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Archive for the ‘KDE’ Category

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On wlan and browser authenticated internet

July 7th, 2009 by

Nowadays more and more organisations will use an intercepting proxy to give you access to internet. Last week I had the pleasure to use again such a system. To use is an exaggeration as my opensuse 11.1 box with kde4.3 rc1 connected to the wireless network (network manager) but refused to give me access to the authentication page in the browser.

I did all the decent tests that my brain and time allowed me. Checked the ip, checked gateway and checked dns. They seemed ok.

To make frustration even bigger I was able to connect to th very same network with a kde4.3 beta1.

Posted in Base System, Desktop, KDE, Network | Comments Off on On wlan and browser authenticated internet

On kontact

June 26th, 2009 by

I will go on holiday next week, so today is my last day in the office. I have decided that the things I have to do today are too many and I should work in the train in my way to the office.

All good, start the computer, of course no internet, so I had to shutdown kontact to stop him crying about not being able to connect.

Being able to easy go to an offline mode  would be a very nice and useful feature to have in kontact, and kde applications in general. Checking that before you want to communicate with some third party that you actually have the phone instead complaining that he is not answer, would be a very good design decision, too.

Now being the holiday season I hope at least one of the kde/kontact developers would get hit by this missing feature and soon we will have it.

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Posted in Desktop, KDE | Comments Off on On kontact

On KDE4.3

June 24th, 2009 by

We are almost one month far away from the kde4.3 release. Yesterday the 4.3 rc1 was tagged and due to excellent work of our colleagues in OBS we have it already.

Personally, I would have liked it to go a little bit further away in terms of usability, we will speak about that later.  This release will mark the break with 3.5. I see no real reason for not using kde 4.3. All the functionality that people were crying after from 3.5 is finally up and running (a lot of time better) in KDE 4.3.

What more would you like then, people may ask.

I would like to be able to give a kde4 desktop to a secretary to use and to a teenager who is into Web2.0.

  • a features consistent kontact, a kalendar that actually can be used in a real life environment, avoiding silly design inconsistencies like you can spell check your popup notes but you cannot do it for your notebooks entries.
  • a kopete that actually supports video/audio features of protocols.
  • a rock solid kblogger may help.
  • a way to synchronize mobile devices.

and the last

  • adding more work on making existing features working perfect rather than adding new ones.

Alin

Posted in Desktop, KDE | Comments Off on On KDE4.3

Kraft 0.32 Live CD

June 5th, 2009 by

You might have heard about Kraft, a KDE application aimed to people who operate small enterprises and have to write an offer or invoice sometimes. Kraft version 0.32 was released recently, the last KDE 3 based version, the KDE4 port has finally started.

Kraft is one of the candidates for the KDE group for financial apps which is a consolidating idea and was encouraged in Alvaros article A group to bind them all recently.

Unfortunately it is still a bit tricky to set up. To make it easier to check it out Live Images were created featureing Kraft on an openSUSE distribution with all tools and  interesting demo data. That is perfect to try it out and give it to friends and colleagues and talk about.

Please check the download page of the Kraft Homepage for details.

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Posted in KDE | 1 Comment »

Kraft 0.32 Released

May 10th, 2009 by

Kraft 0.32 was released a few days ago. Kraft is KDE software for people who operate a small business and want to generate documents like invoices or offers for their customers. Kraft helps to do that in a very efficient way with template texts and a calculation module and of course integration in KDE. Very important is an excellent print out (that’s the face to the customer) which Kraft does via an PDF export of the document.

I say ‘small business’ as a target group and I mean small shops doing crafts like carpenters or plumbers or landscaping working alone or with a few people. I think free software and especially KDE is very good for these kind of companies. Larger companies usually go for specialised software, which is available for nearly all kind of crafts in all levels of usefulness and quality.

When I talk in the community about Kraft (I am of course not as good as Tackat in his best Marble-times) I sometimes feel that the coolness factor of this kind of software is not so big. People seem to think “How can one do this kind of boring, already-there software?”. Well, yes. This kind of software exists. But as free software and on KDE, well integrated into the desktop? Not that I am aware of.

Here are some good reasons to work on Kraft for me personally:

  1. I think it is important that this kind of software is available. Not only Kraft, but other stuff people need for their business, for example financial software like KMyMoney. Well integrated in KDE this can enable another huge group of users which now uses other systems.
  2. It is serious. Kraft is software people use to get their money. If somebody has done work and wants to invoice it she loves a well working software that saves time for her. But if it does not work, it becomes a serious issue quickly because only written and sent out invoices are good invoices from that POV.
  3. Especially because there is much competition from the commercial side, it is fun to try to create free software that is even better from for example the usability perspective. It is real challenging.
  4. I am somehow addicted 😉 This year I work for twenty years on this kind f software. If you like you can check out an underground video which shows software running on an Atari ST, used for daily business in my brothers landscaping company. I released that version in 1991, I still have an earlier release from 1990 which I could not get to run anymore. I started to develop it in 1989.

But back to the new Kraft-release: Beside other things I did some change to the tax system which make Kraft now useable internationally (shame  on me that the earlier versions where tied to german taxing too much).

So please, tomorrow first thing knock at the door of your handcrafter neighbor and ask him if he has thought about invoicing with Linux – Kraft  is with you, when you support him. Chances to get very interesting insights on how non-geeks see the computer world.

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Posted in KDE | 2 Comments »

Problem with an selfmade DVD (DVD RECORDER)

April 12th, 2009 by

Symptom:

Since a few days i had an Problem with playing selfmade DVDs. CDs (Audio and *.avi) can be playes. Original DVD’s too. But i have made DVDs with an DVD RECORDER (for TV). Then i burn 2 Movies on the DVD and the Recorder makes an own Menu for the Movies. But if i insert the DVD to the DVD Player, the Device Monitor sayd me, the only three Alternatives are: open in Dolphin, open with Digikam and do nothing. If i choosed Dolphin, dolphin startsand then i see in the bottom an Red Line with the Error “No Access”.

First tries:

I listed the Directory:
lrwxrwxrwx   1 root   root          3 10. Apr 15:24 cdrom -> sr0
lrwxrwxrwx   1 root   root          3 10. Apr 11:45 cdrw -> sr1
lrwxrwxrwx   1 root   root          3 10. Apr 11:45 dvd -> sr0
lrwxrwxrwx   1 root   root          3 10. Apr 11:45 fb -> fb0
brw-rw—-+  1 root   cdrom         11,   0 10. Apr 11:45 sr0
brw-rw—-+  1 root   cdrom   11,   1 10. Apr 11:45 sr1
lrwxrwxrwx   1 root   root          3 10. Apr 11:45 scd0 -> sr0

lrwxrwxrwx   1 root   root          3 10. Apr 11:45 scd1 -> sr
My User is in the Group “cdrom”.

Then  i’ve checked /etc/udev/rules.d 99-my.rules:
There i found: KERNEL==”[sr*[0-9]”,GROUP=”cdrom”,MODE=”0660″

getfacl /dev/sr0 says:

getfacl: Removing leading ‘/’ from absolute path names
# file: dev/sr0

# owner: root

# group: cdrom user::rw-
user:sascha:rw-
group::rw-
mask::rw-
other::—
For sr1 its the same output.

Then i go to  /usr/share/PolicyKit/policy/org.freedesktop.hal.device-access.policy and set the following:
— org.freedesktop.hal.device-access.policy.orig   2008-12-23
23:34:16.241840351 +0100
+++ org.freedesktop.hal.device-access.policy        2008-12-23
23:34:45.375339211 +0100
@@ -59,8 +59,8 @@
<description>Directly access removable block
devices</description> <message>System policy prevents access to
removable block devices</message>
<defaults>
–      <allow_inactive>no</allow_inactive>
–      <allow_active>no</allow_active>
+      <allow_inactive>yes</allow_inactive>
+      <allow_active>yes</allow_active>
</defaults>
</action>

Then i made an reboot, but nothing happens. The same Error is
present.

Today i found out, that all non accessable DVD have the following
Rights:
dr–r–r–  3 sascha 4294967295   88 15. Okt 2006  DVD_VIDEO_RECORDER/
^^^^^^^^^^^^

Strange permissions.

SOLUTION:

Then i created an File in /usr/share/kde4/apps/solid/action with the following:

[Desktop Entry]
X-KDE-Solid-Predicate=[ StorageVolume.ignored == false AND OpticalDisc.availableContent == ‘Data|VideoDvd’ ]
Type=Service
Actions=open;

[Desktop Action open]
Name=Play DVD with video player (Kaffeine)
Exec=kaffeine -d %d DVD
Icon=kaffeine

After an relogin, the new Alternative are present. I can go to open with Kaffeine, and than we have finished this task.

BTW: Please check if KDE3/Kaffeine is installed. Without them the Workaround will not work.

Special Thanks goes to: slowhand/medwin

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Posted in Documentation, KDE, lizards.openSUSE.org, Usability | Comments Off on Problem with an selfmade DVD (DVD RECORDER)

New/Updated Applications @ home:saigkill

March 4th, 2009 by

Hello Folks,

now following an List from my last updated/worked Packages:

  1. boinc-client 6.4.5 (last stable and recommended Version)
  2. boinctray 2.3
  3. kde4-skrooge 0.2.4 (also published in openSUSE:Factory:contrib and KDE:KDE4:Community)
  4. libatlas3 3.8.2 (also published in Education)
  5. libdbus++ 0.6.0
  6. libtinyxml0 2.5.3 (also published in openSUSE:Factory:contrib)
  7. libtktray1 1.1
  8. lynis 1.2.3 (also published in openSUSE:Factory:contrib)
  9. mountmanager 0.2.6 (also published in openSUSE:Factory:contrib and KDE:KDE4:Community)
  10. necpp 1.2.6+cvs20070816
  11. python-iCalendar 1.2 (also published in openSUSE_Factory:contrib)
  12. qantenna 0.2.1
  13. rkhunter 1.3.4 (also published in openSUSE:Factory:contrib)

Have a lot of Fun 🙂

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Posted in Build Service, Contrib, KDE, lizards.openSUSE.org, Miscellaneous, Packaging | 1 Comment »

New/Updated Software

February 10th, 2009 by

Hello Mates,

now following new/updated and published Software:

* Repo: openSUSE:Factory:Contrib:
kde4-skrooge
lynis
python-icalendar
rkhunter

* Repo: KDE/KDE4/Community
kde4-skrooge

* Repo: home:saigkill
boinctray
tktray

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Posted in Build Service, Contrib, KDE, lizards.openSUSE.org | Comments Off on New/Updated Software

Application Icons in the Package Selector

February 4th, 2009 by

Desktop files contain a lot of information about KDE/Gnome/X11 applications (e.g. names, icons).

Displaying this data in the package selector allows to provide a more detailed package description. The user can easily see which applications are included in an installed package.

Running these applications via mouse click is technically possible, but unfortunately security concerns don’t allow it. Please let me know if you have an idea how to solve this issue.

Posted in Desktop, GNOME, KDE, Usability, YaST | 9 Comments »

Automatic Import Calendar news.opensuse.org > KOrganizer

January 24th, 2009 by

I’m very happy. Regularly i’m checkin the Calendar from news.opensuse.org for my work in OpenSUSE Weekly News. It is possible to Download the actual Calendar as *.ics File. But as i understand this, this is a Snapshot. The Calendar not updated himself regularly. So i tried this:

First of all we go to the KOrganizer. Click on the green Cross, left from the Calendararea. Add Calendar. Then we find an Menu similar this:

List of Resources

Then we klicking on “Filecalendar from Remote Computer” (I had translated this on the fly, i’m not shure, that it called so in english). After them we see the next Field:

Datafield

In this Field i edited :”http://news.opensuse.org/?ec3_ical”. I choosed regularly updating, but no Saving on the Remote Computer.

Now we have the Community Entrys in our Calendar. We see:

Resultspage

If i have understood all right, we have an automatic Calendar. Have fun…

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Posted in Documentation, KDE, lizards.openSUSE.org, Miscellaneous | Comments Off on Automatic Import Calendar news.opensuse.org > KOrganizer

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