log.matteo.desimone.name

Actually, Iomega floppy-plus works under windows 7. All you need is a updated driver for the X1DE-USB device (the floppy). I found this post with all the details to use the Nec Floppy USB driver, enabling your iomega driver.

The necessity to face Python programming in a "extremely serious way" leads me to try to define a portable and powerful development environment. For long time I used IDLE for Python programming but there isn't enough feeling between us.

I need a consistent multiplatform python programming environment because I work on 3 different operating systems (Win, Mac, Linux) and 2/3 different distro for each of it (XP, Vista, 7, archlinux, debian, ubuntu, slackware...).

Mainly I love texmate but it works only on Mac machines. My first choiche is EMACS on Linux systems (ok, ok, it's not true: for sysadmin tasks I prefer Vim...) On Windows... damn! After years, I'm still looking for something making me effectively comfortable.

Today, Googling for a while, I found an interesting post on http://www.enigmacurry.com

It describe a solution based on:

• EMACS
• Rope and Ropemacs: a Python IDE library
• YASnippet: a snippet tool link TextMate (!)

On Archlinux, installing the tools is trivial by Yaourt:

> yaourt -S ropemacs

> yaourt -S emacs-yasnippet

I'm going to test these for a while: if I'm happy with it, I'll post my configurations files to make this setup portable

Well, waiting for the 64bit package (Skype, why you are waiting so long?) this is the fastest way to install Skype on a 64 bit system (now I'm using Debian testing distro).

1. Download the Debian pkg from Skype website

2. Install 32bit compatibility libs. You need: ia32-libs and ia32-libs-gtk:

   apt-get install ia32libs ia32-libs-gtk

3. Install the skype package forcing the architecture. In my case the package name is skype-debian2.1.0.81-1i386.deb, if it is differente in your case, change it in the following lines:

   dpkg -i --force-architecture skype-debian2.1.0.81-1i386.deb

Well, try to launch skype. If you have a similar error message:

 Inconsistency detected by ld.so: dl-open.c: 611: _dl_open: 
 Assertion `_dl_debug_initialize (0, args.nsid)->r_state == RT_CONSISTENT' failed!

you can fix it deactivating the Pulse audio libs. Use the following command to do that:

 chmod a-r /usr/lib32/libpulse*

That's all falks!

Upgrading the kernel is always a dangerous step. Anyway, under Debian, it is pretty simple. My main problem are ATI drivers. After each kernel upgrade this error appears: FATAL: Error inserting fglrx (/lib/modules/2.6.32-5-amd64/updates/dkms/fglrx.ko):Invalid module format

I think the problem is that the package fglrx-modules-dkms is upgraded after the kernel but before the reboot, so it is compiled under the old kernel version. So rebooting, the error rise because wrong kernel version.

If you have the same problem after the reboot you can try my way:

1. Remove the module: rmmod fglrx
2. Remove the fglrx-modules-dkms package: apt-get remove fglrx-modules-dkms
3. Reboot
4. I'm using GDM so, when the system is up, I switch to a textual console (ALT+CTRL+F1) and log in as root.
5. Stop GDM: /etc/init.d/gdm stop
6. Reinstall the fglrx-modules-dkms package: apt-get install fglrx-modules-dkms
7. Load the fglrx module: modprobe flgrx
8. Restart GDM: /etc/init.d/gdm start

That's all. These easy steps fix the problem on my PC always.

To convert a file from a image format to another, you can user the 'convert' command on Linux.

One of the common situation is to convert a large number of images. The firts attempt could be to combine convert and findcommands.

This code converts all the Jpeg images in the current directory into PNG.

 find *.jpg -exec convert \\{\\} \\{\\}.png \;

This fast-and-dirty solution has side effects because convert uses the extention to define the target image format. Indeed the converted files end with a double extention: the original one and the new one. So image01.jpg became image01.jpg.png.

To solve this, I wrote a simple script. You can copy and past the code in a file called mass_conv.sh:

 #!/bin/bash
 function usage () {
              echo "mass_conv -  mass image conversion"
              echo "Usage:"
              echo "       mass_conv.sh source_extension target_extension";
 }

 if [ "$#" == "2" ]; then
       for old_name in *.$1
       do
       new_name=`echo $old_name | sed s/.$1/.$2/`;
           convert $old_name $new_name
      done;
 else
      usage
 fi

The script uses the sed command to correctly rename the target file. Just an example: to convert all the Jpeg images into PNG format without double extention you can write: ./mass_conv.sh jpg png

I'd like to announce the new version of the Blender script to set stereocameras developed by Sbastian Schneider. Sebastian has integrated my hack in this version so it is possible to save and load settings: thanks Sebastian!

You can download the script from the Sebastian's website.

I'm using this script to teach Stereo basis in the Virtual Reality course.

I'm back to work on the multitouch table project.

In my University, we are building a multitouch table. We decided to try something different from my last post: we want build a hybrid table, a table based on both the FTIR and the DI technique. We refer to the experiece of Johannes Luderschmidt.

First important element that I noticed is that Johannes uses a regular acrilic glass for the surface excluding the Plexiglas EndLighten. Probably the Plexiglas EndLighten could influence the performace because the plexiglass also redirects the IR towards the camera so it produce less contrast compared to normal DI setups.

We'd like to use a hi-res webcam as the Logitech Webcam Pro 9000. I called the Logitech Support Center and they assured me that it's possible to remove the IR filter.

About LEDs: we'd like to try to control LED in frequency (AC) to reduce heat. I'm goingo to investigate more the problem. Also I've apprecieted this link: Led wizard

PS. I put here a cople of links for my furure works: about LED choice and a fun newbie video

Holidays give me the opportunity to finish my small experiment about stereoscopy. You can find the stereo-file on my blip.tv account. To download the file: mov

I've have to thanks Sebastian Schneider who helps me to understand where was my mistake in using his Blender plugin. I'm trying to render all the cameras at once by a Python script but it doesn't work.

PS. We decided to use the Blender plugin BStereoOffAxisCamera developed by Sebastian Schneider during the course of Virtual Reality at University Politecnico di Torino to train people for stereoscopy.

I want remember this link: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms235291.aspx

I've googled for long time and now I want to be sure to know where it is.

It's time to renew my C/C++ knowledge.
I spent many hours in C and C++ programming and today I'm going to be annoyed with that language. But programming languages are so similar to human languages: they change, evolve and surprise us!
So I'm looking for new aspects of C++ languages that I've never used or I don't know yet.
My first stop in this path is on SIMD and other techniques for fast numerical programming with gcc

I'd like to introduce in my coding style a new consciousness!