Using Google Forms for Quick Life Hacks

Recently hit on the idea of using Google Forms to track fuel consumption.
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.
Google Forms 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.
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".
Now I can quickly record the details of each fill-up and keep a running calculation in the Google Sheet behind the scenes.
Next up - weight tracking, running log, ...

Setting 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.

Installed both Eclipse and the Google Plugin for Eclipse, but the latter wasn't working properly and I couldn't see any of the Google project types or features when running Eclipse.

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!

I used a terminal and did vi ~/.profile 

...to add export JAVA_HOME=/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.7.xxx.jdk/Contents/Home
export JRE_HOME=/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.7.xxx.jdk/Contents/Home

Help > ... Show Configuration shows that Eclipse is indeed running the new JDK and the Google plugin items all come up just fine.  Happy days.

On to the GWT tutorial now - what could possibly go wrong!

(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.)

Home Forge

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.

Setting up Tomcat server adapter in Eclipse on Ubuntu

Situation:

• Tomcat 6 / Eclipse Galileo 3.5 / Ubuntu 10
• Installed tomcat6-user (so that I've got user instance/control rather than a general ubuntu service).
• Tomcat 'runtime' installed to '/usr/share/tomcat6'
• 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'
• Some Tomcat config in '/etc/tomcat6'

Problem:

• Eclipse doesn't recognise Tomcat 6 server adapter and won't create an instance of this server.

Mission:

1. To get Eclipse to recognise Tomcat 6 server adapter
2. To create an instance of this server for use by Dynamic Web Projects.

What worked:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. TODO - Got an empty security policy, will need locking down in production.

What else I tried:

1. As per stackoverflow, tried linking to my local app instance (~/tomcat/my-instance/conf) from the tomcat runtime (/usr/share/tomcat6) but didn't help much. Undo.
2. Looked at eclipse wiki and eclipse forums but my Tomcat install had 'lib/servlet-api.jar' so those didn't seem relevant.

Gotcha when linking accounts in Google mail

When 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 may be imported back into Google before you look in the other provider inbox. So, when setting up, make sure you check your Google inbox, to see if the confirmation message (to send) is sitting there.

Drive failure on my LaCie 2Big (possibly gone wrong!)

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.

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 not wipe all the files on what is meant to be my fail-safe drive?

Interesting thing is that it's fail-safe right up to the point where you need to fix the fault under warranty!

Think I'll try to push the supplier to send a replacement disk, but doubt they will.

Mythbuntu inside Sun VirtualBox

Just set about installing Mythbuntu in a Sun VirtualBox VM. So far it seems straightforward. What could possibly go wrong?