Another good thing about having all of this free time is that I have a chance to do some hacking!  A few weeks ago I started reading up on how to make a packet dissector for Wireshark.  Wireshark has some fantastic documentation, and the biggest barrier to entry I think is just the fact that there is so much written.  I’ve worked my way through a couple of 1000+ line documents and believe I have a solid handle on how it all works.  My other work in the open source world has definitely made it much easier.  For example, I’m already familiar with autotools and GObject libraries.  That said, however, I’m not so good at C programming, yet.  I’ve spent most of my free time hacking in C# (w/ mono) or Vala (a C# like language developed to be a better fit with the GObject type system).  I really enjoy getting back into C, though.  I’ve done a bit of C programming for embedded systems, but always wished I could do more.

On the topic of Wireshark, that software really is amazing.  It’s so great to see such well written software representing the open source community.

I also haven’t blogged about Docky yet. I’ve spent a lot of my free time there. I’ll have to explain more soon.

Quite a pleasant sight for Do lovers!

Well, today’s finally the day;  After weeks of alpha testing and months hard work, GNOME Do 0.8.0 is released!  This is another monumental release for an amazingly useful application.  GNOME Do has increasingly become the cornerstone of my linux desktop experience.  From time to time I even catch myself stopping to think about how I would have done that if Do wasn’t just a “super-space” away.  Sufficed to say, “Longer than I care to think about”, is the answer I usually come to with regards to that question.

First of all, before I go any further, I’d just like to personally thank everyone involved with the project.  Everyone that’s helped in some minute way to make Do what it is today deserves thanks.  Some of these people include: David Siegel, who started Do as a college project, Jason Smith, who is largely responsible for “Docky”, Alex Launi, for some great work on the new plugin API and some of the most useful Do plugins around, Peng, for some more great plugins, and for helping me with some c# code I was writing for a plugin, and Cimi and Kalle for translations and much new insight.  There’s so many more people associated with this great application, it’s hard to thank everyone!

Much more information can be read here, the release notes on the Do website.

Now, it’d be wrong to talk about such a great application, and not show off any pretty pictures, so I’ll show some screenshots of Do here.  Some screenshots include things that I’m working on currently, and aren’t yet released.  Enjoy!

First let’s take a look at how you can add things to the dock.  Adding items to the dock is pretty easy actually.  You can drag launchers onto the dock.  You can also manually add items to the dock by

Stick items to the dock!

summoning Do, finding the item you want, and clicking on the little “+” sign to the left of it, as is shown in the image to the right.  And, if all of that is just too much for you, you can even sit back and let Do “do” the work for you!  The dock automatically gets populated with your most used items!

What if you don’t like the items on your dock anymore?  Well this could not get any easier.  You have two options, either right click on the item and select “Remove from Dock”, or just grab that item, and literally throw it off the dock!

Throw it off your Dock!

Finally, there’s one more picture I’d like to show.  I mostly do work with plugins, and I’ve been working on making some plugins more friendly on the Dock.  One of those that I’ve been working on is the Rhythmbox plugin.  The banshee plugin that Alex has been working on has pretty actions that show up when you right-click on banshee when it’s on the dock.  When the changes I’m making to the rhythmbox plugin get merged, Rhythmbox users will be able to enjoy this cool feature too!

Playback options for Rhythmbox

Once again, thanks everyone who made Do possible.  Even though I’m not a big-time contributer, I hope my plugins (virtualbox & translate) will be helpful to some people.  I’d also like to thank David, Jason and Alex in particular for helping me to write these plugins for such a great application.  Much of my background lies in programming for embedded systems, so I’m not exactly “profficient” at programming at such a high level.  Nonetheless, I feel as though I’ve received a lifetime’s worth of experience and learning just from hanigng around you guys!  Thanks again!

I’ve been using VirtualBox a lot recently, mostly for programming and testing applications on different platforms, without actually having to restart my laptop.  After I saw that there was no VirtualBox plugin, I thought that this would be the perfect plugin to write.

After a couple weeks I have built a nice, stable GNOME Do plugin for managing VirtualBox virtual machines.  The plugin allows GNOME Do to perform actions on your saved virtual machines.  The plugin will index the current state of your VM and only allow you to perform relevant actions as well.  For example, if you have a VM that’s currently powered off, the only actions Do will show you are to either turn on the VM or revert to a saved state (if there is one).  For VM’s that are currently running, you can pause, turn off, save state, or take a snapshot.  Dynamic modifier items also allow you to start a VM in either headless mode, or GUI mode.

I’ve made a small YouTube video showing the various actions that are exposed to GNOME Do through this plugin.

My plugin was finally accepted into the Community branch of GNOME Do’s plugins.  I’m still attempting to get it into the official branch, as I’ve agreed to maintain it, and have gone through multiple code reviews to make sure the plugin meets coding and performance standards.  Look out for this plugin to be available with the next release of GNOME Do.

Little bit of C#

using System.Junk;
int a = 3;

Bash, anyone?

cat /dev/urandom > f.txt

Cool.

For the last 3 months I’ve been developing a database driven program to create and maintain low-level flash driver firmware settings that get burned into the embedded flash controllers on Infineon’s 32bit Microcontrollers.  There, try saying that 3 times fast.  I’ve had my fair share of frustrations with C# in the last 3 months, but eventually found solutions to just about all of them.  I hope to write about some things I learned at a later time.

I’m not quite saying, “Bye” to Germany yet – I leave on the 30th.  From here, Oktoberfest starts tomorrow (!!!).  I think I’ll be heading there with a friend I met here.  Also, my mom is coming on Monday, and we’ll be going to Berlin on Friday.  After that, I fly back to Los Angeles on Tuesday!

All in all though, I’m definitely glad that I came here, and it was a great experience.