An Introduction

Hello there!
I thought I'd better introduce our newest writer so here it is:

On Wednesdays he goes to the dog wash, with his cat.
On Thursdays he skydives, armed with only a teacup and a reclining chair.
On Friday, he goes to mac conventions - with his Ubuntu machine.
On Saturday he has a tuna sandwich and then goes swimming with sharks.
On Sunday he goes for a jog - through a mine field.
On Monday he swallows flaming swords while doing jumping jacks.
On Tuesdays he plays cards, on the wing of a Boeing 747.
On Wednesday he sleeps in until 11:00 and spends the rest of the day in his pajamas.

He doesn't often drink beer, but when he does he prefers Dos Equis.

Ladies and Gents please welcome: Systemtwo

We look forward to your opinions!


-The Thoth-

MuseScore Con't

GOOD MORNING INTERNET LAND!!!

If you recall, my last post was mostly historical, but this one will contain more about the software. Since writing the last post, 2 significant things have happened.

The first is that I have changed my work laptop from Ubuntu to Linux Mint (yes I know, it is a variation of Ubuntu). Why? I'm not a fan of the way Ubuntu is going with their desktop environment, but I still like the general way it functions. So I switched to Mint since I wanted to stay connected to the Ubuntu repositories, as there is a lot of great software there and I require something reliable for this computer, since it is for work. My other pc has remained my test computer for running the more fun stuff ;)

The other significant thing is that I have finished that instrumental music assignment I had mentioned in part 1 and have been assigned another one. This one is a composition assignment as opposed to the previous assignment which was just arranging. Once again I used MuseScore 0.9.5.

Having never used the alternatives, it is hard to really compare this WYSIWYG music notation software to anything else but I will try to pass on my experience.  Installation on Mint was a breeze, as it is included in Ubuntu's repositories. If you are not using a Debian derivative, MuseScore has also provided a RPM and the source code.

My first impression was good, I was impressed with how professional and clean the interface was. it is obviously designed for ease of use, which is good when doing long compositions. Navigation is accomplished by grabbing and dragging or scrolling using a scroll wheel. Being a true  WYSIWYG editor, the composition looks just like it will print when you're done. Adding instruments was easy as well, and MuseScore contains more than anyone will ever probably use, including a massive amount of voices. It is worth getting acquainted with the many keyboard shortcuts, as they will save you a lot of time. Entering notes is rather intuitive: the number keys change the length of the note, and the note itself is entered by using the corresponding letter on the keyboard. MuseScore also is capable of working with a MIDI piano keyboard. Transposition headaches are a thing of the past, as all of your transposing is as easy as hitting the "Concert Pitch" button which (surprise, surprise) toggles concert pitch on or off.

Probably the best feature (Apart from the price) is it's ability to playback your compositions. This allows the composer the opportunity to hear what they've written before a band actually plays it. This feature is in no means unique to MuseScore, but it is worth mentioning because it is such a huge help.

I did have a few little glitches with the software. For one, it crashes occasionally. Probably once every 3-4 hours of work, so keep saving if you don't feel like composing the same thing twice. Another thing was sometimes when I switched to concert pitch mode and back some notes were given flats, and sometimes double flats. This was fixed by going Notes -> Pitch Spell, so it wasn't too much of an inconvenience but a glitch none the less. Also, once and a while it would stop recognizing my keyboard, this was fixed by restarting the program. Since I haven't had the time to test this on any other machines, I don't know if these are isolated incidents or not.

Overall, I'd recommend this software to anyone looking for notation software. I believe it can defiantly compete with other free software, and may even be able to compete with some paid software. Plus it is opensource and cross platform, what more can you ask for?

Here are the links to the project that appears in all the screenshots:

• MuseScore project file 
• PDF
• WAV

Coincidently it is also my project for my instrumental music class. I'd like to include a disclaimer. I am not a professional composer, listen at your own risk ;)

That brings us to the end of the post, don't worry, I'll be Bach.

-The Thoth-

MuseScore

Before I begin, I'd like to welcome Crazy2be to the small groups of writers. Sure, he has officially been on the staff almost since the beginning, but only just recently made his first post. Crazy2be, we look forward to reading your thoughts!

Down to business. I recently received an assignment in my instrumental music course to arrange a piece of music for a band. My options:

1. Do it by hand. 19 different instruments? I think not.
2. PAY for some software, and have to run it on my Windows pc
3. Opensource alternative

Any guesses? 

If you chose 2, you're wrong but if you chose 3, you are correct! It is true, even music notation software has an opensource alternative, and that is MuseScore. I will be giving my impressions on MuseScore in my next blog post but right now I will provide you with a little background on this piece of software.

MuseScore began it's life as MuseE, a MIDI/Audio sequencer which is still in existence. As MuseE grew, a decision was made to strip it of it's notation capabilities and create a designated scorewriter. This happened in 2002. in only 6 years MuseScore had achieved a yearly average of 180000 downloads! In 2008 their website, MuseScore.org, was launched. This new online presence on the web contributed to the feeding frenzy. The newest stable version (0.9.5) was released in 2009. The Beta (0.9.6), is already ready for download, and is included in the Lucid Ubuntu repositories under mscore.

Stay tuned for my impressions of MuseScore in the next blogpost.

-The Thoth-

Blender 2.5: Awesome

The other day i stumbled upon Blender 2.5, an update to blender that's been in the works since 2007, according to the release logs. I was so impressed by the much improved UI that i downloaded and read the entire pdf on it's design (granted, it's only a few pages). I can honestly say it is the most polished looking 3D program i have seen to date, with a wonderful workflow.
However, along with all the wondrous improvements, there are a few things that could still be improved. First of all, a library would be extremely useful for those of us who don't want to make every single model ourselves. There should be enough CC licensed work from the various blender movies to make at least a sizable library, and ideally you would allow people to submit their own creations quickly and easily... one of the best implementations of this i have seen is in sketchup, where you can browse and search a huge online repository. Materials should also have a repository, along with a moderated repository for scripts that do certain types of things (e.g. a script that generates a grass field, complete with flowers, based on supplied parameters).
One more thing it could use is a "quick start guide" or similar, although it needs it significantly less in 2.5.
Well, it's pretty darn awesome, but not quite perfect yet. Also crashes quite a bit on windows still, but that's not a problem for me most of the time ;).

Indie games

Well I just learned that the humble indie pack hit the 1 million dollar donation challenge. What this means is that the majority of the games in this pack are releasing there source code. Currently only Lugaru is available for download even if its rough. With in the next week Aquaria, Gish and Penumbra Overture will also release there source code. The most exciting thing about this is that the 1 million dollar challenge was reached 55 minutes before the deal ended. Lastly another thing I found cool was the fact that the average purchasing price for Linux was the highest and it held a third of the amount of purchases. While its not a conclusive study it does show that there is a market for selling games based in multiple OS's. If you want to check out the indie pack site for links to the source code of the games click here. I'll also be doing a review on each of the games and how they run in Ubuntu and Arch (Once I get it setup). I'll also try to do them as videos with game play giving me a chance to try out VLMC.

Oops.

Sorry guys, we dropped the ball again. In our defense school has been piling up, but of course there really is no excuse for the lack of post. We are sorry.

Anyways...

We would like to inform you of some possible upcoming features and hopefully distract you with a bunch of links:

• New WICMG from Mekapaedia or Inerg or The Thoth
• Fedora/Ubuntu/Slackware piece from the indecisive The Thoth
• VLMC review by Inerg

Again these are all just things that have been rattling around in our minds, perhaps all these will be published, perhaps none of them will, but at least it is something. If you have something you'd like to see on the blog please shoot us an email and we'll get right on it.

Thank you

-The Thoth-

Free Google Wave Invites

Not sure if there is anyone out there who still needs an invite but if you do, today is your lucky day. We recently got a new load of invites, and who better to give them to than our readers? Be within the first 20 to email us at guysonfoss@gmail.com and you will receive a wave invite.

-The Thoth-

Haiku - Part 4

Hujambo! Habari gani?

Oops, sorry about that... Lately I've been getting my English mixed up with my Swahili - they are so similar. Anyways, this is the 4th installment in the Haiku series and it may be the last... but maybe not. If you haven't read the other parts yet and you want to you can read them here: Part1 Part2 Part3....

Alright, so in this part of the series I said that I would take a look at what makes Haiku different from other OS's, specifically Linux. I also said I'd walk you through some of the 'competitors' of Haiku. If you see an error in this post, just shut up about it... Just joking, it is entirely possible that there is an error in the following post, because:

a) I am not a total expert in these matters

b) I am watching The Office right now.

Lets jump right in: What makes Haiku different? Well for this answer we turn to the official Haiku website which states: 'Haiku has a single focus on personal computing and is driven by a unified vision for the whole OS.' Just as BSD has a focus on security, Haiku is focused on a fast, lean, user friendly system. These values have been carried from its predecessor BeOS (if you don't know what this is, read the other posts). For this very reason Haiku is focused on being completely unified. Unlike Linux which has stacks of things running on top of each other (Kernel, X windows system, etc.) Haiku has chosen to be contained in one unit which makes up the entire operating system. The idea is that when the OS is not unified it makes solutions very complicated and compatibility difficult. Haiku also strives to keep their focus on the desktop computer user, which means that they have gone with bash in the terminal and have kept the gui very clean, these decisions make Haiku easier for the average user. Keeping with the theme of ease, development is done with object orientated programming languages.

Lets get into 'competitors' for a moment. Some observant readers may have noticed that I put quotes around the word 'competitors', and that is because... THERE ARE NONE. If I had been posting this a few years ago, the preceding line would have read 'THERE ARE FIVE'. Yes indeed folks, there were four recreations of BeOS and one continuation of BeOS. The recreations were: Blue Eyed OS, Cosmoe, E/OS, and BeOS Workstation. Some of these, including Blue Eyed OS were built on top of the linux kernel, which set them far enough apart from Haiku to not pose too much of a threat. There also was one continuation attempt called Zeta, but this disappeared after Palmsource began questioning the legality of Zeta using BeOS code. So thats is it, Haiku is triumphant, and it looks like it will stay that way with lots of Blue Eyed OS going over to the Haiku camp.

Once again, if you happen to find an error (quite possible), don't hesitate to correct me. We all love getting feedback here at the GuysOnFOSS head offices so feel free to shoot us an email, or check out the forums.

Shukrani kwa ajili ya kusoma!

-The Thoth-

Haiku - Part 3

If you haven't read previous posts in this series you may click here for part 1 and here for part 2.

Hello class! Now, who can remember what we learned last time. Oh yes... When we last left our friend Jean-Louis he was in a mess. His company Be inc had just been sold for about 11 million dollars to Palm inc. This was significantly lower than the original offer from Apple of 125 million. So BeOS fades into oblivion, never to be heard of again...

Not quite. Although the story ends here for Jean-Louis, the spirit of BeOS lived on through it's small, but loyal, fan base which was made up of BeOS developers and users. They kept on developing software, and it was not long before there was a group developing an open source continuation of the fallen operating system. The project was called OpenBeOS, and it had the lofty goal of recreating BeOS out of open source components. The idea was for OpenBeOS to be an continuation of BeOS with backwards compatibility at the heart of the project.

Development began and soon the first version, a patch for BeOS R5, was available. The name was changed to Haiku, which represents the simplicity of the OS and is also in reference to the unique error messages in BeOS, which were often in haiku form. The project flourised throughout the next years, with the first stand-alone version being developed. Soon Haiku was able to render windows. It was still years away from being a usable desktop operating system, but Haiku was gaining steam.

From that point on Haiku only picked up speed, developing much faster than ever before. In 2006 a tentative date for the alpha 1 release was set for 2008. Leaps and bounds were made in this period and soon Haiku was self hosting. By the time the Alpha was released in September of 2009, Haiku boasted a native gcc4 port, allowing existing programs to be built for Haiku. Developers continued to work to bring things like Java to Haiku, and at this point Haiku borrows NONE of its code from BeOS.

That is where we are today! I know I missed some things, but you can check out the official project history. Alpha 1 is out right now so go on and give it a try. The next part in this series will deal with competitors and the main differences in Haiku as opposed to other OS's. As always, if you see a mistake or want to comment on this post or series you can do so through the forums, email, wave, or simply by commenting on this post.

I'll leave you with this screen capture of Haiku running in VirtualBox

-The Thoth-

Haiku - Part 2

If you haven't read part one, you can do so by clicking here

Lets pick up where we left off shall we?

...Jean-Louis asked for far too much money prompting apple to buy NeXTSTEP. So Be inc. went back to the drawing board to create a system that could be run on Apple computers, with intentions of selling it separately, as an option for Apple owners. There was a problem. Apple, who apparently were still sore about the ridiculous price that BeOS had been offered to them, went on the defensive and refused to release certain specifications about their G3 computers to Be inc. This made developing a version of BeOS that would run on these computers next to impossible.

Be inc was failing fast, but they had another potential market. Power Computing released a machine that could dual boot Mac and BeOS. For a while, it shipped with BeOS and Mac, offering the customer the choice. Unfortunately this venture ultimately failed.

Even to it's very last ounce of strength BeOS attempted to drag itself out of the hole of debt it had dug itself through it's failed projects by releasing R5 which was completely free (as in money) and could run on the X86 or Power PC platform (BeOS had been available to X86 since R3) architecture under Linux and Windows. Although thousands of programs were developed, it never made it past a small collection of hobbyists. Eventually in the midst of rising debt, the company couldn't hold out any longer. Be inc. was sold to Palm for a mere 5% of what Jean-Louis had asked Apple for. It's final release, codename Dano, was still under development when Be was bought. Like a good captain, Jean-Louis went down with the ship, staying on until the transition was complete, one year after the sale.

That concludes the history lesson for today, but I'd like to share some R5 screenshots with you from Virtual box. R5 is still available for download from BeBits.com, which is the certainly the largest online BeOS community. This link will help you if you want to boot it up on your VB. I must warn you, BeOS was not designed for modern computers so expect it to be unstable and to be incompatible with some of your hardware.

Here the some screen shots that I took from VB:

Part 3 coming soon - perhaps we'll even talk about the namesake of this series!!! If you have any comments or corrections (could happen) drop me a line - thethothonfoss@gmail.com

-The Thoth-