The Author – Bart Busschots
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Oct
30
Tech Podcasts I’d Actually Recommend
Filed Under Computers & Tech on October 30, 2006 | 1 Comment
There are a lot of podcasts out there, an awful lot in fact. The hard thing can be separating the proverbial wheat from the proverbial chaff. I dedicated an entire segment of the IFAS Podcast to good astronomy/science podcasts but I’ve never done a post for tech ones here before. Of all the tech podcasts I’ve subscribed to there are only five I listen to regularly and they are all very different and have different target audiences. Unless you are pretty much my clone you’re not likely to be interested in all five but I’d be pretty shocked if at least one didn’t appeal to you!
[tags]podcast, tech, Apple, Linux, Windows[/tags]
Oct
27
Hidden JavaScript
Filed Under Software Development, Computers & Tech on October 27, 2006 | 2 Comments
This is the long over-due follow-up article to JavaScript – Much more than Java’s Mini-Me which I want to get published now because I’ve just started another JS article that I think needs to come after this article. I want to finish evangelizing the good things about the JS language before I take a look at JS’s dark under-belly. The next article has the working title JavaScript and AJAX on the Web – a Liability? and should be out within a week (at least that’s the plan).
In my previous JS article I discussed fundamental language features that JS has that give it the ability to do things many other languages just can’t. These features give the programmer extra tools that the common high-level languages like Java just don’t have. In this article I won’t be looking at anything as earth-shattering as that, I’ll just be looking at some nice features JS has that tend to get over-looked by JS programmers.
[tags]JavaScript, JS[/tags]
Oct
27
Comet SWAN Brightens Significantly
Filed Under Science & Astronomy on | Leave a Comment
Until today I hadn’t been able to observe the comet SWAN since the 12th of October because of the Irish weather. The last time I observed it the comet was rather low in the sky and easily visible in binoculars but definitely not a naked-eye object. Today I managed to observe the comet again twice, once before the sky was fully dark and then again when it was properly dark. The comet has moved significantly and is now a lot higher in the sky in the constellation of Hercules but what really struck me was how much it had brightened.
[tags]Comet, SWAN[/tags]
Oct
20
Synchronizing Your Bookmarks on FireFox
Filed Under Computers & Tech on October 20, 2006 | 1 Comment
If you have multiple computers I’m sure you’ve often wished you could easily sync your bookmarks between them. I know it’s happened me that I come across something on desktop at home, I book mark it, then a few weeks later I’m out on the road and I really need it but it’s not in the bookmarks on my laptop. Bookmarks Synchronizer 3 is a nice solution IF you have access to a server either via FTP, or HTTP if your server is webDav enabled (like a .mac iDisk).
[tags]FireFox, FireFox Extensions, Bookmarks[/tags]
Oct
19
A Little Chuckle at Microsoft’s Expense
Filed Under Computers & Tech on October 19, 2006 | 1 Comment
I just couldn’t help but laugh when I read a report on the release of IE7 on Yahoo News. MS have decided to distribute IE7 to XP users via Microsoft Update as a security patch! Never a truer word said!
[tags]IE7, MicroSoft[/tags]
Oct
12
Comet SWAN Observed
Filed Under Science & Astronomy on October 12, 2006 | 1 Comment
That’s two clear nights in a row! I’m just in the door after another very successful observing session but unlike yesterday this one was not form the darkness of rural Ireland but from the light-polluted suburbs of Dublin (Maynooth to be precise). My target for today was the comet SWAN and also to try to track down M92 which I’d missed yesterday.
[tags]SWAN, Comet[/tags]
Oct
11
Uranus and Neptune Observed
Filed Under Science & Astronomy on October 11, 2006 | Leave a Comment
I’m just in from a very productive observing session. Tonight was the first time in a long time that I’ve been in the country side (at my parent’s place in Cavan) on a clear moon-free night. I’ve just come in now because the moon is starting to rise but before the sky started to brighten too much I was able to get some good observing in. I had set myself the challenge of finding Uranus since I said it would be easy on the IFAS Podcast and then, if I had time, I was going to try to find Neptune as well.
[tags]Uranus, Neptune[/tags]
Oct
9
CrossOver Mac Beta 2 – Problematic Upgrade but Worth It
Filed Under Computers & Tech on October 9, 2006 | 1 Comment
CodeWeavers recently sent round a mailing about the release of the second beta version of CrossOver Mac. I didn’t have time to play with it straight away but over the weekend I gave it a go. The upgrade was not problem free but it did fix one of my problems with CrossOver, IE now seems to work properly.
[tags]Apple, CrossOver, CrossOverMac, OS X, IE[/tags]
Oct
8
FireFox Extension for Managing Proxies
Filed Under Computers & Tech on October 8, 2006 | 4 Comments
If you use a laptop and you move around between multiple networks you’ll probably tire very quickly of FireFox not allowing you to store multiple proxy configurations. I have to use different proxy settings at work and at home so I set about to look for a nice proxy switching extension for FireFox. There are a few different extensions out there and after playing with the most promising looking ones I’ve come to the conclusion that the best one for me is SwitchProxy Tool.
[tags]FireFox, Proxy[/tags]
Oct
3
Creating an OS X Application from a Java JAR
Filed Under Computers & Tech, Software Development on October 3, 2006 | 8 Comments
On OS X you can run a JARed Java App by simply double clicking the .jar file. This works but it has a few downsides. For a start you can’t keep the app in your dock so you can launch it easily and you also can’t easily launch it with things like HimmelBar. Secondly it will always have the Java JAR icon and if you’re running a few Java JARs this can get very confusing. What you really want is the same Java App but wrapped inside an OS X App. Examples of this would be the OS X version of jEdit. If you have the Developer Tools (XCode) installed on OS X this is trivial to do. If you don’t have the developer tools installed you’ll find and installer for them on your OS X DVD.
[tags]OS X, Java, Application[/tags] Read more