Category: Miscellaneous

>Remember

>As China blocks, let’s remember.

Democracy is not chaos, it is wealth. Wealth to the soul as well as to the body and society. Churchill put it nicely into words: “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.“

For all of us enjoying the luxury of being able to speak, organize, move and express ourselves freely, I have a small poem by Martin Niemöller (cannot find the name of the author, comment if you know it).

In Germany they came first for the Communists,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant.

Then they came for me,
and by that time no one was left to speak up.

>QtMobility

>Qt Software just announced the QtMobility project. This is great news. Especially the “…ONE application which can be deployed across MANY platforms (Nokia and non-Nokia platforms).” This is yet another confirmation that Nokia did not acquire Trolltech to turn Qt into an S60 API – cross platform (or, as QtS says deploy everywhere!) is still important.

>Wolfram|Alpha

>I just ran into the Wolfram|Alpha site (found it via NyTeknik). The site is amazing. Try, for instance, to search for a substance: caffeine. The result not only includes a nice picture of the molecule, but also quite a few facts about the substance.

Looking a molecules is fun, but the man behind W|A was also responsible for Mathematica. So, go ahead, enter a formula: sin(x)^2. The result includes period, a plot, derivate, integral, but also the steps taken to reach the results. I can imagine one or two maths students using this.

Well, sorry for bugging you with this – but I was absolutely stunned when I ran into the site. It has earned itself one of my bookmarks!

Update! This makes it less attractive: Groklaw – Terms of Use: A Real Difference Between Wolfram|Alpha and Google.

>Qt 4.5

>I wonder what’s up with QtDemo? I have this in both Linux and Win32 on my laptop. Could it be the ATI X1800 graphics card, or is it something else…


Update! Helder told me to add the -low argument and that makes it work…

>Learning About Qt

>I’ve spent most of my time in the Qt world teaching. I started of with the Independent Qt Tutorial back in 2002. In 2006, the Qt 4 edition of the tutorial turned into the Foundations of Qt Development and actually got printed. 

Now, it is time for a new project. I really want to get out there teaching about Qt. Last year I met my goal – I spoke several times about Qt in public (the IT University in Gothenburg, a BitSim technology evening, at a customer and at FSCONS’08). So, more speaking. You might have seen my entry on my Embedded Linux Seminars. They are shaping up nicely – working at the logistics right now. Some places are good for on-site training, other places are better suited for open enrollment sessions where I need somewhere to be.
Anyway, there is another component to the training – I want an on-line, free, tutorial to the beginners. Having the Qt SDK and QtCreator actually makes it easier than ever to get started. So, for those of you who wants to get started, I’ve got a blog that will teach Qt in small increments – the Learn Qt blog.
Why small increments? There are three reasons:
  • Less to read per chapters for those who wants to get started.
  • Less for me to write for each entry – I have a daughter and a house now, so it is harder to complete large chapters.
  • The chapters can be more focused on one task. Making them easier to grasp, as well as being better suited as a reference (at a later stage).
Being a blog, the entries all appear in the wrong order. So here are the first three entries in the right order:
Learning Qt is not all about reading a tutorial or about completing exercises. It is also about getting to know what is out there, be it tools, 3rd party extensions, or other tutorials. So, if you have a resource that you feel would be useful to a Qt beginner, do mail me (e8johan / gmail). I’ll put them on the blog at a reasonable pace, so don’t be disappointed if it doesn’t appear this afternoon.
I’m sure that there is a million things that can be improved on. For instance, I want every tutorial entry to have an abstract and tags. I would also like to launch some excersises matching each blog entry. If you have ideas, feel free to comment or drop a mail. And remember – this is all work in progress!

>World of Fun

>I enjoy a good strategy puzzler now and then – my long time favorite games are Lemmings, Settlers and such. Just the other day, I discovered that World of Goo is available for Linux. I just downloaded and tried out the demo – and everything works right out of the box (I use an old Kubuntu install that has been upgraded too many times). Nice, nice – time to spend $20 on more tracks :-)