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... now, on with the rambling blog!

Saturday 27 March 2010

recent apps of admiration...

feh.

check it out.  its much more than just an image viewer, or whatever u know it as.

it's light, pretty, straight to the task, no fluff n nonsense, and u can do all kinds of clever integrations via the comand line.   (i been makin some interesting inclusions in my openbox menus for example, and also have a few plans for some other interesting bash scripts which would make use of feh in amusing ways.)


finch.

OMIGOSH!   is it pidgin?  no.  but it does use the libpurple or whatever that pidgin instant messenger uses.  so its as fully functional as big ol pidgin, but.....  u can use it from command line!  it's ncurses goodness!   sooo lightweight.


i found a link which allows one to incorporate skype into it (finch or pidgin) too... but have yet to get that to work properly (or at all... heh).

anyways, the cool thing is, finch is so awesome, i dont need either weechat nor irssi anymore.   finch does irc too remember... and imo, does it better!  easier to control n manage n fiddle with, in my experience and useage style.  just as lightweight, easier and does more?   what more do ya want?  hehe



i'm sure i must have mentioned this when i was doing my INX post ( i did do a blog post about INX right?), but it's worth mentioning again here.


plait!

plait is sooo cool.   or at least it was when it was neatly configured out of the box with INX.   INX has some unique weirdness of it's own besides the fact, so plait is not so familiar as it was in INX.   but still... the functionality is in there.  frikkin awesome feature that lets u just write in whatever genre or silly word you like, and it will find just that kind of thing being played on the net, and play it for u.  lovely.


 sox.
yeah, since im on a cl app binge at the mo... this audio recorder has me sold.  a couple niggles about it, but basically, it's frikkin awesome.  made a few recordings of me on the digeridoo with it already.



ok ok, lets get off the cl for a mo again....

exaile.

for a while i been looking for a new favourite music player. n i think this is it.
it has all the kinds of features u probably want from the likes of amarok or windows media player, but it does so with less fuss, less pointless processor hogging glits, and just gets on with what it's supposed to do with no further pointless embelishments.  so now i shud probably get a music collection again to make use of it,. hehe... i been on the internet radio for so long, my own collection has been forgotten and neglected.



alsamixer.
i know, its silly to get so excited about an app to control your volume... but this one runs in my terminal!  my last one chewed up way more resources than such a simple app should.

quick and dirty slapbang.

http://omploader.org/vM3lmOQ/slapbangv001.txt
http://www.slax.org

u can take the above txt file and reload it on slax.org's custom distro builder, and download it (or modify it to your needs and tastes and ability), as iso or tarball, ready for burning to cd, usb, unetbootining, or even making more modifications after downloaded too.

:)


dont you just love free software. ^_^

why slapbang?
it has a nicer ring than slaxbang. and slackbang of course would be using slackware itself as it's "meta distro".


yup.. u guessed it. its another crunchbang-alike. ^_^

i havnt done any extra configuring other than just attempting to include as much of the stuff familiar to crunchbang, navigating past kde dependencies as best i could.

slax is a really enjoyable distro to roll your own. very simple n easy... even if it is a bit dirty. ;)


PS, this version has both openbox and xfce in it.  :)

Wednesday 10 March 2010

no squish, but i spied my old friend dux.

yeah yeah, i still havnt officially released squishboom. :P :P
.*

side tracked with other stuff.

not least, archbang. :P if it would work on my system. well... it did.. but now it doesnt again. lol i remember those days, early with my 'nix honeymoon.
A!

also not least, crunchayon. i did almost the most basic install i could off the sabayon 5.1 games dvd. and started crunchbanging it. it's been mostly a pleasing experience. .... in the way ointment with flies is mostly pleasing.
#y

but while i was looking around for a usb stick i could use to test out archbang 2 on, via unetbootin, to see if live usb would work friendlier than native cd, i stumbled across, on my three 2gig drives:

1. wilburdavix ( the second linux distro i made for a friend. this one based on davix, the prior, on a stripped slax )

2. dux ( 5th incarnation of my own personal lightweight distro with just the main key features i seek.... except wifi fails! gur. )

3. squishboom 'nix ( a version i was gonna make, that has a pile of extra tweaks outside the purview of the effects from the pris enacted upon a crunchbang. ...but then i went n messed it up before turning it into a ISO, and put some personal data on it (ie, everyone would sign into my icq, msn and aim, and skype has my name there too ... if i hadnt done that, this version mighta been the one that made it to official release ).



the dux, i'm really quite happy with.
infact, just this very second as i type this, i think i should make a slaxboom. or at least a crax / crunchslax / slaxbang / slang ... whatever u wanna call a crunchbang-alike-slax. but the boom, meaning it'd b like squishboom. mmmm.

anyways, the dux is kinda... um... well, it just works so sweet. much thnx to slax, and kde and ... yeah. the rest. i'm just chuffed cos i had been having a pesky ntfs external play up, but here little dux is ready to go n play my playlist inside it. :D gosh i love it when things just work soooo much more effortlessly than u expect... and sad to say, i still think u get that experience most often, most easily, with kde3.5* still.

i love making the lightweight stuff.... but even kde can be reasonably lightweight.
but the really lightweight stuff i mean... like trying to make a pure cli distro that has dwm or musca just to save from the pain of twm for when u really need gui.



... actually, most of my time has been spent between doing some graphic design stuf for u-praise, & learning gentoo in vain hope i might be capable of producing a gentoo based crunchbang-like live-installer iso.

i would b a god if i pulled that off.

but then, if it were that easy, someone would have done it already... wouldnt they?

maybe i should stick to slax and slitaz and suse-studio and ubuntu remastersys dist.


anyways... just blowin of some steam.

wanted to make note of my "dux" distro somewhere. it's the one i been developing the longest... even longer than squishboom... cept i never planned to be releasing it so much as i have with squishboom.


would really rather if i had faster upload. then i would get dux v.005, wilburforce linux, wilburdavix, squishboom, puffinOS, GIMPstick pure, GIMPstick dirty, and the rest once made, all uploaded, so folks can get a grip on them, rather than get blasted with all my vapourware. ^_^

~ yeah... its true, i do actually do stuff for real. it's not all dreaming. lol.



ahhh... dux. wonderful. v happy to have my hd playing nice again. nice to know i can do this now anytime it does that again. rather than have to attatch it to a windows pc and restart it three times.

Tuesday 2 March 2010

ok, so i was just starting to investigate my qbb idea, n wondered if i could use tint as a base.  but then got engrossed in editing my config... didnt even get so far as to download the source to look at.


but i managed to tighten it up a bit so it's that little more practical, and pixel perfect.

utter gorgeous.   no squandering screen space on boarders.


here's the tint2 config rc file contents:

#---------------------------------------------
# TINT2 CONFIG FILE
#---------------------------------------------
# For more information about tint2, see:
# http://code.google.com/p/tint2/wiki/Welcome
#
# For more config file examples, see:
# http://crunchbanglinux.org/forums/topic/3232/my-tint2-config/
#---------------------------------------------
# BACKGROUND AND BORDER
#---------------------------------------------
rounded = 0
border_width = 1
background_color = #170017 9
border_color = #FFFFEE 30

rounded = 0
border_width = 0
background_color = #ffffff 25
border_color = #170017 75

rounded = 0
border_width = 0
background_color = #ffffff 0
border_color = #ffffff 0

#---------------------------------------------
# PANEL
#---------------------------------------------
panel_monitor = all
panel_position = bottom right
panel_size = 92% 19
panel_margin = 0 0
panel_padding = 2 0
font_shadow = 0
panel_background_id = 0

#---------------------------------------------
# TASKBAR
#---------------------------------------------
taskbar_mode = multi_desktop
taskbar_padding = 0 0 0
taskbar_background_id = 1

#---------------------------------------------
# TASKS
#---------------------------------------------
task_icon = 1
task_text = 0
task_width = 40
task_centered = 1
task_padding = -1 -2
task_font = sans 7
task_font_color = #ffffff 70
task_active_font_color = #ffffff 85
task_background_id = 3
task_active_background_id = 2

#---------------------------------------------
# SYSTRAYBAR
#---------------------------------------------
systray_padding = -2 -1 -2
systray_background_id = 0

#---------------------------------------------
# CLOCK
#---------------------------------------------
time1_format = %Y%m%d %H:%M:%S
time1_font = sans 19
time2_format =
time2_font = sans 0
clock_font_color = #ffffff 76
clock_padding = 0 0
clock_background_id = 0

#---------------------------------------------
# BATTERY
#---------------------------------------------
#battery = 0
#battery_low_status = 7
#battery_low_cmd = notify-send "battery low"
#bat1_font = sans 8
#bat2_font = sans 6
#battery_font_color = #ffffff 76
#battery_padding = 1 0
#battery_background_id = 0


#---------------------------------------------
# MOUSE ACTION ON TASK
#---------------------------------------------
mouse_middle = close
mouse_right = none
mouse_scroll_up = toggle
mouse_scroll_down = iconify

qbb

ok, its come to that time again when i need to reach beyond my current ken.  i need an app the likes of which do not yet exist, to the level i seek.

i already imagine a few paths i could take to achieve it, but let me paint you a picture of the outcome...

if you know tint, and conky, you'll be half way familiar with the direction i'm taking this.  i want two things here really.

a rss feed ticker bar, and a simple lightweight pannel button maker.

same app or not?   idc.  but these are two features i feel are lacking from my current squishboom.

the button maker, i'd love if i could just have it define the "depth" (how far from edge of screen/next panel), then each button can be a default size, an equal share of remaining space, or icon a custom size.  clicking on it causes it to do whatever customiseable action you want, and right clicking grants access to the properties of the button (and even setting up shortcutting these settings to higher levels in the rightclick menu), the panel (like it's depth, location, colour&alpha, other), and even the application or action.

the rss ticker, main key feature is the ability to get it to open in browser, the links clicked on.   or even into the likes of gpodder if applicable.

the rss ticker could easy be like an "applet" type thingy which is just like another button.... since they are of custom sizing, ken?

right... i'm gonna go post this garbage somewhere on the net so i find it years later when skilled enough to make something like that in an afternoon and be able to choose which languages to best use.

u-oh...  this blog i just jumped into is asking for a title... i never thought of a title...  ok... lets try not to be egoistic, no "digits button bar" or anything....  ooh!    i know... since i recently decided to call dibs on "Q" for my "Desktop Environment" (QDE, cool huh?), i should call it qbb.      the q button bar.  the qde button bar, the q desktop environment button bar.    the qbb.  :)

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