Where There's a Will

There's a way to rig up your computer so that, when you get an email from a certain address to your gmail account, it sounds a bell. How?

Better CDE

Being able to iconize open windows onto the desktop or an icon manager - or if so chosen, onto the taskbar is a key component of productivity. Currently, X-windows CDE supports the first two and M$ Windows supports the last one. There's some software available commercially that can provide a "workspace" functionality for M$ Windows - but as it's not open-source, I don't trust it - but, it's probably worthwhile.

Now, for those who have to sink so low as to use CDE on a regular basis, they might be aware of the dtwmrc file that can be customized to provided user-specific key bindings.

Here are some defaults that you'll see in your ~/.dt/C or ~/.dt/ dtwmrc file:

Alt window f.minimize

Now, here's what I'd like to see: Where is the f.minimize defined? And, is there a way to add f.desired functions? For example, I'd like CTRL-ALT-Btn1 to reduce a window's x-size by half, and ALT-SHIFT-Btn1 to reduce it in half vertically. How?

OLPC Teardown

http://www.planetanalog.com/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=XBYJSUFEJASUUQSNDLPSKH0CJUNN2JVN?articleID=208401731

XO Open Firmware Prompt

To get to the open firmware prompt you press the X in the upper left hand corner of the keyboard immediately after booting the OLPC. Really? What does immediately mean?

1)Type "4c000014" and press
2)Type "rdmsr" and press
3)Type "u." and press (a hex number will be displayed)
4)Again, type "u." and press (a second hex number will be displayed, write it down)

According to

More XO

Saw something online that said - XO overclocked, so I dusted this crappy piece of equipment. Will make one last ditch effort before trashing it....

first, it runs around me trying to connect to the wireless network. I have to fish out my old post that says use HEX and Open Access for putting in the SSID. Then, I have to get into the router to see what's going on - and the DLink won't let me in - I wonder if I've forgotten the username - but online I find admin is correct - but, this is new - you can use "user" and leave password blank to enjoy in read-only mode. That works.

Back to the XO - you're tired of using that tiny screen - I remember my post that tells me how to get in using cygwin. That works - except, I'm root. I'd rather get in as olpc. Only, it doesn't take my password when I try SSH -X olpc@192.168.0.101 . So, I find something online that says how to be root and change the password - use "passwd username".

Now, as you might know, one of my goals to accomplish before I abandon computers completely is to reach a level of competence with linux and perl where I can quickly leverage the work done by others - use their packages and modules. That's where I'm going with trying to hack this XO thing.

There actually seems to be some worthwhile reading on the OLPC forum:

OLPC Hacks: XO Laptop Spy Camera or Motion DetectorOLPC Help: How to Install Ubuntu on the XO Laptop!
OLPC Help: Replacing the XO Laptop Keyboard
XO Accessories: XO Camera Two Mirror Periscope

The Motion Detection guy uses python to capture and filter images and uses motion detection setting posted by this guy. If it works, this is awesome - why - because, once it's done on the OLPC, it can be easily done on the ASUS thing - and that's something that you buy from a company - as in, it's guaranteed to work - so, now, you're giving people a configurable home security device. This could change the future of crime in a big way. I'm really excited about this.

Resolved! Special Mention Saurabh Jang (MOT)

The problem was that dtwm was always looking at my ~/.dt/C/dtwmrc and I was always editing my ~/.dt/dtwmrc. I saw on some page on the net by the man whose is the word of honour on this page that dtwm looks at ~/.dt/C/dtwmrc before it looks at (if at all) the ~/.dt/dtwmrc and that was what clinched it.

Thanks Theresa, thanks Kannan, thanks Sun.... for nothing.

Wuenschlist CDE WM

Okay, in Solaris-CDE - you can double-click on the titlebar of a window and it will be maximized. Question is, is it possible to tell the window manager that there are really two monitors and that you only want the window to occupy one screen when maximized? Or, can you control what the Maximize function will do? Can you tell it to only increase the window geometry to 1280x1024? That would help my productivity a lot.

Hier'st what goes on:

CDE through Citrix - crappy windows management ->
Exceed - Cadence hangs after the property form ->
Seamless windowing through Citrix -> crappy windows management ->
back to Citrix -> doesn't give me good pointer precision when I use the wireless mouse ->
back to a cheap wired optical mouse - which is so cheap that it sometimes sends double clicks ->
I'm still out of the psych ward. But for how long. I should probably sue M$ and Hummingbird and Sun and Novell for damages. What a set of *ds. Can't they get basic technology like this to be user friendly? Or are they serving a different set of masters than we think - all being paid by the Japs and Chinese to keep America's productivity down?