Inspirated

Damian and I have decided that the GUI prototype for arm should be released to the public for a feedback round. As always, the code is available from the Git repository.

So far, the graphs and logs now support a look more conforming with the rest of the GTK+ theme:

(Click on the thumbnail for larger version.)

The connections panel lists circuits and control ports in use. The resolvers in use are in fact, the same ones used by the CLI so the results are pretty consistent:

(Click on the thumbnail for larger version.)

The “sticky” or “header” panel which provided general Tor/arm info has been moved to the notebook for giving it more horizontal space:

(Click on the thumbnail for larger version.)

Owing to my lack of creativity the GUI was named “garm”. Which coincidentally turned out to be the name of a talking dog from one of Tolkein’s short stories. Proving once again that Tolkein/Middle Earth/Norse mythology are any geek’s safe fallback plan for being imaginative.

While the GUI is still in infancy, we’d love any feedback we can get. If you have a suggestion you can post a comment here, drop by at #tor-dev or (preferably) mail your thoughts to tor-talk. I’ll be grateful for any ideas that end up making garm more useful for relay operators.

This morning I woke up to one of the most pleasant surprises I have had in years. I received an email from my 7-year old nephew:

Subject: my first program in scrach :)
Attached: kitty-playing.sb

Since I had never talked with him about Scratch before, I immediately wanted to know how much help he received from his parents for this achievement. In words of his mother: “We both tried Scratch first and then helped him. In fact in few things Sharun helped us to understand.” The fact that he is self-motivated to explore and learn about Scratch made me even more ecstatic about his work.

Here’s his code in action:

(Click on the thumbnail for larger version.)

Most of the people I’ve known as code-lovers remember their first ever computer programs. While my first program pales in comparison to the complexity and fun of Sharun’s Scratch creation, I do remember going crazy over the infinite loop. Here’s to hoping he doesn’t end up turning off his PC to put an end to:

10 PRINT "hello world"
20 GOTO 10

In any case, given that I was 14 at the time and my nephew is only half that age I cannot wait to see what he produces in the upcoming years.