iPhone UI Vector (pure SVG) Elements for your application designing.
I've recently added to OpenClipart.org, 2 news SVG images: iPhone and iPad in realistic style. Today, I've finished the 1st version of the UI elements set.
With this set, you can design the visual of your own app (or webapp) in Inkscape or SVG compatible software.
As already said in the title, all of the elements are in pure SVG. Enjoy!
Cheap and easy DIY iPhone steering wheel for fantastic driving sensations
The intro story
The brother of Alice (Thanks Math) given to me a 2G iPhone 2 years ago.
I used it a lot but 6 months later, the Home button stopped to work (it's a well known problem with iPhone).
I tried to fix it but without success and finally bought a 3G iPhone.
Last week, I decided to retry to fix the first generation iPhone. After some solderings (flex cable of the Home button broken), the iPhone has resuscitated (the back cover is a bit damaged, it's very hard to open).
Well, what to do with 2 iPhones, a car game and a little boy?
Yes, of course, a multiplayer race. But for my 4 years old boy, the iPhone is not really ideal to hold, specially to play a car game.
Ok, no problem, I decide to transform the iPhone in a real car simulation experience.
And what you need to achieve this ambitious project? a steering wheel, of course!
Question: How to build a DIY iPhone steering wheel for next to nothing? See bellow..
What you need:
- Hardware:
- a 2G iPhone (can work with 3G)
- a steering wheel toy
- an original iPhone packing (here first generation)
- a bit of scotch-tape
- 4 screws (for plastic)
- Tools:
- an electric drill (like Dremel)
- a screwdriver
- Duration:
- between 1 and 2 hours depends how you are good with your hands!
Howto:
1. Find an unused toy with a steering wheel. In this case, annoying and very noisy toy for the parents.
2. Pull out the wheel (4 screws to remove) and put the iPhone on the center to get to an overall view.
3. Find the original box of the iPhone (again thanks to Math to have given to me the full package) and get the transparent plastic packing.
Put it in the middle of the wheel, check the alignment and mark with a pen the position of the plastic piece to the wheel.
4. Use a Dremel tool to cut the unwanted bits of the wheel.
5. See the result, around 3 millimetres of plastic has been removed.
Now, the plastic packing takes place naturally in the middle of the wheel.
6. Keep the plastic piece with pieces of scotch-tape and mark 4 circles with a pen. They will be used to attach firmly the piece to the wheel.
7. First, use a small drill bit to drill the 4 marks to the 2 pieces (packaging and wheel) and make a larger holes to the packaging.
The diameter of the drill bits must match with your screws (here, 2 millimetres and 3 millimetres). The screws come from a old plastic radio.
Before to mount the packaging to the wheel, put 2 rubber bands in each end of the packaging.
8. Now screw the packaging on the wheel.
The iPhone attach with the 4 rubber bands on the middle of the steering wheel.
9. Now, a little video to show how it's cool to drive with the iPhone.. ok, I'm not really good in game but I'm better with the wheel than without.
New illustration: La MOOouette Pirate for a French article on the website AFUL
Last week, someone sent to me a request for an illustration with La MOOouette (mascot of the French OpenOffice.org project) for a (French) article. The subject was why it's better to use alternatives solutions instead the pirated copies of MS Office in the companies or associations.
Convert a PDF to Epub for reading with your iPhone
It's a bit frustrating to read a PDF file with an iPhone.
Why ? Not only because the screen is too small (ok.. it could be is) but really because the PDF format doesn't offer the needed functionalities for this type of device (no zoom, fixed page width..). It' why the formats of eBook exist, of course!Good but what to do if you have like me some PDF impossible to find in eBook format? It's not more a problem since I found this very useful online tool called epub2go (http://epub2go.com/). In 3 clicks, your PDF file will be converted. And more, the website offers the possibility to import easily the eBook in your iPhone via your email. Let's go for the (unneeded) howto:1- Choose if the PDF file is on your computer or online. 2a- if it's online, click on the bottom button and insert the URL 2b- if the file is on your computer, click on the top button and choose where it is (Browse) 3- After the processing screen, insert your email address and click on "Send to my iPhone" That's it for the conversion part.Now to install the eBook on your Iphone: 1- go to Apple Store and install Stanza. It's a free eBook reader. 2- check your email on your iPhone and open the message from ePUB2Go 3- click (tap) on the link inside the message 4- now the ePUB2Go website is automatically open and in the second after a black screen appears with an icon of a book in the middle of the screen. 5- finally, Stanza is open with your new book in the list!
A good read!
Update: If you want to read your ePub on your desktop, have a look on this list (from fileinfo.com):
Today is the migration day for the netbook of my wife, Alice. After a long time with pleasure and some annoying things , we've decided to migrate the eeePC 901 from Xandros to Ubuntu Remix. And to be honest, it hasn't been really painful to achieve this job.
Find here the steps to do the same with your netbook:1- download the last release from the Ubuntu server: http://releases.ubuntu.com/9.04/ubuntu-9.04-netbook-remix-i386.img 2- install ImageWriter: sudo apt-get install usb-imagewriter3- use ImageWriter to put ubuntu-9.04-netbook-remix-i386.img in the USB key (need a mini. 1Gb usb stick)4- insert the usb key to the eeePC, start the PC and tape on ESC touch to view the boot menu. Select the USB key in the list. 5- in the boot menu, choose the right language (F2) and the right keyboard map (F3) and Enter You'll start the live distribution.6- when the system is ready, click on the Install shorcut.7- after the firsts easy steps, you arrive to the screen of partitioning. Here, you have some choices to make. I chose to make 3 partitions: 1 partition on the first SSD (root "/"), 2 on the second SSD (10Gb for"/usr" and ~5Gb for "/home") all with the new format Ext4 (better results than Ext3). You have noticed that I didn't add swap partition, why? First of all, because the netbook has 2Gb of RAM and secondly because after some reads, the writings in the swap seems bad for the life of the SSD (not all people are agree with that but I had to take a decision). 8- after this important step, the installer copies the OS on the netbook.9- reboot when it's asked (don't forget to remove the usb key).As you can see, the boot is quite quick, under 40 seconds to go to the desktop with the wifi connexion. Alice uses her eeePC for 4 main usages: - to stay in touch with our family (in Spain, France, ), - in the kitchen as a (luxury) webradio - to make videos of our children or take a picture during cookery. - to record her voice for her French lessons.So, I had to install some softs: - for the video, wxCam (sudo apt-get install wxcam). It has better perfomances than Cheese in video recording mode. - for the webradio, Rhythmbox with a customized list of French webradios. - for the webphone, Skype for linux (works better than on Xandros even the webcam). You must specify the sound device to get sound. Go to Options / Sound Devices and choose in the 3 lists, "HDA Intel (hw:Intel,0)", then Apply. - finally, nothing to do for the voice, Sound Recorder is already installed on Ubuntu Remix.To finish the job: - remove unused stuff like Evolution - add plugins like Flash (nonfree), Jre (SUN). You can do this job with the Synaptic Package Manager (in Administration tab). - remove unused applications started with the system: go to Preferences tab / Startup Applications and unselect "Bluetooth Manager", "Check for new hardware drivers", "Remove Desktop", "Visual Assistance". Of course it depends of your specifi hardware or preferences. - add shortcuts in the Favourites tab: simply selecting the shortcut (from its tab for example, Internet) and to glide it into the Favourites tab.Here you can see the result.
Update (2009.06.13): Wifi WPA authentication is impossible with the current rt2860 driver. To solve this problem, we have to downgrade the driver.
If it doesn't retrieve the right packages, makesure "build-essential", "linux-header-generic" and "dkms" is installed. Let it run and it should complete without a problem.
4) Restart. The new driver should work automatically.
Auto updating security packages with Ubuntu (Debian) system
It's a bit hard to maintain manually a lot of servers but it's really
important to keep them updated. It's why I looked for an automatic
solution and it has been pretty easy to find a good and simple one.
I propose to you to use an utility called apt-cron.
installing it on our system:
sudo apt-get install apt-cron
creating a new security list:
sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list.d/security.sources.list
Need a third screen for a better productivity? try this, it's not a real one but GEQ solution!
As a real geek, I'm working with two screens on my desktop computer. But sometime, I'd like to have another one to keep an eye on Twitter for example! I found a GEQ solution to my problem! I discovered recently a software called Synergy. It's quite old (last release April 2006) but it works fine.
What is Synergy? Synergy offers to share the keyboard, the mouse and the clipboard between multi computers!
How it works? Simply to install: - a server on the master computer (with the mouse/keyboard) - a client on the other computers (without mouse/keyboard).
How to install it? You have two ways to install Synergy on Linux system: 1- console mode
install the software on each computer, in Ubuntu with the followed command: sudo apt-get install synergy
configure the server sudo nano /etc/synergy.conf
section: screens my_laptop: my_desktop: end section: links my_desktop: left = my_laptop my_laptop: right = my_desktop end
Here, we have the desktop screen on the right of the laptop. You have to insert the hostname (my_laptop and my_desktop here). To know it, put in console "hostname" (or cat $HOSTNAME).
Now, run the Synergy server on the desktop: synergys the process is automatically loaded as daemon.
Finally, on the client side, run by the command: synergyc server_ip
Move you mouse on the left border of your desktop screen and your pointer is going to jump to the laptop screen, magical isn't it!
2- with a GUI client:
Install a new package called QuickSynergy in all computers: sudo apt-get install quicksynergy (on Ubuntu system)
Run the soft, in gnome: Applications Menu > Accessories > QuickSynergy
In the server (computer with mouse/keyboard), choose the first tab "Share" (pict.1)
Insert in the left field, the hostname of your client (ex. my_laptop)
Click on the Start button
Run the soft (see below)
In the client, choose the second tab "Use" (pict.2)
Fusion Man is selected in the pictures of the year 2008 by Boston.com
You are invited to see the year 2008 by a pictures tour on the Boston.com website. And of course, you will refind one of the hero of the year, Iron Man!
Unfortunately, lot of the pictures are linked with terrible events. I prefer to keep, the better things like Iron Man crossing the Channel. What do you think?
OpenOffice.org Education - let's go with A3 posters and laptop stickers
Little break on my web dev to make some OpenOffice.org Education project visual elements! Here we have 2 A3 posters to complete with any text you want and 4 differents stickers for laptop or anywhere else. I'll provide the SVG source to everyone who ask me.
OpenOffice.org 3.0 on native MAC OS-X hits better than Linux!
A great news for all developers of the OpenOffice.org port to native Mac OS-X system,the number of downloads is higher than for Linux system (according with this source: http://www.solidoffice.com/archives/893).
"221,230 GNU/Linux users
an impressive 320,622 Mac OS X users
a staggering 2,449,863 Microsoft Windows users."
Well done guys, I'm happy for you specially for Eric.
OpenOffice.org Education mascot ready for the Foss.In in Bangalore
Rakesh Pandit (http://rakesh.gnulinuxcentar.org/?p=107) will normally go to the Foss.In event in Bangalore (India) on Nov 25-29, 2008. So, to go with him, the mascot has take a picture just behind the Taj Mahal..
At the moment, we don't know if Eric Bachard (http://eric.bachard.free.fr/news/) will join Rakesh to the Foss.In, he's waiting an answer from the organizers! Good luck guys.
How to restore the app icons lost on ASUS eeePC 901 (and other)
Well, a strange thing appears sometimes after a simple update (but I don't know exactly when). Some icons disappear and then it looks impossible to start them!
After a long investigation, I found that the problem was in the configuration file of the simple interface. This file, called simpleui.rc includes all informations of the simple interface (easy isn't it?). The problem is that ASUS changed the way to run some applications ("Webcam" -> "ucview" app or "Sound Recorder" -> "krecord" app). Before this change, the simpleui.rc called a shell launcher script (/usr/bin/launch-ucview for example). But this launcher doesn't exist any more and the configuration tries to use it again.So, the solution is to change the way to run applications in the simpleui.rc file. - Open a console window Ctrl+Alt+t - First of all, we'll create a symbolic link to the configuration file., run this lines: - sudo mkdir /home/user/.AsusLauncher - sudo ln -s /var/lib/AsusLauncher/simpleui.rc /home/user/.AsusLauncher/simpleui.rc - Now, we'll modified the configuration file, run this lines: - sudo nano /home/user/.AsusLauncher/simpleui.rc - in Nano, push Ctrl+w (search) and enter "launch-" Enter - replace "/usr/bin/launch-ucview" by "/usr/bin/ucview" - do the same with "/usr/bin/launch-krecord" -> "/usr/bin/record" - save the change with Ctrl+o - and quit Nano: Ctrl+x - To finish, restart Windows Manager with Ctrl+Alt+BackSpace Here you can find the original simpleui.rc file from 901: http://wiki.eeeuser.com/list:901_simpleui.rc?s=simpleui
Easy multiple image submit buttons management with Mootools
It can be interesting to have multiple image type submit buttons in a form for example to print and to submit the form to another page. A way to do it is to change dynamically the action attribute (in the form tag) by another value just before to send the form.
We get the action link from the rel attribute of the related image button and inject it to the action attribute of the form tag.
In the same time, it's possible to declare the place (target) which will be active (here we have _print page for the 1st and _parent for the 2nd button).
This tip is really usefull when you use the Formcheck class!
FormCheck library for Mootools - fix overlay tips for IE6.x
It's not possible to show a div element (or any other elements) on a select field in Internet Explorer 6.x Of course, we get the same problem with the library FormCheck (http://mootools.floor.ch/).
I've produced recently a small "dirty" fix. The solution is to insert a iframe inside the generated div (tips).in forcheck.js:
/* Function: addError Private method Add error message */ addError : function(obj) { ... if (obj.element) { obj.element.empty(); if (this.options.display.errorsLocation == 1) { var errors = []; obj.errors.each(function(error) { errors.push(new Element('p').set('html', error)); }); /** Iframe hack for IE6.x for select overlay **/ if(Browser.Engine.trident4){ var cf_iframe = IFrame({ src:'about:blank', 'frameborder':0, 'height':'35px', //must be improve but how? 'width':'300px', //must be improve but how? 'background':'transparent' }).injectInside(obj.element); } /****/ var tips = this.makeTips(errors).injectInside(obj.element); ...
The known problem with this fix is the fixed dimensions of the iframe. It's not possible to put at 100%, the iframe generates ann horizontal scrolling bar. This solution is based on an idea of Fabien Molinet (http://fabien-molinet.fr/) and his script called "Select Fix 0.30". Thanks to him!
A new image for the new OpenOffice.org version: v3! Now, the MOoouette, mascot of the French-speaking OpenOffice.org is playing with its magic wand.. Have a look: Enough for today, see you soon!
OpenOffice.org Education mascot ready to go to Toronto!
Today, it's time to make a break and contribute to the open source community! Well, I drew a new image for the OpenOffice.org Education project. The theme is a visit of the Edu-MOoouette (mascot of the project) to Toronto (specially for Eric). See the result : So, it's a new image in the collection: http://mooouette.tuxfamily.org/ What do you think about the images?
The French pilot Stéphane Rousson is currently trying to cross the English Channel with his muscular powered airship. He started his adventure at 07h15GMT from Hythe (French coast)and normally after 5hours of push-pull, he will arrive to Wissant (English coast). The distance is 45 km. He flies at 30 meters up to the sea. Good luck Stéphane!
Update: Unfortunately, Stéphane failed after 8 hours of push-pull. In cause, the wind was flowing in the wrong direction at only 10 miles of the arrival point! Apparently, he has to stop for a long time du to the hight costs of the project. Good luck for the next step.
Fusion man got the Channel.. today, it's not a comic, it's true!
A man, a (small) wing, the English Channel, 10mn and 190km/h.. 99 years after the French pilot Louis Blériot and a delay of 24h, the Swiss pilot Yves Rossy achieved his target today with success.
eeepc 901.. good but not nice with a wifi (lightly) protected by WEP!
Trying to fix an annoying problem with the eeepc 901 today. Its wifi connection stops to work each time I'm starting to use it. After some searches on the web, I found that I'm not alone in this case (with all eeepc models). Apparently, the problem is linked with the WEP protection (encryption). I decided to setup a new wifi with a WPA protection.. and it looks to work, good to know isn't it?
Adobe Digital Editions
