digikam

One more step closer to usable desktop - I've got Digikam 2.0.0 beta5 running on my laptop.
It works quite well actually, apart from the usual lag associated with anything Qt4 on Solaris. It hasn't crashed during the 1 hour I played with it, so I consider it stable :-).
The only thing I found crashing is showfoto - the crapfest called semantic desktop is showing its ugly face there again, with misbehaving strigi analyzer ruining the show. It's good to know we're not relying on some unmaintained pile of rubbish there.

 

Hugin on Solaris

I've just built hugin and made some panorama's!
Finally, I'm a bit closer to the mutimedia richness of Linux (!) on my Solaris 11 desktop :-)

Panoramic backyard of a gym in Hrusice:

The simple build approach I took worked quite well, I just had to workaround the stupid cairo bug in S11 regarding libpng and add a few simple patches here and there.

If anyone's interested, a snapshot of the specs is at bionicmutton. I've yet to decide how to proceed with this project, whether to blend it with kde-solaris or with SFE.

"Security" by Pearson VUE

The whole concept of "Security questions", usually used to recover an online account in case of lost credentials is quite flawed by definition, but what Pearson VUE, the company managing tests and certification (mostly) in IT is doing is beyond my comprehension.

Have a look at the below screenshot.

Pearson VUE is serious about account safety. That’s why we’re requiring all web users to create security questions. Select two questions below, one from each drop-down menu. Then type your answers in the provided fields and click Next.
We’ve designed questions that would be hard to guess.

Doesn't sound THAT bad, does it? But check the preselected questions:

Who is your favorite actor, musician, or artist?
What was your favorite place to visit as a child?
What is your favorite song?
What is the title of your favorite book?
What was your most memorable gift as a child?
What was the name of your first toy animal?
Who is your favorite athlete?

What is the first and last name of the best man at your wedding?
What is the name of the first company for which you worked?
What is your dream occupation?
What is your oldest sibling's (brother or sister) nickname?
What is your favorite food?
In what city did you first meet your spouse or significant other?
What is your spouse or significant other's nickname?

Sounds like exactly the type of questions that have answers on one's Facebook or blog page, doesn't it?

And their Security tips do not make it any better - they limit the length of the answer and make it caps insensitive. And asking me not to tell my spouse's nick name to anyone ??? 

    * Answers may contain no more than 50 characters.
    * Answers are NOT case sensitive (caps or no caps are allowed).
    * Make sure the answer is not related to your username or password in any way.
    * Do not tell anyone this information.
    * Do not send this information by email.
    * Change this information periodically in Change Sign In under My Account.

Combine this with the way they manage their site's SSL certificates ... :

building hugin: error: expected class-name before '{' token

I've got the below error when trying to build hugin. As it turned out my wxWidgets were compiled without Drag&Drop support, even when I supplier --enable-dnd to the configure script.
It's because --with-x11 does not support it.

To find out if dnd is really enabled use

$ grep wxUSE_DRAG_AND_DROP /pat/to/build/dir/lib/wx/include/*/wx/setup.h

#define wxUSE_DRAG_AND_DROP 1

[ 64%] Building CXX object src/hugin1/icpfind/CMakeFiles/icpfindlib.dir/AutoCtrlPointCreator.cpp.o
cd /home/test/packages/BUILD/hugin-2010.4.0/build/src/hugin1/icpfind && /usr/gcc/4.5/bin/g++   -Dicpfindlib_EXPORTS -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64 -D_LARGE_FILES -D__WXUNIVERSAL__ -D__WXX11__ -D_REENTRANT -pthreads -O2 -g -fPIC -I/home/test/packages/BUILD/hugin-2010.4.0/build/src -I/home/test/packages/BUILD/hugin-2010.4.0/src/hugin_base -I/home/test/packages/BUILD/hugin-2010.4.0/src/foreign -I/home/test/packages/BUILD/hugin-2010.4.0/src/foreign/vigra -I/home/test/packages/BUILD/hugin-2010.4.0/src/celeste -I/home/test/packages/BUILD/hugin-2010.4.0/build/src/celeste -I/home/test/packages/BUILD/hugin-2010.4.0/src -I/opt/kde4/include/OpenEXR -I/opt/kde4/include -isystem /opt/kde4/lib/wx/include/x11univ-unicode-release-2.8 -isystem /opt/kde4/include/wx-2.8 -I/home/test/packages/BUILD/hugin-2010.4.0/src/hugin1   -o CMakeFiles/icpfindlib.dir/AutoCtrlPointCreator.cpp.o -c /home/test/packages/BUILD/hugin-2010.4.0/src/hugin1/icpfind/AutoCtrlPointCreator.cpp
In file included from /home/test/packages/BUILD/hugin-2010.4.0/src/hugin1/hugin/huginApp.h:30:0,
                 from /home/test/packages/BUILD/hugin-2010.4.0/src/hugin1/icpfind/AutoCtrlPointCreator.cpp:38:
/home/test/packages/BUILD/hugin-2010.4.0/src/hugin1/hugin/MainFrame.h:64:1: error: expected class-name before '{' token

Autorun.inf is useless in Windows XP, Vista, and 7

This is a note to USB Developers: It appears that the autorun.inf file is useless in computers running Win XP SP3 or higher. Recent Microsoft updates have kept the autoplay feature, but disabled the autorun feature in XP SP3 and Vista. It is also set this way by default in Windows 7.

If the user is motivated to do so, there are work-arounds. However, promotional USB developers must keep this in mind as a statistically large portion of users will no longer be able to use their USB drives as effectively.

I am putting this here so that it may save you time trying to find a solution when this happens to you.

I will also update this blog if I find a valid solution other than ensuring the root directory of your USB only contains a file that say CLICKME.

Hope this helps.

If you aren’t reading this at Priceless Geek, you should be.

 

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ICVerify and Windows 7

I had intended to put this topic on my previous ICVerify post, but I felt it needed its own entry.

Getting ICVerify (I was using v4) to work on Windows 7 is pretty simple.

When I first installed it, the program would fatal error when the program called the receipt printer.

However, the solution is NOT reinstalling.

• Just go into the folder where ICverify.exe resides and Right click on ICVerify.exe.
• Go to properties
• Go to the Compatibility tab
• Check “Run this program compatibility mode for:” Windows XP SP3
• Also, check “Run this program as administrator.”

From there everything should cooperate.

 

Another user is already logged on Error 

If ICVerify crashes and you cannot log back in because you get an error message stating that the user name you are loggin in as is already loged in, don’t panic. This is also an easy, quick fix.

• Open the ICVerify User Manager. Log in.
• Go to the Log On Tab
• Select the option that is not User manager from the drop down box.
• You should see your user ID showing as logged in.
• Select that line, then click the log out button.

You should now be able to log back in.

Hope that helps. Do you have any tips or tricks for this program you would like to share? Please comment if so.

If you aren’t reading this at Priceless Geek, you should be.

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ICVerify “Cannot Start Program” error & Set File

I had the pleasure of working with ICVerify 4 again the other day.  This time I had a machine on which I was getting an error that went Something like “Cannot start program to due to an error.”

If you have dealt with this program, then you know it is easier to uninstall and reinstall than to try and troubleshoot it. That is the path on which I journeyed. It failed to take me home.

After some frustrating time spent on it, I discovered the uninstall features did not remove the hook into the SQL database. Once I deleted the reference on the SQL Server, I was able to run the program without incident.

Also, if you did not know this, you can export the ICVERIFY.SET file from a working installation and copy it over to your new installation. You just have to open the ICVerify setup program and export it from there. It takes two seconds and can save you some time if you are manually setting up your configuration.

What are some of your experiences and/or tips with this program?

If you aren’t reading this at Priceless Geek you should be.

 

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