April 20, 2008
April 7, 2008
ICES Docs
For reasons to be revealed in due time, I dusted ICES and decided to bring it back to active.
I don’t really know why, but I am feeling a little bit more theoretical about it, in the sense that I am willing to explore the nuances of the proposed models a little further than back in late 2006 (I left the project on suspended animation since Dec, 2006). Not that the models were not exhaustively thought about back then, but rethinking is like refactoring: both fun AND useful.
I am thinking of writing about such models, going through my own initial ideas to, firstly, create (even if quite slowly) a complete documentation of the details involved in the project and, secondly, just give all these ideas more rethinking… great insights expected.
It will not be an organized process and I will simply write about whatever I want and hopefully a sense of completeness and usefulness, expected in any good documentation project, will emerge!! … rings a bell?
Major rules:
June 23, 2007
June 17, 2007
m3uMaker 1.5
m3uMaker 1.5 is finally available (see the project’s page for downloads and more information).
m3uMaker is a bash script that allows command line creation of m3u playlists for files within a certain folder. It is very flexible and can create playlists of files with any given set of terminations and immediately enqueue it (and play it, if you want) on any scriptable audio player.
An auxiliary configuration file for Konqueror is provided so playlists can be created/enqueued/played while browsing.
Until today, the only supported player was XMMS, but version 1.5 allows user specified enqueue/play commands to be used. Native support for Amarok has been added (’cause this is currently my player of choice).
Needless to say: m3uMaker is free… enjoy
[edit: a bug related to dereferencing symbolic links has been crushed, so the available version is 1.5.1]
June 10, 2007
Fred the web
I am making available a small program (a script, actually) I’ve been working on for the past few days.
It goes by the name Fred and is a light, easy to use and straightforward rss generator meant for websites updated often but where the installation of heavy content managment tools would be overshooting.
I have two personal use-cases already, and will get them running a.s.a.p.: a feed with general information and news on my band (next shows, etc..) and a feed for updates our projects at suwud.com.
There’s still a long road ahead, but I beleive I finally got to a USABLE version and that, my friend, is what I call a development milestone.
It should work on most of the regular unix-like systems (Linux, MacOSX, etc..) but then again, it might just not. The source code and some more information are available at ricardobirmann.com/projects
March 27, 2007
suwud.com – new look-and-feel
It is very hard to explain to someone who knows nothing about software development how much of an artist you have to be to create good programs. People tend to believe that programming it is purely technical and that creativity, aesthetic, individual talent and inspiration are not nearly as important as the syntax needed to produce the running code.
Well, I believe it is actually quite the opposite. Art-ware.
Note: I am NOT just talking about creating pretty websites and neat interfaces, but also about the running code… yes, the code that users don’t even see.
Because of the indefinable nature of “art”, it is usually easy to just say that something “is art” or “is not art” based on prejudice, lack of information or plain ignorance. I know absolutely nothing about painting, for instance, but I do speculate about the artistic value of pictures I see. Nonetheless, I accept that there is a lot art made from painting.
Software languages, as much as paint, clay and stone are not art by themselves, they are the means through which the artist expresses himself. The thing with software is that it is also meant to do something, to work in a certain way, and that gives the wrong impression on how it is created. A code artist would keep in mind that the software should transcend its technical requirements, breaching into a world of imagination, migrating from a state of computer science towards the much less sufocating condition of computer art.
Software can be much more than a technique, and art might have other concerns besides “being artistic”. Music and movies can be entertaining and still be art, architecture can be functional and still be art, programs can be efficient and still be art.
All that being said, I’d like to tell you a little bit about our new look-and-feel at suwud.com. We wanted to create a browsable interface that would give the website an interesting look and also make it practical, self-adapting to new content and CPU-friendly.
Our site is running on Apache and is presented using HTML and CSS. The frameworks provided by both these technologies are rare art in a world of dirty, unreliable, hard-code and thanks to them we (Bob and I) could create exactly what we wanted.
It is a little self-promoting to say so, but I think it really kicks ass! Check it out.