Frogatto new game crossplatform...

A new game is very nice and interesting. Named "Frogatto", this game should replace some older games from gnome.
Frogatto is freely available for Mac, Windows, and Linux.
Download it.

Sunflow rendering on Fedora 13

How to install Sunflow ?
It's pretty simple. Download the zip archive from here.
Unzip and edit the sh script sunflow.sh
from the sunflow folder.
By default the script is :

#/bin/sh

mem=1G

java -Xmx$mem -server -jar sunflow.jar $*

If we run this script will have this error :

$ sh sunflow.sh 
Invalid maximum heap size: -Xmx1G
Could not create the Java virtual machine.

The solution is:

$ whereis java
java: /usr/bin/java ...

Now change the script :

#!/bin/bash
/usr/bin/java -Xmx1024M -server -jar sunflow.jar $*

And run it ...

$ sh sunflow.sh 

The result is :

Makehuman 3D on Fedora

Makehuman software installation is simple. You must be superuser, and then use yum:

$su
#yum search mhgui
#yum install mhgui.i686
#yum search makehuman
#yum install makehuman.i686  

It will automatically install animorph-0.3-6.fc12.i686.
A negative aspect of Fedora 13 is the lack of 3D software: Moonlight, Sunflow, Blender 2.5 or Loki Render
It looks like 3D graphics programs are not a priority.

Fedora 13, FX 5200 and Yo Frankie!

Today I tried to run game "Yo Frankie."
The computer used in this case is older.
It has an FX 5200 video card with 1Gb RAM and processor ASUS motherboard.
I was not expecting a success but he did seem somewhat.
Here are some pictures:



In the "Options" I set no shaders
I must say that without activating the button "Maximize" will not be able to get to the "Back" from "Option".
The operating system is undoubtedly Fedora 13 with default graphics drivers.

client glx vendor string: Mesa Project and SGI
OpenGL vendor string: Mesa Project
OpenGL version string: 2.1 Mesa 7.8.1

New tutorial about Eclipse.

I just finished a new tutorial.
The title of this tutorial is:
"Installing and configuring the Eclipse IDE - Eclipse Plugin for Google"
This tutorial can be found in the tutorials section on this site.

About my name ...

My name often poses difficulties for Americans.
CĂTĂLIN = Romanian masculine form of KATHERINE.
Pronunciation of CĂTĂLIN:

The surname is of Dacian origin.
My nickname is a combination.
And mean sum of myth from mythical and cat from Catalin or cat.
About KATHERINE
Pronounced: KATH-ə-rin, KATH-rin
From the Greek name Αικατερινη (Aikaterine). The etymology is debated: it could derive from the earlier Greek name ‘Εκατερινη (Hekaterine), which came from ‘εκατερος (hekateros) "each of the two"; it could derive from the name of the goddess HECATE; it could be related to Greek αικια (aikia) "torture"; or it could be from a Coptic name meaning "my consecration of your name". In the early Christian era it became associated with Greek καθαρος (katharos) "pure", and the Latin spelling was changed from Katerina to Katharina to reflect this.

The name was borne a semi-legendary 4th-century saint and martyr from Alexandria who was tortured on a spiked wheel. The saint was initially venerated in Syria, and the name was introduced to Western Europe by returning crusaders. It has been common in England since the 12th century in many different spellings, with Katherine and Catherine becoming standard in the later Middle Ages.

Famous bearers of the name include Catherine of Siena, a 14th-century mystic, and Catherine de' Medici, a 16th-century French queen. It was also borne by three of Henry VIII's wives, including Katherine of Aragon, and by two empresses of Russia, including Catherine the Great.

Fedora 14 - next wallpaper concept

The new concept of wallpaper on which I worked.
I used Blender 3D. Rendering time was short, less than 2 min.
This is because I used some tricks.
It seems more appropriate for a wallpaper.
See bellow:

Find more about my work are here:
Activities_within_Fedora

Fedora 14 - my new wallpaper concept

Today I worked on a new proposal for Fedora 14 wallpaper.
Looks soft and is more ergonomic ...
This is how it looks on my desktop:

Find more about my work are here:
Activities_within_Fedora

Simple script to get the exchange rate.

Some time ago I made a small script to find out the exchange rate.
I have not used it much and today I came across it.
Who needs something, here's how it looks:

from xml.dom import minidom as dom
import urllib
def fetchPage(url):
a = urllib.urlopen(url)
return ''.join(a.readlines())

def extract(page):
a = dom.parseString(page)
item2 = a.getElementsByTagName('SendingDate')[0].firstChild.wholeText
print "DATA ",item2
item = a.getElementsByTagName('Cube')
for i in item:
if i.hasChildNodes() == True:
e = i.getElementsByTagName('Rate')[10].firstChild.wholeText
d = i.getElementsByTagName('Rate')[26].firstChild.wholeText
print "EURO  ",e
print "DOLAR ",d

if __name__=='__main__':
page = fetchPage("http://www.bnro.ro/nbrfxrates.xml")
extract(page)

That's all.

Parsing files and rename ...

Sometimes you have to rename files.
This can be tiring when we do it manually.
Command "sed" may be helpful in this case.
I'll take a simple example. I will create a working directory called "work."
We have to create files with the command:

for (( i=1; i<10; i++ )); do echo data$i > data[$i]x[$i].txt;done

The result should be :

$ ls
data[1]x[1].txt  data[3]x[3].txt  data[5]x[5].txt  data[7]x[7].txt  data[9]x[9].txt
data[2]x[2].txt  data[4]x[4].txt  data[6]x[6].txt  data[8]x[8].txt

Try these commands to parse and rename files:

$ for i in  *[]x[]*; do mv -v "$i" "$(echo $i | sed 's/[]x[]//')"; done
`data[1]x[1].txt' -> `data1]x[1].txt'
`data[2]x[2].txt' -> `data2]x[2].txt'
`data[3]x[3].txt' -> `data3]x[3].txt'
`data[4]x[4].txt' -> `data4]x[4].txt'
`data[5]x[5].txt' -> `data5]x[5].txt'
`data[6]x[6].txt' -> `data6]x[6].txt'
`data[7]x[7].txt' -> `data7]x[7].txt'
`data[8]x[8].txt' -> `data8]x[8].txt'
`data[9]x[9].txt' -> `data9]x[9].txt'
[work@test work]$ for i in  *[]x[]*; do mv -v "$i" "$(echo $i | sed 's/[]x[]//')"; done
`data1]x[1].txt' -> `data1x[1].txt'
`data2]x[2].txt' -> `data2x[2].txt'
`data3]x[3].txt' -> `data3x[3].txt'
`data4]x[4].txt' -> `data4x[4].txt'
`data5]x[5].txt' -> `data5x[5].txt'
`data6]x[6].txt' -> `data6x[6].txt'
`data7]x[7].txt' -> `data7x[7].txt'
`data8]x[8].txt' -> `data8x[8].txt'
`data9]x[9].txt' -> `data9x[9].txt'
[work@test work]$ for i in  *[]x[]*; do mv -v "$i" "$(echo $i | sed 's/[]x[]//')"; done
`data1x[1].txt' -> `data1[1].txt'
`data2x[2].txt' -> `data2[2].txt'
`data3x[3].txt' -> `data3[3].txt'
`data4x[4].txt' -> `data4[4].txt'
`data5x[5].txt' -> `data5[5].txt'
`data6x[6].txt' -> `data6[6].txt'
`data7x[7].txt' -> `data7[7].txt'
`data8x[8].txt' -> `data8[8].txt'
`data9x[9].txt' -> `data9[9].txt'
[work@test work]$ for i in  *[]x[]*; do mv -v "$i" "$(echo $i | sed 's/[]x[]//')"; done
`data1[1].txt' -> `data11].txt'
`data2[2].txt' -> `data22].txt'
`data3[3].txt' -> `data33].txt'
`data4[4].txt' -> `data44].txt'
`data5[5].txt' -> `data55].txt'
`data6[6].txt' -> `data66].txt'
`data7[7].txt' -> `data77].txt'
`data8[8].txt' -> `data88].txt'
`data9[9].txt' -> `data99].txt'
[work@test work]$ for i in  *[]x[]*; do mv -v "$i" "$(echo $i | sed 's/[]x[]//')"; done
`data11].txt' -> `data11.txt'
`data22].txt' -> `data22.txt'
`data33].txt' -> `data33.txt'
`data44].txt' -> `data44.txt'
`data55].txt' -> `data55.txt'
`data66].txt' -> `data66.txt'
`data77].txt' -> `data77.txt'
`data88].txt' -> `data88.txt'
`data99].txt' -> `data99.txt'

This is just a simple example ...

OpenGL and Python - Motion blur

What is glAccum? The OpenGL function - glAccum operate on the accumulation buffer.
This function provides support for many special effects.
Today I simulated the effect of motion blur with this function.
See the picture below:

OpenGL and Python - Fog

Today I spent my time with something new - the OpenGL fog effect.
I made one simple fog effect using the last code source.
The result is this image:

"Santa Claus" on Google Map

I wrote on my blog python-catalin.blogspot.com about Google Map and Santa Claus:

I wrote a python module. I called it "geo" because it is a geographic module.
The funny stuff is when i use it with "Santa Claus".

>>> import geo 
>>> geo.adress("Santa Claus")
{'status': '200', 'latitude': '32.1715776', 'longitude': '-82.3315138', 'accuracy': '4'}

So where is Santa Claus ?!
Google Maps API should be prepared to respond.
Tomorrow a child will know how to use the Python language.
Who knows ...