QComicBook turns 5!

QComicBook was first released 5 years ago, on Jan 7th 2005. It took me just 2 or 3 weeks (around Christmas & New Year's Eve time in 2005) to complete the initial implementation, dubbed 0.1.0. The program soon became quite popular as it was probably the first comic book reader available for Linux. It had very good reception and I got a lot of positive feedback at that time. It was later packaged for many popular Linux distributions.

The program was usable from the very first release, of course with a limited set of features. More features were gradually added with new releases. With version 0.3.4 the set of features was kind of "stabilized";  this was November 2006.  Version 0.3.4 marks a stagnation period for QComicBook development: the next version (0.4.0) bringing the important Qt4 port was released one year later, on November 2007. But then nothing was happening again for almost two years - till August 2009 & version 0.4.1.  In 2009  QComicBook got my full attention again with four bugfix releases (0.4.1 - 0.4.4) and one "major"
release (0.5.0) which brought some new features. I'm now working on new exciting features, one of them being a ....let's keep it secret for a while ;) as it's still in early stages; keep an eye on this blog as I'll soon reveal some details...

Thanks to all of you who support QComicBook by using it, packaging it for your distro, sending me some good words, bug reports, fixes etc. QComicBook would not be here without your help! Cheers!

Moved to new web hosting

After a few weeks of downtime my website is finally back online with new address and design. After some searching for free web hosting I've eventually decided to buy a domain and use a paid web hosting which provides all the necessary tools (e.g. Ruby on Rails) to play with.

From now on my website URL is www.linux-projects.net and QComicBook website is qcomicbook.linux-projects.net. Neat, isn't it? ;)

Both websites are still under construction, may contain some broken links or may experience occasional downtime
but are already usable.

QComicBook hosted on GitHub

QComicBook repository is now available on GitHub, meaning you can now access all historical releases and follow the development (master) branch if you wish to do so.  QComicBook source tarball can be found in the Downloads section of the repository.

Remark: commit messages are in Polish as I've never intended to publish my local repo... I apologize for inconvenience. I'm going to change this with next commits.

My home web site is not available yet - I'm still looking for a web hosting (see my previous blog entry).

Urgent: My website is down. Looking for new web hosting.

My web hosting provider had suddenly stopped the service and wiped the server out yesterday, meaning my web site is temporarily unavailable. Unfortunately, this includes QComicbook, KleanSweep and my other projects as they have no mirrors.

Here is a plea: if you're a system administrator of a web hosting server and you ever wanted to support free software projects, then this is your chance. I need a free web hosting to host my home site and open source projects as soon as possible. My expectations are:

• it's free.
  
• this must be a stable and secure server, running 24/7.
• you're a professional web hosting provider and have already been providing web hosting for other web sites.
  
• web pages can use Ruby on Rails or PHP (for now my web page is all static, but I'd like to change it).
• disk quota can be increased if needed (I should be fine with around 50Mb for now, but may need more in the future).
• you have some nice domains available (e.g. gnu.org is a nice domain, whereas microsoft.com is not) and you can provide me with nice hostnames like qcomicbook.<yourdomain> or stolowski.<yourdomain> (I'd like to split my website into personal web site and qcomicbook, kleansweep hosting sites, so a few hostnames would be required).
• ssh and shell are not required, but would be a nice addition.
  

I can't give you much in return except for satisfaction and my appreciation. And of course you'll be listed in THANKS file of QComicBook ;).
So, if you can provide me with web hosting service and meet these requirements, then please email me immediately. Thank you.

I'm also interested in suggestions about free and reliable web hosting services, so if you know and can recommend any, then please let me know.

Regarding the availability of QComicBook source tarball... I'm looking for a temporary web site to host it until a new hosting is available and my web site is back. I'll keep you informed, check this blog for updates.

QComicBook 0.5.0 unleashed!

I'm happy to announce that the new version of QComicBook has finally been released and is available for download. The middle version number has been increased from "4" to "5", meaning this release brings substantial new features, not just bugfixes. Here is the ChangeLog:

• implemented true continuous viewing mode. 'Continuous scrolling' option moved to 'View' menu.
• cmake-based build system (replaces autoconf/automake).
• all windows/dialogs implemented via QtDesigner's .ui files and handled by uic.
• icons and splash screen are now handled by Qt resources system and compiled-in in the resulting      qcomicbook executable.
• new, improved 'System Information' dialog.
• new splash screen.
• removed 'Forward two pages in two pages mode' option.
  
• fixed splash screen showing.
• lots of internal and architectural changes.
  

The most important new feature is of course true continuous scrolling mode, which displays all pages on a single continuous "sheet of paper" that you can freely scroll up & down. I don't have to say that reading comic books this way is much more enjoyable, do I? Of course, the implementation is smart enough to preserve memory and load/release pages as needed, so no worries. This feature took me tens of hours and a lot of blood, sweat and tears to implement, so keep that in mind and consider a small donation (e.g. a beer worth) if you like QComicBook (PayPal link is available at my home site) ;).

To celebrate this new 0.5.0 release, QComicBook got a new splash screen (see picture above) - thanks again to Adam Mateja for this wonderful piece of work!

Now as 0.5.0 has been released and a few months of work has been concluded, I'm about to start planning for upcoming months.  As of now the following two features are on the top of my TODO list:

• zoom lens and/or other ways of zooming.
• on-the-fly image enhancements (brightness, contrast, color adjustements etc.)
  

Of course, before these (and/or possibly other) features are implemented, expect 0.5.1 bugfix release.

As usual, QComicBook can be downloaded from http://linux.bydg.org/~yogin/

Enjoy!
     

When half of your memory is gone

When you're compiling a custom kernel, don't forget to turn 'HIGHMEM' option ON, otherwise you may be wondering why only a part of your memory if available for use :}.... And don't let this option fool you, 4GB actually means systems with 1-4GBs... Fortunately, kernel messages are very accurate and pinpoint the problem:

Warning only 895MB will be used.
Use a HIGHMEM enabled kernel.

I'm killzoned

I've just recently collected almost all of the singleplayer campaign trophies in Killzone 2, except for Heroic Survivor, Iconoclast and Field Agent. I'm now going to beat the game for the 3rd time, this time with "Elite" difficulty level to earn the remaining trophies. This will be tough time... Killzone 2 is the first game I've ever played which gets even more fun and enjoyable the next time you beat it. IMHO it is also the best first-person-shooter ever. Period.