Updating Eclipse to 3.5.1 with p2

28. September, 2009

Maybe you’ve tried to update Eclipse to 3.5.1 and … you failed. Maybe it’s because the update site has gone. I’ve opened bug 290723. See you there.

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Posted by digulla

Adobe Flash 10 Just Sent me Through the Roof [Update]

17. September, 2009

I just got the latest security fixes for Firefox 3.5.3. Finally, the browser warns me about outdated and insecure plugins. I like it!

Top of the list? Adobe flash player. Hm. The page needs JavaScript. Guys, other people managed to build click buttons with an image without JavaScript. *sigh* “Temporarily Allow adobe.com”. Huh? What’s that? “Free McAffee security scan (optional)”? Optional my a**! Die, die, die!

So I click the link. “get.adobe.com tries to install software on your computer. Enable?” Sure.

WTF? What the hell is “getplusplus”? And what’s it doing on my computer? *lot’s of swearing and cursing that you don’t want to hear* I hate it when someone smuggles unwanted software on my computer. Adobe, if you’re listening: THIS IS MY F***** COMPUTER! SO HANDS OFF!!!

After a restart, I can finally download … ah, crap, again this stupid McAffee! *ARGH*

Ok, it’s downloading. *grmbl* … installing. Hm. Well? Now, what? Anything happening anymore? Let’s check … nope, FF is still unhappy and about:plugins says 9.x.

Again. “Installer was already downloaded”. Really? So why isn’t it installed? Has Adobe finally managed to write software that can lie? Great. That’s what I really needed first thing in the morning.

Okay, np_gp.dll obviously isn’t worth the disk space it occupies. But since Adobe managed to infest most web pages on the Internet with their flash crap, a solution is necessary. Here goes:

The download shit from Adobe puts the files into %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\*\NOS\Adobe_Downloads\. Replace “*” with “Application Data” or “Anwendungsdaten” or your local name for that folder. In that folder, you should find a file “install_flash_player.exe”. Save that somewhere.

Open the addons and delete “getplusplus”. Exit Firefox. Now delete “np_gp.dll” in the plugins folder of Firefox. That should get you rid of that unwanted crap.

Before starting Firefox, run the installer manually. Check the details. Make sure that the installer installed the plugin in the Firefox directory instead of somewhere else. On my computer, it ended up in Opera’s plugins directory. If that’s the case with you, too, then copy the files “NPSWF32.dll”, “NPSWF32_FlashUtil.exe” and “flashplayer.xpt” manually.

Start Firefox and open about:plugins again. Search for “flash” and make sure that the version is 10.x. To make 100% sure, visit http://en.www.mozilla.com/en/firefox/3.5.3/whatsnew/. The security warning should now have gone away.

[Update] Apparently, the download manager is a security risk. So remove it ASAP.

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Posted by digulla

Marketing in the 21st Century

16. September, 2009

If you ever wanted to know everything important about 21st century marketing (especially for software), there is a great 1 hour talk by Seth Godin which sums it up in a really funny and understandable way.

Note: The socks are great, aren’t they?

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Posted by digulla

Wanna Make The World a Better Place?

15. September, 2009

If you’re in the world improvement business, you’ve probably already heard about “microcredits” – money lent to people that banks rather wouldn’t call “customers”. Because they are poor. Most often, they are poor because they can’t get credit. That doesn’t allow them to buy something like a cow or a mule or some basic tools to start a business. We’re not talking about a lot of money, some of these people just need a few dollars. $100 can make a lot of difference.

Kiva is working on changing this. Take $115 from your Paypal account and help four projects ($25 each and $15 for Kiva itself) to make the world a better place.

“Die Welt ist freundlich, warum wir eigentlich nicht?” — Herbert Grönemeyer, “Lied 1 – Stück vom Himmel”

“The earth is friendly, why aren’t we” — Herbert Grönemeyer, from the song “Song 1 – Piece of Heaven”

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Posted by digulla

Powerful Wiki Engine for Eclipse

1. September, 2009

I’m toying with the idea to write a powerful wiki engine for Eclipse. What I have in mind should

  • Allow multiple markups (because all markups suck, so there is no point to prefer one over the other)
  • Should offer a side-by-side editor (source and preview because WYSIWYG is impossible to get right)
  • Should support automatic links (just like in the Java editor)

Right now, I’m not sure whether I should start with Mylin WikiText or Xtext.

Both look promising. WikiText support multiple markups. I just don’t like the two-page editor (where you have to flip pages to see what you’re doing). Also, I’m not sure how flexible the whole framework is.

Xtext would allow for much more complex markups but I’ll probably have to start with a more basic framework.

Links: Extending RIM with Xtext

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Posted by digulla

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