to model the main concepts and surely is a good starting point. JEBML is LGPL-licensed which should not compromise the whole effort.

Going with renaming .java files to .cs, and doing wholesale Find&Replace, but have to stop now, while it doesn't even compile yet. Tomorrow I hope to fix it into a somewhat compilable state, and then, I'll need to move to .NET system classes, and use generics to slim down the whole thing.

The sources so far were uploaded into my Managed.Commons group, later I'll decide if add a project on Google Code, or GitHub.

http://groups.google.com/group/managedcommons/web/Managed.Ebml.rar

2010-05-04T19:40:00.000-03:00

Experimenting with Twitter's Blackbird Pie, retwitting Sergio's opposition to mandatory registration to have access to Internet here in Brazil, as says a proposed set of laws:

Sou contra o cadastro obrigatório para acessar a Internet no Brasil. E você? #marcocivilless than a minute ago via webSergio Amadeu
samadeu

Some comments on new iPhone OS 4 TOS

2010-04-12T12:15:00.001-03:00

Well, for starters, I'm one of the very pissed MonoTouch developers, that hated all the news (mostly speculative) on the restrictions Apple is possibly bringing to iPhone development.
I'm not sure that MonoTouch will be effectively prohibited as a development platform for iPhone/iPad, but the signs are very indicative of that.
Following the discussions on blogs (and comments) and Twitter, I'm impressed by how many people is on the same boat as me, and how heated is the criticism on Apple's move.
It is contrasting to see Miguel's or Unity's calmness, so far.
Anyway this post is about one item most discussions seem to neglect or are plainly wrong about:

Some arque that Apple can't simply prohibit some very successful apps from being further developed/distributed under the new agreement, because that would cost them money to reimburse customers that have bought those apps. That is partially false: the agreement I've been obliged to sign indeed says that Apple can, at any time, yank my app from the Apple Store and much worse they can uninstall it from all the iPhones/iPads out there which have it installed, and that any costs advent from angry customers are on my back. So they may lose on future sales if the app was very successfull, but leave all the other costs of their one-sided decision to the developers, so it is kind of an easier decision for them to make, at least in the USA.

Here in Brazil that clause is unlawful as with it Apple is abusing its stronger position to share the profits without sharing the risks, and worse transferring the costs of theirs decisions to someone else

My little library Mono.GetOptions is being abandoned by Mono

2010-03-04T17:47:00.000-03:00

The biggest lump of code I've contributed to Mono, the Mono.GetOptions library is now being erased from the project.

It wasn't perfect and it's successor Mono.Options is a very capable replacement even if it doesn't do all the tricks Mono.GetOptions did in its prime.

Mono.Options is friendly to C# 3.0 features like lambdas, which allows writing code as terse as Mono.GetOptions allowed without using reflection and being a somewhat large dependency, the two main gripes Miguel had with my little library.

The last of Miguel gripes was about versioning (keeping more than one version in the fold) as some of the needed fixes and planned evolutions for Mono.GetOptions would mean breaking changes, which are better handled by consumers of the library by having distinct major versions with its separate APIs and attached series of minor releases.

That gets even more complex as you consider that Mono.GetOptions evolution also was tied to Mono releases.

If memory doesn't fail me, it was Mono.GetOptions and also other libraries imported into the project like SharpZipLib (which is still a problem as Mono is carrying two versions of it, and in this general cleanup process it is going over now we are trying to get rid of at least one of them), that prompted Miguel to change policy and ask for most non core libraries to be developed and released independently from Mono, even if developed by Mono hackers or used in some Mono utility. Better a package dependency (a soft one if possible) than the maintenance burden of embedded libraries.

Well let me quit reminiscing. Farewell my kid...

But if you are a loyal user of Mono.GetOptions what should you do?
You can:

Migrate to Mono.Options (or even use it's code directly as Miguel advocated some time ago because it is a lot slimmer than my library).
You can keep a copy of a Mono.GetOptions binary around to distribute with your solution (not an option for open source projects that would like to be accepted into Debian/Ubuntu).
Tell me you would like to see Commons.GetOptions, my own fork of it, get on the air and fly high. Version 1.0 of it has just the namespace change in it, so your migration effort would be minimal. See the Managed Commons group for more information.

Have nice developments

Document Freedom Day '10 is coming

2010-03-04T16:56:00.003-03:00

http://documentfreedom.org/

MonoBrasil's new site is live!!!

2009-10-28T15:16:00.003-02:00

For those Monoers able to read Brazilian Portuguese, rejoice (just kidding): our brand new MonoBrasil site is up and running.

We are still trying to fill it up with content we already had at the older site, while revising it in the process, and creating some new content, with the many, many, many new things spinning in the Mono world.

Content contributions are welcome, preferably in Portuguese (of the Brazilian variety or not), but also English/Spanish content that we may be able to translate will also be accounted as "Good Deeds" by MonoBrasil's demigods (currently that means me and my good fellow Binhara).

<pt-BR>Vejo vocês lá!!!</pt-BR>
<en>See you there</en>

We've upgraded to a Enterprise Licensed Monotouch

2009-10-21T16:56:00.002-02:00

First thing to try (while waiting Apple bureaucracy to process our requests):

Build our prototype to the iPhone target... result: the binary of the program grows from 5MB to more than 7MB.

But I still think it is fairly sized for what it is carrying inside...

Developing for IPhone with MonoTouch

2009-09-18T09:24:00.004-03:00

I'm developing my first app for the iPhone using Mono, MonoTouch and MonoDevelop in a Mac Mini. Never used seriously a Mac before, and last time I've developed something professionally for an Apple platform was for the Apple II, back in the 1970s (yes, I'm that old...).

Anyway, it is awesome to be able to leverage my skills with Mono and C#, instead of having to resort to Objective-C, to get the job done.

So far, I'm tackling the still steep learning curve over Cocoa, Interface Builder, and the limitations imposed over Mono by the AOT compiling the iPhone platform mandates.

My app has just a Login View, so far, that already interacts and validates against a hard-coded password, and Monodevelop generates an executable with some 4.7 Megabytes to be deployed to the iPhone Simulator.

When you think that all the Mono native runtime and huge parts of the basic class library already in native binary format is in there, I think it is a reasonable size, that won't grow much until I add loads and loads of functionality to the application.

I've been using the evaluation version of Monotouch so far, but I think it is proving itself worth the price, and my boss already said the investment on buying one or two (if we buy a second mac) enterprise licenses has a green.

Now I'm going to move more code from our J2ME version of the app to C#, while also trying to build an usable interface on top of it along the Apple guidelines.

Trying to change a background image on this blog

2009-09-16T11:23:00.006-03:00

First insert it here to upload to blogger (in truth blogspot):
I've obtained it from PatternCooler
After I save it I'll try to change the template CSS to refer to it.

PHP Toolkit for ADO.NET Data Services

2009-08-26T11:04:00.002-03:00

Well that is an interesting crossover: Having your data served by .NET on a REST way, being easily consumed by a PHP web app.

See A new bridge for PHP developers to .NET through REST: PHP Toolkit for ADO.NET Data Services which I've found via Julie Lerman's Blog , which I've found out via Google after receiving an email from O'Reilly inviting to a free webcast with her: Entity Framework Tips & Tricks.

This is the nature of the Internet, it provides a continuous stream of connections (links) popping up every second that allow us to thread our way through many interesting subjects.

For a curious mind like mine, this is both a blessing and a curse, as it allows me to grow my knowledge and renew my stock of questions, but surely steal out lots of my time, thus playing havoc with my personal planning... :)

Carnitas Recipe

2009-07-07T11:37:00.002-03:00

Thanks Jonathan for directing me to it (through Twitter):

http://food.rlove.org/2008/09/slow-braised-carnitas.html

Book meme

2009-05-19T13:54:00.002-03:00

Instructions :

Grab the nearest book.
Open it to page 56.
Find the fifth sentence.
Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
Don’t dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST.

"Uma parte das matérias será predominantemente presencial e outra, predominantemente virtual"

Translation:

"A number of classes will be predominantly face-to-face and others will be predominantly virtual"

Time to port some Windows XP drivers to Vista 64

2009-04-29T16:39:00.003-03:00

Not the project I dreamed of, but it is still nice having to learn the innards of the newest Windows versions and x64 development.

Before anything else time to upgrade the DDKBUILD script to the newest available which covers kernel-mode development for Windows Vista and 2008 Server.

http://www.osronline.com/article.cfm?article=43

Put simply ddkbuild.cmd is a must-have for drivers' development, as it makes integration with VS2005 viable, newer versions of VS may also benefit but as I'm stuck with that version I don't know.

Sneer Summit was very nice!!!

2009-04-28T10:37:00.002-03:00

We've discussed core technical issues like the component model abstracted around "Bricks", with some AOP-like cross-cut concerns added as "Natures". This was in Java.

Them some discussion on data-model separation. Currently it is tied to the component model, by defining POJOs that flow in-and-out the Brick mandatory public interface.

Them meta-programming, to substitute current "Nature", run-time injection of behavior with more debuggable Macros, but as that means using another language (Boo migrated to JVM as Boojay) it is not clearcut if the Sneer coders will go down this route.

After suffering some "Rock Band"-ness, I swayed to the sovereign games development session, where discussions just kept the big question unanswered, what kind of game would be a sucess in a Sovereign landscape.

Finally, we got back to the final all-voices discussions on the merits of pursuing such a project and how to make it effectively grow up. Most people feel that a killer app is needed, and that portable protocols should be defined to enable developers not to be forced to use Java or more generally just some specific language/platform to develop Sovereign pieces and apps.

I, for example, still prefer to implement my sovereign bits in C#,Boo, or probably some Mono-based DSL I'll cook in the vein of Intentional Programming or Reinvention Of Programming

Preparing for the Sneer Summit

2009-04-24T22:45:00.004-03:00

Tomorrow night, I'll fly to Curitiba to participate in the Sneer Summit, that will happen on Sunday (Apr 25).

Have been reading all the basics on the subject (again and deeper), except the java code.
The subject is Sovereign Computing.

Probably some crazy idea will jailbreak out of my head, while there. Hopefully...

Java support in Google's App Engine and Mono and Sneer

2009-04-08T19:54:00.007-03:00

I've been reading and watching the videos from Google's Campfire One, about the new features they've added to App Engine, specially the Java support, and got thinking of some possibilities when throwing Mono in the picture:

We can see if they have interest in having Mono support in the App Engine, meaning basically to be able to host ASP.NET apps in there. That entails customizing the core libs/APIs using Mono as the VM and the libraries source, and also developing a plugin for Visual Studio (and maybe Monodevelop/Sharpdevelop) to give ASP.NET devs (WebForms and MVC) the same integrated experience they've provided for Java devs using Eclipse
We can help Keerthi's proposal to GSOC for implementing a clone of Azzure take off, and integrate it into Monodevelop, and perhaps Visual Studio. The advantage here being that we would have an open-sourced cloud implementation, that more people can host, even as an in-house solution.
We can retarget the Java in App Engine ideas from Computing in the Cloud, to Computing in the Crowd (Sovereign Computing), it even keeps itself in the Java realm for the Sneer implementation of SC.
Sneer.NET could offer something akin to Azzure
We can drop all but the main concepts and have some Mono-based Cloud Implementation.

Well possibly some other permutations are also viable.

I've just thought to get the ball rolling on discussing those dreamable projects.

First reading an old Spolsky essay

2009-04-08T12:57:00.004-03:00

The Iceberg Secret, Revealed (2002) dabbles in that pesky space between managers and programmers, where the success or failure of a project is slowly forged day by day.

As I've experienced myself some of those misadventures I agree with him on most things, except on the critics to Extreme Programming.

Corollary Two is historically proven true in my life, but that is easy, and to a lesser degree corollary One is very true also.

But number Five seems a bit too short-sighted: yes, you absolutely need to have the application/site good-looking when showing it off, but that MUST be backed with really useful and usable features, or after the 'wow!' factor dissipates it won't grow beyond the early-adopters crowd, and probably will also be abandoned by them.

I've been invited to the Sneer Summit

2009-04-06T14:57:00.003-03:00

Sovereign Computing is the concept, Sneer is the reference implementation (in java, mostly, I believe).

Marvelous 'Go' player Klaus Wuestefeld is the man behind that vision. He and some other friends of mine are gathering together some 20 solar days down the time stream on the nice city of Curitiba, and they've invited me to share my craziness on the subject.

I'll try to fly down there and have some fun and perhaps let some useful idea escape from their prison in my mind through my lips.

I've officially asked permission to my wife and kids to stay away from them on a Sunday, and they gave me the green light so, unless monetary matters hold me, I'll be there.

Have you ever tried to change the default icon used on a VSNET Addin project? (Updated)

2009-03-26T21:06:00.009-03:00

That icon is embedded in hexadecimal in the .Addin xml file.

<AboutIconData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boutIconData>

I've found some people discussing ways to do that.
Someone talked about an alternate undocumented tag to put a reference but it didn't work, but another one really offered me the missing and useful information that the blob there in the xml is just the .ico file in hex form.

Problem is that I wanted to make it an automatic thing: edit the .ico file, build the project and voilá! the new icon shows when you select your rebuilt addin in the test VSNET instance "About" dialog.

So first I've coded this small utility program:


using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.IO;
using System.Reflection;
using System.Text;

namespace IconHexer
{
  class Program
  {
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
      try {
        if (args.Length >= 1) {
          string icoFile = args[0];
          if (File.Exists(icoFile)) {
            StringBuilder builder = new StringBuilder();
            byte[] data = File.ReadAllBytes(icoFile);
            for (int i = 0; i < data.Length; i++)
              builder.Append(data[i].ToString("X2"));
            string hexedIcon = builder.ToString();
            if (args.Length < 2)
              Console.WriteLine(hexedIcon);
            else
              for (int j = 1; j < args.Length; j++) {
                string addinFile = args[j];
                if (File.Exists(addinFile)) {
                  string addinBackupFile = addinFile + ".backup";
                  string xml = File.ReadAllText(addinFile, Encoding.Unicode);
                  int start = xml.IndexOf("<AboutIconData>");
                  int end = xml.IndexOf("</AboutIconData>");
                  if (end > start && start > 0) {
                    xml = xml.Substring(0, start + "<AboutIconData>".Length)
                          + hexedIcon 
                          + xml.Substring(end);
                  if (File.Exists(addinBackupFile))
                    File.Delete(addinBackupFile);
                  File.Move(addinFile, addinBackupFile);
                  File.WriteAllText(addinFile, xml, Encoding.Unicode);
                  Console.WriteLine("File '{0}' updated (backuped at '{1}')", addinFile, addinBackupFile);
                }
              } else {
                ShowError("Addin file '{0}' doesn't exist", addinFile);
              }
            }
          } else {
            ShowError("Icon file '{0}' doesn't exist", icoFile);
          }
        } else {
          ShowError("Please use '{0} pathToIcoFile [pathToAddinFile]'", Path.GetFileName(Assembly.GetEntryAssembly().Location));
        }
      } catch (Exception e) {
        ShowError(e.ToString());
      }
    }

    private static void ShowError(string format, params string[] parameters)
    {
      Console.Error.WriteLine("ERROR: " + format, parameters);
      Environment.ExitCode = 1;
    }
  }
}

After building it as an exe tool in the solution I've tweaked the csproj for the Addin project to specially mark the two addin files:

<ItemGroup>
   <Content Include="..\..\..\Addins\NUnitRunnerAddIn - For Testing.AddIn">
      <Link>NUnitRunnerAddIn - For Testing.AddIn</Link>
      <AddinFile>true</AddinFile>
   </Content>
   <EmbeddedResource Include="NUnitRunnerAddIn.ico" />
   <Content Include="NUnitRunnerAddIn.AddIn">
      <AddinFile>true</AddinFile>
   </Content>
</ItemGroup>

and use them on a BeforeBuild target:

<Target Name="BeforeBuild">
  <Message Importance="high" Text="Updating embedded icon on .Addin files"/>
  <Exec 
    WorkingDirectory="$(ProjectDir)" 
    Command="&quot;$(SolutionDir)IconHexer\bin\$(ConfigurationName)\IconHexer&quot; &quot;$(ProjectDir)NUnitRunnerAddIn.ico&quot; &quot;%(Content.Identity)&quot;"
    Condition="%(Content.AddinFile) == 'true'" />
</Target>

Last step is to put a build dependency on the tool project from the addin project, and edit the icon file (which path is hardcoded on the example above) and build the solution and run the addin and as expected the new icon is there in the VSNET about box as promised.

Hope it helps some other guy having to do that in the future...

TED Video - Kamal Meattle: How to grow your own fresh air

2009-03-20T18:46:00.003-03:00

The video http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/kamal_meattle_on_how_to_grow_your_own_fresh_air.html

brings some interesting info about how to continuously renew the stock of this scarce resource "breathable air"

Some more info about Mr. Meattle:

http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=17442

About the newest building he cites in the video:

http://www.greenspaces.in/

Dear lazyweb: can you tell me where do I find the published papers he talks explaining more precisely the plants and proportions needed?

Kamal expands it a bit at:

http://greenspaces.in/blog/ted09/

but any more info is welcome. For instance, some blog I just scanned was talking about one of those plants being bad for cats, I have a dog so I would like to know the reasoning (the pros and cons) on plant selection, on a expanded view.

Well you got the gist of it, comments welcome

Boojay came to daylight

2009-02-07T01:15:00.003-02:00

Nice screencast from my friend Rodrigo, the creator of boo and boojay.

Highly recommended. The most interesting part is that the pipelined design of the boo compiler allows this, to have it targeting different virtual machines and class libraries.

Niiiice...

I liked Obama's inaugural speach...

2009-01-20T15:28:00.003-02:00

He is a great speaker, and preaches work and hope, so I wish him success in keeping up with his promises.

Happy new president, my USA friends. :)

PS.: Aside from some network congestion problems, Silverlight surely passed the test on streaming to probably a huge audience (I was bound to a Windows machine, but watched it in Chrome probably reusing Firefox's version of the Silverlight plugin)

New project DinDin

2009-01-10T00:19:00.002-02:00

Starting a new open source (BSD license) project at google code: DinDin, which is a Brazilian Portuguese slang for money, as it is a distributed multi-platform home finance system based on Mono (WinForms+ASP.NET+Ajax) and maybe Moonlight.

Yes, I know, DinDin is also a childish slang for Dinner in English.

C# father Hejlsberg, talks about the language and cites Mono and Moonlight

2008-10-01T16:22:00.005-03:00

I've read an Anders Hejlsberg's interview about C# history and future. It is scant on future details for C# 4.0, but nevertheless interesting.

A good thing in it, too, is that he cites favorably projects Mono and Moonlight on the middle pages.

Today I've started post-graduation studies (lato sensu)

2008-08-16T23:11:00.002-03:00

During the next 12 months, I'll be back to the student seat, to learn how to teach, again.

It has some kind of a ... pendular beauty, I think...

Hammett is now a Microsoft employee

2008-07-19T20:34:00.004-03:00

Castle's creator and my former boss is now moving from Brazil to the US, to work for Microsoft in the MEF (Extensibility Framework) team.

I wish him success in this new job, and that he can still find time to make Castle/Monorail evolve even more.

I survived the bookshelf, so ... Ben Lovell started a terrific series of posts on Test-First Incremental Development with Monorail

2008-04-02T09:26:00.004-03:00

Ben has started a series of posts, similar to what I intended to do (always the lazy blogger excuse) about how to go incrementally developing a web application in the test-first way (writing the unit tests before the code). What I normally do differently from him is that he goes backwards throughout the layers (he starts with the controllers' layer, going down to the service layer, and so on) and I tend to begin at the service and model layers, and go up afterwards, because most of my projects tend to have requirements for supporting multiple-UI and/or for publishing some SOA interface (binary or xml, web services).

Me and my son escaped being killed or severely injured by the fall of a huge piece of wall-mounted furniture

2008-04-02T09:09:00.004-03:00

Part of a huge dry-wall mounted bookcase collapsed into the floor where I was standing seconds before, and beside my son's bed. After the heart-pounding eased a bit, we've found his forehead was struck by some decorative object, perhaps, but no serious injury happened.

After moving the debris and collecting the books, toys and other objects from the floor, we all had a terrible night, with my kids having an unrestful, frightened, sleep, what made me and my wife also not being able to recover fully.

"What does not kill us makes us stronger", some believe, but I would rather have had a good night of sleep...

Maybe a candidate for Mono.Rocks

2007-12-04T11:00:00.000-02:00

Answering a thread on XmlNodeList manipulation on the list I came with this answer and (untested) Mono.Rocks candidate:

As a fan of generics I would create a helper class (based on Robert Jordan code):


public class XmlNodeListHelper
{
   public static List CopyNodeList(XmlNodeList list)
     {
       List copy = new List();
 
       foreach (XmlNode node in list)
       copy.Add (node);
            return copy;
   }

   public static void RemoveNodes(XmlNodeList list)
   {
       foreach (XmlNode node in CopyNodeList(list))
           node.ParentNode.RemoveChild(node);
   }
}

And so the code in question would become just:


XmlNodeListHelper.RemoveNodes(xDoc.SelectNodes("//comment()"));

When using the latest compilers it could be made into a Mono.Rocks helper like:


public class XmlNodeListHelper
{
  public static List CopyAsList(this XmlNodeList list)
  {
      List copy = new List();
 
      foreach (XmlNode node in list)
          copy.Add (node);
    
      return  copy;
  }

  public static void RemoveNodes(this XmlNodeList list)
     {
      foreach (XmlNode node in list.CopyAsList())
          node.ParentNode.RemoveChild(node);
  }
}

And then usage would be even simpler


Doc.SelectNodes("//comment()").RemoveNodes();

New Commons.GetOptions release

2007-11-21T01:13:00.000-02:00

I decided to re-relicense Commons GetOptions as BSD, and also started the work on supporting translation in the less intrusive (most backwards-compatible) form possible. I'm posting a tarball including the library binary, for those without mono or monodevelop to build from the fonts. See it at http://groups.google.com/group/managedcommons

About approaching Complex UIs development

2007-06-22T15:58:00.000-03:00

Commenting on Hammett's Complex UIs post:

I think the repeated maxim "put yourself in your user's shoes", is very hard to try to accomplish in practice, for some reasons.

But for complex functionality I think two reasons are foremost:

You really may not know enough of your users everyday tasks related with it, and how they are used to deal with it, but as you are being paid to develop something new, probably they aren't happy with it anyway, and they are waiting for you to come with some breakthrough, so they are only the best sources to gather "hints" on what should be designed, but not the "reference" for it. So as some have said, you need to cross those hints with ideas from other realms. This mindset is hard to come by, or develop: to keep your mind open to many influences/ideas and look out for the 'hidden' connections that could be explored to come up with an innovative solution.
Complex UIs need to be simplified, and that means putting most important features in front of the user's nose (or mouse pointer), and hiding what can be guessed by the code. But here the problem is if you have a single user it is somewhat simple to figure out, what it really NEED to do, and find some good guesses from usage stats, but normally you are faced with a variety of users, maybe approaching your UI with different needs, so you'd end up with an 'averaged' solution that's dissatisfies more than satisfies most of your users. Cloning the UI in per-user-profile fine-tuned simplifications yields better results, but navigation and maintenance become harder. Another approach is to make the UI adaptive and then customizable, first keeping more frequently/recently used things on the 'top' and allowing the user to pin/unpin things and defining default values and such.

In short both issues compound to this conclusion: Good complex UI/functionality design isn't the thing you can expect to be able to do (even after intensively training yourself) in minutes/hours, it just takes more time and more than that some inner peace to be able to "imagine" the solution.

My first patch to Castle (MonoRail in truth)

2007-06-14T11:18:00.000-03:00

http://support.castleproject.org//browse/MR-270 is my first contribution to Castle Project.

The Jira Issue Tracking system for Castle looks to be experiencing some problems now.

Basically I'm wrapping an exception in an outer scope and throwing the new exception that captures more information for easing debug (the resourceName for the template NVelocity is trying to process).

Hope it helps

Monoman joins Castle Stronghold

2007-05-07T11:09:00.000-03:00

I'm now working at Castle Stronghold, the company Project Castle's creator Hammett (Hamilton Verissimo), founded to provide support, consultancy, customizations for organizations that choose to use Project Castle marvelous technology.

New things to learn (InversionOfControl in practice, ActiveRecord in practice, MonoRail's MVC in practice, and so on).

Back to using VS.NET (Eclipse and MonoDevelop key combinations doesn't work in there, pity) and the Windows Command Prompt (how many times I've typed ls or cat or grep, to no avail, so far?...Lots of times).

But I've been designing/coding for the last 30 years, and I still like it, and still like to learn, more and more, so it's kind of energizing for me to tackle this new endeavor.

Hope I can help the company and its clients while I'm there, and I hope to also be helping the FOSS ecosystem, in the end.

Engines started!!!

Of Robots, mp3 and Ogg

2007-04-14T20:59:00.000-03:00

Today I went to a robotics fair, here in São Paulo, as my 6 years old son just LOVES robots.

For him, even seeing an enormous soldering robot (a big mechanical red arm) drawing a Betty Boop character on a sheet of paper clamped to a flip chart, is something really marvelous.

Obviously, the Lego NXT robot kit was the thing that made he throw a "Can you help me buy that (finance), daddy?" look, which I have to counter with some fast math on how it would take him nearly two years without any money just to pay me the cost of such a 'toy' (I give him US$ 5,00/week, and with import taxes such kit would cost over US$ 550,00, here).

Anyway, after walking all around the booths, seeing the competitions, and son on, we were walking back to where I parked my car (half-a-mile away, under a torrid sun), and I remembered the other high cost 'toy' he wanted to buy, just yesterday, and iPod (or at least some mp3 player), and I was foolish to propose him why we wouldn't project an hybrid walking-robot/mp3-player, so that it would follow him around the house (or at least walk-around) playing some tunes.

Yeah, I really have a BIG mouth... Only because lately, I've been programming PICs, ARMs and such other embeddedable things...

Nevertheless, coming back home I researched a bit (Google, of course) and found some robot projects, but none really in the way may son would like. Yet I've found some interesting pieces:

First, I found the OpenServo project, what could make for cheaper servos to give precise movement capabilities to the robot (http://www.openservo.com/).

Another interesting site, full of kits is http://www.eidusa.com/Electronics_Kits.htm

Then I've stumbled on the always interesting Make Magazine, what do I find there? An open-source mp3-player hardware module, the Daisy MP3 Player. But as someone commented in the associated Step-By-Step Tutorial (in another site) for this kit, it is a little too bulky and costs too much just to play mp3 files.

Warning: the 'open-sourcedness' of such projects is acquired by the fact that they have the decoder in hardware (some specialized DSP-based chip) and you are already paying the royalties for the MP3 patents, when you buy the chip.

Someone pointed me, in the same stream of comments, to a really small mp3-player project. the MintyMp3 player (http://web.media.mit.edu/~ladyada/make/minty/index.html) housed on an Altoids Peppermints box.

This is a truly interesting project, and hast come to plug some curious extras like an FM transmitter, to allow to play on your car stereo...

Well to put some limit on this babbling, all of that is nice, and ok, but hey, I'm a Linux user/dev and all my music is in the Ogg format (and I want to keep it that way), so I needed to find if such chips could help play ogg files, instead of mp3. Some of them, specially some more recent ones (the ones used in those projects are some 3 to 5 years old), are Multiformat, but that really means MultiProprietaryFormats (MP3/WMA/AAC), some chips in the Micronas line even come with builtin DRM features (argh!!!).

But at the end I've found something really, really interesting and recent. From Finland (again) comes a full Ogg Player on a chip, courtesy of the fine engineers at VLSI Solutions (http://www.vlsi.fi/vs1000/vs1000.shtml).

The VS1000, is a complete solution, you just add the Oscillator Crystal, some NAND-Flash memory, an AAA battery, some buttons and connectors (USB/earphones) and voilá, you have fully working very small Ogg Player.

In truth it does a bit too much for my needs, but you can hook into the DSP code to change bits a little (for example, the default ROM behaves as a Storage Device [stop playing musics] when connect in and USB port, and I would like to be able to control things with the robot microcontroller (possibly an ATMEL ARM, like in the Lego NXT, or maybe some of the bigger PICs).

Well lots of things to play with... in my mind at least.

Switch User in Fedora Core 6 (UPDATED)

2007-03-11T16:37:00.000-03:00

After viewing Wade's post on OpenSuse, I decided to try it on my Fedora Core 6, and it also works.
Thanks Wade.

The good question, that naturally comes from it, is:

Why there isn't a checkbox for this on the screensaver preferences dialog?

UPDATE:

Because, for Fedora at least, it doesn't quite work the way you expect it to (the WinXP Home way):

1 - It only gives me the opportunity to switch to a different user when asking the password to come back from the screen saver (No 'System' menu entry for switching instead of logging-out is available)
2 - In that screen saver dialog, you can click a button show another one where you can choose another user, but the user id gets asked again as it falls down to the same session manager screen as you would have after a logout.

Even my, then, 5 year-old boy could switch to his account on my WinXP machine, nearly two years ago, but he can't still deal with switching/logging-in in my Fedora machine.

I hope all distros will get user-friendly user switching (and I hope some freedesktop standard will make all of them work the same way) in the near future, but so far Fedora is truly lagging behind.

MonoBlog now shows up in Monologue

2007-03-11T16:32:00.001-03:00

Now that I've found that blogspot/blogger also serve rss feeds (in addition to the default atom ones) as needed by monologue's agregator, I'll switch back here for continuing my 'sparse' posting in English.

My old theSpoke blog is being deactivated.

I decidedly need to write documentation for my projects

2007-02-12T11:40:00.000-02:00

See this email exchange I had earlier today:

Mono.GetOptions: howto?

FROM: Piercarlo Slavazza

Hi Rafael,

I'm considering usgin Mono.GetOptions for my .net project, and I would
like to know where I can find some documentation or at least some sample
code where to "quickly" figure out how to use the library - of course I
already googled around but I wasn't able to find any good snippets.

Another question: what's license applies to Mono.GetOptions?

Thanks you.
Regards,

FROM: Rafael Teixeira

The last question I'll answer first: the license is BSD/MIT, what
means mainly just use it and be happy.

There is a sample app in the sources (mcat), that show many of
Mono.GetOptions resources.

But It's my fault that little documentation is available.

Some (unfleshed) class documentation is here
http://www.go-mono.com/docs/index.aspx?tlink=0@N%3aMono.GetOptions

Many mono tools also use Mono.GetOptions, but the project that drove
its development is the now defunct mbas (his successor vbnc doesn't
use it).

The main gist is that you do things declaratively. Example:

public class MyOptions : Options {

[Option("Do some important thing", 'i')]
public bool important;

...
}

After calling the option processing in your main method, your instance
of MyOptions, will have 'important' set to true if the command line
have an argument like

/i or /important

Deriving from Options (which isn't mandatory means you already inherit
a help command that generates automatically a help screen with all the
options you've declared.

I'm quite sure the Mono-list archives has some more extensive
explanation I gave some time (years) ago about the subject. Sorry but
I'm in a hurry now.

Thanks for evaluating the use o Mono.GetOptions.

I should point out that I'm starting to work on a better version to be
called Commons.GetOptions, but I now just have the early planning
being cooked (see this blog)

Have fun,

Commons.GetOptions the sucessor to Mono.GetOptions

2007-01-09T13:38:00.000-02:00

I'll start Commons.GetOptions outside of Mono, and just keep Mono.GetOptions 1.0 stable (only security fixes) inside Mono svn. That would help with stability requirements for Mono colliding with the desire for innovation/improvements on GetOptions.

I'll post details as I progress with it. But some of the ideas I already have are:

to make it I18n-friendly (either gettext and resources, by defining/using localization providers and matching tools)
drop the multiple constructor overloads for the attributes, in favor of the supported syntax for field initialization by name
refactoring into a layered design, that should allow for imperative definition of option sets, besides the declarative form currently supported
subcommands support
easier runtime addition of options
a tool to compile a DSL (Domain Specific Language) to binary optionsets classes and/or generate (cia codedom) partial classes sources in any language that have correct codedom support installed.
a GTK# GUI tool (also wrapped as a MD plugin) to write the above DSL (some call it a graphical DSL)
A WinForms component/editor to define/generate/use the DSL
Full Monodoc/VSNET Documentation
Sample code also in Boo, VB.NET and Java(IKVM)

Nevertheless suggestions are welcome.

MS is getting some sense...

2006-11-03T01:28:00.000-03:00

See the Novell/Microsoft cooperation/patent-protection agreements news, from Mono's perspective, of course:

http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2006/Nov-02.html

Some days you wake up an year older, but old problems still surround you...

2006-10-23T10:13:00.000-03:00

Yeah, today I turned 45.

But I can't get past an uncompleted years-old Java project, that is keeping my hands contractually tied, and making it really hard not to go bankrupt.

Mild depression over the issue is probably the cause of a very large drop on my productivity as a developer, that only adds to the problem, making it harder to solve.

Even the projects I do really enjoy, like Mono and MonoDevelop, are suffering from this situation, as I can't get the inner peace I need to really contribute to them.

My loving wife and those two beautiful kids we have, are the only reason I really have to not give up on everything...

Happy birthday to me!

C#-scripting of Firefox, looks like something interesting

2006-10-06T16:39:00.001-03:00

Vladimir Vukićević's post (Missing Pieces) opens up a nice prospect, of being able to script client-side with C#, and perhaps, Boo, and other CLR languages.

I think Mono fits the bill nicely on how to integrate with Firefox in Linux and elsewhere it is available, the same way it will be possible to do with the CLR in Windows Vista.

In truth, Mono's embedding API is a proven solution that, AFAIK, predates any MS disclosure of such a thing for .NET.

We just need to understand that this IE7-born integration, that is being "opened" to Firefox, isn't just some basic embedding API, but surely comes with a HUGE Object-Model attached of what is available in the browser to be scripted, and also some Security-Model which the central piece may be a list of running-time limitations and general assumptions.

Lots of fun, I foresee

Blogger Beta is Cool!!!

2006-10-06T15:58:00.001-03:00

Much improved, specially template configuration. Anyway I had to edit the template xml-extended html by hand to suit my auto-width-behaviour needs.

Smart Software: Symbolic Links in Vista

2006-10-06T14:40:00.000-03:00

Well, it looks like MS is recognizing some *nix strengths, and giving Vista some more 'unixability':

Smart Software: Symbolic Links in Vista

Funny, :)

ONDotnet.com: Miguel de Icaza Explains How to "Get" Mono

2005-03-25T11:37:00.000-03:00

ONDotnet.com: Miguel de Icaza Explains How to "Get" Mono

And I couldn't resist answer some comments. I'm so easily tricked...

Scratchbox

2005-03-18T18:58:00.000-03:00

Scratchbox
This thing gave me ideas on how to overcome problems trying to cross-autoconf for ARM/XScale. Basically using QEMU to emulate the target system. This beast is HUGE, so unless it is too hard to make autoconf work with QEMU, I won't install it for now...

MF Bliki: Detestable

2005-03-18T10:43:00.000-03:00

MF Bliki: Detestable:

"(Here's an addition to your dictionary.)

Detestable (adjective): software that isn't testable. (from
someone at the Sydney XP group, whose name I sadly forgot.)"

Agreed :)

Cross compiled a gumstix (XScale embedded Linux)

2005-03-08T19:35:00.000-03:00

See gumstix.org .

First step in trying my hand in embedding Mono on XScale hardware... Lost a full day, by messing with the Makefile in the wrong direction (don't ever try to tell the binutils that you are using xscale, it has to think it is a plain old ARM)...

Let's reactivate this... Mono embedded on hardware

2005-02-21T13:59:00.000-03:00

I'll be working on a large project that needs some pretty complex logic piece inside some embedded hardware (based on XScale).

I started thinking of using Java but now I'm inclined to use Mono instead.

The main reason, beyond my personal preferences as I've been a Mono Hacker for years now, is that I need a royalty free solution and, AFAIK, GNU Classpath and open/free JVMs aren't complete enough for what I need to do, that would require something like Tomcat 5 + iText + some free implementation of Secure XML Web Services.

Mono at the other hand is not fully ported to ARM/XScale... :(

Some hard work lies in my path ahead, I'm quite sure...

RSS: The Ultimate Opt-In Solution

2004-10-05T09:41:00.000-03:00

RSS: The Ultimate Opt-In Solution Shows a wonderfully simple idea, with many benefits: RSS feeds instead of emails as THE channel for sending periodic private information from companies (like banks) to clients. Point-to-point scheduled transmission (over secure protocols if needed), so it's by construction SPAM free...

Mono Beta 1 is out now

2004-05-05T13:44:00.000-03:00

Things are getting shape with the release of the Mono Beta 1 on the road to version 1.0 - It's a pity that my MonoBASIC compiler is just packaged as a preview because I'm a lazy developer...

Aha! Found a list of Open Source Agent Systems Written In Java

2004-04-26T17:16:00.000-03:00

http://www.manageability.org/blog/stuff/open-source-agent-java/view

Something to check and find what is good to port to a Mono-based agent architeture. I'm just thinking if I'll stick to my dear C# or will give Charming Boo (a new language, yet to be unwrapped) a chance on it.

Gave a bit of love to MonoWiki

2004-02-25T15:24:00.000-03:00

Added MonoBASIC (VB.NET) open bugs item to MonoWiki - Home Page

Wonderful blog on .NET Hosting internals

2004-02-25T14:51:00.000-03:00

A Must Read: cbrumme's WebLog

Now with an Atom Feed

2004-02-20T16:40:00.000-03:00

Just click in the sidebar link

Microsoft SQL Server: Reporting Services Product Overview

2004-02-16T11:49:00.000-03:00

Microsoft SQL Server: Reporting Services Product Overview Crystal Decisions (or whatever name they have now) isn't happy with this, I think. Also it's a shame RDL not being a truly open standard (just read the license in the initial pages of the spec pdf). It goes like that:

"look at it but it is ours, you may give comments back that we will happily incorporate and make it ours too, and you may implement a product based on it but we have many patents on it so that you'll probably have to pay us to use it"

Well the idea is good, but I stopped reading the spec after the license, because I prefer to work out an alternative open standard. Any candidates? I couldn't find anyone with Google, or perusing the W3C site...

Linux Today - InfoWorld: IBM to Launch MS Office for Linux

2004-02-16T10:55:00.000-03:00

Linux Today - InfoWorld: IBM to Launch MS Office for Linux - Well I prefer not to have MSOffice in Linux, but a better OpenOffice.Org everywhere...

Expert predicts OpenOffice revolution

2003-11-04T14:31:00.000-02:00

'Expert predicts OpenOffice revolution' is a very interesting article... Nice to see my analisys/predictions of/for the Open Source market evolution being independently confirmed...

Bamboo.Prevalence is running in my linux box, but I'm not happy with it yet...

2003-10-07T11:45:00.000-03:00

Bamboo.Prevalence is a .NET/Mono implementation of the object prevalence concept brought to life by Klaus Wuestefeld in his Prevayler system.

I'm trying to guarantee it works with Mono, and I believe I mostly achieved that, but:

In order for us not to have two binaries it still gives warnings about trying to P/Invoke on a Kernel32 API on Linux, and may do the reverse on Windows with .NET as it won't find the used Mono InternalCall

I could not verify yet that the used InternalCall really connects with the Flush subroutine in mono/mono/io-layer/io.c

Monologue:: An Aggregation of Project Mono Hacker's Blogs

2003-10-07T10:02:00.000-03:00

Quite amusing what my fellow hacker at mono, cook up in their blogs, aggregated at Monologue::. I especially like what LLuis and Ben Maurer write, as they are clear and direct to the real meat...

Make me fill sorry, about not having time to write beautifull short essays here...

MonoWiki - Mono Certified

2003-10-04T16:19:00.000-03:00

In response to an email I started this small effort at Mono's Wiki: MonoWiki - Mono Certified

<email>


>From: Ben Maurer "bmaurer@users.sourceforge.net"

>

>On Sat, 2003-10-04 at 11:34, Met @ Uber wrote:

> > I was wondering if anyone has had success with any of the these (Nant,

> > OJB.NET, Maverick.NET, NVelocity) tools with Mono?

> >

> > The written support for all these projects are greatly lacking so its

> > hard to tell if I've even got a chance (mind you I'm just getting into

> > stuff this week ;-/ ).

>I know NAnt is pretty well working (but slow), and that Gonzalo has

>tried Maveric.net. The others -- i have no clue.

>

>I would love to see a list of projects that are known to work/known to

>have major bugs/known to work with small patches. That would be really

>great for the community.



The idea of a Mono-Certified Gallery or Repository, hanged around lately , see:

   http://lists.ximian.com/archives/public/mono-list/2003-September/015895.html



A crude start of it is at our Mono Wiki: 

   http://www.nullenvoid.com/mono/wiki/index.php/MonoCertified



But I felt phpwiki is too limiting in formatting (I've been using twiki, for Mono Brasil). 

For example, I didn't even dare to try some html tables at it, what would certainly be

 the best presentation for such kind of information.



Also I dream of a giant cascading web of continuous building engines to update 

the status properly (either tinderbox, or nant-enabled draco.net), but that is further 

down the road...



Best regards,



Rafael 'Dreamer' Teixeira

Brazilian Polymath

Mono Hacker since 16 Jul 2001

</email>

My Brazilian Portuguese MonoBlog

2003-10-02T17:35:00.000-03:00

If you are not afraid of trying to read Portuguese you can give it a try, see the link in the sidebar...

Starting it

2003-10-02T16:30:00.000-03:00

Well, we have to start someday...