return False;

Parcellite Moved to SourceForge

2008-08-10T20:28:00.003-04:00

Over the weekend I moved the Parcellite project to SourceForge. The new website can be found at http://parcellite.sourceforge.net

The new checkout command is svn co https://parcellite.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/parcellite/trunk parcellite

My blog will also soon be moved :)

Time Travel

2008-07-29T22:09:00.004-04:00

Each day is a battle against time, there isn't enough in my day. I have been able to trickle down some i18n support in Parcellite during the last few days. I've had some translations that some nice contributors sent me sitting around and I finally was able to commit them to svn (german and italian). I have french and spanish to commit and I'll be done.

Aside from that, I've been looking for an alternative host to Google Code for the project (and future projects). I don't really like its "issues" system and it just lacks in general. So far I'm thinking DevjaVu or Assembla. Comments? Suggestions?

Open Source Developers are Amazing

2008-07-22T15:06:00.003-04:00

I started writing Parcellite when I was a full time student, with little responsibilities. I was able to dedicate a large amount of time to carefully writing, testing, and debugging my little program during the week. Now that I have a full time job, I realize just how much dedication and effort other open source developers have to write great applications in what little free time they have. I am finding that either new responsibilities (which came with living my myself) and other interests (gaming/girlfriend) have kept me from quickly progressing on my program.

I have come up with an idea though: I will attempt to code 1 hour a day, every day. Be it a variable name change, testing a new function, fix comments, anything. As long as I keep myself busy with it, I'll be able to reach the goals that I have for this project in a reasonable amount of time.

Blips on the Radar

2008-07-15T20:09:00.002-04:00

Those of you using Parcellite from the subversion repository might notice some activity slowly crawling along if you update it frequently. Here are some of the features available on svn:

New
+ Added daemon mode.
+ Added reverse history option.
+ Added no-icon option (use Ctrl-Alt-P for the menu).

Changes
+ Menu generation and display is quicker.
+ Selected items also get copied to primary.
+ History shows newest item first by default.
+ Performance and overall improvement on action executions.

I believe I will be releasing 0.8 shortly with the features and changes described above. Although support for internationalization is in place, there is currently no translations in place (though I do have french and spanish translations available). The reason for that is I will be adding support for the x-selection clipboard and translations in the consequent release.

work work work

2008-06-18T19:50:00.003-04:00

If you haven't noticed, I have been a little inactive lately. That's because I started working full time and I'm still getting use to managing the little amount of time I have after my commute. I've also been working out some kinks on my grad school submission and my new apartment.

I really need to sit down and finish v0.8 of Parcellite. Though technically it's ready for release, I just need to clean it up a bit and add my own Spanish translation to it (and others). Version 0.7 is now available in Debian and Ubuntu's official repositories though :)

hack hack hack

2008-05-24T15:37:00.002-04:00

Sat down for a while to work on v0.8 of Parcellite and managed to commit some changes to the way actions are executed. I used to use a simple system() call, but in its single-threaded nature Parcellite would become unresponsive until it finished executing your action. I implemented a simple pthread for each action executed so that you may continue to use the clipboard manager as it executes your desired action, something I should have done from the start but oh well :)

Finals &

2008-05-12T16:16:00.002-04:00

This Friday I start finals, which I finish may 19th. I managed to commit some bugfixes for Parcellite during the weekend. As soon as finals are over I'll finish what it needs for a 0.8 release.

Positive Feedback

2008-05-01T20:57:00.002-04:00

Lately I've gotten alot of positive feedback on Parcellite. I'm glad fellow open source enthusiasts are able to find use of my little project. Unfortunately I haven't gotten the chance to sit down and work on it because of "real life." Hopefully soon I can sit down and hack away version 0.8 which will include some new features and improvements, most of which have been suggested by the users.

Twitter Client

2008-04-23T18:15:00.004-04:00

I tried Twitux but I didn't like it. So instead, when I have the time, I'll write a PyGTK client using the python-twyt wrapper. Of course I'll probably do this after I work on Parcellite, which I've been neglecting lately.

Anyone know any twitter clients besides Twitux?

Edit: I designed a GUI in glade I am happy with and instead picked the python-twitter wrapper. After I finish Parcellite v0.8 I will work more on it. Also, I'm calling it Nitwit :)

Xcompmgr

2008-04-16T21:08:00.003-04:00

I wanted to compile my own xcompmgr, so I fetched it from its git repo:

git clone git://anongit.freedesktop.org/git/xorg/app/xcompmgr

Compiled it and ran it using these options:

xcompmgr -cC -t-3 -l-5 -r5

And this was the result:

There's a problem though. Because of a security update to X.org, xcompmgr causes terrible slowdown with terminals (gnome-terminal, urxvt, etc) and there appears to be no workaround at the moment.

Parcellite v0.7

2008-03-30T20:56:00.002-04:00

Finally released v0.7 which I had sitting on the subversion repository for a while because of school/work. Get it while it's hot.

ChangeLog

v0.7 Sunday, March 30 2008

New
+ Added man page.
+ Option to disable/enable saving history.

Changes
+ Removed startup option.
+ Performance improvements.
+ Runs at startup by default in GNOME (remove via GNOME's Sessions application).
+ Config now saves in ~/.config/parcellite following freedesktop.org specifications.
+ Data now saves in ~/.local/share/parcellite following freedesktop.org specifications.
+ Bugfix: Assertion error on first run.

Apt Installs Recommended Packages by Default

2008-03-28T14:22:00.004-04:00

I only recently noticed that when I use apt-get install, it not only installs my desired package, but also every package that the package recommends. To halt this behaviour I had to add these lines to the /etc/apt/apt.conf file:

APT
{
Install-Recommends "false";
Install-Suggests "false";
};

Spring Break

2008-03-15T11:25:00.002-04:00

Spring break started for us this week. I still have to go work tuesday and thursday but for the rest of the time I'll be able to catch up on some online courses, coding and get around to installing Arch.

I've been hacking away at Parcellite and I have what could be v0.7 in the subversion repository already. Soon after I browse through the code a few more times I'll be able to make a release.

Also got a chance to play some SSBB yesterday. Epic game is epic.

Translations, Coding and Brawl

2008-02-25T15:11:00.004-04:00

Over the weekend the lead developer of BillReminder, Og Maciel, mailed me about his app needing an updated spanish translation. I helped Og with some spanish translations quite a while ago when I used BillReminder's source to teach myself PyGTK and I contacted to thank him for his app. So on saturday I entertained myself updating the translations and mailed it to him so he could commit it.

I hacked a bit of Parcellite afterwards and released v0.6.1 which had some bugfixes that were in the svn for weeks. I feel that it is stable enough now to include that i18n header file and translate it to various languages. Maybe Og could help with that.

At night, I went over to a friend's house who had a modded Wii to play some Super Smash Bros: Brawl. Right now I'm having a serious withdrawl, I need to play moar! Can't wait to get my hands on my own copy and practice for competitive play.

Employment GET!

2008-02-16T09:44:00.004-04:00

I got offered a job in computer support at Lokheed Martin. The commute is about 50 minutes for 16 hours a week (20 hours max). It'sa welcome part-time job that will also be my internship and will help pay for my master's degree when I work full time starting in summer.

Speaking of which, I applied for graduate school last week, I'll be concentrating in software engineering. Hopefully soon I'll know if that essay I spent two weeks on had what it took to get in.

By the way, Smash Bros. Brawl will be EPIC. A friend of mine is importing it this week so I'll be up all next weekend playing it.

Random Update!

2008-02-01T17:27:00.000-04:00

Parcellite 0.6 is almost complete. I commited a released candidate to the svn but I'm going to go through the code a few more times before I release it.
I pretty much got a job working tech support for Lockheed Martin.
I have to submit my application for my master's degree within the next 2 weeks, going to be busy with that.
I suck at poker.
Calculus 2 is annoying me because I don't remember anything from calculus 1 or precalculus 2.

Gnome Tweaks

2008-01-21T16:59:00.000-04:00

Some of these could already be in effect depending on your distribution. Launch the configuration editor from Applications->System Tools->Configuration Editor or by typing gconf-editor in a terminal. Go down the tree to the following:

/apps/gnome-session/options

Here you can disable the show_splash_screen option for a login boost. Now go to:

/apps/metacity/general

Enable the reduced_resources option for a significant speed increase. A little further down the tree at:

/apps/nautilus/preferences

You can disable show_desktop to stop Nautilus from controlling the desktop. Of course this means that you won't get icons or a right-click menu on the desktop. Then, travel down to:

/apps/panel/global

Disable enable_animations and highlight_launchers_on_mouseover. Finally, if you append the following line to your ~/.gtkrc-2.0 file (create it if it doesn't exist) you remove GTK menu delays.

gtk-menu-popup-delay = 0

Parcellite v0.5

2008-01-16T11:17:00.000-04:00

Last night I commited v0.5 of Parcellite. Though I'm not releasing it yet, it is fully functional. Aside from being translated from python to C, this version includes a simple CLI interface for command line access to the clipboard. I will make an official release soon after I browse through all the code cleaning up and fixing minor issues along the way. Get it from the subversion repository:

svn co http://xyhthyx.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/parcellite parcellite

To compile and install:

./autogen.sh
./configure
make
sudo make install

Trip Observations

2008-01-08T14:03:00.000-04:00

For those of you who missed my last two posts, I spent 16 days in Winchester Virginia at my sister's house for the holidays. I have been there before, but never during winter. Some observations I made of Virginia compared to the place I grew up (and still live in), Puerto Rico...

Everything was grey, there were absolutely no leaves on anything but pine trees. Puerto Rico is green all year long.
It was cold as hell, I had never been in weather below 60. I've lived in tropical weather for 23 years, so I looked like an idiot when I wore skiing-type winter wear when people were only wearing a hoodie.
Everyone drives really well. They use signal lights! You guys would have constant heart attacks if you drove here. We change lanes without using signals, all lanes are anything goes, we speed alot, tailgate alot, we don't stop when you turn (we just take the incoming lane to avoid slowing down), and we don't take down our long headlights for incoming cars.
The sun goes down early, around 5:30pm. Over here it always goes down at the same time regardless of the season (around 6:30-7:00).
Virginians are nice. Not say we aren't nice, people are extremely nice here. But what I mean is I expected some racism or strange looks when I spoke spanish, but got nothing. They were friendly, too friendly sometimes.
Stuff is cheap. I saw a DS Lite for $120, over here it's $137 not including our 7% tax. Alot of stuff was very well priced, everything is expensive here, especially if you're a tourist. The only thing that's cheap here is housing, school ($45 a credit) and car insurance (what you guys pay a month, we pay per year). Internet is cheap too, my sister was paying $22 for a connection speed twice as fast as the one I had at home, and I pay $40 for mine.

Anyhow, now that I'm back I can concetrate on a few things I didn't do during my vacation. Like work on Parcellite, write an essay for my master's degree application, and prepare for my last semester of Computer Sciences.

While (Vacation == True)

2008-01-02T20:59:00.000-04:00

Still freezing my nips off here in Winchester, Virginia. I'm back January 6th.

Happy New Years!

Vacation = True;

2007-12-20T09:05:00.000-04:00

From today to Januarth 6th I'll be in Winchester, Virginia spending the holidays with my sister, aunt and the rest of the family. Not looking forward to the cold weather (which I have never experienced) or the snow (either). Wonder if I can build a tux snowman...

Couldn't finish translating Parcellite to C to release v0.5 before I left so I'll either finish it during my trip or as soon as I get back. It's pretty close to being done, it's missing the actions menu and the new CLI interface I've been experimenting with so you can have access to the clipboard through scripts and the terminal.

Happy Holidays!

Origins of C

2007-12-19T10:02:00.000-04:00

"C is a programming language which is like, totally ghey. It's low-level and has those stupid pointers. It was superceded by Java 20 years ago and is virtually extinct today. The only actively developed code using C today is the Linux kernal and the Yahoo! search engine, both of whose user count do not exceed 16, combined.

C code often ends up looking like the output of figlet(6). This is to be expected from a language that has three different uses for '*' depending on context."

Seems pretty accurate to me.

Path Towards the Female Body

2007-12-12T13:16:00.000-04:00

Saw this in Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei the other day. I wonder what the geek's path towards the female body is...

Mailing List -> Forum -> IRC -> Messenger -> Webcam -> IRL

Progress

2007-12-10T11:12:00.000-04:00

I've been translating Parcellite to C for version 0.5. So far I have it catching clipboard history and the history menu is working. Been going at a slow pace, I want to make sure the code is clean and as bug free as I can write it. I would be further along if I hadn't spent more time understanding how the autotools work.

You can grab the current progress from the C branch of my subversion.

svn co http://xyhthyx.googlecode.com/svn/branches/C/ parcellite-C

At the moment you need the latest autotools. Just do the following to compile.