Set up a multifuction gadget, Epson Stylus Office BX300F

I just bought a new multifunction or All-in-one gadget, Epson Stylus Office BX300F and how I added the device as printer & scanner on Linux is described here.
With this device you can: copy the document, scan the document to a file, send/receive fax and print the document. (Note:This device doesn't come with USB cable.)

Let us do it step by step.

1. After hardware set-up, first of all do not forget to check up the copier and fax.

2. Connect the USB cable from your device to your computer, if you have cups already installed, it will detect your gadget automatically. Or check the connection with

$ sudo lsusb

In my case, I have my printer HP LaserJet 1300 as first printer which I already configured the cups, so the new device was immediately recognized by cups. If you do not have cups install before, please install "cups" packages to allow the printing configuration much easier. After cups installation, you can now add new printer or set your printing configuration by cups by typing the following url at your browser:
http://localhost:631.

Here are the properties of my printer (Click on the Right-most tab to view):

Description: EPSON Stylus Office BX300F
Location:
Driver: Epson Stylus Office BX300F - CUPS+Gutenprint v5.2.4 (color)
Connection: usb://EPSON/Stylus%20Office%20BX300F
Defaults: job-sheets=none, none media=na_letter_8.5x11in


If, for some reasons, "cups" cannot find the driver for your gadget or similar hardware, you probably need to install the printer driver manually. See further step to search for your printer driver.

3. Next step, I installed "xsane" for scanner and started xsane, however I received the message that it could not find the scanner device!
That meant, no proper scanner driver had been installed. Let's visit Avasys, it has all kinds of linux drivers for various gadgets.
(http://avasys.jp/eng/linux_driver/) Select your model listed there and the page will lead you to the driver for your device, here I found drivers for my Epspon printer and scanner.


$ sudo dpkg -i iscan_2.24.0-4_i386.deb
$ sudo dpkg -i pipslite_1.4.0-5_i386.deb

Now let us test the scanner; try "xsane" again!

4. The last step is to configure your xsane. One remarkable point I found was output scanned with 300 dpi for pdf or ps was always too large and document with 150 dpi has poor quality. (I expect some resolution around 200 dpi would be good but there was no option for 200 dpi but 75,150,300,600,1200 and 2400) What I did was saving the document as JPEG and converted JPEG to postscript from Gimp and set the compression scale of JPEG to yield the quality around 80-85% then rescaled image as necessary with Gimp. Saving postscript from JPEG also produces a large file, applying "ps2pdf" to convert file from postscript to pdf generates a very good result. That's it!

Qt and Symbian

After Nokia took over Trolltech in 2008, it has been foreseen that Qt would come to be part of mobile phone development very soon. Symbian and Maemo (now also known as MeeGo) developers are moving quickly to Qt for GUI application. Yesterday, I managed to start off my first Qt app before bid farewell to Symbian end of this month and the following info is my quick glance of Qt resources from Symbian developer perspective.

- Qt for the Symbian Platform (Product Overview)
- Using Qt and Symbian C++ Together from developer.symbian.org. This will guide Symbian developer to integrate Symbian to Qt more smoothly. The info in the page conveys the information e.g., Converting Active Objects to Signals & Slots, Converting between QString and Descriptor,Exceptions & Error Handling, et cetera.
- Qt Carbide.c++ IDE. To configure Carbide.c++ for Qt if it is prefered to QtCreator.
- Qt Creator with the Symbian Platform. Its build-in Help is superb.
- qmake Manual. Knowing of qmake to handle the project file (.pro) is mandatory. You need to know few extra specific parameters for Symbian, the manual will help you out.

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We only part to meet again. ~John Gay~

today's interesting blog(s)

A message from experience programmer to programmers:
20/20: Top 20 Programming Lessons I've Learned in 20 Years

Interestingly how the author could think of it from Fibonacci number point of view:Using Fibonacci Numbers to Convert from Miles to Kilometers and Vice Versa

You must read the discussion & comment below the article:12 Bonehead Misconceptions of Computer Science Professors

HookLogger - Symbian debugger tool

Do you have memory leak or leave problem? Let's try this tool, HookLogger!

References:
http://developer.symbian.com/main/tools_and_sdks/developer_tools/supported/hook_logger/index.jsp

Setup Symbian environment

Symbian C++
1. Perl (e.g.ActiveState Perl 5.x)
2. Symbian SDK (S60 3rd Edition, S60 5th Edition)
3. OpenC/C++ plugin (for S60)
4. Carbide (Carbide.c++ v2.02) IDE for Symbian platform development.

Note
- The SDK and your source files must be located at the same drive
PyS60
References
http://wiki.opensource.nokia.com/projects/Installing_PyS60
http://developer.symbian.org/wiki/index.php/Python_Technical_Overview#Table1

Gps Tracking on Google Maps/Goole Earth from Navigon

Navigon is probably the best navigation brand on-date. Several new products launched since 2008 are most known for several outstanding features such as Reality View, Terrain View, 3D City View, pedestrian navigation and multiple alternative routes. Recently, it was also added a new GPS Tracking features which allows the user to view the route on Google Earth and Google Maps using kml format. A feature which I would like my navigation to have which was known to be suported by Garmin navigation.
Open GpsTracking using Goolge Earth, simply click "File -> Open" on Google Earth to import the kml file. To use it on Google Map, you need to upload the file to internet, and copy the URL to the Search Box.

Variadic Macros

I ran into a problem of variadic macro __VA_ARGS__, the code porting from Windows when compling in Symbian. It issued the error "badly punctuated parameter list in `#define'" and caused "cpp.EXE" to stop with failure.

Google a bit and the solution was found under NewLC:
http://www.newlc.com/forum/variadic-macro-problem

An information about variadic macro for GCC was to be found here:
http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/cpp/Variadic-Macros.html