2010 in review
The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

The Blog-Health-o-Meterâ„¢ reads This blog is on fire!.
Crunchy numbers

A helper monkey made this abstract painting, inspired by your stats.
A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 2,100 times in 2010. That’s about 5 full 747s.
GMail HTML Basic Enhancement in Opera
I just found that Opera 10 can also use Greasemonkey script, but it is actually User JavaScript. Therefore, I tried to use GMail HTML Basic Enhancement. But failed. This is because one needs to enable User JavaScript on HTTPS protocol first.
To use the User JavaScript, first set the folder based on this article, and remember to restart.
Then, at the address bar enter “opera:config”, search for “User JavaScript on HTTPS”, enable it. Yeah!
How to extract zip file which contains filenames with SHIFT_JIS encoding in Ubuntu
If a zip file contains the filenames which are Japanese, the encoding normally is SHIFT_JIS especially Windows. To extract the files, normal “unzip” will not work. 7z is a good solution.
The following commands are done in terminal. Firstly, we need to change the LANG environment variable, because the default LANG is normally UTF-8. Since the filenames are SHIFT_JIS, which is not UTF-8, we need to change it.
[code language=“bash”]LANG=ja_JP # Don’t use UTF-8, use “export” if needed[/code]
Joomla : CakePHP = Windows : Linux GCC
The followings are only my personal opinions.
Joomla!, a very popular CMS (Content Management System). Easy to use, a lot of extensions, free to download. Yet, not all the extensions are free. Some are commercial extensions. Some commercial extensions allow you to download for limited days of trial. Easy to install, easy to use. A lot of people like it.
On the other hand, CakePHP, not a CMS but only a web application framework (I mentioned CakePHP in this post because this is the only web application framework I used, I haven’t tried about CodeIgniter or Ohloh). Comparing CakePHP with Joomla isn’t quite appropriate because they are not same category. But for me, both of them are PHP and used to develop websites.
SVN - programmers' needs
Since my programming experience started from Microsoft Windows, SVN is a term I frequent see yet unfamiliar.
As a programmer, I need to backup my source code whenever I modified the existing source code. If I have any problem, I can restore to the runnable source code. Backing up the coding by using zip or others compression tools is not effective or effecient.
SVN can help to backup all the revisions of the source code. Not only that, it helps to solve the problem if a project involves several developers. Any conflicts of the coding will be detected. SVN can also be used individually.
Playing games with Ubuntu
Linux is a great OS. Open source and free. Can work as server or desktop. There are a lot of applications: office suite, internet web browser, email client, image editor, 3D modeler, games, online games, software development tools, etc. Using Linux, I can almost do anything I want just as I am using proprietary OS.
However, there is a drawback. If a computer cannot be used for playing games, then it will not be 100% perfect. Yes, Linux has a lot of free and open source games, but I feel that there is still a gap between free games and the commercial games. Though I may not use Linux to play the latest game, at least it should allow me to play my favourite game.
From Ubuntu to Xubuntu on HP Mini
Yes, again. HP Mini 1000 series, small screen, lightweight, RAM is not big. I like Ubuntu Desktop Edition, though there is Ubuntu Netbook Remix, it is not my favourite. Because I use the netbook just like a desktop, got a lot of developers’ tools, GIMP, etc.
Ubuntu, using GNOME as the desktop environment. I like GNOME because I like GTK+. I like GTK+ because I like C programming. Then, I read an article about Xfce, which is more lightweight thant GNOME. Which is also using GTK+. So I tried it.
sed, awk (gawk), and Perl
As a programmer, I like the Unix commands “find” and “grep”. They are too good. “find” to find the files recursively based on file name, file type, etc, then execute command towards the files.
“grep” is even more better, when I want to find some words in the source code, and I can use regular expression. Combine “grep” with “sed”, one can perform search and replace.
However, when I want to search and replace for multiple patterns, “sed” will be difficult to be used. One can write a shell script to perform the task. But “awk” (or GNU awk) will be a better solution for me. Write an awk script, can search and replace easier, and awk script allows to use variables.
Upgrade to Ubuntu 10.10 on HP Mini
This is not an easy work for me.
- Firstly, I download the Ubuntu 10.10 alternative CD ISO.
- Then, following upgrade using the shell script by following this article.
- Restart
No wireless device detected, cannot connect internet through WiFi. What the X?! I used this method before by upgrading from 9.10 to 10.4, but this time fail.
- Then use the broadband connect to the internet
- System > Administration > Additional Drivers
- Download and update certain things, I don’t know what are they
- Found “Broadcom STA wireless driver”
- Activate
- Failed! Ask me to check /var/log/jockey.log
Then I think I need to update everything, so I run System > Administration > Update Manager. Then I asked for “Partial Upgrade”, and needs to download about 200Mb data. Not the good solution. Search solution online. Then I found this.
JPrayer Clock awarded by www.FamousWhy.com
I never thought that JPrayer Clock will be awarded. But this is interesting. The “Famous Software Award” from www.FamousWhy.com gives me more motivation for the open source software development. Good!
