PawEng

How to Sign Up For an iTunes Account without a Credit Card

PawEng — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 00:22:00 +0000

So you want to create an iTunes account to download the latest free iPhone apps from Apple’s App Store? The only catch is that it requires you to enter a credit card number. If you prefer not to give Apple your credit card info at this time (or some other way of getting your money), you won’t be able to open an account… that is, unless you follow the simple directions at instructables.

A Simple Programming Language for Android

PawEng — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 11:20:52 +0000

Google has created a new language for writing programs for their Android mobile platform. The language is called Simple and it resembles BASIC as can be seen from the Simple Language Definition (pdf).

By making it easy to write programs for Android, Google may attract more developers to their mobile platform. That would be a nice boost for Android in a time where most people are talking about iPhones and the new Palm Pre.

Simple is still work in progress and may have bugs and limitations. It is free to use.

Travel Etiquette

PawEng — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 12:08:22 +0000

As you are traveling around the world, knowing a bit about your host country can be valuable. It can help you avoid embarrassing situations or it can help you close that business deal.

This is where websites like Travel Etiquette (via Lifehacker) or Buzzle come in handy. The descriptions for the countries and cultures I personally know are very good and precise, and I would definitely recommend everyone to read up on the places you will be visiting.

How To Change File Name Extensions

PawEng — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 22:36:01 +0000

Changing the extension on a file can be very useful, but Windows does not make it easy. However, if you turn on “show file name extensions” in Windows, you can change the extensions by simply renaming the files.

Microsoft explains how to show or hide file name extensions on Vista. And Media College explains how to change a file extension in Windows XP.

Revision Control Made Simple with FileHamster

PawEng — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 13:25:45 +0000

Revision control systems (Wikipedia) manage multiple versions or revisions of documents. It is often used by software developers to manage their source code, but it can be useful for anyone. Have you ever made a change to a document, saved it, and later wished you had an earlier version of it? If so then you may want to consider using a revision control system. Full-blown revision control systems allow multiple people to work on multiple branches of the same files at the same time, and it is possible to track who made what change and when it was made.

A full revision control system is overkill for single-user systems like most PCs. This is where Mogware’s FileHamster comes in. It automates the revision control process and runs it in the background. Their slogan “Always working so you don’t have to” says it all. They track revisions to you files and saves them for you, and it all happens automatically.

Setup is easy. You download the program and install it. Then FileHamster asks you where you want to keep your revisions. You can choose any internal or external hard disk you want. I chose an SD card that I always keep in my laptop. Next you select the files you want to track. You can select directories or individual files. That is it. There are lots of options to control how and when the revisions are made. For example, you can create a new revision every time a file has changed, or you can specify a time delay so that at least, say, 10 minutes must pass before a new revision is created.

FileHamster lets you browse all your revisions, and you can restore revisions of individual files. I have not found a way to restore all files in a directory at once.

FileHamster supports plugins. There are plugins for storing your revisions in a compressed (zip) format, for storing revisions on an ftp server, and more.

Mogware’s FileHamster runs on Windows. The basic version is free. Mogware is currently having a sale where they offer 50% off on all paid versions of FileHamster and paided plugins.

Symbolic Links in Windows

PawEng — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 01:41:06 +0000

Symbolic links are used all the time on Linux and Unix systems, but I didn’t know they existed on Windows. It turns out, however, that Windows 2000 and higher also supports symbolic links — or junctions as they are called. You can use the program Junction v1.05 to create a link between two directories.

This comes in handy if you need to map a path from one machine to a path on another machine. For example, I have Perl CGI scripts that I run on both my Windows laptop and on a Linux server. I have been changing the shebang line from #!/usr/bin/perl to #!C:/perl/bin/perl. Using junctions, I can now simply link C:/perl to C:/usr, and the #!/usr/bin/perl line will work on both Windows and Linux.

I found this solution on Thierry Bothorel’s web page Symbolic links in Windows.

Move and Resize Windows with WindowsPad

PawEng — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 11:21:16 +0000

Windows XP and Vista offer only limited ways to control window placement and size on your screen. Sometimes the built-in features are not enough. For example, on my Windows XP laptop, I use one screen resolution on the laptop screen and another screen resolution on the monitor attached to my docking station. When I undock the laptop, windows that were fine on the docked screen, may now be too large for the laptop screen. The same happens if I dock the laptop somewhere else where the docked monitor has a different resolution. The only way to view those windows is to maximize them, but then I cannot resize them or move them to another monitor. In the past I had to shut down the application and start them up again.

After searching online for a solution I came across a story on Lifehacker called Make the most of Your Dual Monitors. They mention an AutoHotkey script called WindowPad that solves my problem. WindowPad lets you use the Windows key and the keyboard’s number pad to move and arrange windows. In particular, I can now move a window from one monitor to another on using the Windows key plus the ‘dot’ on the numerical keypad. This works even with maximized windows.

You can download the WindowPad script or the compiled version WindowPad.

Easy Copy and Paste of Special Characters

PawEng — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 23:25:06 +0000

The Copy Paste Character website (via Lifehacker) makes it easy to copy and paste special characters. The website is very simple: It presents you with a set of a hundred or so of the most common special characters written in a large font. The set includes accented letters, various quotes, math and numbers, and signs. Click on any of them and it is immediately copied to your computer’s clipboard and is ready to paste into any other application you want. You can chose to copy multiple characters at once, and you can copy either the characters themselves or the HTML code for them.

Google Wave

PawEng — Sat, 30 May 2009 01:02:04 +0000

The web is buzzing with the news that Google is coming out with Google Wave:

Google Wave: A Complete Guide by Mashable
Google Wave “Is What Email Would Look Like If It Were Invented Today” by Lifehacker
Could Google Wave Redefine Email and Web Communication? by Mashable
Google Wave: Google Tries to Reinvent Email by Read Write Web
Google Waves Goodbye to E-Mail, Welcomes Real-Time Communication by WebMonkey

Google Wave promises to revolutionize the way we communicate and collaborate online. It works in real-time. If someone else writes something, you see it immediately. Anything can be edited much like a wiki, and you can share files via waves. At any point you can play back the wave to see who did what. Finally, waves can be extended by third-party applications.

Google Wave will be available later this year.

70 Dual-Screen Wallpapers

PawEng — Sun, 24 May 2009 21:37:03 +0000

SmashingMagazine (via Lifehacker) has collected 70 beautiful wallpapers for dual-screen desktops. The wallpapers are from a variety of places. If you use a dual-monitor desktop, then this is a good place to start looking for stunning wallpapers.