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Status update

A small update from the battle front: I’m trying to find a blog editor which I like. Like I stated before, I need something like Windows Live Writer for my 64-bit Gentoo system. I’ve been hitting the search engines with every phrase I could come up with and so far I only found a random blog about editors for the Free Desktop. Even though the author seems to find a lot more than I do, of the 5 (or actually 10 if you count the options from the linked article) only 3 keep up with my list of demands.

I’ll skip the first 5 (because those plain suck) and skip to the last (and best) 5 options. First up is Thingamablog. This one has a decent interface, is written in Java and resembles a news client. Cool as it may be, it does not support XML RPC style postings, only direct uploads to ftp.

The next one is JBlogEditor. This one is also written in Java but is no longer actively maintained. I had a hard time getting it to run in the first place as the native SWT libraries in there are meant for 32-bit systems. I tried to get the source from SVN but they have no docs on how to build from source and after finally be able to compile it by writing my own compile and run script (which grabs all dependencies) I found out they use a launch system from Eclipse which I don’t know.

After all the effort I finally came up with the brilliant idea to use Wine to run the Windows binary. It finally worked but then I found out they only support WordPress for custom sites, the Blogger API does not wants to play with a third party website (it does not ask for a URL so it ends up at blogger.com).

The 3rd option it QTM for KDE and I can be brief: it looks way to simple for my taste. I will look into it later on to see if its any good as the version reviewed is way older than the current version.

Next up is Flock. Flock is not so much a dedicated blog editor as a fully intergrated package with a Firefox browser and loads of extra stuff, being the "Community Browser" or something. It works straight out of the box on my system but it is way to heavy for just blogging.

Last up is Bleezer, another Java based blogging client. I’ve actually used that one before so I know it works. The interface is a bit wonky at times but it works fine. The main issue I had in the past is the fact that on linux, it used the default Look and Feel from Java, which is at this time with Java 1.6.0 still Metal. If you don’t know it, it looks horrible – something escaped from a Windows 3.1 system or perhaps ancient Solaris.

I finally found a solution for the skinning problem though: use the command line to tell Java to switch the default L&F. I’m currently using something like this:
java -Dswing.defaultlaf=com.sun.java.swing.plaf.gtk.GTKLookAndFeel -jar Bleezer.jar

The only thing driving me nuts at the moment is the fact that the GTK skin is all wrong. Its a lot better than Metal but the fonts are way too small. I have the feeling that this is an issue with the fact that the Qt-to-GtK bridge that I have on my computer is broken because of KDE4 (and thus Qt4.x). At least it is better than nothing and right now I’m even typing this using Bleezer so everything is all good.

I still have high hopes for KBlogger but as long as the 1.0 branch is alpha I will stay clear as it seems to have loads of issues and I can’t get it to compile at all.

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New Headings….

My site has always been a frontend for the many other projects I ran on my servers. I post every now and then some articles but I never actively *did* something with my site. Even though I get a steady number of visitors thanks to the (appearantly) interesting articles I did write I’m now taking it all into a new direction.

I’m currently revamping the site and its categories to support a more blog-like approach. I’ve integrated my site from the study tour to japan (Bonsai) and I am currently rebuilding the photo gallery on here. One of the major issues I want to address is the extreme bandwidth I spend on deep-linked images. I don’t mind people deep-linking preview images but I do mind linking to the full sized images as most sites only require a small preview anyway. So starting now, only registered users can view the full-sized images I’m hosting here.

On another note, I’ve finally finished the move to my cyberwizzard.nl domain – no more frames! Currently I’m checking if I can find any more trouble after ditching the old domain (wrong links, wrong mail addresses etc) but so far it looks like the transfer is complete.

As a general request, I would love suggestions for a blogging client for linux. I’m currently using Windows Live Writer which (I hate to admit) is working great but for linux there seems to be nothing remotely in the same class, user-friendly or feature wise. I’m trying to get KBlogger to work on my KDE4 desktop but so far not with any success.

Which brings me to the last part of this update: I will post more Gentoo (or linux related) stuff on this site. I keep running into problems which I solved or keep solving (because I forgot how I did it last time) and I’m fed up with it Cool

P.S. I’m still working on the layout, I still want to do something with anime but I can seem to finish something I like so right now your stuck with this template I found somewhere which I liked. 

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More updates, more upgrades, more stuff gets broken

Please hold on while we update the software running this site…

Actually this is meant quite literally: we are currently updating every piece of software on this server as well as updating the CMS for this site.

One of the site effects of that upgrade is the breaking of loads of stuff on this site. The guest book is now permanently off-line as it is useless. The download section has been fixed and is working again. The photo gallery is sort of working: after turning off the SEF url support its working (but it should work with SEF enabled as well) – we’ll ook into it…

Hopefully all this will pay off by streamlining the website and even boost the development of the new layout. (Which is probably delayed until the next version of the CMS software is ready).

Just bare with us – eventually everything will be back up and running 🙂

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Site revamp coming up

This site has mostly been a frontend for my server and various other sites. The time has come to revamp the whole site, perhaps upgrade to a new CMS and what not… Ii’m thinking purple as the new base color… and with a new design, new color scheme comes ofcourse a decent domain: as of now the site is available through www.cyberwizzard.nl 🙂 More news will follow once I actually get round to rebuild the site.

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EVE Meeting photos are up!

Finally I managed to pull myself together and upload the photos of the London EVE-Online 2006 meet in de Hoggshead. This brilliant meeting was an unofficial meeting set up by DJ Xyliana and pulled hundreds of EVE players from all over the world.

You can find the photos in the Photo Gallery.

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Tune up

ImageWelcome to my new site. Once more a switch from CMS.

The last attempt for a decent front page was Etomite. However a fine program with lots of options and easy to maintain this CMS appears to have died. The creators ran into trouble and made a final release before disbanding the project.
The site seems to have gone offline but I’ve been told this is just temporary while they switch hosts to provide at least access to forums and docs for old users.