30/03/2010 12:17:49

It’s very hard to find a Chinese (or Japanese) input method which supports Azerty keyboards.
By default most of the input methods use a Qwerty layout, in fact I couldn’t find a single one
which supports Azerty out of the box. It’s strange that even Google doesn’t support us.

While there is no option to select the keyboard layout in the Google IME,
it’s possible to manually change the layout to Azerty. The procedure is more or less
the same for all versions of Windows. (Windows 2000 and up that is).

10/01/2010 18:55:58

I went to the SPAR supermarket for the first time since my return today.
It provided me with a real *facepalm* moment.

At the cash register they put up a sign:

Due to the use of new software we can no longer offer cash refunds for foodcheques.

I don’t get it… is the ‘new software’ thing just an excuse or did they really
pay someone to write software which reduces customer satisfaction?

If you’re going to replace a software system, at least make sure the new
system is a real improvement. Software is supposed to make our lives easier, not harder.

To bad I didn’t get to take a look at the software to see who made it,
in any case whoever they are… as far as I’m concerned they can join the Isabel developers.

FAIL!

25/03/2008 11:12:23

Because or recent discussions with Bjorn, I've decided it's time to check out some of
the technologies provided by Adobe. I'm not a designer so I was looking for a developer
centric technology and Adobe AIR + JavaScript seemed like a nice toy to play with.

Simply put AIR is a web browser in disguise, a way to create desktop applications
using the same techniques used to create web pages.
Basically it's a single window browser that sits on your desktop pretending to be
a real application, the Pinokkio of the software world. (A bit far fetched perhaps?)

It does provide some extra features such as local file system access,
SQLite database access, etc... But let's defer judgement till the end.

There's a free SDK available, but in order to be productive you'll need a good IDE.
Of course there's Flex Builder, but it's not free and I don't really need it because I won't
be using Flex, just HTML, CSS and JavaScript. I decided to use Aptana.

Aptana is an open source IDE for Web development and happens to provide support
for Adobe Air amongst other technologies. You don't even have to worry about getting
the Adobe AIR SDK, Aptana will take care of all the dependencies for you.

I'll show you how to quickly build your first Air application within minutes,
so go ahead and download Aptana for Mac OS, Linux or even Windows.

When you launch Aptana for the first time, you'll be presented with the start page from
which you can install various plug-ins with a few simple clicks. You can also access the
start page form the help menu. Find Adobe AIR in the list, and click to install:



Simply follow the instructions and provide the wizard with the necessary details,
( Step 1 - Step 2 - Step 3 - Step 4 - Step 5  )
after completion of the wizard, you'll be presented with a screen similar to this one:



Without making any changes to the code you can press the green "Run" button in the toolbar
to launch your first AIR application. Nothing fancy, but nice nonetheless. It looks like this:



If you take a closer look at the main HTML file,
you'll notice it mixes business logic with presentation logic.
Personally I don't really like this, so that's one of the first things we'll change next time.

If you're familiar with HTML, CSS and a bit of JavaScript
you should be able to understand the code  almost immediately.
Next time I'll look at the code in more detail and show you how to consume
XML Web Services, access files, databases, and so on.

17/03/2008 1:13:01

Just after I installed the latest build of Ubuntu 8.04 I noticed a nice little tool
in the Application/Menu/Internet section called Avahi SSH Server Browser.
Nothing more than a simple dialog listing all the Avahi published SSH servers in the network.
Even though you couldn't specify user credentials, it was still a great tool.

After the first dist-upgrade however, the tool dissapeared and is now
nowhere to be found in the repositories... wtf?

PS: Check out the System/Administration/Authorizations tool! Finally!

10/03/2008 20:31:14

Last time I talked about how Asus failed to provide a user friendly environment.
Meanwhile I've found an interesting guide over at EeeUser.Com
which allows you to modify the default UI of Thunderbird and improve overall usability.

The result looks something like this:



While composing a message you can actually see what you're typing now:



I don't care how cheap the Eee PC is, Asus has no excuse... this modification should have been
pre-installed. I'll apply this modification to my parents Eee PC's as soon as possible.

13/12/2007 7:02:23

Mono 1.2.6 has just been released. I've been waiting for this one.
Changes / Updates include but are not limited to:

• Native System.Windows.Forms driver for MacOS X (No X server required)
• Support for ASP.NET AJAX
• Windows.Forms now supports the WebControl on Windows and Linux.
  (Based on Mozilla, huge advantage to the .NET version if you ask me)
• Better memory management and performance improvements
• The C# compiler is approaching full 3.0 support.
• Can be used as an SDK for developing Silverlight 1.1 applications on all
  platforms, so there's no need to install Windows.

More information can be found here, and downloads can be found here

I'll be installing this one on the server in order to power Blicbox 2.0 and possibly my blog.

11/12/2007 19:12:49

Microsoft offers a valuable (???) document to help you remove Linux
from your computer and install Windows XP instead. You can find it right here

The summary looks like this:
This article explains how to remove the Linux operating system from
your computer and install Windows XP. This article assumes that Linux is already installed
on your computer's hard disk, that Linux native and Linux swap partitions are in use
(which are incompatible with Windows XP), and that there is no free space
left on the hard disk.

NOTE: Windows XP and Linux can coexist on the same computer. For additional information, refer to your Linux documentation.

Well at least they are honest enough to tell you that you can have both installed
on a single computer, but does anybody even know about this document?

29/11/2007 9:18:29

I was just informed the developers released a new version
of the Firefox add-on for InfoCard (CardSpace) support.

You can download it here

I'm currently using InfoCard authentication for my  OpenID.

12/11/2007 19:02:52

I was installing Isabel 5 for one of our customers. Those of you who've
worked with it (and understand what modern software is) know it's
a pain in the ass to get it working in a domain unless you apply an endless
list of fixes (or give the users full Administrator access).

Anyway, the software relies heavily on registry settings (It's 2007 people,
stop using the registry... I beg you!) which prevented me from installing
the software even though I'm an administrator on that PC.

I decided to visit their site in order to find a solution and that's when my
heart stopped beating (... at least for a few seconds).

They are going to release version 6. Please No! No! No!
This is going to be a disaster. Endless update procedures and a shitload
of new problems... that's what we'll gain from this.

Why is it companies like that still rely on age old technologies?

• How about storing user settings in the freaking user data folders?
• How about avoiding the registry?
• How about making software work for non-administrator users?
• How about using ClickOnce for deployment?
• How about using XML WebServices for communication
  and avoiding firewall problems in the process!
  

This is going to be such a pain!

19/10/2007 13:19:24

Microsoft opened up the beta of their Popfly service to the public.
I'm a bit confused as to what it is all about. It seems to be
a service which allows you to create so called mashups (or widgets).

The way you build them reminds me of Automator in MacOS.
This is what TheServerSide.NET has to say about Popfly:

With a design-centric interface that gathers chunks of code into so-called
"Silverlight blocks,"  which users can drag and drop without hard coding,
Popfly caters primarily to non-professional developers.
But more than a few developers are likely to try it out.

I'll play with it for a while as I want to understand the technology behind it.