Java Thinking

photo credit: @Doug88888 via photopin cc Installing Windows Vista For the first time since I bought it, my old Dell Inspiron 1525 has Windows Vista back on it. It's been running Ubuntu Linux since I got it, so why does it now have Windows again? My children are using computers at school now and they are using Windows - mainly Office. So rather than confuse them with different operating systems it seems more constructive to just give them some consistency and let them have their own computer set up like it is at school. I'm going to have to buy Microsoft Office for them - which after seeing how Libre Office handles clip art, I'm quite happy to do! (MS Office has a nice search and browse for clipart which the kids love and can use well. Libre Office didn't seem to have any search and you were left to click into each folder one at a time to see the clipart - not particularly useful). Downloading statements I've just noticed PayPal have an interesting fea...

Google Reader and Listen I've been using Google Listen for listening to podcasts since I got my Android phone. It worked well, I would just subscribe to podcasts via Google Reader and drop it in the 'Listen Subscriptions' folder. But now with Google announcing the end of Reader , and Listen has long been abandoned , I'm looking for a suitable alternative. I really liked how I simply had to subscribe to a feed online - if I have to subscribe to things via an app, I'm stuck if I ever want to switch apps. Maybe I'll try Pocket Casts . LinkedIn Groups I've noticed that when contributing to LinkedIn groups, its not immediately obvious to others from your profile. Recent comments might show up in your activity stream but they'll soon disappear. If you view your profile, you'll see a Groups section that shows the groups you have joined. Click on one of those and you'll be taken to the Group page and at the top there will an area where you can st...

Since I got my Android phone, I've been using Google Listen to listen to podcasts. I really liked this solution since adding another podcast to my collection was as simple as adding it to my 'Listen subscriptions' folder in Google Reader. All from within my browser, all at the click of a button. Awesome. Listen may not have been the best podcast player - it didn't let you speed the playback up and didn't have a sleep timer. But it was simple and worked. Pity it was discontinued last year. Now Reader is on its way out I've had to find a new solution to consume my podcasts. And I've found it in Pocket Casts . This does allow you to speed up playback and set a sleep timer - something particularly useful since I've found podcasts distract me so much I can fall asleep very quickly. I've imported my Reader OMPL file by doing the following: Read how to export Google Reader feeds here http://lifehacker.com/5990456/google-reader-is-getting-...

I'm slowly working through my broken pages - which were broken during the conversion from WordPress to Blogger. I can see in Google Web Master tools I've still got 22 server 500 errors left. There must have been more like 50 to start with. Its a slow painful process of copying the content from the broken post to a new post. I suspect it may be caused by the original WordPress post having comments - something the Wordpress2Blogger script must not be able to handle and therefore creates an corrupted post. Interestingly, the contents of the post are still viewable via the monthly archive page, but viewing the individual post errors - presumably as it tries to render the comments. If I had time, I'd go look at my WordPress database to confirm this theory but all of my time is being taken with fixing the errors. I cannot recommend using the Wordpress2Blogger script, I'm feeling a lot of pain and I had no help from Blogger support or groups.

Job interview testing While job hunting, I've come across one company that seems to have a very good filtering process. First off, you get a series of technical questions which are obviously aimed at finding out how you think or how much you know about technologies applicable to the organisation. I'm sure these questions have been custom written for their environment - which does to some extent convey some information about the potential role. If you pass that, you get an online 2 question Codility test which you have exactly an hour to complete. This is where you actually write code and can verify it compiles and produces the right answers. If you haven't seen Codility before, have a look - as a programmer you can even complete tests to get a 'certificate' you can put on your resume. Job hunting sites Some interesting sites when job hunting: http://www.glassdoor.com/ Information about company salaries http://www.snipey.com.au/ Find jobs advertised by co...

An Optus representative came knocking the other week, and explained that by having an Optus home phone, broadband and mobile phone (which I have), I'd qualify for a 25% discount and free Fetch TV . Now, this is all GOOD. I had to upgrade my mobile plan from $29 to $30 (for which they wanted a $100 plan change fee), but hopefully my next bill will be 25% smaller (down from $80ish to $60ish). And, I'm currently enjoying the Fetch TV experience. This set-top box has a 1T hard disk, and a pretty good interface for navigating the recordings and (free albeit old) IPTV movies. I'm not saying its the best, but it does have me considering turning off the MythTV media center since it takes care of recording terrestrial TV (but I would need a DNLA alternative or similar for watching audio/video/dvds - maybe a NAS? or XBMC?). See https://www.optus.com.au/shop/broadband/bundles/85 An interesting point to note, now that I have FetchTV I can rent and stream movies for approx $6.50 -...

I just recently came across Digital Ocean - "Simple Cloud Hosting". I was impressed by the pricing, much cheaper than my current VPS solution so I've set up an Ubuntu 12.10 server with 512MB, 20GB SSD, for $5 USD per month. Since I've moved almost everything to Google (from self hosted WordPress to Blogger and Google Docs) the only thing I really need a VPS for is to run my Java applications (there still is the option to use AppEngine with Play 1.2.x if it makes sense to use DataStore). But for $5 a month, this means I can use Grails or Play with a relational database - if it performs well enough. Setting up a server with Digital Ocean really is simple. Once you've signed up (check their Twitter posts for a coupon) and added a credit card, your server can be running in minutes. I chose Ubuntu 12.10, and then they have nice and clear instructions on what to do next to secure it: Initial Server Setup with Ubuntu 12.04 How to Set Up a Firewall Using IP T...

I wanted to create an integration test for some Griffon services - where I wanted to set up some data first, then check that the service produced the appropriate results. Therefore, I wanted the database working normally, but I needed access to a configured Griffon application and the required services. My issue was how to get hold of the services? They don't automatically get injected as I first expected. But luckily, StackOverflow and Andres to the rescue:

With my latest Griffon+JavaFX application, I wasn't having any luck binding a textfield to a 'float' property in my model. So to work around it temporarily, I've added a change listener which will veto any input that isn't a number. This example is basically using a very Java centric approach: Now, we can simplify this by using the Groovy way: See Groovy way to implement interfaces to understand how this is implementing the interface. If we want to have several text fields using the same logic, we can define the closure in the Controller and reference that in many places: Still, this is not optimal since I have to use Strings instead of Floats in my model - but it does let me continue with whats important right now. Hopefully the binding bug can be fixed soon.