Michal Čihař - Archive for Jan. 1, 2011

phpMyAdmin demo server got some updates recently. First of all I've updated MySQL and MariaDB version it uses (MySQL is now on 5.5.7 and MariaDB on 5.3.2).

Later I've finally found time to make mentions of demo server less intrusive and fit more in existing interface. I've used jQuery to inject information about demo server to main page as one of standard boxes. It fits there nicely and puts information on main page where most users land anyway (you can see it for example here). With most important information on main page, the other pages could be reduced and now only mentions demo server and Git revision it is using.

This brings user experience closer to real phpMyAdmin without intrusive information shown on top of every page. I hope you will like it :-).

During summer, I somehow managed to collect huge backlog on Gammu. This consisted on few hundredths of emails to reply, bug reports, not reviewed records in phone database and so on. Today I can finally say this is mostly over and I should be able to react more quickly. Though this does not change anything on previous statements about limiting my involvement there.

Processing emails went quite smoothly, luckily some of them resolved themselves or others have helped on mailing list. With bug reports it is more troublesome, because there are topic which I don't want to touch and thus looking for volunteers to work on that. Maintaining Gammu packages in Ubuntu PPA so that users would be able to install latest version easily is one of such tasks, which are waiting for somebody.

Anyway I feel much better without those unread emails and I hope not to collect so huge pile of them again :-).

Po delší době jsem se rozhodl do blogu občas přispět i v českém jazyce, tentokrát trochu agitační.

V nové verzi phpMyAdmina bude mimo jiné poradce pro nastavení parametrů serveru, v podstatě obdoba MySQLTuneru a podobných nástrojů. Protože se seskládá z velkého množství pravidel, jedná se opět pro velkou práci pro překladatele. Což je i důvod proč sem píši - zatím většina jejich popisů není přeložena do češtiny a to je úkol, se kterým můžete (při znalosti technické angličtiny) pomoci. Stačí se zaregistrovat na překladový server a začít překládat.

Samozřejmě je záhodno dodržet stávající terminologii používanou v překladu, ale jsem nakloněn i připomínkám a úpravám v něm, stačí se mi ozvat.

In last weeks, I've finally managed to create my personal gallery, where I could present selection of my photographs. This task was outstanding on my todo list for pretty long time, the major obstacle being selecting photos which to present there.

During my sickness few weeks ago, I finally went through most of my photos and chosen the ones which I think are worth presenting. Still I did not manage to go through photos from half year spent in Japan, so these will be added sometimes later. Also most of the pictures miss descriptions, though I'm (slowly) fixing this.

From technical side, the gallery is being generated using lazygal with custom theme.

You can check the gallery on photos.cihar.com, I hope you will like it :-).

Translation server for phpMyAdmin and Gammu/Wammu has been updated to run latest Pootle. I had to do this upgrade to be able to run on latest Django, which is used by other websites as well (this blog is one of them).

Unfortunately it was not as easy as running apt-get upgrade as Pootle package has been dropped from Debian recently. So I had to make quick and dirty packages myself (no removal of embedded software and so on).

Installing newer version lead to major breakage as the database upgrade silently failed and I had to recover manually. In the end I've dropped all pootle_* tables and recreated them again. Unfortunately this lead to loss of some data from user profiles, but I could not see other way around.

Anyway the service should be now back running in normal shape, so go ahead and translate :-).

After finalizing DOF Calc 0.1.0 yesterday, I've decided to push new version of GePeS as well. The update utilizes new Meego loader, so application should start much faster, add azimuth calculation for sun (set, rise and current) as well as compass is utilized for showing this azimuth. You can check all new features on screenshots page.

New version is currently available in git and tarballs, binary version will be in Nokia store as soon it passes QA tests there.

I've been doing some updates to DOF Calc in last days and today I decided it's time to push new it to public. The application has been switched to dark theme (which seems to be preferred one) and got working settings module. This means you can now configure list of cameras, lenses and apertures it offers, so that only choices you really use will be show.

New version is currently available in git and tarballs, binary version will be in Nokia store as soon it passes QA tests there.

Besides that, application got new homepage with screenshots (what is true for GePeS as well).

Continuing on my Hackweek project, I've polished GePeS a bit today.

I started with better display of GPS coordinates and added some more GPS details to separate page. Adding images for moon phase was also part of the plan, though it force me to learn how to switch application to black theme, which looks much better with moon image.

Rest of time was spent on cleaning up the code and adding preferences (for now only refresh rate).

Updated screenshots:

PS: Some numbers look weird (altitude and speed), though I'm pretty sure this is what phone reports me.

With no clear plans for Hackweek this year, I decided to play even more with N950. As I quite lack some GPS application I decided to write it :-). The feature set will be based on things I would use, though I still think it will be useful for others:

• Display basic GPS info (coordinates, speed, etc.)
• Compass
• Moon and sun rise and set calculations for current location

I've named the application as GePeS and you can find sources on Gitorious: https://gitorious.org/gepes

During first day I've managed to implement basic things, check screenshots:

As people on Gammu mailing lists probably already noticed, I don't have enough time for Gammu in past months. Simply mi priorities have shifted and can not spend so much time there anymore.

I've decided to make clear cut what I'm going to do and what not.

First of all I'm not going to put any extra effort on support for platforms I don't use. Today's release of Wammu no longer includes Windows binaries (they were broken anyway). Gammu releases will include them as long as they do not need extra effort. The very same applies to Ubuntu packages. Sorry, but backporting packages which are using up to date tools from Debian sid is more effort than I can put into it. Of course volunteers are welcome for both areas.

For phones support, I will limit my attention to things I'm interested in or use daily (what means AT phones, Meego and possibly Symbian). Others (especially S40 Nokia phones) can not expect much support from me.

And of course I still plan to maintain the projects themselves, Debian packages and packages in openSUSE Build Service.