RockyCode

New version of virtual box. Problem was, I needed to uninstall the old version first.

Synergy is a fantastic project that allows you to share a single set of input devices (keyboard and mouse) over multiple machines. Clipboard sharing is also supported. It's remarkably easy to set up, and it works across multiple platforms.

When you setup your computer at the time of your initial Ubuntu installation, you assign your computer a hostname. In my case, I gave it a hostname and then later wanted to change it to something else. This is accomplished in two easy steps.

In Ubuntu 9.10, they removed Java 5 from the update repositories for Karmic because Java 5 was end of lifed in Oct. 09. This has made it more cumbersome for the Java 5 user on Karmic. Luckily, cumbersome is still pretty easy.

Sometimes you need to install a security certificate for authentication to work for certain services -- services that are accessed by your java application that requirement a secure connection. For instance, needing to authenticate against an LDAP server from one of our apps, we had to run a little InstallCert.java on all JDKs used to run the app.

On a Sun keyboard, the ctrl key is actually in the space that the caps lock key occupies on a standard qwerty keyboard nowadays. In a program where the ctrl key is often used, this positioning can be helpful as no Vulcan figure stretches are required for common key patterns. So, why not change caps lock to be a control key.

Mark Logic Server seems to be the latest, greatest in content serve-up. At least it is generating a lot of excitement at the LDS Church, where it's being used for new content-centric apps/sites. Being caught in the wave of awesome, I was interested in getting it running in my favorite dev environment: Ubunutu-flavored Linux.

It wasn't bad at all. In fact, it was accomplished in almost as few steps as installing Apache or Tomcat. Except, after this installation, full XML xquery'age is now possible! Here are the steps, slightly elongated by the fact that all Mark Logic-supported Unix systems are rpm-based.

It's important to understand what libraries, utilities, engines and so on that are used by your Ubuntu Linux OS. It's easy to tell if you only have on option -- of course, it uses the only thing available. But if there are multiple options, which does it use? In general, the default; Here's how to set it.

This is similar to the Set Default Applications dialog in Windows XP.

It is one of the nicest things to be able to work remotely. Almost all my jobs have allowed this. My current job allows it on a limited basis as well. It's even more attractive an option now that I have a nice desk chair at home, for which I currently long, because I'm currently typing up this post from a 2nd grader mini-chair while I wait for my lovely wife, April.

Remote working goodness is just a few shell commands away via Cisco VPN in Linux!

As awesome as Linux is, I still have moments where I want something from the Windows world. Shy of putting a whole dual-booted partition on my harddrive, I am doing the virtual machine gig. I have tried VMWare before, but have just found the whole experience rather clunky. I even found VirtualPC (running on Windows) more pleasing. Another big kicker with VM's is performace -- I can't ever seem to get even comparable performance from a VM. Several of my coworkers report, however, that they are please with the performance of Sun's VirtualBox. I, therefore, am giving it a try.

I love the volume control scheme for Vista that allows one to adjust the volume on a per-application basis. It turns out that this functionality is also available for Linux!

I was having a really hard time getting DVD to play on Hardy Heron, but finally got it. After a daily ritual of attempts, finally, Ted and I struck gold!

All over the net, there are questions asked about running Crystal Reports in Linux. This isn't a solution for running Crystal in Linux per se, but running Crystal as lightweight as possible on a Linux host machine. This means, run a VM, install Crystal, and use a small Oracle client.

I haven't done php for a while, but at work our prototypes are in html/php. So, I needed to get Apache webserver downloaded and working on my Linux box with php. Here's how it all went down.

IntelliJ is my current favorite IDE. Ubuntu is my current favorite Linux flavors. Put 'em both together and waddya' get? My current favorite day on the job.

Since my work recently relieved us of our Toad licenses, I've gotten to know and love SQL Developer. I used it back in the day of pre-version 1.0 Raptor days, but have recently picked it back up of necessity. I like it for the most part and use it with pleasure for the most part.

A developer values his screen real estate. I am no different. With my latest install of Ubuntu 8.0.4 (Hardy Heron), after I got my basic development apps running, the first order of business was to get the monitors all up and humming.

For me, one of the major draws for Linux is the oh-so-awesome bash shell. I also like the default pdf viewer for Ubuntu. I always forget that this thing is called evince.

My friend Josh has told me numerous times that Django is much easier to work with on Linux. Basically things are easier if you know how to do them. Whether things are easier to learn or not on Linux compared to other OS's is debatable. But, on this point anyway, it seems that Linux and Django really play well together.

Almost any interesting application nowadays uses a database to store its goodies. One of the most popular is the wildly-successful and generally good-looking MySQL database. Hopefully it stays true to its core (and free!) now that Sun has acquired it. Here's a tidbit on how to get it running on Ubuntu.