Alex Converse's blog

Spread Open Media vs PlayOgg

Wed, 01 Aug 2007 18:39:00 -0500

Xiph.org and Creative Commons seem to be behind a new open format advocacy campaign called Spread Open Media at the same time the Free Software Foundation called PlayOgg.

Spread Open Media or SOM which they call themselves for short looks pretty unprofessional. It is a word press blog with a narrow column of text. It doesn't seem to have any links on how to play any of the formats it supports. It doesn't have any sort of badge, button, or logo. they accuse PlayOgg of using "threat tactics, desinformation [sic], and ignorancy." That brings me to spelling I know I'm not a great speller but if I were running some sort of public campaign I'd be sure to have some sort of proof reader. Spread Open Media says to "avoid MP3, AAC, H.264, Xvid, and OOXML like the plague" but it doesn't say why. The truth is that MP3, AAC, H.264, and Xvid are open formats I have specifications for all of them, and anyone can buy the specs at the iso store for a fee. They are an inferior kind of open format because they are patent encumbered. Their name also seems a little bit too long. Spread Open Media is twice as long as PlayOgg, it's long enough that they call themselves SOM for short but unfortunately that don't own som.org.

PlayOgg may not look like a work of art wither but it looks a lot more professional than spread open media. It has a button that you can put near Ogg links, and conveniently PlayOgg.org points to the playOgg site. I disagree with PlayOgg's statement "Microsoft had to pay $1.5 billion after being sued for using MP3 without a license. With Ogg Vorbis, they would have been safe" because the patent in question was thought to be a non issue because it wasn't disclosed during development but was then brought out in the open much later now that MP3 is ubiquitous. In theory there could be several patents on which Vorbis/Theora potentially infringe where the holder may be waiting for popularity to increase before acting. It happened to MP3 and GIF. One blogger blasts PlayOgg saying: "This is the perfect example of how not to be an open source advocate; promoting a free audio format by suggesting to users that they .... download an entirely new media player." But at least PlayOgg gives some way to play these files unlike Spread Open Media. I do agree it would be good for PlayOgg to also link the Illiminable Ogg DirectShow Filters and XiphQT but i think that VLC should be displayed first because it is free software and it runs on any platform.

In honor of etch... new feisty backports

Mon, 09 Apr 2007 03:32:18 -0500

It's been a big day for Debian with the release of Etch and a new project leader being elected. In honor of these events I've made some bleeding edge backports from debian experimental, NEW, and unstable to Ubuntu feisty.

The packages:
* GNU Octave 2.9.10 (and related packages) - A MATLAB like tool for numerical computations
* linuxdcpp 0.0.1.cvs20070330 - a GTK+ port of DC++
* zzuf 0.8.1 - a tool for fuzzing input files to expose buffer overflows (written by the new DPL)
* audacity 1.3.2 - The beta release, this is built against gtk+ 2

All packages are available at http://filer.case.edu/ajc30/pub/debs/feisty/

Unofficial Sid backports for Edgy

Wed, 08 Nov 2006 01:14:06 -0500

I'm now using Ubuntu 6.10 Edgy Eft on my laptop. However some package versions were frozen earlier than I would have wished. I have backports of gaim-2.0.0beta4 and octave-2.9.9 as well as a port of linuxdcpp from Debian sid. I've posted them at http://filer.case.edu/ajc30/pub/debs/edgy/. More will probably come along until feisty gets usable.

Bits and Bytes

Tue, 04 Jul 2006 23:16:33 -0500

I found two articles to follow up my previous post on Google's shortcomings. The first is a sixth grader's essay on why Google is great, and the second is a listing of webservices marketshares with commentary comparing Google to MSN.

I found some really sweet Facebook userscripts at facebookWithBenefits. The best are post2faceBook which adds a quick post feature and inYOfaceBook which magnifies user picture thumbnails on mouse over.

Mugshot for Windows still leaves a lot ot be desired. It ignores the users browser prefrence (probably to maintain the login session between the tray icon and the browser) and it only supports iTunes and YME. Digging into the source it looks like it uses two different sets of classes to abstract them.

I made some new mugshot and loudmouth packages for dapper as jdub's mugshot packages are now out of date and the dapper loudmout packages crash on the mugshot out of date notification.

The Gnome desktop has made steady progress lately but sometimes the developers seem so focused on visible changes that they forget about their backend stated goals. For instance they want to migrate from popt to GOption but the patch for gnome-terminal has been sitting for three months now.

They have already recognized patch rot as a barrier to participation. Patch rot means that patches are lees likely to cleanly apply and is also frustrating to patch writers. What they really need is a Patch Marshall to make sure that submitted patches either get accepted or denied in a reasonable amount of time.

What Google Can Learn From Other Web Services Providers

Thu, 22 Jun 2006 19:29:34 -0500

It seems that all the bloggers are crazy about all of Google's web services but alot of Google's specific services are outshined by their competitors. Here's a summary of their competitor's features that I use.

Customizable Home Page - Google really needs TV listings. Excite actually has the best TV listings, with local listings and a favorite show section that tells when your favorite shows will next be on and highlights them in Pink on the grid. My.Yahoo.com My Yahoo has decent TV listings and most of Google's features making it a decent compromise.

Maps - Windows Live Local has a high res closer zoom photo mode called "Bird's Eye". It shows these spiffy closer up photos of the area. It shouldn't be hard for Google to implement if they really want to as it seems to be based on USGS data. It also has close buttons on most of the UI features to maximize the map areas.

E-mail - GMail seems pretty sweet but for me to use it I need to ability to check an external mail account. When I used HoTMaiL I remember it supporting that feature. What I'd really like is the ability to properly import and export common mailbox formats. Yes, I've tried those G-Mail imports but none of them work well. Most are slow, unreliable, mess up timestamps, and don't tag based on folders. I'd also like the ability to cache my mail locally. Why should I lose access to my mail just because my net connection is out. But I don't think any other webmail services allow that.

Shopping - MySimon lets you select categories to make sure that when you sort by price you actually are seeing the item you want and not some accessory. It also lets you enter your zipcode to calculate shipping.

Calculator - Let's support bitwise operators like the Mozilla JavaScript Console.

Video - Make the TV Series sortable by episode number. Why would i want to watch a serial like Deep Space 9 in Alphabetical order? I'm pretty sure iTMS allows this.

That's it for now.

My Ideal Portable Music Players

Wed, 14 Jun 2006 22:35:05 -0500

As I see the world become more and more iPod centric, I start to think about why i don't own own one. Mainly the feature set doesn't match what I want. So here's what I want to see from a portable player.

Must Have Features:

Ogg Vorbis support (I like free formats)
MP3 support (I have a few of these files kicking around)
10+ GB of storage (I need space for my whole music collection and some room to grow)
Black and White (non-back lit) mode (saves on the battery)
Reputable manufacturer (I bought a no-name MP3 cd player that died)
Durable (I drop things)
Replaceable, rechargeable battery

Would be nice:

Solid State Storage (I know there are no 10 GB flash players yet)
AM/FM tuner (do any even come with AM tuners)

Features that I have no desire to have:

Color display
Photo support
Calendar
Video playback
Any DRM Scheme

Cool new social and collaboration tools from RedHat

Sat, 03 Jun 2006 00:21:50 -0500

Two new interesting collaboration/social networking websites have been released from Red Hat. Unlike what you might expect from a company like Red Hat these sites focus on communication and discussion rather than source code or bug tracking.

First is the more technically orientedRed Hat 108. .

Second is the more entertainment oriented Mugshot.

You can hear about both of them in Szulik's keynote at the 2006 Red Hat Summit. I really don't think I can give a more accurate description of either of these because I'm still learning about them, so you should check them out for yourself.

Getting Right Shift to Work in Olin 404.5

Wed, 19 Apr 2006 10:51:36 -0500

Some of you have probably noticed that right shift doesn't work on under GNOME on the Sun Rays in Olin 404.5. The solution is to go to System > Prefrences > Keyboard Shortcuts, scroll down to E-mail click on it and hit backspace. Or you can run this command
gconftool-2 --type string --set /apps/gnome_settings_daemon/keybindings/email disabled
I found this from the Ubuntu on Sun Ray guide. It also has instructions on how to fix the Alt keys. Another good GNOME on Sun Ray guide is This blog post by a Sun employee. I recommend turning off wallpaper
gconftool-2 --type string --set /desktop/gnome/background/picture_options none gconftool-2 --type string --set /desktop/gnome/background/primary_color \#037AD6 gconftool-2 --type string --set /desktop/gnome/background/color_shading_type solid
and the desktop
gconftool-2 --type bool --set /apps/nautilus/preferences/show_desktop false

WebDAV and Windows

Fri, 03 Mar 2006 11:33:36 -0500

Yesterday I had to manage some files over WebDAV. Explorer on Windows XP refused to open the share. The easiest way seemed to be to run konqueror over a remote X11 ssh tunnel from volatile.case.edu. Is functional WebDAV support slated for Windows Vista?

P.S. Windows web developers, this is probably a good way to see how khtml renders your pages.

UNIX software and the Free desktops

Wed, 01 Mar 2006 12:00:48 -0500

Has else anyone noticed that despite growth and popularity of Free desktops like GNOME, KDE, and XFCE on X11 that traditional UNIX Software vendors like Mentor Graphics, Mathworks, and Synopsys continue to stick with old technology (Motif, etc.)?

I know the EDA world has been much more centered on proprietary UNIXes in the past than on BSDs and Linux. But the open UNIXes are becoming more popular and the proprietary UNIXes are becoming more open. Even Sun has already open sourced Solaris and replaced CDE with JDS (re-branded GNOME) on Solaris. But the expensive UNIX software continues to ancient toolkits. These expensive programs are really starting to look dated. Now I'll admit the versions of Synopsys and Mentor Graphics software that I use a re a few years old but even then the advantages of a modern toolkit should have been clear and I am using the current version of MATLAB. I see a few posts relating to Gtk+ and Qt on DeepChip.com but nothing big, there seems to be no serious movement toward modern toolkits. There also doesn't seem to be any word coming from synopsys.com of a move toward modern toolkits though there are a few job postings that mention Qt.

I realize that the majority of the time people don't use the GUIs for these tools but maintaining one that really sucks seems to be a waste of energy. Is this just a case of "if it ain't broke don't fix it" where they see no need to migrate existing tools or are the vendors actively avoiding these technologies?

Free/Gratis Software round-up

Fri, 17 Feb 2006 13:32:59 -0500

I thought I'd share some links to some software I've been using lately all of it is Free Software except for LTSpice/SwitcherCAD III which is gratis (freeware).

LTSpice/SwitcherCAD III - A circuit design tool and by far the nicest SPICE GUI I've ever used.
Cygwin/X - A port of X11 and Unix shells and utilities to Windows. It's prefect for connecting to remote Unis machines. It is so much nicer than the (ancient) version of Exceed that I've been forced to use from time to time. With such nice free software why is WinaXe still on the software center? Are we paying for it?
Maxima - A symbolic math tool similar to Mathematica. While being not as complete or polished or easy to use, it does have the advanteage of not having to jump through any license hoops. I gave up on Mathematica when it told me that my license was expired and to visit the website to generate a new one but the website wouldn't let me.
x264 - Because MPEG-4 ASP (Divx, Xvid) is so last year, the best H.264 video encoder. Winner of the Doom9 CODEC shootout. If you are going to use a patent encumbered CODEC it should be H.264 and this is THE H.264 encoder.
ffdshow - ffmpeg as ported to a direct show filter. Supports virtualy every video and audio format including H.264.

In the Future There Will Be Robots

Wed, 11 Jan 2006 20:00:13 -0500

The future of the H.264 decoder that I worked on during the summer and over break looks ViViD.

Vivace Semiconductor

Verilog

Wed, 04 Jan 2006 22:59:44 -0500

I finally got a chance to start learning Verilog today. Working over break has paid off. Now if I can learn how to use the Synopsys tools, I'll be set.

Brilliant!

Sun, 16 Oct 2005 14:56:00 -0500

Did anyone else think that the Dean Kamen lecture was incredibly poorly planned. Not only was it poorly advertised (I only heard about it via word of mouth) but I class was scheduled to end 10 minutes fore the lecture was scheduled to begin. Does that seem crazy to anyone else?

While we're at it would anyone have rather seen him bust open a Segway and talk about closed loop control. It seems like we always get these really brilliant people to come in and just let them go to waste talking about broad concepts like innovation. (Stephen Hawking's lecture was pretty basic too.)

I really did enjoy Dean's comments about American society when talking about FIRST.

Does anyone else think that the Segway is a south pointing chariot. I remember when they first came out and everyone made a huge deal about how these were going to revolutionize city life. Years later, I still have never even seen one of these in person.

Windows Genuine Pain in the Ass

Wed, 05 Oct 2005 23:22:35 -0500

Many people have noticed that to download most things from Microsoft these days you need to run the "Windows Genuine Advantage Validation Tool." Now on my computer anyway, the ActiveX version of the tool is successful but the standalone executable that I would run from say Firefox, fails miserably saying:

Code not available. The validation code could not be obtained. This may be due to technical difficulties, or you may be running an unsupported operating system. Please close this window and attempt the validation process again, or use the Back button in your Web browser to return to the download details page. [Error code: 0x8004026d]

Now my Windows hologram CD looks pretty legitimate and Microsoft gives now way to contact them in the error message. Good work Microsoft; way to lock out non-IE browsers.

I paid for windows I don't know why they are hassling me. I've never had to play this game with Linux.