Jeffrey A. Miller: Scratch Pad

PHPGallue 0.3 (Default branch)

Wed, 16 Aug 2006 22:18:01 GMT

PHPGallue 0.3 (Default branch). PHPGallue is a multi-user, server-oriented image management system with a Web frontend. PHPGallue is suited for photographers to organize and publish their work. It allows the user to mark images, groups, categories, films, and series as private or as only visible to registered users. It is designed especially for large numbers of images. The Web frontend and backend libraries are completely separated, so it is easy to integrate PHPGallue as a management system into existing Web applications.

License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

Changes:
This release fixes some non-critical bugs and improves the Web interface handling; in the details view, for example, navigation arrows hover inside the images. The setup script was improved by a lot of tracing code that already helped to fix problems with PHP 5 FastCGI binaries. With this release, FastCGI, CGI, and CLI binaries work equivalently. This release also incorporates an .rpm and a .deb package for the first time. Updating existing installations is recommended.

[freshmeat.net announcements (Global)]

Freshmeat: parlement 0.7 (Default branch)

Wed, 16 Aug 2006 22:00:04 GMT

parlement 0.7 (Default branch). parlement is a threaded forum and a mailing list, and also a voting system where every one can propose, vote, or delegate their vote (a delegation being for one post/mail/poll and its sub-threads). This results in a mix of Direct and Participative Democracy, a Web board where any sort of structured content can be democratically written: laws, constitutions, newspapers, petitions, even blogs. Trust can be built through: PGP signatures so that data can not be tampered with, P2P servers where the posts/email messages/polls are replicated, and electoral lists to compute the results.

License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

Changes:
Avatars.

[freshmeat.net announcements (Global)]

Mon, 12 Dec 2005 22:28:14 GMT

Christian blogosphere reviews of 'The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe'.

With no close second "The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe" conjured up a winning weekend at the box office, garnering an estimated $67,064,000 in box office sales.

Josh Claybourn of In the Agora writes:

"Like rabid disciples of Star Trek, Star Wars, or Harry Potter, C.S. Lewis fans - particularly Christians - are fawning over the recent film adaption of the Chronicles of Narnia. Matthew Anderson and Marvin Olasky provide a couple such examples. It is no secret that Lewis weaved Christian allegory into the tale and one has to wonder if this fuels some of the movie's gushing reviews. Nevertheless, the film adaptation of the Chronicles of Narnia was underwhelming."

I disagree - I think Josh is voicing complaints similar to those heard about the poetic licese taken with the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Of course the book is always better, but unless you want a 2.25 hour movie to become a 5.50 hour epic, you need to make some adjustments, cosolidations and compromises.

And I think for the most part, other Christian bloggers agree. As promised, I've compiled a list of reactions, reviews and comments by the Christian blogosphere on this Andrew Adamson film adaptation of this C.S.Lewis classic. The following is an aggregate of opinions from the last 2.5 days in reverse chronologic order:

TallSkinnyKiwi: On Narnia - " I was in London the same night as the Narnia release event but sadly I could not go. I almost saw the movie in Switzerland but thought my kids would kill me if i saw it before them. We..."
Indy Christian .com -- Daily Internet Starting-line: Go to Narnia . . . Go to Jail ! (?)
jason clark: I Was Converted by the Chronicles of Narnia - "I know everyone is blogging about the chronicles of Narnia movie, and you may have switched off already, but watching the film today I realized again the impact of the books in my life, for many reasons ... "
Fantasy Fiction for Christians: Narnia KOs Harry Potter - " It took one fantasy flick to knock another out of the top spot. 'The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe' raked in $67.1 million in its debut weekend. 'Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire' grossed over $100 million during its weekend release and remained #1 until this weekend. The film ... "
Cyberbrethren: Rober Ebert's Take on Narnia - "I may not always agree with Roger Ebert's film reviews, but over the years I've found him to be consistent and relatively fair. Check out what he says about Narnia. Note Ebert's matter-of-fact assertion that Aslan dies for Edmund's sin,..."
Cyberbrethren: For Narnia! For Aslan! - "I urge everyone to go see The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the The Wardrobe. I just returned from seeing it with my family and I'm absolutely stunned and amazed at the depth of Christian content in..."
Dave Faulkner - life, spirituality, everything: Discovering The Man Behind Narnia - "An article hereby an acquaintance of mine about C S Lewis.Powered By Qumana..."
ireneQ unravelled: I liked Aslan's deep voice - "I saw The Chronicles of Narnia last night. Am glad I went to see it -- I wasn't sure if I would, coz the trailer irritated me intensely every time I had the misfortune to catch sight of it. I mean, in the books, the wardrobe was an ordinary wardrobe!..."
++ relapsed catholic ++ religion politics culture blog: She was inspiration for Narnia... - "'I was sure that children would not want to be told that this old lady was Lucy': 'In 1944, she was June Flewett, a London convent girl who had been evacuated to Lewis's house in Oxford to escape the Blitz. She was also the inspiration for Lucy Pevensie, the girl who walks through the wardrobe full of fur coats and into the snowflakes of Narnia...'"
Mark Byron: Morning Musings - "It looks like Aslan really roared at the box office, lapping the next-nearest film (Clooney's realpolitic-gone-bad Syriana) 8-fold. Bareback Mountain brought in less than 1% of the Narnia gate, but is getting about 50% of the publicity. Critics get pats..."
connexions: The Chronicles of Narnia - "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe: Josh Claybourn is underwhelmed. Many other Christian bloggers disagree. I've promised my kids and my mother that we'll go to see it together after Christmas -- I'll be sure to let you know what I think. "
speculative catholic: Narnia rewritten for 2005 - " The White Witch is now a columnist for The Guardian, writing under the name of Polly Toynbee. "
ChristWeb: My Journey to Narnia - " I ventured to see The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe today, only one day after its opening. Generally I avoid going so quickly, since the crowds are large and annoying. But in this case, I believe it served a purpose. But more on that later. Let me being by saying that I ... "
The Upward Way Press: To Narnia and Back - " Today we saw The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. A very enjoyable experience. I wasn't blown away, but I really didn't expect to be. If you are looking for the quality of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, you will be disappointed. But if you love the Chronicles of Narnia, you will love the ... "
Kicking Over My Traces: Narnia - " Just back from seeing The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe - more detailed review later. Immediate response: good, solid job. But I still don't know why John Mark Reynolds and his Torrey Honors Institute kids would applaud Aslan's line about 'Where is the fourth?' Something to do with Plato's Timaeus. Much ... "
The Flag of the World: Wonder and truth in Narnia - "As it turned out, I did go see the midnight showing of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Unfortunately, that wiped me out for the entirety of Friday, delaying my review until now. The short version: the movie is simply wonderful, and you should go see it as soon as you are ... "
speculative catholic: Something is rotten in the state of Narnia - " Rich Leonardi: why must every male Hollywood hero be a foot-dragging cheap imitation of Hamlet? "
The Blind Beggar: The Chronicles of Narnia - " I haven't gotten to see the Chronicles yet, but my oldest son and his college friends have. The feedback is neutral to exuberant. And now that the movie is out, the pundits are also out in force ..."
Postscript Posthaste: Review: Narnia: Enjoyable Adventure, But Not My Own
Commonplace: :: The Narnia Experience ::
Just passing by: Chronicles of Narnia ... here I come !!!!!
Seek Truth: Movie Review: Narnia - The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - "Movies Well, I didn't get mine done in time to make the blogs4God list of Narnia reviews, but here is mine anyway.Many people in the Christian blogosphere are paying attention to this movie because of its many obvious ties to Christianity. My desire ... "
Seek Truth: Movie Review: Narnia - The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - "Movies Well, I didn't get mine done in time to make the blogs4God list of Narnia reviews, but here is mine anyway.Many people in the Christian blogosphere are paying attention to this movie because of its many obvious ties to Christianity. My desire to see this movie had nothing to do with that. Way before I even knew that C.S. Lewis wrote any non-fiction, before I really understood symbolism or knew that there was any in "The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe"
Mere Catholics: On My Return from Narnia

As always, your Narnia mileage may vary.

[blogs4God - A semi-definitive list of Christians who blog.]

Mon, 12 Dec 2005 22:27:50 GMT

Has the Washington Post -Technorati partnership been dissolved?.

Update 2:23pm in the words of Emily Litella "... Oh. I'm sorry. Never mind."

It looks as if it was an issue technical after all. The latest articles are again appearing with the 'Who's Blogging?' technorati taggage. Shoot, and I thought I had a scoop here!-)

That said, this is one of those cases I'm glad to be proven wrong as I would prefer the technorati/wapo partnership over the alternative.

- - - - - § - - - - -

Back in August, the Washington Post announced it had partnered with Technorati to offer its readers the opportunity to view what bloggers were saying. To me it was a win, win, win situation. The WaPo quickly became the defacto ‘paper of choice’ for bloggers – since in return it offered links back to the blogs citing their articles and opinions. Likewise, readers were offerend an opportunity to see and even participate in feedback. For example:

Now, at least after inspecting several online articles posted after Friday, December 9, it appears this partnership has either been dissolved, shelved, or is otherwise offline for reasons unknown to this blogger. The technorati links are gone.

As I scanned for posts on this topic I found very few. Tinotopia offers a speculates that the disappearance of the technorati bloglinks from the Washington Post may be attributed to paper journalists uncomfortable with having their commentary judged by the same measure in which they judge others.

"Some Post reporters don’t appreciate that links are put on the Web site to what bloggers are saying about this or that story — especially when the bloggers are highly negative. " The Two Washington Posts, By Deborah Howell, 11Dec05

I hope this isn’t the case. Neither does NiLoad who writes:

"I hope this isn’t a pervasive attitude across the river. I think the Technorati partnership is one of the most important things WPNI has done this year, and I think it’s already reaped benefits not just for the website but for participatory journalism as a whole."

Perhaps I'm blowing this all out of proportion. Perhaps the technorati links are no longer offered in the WaPo for the same reason they've been radically reduced on Newsweek? SPAM!

Whether it was operational issues, or the fact that the WaPo could dish it out but couldn't take it ... it would be nice of the Washington Post blog would offer some updated information on this situation other than the aforementioned Ombudsman column.

Perhaps the WaPo has some metrics to make noisy bloggers like me shut up?

[blogs4God - A semi-definitive list of Christians who blog.]

Mon, 12 Dec 2005 22:27:14 GMT

"CSS Properties Window" Download Available for VS 2005.

One of the process things we've been doing on our team lately has been to provide an opportunity for team members to spend time building and shipping personal projects that enhance the core shipping products. On the updated www.asp.net site that we launched last month, we created a "Sandbox" tab that provides an outlet for team members to make these projects available to the public. Over time you'll start to see more and more projects appear there that you can take advantage of with web development.

Today we posted the first download of a new CSS Properties Window on the Sandbox tab that you can install on top of VS 2005 to get richer CSS editing and management support. Much richer CSS designer support is a big investment we are making for the next release of Visual Studio. The CSS Properties Window download provides some early support that you can use today, as well as an opportunity to give feedback on the exact feature-set you'd like to see with CSS going forward.

Hope this helps,

Scott

[ScottGu's Blog]

Mon, 12 Dec 2005 22:26:22 GMT

Damn Small Linux 2.1RC1 (Default branch). Damn Small Linux is a business-card size (50MB) Live CD Linux distribution. Despite its minuscule size it strives to have a functional and easy to use desktop.

License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

Changes:
SATA boot time support was improved. A typographical error was fixed in the USB 2.0 boot time support. Torsmo is used to replace asmem, wmcpuload, and wmnet to better support both window managers. Flwriter has been replaced with Ted. xtdesk was updated with improved dragging when double click is enabled. The new Icontool GUI controls many icon features. A missing tools section was added to the jwm menu.

[freshmeat.net announcements (Global)]

Mon, 12 Dec 2005 22:25:46 GMT

iText 1.3.6 (Default branch). iText is a library that contains classes to generate documents in the Portable Document Format (PDF), XML, HTML, and RTF. It can also parse XML documents and convert them into any of these formats. Pages of existing PDF files can be imported and copied to new PDF documents.

License: Mozilla Public License (MPL)

Changes:
You can now define a repeating footer for a PdfPTable. Lists and combo fields can now be set in the AcroFields object. There was some serious debugging activity in the area of class Table. The toolbox looks a little bit different now. There's a new tool that allows you to inspect the internals of a PDF file. In the area of RTF generation, some minor bugfixes were done. [freshmeat.net announcements (Global)]

Mon, 12 Dec 2005 22:24:27 GMT

wsdlpull 1.9.6 (Default branch). wsdlpull is an efficient and powerful command line utility for dynamic inspection and invocation of WSDL web services. It's also has a C++ library with a Dynamic WSDL Invocation API, a WSDL parser, a schema parser and validator, and an XML parser/serializer.

License: GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL)

Changes:
Windows support for dynamic invocation was added. SOAP Faults in a response are parsed, and a meaningful error is shown. Bugs in <choice> validation were fixed. The -s option was added for the wsdl tool, which suppresses printing of type names in a response. [freshmeat.net announcements (Global)]

Mon, 12 Dec 2005 22:23:06 GMT

The Firefox Hacks You Must Have. With a new version of the open-source browser out, we offer our guide to the nifty, fun Firefox extensions that will change your life. By Quinn Norton. [Wired News]

Mon, 12 Dec 2005 22:22:06 GMT

squid-mysql-acl 0.2 (Development branch). squid-mysql-acl can bind Squid ACLs to a MySQL database trough an external helper. It has a Web interface to add, remove, and control Internet access in real-time. Computers' IP addresses are grouped into "rooms". The main target of the application is the school environment, where a teacher can temporarily disable Internet access for a class, while the sysadmin can manage the entire list of IP addresses permitted to connect to the Internet.

[freshmeat.net announcements (Global)]

Mon, 12 Dec 2005 22:14:34 GMT

Plans 7.5.1 (Default branch). Plans is a powerful and flexible Web calendar. Its features include recurring events, merged calendars, event icons, custom themes and templates, MS Outlook export, SQL or flat-file data storage, and browser-based management.

License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

Changes:
This release adds automatic color contrast control for event backgrounds/text. It also fixes a bug in upcoming events, where the dropdown menu didn't work in IE. [freshmeat.net announcements (Global)]

Mon, 12 Dec 2005 22:14:10 GMT

rssgen 1.0 (Default branch). rssgen is a PHP RSS generator. It does not require a database, as the information is written directly to an XML file. You can create new headlines, modify existing ones, and preview how they will appear.

[freshmeat.net announcements (Global)]

Mon, 12 Dec 2005 22:13:37 GMT

Itzam 2.5.0 (Default branch). Itzam is an embedded database engine that creates and manipulates files containing variable-length random access records. Information is referenced by a user-defined key value, and indexes may be combined with or separate from data. Higher level languages (C++, Python, and Java) implement more complex heuristics on top of the Itzam core functions.

License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

Changes:
Better compatibility with Java, additional test and database analysis tools, and a more rational way of selecting 32- versus 64-bit file pointers.

[freshmeat.net announcements (Global)]

Sat, 22 Oct 2005 14:28:48 GMT

HTML::TableExtract 2.06 (Stable branch). HTML::TableExtract is a Perl module that simplifies the extraction of information from tables within HTML documents. Tables, no matter how nested or clustered, can be targeted symbolically with column headers or by more specific depth and count information.

License: Artistic License

Changes:
Tightens up element interactions in TREE() mode when examining rows, columns, cells, etc. Was running into trouble with dereferencing scalars vs objects. The space() H::TE::T method has been documented, and tests have been added. POD tests have been added. There are documentation updates and fixes. [freshmeat.net announcements (Global)]

Sat, 22 Oct 2005 14:28:10 GMT

Plasmidb 0.4.0 (Default branch). Plasmidb is a database management system for manipulating, viewing, and storing molecular biology information rapidly and easily. It is capable of handling constructed plasmids, clones, standard vectors, primers, antibiotics, enzymes, and more.

License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

Changes:
This release has been extended to include translation of DNA sequences, calculation of primer melting temperatures, whitespace stripping, and formatting. Other utilities include molecular weight calculation of products and a primer designer for automated cloning of multiple genes in a systematic fashion. [freshmeat.net announcements (Global)]

Sat, 22 Oct 2005 14:27:54 GMT

pmpkg 2005-10-21 (Default branch). pmpkg provides a script and definitions to build SysV style binary packages for Solaris from source tarballs in an automated way, somewhat similar to ports or ebuilds. It aims for reuse of system packages where possible and a minimalistic dependency set.

License: Common Development and Distribution License (CDDL)

Changes:
This release adds two new package fields: maintainer and description. There are also many changes to make it more robust. Support for GNOME applications was improved. This release also adds the new packages vim, drwright, sbcl, sdl_net, sdl_mixer, lmarbles, and lbreakout2, and updates the packages php5, py-ZopeInterface, py-Twisted, and gwydion-dylan. [freshmeat.net announcements (Global)]

Sat, 22 Oct 2005 14:27:40 GMT

sr 1.0.0 (Default branch). sr (search and replace) is a small and fast search and replace utility that can handle multiple files at once. It requires no knowledge of regular expressions and is much simpler to use than sed or awk for simple search and replace in a global or specific mode. It can contain embedded character codes in search or replace specifications, or entire sentences. [freshmeat.net announcements (Global)]

Sat, 22 Oct 2005 14:27:08 GMT

Company Claims Patent Over XML. Aviran Mordo writes "News.com reports that a small software developer plans to seek royalties from companies that use XML, the latest example of patent claims embroiling the tech industry. Charlotte, N.C-based Scientigo owns two patents (No. 5,842,213 and No. 6,393,426) covering the transfer of 'data in neutral forms.' These patents, one of which was applied for in 1997, are infringed upon by the data-formatting standard XML, Scientigo executives assert."

[Slashdot:]

Sat, 22 Oct 2005 14:22:07 GMT

Zenwalk 1.3 (Default branch). Zenwalk Linux aims to be focused on Internet applications, multimedia, and coding tools. It's a complete system, which means that out of the box, you will be able to browse, email, chat, listen to music, program in C, Perl, Python, Ruby, etc., watch videos in various formats, write documents, print, scan, burn CDs and DVDs, connect your camera, and edit your photographs, all without adding anything. It has the following objectives: be simple and fast; provide one application for one task; be a complete development/desktop environment; and be small (distributed on a single 400MB ISO image). [freshmeat.net announcements (Global)]

Sat, 22 Oct 2005 14:20:37 GMT

GeSHi 1.0.7.4 (Default branch). GeSHi is a generic syntax highlighter for PHP that takes any source code and highlights it in XHTML and CSS. It features case-sensitive or insensitive highlighting, auto-caps/non-caps of any keyword, an unlimited scope for styling, the use of CSS in which almost any aspect of the source can be highlighted, the use of CSS classes to massively reduce the amount of output code, function-to-URL capabilities, line numbering, and much more. Over 50 languages are supported, including Java, C, PHP, HTML, CSS, SQL, Pascal, C++, XML, ASP, and ASM.

License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

Changes:
Two new languages (MySQL and BlitzBasic) were added and some bugfixes were made. Upgrading is recommended. [freshmeat.net announcements (Global)]

Sat, 22 Oct 2005 14:20:04 GMT

phpflashy .01 (Default branch). phpFlashy is a Web based flashcard program. It repeat the questions until you get them all correct and it always tells you the right answer. Your progress is tracked through a deck of cards. At any time during the deck you can email deck statistics to anyone.

License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

Changes:
Basic deck and flashcard classes were created along with very ugly templates. [freshmeat.net announcements (Global)]

Sat, 22 Oct 2005 14:19:44 GMT

Gspot Applet 0.1.2 (Default branch). Gspot is a GNOME applet for searching the Web in a practical, outlined, and tidy way. It uses the text in the clipboard as a search string for querying search engines, dictionaries, and Web databases. [freshmeat.net announcements (Global)]

Sat, 22 Oct 2005 14:19:25 GMT

NetCDF 4.0-alpha9 (NetCDF over HDF5 (Unstable) branch). NetCDF is a format developed at Unidata that was inspired by the CDF format from NASA. NetCDF stands for "Network Common Data Form" and is a self-describing data format, commonly used in scientific and engineering applications.

License: BSD License (original)

Changes:
Minor fixes to the build system and tests. [freshmeat.net announcements (Global)]

Sat, 22 Oct 2005 14:18:56 GMT

OpenGrade 2.7.3 (Default branch). OpenGrade is software for teachers to keep track of grades. It can put the students' grade reports on a Web server and allow the students password-protected access to them.

License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

Changes:
A bug with the handling of grades that are out of the allowed range was fixed. [freshmeat.net announcements (Global)]

Sat, 22 Oct 2005 14:18:32 GMT

PDF::ReportWriter 0.81 (Default branch). PDF::ReportWriter is a Perl module that produces high-quality PDF reports from a report definition and a data array. It supports text formatting and alignment, unlimited grouping with group functions, intelligent page breaking, color support, image support, shaped cell backgrounds, and numeric formatting.

License: GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL)

Changes:
Page headers and footers were added along with cell-level control of cell borders, including color support. Support for setting PDF info was implemented. Major code cleanups were made and calculation of y-space needed was improved. 'bsize' and 'legal' page sizes were added. [freshmeat.net announcements (Global)]