Computing changes

If you ever read this page, you notice that I didn't post anything about secret formulas for doing something in the last few months. The reason is not that I haven't used computers, but that I bought I mac. Macs work! out of the box. Linux is cool, but you have to tweak it to death, and then you need to redo it again. No with macs. And the coolnees fact is still here: nothing more interesting than creating programs for this nice interface (the only exception, of course, is if you like kernel programming - but this is your problem!).

The new cat in the family

Yesterday I installed Tiger, and although it is not revolutionary, it has very cool new apps. Thanks to dashboard I can add entries to this blog much more easily, using the new widget to blogger.com.

More fun with metapost

I recently changed to an Apple machine (powerbook G4) and
my metapost files stoped working (in fact just the fonts).
I new that more fun with fonts were waiting me....

Well, after half a day of tests, I discovered from
http://www.ida.liu.se/~joned/download/mps2eps/
that what we just need to do to have fonts in the postscript files
to show on the viewer is using the -j0 option. This is the sequence I use now:

dvips -j0 -o output file
ps2pdf file.ps

using metapost

I had a problem using metapost with my postscript previewer (gv).
It could not open the font file. It turns out that I found
a solution in the following email:

------------
Re: Metapost, GS and CMR10
Christof Schardt -- Fri, 30 Jun 2000 22:06:19 +0200 (MET DST)


Hi Kosta,

I meanwhile got a solution (thanks to Kenneth Hansen).
Very helpful are the descriptions contained in the
file CTAN/tex-archive/info/metafp.(ps/pdf).

Three steps were needed:

1. add this line to the beginning of the mp-file:
prologues:=2;

2. Edit the file Fontmap in the Ghostscript-Directory and add
this line:
/cmr10 (cmr10.pfb) ;

3. Copy cmr10.pfb to the fontfolder of ghostview
(I found it on my TexLive-CD)

Now Ghostview is able to show my mp-pictures. :-)

When typsetting more complicated labels, you might
repeat steps 2 and 3 for further fonts.
Just edit your EPS-file and read in the prologue,
what fonts are needed.

Next Problem will be to set up WinEDT for using
it for the mp-picture-development-cycle (see next mail)

Bye and thanks
Christof

cups configuration

Something that was making me angry with my Linux configuration
was my inhability to print from the HP laserjet 2100 printer
in my office. This is especialy true, since in the web everyone
says that it works well!!! It turns out that the problem was just
a lack of configuration in the cups package I have. I download
the ppd drivers from linuxprinting.org. However, everytime I sent
a job, it just printed something wrong, or not at all. After many
tryouts, I finaly decided to check the cupsd log file (/var/log/cups). It
turns out that the problems was the software not finding the scripts
foomatic-rip and foomatic-gswrapper, which should be in the
directory of the filters /usr/lib/cups/filter. Somebody at cups should
improve the feedback of this software, because I spent countless hours
trying to make this work, and cups is now on my blacklist of user
unfriendly software. Note that this is not worse because I am using
the excelent kde printing support, that is able to install and detect
printers (the original, html-based intaller of cups is horrible).

imap configuration

My first objective was to make the folders in my office machine
available, so that I could check them when traveling (like I am
doing now). The best solution is given by imap software. The first
step was finding a suitable imap server for cygwin. I found out
that the University of Washington imap server is the best out
there, and simple to configure (in fact, it provides zero-configuration).
I found the cygwin package under uw-imapd (and related packages).

After installation of this package, the only thing one needs to
do is made inetd work properly. The main problem that occured to
me when running ined was that mount points must be system-wide defined
(the default is to have user defined mount points, which seems stupid
to me). One can define system-wide mount points using mount -s.
The other thing to check is the PATH variable, that must have
c:\cygwin\bin. Then, one must edit the /etc/inetd.conf to add
support for imap (see the readme for the uw-imapd package, in
/usr/share/doc/Cygwin).

This should be all! imap is wonderful, and will export your inbox
(default to /var/mail/username) and your folders in the home directory.
The client side for me uses pine. This is the clear choice, since
the pine guys are the same that wrote imapd. So, I have no doubt
that this is the best software for reading email from imap. To
read from a folder in your home directory, one just needs to add
the following folder to the folder collection:
{servername.com}foldername

Easy as pie. Now I can access the files in my machine, and save
emails to the folders that I defined there.

more software configuration success

The last two days I spent some time trying to configurate my
Linux software. Sometimes it can be difficult, since the error
reporting is not the best... But I managed. I will send the
report of the two successes: imap and cups configuration.

Installing the winmodem software

But what really made me possible to connect to the internet using
the modem, was that I finally figured out how to use the slmdm
driver on my toshiba satellite machine. The real secret came
from http://www.columbia.edu/~gk297/toshiba.html
and it is: use the version 2.7.10 (not the latest one). Then, change
a line which is not well configured for toshiba: line 75, of
amrmo_init.c should be:
#define PCI_DEVICE_ID_ICH3 0x24C6

After this change, compile as normal, install, and /dev/modem will work
as if it was real!!! :-)

Connecting to AOL on Linux

Today I made a major achievement in my Linux configuration!
I was able to connect to AOL using my Linux laptop, thanks to
the software of the penggy guys. The version I am using is 0.2.1.
I just had to read the INSTALL file, install it (using the good friend
checkinstall), and put my information as required.
Now I am connecting to AOL by just typing penggy. No M$ windows,
no AOL software, perfect!

Configuring Kdm

I had a problem when trying to upgrade to kde 3.2.3.
The package installed was not working properly, so I needed
to reinstall the old packages. Then, I lost the configuration of
Kdm (this is the problem of a package that can be configured only
as root). The critical piece of data is that kdm can be configured
again using

genkdmconfig --old-xdm /etc/X11/xdm

Finally an account in Gmail!

Finally! After more than 1 month wait I have
my own new gmail account. Of course I will not
disclose the address here, but this is very
exciting.

By the way, did you ever had a web system that
everybody would *envy* and be eager to use? This is
what google has accomplished with its methods for
site advertisement!... Now, I need to be eager only to receive
an invitation for Orkut.... :-))

Account on Gmail

Finally! After more than 1 month wait I have
my own new gmail account. Of course I will not
disclose the address here, but this is very
exciting.

By the way, did you ever had a web system that
everybody would *envy* and be eager to use? This is
what google has accomplished with its methods for
site advertisement!... Now, I need to be eager only to receive
an invitation for Orkut.... :-))

ssh configuration

Finally I found a way of configuring passwordless access using
ssh. The missing point is that I had to export the keys generated
in the cygwin version using ssh-keygen -e -t dsa. The file generated
can be exported to the server (using a comercial ssh) in the .ssh2
directory. The .pub file must also be put on the authorization file
of the .ssh2 directory.

Improvements in my kde project

I just solved the problem in my kde project. Now
I am able to write in inverse colors, to move shapes
around. And a status bar was implemented.

New version of KOffice

Koffice 1.3 is out. The new version fixes a lot of bugs,
and it is worthwhile to update to. I just downloaded from
the CVS server today and compiled.

Carlos Oliveira - Research

This is a summary of my research papers.