monotorrent api is great !

Monotorrent is really great thanks to the beautiful work of Alan.
I have read the code and it is really easy to understand.

Thanks to this beautiful Api it was very easy to add a lot of features to the core api.

So here is what I have added during the last month (with the help of Alan):

• super-seeding (also known as the initial seeding) it permit to be faster when you have made a torrent and start to broadcast it on net…In this mode the rules to choose where I send piece are different
• uTorrent peer exchange: exchange with the swarm the peers.
• web seeding (getright specification only) This specification allow to download on web site with HTTP and FTP and do not need any script on server side (just a regular link). This specification contain a bonus which is just a nice to have : gap management but I have not implemented it. There is just some basic code on my branch in piece picker class.
• libtorrent metadata support: you can receive the other metadata contain in the torrent file from other peer with this message. this features allow monotorrent to be tracker less. You just download the infohash with a magnetlink and get from other peers the torrent file.

I have code some other things which are not on trunk :

• magnet link: this features is like the edonkey link. It is link to the libtorrent metadata features.
• a basic work for gap management in piece picking process (getright specification)
• Event and function to have chat message usable in lib. This will evolve to support Azureus chat message protocol
• azureus protocol: I have just started it and it is far from compilable but will be soon I need to do the negotiation protocol too!

In the big next TODO there are

• the Distributed Hash Table (DHT) which allow to be fully trackerless.
• make the winform gui look like gtk GUI
• rss fully supported in winform gui
• search engine
• partial seed
• Location-aware protocol

Here you have a list of extension in protocol:

http://wiki.theory.org/BitTorrentSpecification#Reserved_Bytes (technical view)
http://www.bittorrent.org/beps/bep_0000.html#draft-beps (official draft)

html5 working draft published!

Since 1999, there is no new features in HTML language.

The language is really poor and have not evolved with the needs of user. To fix that, we can use javascript to manipulate the DOM but it is take a lot of lines of code to do small things. We have AJAX to have better performance by not refresh the whole page.

And we have Flash, Silverlight, Moonlight, XUL,… which are basically plug-in over your browser to add a lot of cool things to your browser.

And a lot of people talked about who will win … but we have forget the HTML standard which have not evolved during a long time. The working draft of HTML 5 seems very promising.

This is a working draft, so all can evolved but we can see what they want to do…

To sum up they add a lot of missing things witch is done with AJAX, javascript, …

So, I will try to sum up what we will have in this HTML5:

• Document structure: section, header, footer, article, aside will be useful to cut your document in area
• Multimedia flag: video, audio will replace the object flag and will be more easier to use and canvas will allow dynamic drawing (ever in Firefox 2)
• forms: the specification of WHATWG show what will be done here. But nothing is currently in the working draft. But we can hope new input attributs: calendar, timepicker, email, … and repeater to avoid to have a list same flags…
• new controls: Datagrid to make tabular or hierarchical set of rows of elements. progress and meter will be cool to show to user that he have to wait. it is better than a GIF or an Ajax progress bar. And we have some other things as command and menu
• area post: it will replace Ajax for a lot of things… here we have datatemplate, rule and nest flag to manage the template dynamically. I have not understand all here but sounds promising….
• storing data in database: but in local and this will be persistant during the session.
• catch drag&drop without javascirpt

This draft will evolved maybe in good maybe in bad way but hope standard will bring a lot of missing things. I do not think we will have all features of flash/silverlight in HTML5 but we will get a lot of cool new things. We will still be far from rich browser plugin but we get lot of cool new things in standard…

user friendly installer

Since I have switch to linux, I have found a lot of things very useful and really better than windows on linux.

The only thing which stuck me everytime is looking for package, find it, and install it.

The idea of a centric application sharing server is great but why show to final user all library when he only search front a front end for example.

The search & install system is really slow because it will looking for package in all repository.

For example, I have looked a video viewer (Video lan ) and I have found all package about video ( gstream lib, …) whereas I only search a front end.

For me, yast must have a basic and an advance mode.

The basic mode will show you only front end with name,description and a small screenshot. Best is too show it by category and allow user to filter with a textbox. And when you install Yast select all needed missing dependencies.

And if you are looking for a library, you will have to switch to advanced mode where you have a lot of more technical information.

This system will be far user friendly than search in thousand answer to video player…

EDIT: gnome-app-install seems to answer to my need. But it is on ubuntu (apt) whereas I am on opensuse (rpm). I will search if there is a solution for suse else I will try ubuntu. I know that suse is better for configuration with yast but ubuntu   is far better for package management.

ironruby under mono

Today, I have made a patch to fix the rakefile of Microsoft team of IronRuby.

This patch allow ironruby to be compiled with mono with the basic rakefile.

You just have to use mono flag : “rake compile mono=1″.

You can found it on ironruby mailing list.

.NET advantage released!

For all people using .NET in your job, the basic controls/components of .NET are not enough sometimes and you have to develop components. you have a lot of .NET package on the .NET to help you.

With all this stuff, you extends the basic toolset with a lot of things and have not to reinvent the weel.

On of the most known package is NetAdvantage which contain a lot of controls, components, tools for ASP.NET and windows forms.

This new release bring new features:

• Vista look-and-feel without WPF needs
• Export PDF, XPS and Excel
• Improve Visual Studio help integration
• Improve AJAX support for WYSIWYG

source

hello from linux !!

I have switch to Linux.

All I see is incredible far from what I have seen on Linux few years ago.

I run an OpenSuse 10.3 and all my bad point on Linux have disappear :

• The starting time have now reduce to about 30 seconds thanks to the SUPER project
• The delay and freeze that you have with yast have disappear… No need of smart!
• The installation system in general have been really improve. A single click is just what you need to install nvidia non oss driver!

There is a lot of other things which is really user friendly. Like the small textbox which appear when you are in a folder and hit some key to find a file. You will not just search with first letter but with you can hit more than one letter to find what you search. Yast is a lot easier and faster than previous version. You have search engine everywhere to find what you search quicker.
EDIT:

this is my desktop

yast:

start menu:

control center:

With only a small time I can only conclude that MS Windows is far from what we have now on Linux. It is amazing! Few years ago, we have a system where you have to use console every-time you want to do something and here you have a real desktop with 3D effect!

fish in the cube

cool animation when you close a window:

The first thing I do is get my rsa key from my windows partition and get svn/compile Mono It is faster than cygwin and easier

Rem: all screenshot come from opensuse site because I have not found how done screenshots ^^ (will try with print screen tonight). But I install compiz fusion and I have the same effect

Rem2: the only issue for moment is that I have no sound on flash player ( I have no sound for all at start but it is just because I have 2 sound card and I select the good one in admin panel)

innovate !!

Who innovate today in desktop experience?

This is a complex question…

Google is the first who come in my mind. A lot of engineer have left Microsoft to Google. Google have make a lot of new things as Google hearth, Google Desktop, Gmail, Google reader, Igoogle, Gcalendar , Google spreadsheet,… But Google video was a badtrip and they have to buy Youtube. Google have nothing really new since few month… Google have done a great job to make a web “Office” but it is just a migration to web not a real new idea.

EDIT: they have just released the google presentation.

MAC OS X have add a lot of new idea in desktop but nothing new since it.Apple have take a strong leadership in mp3 reader and Iphone will be a success. So, Apple is now clearly investing in Iphone, Ipod which bring more money to them.

The big one, Microsoft, fall down. The OpenXML have been refused by International Organization for Standardization.Windows Vista is compare to the Windows Me and Microsoft have provide a downgrade to Win XP.

And Aero is not as good as compiz. Microsoft is good to copy something and make it better for everyone (MACOS->Windows, Lotus 1-2-3-> MS Excel, Java->.NET,…). But Microsoft is in bad way. MS Office and MS Windows are the products which bring cash to Microsoft. MS office is challenged by openOffice, Google spreadsheet,… And MS Windows is left for Linux on server side. and now the last part (but bigger one) desktop environment is more and more challenged by Untubu & Suse who have simplified Linux to make it usable for everyone.

Innovation come from open source today. Power of community get bigger!

The console is left for beautiful GUI on linux. Microsoft have seen the trap and contract with Novell to save him for future but revolution come fast and who know what will be the future market-share of desktop?

Imo, It will take time.I am switching to Linux as many other people. I am an engineer and for moment most of people who switch to Linux are IT engineer but they are prescriptor. When someone want to buy a computer and know nothing about it, he ask for advice to prescriptor. The other sign is that administration switch to Linux. A lot of project improve compatibility (Mono, Moonlight, cygwin…) and other products are on both plate-form (OpenOffice, Firefox,…). So all this things make migration easier but a lot of issue is still there because of the lack of support for Linux.

Compiz Fusion video

Compositing have bring a lot of thing in desktop experience.

Beryl which is a fork of Compiz have now fusion with Compiz Extra for plugin package part and have bring some features in compize core. To sum up, compiz is core with just few stable plugin and Compiz Fusion is a package of plugin which can be unstable on some plugin but which bring a lot of features to desktop.

Some video to show you progress of Compiz fusion and Compiz:

open ID

I have ever talked about open ID.

To sum up, Open ID is an open, decentralized, free framework for user-centric digital identity.

For non geek people, You have only one password to remember which will authenticate you everywhere on web.

Else you can see this beautiful video or the one of 2006

This is very powerful to solve the identity theft. The main issue is that it must be used everywhere to be sure that it will become a standard.

You can get an openId here.

Major actors of web do not use it because they wait the new framework OpenId 2.0. The specs of this new framework are near finished and will be released soon.

So, we will see after the specs released what will be done by all main web actors. But we ever seen some sign that show that will be a success.

AOL have ever go ahead and used it today for 63 million users.

I am really proud of Orange (France telecom) who have invest in this new technology. You will have 40 millions of orange consumers who will used it.

When firefox bring the web2.0 revolution…

Firefox is really a great browser with tabs , plugins, Anti fishing, RSS, … and many more things.

But the last Alpha 8 of Firefox bring a really cool thing: the web based protocol handlers.

This system allow people to register web service to open mime type. So you can open a file without local rich client to open it. The power of web service will do it for you.

Imagine you want to open a document .doc, but you do not want to install MS word, you will use the Google document web service to open it!!

This system is great because no issue about multi-OS support. Most of plate-form have a browser and this is the only thing needed!

PDF file is a pain to open because Acrobat reader is really slow and have to many module to load whereas it is quite never used. I have never understand why acrobat open all module even if not needed and why it will not check file content to see what is needed… I use Foxit reader to open PDF but now I will use WebService to open it.

Your computer will no more need extra application than a browser and access to web;)

A lot of web service is outside to help you to open document. In my opinion, it is the future for a big part of application. But this system is not perfect to do complex things (coding, compile, .. for example) but it is cool to view any format. So, you will no more need viewer because all will be online.