Author: Johan Thelin

>One of the things that have annoyed me since I started working with an Acer laptop was that when working in Windows the GraviSense application appeared in the Alt-Tab list even if it had no window to show. To save that extra Tab key press I asked Raymond Chen for a tip on how to make it go away. The solution was to set the WS_EX_TOOLWINDOW extended style bit. Taking this and the good old LCC-Win32 compiler I put together the following little snippet and the window disappears from the Alt-Tab list but stays alert (I shook the laptop gentry to trigger it).

#include <windows.h>

int APIENTRY WinMain(HINSTANCE hinst, HINSTANCE hinstPrev, LPSTR lpCmdLine, int nCmdShow)
{
HWND acerWin = FindWindow( NULL, “ACER_GraviSense” );

if( !acerWin )
return -1;

SetWindowLong( acerWin, GWL_EXSTYLE, GetWindowLong( acerWin, GWL_EXSTYLE ) | WS_EX_TOOLWINDOW );

return 0;
}

And they say that Linux is for those who wants to hack the system… :-)

>Qtopia Core goes Open Source.

>Finally I have no more dead-lines this year. This does not mean that I can relax for the next couple of weeks but it means that I’m no longer working with a knife to my throat. Next month will be interesting… I’m planning to write seven chapters for my book, around 170 pages. I also plan to write two articles for Datormagazin (some 10 pages with a small font – almost 20 A4 pages when using Word with its default font). I guess 200 pages per month (10 pages per work day, 1.25 pages per hour, including research) is what it takes for a technical writer and that is one of my professional options that I’m looking into for the moment.

Anybody out there needing help with white papers, articles, documentation or any other text in February – feel free to contact me. I would prefer to work close to Qt technologies, but I’m open for other suggestions too.

>Right now I’m building a dll file on Windows using the following make file:

all: sum.dll

sum.o: sum.c
gcc -c sum.c

sum.dll: sum.o
gcc -shared -o sum.dll sum.o

To build a so file on Unix I have to change the first and last lines to read sum.so instead of sum.dll. The same thing applies on OS X, but there I want to build sum.dylib. Does anyone know if there is a little flag or such that I can use to let GCC add the right file extension to the resulting file without having to play around with environment variables and such?

>As of today I will spend all my working time on my book on Qt and other Qt projects until February. Hopefully this will mean a boost in productivity – I just want to avoid working myself to death :-)

>Now it is just two weeks left until Christmas. Three weeks until the new year. The current state is that I have bought one Christmas gift – lots to go – and that my wife’s birthday is on the last day of the year. This means getting at least one more gift.

I also have to complete two more chapters for my book project – and complete my current customer project. I’m helping an automotive company some 70 kilometres from Gothenburg with their test management system.

Now, I’m not the one in the biggest rush – not by far. King Bore has not even got started. It is still between five and ten centigrades above freezing and no snow in sight.

I’m dreaming of a white Christmas…

>In a comment David recently asked me if I had any reading tips on KDE, Qt and Python. I must start by saying that I have done little more than Hello World(TM) using PyQt.

Anyway, David, I would recommend you to start by visit Riverbank Computing – they have sections on both PyQt and PyKDE. They also manage the Python bindings for Qt. Then there is Boudewijn Rempt‘s book on PyQt GUI Programming with Python Using the Qt Toolkit – a book that I have been meaning to read for years. Finally there are two wiki resources #1 and #2.

>A little winter themed board game for all of you geeks out there. I wonder if they will do a C++ version with exceptions and some multiple inheritance for the slightly older kids.

>The next F1 season will kick of March 18 in Melbourne. Until then, do enjoy the lovely track of Pau (too short for F1 races – which is sad). Back in 1998 Montoya created history by lapping everyone. You can see it all in this two part YouTube playlist. When writing about Montoya I just cannot forget the fastest F1 lap ever. Just listen for the down shifts and how nice the car handles when pressed through variante Ascari. Just beautiful!

>A little poem that makes me smile for all of you.

This Be the Verse

They fuck you up, your mom and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can.
And don’t have any kids yourself.

-Philip Larkin