particlestorm.net » Software

Gnome Password Generator 1.6 Released

Chris — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 03:15:29 +0000

I released a new version of my secure password generator for Linux. The major improvement for this release was rewriting the menu bar code to use the new GTK UIManager API.

Get the source here: http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=104020

More information: http://gnome-password.sourceforge.net/

Open Komodo Project Announcement

Chris — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 02:48:27 +0000

My favorite editor for all things programming, Komodo Edit by ActiveState, is going Open Source!

I can’t wait to get my hands on the source code. The first thing I am going to do is add the ability to open multiple windows instead of always opening a new file in a tab in the existing window.

The public source code repositories should be available in less than a month. And because this project is built on top of Mozilla Firefox technology, it should be both fun and easy to hack on. Another big win for Open Source!

More info about the Open Komodo Project

Gnome Password Generator 1.5 Released

Chris — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 04:30:48 +0000

I have finally gotten around to releasing a new version of Gnome Password Generator, my little utility to generate secure random passwords.

Special thanks to Steve Tyler, who submitted improvements including the ability to select different character sets and the use of urandom entropy if available.

Hopefully I won’t let another 3 years go by before I add some of my own improvements.

Get the source here: http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=104020

More information: http://gnome-password.sourceforge.net/

A Busy Day for Open Source

Chris — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 03:58:14 +0000

My favorite Linux distribution, Ubuntu, and my favorite mail program, Thunderbird, released new versions today. Check them out:

Download Ubuntu 7.04 “Feisty Fawn”
Download Thunderbird 2.0

I Finally Redesigned My Site

Chris — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 21:17:02 +0000

I have been planning for almost 2 years to redo my site layout to use CSS instead of tables. The HTML table tag was never meant to be used for layouts, it’s purpose was to display tables of data, much like a spreadsheet. CSS layouts are more complex to design, mainly because it is hard to make the layout look the same across browsers, such as IE and Firefox. But the benefits are worth it, such as better search engine results and better accessibility for screen readers (for the blind) and devices such as PDAs and cell phones.

Along with the redesign I added another sidebar column and added a bunch of my favorite links, such as audio and video podcasts I subscribe to. I also busted out my vector graphics program, Inkscape, and refreshed the graphics with more of a “Web 2.0″ look. BTW, if you are into making digital art you need to try Inkscape, it works under Linux, Mac X, and Windows. It is also open source and free!

Download Inkscape at: http://www.inkscape.org/

Google Maps, Now With Satellite Imagery

Chris — Tue, 05 Apr 2005 17:57:41 +0000

Google Maps is still in “Beta” but already is much nicer than its competitors, Mapquest and Mappoint. Today, they took online maps one step farther by adding satellite images to complement the road maps. For example, click on the following link for a satellite view of the BestBuy store in Bakersfield (It’s the brownish building next to the bright white one).

BestBuy Satellite Photo

You can zoom in and out of the maps in real-time, click and drag to scroll around the map, and click the link on the upper right hand side to switch back to street maps.

I really hope that Google continues its policy of providing free APIs to access its data with regards to these maps. I would love to create a mapping program for Linux using their data. Either way, the general public can access Google’s amazing mapping software now for free!

Bloglines: The Best News Reader

Chris — Tue, 18 Jan 2005 20:00:48 +0000

I was searching for a better news reader a couple of days ago since my current (now previous) one wasn’t living up to my expectations. During my search I came across a unique solution called Bloglines.

This service is a web site that you join and it aggregates all of your news feeds for you. You just simply go to www.bloglines.com/myblogs to get a list of your feeds and how many unread posts you have. And, because Bloglines constantly checks your feeds for you, you will never miss a posting.

Bloglines includes many other features you can’t get in a software based new reader. You can see how many people have subscribed to your feeds and what they have subscribed to. You can search or browse massive directories of blogs other people have joined. You can get lists of the top blogs. You can share your blog list with other people, for example mine is at: http://www.bloglines.com/public/caladd You can even have Bloglines create your own blog, but I haven’t personally tried this feature.

Overall, this service is absolutely amazing. I usually don’t care for web based services like this but Bloglines has simply done a great job. Best of all, it is FREE. So, don’t wait, sign up right now at: http://www.bloglines.com/

Speed Up Firefox

Chris — Tue, 04 Jan 2005 17:22:24 +0000

I came across some great tips to make the Firefox web browser load web pages even faster. Do the following steps:

1. In the address bar type “about:config”

2. Scroll down and change the following entries by double-clicking on them:

“network.http.max-connections” to “100″
“network.http.max-connections-per-server” to “100″
“network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-proxy” to “100″
“network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server” to “100″
“network.http.pipelining” to “true”
“network.http.pipelining.maxrequests” to “100″
“network.http.proxy.pipelining” to “true”

3. Right click anywhere on in the config screen and select “new->Integer” from the popup menu. Enter “nglayout.initialpaint.delay” as the name and “0″ as the value.

Firefox 1.0 Released

Chris — Tue, 09 Nov 2004 18:49:20 +0000

Firefox 1.0 has been released today! Congratulations to the whole Firefox team and to everyone on Spread Firefox who has helped spread Firefox to the computer users across the world. It seems that thousands of people are downloading their copy right now because the Mozilla site has been brought to a screeching halt. But, don’t worry, I am sure the Mozilla guys will get more machine muscle soon to help serve out the Firefox product pages. In the mean time, you can download Firefox 1.0 straight from their ftp servers. Here are some quick links to the Windows, Mac, and Linux versions.

Spreading Firefox At The Mailboxes

Chris — Thu, 14 Oct 2004 21:33:00 +0000

I entered an entry into the latest Spread Firefox contest. I did this by posting some fliers by the mailboxes at my apartment complex and then submitted a photo of my work. Then, I woke up today and checked my rss feeds and found out that I had won the ‘Image Gallery Picture Of The Day’ contest on Spread Firefox! I get 100 bonus points and all the glory that comes with being a winner

I have received several inquires from Spread Firefox members on where I got the fliers for my postings. The first flier, featuring a very fed up user, was created by Firefox member CyberArmy. The second flier, the first page of a data sheet about Firefox, was created by the Firefox sfx team. I slightly altered the data sheet flier to make the web address bigger. Thank you both for the great work on the fliers. Below are thumbnails of the two fliers that link to high resolution tiff images.