The state of Java and MySql are changing. In case you missed it. Sun bought MySql and Oracle bought Sun. I’ve been working on Java for over 10 years and MySql for over 5 now. I’m not happy with what is happening.
The Java and MySql websites have changed. On the mysql.com site there is no prominent link to get to the community edition. If you go to mysql.org to redirects to dev.mysql.com where you can find it.
This is not good for me or a country like Sri Lanka. Most of the solutions I’ve been involved over the years have used open source foundations. So we were able to deliver solutions to clients at a very reasonable cost. If things get too commercial I’m a afraid the licensing costs will far overtake the implementation costs.
I’m sure there will always be open source or free to use versions of Java and MySql, but with a large commercial entity backing them profit comes first then community. I don’t know I think its time to look at some alternatives.
Update: They got to VirtualBox too.
Popularity: 2% [?]
I just setup a secure email account for myself. I needed one to exchange some passwords etc with a friend. Here are a few links that will help you setup one.
First you need an email client. My choice was Thunderbird. The rest of the setup depends on this so if you pick another client the next steps will vary a bit.
You can get Thunderbird at http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird/
Now you need a Thunderbird extension called Enigmail https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/71
Enigmail helps you with the PGP tools within Thunderbird.
Now you need to download GnuPG http://www.gnupg.org/download/index.en.html which is an open source PGP tool.
I got version 1.4.9 Windows command line installer gnupg-w32cli-1.4.9.exe.
How to do this in detail is on the Enigmail quick start guide.
Secure email is a good thing to have even for personal use. Most emails travel as plain text and get stored on servers for a long time. By using this setup you can exchange public keys and encrypt mails before sending. Only your private keys can open them.
I sometimes get spam or phishing mails from my friend’s computers. Those are from bad bots that got into their computers.
Also anyone can set the from field to any other email address and impersonate another person.
Using PGP you can sign your emails as well so the receiver can be pretty sure its you sending the mail.
Read more about PGP on Wikipedia.
Popularity: unranked [?]
I’ve finally got around to putting up a page (ya just one for now) showing my freelance work. I’ve been freelancing here and there since around 1996. Most of the things I built have been too small to mention.
I give you Open Path IT.
Just a basic start for now. Open Path IT (Information or Inspiration Technologies) was supposed to be a software company that never got formed. One day maybe.
So if you got some work or looking for work within the skill-set I’ve mentioned get in touch.
Popularity: 2% [?]
I heard good things about Firefox 3. Now that I’ve got Ubuntu 8.04 I thought I’d try a few commands.
1. Get the places database
2. open with sqlite
3. query the bookmarks table
cp .mozilla/firefox/xxxxxxxx.default/places.sqlite .
sqlite3 places.sqlite
sqlite> .tables
moz_anno_attributes moz_favicons moz_keywords
moz_annos moz_historyvisits moz_places
moz_bookmarks moz_inputhistory
moz_bookmarks_roots moz_items_annos
sqlite> select * from moz_places limit 1;
1|place:queryType=0&sort=8&maxResults=10|queryType=0&sort=8&maxResults=10||0|1|0||0
Happy data mining!
Popularity: unranked [?]
Did you know that you can make Windows shortcuts with Cygwin and ln? I did not know this, just tried it out today and it works!
This is probably the smallest thing I’m blogging about, but read on you might get some new ideas (like I did) about file organization in Windows. I swear some days Cygwin is the only thing that keeps me sane on this office Windows XP computer.
I like to keep my /projects folder separate from my /clients folder. It just saves clicks I guess and I’m a separation junkie I can’t help it. I could have manually created these shortcuts for each project but now I can do it in a bash script. Yay!
Still not following? Let me explain. I have a clients folder like this.
/clients/a/projects/a
/clients/a/projects/b
/clients/b/projects/c
/clients/a/projects/d
But I like to keep my projects in a root level projects folder like this for easy access and backups etc.
/projects/a
/projects/b
/projects/c
/projects/d
I have simple, unique, short project names. That helps a lot. Here is the magical command that can help me a great deal.
ln -s /cygdrive/d/clients/a/projects/a /cygdrive/d/projects/a
This way I can keep projects I’m currently working on in /projects and move others back to /clients/x/projects. Ideas for a project folder management script is brewing will post about that later.
Popularity: unranked [?]
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