tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-75463373251233082622024-03-13T17:08:09.321-07:00What could possibly go wrong...?John Skeltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17051278965309345500noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7546337325123308262.post-79355065642774706072015-02-13T13:39:00.000-08:002015-02-13T13:39:06.993-08:00Using Google Forms for Quick Life HacksRecently hit on the idea of using Google Forms to track fuel consumption. <br />
For a while I've been thinking that I should figure out what the real MPG is I'm getting from my trusty Mondeo. Writing numbers in a book is sooooo 1990s, I wanted a phone "app" to quickly capture and later process the information.<br />
<a href="http://www.google.co.uk/forms/about/" target="_blank">Google Forms</a> is a simple form design tool available as part of Google Drive. I used it to create a form with date, mileage, amount of fuel and cost of fuel. <br />
When you fill out the form, Google automatically adds an entry line to a spreadsheet My phone browser lets me save the url of the form to my desktop, so I can use it like an "app".<br />
Now I can quickly record the details of each fill-up and keep a running calculation in the Google Sheet behind the scenes.<br />
Next up - weight tracking, running log, ...John Skeltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17051278965309345500noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7546337325123308262.post-44837085461196399682014-11-20T11:51:00.003-08:002014-11-20T13:36:47.606-08:00Setting up Eclipse and Google Plugin on Mac Book (Mavericks)As the new owner of a Mac Book Pro (note I didn't say "proud" there) I thought I'd dust off my Eclipse skills and see how it works out as a development platform.<br />
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Installed both Eclipse and the <a href="https://developers.google.com/eclipse/docs/getting_started" target="_blank">Google Plugin for Eclipse</a>, but the latter wasn't working properly and I couldn't see any of the Google project types or features when running Eclipse.</div>
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I found some pages on stackoverflow which talked about creating a little shell script to start Eclipse, but then found a simpler instruction to edit the ~/.profile and change the JAVA_HOME variable - old skool 'nix - love it!</div>
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I used a terminal and did <span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">vi ~/.profile</span> </div>
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...to add <span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">export JAVA_HOME=/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.7.xxx.jdk/Contents/Home</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">export JRE_HOME=/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.7.xxx.jdk/Contents/Home</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Help > ... Show Configuration</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> shows that Eclipse is indeed running the new JDK and the Google plugin items all come up just fine. Happy days.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">On to the GWT tutorial now - what could possibly go wrong!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">(Edit - also seem to have to identify the 1.7 JRE/JDK to Eclipse and then use them in the project BEFORE creating the project - that's what went wrong.)</span></div>
John Skeltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17051278965309345500noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7546337325123308262.post-74018364830975885672014-09-20T10:27:00.001-07:002014-09-20T10:27:09.703-07:00Home Forge<p dir="ltr">The prototype Home Forge Mk 1 is ready for firing up. (Going to wait until dark as it might be a bit smoky/smelly on first go.) What could possibly go wrong! More information on construction once I've run it up.</p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgG0NZWThgv6VY0GO3NPyZ-Hbuq29kbo512i2f1VQgouUPPBY0G2i13lW9ktJ5UpnvB7uuOnZFf5AwXoaWnw_t8hOu1KnSL1Aa3ASHLlAlBHZ7tfcwEtCWqjItMqZ9T5UsQ533iyiJuuUeM/s1600/FB_IMG_1411233637441.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"> <img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgG0NZWThgv6VY0GO3NPyZ-Hbuq29kbo512i2f1VQgouUPPBY0G2i13lW9ktJ5UpnvB7uuOnZFf5AwXoaWnw_t8hOu1KnSL1Aa3ASHLlAlBHZ7tfcwEtCWqjItMqZ9T5UsQ533iyiJuuUeM/s640/FB_IMG_1411233637441.jpg"> </a> </div>John Skeltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17051278965309345500noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7546337325123308262.post-22865798579566424752010-11-09T01:33:00.000-08:002010-11-09T03:05:58.228-08:00Setting up Tomcat server adapter in Eclipse on Ubuntu<b>Situation: </b><div><ul><li>Tomcat 6 / Eclipse Galileo 3.5 / Ubuntu 10</li><li>Installed tomcat6-user (so that I've got user instance/control rather than a general ubuntu service).</li><li>Tomcat 'runtime' installed to '/usr/share/tomcat6'</li><li>Created local Tomcat instance in '~/tomcat/my-instance' using 'tomcat6-instance-create my-instance'; as per 'https://help.ubuntu.com/10.04/serverguide/C/tomcat.html'</li><li>Some Tomcat config in '/etc/tomcat6'</li></ul><div><b>Problem:</b></div><div><ul><li>Eclipse doesn't recognise Tomcat 6 server adapter and won't create an instance of this server.</li></ul></div><b></b></div><div><div><b>Mission: </b></div><div><ol><li>To get Eclipse to recognise Tomcat 6 server adapter </li><li>To create an instance of this server for use by Dynamic Web Projects.</li></ol><b></b></div><div><b>What worked:</b></div><div><ol><li style="font-weight: normal; ">Instead of 1 & 2 below, tried linking to the bin and lib directories in /usr/share/tomcat6 from my local app instance (~/tomcat/my-instance/conf) (i.e. cd ~/tomcat/my-instance; ln -s /usr/share/tomcat6/bin bin). Then 'sudo chmod -R +rx /usr/share/tomcat6'. Pointing the Eclipse server adapter at '~/tomcat/my-instance' now recognises this as a valid adapter. Mission #1 accomplished. However still doesn't let me create a server instance. Hmm.</li><li style="font-weight: normal; ">Checked the Error Log, which said "Could not load the Tomcat server configuration at ~/tomcat/my-instance/conf", which was caused by a FileNotFoundException on "conf/catalina.policy". Ah-ha! 'cd conf; touch catalina.policy'. Bingo! All good. Mission #2 accomplished.</li><li>TODO - Got an empty security policy, will need locking down in production.</li></ol></div><div><b>What else I tried:</b></div><div><ol><li>As per <a href="http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1356616/configuring-tomcat-6-with-eclipse-in-ubuntu">stackoverflow</a>, tried linking to my local app instance (~/tomcat/my-instance/conf) from the tomcat runtime (/usr/share/tomcat6) but didn't help much. Undo.</li><li>Looked at <a href="http://wiki.eclipse.org/WTP_Tomcat_FAQ#Why_won.27t_the_New_Server_Runtime_dialog_recognize_my_Linux_installed_version_of_Tomcat.3F">eclipse wiki</a> and <a href="http://www.eclipse.org/forums/index.php?t=msg&goto=233256&">eclipse forums</a> but my Tomcat install had 'lib/servlet-api.jar' so those didn't seem relevant.</li></ol></div></div>John Skeltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17051278965309345500noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7546337325123308262.post-28136272698789814582009-07-03T02:24:00.000-07:002009-07-03T02:27:17.349-07:00Gotcha when linking accounts in Google mailWhen setting up the ability to import email from other providers Google offers the option to also send as that account. This requires a confirmation email which is sent to the other provider account (the one you're currently setting up) and <i>may be imported back into Google before you look in the other provider inbox</i>. So, when setting up, make sure you check your Google inbox, to see if the confirmation message (to send) is sitting there.John Skeltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17051278965309345500noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7546337325123308262.post-68874753358942288952009-06-19T02:20:00.001-07:002009-06-19T02:21:47.516-07:00Drive failure on my LaCie 2Big (possibly gone wrong!)<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial; font-size: 13px; ">One of the drives on my LaCie 2Big (in RAID-1 configuration) has stopped working, LaCie reckon it's either a drive failure or a failure in the RAID controller.<div><br /></div><div>Interesting dilemma now - do I return the unit to the supplier (not LaCie direct) for them to either wipe or replace it under supplier warranty, or do I fork out for (or push the supplier for) sending a replacement hard-drive to me so that the RAID-1 can do it's thing, re-sync the new disk with the remaining good one, and <b><i>not</i></b> wipe all the files on what is meant to be my fail-safe drive?</div><div><br /></div><div>Interesting thing is that it's fail-safe right up to the point where you need to fix the fault under warranty!</div><div><br /></div><div>Think I'll try to push the supplier to send a replacement disk, but doubt they will.</div><div><br /></div></span>John Skeltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17051278965309345500noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7546337325123308262.post-62616249898586761962009-06-12T11:17:00.000-07:002009-06-12T11:21:37.777-07:00Mythbuntu inside Sun VirtualBoxJust set about installing Mythbuntu in a Sun VirtualBox VM. So far it seems straightforward. What could possibly go wrong?John Skeltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17051278965309345500noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7546337325123308262.post-41938139542746549282009-06-12T11:10:00.000-07:002009-06-12T11:14:56.431-07:00Solved: Overheating wireless USBHad a wireless USB plgged into an Ubuntu laptop and it kept overheating and dropping the connection. It was getting very hot and for ages I wondered whether there was a power management issue.<div><br /></div><div>There may be [a power management issue], but I solved the problem by simply using a USB extension lead (M:F) to physically move the USB key away from the back of the notebook; thus giving both more space to dissipate heat.</div><div><br /></div><div>Now works fine. I get the added bonus of being able to move the USB key to get a better wireless signal. </div><div><br /></div><div>Ta da!</div>John Skeltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17051278965309345500noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7546337325123308262.post-39226976377726446112009-06-04T05:33:00.000-07:002009-06-04T05:35:39.029-07:00London Underground ...Overground!Found a way-cool <a href="http://maps.google.co.uk/maps/mpl?moduleurl=http://www.gmapplets.com/transit/%3FopenCity=London&lci=transit">overlay for Google Maps showing the London Undergroung tube lines</a> run in "street terms". John Skeltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17051278965309345500noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7546337325123308262.post-75186314780898231792009-05-18T09:40:00.000-07:002009-05-18T09:41:26.533-07:00The Memeing of LifeWell, well! A blog of my own - what could possibly go wrong? John Skeltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17051278965309345500noreply@blogger.com0