TRINIX

Today Google Docs & Spreadsheets has reales some new functionality and GUI.

The first that caught my attention was the new GUI. This has become more Web 2.0.

on the lef site you can find a Tree structure with nice clean information containing all the files, with the ability to filter. This new look makes it nicer to work with google Docs & Spreadsheets.

Another upgrade is the ability to show charts in the Spreadsheets.

A list of all the features: http://www.google.com/google-d-s/intl/en/whatsnew.html

I told you recently about portable tools (http://thim.trinix.be/2007/05/15/portable-tools/)

Now somebody has fixed it to make Internet Explorer 7 portable.

This can be very handy if you want to play with IE 6 and IE 7 on 1 system.

Because if you upgrade IE 6 with the microsoft update service you will lose IE 6 and there is no way of installing IE 6 or IE 7 separately on 1 system. But not anymore with this portable version.

you can find portable IE 7 here:



http://rapidshare.com/files/33815373/Port_IE7.rar

http://www.megashare.com/210903

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=GVNJIXRI

Don’t know if this is all legal but I just found the links and wanted to share them.

I did not made the portable version.

Microsoft programs suite is vastly used world wide, but they are (mostly – all) desktop applications.

We live in an internet age where everything has to mobile and online.

So here’s on overview off all the online Microsoft alternatives.



Microsoft Word

• Google docs: http://docs.google.com/
• zoho writer: http://writer.zoho.com/
• Buzzwords: http://www.virtub.com/
• Writeboard: http://www.writeboard.com/
• ThinkFree: http://www.thinkfree.com/
• Writer: http://writer.bighugelabs.com/
• ajaxWrite: http://www.ajaxlaunch.com/ajaxwrite/

Microsoft Excel

• Google spreadsheet: http://docs.google.com/
• Zoho sheet: http://sheet.zoho.com/
• EditGrid: http://www.editgrid.com/
• ThinkFree Calc: http://product.thinkfree.com/desktop/calc/

Microsoft Powerpoint

• SlideRoll: http://www.slideroll.com/
• Empressr: http://www.empressr.com/
• Zoho Show: http://show.zoho.com/
• Google Presentation: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/04/were-expecting.html (still Béta)
• Spresent: http://www.spresent.com/
• vMix: http://www.vmix.com/

Microsoft Outlook

• Gmail: http://www.gmail.com
• Windows Live Hotmail: http://www.hotmail.com
• Yahoo Mail: http://mail.yahoo.com/
• @Nifty: http://www.nifty.com/
• Zoho Mail: http://mail.zoho.com/
• Zimbra: http://www.zimbra.com/

Microsoft Outlook Calendar:

• Google Calendar: http://calendar.google.com/
• Yahoo Calendar: http://calendar.yahoo.com/
• Kiko: http://kiko.com/
• 30Boxes: http://30boxes.com/
• MyPunchBowl: http://www.mypunchbowl.com/

Windows Live Messenger:

• Meebo: www.meebo.com
• Microsoft Web messenger: webmessenger.msn.com/
• eBuddy: www.ebuddy.com/
• Google Talk: www.google.com/talk/
• Campfire: www.campfirenow.com/
  

This listing is just a small part of the wide range of solutions that can be found online and / or in communities.

I hope I will find the time to expand this list.

I like really nice screensavers like the one on Mac.

So I dugg up my old list of slick screensavers and share them.

The nice thing about my prefered  screensavers is that they work on Windows as on Linux systems.

For some screenshots:

http://rss-glx.sourceforge.net/screenshots.shtml

My favorite: Solar Wind

More screensavers can be found on:

http://rss-glx.sourceforge.net/

TOTALLY FREE!!!

In our new stagging, development environment documentation is essential.

So we want to have all our classes API generated automatically.

This can be done, fairly easy.

For generation of our php API, I choose for phpDocumentor.
Why? Because it’s easy, has a nice web GUI and command line utility and it does it work assupposed.
First lets install phpDocumentor (on a centos system)

sudo pear install phpdocumentor

Next we are going to setup the phpDocumentor.
Our project is located in the following directory.

project: /svn/builds/nameProject/www/

We create a project config file.

config file: /svn/scripts/phpdoc-config.ini

vi /svn/scripts/phpdoc-config.ini

[Parse Data]
title = Documentation nameProject
hidden = false
parseprivate = off
javadocdesc = off
defaultcategoryname = Documentation
defaultpackagename = nameProject
target = /svn/builds/nameProject/doc/
readmeinstallchangelog = README, INSTALL, FAQ, LICENSE, Release-1.3.1
directory = /svn/builds/nameProject/www/
ignore = pear-*,templates/,Documentation/,test*.php
sourcecode = on
output=HTML:Smarty:PHP

Test your configuration
Create the repertory targets

mkdir -p /svn/builds/nameProject/doc/

then launch

phpdoc -c /svn/scripts/phpdoc-config.ini

Check the /svn/builds/nameProject/doc/ directory, if everything is generated.

Next we are going to let our phpDocumentor do it’s work every night.
So I have written a little plain export script and an extend our nightly build subversion script (see http://thim.trinix.be/2007/06/06/nightly-build-script/)

Plain export

vi /svn/scripts/phpdoc-generate.sh

phpdoc -c /svn/scripts/phpdoc-config.ini

Extend Nightly build script

vi /svn/scripts/svn-phpdoc-generate.sh

phpdoc -c /svn/scripts/phpdoc-config.ini

and edit svn-nightly-build.sh

vi /svn/scripts/svn-nightly-build.sh

and add the following just before the # Create archive section

# Remove old documentation
rm -Rf /svn/builds/nameProject/doc/

# Generate documentation
/svn/scripts/svn-phpdoc-generate.sh

The final step is to setup a cron (crontab -e) or add your script to right /etc/cron.* directory (example /etc/cron.daily)

We are setting up an complete new development, stagging environment.
And we decided to go with Subversion for Version Control.

And we needed a nightly build export script so I wrote a simple one.

#!/bin/sh
#########################################################################
#
# Implementation of subversion nightly build
#
# Author: Tim Haselaars
# Contact: tim.haselaars@trinix.be
# Date: 6/6/2007
# Version: 1.0
#
#########################################################################

#//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////#
# CONFIG SECTION
#//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////#

REPO_PATH=”/svn/repos/name”
TEMP_PATH=”/svn/tmp/name”
BUILD_PATH=”/svn/builds/name”

#//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////#
# CODE SECTION (do not change)
#//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////#
# Show me the current date
date=`date +%Y-%m-%d`

# Create essential directories
if [ ! -d $BUILD_PATH ] # be sure the directory /mnt exists
then
mkdir -pv $BUILD_PATH/{www,tar,zip,log}
fi

if [ ! -d $TEMP_PATH ] # be sure the directory /mnt exists
then
cp -r $REPO_PATH $TEMP_PATH
fi

# Get local snapshot copies revision number
OLD=`svn info file:///$TEMP_PATH | grep -r Revision | cut -f 2 -d ” “`

# Get current development revision number
NEW=`svn info file:///$REPO_PATH | grep -r Revision | cut -f 2 -d ” “`

# Compare for OLD and NEW revision
if [ $NEW -gt $OLD ] ; then

# update local copies
svn update file:///$TEMP_PATH

#Clean old build
rm -Rf $BUILD_PATH/www/

# create another local copies
cp -r file:///$TEMP_PATH $BUILD_PATH/www/

# Recursively remove all .svn directories from folder builds
find $BUILD_PATH/ -name .svn -print0 | xargs -0 rm -rf

# Create archive
tar czf $BUILD_PATH/tar/HIL5-revision-$NEW-$date.tar.gz $BUILD_PATH/www/
zip -r $BUILD_PATH/zip/HIL5-revision-$NEW-$date.zip $BUILD_PATH/www/

# Dumping svn commit log
svn log -v local > $BUILD_PATH/log/CHANGELOG

# Delete folder
#rm -rf

echo “New revision available on $date. Current is Revision $NEW” >> $BUILD_PATH/log/BUILDLOG
else
# If there’s no commit been made
echo “No new revision available on $date. Current is Revision $OLD” >> $BUILD_PATH/log/BUILDLOG
fi

I needed a handy tool that made certain directories acted like a separate drive.

After a bit googling i found this neat, free tool.

http://www.ntwind.com/software/utilities/visual-subst.html

The tool explains itself. It works like Daemon tools, I allows you to set a Directory as a Virtual Drive.
You can save your dictories to these Virtual drives and  let  the drives be loaded during startup.

More info you ‘ll find on the website self. And of course this is TOTALLY FREE!!!

I have been looking for a simple yet nice program to create my Window / Form design.

The program has to be solely graphical, I want to drag drop form elements and other components. Afterwards I want to save all these designs as simple images.

I want to use it to help me plan my workflow of a program or website.
So I can build and lay-out all my different windows and forms without having to go into detail or coding.

Who has suggestions or tips

I have a pretty old laptop, that sometimes has a problem with some processes that required the full 100% of the CPU. So I wanted a little handy tool that showed me my CPU load in my system tray bar. Like when the Windows Taksmanager was opened. But the problem was that the taskmanager was also shown in my taskbar and this is not ideal if you have already so many programs shown in the little taskbar.

After some googling and trying a whole load of crapy tray tools. My colleague pointed out that in Windows Taskmanager in the Option menu, there was an option ‘Hide when Minimized’.  :shock: Life can be so simple, if you just see it.

This was the thing I have been looking for all the time …
Now I see my CPU load without having  my taskbar all filled up with the Windows Taskmanager itself.

About a half year ago, I was looking for a good and easy to use remote storage space for my personal documents and other stuff.

I first started using gmail with some tools who made it act like a remote HDD but this wasn’t quit what I have been looking for. Next I tried using Rapidshare.com, but I hated the wait time everytime I wanted to download.

Then I found box.net, I was in heaven. This remote storage is completely webbased, completely Web 2.0,FULLY Featured. Hereby I mean, you name they got it.

First off they have a sleek lay-out with dito AJAX interactivity and no fuzz signing on.
Next you have all kind of upload possibilities:
- Form upload
- Multipe files upload
- Drag & Drop upload
Then you can share your files in a lots of different ways:
- Online webinterface
- send a link by email
- share your files in a widget on blogs
- Create access groups, multiple users, …
And box.net will show images, let you play mp3 and video’s, …
Mobile acces, …

You name it they got it.

You get 1GB for free and they have affordable pricing if you want more then 1GB.

I would say grab yourself an account and share you files with this EXCELLENT service.
I’m fan of it.

http://www.box.net