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What I learn by day I blog at night.

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Thursday, July 03, 2008 #

Finally, all three releases for Subversion 1.5 Microsoft Windows binaries are available.

image

CollabNet and VisualSVN were available since before, today I finally spotted Apache 2.0 or Apache 2.2 Tigris builds, so I can start upgrading servers!

Thursday, July 03, 2008 9:28 AM, 0 comment(s)

Sunday, June 29, 2008 #

Development

Freeware

Fun

Software

  • I8kfanGUI - Dell Inspiron/Latitude/Precision fan control utility
  • iSpring - PowerPoint to Flash converter

System

Webdesign

Software Updates

Jobs

Sunday, June 29, 2008 10:36 PM, 0 comment(s)

Lately my Dell Latitude D820 has been running very hot and loud. I tried to help it cool with various desk and lap positions, but things went from bad to worse. Google search confirmed my suspicion that dust has killed it’s cooling capabilities.

I could take it to repairs, but that’s no fun. And since times at Vidmar family are very stressful, what better way to take mind off troubles that some“screwdriver fun!?

First, I ran I8kfan GUI, a free tool to monitor temperature and change fan speed of Dell laptops. My CPU was hot, and speeding or slowing down didn’t do nothing to the temperature. Another proof, that dust is was in the way.

Getting to the fan is not easy, as one has to:

  • unscrew every screw you find on the bottom and back of the laptop,
  • remove battery,
  • remove keyboard,
  • remove hinge,
  • remove display.

Luckily Dell provides instructions, so it’s not that hard as it seems. Instructions also tell that you should also remove hard drive, wireless card and RAM, but it’s not true.

After opening my laptop, this is what I found.

IMG_4569

This is how it will look after you take your laptop apart (glasses optional).

IMG_4571

After cleaning laptop is running 15-20°C cooler than before.

One more piece of advice before doing what I just did – there are three kinds of screws. Black, fat and short for hard drive, silver for display and black and longer for everything else. Keep that in mind when putting machine back together.

Sunday, June 29, 2008 12:11 AM, 1 comment(s)

Tuesday, June 24, 2008 #

imageIf news of last weeks was Firefox 3, this week, for devs anyway, is Subversion 1.5.

Big new feature is Merge tracking which should significantly ease use of branching/merging.

Upgrade should be easy. Upgrade your clients first, those will upgrade working copies automatically. The upgrade the server, which will run on v1.4 repository until you manually upgrade it. Some new features will not be available just using new server, you'll have to upgrade repositories too. This is not done automatically, so v1.4 clients can access it. Once you are read, simply run "svnadmin upgrade" and you are done.

For more information I suggest you read through Subversion 1.5 Release Notes.

Right now, Windows binaries by Tigris or CollabNet are not available yet, will have to wait few more days. VisualSVN server 1.5 is available. I use Tigris binaries, so I'll wait few more days before upgrading both home and work servers.

Also, all clients where upgraded. I use TortoiseSVN and VisualSVN so don't forget to upgrade those too..

Tuesday, June 24, 2008 8:47 AM, 1 comment(s)

Monday, June 23, 2008 #

imageLast month OMV (one of two big oil companies in Slovenia) started to sell OMV Sprint Diesel – a “new” kind of diesel with additives. They decided to give out 5x 100 l of diesel to bloggers with diesel cars in exchange for opinion. I applied and I’m currently driving for free! :)

DSC00339

I wrecked my Citroen C4 in meantime so it took me a little longer to burn first 40 l, but I was pleasantly surprised as my fuel consumption actually dropped a bit. A did little surfing and lots of people are finding similar results, so there must be something good about it, right?

Ever since I read about hypermilers and  Wayne Gerdes in Wired I’m kind of obsessed with fuel consumption. Currently I’m doing 4.8 l / 100 km (~50 miles per US gallon) with OMV Sprint Diesel.

4.8l / 100 km

More tests:

Monday, June 23, 2008 11:31 PM, 0 comment(s)

Sunday, June 22, 2008 #

Development

Internet

  • Google Analytics AIR beta - Google Analytics desktop client written in Adobe AIR. Where are this kinds of apps for Silverlight? I have a feeling AIR has already won over Silverlight. Too bad. :(

Kids

Photography

Slovenia

  • HočemTo! - Slovenian little “Think Geek” wannabe shop.

Software

System

Software Updates

Jobs

Sunday, June 22, 2008 11:27 PM, 0 comment(s)

Tuesday, June 17, 2008 #

I ran into an issue with my latest project at work that uses LINQ. I was upserting some entities and when I encountered a duplicate, I queried the database, but not the pending inserts of my DataContext, so my import failed with "duplicate primary key" type of error.

It turns out it's fairly easy to query those pending inserts too.

Lets have a DataContext and do an insert of a new Color entity:

DataContext dc = new DataContext();
dc.Colors.InsertOnSubmit(new Color() { Code = "F0F8FF", Name = "AliceBlue" });
 
Since we didn't do dc.SubmitChanges(), the following query returns nothing:
 
var r = from c in dc.Colors where c.Code = "F0F8FF" select c;

Enter GetChangeSet(). Let's count inserts:

int allPendingInserts = dc.GetChangeSet().Inserts.Count();
 
But we can have pending inserts of different types/tables. Let's just count pending colors:
 
int colorsPendingInserts = dc.GetChangeSet().Inserts.OfType(Color).Count();
 
And now we are not very far from querying inserted records:
 
IEnumerable<Color> insertedColors = dc.GetChangeSet().Inserts.OfType<Color>();

Console.WriteLine(
   
string.Format(
        "Q: Is color #F0F8FF already pending insert?\n"
+
        "A: {0}"
,
       
(from q in insertedColors where q.Code == "F0F8FF" select q).Count > 0));
 
Did I mention I really like LINQ? (except when crossing WCF, of course)
Tuesday, June 17, 2008 12:32 PM, 0 comment(s)

For all Firefox 3 fans who are asking themselves when FF3 will be released today:

Release is scheduled for 10:00 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time on Tuesday, June 17th. For Europeans it means we'll be able to grab it at 19.00.

Update: FileHippo already offers RTM for download!

Tuesday, June 17, 2008 9:27 AM, 2 comment(s)

Sunday, June 15, 2008 #

Development

Design

Internet

  • Free DNS Reporting - Another free DNS reporting tool. In beta, more results to follow. (link!)

Kids

Project.management

Sharepoint

Software

  • NexusFile - Norton Commander clone from Korea.
  • Photoscape - Free photo viewer and editor. Has some really nice features like adding borders, combining photos and more. Needs a serious facelift, though.
  • Cropper - Free .NET screen capture software.
  • Depeche View - Very interesting text searching software.
  • Speed Testing the Latest Web Browsers - War of the browser as heating again. FF3, Safari and Opera 9.5 are all looking very good.

System

Web

  • goosh.org - The unofficial google shell. You have to try this one. :) This just might be my homepage!

Software Updates

Jobs

HiddenNetwork.com Banner

Sunday, June 15, 2008 9:34 PM, 0 comment(s)

Thursday, June 12, 2008 #

imageWe all know football has low WAF. Having kids around doesn’t help either. So having a live stream on computer helps in this situations. Luckily, these days free TV is easy to find.

Start by going to some P2PTV portal like MyP2P.eu or WorldTvPc and search for live sports. Try to find a TV station with high bitrate, high rating and in language you understand.

Then, figure out which P2P video application you need. Most popular are TVU, TVants (translated) and SopCast. Download and enjoy!

Good choice for Euro 2008 is TVants and Croatian public TV station HRT.

All is not perfect, tough:

  • be sure to connect well before you plan to start watching as it can take several minutes before you get enough connections (this can be fixed on Vista and XP),
  • stream is also delayed for couple of seconds to half a minute,
  • I don’t know about other programs, but TVants has a band of Chinese ads on top and bottom of video window, but it’s not annoying,
  • picture will hand from time to time, and occasionally freeze, try reconnecting if it gets bad.

Warning: this is probably illegal, so it’s your responsibility if you step on someone toes.

Thursday, June 12, 2008 11:19 PM, 16 comment(s)

Thursday, June 05, 2008 #

Now this is so useful it's worth to repost!

If you need to copy query result in MS SQL Server Management Studio with column names, there is a checkbox in the options to do that. That should be really by turned on by default, imho.

Thanks you, Steven Smith:

A minor frustration I've had with SQL Server for years is that when copying the results to Excel, the column names are not included.  Well, Brendan blogged about this yesterday, and in a great demonstration of the value of blogging, he received a comment with the answer to this problem within a couple of hours.  It turns out this can be done by going to Tools - Options - Query Results - Sql Server - Results to Grid - Include column headers when copying or saving results.  Beautiful.  Here's a screenshot if you have problems finding it.

image

Be sure to check "Result to Text" to, since there is an option to include columns there too!

Thursday, June 05, 2008 3:32 PM, 1 comment(s)

A friend of a friend asked me to post this job offers...

Great Position Openings for Ambitious People!

Who We Are

We are an international gaming/betting SW provider. We are in process of opening an office located in Ljubljana.

Position(s) Summary

We are offering positions in

  • Java development
  • Flash development
  • Database development (Oracle)


For detailed description see below.

Send your ENGLISH CV & Cover Letter to: matevz2008@gmail.com

We thrive in fast paced international environment with great attention to detail. We are searching for additional (international) members for our team who are high –achievers, articulate, multi-lingual, positive, self-driven, and highly conscious of producing excellent work. Ideal individual must have strong communication skills, both verbally/nonverbally and be able to work independently as well as within a team environment.

Students entering 4th year of IT university and/any Engineering University programmes are also ideal candidates.

Above all we support the right person who shows an eagerness to learn, strive to deliver results and to add value.

 

#1 - Java developer

Function:

  • Server-side (no GUI) Java SE development, responsible for business logic and/or framework development (design + program + JUnit test + document).

Profile:

  • Experience with object-oriented design & programming in Java
  • Willing to work in a fast-paced environment (adapt) and learn new things.
  • Self-sufficient (able to work under a minimal supervision), sense of detail, cooperative and team-minded plus excellent communication skills.
  • Language: English

Environment:

  • Java 6 SE + Oracle 11g + RedHat Linux


Beneficial experience for candidate (not mandatory):

  • ORM (Hibernate) / JPA, JTA, JMS
  • building modular & reusable components (e.g. middleware/framework libraries)
  • building distributed solutions (JCache, Oracle Coherence, et. al)
  • concurrent programming

 

#2 - Flash developer

Function:

  • Flash programming in ActionScript 3 (client framework, e.g. multiwindow support, inter-window communication + business logic (features)).

Profile:

  • Experience with object-oriented programming (not design) in AS3
  • Willing to work in a fast-paced environment (adapt) and learn new things.
  • Self-sufficient (able to work under a minimal supervision), sense of detail, cooperative and team-minded plus excellent communication skills.
  • Language: English

Beneficial experience for candidate (not mandatory):

  • Adobe Flex 3 + Blaze DS
  • experience with Java
  • HTML/XHTML, CSS

#3 - Database developer (Oracle):

Function:

  • Create and maintain (take ownership) of the physical data model (Oracle 11g on RedHat Linux).
  • Mentor application developers working with database (what to do, what not to do).
  • Build and/or optimize (review) database DML/DDL requested/built by application developers.

Profile:

  • Required experience with data modeling and SQL optimization.
  • Knowledge of database optimization (OLAP, DSS).
  • Willing to work in a fast-paced environment (adapt) and learn new things.
  • Self-sufficient (able to work under a minimal supervision), sense of detail, cooperative and team-minded plus excellent communication skills.
  • Language: English.

Beneficial experience for candidate (not mandatory):

  • PL/SQL, Java SE programming
  • JMS, ORM (Hibernate) / JPA, JTA technologies
Thursday, June 05, 2008 1:32 PM, 0 comment(s)

Sunday, June 01, 2008 #

Development

Design

Fun

Graphics

Software

Sport

Software Updates

Jobs

Sunday, June 01, 2008 9:20 PM, 0 comment(s)

Monday, May 26, 2008 #

Thanks to PeterK (who's currently blog-less) I finally solved another software related mystery. Since lately my Excel has been acting strange - keyboard shortcuts were not working or were doing completely wrong things. Ctrl + C, for example was trying to add new rows etc.

I was very troubled since there is no way (or I can't find it!) to customize and see keyboard shortcuts as we are used to from older version of Office and other MS programs live Visual Studio.

Running Excel with command line parameter /S (as in "Safe Mode") solved the thing.

There is even MS knowledge base article about it Description of the Excel 2007 hotfix package: March 7, 2008, but the hot-fix is not easily downloadable.

 

Monday, May 26, 2008 8:29 AM, 0 comment(s)

Sunday, May 25, 2008 #

Development

System

Web

Software Updates

Jobs

Sunday, May 25, 2008 11:23 PM, 0 comment(s)