It’s not about package management or having a universal installer. It’s about being able to run your application in a different environment.

But why would you need this ?

• Bug reproduction submitting an executable proof;
• Develop on a certain machine and execute on other without bother;
• Transfer a complete environment to a friend to execute a program or play a game.

How to

Click here to watch a videocast made by the author.

References

[1] http://stanford.edu/~pgbovine/cde.html

Dropbox is a Web-based file hosting service operated by Dropbox, Inc. which uses cloud computing to enable users to store and share files and folders with others across the Internet using file synchronization.

Err, what’s the problem?

This is a cloud computing service. There’s no garantee that my data is secure from others. So, it’s necessary to find a way to secure this data, as we can’t take care of unpermitted access.

After many tries to find a solution to turn Dropbox storage more private and secure, I finally stumbled on encfs[1] and gnome-encfs[2].

“EncFS provides an encrypted filesystem in user-space. It runs without any special permissions and uses the FUSE library and Linux kernel module to provide the filesystem interface. You can find links to source and binary releases below. EncFS is open source software, licensed under the GPL.” (EncFS – About[1])

Gnome-EncFS integrates EncFS into GNOME keyring, can mount an EncFS directory at login and is a open source software, licensed under GPLv3.

Combining these two applications it’s possible to save secure data in Dropbox.

How to?

Install encfs package (probably your distro will have it on package list). To use it:

$ mkdir ~/Dropbox/Safe

$ mkdir ~/Safe

$ encfs ~/Dropbox/Safe ~/Safe

Now go on gnome-encfs website[2] and install it. Later, type:

$ gnome-encfs -a ~/Dropbox/Safe ~/Safe

Now enjoy it!

References

[1] -EncFS http://www.arg0.net/encfs

[2] – Gnome-EncFS http://bitbucket.org/obensonne/gnome-encfs

The Walking Dead

No. I’m not here to talk about the new American television series. It’s quite the opposite actually, I’m here to explain why this television series is being filmed.

Robert Kirkman created this great work and Image Comics has been publishing  since 2003. Two weeks ago I discovered it and read 78 comics in almost one week(by The Pirate Bay). What is so great about it? This zombie apocalypse plot is just background of a great storyline. Rick, a police officer who needs to find ways to survive through this destroyed and crazy new world. The reality is: everything is messed up and everyone too. If I write more I will turn it on spoiler.

Wanna take a look? Watch part of episode 1 animated:

P.S.: I already bought two volumes at tfaw.com .

Just to remember that it allows you to swap the geometry of two windows. Basically we changed Switcher plugin to swap active window with another window.

Swapper could be inserted on new Compiz if everybody likes it. Waiting for replies!

Video:

Code

Eddie Vedder said “Force of Nature” is “about the strength of one person in the relationship, when they can withstand some of the faults in another.”

Force of Nature / Pearl Jam (Backspacer)

Understand she’s a force of nature
Contraband hiding deep inside her soul
Exorcising her will to lose control
She lets go

A common man, he don’t stand a chance, no
Wonderland pulling Alice in the hole
No way to save someone who won’t take the rope
And just let’s go

One man stands the edge of the ocean
A beacon on dry land
Eyes upon the horizon
In the dark before the dawn

Hurricane has the trade winds blowing
A gale force shaking windows in the storm
Shipwreck on the rock that he calls home
With one light on

Somewhere there’s a siren singing
A song only he hears
All the strength that you might think
Would disappear,.. Resolving

One man stands alone, Awaiting
For her to come home
Eyes upon the horizon
In dark before the darkness meets the dawn.

Makes me ache,… Makes me shake,…
Is it so wrong to think that love can keep us safe?

Last I saw, he was out there waiting
A silhouette in the black light, full moon glow
In the sand there he stands upon the shore
Forevermore

Somewhere there’s a siren singing
A song only he hears
All the strength that you might think
Would disappear, resolving

One man stands along, Awaiting
For her to come home
Eyes are closed,.. You cannot know
But his heart don’t seem to roam.

Smart Put is a kind of Best Fit algorithm to Compiz Windows. This plugins tries to find the best(largest area) gap for windows.

If it can’t find a good gap, Smart Put can(if option is enabled) :

• Stack the window onto an underlying window.
• OR shrink to fit.

And finally, Smart Put has a undo too

All these new features were developed by Massimo Mund. Thanks man.

Here’s a video:

Video link

Try it out and tell us about any request,input,feature,…

$ git clone git://anongit.compiz-fusion.org/users/edgurgel/smartput

P.S.:  I’m working on a Smart Put port to Compiz++. Till there.

Purpose

We were missing a plugin that could just exchange properties. Sometimes you just need to minimize a window and “unminimize” other. To do it, you would need to perform 2 or more clicks. So, we created Swap!

Description

It allows you to swap the geometry of two windows. Basically we changed Static Switcher plugin to swap active window with another window.

Here’s a video to show what Swap can do:

Get it here: Code

P.S.: Forró is the genre of the music. Forró is a kind of Northeastern Brazilian music.

Maximumize Plus and Minimumize plugins were shared one month ago by me and Marco Diego (Bacharel Marcola).

October 20th,
Maximumize2 (Maximumize Plus) release:

http://forum.compiz-fusion.org/showthread.php?t=10077

October 23rd,
Minimumize release:

http://forum.compiz-fusion.org/showthread.php?t=10097

Yesterday Kristian Lyngstol (Maximumize maintainer) talked with me to merge our code. Result:

Massive import from maximumizeplus

We’re luck that Compiz-Fusion uses the Bazzar[2] way of developing. After one month we are helping to develop CF and noone opposed our development!

So, if you can help, come on!

P.S.: I really needed to expose my happiness

[1] http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/merge
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cathedral_and_the_Bazaar

Compiz has been well taught since its inception as a beautiful, feature-rich (in terms of bling and effects), modern window manager. Although we agree in most of what is said about compiz, its abilities for window placement, window distribution and good use of screen real state were terribly lacking compared to other window managers such as tiled-window-managers (ion, wmii, dwm…). We’ve been working to minimize this inferiority.
For those who can’t wait for a better explanation, here’s a video showing whats is going on:

Plugins used:

New Maximumize
It expands the window on a specified direction as much as possible. It is totally based on Maximumize plugin.

Code
Video

Minimumize
Resize to half size of the window in a particular direction.

Code
Video

Smart Put
Cleverly find the best gap suitable for the current window.

Code
Video

New Put
It’s equal to Put plugin, but you can move only through empty spaces.

Code
Video

Toggle Decoration
Simple and very useful plugin to enable/disable window decoration(on a window, or all of them on the same desktop). You will discover how much space you waste with your window decorator. Toggle Decoration is totally necessary for us because we don’t use maximize and minimize anymore.

Code

Swap
Swap window’s location and size. Simple like that.
Useful when you have a main frame and others smaller windows on same desktop. You can quickly change the scope.

Code still not available. We will release ASAP.

Next steps
We noticed that all we need is love.
Just Kidding.
All we need is an automatic layout windows definition. So you can easily define YOUR own window arrangement. We will work on it on next weeks (maybe months).

P.S.: No mice were harmed during the making of this video.

Explanation:
It puts the current window in the empty region of the screen with maximum available free space!
It was born from the perception with the combined use of maximumize/minumumize plugins: sometimes everything we just wanted was to put a window in an available empty region of the screen. So… we did it!
As is becoming a standard in this kind of plugin most of the code is inspired/stolen from the maximumize plugin.The algorithm is actually dumb and, maybe, it’s even not correct, but in our tests it worked pretty damn well.

The plugin works like this: a window has four corners. For each window, on each corner we put a box with height 1 pixel and width of 1 pixel. Using routines from the maximumize plugin we expand these boxes and find witch one has maximum area. If the box with maximum area is bigger than the current window box than we just set a new box for the current window. And believe-me: it works!

Finally: It is another useful plugin from us (Eduardo Gurgel and Marco Diego)! You can wait for more useful plugins coming soon!

Code here