Westhoffswelt - Welcome to the real world

Miscallenous stuff of interest

• Pdf Presenter Console 2.0 released

  by Jakob Westhoff on Sun, 16 Jan 2011 17:34:26 +0100

  I am very happy to announce that I finally had some time to release version 2.0 of my PDF-Presenter-Console. It is filled with new features like navigational link support and cache compression, as well as many bug fixes. Go get it while it's hot! Read more…

• Getting Sony Vaio X WWAN to work under Ubuntu Linux

  by Jakob Westhoff on Sat, 06 Feb 2010 22:40:09 +0100

  Three month ago I bought a Sony Vaio X netbook. The Windows 7 which was preinstalled on the system was no option for me. I installed Ubuntu on it and got mostly all of the hardware working. Read my Ubuntu Installation experience article for more details. One piece of hardware did however refuse to work: The WWAN modem. Finally the offline times are over. The modem is now working like a charm. Read more…

• Pdf Presenter Console 1.1 released

  by Jakob Westhoff on Sun, 03 Jan 2010 20:22:43 +0100

  After a lot of feedback, bugfixes and minor improvements it is time to release version 1.1 of the Pdf Presenter Console. Furthermore I migrated the project over to github. Read more…

• Building Vala projects with CMake

  by Jakob Westhoff on Mon, 28 Dec 2009 22:27:46 +0100

  Recently I wrote an application in Vala. Vala is a great language positioned around the GObject system, which is used a lot in the GTK/Gnome world. Vala is a very feature rich object-oriented high-level language, which incorporates modern language concepts known from C# or current versions of Java. In contrast to Java and C# Vala programs do not need any memory consuming runtime to be executed. They are compiled to plain C code, which is then compiled using your favorite compiler chain into good old machine code. Most likely this will be GCC. To be able to build my Vala project I wanted to use CMake, which I like much better than the autotools. This blogpost gives a practical demonstration on how to integrate Vala with CMake to build your Vala based projects. Read more…

• Pdf Presenter Console 1.0 released

  by Jakob Westhoff on Sun, 22 Nov 2009 20:10:59 +0100

  During this years IPC I really liked the Keynote presenter consoles I saw on different occasions on the Mac users screens. I like the fact that one can see the slide coming up next as well as useful meta information during the talk on the notebook screen, while sending a clear image to the beamer. I do not own a Mac and currently do not intend to buy one. Therefore I searched for alternatives running on my Linux system. The Sun presenter console came to my attention, but disqualified itself by only supporting Impress, which I replaced by Latex Beamer some time ago. Because there was no viable solution using plain PDF files as input out there I decided to write my own. Read more…

• Sony Vaio X - An Ubuntu installation experience

  by Jakob Westhoff on Mon, 02 Nov 2009 15:24:07 +0100

  Recently DPD had an express delivery for me. They delivered the Sony Vaio X I pre-ordered the day it became available. Vaio X is Sonys newest development in the ultra portable market. Even though it has an Intel Atom processor and therefore seems to belong into the netbook category of products it is much more. It is bleeding edge technology in an ultra slim and nearly weightless carbon shell. I bloody love this thing. Unfortunately it came preinstalled with Microsofts new Windows 7 operating system, which is an absolute no go for me ;). One of the first things I did was installing Ubuntu Karmic Koala on it. Read this article for a detailed installation log. Read more…

• Finally! I finished my new design.

  by Jakob Westhoff on Wed, 04 Feb 2009 23:44:26 +0100

  After having created zillions of different designs for my website I finally managed to chose one for productive use. It is done, the design is online and I am still happy with it :). Read more…

• First steps with Blender

  by Jakob Westhoff on Wed, 04 Feb 2009 23:44:26 +0100

  After creating and rendering some really basic 3D scenes with proprietary windows software before changing to Linux a long time ago, I never used a 3D modeling tool again. I thought it is time to take a look at the really powerful opensource 3D suite Blender. Read more…

• My first application for the Openmoko Neo Freerunner

  by Jakob Westhoff on Wed, 04 Feb 2009 23:44:26 +0100

  A little story about what I experienced during the first steps towards writing an application for the Freerunner by myself. You will find a download link and a demonstration video inside. Read more…

• My Openmoko Neo Freeruner has arrived

  by Jakob Westhoff on Wed, 04 Feb 2009 23:44:26 +0100

  Finally I got the Openmoko Neo Freerunner in my hands Read more…