The Gay Meter

Messing with Samurize continued when a certain someone asked me what are the capabilities of it. After checking back with its website, I came to realize that it can potentially be used to replace my current shell, or at least, be integrated into a much less RAM intensive shell. (Litestep anyone?)



The new meter, dubbed 'The Gay Meter' by a certain someone yet again, has more function than my previous meters. This time, including volume control and indication, shortcut links to a number of commonly used programs, a text pad, and a feed that shows the latest forums topics on the right.

The primary meter is located at the bottom left of the screen, hiding the text pad and feed outside of the screen. By pressing the light purple button, the meter would either slide sideways or upwards to reveal the extra meter. The middle light purple button hides the taskbar.

The thing I like more about this meter is that it has more moving parts. Not only does it have a meter indicating the CPU usage, RAM, and disk space available, it also has three additional bars indicating seconds, minutes, and hours (in sections of 12). a meter for battery life has also been added.

Although unable to autohide, it can be right-clicked in the middle whereby it will disappear and be replaced with a 5 x 5 pixel black dot on the top left corner of the screen.

With an addition of a menu to pull up commonly used folders, this meter has successfully replaced Rocketdock though not having as much eye candy.

This meter was created with replacing the shell in mind. Therefore, an extra meter was created to load the taskbar. However, after managing to compile a very simple program to automate the meters on startup, running without the windows shell proved to have some bugs.

While I consider this meter to at least be a success, the next phase of this project is to create a new meter entirely that integrates the taskbar emulation AND the functions already in this meter. When that is done, adding lots of extra eye candy and functions is a must.

This meter currently runs at 2-3 MB of RAM on idle and can use up to 6 MB of RAM when constantly being used. The target RAM usage for the new meter is expected to be the same.

One thing I noticed with Samurize is that its autohide docking seems a little buggy. I noticed this in particular when using it on my taskbar meter. There is a workaround for this but it DOES make the meter a little more complicated.

Photo Editing

Finally began dipping my hand deeper into the word of photo editing. Things so far have been pretty ok. I am not a man of Photoshop but GIMP can still get me pretty far.

My second attempt in photo editing:

Which is my current wallpaper.
This photo also hides a secret. Congrats if you can find it. (Hint: TokoYami)

Genuine Words

Often we hear the words 'sorry' or 'thank you'. Often we use it as well. But how often it is heard or said with true conviction, sincerity, and honesty? How often do we mean what we say?

Only a short rant this time around. Do ponder a little with the thoughts being thrown around here.

Take for example when we apologies. If we really regretted our action(s), felt the guilt and shame within us, we would apologies and learn from our mistakes, never again prodding into the grounds that of which is restricted. If everyone who has said sorry were to have this mentality, problems involving revenge would easily be avoided. Everybody wins.

Take thank you for example. An expression of gratitude and appreciation of the services of someone or something else. Generally inducing happiness to the ones hearing it. When heard, a person is likely to feel better about themselves and have generally a better day.

When we throw around such words so meaninglessly without care, the words loses its value. Gradually, the words are used without sincerity and people who hear it may as well have not.

Emo in progress

I see a screen with no words. I see a list with no names. I felt a pulse with no life. I see a sky of blue and grey. There was hardly a wind. Heat was still a roommate.

I placed a handkerchief into my pocket. Walking out the door never felt so mechanical. I made my way to the nearby playground. It was empty, as always. The birds there flew away when they saw me. I looked up. Rain was coming soon. Time, 6.00pm.

I placed the handkerchief at the back of my head and lay upon the open ground. I look straight into the sky and my vision was filled with only clouds upon a blue background. I could feel insects biting me and flies resting upon my arms. Time, 6.20pm.

My stomach felt odd. Seeing to as it was mostly empty, I can understand why. I sat up. A pose of ponder followed. The little droplets of rain began to fall. I looked up. The sky was now completely grey. I was lost in time for a brief period. I was mostly but not completely soaked in rainwater. Wind. I shivered. It almost feels as if what I am feeling is being washed away by the rain. I stood up and proceeded to walk home. Time, 7.20pm.

Sleep

As wiki would put it, sleep is a naturally recurring state of relatively suspended sensory and motor activity, characterized by total or partial unconsciousness and the inactivity of nearly all voluntary muscles.

pic very related.

Needless to say, I completely blame this process for my lack of updates in my blog.

While pictures in this particular post were taken without prior consent, I don't really have much to complain as it actually did help me extend to another post although it is not mentally stimulating.



However, one could say that this gives a little insight as to how my room looks like no?

Its Been a While

I know I have not been updating lately. I do not have an excuse as to why.

At the mean time, help yourself to a serving of awesome.

Meter Migration

I had always used rainmeter ever since I found out of its existence. It was a rather helping tool in telling me which programs suck up resources once they start running though sucking a little resource itself.



Ladies and gentlemen, the rainmeter I used. It has a very basic interface really. I simply turned the default image it came with into gray-scale and removed some useless things while adding time and date into it. Nothing too fancy.

But then, during one fateful night, I stumbled upon samurize, which proved itself to be a little more interesting than rainmeter. So, I gave it a shot.



It was not bad at all. Though this time, I didn't simply modify the default skin. Instead, I made my own from scratch. The skin editor was surprising simple and had a nice GUI unlike rainmeter which was limited to only editing everything on notepad.

I made it based a lot on rainmeter, taking out what I find irrelevant and placing some extras that I have been unable to do on rainmeter.

While I liked it much better, some things of it bother me. For one, I can't seem to make it fade-out. Hence, I made it transparent and binded some hot-keys to hide it completely when necessary. Seeing to as I would most likely continue to work on it, I also binded another hot-key to refresh it instantly.

Despite the minor inconveniences, I do prefer it over rainmeter for several reasons:
- It has a very friendly user interface for skin making
- It is definitely less complicated when stretching the limits of what it can do (plug-ins and whatnot.)
- It uses less RAM than rainmeter (in comparison with my configurations.)
- Did I mention skin making from scratch is surprisingly simple?

Do give both programs a try if you find it interesting and do tell me about it.

Links:
Rainmeter
Samurize

Ubuntu 9.10

Oh yes.

A Quiz About Me version 1

A quiz about me simply because I don't think people can't get a full score. Oh, and because I'm bored.

How well do you know me? » Free Online Quizzes

Dear Kenny #comments

To be honest, I really didn't expect much comments. Much less coming from God and people i don't know. But seeing to as how some of these comments are question-like, I shall comment on the comments.

First and foremost, the comments can be found here.

Now then, let's begin.

Anonymous said...

I iz anon. I suckxorz
September 28, 2009 1:38:00 AM MYT

I know who you are. No comment. XD

GOD said...

"If god wants us to harm ourselves, he would had turn it into a commandment."

"Let's not drag God into the issue shall we?"

Why not? I like people using my name in vain. That's why I made a commandment to not use my name in vain. I'm so full of contradictions.
September 28, 2009 1:42:00 AM MYT

Because if I do, it will be another epic rant.

Anonymous said...

This is what is meant by being in denial my dear.

Yeah i suck. Sue me.
September 28, 2009 1:44:00 AM MYT

I know who you are too. No comment. XD

b0kud3su said...

Dear Kenny,

let me just point out that not all animes revolves around 'fantasy', 'where the impossible happens'.

BUT, almost all games do. Or at least, those FPS games that you're such a sucker for does. Guns with endless bullets, running around killing people? HOW THE FUCK does that improve your intelligence?

PS: Sorry for hijacking your comment box, dominic. I had to write this somewhere, and when the alternative is writing in the owner's blog, there's not much of a choice left.
September 28, 2009 2:02:00 AM MYT

No worries, everyone is welcomed to comment their opinions and views.

GOD said...

Hey mortals, our dear Kenny has another post worth reading. Anyone want to analyze that? Next he's gonna say I should've made a commandment banning death metal and everything else, except what Kenny likes.
September 28, 2009 10:44:00 AM MYT

I think it would be interesting if someone else analyzes it besides me. I've had my fill of fun for now.

HolyCow said...

@The new post

Wow, I totally understand why OSTs sell so well now, and why people worship Yuki Kaijura and Yoko Kanno. Thank you Captain Obvious.
September 28, 2009 11:47:00 AM MYT

Classical music FTW!

Liza said...

Hahahahahahahahahaha. I see you've introduced us to a retard, a loser even.

Retards, are those who contradict themselves. Retards, are those who can't differentiate between fantasies with reality. Retards, are those who cannot restrict themselves and therefore saying entertainment in the form of animes make people stupid. An example of a retard will be the guy Kenny.

For the [Self harming... Failure of understanding humanity's worth?] part, that guy is really pathetic. *sigh*
September 28, 2009 8:55:00 PM MYT

O.o I knew you can sometimes be harsh but girl, my respect for you just +10

Chuckie said...

Haha, where is the love people? All this negative energy is bad for your emotional health! :D


P.S The metal genre is genre is great!
September 29, 2009 3:00:00 AM MYT

Metal FTW also! XD

Then came a comment that was very interesting and really captured my attention.

yuki means snow said...

my my...wat's with this nonsense...
y is almost everyone here so negative?
everyone have their own point & views...
sometimes their point & views may clashes...
but doesnt mean that u have to dedicate a blog post juz to blast the person back...
do u have to do that to everyone's post who say out their points & views that clashes with urs?
dedicating a post to someone & also commenting a person's views...
isn't that immature? & yet u ask them to grow up...
i find that points in both blogs have their own views...to put it in a way, there is no wrong nor right...if u dun like some things that is being blog about & also clashes with ur view...
read it & leave...
that's all i can say...to listen or not...it is all up to an individual...
let's have peace & harmony...

have a nice day...
September 30, 2009 12:25:00 PM MYT

When I saw this comment I was like, 'wow, a comment that practically interview me'. So I shall do him/her the honour of replying everything sincerely.

"my my...wat's with this nonsense..."
This nonsense is my rant, just in case you are incapable of reading the topic tabs or unable to analyze the post i wrote.

"y is almost everyone here so negative?"
I won't say everyone here is negative. God has been pretty neutral and the anons were just fooling around. So who is this everyone you speak of?

"everyone have their own point & views...
sometimes their point & views may clashes..."
Agreed.

"but doesnt mean that u have to dedicate a blog post juz to blast the person back..."
Also agreed.

"do u have to do that to everyone's post who say out their points & views that clashes with urs?"
I don't HAVE to do that every post I don't agree with. I will do it if I WANT to. I WANTED to blast Kenny's posts, so I did.

"dedicating a post to someone & also commenting a person's views...
isn't that immature? & yet u ask them to grow up..."
I don't think I would label this immature for a very simple reason. Go read a newspaper. Everything that has the word review in it is commenting on whatever it is they are reviewing. In a very real sense, I am reviewing Kenny's blog.

"i find that points in both blogs have their own views...to put it in a way, there is no wrong nor right...if u dun like some things that is being blog about & also clashes with ur view...
read it & leave..."
While I think that my post has more facts backing it up rather than just being filled with wishful thinking, I couldn't agree more with what you said. If you don't like something that is being blogged about and also clashes with your view, just read it and leave. So if you didn't like my post, why didn't you listen to your own advice? I'm sure you read it to be able to comment but I don't really see you leaving now do I?

"that's all i can say...to listen or not...it is all up to an individual...
let's have peace & harmony..."
Yes, it is up for me to listen or not. Of course, I can say I did listen though I can't say i agree with absolutely everything.

"have a nice day..."
Have a nice day too.

Then came a very interesting comment again, who, I must say, summarizes my points quite well.

b0kud3su said...

@yuki means snow:

Congratulations for shooting yourself in your own stinking feet.

"I find that points in both blogs have their own views..."

Hence, Dominic is entitled to his own point of view, and supported it with as much facts as he can. If you don't like what he wrote, shut the fuck up, and don't bother posting here. Ever again. Go suck more on Kenny's ignorant dick or something.

And that's all from me for now. Let's see if this post attracts more interesting comments to comment about.