Here’s how I set mine up.

1) Autostart emacs –daemon using your choice of methods (autostart, Xsession, whatever)

2) In your .emacs you need this:

(if (and (daemonp) (locate-library "edit-server"))

(progn

(require 'edit-server)

; can add options here like (setq edit-server-new-frame-mode-line t) (setq edit-server-new-frame-minibuffer t)

(edit-server-start)))

3) Then in your .bashrc put this:

if [ -z "$DISPLAY" ]

then

  alias emacs='emacsclient -t'

  export EDITOR='emacsclient -t'

else

   alias emacs='emacsclient -c -n'

   export EDITOR='emacsclient -c -n'

fi

Works great. Of course, you need to start the daemon manually THIS TIME (and execute the script lines) or log out and log back on for this to work.

By the way, once you set up the alias, you can’t easily restart the emacs daemon. Remember you can override an alias with quotes: ‘emacs’ –daemon

Update: you can set ALTERNATE_EDITOR in your environment to the empty string and emacsclient will start a daemon if one is not running. So that means you could skip step 1 if you add:

export ALTERNATE_EDITOR=""

to step 3. This is nice because if you kill the server (to reload your .emacs, for example) or it dies (unlikely) then things till work without the user having to reload the daemon manually. Of course, you can still keep step 1 as well which makes your initial load a little faster, and still protects you against a dead daemon.

GNU Plot streaming GP3 data "live"

Linux has a long history of stringing together data and processing to get new features. With the GP-3 interface board analog and digital “real world” data just become another piece of data to process using the Linux tools.

This article shows you how to string together a GP-3, some fancy shell script, a Perl script found on the Internet, and GNU Plot to make a data recorder that is flexible without writing any actual code.

Ultrascope in Action

I recently bought a Rigol DS1102E (um, well… maybe it was a DS1052E and I own a serial cable).

Being a Linux user, I wondered if Rigol’s software, Ultrascope, would work somehow on Linux. The device is USB and it shows up perfectly well as a usbtmc device, so if you want to write your own software on Linux, that’s pretty easy.  But it also means not much chance of Wine running Ultrascope (although maybe with the serial cable; I didn’t try that). However, I have XP running under VirtualBox for just this sort of thing.

I installed the drivers and Ultrascope off the CD. Big mistake. The CD has the service manual on it and the operator’s manual, so don’t throw it away. But don’t install any software off of it either. Here’s what you need:

1) Latest NI Drivers: http://joule.ni.com/nidu/cds/view/p/id/1605/lang/en

2) The Rigol USB drivers have the wrong USB ID or something on Linux is changing the ID (vendor=1ab1,pid=0588 in Linux/VirtualBox, the Rigol.inf file vendor=0400,PID=05dc). Of course, I was so smart, I changed the INF file and got it mostly working. WRONG. Use the NI driver. What that means is in Device manager, it should say “USB Test and Measurement Device” NOT “Rigol USB Test and Measurement Device”. If you already have the Rigol drive installed, do an update driver, tell it to Install from a list and “Don’t search I will choose the driver to install.” If you have the NI stuff installed you should see two choices: Rigol USB Test and Measurement Device and USB Test and Measurement Device. You want the one WITHOUT Rigol in the name.

3) The VISA version of Ultrascope (this was my big mistake, using the “regular” version). See http://www.rigol.com/templates/T_Support_en/resources.aspx?nodeid=639&contentid=1582. Even on a “plain” Vista install the regular version had small issues.

Of course, for Virtualbox, you need to go to the Devices menu and “connect” the Rigol USB device (this one will say Rigol and that’s ok). You can also change your setup to add it automatically, but I’m going to assume you know how to do that.

And the results? Well, Ultrascope is probably of marginal value anyway. You can always dump data files and images to a USB drive right on the scope. I guess if you had a lot of setups, or wanted to use the measurement pass/fail feature. The Memory waveform will let you open the WFM files the scope dumps of waveforms, so I guess that’s something too.

Oh. And I haven’t tried it, but the fact that it is just using the NI VISA drivers tells me it ought to feed LabView with no problems. Of course, you could probably run that directly under Linux too.

So… KMyMoney allows you to filter QIF data before it tries to read it and I wrote an awk script that cleans it up from my point of view. It might work for you. It might now. It might cripple your dog and cause premature balding. I don’t know. But if you are brave, here it is:

#!/usr/bin/gawk -f
# This script cleans up PayPal QIF for import
# I use it with KMyMoney
# It may or may not work for you

# All fee splits are renamed to Business:Bank Fees
# I assume all payments have fee=0 and so
# the fee is stripped out along with the split data
# All payers get renamed to PayPal Customer and
# the category becomes Business:Revenue
# All payments sent have their categories stripped
# so the import system will match the payee info for it

BEGIN { 

    CFG_FEE_TEXT="Business:Bank Fees";   # mark paypal fees
    CFG_REVENUE="Business:Revenue";      # revenue account
    CFG_CUSTOMER="PayPal Customer";      # All Pay Pal customers
    inrec=0 }

/^!/  { inrec=1; newpay=0; fee=-1; nosplit=0; print; next;  }
/^[\^]/  { inrec=0; newpay=0; fee=-1; nosplit=0; print; next; }

nosplit && /^(S|[$]|E)/ {
    next;
    }

/^SFee/ { fee=1; next; }

fee==1 {
    fee=0;
    if (match($0,/\$0[.]00/)==0) {
	print "S" CFG_FEE_TEXT;
	print;
    }
    next;
}

/^L.*Payment Sent/  {
    nosplit=1;
    next;
}

/^S.*Payment Sent/  {
    next;
}

/^L.*Payment Received/  {
    print "L" CFG_REVENUE;
    newpay=CFG_CUSTOMER;
    next;
}

/^S.*Payment Received/  {
    print "S" CFG_REVENUE;
    newpay=CFG_CUSTOMER;
    next;
}

/^SSecure Card Purchase/ {
    next;
}
/^LSecure Card Purchase/ {
    nosplit=1;
    next;
}

/^P/ {
    if (newpay!=0) { print "P" newpay; next; }
    print;
    next;
}

  { print; }

Put all that in a file and make it executable. If you don’t know what that means, maybe you shouldn’t be slicing and dicing your finances with a script.

If I were you, I’d try it from the command line on some QIF exports and examine the output very carefully before I used it for real. I’d also backup my database before any import. But you are doing that anyway, right? Right?

Velleman Software on Linux

I like my Velleman PCS500. Its not perfect, but it does a good job and has been my “bench scope” for awhile now edging out my old faithful Tek scope for all but the most demanding jobs. However, there are two things I definitely don’t like about it. It uses a parallel port which many of my computers no longer have and the software doesn’t run under Linux.

When I built my last computer I stuck a cheap PCI parallel card in it. Of course, the PCI bus puts it at some wacky address like 0xE000 and most software can’t find it. I read this article: http://www.lafraze.net/nbernard/doc/misc_tips/velleman.html but it didn’t help either since the I/O wrapper won’t work on “high ports.” For the longest time I’ve just used an old Windows laptop as my “scope” and that’s worked ok.

But today I finally cracked the code to running the software under Linux (see the picture). Here’s what I did:

1) Set the permissions on the /dev/parport0 device to 666 (or you could add your user ID to the lp group and set it to 664 or 660):
sudo chmod 666 /dev/parport0

2) Create a new wine prefix:
WINEPREFIX=~/pcs500 winecfg

3) Inside winecfg set the default operating system to Win98. Close winecfg.

4) Run the wine regedit program. Create a key under HKEY_CURRENT_USER named Software\Wine\VDM\ppdev. Create a string value named 378 and make the value /dev/parport0. This must be under Current User and not System!

5) Download the PCLab2000SE software from Velleman and run setup like this:
WINEPREFIX=~/pcs500 wine setup.exe

6) Finish the install then run pcs500.exe from the ~/pcs500/drive_c/Program Files/Velleman/PcLab2000SE directory:
WINEPREFIX=~/pcs500 wine pcs500.exe

7) If you like, make a shortcut in your desktop software to launch this automatically.

I have noticed the software occasionally hangs up under Wine — don’t know if it is a problem with Wine or a problem with the software, but it doesn’t happen enough to be a problem.

Update: I can’t prove it, but it seems it mostly hangs when you switch away from the main window and then switch back (but not necessarily every time you switch). It actually doesn’t hang per se. You still get a trace, but you can’t work any of the controls. Sometimes if you play around it will respond again but mostly not. Again, I can’t prove it, but setting the main window to always be on top (or “Above Others” depending on your window manager) seems to improve the situation. It doesn’t eliminate the hangs but it seems to make them less frequent.

Hope that works for you!

It took a little detective work, but here’s the solution: I had changed theme files and apparently most these have a missing line that enables this to work. In my case, I was using Nuvola, but the same principle will work with any theme.

1) Find the index.theme file for the theme you are using. In my case, it was in /usr/share/icons/nuvola/index.theme.

2) Edit it (you’ll need to be root — that is use sudo) to save it. Add a single line:

Inherits=hicolor

I don’t know that it matters where you put it as long as it is in the [Icon Theme] section. I put it right under DisplayDepth=32.

3) I don’t know if you have to reload the theme, but I did. I just picked another theme, hit Apply, and then picked Nuvolo again and hit apply. You also need to restart any programs that you expect this to fix.

4) Enjoy toolbar buttons with icons.

XXx: State of the Union release

— if you are a Windows users. But what about Linux?

The GP3’s always had a Linux library available (which was recently updated to make creating a shared library easier). And you can always use Java if you can get Java to work with your serial ports. But a Windows developer can always slap together something in Visual Basic in a few minutes with almost no effort.

This article

• Happy Gilmore film

shows you how to use Gambas, a Linux rapid application development tool, to work with the GP3. Gambas is a lot like Visual Basic, but in fact its better.

The GP3 support for Gambas includes a Gambas component so you can use the GP3 on Linux as easy as Windows user with VB!

The sample program flashes an LED and watches a PIR sensor to dismiss your computer’s screen saver when you approach the PC. Of course, that’s just a simple example. You can access all of the GP3’s analog and digital I/O functions easily with Gambas.

Go to System Settings and on the Advanced tab, pick Login Manager. On the Shutdown tab, pick Grub as the Boot Manager.

That’s it. Now when you see a restart button it will have a little arrow that will allow you to pick any of your grub entries for the next reboot only.

Pretty cool.

• Home Alone the movie

Blazing Saddles

I guess Adobe got tired of hearing folks whine, so they’ve released an alpha version of a 64 bit flash plugin. So far so good:

apt-get –purge remove nonfree-flashplugin nspluginwrapper
wget http://download.macromedia.com/pub/labs/flashplayer10/libflashplayer-10.0.d20.7.linux-x86_64.so.tar.gz
tar xvf libflashplayer-10.0.d20.7.linux-x86_64.so.tar.gz
sudo mv libflashplayer.so .mozilla/plugins/

Restart Firefox and check the about:plugins page.

YouTube videos still play in squashed fullscreen if you have dual monitors but that’s not a 64 bit issue.

Enjoy! Now if only Sun would give us a good 64 bit Java plugin….

Bolt movie download

Holy Smoke dvd

Seven Signs of the Apocalypse release