Category: General News

Okay since i havent been using my laptop that much lately its become my little testing ground for new cool stuff. Although AWN doesnt qualify for new stuff for me, i decided to give it a whirl to see how far its come since i last visited it.
I figure i will be using it when i feel its stable enough as it provides me with my much needed eye candy desktop, and also is … well okay it just looks great ! 😀

Anyhow lets get started on how to install and compile this little goodie from source.

Step one is of course to find instructions on the website: https://launchpad.net/awn

Before we try and follow the nice directions, i did a little digging (and some error investigating) to find a big list of dependencies that should be installed first. So lets first prep the system and make sure we actually can compile awn.

Satisfying dependencies

Open a terminal and type the following code

sudo apt-get install build-essential automake1.9 autotools-dev libxdamage-dev libxcomposite-dev libgnome2-common libgnome2-dev libgnome-desktop-dev libgnome-vfs-dev libgtk2.0-dev libwnck-dev libgconf2-dev libglib2.0-dev libdbus-glib-1-dev libgnomevfs2-0 libgnome-desktop-2 libgnome2-0 libwnck-common python-gtk2 python-gconf bzr gnome-common bzr

This should make sure all your dependencies are ready for the following steps.

2. Now we can checkout and build the application

bzr co http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~awn-core/awn/trunk avant-window-navigator

This checkout the files needed. Then we build them

cd avant-window-navigator
./autogen.sh && make && sudo make install

After the compile process is finished you can start the AWN by typing ‘avant-window-navigator’ in either your console, or in the run dialog (alt+F2). The 3d setting should also be available.

Thats about it for now. Below are some links of interest for AWN, and for seeking help in the build process

Main Page
AWN Forum
ImportantBuild Topic
AWN Wetpait Page

Okay since my last little mishap with the computer i had another glitch. Upgrading the computer I was presented with some challenges that I didn’t expect.  First there was trouble with my cables not fitting inside the large cabinet i have. Easily fixed with some re-organizing and little creativity.
Secondly my problems began when i installed windows fresh. I had a pre-sp2 edition and upon boot it caused major damage to one of my drives. Apparently it doesnt have support for larger drives and the scandisk it performed messed up the data bad. Took me most of a whole day to restore my data, and in the end i upgraded my harddrives in the progress. But im happy to say that now everything seems to be running just fine 😀

My new system is now:

• Core 2 Duo E6550 @ 2.33 ghz
• 2 GB Ram
• Asus GeForce 8800 GTS with 320 mb ram
• SoundBlaster Audigy 2 Platinum
• 2 x500 GB Harddrives = 1 Terrabyte storage space

So all in all im pretty happy with this new setup, and next project is making the spare parts from the old computer into a media center 😀

So content for this site.. hmm i will get back to you about that one. Busy lately and got an exam coming up late this month.

Okay its been about 3 weeks since the last posting. Like i mentioned i have been on holliday with my girlfriend, so no posting and not a whole lot of work being done.
So whats next ? Well i have an examination to study up for here in august, so besides that and work i will be watching my newly aquired XNA dvd from 3d-Buzz. Also painting (a bit), relaxing, reading (got a ton of books i want to catch up on) and of course playing a little bit of games 😀

So needless to say its gonna be fun, busy ect all that stuff. So just hang tight and keep watching. Will be posting some new stuff soon i hope. Been preparing a format of my laptop to get a clean install. After that i will digg into getting wine working okay with a few applications making my windows partition on the laptop further useless hehe
Oh and also im happy to announce that i didnt loose any data after the little scare i had couple of weeks ago. Think i lost 1 dvd image i made.

So whats new ? Well i have ordered my new setup for my home computer, will post about it monday when it arrives. The current one is made mostly of spare parts, and can be a bit unstable at times 🙁
Also i started studying for my next exam which is at the end of august, so hopefully i can  pass this time :p Sketching not so much, but playing a bit of games instead hehe. Also working out hard to get ready for swimming across a local fjord in 2 weeks time… gonna be great ! 😀

Talk later 😉

Needless to say my plans on getting my sketches posted here failed miserably. I opted for a quick painless format of my desktop computer, as it was getting cluttered and needed a clean slate. If only things went according to plan.
Personally i blame Murphy for making laws the absolutely say everything that can go wrong, will go wrong. My luck not everything went wrong, but enough to make me sweat 🙁 After the windows install i got a nice little scandisk during boot. Didnt figure it was anything to sweat exept since windows hadnt gotten sp2 yet, it decided that a couple of 250 gb harddrives were full of errors and basically messed them up bad 🙁

With some help from a friend and some careful scan disk from safe mode post-sp2 install it got fixed with minimal loss of data. Only lost a few gb of data, so compared to loosing all 500 gb it was lucky 😀 Anyhow i have been spending my time since getting my system reinstalled and poking holes in a few bugs i’m having with my sound card.

Tomorrow my girlfriend is arriving, and i can hardly wait! I get to spend about 3 weeks with her having a good vacation. During the time we are spending 1 week in Bulgaria. Really exited about going there since i love to travel and experience different cultures. Of course i will post some pics when we get back.
I dont know how much time i will spend on drawing, sketching etc since i want to spend all my time with her, but perhaps some time will present itself.

Closing note; I received my award for finishing second in the polls on 3dbuzz.com (go sign up, and enjoy the amazing community), which is the XNA Xtreme 101 dvd. Im so lucky to get this dvd for free, and so far im loving the content. The game(s) i will be developing through the dvd will of course sneak their devious way onto this site. So keep watching.

So hang tight, keep your chin up. Spread cheer and have a great time ! Cheers !

Okay i started sketching today and last night. Actually got some good sketching done before i realised that apparently windows (hate that system really.. wish painter would run on my ubuntu install) crashed painter everything i tried to save the sketches. So no sketches saved while i visited my girlfriend this weekend.

Anyhow tonight i plan on catching up on the sketching and post a couple of sketches here. So hang tight and keep a whether eye on the horizon :p

Until then .. take care

A new little speedpainting. Took about 1½ hours i would guesstimate. Tried working from some random shapes to create some kind of construction city, semi emerged in water. Enjoy 😀

Okay passed my first out of two exams today. One down one to go, and fifty percent closer to my vacation 😀

1½ Hours in painter 😀

update:

About 30 mins in photoshop using custom brushes.