A new toy to add to my collection, SpaceNavigator.

Put some extensive testing into it the past day, installed it on Ubuntu 8.10, MacOS and Windows Vista 64bit.

My initial reaction is, wow. It really shows they put a lot of effort into making it work where ever one might need it. Ubuntu needed a bit of configuration, as 8.10 has this hotplug Xorg driver that gets in the way. Then just a regular install and it works with a updated Blender.

The configuration tools are the same throughout platforms and usability is also identical. Trough the device depends on the applications use of it for OOTB functionality, it also has some individual program configurations.

The SpaceNavigator itself has absolute positioning, although it registers as a relative positioning device (that makes linux use it wrong without drivers). Phisically its a big heavy metal ring with plastic/rubber controol ends. The metal is there to keep it grouned while you use the up/down axis. Rotating it left/right works to about 5 degrees and about double that for all the other axes.

The thing I disslike about it is really something I fealt before with the graphics tablet but didnt mention. The bright blue circual light. When I leave my pc standing for some time, monitor turns off and the room turns blue. (not as bad as with the pulsating bamtoo tablet but non the less brings alot of unneeded attention to itself)

The best use I found for it is Google Earth and Blender. Worth the 60$ ?

Creating a kiosk environment.
The tools:

• Touchscreen Monitor

The requierments:

• Firefox 3
• Linux
• Non-exit-able
• Onscreen Keyboard

As you might expect, I tried everything.

R-Kiosk. Perfect.

A inline javascript Keyboard. While it did what was needed, it fails on forms that are on the bottom of the screen and in Iframes. Good side: Language was dependant on the page’s language. But Fail.

xvkbd. While I did manage to place it on top of Firefox and lock it so people cant close or edit it, and change their language.. it was annoying to do so. Moving it around the screen more so. Porting it to win32 impossible. Fail.

Ok, lets try a different aproach.
http://stlouis-shopper.com/~jtjsoftware/software/vkeyboard.xpi is a firefox Addon I found. A simple tweak made it work on Fx3. Here is what I made. The first step in porting the app, is thus in bad shape. ~Win.

If there is enough interest in such a plugin for Fx3, I myself and the original author will continue to work on it. A lot of things are already on my mind that I want to do with this project. Suggestions ?

Image by via CrunchBase

I’ve found myself trapped on a Windows Vista environment for the next two weeks. The reason is that I recently bought a new PC and while installing OpenSUSE I realized the next mayor version is due in less then a month so I decided to stick with the then installed Vista Ultimate 64bit to avoid the hassle of upgrading the distro. That would also give me a opportunity to get some insight on the capability of the hardware using the operating system the accompanying software was written for.

Read the story after the jump..

And, I had to continue working. That was mostly not a problem since all the tools I use in my work have Windows ports or at least capable counterparts. I installed the server software I need to a VirtualBox that I must say, works perfectly.

Image via Wikipedia

Going some distance from my duties, the media player Songbird caught my attention, but still no match for Amarok I grew to like so much. VLC was there to help me setup my regular webcam server. Putty for a alternative to my preferred terminal ssh and TortoiseSVN for terminal svn. I still use NoMachine‘s remote desktop although Vista is not exactly happy with it. uTorrent is one of the tools I wish were on KDE / Linux. Same goes for Google Chrome. We will see who gets there first.

A new tool I discovered while browsing is something I will definitely use when I am back on Linux in about two weeks. I am talking about Workrave, the program that assists in the recovery and prevention of Repetitive Strain Injury. One of the things that is becoming a increasing problem in my field.

Image via Wikipedia

Tho, 2 weeks into the experience my productivity is crippled. I found myself using putty to access my VirtualBox – CentOS installation’s bash for common everyday tasks. My Wacom tablet misbehaves in Gimp and sometimes Inkscape. I have to use strange file syncing tehniques to code on the server ( with encoding issues all around ) since I mostly work with *nix systems, I need that not to be a problem. And another bug is the AltGr on my keyboard.. a lot of layouts use that key to access special keys like [ ] { } ‘ ; l etc.. But it seems some apps steals Alt for their shortcuts and that cripples AltGr keys.. anyone know how to fix this ?

Ok, i confess. There are things I like here alot. Like the tablet input system and handwriting recognition, voice recognition software. Having the drivers from the manufactoreres and not having to recompile them every kernel upgrade.

But the i can not live without my terminal with the gnu toolset I love so much. Having to work on the same file system as the server is also something I now know I can not do without.

So.. Microsoft, please stop forcing Windows on everyone. Stick with next-door “PC Gurus” and leave grandma her Ubuntu and mom and dad their Mac’s.

PS: I did not mention games because I do not play them as much that it is a burden to reboot the pc.

PPS: I miss Klipper