Category Archives: General

Ultimate dev laptop

I’ve been looking around at laptops for a while. I want the ultimate laptop.

  1. I want Core 2 Duo or similar AMD
  2. At least 2GB RAM
  3. A fast hard drive (7200rpm)
  4. Dual display out, DVI and VGA
  5. Ability to run 2 external 20″ monitors
  6. At least 15.4″ monitor
  7. Very good build quality
  8. DVD writer
  9. Onboard Wifi
  10. Optional: Bluetooth
  11. Optional: Card reader

Does anybody know of such a laptop that has had good reviews. I’ve looked at Asus, Acer, Rock, Alienware, Evesham, AJP and Dell. Each of them falls down on at least one of the above. I’ve been weighing up whether to push for a laptop in work or to bite the bullet and buy one myself. If I found the right one, I would have no hesitation paying GBP1500 of my own cash. The amount of time I spend on it, it’d be stupid not to. At the moment, the front runner is the Dell XPS m1710 but it tops out at GBP2000 which is a bit too much.
I need all suggestions, so please comment 🙂

Multiple instances of jEdit

I am a complete jEdit fanatic and it always has a place on my taskbar. jEdit is ver clever when running multiple versions each instance communicates over TCP IP so that all instances are identical. What if you don’t want that and want to have different file open in different instances of jEdit (or if you were using something like GoScreen). By default the shortcut for jEdit is something like:

“C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.5.0_06\bin\javaw.exe” -jar “C:\Program Files\jEdit\jedit.jar”

But to stop the instances communicating to each other you need to use a “-noserver” switch:

“C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.5.0_06\bin\javaw.exe” -jar “C:\Program Files\jEdit\jedit.jar” -noserver

I found the above in the wonderful jEdit userguide, chapter “starting jEdit“.

Graduate c# devleopers x2 wanted

As part of Karova‘s expansion, we are looking at taking on 2 more graduate developers. If you want to apply, you’ll need at least a 2:1 in a technical degree, knowledge of object oriented programming techniques, XML and XSLT, web standards and CSS. C# would be benifical, as would a good grasp of IIS. If you want good pay and a chance to be part of a growing and exciting company – please see http://www.karova.com/jobs for more detail. We are after a sales manager too for you sales guys.

ActiveCollab Windows Server 2003 IIS6

We are trying out ActiveCollab @ Karova instead of Basecamp. There was quite a few problems to get it working though. Mainly as it was PHP on IIS methinks. The first error was that none of the class files were not being loaded by autoloader as it didn’t know where to look so I had to tell it ->

[code lang=”php”]
private $parse_directories = array(‘%ABSOLUTEPATHTOWEBSITEDIRECTORY%’);
[/code]

in environment\classes\AutoLoader.class.php Line 36

The second error was that emails were not being sent. I reckon this was either our SMTP or PHP on windows not liking the format of the email addresses (“Philip Roche”<phil @philroche.net>)
[code lang=”php”]
function toString() {
if(trim($this->getName()) == ”) {
return trim($this->getEmail());
} else {
//return trim($this->getName()) . ‘ < ' . trim($this->getEmail()) . ‘>’;
return trim($this->getEmail());
} // if
} // toString
[/code]

in environment\library\simplemail\MailAddress.class.php Line 49

and finally, I could not upload public files as the isPrivate method was returning blank instead of 0.
[code lang=”php”]
static function setIsPrivateForObject(ProjectDataObject $object) {
$isPrivateVar = $object->isPrivate();
if($isPrivateVar!=1)
{
$isPrivateVar = 0;
}
return DB::execute(‘UPDATE ‘ . ApplicationLogs::instance()->getTableName(true) .
‘ SET `is_private` = ? WHERE `object_id` = ? AND `object_manager_class` = ?’,
$isPrivateVar, $object->getObjectId(), get_class($object->manager())
); // execute
} // setIsPrivateForObject
[/code]

in application\models\application_logs\ApplicationLogs.class.php line 61

It’s all sorted now and running and actually I am finding it alot nicer than basecamp and as it’s on our own server – a hell of a lot quicker.

local.live.com Snowdon Mashup

I don’t like the term “mashup” but I wrote a quick “mashup” to show the route I took up Snowdon on sunday (I didn’t go all the way). Try it out. The javascript needs some cleaning but it works for now. Note: I haven’t tested in in IE.

To tie this in with a handheld GPS (which I plan to get for christmas) would be really cool. You could download the Longitudes and Latitudes that you have walked and add them to the Javascript config and presto you can see an aerial view of your trip.

Snowdon Mashup

Update: It does seem to work in IE6 but as Andy pointed out below – I haven’t tested in Safari but I havn’t done any Javascript naughtiness so it should be fine.

Another update: It doesn’t work in Safari – Not because of anything I have done – Local.live.com doesn’t work in Safari – phew

Yet another update: I’ve updated the Javascript, it’s much neater and half the size. It works in IE (the menu is out of position though), Firefox and Opera.

Aggreg8.net sold

None of you will have noticed that Aggreg8.net and Aggreg8.com are now actually hosting Microcosm which is a Microsoft portal of some sorts.

I was approached about a month ago to see if I would sell Aggreg8.com. Hell yes. I suggested $3000 as I could not be bothered getting into a to and fro debate on the price. I also offered Aggreg8.net for $2000. Both suggested prices were accepted and the domain transfer proceeded using Network Solutions certified offer service. I am yet to receive the checks but I am well chuffed and after £2000 in the last 2 months on car repairs – it is definitely needed.

I have since purchased Aggreg8.co.uk and Aggreg8.org so my Aggreg8 RSS reader will be moving there once I get a chance.