04.02.07
Projects update
Well, I made some headway on my three projects:
DS-330 Voice Recorder: apparently, people smarter than me have tried to get this working under Linux but had no luck. The encoded files use a proprietry format (DSS) and the SDK is a Windows-only library. So nerts to Olympus. Looks like I’ll have to sell it. Shame really, it’s a nice recorder and worked very well. If yo’re interested in buying it, let me know.
Amarok (kdelibs): still haven’t built this damn library. I changed to serial compiles (instead of the default parallel compiles) but that didn’t fly. I filed an addendum to bug 171397. Hopefully they can figure it out (I have no desire to sift through the tons of code for kdelibs and Qt 3. Ick.)
Gumstix RTC: I tried soldering a 4-wire cable (hacked off an old IDE cable) to the RTC breakout. No luck. The tip on my solder iron is too damn big! I couldn’t get good heat transfer. I’ll have to grind the tip down to a finer point and try again.
I did write a script to save the date and time when I shudown my gumstix (posted it to the mailing list.) That way, when I boot it up, the date doesn’t revert back to January 1, 1970. This screws with programs that use a file’s timestamps (last access, last modification and last change.) My script prevents time from going backwards so those types of programs are happy. A battery-backed RTC and ntpd would be best…and I’m getting there.
Transferred all my music from the Dell/XP to the Gateway/Gentoo. Bonus. Now I can work with my tunes…gotta have my tunes. Music doth soothe the savage beast.
Tomorrow, we’re grilling steaks! A friend sent us some porterhouse steaks from Omaha Steaks! Damn, they’re good! I bought some hickory chips to throw on the coals. Tomorrow’s gonna be some good eatin’!
