Just read on SourceForge.net: Community Blog that they now support OpenID for login.Excellent !!
Thursday, May 01, 2008
Saturday, April 26, 2008
StarOffice 8 Update 10
StarOffice 8 Update 10 has finally been released as patch 120187-14 for Windows.
Contrary to previous patches, this one was quite troublesome to install: on both of my Windows machines (both with SO8 U9 already installed) the installation failed quit at the end with a failure to read the source .MSI file (claimed to be a network error, but that was just a crappy error message, all install sources were local). It then removed the whole U9 update, but StarOffice refused to load afterwards (incl reboot) because of missing DLLs and/or DLL entry points.
I had to repair SO8 base, then re-apply U10...
As I said, happened twice for me – cost me 2hrs each time ... so be careful.
Xing now shows contact map on Google Maps
Xing just added great (beta) feature to the Contacts page.
You can now view your contacts as a map using - of course - Google Maps.
Here's my map (you might want to click to enlarge)
Works surprisingly well, i.e. most of the people seem to have meaningful addresses in their profile.
And the visualization - as often - adds information.
You can now view your contacts as a map using - of course - Google Maps.
Here's my map (you might want to click to enlarge)
Works surprisingly well, i.e. most of the people seem to have meaningful addresses in their profile.
And the visualization - as often - adds information.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
(shell) History meme
Just stumbled upon this nice piece of not-so-useful tricks... but fun.
via Tim Bray ongoing � History
via Tim Bray ongoing � History
history | tr -s ' ' | cut -d ' ' -f 3 | sort | uniq -c | sort -rn | head -n 10I must have been doing a lot of SGD/tarantella stuff lately. Can't explain the date, though ;-)
92 tarantella
69 ls
26 cd
13 clear
12 tail
11 rm
11 exec
11 cat
8 date
7 man
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Dopplr and city data - no progress
I ranted about this earlier, but there is still no improvement.
Dopplr does a lousy job regarding its 'catalog' of city data.
Sad.
Dopplr does a lousy job regarding its 'catalog' of city data.
Sad.
Citrix Rumors...
I heard a lot of rumors during the last year or so about Microsoft buying Citrix... now IBM and Cisco joined the list...
Rumors of IBM or Cisco buying Citrix?, from Brian Madden on BrianMadden.com
Rumors of IBM or Cisco buying Citrix?, from Brian Madden on BrianMadden.com
Friday, April 11, 2008
MacBook Air
I had the chance to "lift" an MacBook Air recently, because a co-worker got himself such a beast.
Boy... great device... really.
One can argue about the lack of ports and connectivity.
E.g. only one USB port and no ethernet, only WiFi.
Not the perfect enterprise laptop, therefore.
But to me it is the iPhone of laptops... gets people hungry for Apple.
Drags them into the stores and to the Apple brand.
Any maybe get a more "enterprisy" device.
Surely a plus for Apple.
Boy... great device... really.
One can argue about the lack of ports and connectivity.
E.g. only one USB port and no ethernet, only WiFi.
Not the perfect enterprise laptop, therefore.
But to me it is the iPhone of laptops... gets people hungry for Apple.
Drags them into the stores and to the Apple brand.
Any maybe get a more "enterprisy" device.
Surely a plus for Apple.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
docs.sun.com
Whoever changed the application or infrastructure behind docs.sun.com...
Thank you.
Performance and responsiveness is now on a level where you can actually work with it.
Thank you.
Performance and responsiveness is now on a level where you can actually work with it.
Java Conference in Austria
Finally, Sun talks Java again in Austria. [1]
On June 19th there will be a one day Java Conference called JavaDeus[2] in St. Pölten.
Free admission of course.
Topics will cover Java 7, Netbeans, openESB... as well as some not-so-directly-Java-related stuff like MySql and Solaris Dtrace... stuff for developers, if you will.
Details can be found here at www.sun.at/javadeus08
[1] Not only do I work for Sun, but I'm also involved in organizing this event.
[2] don't blame me for the name.
On June 19th there will be a one day Java Conference called JavaDeus[2] in St. Pölten.
Free admission of course.
Topics will cover Java 7, Netbeans, openESB... as well as some not-so-directly-Java-related stuff like MySql and Solaris Dtrace... stuff for developers, if you will.
Details can be found here at www.sun.at/javadeus08
[1] Not only do I work for Sun, but I'm also involved in organizing this event.
[2] don't blame me for the name.
Speed Dial killed my Firefox
Strange... I have been using the Speed Dial extension for Firefox for quite some while now, and a couple of days it started to kill my Firefox after startup...
First I though it was the Norton §$%&/() product.... but then I played around with
firefox.exe -safe-mode
and voila it worked again.
Disabling extension by extension revealed that Speed Dial 0.7.0.8 was the culprit.
So it had to let it go.
First I though it was the Norton §$%&/() product.... but then I played around with
firefox.exe -safe-mode
and voila it worked again.
Disabling extension by extension revealed that Speed Dial 0.7.0.8 was the culprit.So it had to let it go.
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
Got rid of my printer
A couple of days ago I got rid of my printer at home... and old Lexmark [1] ink printer.
First of all because it was broken.
Secondly because it has been broken for about half a year... and I never really did mind... because I did not even want to print anything.
So now was a good time to discard it.[2]
Boy, did I suddenly gain space on my desk.
And I'm one more step closer to the paperless (home) office.
If that will ever work.
Reminds me of the decade old saying "We'll have the paperless toilet before we have the paperless office."
Still true today.
[1] well exIBMers just have to buy Lexmark, don't they.
[2] actual trigger was windowcleaning... and I had to move the printer to the side to get access to the window.
First of all because it was broken.
Secondly because it has been broken for about half a year... and I never really did mind... because I did not even want to print anything.
So now was a good time to discard it.[2]
Boy, did I suddenly gain space on my desk.
And I'm one more step closer to the paperless (home) office.
If that will ever work.
Reminds me of the decade old saying "We'll have the paperless toilet before we have the paperless office."
Still true today.
[1] well exIBMers just have to buy Lexmark, don't they.
[2] actual trigger was windowcleaning... and I had to move the printer to the side to get access to the window.
Sunday, April 06, 2008
Worst german computer term ever
Well, maybe not the eternal #1 ... but still a good candidate is .... drum roll ...
SCHALTFLÄCHE
This is the german term quite frequently used for buttons & push-buttons.
Literally it means "switch(ing) area"...
as in switching gears or switching the light on ...
and area as in they area where you can actually do the switching.
This is such a stupid and inappropriate term...
Boy, even leo knows about it.
SCHALTFLÄCHE
This is the german term quite frequently used for buttons & push-buttons.
Literally it means "switch(ing) area"...
as in switching gears or switching the light on ...
and area as in they area where you can actually do the switching.
This is such a stupid and inappropriate term...
Boy, even leo knows about it.
How to recognize malware?
The best indicator if a piece of software is malware (i.e. any kind of malicious software that wants to harm you or others) is that it does NOT come with a 4-10 page disclaimer and license agreement that you actually have to scroll down and read - page by page - and accept.
If it comes with one of them, its legitimate software that actually ran through a legal department. No malware there.
If it does not come with it... be afraid, be very afraid...
Then again, if a legal department was involved with the release of software, ... be afraid as well... or even panic!
If it comes with one of them, its legitimate software that actually ran through a legal department. No malware there.
If it does not come with it... be afraid, be very afraid...
Then again, if a legal department was involved with the release of software, ... be afraid as well... or even panic!
Saturday, March 29, 2008
FlickrPalmr
I just created a litte Java app that downloads prefedined (=selected) photos from flickr down to my palm.
I noticed that I can do this quite easily without the need for a conduit.
So here's what id does.
<palminstall-directory>\<hotsyncname>\offline copy location\Internal
bi-directionally. Every subdirectory will become an Album on the handheld.
So the directory c:\programme\palmone\txr\offline copy location\Internal\flickrpalmr\ gets sync'ed to the Album flickrpalmr on my T|X.
If I remove a picture from the photo-set on flickr, it will be removed from the directory and thus from the palm.
Then you have to cron (or create a "scheduled task" under windows) for the java program for e.g. every hour or once a day... e voila.
Not the nicest integration, but it works.
What I initially wanted to do, was to avoid the set, but go for a tag only. You'd just have to tag your photos with "flickrpalmr" (or whatever you'd prefer), and that'd be it.
The flickr api, however, does not seem to expose a method to retrieve all picture from a user with a given tag.
You have to walk through all the picture and then for each photo check, if it is tagged with "flickrpalmr". With 500+ pictures this is extremely slow. And it does not make a difference if you only want to sync 20... you have to enumerate all of them.
So I went for the photo-set.
I noticed that I can do this quite easily without the need for a conduit.
So here's what id does.
- You create a set in flickr and add the files you want to have on your palm, let's call it "flickrpalmr" per default.
- The program picks this set from the defined user (=your user)
- Downloads all new pictures from this set to the palm photo installation directory, into a new set ("flickrpalmr", again)
- if there was a photo in this directory that on flickr no longer is in the defined photo-set, it removes it from the directory as well.
- hotsync the palm
<palminstall-directory>\<hotsyncname>\offline copy location\Internal
bi-directionally. Every subdirectory will become an Album on the handheld.
So the directory c:\programme\palmone\txr\offline copy location\Internal\flickrpalmr\ gets sync'ed to the Album flickrpalmr on my T|X.
If I remove a picture from the photo-set on flickr, it will be removed from the directory and thus from the palm.
Then you have to cron (or create a "scheduled task" under windows) for the java program for e.g. every hour or once a day... e voila.
Not the nicest integration, but it works.
What I initially wanted to do, was to avoid the set, but go for a tag only. You'd just have to tag your photos with "flickrpalmr" (or whatever you'd prefer), and that'd be it.
The flickr api, however, does not seem to expose a method to retrieve all picture from a user with a given tag.
You have to walk through all the picture and then for each photo check, if it is tagged with "flickrpalmr". With 500+ pictures this is extremely slow. And it does not make a difference if you only want to sync 20... you have to enumerate all of them.
So I went for the photo-set.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
If only I had ...
(today's episode) ... known twitter 6 years ago.
At that time I was working for a mobile operator in Austria, and my department (SW development) was separated from the rest of the company (that included being separated from the IT operations group) into a building 5-10 minutes away - by car!
We had to commute with taxi about 2-3 times a day from our office to the main campus and back again.
More often then not two or more people would not know about each other taking the same trip and therefore take 2-3 cars at the very same time for the very same trip ... instead of just one.
So I came up with the idea for a little SMS application, where I'd advertise my planned from from our building to the main office by sending a text message to this service.
Everyone in my group who - here location comes in - is currently in the off-site building would get this notification and could reply with e.g. "join" or some other keyword, and I'd then get the summary who would like to join me.
We never created this application, although it would have been quite simple and fast to develop.
Should've built it.
Today, I'd probably do this with twitter.
At that time I was working for a mobile operator in Austria, and my department (SW development) was separated from the rest of the company (that included being separated from the IT operations group) into a building 5-10 minutes away - by car!
We had to commute with taxi about 2-3 times a day from our office to the main campus and back again.
More often then not two or more people would not know about each other taking the same trip and therefore take 2-3 cars at the very same time for the very same trip ... instead of just one.
So I came up with the idea for a little SMS application, where I'd advertise my planned from from our building to the main office by sending a text message to this service.
Everyone in my group who - here location comes in - is currently in the off-site building would get this notification and could reply with e.g. "join" or some other keyword, and I'd then get the summary who would like to join me.
We never created this application, although it would have been quite simple and fast to develop.
Should've built it.
Today, I'd probably do this with twitter.
Friday, March 21, 2008
Flickr mobile soo different from (full) flickr
Why is this ?
Look at the regular Flickr home page:
You have a clear structure there.
2b. 3. 2c. 1. 2a. 4. na na
But why ?
I understand that options 7 and 8 are added, because in the full flickr interface they are in the javascript drop down menus. Hard to do on a mobile.
But why change the order and structure of the other items ? Why not keep them in sync ?
And most importantly: why do I care ?
Can't say, but just annoys me.
Look at the regular Flickr home page:
You have a clear structure there.
- upload
- your photos / recent-activity / comments
- photos from contacts
- everyone else
- your groups
- recent activity
- photos from contacts
- comments
- upload
- your photos
- everyone else
- explore
- your contacts
2b. 3. 2c. 1. 2a. 4. na na
But why ?
I understand that options 7 and 8 are added, because in the full flickr interface they are in the javascript drop down menus. Hard to do on a mobile.
But why change the order and structure of the other items ? Why not keep them in sync ?
And most importantly: why do I care ?
Can't say, but just annoys me.
Safari for Windows - again
Just when I almost forgot about Safari - the Mac web browser - on Windows , Apple brought it back to my attention, by including it in the Apple Software Update...
Just why ?
If anyone has a good reason for me to install Safari, please post it in the comment. And no, I don't need a reason to convert to Mac (I'm almost there), but a reason to install Safari on Windows !
Saturday, March 08, 2008
Joel Spolsky on closures
Joel Spolsky has an excellent explanation on why you'd want closures ... without using the term "closure" at all.
Can Your Programming Language Do This? - Joel on Software
Can Your Programming Language Do This? - Joel on Software
Friday, March 07, 2008
Sun IM in Firefox
Sometimes it takes someone "from outside" to point out the obvious...I knew that the Sun instant messaging service (IM) was XMPP capable (or "uses XMPP"), I also knew that there is an IM/XMPP plugin for Firefox called SamePlace ... I actually had it installed on my Firefox for a couple of weeks.
But it took a customer to point out to me, that I could use SamePlace to connect to our IM server!
Today I tried, and of course it works...
So, thank you.
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
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