I have spent numerous hours with his books and writings and he have given me lots of inspiration in life and somehow spending so much time with his books made him feel like I knew him although I never had the privilege to meet him or contact him - on the other hand, what would I have said if I had his email, I don’t know. A bit same issue than the thing that I have Burt Rutan’s email but have never written to him because I don’t know what to say. I am sure he was already receiving enough fan-post.

Arthur C. Clarke was not just yet another science fiction writer, but the man who invented telecommunication satellites. I rate him highly over the other writers on this area, he was not just one of them but the best visionary of them all. I am proud to own a collection of his books.

It is unfortunate that he couldn’t live long enough that he would have experienced space, that he loved so much, e.g. on Burt Rutan’s space ship, before the life discontinued on staying on his body.

According to Google search, he was not a member of Alcor (I would have hoped and expected he was). Now he is gone and this is very sad thing. It is sad that human genome has this unfortunate code that makes the life so short - it has served human evolution, but now is a bug in our software. It is like a light on a candle. Little blow and it is gone or it just burns out.

Here is his 90 years birthday speech from youtube, it is highly recommended for everybody. Watching this may be a bit sad, because it is quite much a farewell as well, so be warned:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLXQ7rNgWwg

Here is the original msnbc’s article where the Slashdot article links to:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23697230/

2 0

Initial installation

1. Download nVidia driver for Quadro FX570M from nVidia web site:
http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us

Select

Quadro
Quadro FX Mobile Series
Quadro FX 570M
Linux 32 bit (if you are using 32 bit Linux)

Click search. A page for the latest driver appears now.
Click the download link.
You can burn the driver (named for example):
NVIDIA-Linux-x86-169.12-pkg1.run
to a corner of a CD for convenient install on Ubuntu where graphical user interface may not work.

2. Install Ubuntu. You may need to use Alternate install CD in case of Gutsy, with Hardy you can use
the normal desktop installer through the Live-CD. Install development environment:

sudo apt-get install libc6-dev gcc g++

3. Disable the preinstalled NV-driver:

To deal with that, first temporary cure was to disable restricted modules alltogether, and then the (proposed) final solution was
to edit the following file:

/etc/default/linux-restricted-modules-common

The following line had to be added:

DISABLED_MODULES=\"nv\"

I added also to /etc/modules a following line:

nvidia

Remove the NV-driver from system:

sudo dpkg --purge xserver-xorg-video-nv

4. Go to text terminal by pressing CTRL+ALT+F2 for example (to have the virtual terminal 2).

Log in with your username.
Then:

sudo su
/etc/init.d/gdm stop

put the CD on the drive, after it gets mounted (assuming it is in /media/cdrom).

cp /media/cdrom/NVIDIA-Linux-x86-169.12-pkg1.run ./
chmod a+x NVIDIA-Linux-x86-169.12-pkg1.run
./NVIDIA-Linux-x86-169.12-pkg1.run

Accept license.
Answer to the question if you want the installer to download the compatible kernel module from nVidia site “no”.
The installer now compiles a kernel module for you.

Let the installer modify your xorg.conf.

Everything done ->

/etc/init.d/gdm start

nVidia logo should appear and you are in X. You can log in to your Gnome or KDE desktop now.
Desktop effects work, Clutter works (along with the desktop effects, multiple GL context works in other words), X-plane flight sim works, ppracer works. Everything is as nice as it gets.

Everything keeps ok as long as you don’t update your kernel. When you do that e.g. with dist-upgrade, you need to stop gdm (/etc/init.d/gdm stop) from text mode, and then run the nVidia installer again. And it works.

To change mode, e.g. for projector etc. or second display, use the Applications-System tools-nVidia X server settings.
I use twin view so that the laptop screen is the left screen at 1680×1050 and the right screen is the 30 inch dell at 2560×1600.
All that work out of the box.

If you encounter bugs in the nvidia driver, please report them to nvidia, someone reads the reports there and acts on them.

After kernel update (which comes in system update on Ubuntu), reinstalling the driver

If you update your kernel, you need to run the nVidia installer again. To do so do the following:
Press CTRL + ALT + F1 for virtual terminal 1 in text mode. Log in and type:

sudo su
/etc/init.d/gdm stop

Then you can run the nVidia installer again with

./NVIDIA-Linux-x86-169.12-pkg1.run

Of course the nVidia driver changes from time to time, so it is advisable to check nVidia page if a new driver has appeared there. Just put executable flag on the installer and run it while gdm (and X) is stopped (from text mode) and it works.

I have written a dedicated page which contains this information:
http://www.karoliinasalminen.com/blog/?page_id=264. In the future, when this post gets below visibility, please look at this page instead, it has all the same information.

These instructions apply with minor modifications for installing Ubuntu Gutsy or Hardy in any nVidia equipped computer (desktop or laptop).

2 5

There was a comment in another my blog post that developers could develop “directly” from Windows with cross-platform high level interpreted languages which are run on virtual machines. What this “directly” means, could someone please clarify it to me. Because I work directly from Linux and MacOS X and developing from Windows would not be that “direct” for me. I would like to understand what “directly from some operating system N.N.” means. From which operating system are you working “directly” and from which “indirectly” and please tell me why you specifically need that operating system to do your stuff or have you thought about it, what is the reasoning behind for desiring using e.g. Windows.

I can start by myself - what we have at home:
- I have several computers, which run Linux, we have different distributions in use, most of them are Ubuntu. My latest is Ubuntu Hardy on a laptop, our living room PC has Ubuntu Feisty and file server is to my understanding also Feisty. Our web server is a bit outdated and is going to be replaced soon with a Ubuntu installation. Then we have a MacBook running OS X Leopard.

What I am using on which computer:
- The hardy laptop is primarily for maemo development (scratchbox etc.) + office stuff (openoffice.org). This one is running Ubuntu Hardy.
- The living room PC is for browsing, videos, music, flight simulation (running the Linux-version of X-Plane 9 simulator), photos, photo editing, office stuff, email, development etc. This one is running Ubuntu Feisty.
- The MacBook is primarily for editing high definition videos (from our HD camcorder) and making music and organizing photos for our iPod touch. It also serves as a way to buy music for the iPod touch, yes, I am using iTunes. The Mac also downloads latest cool podcasts I follow (like Armin van Buuren’s State of Trance and DJ Tiesto’c Clublife) and they get automatically synced to the iPod. I also have the NeoOffice installed, so I can edit OpenOffice.org documents with it. I have also the MacOS X development stuff installed on it (Xcode etc.) and I have been doing the aircraft design software with it. Obviously the Mac is running MacOS X Leopard.
- The file server serves two purposes, it is a home theater PC and also a file share (photos, music, videos etc.) for the other computers in the household. That is running Ubuntu Feisty.
- Then we have the web server. Not much to say about it. It a is ancient Redhat until it gets replaced (hopefully soon).
- And of course for additional gaming (other than X-plane which runs on Linux and Mac) and Blu-Ray and DVD playback in the home theater, we have the PS3.
- And of course we have a lots of multimedia computers - N800s, N810s, even couple of 770s around. I recently got my own personal N810 from work and I love it (I mean own, not a unit owned by the company like many of the other units). And unlike the iPod touch, I can sync it with any computer in the household. And of course, all of those machines are running Debian Linux.
- And of course, we have the CNC machine controller computer. That is a VIA epia and running Ubuntu in diskless setting (boots from flash card). That is only the controller, the actual CNC machine is pretty much lacking so far. That one is running Ubuntu Feisty and LinuxCNC on top of that.

That’s it pretty much. The other computers are disconnected because they are outdated and what not. No Windows.
How I would like it to be instead? I think I wouldn’t want to change anything. I am quite happy with my Linux-based setup and only thing I might like to have more would be a Mac Pro with many many many cores, for running Logic 8, Garage Band, and iMovie 08 (and of course Audacity for mastering). For developing to maemo, Linux is perfectly fine in my case, I like to use the Linux machine for development, as it is least problematic for that, e.g. I have no trouble of finding good text editor for programming etc. (I prefer the KDE’s Kate editor over e.g. the editor in Xcode IDE on Mac (no I don’t use vi, vim, etc. and I avoid also emacs (CTRL-X+CTRL-C stuff is not hardwired into my brain, I got into PC/Linux stuff from Amiga, and I never got used to Emacs commands on “text mode era” because I never lived the text mode era (except with a Specravideo MSX that I had before the Amiga)) if I can use an editor which fits into the graphical desktop I am running), I have got used to it, it has all the functions I need and it represents the code with syntax highlighting, has code folding etc. which is pretty handy when handling large code files) I can get everything I need from Ubuntu repository with no hassle and everything works out of the box pretty much and then my experience has been that the maemo SDK installs trouble free on the Ubuntu.

Please tell me your configuration (for development e.g. for maemo) and what is the reasoning behind and also maybe you could say that if you don’t like your current configuration, how would you like to prefer it to be instead (e.g. for maemo development). E.g. I love Beos because… or I want to use blahblah OS because of … but can’t because of … The comments area is again open for your comments. I am quite happy with the activity in the language question topic, so I would be grateful if you keep me posted again, it is very interesting to hear from you.

3 0

Currently there are alternatives other than the plain C for Maemo development, for example C++ works out of the box (you don’t need anything extra) and Python can be used with installing some extra packages. How do you feel about those, are those what you want or is there something else you would rather like? If you can give any comments why do you prefer some language, please let me know. Please take also in account that some languages may be less resource hungry than the others, and the Internet tablets are, because they are small pocketable devices, still resource limited embedded devices.

Instructions: Go to my blog, if you haven’t registered, register, and leave your comment. I would be interested to know your opinion.

As of speaking about Python, by the way, are you aware of PyPhantom?
http://pyphantom.garage.maemo.org/
Have you used it and/or do you find it useful? Have you developed applets / plugins for Hildon Desktop with or without it with Python language? Have you found it useful? Has that been cool or not so cool? If you have encountered problems, have you considered filing bugs to garage.maemo.org -page?

While you are thinking your answer, maybe you want to see a little set of interesting pictures: Click here to see. My eyes are propably still looking like these on this my little friend (this is The news of today, not my cat, but the pictures behind the link).

Anyhow, C, C++, Python, Java, C#, Vala, D, you name it, please keep me posted!

3 0

After quite inconveniently booting the machine several times up (needing to do the long task mentioned above), I decided to get help.
I got some help from Rodrigo Novo, and I decided to write a to document what was done. You can read it here: http://www.karoliinasalminen.com/blog/?page_id=258.
After some fighting with the stubborn Ubuntu, it agreed that ok, lets collaborate. HW accelerated X is runnign nicely now! Thanks Rodrigo!

I have set up development environment (gcc, g++, automake, gtk+, glib, …) and now it is the turn to install scratchbox and Chinook on it. I just did it on my old computer so, it’ll be quite painless I would expect.

1 3

And it is also Kate’s birthday .

0 6

First impressions: somewhat works. On first attempt it ended up corrupting the settings file so that the desktop was empty on the next boot. I fixed it by removing .kde4 from home directory and starting the KDE4 desktop again.

Now the reverse-wow-effect. On Mac, the first impression is that wow, how easy this is to use. With KDE4, there are also desktop effects etc. on the desktop (which are by the way slower on GeForce 8800GTX high end graphics card with 768 MB video memory than similar things on Leopard with integrated Intel GMA950 low spec accelerator which uses system memory as video RAM), but first impression was that oh, how I can do something (if I can) and oh, what did it do now, did it crash? KDE4 certainly feels more like Windows Vista (I have tried it once in a computer store, and first impression was that I was disappointed and unimpressed) than Leopard (which impresses me still after using it now for a month or so). Paradigms are more redmondian than Appleish. The amount of originality is also pretty low, I did not see anything special new. Not so nice.

The hard-to use thing kind of culminated to the fact, that I did not figure out how to add application shortcut icons to the panel and I also did not figure out how to add programs to the favorites in the start menu (which is tiny box on the left bottom corner of my 30 inch monitor at resolution 2560×1600 - I even needed to scroll the menu in order to find something on a monitor size of 30 inches, perfectly understandable on a mobile device because of small screen and ease of use because of touch screen, but on a 30 inch desktop - what a waste).

With lack of workarounds for the usability problems, it did not take long before the Gnome desktop was booted back. Even though it is not as shiny as the Leopard on my Mac, it at least works for me and does basic stuff I need frequently.

KDE4 was not complete disappointment, it does basic things, it is free software and it is not extremely bad either, but because there are alternatives that suit me better, I am going to be using them.

1 5

1, 0.6, 1, 0.7

You can obtain the mycolor-tag from the xml file with libxml2 with ease (and there is tons of documentation and examples how to use libxml2, for example my and Kate’s EFIS -project uses it to parse configuration files, if you want know how to do that, please go to the Katix EFIS project page on garage.maemo.org and have a look), but now I’ll tell you one way how to get the numbers. Here is one way to do it:

Little example:

char *csv="1, 0.6, 1, 0.7";
double mycolor[4];
...
parse_csvf(csv, 4, mycolor);
...


And then the parsing can then be done as follows:

void parse_csvf(char *csv, int len, double *list){
  int place=0;
  int slen = strlen(csv);
  int i;
  int itemcounter=0;
  char item[255]={0};
  int overflow=0;
  double fitem=0;
	
  for( i=0;i<slen ;i++ ){
    if ( csv[i]>='0' && csv[i]<='9' || csv[i]=='.' ){
      item[itemcounter++]=csv[i];
    } else if ( csv[i]==',' ){
      fitem=0;
      item[itemcounter++]=0;
      fitem = atof( item );
      list[place++]=fitem;
      if( place>=len ) {
        overflow=1;
        break;
      }
      item[0]=0;
      itemcounter=0;
    }
  }
  if(overflow==0){
    item[itemcounter++]=0;
    fitem = atof(item);
    list[place++]=fitem;
  }
}

You could maybe use some helper function from some higher level library, but here is one way how to do it. And you might also end up with a lot cleaner-looking solution if you used C++. However, this is C and many Maemo-programs are written in C. My older C-versions used more than one for-loop, this does the parsing in single pass and might be faster.

3 4

Our kitchen repair has finally reached the point that it is again usable. The new floor (with ceramic tiles and heating pipes) is installed, refrigerator is installed and cats are happy to get food on their table. Next thing to do is some finishing touches to the walls, some Wisa Deco panels needs to get installed. Replacing the refrigerator was unbelievably hard work.

I paid back some sleep deprivation on Saturday-Sunday night -about 11.5 hours of sleep. And after that I still felt sleepy.

0 7

We were celebrating something (a personal thing that don’t interest you) yesterday with Kate and I had been thought that I would like to have a Blu-Ray player in our home theater to upgrade it to the Full-HD -era from the media source side, so I went and purchased the Playstation 3.

Setting up the device was fairly simple and in few moments it was connected to the video projector through a remote-controlled HDMI-switch and to the home theater amplifier (the older black beast Yamaha DSP-A1 because currently some power amp stages are broken on the DSP-AX1) with optical cable. No problems and the display resolution auto-configured itself on the PS3. Now I plan to go to buy some more Blu-Ray movies today and a second controller for games.

This is the 40GB model of the PS3, but I have a spare 80GB hard drive from my Macbook, that I plan to put to the PS3 (and thus it will become a 80GB model). With 80GB on board, I should be able to put Ubuntu Linux on it as well, would be interesting to see how it runs on the PS3 and if it can take any advantage of the multi-core processor.

I tried yesterday also a DVD in the PS3, and it was interesting to see how much better it looked like with the up-scaler of the PS3 than on the ordinary DVD-player or when played in xine in Linux-based HTPC. Somehow the video scaler was able to invent some missing pixels to the low resolution DVD source (the projector is high definition, so I consider nowadays DVD being a low resolution source which looks dull and unimpressive usually) so that it was almost made to look like a high definition video, some more life for the old DVD-videos too then.

Now I am thinking hard which games should I buy. Call of duty 4 would look quite pretty, but on the other hand, I am not a big fan of shooting/violence/war games. But I might get it just for the graphics. Uncharted: Drake’s fortune looks promising. According to the videos from gamespot.com it looks like a game I might like, but unfortunately it is not yet available and I need to wait for some time.

Our now upgraded kitchen is by the way still without furniture, it has a new floor now, but some finishing touches is missing before the furniture plus new refrigerator can be reinstalled/installed. But that is a good excuse to go out for some Chinese or Thai food!

4 3

Linux version is coming soon. Once it comes, I’ll order the DVDs (our simulator PC is running Ubuntu Gutsy). X-plane now comes in 8 dual layer DVDs full of scenery. Also the detail (3D cockpit on Cirrus-Jet) is something I haven’t seen on any other simulator to the date. The 3D cockpit is in this version usable and not just a fancy looking feature which really does not work, in this version it works and gives a feeling of sitting in a real aircraft.

Surprising thing is that the sim is usable on Macbook with the relatively low spec Intel GMA950 3D accelerator. Of course turning roads, high detail world, volumetric fog, reflections on water and trees on makes it slow, but by tuning down some parameters, it is flyable without a high spec machine (we have Geforce 8800GTX on the Linux machine and 30 inch display, I can hardly wait to see how it will look like on that) allthough in X-plane the processor speed plays a huge role - the Core 2 duo processor in the Macbook is potentially faster than on our living room desktop PC.

The Cirrus-Jet cockpit:

Learn more at: http://www.x-plane.com/beta.html

1 7

I would like to kindly ask you to tell me what you would like to hear from my blog on planet.maemo and what you do not want to see (what is interesting and what is absolutely not interesting). I have several different categories on my blog and currently the root category (everything) goes into planet.maemo because some have preferred it that way saying that a blog is a blog and if it is just a Nokia announcement service, it no longer is a personal blog (blog is supposed to be a online diary which has topic about everything rather than being a collection of magazine-publishable articles).

However, it seems like many planet.maemo readers are voting thumbs down on blog postings that are not directly related to maemo and current Internet tablet devices, and I am back at reconsidering that should the planet feed include only the postings marked with the maemo-tag? Please tell me what do you want, you can email me at (or if you are registered to Karoliina’s blog, you can leave comments on there too): karoliina dot t dot salminen at nokia dot com. For me, it is trivial to change the planet.maemo feed include only postings with maemo-tag, I can just inform a collegue to change some settings and that’s it.

So please tell me, do you want my blog at planet.maemo strictly on topic about maemo or do you want it to stay as it is (about my life (me, my hobbies (e.g. flying, composing music) etc.) + maemo) or something in between? You can also describe if you want or do not want:

1) Generic Linux-related postings which are not directly related to N810 and Maemo
2) Deeply technical postings, howtos, e.g. how to implement something e.g. in Gtk+ (I have noticed that technical postings with some source code tend to get thumbs down)?
3) Postings about related technologies which are not directly applicable on your N800/N810 device, e.g. about some Gnome related thing which is not currently included and may not get included on the device (potential enablers in distant future maybe in a completely different context, something that would not be practical in Chinook) or do you want me to stay only in those topics which are applicable on current Internet tablet devices and current development platform (Chinook)?
4) Postings about Gnome desktop (no direct connection to maemo other than maemo uses some Gnome libraries, but there are some other libraries that Gnome uses but maemo does not and it might not be going to). This topic interests me but I can keep it out from planet.maemo if you want.

Everything is up to you, since, for me, it is indifferent if everything is included or not on planet.maemo and it is up to the readers what they find interesting, I do not want to push topics that are not interesting, those who want to see those, can always look at my blog directly at http://www.karoliinasalminen.com/blog - my blog itself is going to have all the postings it has used to have and that is not going to change, but if you prefer postings that appear on planet.maemo from my blog to be strictly on maemo topic, then please let me know. Also if you think something is really interesting and hot and it is being ignored and is missing, please let me know that too. Your feedback is greatly appreciated. Thanks for your help in advance.

3 1

Fixfoil is used to fix airfoil coordinate files which are broken in Javafoil. Some dat-files have the first set of coordinates in reverse order. The program reorders the coordinates.

The program is available in source and binary format along with instructions. Binary files are provided for Linux (Ubuntu) and MacOSX Leopard 10.5.1.
Download your fixfoil from here:
http://www.karoliinasalminen.com/fixfoil/

0 4

Karoliina’s free ring tones for Nokia N800/N810

These new variants are shortened version of the original one. I have boosted the melody somewhat up and made the dreamy pad background a bit quieter. I prefer myself the original version, but in noisy environment etc. the melody is hard to hear in that version and also it is hard to distinguish if some distant radio channel is playing or is someone calling you with Googletalk. The new versions get straight to the business and may be more suitable for ring tone use that way.

To install new ring tones to the device, all you need to do is to download the .wav -file, save it on your memory card. Then go to status bar and select sound -applet. Select settings from the menu. Then activate the ring tones -tab and tap browse. Select the file from the memory card you just downloaded there. Adjust a proper volume (I would like to recommend selecting quite high volume setting because otherwise you don’t hear it if the device rings in your pocket or hand bag). Select close and you are done.

I have licensed my music with Creative Commons -license, so feel free to tweak the tracks by yourself if you like.

4 0

If you liked Oxygene 7-13, you’ll probably like this.

Instructions: Save the wav-file to your memory card, place it on the device, select sound settings applet from Status bar, select Ring tones tab, select browse, locate the file karoliinan810b.wav from your memory card and click select. This can be a bit slow as the N800/N810 wants to play the sound immediately and this is a bit longer sound than the stock ones. Because this is complex track where lots of things are happening, you may need to increase the volume over the stock ring tones to make this useful. The wave file is highly compressed and equalized to make it as loud as possible with the little loudspeakers on the device without sacrificing the original sound too much.

Equipment used: All sounds: Access Virus b
Sound recording and mastering: Mac

3 0

Here is my N810 running facebook and showing my profile:

0 1

Makefile:

LIBS=`pkg-config --libs clutter-0.5`
INCS=`pkg-config --cflags clutter-0.5`
	
.cpp.o:
	g++ -g -Wall $(CFLAGS) $(INCS) -c $*.cpp
	
all: hello2
	
hello2: clutterhello.o hello2.o
	g++ -g -Wall $(CFLAGS) -o $@ clutterhello.o hello2.o $(LIBS)
	
clean:
	rm -fr *.o hello2

clutterhello.h:

// clutterhello.h
	
#ifndef __CLUTTER_HELLO__H__
#define __CLUTTER_HELLO__H__
	
#define STAGE_WIDTH  1280
#define STAGE_HEIGHT 720
	
class ClutterHello {
public:
    ClutterHello();
    ~ClutterHello();
	
    void run();
    void frame_callback(ClutterTimeline *timeline, gint frame_num, gpointer data);
private:
	
    void build_ui();
    ClutterActor    *stage;
    ClutterColor     stage_color;
    ClutterColor     label_color;
	
    ClutterActor    *label1;
    ClutterActor    *label2;
	
    ClutterTimeline *timeline;
};
	
#endif

clutterhello.cpp:

// clutterhello.cpp
	
#include <clutter/clutter.h>
#include \"clutterhello.h\"
	
extern void frame_cb
(ClutterTimeline *timeline, gint frame_num, gpointer data);
	
ClutterHello::ClutterHello()
{
	
    ClutterColor stage_col = { 0xff, 0xff, 0xff, 0xff };
    ClutterColor label_col = { 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0xff };
	
    stage_color = stage_col;
    label_color = label_col;
	
    stage = clutter_stage_get_default ();
    clutter_actor_set_size (stage, STAGE_WIDTH, STAGE_HEIGHT);
    clutter_stage_set_color (CLUTTER_STAGE (stage), &stage_color);
	
}
	
ClutterHello::~ClutterHello
()
{
	
}
	
void
ClutterHello::frame_callback (ClutterTimeline *timeline,
                              gint frame_num, gpointer data){
    clutter_actor_rotate_z (CLUTTER_ACTOR(this->label1), frame_num, 228/2, 19 );
}
	
void
ClutterHello::build_ui()
{
    /* Create Hello World -label */
    label1 = clutter_label_new_with_text
        (\"Sans 38px\", \"Hello World!\");
    label2 = clutter_label_new_with_text
        (\"Sans 10px\", \"Extended Hello Wold, which makes rotate_z to the label\");
    clutter_label_set_color (CLUTTER_LABEL (label1), &label_color);
    clutter_actor_set_position (label1, 455, 300);
	
    clutter_label_set_color (CLUTTER_LABEL (label2), &label_color);
    clutter_actor_set_position (label2, 455, 400);
	
    clutter_label_set_line_wrap (CLUTTER_LABEL (label1), FALSE);
    clutter_label_set_line_wrap (CLUTTER_LABEL (label2), FALSE);
	
    /* Add the label created to stage container */
    clutter_container_add_actor (CLUTTER_CONTAINER (stage), label1);
    clutter_container_add_actor (CLUTTER_CONTAINER (stage), label2);
    /* Show all actors, just like Gtk+! */
    clutter_actor_show_all (stage);
	
    timeline = clutter_timeline_new (360, 60);
    g_object_set (timeline, \"loop\", TRUE, NULL);
	
    g_signal_connect (timeline, \"new-frame\", G_CALLBACK (frame_cb), NULL);
    g_signal_connect (stage, \"key-press-event\",
                G_CALLBACK (clutter_main_quit), NULL);
	
}
	
void
ClutterHello::run()
{
    build_ui();
    clutter_timeline_start (timeline);
    clutter_main();
}

hello2.cpp:

	
// hello2.cpp
// Simple hello world with Clutter
	
#include <clutter/clutter.h>
	
using namespace std;
	
#include \"clutterhello.h\"
	
ClutterHello *helloApp;
	
void
frame_cb (ClutterTimeline *timeline, gint frame_num, gpointer data)
{
    /* Frame number is also the angle */
    if(helloApp){
        helloApp->frame_callback(timeline, frame_num, data);
    }
}
	
int
main (int argc, char *argv[])
{
    /* Init & create stage where to put actors */
    clutter_init (&argc, &argv);
    helloApp = new ClutterHello();
    helloApp->run();
    if(helloApp){
        delete helloApp;
        helloApp=NULL;
    }
	
    return 0;
}
	

1 2

hello.cpp:

	
// Simple hello world with Clutter
	
#include 
	
#define STAGE_WIDTH  1280
#define STAGE_HEIGHT 720
	
using namespace std;
	
int
main (int argc, char *argv[])
{
    ClutterActor    *stage;
    ClutterColor     stage_color = { 0xff, 0xff, 0xff, 0xff };
    ClutterColor     label_color = { 0×00, 0×00, 0×00, 0xff };
	
    ClutterActor    *label1, *label2;
    //gdouble scale = 1.0;
	
    /* Init & create stage where to put actors */
    clutter_init (&argc, &argv);
	
    stage = clutter_stage_get_default ();
    clutter_actor_set_size (stage, STAGE_WIDTH, STAGE_HEIGHT);
    clutter_stage_set_color (CLUTTER_STAGE (stage), &stage_color);
	
    /* Create Hello World -label */
	
    label1 = clutter_label_new_with_text (”Sans 38px”,
     “Hello World!”);
    label2 = clutter_label_new_with_text (”Sans 10px”,
     “This is a very simple example program created with Clutter”);
    clutter_label_set_color (CLUTTER_LABEL (label1), &label_color);
    clutter_actor_set_position (label1, 255, 100);
	
    clutter_label_set_color (CLUTTER_LABEL (label2), &label_color);
    clutter_actor_set_position (label2, 255, 200);
	
    //clutter_actor_set_scale (label1, scale, scale);
    clutter_label_set_line_wrap (CLUTTER_LABEL (label1), FALSE);
	
    //clutter_actor_set_scale (label2, scale, scale);
    clutter_label_set_line_wrap (CLUTTER_LABEL (label2), FALSE);
	
    /* Add the label created to stage container */
    clutter_container_add_actor (CLUTTER_CONTAINER (stage), label1);
	
    clutter_container_add_actor (CLUTTER_CONTAINER (stage), label2);
	
    /* Show all actors, just like Gtk+! */
    clutter_actor_show_all (stage);
	
    g_signal_connect (stage, “key-press-event”,
		        G_CALLBACK (clutter_main_quit), NULL);
	
    clutter_main();
	
  return 0;
}
	

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Hildon Desktop was updated in the latest OS release with a major rewrite. It means for developers API change for Home, Task Navigator and status bar applets but also shows up pretty obviously. Now the desktop supports real transparency/translucency (X composite is enabled now), applets are movable on Home, everything looks nicer than before. This version has the coolest looking desktop ever made for Internet tablets. The old N800 version looks quite boring as comparison. The default theme is now also pretty much different than it used to be - it was previously full of things, now it is simplified.

The feel of N810 indeed is a lot more robust than the feel of N800 or 770, it now compares to e.g. to the latest communicator model, this certainly does not feel like a plastic toy. Yet despite of the added robustness, the device is a bit thinner than N800. The styling of the case to me looks a lot better than the earlier models (IMHO).

I can not take pictures by myself currently because I borrowed my device recently to Mohammad and currently I have unfortunately no N810 protos in use, so please look at the posts of other authors on the planet.maemo.org to see pictures.

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