jmv.me

Single-site browser alternatives to Prism and Fluid

Julia Van Cleve — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 22:34:56 +0000

Lifehacker’s post about the Top 10 Mac Applications That Should Be On Windows gave a good overview of the various programs many people wish were in Windows. However, I just wanted to add that although Fluid is a great single-site browser app, there is a Windows alternative that is not Prism. (I tried Prism in Linux and wasn’t impressed.)

Courtesy of makeuseof.com

Bubbles is free single-site browser app for Windows. It’s very simple to use and even has a few added features to further improve the SSB experience.

On a related note, if you use Linux you actually have another option for SSB. Google Chrome’s Application Shortcuts are easy to use and configure (as a matter of fact, there’s almost no configuring needed).

Go to the page you wish to turn into a webapp
Click the Page button (The button that looks like a piece of paper)

Screenshot

Select “Create Application Shortcut”
Choose where you would like the shortcut to be
Click “Create”

And, there you go! You should have a webapp on your desktop or in your Applications menu that you can use. If you decide you don’t want the application anymore, just delete the shortcut.

One thing you’ll probably notice is that the icons Chrome chooses aren’t normally the highest of quality. However, Linux makes it very simple to change the icon image for any shortcut on your computer.

Right click on the icon
Select “Properties”
Click the icon Image
Search and choose your new icon image

Screenshot

Update: Google Chrome in Windows now supports application shortcuts!

Receive Gmail on your phone without a data plan

Julia Van Cleve — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 00:26:46 +0000

I spent the first two weeks in my new apartment without Internet. Thankfully, Gmail has e-mail forwarding which can make your Internet-less days a little less stressful. (Granted, in order to use it you will need to plan ahead and make sure you’re somewhere with Internet for at least five minutes.)

Even if you can’t reply to e-mail messages right away, knowing that someone has replied to your message, that class is canceled, or that something important has happened at work—there are many situations where this can be a useful thing.

Gmail has a feature which allows you to forward incoming e-mails to a given e-mail address. For instance, since I use AT&T, I forward e-mails to <10_digit_phone_number>@txt.att.net. You can find the e-mail address format for your phone by checking the website for your phone’s provider, or checking websites such as makeuseof.com.

Screenshot

However, this feature comes with a disclaimer. If you subscribe to lots of e-mail lists, alerts, etc. you will probably get quite a few oddly formatted, URL-heavy text messages sent to your phone. If you’re like me, and you’re using Gmail’s forwarding feature because you don’t have a data plan, you will need to exercise a bit of caution and make sure not to click the links. Also, if you get a lot of e-mails, you might want to selectively forward the “important” e-mails using Gmail’s built-in filters.

A new webcomic: Compulsive Liars Anonymous

Mini-project: PeeweeGen

Julia Van Cleve — Sun, 23 May 2010 02:41:00 +0000

I just finished writing code for a small password generator terminal application (called Peewee Generator, or PeeweeGen) that uses “/dev/random” to generate three possible password choices based on criteria set by the user. It’s not very fancy or complicated, but I like how it turned out.

Download the .zip and extract it to a directory. Open up a terminal and type:

cd "FILE_DIRECTORY_NAME" && ./peewee

For convenience, you can create a launcher on your desktop the following as the command:

FILE_DIRECTORY_NAME/peewee

Peewee Generator

Note: There is a file embedded within this post, please visit this post to download the file.

Update: Version 0.2 is released on Monday, May 24, 2010. You can download it here.

Distraction: Modular Exponentiation

Julia Van Cleve — Tue, 18 May 2010 05:07:35 +0000

While reviewing modular exponentiation, I got bored and decided to write this program instead. I have not yet finished writing my bigInt calculator I started working on a while back, so, my program only works for numbers smaller than 2^64 bits.

Note: There is a file embedded within this post, please visit this post to download the file.

Distraction: Euclid’s Algorithm

Julia Van Cleve — Fri, 14 May 2010 06:55:11 +0000

While studying for my Introduction to Algorithms final, I decided I wanted to take a break and write a simple program in C++ to calculate the GCD of two numbers using Euclid’s Algorithm.

Note: There is a file embedded within this post, please visit this post to download the file.

Congrats to post 607!

Julia Van Cleve — Tue, 11 May 2010 08:28:30 +0000

As of May 11, 2010 at 4:16 am, there have been 1,300 page impressions after a query of “how to do origami step by step” (without quotation marks). Average position after a Google search? 7.7

I researched this myself, skeptical that anyone ever actually looked at my blog. Granted, it’s not as if people are actually reading my blog, they just happen to like an image I created which gave step-by-step instructions on how to fold an origami cup.

Nonetheless, thank you for visiting my website and I’m glad you enjoyed my post.

Oh, and thank you Mom for teaching me how to make origami cups.

How to make an origami cup

RPI student government elections 2010

Julia Van Cleve — Mon, 03 May 2010 08:09:46 +0000

In the past I haven’t particularly cared for the Grand Marshal elections that RPI has. However, the drama in this year’s election left me curious as to what all the hullabaloo was about. The fun wore off, though. Here’s a general time line of the main events (I won’t go into detail because that would require lots and lots of explaining).

Primary elections for GM and President of the Union are held (April 12, 2010)
Primary elections for PU completed, GM primaries are nullified. (April 13, 2010)
Final elections for PU are held, GM primaries are redone. (April 15, 2010)
PU final results are released, GM primary results are released (Michael Zwack ’11 and Ben Hunt ’10 move onto the final election). (April 17, 2010)
GM final elections commence. (April 22, 2010)
GM final elections are counted.
GM final elections are nullified.
Plans for another GM final elections are announced—scheduled for May 4.
Judicial Board states that the Rules and Elections Committee were wrong to nullify the election and that the results must be announced. (April 30, 2010)
Hunt is announced as the new GM (May 1, 2010)
RNE claims they don’t certify the results of this election.

It was interesting to be a part of all this, but, overall, it has brought back the apathy that I temporarily rid myself of. However, the cause of the apathy is different. It’s no longer caused by indifference. It’s now caused by shear frustration which led to me not wanting to care anymore. Perhaps it’ll change in a year when the next GM election rolls around. Till then, good luck to everyone involved.

No related posts.

A new webcomic: Compulsive Liars Anonymous

Julia Van Cleve — Sat, 01 May 2010 20:42:14 +0000

If you’re into webcomics like xkcd, you may want to start checking out Compulsive Liars Anonymous created by RPI undergraduate Adam Bell ’11, firefighter, fencer and web-designer extraordinaire. The website is relatively new, so there’s only one webcomic posted, but keep checking in as I hear that more are in the process of being added.

If you like the artwork and humor of RPI, you might also be interested in Enjuhneer (created by RPI alum Jenny Blanchard ’09).

Congrats to post 607!

Daisy sprouts

Julia Van Cleve — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 05:54:12 +0000

This post may not make any sense to you just yet. I wrote an article in The Poly about a month ago about how my Valentine’s Day rose bush made me rush to Walmart to purchase Miracle Grow and a couple flower pots. I’ll let you know when the article is posted online, but till then, I have news:

My daisy seeds have germinated.

I think this started happening about a week ago. After weeks and weeks of no activity, my boyfriend started to think that I had purchased bad seeds. (Granted, they were from the Dollar Store.) However, I noticed a little bit of green around the edge of the flower pot. I thought it was perhaps a fungus, but I was wrong. This evening I saw about five sprouts; three of them were almost an inch tall.

Needless to say, I’m happy.

No related posts.

Bisigi Project designs quality Ubuntu themes

Julia Van Cleve — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 07:24:58 +0000

What the Bisigi Project lacks in quantity it makes up for in quality. After coming across a theme of theirs in Gnome-look I was went to their website, and was hooked. As of now, I have tried:

Exotic
Wild-shine
Tropical
Aquadreams
Bamboo Zen
Step Into Freedom
Ubuntu Sunrise
balanzan (formerly known as Ubuntu-fr)
Infinity (I used the old version)

I loved them all, though my favorite by far was Bamboo Zen, which works really well with the Google Chrome theme Zen Spring. A screenshot of my desktop is below:

Screenshot

Here are some themes that I haven’t tried yet:

As of today, there are 13 themes on their website. Back when I first found them (not exactly sure when) they only had nine. So, they don’t crank out themes every day, but they do keep their current themes up-to-date and when a new theme does come out, you can be sure that it was very well thought out.