Category Archives: Quick post

Google Wave Extensions – Wave Toolkit

Update: You might find my latest posts on Google Wave helpful.
So I managed to join the select elite bandwagon that is the Google Wave preview, which entitled me to early access to Google’s new masterpiece and 8 invites to bribe friends with (although I only have a few, so the whole eight might not stretch [...]

Alt+Tab and Linux Window Managers

Regardless of window manager, why can’t I click on an icon to select the app I want to focus when ALT+TAB’ing? Or am I missing something?
Yes it’s used primarily for keyboard usage to prevent having to use the mouse, but sometimes I’m ALT+TAB’ing while I am web browsing to check on the progress in another [...]

Learning Scala – first impressions

So every year I learn a new language. It’s fun, insightful and leaves me feelin’ a fresh for new challenges in my new found religion.
This time round I’ve been learning Common LISP and now Scala. Being a Java programmer professionally it makes sense to try the latter. I love the idea of it being its [...]

Sony X-Series NWZ-X1060 Walkman, AVI/WMV Transcoding and Linux (Debian/Ubuntu)

Having purchased my awesome Sony X-Series and begun getting it to work with Linux, I was eager to begin using the OLED display to its full potential. Namely, video and lots of it. Most portable devices support the WMV and MPEG codecs and the X-series is no exception (WMV with/without DRM and MPEG-4, plus H.264 [...]

Sony X-Series NWZ-X1060 and Linux (Debian/Ubuntu)

Update: if you need to copy videos to your device with Linux, follow my transcoding howto post.
So I ended up having to purchase a new portable media player. I’d been used to my aged Samsung YP-Z MP3 player for a while with a broken screen; memorising the various menu selections to get where I needed [...]

Upgrading to Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope) from 8.10

Run update-manager -c (not -d anymore, that’s for development releases) in a shell/terminal. This is handy if you don’t get the upgrade button.

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addthis_title = ‘Upgrading+to+Ubuntu+9.04+%28Jaunty+Jackalope%29+from+8.10′;
addthis_pub = ”;

Xbox Live home network port forwarding

I’ve moved house and being nowhere near the router that connects us to the net, I had to purchase an Xbox Wireless Adapter (rip-off!). Once it was setup, I had to test the network connection. For some reason UPnP wasn’t working even when enabled on the Linksys WRT54GR, so I had to set up port [...]