Friday, March 30, 2012

the printtool process on my Mac OS X Lion MacBook goes wild – related to my "Samsung SCX-4623F" MFP

"Killing" the printtool process itself doesn't help, because it gets restarted and shows the same problem again: eating up CPU resources.

The device is an MFP, i.e. it's also a scanner, and what seems to help me here, is to "kill" the "Smart Panel" (AKA SPanel) process.

I couldn't find a recent driver update on Samsung's support pages.

Wikipedia’s Next Big Thing: Wikidata, A Machine-Readable, User-Editable Database Funded By Google, Paul Allen And Others | TechCrunch

Wikipedia’s Next Big Thing: Wikidata, A Machine-Readable, User-Editable Database Funded By Google, Paul Allen And Others | TechCrunch


The article links this to Google's announcement regarding semantic queries.

Monday, March 26, 2012

LESS (stylesheet language) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

LESS (stylesheet language) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

ZEmacs : a bundle of lisp extensions (on Sourceforge)

ZEmacs

a rather obtrusive Chrome / Chromium extension: YAGBE - Yet Another Google Bookmarks Extension


YAGBE - Yet Another Google Bookmarks Extension

It attempts to add ads on deliberate pages, that you view. Those pages are not at all related to YAGBE. If consider that rather appalling and not at all tolerable.

O'Reilly Media book: LPIC-2 Linux Professional Institute Certification Study Guide

http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9781118000151.do:
The first book to cover the LPIC-2 certification
Linux allows developers to update source code freely, making it an excellent, low-cost, secure alternative to alternate, more expensive operating systems. It is for this reason that the demand for IT professionals to have an LPI certification is so strong. This study guide provides unparalleled coverage of the LPIC-2 objectives for exams 201 and 202. Clear and concise coverage examines all Linux administration topics while practical, real-world examples enhance your learning process. On the CD, you’ll find the Sybex Test Engine, electronic flashcards, and a glossary containing the most important terms you need to understand..
  • Prepares you for exams 201 and 202 of the Linux Professional Institute Certification
  • Offers clear, concise coverage on exam topics such as the Linux kernel, system startup, networking configuration, system maintenance, domain name server, file sharing, and more
  • Addresses additional key topics for the exams including network client management, e-mail services, system security, and troubleshooting
This must-have study guide serves as an invaluable roadmap to attaining LPI certification.

o'Reilly Media book: The Data Journalism Handbook

The Data Journalism Handbook:
This collaborative book coordinated by the European Journalism Centre and the Open Knowledge Foundation aims to answer questions like: Where can I find data? How can I request data? What tools can I use? How can I find stories in data? How can I make data journalism sustainable? It had a very successful start at the Mozilla Festival in London in November 2011 with fifty contributors, including data journalists and professors from the New York Times, Financial Times, Guardian, Chicago Tribune, Medill School of Journalism, and Cronkite School of Journalism. Additional contributors now include leading developers, analysts, FOI experts, and other practitioners from places like the BBC, City University London, Scraperwiki, Zeit Online, and many others. The project has received coverage in the New York Times, Liberation, Tech Crunch, World Editors Forum, and other major publications.


got it on 2012-07-29.

o'Reilly Media book: Database Design and Relational Theory – Normals Forms and All That Jazz

Database Design and Relational Theory:
Because databases often stay in production for decades, careful design is critical to making the database serve the needs of your users over years, and to avoid subtle errors or performance problems. In this book, CJ Date, a leading exponent of relational databases, lays out the principles of good database design. Database Design and Relational Theory investigates denormalization, implicit dependencies, redundancy, and many other topics.


got it on 2012-07-29.

Sunday, March 25, 2012

AVM has a daylight saving time problem with their FRITZ!Box and FRITZ!Fon products

My FRITZ!Box 7390 synchronises properly with the NTP servers, but it does not take the DST ("daylight saving time", in German: "Sommerzeit") into account, that started last night over here in Germany (e.g.).

When I log in to my box, it shows the date (day and time) like this:
$ telnet fritz.box
# date
Sun Mar 25 10:05:09 CET 2012
It should show this instead:
Sun Mar 25 11:05:09 CEST 2012
The time itself is alright, just the DST is not.

On the IP-Phone-Forum there are currently 2 threads dealing with the issue:
Another look inside the box:

# ls -l /etc/TZ
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root             7 Mar  2 16:01 /etc/TZ -> /var/TZ
# ls -l /var/TZ
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root            19 Mar 25 11:01 /var/TZ -> /etc/default.049/TZ
# ls -l /etc/default.049/TZ
-rwxrwxrwx    1 root     root            45 Mar  2 16:01 /etc/default.049/TZ
# cat /etc/default.049/TZ
CET-1CEST-2,M3.5.0/02:00:00,M10.5.0/03:00:00
The TZ file looks like it's writable, but it's on a read-only filesystem.

The constituents of "M3.5.0" mean this:
  • The "3" means the 3rd month of the year.
  • The "0" means the 0th day of the week, i.e. the Sunday.
  • The "5" means neither the 1st through 4th, but the last Sunday.
Looks like AVM's software has a problem with determining the right date for the last Sunday of March in 2012.
On my blog in German I am referring to an article in a German magazine, that shows how and where to change the timezone "manually". (Somebody on the IP-Phone-Forum quoted that article, and that's how I found it.) My fix for 2012: replace that "5" by "4"!

Update 2012-03-26: AVM look like they don't want to announce a fix for this problem within the next couple of days [Link].

Update 2012-03-28: AVM provide a "Labor" firmware update.

A heise Netze article (in German) on the topic [link].

Friday, March 16, 2012

o'Reilly Media book: Designing Data Visualizations

Designing Data Visualizations - O'Reilly Media


got it on 2012-07-29.

O'Reilly Media book: Enabling Programmable Self with HealthVault

Enabling Programmable Self with HealthVault:
Microsoft HealthVault is the most prominent example of a personal health record (PHR). With its open API, flexibility, and connections with multiple health care providers, it gives people interested in monitoring their own health an unprecedented opportunity to do their own research on their own data. This concise book will explain what you can store in HealthVault, how to enable automatic updates from well-known fitness devices, and how to use programming libraries to create reports and investigate trends of interest to you

Friday, March 9, 2012

my FRITZ!Box 7390 stopped functioning last night, but now it works again.


  • I tried restarting it in the morning, but it did not wake up.
  • I re-animated my 7270, and phone-wise it worked fine, but not DSL-wise – all that took quite a while.
  • The guy at the Deutsche Telekom support hotline told me, the 7270 would not talk VDSL, and my access was configured to be VDSL. He is right.
  • I was almost on my way to borrow a splitter and a VDSL modem router at the next Deutsche Telekom shop.
  • I replaced the device's power supply with a switchable one, that I have on stock. Why didn't I try that in the first place? Well … – are you always instantly aware of all your available options?
  • 7390 started up fine again. That made me happy again, at least on the level of happiness before last night's disaster.
  • Contacted AVM regarding the broken power supply.
  • I purchased the 7390 in May 2010.
  • Will they tell me, the 7390's power supply is too old to be replaced by them for free? Not unlikely.
  • But they could be nice and take my engagement into account, that I showed, when the dradio underscore URLs broke the Internet radio modules in their phone and WIFI repeater products.
  • Update 2012-03-14: AVM sent me a free replacement for the broken power supply.

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

book: Webbots, Spiders, and Screen Scrapers (2nd ed.), by Michael Schrenk

Webbots, Spiders, and Screen Scrapers:
There's a wealth of data online, but sorting and gathering it by hand can be tedious and time consuming. Rather than click through page after endless page, why not let bots do the work for you? Webbots, Spiders, and Screen Scrapers will show you how to create simple programs with PHP/CURL to mine, parse, and archive online data to help you make informed decisions.