That’s why you can download Nanoparticles from Android market right now:

Download Nanoparticles from Android Market

In addition, I have been working on a Mac OS X port. This is still somewhat in an early stage, but should work on most machines. You can download the Mac OS X port for free here.

Both these version include the new party mode with new particles and new game rules. This should give you many more hours of fun particle-based gameplay.

After this I wanted to create a nice .dmg file for easy deployment on Mac OS X. Thankfully, this process is not hard either. I found this through the Qt Documentation, but it is actually simpler than it seems thanks to the macdeployqt tool. This is mentioned on the page, but I decided to give a more thorough walk through on how to use the tool here:

1. Build your application
2. In the build directory, run

   macdeployqt yourappname.app -dmg

   macdeployqt is found in the ~/Library/QtSDK/Desktop/Qt/474/gcc/bin folder (if that is where you installed Qt)

3. You should now have a nice yourappname.dmg file in the build directory. Open this up and check that your application runs from there.
4. If everything is working fine, you can do some prettifying of your .dmg file by opening it up using the Disk Utility and converting it to a Read/Write disk image.
5. Open your Read/Write disk image and create a shortcut to your Applications folder. This could either be done by dragging the Applications folder while holding the command key or by creating a symbolic link in terminal:

   ln -s /Applications ./Applications

6. Edit the icon size, background image, etc. by clicking Command + J to open the View Options. Also, use View -> Hide Toolbar and Hide Sidebar to hide the excessive toolbars from the disk image.
7. Close the image and use Disk Utility to convert it back to a compressed disk image.
8. Distribute your .dmg file.

If you need more details about the process and how deployment is performed, have a look in the Qt Docs.

I’ve only had a HTC Magic with no OpenGL capabilities available for testing, but still the game is running pretty good. This is giving me perhaps too high hopes about how it will perform on a stronger device, such as a Samsung Galaxy SII. I’ll try to get hold of a device like that soon.

In addition I’ve moved almost all the UI code in Nanoparticles over to QML. This finally makes the menus and game logic separated and also has made it a lot easier to add some transitions and user feedback to the UI elements.

I’ve only got a early alpha version ready at the moment, but I’ll probably need a lot of help testing how the game runs on different devices and setups. I will post back here as soon as I’ve got something for you to play with. Maybe I’ll even push it to Android Market in a not so distant future for early testing.

curl --head --header "User-Agent: blablabla" http://dragly.org/

I have no idea why this happens, but I was pointed to this solution in a forum which I forgot to bookmark. I hope this might help you out if you should run into the same problem.

Download Nanoparticles

You can read more about Nanoparticles and download it for other platforms on this page.

What solved my problem: Todo.txt. Why?

The solution for me has always been to have a todo list that I can look up whenever I’m wondering about what to do next. It is way too hard to stay focused on a task if I have to remind myself about what’s next all the time. Leaving later tasks in an organized list makes it possible for me to avoid these constant reminders and let me focus peacefully on one task at a time, knowing that I won’t forget the next important task.

However, keeping such a list can introduce another problem to solve: How can I store the list in an easily accessible place that makes it easy to review it, cross things off it, list only one project at a time and maybe only the top priorities?

The best option for availability is to have the list on a whiteboard next to my computer, but that reveals several problems. The whiteboard will be way too small no matter how large a whiteboard I buy, and it will not be easily synchronized. In other words, I will most likely need something that runs on my computer.

Several applications are available for this purpose, but I have yet to find one that works well on all my systems with synchronization. I’ve tried to set up manual synchronization of folders using services like Dropbox, Ubuntu One and SpiderOak, but after Getting Things Gnome on my laptop wrote over all my changes from my desktop and Tasque failed on me while syncing via Remember The Milk, I decided to go back to the good old “todo.txt” file in a folder on my computer.

This works fine, but it lacks some options to sort tasks after priority or project. However, there is a beautiful script application that has come to the rescue for me. Visit todo.txt to see what I’m talking about.

It’s basically a simple script that lets you keep your todo-list in a file for compatibility and availability between systems, while giving you the options to view, add and delete tasks via the command line.

This solves all problems with syncing and availability. Now I can leave the syncing to a system such as Ubuntu One without worrying about compatibility between my phone and my computer, and even be able to view, add and delete tasks without ever leaving the terminal.

And should I ever be on a system without the todo.txt script, I can always open the file in vim or view it with cat.

Task lists from code comments

What about task lists from code comments? I often leave comments in LaTeX-files, code files and Python scripts like this:

// TODO: Make a cup of coffee

Well, as I said, I’ve often got a terminal open when working on anything, so the best solution for me would be never to leave the terminal:

cat <<anyfileyoulike>> | grep TODO

This simply lists all the TODO-comments in my code or text file, so that I can easily review the ones that are not yet done. Simple as that.

First of all, you’ll need to enable dbus in your project (.pro) file:

maemo5 {
    CONFIG += qdbus
}

Next up, in your .h file you should add the following to import the DBus headers:

#ifdef Q_WS_MAEMO_5
#include <QtDBus/QtDBus>
#endif

And you’ll need to add a slot for the screen state change:

class GameView : public QGraphicsView
{
    Q_OBJECT
public:
    explicit GameView();

public slots:
#ifdef Q_WS_MAEMO_5
    void screenChange(const QDBusMessage &message);
#endif

...

}

Then, in your .cpp file you’ll need to load the Maemo DBus definitions and create a connection. Do this outside any function to have it statically available.

#ifdef Q_WS_MAEMO_5
#include <mce/dbus-names.h>
#include <mce/mode-names.h>

static QDBusConnection dBusConnection = QDBusConnection::systemBus();
#endif

Next up, in the constructor of your class, we’ll set up the necessary DBus connection and interface:

GameView::GameView()
{
#ifdef Q_WS_MAEMO_5
    dBusInterface = new QDBusInterface(MCE_SERVICE, MCE_REQUEST_PATH,
                                       MCE_REQUEST_IF, dBusConnection, this);

    dBusConnection.connect(MCE_SERVICE, MCE_SIGNAL_PATH, MCE_SIGNAL_IF,
                           MCE_DISPLAY_SIG, this, SLOT(screenChange(const QDBusMessage &)));
#endif
}

And finally, we’ll need to fill the function screenChange with something useful. The example below is from my Nanoparticles game and simply pauses the game whenever the screen is locked.

#ifdef Q_WS_MAEMO_5
void GameView::screenChange(const QDBusMessage &message)
{
    QString state = message.arguments().at(0).toString();
    if (!state.isEmpty()) {
        if (state == MCE_DISPLAY_OFF_STRING)
            gameScene.pauseGame();
    }
}
#endif

If you need to check the screen state during startup, have a look at the extra functions that Diph mentions.

Minimizing the application

First of all, to minimize your application you’ll need to add the following CONFIG line to your project file (the .pro file):

maemo5 {
    CONFIG += qdbus
}

Then, in your .cpp or .h file, you’ll need to include the QtDBus headers:

#ifdef Q_WS_MAEMO_5
#include <QtDBus/QtDBus>
#endif

You may of course skip the #ifdef statements if you’d like DBus for other systems as well, but here I’d like to make this exception only for Maemo. Now, anywhere in your application you may add the following lines to minimize to Maemo’s dashboard:

QDBusConnection connection = QDBusConnection::sessionBus();
QDBusMessage message = QDBusMessage::createSignal("/","com.nokia.hildon_desktop","exit_app_view");
connection.send(message);

This could for example be placed inside a signal that is emitted when the users pushes a dashboard button.

Detecting minimization

If you’d like to detect if the user pressed CTRL + Backspace or any other button to minimize the application, you may do so by adding a changeEvent function to your top-most window. Inside you check the event->type() against QEvent::ActivationChange and test the isActiveWindow() at the same time. Here is an example from the Nanoparticles game:

void GameView::changeEvent(QEvent *event) {
#ifdef Q_WS_MAEMO_5
    if(event->type()==QEvent::ActivationChange) {
        if(!isActiveWindow()) {
            gameScene.pauseGame();
        }
    }
#endif
}

Whenever the game is minimized now, the game is automatically paused to avoid background rendering. The game uses OpenGL to render everything, so this saves the battery drastically.

Enjoy your minimized applications!

** Starting Rails with production environment...
Missing the i18n 0.4.2 gem. Please `gem install -v=0.4.2 i18n`

Now, I had finally gotten rid of this problem while using SSH by running

export GEM_PATH=/home/<my username>/ruby/gems

in terminal (or adding it to .bashrc), resulting in successful rake commands and running the server with WEBrick. However, Mongrel seemed to have serious issues with loading the gems in my local files.

This should be solved by adding

ENV['GEM_PATH']= "/home/<my username>/ruby/gems:/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8"

to the environment.rb file, but it did not. Apparently this is because Mongrel loads rubygems by itself, ignoring any environment variables set after this. Therefore, the below fine hack by Rui Lopez found on this page, became necessary:

ENV['GEM_PATH']= "/home/<my username>/ruby/gems:/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8"
require 'rubygems'; Gem.clear_paths;
Gem.instance_variable_set(:@searcher, nil)

As Rui puts it himself:

[This] clears the internal cache used by rubygems, and forces it to
re-read the GEM_PATH env. variable.

As he also points out, it might not be the cleanest hack, but it works. And that makes me happy.

There has been missing a native application to access information from Trafikanten on the Nokia N900. Instead it has been necessary to use the mobile version of their websites or maybe even the full version. Even though this is a pretty quick and workable solution, there are several benefits of having a native application available. One that becomes very obvious is the use of GPS to find all nearest bus stops or train stations.

I decided to give it a try in June this year and started by releasing some early versions of what is now named “Journey Planner for Norway” (which is “Reiseplanlegger” in Norwegian). During the summer of 2010 I have been trying to improve the application over several iterations, and feel that it has now come to a point where it is usable and stable enough to get the infamous “Version 1.0″ attached to it.

The application is now finding its way through to the Extras-devel catalogue for Maemo and will be pushed upwards through Extras-testing before it hopefully hits Extras within two or three weeks. In the meantime you might either be a bit careless and enable Extras-devel to use the bleeding edge 1.0 version or head over to Maemo Downloads to fetch the beta which will be automatically updated to 1.0 whenever it is ready.

Below you can check out some more screenshots of the application in action:

The application is developed in C++ using Qt with the Qt Mobility libraries. It should not be too hard to port it to Symbian as well, so I will give that a shot in the future. Symbian users does however already have an option to use the Java application “Trafikanten Sanntid” made by Håvard Tegelsrud.

And of course, you can check out the source code here. The application is licensed with the GNU GPLv3 license.