Completely random debugging

When your Ubuntu Feisty installation mysteriously decides to confuse KMail (running under GNOME, but not on general principles) so that it starts but won’t fetch mail or do anything else useful (the app just goes into hyperspace), the obvious solution is to do some updates, isn’t it?

Well, maybe it isn’t, but I had a couple of hours (in which I was thinking about stuff & word-processing but wanted to browse some news & search for more complete opinions at the end of the typing) so I told Ubuntu to get on with the updates while I did my thing... & KMail sprang into life — or rather, was sprunged into life. since I’d shut it off & restarted it — so I suspect that some of the random-looking KDE updates brought KMail some joy.

Maybe KWallet was squoze in there somewhere, although none of the package names confessed this.

Aaanyway, this ancient machine is now down to one decidedly annoying bug — selecting fonts in OpenOffice Writer’s Styles takes forever — maybe half an hour — but everywhere else is fine.

I’ve Googled for answers but evidently lack enough imagination in phrasing the queries.

It’s shut-off-clothes-dryer time now (it’s been running on 6c/kWh instead of the usual 15c) & off to the sack. See y’all tomorrow (well, later today...).

Comments

new life for an old (FTX) PSU, improved life for one human

the LEDs on this 5m strip happen to emit light centred on a red that does unexpectedly helpful things to (and surprisingly deeply within) a human routinely exposed to it. it has been soldered to a Molex connector, plugged into a TFX power supply from a (retired: the MoBo is cactus) Small Form Factor PC, the assorted PSU connectors (and loose end from the strip) have been taped over. the LED strip cost $10.24 including postage, the rest cost $0, the PSU is running at 12½% of capacity, consumes less power than a laptop plug-pack despite running a fan. trial runs begin today.

every-application-is-part-of-a-toolkit at work

I have a LibreOffice Impress slideshow that I wish to turn into a narrated video. 1. export the slideshow as PNG images (if that is partially broken — as at now — at higher resolutions, Export Directly as PDF then use ‘pdftoppm’ (from the poppler-utils package) to do the same). 2. write a small C program (63 lines including comments) to display those images one at a time, writing a config file entry for Imagination (default transition: ‘cross fade’) based on when the image-viewer application (‘display,’ from the GraphicsMagick suite) is closed on each one; run that, read each image aloud, then close each image in turn. 3. run ‘Imagination’ over the config file to produce a silent MP4 video with the correct timings. 4. run ‘Audacity’ to record speech while using ‘SMPlayer’ to display the silent video, then export that recording as a WAV file. 4a. optionally, use ‘TiMIDIty’ to convert a non-copyright-encumbered MIDI tune to WAV, then import that and blend it with the speech (as a quiet b...

boundaries

pushing the actual boundaries of the physical (not extremes, the boundaries themselves) can often remove barriers not otherwise perceived. one can then often resolve an issue itself, rather than merely stonewalling at the physical consequences of the issue.

Plantagenet Penguinista

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