The MercurialEclipse plugin doesn’t play well with the latest 1.9 release of Mercurial.
If you’re on Ubuntu, you can replace the “mercurial” package with “mercurial-1.8” to get the old version back (see Launchpad packages). Thanks go to Max Bowsher for a quick solution:
sudo aptitude install mercurial-1.8
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Posted by digulla
Many people own color printers today; they are so cheap, there is little point to buy a B&W model.
But I don’t want to print with color by accident. If you’re using Linux with CUPS, here is a solution: lpoptions
“lpoptions -l | grep -i color” will tell you what the color options and possible value are. My output looks like this:
ColorModel/Farbmodus: *CMYK Gray Colorreprod/Farbwiedergabe: *Printersettings Textgraph Textphoto Vivid Publications Lineart MediaType/Media Type: *PrnDef Auto Plain Transparency Labels Letterhead Bond Color Preprinted Prepunched Recycled Cardstock Vellum Envelope Rough Thick CoatedPaper Highqlty User1 User2 User3 User4 User5 User6 User7 User8
To change the default, use “lpoptions -o”:
lpoptions -o ColorModel=Gray
The first command tells you the new default:
ColorModel/Farbmodus: CMYK *Gray
CUPS saves these settings in the file ~/.cups/lpoptions.
Related articles:
Leave a Comment » | Software | Tagged: CUPS, Linux | Permalink
Posted by digulla
In his post “Martin Fowler on Software Patents“, Martin Fowler joins the growing group of people who argue against software patents in their current form.
Related:
Leave a Comment » | Software | Tagged: Law, Patents, Software | Permalink
Posted by digulla
If your Eclipse IDE suddenly crashes with an error in java.util.zip.ZipFile.getEntry() chances are that you’re hit by this bug: Crash in ZipEntry when some other process changes the ZIP File at the same time
Workarounds:
1 Comment | Software | Tagged: Apache Maven, Eclipse, Maven | Permalink
Posted by digulla
DSLs is all the rage but it seems the technology is actually useful 🙂 So here is some stuff that you’d probably want to know about:
Intentsoft created a workbench which can capture business information in the way the business wants.
JetBrains did something similar called Meta Programming System or MPS.
Want to know more about your own code base? Try MoDisco or Moose.
Lastly, using LL parsers is usually a big pain. Syntax Definition Formalism or SDF is another approach to define a syntax which avoids many of the problems of context-free grammars.
Leave a Comment » | Software | Tagged: DSL, Intentional programming, MoDisco, Moose, MPS, Programming, SDF | Permalink
Posted by digulla
“Turbo Defiant Kimecan” is a web comic which breaks some new ground. It takes advantage of the web, it’s slightly interactive to emphasize the story. Very impressive. And the drawing style is awesome, too.
Leave a Comment » | Fun | Tagged: Comics, Fun, Webcomic | Permalink
Posted by digulla
Images from Hacked IRL – Truth in Sarcasm:
Only non-smokers, please …
Holy Pencil, Batman, it’s so realistic!
Can ophidiophobes still ride this bus?
What really happened that night …
Awesome reflections …
Could be my place …
*MUNCH*
Recycling some spare axes:
I’d like a drug test on this camera, please:
Ewww … 😉
What pop-out books were supposed to look like:
Further proof for “one picture says more than 1000 words:”
Final liftoff:
Math can be exciting:
Punching holes into water with 16″ cannons (Iowa class battleship fires broadside August 15th, 1984):
I’m not a huge fan of the military but they do have some impressive hardware 🙂
Want to see more? Hacked IRL – Truth in Sarcasm
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Posted by digulla
Attaching USB keyboards to a computer is still a nasty business because you have to select the correct layout for it.
My solution: Add a special command to the keyboard which allows to download the layout (you get the key code and a symbol per key).
Since that is probably too simple (proof: the PC industry didn’t implement it years ago), here is a better solution: If the computer has a webcam, the user plugs the keyboard into a free USB port. This makes the driver activate the camera. The user can then show the keyboard to the PC. A simple OCR software will determine which key is where and load the appropriate layout. The quality of the OCR can be improved by analyzing the layout files and comparing them to the image.
If no layout can be found, the OCR can be used to find a very similar layout and then the few remaining keys can be assigned.
If there is no webcam, users can make a photo with their mobile phone or digital camera and use that.
Cool, eh? And best of all: This can’t be patented anymore.
Worst of all: Someone might already have a patent on this.
Leave a Comment » | Software | Tagged: Hardware, keyboard, Keyboard layout, Patently Unpatentable, USB | Permalink
Posted by digulla
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