Proven Corporation

We have a new addition to the software section: Tomboy-Wordcount.

This is a plugin for the excellent Tomboy note taking application. This plugin allows you to quickly determine the number of lines, words, and characters in your note, much like the Unix wc command. Like Tomboy, this plugin is written in C# and runs on Mono.

Screenshot

This document explains HTML templating with the Sphinx documentation system. Sphinx is a tool for converting restructured text documentation into presentation formats like HTML or LaTeX.

Sphinx is used for Python documentation (compare old vs. new), but it is great for for any project in any language. Integrated wikis (like Trac) are nice; but I prefer to keep the documentation together with the source code. Sphinx is perfect for that. It also looks like a million bucks.

This document was tested on Fedora 8; however it is likely to work on all platforms that Python supports. Please contact me if you have questions or comments.

Read the rest of this entry »

Recently, I had to get MonoDevelop working on CentOS 5 for a project. Here is my blow-by-blow summary of how to get it working. The procedure is designed for CentOS 5, and it works on my Fedora 8 system as well. Since most of the activity is just compiling stuff from source, it should be pretty easy to follow on a different distribution. It’s just a matter of getting the correct packages installed in the preparation phase.

Read the rest of this entry »

We have a new addition to the software section: Bzr Notification.

This is a plugin for the Bazaar source code control system. It will pop up a small window when pushes and pulls have completed. This way, you do not need to wait around watching (slow) transactions over the network. Here is a screenshot of bzr_notification in action:

I posted my slides from my talk at BarCamp Bangkok on January 26th. The talk mostly covers advanced usage of OpenSSH to do port forwarding, web proxying, and control of remote systems.

View the slides in HTML format: Making Magic with SSH

You can also get the text source file, or download everything in zip format.

We are happy to release Strangle, an open source DNS message parsing library. You can read all about it from our Strangle summary. Strangle provides a convenient Python interface which leverages the enterprise-grade BIND technology from the Internet Software Consortium. If your Python application needs to understand the meaning in cryptic DNS packets, give it a try!

I have added a section to the site for publishing software from Proven Corporation. All software published is of course free software.

For now, there is only a simple Greasemonkey script for an excellent free software-related web site.

We have opened a new service which is personally exciting for me and beneficial for the software community in Thailand: an eBook printing, binding, and delivery service, called Siam eBook Printers.

If you have an ebook in PDF format, just attach the file on the web page and provide your delivery address. In a few days, a nice bound volume arrives at your door from EMS. If you’ve ever seen these shops in malls and universities that print and bind books, then you know exactly what this is, except we do it over the web.

We are aiming directly at foreigners and I.T. professionals in Thailand. Here is what makes Siam Book Printers unique:

• Everything is in English
• We cater to busy people. You attach a PDF on the web site, and you receive EMS packages.
• We guarantee no mechanical errors, smudges, missing pages, or other flaws. If you are dissatisfied, we will send you a replacement book.
• There is no guesswork; you preview exactly what you will get.
• Besides standard bank transfers, we accept credit card payments and PayPal. We accept payment in Thai baht or U.S. dollars.

Personally, having eBooks printed is one of my favorite activities in Thailand. When done right, the end result is quite beautiful. Ever since I had The Debian System from No Starch Press made into a hardback, I have been hooked. I doubt the site will be successful financially; but my goal is to reveal and simplify the eBook printing process to more foreigners and software professionals.

Finally, Siam Book Printers is a platform to promote free software in Thailand. We offer discounts for eBooks about free and open source software. When you order a book about free or open source software, just click the checkbox to receive your discount!

I finished getting video working on the site. You can view it on the About page. Besides serving as a test run, the first video is a relatively clear (if a bit dramatic) explanation of what free software is and what the objectives of the Free Software Foundation are. It was shot just before the GPL version 3 came out, and Eben Moglen summarizes what the foundation has been doing from its inception until then.

My plan is to regularly post original content consisting of dual Thai-English educational material about free software. Due to the language barrier, Thailand does not extract as much value as it could from this resource, and I plan to address that from the bottom up.