Using Qt Creator with Ubuntu 8.10

The recent change of licencing model for the Qt toolkit got it a lot of press recently. My GUI-based development experience is all Windows based, using MFC and wxWidgets. As I’ve found myself using Ubuntu and OSX a lot more recently, the idea of using Qt to write software to run on Windows, Linux or OSX has some appeal. Of particular interest was the ease with which you can integrate WebKit, allowing you to embed web capabilities into a cross-platform app with ease.

Installation under Ubuntu 8.10 is straightforward, but I’m writing this post just to note the install steps I took. Hope it helps someone!

  • Download and install the SDK, which includes an IDE
  • Once installed, there’s a few packages you’ll need to ensure your first build completes:
  • sudo apt-get install libfreetype6-dev libfontconfig-dev libxrender-dev libsm-dev libglib2.0-dev

Now you’re good to go!

Edit: Edvaldo in the comments noted he needed to install some additional packages as follows:

  • sudo apt-get install libxext-dev libxext6-dbg x11proto-xext-dev

Geograph Deutschland

While there’s been a few aborted attempts to use the Geograph code in other countries, it’s so cool to finally see one launch – ladies and gentlemen, Geograph Deutschland is here (also available in English)

This has been set up by Hansjörg Lipp, adapting and translating the open source Geograph software. Though you can’t easily tell from the Geograph British Isles map, we’ve merged the Irish and British gird systems into one grid. Germany uses the MGRS system for its mapping, and as it covers several UTM zones, the German map is broken into separate, more visible, strips.

Great to see it open its doors, I wish Hansjörg every success.

Geograph is Four!

Geograph’s fourth birthday kind of crept up on me today, I find it hard to believe it’s been going for four years. With almost 1.2 million images in the archive, it continues to go from strength to strength. Well done to all who contribute, in whatever way!

I quickly knocked up a birthday mosaic to celebrate…

Geograph Four Years Old - click for huge mosaic

This mosaic is derived from Sydling Synchronised Swanning by Nigel Mykura. Tiles drawn from other images submitted to Geograph – many thanks to the thousands of photographers who made that possible.

Naturally, the above image is available for re-use under a Creative Commons 2.0 by-sa licence!

The mosaic was created with Metapixel.

Suggest a better one!

This one was done rather quickly – if you’d like have a go, just make up a base image, it need not be large, 640×480 or 800×600 is sufficient. Use a base image you own or one which has Creative Commons by-sa licence. I’d recommend trying to find one with a good use of green and blue tones, but more colours would be good! Send it to me and I’ll create a mosaic using Geograph images!