Category Archives: programming

PDF Convolutions and TrueNAS Scale

Posted on by
Reply

If you’ve dealt with either the government, businesses, or obnoxious forms online, you’ve probably ran across a PDF that isn’t really set up for editing…or if you applied for a job that required letters of ref/transcripts/resume/CV but only allowed one file upload, you’ve probably ran into problems with trying to get the PDFs to work well.

Which is EXACTLY what Adobe wants. They want you to be in pain so that you pay them to allow adjustments to files you already own and have created. And they require a subscription, which as I’ve already stated, I find really obnoxious and stupid.

Well, I ran into some merge difficulties tonight because I had to upload like 6 files, but they only allowed four files to be uploaded. Because, y’know, storage? Bad coding? Outright jerkishness? Any and/or all of the above really. And yeah, there are sites that will merge files for you for free on the internet…but I don’t like sharing personal data with rando sites.

So, with the NAS, I decided why not? Let’s look for a PDF editor. And right away, in the TrueNAS community apps section, was Stirling PDF. It is now self-hosted and running in a docker container…and it was free, does everything I need it to, and is only available on my network.

Highly recommend, really easy to use.

I can move in VR!

Posted on by
Reply

I can’t tell you how excited I am. It’s not much, just a square and a sphere, but I can walk to them with the Virtuix Omni from 2016. This fills me with joy, as I can start programming actual games/activities now.

View of the unity project dashboard

One of the major reasons why I am trying to get this running is that I’d like an activity that I can do for exercise that tracks steps. The TRAVR Training Ops game that came with the system (really the only one I ever play besides Skyrim VR) has been a 4-5 times a week routine. I can run through the courses in about 25 minutes, and it gets my cardio and heartrate up.

Fit bit graph showing heart rate increasing while using the Virtuix Omni treadmill

THe PROBLEM is that it no longer works with the Omni Connect step tracker is running. It has to do with it trying to access Connect and then the server to track high scores. It is just crashing, and has been for a couple years. The response I got from Virtuix, and I can’t blame them at all, is that the game hasn’t been updated since 2017 and it’s not supported any longer.

I get it…but now I get to create my own course, and track steps. I’d like to hit 1,000,000 steps by the 10 year anniversary of getting the omni. That was in February 2016. I’m at roughly 283k right now. I’ve got my work cut out for me.

Catching up on software updates

Posted on by
Reply
CURL error in updating wordpress

Uff, I’m REALLY behind on getting things caught up. Maybe it’s been since 2017/208? Lots of updates to wordpress and the sites I’ve got throughout the page. Not a lot of people on the ol’ sidebar still blogging.

On the plus side, the Unity program that I’ve made for testing out the Virtuix treadmill is working in dev mode. The prefab of the treadmill is moving with key strokes. Next step is to strap in and try move around in testing mode, maybe try run into a ball and start it rolling. For the time being though, it’s updating WordPress like in the olden days: uploading files via ftp.

Is this thing still on?

Posted on by
Reply

I’m embarking on a new project, and want to start writing more…and I want to get away from the social media empires enriching people and companies that I personally do not agree with. .

The last few months I’ve been hitting the exercise hard. I’ve done the entire run of the TRAVR Training Ops game on the Original Virtuix Omni Treadmill (not the Omni One) several days a week, and have also been using a rowing machine.

About a month ago, my wife and I got a home gym machine with the cables and everything, so I’ve been doing that as well.

All this to lead up to my new project: I’m going to be programming a game for the Omni. I spent this evening getting unity installed on my desktop machine and on my handy dandy Chuwi Minibook X. I’ll post more about that later, but it’s basically a 2-in-1 with a form factor of a notebook. I love it.

My goal is to have 1,000,000 steps by the 10 year anniversary of getting the beta version of the Omni. Wish me luck.