I was wandering through my log files and saw this failed http request:
/fluxbuntu/xf0j/t/x1b/x16/v+/xf0j/t/x1b/x14(-/xf0

That looks like escaped hex or something to me. Except the j’s, don’t get where they fit in. Anyway, Google gave me nothing, so I suppose it’s just an oddity I’ll never know about.

Songbird 0.2
I saw that Songbird 0.2 was released on wednesday. For anyone too bothered to go look it’s a music-player/browser based off of Mozilla. I got the developers preview and it’s pretty slick. I like it more than I did the first version, it’s quicker for one. I think this will be a good replacement for foobar2k on Windows for me. It pales next to Amarok though. Or maybe I’m an Amarok fan-boy, that could be too. Anyway, good stuff, can’t wait for 1.0

overLIB Configurations
In other, um, news, I put up some of my overLIB configs on my overlibMod page. An easy way to dress up your overLIB. I noticed that the current overLIB (4.21) is over a year old now. Maybe I need to find a new script. Then again, it still works right?

Quite a ways back I heard about the Compiz project, a Novell thing (Composite Window Manager) for Linux. Looked cool, but GPU heavy so I didn’t pay it any mind. Well, yesterday I saw some more video of a system running Beryl, a community fork of Compiz-quinnstorm. I had to have it, if only to play with the rubbery windows and the cube for a little while.

Over the course of the day I got nVidia binary drivers for my extremely low end GeForce4 MX 4000. That was the cheapest card I could find when I built my machine, so I had low expectations. I was wrong. Xgl and Beryl must not ask much of the graphics card because it looks great and responds stellar. Sure, it has some blurring and jaggies, but you hardly notice them.

The only problems I’ve had are my numpad not working, and I think I found a fix for that. Also, the screenshot plugin doesn’t work, nor does the rain effect plugin. Because of this I had to go lo-tech and bust out the digital camera for this one. Trust me, it’s not easy to cover the flash bulb, hold the camera, push the button, hold ctrl-alt and keep the mouse clicked down and in a nice pose with just two hands. Anway, it’s all I ever dreamed of, now I can watch Star Wars as shown bent around two sides of a cube. Frickin awesome.

Like essentially every project I write SimpleBooks arose out of a need for a simple web based book reader. Late in the summer of 2006 I wrote a set of scripts that worked as a converter for plain text files to create on-line readable e-books. I also created the viewer. At that time the system was very simple, as I just bookmarked my page when I was done reading and came back to it on any computer using Foxmarks.

As of 10/15/06 I’ve overhalued the system and made it more robust. It now handles book uploads as well as covers and keeps track of book details using flatfiles. It still needs a user system and built in bookmarking, but it’s way better than it used to be.

This initial version has some bugs floating around and is certainly not terribly attractive or user friendly (except the viewer). The splitting method isn’t very intelligent and I would like to refine it to handle HTML tags someday, but it’s not terribly high on the list. Also, there might be some exploitable code in the creator.php, though I think I covered all of that stuff up (cross fingers). There are numerous caveats, such as encoding types of the txt files and the like, but they are easily noticed and fixed.

Anyway, you can try the viewer with a copy of Crime And Punishment from Project Gutenberg or download the whole shebang and mess with it yourself.

Links
Demo
Source (tar.gz)
form.php Source
creator.php Source
viewer.php Source

You thought I forgot about my chu-moy amplifier didn’t you? You thought it was lost to the depths of the boxes of parts and broken, half-made things in my room. You thought wrong. I recently aquired a highly rare container known as an “Altoids tin” and did the test fit of the pieces this evening.

If you ever want to put something in an altoids tin, measure it first. I had to hack away parts of my c-board to get it in. Also, poking holes and reaming them out with a knife and screwdriver aren’t the optimal hole making solutions, but they do work. It’s a tight squeeze, but everything fits and it’s lined in electrical tape for the circuits comfort. Still not sure where the power switch will go. I guess that can wait until I actually buy or scavenge a switch.