Tuesday, January 24, 2012

perl: XML::LibXML::XPathContext - registerNs

XML::LibXML::XPathContext - XPath Evaluation - metacpan.org

If your XML has a namespace without prefix (xmlns="…" instead of xmlns:aaa="…", where 'aaa' would be called the prefix), you still have to provide registerNs with a proper prefix and use that prefix from then on; no undef or zero-length string allowed as prefix.
Learning this lesson cost me some sleep last night.

syndication feeds for blogs on Blogger.com take CGI parameters

You can find the URL-s of the Atom and the RSS feeds for such a blog in its HTML:

/html/head/link[@rel="alternate" and @type="application/atom+xml"]/html/head/link[@rel="alternate" and @type="application/rss+xml"]


Within the XML of an Atom feed you can find a node like this:

/feed/link[@rel="next"] 
 /feed/link[@rel="next" and type="application/atom+xml"] 
Found 1 nodes:
-- NODE --


The href attribute looks rather interesting, it uses these CGI parameters:
  • start-index
  • max-results




Actually the href used the somehow internal URL of that blog, but apparently both "public" URL and internal URL seem rather interchangeable – trial and failure "proved" that. Furthermore these CGI parameters also work on the URL of the RSS feed, not just the Atom feed.

BTW: Both feed XML-s carry an element openSearch:totalResults, find it like this:
/feed/openSearch:totalResult
/rss/channel/openSearch:totalResult
… for Atom resp. RSS.


It tells you exactly, what it says, i.e. the number of total results.


So you may very well read blog feed XML-s in small chunks, until you reach their end. I assume, this is what Google Reader does e.g. . It shows you the most recent blog articles (resp. their stubs) initially, and extends the list, when it notices, you are scrolling "beyond the end".

Yes, reading XML can be fun. Of course tidying helps (me) a lot, and emacs's nxml-mode in my case.

Of course, any pointers to relevant Blogger API documentation is kindly appreciated.

O'Reilly Media book: MySQL Troubleshooting

MySQL Troubleshooting:
Sometimes applications can go mad: tables contain wrong data, users get random replies, server stop working, and so on. Several easy methods allow users to often find the problems quickly. This book, based on successful conference presentations by the author, cover SQL problems, memory and other server problems, replication, and problems related to particular storage engines.

Monday, January 23, 2012

music from the old days: Kool & The Gang: Joanna

Open data, Google style - The H Open Source: News and Features

Open data, Google style - The H Open Source: News and Features

O'Reilly Media book: Getting Started with Fluidinfo

Getting Started with Fluidinfo:
For developers, content providers and sophisticated power users, Fluidinfo is an online information storage and search platform that supports shared openly writable metadata of any type and about anything. Fluidinfo helps content owners publish product information via a modern writable API, with flexible permissions and their domain name on their data. Developers can create lightweight applications that make data social while letting users personalize and search on anything.

the Firefox setting "browser.display.use_document_colors"

Up until now, I have never heard of this setting, nevertheless it had gotten toggled a while ago. It had made me a little nervous during the last couple of weeks.

How I solved the issue:
  • searched the web for "Firefox ignores stylesheets",
  • too many hits of course …,
  • found a hint pointing to PrefBar,
  • installed the Firefox Add-on by the name of PrefBar,
  • toggled the Colors check box on that tool bar,
  • which surprisingly did, what I had not expected.
But that did not reveil me, which Firefox setting was involved.
  • So I launched about:config,
  • filtered by "color",
  • toggled the Colors check box another couple of times on PrefBar,
  • until I finally got aware of browser.display.use_document_colors changing its value simultaneously.
I have no idea, how this setting had gotten toggled a couple of weeks ago. Now everything is fine again.

What a wicked little thing!!

I am really relieved, this got finally solved.

Friday, January 20, 2012

Wikipedia launches official Android app - The H Open Source: News and Features

Wikipedia launches official Android app - The H Open Source: News and Features

HtmlUnit - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

HtmlUnit - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Google+ Scraper – retrieve data from Google+ profiles with NodeJS and CoffeeScript

fhemberger/googleplus-scraper - GitHub

A lot of Javascript, CoffeeScript, NodeJS,  etc.

how can Google Reader go further back in time on a Feedburner feed than the XML shows me?

If you use Google Reader for reading a feed on Google Feedburner, you can go back and back and back and … in time, but if you simply download the feed (as XML), the file is pretty finite and short.

  • Q: How do they do that?
  • Q: How do I get such a longer feed XML file myself? (I am more interested in this.)

have a lot of fun with Uncyclopedia's "Random article"

Uncyclopedia

Google Chrome extension "Table Capture"

Chrome Web Store - Table Capture

Using this tool you can browse all HTML tables on a web page (even nested ones) with big fun.

George Mike's HTML table capture test suite

Table Capture Test
George Mike is the author of the Google Chrome extension Table Capture, which I find very, very useful.

Firefox Add-on "Dafizilla Table2Clipboard"

Dafizilla Table2Clipboard :: Add-ons for Firefox sources on Sourceforge.net
If you want to paste data in Microsoft Excel or OpenOffice Calc with correct disposition simply use Table2Clipboard.

"A brief survey of web data extraction tools" (ACM SIGMOD Record, Volume 31 Issue 2, June 2002)


Monday, January 16, 2012

pstree - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

pstree - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The article tells you, where to get the sources from.
The README tells you, how to compile it.
Easy!!!
Looks like pstree got abandoned on fink, but recompiling it yourself is honestly easy.

Perl-XML FAQ promote XML::LibXML

Perl-XML Frequently Asked Questions

Perl-XML FAQ on XML::XPathScript

Perl-XML Frequently Asked Questions

XPathScript is a stylesheet language similar in many ways to XSLT (in concept, not in appearance), for transforming XML from one format to another …

Perl-XML.sourceforge.net FAQ

Perl-XML Frequently Asked Questions

XML::LibXML::Simple - a partial clone of XML::Simple - metacpan.org

XML::LibXML::Simple - XML::LibXML clone of XML::Simple::XMLin() - metacpan.org

Maybe a useful alternative, once I run into problems with XML::Simple.

testing the NetworkedBlogs blog-2-facebook gateway

I wonder, whether this will work.

NetworkedBlogs.com is the Facebook app, that does the "blog to Facebook" transfer.

The idea is, to finally reduce the number of articles on this blog shown on "my Facebook" by labeling an article with a certain label, and NetworkedBlogs.com would only see the articles from an RSS "sub-feed".


The NetworkedBlogs Facebook app takes

  • a "Blog Link"
  • and also a "Feed Link".
The Blog Link itself can be restricted on a particular label (like "show-on-Facebook"), the Feed Link can not, as described below.


On the RSS XML
  • each blog article corresponds to an entry element,
  • each entry element has a couple of category sub-elements, corresponding to the article's labels,
  • the label being the value of the term attribute of a category element.
There are no such sub-feeds on Blogger.com (itself).
It shouldn't be that difficult to create a filter to provide such sub-feeds, but right now my duties do not allow me to work on this. I am sorry.
That filter would just pass through all 1st level sub-elements (actually sub-trees), just restricting the entry sub-elements on those, that have a category sub-element with term="show-on-Facebook" (e.g.).

Sunday, January 15, 2012

aquamacs.org : Emacs for Mac OS X

Aquamacs: Emacs for Mac OS X

there is a port of GNU Emacs 24

EmacsForMacOSX.com : GNU Emacs For Mac OS X

GNU Emacs For Mac OS X

They are also porting GNU Emacs 24, and I kind of like the idea of staying in sync with their nightly builds of that one ("Nightlies"). They have an RSS feed for that.

EmacsWiki: Emacs For Mac OS

EmacsWiki: Emacs For Mac OS

Perl's Dancer is a port of Ruby's Sinatra

Joel Berger's blog

Interesting!

on 2012-01-03 Google changed the XML for their address books, and that breaks jruby

At first I thought, it breaks XmlSimple or REXML, but everything is fine with MRI ruby, just jruby (up until 1.6.5.1) is concerned.

Before then Google Contacts had their German "umlauts" (ä, ö, ü, Ä, Ö, Ü) and the German "sz" i.e. "ß" represented as "ä" (for ä) etc.

In the middle of that day they changed that, and started showing the characters themselves (in UTF-8).

movie: Chinese Take-Away (2011) - IMDb

Chinese Take-Away (2011) - IMDb

Quite a nice comedy.

Mac OS X: how to avoid the screen saver whilst I watch a DVD?

Saturday, January 14, 2012

OpenStreetMap Nominatim – a tool for reverse geocoding

Nominatim - OpenStreetMap Wiki

Debian passes CentOS as most popular Linux for web servers

Debian passes CentOS as most popular Linux for web servers: During the last year, Debian GNU/Linux and CentOS were the most popular Linux distributions on web servers […]

The rise of programmable self. Quantifying your changes + motivational hacks = programmable self. by Fred Trotter

The rise of programmable self:
Programmable self is a riff on the Quantified Self (QS). It is a simple concept:
Quantify what you want to change about yourself + motivational hacks = personal change success.
[...]

What is big data? An introduction to the big data landscape. by Edd Dumbill

What is big data?:
Big data is data that exceeds the processing capacity of conventional database systems. The data is too big, moves too fast, or doesn't fit the strictures of your database architectures. To gain value from this data, you must choose an alternative way to process it.
[…]

Thursday, January 12, 2012

Chromium 18.0.1002.0 showed a lot of form fields inverted

That was quite a PITA.

Chromium 18.0.1006.0 seems to be fine again. I am very glad.

vistaprint invoices vs currency characters: it's safer to print those invoices from their web-site

Flat text invoices – they are really not my favourite, because I anticipate problems with the taxman.

The flat text invoices, they send me via e-mail, are even worse: my software says, they are in UTF-8, and that's my select encoding, but still the EUR character gets displayed as "?". I doubt, my taxman would love to see this. And if the taxman is unhappy, I am unhappy as well.

But at least they offer their flat text invoices with a proper EUR character on their web-site. Relief.

To understand the Good Samaritan, you must know a Samaritan was the last person to whom Jews would look for help

The Bad Samaritan - Biblical Archeology Society - Jewish Ideas Daily
You can't understand the story of the Good Samaritan without knowing that a Samaritan was the last kind of person to whom a Jew would look for help. Amy-Jill Levine, Biblical Archeology Society.

Google Chrome extension "Scraper"

Chrome Web Store - Scraper

A really nice and useful utility.

Looks like it currently deals deal perfectly with spanning columns, but then … something must remain for the human factor.

Virtual Sweatshops Defeat CAPTCHAs

Virtual Sweatshops Defeat CAPTCHAs

I knew there was an industry around solving CAPTCHAs (to spam comments on blogs, sign up for millions of gmail accounts, etc.) but this is the first time I've seen how much you can be paid for it: employees can expect to earn between $0.35 to $1 for every thousand CAPTCHAs they solve [...] Most of our staff is from China, India, Pakistan and Vietnam. (via BoingBoing)

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

google-refine - Google Refine, a power tool for working with messy data (formerly Freebase Gridworks) - Google Project Hosting

google-refine - Google Refine, a power tool for working with messy data (formerly Freebase Gridworks) - Google Project Hosting

Watch at least the 1st video there! If you are interested in data, you may love it.

HealthCheck: Linux Mint

HealthCheck: Linux Mint: The success of Linux Mint is down to its usability - easy to set up and get running and then use. The latest development is a new user interface, Cinnamon. Richard Hillesley looks at the history of Mint and considers whether Cinnamon marks a turning point for the distribution

"Firefox for Enterprises" – Delivering a Mozilla Firefox Extended Support Release ("ESR") | The Mozilla Blog

Delivering a Mozilla Firefox Extended Support Release | The Mozilla Blog

FSFE opens 2012 Document Freedom Award nominations

FSFE opens 2012 Document Freedom Award nominations: The Free Software Foundation Europe is seeking nominations for its fourth annual Document Freedom Award, which will be presented on this year's Document Freedom Day …


I would have loved to suggest AVM for supporting Ogg Vorbis in their FRITZ!WLAN (WiFi) Repeater series and their FRITZ!Fon series for receiving broadcasters' live streams, but they only support MP3.

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

book: The Linux Command Line

The Linux Command Line:
The Linux Command Line takes you from your very first terminal keystrokes to writing full programs in Bash, the most popular Linux shell. Along the way you'll learn the timeless skills handed down by generations of gray-bearded, mouse-shunning gurus: file navigation, environment configuration, command chaining, pattern matching with regular expressions, and more.

mbox -- more technical information than you ever thought you'd need, to be saved for the time when you have to parse mailbox files

FGA: "mbox" is a family of several mutually incompatible mailbox formats.

The Pragmatic Bookshelf: The Developer's Code

The Developer's Code:
You're already a great coder, but awesome coding chops aren't always enough to get you through your toughest projects. You need these 50+ nuggets of wisdom. Veteran programmers: reinvigorate your passion for developing web applications. New programmers: here's the guidance you need to get started. With this book, you'll think about your job in new and enlightened ways.

Monday, January 9, 2012

o'Reilly Media book: Hacking Healthcare – A Guide to Standards, Workflows, and Meaningful Use

Meaningful Use and Beyond:
Ready to take your IT skills to the healthcare industry? This concise book provides a candid assessment of the US healthcare system as it ramps up its use of electronic health records (EHRs) and other forms of IT to comply with the government’s Meaningful Use requirements. It’s a tremendous opportunity for tens of thousands of IT professionals.

o'Reilly OFPS ("Open Feedback Publishing System"): several nice free online books

Open Feedback Publishing System

book: The Information Diet: A Case for Conscious Consumption

The Information Diet:
According to Google’s Chairman Eric Schmidt, we create more information every two days than we did throughout human history up to 2003. How can you cope with information overload? This insightful book makes a compelling case that information overload doesn't actually exist—the real problem is information overconsumption. By showing you what to look for, what to avoid, and how to be selective, The Information Diet provides a framework for consuming information in a healthy way.

FormulatePro helps you open and write on PDF documents

formulatepro - Overlay text and graphics on PDF documents. Great for filling out forms. - Google Project Hosting

PDFTron: PDF components and PDF tools

PDFTron: PDF components and PDF tools

book: Breaking the Page

Breaking the Page: Preview Edition:
A fresh, elemental look at how screen-based publications work, the kinds of material they can and should contain, and how to assemble all this new stuff in a package that's entertaining and compelling.

book: PDF Explained

PDF Explained:
An introduction to the PDF file format, threaded through with practical examples – deconstructing, creating and processing PDF files. After exploring how PDF is produced, and how it can be edited with tools from text editors to Ghostscript to PDFTK, readers will learn to deal with problems with PDF files and common error messages.

Google Fusion Tables - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Google Fusion Tables - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

installing pdftohtml from sources – successfully using 0.40a

  • pdftohtml-0.40a.tar.gz (an experimental version from 2006-11-06 on SourceForge.net)
  • as opposed to 0.39 I got this recompiled out of the box on Linux and Mac OS X Lion
True, this is not brand-new information, but I think still worth mentioning.

Sunday, January 8, 2012

Carbon Emacs Package

Carbon Emacs Package

I love this emacs of OS X.

book: Data Analysis with Open Source Tools: A hands-on guide for programmers and data scientists

Data Analysis with Open Source Tools - O'Reilly Media

The Pragmatic Bookshelf: Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great

http://pragprog.com/book/dlret/agile-retrospectives

The Pragmatic Bookshelf: Practices of an Agile Developer

http://pragprog.com/book/pad/practices-of-an-agile-developer

book: Data Crunching: Solve Everyday Problems using Java, Python, and More

The Pragmatic Bookshelf | Data Crunching

book: Manage Your Project Portfolio: Increase Your Capacity and Finish More Projects

The Pragmatic Bookshelf | Manage Your Project Portfolio

book: Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactor Your Wetware

The Pragmatic Bookshelf | Pragmatic Thinking and Learning

book: SQL Antipatterns: Avoiding the Pitfalls of Database Programming

The Pragmatic Bookshelf | SQL Antipatterns

The Pragmatic Bookshelf: The Passionate Programmer: Creating a Remarkable Career in Software Development

The Pragmatic Bookshelf | The Passionate Programmer

The feedback economy - O'Reilly Radar

The feedback economy - O'Reilly Radar

Eric S. Raymond: Understanding Version-Control Systems

Understanding Version-Control Systems

Plastic SCM blog: The version control timeline

Plastic SCM blog: The version control timeline
The comments there are interesting on their own!!!

Atria Software's ClearCase vs. Apollo Computer's DSEE – that makes sense …

IBM Rational ClearCase - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Eric S. Raymond even writes: "DSEE was rebranded as ClearCase."
Wow! Why didn't I read this in the early days of ClearCase. I don't remember any mentioning like this in the articles I read then.

The History of Version Control (Francis Irving)

Astonishments, ten, in the history of version control < Francis is
Concise history of the key advances in managing source code versions. Worth it just for the delicious apposition of "history" and "version control".

O'Reilly Media book: APIs: A Strategy Guide – Creating Channels with Application Programming Interfaces

APIs: A Strategy Guide - O'Reilly Media

"Defending Privacy at the U.S. Border: A Guide for Travelers Carrying Digital Devices" | Electronic Frontier Foundation

Defending Privacy at the U.S. Border: A Guide for Travelers Carrying Digital Devices | Electronic Frontier Foundation
a must read guide for travelers with commercial, political, or personal confidences they would like to keep

O'Reilly Media book: Head First Mobile Web

Head First Mobile Web:
Mobile web usage is exploding. Soon, more web browsing will take place on phones and tablets than PCs. Your business needs a mobile strategy, but where do you start? Head First Mobile Web shows how to use the web tech- nology you’re already familiar with to make sites and apps that work on any device of any size. Put your JavaScript, CSS media query, and HTML5 skills to work, and then optimize your site to perform its best in the demanding mobile market. Along the way, you’ll discover how to adapt your business strategy to target specific devices.

The Pragmatic Bookshelf: Web Development Recipes

Web Development Recipes:
Modern web development takes more than just HTML and CSS with a little JavaScript mixed in. Clients want more responsive sites with faster interfaces that work on multiple devices, and you need the latest tools and techniques to make that happen. This book gives you more than 40 concise, tried-and-true solutions to today's web development problems, and introduces new workflows that will expand your skillset.

o'Reilly Media book: Code Simplicity

Code Simplicity:
Every complexity of software design, simplified and codified at last, for use by every programmer, from the novice to the architects of major applications. This book contains the fundamental laws of software development, the primary pieces of understanding that make the difference between a mid-level/junior programmer and the high-level senior software engineer. The book exists to help all programmers understand the process of writing software, on a very fundamental level that can be applied to any programming language or project, from here into eternity. Code Simplicity is also written in such a way that even non-technical managers of software teams can gain an understanding of what the “right way” and the “wrong way” is (and why they are right and wrong) when it comes to software design. The focus of the book is primarily on “software design,” the process of creating a plan for a software project and making technical decisions about the pattern and structure of a system.


got it on 2012-07-29.

video: Hilary Mason: An Introduction to Machine Learning with Web Data - O'Reilly Media

Hilary Mason: An Introduction to Machine Learning with Web Data - O'Reilly Media

O'Reilly Media book: Machine Learning for Hackers

Machine Learning for Hackers:
Now that storage and collection technologies are cheaper and more precise, methods for extracting relevant information from large datasets is within the reach any experienced programmer willing to crunch data. With this book, you'll learn machine learning and statistics tools in a practical fashion, using black-box solutions and case studies instead of a traditional math-heavy presentation.

O'Reilly Media book: Using Mac OS X Lion Server

Using Mac OS X Lion Server:
The new version of Apple's Mac server platform offers many new services to support workgroups at home or the office. The new software is an evolutionary revision of Snow Leopard Server, but is priced for everyone at $50. "Using OS X Lion Server" helps non-sysadmins set up and maintain services for sharing files, mail and calendars on their desktops, tablets, or mobile devices. The book covers new web, wiki, chat and podcasting server management tool, as well as tools for managing configurations of multiple OS installations across a network. The book concludes with advice for setting up a home media server. Apple has released 6 versions of their Mac server platform. The original Lion announcement said that the server components would be bundled with the OS and not marketed as a separate project. This changed in the Spring of 2011 and Apple announced the server package would be available separately for $50. Major features include: • File sharing between Mac, Windows, Linux and over the Internet • iCal Server • Wiki Server • iChat Server • Address Book Server • SMTP, POP/IMAP, mailing lists, webmail server • Server-side spam filtering and virus detection • Podcasting tools and services • Web server • Directory services and authentication • Profile manager for supporting multiple OS installations • Networking and VPN services • Distributed computing with Xgrid • Automated backups and RAID • Xsan

book: Running Lean

Running Lean:
Are you an entrepreneur about to create a new web application? If you want to maximize your chances of building something customers want, this book demonstrates ways to apply and test techniques for customer development, Lean Startup, and bootstrapping. Learn how to identify and engage customers throughout the development cycle so you can focus on building a product that people will actually buy and use. By rigorously following the techniques described in Running Lean, you can eliminate waste—whether it's time, money, effort, or all of the above—and get your product to market quickly.

SPDY: An experimental protocol for a faster web - The Chromium Projects

SPDY: An experimental protocol for a faster web - The Chromium Projects

table_pdf2csv.pl : extracting tables from PDF, saving them as CSV


  • I leave the PDF extraction bit to "pdftohtml -xml".
  • My perl scripts tells you, at what "physical columns" text gets found within the PDF file.
  • You choose, which "physical columns" really makes sense to you as logical column starters.
  • Now you run my perl script with those few serious physical columns specified,
    and it creates a CSV file for you.
  • Per logical row a few physical rows got created.
  • If you want, you can merge cells from neighboring rows into logical cells,
    you can use LibreOffice Calc, or OpenOffice Calc, or Excel for this step.
Does this sound interesting to you?

Saturday, January 7, 2012

CAM::PDF - CPAN::Forum

CPAN Forum - CAM-PDF - CPAN::Forum

how to nicely display CGI forms?


  • formfind – a command line utility in perl, that comes with curl; it reads its input from STDIN; it is completely stand-alone; it has been my preferred utility for this purpose for a long time
  • mech-dump – a command line utility in perl, that comes with perl's WWW::Mechanize, and it needs the later one installed
  • Michael Schrenk's form_analyzer.php – online – you replace the original form action URL with this URL, trigger submit in your browser, and wait for a nicely formatted HTML page displayed in your browser. of course I trust Michael Schrenk, but you might have valuable contents in your HTML, so think twice, whether you want to leave it to somebody else, that you don't know at all.

WWW::Mechanize::FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions about WWW::Mechanize - metacpan.org

WWW::Mechanize::FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions about WWW::Mechanize - metacpan.org

valuable hints (more or less depending on WWW::Mechanize) regarding

  • Javascript (debugging in Firebug)
  • how to nicely display CGI forms (!!!) using the mech-dump utility
as you would expect, it explains these WWW::Mechanize related matters:
  • handling authentication
  • handling proxies

WWW::Mechanize::Examples - Sample programs that use WWW::Mechanize - metacpan.org

WWW::Mechanize::Examples - Sample programs that use WWW::Mechanize - metacpan.org

lwpcook - The libwww-perl cookbook - metacpan.org

lwpcook - The libwww-perl cookbook - metacpan.org

WWW-Mechanize - Handy web browsing in a Perl object - metacpan.org

WWW-Mechanize-1.71 - Handy web browsing in a Perl object - metacpan.org

Friday, January 6, 2012

Scrapar::Extractor::TableExtract - Table extractor - metacpan.org

Scrapar::Extractor::TableExtract - Table extractor - metacpan.org

HTML-TableExtract | Free software downloads at SourceForge.net

HTML-TableExtract | Free software downloads at SourceForge.net

HTML-TableExtract reviews (with interesting details!!) - CPAN Ratings

HTML-TableExtract reviews - CPAN Ratings

Matthew P. Sisk's project HTML-TableExtract

HTML-TableExtract

HTML::TableExtract - metacpan.org

HTML::TableExtract - Perl module for extracting the content contained in tables within an HTML document, either as text or encoded element trees. - metacpan.org

Private Services Are Not Public Spaces (BoingBoing)

Why we shouldn't let Google (or anyone else) claim their private services are public spaces - Boing Boing
"public spaces are where freedom of speech rules; private spaces are where owners decide what you can and cannot do. Don't mix the two up.!
from Nat Torkington's "Four short links: 6 January 2012".

my "Samsung Galaxy S II" is in "Safe mode" –– what the heck?

What takes you there? Apparently pressing the menu button during start up takes you there. I did not do that on intention. Whatever … – alright, rebooted, resolved.

Comparison of disc authoring software - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Comparison of disc authoring software - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

List of optical disc authoring software - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

List of optical disc authoring software - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Optical disc authoring - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Optical disc authoring - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
… "often referred to colloquially as burning" …

optical disc authoring software: "Nero Multimedia Suite" - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Nero Multimedia Suite - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Thursday, January 5, 2012

harvesting HTML-obfuscated web-sites looks like horror to you?

I just completed 2 tasks, where I faced obfuscated CGI forms. It was quite a challenge, and I didn't anticipate the final success from the beginning. But it's done.

Now I am rather eager to apply my technology for interesting and lucrative tasks.

book: Lincoln Stein's Official Guide to Programming with CGI.pm

Wiley: Official Guide to Programming with CGI.pm

book: CGI Programming with Perl - O'Reilly Media

CGI Programming with Perl, 2nd Edition - O'Reilly Media

Trelby screenplay editor relaunched

Trelby screenplay editor relaunched: Trelby 2.0 is a multi-platform screenplay editor which, after five years, has emerged from a near-abandoned project, Blyte, to offer writers a simple but powerful tool to create scripts for filming

FreeDOS 1.1 released

FreeDOS 1.1 released: The new FreeDOS offers more up-to-date components and new drivers but doesn't currently provide all the functions that were available in version 1.0

IBM hands 222 more patents to Google

IBM hands 222 more patents to Google: Google adds more IBM patents to its armoury as, for the third time, an unspecified deal sees IBM assign patents to the search and advertising company

Android 4.0 requires default Holo theme for Android Market access

Android 4.0 requires default Holo theme for Android Market access: Android 4 device manufacturers must be more careful when customising designs, and they must implement a standard design. Google says that, rather than restrict the development of vendor-specific user interfaces, this is intended to make life easier for developers

CouchDB creator distances self from Apache project

CouchDB creator distances self from Apache project: As Couchbase drops its packaged CouchDB NoSQL database offering, the creator of the original project says he and the company are focusing on the blended CouchDB/Membase server and moving away from CouchDB development

Web servers: nginx overtakes IIS

Web servers: nginx overtakes IIS: Netcraft says, however, that the performance-optimised web server is still behind Microsoft when looking at the 900,000 most active web sites, while Apache continues to lead

O'Reilly Media book: Arduino Cookbook

Arduino Cookbook:
This cookbook is perfect for anyone who wants to experiment with the popular Arduino microcontroller and programming environment. You’ll find more than 200 tips and techniques for building a variety of objects and prototypes such as toys, detectors, robots, and interactive clothing that can sense and respond to touch, sound, position, heat, and light.

O'Reilly Media book: Make a Mind-Controlled Arduino Robot

Make a Mind-Controlled Arduino Robot:
Build a robot that responds to electrical activity in your brain—it’s easy and fun. If you’re familiar with Arduino and have basic mechanical building skills, this book will show you how to construct a robot that plays sounds, blinks lights, and reacts to signals from an affordable electroencephalography (EEG) headband. You’ll find complete instructions for building a simple robot chassis with servos, wheels, sensors, LEDs, and a speaker. You also get the code to program the Arduino microcontroller to receive wireless signals from the EEG.

The Pragmatic Bookshelf: Pragmatic Guide to Sass

Pragmatic Guide to Sass:
CSS is fundamental to the web, but it's a basic language and lacks many features. Sass is just like CSS, but with a whole lot of extra power so you can get more done, more quickly. Build better web pages today with Pragmatic Guide to Sass. These concise, easy-to-digest tips and techniques are the shortcuts experienced CSS developers need to start developing in Sass today.

O'Reilly Media book: Mapping with Drupal

Mapping with Drupal:
Build beautiful interactive maps on your Drupal website, and tell engaging visual stories with your data. This concise guide shows you how to create custom geographical maps from top to bottom, using Drupal 7 tools and out-of-the-box modules. You’ll learn how mapping works in Drupal, with examples on how to use intuitive interfaces to map local events, businesses, groups, and other custom data.

book: Software Change Management: Case Studies and Practical Advice – Microsoft Press

Software Change Management: Case Studies and Practical Advice:
Drawing from 30+ years of field experience, with case studies spanning industry, government, and academia, this practical guide illuminates the change-management approaches that lead to successful software process improvement.

book: SQL and Relational Theory - O'Reilly Media

SQL and Relational Theory:
SQL is full of difficulties and traps for the unwary. You can avoid them if you understand relational theory, but only if you know how to put the theory into practice. In this insightful book, author C.J. Date explains relational theory in depth, and demonstrates through numerous examples and exercises how you can apply it directly to your use of SQL.

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

the Tetragrammaton YHWH aka Yahweh - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Yahweh - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Asherah - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Asherah - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

euphemism - Wiktionary

euphemism - Wiktionary

The English Wiktionary article explains:


  1. (uncountable) The use of a word or phrase to replace another with one that is considered less offensive or less vulgar than the word or phrase it replaces.
  2. (countable) (rhetoric) A word or phrase that is used to replace another in this way.
I have only known the 2nd meaning so far, but I am tempted to use the word with the 1st meaning from now on.

"what the heck?" - Wiktionary

what the heck - Wiktionary

I seriously hoped, this would be a much nicer phrase than WTF, but it's not; its wiktionary article explains:
(euphemistic) A "softer" way to say "what the hell?".
For someone with a vague religious background, replacing "what the heck" with the well-known WTF is like "driving out demons by the power of Beelzeboul". You may want to read this up in the Wikipedia article on Beelzebub, another way to write Beelzeboul.

AM/FM broadcasting


I don't remember ever having heard this explanation.
In German a different terminology is being used for radio broadcasting:
  • UKW for Ultrakurzwelle, in English: VHF for very high frequency, popularly (but incorrectly) also FM
  • KW for Kurzwelle, in English: SW for short wave or HF for high frequency
  • MW for Mittelwelle, in English: MF for medium frequency, popularly (but incorrectly) also AM
  • LW for Langwelle, in English: LowFER for Low-Frequency Experimental Radio