KDE 4.6.2 on Solaris 11, with gcc

Since some interesting KDE/Qt applications are not Sun/Oracle Studio friendly I've been pondering the use of gcc for some time already.

And here it is:

The lack of icons is due to Solaris bug (an older libpng version used stupidly by cairo) that I did not try to workaround.

I used SFEgcc from pkg.opensolaris.cz.
I ditched the idea of reusing the kde-solaris workspace and for the moment built all packages with mere
./configure --prefix=/opt/kde4 && gmake && gmake install
or
PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/opt/kde4/lib/pkgconfig:/usr/lib/pkgconfig cmake .. -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/opt/kde4 && gmake && gmake install

No crazy mesh of *FLAGS, no nothing, just the defaults.

Only about 5 patches were needed for to have gdm-integration complete.

Unfortunately the session feels about as sluggish as when built with Studio.

Elephant droppings

You can buy elephant droppings in the Prague ZOO, a bucket costs about 2€, plus deposit. It looks like a nice marketing stunt by the new director Bobek :-) (bobek = dropping)

Name 'em & shame 'em

Somebody in Říčany got really sick of their neighbor's behaviour.

 

 And there's no wonder. The garbage appears there too often.

Feeding Google with rough translation: This garbage and her sanitary towels are dumped by Mrs. Eva Plíhalová, Sadová 1015 Říčany. Other pigs will be named here the next time.

Inexpensive Digital Signage with PowerPoint 2010

Note: After reading this article, you may want to also read the follow-up article here.

Have you wanted to setup fancy digital signage like that in banks, airports and hotels, but don’t have the budget?
Well, you aren’t out of luck. If you have a slim LCD (or LED) TV with a HDMI port and a computer with PowerPoint 2010 you can setup some decent digital signage.
Step 1: The Hardware:

• Slim LCD TV (I prefer 1080p models)
• A PC with a bare minimum of
  • a 2.0Ghz processor
  • 2GB Memory (More is Better)
  • I’m a Microsoft guy so I prefer Windows, but the premise is the same with an Apple
  • PowerPoint 2010 (or Apple Keynote)
• A VGA to HDMI Upconverter
• and a HDMI over Cat5 Extender (if TV will be located away from TV)

The setup is pretty simple your slide show software goes on your PC. The VGA output from the computer goes to the VGA to HDMI Upconverter. The HDMI port on the Upconverter goes to the HDMI port of the Cat5 extender. The other box of the Cat5 Extender has an HDMI port that goes to the back of the TV. Run two Cat 5 Cables from your computer location to where your TV is located. Make sure you mark the cables. Port 1 on the host unit must go to port 1 on the receiving unit. Plug in the Cat5 cables to the the Cat5 extender ports respectively.
You can setup the TV as your primary monitor or an extended desktop. I recommend an extended desktop (means you’ll need an extra monitor), since you will not be able to see what you are doing on the computer with the TV located far away. If you don’t want to bother with an extra monitor, make sure you dial in all your PowerPoint settings before you install everything.
You should now have a display on your TV from your computer. Make sure you crank up the screen resolution to 1080x1920 to get the maximum screen real estate. Now, on to the presentation.
The Slideshow:
Be creative. Just remember to set your page settings to 16:9 ratio an to loop your slideshow endlessly.
If you are using PowerPoint, I recommend the following plugins to maximize your presentation capabilities:

• LiveWeb – Updates embedded websites every time the slideshow loops.
• LiveImage – Updates linked images every time the slideshow loops.
• Update Links – Updates linked items every time the slideshow loops.
• Find more at skp.mvps.org.

I also found that MPEG4 in PowerPoint seem to have a memory leak that will crash your presentation after a day or so.
Conclusion:
That is really it. It only costs approximately 300 dollars if you already have PowerPoint, a compatible TV, and the computer. I had to get the TV and PowerPoint for my project, but it still only cost about $2000. That is a big change from say TightRope which would be about $6000 for a single display installation.
I did get to demo TightRope. The setup we just discussed above is no replacement for TightRope. It is an excellent professional product with extremely more features and functions than PowerPoint.
I also looked at SCALA, but it seems overly complex for what I wanted to do. It is extremely versatile and would be excellent for complex multimedia displays. I am intending to just give a small business the opportunity to display digital signage at a reasonable cost.
PowerPoint will run for months without issue as long as you configure the computer properly (aka disable anything unnecessary). 
Consumer grade TV’s will also work fine as long as you don’t go super cheap and turn it off during non-business hours. I used a 60 inch Sharp Aquos LCD TV for my installation $1300 at Best Buy).
These are pictures on the display recessed into a wall. For perspectives sake, the wall is about 9 feet wide and 10 feet high. So it is a big, bright display. Here it is showing a hi-def picture that doesn’t identify the installation location.


Good luck with your efforts. Please comment or ask questions. I’ll be happy to answer.

Technorati Tags: Big2Buff,Unincorporated Minds,beavmetal,Priceless Geek,Corporate Signage,Inexpensive,DigitalSignage,Signage,PowerPoint,HDMI,Microsoft,Windows,Apple,

Keynote,presentation,LiveWeb,LiveUpdates,LiveImage,TightRope,SCALA,multimedia,Sharp,

Aquos,Best Buy

Windows Live Tags: Big2Buff,Unincorporated Minds,beavmetal,Priceless    Geek,Corporate Signage,Inexpensive,Digital Signage,Signage,PowerPoint,HDMI,Microsoft,Windows,Apple,Keynote,presentation,

LiveWeb,LiveUpdates,LiveImage,TightRope,SCALA,multimedia,Sharp,Aquos,Best Buy
WordPress Tags: Big2Buff,Unincorporated Minds,beavmetal,Priceless Geek,Corporate Signage,Inexpensive,Digital Signage,Signage,PowerPoint,HDMI,Microsoft,Windows,Apple,Keynote,presentation,

LiveWeb,LiveUpdates,LiveImage,TightRope,SCALA,multimedia,Sharp,Aquos,Best Buy
Blogger Labels: Big2Buff,Unincorporated Minds,beavmetal,Priceless Geek,Corporate Signage,Inexpensive,Digital Signage,Signage,PowerPoint,HDMI,Microsoft,Windows,Apple,Keynote,presentation,

LiveWeb,LiveUpdates,LiveImage,TightRope,SCALA,multimedia,Sharp,Aquos,Best Buy

Clean up the world

Some pics from the local "Clean up the world" event:

KDE 4.6.2 on Solaris 11

KDE 4.6.2 is here and now you can have it on your Solaris/OpenIndiana box as well. 
Apart from the upstream fixes we refreshed boost to v. 1.46.1, phonon to 4.5.0 and Qt to 4.7.2.
More patches got upstreamed, especially on the Webkit front, thanks to Ben. Ben is also working hard on Solaris 10 support.

Since we lost the build machine, publishing the binary packages may lag a bit, so if you want to give KDE a try, create a fresh zone and follow the effortless guide to build them. It takes about half a day on a mid-range laptop and it's almost fully automated so it's nothing to be scared of. 

Czech University of Life Sciences Prague

I just learned that couple of years ago my alma mater changed its english name from 'The Czech University of Agriculture Prague' to 'Czech University of Life Sciences Prague'.

I guess it sounds much cooler on the CVs and particularly the graduates of the IT or Economical Faculty must've really appreciated that :-)

Personally I find it ridiculous as they kept the Czech name intact ...

Excuse me for now, I'll update my Linked-in profile ...

multi kulti

An interesting blend of chinese and czech culture as seen in a chinese restaurant:

 P.S.: I know KDE 4.6.2 is out but unfortunately the build machine is gone and so far I wasn't able to make a sane build environment on my laptop. Be patient please.