i summon one kim

I hadn’t kept an eye on new developments in my favorite PostScript converter, mp for a while. Last I remember, I tracked down its home when I added it to pkgsrc as print/mp. It does a great job at printing mail, news and other documents. It also comes with templates to use with various day-runner formats.

A couple of days ago Hubert relayed a message from Rich Burridge, the author of mpdist, that the version in pkgsrc is really old. He had included the URL to its new home, so I spent some time bringing us up to the latest and greatest.

One upgrade down, a gazillion to go…

Naturally as I am done with an upgrade, a security issue is announced regarding Apache::Gallery‘s use of the Inline module. A new version of Apache::Gallery was released, with new beta state modules as dependencies: Image::Imlib2 directly and Module::Build indirectly. (What’s wrong with good old Make::Maker, I ask!)

After figuring out Module::Build and then staring at strange shared library resolution problems with Image::Imlib2, I simply put in an ugly kludge. I just have a feeling that this will come back to bite me one day.

The new Apache::Gallery comes with two sets of templates: default and new. I’m yet to try them out — I just made the minimal adjustment for now to keep the existing albums working. The folder.png image was renamed to agfolder.png, and it is used in dir.tpl.

I’ve been running a new version of Apache::Gallery for a while (a couple of months, actually) on my on-line photos. It has all been working well, and is easier to maintain than the old one, so I committed the changes to the NetBSD pkgsrc repository.

The complete list of packages is:

• p5-Apache-Gallery
• p5-libapreq
• p5-Inline

While at it, I also committed a fix for tilde expansion in rdist6, and a fix I finally managed to find for Samba DFS support for Windows XP clients.

For the past few weekends I’ve been typing into my new library database, and now the video part is up-to-date. It lists all my DVD’s and LD’s.

While a majority of the typing was to input the data, some of the time I was re-learning SQL and to some extent PHP. The interface is written in PHP and the backend database is running MySQL.

I don’t think I’ll ever get around to adding the VHS tapes that I have in PAL format. I have nothing to play them with, and they are likely to be in a bad shape from the many years of storing without even rewinding. Not a suitable archive format…

I’ve entered the next stage of serious Hi-Fi by purchasing my first outboard Digital Analog Converter (DAC): the Entech 203.2 Number Cruncher. It is indeed a great enhancement to the AudioTron I added six months ago.

Encouraged by the promises on the AudioTron mailing list of greater sound from using the optical digital output of the AudioTron, I started to look for an affordable DAC. My receiver has no digital inputs, and I didn’t want to upgrade it now, as it would undoubtedly lead into wanting a 5.1 (or 6.1) system and new speakers and … (more…)

I’ve been experimenting with Apache::Gallery to start an easy to manage photo album on my pages. The results are now in. Thanks to the template approach it was possible to have the album share the look and feel of my site.

In the process of creating the templates I have also converted my standard layout to a PHP library. I still need to polish it quite a bit, though, but at least now it is easy to change the general look in just a couple of spots for all pages.

The next task would be to rewrite the web log from scratch with a well planned URL scheme in mind. Passing CGI variables as parameters makes it difficult to share bookmarks to articles, and the current workaround is very delicate in its configuration. The support for topic and keyword search is also lacking.

Being under the weather, I’ve been catching sleep, drinking hot tea and listening to Internet radio. I actually just learned about WOLF FM on the AudioTron mailing list today. They play a refreshingly well varied mix of the last three decades.

Highlights from this afternoon include Owner of a Lonely Heart by Yes, Goodbye Stranger by Supertramp, Don’t Stop Believin’ by Journey and Money for Nothing by Dire Straits. Then throw in artists such as Glass Tiger, Laura Branigan and Rod Stewart. That’s true variety.