tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74208252011-04-21T16:01:01.904-04:00Superdavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05949463848355234097noreply@blogger.comBlogger141100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7420825.post-1150751040973799832006-06-19T16:22:00.000-04:002006-11-19T12:40:14.973-05:00

When I created this blog I was totally new to blogging. Blogger.com was a great way to get started. I could have set up something like WordPress or Movable Type on my own server, but I was concerned about the security of the server and the amount of effort required for a proper setup. Google for "wordpress exploit" and you'll get over eight thousand hits. It's certainly possible to do it right,

Superdavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05949463848355234097noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7420825.post-1129347546166253572005-10-14T22:56:00.000-04:002005-10-15T08:10:43.623-04:00

(continued from part 6)Lua rocks! My little experiment to embed Lua in Zkbdd has been a huge success. I had a bit of a learning curve to climb on the API to access the Lua objects from C, but once I got the hang of it the code fell into place quickly. It's now possible for me to fully define a keyboard's behavior in a Lua script and have Zkbdd load that script at run time and execute that

Superdavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05949463848355234097noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7420825.post-1129298276004701972005-10-14T08:00:00.000-04:002005-10-15T07:54:12.846-04:00

(continued from part 5)I've released an "alpha" version of Zkbdd for devices using the 2.4.18 pdaXrom kernel (C7X0, C860, 6000). The release notice on OESF has the details. Initial feedback is positive, so I need to look into getting modules built for the 2.4.20 kernel devices (C1000, C3000, C3100).However, before I do that I'm tempted to implement a major change to how the keyboard specific

Superdavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05949463848355234097noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7420825.post-1129077874340232612005-10-11T20:24:00.000-04:002005-10-15T07:51:19.823-04:00

(continued from part 4)It's been an insanely busy week and it's only Tuesday! But I am still on track for a "Zkbdd" alpha release by the end of the week. I have deviated so much from the original "Kbdd" code base that I'm going to rename this project to avoid confusion. Because of the Zaurus specific re-architecting, there's no way my changes could ever be rolled back into Kbdd. Better to just

Superdavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05949463848355234097noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7420825.post-1128876045911140352005-10-09T12:08:00.000-04:002005-10-15T07:48:40.450-04:00

(continued from part 3)Just a brief status update in the ongoing IR keyboard driver saga ...Pocketop IR keyboard support is now coded up and working. The extra "mode" keys (punct, num, func) needed a bit of extra logic, but nothing terribly difficult. I have keymaps and protocol descriptions for the Targus and Palm IR keyboards. My plan is to code up support for the Targus and Palm and then do a

Superdavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05949463848355234097noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7420825.post-1128770442092453072005-10-08T07:19:00.000-04:002005-10-15T07:45:21.733-04:00

(continued from part 2)So if I want to avoid juggling for different key maps, its back to having kbdd convert the IR keyboard scancodes into the system scancodes. That does have the additional advantage that I'll be able to use the IR keyboard and built-in keyboard at the same time because I haven't changed the keymaps that the built-in keyboard is relying on. But the existing kbdd scancode

Superdavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05949463848355234097noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7420825.post-1128731945084713702005-10-07T20:38:00.000-04:002005-10-15T07:41:32.216-04:00

(continued from part 1)I thought that the additional kernel drivers would be the difficult part of porting kbdd to pdaXrom, but the kernel work proved to be the easy part. Getting the kbdd daemon to build and run on the Zaurus is easy -- getting it to do the right thing is a little more difficult!The first problem is that kbdd is written for the iPaq and the iPaqs for which Familiar Linux has

Superdavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05949463848355234097noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7420825.post-1128724723369802512005-10-07T18:38:00.000-04:002005-10-15T08:01:36.093-04:00

My XVkbd IR keyboard hack worked reasonably well as a stopgap solution, but polishing it up to the point I can live with it long-term is going to be nearly impossible. The fact that it's only functional in the X11 GUI is a fundamental limitation. In addition to that, I'd have to learn a lot of low-level X11 programming to get performance up to a level I'd be satisfied with. Time to design a

Superdavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05949463848355234097noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7420825.post-1128723507645950082005-10-07T18:17:00.000-04:002005-10-09T12:51:23.283-04:00

pdaXrom is a Zaurus ROM (kernel and root filesystem) that doesn't ditch the Zaurus ROM structure entirely, but does replace Qtopia with an optimized XFree86 and a host of X11 replacements for the standard Qtopia utilities. The goal is to turn the Zaurus into more of a mini-laptop than PDA. There is a GPE variant of OpenZaurus that endeavors to do something similar, but the pdaXrom developers tend

Superdavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05949463848355234097noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7420825.post-1127221998075662602005-09-20T09:12:00.000-04:002005-09-20T09:28:20.353-04:00

I saw a good article today from a Windows to Linux switcher that provides a pretty concise look at the state of Linux on the desktop. As I expected, one of the first comments it received was that hardware vendors don't provide Linux support because of Linux's small market share. Time to dispell that myth.The problem with hardware vendors targeting Linux isn't market share, it's that there's no

Superdavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05949463848355234097noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7420825.post-1095959522239779372004-09-23T13:09:00.000-04:002004-09-23T14:38:08.733-04:00

The Productivity Promise Growing up in the 80's I was able to not just witness the rise of the personal computer, but to completely immerse myself in the mind boggling growth of the technology. In those days the immense curiosity surrounding PCs was often quickly followed by the question "what will it do for me?" The answer typically included a promise that a personal computer would make you more

Superdavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05949463848355234097noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7420825.post-1088439019491531892004-06-28T11:39:00.000-04:002004-06-28T12:12:28.800-04:00

One of the first questions that came up once folks started checking out the Soapbox was "how can I find out when there are new posts without having to visit the page all the time?" That's particularly important with a site like this one that may go days or even weeks without anything new. It turns out there are two ways to get notified of updates. The "old fashioned" way is to subscribe to an

Superdavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05949463848355234097noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7420825.post-1088085388525029942004-06-24T08:59:00.000-04:002004-06-25T15:30:26.320-04:00

It's not a big secret that I dislike Microsoft Windows. Not because Microsoft is an "evil empire based on world domination" or other such nonsense, but because compared to Linux, I don't think Windows delivers much bang for the buck. However, after years of working daily on a Debian GNU/Linux system, a recent job change has forced me back onto a Windows machine. The feeling of booting up a

Superdavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05949463848355234097noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7420825.post-1088081250620372412004-06-24T08:40:00.000-04:002004-06-24T08:47:30.620-04:00

Welcome to Superdave's Soapbox! This is my first attempt at Blogging, so I can't say with any certainty what direction this site will ultimately take. It's initial purpose is to allow me to continue to share news and technical "discoveries" with my ever more scattered circle of friends. We'll just have to wait and see where it goes from there.

Superdavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05949463848355234097noreply@blogger.com0