AlaskaLinuxUser's Scratchpad

Commit thy works unto the LORD, and thy thoughts shall be established. - Proverbs 16:3

Fool's Mate Friday: En passant checkmate!

According to legend, Gary Kasparov once checkmated via en passant in an on-line game. However, I couldn't actually find a detailed reference to that specific game. I was, however, able to find an article that expressed the only officially logged game in which an opponent was check mated via en …

Solder time! Fixing a GPX LCD photo frame...

I don't know exactly when it happened. I just know that it eventually quit working. It is one of those picture frame LCD panels with a slot in the back for a flash memory card. My lovely wife had purchased it for me a couple of years ago, and I …

Ubuntu Touch: Make your own Jabber/XMPP app in 10 minutes...

You probably think that I'm joking, but I'm not. You can actually build a jabber/xmpp app in less than 10 minutes if you have a good internet connection, and have already set up your system with "clickable". If not, be sure to check out my last post about it …

Fool's Mate Friday: 8 minute moves....

2-1.Bernstein-alex.1958.L02645391.IBM_ARCHIVES.lg

They say that the first complete chess playing program was written by Alex Bernstein in 1957. There were earlier renditions that could not play a complete game, but could solve tactics puzzles or make move suggestions, however, the Bernstein Chess Program was the first computer program that could actually completely …

Ubuntu Touch: Making a new app

Realizing that there are a few apps missing from the Ubuntu Touch OpenStore, and being an Android app developer, I thought I would try to bridge the gap. Rolling up my sleeves proved to be a bit harder than I thought, though. I came to realize that UT doesn't use …

Fool's Mate Friday: One Player or Two?

It was interesting to me that white did not always move first in chess. Apparently, in 1857, a master of chess, Mr. Lowenthal made a recommendation to the First American Chess Congress that white should always move first as a rule. However, that rule was not actually enforced until sometime …

Chromium: ERROR:browser_gpu_channel_host_factory.cc(121)

Today I had a strange occurrence. I couldn't launch Chromium-browser on my Ubuntu desktop machine. The error I got was this:

ERROR:browser_gpu_channel_host_factory.cc(121)

And something about the profile was already open, so it wouldn't launch again, to avoid corrupting my session or profile. Odd, I thought.

So, I …

Fool's Mate Friday: UT and Chess.com

As I mentioned earlier. I jumped off the deep end and dove into the world of Ubuntu Touch. One of the principle hangups I found was that there was not a FICS chess app. While this still remains to be solved, there was a great web-app for Chess.com.

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Ubuntu Touch: Making the plunge.

I recently took the plunge, and jumped in on a used Oneplus One phone, converting it to UBPorts community maintained Ubuntu Touch distro. Yes, I now have a true Linux phone. Arguably, Android is Linux, since Linux is really just a kernel, but in most people's minds, when they say …