Devign Blog

Share websites and promote your blog with SU.PR!

helmut — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 14:20:00 -0700

The guys from StumbleUpon have launch a service called su.pr. It's basically a URL shortener, but with benefits:

It can automatically post your URL to Twitter and Facebook
It puts the URL into the StumbleUpon database, so that people will find it while stumbling
It tracks clicks on the URL so that you can see how many people follow the link

It's a great way to either share an interesting site you found, or to promote your website. All you need is a StumbleUpon account, which you can easily sign up for, and away you go! Give it a try!

Linux, Extra Strength - useful plugins and extensions

helmut — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 14:29:00 -0700

A number of linux applications and tools are already extremely useful. On my installation of Ubuntu 9.04, some of my most used applications are Gnome-DO, Pidgin, and Open Office. Their built-in functionality is great, but you can go even further! Here are some links to find out about really useful extensions and plugins for these three tools.

Gnome-DO: 8 Most useful plugins for Gnome-DO

Pidgin: 10 useful Plugins To Spice Up Your Pidgin

Open Office: 8 Essential OpenOffice Extensions

Hopefully you can put these to good use!

Enjoy!

Pimp my Distro - make Ubuntu and Gnome look good

helmut — Sat, 23 May 2009 00:56:00 -0700

I've always thought that Ubuntu's default look is slightly boring. Not that it looks bad, but there's lots of room for improvement. Here are a few links to help you make Ubuntu look extra special.

Themes:

http://webupd8.blogspot.com/2009/05/9-great-gnome-themes-with-ubuntu.html: here are some of the best Gnome themes I've seen around. Great thing about these is that you can get them from the Ubuntu repositories.

http://www.clububuntu.com/2009/04/10-awesome-themes-for-ubuntu.html

http://www.techiesouls.com/2008/11/27/collection-of-50-best-looking-linux-gnomeubuntu-themes-to-download/

http://www.junauza.com/2009/04/15-beautiful-ubuntu-gdm-themes.html: here are some great themes for your login screen.

Icons:

http://www.junauza.com/2009/05/10-awesome-icon-sets-for-ubuntugnome.html

Conky:

Conky is a superb way to display a whole lot of information about your system on your desktop. For example, you could have visual access to information like CPU usage, memory usage, storage usage, network traffic, and lots more.

http://www.linuxhaxor.net/2009/05/07/8-beautiful-conky-desktop-monitor-setup/

http://linuxowns.wordpress.com/2008/04/04/create-a-custum-conky-setup/

Gnome:

For lots of visual and other improvements to Gnome, I recommend: gnome-look.org

That's it for now. I've got some more useful links for odds and ends on Ubuntu, which will come in my next posts.

5-for-1 book offer from SitePoint - help victims of the Australian bushfires

helmut — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 15:27:33 -0700

Sitepoint are currently offering a 5-for-1 PDF book offer. You get 5 of their books (any 5 of your choosing) for $29.95. That's quite a bargain. But the best part is that they are donating 100% of this money to victims of the recent Australian bushfires that have killed over 180 and burned down entire towns. So if you have $30 to spare, you like reading interesting material on web design and programming, PLEASE support the cause by heading over to their website and participating. It's well worth it!

Working from Home - you make it suck or rock

helmut — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 15:25:01 -0700

Recently two articles of contrasting opinions were published about working from home, the first concluding that it sucks, the second claiming that it rocks. I offer a third possibility. It depends on what you make of it. Like with so much in life, you have the chance to control circumstances and happenings with your decisions and actions. And when working from home, it is no different. Here's how.

1) Time. You could claim that working from home gives you flexi-time. You can work whenever it suits you. Most people would see this as an advantage. But it can become something negative, if applied to certain people. If you find it hard to start working each day, flexi-time may not be for you. Assuming, of course, that you WANT to be productive. If you are not forced to start working at a certain time, you may find it hard to force yourself. If you have the motivation, this isn't a problem, but not all people have that motivation all the time. Self-discipline is what is needed here. If you don't have it, working from home can be difficult.

2) Loneliness. Working from home doesn't provide you with much inter-personal contact. Everyone craves human contact. So you can just sit at home, day in and day out, going through the same routine, becoming more depressed with every passing day, until you are no longer producing anything of value. Or... you can work hard during the day and then do things with other people in the evenings. And if you don't have any friends, then you have the opportunity to find some. It's your choice.

3) Flexibility. You can do what you want. Whether this is positive or negative really depends on your decisions. If you want to play games all day, that's your choice. But if you want to work on a project you are passionate about, you can actually achieve something. Of course self-discipline plays a role again. Without it, you could find yourself wasting a lot of time. With it, you could potentially be very productive.

I worked from home for 3 and a half years. It was a great time, but there were both ups and downs. I am not the most self-disciplined person, so sometimes I had trouble actually getting going in the mornings. Often I would only start getting things done in the afternoon. But with time I learnt.

Loneliness sometimes became a factor, but mostly I went out in the evenings and kept myself busy by socialising with close friends, or mostly with my girlfriend (now wife). And I know what some people will say here. "You are just lucky that you had a girlfriend!" I wasn't lucky, but rather fortunate. And I wouldn't be married to her today if I hadn't pursued her. It was a direct consequence of my actions. She didn't just fall into my lap. I persisted.

While working from home, I seldom had the chance to do only what I wanted. I took on almost all the jobs I got offered, otherwise I wouldn't have survived financially. So there were a lot of jobs I didn't particularly WANT to do, but which I HAD to do. And that didn't help with the motivation. That was part of the reason why decided to work for a company again and leave freelancing behind. And I'm glad I made that move. It allowed me to re-assess my situation and think about what I want to do with my career.

At the moment, I am still a full-time employee, and I enjoy it. But I do miss certain things about working from home. It is quite nice being able to go out on short notice, or take holiday when you want. But if I do work from home again one day, it will not be as a freelancer (taking on projects from other people), but rather as an innovator, working on projects that I conceive. For me that will already solve a big part of the problem. But until that day comes, I have a long journey ahead, to get to the point where such a "business" can support me and my family.

In short, I don't believe it's so clear-cut whether working from home sucks or rocks. It depends on a lot of things. But I know that if you want to, you can MAKE it rock.

8 techniques and tools to be more productive in Windows

helmut — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 22:51:00 -0700

Some people don't realise that they can probably speed up their productivity quite dramatically while working on the computer, just by using a few tools and techniques that are freely available on the Internet. I myself make use of all the items below and recommend each and every one of them. I've certainly noticed an increase in productivity due to time-savings directly resulting from the tools/techniques below. Hope these can help you too.

Combine all you IM clients into a single application. Pidgin lets you add the most popular IM networks (e.g. MSN Messenger, Google Talk, Yahoo Messenger, ICQ) to its client, allowing you to communicate with your friends and colleagues through one application.
Use tabs in Explorer instead of navigating back and forth between folders. QTTabBar is an extension for Explorer that allows you to do just this. Save some time by clicking on the tab you need instead of scrolling to find the folder you had open earlier.
Manage your e-mail more efficiently by using GMail. GMail lets you manage multiple e-mail accounts, all through a single interface. Instead of dropping e-mails into folders, you assign labels. This allows for greater flexibility with sorting. And when you're looking for something, GMail's search is more powerful than most other e-mail client search functions.
Make desktop applications of your most popular web apps. Bubbles turns any web application into a desktop app that can be minimized to the system tray. This is especially convenient for things like GMail, Google Calendar, and many other web sites. No need to keep your browser open all the time anymore.
Track the time you spend on your activities. SlimTimer is a web app (works well when used with Bubbles) that lets you track what you do, and then view reports on where your time has gone. For freelancers this also lets you track time spent on individual projects and tasks.
Use an application/quick launch tool. Instead of going through the start menu, access your most frequent applications easily by using a quick-launch tool. Windows has a quick-launch toolbar integrated, which can help already, but there are other "launchers" available too, e.g. RocketDock, Launchy.
Speed up your computer by cleaning out unnecessary registry entries. CCleaner and RegSeeker are both excellent in eliminating registry entries that have been left behind and are no longer needed.
Start using shortcut keys to speed up your computer use. Windows has several shortcut keys pre-defined that launch things like Explorer, the Run command, and other useful tools.

This is a basic overview of how you can improve your productivity, but I will be going into more detail on each of these items over the next weeks. I will explain the setup and use of each, and how exactly the product can benefit you. Please subscribe to the RSS feed (link available to the right) of this site if you want to be notified when each of these posts get published.

Technorati: Productivity Tools

Windows 7 Beta: Get away from me!

helmut — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 00:14:40 -0700

Recently Microsoft released the beta version of Windows 7 to the public. This marks quite a significant milestone in the development of their next version of Windows. Many people have decided to skip Vista and wait for the next Windows. The wait is almost over. But not for me! Because I've decided to give Windows a miss - completely! I currently use XP on my laptop, but that's as far as it goes. I will not buy any version of Windows for my personal use again. Here's why.

Since Windows Vista came out and people started complaining about it, I decided to start looking at alternatives. A friend of mine introduced me to Ubuntu a while back, but at the time I had lost interest quite quickly. So now I decided to try it again. My friend was kind enough to give me a copy of the latest version, and I installed it on a virtual machine. Not bad... I could see some clear improvements. And an even newer version was to be released soon. When that arrived, I set up a dual-boot environment on my home PC to further get into Ubuntu. And I liked what I saw. But I digress. I subsequently decided to move towards Linux more and more, and eventually completely leave Windows behind. Here's what I like about Linux, and especially Ubuntu:

It's free
You get regular updates, and not just patches
You have a choice of Window Managers
You can customize almost anything from the interface to the functionality
There is a multitude of open source programs to choose from (all free)
The Linux community is simply awesome and always willing to help
You don't feel "walled in"

When the Windows 7 beta was released, I was curious, I must admit. I wondered, and still do, what it's like. From all the positive reports I've seen it looks like Microsoft has done something right this time. But I'm not going to cave. I'm not going to risk falling into this trap, and end up saying, "Maybe Windows isn't so bad after all. Maybe I can use it a little longer." I choose to walk another path. I choose to have a choice.

Review: Nokia 5310 XpressMusic

helmut — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 15:44:00 -0700

Introduction

The Nokia 5310 is a solid mid-range release from Nokia that puts a focus on music and multimedia. I was looking to replace my older Samsung E370 recently and was quite impressed with the specs on the 5310. After having used the phone for about a month now, I feel I've made the right choice. Here are some of my thoughts.

Features

The 5310 features quite an array of attractive functions that will appeal to a number of people. Here are my favourites:

Built-in music and video player: the phone is geared towards music and doesn't disappoint. Music-lovers can easily upload their favourite music to the phone, and listen to a high-quality sound. The player also provides an equalizer, allowing you to adjust the sound to your taste. Video is also possible, if slightly more tricky to get it to play on the phone (a guide can be found here).
Integrated music navigation keys: the phone has three dedicated music keys next to the display, which can be used to control the play of music at any point. No need to go into the music player application to pause the song, or skip to the next or previous track.
Slick menu navigation: the phone has a well-designed menu system that can be customized to your liking, with a number of themes built into the phone. Additional themes can be downloaded. Animated screensavers are also available.
Standard ear-phone jack: if you don't like the ear-phones that come with the phone, you can plug in any ear-phones with the standard audio 3.5mm connector. I'm using in-ear headphones instead of the stock ear-phones, and it works great.
Data cable and software: There is a comprehensive software suite that comes with the package. Using this software, you can interact with the phone in numerous ways, while the phone is connected with the included data cable.
Games: There is a selection of 3 built-in games. Some demo versions are installed, but are very limited in terms of usability. You can easily buy and download the full versions, though. There is also a comprehensive list of other popular games to purchase.
Micro-SD card slot: The phone's built-in memory can be extended with any standard micro-SD memory card. The phone comes standard with a 2GB card, which provides a good amount of storage to start with.
Organizer: The phones organizer is quite comprehensive and allows you to add appointments, to-do lists, and notes. Reminders and alarms are also very easy to set up.
Ringtones: The Nokia 5310 comes preloaded with a diverse selection of ringtones. More can be downloaded if this selection does not satisfy your taste.
XpressMusic: This Nokia service provides you with a library of songs that are downloadable either free or at a nominal cost, depending on the deal your phone came with.
2MP camera: the camera is fine for medium-sized pictures, but doesn't excel in quality. Saving of photos is also quite slow. The camera is, in my opinion, the only sub-par feature this phone offers.

Who will like it?

If you listen to music on the go quite often, this phone is for you. It's made for music-lovers on the move. Having a combination of phone and MP3 player in one device lets you carry around fewer things. The phone is also quite light and can be handled well.

Who won't like it?

If you need more advanced, PDA functionality in your mobile, this phone is not for you. While it offers a basic set of functions (including even e-mail), it does not provide you with advanced e-mailing, spreadsheets, word processing, or similar software. If that's something that you depend on, you should rather look at getting a Blackberry or an iPhone.

Conclusion

So far I'm very impressed with this mobile phone. It has given me no major grief so far, and I'm enjoying the music-related functions it provides. Overall the phone looks stylish, is not too big, and just works for my purposes. This makes it one of my best mobile phone purchases ever.

Accessories

To get even more out of your phone, there are a number of accessories you can purchase. Here are a few that I would recommend.

Mobile Phones

Converting videos for MP4 compatible mobile devices

helmut — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 18:41:00 -0700

A few months ago I wrote an article about converting videos for the Samsung YP-S3 MP3 player. But it seems that people are still having problems, despite my recommendations. I've done some more research, and would like to go into more detail this time. Video conversion seems to be a tricky issue that almost no mobile device manufacturer has mastered completely. Scores of people have problems converting files for particular devices. Recently I also tried to convert videos to play on the Nokia 5310. This proved to be tricky as well, but I finally discovered a method that works for the Nokia as well as the Samsung mentioned above. Here's what I did.

I used a freeware program called ABC 3GP converter. This program, configured correctly, allowed me to convert videos to a format that works on both of my mobile devices. Once you've downloaded and installed ABC 3GP Converter, follow these steps:

Open the ABC 3GP Converter program.
From the File menu, select "Add (Auto Detect)".
Select the file you would like to convert, and click "Open".
Underneath "Output Options" on the right, select your Output Folder, and specify a File Name for the converted video.
Make sure "Merge Into One File" is checked.
For "Format", select "MP4".
For "Video Size", select "176x144".
For "Bitrate(kbps)", select "128".
For "Frame rate", select "15".
Under Audio Settings, select "64" for "Bitrate(kbps)".
For "Sample rate(Hz)", select "44100".
Now the settings are complete. Click on the "Start Convert" button in the toolbar (last button).
Once this process is complete, you have your converted file.

Now that you have your converted file, it's time to transfer it to your mobile device. For the Nokia 5310, copying the file to the device through the File Manager application will to the trick. It needs to go into the "Video Clips" folder. For the Samsung YP-S3, you will need to load EmoDio, and transfer the file via that interface. If you are asked for any conversion settings, just accept the default values. Once this is completed, you should be able to view the video clip on your device.

I've tested this method on both devices mentioned in this article, and have had good results. This method may not work for everyone, because the codec of your original video clip could be different to what I used. But in most cases, it should work.

Locking shared objects in .NET

devignadmin — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 23:56:27 -0700

If you have a shared (static) object in a class, and multiple threads handle this object, potentially at the same time, you might run into some problems. For example, let's say you have a shared collection of items. Now you might have a method to add an item, a method to remove an item, and a method to retrieve an item. But what happens when one thread removes the item that another thread is busy retrieving? You might get an "Index out of range" exception. But how can one prevent this? By using locks. In VB.NET, we have SyncLock. This is mainly used to prevent two threads or instances of a class running the same piece of code at the same time. But it can also be used to lock specific objects, so that only one thread or instance changes that object at a time. Let's look at an example.

Let's declare our shared object, and a special object, used to lock the critical parts.

        1: Private Shared ItemList As New ArrayList

       2: Private Shared LockObject As New Object

Next, let's setup some methods to handle this object.

       1: Public Sub AddItem(ByVal obj As Object)

       2:     SyncLock LockObject

       3:         ItemList.Add(obj)

       4:     End SyncLock

       5: End Sub

       6:  

       7: Public Function GetItem(ByVal i As Integer) As Object

       8:     SyncLock LockObject

       9:         If (i >= 0) And (i < ItemList.Count) Then

      10:             Return ItemList(i)

      11:         End If

      12:     End SyncLock

      13: End Function

The code will look similar to remove an item from the list.

The trick is to make the locking object shared as well. This means that when a thread wants to do anything to our shared object, it has to wait until LockObject is not locked by any other thread. That should prevent any conflicts.

If you have any suggestions about improving the code, or have an interesting thought, please leave a comment below.