One of my favorite Open Source Applications has undergone an major version Alpha Release!

Since I’m following Durian open movie project updates, I’m pretty excited what’s in store for 2.5, namely:

• Updated GUI – the significance of this is that it is completely customizeable, with Python scripting.  Also an overhaul of the GUI has made it better organized and easier to navigate.
• Custom Keyboard Shortcuts – I have to admit, using Blender in the past sometimes overwhelms me due to the number of keyboard shortcuts. At least with this, I can assign keys which would be easier to remember.
• A new Tool System and Data Access architecture.
• 64 Bit versions are now available for OSX
• Almost everything is now animateable.
• Nice additions to the physics engine such as smoke simulation and particle systems.
• Rendering Improvements and Additions

It is really catching up to commercial software, as it is, and it’s also a small package too (Just 18Mb)!

Look to the blender site for the release logs and the downloads.

I’ve been thinking.  I think there’s a small window of opportunity here.

Mainly because since I’m researching on some things, and I’ve got a little spare time on my hands, why not make a Chromium Build?  I’ve got the newest Ubuntu version, some modest harddisk space allocated to it (20Gb), and I’m also curious on how this baby works on my BenQ joybook (I personally have 3 netbooks, BenQ Joybook, Neo Vivid 1100, and the Blue H1).

Should be interesting to see how this would work out, especially on the Blue H1 (which is essentially an One Mini A110 netbook), which is basically a 1st generation netbook (7″ screen), and a Via processor.

So what do you guys think?  It’s a go?  If I have made builds for the Chromium OS, I might become generous enough to upload this for you to tinker and test out.

By the way, if any of you guys have the Blue H1, you should find the A110 wiki interesting enough.  This was made by a Debian developer.  Warning: these are geeky stuff.

http://www.a110wiki.de/wiki/Main_Page

Hi there folks.

As you may all know, Google released source code for it’s much ballyhooed OS, named after it’s popular browser named Chrome.  I’ve been able to run a vmware image in VirtualBox and although I know it’s just a technical preview of the OS, I can say it’s pretty zippy (good for a sub-netbook machine).

Again, the emphasis, sub-netbook – I really don’t think this will replace your netbook/laptop any time soon as it’s primary OS.

As a side note, I am thinking of compiling and building the sources in Ubuntu soon so I can look at how they made the linux kernel boot that quick (even in VirtualBox, it booted up, in let’s say, less than 10 seconds?).

Anyways, I’m getting somewhat offtopic… here’s how to install Chrome OS in VirtualBox (I am assuming you have VirtualBox installed on your host OS already):

1. Download the vmware image here: http://gdgt.com/google/chrome-os/download/

2. Unarchive the vmware image to a folder of your choice.

3. Open up VirtualBox and click on the New Button.

Follow these screenshots shown below for setup:

Create Virtual Machine

Set OS Name

Set Memory Requirements

Select your vmware harddisk (3 screenshots below)

Finishing up

And you should be able to start your Chrome OS in VirtualBox by selecting Chrome OS and pressing start button (sample screenshots of Chrome OS below):

A few days ago, my wife running Windows XP on the HP laptop I gave her a few years ago innocently clicked on one of those Facebook links posted on her wall “supposedly” coming from her friend talking about a cool video link.  What she didn’t know was that the link she clicked upon inadvertently installed a nasty worm/keylogging software into her computer and sent those links to her friends which we found out later, clicked on the link too!  Talk about the dangers of social networking…

What transpired was that on next boot, her machine ran suspiciously slow, then warnings from her antivirus software came popping up, and eventually came about crashing the whole system on the boot after that, only leaving the wallpaper showing on the desktop.

Adding to the difficulty was that it was one of those malware that loads up even in safe mode.

In the past, I would use live cds like PCLinuxOS 9.1, and Knoppix to boot and rescue the machine using F-prot for linux.  I didn’t have the time or luxury to download these cds since they were all now sporting over 700Mb in download size, which would certainly take a couple of hours to download.

I found a live cd after some searches through Google, which does exactly that and sports a significantly smaller download size too (about 50Mb).  It’s made by a somewhat known antivirus company, named Avira (I’ve installed Avira on my windows machines in the past, but I’ve settled for Avast and AVG, besides, what more could I ask… they’re free for home use).

The Live CD Rescue disk is located at the tools section of the Avira site.

Heres how to use it:

1. Boot up from the live cd:

2. Select the default option, and press enter.  You should boot up to a screen as shown below:

3. Default configuration is to report only infected files.  We would like to change that to automatic disinfection by clicking on the Configuration button and selecting the option as shown here:

4. If your computer is connected to the internet, it is possible to update your antivirus db files by clicking on update:

5. Go back to the Virus Scanner tab and press “Start Scanning”.  The antivirus software should be able to scan all available hard disks for viruses and malware automatically.

I’ve been reading a lot about Google’s flagship OS lately, and if one is to believe all the hype, it will definitely give microsoft a run for it’s money.

Everywhere, news sites such as CNET, OSNews and Ars have been talking about the coming Google sponsored Operating System.  And since we’re talking about Google here, that alone says much about the current buzz about it.

But what is Chrome OS exactly?

For those of you folks who don’t know what this is, here is a snippet of information from the Official Google Blog:

Google Chrome OS is an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks. Later this year we will open-source its code, and netbooks running Google Chrome OS will be available for consumers in the second half of 2010. Because we’re already talking to partners about the project, and we’ll soon be working with the open source community, we wanted to share our vision now so everyone understands what we are trying to achieve.

So what’s the verdict?  Will Chrome OS replace Windows (or OSX, or even Desktop Linux) as a viable replacement?

I can give you an opinion right now of what I think of it… in the near future, not likely.

Here are the reasons why:

1. It is tied to a specific platform.  I consider this as an “apple-lesque” feature.  Come on, Google has set it’s limits to a netbook spec based machine, and a limited one at that (no harddisk, only SSDs, a specific sized lcd monitor, a specified keyboard size, etc).  I remember Intel doing these on netbooks; you can only run the graphics card only up to a certain size and resolution.  It’s pathetic.
2. The center of all activity is the browser.  What can you expect with Google?  Of course, all of the apps are tied up to the “cloud”, but what if I don’t want to use apps in the “cloud”?
3. It is application lock-in heaven.  Think of it.  All data, all your preferences are stored in Google.  Admittedly, I use google services all the time, but with this setup, you are guaranteed of this lock-in.
4. I like my gnome and kde apps.  I even like my games and applications in both Linux and Windows.  With the Google Chrome OS hardware spec requirements, I can only see netbooks coming with this OS installed as something of an internet appliance, nothing more.  I like my netbooks more featured, thank you.
5. Third world countries don’t have abundant internet connection (read: wifi)… so of what use is this to them?

I know, I know, it’s based on the linux kernel, and you can most probably modify the core of this OS. But my question is, what about the applications that Google bundles it with?  Most likely you cannot use these on a modified distribution.

I’m honestly more excited about the  announcement of a modified NX server months ago (called NeatX, which in my opinion is a good remote desktop solution for Linux servers, having used NX and FreeNX on some of the server boxes I manage), than on Chrome OS.

In conclusion, with all these hiccups, I don’t ever think we’ll see Chrome OS displacing Microsoft significantly in marketshare, for at least a number of years.

Looks like Tom posted a fresh news update on the codeweavers side of the fence.

Codenamed “Zombie Mallard”, this version sports compatibility to Left4Dead 2, and apparently, Codeweavers is running a raffle wherein the lucky winner customer buying CrossOver Games or CrossOver Offline gets an Intel Core i7-870 Lynnfield 2.93 Ghz Quad-Core Processor machine as a prize!

Sounds too good to be true?

Here’s an excerpt from the Codeweavers Site:

As part of our CrossOver Games 8.1 release, and its support for Left4Dead 2, we felt it was important to put superior firepower into the hands of our users! Any customer purchasing CrossOver Games or CrossOver Professional until December 1st will be automatically registered to win this loaded CodeWeavers Gaming PC. We’ll pull the name out of the hat on December 1, 2009, just in time to have this little gem sitting under some lucky winner’s (non-denominational) Christmas / Hannukah / Kwanza / Festivus tree. Lovingly hand-crafted by our very own sysadmin / web genius / first-person shootist Jeremy Newman, we promise it will have all the woof you need to feed smoke to the baddies. Did we mention that it comes with a lifetime license for CrossOver Games Linux as well?

Look to Tom Wickline’s site for more details.

http://www.wine-reviews.net/wine-reviews/games/codeweavers-releases-crossover-games-81-for-mac-and-linux.html

It seems like that the favorite browser everyone loves to hate is having a makeover.

From the msdn IEBlog site, developers from microsoft are in the process of updating Internet Explorer to have:

1. Speedier Performance – on par with Firefox 3.6.  It finally looks like that javascript will be accelerated like Firefox and Safari/Chrome builds are.
2. Standards Compliance – some HTML 5 support, as well as CSS 3 compliance are being done.  ACID 3 compliance is also being worked upon.
3. Hardware accelerated graphics and text via Direct2D.

Concerning #2, here’s a pic from the IEBlog, concerning Javascript execution speed:

On my own opinion, other browsers have the lead in JS acceleration, and IE is basically playing catchup.  By the time IE 9 gets ready to ship, developments and enhancements in Firefox and Webkit based browsers (Safari/Chrome) will have optimized their javascript engines further.  Furthermore, 3D acceleration has been in development for the other browsers as well.  What remains to be seen, and this is what I think is significant to watch, is whether HTML 5 will be able to unseat flash, considering future browsers are racing to implement HTML 5 compliance (IE included).

I’ve been following with much interest the new Blender Open Movie Project (codename: Durian) just recently named Sintel. As always, every blog post of theirs has added excitement to my part because this is one of those times that Blender, an open source 3D application, gets features that match or (hopefully) exceeds software that is released commercially.

One thing that got my attention was the paint-over of the 3D model of Sintel, the lead character:

And the cloth simulation that is under development as shown in this video here:

Cloth Test 01 from Project Durian on Vimeo.

They are already very impressive, and considering that the first and second Open Movie projects were successes in their own right, the current project has already, in my opinion, surpassed the first two.

So impressed was I with the upcoming features to be added in Blender (this project is considered an action-based short film), that I supported the Blender project by becoming a dvd-sponsor during pre-production.  And that my friend, is a new story altogether.

Since I’ve been able to get a new webhost (and lots of space and unlimited bandwidth), I’ve decided to share with you some rpms I’ve compiled and used on the machines I’ve been running.  All of these files are open source licensed, so feel free to download these files.

What’s in the repository?  ffmpeg, mysql-cluster, apache gotten from the RH repository (it’s the latest apache version), among other things.

Some special sauce have been added, like ffmpeg able to use speex codecs (which the rpmforge repositories cannot use), and php-ffmpeg, and some special php extensions which are not installed by default by plain vanilla php.

To access this repository, just get this file below:

http://ostalks.com/ostalks.repo

And place it in your yum.repos.d folder.

Have fun!