PDF and cairo/gtk love, Metisse job and funny UI

PDF and cairo/gtk love
While investigating why Beagle wasn't finding some PDF files in my Download directory, I tried to create a PDF file from scratch to check if PDF indexing was working properly. So, I launched gedit and write a small test file and printed it to PDF. Unfortunately, I discovered its text output was garbage. I thought : it might be a cairo problem, did more tests and I saw my mistake : gedit (in fact, gtksourceview, see bug 375886) is still using the old libgnomeprint(ui) library, which is not generating text-readable PDF, unlike cairo PDF backend. Same think for gnome-dictionnary (fortunately, evolution has been ported). So, this is a call for maintainers : please, please, try to port your applications to GtkPrint from gtk+ 2.10.x, it give better consistency to GNOME and moreover, your application will generate text parseable PDF files !

And for those wondering if I find out about my beagle bug, not yet.. It is probably caused by using a non-UTF8 locale (I'm old school), with directory using non ASCII / locale-encoded filename. Epiphany has also a similar problem (not reported yet, I'd like to cook a patch) as well as Baobab (see bug 437478).

Metisse
Good news on Metisse front : Insitu got funding (through INRIA) for a Metisse job position. Sorry for non french people, it is more for young graduated folks, located near Paris. More informations are available (in french) on Inria website here (job position) and here (more general informations about this kind of job). Hurry up, application must be sent before May 23, 2007.

Funny UI
Thanks to Martin, I hear last Wednesday about Reactable. This is very interesting and moreover, it is free software. Too bad they didn't come last year to do a demo at GUADEC, since this team is located in Barcelona :(

Honey, I've DSLed my mom

After about 18 months of additional delay (over initial estimate), ADSL is, at last, available for my mom house, in Lozère. And I was able to guide her to install her new DSL box (Freebox, which is running Linux internaly) using my GSM tonight. It tooks about 1/2h to get DSL Box up and running with phone over IP, mostly to tell her where to plug each type of cable, check twice the phone cable (both RJ11 and French plugs are mixed) and an additional 1/4h to get her to configure IP connectivity on her Mandriva box :

• first you plug the usb cable from Freebox to PC (I didn't install a ethernet card on her PC, it will be done later)
• then, you log in as usual, you go to "System / Administration and Configure your Computer"
• you type your administrator password
• you choose Internet, then "Configure a new Internet connexion", you choose Ethernet (since it is usbnet) and you click on the Next button until you are done.
• You insert requested CD to get dhcp client installed
• et voilà

Oh, maybe I forgot to tell you my mom didn't knew how to use a mouse three years ago (or a GUI system) and has been using Google quite often for about 6 months now (over old analogic modem). And she is running Mandriva Linux with GNOME ! Isn't it wonderful ?