Screw in Tire

P1010856.JPG
Originally uploaded by smsm1

Cycling to work, and get a screw in my tire. Just as well it wasn't my front tire otherwise I'd have had to walk the rest of the way, or find a bike shop. Instead I just unscrewed it (and took the screw with me so that the next cyclist doesn't run over it.

GoOOCon2008

From the 10th to 13th April I was in Prague, Czech Republic for GoOOCon, an OpenOffice.org conference hosted by Novell.

I done a presentation about the Buildbot system in OpenOffice.org. I didn't have time to prepare new slides, due to my move to London, so I just recycled my slides from ooocon2007.

It was nice to see a bit of another country and to meet up with some of the OpenOffice.org developers in real life.

Planet OSM.fr

There is now a French version of planet OSM.

Device Removal

I don't touch anything, and my slow first generation MacBook will randomly come up with the above message. Maybe an uptime of 13 days is the cause? 

It is about time I rebooted into Kubuntu to get some updated maps on to my phone for TMJ. There has some considerable improvements in the maps in Edinburgh, and I don't know what actually needs to be mapped when I'm out in the field.

OOO: Possible fix for the command timed out error on Leopard

With a change in the way that X11 works on Leopard, the X11 version of OpenOffice.org has been giving an error message on startup saying "command timed out". With previous versions of Mac OS X, OpenOffice.org had to make sure that X11 was running first be trying to start OpenOffice.org.

The following change should work for 2.4, 2.3.1, 2.3, and possibly earlier versions. Open the file OpenOffice.org 2.4.app/Contents/Resources/Scripts/main.scpt in "Script Editor". (You will need to control+click the application icon and choose "Show Package Contents".)

Then replace the code block "on openSoffice(aFile)"...."end openSoffice" with the following:

on openSoffice(aFile)
 if (atLeastOSXVersion(10, 5, 0)) then
  -- if we have leopard, we don't need to manually start the X server first
  set theCmd to "sh " & (quoted form of (POSIX path of getOOProgramPath() & "soffice")) & " "
  do shell script theCmd & aFile & shellTerminator()
 else
  set theDisplay to startXServer()
  if (theDisplay is equal to "error") then
   return
  end if
  set theEnv to "DISPLAY=" & theDisplay & " ; export DISPLAY; "
  set theCmd to "sh " & (quoted form of (POSIX path of getOOProgramPath() & "soffice")) & " "
  do shell script theEnv & theCmd & aFile & shellTerminator()
  -- logEvent("open CMD: " & theEnv & theCmd & aFile)
 end if
end openSoffice

Please comment on how this works for you.

OpenOffice.org 2.4 on Mac OS X [Update: now available]

The release of OpenOffice.org 2.4 (X11 version) is a little behind the other platforms due to a lack of resources in the QA process, as many of the resources have been placed on the upcoming aqua version. It will be another few days to week before they are available on the mirrors and the Mac Port download pages will be updated at that point.

Until then the new smart download pages will continue to give the link to the 2.4.0 build which isn't yet available.

UPDATE: OpenOffice.org X11 2.4.0 for both Mac OS X 10.4/10.5 PPC and Intel are now available from the Mac Porting Download pages.

ITV Catch Up through the browser on a Mac

Today was the first time that I looked at the ITV site for a while, as I had heard on Virgin Radio that the next series of Heartbeat was starting tonight.

ITV are now using Microsoft's Silverlight to allow cross-platform multimedia support. This is different from the BBC's iPlayer, as the BBC iPlayer uses Adobe's Flash player.

It now means that I no longer run Mac OS X without Microsoft software installed on it.

New OpenOffice.org Aqua Development Release

Head over to the OpenOffice.org Mac Porting web site for the latest development build.

This is the most stable build of OpenOffice.org running natively on Mac OS X that I have seen. I haven't yet had a crash with my basic usage. Mac OS X 10.4 or 10.5 is required.

The improvements include:

• Printing now uses an aqua native print dialog
  
• Various bugs, crashes, performance, and cosmetic improvements
  
• The native file picker should work now (though there are 2 unlabeled checkboxes)
  
• The QuickStarter is now supported on Mac OS X
  
• Copy and Paste now works in the Hyperlink dialog
  
• Icons are no longer shown in the menus by default on Mac OS X
  
• Extentions can now be installed through the GUI
  
• Improved scrolling when using a scroll wheel
  
• Real version number is shown in the Mac OS X Finder's Get Info Window.
  
• The recent items list in the Apple menu is now populated
  
• Faster loading and saving of files
  
• New Start Centre
  

The downloads are on the extended mirror network, and BitTorrent. Please don'tdirectly link to any of the mirrors, please link to the OpenOffice.org Aqua download page instead.

OpenOffice.org 2.4 (X11), is currently in testing. OpenOffice.org 3.0 will be Aqua only.

Full News Release

OpenOffice.org Aqua Download Page

Apple's Developer Site has Crashed

With the news that Apple has released the SDK for the iPhone, their developer site is currently unavailable. It seems to be have exceeded Apple's expectations in terms of demand.

I'm currently wondering if there will be access to the Bluetooth in the SDK so that I can connect a bluetooth GPS and produce some nice mapping application for OpenStreetMap. With unlimited data, a fairly large (for a mobile device) touch display, it may well be an idea device to do the mapping in the field.

Hopefully I'll earn a bit more soon, so that I can afford the mobile contract.

Sorting Tables in a MediaWiki

I've noticed that a number of tables in the Wikipedia are sortable. Further research found that it is implemented through client side javascript, when a table has the class="sortable". It is available in MediaWiki 1.9 or later.

See the MediaWiki help on sortable tables.

I have found adding the sorting to the OpenOffice.org Mac OS X Porting Roadmap really useful as you can now sort the table and easily see what is a high priority or already fixed. I wouldn't recommend it for full bug tracking. 

The next feature I'd like to see is row level editing of tables in the wiki, as I hate having to try and find the one or two rows in the table that I want to change.

If you would like to help the port by implementing one of the items on the road map, why not contact the MacPort team? Drop a mail to the mailing list mac@porting.openoffice.org (first subscribe by sending a mail to mac-subscribe@porting.openoffice.org. Or say drop by on IRC server irc.freenode.net on the channel #ooo_macport.