Windows7 = clone(Mac); November 14, 2009
Posted by Arthur in Technology and IT.add a comment
Not for the first time for Microsoft, perhaps. Countless examples to recall. Tabbed windows in IE inspired from Firefox is one. Bing search engine copied from Kayak is another. Now the latest and hottest, as admitted by Microsoft executive Brandon LeBranc himself. The end of the war is far from sight.
Karmic Koala network fail debunked November 11, 2009
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Truth be told I was baffled by how poor a job Canonical did on Karmic. After much head-scratching and Googling around for answers, I’ve finally managed to setup Karmic to work properly on a regular desktop after a fresh install. The problem, as reported many times on the Ubuntu Forums, is largely based on the fact that the network settings on Karmic were horrible to begin with. At least for Australia. The steps below are absolutely essential before you begin doing anything silly and risk destroying your Karmic installation.
Unless your DNS supports IPv6, chances are you will not be able to do anything that concerns the Internet, such as browsing, IMs, apt-get, or even Software Center. Without these Karmic is pretty much a crippled OS. You need to disable IPv6 in favour of the old IPv4 protocol. To do this, open up /etc/sysctl.conf in your favourite text editor and append this line to the end of the file:
net.ipv6.conf.all.disable_ipv6 = 1
This will disable IPv6 on all applications that you have, such as Pidgin (if you decide to hate Empathy and revert to old Pidgin), Skype, and weather forecasts.
This leaves only the settings on Firefox. Type “about:config” in the address bar, promise that you’ll be careful when prompted, and find a field that says:
network.dns.disableIPv6
and set it to true (you can double click on it).
The steps above will make your applications use IPv4. The last step in configuring the network is to set your machine to use OpenDNS nameservers. Follow the well-documented instructions on the Ubuntu Forums.
Despite these settings, however, I’ve run into trouble trying to download applications from the default Australian server. If this applies to you, you’ll need to configure Software Sources to download from the server that you can download from. Go to System > Administration > Software Sources and on the first tab where it says “Download from:”, select “Other…” and click “Select Best Server”. This will administer a bulkload of tests on all servers that you can reach and find the fastest one that you can download from. Select the server once the tests are done.
And that’s it! Hopefully with these, you will have a uber-fast, Internet-friendly Karmic OS to boot! There might be other things you’ll need to sort out, such as webcam capabilities and enabling Alt+Shift+Tab for windows navigation, but I’ll leave it to you to figure it out.
Windows (claims to be) better than Linux September 7, 2009
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I’m no fan of Windows, although not exactly a Windows hater. But is there a reason for Windows to go overboard with bashing Linux with its community of volunteer developers? Take a look at this forum post and see for yourself. What are they trying to instil into customers’ mind? Absolute BS.
Girl from Ireland wants school demolished August 27, 2009
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Kids can talk really cute sometimes, this is one example of an Irish girl calling the demolition center to blow up (or knock down) her school.
Recursively remove .svn folders August 26, 2009
Posted by Arthur in Programming.add a comment
One of the major hurdles in using Subversion (SVN) is copying folders. As experienced SVN users know, in each folder is a hidden .svn subfolder which keeps track of all changes that happen inside the folder. Effectively, copying the folder into another location —a common technique used to create duplicates or temporary dumps of a project— will not work in normal cases, as the unwanted .svn folders will get copied and any changes within the duplicate folder will be reflected in the original as well. In short, both `svn copy -R` and `cp -r` are useless in this context.
A viable solution to this problem is by using the command line syntax rsync, which allows users to specify which files to exclude when copying. The syntax grammar is as follows:
~$ rsync -r –exclude=.svn SOURCE DESTINATION
Assuming that in the current directory we have project_svn under version control, an example usage would be:
~$ rsync -r –exclude=.svn project_svn project_dump
This command will copy project_svn and its subfolders into a new folder project_dump which falls outside version control. Therefore, one needs not worry about changes inside project_dump affecting project_svn.
Update: Incidentally, if you’re using a Mac with iTunes this method can also be used to get rid of (backup) music files in iTunes beginning with “.”, including the ._.DS_STORE files. I have no idea why iTunes decided to keep these hidden files –it seems to me that these files are linked to Apple Store– but I knew for sure that they were not necessary as iTunes was not my music player. So I modified my command as follows to get rid of it:
~$ rsync -r –exclude=.* iTunes new_iTunes
This operation may take a while depending on how much music you have, but the end result is satisfactory since you do not need to manually navigate to each folder and remove them by hand. Once you’re finished, delete the original iTunes folder and rename new_iTunes to iTunes and voila, you have everything back with all the dot files gone!
RadRails and Eclipse August 26, 2009
Posted by Arthur in Programming.add a comment
I can’t believe the agony I went through trying to get this plugin to integrate into Eclipse for my INFO3600 project, just when deadlines are looming and tensions running high. To add insult to injury, Aptana’s website did not properly document the steps required to make RadRails work on Eclipse. I was lucky enough to find Satish who provided crystal-clear instructions on how to set it up and running. This is how it is done:
- Install Eclipse (I have version 3.2).
- Go to Help > Software Updates > Find and Install…
- Click on “Search for New Features to Install”.
- Add two “New Remote Sites…” as follows: RadRails on http://radrails.sourceforge.net/update and RDT on http://updatesite.rubypeople.org/release.
- Click on “Finish” and follow the instructions.
- Restart Eclipse.
On your next reboot you should be able to create a Rails project under New > Project.
Eclipse is a true pig on memory. Now I understand why they say design and development work are better done on Mac. I really wish I had TextMate…
Update: NetBeans off the shelf + Rails plug-in owns Eclipse dearly. This would tempt me away from getting a Mac for the time being.
map.resources :faculties
Solutions to TJU ACM-ICPC Online Judge problem sets August 6, 2009
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I have decided to put up the solutions to several programming competition problems that I have attempted in the hope that they will become useful. The URL can be found here.
Most of the solutions are coded in C++, but future problems might be done in other languages.
You may also find some of my documents that I have gathered during the course of my university studies, including programming assignments and career advice.
Indonesian carriers deemed safe to travel within EU air zones. A dubious call…? July 16, 2009
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A piece of good news for Indonesia is that several of its air carriers have been cleared to travel within the European airspace. The European Commission cited “safety improvements” as the reason for the unban of Garuda, Airfast Indonesia, Mandala Airlines and Premiair, which along with other private airlines had been banned from travelling to EU countries since 2007.
However, I still doubt the authenticity of this decision. Those of you who have been following the news will recall that in the past few months, there have been numerous incidents of air crashes by Indonesian carriers. On April 6, a military aircraft jetted into a hangar in wet weather condition and killed 17 people, among which are valuable soldiers undergoing training. On May 20 in what is arguably the most famous flight incident of 2009 yet, an Indonesian C-130 Hercules military aircraft crashed into a village in East Java, reportedly taking the lives of 97 people. With these accidents happening only very recently, the decision taken by EU came to me as a shock. It’s true that none of these accidents involve the aforementioned airlines in any way, but isn’t it enough to show that Indonesia is still negligent over the safety of its air fleets?
Of course, it’s nice to know that several Indonesian airlines are now “acknowledged” by the EU. But I sincerely hope that Indonesia will take this matter seriously and not disappoint. Otherwise there might not be another opportunity for Indonesia to “showcase” its flight safety records ever again.
A hundred years of life? Probably not worth the effort. July 11, 2009
Posted by Arthur in Health, Science and Environment.add a comment
They say prostitution is as old as the human race itself, but I’m sure human has been searching for the secrets to eternal life for at least as long. They’ve tried many things, from genetic engineering to eating tortured dog meat in South Korea (Not that I have anything against South Korea. This is what they claim.). If successful, this drug called rapamycin might just be the answer to it. But as it currently stands, rapamycin might not be the elixir of youth just yet. There are several reasons to this:
- Rapamycin has been tested to increase mice’s life expectancy by 38%. And only mice’s.
- Rapamycin is known to suppress the immunity system, much like the HIV virus. So even if a person’s lifespan can be extended, s/he will have to be put under constant supervision to prevent life threats from diseases. Not very encouraging.
- Rapamycin has not been approved for consumption except during organ transplantation, where it may be used to supress the rebellious human immunity system from rejecting a particular organ from another person.
Imagine what it’ll be like if researchers are able to improve this drug to negate its side effects. I can see an impact of it in the working world where no one needs to retire from work. The only reason why a person needs to retire is if s/he is no longer able to work. If employers can retain their more experienced workers in the field, why would they bother to find the young ones? This might be an ethical issue which will arise if rapamycin makes its way through the mainstream market. Although I’m quite certain that this won’t happen. For some time anyway.
I await further development with interest.
Google Apps no longer beta July 8, 2009
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Google has finally decided to take its application suite out of beta version. This includes Gmail, Calendar, Docs and Talk. There’s no difference in features, only that Google said this decision was made so that the apps would “better appeal to business customers”.
If you haven’t already used Google Apps, do check them out. I find Calendar a very useful planning tool which you can use to map up your events and to-do’s in an easily readable format. Docs I primarily use to collaborate on documents with fellow students, but it can also be used to store backups of certain documents in your computer.
