fiat lux (cahier lukhnos)

Going to be a really short update.

Now you know that I work for (and actually own) Lithoglyph, and we’ve just released a new version of Mondrianum, a color picker plug-in that leverages Adobe kuler color theme resources. And this being a few things that we are working on.

At the same time we’re still thinking hard and moving at a slow pace on giving TapExpense an upgrade. We’ve learned a lot three months after the App Store went live, and we are working on putting them in practice. Redesigning, reforming or simply refactoring an existing app is hard, as it turns out. But we are not yielding to the difficulties any time soon.

I really want to apologize for my slowness at doing anything related to mobilesync-inspect. I believe there are (or should be, but I didn’t do research) other tools that perform somewhat same tasks, hopefully with better UI. I really don’t have time to do all the testing and try out the replace-and-restoration scenario myself.

Apparently mobilesync-inspect belongs to some of the worst kinds of the open source software, that it can’t attract enough developer interest to carry on its development, plus that the original developer (that’s me) simply doesn’t have the resource (time, energy, committment) to improve it further…

ObjectiveFlickr, on the other hand, seems to fare better. There are lively discussions on how to port OF to iPhone–cutting off the NSXMLDocument dependency that is. And I’m glad that there are people interested and enthusiastic enough to do it. My own take would be scrapping XML parsing using NS stack entirely and use libxml2 to render Flickr’s XML response block a simple dictionary. But again that takes some time to re-do a few things.

OpenVanilla is under some major overhaul. Zonble and I are working on a nearly rewritten version of the OS X loader, this time entirely based on InputMethodKit. One interesting challenge is to backport IMK-based loader to Tiger, as it turns out that the market we want to support (Taiwan mainly) still has 50%-55% users hanging on with their Tiger installations. And we actually have found a solution for that, first applied in some in-house projects that we have at our company. The solution will be released as an open source library shortly.

lukhnos :: Oct.20.2008 :: announcement :: No Comments »

The past May HappyDesigner had held a gathering at Dalí Café in Hsinchu. We talked about presentations in Takahashi Style and professional freelancing.

HappyDesigner is a web designer group that promotes web standard and design awareness in Taiwan. Currently we have members in Taipei, Hsinchu, and Beijing.

We are now inviting you to join us at the October gathering. Participants will bring with their own stories of how to get things done, or how not to. Time management is essential to any design undertaking. It can be a problem that plagues many freelancers, too.

Whereas hlb is going to talk about the time mgt. methodologies that he has surveyed lately, I’m thinking if I should talk about working in panic mode before the deadline. For those who know Unix, panic is an important thing. If you panic, that means at least you have entered kernel mode… the point being making panic mode work for you.

The gathering will run on October 1st (mostly likely in the afternoon) at Opcafé, Chutung Town (east of Hsinchu). If you happen to live in Taipei, I have a single-trip car pool quota of 4.

If you can read Chinese, you can e-mail hlb and let us know you will be there. Or you can e-mail me at lukhnos-at-gmail.

We have decided not to make any slide presentation this time.

lukhnos :: Sep.21.2006 :: announcement :: 1 Comment »

After several months of fine-tuning and some weeks of packaging, OpenVanilla 0.7.2 is finally out of beta. We should have a (functionally) stable release now, although there are still tons of things to be made. Documentation, wiki, support work, spreading the message, and we have to prepare for a list of OV’s “issues” with OS X so that we’re able to discuss with the people at Apple.

OV’s Wiki in English has been slightly updated. On OV’s Wiki in Chinese, you’ll find a more detailed description on what’s new and how to get a copy of the latest release.

A special and big thanks to davidyu. If not for his patience (and also thanks to his elfish PowerBook XD), we wouldn’t have been able to hunt down and fix one of the most mysterious and unreproducible bug that we have ever encountered. Cheers for all!

Administrator :: Jun.25.2006 :: announcement :: No Comments »

The dice is cast, the entry is submitted. So let’s wait and see what will happen then…

(OV is participating this year’s Apple Design Award Contest.)

Administrator :: Jun.14.2006 :: announcement :: No Comments »

Progress of the Campaign (click here to donate):

Not only the target of this year’s fund-raising campaign is met (USD 1,920 / NTD 61,440), but we have actually received more!

The part of the donation that exceeds the target will be retained as a long-term fund. We will use this fund in the future to help our team members participate in future conferences and/or hold input method-related technical workshops. Because of you, together we have made it!

Once again, we would like to thank all of you for your kindness and generosity!

Administrator :: Jun.08.2006 :: announcement :: No Comments »

• OpenVanilla 2006 募款活動 （中文版）
• OpenVanilla Fund-Raising Campaign 2006 (in English)

Dear OpenVanilla Users,

We would like to seek your help in this year’s OpenVanilla Fund-Raising Campaign.

OpenVanilla has made lot of progress in the past two years. Since October 2004, it was transformed from a proof of concept to a real thing that serves thousands of users. We have received comments and feedback from both Traditional and Simplified Chinese users, and have even heard that some retailers in Taiwan are installing OV as an offer to Windows “switchers.”

Right now OpenVanilla is at version 0.7.2 beta. During the past quarter we have become universal–0.7.2 beta runs on Intel Macs. We have fixed a number of difficult buges, and a stable 0.7.2 is coming along the way. Certainly there are still lots to be done. We’re planning a better Uninstaller, a Module Manager, even a .cin-Table Editor to make it easier for you to customize your favorite input method.

We need to be up to the front of the development of OS X to make OpenVanilla better. This is why we are having a Fund-Raising Campaign this year.
Apple is expected to announce its OS X 10.5 Roadmap at WWDC 2006 in San Francisco. We have learned that Apple is planning a redesign for the Text Service Manager (TSM)–on which all input methods of OS X depend. The current TSM is a legacy from the pre-OS X era and the form of many API calls date back to 1998. This will mean a sea-change of the inner structure, and we need to catch up this shift.

In addition, Apple Asia is holding an Input Method Workshop in the first week of September in Beijing, China. Apple Asia has invited many developers to join this event. The OpenVanilla Team is invited too.

We need your help to make these two trips possible.

We are expecting to send lukhnos (who is in charge of the core of OpenVanilla’s OS X version) to WWDC 2006. Zonble is planning to fly to Beijing in September (lukhnos will happen to be in Beijing in September, so he won’t need to fly).
We are raising a fund of USD 1,499 (NTD 47,968) to cover the entrace ticket for WWDC 2006 (which costs USD 1,295) for lukhnos and a part of a roundtrip ticket Taipei-Beijing for zonble. Lukhnos is willing to pay for the ticket to San Franciso on his own expense, and part of zonble’s ticket will be covered by the donation we have received for the past year.

As of June 6, 2006, OpenVanilla has received USD 461 (NTD 14,756) as donation. A roundtrip ticket Taipei-Beijing usually costs around USD 625 (NTD 20,000). That’s USD 164 shorter. Plus the ticket of WWDC 2006, and that’s how we have come up with the figure.

This year’s fund-raising campaign will end on July 31, 2006.

Being a community effort, OpenVanilla has already been a free software in both sense of the word–it’s free as in free beer and free speech. Its source code is open under the BSD License, and anyone can use the code freely under the terms of the License. Personally, I would like to promise that the OS X version of OpenVanilla will always be free of charge as long as I have a job–which means it will always cost nothing in the foreseeable future–and OpenVanilla’s commitment to the free/open source software will not change. Because of this, we rely more on the support of our users, so that we at the OpenVanilla Project will keep up the fast paces of the change in the big world–and bring back what we have learned and share it with you.

On behalf of the OpenVanilla team, I would like thank you for your support of this project and this campaign. Your help will be greatly appreciated!

Best regards,
Lukhnos D. Liu

Administrator :: Jun.07.2006 :: announcement :: No Comments »

Chio-châi (招財), my parents’ cat, who came to live with them since July 2004 when he was just a few days old, passed away this morning.

For this evening I am going to play this in lieu of a prayer. Requiescat in pace.

Wir genießen die himmlischen Freuden,
Drum tun wir das Irdische meiden.
Kein weltlich Getümmel
Hört man nicht im Himmel!
Lebt Alles in sanftester Ruh.
Wir führen ein englisches Leben,
Sind dennoch ganz lustig daneben,
Wir tanzen und springen,
Wir hüpfen und singen!
Sanct Peter im Himmel sieht zu!

Gustav Mahler, “Das himmlische Leben.” From Des Knaben Wunderhorn. Yvonne Kenny (soprano), Gustav Mahler (piano, on a Welte-Mignon roll). 1993.

Administrator :: May.15.2006 :: announcement :: No Comments »

This blog is also participating the CSS Naked Day, which promotes separation of semantic and layout with the use of CSS.

lukhnos :: Apr.05.2006 :: announcement :: Comments Off

After six months of polishing and refactoring work, OpenVanilla 0.7.2 (beta) is released. There are two installation packages for 0.7.2-beta, the Base and the Extra. The Base consists of the OpenVanilla Loader and the Standard Set of Modules (including a number of popular Chinese input methods and output filters), whereas the Extra consists of many useful plug-in’s which extend OpenVanilla. Many of the modules in the Extra serve beyond East Asian languages.

Major improvements include:

• A “Phrase Management Tools” saves repetitive text entry efforts and facilitates translation and many writing tasks.
• Improved reliability and loading speed for the input methods generated by Generic Input Methods Module.
• OpenVanilla is now a “Unicode” input method listed in the Input Menu tab (under the International settings within System Preferences). This makes inter-language text entry less confusing and more consistent for certain script-sensitive applications (such as Microsoft Word).
• Customizable “input menu” icon.
• Extra modules and data tables can be installed into special directories within your home directory now. No more need to fiddle with system folders.
• Hanyu Pinyin and Wubizixing, two Simplified Chinese input methods, are make part of the Standard Set of Modules.
• A collection of tools, such as Unicode IME and Unicode Decoder, are provided via an “Extra Pack” download package.
• A pestering bug that disabled numeric keypad whenever OpenVanilla was in use has been fixed.

For more information (where to download, how to install, activate, or uninstall it), please refer to our official site at: http://openvanilla.org , and yes, it’s in two languages.

lukhnos :: Jan.20.2006 :: announcement :: Comments Off

I have been keeping one blog in Chiense and am now keeping another in English. Will see what happens.

lukhnos :: Oct.28.2005 :: announcement :: 1 Comment »