GTK Quick Tip - Toggling icons on toolbars

Just a quick tip when using GTK to try and set up a toggle button, with an icon that changes appearance when the state changes.

When initialising the images for use on the button, remember to do ".show()" on BOTH of the icons, otherwise, only the one visible on the button on startup will be visible later on.

Disclaimer:  I'm still getting my head around GTK (PyGTK), so the following code snippet may not be considered "best practice" in these cricles.

Vala - Interesting hybrid language

Earlier this evening, I stumbled across an interesting programming language in development in the Linux world: Vala.

Cathedral Sq. Walkway

This weekend, the officials finally opened up a walkway for us to walk around the heart of the CBD - down Columbo St to Cathedral Square, and stand in front of the damaged cathedral (or as The Wizard called it, "auld stumpy")...

Of course, the usual disclaimers about "danger", "distress", and limited access (300 people at a time, for 1 hour max) applied, but that didn't stop the crowds of people who showed up for the blink of an eyelid.

Christchurch CBD - High St

With the progressive reopening (sometimes temporarily only) of the CBD, us Cantabs have a new passtime over the weekends: roaming, gawking, and "reclaiming" our battered city.

Last weekend, I headed off on foot to an area I haven't seen in months, which is hidden from view to passing traffic behind copious amounts of chicken-wire fencing placed in odd arrangements and the odd army sentry holed away in one of the wooden huts manning the checkpoints.

Pretty Lights - Birdy Garden Lights

We recently came across some nifty little solar garden lights while wandering around the shops. Compared to the solar lights we saw in the past, these are fancy...

Silvereyes - Birdie on a branch (3)

A pretty pair of silvereyes visited late this afternoon, for some of IMO my best shots yet!

Silvereyes - Cluster of Flowers (2)

The light wasn't that great this time (cloudy and nearing sunset), but nonetheless, it was fun trying to grab shots of the birdies with a tripod-mounted and teetered camera, having waited several days...

Hackers Beware - SVN 1.6 vs 1.7

This morning I've been trying to debug why the "From Existing Checkout" option in DualitySvn isn't working on the office computer (despite it having worked on every other computer I've tested it on so far).

Apparently starting from SVN 1.7 (computer in question runs 1.7.1), the subversion developers have gone and changed the format of the internals of the .svn folders. Well, they were well within their rights to... after all, those folders are kindof "private metadata" that SVN uses, that we really shouldn't be dipping our toes into! Having said that, it was kindof convenient grovelling around in there in the past.

Return of the Silvereyes

After waiting for a few days, the silvereyes have finally come to feast on the bottlebrush flowering outside my window.

Rainy Afternoon

After a week of mostly fine weather, today we've been having a bit of a southerly change.

MARS-CT GUI Summer Project

Tomorrow I officially begin work on a summer project at the HITLab on a Summer Scholarship scheme offered by UC. I'll be working on designing a proper GUI for a "spectral computed tomography" scanner being developed by the multidisciplinary MARS (Medipix All Resolution System) group.

CBD Reopening

Last weekend, the CBD reopened again, well partially, after months of being off bounds. This weekend, I finally had some time to make the pilgrammage...

The skyline, or what's left of it

Johnson's Grocer in the temporary Cashel St Mall

Performance Timing Tools

One of the more interesting presentations (so I've gathered) from the recent Blender Conference was a talk by Benjamin Walther-Franks titled "Performance Timing Tools". Although I haven't managed to find a recording of this to watch yet (it would've been on in the middle of the night here... far too late to watch realtime ;) I have managed to find the link to the the page for this:

http://dm.tzi.de/en/research/hci/performance-timing/