Pop Qvarnström: Attention Surplus

Hur man gör en god sås på nolltid

2016-03-11T14:07:00.001+01:00

Gör så här:

Stek något i lika delar smör och rapsolja, helst i gjutjärnspanna
Plocka upp det du stekt och lägg det att vila
Vispa ner följande i stekfettet direkt i stekpannan:

1 dl crème fraîche
½ tsk sambal oelek
½-1 msk konc kalvfond
2 dl vispgrädde 40%
½-1½ dl gott rött vin (smaka av)

Smaka av med soja, salt och nymalen svartpeppar och eventuellt mer sambal oelek

Alla mått är (om det inte framgår) ungefärliga - smaka av lite eftersom tills du är nöjd. Valfri Zinfandel funkar bra som vin. Antagligen går det precis lika bra med gammalt vin som du sparat i ett skåp för att använda i matlagning, men eftersom jag inte har provat det, eftersom allt sånt vin var slut, så tänker jag inte säga att det blir bra. Men det blir det antagligen.

Använd det här:

Smör och rapsolja till stekning

1 dl crème fraîche (fullfet)

2 dl vispgrädde 40%

sambal oelek

½-1 msk konc kalvfond

½-1½ dl gott rött vin

kinesisk soja (typ Mrs Cheng's)

salt

svartpeppar

Passar till:

Kött, potatis, svamp, grillade grejer. Inte fisk. Kanske kyckling?

Maven profile to control javadoc lint in java 8

2015-08-13T14:01:00.001+02:00

Building old projects with broken javadoc can be a frustrating experience after switching to jdk 8. Why? Javadoc errors are no longer warnings, but errors by default. This means that broken javadoc equals broken build.

The fix is, of course, to correct the javadoc. However, that might not always be reasonable for legacy code that still needs the odd change. One way to handle this for maven builds is to add a profile that is automatically activated if jdk 8 is used, and in that profile set a property that is used to configure the javadoc plugin.

Here is an example of how to do this in a base pom, providing the lint setting for all builds that inherit this one (and references the javadoc plugin).

<build>
    <finalName>${project.artifactId}-${project.version}</finalName>
    <pluginManagement>
        <plugins>
            <!--
                Default configuration is to not use javadoc doclint if building with java 8.
            -->
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
                <artifactId>maven-javadoc-plugin</artifactId>
                <configuration>
                    <additionalparam>${javadoc.doclint.none}</additionalparam>
                    <quiet>true</quiet>
                </configuration>
            </plugin>
        </plugins>
    </pluginManagement>
</build>

<profiles>
    <!-- 
        Profile: java8-disable-strict-javadoc
        
        Profile used to configure javadocs extremely picky linting when building with java 8.
        Java 8 javadoc turned on lint by default and promoted almost all warnings to errors
        Having the possibility to disable or configure this new behaviour is extremely useful
        for old code where you don't want to spend a lot of time on updating javadoc.
        
        Usage: add configuration to the javadoc plugin where you want to disable the
        pickiness, for example:
        <pluginManagement>
            <plugins>
                <plugin>
                    <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
                    <artifactId>maven-javadoc-plugin</artifactId>
                    <configuration>
                        <additionalparam>${javadoc.doclint.none}</additionalparam>
                        <quiet>true</quiet>
                    </configuration>
                </plugin>
            </plugins>
        </pluginManagement>
        
        Properties can also be combined (except for all, none) to selectively check for errors:
        <pluginManagement>
            <plugins>
                <plugin>
                    <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
                    <artifactId>maven-javadoc-plugin</artifactId>
                    <configuration>
                        <additionalparam>${javadoc.doclint.html}</additionalparam>
                        <additionalparam>${javadoc.doclint.reference}</additionalparam>
                        <additionalparam>${javadoc.doclint.missing}</additionalparam>
                        <quiet>true</quiet>
                    </configuration>
                </plugin>
            </plugins>
        </pluginManagement>
        
    -->
    <profile>
        <id>java8-disable-strict-javadoc</id>
        <activation>
            <jdk>[1.8,)</jdk>
        </activation>
        <properties>
            <!-- none: disables doclint -->
            <javadoc.doclint.none>-Xdoclint:none</javadoc.doclint.none>
            <!-- all: Checks for all issues described below. -->
            <javadoc.doclint.all>-Xdoclint:all</javadoc.doclint.all>
            <!--
                accessibility: Checks for the issues to be detected by an accessibility checker 
                (for example, no caption or summary attributes specified in a <table> tag).
            -->
            <javadoc.doclint.accessibility>-Xdoclint:accessibility</javadoc.doclint.accessibility>
            <!--
                html: Detects high-level HTML issues, like putting block elements inside inline
                elements, or not closing elements that require an end tag. The rules are derived
                from the HTML 4.01 Specification. This type of check enables the javadoc command
                to detect HTML issues that many browsers might accept.
            -->
            <javadoc.doclint.html>-Xdoclint:html</javadoc.doclint.html>
            <!--
                missing: Checks for missing Javadoc comments or tags (for example, a missing comment
                or class, or a missing @return tag or similar tag on a method).
            -->
            <javadoc.doclint.missing>-Xdoclint:missing</javadoc.doclint.missing>
            <!--
                reference: Checks for issues relating to the references to Java API elements from
                Javadoc tags (for example, item not found in @see , or a bad name after @param).
            -->
            <javadoc.doclint.reference>-Xdoclint:reference</javadoc.doclint.reference>
            <!--
                syntax: Checks for low level issues like unescaped angle brackets (< and >) 
                and ampersands (&) and invalid Javadoc tags.
            -->
            <javadoc.doclint.syntax>-Xdoclint:syntax</javadoc.doclint.syntax>
        </properties>
    </profile>
</profiles>

Making java use the system proxy settings

2015-04-15T12:06:00.002+02:00

Dead simple and old news, but I keep forgetting how to make maven tests fetching stuff via http use the correct proxy settings automatically. Here's how to do that (not only for maven executed tests, but for all java programs using HttpURLConnection and friends):

Edit the file /jre/lib/net.properties and set the value of java.net.useSystemProxies to true. Default is false.

Excerpt from the file with default setting:

# Whether or not the DefaultProxySelector will default to System Proxy
# settings when they do exist.
# Set it to 'true' to enable this feature and check for platform
# specific proxy settings
# Note that the system properties that do explicitely set proxies
# (like http.proxyHost) do take precedence over the system settings
# even if java.net.useSystemProxies is set to true.

java.net.useSystemProxies=false

Världens enklaste risgrynsgröt

2015-01-04T15:36:00.000+01:00

Och godaste. Och eventuellt långsammaste. (Men den sköter sig själv större delen av tiden.)

Prylar

Ugnssäker kastrull 4-5 l, med lock
Trägaffel
Mått

Ingredienser

1 l vatten
1 tsk salt
5 dl runda risgryn
2,5 msk smör
2 l mjölk
2-3 bitar kanelstång

Instruktioner

Koka upp vattnet med salt och smör i kastrullen. Lägg i risgrynen och kanelstången, rör om och låt koka upp. Koka sedan under lock på svag värme i 10 minuter.

Sätt ugnen på 100 grader.

Späd med mjölken och rör om. Lägg på locket och låt koka upp rejält men långsamt (kan ta uppåt en halvtimme). Rör inte om! Ställ sedan in kastrullen, med locket på, på galler i mitten av ugnen och låt stå i 1 timme.

Ta ut kastrullen, rör om och fiska upp kanelstången. Servera med mjölk, kanel och eventuellt lite socker.

(För den proportionsglade: 1 mjölk : 0,5 vatten : 0,25 risgryn : 0,5 (tsk) salt : 1,25 (msk) smör : 1 (bit) kanelstång)

Snabb och god vaniljpannacotta med syrlig kiwisås

2015-01-02T18:38:00.001+01:00

Ingredienser
4 portioner

Pannacotta
4 dl vispgrädde (40%, inget karragenan)
1 dl syltsocker
1 vaniljstång eller en tsk vaniljsocker

Kiwisås
100 g fruktkött från kiwi
0,5 dl vatten
1 msk socker
citron

Instruktioner

Pannacotta
Öppna vaniljstången och skrapa ur fröna i en kastrull. Spara vaniljstången till senare.
Häll syltsocker och grädde i kastrullen och rör ihop allting. Lägg i vaniljstången.
Koka upp och koka i ca 30 sekunder. Fiska upp vaniljstången och häll upp pannacottan portionsvis i serveringskärl (t.ex. vinglas) och låt svalna. Ställ i kylen när de har svalnat.

Kiwisås
Koka upp vatten och socker i en kastrull. Låt svalna, gärna i isbad.
Skala kiwisarna och skär bort det vita i mitten. Mixa med stavmixer till pure, men kör inte för länge - då krossar du fröna och färgen ändras från vackert grön till obehagligt brungrå!
Blanda ner kiwimoset i den svalnade sockerlagen. Pressa i citronsaft till lagom syra.
Om såsen blir för lös: låt den rinna av i melittafilter tills den har lagom konsistens.

Servering
Häll sås över ytan på pannacottan precis innan servering.

Alternativa såser: passionsfrukt (skrapa ur direkt på pannacottan), hallon (mixa utan socker, blir syrligt och gott).

Dagens smaksättare

2015-01-02T15:22:00.002+01:00

Vitkålsmos

Ingredienser
300g vitkål
1-2 tsk smör
salt
socker

Tillagning
Skär vitkålen i små bitar. Koka i lätt saltat och sockrat vatten tills vitkålen är mjuk, ca 15 minuter. Häll av vattnet och mixa med stavmixer vitkålen med smör och lite salt till ett fint mos. Smaken blir mild men mättande, någonstans mellan blomkålspuré och potatismos. Supergott som tillbehör till allt möjligt.

Veckans kycklinggryta

2014-03-30T01:06:00.002+01:00

En god och lättlagad kycklinggryta.

Ingredienser:
1 kyckling
3 kryddiga korvar (t ex chorizo, tre örter...)
2-3 buljongtärningar (grönsaks- eller kycklingbuljong)

3-5 morötter
8-12 gula lökar
2-3 vitlöksklyftor
1 rejäl näve haricot verts
3-5 dl vatten
3-4 msk maizena
olivolja
salt
svartpeppar (använd kvarn!)
en skvätt överblivet rött vin om du har
ev 1-2 röda paprikor
ev lite mejram

Tillbehör:
Kokt potatis
Grönsaker

Verktyg:
Gryta
Stekpanna eller wok
Vass kniv
Sax
Skärbrädor
Mått
Skålar

Tillagning
Skala och kvarta lökarna. Värm några matskedar olivolja i en rymlig gryta och lägg i löken. Salta lätt och låt löken gotta sig på svag värme. Rör från och med nu om i grytan då och då.

Skala och slanta morötterna. Lägg dem i grytan med löken och rör om.

Skala vitlöksklyftorna och skär dem i mindre bitar (tänk lillfingernagel eller så, men det är inte så noga). Lägg dem i grytan med löken och morötterna och rör om.

Skär korvarna i tunna skivor (3-4mm) och bryn dem lätt i lite olja i stekpanna eller wok. Blanda sedan ner dem i grytan.

Ta bort skinnet från kycklingen och dela den i lagom stora delar. Om du vill kan du ta bort alla ben och skära köttet i ätstora bitar, annars går det bra att låta åtminstone större ben sitta kvar. Bryn kycklingbitarna lätt i lite olja i stekpanna eller wok och blanda sedan ner dem i grytan med resten av ingredienserna.

Mal över lite svartpeppar, smula ner buljongtärningarna och tillsätt vatten och eventuellt vin. Låt puttra under lock på svag värme tills kycklingen är genomkokt. Koka potatis under tiden.

När kycklingen är färdig lägger du i haricot verts i och eventuellt paprikabitar grytan och låter alltihop koka några minuter till under lock.

Smaka av och tillsätt ev en extra buljongtärning och lite mejram.

Rör ut 3 msk maizena med lite kallt vatten och häll blandningen i grytan. Koka upp och låt koka under lock i ca 2 minuter, sänk sedan värmen igen. Om såsen i grytan ser lite simmig ut är det bra, annars kan du göra om proceduren med en matsked maizena till.

Har du tid kan grytan gott få stå och puttra under lock på mycket svag värme i någon timme, annars är det bara att servera med kokt potatis och grönsaker. (Grytan blir f ö ännu godare dagen efter.)

Sjukt god Janssons frestelse med ytterst måttlig arbetsinsats

2013-01-18T14:49:00.000+01:00

Mitt recept för en sjukt god Janssons frestelse, tillagad med tämligen lite arbete (förutsatt att du har matberedare).

Tillagningstid: 2-2,5 timmar
Aktivt arbete: 30 minuter

Vad du behöver
- 1,3 kg fast potatis, t ex Sava (oskalad vikt)
- 0,6 kg gul lök (oskalad vikt, ca tre stycken)
- 200 g Grebbestads ansjovisfiléer orginal
- 5 dl grädde 40% (utan karragenan (E407))
- 100-125 g smör (ja, riktigt smör)
- 3/4 dl ströbröd
- vitpeppar
- salt
- glasform ca 25x30x7cm
- bunkar
- matberedare med grov skiv-skiva och pommes frites-skiva
- potatisskalare
- vass kockkniv
- medelstor kastrull

(Laktosfria produkter funkar fint för den som inte tål laktos)

Vad du gör

Potatis
Sätt ugnen på 150-175 grader.
Skala och skölj potatisen. Strimla den i matberedaren med pommes frites-skivan (eller strimla för hand i lillfingertjocka eller pommes frites-tjocka strimlor). Skölj INTE potatisstrimlorna! Stärkelsen behövs.
Smörj formen med smör och lägg i potatisstrimlorna. Sätt in i ugnen i 20-25 minuter.

Lök
Skala, snoppa och halvera löken (dvs ta bort allt du inte vill äta på löken och klyv den). Skiva lökhalvorna grovt i matberedare. (Skiva från en snoppad sida.)
Smält en klick smör i kastrullen och lägg i lökskivorna. Salta lite för att löken inte ska få färg (gör också att löken mjuknar lite snabbare, och eventuellt att den smakar lite sötare, lustigt nog) och låt löken mjukna på svag värme, rör om då och då. Det bör ta ca 10 minuter för löken att bli klar.

Ansjovis
Öppna burken, men häll INTE bort spadet (eller häll över spadet i en bunke). Dela ansjovisfiléerna i 2-3 bitar.

Jansson
Ta ut potatisen ur ugnen och häll över den i en bunke. Smörj ev. formen en gång till med smör. Bygg upp frestelsen i formen med totalt sju lager: potatis, lök, ansjovis, potatis, lök, ansjovis, potatis. Potatisen ska alltså räcka till tre lager, löken och ansjovisen till två lager vardera. Häll på ansjovisspadet och grädden, och mal över lite vitpeppar.

Strö ströbröd över det sista lagret potatis och placera ut några smörklickar över frestelsen.

Grädda i mitten eller nedre delen av ugnen i 150-175 grader. Kontrollera efter en timme om potatisen verkar färdig, men räkna på MINST en halvtimme extra i ugnen.

Tips
Använd bra råvaror - riktigt smör och riktig grädde, Grebbestads ansjovisfiléer.
Om du är laktosintolerant så fungerar laktosfria produker med tillsatt enzym utmärkt (även om jag inte lyckats hitta någon sådan grädde utan förtjockningsmedel (karragenan/E407)

Ät. Njut.
Servera med lättöl och knäckebröd. Njut.

Canon Selphy CP-900 and Mountain Lion (OS X 10.8)

2012-11-28T13:56:00.000+01:00

So I recently got a Macbook Pro, delivered with OS X 10.8, Mountain Lion, installed. This is a lovely little machine. I also got, for my 40th birthday, a small photo printer, perfect for creating actual paper copies of photos of my favorite subject Gusten. This seemed like a perfect combination, until I discovered that the printer came with no drivers for Mountain Lion, no drivers were available for download from Canon and Canon support just told me I shouldn't have upgraded my os before checking what was supported by the printer. (Really helpful, considering I have not upgraded my os. Doh.)

Annoyed and a bit surprised by the unhelpfulness of Canon support, I scoured the internet for a solution.

The internet was pretty much as helpful as Canon support, so what I ended up doing was investigating the packages available on the CD delivered with the printer (as soon as I got my hands on a CD-reader, that is), and with a very small touch of text editor magic got things to work.

1. Copy the DRIVER folder from the CD root folder to your desktop.

2. Open the file SELPHY CP900 Printer driver_6.1.0.8.mpkg by right clicking it (ctrl-click) and selecting "Show Package Contents" (mine is in Swedish, so pic is in Swedish)

3. Open the file Contents/distribution.dist in the text editor of your choice

4. Modify line 10, and change the text "10.8" to "10.9"

Before change

After change

5. Save and close the file, and run the installer from your desktop. After the driver is installed, add the printer as usual.

Spotify beta for ICS - play/pause button works on bluetooth headsets

2012-05-16T16:14:00.000+02:00

I'm probably late to the party here, but YAY! Latest Spotify beta app for Android supports ICS, and acknowledges the play/pause button on bluetooth headsets/-phones on ICS (which for me means a much more useful MW600). Yay! Now, all we're waiting for is the song titles display etc :)

Resources:
Forum post with information about the beta
Download the beta here

Candy for me!

2012-04-18T14:30:00.001+02:00

Blocket arranged an egg hunt targeting programmers this easter, and when I found out on the 14th (deadline was 15th) I knew that it was the excuse I had been looking for: this was my opportunity to experiment a little with node.js! Since I acquired my node.js skills on the 14th and 15th, I might not have written my best code e-v-a-r, but still: place #17 in a list of 100, out of 5000 participants still feels ok. AND I get an egg full of candy. Woohoo!

(Om-nom-nom-nom-nom-nom-nom)

Wordfeud on Android ICE fix?

2012-03-14T03:38:00.000+01:00

If you are on the Swedish Telia network and have experienced the bug I wrote about earlier, there might be a simple fix: disable the proxy in the access point settings.

Open Settings, More..., Mobile networks, Access Point Names. Tap the access point you use (ex. "Telia SE WAP") to edit the settings. Remove the values for Proxy and Port, save the settings and you are done.

Settings - More...

Mobile networks

Access Point Names

Tap the APN you use

Note the Proxy and Port values? Remove them, or create a new APN without them.

Values for Proxy and Port removed

Save, and you're done.

So far, it seems that everything works at least as good as before. At least, since wordfeud actually seems to work on a 3G connection. Woohoo!

Browsing jar/zip files (e.g. javadoc) in firefox

2012-03-13T18:15:00.000+01:00

This is old news for most of you, but still: if you happen to have a local jar or zip with javadoc that you want to read, but you don't want to unzip/unjar it, just use firefox jar protocol:

jar:file://<path to your zip or jar archive>!/

(Sweet, I say.)

Things annoying me today

2012-03-01T15:31:00.000+01:00

1. Eclipse
How is File > Import, then General > Existing Projects into Workspace the most intuitive way you could think of for opening an existing project? File > Open is obviously a much worse way to do this.

2. Registration form at open.collab.net, where I am required to register to download a subversion client I need to have to be able to let eclipse integrate with subversion (which I really do not want to use, but have to).

Last name is required, but my last name is not allowed. No restrictions listed, btw.
Comment field, where you might mention that there might be a problem with the "Last name" field, is limited to 99 chars. This is not presented until after form submission, and then as an error.
"None" is not an option in the list where I can choose which products I'm interested in. (Now, if it had been a list of products I'm forced to use...)
After form submission, when my errors (having an unsupported last name and writing more than 99 chars in the comment field that allows me to) are presented, my selection in the product list mentioned above is cleared.
The letters shown in the captcha does not always seem to match the characters expected on the receiving side. Which of course makes me choose something other than "None" in the list of products again, since my selection is once again cleared.

Congratulations. In your database, my last name is now "Not allowed to enter" (which admittedly makes it kinda fun to log in, being greeted by "Welcome, Pop Not allowed to enter!") and you think that I am interested in a product I've never even heard of before. I really hope that is a good thing for you.

I have a son!

2012-02-15T14:45:00.000+01:00

Too much happiness to even try to describe it... My first child: http://webbisar.ltdalarna.se/?id=907

Wishlist

2012-02-06T13:25:00.001+01:00

This is mostly for me and partly for my family, but hey - anyone who wants to give me stuff for free should feel welcome to do so!

Updated list December 13, 2012, and removed mentions of other people.
Books

"En värld utan slut" ("World Without End") - Ken Follet (Also on my Amazon / Kindle Wishlist)
"Rule and Ruin - The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party, From Eisenhower to the Tea Party" - Geoffrey Kabaservice (On my Amazon wishlist (not avail as kindle edition currently))
"Saker min son behöver veta om världen" - Fredrik Backman (link is for danish binding, but paperback is just as fine - just doesn't exist at the time of this writing. Don't want this as an ebook though!)
~~"En man som heter Ove" - Fredrik Backman (link is for danish binding, but paperback is just as fine - just doesn't exist at the time of this writing - or e-book, of course.)~~
"Baby Blues" - Pia Hintze. Not available as ebook.
Norstedts svenska baklängesordbok
~~"Stallo" - Stefan Spjut~~

Stuff

Gastrolux Biotan Traktörpanna 28cm Induktion (http://www.gastrolux.se/traktorpanna-28-cm/27-0)
Wrigley's Big Red. Always a winner!
~~Dessert forks (Mom, you know which ones I mean - same style as the ones Maria got :)~~
Fjällräven Greenland Jacket, green (the classic skogsmulle). Slightly uncertain about size: M or L.
TwelveSouth BassJump 2
Nintendo Wii, used is just fine. If used, games I'm interested in are for example:

Mario Kart
Super Mario Bros of some kind
Zelda
Wii Fit
...

Xbox 360 (used is just fine, of course)

Husqvarna Automower Solar Hybrid, Automower 220AC or Automower 230ACX
Bose QuietComfort 15 headphones
Table Hockey game!
A new snowboard, since my old one decided to start splitting into two very thin snowboards, one with a top layer and one with a bottom layer, none of them with a steel edge... Preferably a freeride board leaning towards becoming a freestyle board, 150-155cm, wide enough for boots size EUR43.
Hackman Carelia dessert spoons + tea spoons (not coffee spoons!)
Rörstrand Swedish Grace 24cm white plates (no longer available as new :( )
~~Hand-held vacuum cleaner (for cleaning tables etc) (or something combined, like this one)~~
Ylleunderställ (wool long johns and shirt. Here is mighty cold weather.)
~~Sparkstötting~~
Silva X-Trail (or X-Trail plus) Head Lamp
Clocky (or similar) alarm clock
Other innovative alarm clocks
iZettle, either for Android/iPhone 5
Tissot T-Touch II watch
A barbell ("skivstång" in Swedish) kit, preferably with rubberized weights (that in a perfect world also have handles cut out)

Tools

Bosch PTS-10T (or GTS-10...) Table Saw
Bosch POF 1400 ACE Router (handöverfräs) (also here)

Ubuntu 10.04.3 Server LTS on Hyper-V part 2

2012-01-19T09:22:00.000+01:00

Adding a few details about the installation and the immediate things after installation:

When configuring the network, if you installed without a legacy network adapter, use eth, not seth.
The console via Hyper-V manager is painstakingly slow. To remedy this, blacklist the frame buffer module: add the line blacklist vga16fb to the file /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-framebuffer.conf and restart the vm.

[Re]sources/credits:

http://serverfault.com/questions/138110/ubuntu-10-04-server-on-hyper-v-server-r2-has-sluggish-install-and-command-line

http://jasonbos.co/fix-slow-refresh-rate-on-hyper-v-console-runn

http://screamingadmin.wordpress.com/2010/07/08/vga16fb-and-ubuntu-10-04-server/

http://solyaris.wordpress.com/2010/05/01/ubuntu-10-04-on-intel-driver-and-server-frame-buffer/

Installing Ubuntu 10.04.3 LTS on a Hyper-V virtual Machine

2012-01-18T18:01:00.000+01:00

tl;dr Either configure a legacy network adapter or skip installing any extra packages until after installing the Hyper-V kernel modules and configuring the synthetic network adapter.

I just made my first contact with Hyper-V on Windows Server 2008 R2, which is the virtualization environment of choice at the company I work for. The production environment for the service I'm working on is a Xen based virtual machine running Ubuntu Server 10.04.3 LTS, and we need a local test server with a similar setup. Installing Ubuntu on a virtual machine has never before been a problem (VMware, VirtualBox), so I expected it to be a smooth ride: there are Linux kernel modules for Hyper-V available, and in newer Ubuntu releases they are included on the distribution image. In 10.04 the kernel modules are not included on the distribution image, but are available separately. There are also a few brief guides to installing 10.04 on Hyper-V available on the net, but none mentioned any real problems.

The first thing I ran into was that no network adapter was found. This was mentioned in pretty much all installation guides, so no biggie - after installation is done we'll just install the Hyper-V kernel modules and do a little bit of configuration and the synthetic network adapter will be found. Next, I chose a few packages to install: postfix, postgres, tomcat. Installation started, a few configuration questions popped up for postfix. Then: BAM! Big, red screen telling me an installation step failed. Meh. Retried the installation step, same result. Meh.

Popping out to a console and checking the installation log (syslog, really) revealed what had happened: during postfix configuration, no network interface was found (as expected). This made the configuration step fail for the postfix installation, which in turn caused the whole installation to fail. Meh.

Solution? Either configure a legacy network adapter to use during installation, or don't install any extra packages (at least not postfix) until after installing the Hyper-V kernel modules and configuring the network.

Resources:
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/961.aspx
http://fawzi.wordpress.com/2010/05/03/ubuntu-server-10-4-in-hyper-v/
http://blogs.technet.com/b/pascals/archive/2010/05/03/ubuntu-server-10-4-dans-hyper-v-avec-les-drivers-hyper-v.aspx
http://blogs.technet.com/b/port25/archive/2009/07/22/introduction-to-the-linux-integration-components.aspx
http://blog.allanglesit.com/2010/05/ubuntu-and-hyper-v-the-paths-to-enlightenment/
http://blogs.technet.com/b/enterprise_admin/archive/2010/03/09/linux-and-hyper-v-the-easy-way-brown-and-serve.aspx

Wordfeud on Android ICE broken

2012-01-13T12:52:00.000+01:00

Since a google search shows no results, I must create one: currently Wordfeud does not work on Android Ice Cream Sandwich. Or, it does, but not on 3G connections - if you're on wifi it will work.

The error manifests itself by showing a small "Logged in" text, quickly followed by a series of popups (at least 3 at a time for me) with the text "Login failed Please try again later" and an Ok button.

Try to do anything after dismissing the popups, an error message shows: "Server error Make sure you're [sic!] Wordfeud installation is up to date. Error details: com.hbwares.wordfeud.lib.WerdFeudService$ProtocolException: Unexpected error type: login_required Message;".

Solution? Wait for Wordfeud to fix this or be on wifi.

Meh.

Email from Wordfeud support:

Hi,

We are aware of an issue with Android 4 Ice Cream Sandwich that causes problems with logging in to Wordfeud when connected by 3G, and are working to fix it.
WiFi login should work as normal.

Best regards,
Odin Borg Nordgård
Wordfeud.com

Bankid (Nexus Personal) on Ubuntu 11.04 64-bit

2011-06-11T00:02:00.001+02:00

Update 2012-04-11: Added download link for linux version of bankid, to bypass the "Your platform Linux 64-bit is not supported" that seems to pop up nowadays.

As usual, when I need my bankid it does not work. Usually this is because I got a new computer or installed a new OS or something equally disruptive to bankid functionality. Every time I have to search the internet for information on how to get it to work, and every time I find pieces of information in different places. That is annoying. Here are my reminder notes for next time.

What I needed to do:

1. Download and install Nexus Personal

This was straightforward: go to https://install.bankid.com/ and follow the instructions to download the latest version. Unpack the tar.gz file, switch working dir to the directory with the archive contents and run the install script (install.<version>.sh i) as root. If you get a message saying "Your platform Linux 64-bit is not supported" or similar, download the bankid application from https://install.bankid.com/Download?defaultFileId=Linux. (added 2012-04-11)

2. Copy my bankid from another computer, or get a new one from my bank if it has expired.

This was somewhat more convoluted: The linux GUI does not include import/export functionality, but refers to the program persadm. For import you use persadm import, which prompts you for a file name and, if the file is found, a password/pin for the bankid in that file.

I had an export file of my active bankid, with a name like (110502 20.47) Pop Qvarnström - BankID på fil.nge. Normally, you will have to escape the spaces and parentheses in the file name, so using command completion to get the full path to the file will generate something perfectly reasonable like Desktop/sticka/bankid/$110502\ 20.47$\ Pop\ Qvarnström\ -\ BankID\ på\ fil.nge. Sadly, copying this will fail. No escaping allowed in persadm paths. You need to provide the full path, no escapes, and the program does not support completion.

Easy enough to provide the file name, next up is the password. Can't help you there, but if you - like me - get an error even though you provide a correct password, the reason might be that you are only allowed to import an exported bankid once. Any following import attempts will fail. You will not get any hints about that in the error message: Error importing token.

Create a new export file and things will work.

3. Make sure that nspluginwrapper knows about this 32-bit plugin: sudo nspluginwrapper -i /usr/local/lib/personal/libplugins.so

Oh, and you also need to have ia32-libs installed.

Restart firefox and you should be good to go.

Skype problems on Ubuntu 11.04 64-bit

2011-05-30T01:49:00.000+02:00

tl;dr If Skype is refusing to start correctly, crashing a few seconds after startup, remove ~/.Skype/shared.xml and restart Skype.

Since Friday morning Skype has been acting up, refusing to start (or rather crashing after a few seconds). This caused serious problems for me, trying to manage a geographically dispersed team spread over several countries using skype as the main means of communication.

Starting Skype from a terminal gave a lot of error messages, mostly regarding 32-bit expectations and 64-bit files:

me@mycomputer:~/$ skype
/usr/lib/gtk-2.0/2.10.0/menuproxies/libappmenu.so: wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS64
(:13947): Gtk-WARNING **: Failed to load type module: /usr/lib/gtk-2.0/2.10.0/menuproxies/libappmenu.so
/usr/lib/gtk-2.0/2.10.0/menuproxies/libappmenu.so: wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS64
(:13947): Gtk-WARNING **: Failed to load type module: /usr/lib/gtk-2.0/2.10.0/menuproxies/libappmenu.so
(:13947): Gtk-WARNING **: /usr/lib/gtk-2.0/2.10.0/immodules/im-ibus.so: wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS64
(:13947): Gtk-WARNING **: Loading IM context type 'ibus' failed
(:13947): Gtk-WARNING **: /usr/lib/gtk-2.0/2.10.0/immodules/im-ibus.so: wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS64
(:13947): Gtk-WARNING **: Loading IM context type 'ibus' failed
/usr/lib/gtk-2.0/2.10.0/menuproxies/libappmenu.so: wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS64
(:13947): Gtk-WARNING **: Failed to load type module: /usr/lib/gtk-2.0/2.10.0/menuproxies/libappmenu.so
/usr/lib/gtk-2.0/2.10.0/menuproxies/libappmenu.so: wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS64
(:13947): Gtk-WARNING **: Failed to load type module: /usr/lib/gtk-2.0/2.10.0/menuproxies/libappmenu.so
(:13947): Gtk-WARNING **: /usr/lib/gtk-2.0/2.10.0/immodules/im-ibus.so: wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS64
(:13947): Gtk-WARNING **: Loading IM context type 'ibus' failed
Aborted

Reinstalling Skype or purging configuration did nothing. Installing a freshly downloaded version from skype.com did nothing. Checking the ia32-libs install did nothing. Bah. A bit of searching revealed the solution: remove ~/.Skype/shared.xml and restart Skype.

Now, if only the Skype statusbar icon would come back, or grow a bit larger than 1 pixel. That would be super, really.

Sources:
http://heartbeat.skype.com/2011/05/an_update_on_todays_downtime.html
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/skype/+bug/788573/comments/37
http://heartbeat.skype.com/2011/05/problems_signing_into_skype_an.html

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/skype/+bug/764473

sl -a

2011-05-23T16:58:00.000+02:00

Funniest find on my Linux box for a while: sl -a. I'm obiously a sloppy typer, and this beats any error message I've seen so far. You get trains! Install and enjoy.

Flash in FF4 on 64-bit Ubuntu 10.10

2011-03-27T03:52:00.000+02:00

Meh.

Flash refused to work with Firefox 4, wasn't even listed in about:plugins. Why? Because the linux download offered from mozilla.com was a 32-bit binary, and my flash plugin was a 64-bit binary. Über-meh.

Grabbing the 64-bit version from ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/latest-4.0/linux-x86_64/en-US/ did the trick. I really should have read the console output much, much sooner.

(LoadPlugin: failed to initialize shared library /home/popq/.mozilla/plugins/libflashplayer.so [/home/popq/.mozilla/plugins/libflashplayer.so: wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS64] was a pretty strong hint.)

Converting a 2-up PDF into 1-up

2011-03-23T14:34:00.000+01:00

TL;DR - If you want to split pages in a PDF, try briss.

This morning I downloaded a free PDF book, planning to read it on my Kindle DX. Most PDF documents show just fine on the DX with default zoom, but 2-up documents, i.e. documents with two pages per PDF page, tend to be a little hard to read without resorting to zooming and thus displaying only part of a page at a time. This particular book turned out to be created that way. That sucks, so I started to look for a tool that could split PDF pages.

Turns out there are lots of tools that can manipulate pdf's in all sorts of useful ways, but few that do what I wanted.

After looking at pdftk, pdfmerge, pdfshuffler, pdfedit, unpaper, poster and more, I stumbled over briss, which did exactly what I wanted.

Simple usage: start briss, open pdf, mark crop areas (each area becomes a separate page), save.

Note: pdfshuffler also allowed me to do this, but required more work: easier crop (creating a pdf with left pages and one with right pages), but manual merge (inserting a left page next to each right) in gui made it too much work for a document with several hundred pages.

Setting default editor in Ubuntu 10.10 to the reasonable value: vim

2011-03-21T12:45:00.001+01:00

Edited for spelling 2012-03-01 (title)

For some reason, the default editor in Ubuntu 10.10 seems to be nano. Why on earth anyone would prefer that over vim is a complete mystery to me, but luckily it's easy enough to configure this.

Assuming you have access to root privileges:

1. Scripted
Check for vim in alternatives and use update-alternatives --set if a vim alternative is available (will use the current value, not the "best" alternative). A 4-line script:

VIM=$(update-alternatives --query vim | sed -n '/Value:/ { s/Value:\s$.*$/\1/; p}')
if [ "$VIM " -ne " " ]; then
sudo update-alternatives --set editor $VIM
fi

2. Manual

Use update-alternatives --config editor:

sudo update-alternatives --config editor

This command will display a menu like the one below. Choose the number representing vim in your installation.

There are 5 choices for the alternative editor (providing /usr/bin/editor).

  Selection Path Priority Status
------------------------------------------------------------
* 0 /bin/nano 40 auto mode
  1 /bin/ed -100 manual mode
  2 /bin/nano 40 manual mode
  3 /usr/bin/emacs23 0 manual mode
  4 /usr/bin/vim.basic 30 manual mode
  5 /usr/bin/vim.tiny 10 manual mode

Press enter to keep the current choice[*], or type selection number: 4

3. Without root access

No root privileges? Resort to using the EDITOR environment value. Make sure vim is in your path and put this in your .bashrc:

export EDITOR=vim