It’s high time I posted a new set of instructions about how to build Pan Newsreader (for complete n00bz)!!!

First, fire up your terminal and install pan newsreader:

$ sudo apt-get install pan

So, why install pan, only to upgrade it?  Simply put, you don’t have to.  I like to, because then Ubuntu does nice things like makes the menu items so I can run this from Dash, installs icons, etc.

Next, we need to install the requirements needed to build pan.  These are the exact requirements that I needed from  fresh installs of Ubuntu 11.04 and 11.10.  Your mileage may vary!

$ sudo apt-get install git libgtk2.0-dev libgmime-2.4-dev gnome-common

This takes a while, and downloads over 100 MB of stuff…so it’s a good time to go read a goodnight story to your kids, or whatever it is you do in your spare time.  Note that I’m installing git, because it worked.  Previously I had to install kgit…again, YMMV.

Next, we need to clone the git source directory for pan.  We’ve installed git up above, so all we need to do is change to a convenient directory.  I like using my home directory, but you might choose another…

$ cd <<INSERT YOUR DIRECTORY HERE>>
$ git clone git://git.gnome.org/pan2

Let that run, and you’ll find a new directory entry called pan2.  Move into that, and let’s start the build process:  (Oh, by the way, if you want to make any alterations to pan like, for instance, changing the maximum number of concurrent  connections per server…now would be the time to do it!)

$ cd pan2
$ ./autogen.sh

You’ll see a bunch of things scroll past, as the compiler makes sure that you have all of the requirements, both in the compiler and the ancillary libraries, available and ready for use.  You will likely see a few complaints, but as long as no errors take place, you should be ok, and will be greeted with a cheery

Now type `make’ to compile Pan

So, let’s do just that, and actually build our binary with:

$ make

Now it’s time to go brew a cuppa your favorite caffeinated  beverage.  Once again, I might suggest a nice chai.  When everything calms down and your machine has flipped all the right bits, you should have a working binary file!  But, where is it?  And where should we put it?

Lets find out where your CURRENT pan binary is located:

$ which pan

This will probably return something like /usr/bin/pan – which is EXACTLY what it returned for me!  Make note of this, as you will need it … well, we’ll need it right now!  Let’s back up our current binary:

$ sudo mv /usr/bin/pan /usr/bin/pan_OLD

And let’s move the new binary into the old binary’s place, then set the correct owner.  Assuming you’re still in the pan2 directory from which we ran the autogen & make, you will find the pan binary hiding as:  ./pan/gui/pan
We’re in the final steps, now!

$ sudo cp ./pan/gui/pan /usr/bin/pan
$ sudo chown root:root /usr/bin/pan

You should now be able to run pan without any issues!  Let me know what you think of my tutorial, and how it worked out for you!

**YAWN**

This MIGHT be an exciting announcement to anyone who isn’t a Beatles fan already, and who didn’t already have most of their albums on vinyl and/or CD. It’s not like iTunes doesn’t already rip at amazing bitrates & sound quality!

Way to go, Apple. I think I’ll go back to sleep now.

• Maudlin Mantis
• Morose Manatee
• Mellow Manatee
• Mossy Manatee
• Marauding Mongoose
• Marauding Mudskipper
• Magnanimous Moose
• Morose Moose
• Maternal Macaque
• Miffed Meerkat
• Majestic Mammoth
• Moody Martin

Also seen on the Ubuntu Blog: Masturbating Monkey!  :-)

Post your original creations (or links to your favorites found elsewhere) below!

For years, I have been a big fan of the usenet newsgroups. I think it’s one of the best little niches left on the internet, and it has one of the best ranges in content…  On usenet, you can have civilized, academic conversation, or unruly flame-wars between fanatics. You can also find some of the coolest binaries available on the net…hard-to-find music, out of print books in e-text, and pictures ranging from serene wallpapers to…well just about anything.

When Ubuntu’s newest version, Karmic Koala, came out, I was very dismayed to find that the distribution of the Pan newsreader available via the Synaptic package manager was broken.  Basically, any image that was posted as multi-part refused to load in the default window.

With some help from the folks on the pan-users mailing list, I was finally able to compile the code from a source repository being kept up by K.Haley, pan’s volunteer coder.  But I thought it might be nice to provide a step-by-step guide for newer linux users, as the whole process of downloading source from a github repository, the tracking down of the necessary development libraries, and the entire compilation process can be daunting.  Therefore, I came up with the following list of commands to run to get a patched version of Pan running from a normal install of Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala).

$ sudo apt-get install pan git git-core gnome-common libgtk2.0-dev libpcre3-dev libgmime-2.4-dev

This command is meant to be typed on a single line.  It will download quite a few libraries and a bunch of necessary programs & components.  It also installs the version of Pan included in Koala’s distribution streams, so that you will have the Ubuntu menu items already in place to run it easily.  When you’re done you should have everything you need to proceed.  Continue with the following:

$ cd ~
$ mkdir src
$ cd src
$ git clone git://github.com/lostcoder/pan2.git
$ cd pan2
$ sh ./autogen.sh --prefix=$HOME

You shouldn’t have any error messages during the autogen.  If you do, they’re likely due to missing programs or libraries needed to build the application.  Please post your error messages here!  If you didn’t receive any errors, type:

$ make

This will take a while…so go treat yourself to a coffee, soda or your preferred method of caffeine distribution.  (I might recommend a nice chai!) If the compile completes without incident, continue with:

$ make install
$ cd /usr/bin
$ ls pan

For safety’s sake, let’s back up pan so that we can restore the package maintainer’s version later…:

$ sudo mv pan pan.OLD

Now let’s keep on going:

$ sudo mv $HOME/bin/pan .
$ sudo chown root: pan

And you’re done! You should now be able to use the Pan icon located in the “Internet” section of your main Ubuntu menus to run your newly-compiled application.

Have fun!

So, in essence, this is a shout-out to any Amateur Radio Operators out there who use OS X…what features are important in a contest logger.  What features would be on your “nice to have” list?

I definitely will be working on features important for Field Day usage, but what other contests do Mac users participate in?

My intent is for this to be a no-cost, open-source program. Please keep in mind that I will be starting out slowly, then building in more complex features later.

Can YOU spot why this computer won’t get Conficker?  HINT:  It’s not because of an Anti-Virus program!

What is it?

It’s a webpage that auto-generates a bracket for the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament (also known as “March Madness”).

Why did you make this?

Picking a mediocre bracket is easy! For each game, pick the team with the lowest number (the lower seed, or the “better team”) as the winner. In later rounds, you might have equally-seeded teams up against one another (two #1 seeds might meet in the Final Four, for example). For those, you can either flip a coin or watch ESPN to get the conventional wisdom. However…every year there are teams that buck the conventional wisdom and beat teams with lower seeds. This makes it very very difficult to pick a GREAT bracket – one that will win your office tournament. I SUCK at picking great brackets, so I made this page to help figure out which upsets might be likely. Plus, I’m lazy…

How does it work?

Using a statistical snapshot of all of the modern tournaments, I can tell how often a lower-seeded team is upset by a higher-seeded team. In a geeky, Dungeons and Dragons kind of way, I roll a virtual die for each game, and based on the statistical history, choose a winner.

However, some upsets (#16 beating #1, for example) or some head-to-head matchups have NEVER happened! For those, I need to assign a probability that an upset will happen. I do this based on the seed difference. If a #16 seed plays a #1 seed, this is:

Difference = (HighSeed – LowSeed) = 16 – 1 = 15

You can see the probabilities used on the right-hand side of each bracket. These are fixed – although I would be willing to change them given some constructive commentary.

Hey! Your stupid page picked “insert lame team name here“!!!

Yup, it did. And next time, phrase your answer in the form of a question! Again, this is all based on statistics. If you don’t like how it picks, pick a new bracket (refresh your page) & it will pick another one for you. Alternatively you could program your own picker page with a better algorithm…or send me some email at scottkuma+picker [at] gmail.com with ideas, constructive criticism, etc.

You should probably know that every pick made by the page is logged…and each year I do some post-tournament statistical analysis to improve the page.

UPDATE!! — I’ve noticed in past years that in cases where there isn’t a lot of historical data, that it can become VERY easy for a poor seed to go a long way in the tournament.  For example, a 9 seed has played a 5 seed only once in the third round, and it won that game.  That means that in my pick system, that 9 seed would beat the 5 seed 99 times out of 100…not realistic at all.

What I’ve done this year to attempt to counter this type of “nerfing” is to go back to my static table (on the right side of the page) when there are fewer than 5 historical examples for each match-up.  In my testing, that seems to make things more realistic.  I will play with the threshold to try to optimize the formula.

I lost my office pool because I used your page!

Ok, if you use my page as your basis for betting your rent/mortgage payment, or any significant amount of money, I’m not responsible, and YOU ARE INSANE!! Besides, you probably would have lost anyways.

However, should you win a ton of money, I’d appreciate throwing a pittance my way…

They even explain in an online comic-book why they’re doing this (to give back to the ‘net that made them, and to drive innovation – in short, to Not Be Evil), and how Chrome will be different…and better.

I’ll be downloading this today, and will post impressions later on.

This is a mac implementation of the xkcd website’s geohashing spontaneous adventure generator. It runs on OSX 10.4 and above. It MAY run on pre-Tiger versions of OSX, but I provide no support, and don’t guarantee that it’ll run on those.

Download it!

Topping it off, all of the books out there now are based around XCode 2, not the new XCode 3 that came with Leopard. XCode 3 changes some of the concepts that are used time and again throughout your development process: things like instantiating classes within Interface Builder. They’re all things that, given time, you figure out…but it’s just annoying enough to cause problems when going through a programming book for the first time.

This blog entry does a really good job of stepping through a basic program in XCode 3, using Cocoa & Objective C concepts.

Long Pointers » XCode 3.0 Tutorial

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