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Blog

  • what’s the right Unix-ish software and hardware in 2010?

    In 1994 I had no doubt: it’s a PC with some Linux distro on it. And changing my mind was out of the question until not so long ago.
    Now in 2010 I am doing things on a Samsung 17″ notebook running some openSUSE Linux, and I am doing things on a MacBook Pro with a 17″ screen.
    I don’t want miss either of them. Well, the Samsung thingie’s resolution could be way better, but after my Sony thingie broke during my Leopard 2 main battle tank project, I couldn’t afford anything better than that, and the decision and the purchase had to happen within minutes rather than within days. Terrible pressure and no mercy with Linux folks over there at defense.
    But now I do many, many things on that Snow Leopard thingie, and I terribly enjoy it and it honestly improved the quality of my life a lot. That’s what I wanted to state here and now.

  • how to make a rectangle image a square image using GIMP

    I like reusing profile pictures from the web in my Google Mail Contacts aka address book.

    On Xing or LinkedIn these pictures not necessarily are square, but on Google Mail Contacts you have to choose a sub-square. So maybe you want to resize the picture appropriately, so you don’t cut it, where you don’t want to cut it. Here is, how to proceed:

    • Image / Canvas Size: disconnect the coupling between width and height,
    • then make both the same, preferredly the larger one,
    • then center
    • and resize!
    • Last not least: save the file with the highest quality!

    BTW my designer mate doesn’t like GIMP, he prefers Photoshop. I gave GIMP a try for this purpose, and it did, what I expected it to do, in a perfect way, every try a perfect hit!

  • How to Build an RSS 2.0 Feed – O’Reilly Media

    How to Build an RSS 2.0 Feed – O’Reilly Media

    Wonderful little helper from O’Reilly.

  • weird error messages during the DocBook Website compilation batch…

    Sometimes you really didn’t change anything crucial, and you find the new error messages just too obscure, then do this:
    $ make clean
    $ make realclean
    And most of the time the error messages ar gone. That worked at least for me.

  • “Perl Best Practices” as a useful good night story

    “Perl Best Practices” – O’Reilly Media

    I really like reading good night stories for my sons late in the evening, but I hate reading “Spiderman fights Hulk“, absolutely. Really!
    Now, I actually found out years ago, that it doesn’t really matter to the kids, what you read, but that you like, what you read to them.
    Last night I selected a book, which didn’t come into operation then, but with one day delay today it actually did so.
    Pls find the title attached! (This referred to, when this article was a Google Buzz and there was even a picture attached. I do love Google Buzz, but the number of followers is rather depressing, I actually prefer not to know, how many usually read my blogs. And last week’s Google presentation of the Buzz API at Berlin.Betahaus.de with finest catering and unlimited free drinks even encouraged me to love it more.)
    Now you may understand, what I referred to by: “it doesn’t really matter to the kids…“
    You may even think, I am a bad father. I seriously don’t agree. Well, the useless social workers of the “youth welfare office” at Berlin might agree with you. But then, I don’t care.
    Son#2 literally slept within minutes, which is otherwise never easy to achieve. (He can easily fought 2 hours against his sleepiness.)
    Now this either has to do with the quality of the book, or simply with my son liking my voice. Choose yourself!
    Son#2 actually started sleeping deeply in the middle of the preface, but I insisted on completing the preface, of course w/o even touching the acknowledgements. Sorry for that. Maybe I will browse them silently another day. I do find names interesting, and after 30 years in IT you do know a few ones.

    After that I decided to get the PDF for $5 from O’Reilly’s, and I immediately went for it. That PDF is now on my disk. I even think parts of this book will make good presentation material at future Berlin Technical Perl Meetings, well, maybe Stuttgart Technical Perl Meetings, if the Berlin Perl Mongers are lucky enough resp. not lucky enough. Decide yourself, which way it’s meant!

    This book looks like entertaining but educative literature, just the way I considered Larry Wall’ classical Camel Book almost 20 years ago. But I read it then in the Berlin Underground on my way to work or back home.

    Pls have mercy and excuse my Bad Simple English!

  • “Judaism deals better with sex than Christianity”, says Swedish prof

    Interesting article in a way, but then: we are in the 21st century – WTF^H^H^H who cares for Stone Age books and their ancient morals?

  • 3rd party Facebook applications – use with caution!


    Right now there was yet another Internet service with a big Facebook button…
    When you press this button, and they ask you in a very tiny print, whether you allow them to pull your friendlist on Facebook, then press     Stop without further hesitating! They are simply bad. You don’t want get your friends dragged into your experiments, right? Sometimes they also say: “Let’s find you some friends?” That’s about the same. Don’t! Just don’t!

  • I am waiting for the day …

    … when somebody contacts me, asking whether I would have a little time now and then publishing a few lines not to badly pair for his magazine. I wonder, whether this is going to happen in this life or the next.

  • learning from others – a temporary home-worker’s experience

    I really enjoyed working with my design profession mate yesterday. He brought his MacBook with him, and I also learned from him, what the MacBook substitute for the scroll-wheel is: a two-finger wiping over the touchpad.

  • “the right tool for your job”

    I thought, I should cross-post / sort of “retweet” this article “the right tool for your job” from the rails to the perl world. Of course, the words are different, and also the tools, but the professional researcher attitude is the same, I think. Maybe someone picks the article up and translates it into the perl world.
    I particularly like, what he says in the end:

    Use what works

    Use the best tool for the job, don’t be afraid to look outside your main language or to push outside your comfort levels. Don’t hesitate to make a switch to another plugin or gem if the one you are using doesn’t seem to fit your needs. Most of all, just take some time to really examine what you are using – it can go a long way.

    According to my experience you can’t share this attitude with most employers or clients, but as a professional researcher software developer I fully agree.