Zenbe Lists has been down for the past few days and I am losing track of my things todo. Had a huge list of things to do on my days off, but… Anybody got any suggestions for a TODO lists program that works with iOS 3.0.1 and will sync with a PC? Guess I could always try a pen and a piece of paper, but I am afraid it will take me some time to remember how to use this archaic user interface.
Importing WordPress Blog Posts to Facebook/LinkedIn
Posted on: June 13, 2011. No Comments »I keep this blog (which I don’t update very often, but that’s another story) and I post both personal and professional (in the sense that it will appreciated by Computer Scientists) content. I would like to import all blog posts automatically from this blog into my facebook and linkedin profiles.
The thing is that I don’t want to post Computer Science related content into facebook and I don’t want to post into my (professional) linkedin profile all kinds of rubbish. I found out that it is easy to selectively syndicate content depending on the tags that I will add to my post.
So I added two tags, an import_facebook for posts that I want to be imported into my facebook profile and an import_linkedin tag for posts that I want to be imported into my linedin profile.
Then I installed the “WordPress” application for linkedin and I set as a feed url of my blog the following: http://kyriakos.anastasakis.net/tag/import_linkedin
I also installed RSS Graffiti for facebook and I set as a url of my feed the following: http://kyriakos.anastasakis.net/tag/import_facebook/feed
From now on any WordPress post I tag as “import_facebook” will be imported into my facebook profile, while every WordPress post I tag as “import_linkedin” will be imported into my linkedin profile. Before installing the WordPress and the RSS Grafiti apps on your linkedin and facebook profiled respectively, you need to have at least one post tagged “import_facebook” and a post tagged as “import_linkedin” for the applications to pick up the links properly.
When everything else fails…
Posted on: April 15, 2011. No Comments »This morning I came out of the shower and found my iPhone on the floor. I had forgotten the alarm on and since it’s on vibration, the alarm was ringing for quite some time until the phone fell on the floor. I picked it up and the home button wasn’t functioning, the speakers were dead and it wouldn’t charge. The phone has been like that for the whole day.
I just came back from work and I decided to use a novel approach based on strict scientific/engineering reasoning. I let it fall down again. I picked it up and it didn’t recognise the Sim card. Ooops… I switched it off, removed and re-inserted the Sim card and turned it on. It’s back to normal! The home button works, the speakers are loud and clear and it charging at this very moment!
That’s interesting…
Posted on: April 23, 2009. No Comments »We had a storm a few months ago and before the storm a number of lightnings struck the area close to where I live. I recorder a video of the lightnings and I noticed something weird…
The first image shows the view from our house. The second and third images show two lightnings. The third image is quite interesting, because the closest building on that image is around 20 meters away from where I was standing; and the lightning trajectory appears all the way to the bottom of the picture. It’s been ages since I last studied physics, so even if I knew how to explain how this happened, I have now forgotten! My thoughts so far:
- either the lightning struck less than 20 meters away from where I was. It doesn’t seem likely, because I assume I would have felt it striking so close. Moreover the clouds where the lightning started its trip [sic] appear to be far away close to the mountains.
- or the camera was able to capture the trajectory of the lightning behind the trees and buildings!
- or…
Image1
Image2
Image3
…?
Exception using XMLConfiguration
Posted on: February 23, 2009. No Comments »I tried using the Apache XMLConfiguration to save the settings of an application I am developing to XML format. When I used it with Java 1.5 it all worked perfectly; however if I tried using it with Java 1.6 I was getting the following exception.
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.AbstractMethodError: org.apache.xerces.dom.DocumentImpl.getXmlStandalone()Z
at com.sun.org.apache.xalan.internal.xsltc.trax.DOM2TO.setDocumentInfo(Unknown Source)
at com.sun.org.apache.xalan.internal.xsltc.trax.DOM2TO.parse(Unknown Source)
at com.sun.org.apache.xalan.internal.xsltc.trax.DOM2TO.parse(Unknown Source)
at com.sun.org.apache.xalan.internal.xsltc.trax.TransformerImpl.transformIdentity(Unknown Source)
at com.sun.org.apache.xalan.internal.xsltc.trax.TransformerImpl.transform(Unknown Source)
at com.sun.org.apache.xalan.internal.xsltc.trax.TransformerImpl.transform(Unknown Source)
at org.apache.commons.configuration.XMLConfiguration.save(XMLConfiguration.java:880)
at org.apache.commons.configuration.AbstractHierarchicalFileConfiguration$FileConfigurationDelegate.save(AbstractHierarchicalFileConfiguration.java:454)
at org.apache.commons.configuration.AbstractFileConfiguration.save(AbstractFileConfiguration.java:546)
at org.apache.commons.configuration.AbstractFileConfiguration.save(AbstractFileConfiguration.java:513)
at org.apache.commons.configuration.AbstractFileConfiguration.save(AbstractFileConfiguration.java:491)
at org.apache.commons.configuration.AbstractFileConfiguration.save(AbstractFileConfiguration.java:403)
at org.apache.commons.configuration.AbstractHierarchicalFileConfiguration.save(AbstractHierarchicalFileConfiguration.java:199)
After doing some search on google I found that this can be a problem with the xerces XML library (xercesImpl.jar). Checking the 3rd party libraries I am using in my project, I found a library that was using and distributing an earlier version of xercesImpl.jar.
I downloaded the latest version (2.91) of xercesImpl.jar from the Apache xerces project (http://xerces.apache.org/mirrors.cgi#binary) and replaced in the 3rd party library I was using the xercesImpl.jar file with the one I downloaded. Now everything seems to work fine, even in Java 1.6. 
YAP(Yet Another Post) on iPhone Annoyances
Posted on: June 13, 2008. 1 Comment »YAP (Yet Another Post) on iPhone Annoyances
A couple of months ago I decided to become the proud owner of an iphone. The one I got is the UK version with the 1.1.4 firmware. I am also still using my old (really old) nokia 6210, which is an (almost) 8-year old phone. I became annoyed that my 8-year old phone has certain simple features the iphone doesn’t have. So:
Things nokia 6210 can do, but the current version of Iphone (firmware 1.1.4) can’t (at least without installing any additional packages):
- View how many characters you have typed in your SMS message. This is really important.. Read the rest of this entry »
What the deuce do you want?
Posted on: May 18, 2008. No Comments »I recently went back home for a few days. A neighbour’s cat had given birth to four little kittens. Once I woke them up and one of them was really pissed off. I have never seen so much anger and a look of annoyance in a cat before! (S)He looks like he is saying: “why did you wake me up you*&%$?”. By the way, from another picture, it seems that this particular kitten has a mustache!
So much for AI
Posted on: March 7, 2008. 1 Comment »For the past 3 hours I have been cleaning up my desk and sorting out the papers I had printed out (yes, when I talk about spring cleaning, I really mean it)! Anyway, I was listening to last.fm, while cleaning up. I asked it to play similar artists to Mikis Theodorakis, who is an excellent Greek composer of hmmmm… “metasymphonic music” (the term is borrowed from Wikipedia). After a couple of songs of similar to Miki’s music, last.fm decided to play a necromantia song! Necromantia is a Greek black metal group. What is the similarity between “metasymphonic music” and black metal? Well both artists are Greek, but apart from that.. none I would dare to say!Last.fm FAQ on the “similar artists” functionality says:
The list of artists which you may see on an artist page as being “similar” is based exactly on our user’s listening habits. If a lot of users listen to Artist X, but also Artist Y and Z – Y and Z artists will become similar to X.
With a few added constants and other functions thrown into the equation to help make it more accurate, you’ll find that’s how Similar Artists are made.
The screencap follows:
Hard disk spring cleaning
Posted on: February 28, 2008. No Comments »It is time for spring cleaning my hard disk at home. I am sorting/deleting files that I no longer use. I will post here files that I do not need now, but might need in the future.
So… I found a small linux shell script that individually compiles every java file in a directory and all its subdirectories. The code is:
#!/bin/bash
for d in `ls`
do
javac $d/*.java > $d/compile.txt
done
The text file can be found here: batchcompile
A simple program for subversion statistics (subvstats)
Posted on: July 2, 2006. No Comments »Today I finished a beta version of a simple java program that collects the statistics from a subversion repository. I have created a website for the program: http://www.freewebs.com/subvstats/
It currently works by checking the whole history of the repository, finding how many lines have been added/removed in each file by using the “svn diff” command and creating an HTML report.
A sample of the report can be found here: http://www.freewebs.com/subvstats/samplereport.html
The program should work for relatively small repositories. As soon as I have time I will document it more and generate more statistics. And yes, I am thinking of making it opensource, but not in its current state. I first need to find some time to document the code properly and have a stable version.
Keywords: Subversion, statistics, package, tool, program, software, java, subvstats.
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