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Very long time ago, once more...

I've been very busy lately, lots of projects, some of them ICT-related, others not, but not too much time to do all those things I want to do.

I'm not going to flood my beloved readers with all boring (well... ;-)) things I've been doing lately, let me just say I'm having a pretty good time :>>

Currently I'm playing around with GStreamer some more. Some stupid problems I'm opposed too, very simple things that should work but don't etc, but well...

I hope I'll be able to report on something more exciting soon, write something, whatever, but I can't promise it'll come :oops:

Will be visiting Napoli from wednesday 'till monday, maybe I'll be able to write something about that trip when I get back.

By the way: happy easter @ all :-)

Oh, something else: we reached 2245 unique visitors on blog.eikke.com now, where a unique visitor is unique in 24 hours. An absolute record 88|

Some time ago, I wrote a small python script that notified me with a jabber message whenever a new e-mail has arrived on my UGent-account. I already was using a similar script, but I wanted to create one myself. And now it's time to publish it. :-)

What does it do: it notifies you with a jabber message when a new e-mail has arived
What do I need: a jabber account for yourself and for the bot, access to procmail filters, python support on the procmail server, a jabber client and my scipt.
How: first, a procmail filter forwards the e-mail headers to mabber.py. Mabber analyses the headers, extracts the needed info and formats it. Then, using xmpppy and a dummy jabber-account, a the little bot pops online and sends you a 'headline' message.
Where do I get it: download mabber.py here
Note: similar scripts/progs exist in Perl and Java.

How to set it up on eduserv:
1) Download the mabber.tar.gz file to your computer. Use an SCP client (like WinSCP on windows) to log in on eduserv with your own login and password. Make sure the right side is selected and upload the mabber.tar.gz file to your home-directory.

2) Using an SSH client (like Putty for windows), log on to eduserv again. First, the mabber.tar.gz file has to be extracted. To do this, enter:

tar xvpfz mabber.tar.gz

The console should output a list of extracted files. Now enter the command

cd mabber

to enter the created mabber directory. Execute the script for the first time with

chmod 700 mabber.py
./mabber.py

It will tell you there was no configfile found, and a dummy-one was created. To adjust this dummy file, go back to the previous directory and open the dummy file :

cd ..
pico -w .mabber

Change the values for 'jid', 'password' and 'tojid' to the JID of your bot, its password and your own JID respectively. Remove the '#' in front of 'jid', 'password' and 'tojid', save with 'CTRL+O' and exit with 'CTRL+X'.

Note:In order to keep your password hidden from other users, mabber.py creates your file with '600' permissions (only you are able to read it and adjust it). If you descide to create the file yourself, do not forget to execute

chmod 600 .mabber

3) Now its time to add a procmail filter. More info here. First execute (while still in the folder of .mabber -- your home folder)

pico -w .forward

In this file, add one line:

"|IFS=' '&&exec /usr/local/bin/procmail -f-||exit 75 #USERNAME"

in which you change USERNAME to your own username. Save with 'CTRL+O', exit with 'CTRL+X'. Now its time to define the filter. Again we use pico to create/adjust a text file:

pico -w .procmailrc

and add:

PATH=$HOME/bin:usr/bin:/usr/local/bin
MAILDIR=$HOME/mail
DEFAULT=/var/mail/USERNAME
LOGFILE=$MAILDIR/from
LOCKFILE=$HOME/.lockmail

#mabber
:0 hc
| $HOME/mabber/mabber.py


Again, change USERNAME into your own username, save with 'CTRL+O' and exit with 'CTRL+X'.

That's it! Try sending yourself an e-mail. A few seconds later (could be half a minute) you should receive a jabber-message containing the sender, the subject and the date. Be sure to check if you really received the mail. If not, doublecheck your .procmailrc file! If you have any questions about the installation or use of this file, feel free to comment. I'll answer asap.

I know, there are very good Free alternatives for the popular Nero Burning Rom, like Gnome Toaster or K3B, but this news is very important: some people want to stay with Nero, and it is also one more important software vendor admiting the power and potential of Linux, after Adobe and some other ones.

More info here.

Very busy week -> zero lessons followed... :-/

Monday wasn't that hard, just the usually stuff at VTK. In the evening, we had a fire drill: very good one, everyone was out of the building in a new time record. It was the last one this year, so the next time the alarm goes of, it's real.

Tuesday we had an information evening about VTK and being a board member of VTK. I'm going for "external relations", but I heard somebody else'll do it too. So it'll be a very hard time to get enough votes.

After that, we went with a few people of the student representation to a very good restaurant, Caf

Once more, my sites moved from one server to another, which resulted into a minor database regression. Looks like some comments posted went missing, I'm very sorry for this inconvenience.

It's a very sad day for democracy today. The EC passed the software patents directive as an A-item (without discussion) even while Denmark (with support from other countries) asked for a B-item (with discussion). First the whole European Parliament is ignored, their amendements are ignored, their call for restart is ignored and Denmark and all other countries asking for a B-item are ignored. There are a few options left open: the second reading by the Parliament, but I hope they go for a fighting against this undemocratic descision. The EC can't refuse a call for a B-item from any country, but they did. Now, the EP and the EU member states can go to the European Court. Let's hope they do it and get their victory.

Further reading: English - Dutch

Again, I can say it was a very busy week, last one. But I enjoyed it very much! Movie week was good, the party was great. Many good-looking girls at the party, more than normal on engineers-parties ;-) You can see some pictures here and here. I helped cleaning up in the morning, saw my bed only between 8h30 and 13h XX(

That evening, after the party, I went to Brussels, for a meeting with the "workgroup international" of the VVS, the Union of Students in Flanders. There were some political points to discuss. Points I earlier thought of "far away from my bed", but now I've a better sight at the possible impact of them. Very, very important. We discussed about GATS, an agreement between the EU and the USA to let the European insurance companies operate at the american market. No problem with that, but as a return, the Americans want the EU to open our "education market" so they could start private high schools in Europe, privately funded, to fight at our public founded schools, delivering a quality of the best ones in Europe and the rest of the world. With that agreement, students should be seen as a consumer, where you get more if you pay more, instead of as an equal civilian, where everybody has the same rights. Very dangerous situation, I think.

Ex-commissioner Frits Bolkestein
wiki-page: English - Dutch
Another thing we discussed is the Bolkestein-directive (Dutch - English) wich is almost equally, but only about the circulation of services (including education!) in the European Union. You can say "why not? It's good that I can go to an Irish school here in Flanders for example", but then you're falling under the Irish law. For example in Poland you don't have that much privacy-protection and social-protection as you have here, you don't have that good environment-protection as you have here and you also don't have that good educational quality as you have here because our final terms (directed by the Flemish Government) would be appropriate anymore. It can have a very big impact here and can reduce our very good social and environmental protection systems. So, please, sign the petition against that directive. A few days ago, I also red an article in the newspaper about a change of the Bolkestein directive: the "county of origin" part should be modified so that if they start here a Polish school/company, they're falling under our laws instead of the Polish ones. Seems a good evolution then.
International student representation/politics, I like it more and more. It gets more interesting every day.

At VTK, I think our firewall is ready. Now I just need to find out how to configure the DNS-server and then we can give it a test. Tomorrow we'll decide how many people our praesidium will count next year. We also have to vote if "computer" will remain with two people or not. Let's see...

My girlfriend is sick, she has the flu. Seems very hard for her. She's got tears in her eyes from her sore throat and has to throw up. Let's hope I don't get it from her.

Influenza Virus photo

Some good news about the Workgroup Free Software! With the very busy first semester and the exams, it has been very quite around it. But now, I think it's time for a revival. Pieter has sent an e-mail about a linux-lesson with a liveCD to let the people meet linux in a safe environment without any risk. Seems a very good plan to demonstrate the power of linux, liveCD's and free software. A lesson about image manipulation with The Gimp is also in the running. Now, a meeting should be planned quite fast to organise those things. Normally, the meeting'll be on wednesday, 17h15 @ VTK. Feel free to join us! Let's hope it's a big succes and that it can open the eyes of lots of people for the power of free software!

Wilber, The GIMP mascotte

While searching for the nice image above, I also found these interesting links: Linux and Scooby-Doo, GIMP's Film Version and The CinePaint Project.

Had a great time. No time to give an overview at the moment, but I will report on it as soon as possible.

@RealNitro: the only way to learn things is by coding a lot :-)

It has been a while since I have posted here, for two reasons: I didn't have much to say, and last week was very busy. I did a rewrite of the gotcha php-code that is used for the Home I live in. It took me a while to decypher the old code (amazingly complex), and eventually it took me 4 evenings to finish the job. However, the gotcha that's going on atm still uses the old code. :-( There was no time to test the new version thorougly, and just before the start of the gotcha (22h. last sunday), I discovered a little bug too. But I'm looking at it from the bright side: now I have the opportunity to fine tune my code, check it for weaknesses in its security, add new features, maybe add a fully featured admin-page, give it some new html code... If anyone (that is: anyone I know and trust ;-) ) wants to see my code running, just let me know. Btw, does anyone know of a way to check if an e-mail that should have been sent with the php code has really been sent? I'm asking this because last sunday the old php code did not start at first (I had to try 3 times!), and apparently some people didn't receive their passwords (which sould have been sent with the php mail function). :-/

Two days ago (sunday) I went to FOSDEM. The overall 'experience' was better than had I expected it to be. None of the presentations I attended were too technical (except the one about nautilus ;-) ). The one I enjoyed the most was the one about FAI, followed closely by XFCE. I think I liked the one about FAI the most because we might use it in stead of Fedora Stateless. (the speaker was very good too)

There ya go. Not much more to say. I have a big, unpublished post here at this blog about 'mabber.py'. But I will not publish it before I tested the installation instructions, and I still need to choose a license (or invent one).

It was quite hard to solve the problem I pointed at here. After a while we finally discovered the filesystem was quite corrupt, so configuration files were damaged. smb.conf was quite fast fixed, but the sendmail configuration was terrible. Thanks to Femi, it's solved. Let's hope we can soon migrate to our new server configuration, without sendmail.

Yesterday, I placed the prices of our Dell-computers online. Now all people can buy them by e-mail, but ikke and Bram are working at an e-shop to automate the whole thing. ikke told me the database structure (and implementation) is ready now, so I can insert the data. Already three computers (all Dell Latitude D800's, the notebook topmodel) are sold. Seems good B-)

This week we have Filmweek (movieweek) and Lentefuif (spring party) at VTK. Let's watch some movies and have a great party this week!

Also some bad news in politics. The European Council and Commission told they'll ignore the desicion of the Parliament to restart the whole software patents direction. It seems there will be a big conflict between those two European institutes. They'll try to vote the direction as an A-item (without discussion) on the next meeting. Some national parliaments already decided they can not accept such things, so let's see what happens. Let's hope they can counter such a boycot of democracy. More information about the desicion here.

Another bad thing coming towards us, is the pc-taxes for copyright. As I mentoined here, some political parties are trying to push a proposal that creates a tax of 40 euro on each computer sold. The money should go to music companies as compensation for the (illegal) copying of their music with computers. Normally, there wouldn't be a majority for that. One of the governing parties, SP.a announced in the media that they were a great opponent of those taxes. Now, they're breaking because of the pressure of another party, VLD to approve the proposal. Stupido's.

Hehe, my girlfried has red the previous post and the piece about her. Than she looks at me in a way she makes me completely crazy. Oh, I love her so much :-D

Sunday, I went to FOSDEM. It was good, some good talks. I visited the desktop tracks about KDE and XFCE, some developer rooms: Gentoo ("Gentoo Documentation Project", missed "Enterprise Java on Gentoo"), Mozilla and Debian ("Fully automatic Linux installations"). Because of some delay, they really messed up the lightning talks, so I missed VideoLAN, wich was very impressive at the booth. FAI was one of the most interesting talks. I think we'll use it for the Linux@UGent project because there's not so much swing in Fedora Stateless. They even don't talk about it for FC4.

And now: let's build a firewall!