Marthinus Swart

Fluent notation in PL/SQL

2011-08-09T10:49:00.000+02:00

I am a big fan of the Fluent notation that has been gaining popularity in the .NET world. I decided to do an experiment to see if I can get PL/SQL to have something similar.

I managed to make this work:

declare

  ftp fluent_ftp := fluent_ftp();

begin

  ftp.run(

    ftp.for_country('UG',

      ftp.for_period('2011', '01', '01', ftp)

    )

  );

end;

To enable this type of syntax I had to create a custom type in PL/SQL first.

CREATE OR REPLACE TYPE schema.fluent_ftp AS OBJECT

(

    country_cd   VARCHAR2(2),

    fin_year_cd  VARCHAR2(4),

    fin_month_cd VARCHAR2(4),

    fin_day_cd   VARCHAR2(4),

    CONSTRUCTOR FUNCTION fluent_ftp RETURN SELF AS RESULT,

    CONSTRUCTOR FUNCTION fluent_ftp

    (

        a_fin_year_cd  VARCHAR2,

        a_fin_month_cd VARCHAR2,

        a_fin_day_cd   VARCHAR2,

        a_country_cd   VARCHAR2

    ) RETURN SELF AS RESULT,

Internally the new type just calls the existing API so no changes are needed on the underlying API at all.

MEMBER PROCEDURE run(a_fluent_ftp fluent_ftp) IS

    BEGIN

        schema.calculate_ftp.run(a_country_cd   => a_fluent_ftp.country_cd,

                                         a_system_code  => '',

                                         a_fin_year_cd  => a_fluent_ftp.fin_year_cd,

                                         a_fin_month_cd => a_fluent_ftp.fin_month_cd,

                                         a_fin_day_cd   => a_fluent_ftp.fin_day_cd);

    EXCEPTION

        WHEN OTHERS THEN

            RAISE;

        

    END run;

So that is how you can mimic the Fluent notation that the .NET community is enjoying currently on products like Fluent NHibernate and others.

Belkin N150

2011-04-11T19:46:00.001+02:00

I finally found a wireless router. I was actually looking for a wireless access point only, but it seems the stores only stock the wireless router / ADSL modem types.

I read some reviews on the Belkin and the general feeling was that it isn't a very good device. I was sceptical but it was cheap and it was the only one that was close to what I needed, the other combos where over the top industrial things at an over the top price.

I installed it and it works very well. Here in my area the ADSL lines are very noisy and the Belkin manages to sync @ 4096 mbps, so that is very good.

My Apple iPad is also quite happy with the router, which was the main reason I replaced my old wireless router. The iPad didn't work at all with the old wireless.

So the Belkin N150 is a very nice cheap wireless router / modem, just don't expect industrial performance from it, but for home use it is very good.

Nintendo 3DS

2011-04-02T20:37:00.001+02:00

So the new Nintendo 3DS is out in South Africa and I had a peek at the photos and marketing material. I still need to see it in action but I am tempted to get one.

The marketing material says it can play DS games and the original GameBoy and GameBoy Color games. I am guessing it can play GameBoy Advance games too. I would probably need to rebuy them online but it should be cheap.

The 3DS games look brilliant though, so that already will make it worth the money. I should probably first finish all my PSP games before buying a new hand held console, but it is very tempting.

Official 3DS page.

Oracle 11gR2 on Solaris

2011-03-30T19:24:00.001+02:00

Oracle just ran some benchmarks on their new integrated enterprise platform. Since Oracle bought Sun, they now own some of the best hardware around.

According to this article the new Oracle Solaris (RIP Sun Solaris) together with Oracle 11g R2 is lightning fast. Oracle Benchmark

MacBook Air

2011-03-27T19:47:00.001+02:00

We (my wife and I) went to have look at the MacBook Air and were very impressed. It only has a 64gb SSD, but since my wife will use it most of the time for her work, it shouldn't be a problem.

I don't have a working knowledge of OSX so it will be a new experience to figure out how the Apple OS works. I will probable get a copy of Microsoft Office for Mac to do all my usual work on. DropBox will keep my documents in sync.

So the plan is to get the MacBook Air end of April.

First blog entry from the iPad

2011-03-26T09:23:00.001+02:00

I bought an iPad a few days ago. It is the iPad 1, not the iPad 2. Since I bought it, I don't use my PC at home anymore, except for development work. The normal stuff like reading email, browsing the web, reading comics etc. I now use my iPad for.

I also bought BlogPress to blog from the iPad now, so this is the first post on the iPad.

My Android is still my primary mobile device, but the iPad's size makes it easier to use around the house. One thing I don't like about the Apple AppStore is many apps I need to buy before I can try them, on Android Market there is always a free version and a paid version, so I can try before I buy. On the positive side I can buy apps from the Apple AppStore and not from the Android Market. This relates to South Africa being a behind the times 3rd world country and not Google.

Seems the BlogPress app is also very nice, so it seems the $2.99 was not wasted on something I didn't want.

Bye bye, Argility

2011-02-28T11:43:00.000+02:00

So today is my last day at Argility. I've been with the company for 5 years, it is the longest I have been with any company in my career.

So we had fun times and work was always great. As with any software project there were some difficulties but that happens on any big project, software, mining, electrical etc. If the project is big, the project will be difficult.

So here's to 5 great years at Argility.

Playstation 2 Emulation

2011-01-15T16:34:00.000+02:00

Recently I started playing all my old NES games on my PSP using emulation. Replaying all the old games I bought over the years is great fun.

I own a PS2 and a few PS2 games but with my new HD LCD TV the PS2 games just look bad. So eventually I decided to ask the Googler if there was something I could do about it and that is how I found PCSX2.

PCSX2 basically emulates a PS2 console, but I can now make use of the nice goodies in DirectX 10, so my old PS2 games really look much better.

Paired with my XBox360 wireless controller these games play just like in the old days, but with better graphics.

USB Safely Remove

2011-01-05T16:11:00.000+02:00

I eventually bought USB Safely Remove. If you make use of USB devices, especially USB drives and flash drives, then this tool is essential.

I find that sometimes when I want to remove a USB device from my PC that it won't detach. Sometimes it is something obvious like I am still copying a file to it, but sometimes you have no idea why it won't detach.

USB Safely Remove fixes that. It will force detach the device if you are certain that everything is finished. It will also tell you which process is preventing you from detaching the device.

Cape Town 2010

2011-01-01T11:40:00.000+02:00

We had a brilliant time in Cape Town this year.

Some nice photos from the trip is available to Facebook
Allee Bleue
Franschhoek
Butterfly World
Blaauw Klippen
Picking Strawberries

Missed Call Reminder

2010-12-23T13:25:00.000+02:00

One thing I miss with the HTC Desire HD is that when I have a missed call or SMS it will not remind me of it at all.

I need to check the notification area to see if I missed a call or SMS.

Missed Call Reminder is a small application that runs in the background and it will notify you on a soft configurable time interval when you have missed calls or SMS messages.

It really works well.

3g Watchdog

2010-12-23T13:16:00.000+02:00

The new HTC smart phone is brilliant but it is really heavy on the data side. I install this great little application that keeps track of the amount of data I use.

The QR code is available if you also want to use this amazing application.

HTC Desire HD

2010-12-23T13:11:00.000+02:00

So I took possession of my new HTC Desire HD on Monday. Now it could be because of the way the market has changed, but this is the best phone I ever owned.

I suspect it is the market and not just the phone. My last smart phone did not have Facebook, Twitter or Google integration, but 4 years ago no smart phone had it so the fact that this phone has it doesn't mean it would have had it 4 years ago.

I also suspect that you have to be an online junkie to really enjoy the phone to the fullest.

PSP 3000

2010-12-05T08:02:00.000+02:00

I decided to buy the PSP 3000 God Of War: Ghost of Sparta edition.

I decided on the PSP because not only can it play games, but I can buy and read my comics on the device as well.

It can also play Nintendo and Super Nintendo Games. So Super Mario and Ninja Gaiden are definitely going to get a play through.

Droid Comic Viewer

2010-11-21T15:03:00.000+02:00

I love comics. I usually subscribe to them even when I stay in South Africa, miles and miles away from the civilized world. The only problem I have is, these comics take up a lot of space, so storing them is usually a mission.

When I want to re-read some of my comics then I need to go and dig it all out again, so when it comes to archiving my comics I like the .CBZ format and re-reading my comics on my PC.

Luckily the Android has a similar application called Droid Comic Reader. It allows you to read .CBZ comics on the Android.

Here is a nice video showing the off the capabilities ...

NESoid for Android

2010-11-21T14:55:00.000+02:00

Something else I discovered while researching what phone to get was this little application. It is called NESoid, and it is a NES emulator for the Android. With the QWERTY keyboard on The HTC Desire Z, I think this little application will work great.

Here is a video showing off the NESoid capabilities ...

HTC Desire Z

2010-11-21T14:44:00.000+02:00

So I decided to get a new phone. My new phone will be the HTC Desire Z. It is an Android 2.2 smartphone.

This phone has all the Android features like GMail integration, Google Docs, Google Calendar and so on.

The other benefit is, it has the HTC Sense software, which I like a lot. The waiting list is about 2 weeks long, so hopefully by the beginning of December I will have my new phone.

Delphi logging by Exception

2010-11-09T19:48:00.000+02:00

I had to help a friend out the other day. He is taking over some Delphi application from someone. That someone decided that the Delphi application is too much work. Now this friend of mine warned me that the code was not very good but I did not expect this piece of beautiful code. Beautiful as in, "What the Hell was this guy thinking".

So we start off with this piece of code

procedure TfrmMain.FormCreate(Sender: TObject);
var
 status         : integer ;
 sc_no          : integer ;
 tmpstr         : string;
 cnt            : integer ;
 comms_protocol : integer ;
begin
  Application.OnException := HandleException;
  ...
end;

So this is not bad, we just register on the top level exception handler in the form's constructor. This event handler code looks like this

procedure TfrmMain.HandleException(Sender: TObject; E: Exception);
var
  filename: string;
  logfile : textfile;
begin
  filename := changefileext(application.exename,'.log');
  assignfile(logfile,filename);
  if fileexists (filename) then
    append(logfile)
  else
    rewrite(logfile);
  writeln(logfile,datetimetostr (now)+':'+e.message);
  if cb_debug.checked then
    application.showexception(e);
  closefile(logfile);
end;

Now in this section I would have liked more begin;end; blocks but some people like to make reading code difficult so not too big a problem. Essentially this code just logs the error to a file. So still not bad.

And then the "What the Hell" moment

try
  raise Exception.create('Program Started');
finally
end;

So this guys wants to log that the application started. Instead of refactoring the log procedure to support program logging he just raises an Exception and does nothing with it. Even worse, in Delphi debug mode, Delphi would stop by default, so now you have to switch off the break on exception option in Delphi just to run his application.

So there you have it, how to log messages by using exceptions in an application and please do not try this at home, this guy was a trained professional*

* A trained professional idiot that is.

PC Upgrade 2010, Part 2

2010-09-21T14:08:00.000+02:00

I eventually got all my parts and upgraded the PC. It was not without its own set of drama. The first problem I encountered was with my memory. I bought 4 x 2Gb OCZ Gold DDR3 1333MHz memory. After I installed Windows, I could only use 4Gb, the other 4Gb was 'reserved'. Three hours later I found a post on the OCZ forum suggesting that my BIOS detected my DRAM settings wrong and they were right. I manually had to set my DRAM settings in the BIOS, but at least that worked.

i7 Stock Cooler

I then decided to run memtest86+ just in case, and the horror! I had errors in test number 8 in memtest86+. I took out all my DIMMS and reinserted them again, ran memtest86+ and no errors, and just to be sure I ran 5 passes of the tests and another 2 passes the next day.

Cooler Master H212+

My next challenge was heat. The i7 870 with its stock cooler was not good enough. The i7 under load went up to 90C which is not good. Idle temp was at 35C, not bad, but not good either. I wanted to replace the stock cooler with the Cooler Master Hyper 212+ but no one had immediate stock so I had to take whatever was on stock at the first computer shop that had any CPU coolers.

Zalman S9700

This turned out to be a Zalman S9700 LED, which is a massive heat sink and heavy, 790g heavy, so mounting that vertically in my case seems a bit excessive. The good news though is my CPU idle at 22C and with average use it goes up to 35C. I still need to stress test the new cooler.

I will also run some benchmarks. The current feeling is that this machine is very very fast. Running a VM and developing on the host at the same time is no problem at all.

PC Upgrade 2010

2010-09-10T19:56:00.000+02:00

My current development PC at home is getting close to 3 years old now. I decided it was time to do an upgrade.

I browsed and read lots and lots of blog posts and articles around the different CPUs available and eventually settled on the Intel i7 870.

I like the new Turbo Boost functionality on the i7, but the i7 870 was priced well. I also prefer dual channel instead of triple channel so the 870 seemed to be a good fit.

Dual channel also means my motherboard was cheaper than the triple channel versions.

I am not into over clocking at all, so I settled for a motherboard that does what I need and nothing more. I did investigate its performance on some of the well known benchmarking websites.

The MSi board performed on par with all the other expensive boards, the only thing about the MSi board is that over clocking is not its claim to fame, which is fine with me.

The RAM in my new machine will be OCZ DDR 3 1333MHz, a full 8Gb. I bought the OCZ RAM because it was on special at Take2.co.za.

The RAM also looks nice.

I also decided to make an investment in the new SSD hard drives. This SSD was expensive compared to what I could get if I bought a normal hard drive, but according to all the benchmark tests the difference in speed will be huge.

Only problem is I will only have 60Gb space, so I will need to micro manage my hard drive usage again like back in the 90's.

Hard drives are so big and cheap lately, that I almost never delete files any more.

My PC components should arrive on Monday, so Monday night will be PC building night.

Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age Origins

2010-08-26T15:00:00.000+02:00

I bought Mass Effect 2 for a mere R 99.00, it was on special and it is the full game and fully legal. I was just at the right place at the right time.

I also got Dragon Age Origins for R 150.00, again the same shop, just lucky enough to walk in when the special was still running.

Also I feel the need to mention that I was actually on a mission to buy milk and coffee for the house, when I found this. So basically I went out to buy milk and coffee and I came back with Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age Origins.

Australian Computer Society, Part 2

2010-08-26T14:26:00.000+02:00

So it would seem the ACS is not striking like the rest of South Africa. Probably because the ACS is in Australia, the land where people work to make a living.

I got my results back from the ACS assessment. They accessed me as a Class A Software Engineer. This means I can now apply for my Visa as a Software Engineer.

The only obstacle now is obviously the South African government. I need to get an unabridged birth certificate and an unabridged marriage certificate. The South African government is striking at present. So hopefully they will stop their nonsense soon, so I can get my stuff and get on the plane.

The Samsung 24" LED LCD (BX2450)

2010-08-21T17:56:00.000+02:00

I just saw this amazing Samsung at Take2.co.za, and I am impressed. More than impressed, I want it.

The monitor is really very easy on the eyes. It has the standard HD resolution that everyone has standardized on, but it has no DVI port.

My current graphics card, the NVidia 8800GT does not have HDMI out ports.

I did find a conversion dongle at Amazon. So I can use this with my existing graphics card.

Debranding my C905

2010-08-12T15:52:00.000+02:00

I have a general hate relationship with Vodafone. I am not a Vodafone subscriber, I am a Vodacom subscriber. Vodafone bought some shares in Vodacom and now most if not nearly all Vodacom cell phones are now Vodafone branded.

I bought a Sony Ericsson C905 and one feature that everyone was talking about was the conversation thread you could have on your SMS messages. Vodafone in their wisdom decided to take it out of their Vodafone branded C905 cell phones.

Another thing that bugged me endlessly was the fact that my Java applications was so slow, very slow. I assumed it was the C905 that was not too good with Java applications.

I eventually decided to debrand my C905.

I found a nice post on debranding my C905. It took a while to get all the software ready and in place but after following the easy steps my C905 is now working the way it should be.

Not only do I now have SMS conversation support, my Java applications are much faster too. So Vodafone even broke the JVM on the C905.

I unfortunately did manage to reset my MAC address to 00-00-00-00-00, so no Wi-Fi for me. The fix is quite easy, but I will do it at a later stage.

Source Code Highlight in Blogger

2010-08-12T15:04:00.000+02:00

I always wanted to have syntax highlighting in my blog posts but I thought Blogger didn't allow it. Thankfully I was wrong.

The code snippet below shows how pretty it can look. I am using SyntaxHighlighter version 3.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Xml.Linq;

namespace Core.EFT.XXX
{
    /// 
    /// This class will decode the XML from the XXX service.
    /// 

    public class XXXTCPResponse : TCPResponse
    {
        #region Properties
        /// 
        /// The request type.
        /// 

        public string RequestType { get; set; }
        #endregion
    }
}

I will probably start posting more C#, C++ and Java code snippets on this blog.

New Lenovo G550

2010-08-02T19:03:00.000+02:00

My old Hewlett Packard desktop replacement laptop was starting to show its age. It was time for a replacement, but I did not want another desktop replacement laptop.

I found for development I prefer a desktop. I can easily add more monitors and upgrading the desktop is much simpler and easier. Cost wise it is also many times cheaper.

I found a special on the Lenovo G550. The initial reviews on the internet were good enough and for the price it was excellent. So I bought the Lenovo G550.

Over the next few days I will install my favourite applications like Firefox, Directory Opus etc.

Australian Computer Society

2010-07-06T13:25:00.000+02:00

I completed all my documentation and I mailed it to the ACS. So within the next 12 weeks I will know if they like me or not.

Another tick on the list.

IELTS done.

2010-07-05T13:40:00.000+02:00

I finished the IELTS tests. My overall score is 8.0 and I only needed to score a 7.0, so I qualify for the 25 bonus points on the Visa.

The next application I need to do is the ACS certification of my degree and work experience.

I also need to start the process of acquiring my South African documents, like my marriage certificate etc. That will have to happen in the next two months.

Cell phone carry bag part 2.

2010-06-08T11:00:00.002+02:00

So I bought this carry bag last year. It lasted all of six months. Totally forgot about it. Really not a good product at all.

IELTS Part 1, done

2010-06-08T10:52:00.000+02:00

So the past weekend I did my first part of the IELTS test. I need to do the IELTS test because South Africa's official language is not English. South Africa has 11 official languages but listening to the politicians I would have sworn the official language is talking poop.

Back to the test. No one really knows what language we speak in South Africa, so in order to go to Australia I had to take the IELTS test. It is a lot like Grade 7 English, maybe even easier, so all in all a waste of time and money.

Part 1 of the test was reading, writing and listening. Part 2 will be the speaking test which I will be doing this coming weekend.

So one more tick on the checklist. I picked up our passports yesterday, so the next stop will be the ACS assessment of my degree.

New Skilled Occupations List

2010-05-18T07:59:00.000+02:00

The Australian government created a new skilled occupations list (SOL) that will come into effect on 1 July 2010. Luckily for me I am still on the list. They reduced the occupations from something like 400 to just 181, or something in that line. So basically a more than 50% reduction in occupations.

I am only concerned with the IT related occupations. On the old SOL the following occupations were catered for:

Computing Professionals (Catch all)
Applications and Analyst Programmer
Computer Systems Auditor
Software Designer
Systems Manager
Systems Programmer

The new list only lists the following IT related occupations:

Systems Analyst
Analyst Programmer
Developer Programmer
Software Engineer

So they basically removed the Computing Professionals option. Many IT occupations came through on that catch all description, anything from a database administrator to a network administrator could be seen as a Computing Professional. It would seem the Australian government plugged that hole now. Basically if you want to go to Australia as an IT specialist your occupation must be closely related to actual programming or building of systems from scratch it seems.

Australia

2010-05-11T11:24:00.000+02:00

I haven't blogged in a long while. I had some nice Trinchado at different places the last few months but I will blog about that later.

My family and I decided that it will not be suitable for our little girl of 14 months to grow up in South Africa anymore. A few weeks ago a small baby of 12 months was assaulted by criminals and she is still in I.C.U., so we decided that if the criminals do not even spare a baby, then we need to leave.

I started the whole process but it will take some time. Currently we are trying to get a state sponsorship from Victoria in Australia. We want to settle in Melbourne. We have a few reasons for this but just the fact that 1/3 of all IT people are employed in Melbourne makes the choice easier.

So I guess I will be blogging about the whole Visa application for the time being instead of nice food.

Trinchado @ Mesa Portuguesa

2009-09-22T07:55:00.000+02:00

It was Trinchado time again Saterday, the 29th of August 2009. This time I went to Mesa Portuguesa in Pretoria to try their take on the Trinchado.

Just the photo alone shows that the Mesa Trinchado is different than the O'Galito Trinchado and the Braza Trinchado.

The Mesa Portuguesa Trinchado was not hot spicey but it was full a flavour spicey, if that makes sense. This time the sauce was a red wine sauce and not a white wine sauce. Mesa also gives a nice Portuguese roll with the Trinchado.

So I would rate the Trinchado 7/10, I prefer the creamy white sauce. So it has the same rating than the Braza Trinchado but the Mesa Trinchado just looks tastier when it gets to the table than the Braza Trinchado.

Dead Space

2009-08-26T13:48:00.000+02:00

I played Dead Space almost a year after it was released. The game is really brilliant. I was captivated right up to the end and the ending was quite scary, my heart skipped a beat.

I would definitely play Dead Space 2, the follow up story will be great. I have a lot of unanswered questions around The Marker.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

2009-08-12T21:16:00.000+02:00

So after a very long time of having this game I eventually finished it. The game was fun but it wasn't anything like KOTOR 2. My favourite is still KOTOR 2.

I chose the light side, so the ending was a bit of a let down, but it couldn't be anything else since the game is between episode 3 and episode 4 of Star Wars.

Trinchado @ O'Galito

2009-08-03T15:30:00.000+02:00

It was Trinchado time again Sunday, the 2nd of August 2009. This time I went to O'Galito in Centurion to try their take on the Trinchado.

Just the photo alone shows that the O'Galito Trinchado and the Braza Trinchado are different. The O'Galito Trinchado has a nice creamy white wine sauce where the Braza Trinchado did not have the creamy part, only white wine part.

The O'Galito Trinchado was also not spicy, so again a nice chilled out Trinchado. I prefer the Portuguese roll that came with the Braza Trinchado. The O'Galito bread was fresh but the Portuguese roll just enhances the experience.

So I would rate the Trinchado 8/10, the sauce was better than Braza but the bread not.

Cellphone carry bag

2009-06-22T11:34:00.000+02:00

I always have a problem when it comes to carrying my cellphone around. I really do not like the cellphone wrappers like the Body Glove products and I also do not want to carry my cellphone in my pocket the whole time. Carrying it around in my pocket is not always comfortable and it limits what pants I can wear.

Now previously I bought myself a digital camera carry bag which could fit both my cellphone and my wallet. I would wear it like a normal carry bag over the shoulder but it looked a bit like a purse. I called it my 'Man Bag' but my wife called it my 'Man Purse'!

When it came to getting a new cellphone I decided to look around for something different this time to carry the cellphone in. I discovered this nice little digital camera carry bag from Golla. Thank goodness the digital cameras became smaller over the last few years, now my cellphone fits snugly inside the carry bag and it has a little space for my credit card and driver's license.

So now I do not need to carry my wallet with me the whole time and the carry bag is small enough not to look like a 'Man Purse' any more. Now it just looks like a Leatherman hanging from my belt.

The Goonies

2009-06-11T13:01:00.000+02:00

A childhood favourite movie of mine, The Goonies. At long last my favourite online shop Take2 had stock and I ordered it. So now I only need to make time to watch it again. Will need some popcorn and a soda for this classic.

PS2 to PS3 converter

2009-06-11T12:38:00.000+02:00

Since I am a PlayStation fanboy, I obviously had two PS2 game controllers, so when I bought the PS3 I decided not to spent more money on another PS3 controller. Instead I bought this PS2 to PS3 converter.

You plug the PS2 controller into the one side and the converter's USB plug into the PS3's USB port and that is it. Works like a charm, no setup procedure necessary.

So now I can play 2 player Bionic Commando ReArmed and soon Street Fighter IV or Soul Calibre IV.

Now all I need is a nice Fightstick, but it seems everybody is still out of stock.

PS3 Remote Control

2009-06-11T12:21:00.000+02:00

After using the PS3 controller for a long while to watch movies, I decided to buy the PS3 remote control. The PS3 remote control is also more intuitive to people like my wife who is used to something like a DVD remote control.

The remote was not too expensive and it works via Bluetooth so there is no need to point the remote in the direction of the PS3 like with normal IR remote controls.

The form factor also helps a great deal. Game controllers aren't designed to be used as DVD remote controls.

Trinchado @ Braza

2009-05-31T16:39:00.000+02:00

I am a big Trinchado fan, so I order it almost always as a starter when and if the restaurant has it. What I did find is that every restaurant makes Trinchado different.

I decided that I will take a photo of the different Trinchado that I come across and blog something about it. First up is the Trinchado @ Braza in Menlyn Park.

First off the bread that comes with the Trinchado was a standard Portuguese roll, so nothing fancy but it was fresh and very soft. So a very nice Portuguese roll.

The Trinchado itself was also very nice. It was not hot at all. The Trinchado is made from little squares of beef in a nice white wine sauce, so nothing hot. If you are in the mood for a nice chilled out Trinchado I would say the Braza Trinchado is the way to go, if you want something more spicy this is not the Trinchado for that specific day then.

So I would rate the Trinchado 7/10, very enjoyable.

Killzone 2

2009-05-12T09:38:00.000+02:00

I rented Killzone 2 the other day but I just realised again that I am not a pure FPS fan at all. I loved Bioshock which was from a first person angle but it had a compelling story. Killzone 2 on the other hand has no story to it other than the normal thin FPS back story.

So I played it a few hours but I am now so bored with it that I am going to swop it out as soon as I go past the store again. Hopefully they have the new Wolverine game available.

Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles

2009-04-27T09:06:00.003+02:00

I hate watching a TV series and there are two reasons for this. The one is that the series might suck and if it is based on a movie then it just ruins the movie. The other is the series might be great but they run out of budget and you are left in limbo.

Thankfully TSCC is in the second category. I just finished watching the 2nd season and it was brilliant. The last five episodes or so with the new added twist really makes the whole Terminator universe grow.

The story was so good that I am scared to go and watch T4 in a few months time because that movie might miss the whole universe and what it is about and just focus on the action turning it into just one big dumb action movie which would be sad.

I really hope they continue with TSCC because I hate being left in limbo and if they do not make season 3 then I will have the same feeling that I had with some other shows that were just stopped.

BSG was great in the sense that they decided end of season 4 will be the end, so they gave a good ending that brought closure and that is what I hope TSCC will do as well. I am a big Smallville fan but I am really thinking they are pushing the limits, 8 seasons and no ending in sight, I would hate it if Smallville had no ending and is just canned.

So on the whole TSCC season 2 was very good and I feel it really made the Terminator universe grow a bit more from the the standard Terminator wants to kill John, they run and run and run, kill Terminator, the end.

Wolverine

2009-04-21T08:54:00.004+02:00

I had no idea Gavin Hood was directing Wolverine. Now this is one of those rare South Africans that really made something for himself out of nothing. Much like Charlize, not a big fan of her, but I have respect for what she accomplished.

So hopefully Wolverine does very well, I will be one of the people going to watch it on opening weekend.

Toshiba Portege G710

2009-04-20T18:24:00.003+02:00

I recently decided that Vodacom is over charging me, so I downgraded my contract and opted not to take a cell phone at all. I'd rather use my current Palm 750 until it dies, if that happens I have my eye on this little smartphone from Toshiba. It is not full of features as the Treo 750 but I found that I rarely use those features, so for the price this smartphone is on the money.

Tekken 5

2009-04-19T08:23:00.003+02:00

I am a big Tekken fan. I lost out on the Tekken 5 for PS2 but luckily they made a Tekken 5 for PS3 with online play.

I even downloaded it with South Africa's crippled broadband.

I am really impressed with this game. The Online play is brilliant, even with my slow internet connection.

All I need now is a FightStick but they are all out of stock because SFIV was released the other day and the whole US wanted to buy FightSticks.

Tomb Raider Underworld

2009-04-19T08:18:00.004+02:00

I always loved the Tomb Raider series, even in the dark days when the critics seemed to hate it.

Tomb Raider has been developed by a new company for the last 3 releases and they are doing a good job.

The latest release Underworld was really good, was old school Tomb Raider, but it seems I am in the minority when compared to newer games like Drake's Fortune.

I still need to play Drake's Fortune and maybe then too I will not be satisfied with Tomb Raider anymore, but I doubt it.

Assassin's Creed

2009-03-22T07:56:00.006+02:00

I finished Assassin's Creed on the PS3 yesterday.

The game was very good. I liked the story line but the missions could get a bit repetitive at times.

The Informant missions was dumb as hell, didn't like them much.

The fighting engine was especially good.

Bioshock

2009-03-16T19:42:00.003+02:00

I finished Bioshock for PS3. Took me a few days but being on leave I can play almost 8 hours a day now.

The game was really good. The story was very rich and I haven't had this much fun playing a game since Fallout 3.

So a game worthwhile investing my time.

My Playstation 3

2009-03-09T22:01:00.005+02:00

I have been wanting to buy a PS3 for a while now, but I never got to it. I bought one today and I am very happy with it. Already I am streaming my media (movies, videos and photos) over the LAN to the PS3 to display on my new LCD TV.

I have no games yet and with South Africa's horrible broadband costs I also can't download any games. So Take2 will be my next stop for some games and maybe a Blu-Ray movie.

It seems to have been a worthwhile investment. No more ugly PC's in my living room.

I am a dad at last.

2009-03-03T17:22:00.002+02:00

Alexis was born today. 2.85kg and 45cm tall.

Geat stuff.

Sinotec 42" Full HD LCD

2009-03-03T17:05:00.004+02:00

My 84cm CRT TV broke for the second time, so I decided to buy the Sinotec 42" LCD TV.

Works amazing sofar. It even has a D-Sub input and can do 1360x768, so 720p movies on my hard disk can be displayed at great detail.

Video streaming wirelessly 2

2009-01-31T21:29:00.004+02:00

Ok so I invested in the Ellies wireless AV sender / receiver. So far it works great. Only problems so far is when a heavy Thunderstorm is raging, the signal is very weak then, but other than that is seems to work great.

So now I can record my DSTV shows without the need for my PC in my living room.

Pinnacle Studio

2009-01-06T09:36:00.002+02:00

So I tried a few things to get Pinnacle to record my shows in MPEG2 correctly but I failed. Now I just record the shows in DV quality and the use VirtualDub afterwards to encode it into DivX format. So no more sound sync problems and DivX is supported by most hardware these days anyway.

DarkStar One Cheat

2009-01-06T09:21:00.005+02:00

I started playing DarkStar One and it is a very nice game but the level system sucks. You have to collect stupid crystals and that becomes boring very quickly.

So I used Artmoney to find the memory addresses for money and the crystals. So now I can set the crystal count, collect one more crystal and then levelling is all sorted.

The downside is the higher the ship level the more difficult the enemies become, but that is fine, I like the fighting part it was just the mundane crystal hunting I didn't like. So I added these 2 cheats in the .amt file.

Artmoney

2009-01-06T09:18:00.002+02:00

I found a new way of cheating in my games. Some games are just so boring or mundane that cheating is the only way to enhance the experience. Low level cheating of course, just that little extra to take the boring out of it. This usually boils down to cheating with money. I found this nice tool to help. It is called Artmoney and works well.

American Road Trip

2008-12-22T11:28:00.002+02:00

I decided that starting 2009 I will start saving for my American road trip. The current draft route is quite long but I would manage to see all the stuff I want to see.

We will have to do some miles in South Africa first before we attempt this one. Maybe a nice Southern African tour as soon as Bob is out of the picture.

94.7 Mountain Bike Challenge

2008-11-21T15:03:00.007+02:00

So I did the 94.7 MTB Challenge, 40km. Finished in 3 hours and 20 minutes. The route was very muddy, so maybe I will have a faster time next year, but still I am happy with the time I did.

HTML Signatures in GMail

2008-07-12T23:29:00.002+02:00

I always wanted an HTML signature in GMail but could never get it right. Now with some Firefox magic I can.

BlackCanvas has a plugin that does just that.

So now I can have this as my signature

Ubuntu 8.04

2008-07-12T16:58:00.001+02:00

So Windows Vista kept on complaining about me not buying it yet, so I decided to get legal and get rid of Vista. My previous experience with Ubuntu on my laptop was good but I had to do a lot of tweaking.

I decided that this time around if it does not install out of the box I am not installing it, will get Vista or XP instead then. Much to my surprise it worked out of the box first time. Even Compiz works in Ubuntu 8.

So all in all a very good experience.

Winter gloves

2008-04-23T16:05:00.002+02:00

Commuting to work and back with the motorcycle gets very cold now that the winter is starting. So I invested in the IXS Mirage gloves. Swiss made apparently and hopefully it helps. I do not want to invest in heated grips, not at 10x the price of the gloves, so here's hoping it works.

Kawasaki Z750

2008-04-16T15:51:00.010+02:00

I currently own the Kawasaki 250cc baby Ninja, but I went to look at the Kawasaki Z750 in real life and I am convinced this is the bike I want. The thing is awesome, and with the optional extras the bike is really going to rock. Unfortunately I will only be able to buy it in April 2009 or even later, which really sucks.

MPEG2 sound sync problem

2008-04-01T09:10:00.002+02:00

The Pinnacle Studio software I am using to encode my movies to MPEG2 always seems to have a sound sync problem. Apparently it is a known problem so this tool might help.

I will give it a whirl today and see if it works.

Speedtraps

2008-03-07T15:37:00.004+02:00

I had the great fortune today to drive 120km/h in a 60km/h zone with my new motorcycle. There was a retarded cop with his radar gun and I thought damn! That is when I remembered my motorcycle does not have a license plate in the front only the back, so these retards with their radar guns can keep on coming I do not care anymore, they can't catch me. Maybe they will start doing some real work now instead of just sleeping under a tree with the radar gun pointing to the oncoming traffic.

Detecting the screen resolution in Ubuntu

2007-11-07T06:44:00.000+02:00

To detect your monitor's correct settings to allow the correct resolutions just run this command from the console: sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg

Install Ubuntu 7.10 in Virtual Server

2007-11-05T01:52:00.000+02:00

I need to install Ubuntu 7.10 onto a Microsoft Virtual Server VPC and this post might be a good place to start.

Samsung DVD-R Sucks

2007-09-21T01:46:00.000+02:00

So in my previous post I talked about my new Samsung DVD Recorder. What a piece of junk it turned out to be. The thing broke after just 6 weeks of use. I had to fight with Makro for almost 2 months to get my money back I paid for this piece of junk.

Makro's policy on electronic replacements are horrible to say the least, but I suspect all the retailers in South Africa has the same type of return policy, so I am between a rock and a hard place with this.

I took my money and went to HiFi Corp and bought myself a standard cheap Philips DVD player that support DivX playback.

Searching for comics online

2007-08-09T09:26:00.000+02:00

This Tech Recipe shows how to search for electronic versions of comics using Google.

Video streaming wirelessly

2007-07-22T10:54:00.000+02:00

I previously contemplated using VLC to stream video wirelessly around my house, but I recently discovered that Ellies already has the hardware available at a very affordable price.

The AV sender / receiver combo uses standard WiFi to transmit incoming audio and video. All I need to do is just hookup the sender to my PVR and the receiver to my monitor and magic starts.

I am also considering the USB2800 or the Pinnacle Studio 500 video capture devices. So in conjuction with the Ellies AV sender, I can play videos on my PVR / Camcorder / VCR and record it on my PC using the USB video capture devices.

Windows Vista

2007-07-21T03:52:00.000+02:00

I decided to format my laptop's hard disk and install Windows Vista. Gone was my Windows XP and Ubuntu dual boot setup. The reason? I gave up the fight with my tech. department regarding their network which is very unfriendly to any OS except Windows. I could not VPN into work from my home using standard VPN protocols, I needed to boot Windows XP to enable the use of some Microsoft propriety software just to get into the VPN.

So I decided it is too much hassle to get it working, so I installed Vista and now everything should go smoothly and if it doesn't at least I can log a call at the tech. dept. to fix the problem.

PowerToys

2007-07-05T01:45:00.001+02:00

My company bought me a 22" Acer LCD monitor the other day. Unfortunately my fonts didn't seem quite right with the new monitor. I forgot about the PowerToys utility from Microsoft and my boss mentioned to me that PowerToys has some ClearType tweaking tool. I downloaded it and now my fonts are all clear and smooth again, definitely recommended for any LCD monitor user.

Comic book subscription

2007-06-25T09:15:00.000+02:00

My Spider-Man subscription with Sci-Fi Genre was less than ideal. I subscribed with the understanding that my comics will only be shipped once my basket was worth $20, what I did not know was that the will ship my comics every two months regardless, so now my first shipment is on its way but the comics are worth $6 and my shipping costs are $13, so my shipping is double what my comics are worth. So I unsubscribed from the service.

What I will test next is the possibility of using the back issue order feature to order my comics in bulk but in arrears, basically I will order 12 issues at the end of the year and it will be shipped to me in one shipment.

My DC and Marvel subscription has been going strong so far without any hiccups, so I am considering just using the direct subscriptions again and just backorder the issues I am missing.

GSpace

2007-06-21T10:03:00.000+02:00

A colleague I work with mentioned the GSpace service to me a while back but I never thought it will be of any benefit to me. The idea behind GSpace is simple, it allows you to upload files to your GMail account as if it was just another off site storage medium.

I have my own always online off site server so I never saw the need for yet another. What I did not know was that GSpace not only uploads the files to GMail but it simulates standard email, thus I can use the standard GMail features to manipulate these files.

The benefit only came to full realization when I used GSpace to backup my Excel and Word documents from my new Palm Treo 750 to GMail. I can now access any of my Word or Excel documents anywhere plus I can edit them using the standard Google documents feature, so updating my documents via the web is easy and when I sync with my Palm I just download the latest versions of the documents from GMail onto the Palm again.

It is a bit manual at this point in time but it works surprisingly well.

Spb Software

2007-06-20T11:10:00.000+02:00

I have been using my new Palm Treo 750v for a while now and I bought a few applications already. I will not be able to use my Treo without these applications anymore.

Most of my applications were developed by Spb Software but I did buy a simple list manager from PDA House. My current list of must have software is

I am investigating Spb Phone Suite but my Palm Treo 750v has most of the functionality it offers so $20 just for the profile management is a bit steep. I mailed Spb Software to find out if they could re-package Spb Phone Suite into a Spb Phone Suite Lite version for $10.

MMS support on the Treo 750v

2007-06-13T04:20:00.000+02:00

So I received an MMS but my phone refused to download the MMS from the server. My MMS settings was not setup out of the box. Very disappointing for a Vodafone branded phone, I am definitely not impressed.

I phoned Vodacom SA to try and get the correct settings from them but they failed to give me the correct information to setup my MMS.

Luckily a friend of mine had the same problem with his HP PDA Phone so I mailed him and he pointed me to this forum post.

Unfortunately it still did not work but luckily I only needed to make one small change, the gateway server IP and port needs to be supplied for the Treo 750v to work. Thus 196.6.x.x became 196.6.x.x:9201.

A bit of a headache just to send and receive MMS messages.

MIDP 2.0 Support on my Treo 750v

2007-06-13T03:59:00.000+02:00

The first thing I noticed of my new phone was that it is missing J2ME support. Luckily other people had the same problem than me and I quickly found the solution in Intent Midlet Manager for Windows Mobile.

So now I can use my standard GMail client as well as Opera Mini.

My baby is 12 weeks in the making

2007-06-11T05:37:00.000+02:00

Images of the latest sonar scan is available.

Palm Treo 750v

2007-06-11T05:26:00.000+02:00

It seems Vodacom SA is Vodafone obsessed lately. I asked Vodacom SA to supply me with a Palm Treo 750 and they insist on giving me the Palm Treo 750v. Unfortunately for me the only way to get the Palm Treo 750 is to switch service providers, so I took the Treo 750v.

Lucky according to the comparison between the two Treos the only lacking thing on the 750v is HSDPA. That and the fact that my default theme is red and gray.

Treo 750

2007-06-11T00:10:00.000+02:00

It is cell phone contract upgrade time again and this time I am getting the Palm Treo 750. It has Windows Mobile 5.0 as OS and not the standard PalmOS, which in my opinion is dying and needs a major rework. To me Windows Mobile is the only mobile OS that is still evolving and growing. Symbian and PalmOS are both not really growing and as with anything if it is not growing it is dying.

I still do prefer the Palm devices over the other devices from other manufacturers because of the design principles followed by the Palm company and the Palm Treo 750 seems to be the perfect device for me. The small thumb keyboard to me is better than the HTC TyTN's keyboard because it allows me to type SMS messages with just one hand without the need to flip the phone sideways to get access to the keyboard.

For larger documents etc. I am investigating a way of hacking my iPAQ bluetooth keyboard to work with my Treo 750, so meeting notes etc. will not be a big problem.

Some missing functionality I would have liked on this device is

WiFi
3" LCD screen instead of 2.5"
320x240 resolution instead of 240x240
2MP camera instead of 1.3MP
400MHz CPU instead of 300MHz
Have a docking station included as part of the package

Unfortunately the Treo 750 is on back order, so I might get the phone on the 12th of June.

Star Trek Voyager Season 1-7 DVD set

2007-05-24T05:11:00.000+02:00

I received my Star Trek Voyager DVD collection yesterday and it all seems original and all but since I ordered it directly from China I do have my doubts. The video quality seems to be standard SDTV quality which would make sense since HDTV was not really that big when the series was aired. The soundtrack is also Dolby Digital 5.1, so it seems to checkout.

Video Streaming Hardware

2007-05-16T08:57:00.000+02:00

I am very interested in the idea of streaming all my content via Wi-Fi at my house. The software seems to be available and ready. VideoLAN will take care of the streaming for me.

My problem is the hardware. If I want to be able to watch the streams anywhere in the house, I would need some portable media device which will be able to connect to the wireless network as well as output the stream via composite to some display device, either a TV or projector. It seems Gigabyte might have a solution in the form of a new motherboard. All I need then is a very small case that will allow me to carry the solution around the house.

Student Urinates on PS2

2007-05-16T08:41:00.000+02:00

I found this interesting article on Kotaku today. Apparently some student decided it will be a good idea to urinate on his PS2. It seems the student was not part of the engineering faculty otherwise he would have known to unplug the PS2 from the wall socket first.

Baby Progress

2007-05-14T00:09:00.000+02:00

My new baby is 9 weeks in development now. According to the manual he / she is now as big as a jelly baby. So just to put everything into context I bought a packet of jelly babies just to see how big my baby is now.

Notebook Suspend

2007-05-13T10:05:00.000+02:00

Something I have noticed using Ubuntu 7.04 is that the suspend function works much better than Ubuntu 6.10. My notebook has been put into suspend mode and brought out of suspend mode frequently over the past weekend and Ubuntu 7.04 did it flawlessly every time. Ubuntu 6.10 would always fail to come out of suspend mode after a few suspends.

Program my DSTV PVR over the Internet

2007-05-03T01:00:00.000+02:00

I was curious whether I could schedule recording times over the Internet. Basically I would use the DSTV website to set my recording times and then Multichoice would send the information to my PVR via the satellite connection.

Apparently a few other people also had the same idea as can be deducted from this forum post of mine. So hopefully by 2009 I will have this functionality.

Another instance where DRM causes more distress for the paying customer than the actual pirate they want to get rid of. If it was not for tight DRM policies DSTV could have opened their PVR for homebrew development which would have allowed this functionality to be developed by hobbyists like MythTV currently is.

I got DSTV

2007-05-02T11:26:00.000+02:00

Since my wife fell pregnant we decided to get DSTV for the home. I had DSTV a few years back but I could not justify the cost of the subscription compared to the amount of TV I watched anymore. The problem usually was that the shows I wanted to see was screened at times I could not watch them and the amount of hassle involved in setting the VCR to record the shows every time was not worth it, not to even mention the amount of VHS tapes I required.

DSTV in their wisdom decided to release the PVR decoder and that put the whole subscription fee issue in a whole new light. The PVR allows me to set recording times for all my favorite shows thus insuring that I do not miss any of my shows, which means I finally get what I pay for, well almost.

I am a bit disappointed that DSTV decided to cancel the Sci-Fi channel, but I do like the extra nature shows and the new Disney channel. My frame of reference for old and new is 2002 vs. 2007, so the Disney channel might have been created a long time ago, but to me it is new.

I also bought myself a new Samsung DVD recorder. My LG DVD player packed up so I needed to replace it so I bought the DVD recorder instead of just a player. The upside is I can now play my recorded shows through my DVD recorder and record the shows I want to keep onto DVD-R. Shows like Nigella Feasts and Jamie's Kitchen are really shows I want to keep on DVD-R instead of on the PVR's hard drive.

Ubuntu Feisty Fawn

2007-04-25T03:41:00.000+02:00

So I just upgraded from Edgy to Feisty using the Update Manager. I wasn't planning on upgrading just yet, but fears that my software updates and support will become lacking I decided to do the upgrade.

At first glance everything seems to be the same, my settings, customizations etc. One thing I did notice is my boot splash image that looks much better now. I have a HP laptop with ATI graphics and the boot splash images was always a bit off, the palette was all wrong etc.

My laptop is one of those that just would not install Ubuntu out of the box, my monitor was blank all the time, I had to boot with some custom boot option flags to force standard VGA to actually do the install of Edgy Eft. Since I used the standard Update Manager upgrade I can not comment on the current installation process regarding Feisty Fawn when you have to install from scratch.

I am a dad!

2007-04-24T11:20:00.000+02:00

Well what a surprise it was for us to find out that we are expecting a brand new baby! It wasn't entirely by accident but still a surprise to see it happen so fast. We weren't really expecting to fall pregnant this fast. Anyway the first sonar pictures are available over at MarthinusSwart.com.

Superman #661

2007-04-24T03:28:00.001+02:00

Superman #661 just arrived in the mail. So far the postal service has not disappointed me, really hope they keep up with the good service.

I like my Superman subscription but I must admit I prefer the Dark Knight (Batman) over Superman. The comics are darker and more mature. I think the Superman/Batman crossover comic books might be interesting.

I also discovered The Outer Limits close to my house. They have older issues available at reasonable prices so I think every now and again I will go and visit them to catch up on some past events in the DC as well as the Marvel universe.

Batman #664

2007-04-17T10:36:00.000+02:00

It seems my comics are now arriving in a more consistent manner. I received Batman #664 today. I also received my copy of Star Trek Elite Force from my eBay seller today so I haven't read my Batman comic yet.

Judging from the cover it promises to be an action filled edition.
I will definitely make time to read it tomorrow.

Sci-Fi Genre

2007-04-12T10:39:00.000+02:00

I do not have a subscription to Spider-Man yet so I decided to test Sci-Fi Genre and it seems to be a nice service. I added Amazing Spider-Man as my subscription and a set my subscription to mail me my comics as soon as my total cost is $20, this roughly translates to 8 comics. The delivery charge is $19 but then it is 4-10 business day air mail, which I feel is safer and more reliable than the normal Dark African postal service.

If the Sci-Fi Genre service works out fine I will not renew my DC or Marvel subscriptions after the 12 issue expiry. Sci-Fi Genre also gives a 10% discount if you subscribe to 5 or more comics. So Superman, Batman, Uncanny X-Men and Amazing Spider-Man, maybe Justice League America will be my 5th comic book subscription.

Superman #660

2007-04-12T10:06:00.000+02:00

At long last I received my first issue of Superman. I am a bit disappointed with the DC Direct service. I placed my order 18 January 2007 and my first Superman comic was only mailed in March 2007. I inquired about my Batman comics and apparently my first Batman issue will be #664 and that will only be mailed to me within 2 weeks time. Adding the 6 - 8 week delivery time I will only get my first Batman comic at the end of May 2007.

In comparison Marvel started shipping comics the same month I ordered them. I also came across Sci-Fi Genre and it seems they may have a better deal for me. I can buy a subscription from them and they will keep all my comics until my counter is reached and then Air Mail all the comics to me in one go. The downside of this is that I will have to wait long periods of time before my comics get to me, but with the current Dark African postal service I guess it can't be worse.

Uncanny X-Men

2007-03-28T08:47:00.000+02:00

Staying in South Africa it is very difficult to get hold of comic books, DC as well as Marvel, but I decided to take a leap of faith and buy a year's subscription directly from Marvel and DC of Uncanny X-Men, Superman and Batman.

Now Marvel and DC warned me that the first issue might take up to 10 weeks to reach me. Today was the exact 10th week from when I ordered my Uncanny X-Men and I received my first two issues in the mail today.

Now I am just waiting for my DC shipment.

Mono and 3D Games

2007-03-28T07:57:00.000+02:00

I stumbled upon this interesting blog article regarding Mono and the Microsoft deal. It seems there is actually a company called Unity that is using Mono to create cross platform 3D engines.

It seems they only support Windows and Mac currently, which is strange but maybe it has something to do with the state the 3D drivers on Linux are in currently.

Vista Analyzed

2007-03-20T02:26:00.000+02:00

I use Ubuntu as my exclusive desktop OS to get things done, but I am actually a C#.NET developer by profession. It is a weird combination but I prefer GNU/Linux over Windows because of the F/OSS philosophy.

Anyway back to Windows Vista, I am not planning on switching from Ubuntu to Windows Vista but I am planning on developing software for Windows Vista using C#.NET and this article just made me more excited. The new .NET Framework 3.0, previously known as WinFX is not just an add-on to the OS anymore but actually part of the OS.

The article is a bit long but worth the read I think.

WebmailCompose

2007-03-14T09:42:00.000+02:00

At long last I found the Firefox plug-in I was searching for, the plug-in is called WebmailCompose but sadly it does not work in Firefox 2.x.

There is a hacked version available from Soaked & Soaped however that does work in Firefox 2.x. I installed it and it seems to work as I remembered.

Gmail Filesystem

2007-03-14T07:22:00.000+02:00

I vaguely remember having a Firefox plug-in that allow me to send email via Gmail whenever I click on a mailto: link on any web page. In my search for this plug-in I stumbled across this site. Nothing spectacular about it until you read about the Gmail FS.

Now the Gmail FS allows any Linux system to mount the free space on your Gmail account as another filesystem. Now there is a Firefox plug-in called Gspace that also allows you to use your free Gmail storage but this to me makes more sense since I am using Ubuntu and I do love my console.

I haven't tried it yet, but maybe soon I will give it spin. I still haven't found the Gmail mailto: plug-in, maybe I dreamed it.

Tilda console

2007-03-12T02:48:00.000+02:00

One thing of Linux in general I like and prefer is my console. For me the console is really not a nightmarish thing to fear, as a matter of fact I always had one console window open in Windows XP. I also installed Launchy on my Windows XP box because I find that typing what I want to do is faster than clicking the "Start" menu etc.

I recently subscribed to the Debian Package of the Day RSS feed and I was pointed to this amazing little application. It is called Tilda and it works a lot like the Quake console when you press the "~" key.

This is definitely a very nice application if you like consoles like I do.

FreeProxy

2007-03-05T11:26:00.000+02:00

I decided to use only Ubuntu at office and home even if my VPN does not work in Ubuntu. The VPN problem was solved with a Windows XP vm that just connects to my office to get email etc.

My internet browsing was still a problem, I could not connect to the company via VPN to allow my Ubuntu notebook to connect to the company's proxy server. This I solved now by installing FreeProxy on a Windows XP box.

So my Ubuntu box uses the Windows XP box's proxy server and in turn the Windows XP box uses the company's proxy server via the VPN. So now I can surf the Internet using Firefox / Ubuntu.

As soon as bandwidth costs come down in good old SA, I will not need this proxy chaining anymore but until then, this approach really keeps my bandwidth costs down.

phpAlbum

2007-02-16T10:32:00.000+02:00

I recently had the urge to upload my favorite photos to my website, but the amount of effort required to do so was too much for me, that was until I was pointed into the direction of phpAlbum.

Now this library is really good. To test drive just hit my album.