Composite managers are another software layer that sits between the user interface and the software model, and are basically used to bring 3d processing to the user interface.  Where there used to be a single plane node and sprites would be drawn on it, the computer with a composite manager will first draw 3d nodes and then put the sprites on those nodes.  The result is tons of beautiful effects.

For example, the desktop can be drawn as a cube and sub-nodes placed on it, and the computer only zooms out when changing the face of the cube.  The result is the desktop cube.

..:: Now for the Videos

The first minute and a half is Vista’s Aero. When you get to the 3:00 remaining, the rest is all CF. If you’re wondering why CF got more screen time, it’s because, well, CF’s feature list dwarfs Aero’s.

..:: Beryl + Compiz = Compiz Fusion

Note that Beryl is still being extended and was a fork of the Compiz project. The two have re-merged and are now under the name of CF. Check out a few of the preliminary videos. This video has a working version in Ubuntu Feisty which came out mid-2007.

The USPTO UI isn’t too bad, but it does have some usability issues. While I don’t think it’s too difficult to throw together an advanced query, sending a link for a query is pretty nasty, and many patent searchers don’t exactly have much training in very customized database queries. This results in patent searches taking a lot longer than they really should, and not being as relevant as they could be. Further, once you’ve picked out a patent, the USPTO site is pretty slow to use with certain patents (especially old ones).

The reigning king of information has wonderfully added an awesome new weapon to the Google arsenal: Google Patent Search. It seems that patents from “1790 through 1975″ (the UPSTO’s greyout dates) are incredibly searchable. The greyout dates are from before the patents were properly digitized, and only a few fields are properly searchable. Google seems to have digitized the images for all this extra usability. As an example I searched for all the words “twine interwoven” issued between 1776 and 1868. Digging further, it’s definitely a feature.

Using the same technology that powers Google Book Search, Google has converted the entire image database of U.S. patents into a format that’s easy to search.

This is seriously awesome, and a huge step in formal legal information searches. Now only if Google would go after regular court reporters.

With Vista’s Aero and the Beryl Project moving along, user interfaces are clearly the next arena of improvement in the computer industry. Beryl and Aero are the newest breed of UI advances to hit the general public, and are what’s called a composite manager. Here’s a video of some of the effects that Beryl can do (Aero’s features are similar).

Wiimote and Linux

Apparently a linux user was able to connect his Wiimote to his PC and is able to get all 3 gyroscopic readings from the control. What this will mean is that your television remote for your digital cable box may be replaced by a mouse-like pointer, and the remote will no longer have 50 buttons, most which you’ll never use. This will become much more important as media centre’s become mainstream. Anyone who is familiar with playlist generation on a media centre knows how awful a regular remote is. In fact, that’s why I looked into installing MPD to manage my music. Anyways, here’s actual proof of the Wiimote with linux.

Google Earth and Warcraft 3

If you think the next step of UIs involves cool hand held gadgets, think again. Basically, some PhD students set up a voice and optical command system. Take a close look at the table they’re working on. That’s a completely normal table.

Minority Report Arrives

If you remember from Minority report, Collin Farrell zips through video and still images by making gestures on the actual screen. This technology was also seen embedded into the desktop in The Island, where the director was also working with images and managing documents. This is already partially simulated if you’re using a touchpad on your laptop. Many laptop touchpads have zones so that you can scroll down just by closing your fingers in them. This hands on technology has taken great steps, and although it’s not ready for consumer use, but it’s definitely here:

Conclusion

These new interfaces are completely amazing. Hopefully, these advances don’t see the same fate as the attempts to replace the inferior QWERTY keyboard layout with the clearly advanced Dvorak keyboard.

Since MythTV’s music player has an incredibly embarassing interface, and I still like to use my stereo system for my music, I clearly had a problem. The solution is MPD: Music Player Daemon, as suggested by Kevin72594, from Gentoo OTW. MPD is a service that accepts various clients and plays music files on the host computer. This is NOT a program to stream media to the desktop which you’re using. It is designed to control a central server. The particular client I’m interested in was a web based client. This way, anyone on my network could control my music with their laptop.

..:: Software Summary

Title: MPD (Music Player Daemon) and MPC (Music Player Client)
Type: media service daemon
Purpose: control central audio server
Tested OS: Ubuntu 6.10
Screenshots: via [ MPD clients | djlosch UI ]

..:: Installation

Here’s how to install in Ubuntu Edgy. First, make sure you have proper ubuntu repositories (I think only universe and multiverse are needed for this).

sudo apt-get install mpd mpc

Then edit /etc/mpd.conf. You’ll need to uncomment one of the audio output sections. I use the OSS output with the default settings.

audio_output {
  type    "oss"
  name    "my OSS sound card"
  device  "/dev/dsp"         # optional
  format  "44100:16:2"       # optional
}

Also set the playlist and music directory at the top. I pointed the music link at my monster drive that has all of my music on it, and then I save my playlists in my home directory.

..:: Install the Web Client

The web client will allow you to visit your box through any web browser and control your box. You will need apache and php already installed, so get them if you don’t have them yet.

sudo apt-get install apache2 php5 libapache2-mod-php5

Then install the mp2 web client.

sudo wget http://mercury.chem.pitt.edu/~shank/phpMp2-0.11.0.tar.bz2 -O /var/www/phpMp2-0.11.0.tar.bz2

cd /var/www

sudo tar --use-compress-program bzip2 -xvf phpMp2-0.11.0.tar.bz2

sudo chmod 755 phpMp2 -R

..:: Customize the Client

Here’s the stock screenshot from the mp2 client page.

Open up your web browser and navigate to the box running MPD (localhost if you’re on the server right now, or most likely some address on your network like http://192.168.1.200). Once there, click the Update button in the top right to scan for your music. Changing the settings through the Options tab doesn’t seem to save them permanently — only for the current session. I’m about to hit you with a bunch of changes, so you may just want to get my copy of the config file, but read on for an explanation of changes.

sudo wget http://www.djlosch.com/source/phpMp2_config.phptxt -O /var/www/phpMp2/config.php

I personally prefer size 8 font and the ember theme with the classic layout. To make these changes permanent, open the file /var/www/phpMp2/config.php. Go through and change the font_size to 8, layout to classic, and style to ember. I also vigorously maintain my mp3’s ID3 tags, but I don’t ever bother with the track number or album tags, so change the song_display_format, the column_files, and the sort variables to remove the Track and Album tags.

With these changes, this is what my UI looks like:

..:: Amazing Remote

If you have a cell phone, tablet, or PDA with wifi, you can control your music server from ANYWHERE that you get a wireless signal. This is awesome because then you don’t have to worry about bluetooth applications with piss poor interfaces or transfer methods.

..:: Streaming and Icecast2

MPD only plays music on the served box. You can also use MPD to serve files up to Icecast2, the internet radio streamer, but that’s another how-to.

Some people want a script to control PCM volume via command line. The guys over at the Gentoo forums gave me something to start with and then I put the rest of this together. You can use this in conjunction with any key or voice listener daemon to control your volume, or just use it directly at the shell.

If you want to wget it, here’s the command to do so:

sudo wget http://www.djlosch.com/source/volmute -O /usr/bin/volmute

And, here’s the script itself:

#!/bin/bash
volsetting=`amixer sget 'PCM' | grep off`
    case "$1" in
    mute)
        amixer sset 'PCM' mute
    ;;
    unmute)
        amixer sset 'PCM' unmute
    ;;
    toggle)
        if [[ x"$volsetting" = x"" ]]; then
            amixer sset ‘PCM’ mute
        else
            amixer sset ‘PCM’ unmute
        fi
    ;;
    increase)
        amixer sset ‘PCM’ 8%+
    ;;
    decrease)
        amixer sset ‘PCM’ 8%-
    ;;
    *)
        echo “This is not an acceptable command!”;
        echo -e “Use \033[01;33mmute\033[01;00;0m, \033[01;33mincrease\033[01;00;0m or \033[01;33mdecrease\033[01;00;0m as options!”;
        echo;
    esac

Once the script is in your $PATH (/usr/bin is for example), here’s the usage:

volmute increase    #increase PCM volume
volmute decrease    #increase PCM volume
volmute mute        #mute PCM volume
volmute unmute      #unmute PCM volume
volmute toggle      #toggle muting of PCM volume

Note that you’ll need to use the toggle function if you’re mapping your keyboard’s mute button, although Ubuntu now has most keyboards’ multimedia keys working out of the box.