The Race: Part 2 by xkcd
The Virus
This is what we're all afraid of: the H1N1 virus aka 'Mexican flu' or 'swine flu'.
Unfortunately it doesn't say how often it's magnified.
Source: CDC - Center for Disease Control and Prevention
The Race: Part 2
Linux ad
This ad is about will be aired some day. It's picked from a competition.
What do you expect from a Linux commercial? Do you like this ad?
Creating an art image in Gimp
This tutorial is an adaptation from Graphic Art - Photoshop which I rewrote for Gimp. Disclaimer: Gimp is a different tool than Photoshop. However I will show similar effects are possible. That's why I chose to follow the aforementioned HOWTO as close as possible. As usual I made the image for fun but this time also because I liked it but it was copyrighted without a license. My goal is to make a B2evolution skin with it. Big thanks to http://www.adobetutorialz.com/ for publicizing their version. This work is copyrighted but you can use it under the CC Attribution-Noncommercial-Share A like license. 
. This is a small size sneak preview of the resulting image:
The beginning
I started with a 640 x 400 px canvas. Then I made a gradient. There was no double edged gradient available, but it's easy to do yourself. Note: lateron in this Tutorial I realized myself the image was to small. I then created a larger image (800px x 600px). I think it's best you follow this Tutorial because the size of the circle is easier to apply with this canvas.
- Click the Gradient tool -> Gradient -> Open Gradient Selection Dialog. This is a screenshot taken after I finished the gradient called 'Double':
- Within the 'Gradient Tool' create a new gradient. From the context menu choose 'Split Segment at Midpoint. Select the left section (when selected the section changes colour) and do in context menu: 'Left Color type -> Background Color' and 'Right Color Type: Foreground Color'. For the right section you do the same but you use inverse colours: 'Left Color Type: Foreground Color' and 'Right Color Type: Background color'.
- Set 'Blending Function for Segment' to 'Curved' for both halves (segments). That flow is a little more natural than 'Linear'. When done the Gradient tool looks like this:
- For Foreground I use #6b9801 and background #0d1600.
- Apply the 'Gradient' to the canvas from up to down. This is the first screenshot dispayed at half size:
- More on the 'Gradient Editor' in the Gimp docs.
Playing with jQuery
While playing with the upcoming B2evolution version I ran across an ancient piece of javaScript. And I thought I could do better in jQuery. That's what I thought.
Yes I made it several lines shorter but I still used the original logic and a major slash of that code.
Here is the problem. When you write a post you have a title. You would want to dynamically have that title in the top bar of the browser. In (X)HTML you use the <title> tag in <head> for that.
javaScript can edit the title with document.title. And that's what was used. An event listener checks if the title is changed (keyup is hte best event for that, so when you lift the finger from the key. Keydown is before the key is pressed so you lag one character. onchange is way to late. That will only happen when the inputbox looses focus.)
I'll present the jQuery code and run through it:
jQuery(function(){
var generateTitle = function()
{
currentPostTitle = jQuery('#post_title').val()
document.title = document.title.replace(/(Poster dans le blog\:).*$/, '$1 '+currentPostTitle)
}
generateTitle()
jQuery('#post_title').keyup(generateTitle)
})
We make a function because we call it twice - and repeatedly when the title is changed. 
The variable currentPostTitle is filled with the contents of the textfield. That's the proposed title. Then in the next line the document.title is changed, basically the latest content of currentPostTitle is appended to what is already there. As you can see this is the most powerful line of all. And I took it from the original javaScript. I Googled the net and found this:
$(this).attr("title", "Your text goes here")
But it didn't seem to work. All other bits of advise point to document.title.
Of course jQuery is better. I have the event easily attached to the inputfield where Francois needed to create the event and the listener. My code can go anywhere. The old code needed to be placed after the textfield. All in all it's progression.
I put up a simple version for you to play with. Have fun.
Debugging made easy
**** LOGGEN GESTART OP Tue Jan 6 23:33:55 2009
23:33:55 * U praat nu op #liferea
23:33:55 * Onderwerp voor #liferea is: Liferea - a news aggregator for GTK+ - http://liferea.sourceforge.net - latest version: 1.4.23
23:33:55 * Onderwerp voor #liferea is ingesteld door pochu op Mon Dec 15 19:26:34 2008
23:34:19 <Afwas> hi
23:34:43 <Afwas> Anyone know of any problem with feedrea and the latest xulrunner?
23:34:53 <Afwas> *liferea
23:35:54 <Afwas> Liferea doesn't start. These are the last few lines of debug mode:
23:35:58 <Afwas> PLUGINS: -> XulRunner Rendering Plugin (liblihtmlx.so, type=0)
23:35:58 <Afwas> PLUGINS: using "XulRunner" for HTML rendering...
23:35:58 <Afwas> TRACE: + mozembed_init (XPCOM_GLUE)
23:35:58 <Afwas> Aborted
23:40:12 <pochu> hmm
23:40:15 <pochu> Ubuntu Intrepid?
23:45:05 <Afwas> yes, stopped working a couple of days ago
23:45:37 <Afwas> Trying to build latest liferea. It says
23:45:38 <Afwas> checking which gecko to use...
23:45:38 <Afwas> configure: error: No gecko found; you may need to adjust PKG_CONFIG_PATH or install a mozilla/firefox/xulrunner -devel package
23:48:18 <pochu> https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/liferea/+bug/309640
23:48:30 <pochu> can you get a backtrace and attach it to that report?
23:48:47 <pochu> I'll then get the Ubuntu mozilla guy to look at it
23:49:58 <Afwas> pochu, col, that's the bug.
23:50:02 <Afwas> *cool
23:50:05 <pochu> also, would be good to know if downgrading to xulrunner-1.9 1.9.0.3+nobinonly-0ubuntu1 (from the hardy pocket) solves the issue
23:50:20 <Afwas> I noticed upgrade of xulrunner yesterday or so
23:50:25 <pochu> since I think it was the security update to 1.9.0.5 which broke it
23:50:26 <pochu> yeah
23:50:31 <Afwas> But I also installed Firefox 3.1
23:50:34 <pochu> s/which/what/
23:50:41 <pochu> hmm
23:50:55 <pochu> that's even more likely to be the cause 
23:51:07 <pochu> can you get rid of it, and see if liferea then works?
23:54:31 <Afwas> pochu, one at the time
23:55:13 <Afwas> Where would I find the dump? It says /home/foppe/Downloads/liferea-1.4.23/core: No such file or directory.
23:55:35 <Afwas> and ~/Downloads/liferea-1.4.23 is the current fodler
23:55:38 <Afwas> *folder
23:58:28 <pochu> run liferea from gdb
23:58:34 <pochu> like
23:58:44 <pochu> $ gdb /usr/bin/liferea
23:58:47 <pochu> (gdb) run
23:58:54 <pochu> then get a backtrace with
23:58:59 <pochu> (gdb) backtrace
00:01:08 <Afwas> $gdb /usr/bin/liferea-bin
00:01:14 <Afwas> would that be ok?
00:01:36 <Afwas> It gives a backtrace
00:02:08 <Afwas> (gdb) backtrace
00:02:08 <Afwas> #0 0xb7fce430 in __kernel_vsyscall ()
00:02:08 <Afwas> #1 0xb73b9880 in raise () from /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libc.so.6
00:02:08 <Afwas> #2 0xb73bb248 in abort () from /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libc.so.6
00:02:08 <Afwas> #3 0xb599f9f5 in PR_Abort () from /usr/lib/libnspr4.so
00:02:08 <Afwas> #4 0xb55953fb in ?? () from /usr/lib/xulrunner-1.9.1b3pre/libxul.so
00:02:08 <Afwas> #5 0xb5594b86 in ?? () from /usr/lib/xulrunner-1.9.1b3pre/libxul.so
00:02:08 <Afwas> #6 0xb56812a0 in ?? () from /usr/lib/xulrunner-1.9.1b3pre/libxul.so
00:02:08 <Afwas> #7 0xb56aa1b5 in ?? () from /usr/lib/xulrunner-1.9.1b3pre/libxul.so
00:02:08 <Afwas> #8 0xb56ab21e in ?? () from /usr/lib/xulrunner-1.9.1b3pre/libxul.so
00:02:08 <Afwas> #9 0xb567c379 in ?? () from /usr/lib/xulrunner-1.9.1b3pre/libxul.so
00:02:08 <Afwas> #10 0xb567c395 in ?? () from /usr/lib/xulrunner-1.9.1b3pre/libxul.so
00:02:08 <Afwas> #11 0xb567ba05 in ?? () from /usr/lib/xulrunner-1.9.1b3pre/libxul.so
00:02:08 <Afwas> #12 0xb55b150b in ?? () from /usr/lib/xulrunner-1.9.1b3pre/libxul.so
00:02:08 <Afwas> #13 0xb55b1847 in ?? () from /usr/lib/xulrunner-1.9.1b3pre/libxul.so
00:02:08 <Afwas> #14 0xb55b29be in ?? () from /usr/lib/xulrunner-1.9.1b3pre/libxul.so
00:02:08 <Afwas> #15 0xb55cc09a in ?? () from /usr/lib/xulrunner-1.9.1b3pre/libxul.so
00:02:08 <Afwas> #16 0xb56812a0 in ?? () from /usr/lib/xulrunner-1.9.1b3pre/libxul.so
00:02:08 <Afwas> #17 0xb56aa1b5 in ?? () from /usr/lib/xulrunner-1.9.1b3pre/libxul.so
00:02:08 <Afwas> #18 0xb56ab21e in ?? () from /usr/lib/xulrunner-1.9.1b3pre/libxul.so
00:02:08 <Afwas> #19 0xb567c379 in ?? () from /usr/lib/xulrunner-1.9.1b3pre/libxul.so
00:02:08 <Afwas> #20 0xb567c3c6 in ?? () from /usr/lib/xulrunner-1.9.1b3pre/libxul.so
00:02:08 <Afwas> #21 0xb567ba3f in ?? () from /usr/lib/xulrunner-1.9.1b3pre/libxul.so
00:02:08 <Afwas> #22 0xb55cb20b in ?? () from /usr/lib/xulrunner-1.9.1b3pre/libxul.so
00:02:48 <Afwas> most likely xulrunner from FF3.1 I'd say
00:03:22 <pochu> yes
00:04:04 * Leon_Nardella heeft verlaten (Read error: 60 (Operation timed out))
00:04:13 <pochu> (btw you should use pastebin rather than pasting large portions of text into IRC)
00:06:44 <Afwas> pochu, I uninstalled FF3.1 but no luck
00:09:07 <pochu> also uninstall xulrunner-1.9.1
00:09:13 <Afwas> pochu, got it. Liferea is back after uninstalling this xulrunner-1.9.1
00:09:18 <pochu> yeah :-)
00:09:21 <pochu> thanks for checking
00:09:48 <pochu> will investigate if we can make liferea load the correct xulrunner even if 1.9.1 is installed
00:09:54 <pochu> I think we already fixed that for Jaunty...
00:11:06 <Afwas> Great
00:11:24 <Afwas> Want me to add to that bugreport?
00:13:02 <pochu> yes, please
00:26:41 <Afwas> Added all information to the bugreport. pochu, thanks for the help so far.
00:27:26 <pochu> Afwas: you're welcome, thanks for helping debugging it!
00:27:48 <Afwas> my pleasure
XML Feeds
