Using dynamic javascript in Symfony

This is definitly nothing average users or even average programmers have to know, but if you’re a Symfony developer this might come very handy and could save you hours of searching and evenings of frustration :)

Read the rest of this entry »

3 Comments

[Release] Last.fm for Artists 0.7

Many of you might have been waiting for this release and right you are, because it’s fully packed with improvements:

  • [fix] uninstall method changed
  • [fix] another try to avoid doubled entries
  • [fix] hide-if-empty was broken
  • [add] now the plugin carries some cool ready-to-use layout variants (fully customizable, of course)
  • [change] the built-in layouts now feature robust, CSS-driven tooltips
  • [add] there is a new special tag for variables %VARIABLE:<name-of-variable>:<value-of-variable>% which is only useful in built-in configurations and needed for things like API keys.
    • upon widget layout selection, this special tag is recognized and a javascript window pops out asking for the value. Up to now, only one variable per configuration is possible.
    • this gets used in the GoogleMaps event layouts to ask you for your domain-specific API-Key, which you can sign-up for here.

It is important that you select a layout (or write you custom one) after changing type or adding a new widget, otherwise the formatting would be uninitialized and the widget will be empty.
Read the rest of this entry »

2 Comments

[release] Last.fm for Artists 0.6.1

Finally I am proud to announce a new bright and shiny version of my Last.fm for Artists Wordpress plug-in. The highlights of this release include:

  • improved wordpress 2.7 compatibility (css, un-installation)
  • further clarified options layout: Users reported to be overwhelmed by the number of options, so I split it up in normal and advanced options, utilizing the built-in thickbox script.

So please download the new version via the wordpress plugin repository (or the cool auto-update function) and report bugs in the forums or directly here.

Upgraders pay attention: It’s most likely that your options get reset to default, so I recommend a backup. From version 0.6.1. on this should not happen anymore.

I’m planning to further de-complicate the usage of the plugin by including a few more sample configurations per widget type which might be selected via an additional option. Also I think there is a need for another widget type: “Top Tags” and/or “Related Artists” whose implementation won’t be very complicated.

~~~ Cheers!

No Comments

Fixing EGroupware

Recently I wanted to migrate an old and rather hacked installation of EGroupware 1.4.002 running on a home server to the bright and shiny version 1.6.001 on a webhosting server. If you are familiar with such stuff you possibly would have wished me good luck…

Anyhow, I ran into quite a few problems, for some of which I had to edit the source – and in case you’re also facing one or another of these, here are the solutions. Read the rest of this entry »

2 Comments

Move Completed!

As one or another visitor may already have noticed, I moved my webhoster and changed my domain. Also this site is now wordpress powered, allowing me to focus on content, not layout. I hope you like the new page and do not miss any important piece of information. If so, feel free to leave a comment :)

~~~ Cheers!

No Comments

One note on citations in ms word 2007

Currently my main task for university is writing a long paper about some description logic in context middle-ware stuff. Before I begun I had to make a decision: which flavour of word-processing-software do I want to use? Out of OpenOffice, MS Office 2003, LaTeX und MS Office 2007 I picked the latter, mainly because of evaluation purposes (and some curiosity I must admit).
And soon I stumbled into problems with the new built-in changable style of citations, which is for sure a feature scientists have long been waiten for. But if the about a dozen built-in styles aren’t satisfying you, it becomes critical. Read the rest of this entry »

No Comments

On touchscreen-only phones

I must admit: I’m a geek when it’s on small powerful PIM devices. After owning a Treo 180 since 2005 I wasn’t able to go back to standard boring mobile phones. So I was going to get the XDA mini from O2 Germany, which was one of the 1st generation touchscreen-only PocketPC-phones out there (don’t rely on that).
And as we all have to face the upcoming multi-touch-screen-hype started by Apples iPhone these days, I wonder why the hell everybody thinks this is the end of phone keys. In my two-year experience with a nearly keyless phone I need to clear up with a common mistake in rating those new LG Prada, LG Mobile KS20, HTC Touch, Samsung P520 and so on (this list is too long): Typing text is pain on those devices. For a demo-video and and overview on how keyless devices feel like, I recommend the article by Dieter Bohn on HTC Touch vs. iPhone, Part 2.
Regardless of soft-keyboards with auto-completion, vibration-on-touch and all other kinds of emulating real keys it will NEVER feel like typing on real keys, believe me. In fact, it’s not possible to write without looking on the screen, ’cause you never know whether you hit the right “key” or whether you hit it hard enough at all. I mean, it’s possible to write text, of course, and I did it for nearly 2 years now. But it’s definitly beaten by the feel of real keys. So my next phone will be the HTC Touch Dual slider, with a 20-key keypad.

Well, sure I am a fan of huge displays with touchscreen functionality and cool apps based upon them. But to make it short: When it comes to typing a text longer than about 100 characters, real keys are second to none.

~~~ Cheers!

No Comments

Sharing Confs on a dual-boot system – Part 1: Pidgin & Firefox

Recently I installed Feisty Fawn on my 2 and a half years old Asus Laptop and it works just like a charm (I really like those desktopFX). But since I have to use some MS stuff for university (like MS Project) and I get those progs for free (MSDNAA program) I’m using dual-boot on this machine. After working alternating in Windows and Linux I wondered whether there is a way to share some configuration data between both systems, since I use my favourite apps on both of them. Read the rest of this entry »

No Comments

Reincarnation of “University”

sketch of the flipper-table

sketch of the flipper-table

Within the last 3 or 4 weeks I decided to further develop a small game application for the J2ME (Java Micro Edition), a.k.a. a mobile phone game. I begun this one with 2 fellow students at university for some kind of practical exercise of the lecture “Java in Embedded Systems” and after about 4 to 6 months we released a working but buggy alpha version. Which was ok for the course but a unreasonable demand for potentially end users. Finally 2 friends of mine, who served me as acceptance victims, surged me to implement at least a highscore. This was enough motivation – I reactivated the project and added some features, removed some bugs and made it to version 0.6. And for your convenience, I attached the game, please let me know your thoughts. Read the rest of this entry »

No Comments