This release features AV Control Point, a simple media player UI that enables one to discover and play multimedia contents available on a network. Hopefully a useful tool to test and debug UPnP MediaServer and MediaRenderer implementations. [Zeeshan Ali]

Other changes in this release:

- Desktop file for each tool. [Ross Burton, Zeeshan Ali]
- New Icons. [Vinicius Depizzol]
- Various misc improvements and fixes. [Zeeshan Ali]

Download from http://gupnp.org/sources/gupnp-tools/gupnp-tools-0.3.tar.gz

Here is a screenshot of GUPnP AV CP in action:

The first release of GUPnP A/V is now available. GUPnP A/V is a small utility library that aims to ease the handling and implementation of UPnP A/V profiles.

GUPnP A/V is free software released under the GNU LGPL.

I am back in Helsinki. Regarding my mom, when we last spoke to the specialist she said the Cancer is at the level 3 (4 is last) and therefore my mother has to go through extensive/expensive chemotherapy sessions which will last for 6 months or so. Now me and my canadian sister has to arrange the money and Saima is supposed to take care of the rest. Other than that, it feels good to be back with my love.

While I was having fun with the extremely slow Internet connection here and other family issues, Jorn rolled-out another GUPnP release. Here is the release announcement:

GUPnP 0.8
=========

- New API allowing for subclassing of resource types.
  [Zeeshan Ali, Jorn Baayen]
- GUPnPDeviceInfo returns subresources with version greater or equal than
  requested version. [Jorn Baayen]
- Servers announce versions less or equal than implemented version.
  [Jorn Baayen]
- Make gupnp_context_get_server() public. [Jorn Baayen]
- GError arguments added to all error signals. [Jorn Baayen]
- Improved resubscription handling. [Jorn Baayen]
- Various other fixes and internal improvements
  [Ross Burton, Zeeshan Ali, Jorn Baayen].

One big reason to roll out a release at this point was to make way for a gupnp-av and gupnp-tools release, which will follow shortly so stay tuned. :)

I have been in Karachi for the last one week. My mom is much better now and seems to be recovering fast. The doctor says she still needs a few chemotherapy sessions are there are still some microscopic tumours left but she said this is nothing much to worry about.

We just got her an apt on rent in more secure and less polluted area which obviously costs a lot more money but I've agreed with my Canadian sister to only pay the rent and she'll pay the rest of the expenditure. The biggest reason for this was to move her so close to Saima that Saima could take care of her while her children are at school.

The most recent event is that yesterday, someone robbed my biggest sister (who also lives in Canada but is currently visiting pk) of her bag at gunpoint while she was travelling in a rickshaw. The bag contained amongst other things, all her documents and cards. Normally she doesn't carry important documents in that bag but since it was her last day, so she made an exception. Now most probably, she'll have to go through a long process to get a new passport and Visa. I wonder if the authorities can make an exception in this case and let her travel with some other temporary document but we'll only know till Tuesday because they are closed for easter tomorrow.

Last year when i visited Karachi, I talked about Linux+Gtk-based ATM machines being actually deployed and used in my blog. Plenty of people asked me for any pictures but I didn't have any at that time. No worries, here you go:




If you are interested, please contact Aero-car which still makes these.

If you have been looking for a better reason to go all the way to Brussels to attend FOSDEM, look no further; I'll be presenting GUPnP there. :)

Recently the c't magazine mentioned our dear GUPnP project and published some pictures of my UI (I am hoping to see it tomorrow *if* Stefan remembers to bring it to office). That resulted in at least one person getting interested in our project. AFAIK, everything worked out of the box on his Fedora Core 6 but he was unable to see anything in any of the client-side tools. After a few mails and some help from Christian, it turned out to be the default firewall settings on fedora.

Since my sister was staying at London for a few days on her way back from Pakistan to Canada, I arrived at London around the same time to meet her and her family after 4 years or so. I hung around with her family and some relatives of my brother-in-law for the first 3 days in London and Oxford. The last day, I spent at Cambridge.

Mostly it was nice and fun but there were some things that just didn't seem right. It was quite hard to adapt to the "separate water taps for hot and cold water" system of theirs and the fact that you hardly get any water out of the shower when you want warm rather than cold water. I wonder why they take 90€ for a visit visa. Also! I thought Ansku was over-exaggerating when she used to tell me that pubs in Britain close at 11pm but to my surprise We were kicked out of the pub in Cambridge before we could finish our first pint. Err.. Then people say why would someone want to move to Finland.

From the start of 2008, I've been promoted to the role of Lead Developer/Architect in a new team (same organisation, same company). Although I need to prove myself before this appointment is made permanent, I am hoping I'll make it through.