Kushal , kD & FOSS

Blog changed

2007-03-14T23:57:00.000-07:00

My main blog address is changed now. Please visit http://kushaldas.in for my new blog :)

Going to Calicut

2007-03-01T03:25:00.000-08:00

Check the site

Blogger was down

2007-03-01T02:20:00.000-08:00

Today blogger was down for few minutes :(

After Many days

2007-02-27T03:06:00.000-08:00

So, back in writing :)
Many things happened in between.
Horizon07 went well, after Rahul's talk teachers of the college came to us to know more about Fedora :) Lawgon's workshop also went well. You can find the pictures here. Also a small video of the event.

Fedora Core 6 also failed on Ria's motherboard, so I gave a V-day gift , a new Intel 865 motherboard and Fedora Core 6 installed :)

Update: the video is too bad, will ask someone else to edit that :(

Kphotobymail 0.4.1 released

2007-01-03T12:01:00.000-08:00

Kphotobymail 0.4.1 released.
Added some new features as requested by Neeldhara. :)

Changelog:
Version 0.4.1:
* Code changed to PyKDE
* SystemTray added
* File drag & drop option added

librfid 0.1.0 build on Fedora

2007-01-02T23:55:00.000-08:00

After last Saturday, when Harald announced librfid 0.1.0 release, today the rpm is ready in the Fedora build system. librfid is a Free Software RFID library. It implements the PCD (reader) side protocol stack of ISO 14443 A, ISO 14443 B, ISO 15693, Mifare Ultralight and Mifare Classic. Support for iCODE and other 13.56MHz based transponders is planned.
OpenPCD is the recommended reader with librfid. librfid team is happy to offer paid development services to add support for your reader, too.

OpenPCD application

2006-12-26T21:12:00.000-08:00

Wrote my second OpenPCD application, now my KDE desktop can be locked-unlocked using my OpenPCD board.
Update:
Tarique asked for adding some more lines with this.
For this code again taking help from Harald's librfid-tool.c in the utils directory of the librfid source. The main idea is to show how OpenPCD can be used. First I was looking for a way to keep unlock my laptop as my OpenPCD card is near to the OpenPCD reader & as I(the card) move away from the reader it should get unlocked automatically,, which it turn produced my first application.
Last night found a simple way to do that with dcop.


dcop kdesktop KScreensaverIface lock
dcop kdesktop KScreensaverIface quit

The first line will lock your KDE desktop & the second one will unlock it. Still don't understand makefiles well, tried to avoid any more dependencies in the code thus calling these two commands as need using system().

csv module

2006-12-22T10:46:00.000-08:00

There is a csv module in python :)
You can use it like:


import csv
reader = csv.reader(open('details.csv', 'r'))
for row in reader:
        print row

My first C code

2006-12-05T20:54:00.000-08:00

Well, I can say that this is my first C code :)
Milosch gave me the idea to write a small application which can detect openpcd cards and unlock the computer. So, I started with easier target & now my openpcd board can login in any (username,password) based system(tested with different browsers still now). The code is in very early stage, and I put every thing manually(not dynamic at all).

OpenPCD Hack day 2:

2006-12-03T12:33:00.000-08:00

Day two finished. A more eventful one. Milosch bought a basic electronics book for me so that I can understand the basics :)
Then we went to SP Road to buy the equipments. Again Milosch bought all of them for me.

Here is the set.

Then my first work. A single LED :P

At the end Milosch made a piezo speaker system for the openpcd board, and we made few changes to build a new firmware (main_piezo) which can make a 10sec noise at the speaker system.

Can you find the speaker in the above picture ? :P

openpcd hack..

2006-12-01T11:27:00.000-08:00

So, the best thing this time in foss.in is the starting of my embedded work. Openpcd is a nice work from Milosch, Brita & Harald.
Yesterday from 4pm me & Milosch was trying to make my laptop configured properly so that I can start wokring on the openpcd board that Milosch presented me :) And it took 8 hours (with 2 hours for dinner) to fix it. Now it is a only 3 minute job.
So, here is the procedure:

First make sure that you do a modprobe usbserial.
Now first I am going to fix my laptop as the host:

tar -xjvf librfid-1929.tar.bz2
mv librfid librfid.host
cd librfid.host/
mcedit src/Makefile.am //////delete -lopenct from there
./autogen.sh
./configure --without-openct --prefix=/usr/local/openpcd
make
su -c "make install"

Now I have to fix my librfid for the firmware:

tar -xjvf librfid-host.tar.bz2
make
cd ..
tar -xjvf openpcd-firmware-274.tar.bz2
find firmware -exec touch \{\} \;
ls
cd host/
make
ls -l
cd ..
tar -xjvf librfid-1929.tar.bz2
mv librfid librfid.firm
cd librfid.firm/
export CFLAGS="-I/usr/include -DLIBRFID_FIRMWARE"
export CC=arm-elf-gcc
export PATH=/usr/local/gnuarm-4.0.2/bin:$PATH
./autogen.sh
./configure --without-openct --host=arm-elf --with-firmware=/home/kd/build/openpcd/firmware
make
cd ../firmware/
mcedit Makefile (((((((((((((((Please point LIBRFID to the correct directory))))))))))
make DEBUG=1 BOARD=PCD TARGET=main_reqa
ls -l
su -c "/usr/local/openpcd/bin/dfu-programmer openpcd dfu_dnload main_reqa.bin"
su -c "/usr/local/openpcd/bin/dfu-programmer openpcd dfu_dnload main_reqa.bin"

And it is done..
My first experience with good C :P

No job..

2006-12-01T11:25:00.000-08:00

I am jobless .... :)

FOSS.IN over

2006-11-29T09:53:00.000-08:00

Any idea about the dates of foss.in 2007 ? :)

Sorry, I can't do any thing now..

2006-11-08T22:10:00.000-08:00

My home desktop is down :(
Power is coming & it stops there only, so no work..
Asked shreyas to send me my primary slides for foss.in or else I can't submit the final slides.
I will talk about Fedora Extras.

Update:
Back again :)
The 512MB clip is gone.. Now only on 1GB clip

Indian Cop

2006-10-31T13:50:00.000-08:00

Indian Cop are still the best :)
In the same way they found out one of the accused in a bus loot case very fast and he is Praveen Kumar, a three month old child !!!!!
Nothing to say more.
Read the full story.

Fedora Core 6

2006-10-31T12:03:00.000-08:00

At last FC-6 in my box ...

Compiz is working properly after following these steps:
$compiz --replace gconf &
Then added this to xorg.conf
------------------------------------------
Section "Extensions"
Option "Composite"
EndSection
------------------------------------------
then running
$gnome-window-decorator --replace &

Firefox 2.0

2006-10-29T12:51:00.000-08:00

Anubadok frontend

2006-10-18T04:11:00.000-07:00

Wrote a small PyGTK based frontend for anubadok, The Bangla Machine Translator.
You can check anubadok working online here .
Still don't know how to use Glade :(

rpmlint error.. :(

2006-10-08T23:06:00.000-07:00

Got these strange files in the installation of prozilla 2.0.4 while trying to package it Fedora Extras..

[kd@kushal redhat]$ rpmlint ./RPMS/i386/prozilla-2.0.4-1.i386.rpm
W: prozilla hidden-file-or-dir /usr/share/locale/ro/LC_MESSAGES/.mo
W: prozilla hidden-file-or-dir /usr/share/locale/it/LC_MESSAGES/.mo
W: prozilla hidden-file-or-dir /usr/share/locale/pt_BR/LC_MESSAGES/.mo
W: prozilla hidden-file-or-dir /usr/share/locale/nl/LC_MESSAGES/.mo

No idea what they are doing there..

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=209870

Trival bug fixes

2006-10-07T02:00:00.000-07:00

Fixed two trival bugs..

#1558169 & #1502814 for releaseforge.

Kphotobymail 0.4 is released

2006-10-07T01:49:00.000-07:00

Kphotobymail 0.4 is released.

For new readers:
------------------------
Kphotobymail is a PyQt based application for uploading photos
to flickr account.You can also use it to send emails with photo
attachment on the fly.
http://kphotobymail.sourceforge.net/
Now with improved GUI and fixed bugs.

Ria Beta 2 released

2006-10-05T06:54:00.000-07:00

Ria Beta 2 released.
You can get it from here.

Now added support for installing Mplayer & Anjuta. Hope the students will like it. Tried to distribute it at my college, worked good there :)

Kphotobymail 0.3.2 is released

2006-10-01T12:20:00.000-07:00

Kphotobymail 0.3.2 is released. In this release the installation/application
structure is changed.

For new readers:
------------------------
Kphotobymail is a PyQt based application for uploading photos
to flickr account.You can also use it to send emails with photo
attachment on the fly.
http://kphotobymail.sourceforge.net/

Kphotobymail is in Fedora Extras now. So, if you are a Fedora Core 5 or
in devel you can simply give :

#yum install kphotobymail

************************************************************************************
PLEASE NOTE:
If you are using Kphotobymail 0.3.1 , please delete the follwing before
installing:

/usr/share/kphotobymail
/usr/local/bin/kphotobymail

For older releases:
/usr/local/bin/kphotobymail
/usr/local/lib/kphotobymail

Then install the latest version ..
************************************************************************************

I can!!

2006-09-29T04:34:00.000-07:00

Though it is more than one year am out of my college, but still I can write codes.
I thought "Industry" ate me but still I am alive :)

Few works I did

2006-09-29T03:15:00.000-07:00

For the last two days I am doing some good stuff for me :)
Cleaning of my desktop is just finished :P
Well, released kphotobymail with a proper setup.. Many many thanx to err a.k.a Michael Rice for the help to build a clean installer.
Also submitted a review request for the Fedora extras package..Looking for a sponsor
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=208436
Kartik is doing the packaging for Debian

Fixing the bugs in Kphotobymail.

Update:
Not a single time can type properly :(