We’ve been kicking around this idea for a desktop alert application, similar to the customizable Desktop Alert application that quite a few companies pay for and customize.

The problem with the Desktop Alert apps is that they only run on Windows – so they aren’t suited for a multiplatform environment like we have here at UNL.

Enter Konfabulator – the master of widgets.

It runs on both Mac and PC, and does everything we want in a Desktop Alert application.

Aaron made up the graphics and I coded the inner-workings of it and a couple days ago we released the beta.

It’s a simple pseudo-application that monitors XML feeds like RSS, and CAP (Common Alerting Protocol) for information to give to the end users.

It also has a built in Radar viewer and Webcam viewer to give the user an idea of what’s happening outside.

We’re experimenting with new ways to communicate information to Faculty, Students and Staff on emergencies here at the University, hopefully this can help with that. I was actually pretty concerned that it wouldn’t get used at all (waste of cpu cycles etc), but I’ve since lightened up about it. Who cares if it doesn’t get used, I made it and it works as requested.

Because the widget uses only XML feeds, it’s no problem to rebuild it in a web-based fashion for Microsoft Widgets or Apple’s Dashboard… but for right now it’s fine in Konfabulator.

Well, many months ago I decided to start this blog and another blog for the tech related stuff that I do. The tech blog is located at http://saltybeagle.com/tech/

Unfortunately Google has evidently blacklisted my site and won’t crawl it again. I’m guessing the cause is that I didn’t update that blog page for a long time and Google doesn’t bother crawling sites that aren’t updated regularly.

But now that I’m updating it a little more frequently, I’d like to get some stuff out there. Argh… dang spiders.

Anyways, Geocaching is the new thing I’m considering taking an interest in… anyone want to buy me a GPS so I can start?

My friend sent me a link to a geocache here in Lincoln that was close to my office. In fact the geocache is actually capturing yourself on a webcam that is pointing out my office window (sorry for the old template… I promise I’ll update it as soon as I have a free minute). Actually, that camera isn’t even used on the UNL Website anymore… we’ve deployed 3 full motion video cameras, but that old page is still sitting on the server. Just goes to show there’s a lot of stuff that needs to be cleaned up off of our server.

Another thing that probably can be cleaned off the server… the ancient homepage.

A while ago I needed the ability to create sub-forms for a html form I was building.

Justin Patrin had built a PEAR HTML_QuickForm element for handling SubForms so this was a simple task, but when I started coupling forms to my database objects there was something missing.

My data was modeled in the database with one main record, and many small records in other tables that linked back to the main record (foreign keys on a one to many model). Nothing complex, but I began to realize that while DB_DataObject_FormBuilder was a great tool – it couldn’t model my data entirely within one form . To create those reverseLink records I would have to insert the main record, and then render a separate form for the sub records. An alternative would be to manually add in an extra subform element on a per DataObject class basis.. but DB_DataObject knows the structure of my database, why can’t FormBuilder generate a form that models it?

Well, I wrote up some patches for FormBuilder.php to enable SubForms on reverseLinks… and it’s in cvs as of yesterday.

Here’s an example of how to turn it on with data structured as follows: Two tables, reports and vehicles. 1 to many on reports->vehicles.

(links.ini)
[vehicles]
reportid = reports:reportid

To turn ON reverseLink SubForms, add this to the DataObject class for your table:

class DataObjects_Reports extends DB_DataObject
{

}

And voila, one form with all the reverseLink records editable including the ability to make a new linked record.

Big thanks to Justin Patrin for supporting this idea of mine, and touching up my patch to get it into FormBuilder.

This weekend I switched my home desktop from Gentoo Linux to Ubuntu [Kubuntu].

I was on the edge of a hard drive upgrade, and had a 160 GB drive I was going to move Gentoo on to. But it had previously been formatted as xfs, which I’m starting to prefer, but evidently I didn’t build xfs support into the kernel. At the thought of rebuilding the kernel, and compiling all the xfs tools etc, I just decided to try out the Ubuntu Live CD that I got as a handout at the last Husker Linux User Group meeting.

The CD worked perfectly, discovered all my hardware – even the xfs drive, and just worked perfectly. It was then that I decided that for a home desktop PC, and where I’m at in my life right now, I have better things to do than spend hours compiling an app I want to try out – only to find I had a gcc or USE flag set wrong and have to recompile it.

Ubuntu just works. Of course I would never have given it a look if the guys from LugRadio hadn’t mentioned it IN EVERY EPISODE.

Of course, I did have to use Kubuntu… I just feel more at home in KDE. And after hearing that Mark Shuttleworth now uses Kubuntu as his desktop, that must mean something.

Anyways, I now have a simple desktop running Kubuntu 5.10 with 2.6.12-9-686-smp and LVM, and I’m loving it. I highly recommend Ubuntu.

The 4th annual BBHP went through in full swing not too long ago.
Once again, I didn’t win the carving contest… I’m just so misunderstood as an artist.
Congrats to the contestants and I’m stealing the crown next year.
Here’s a photo of my friend Matt with Mitch Hedberg.