Goodbye Linux – For Now

A Brief Monologue

It’s time to say goodbye Ubuntu, Gnome, KDE and Linux Mint. Crunchbang, Debian, and the false hope that is WINE.

i reley dont wan to say this, but I have to now . I’m leaving.

I remember the first time I decided I should get geek and install Ubuntu because XP wouldn’t pick up my wireless dongle and Xbox 360 lan setup. You ran live from a measely CD and on startup figured out how to get my Xbox to connect to the net through its LAN connection, and then through my wireless dongle.

Bisigi made you even prettier and the Software centre made it easy to find apps. Even flash worked quite well. It all started so amazing. But then the cracks started to show.

Flash would only work sometimes, and break at others. Software centre had older versions of applications, and then themes started to untheme in areas. I installed another file browser and now the system can never decided which one to show. And then I updated my PC and installed an ATI Radeon card and you had had enough.

The Situation

Ubuntu is amazing. A free OS that I can install anywhere or run live off anything. It has a netbook addition and several different distributions for particular needs. I’m not Ubuntu specific, but I need an OS that runs as well as Windows and Ubuntu seemed closest. I’m not ready to be Terminally Elite. I do like the Linux Command line but I need something I can just click and interact with. I’m an application developer, all I need is an IDE so I can join my GUI’s to my data with some business logic in between. I’m not advanced I just put together the pieces smarter people have made so normal people can get something useful.

But.

But I also like Games. It’s a weakness. One I am finding harder to enjoy but a weakness none the less. And Ubuntu simply does not support games (AAA Major Games). I should rephrase that because it is not Ubuntu’s fault. Its Microsoft. Well, partly Microsoft, but also NVidia, Intel, ATI, ASUS, Gigabyte. You name the brand and I’m pretty sure they’ll be at fault.

Where HTML got an open standard sort of, graphics rendering may also have but then got schtupped. This isn’t a hacker news style article that will highlight the history of DirectX vs. OpenGl. This is an free-loading end-user having a rant.

Wine Whine

WINE is suppose to fix Ubuntu and allow DirectX to run. Except most games are barely supported and when it doesn’t work it’s hard to find out what went wrong. On top of that it is also rumoured that ATI Radeon support is not quite as good as NVidia. Something which would probably cost ATI a few brand points and dollars. But they are improving apparantly, just not yet in the 3D Games department.

Dual Boot

Why? So I can have two different environments, one for games and one for all my other stuff? What is the point? Start my system up and have to decide what one I am going to play games one. The other issue is that you *should* have had to pay for your Windows OS version. So that means you will have to fork out cash to then only half use the OS.

So what’s the fix?

The problem is I both fell in love with the Windows Phone 7 and Ubuntu. And these two don’t want to be friends. On top of that I have an Xbox. I wish there was Linux Platform out there. The two most successful are Mircosoft and Apple. With Microsoft’s Anti-Trust precautions being hopefully pulled back this year they might actually be able to compete fairly with Apple on integrated systems. If only groups had attacked Microsoft’s monopoly on the PC GAME market instead of the not so worrying Internet Explorer rubbish, I would not have fallen into this problem.

To Pay For Ubuntu Elite

I would. Microsoft retail version costs $300 in Australia. That’s a big WTF. I had to buy an OEM version with my new build, but that has no reuse. Although people pay for Apple and even Apple can’t get games to work on their system. I don’t mind Microsoft. They have some great products and have led the world in desktop computing. They may have monopoly issues, but all companies do. They need to push the lines to increase profit in this share driven world. A behemoth company with billions of profit is a far safer bet with stability in their products than an open-source foundation that rely on volunteers.

Join the gang

I need to step into this world of programming. Too long have I lamented away with my mantra of ‘Im still young, I’ll get into the world when Im older’. Well, I am older now. Much older than I thought I would be :S Maybe I’ll try and join the WINE gang, get to the bottom of the issues. Maybe I’ll keep a dual boot around of Win7 and Ubuntu, and when I feel like contributing to the world, I’ll log into my old friend and figure out how to play Tropico 3 in Ubuntu on a low end graphics card, by digging into the source and seeing stack traces. But in the mean time, when I want to game, I’ll start Windows 7 and just double-click.

 

Update

The dunce. Maybe there is a chicken in the fox coop. On my new build I purchased a cheap ASUS 5450 ATI Radeon card. Looking at Phoronix it seems that that card in particular may be the culprit. It will be interesting to see how this turns out once my new SSD arrives and Windows 7 will be running.

Maven-Glavin! (NoSuchRealmException)

tl;dr It was the settings.xml file in the <yourHomeDirectory>\.m2 folder. Another issue could be the use of an old JRE. Type mvn -v to see the version of Java being used

org.codehaus.classworlds.NoSuchRealmException

What a nightmare. This will just be a quick post to maybe help those who haven’t been able to resolve this.

On attempting to run maven for the first time, it would just spit out this error:

org.codehaus.classworlds.NoSuchRealmException: plexus.core

at org.codehaus.classworlds.ClassWorld.getRealm(ClassWorld.java:128)
at org.codehaus.classworlds.Launcher.mainWithExitCode(Launcher.java:434)
at org.codehaus.classworlds.Launcher.main(Launcher.java:375)

So far, the only fix I found for this is to blast away your local repository folder, which is usually located in your ~/.m2 (windows is x:\Documents And Settings\<username>\).

I added this post as there is absolutely nothing on the webs regarding this error. It will probably be updated a few times as I figure out the actual issue.

Post analysis 1: I realised\remembered that I had installed the m2Eclipse plugin and pointed this to my external maven install. I assume this ran the -up upgrade which created the files in the repository. So it wasn’t a ‘first run’ of maven HOYVIN-GLAVIN!

Post analysis 2: It seems it was the settings.xml file actually. It must not be able to figure the host from this properly.

It was definitely this. I used Pspad to create a new XML document. This starts off with a <?xml version=”"…/> in the new file. When I pasted my new xml, it must have pushed this line to the bottom. However I tried invalidating some other areas of the xml up, but mvn correctly detected this.

Cheers,
A Coders Life.

Eclipse Java Debugging – Showing Variable Type Values – Calendar

I have discovered a few annoyances with Eclipse but apart from that it is a very solid open source IDE for Java.

Just a quick tip I found: When I am debugging and I have some Calender objects, I cannot get any useful information from the Eclipse debug windows or tools. It displays all of its components but no simple actual date information, like 01/01/09.

To fix this you need to add a Debug Detail Formatter, using these steps.

1. From the menu select Windows->Preferences
2. In Preferences open Java->Debug and click on Detail Formatters
3. Here you can add your desired formatter

As an example, for the calendar object:
1. Click Add..
2. Enter java.util.Calendar into the Qualified type name field
3. Enter this.getTime().toString();
4. Ensure Enable this detail formatter is checked
5. Click OK.

Then the next time you debug, the Calendar Date and Time will be outputted neatly in either the variable hover-over, or in the Variables tab.

You can also add a Detail Formatter while debugging. Just right click your variable in the Variables tab, and click New Detail Formatter…

Cheers,
A Coders Life.

Wolfram Alpha Easter Egg

I was interested in all the Wolfram Alpha easter eggs, but this is all it would tell me:

Wolfram Alpha Easter Eggs

Cheers,
A Coders Life.

Handy Tips and Shortcuts

When you develop and program you start to pick up an array of shortcuts and handy little programs that make the day a bit easier. I’ve worked with senior developers of 10+ years who are unaware of some of these bits and pieces, like the power of the middle click with Firefox. Note that these bits and pieces apply to Windows XP.

ClipX
First, my all time favorite program that fixes what some consider a major flaw in Windows copy+paste model. Its called ClipX, and it allows you to store many things on the clip board. Then all you need to do is hit Ctrl+Shift+V, and a handy litte pop-up displays of the last 25 items you have copied or cut. Its one of the best tools when developing! For a further review, see Jeff’s post at codinghorror.com ClipX Article.

The ‘Windows’ key
The windows key (WinKey), which when pressed pops up the start menu, has a few handy shortcuts that I use regularly.
WinKey+L: Locks your screen. I’m not sure what to call this screen, but it can also be reached via Start -> Log Off -> Switch User. Its a quick and easy way to lock your work station without logging out.
WinKey+D: Shows the Desktop. This is an excellent way to show the desktop, press it again and all your windows are up again
WinKey+M: This minimizes all windows. Not as useful as the WinKey+D, as you can’t press it again to restore all your windows.
WinKey+R: This pops up the Run dialog, also a favourite tool of mine.

The ‘Run’ dialog
I use the run dialog for a lot of things, its one of my favorite XP bits. To access it use WinKey+R.
What can you use it for?
Drive Access: WinKey+R, then type c:, or d:, or whichever name of the drive you access. I find this one of the quicker ways to access my local drives. Just be careful though, when you are on a friends laptop, they might not have a partitioned drive, so using Run d: might actually show the contents of the current CD in their laptop…content may not be suitable for work!
Run Shortcuts:
notepad: Runs notepad
mspaint: Runs Microsoft Paint
mstsc: Remote Desktop!
conf: NetMeeting

And my final shortcut
Create New Folder
Hold Alt, and press f,w,f. This will create a new folder, allowing you to name it!.

Rename a folder
This is one very simple: F2

Well, that’s all I have for now.

Cheers,
A Coders Life.

NUnit VWD Express MVC setup

[Update 21/04/2011]: This article is for the older versions and VWD 2008. Refer to this link for an easier and automated method of setting up NUnit and VWD: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/webdevtools/archive/2009/04/28/updated-nunit-templates-for-asp-net-mvc-1-0-rtm.aspx

G’day,

Just a quick tutorial on how to setup NUnit with Visual Web Developer 2008 Express Edition using C# ASP.NET MVC 1.0.

For my sources I used the always useful Scott Gu’s blog, http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/, and the information from this link http://blogs.msdn.com/webdevtools/archive/2008/05/30/asp-net-mvc-preview-3-tooling-updates.aspx

1. Download and install NUnit from http://nunit.com/index.php?p=download. I grabbed the one titled NUnit-2.4.8-net-2.0.msi.
2. Download the NUnit MVC Preview 3 Templates from http://blogs.msdn.com/webdevtools/archive/2008/05/30/asp-net-mvc-preview-3-tooling-updates.aspx
3. Unzip and edit the file titled ‘IntallNUnitTemplatesExpress.bat’. Yes it contains a spelling mitake.
   1. If you have installed VWD Express into a different location then you will need to replaces all references of ‘%programfiles%’ to your location
   2. The last line attempts to run ‘devenv’. This needs to be changed to ‘VWDExpress’
   3. This will then install the templates and make the necessary changes
4. Open VWD Express and start a new Web Project. After finishing this it will then ask if you would like to create a unit test project. Click Yes.
5. This will then create a new VWD Express workspace with two projects. Your web application and the unit test application.
6. If you have errors you may need to add a reference to the NUnit dll in your project . If you used the .msi installer, then just right-click the ‘<projectname>.Tests’ project and click Add Reference. In the pop-up, under the .Net tab locate and select ‘nunit.framework’

The project will now be set up to compile the unit tests, however there is the main issue of VWD Express not having the ability to run test functionality. The first method for now is to locate your NUnit install location, and use the GUI at \bin\nunit.exe. So…

1. Run <nunit-install>\bin\nunit.exe
2. Click File->Open Project and browse to your projects folder
3. Select the file at <projectname>\<projectname>.Tests\<projectname>.Tests.dll

The GUI will then allow you to run your tests. Every time you rebuild the Tests project, the GUI will refresh with the newly created .dll

There may be a way to run the tests through VWD Express but I have not yet found it.

Hope it all goes well,

Cheers,
A Coder’s Life

Content Management System: ModX

After working with Drupal and Joomla I almost gave up on free open-source content management systems. They either both failed or were too difficult to manage concepts such as templates, users, and the most simple thing, adding pages.

But the main failure point of the majority of open-source CMS is one that is always over looked.

Multiple. Content. Areas.

What is so hard to understand about this. Not every website wants to output dynamic data per page in one area. There are a huge amount of scenarios where I need to place an image, a text area and a main content area per page. Drupal has modules for this but the hassle in getting them set up and then manageing them is dreadful. Drupals failure to offer multiple templates for different pages is also a large downfall. Joomla has a better template system but again no offer on multiple content areas. It also has a very hard to manage page and menu system. Where is the ‘Add A Page’ option?

I was lost. And I almost gave up hope, and then I found Modx Content Management System. This amazing PHP based application was a snap to download and install. After running through their manual on content types, and adding them to a template, I had fully integrated one of the complex sites I was working on into the system and ready for end user content management. It has nice template system, and once I setup the few I needed, all that was required of the end-user was to click that simple ‘Add A Page’ button.

I may post a few tutorials on how to get a simple site up and running on it soon. But just letting you know its out there.

Cheers,
A Coders Life.