If you're looking for a fast, easy way to create graphical Linux applications, take a look at Gambas. It's a free Integrated Development Environmet (IDE) built on the BASIC programming language -- with added object-oriented extensions. Think of it as Visual Basic for Linux.

According to the website: "...you can quickly design your program GUI with QT or GTK+, access MySQL, PostgreSQL, Firebird, ODBC and SQLite databases, pilot KDE applications with DCOP, translate your program into any language, create network applications easily, make 3D OpenGL applications, make CGI web applications, and so on..."



If you've used other IDEs, Gambas will look pretty familiar. It's all there: form designer, properties viewer, toolbox, project viewer and integrated debugger...



Once your code is running and tested, you simply Make the project -- as an executable, source archive or installation package -- and it's ready to run on any other Linux machine with the Gambas runtime interpreter installed.

Gambas comes with a useful 11-page Getting Started document, a good Wiki, and even several books -- one of them in English!



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Posted by Geoff Palmer at 11:01 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 1 )

Every week I browse dozens of websites and note down links that might one day find their way into this blog. Most don't, but that doesn't mean they're not interesting.
Here, for example, is the answer to a question I've often asked myself: What Is the Link Between a Horse's Arse and Space Shuttles? Surprisingly, there is one!

Speaking of things spacey, the Phoenix lander will hit the Martian atmosphere on May 25, and scientists are preparing themselves for "seven minutes of terror" according to the BBC.

Someone experiencing considerably more than seven minutes of terror because of the BBC is knitting and sci-fi fanatic Mazzmatazz. And all because she/he published knitting patterns of the monsters on Dr Who!

From the monstrous to the delightful. Pavs at linuxhaxor.net has collected screenshots of 10 stunning Linux desktops to demonstrate what can be done. Wow!

OpenOffice.org version 3.0 beta is out with a host of new features. Here's the download link for all operating systems. If you're an Ubuntu user, Tombuntu has a way you can try it out without disturbing the current version. (The final version is scheduled for release in September.)

Security guru Bruce Schneier is always worth keeping an eye on. Laptops, PDAs and even cellphones are increasingly being seized and searched by Customs agents -- especially US ones. His guide to the do's and don'ts of protecting your data is here.

The laptop snatchers' are probably using COFEE -- the Computer Online Forensic Evidence Extractor -- a Microsoft bundle of 150 off-the-shelf computer forensics tools.

BusinessWeek joined in Vista bashing last week, reporting that General Motors might skip the operating system entirely and wait for Windows 7. That's scheduled for 2010 or 2011, or -- on the Microsoft slippage calendar -- somewhere around 2015.

And of course no roundup of links would be complete without a clip from the Bulgarian version of Pop Idol. It seems that Valentina Hasan -- who has "little bit broken English" -- decided to perform a song she learned from her cassette recorder; that well known Mariah Carey hit "Ken Lee"...



And if you think she made a horse's arse of herself doing that... perhaps not. According to this Bulgarian news item, internet exposure has led to two record companies pursuing her. And she's working on a sequel!

Posted by Geoff Palmer at 8:43 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 )

In spite of all the fuss over Service Pack 3, Windows XP is set to officially end on 30 June. All new machines will be Vista only. Why? Industry commentator Robert X. Cringely reckons he knows:

This has everything to do with business and nothing at all to do with technology. Wearing my business reporter's fedora, then, I'll point you back a week or so to Microsoft's most recent earnings announcement, which disappointed Wall Street. This is significant because it is hard to find a Wall Street analyst who remembers the last time Microsoft's earnings were disappointing. It simply doesn't happen. That's because Microsoft has a myriad of tools for adjusting the numbers to look just right.

Because Microsoft has so many tools for fine-tuning its financials (primarily the management of expenses, by the way -- Microsoft makes so much money that it tunes the numbers by throwing cash away), the fact that this last set of numbers disappointed suggests to me that they, too, could have been avoided. Microsoft probably decided to deliberately take an earnings hit precisely so they could play the "we have to get the earnings up" card to justify the final death of XP.

Microsoft has been under huge pressure from its hardware OEMs to dump XP, thus forcing millions of customers who have been avoiding Vista and Vista's inevitable hardware upgrade to finally buy new computers. Dumping XP will help Dell and HP AND Microsoft, big-time. It won't do anything for you or me, though, since Vista still sucks, but we obviously don't matter.

And bad news if you reckon on hanging onto XP for a while:

Those customers who think they'll keep XP going on their own will probably be out of luck, too. With Microsoft abandoning security upgrades, hackers will eat holes in the old OS practically overnight.

So what do you do with all that perfectly servicable but non-Vista compliant hardware? Rather than landfill it, you might take a look at Running A Business On Desktop Linux in which self-employed database consultant Howard Fossdick looks at the pros and cons.

It's a readable and well-balanced analysis and contains this interesting list...

Microsoft has done an outstanding job of hiding the true costs of its software from consumers. Linux eliminates these hidden costs from Windows:

• Fewer security and privacy problems
• No loss of support as systems age
• No problems running current software on older computers
• No forced software and hardware upgrades every couple years
• No system slowdown over time (due to Registry bloat, malware, or other causes)
• No forced upgrade of one product due to artificial coupling with another ("Installing this product requires IE 8!")
• No need to re-install the operating system due to software corruption
• No performance costs from built-in digital rights management (Vista Content Management)
• No worry about whether you understand the legalistic license terms
• No buying multiple licenses for desktop and laptop, or for primary and backup systems
• No risk that the software CD you purchased in good faith is counterfeit
• No system outages due to inaccurate license checks by Windows Genuine Advantage
• No errant "piracy pop-ups" when you're running legal software due to Microsoft's Office Genuine Advantage
• No restrictions on computer upgrades (no Windows Product Activation / Windows Genuine Advantage)
• No restrictions on disk image backups (no WPA/WGA or Registry problems)
• No restrictions on moving disks between computers during upgrades (no WPA/WGA or Registry problems)

June 30 looks like being a great day for Linux!

Posted by Geoff Palmer at 4:16 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 7 )

If you've installed Ubuntu (or Kubuntu or Xubuntu or Edubuntu or Gobuntu) and are wondering what those other desktops are like, there's an easy way to find out. No, I don't mean download, burn and boot the respective CDs. I mean just add 'em to your current configuration.

Open up your package manager (System / Admin / Synaptic Package Manager in Ubuntu or KMenu then System Tools / Adept Manager in Kubuntu) and do a search for "-desktop" (without the quotes). Or if you prefer using the command line choose one of the following...

sudo apt-get install edubuntu-desktop sudo apt-get install gobuntu-desktop sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop sudo apt-get install xubuntu-desktop

Or if you want to add more than one, just chain all together like this...

sudo apt-get install edubuntu-desktop gobuntu-desktop

Once installed, log out of your current desktop, hit Alt-T to select the desired Session Type at the login screen, and choose from one of the new alternatives.



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Posted by Geoff Palmer at 10:39 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 4 )

Using nothing but a US$40 Wii Remote video game controller and home-made light pens, here's engineer Johnny Chung Lee from Carnegie Mellon University demonstrating how to convert your computer into an interactive whiteboard, perform Minority Report-like finger tracking, and build a head tracking virtual reality (VR) system! In Johnny's own words, "This has actually been a little bit startling to the game developing community." The standing ovation is well deserved!




The software and construction details are all free from Johnny's website (where you'll also find plans for a US$14 steadicam and a video clip of his giant paint-balloon slingshot!).

Posted by Geoff Palmer at 6:02 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 1 )

Here's some more setups I used on my laptop configuring Ubuntu 8.04 (aka "Hardy Heron") so it's just the way I like it.


Extended Compiz
The Extra Effects under System / Preferences / Appearances / Visual Effects are all well and good, but I want more! And I want to be able to choose my own. (I particularly like the Desktop Cube!)

Under System / Administration / Package Manger I searched out Simple CCSM ("Simple CompizConfig Settings Manager" and compizconfig-settings-manager.

After installation, you can either visit System / Preferences / Simple CompizConfig or Advanced Desktop Settings to really mix'n'match your sexy graphics options.


The number of faces on the Desktop Cube is set in Advanced Settings
under General Options / Desktop Size / Horizontal Vertical Size.



Compiz Control
I also like to be able to flip Compiz on and off because it doesn't always work well with games -- and tends to take up a good slice of system memory. Installing and running fusion-icon gives you a choice of either Compiz or Metacity windows managers.


It normally lives under Applications / System Tools but I put mine on my on toolbar by clicking System / Preferences / Sessions and adding it to Startup Programs.




Fancy Boot Backgrounds
Hang on, I've shown you this before. (Including how to make your own!)



Wireless
And finally, as promised last blog, here's how I got wireless working on my Dell Latitude D531 laptop.

The Dell's internal Broadcom BCM4328 wireless controller was the only hardware not correctly set up by the standard Ubuntu installation. That in itself is pretty amazing. It shows just how far Linux has come. If I were to install Windows from scratch I reckon I'd've been rummaging around a mound of driver disks or working my way through a ton of driver downloads -- and reboots.

In fact the wireless card was spotted. Doing an lspci | grep 802 showed the system knew about it...

    0b:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4328 802.11a/b/g/n (rev 03)

...it just didn't have a (proprietary) driver.

Ubuntu uses NDISWrapper which allows you to use Windows wireless drivers under Linux. In earlier Ubuntu versions I've got it working by following a hard-core hack on Ubuntu Forums. (This one, in fact.) That's no longer necessary. In fact as this link shows, it's blindingly easy. The only effort required was finding the appropriate Windows driver -- which I did via Dell's driver website.

After downloading the driver (named R174291.exe in my case), I unpacked it with the command:

unzip -a R174291.exe

(Tucked away in the /DRIVERS directory was the .inf file referred to in step 1.) Here, from the website, is the rest of the procedure...

1. Obtain the Windows Driver for your system and locate the file that ends with .inf.
   
2. Install ndisgtk (System → Administration → Synaptic Package Manager).
   
3. Open ndisgtk (System → Administration → Windows Wireless Drivers).
   
4. Select Install new driver.
   
5. Choose the location of your Windows .inf file and click Install.
   
6. Click OK.

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Posted by Geoff Palmer at 10:16 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 2 )