Hi again, been working on Excalibur.

As you can see there are some improvement.
The scaled icons now support alpha channel transparency and max icon size can be set by the user, I have also fixed lots things, I intend to make new release on the new year.

Christmas gift to Amiga community

I released Excalibur 0.9.8, you will not find a lot has changed, its the same program as before, bug fixing was the primary motivation for this release, but there are few new things, background color, fount color settings, new preferences application, new vertical scroll bar.

There are number of idea that go on in my head, I'm not going to tell you all of my ideas are until they are done, transparency is not on top that list, there are a few functional things that need to be done before that.

If your hoping Excalibur is going to be a AmiStart clone then your mistaken, Excalibur is first of all inspired by my ideas, its not a port, and its not a replica.

What you might expect in a future version is expanded toolbar functionality and maybe plug ins, for example remove memory meter and clock and turn it in to a plug-ins, so they can be replaced by others.

A tiny progress rapport on Excalibur

I worked one to two hours yesterday, the mockup of the new prefs is now functional, whit some minor issues, there are some stuff that was missing in the GUI, like truck long files names, there were some settings that where not saved or I’m having problems whit because I don’t know if it ever worked because of the project has been resting on my hard drive for so long whit out being worked on.

The next thing I will do is try to group the different settings so you have a better idea about what etch option does.

I’m thinking about adding some new options for visual effects for the scrollbar, maybe you like to change the color, or you don’t like light effect.

And there is the ASL requestor that keeps crashing on me, I have used some old code I have not checked too closely, this should be fixed whit ease.

I have not done anything whit the installer script it works, I know some of you don’t like bash scripts, I have no clue about the installer script format, so if someone like to write better installer script I’m happy to take it.

Picture galleries in Facebook an annoying thing or some thing useful.

I was thinking it be nice to put some pictures on face book, pleasant time with friends and family,  not every one are so happy about that, I don't understand this, they joined Facebook to tell every one about every thing did they not, so way do they have problems whit a few pictures?

If you can't share pictures on FB then Facebook is useless for picture galleries.

Does people have the same problem whit things that is written about them too? Or is just about it being a pictures?

Please comment what do you think?

The new Shell for AmigaOS

I see a lots of negative comment about not having the new Shell, and the old one not having a scroll bar. for AmigaOS, this comments I have hard time understanding, because it so easy to install KingCON and it work so well, KingCON gives you scroll bar, it gives you file selector if you TAB and you get lots of results.

I will try to describe how to install KingCON on your AmigaOS4 computer.

1. Put KingCon-Mountlist in devs:

2. Put KongCON-Handler in SYS:L/

3. Check that you have this line in S:User-Startup

4. On your shell icon, change the tool type from CON: to KCON:
and then you save.

Interesting Amiga projects from others.

For total AAA (Anonymous Amiga Alcoholic) there is a emulation project to run AmigaOS on Android mobile phones.

Link to: droidpuae.blogspot.com

There is also the blog about ReadionHD drivers from Hanz, working is being done to support full 3d acceleration.

Link to: Hanz blog

You should also check out DvPlayer and WarpView, DvPlayer is excellent DVD player, and can many video formats, it has nice GUI, WarpView is 3D accelerated picture view, its also a excellent software package, costs a some cash but its worth the investment.

Link to: dvplayer

If you into audio mixing you should check out Audio Evolution 4, its a multi platform application, runs on MacOS, AmigaOS and Windows.

Link to: audio-evolution

You should also check out Hollywood, its software package designed to make simple presentations (like powerpoint) to programs you can run, the project files can be compiled as executable so they can be run many opening systems, whit out any software being installed before.

Link to: hollywood

I just named a few there are many more interesting projects being worked on I'm going to post some more about this an other time.

I hope you enjoy the blog.

Excalibur facelift

I have worked to solve some bugs and problems whit Excalibur.
First of all there is a new scroll bar in the menus, the Ugly gadtools one removed, it was only crashing because of a tiny bug we found after I started replacing it.

The old Setup program is so ugly, I'm working on replacing it, whit a Reaction one.

It christmas soon.

I have not bought any gifts yet.

Its on my TODO list, I normally do not have too many to buy for, so I'm not so worried, anyway I have a week before Christmas I'm not working so no hurry.

Amiga Projects

Lately  I spent less time on Amiga projects, mostly wasting time talking to my friends on Skype, playing StarCraft 2, or chatting on Facebook,

I'm Currently not in need of anything special, I know “Antique” is working on some thing I'm going to use, I'm really happy about progress from others Ka1e, FAB and co has done amazing job in porting MUI OWB, I know it required lots of work from Hyperion team, I'm really happy about USB2 support finally being available, and some of bug fix has made it possible to track down a bug in one of my application.

I'm going to upload a new version of Excalibur soon, its start button, toolbar thing, like you have in Windows, it was originally created back in 1996 in BlitzBasic, under the name wb96, so this is rally old project, I got some help form salass00 and Rigo, so thanks my Amiga friends the bug is found. I don't really use Excalibur this days, but I like my programs to work, and I need some thing to take my mind of other things in my life.

Some words about Amiga computers

There are 2 types of Amiga computers the original classic machines produced in 80 and 90, this computers have custom chips made by commodore and MC680x0 CPU.

Then there are the modern AmigaOne Computers, this computers use standard PC chips whit  PowerPC processor (short for Performance Optimization With Enhanced RISC – Performance Computing, sometimes abbreviated as PPC), the older mac used PowerPC, but it used mostly used in embedded systems and supper computers, in the embedded market it competes whit ARM CPU's.

The old computers are not compatible whit new computers they are currently produced by Acube Systems and AEON, instead AmigaOS4 is responsible for compatibility whit the software side, there are two built in ways AmigaOS4 can execute 680x0 binary, one by translation so called JIT, the other way is using a interpreter where etch oppcode is looked at and  executed as the program runs, AmigaOS4 is also runs native PowerPC code, most of the OS is PowerPC, but there are a few components that is in 680x0 binary format.

Because new AmigaOS4 hardware do not have the old chips produced by commodore and because developers of the time did not know to write code so you can replace audio output or video output, its not always possible to run every thing, the old games and programs that do work we call system friendly.

Dyslexia

You might be wondering what the heck is Dyslexia, its a disorder that make it difficult to interpret symbol or words correctly, as result you read thing you did not expect, for example you associate some symbol whit a word, but your brain thinks its an other word.

How did this effect me during my school years, the first years when your trying to learn to read and write it extremely difficult, 'b' and 'd' was big problem back then this problem has slowly disappear whit years I have lived whit this, when you are reading the wrong words and you having problem concentrating it takes lot of energy trying to understand what is written, I often needed to read the text 2 or 3 times to understand what it was saying, this days one time is all it takes, reading and writing is some thing you get better at whit time.

One thing I like say about school system is that its not a good idea to return a paper to a kid, whit just red underlining its not motivating, the kid is going just give up, if you are going to teach a kid, how to read and write, start whit simple things like where to put . or , it might sound silly, but if always get a red underlining the kid is going to give up and not even learn the simple things, I know there are many bad teachers out there that do not motivate when its needed.

Created this blog to day

I going to tell you about me, I born in Norway whit Dyslexia, because of problem got my first computer to do school work a PC, that we traded in for Amiga500, a lot of my life has been spent in front of my computer, trying to write games demos in Basic computer language, mostly BlitzBasic and AMOS, during this period I neglected lots of friends, some got other interest or moved away.

As Kid as we bit like a outsider I guess my problems whit dyslexia made me feel less cool, did quite fit inn not so good in sports, as result I have the best friends, the friends that understand and you can say anything too, whit out being embarrassed.

During my teen years I spent most of my time whit school work, and computers did not really have time for girlfriends, how there was this girl in my class I was in love whit, my first Girl friend I got  in 1997 I think it was, she was a my best friend and love of my life, then school one again got in the way, this did not work out, never really stooped loving her, I used to drive her home when she as drunk.

I ended up whit Technical degree in Electronics and Computers, bit unexperienced stumbled around in few companies.

I spent a lot of time in disco's trying this time to find lady the perfect one you know the one that does not exist, smart fun sexy and whit out kids, then I gave up and found absolutely wrong lady not going to go in too details, it was big mistake.

In the end I ended up whit my old X, you know the first one, it has not rally worked out as I hoped, she has a kid, and you know find the right time to get to know etch other has been difficult.