Did I missed the old times when installing Linux on a laptop was a bit tricky? I seems so since installing the latest Ubuntu (10.10 Maverick Meerkat) on a Dell Latitude E6410 (with Nvidia graphics card) was by no means a breeze. Update 20100115: I summarized/updated all the hardware part in a separate article, check for updates. Installation All started when, full of confidence, I booted the usb stick with the Linux install expecting everything to work as a charm and ended up staring at a black screen....

The reason why I haven’t wrote much here on the blog lately is that since I’ve got my android phone I’ve spent most of the free time tinkering with it. And by tinkering I mean developing simple applications and learning the framework. From my perspective spending a few hours coding something which in the end makes a simple (and some might say stupid) blink on the screen is way more entertaining than playing AngryBirds or Teeter....

I order to migrate contacts from a Sony Ericsson C510 to a HTC Desire you first have to export them in an usable format. Wammu recognizes this phone and exports a .vcf file containing all contacts. However there are some major limitations to this process: entries which contains multiple phone numbers are exported separately instead of a single vcf. For an entry named “me” containing a mobile and work phone the exported file contains a: me/M and me/W contact BEGIN:VCARD VERSION:2....

XKCD has released an updated version of the 2007 internet “map”. It’s quite funny and interesting for someone interested in this type of data visualisation even if this is a more artistic representation of data. XKCD Online communities map You can find the large map here and the 2007 version here.For those who like more colors check the nmap favicon map.

Cand tusesti si iti curge nasul iar afara ploua mohorat una din retetele care iti vor ridica cu siguranta moralul este supa cu taitei de orez (see english version for noodles soup here). Noodles soup Ingrediente 1 piept de pui legume: cartofi, telina (obligatoriu), morcovi, ardei dulci 1 legatura ceapa verde si 1 legatura patrunjel paste de orez (rice noodles), jumatate de pachet sare, piper, 2 cuisoare Metoda se fierbe pieptul de pui in 2l de apa spumuindu-l din cand in cand....

After a day lost trying to find a bug caused while refactoring multiple versions of copy/paste code into a component I’ve decided to write a small application which searches for other code from my component still duplicated in other places. Naturally a basic python script has emerged. It takes as argument a file and a folder and searches for files ending with .as recursively. Both the reference file and the found files are parsed and a basic function reference is created which is compared to the other files....

As always I’ve been waiting with curiosity the new Ubuntu 10.10 release which this year was auspiciously launched on 10.10.10. I had also heard some rumors about the new netbook “Unity” interface so I’ve decided to give it a try. I own since a few years a Acer Aspire One which despite the very slow SSD drive I still use for bedtime book reading, watching some internet recorded tv shows (mainly envoyee special) and morning news reading....

My first hi-res laptop was a Dell I8000 which had a, huge at the time, resolution of 1600×1200. It was quite expensive because of this but also a wonderful and productive experience. My next laptop was also a Dell, a I8600, which had a “wide-screen”. This means it had a 1680×1050 resolution. The switch was not so heavy even if I lost 150px in one shot. I moved the panels (as in gnome panels) to the right and gained some extra space....

GPS data has become extremely available in the last time and analyzing it always yields interesting results.The purpose of this article is to show a simple example where GPS track data is compared with a set of waypoints in order to determine whether a specific tracks was followed. This scenario is custom to various competitions ranging from randonee, cycling (cross country, orientation), 4×4 and the examples can go on and on....

As a child I remember many types of mushroom stews especially with wild mushrooms. They were especially tasty but now almost impossible to find. Now the only available variety are champignons. As such, I welcomed finding a different type of mushrooms, interesting and yellow: chanterelles. This recipe is quite simple, basicaly a mushroom stew with some optional minced meat and served with pollenta. Chanterelle stew Ingredients 1/2 kg chanterelle mushrooms 1 onion 200g minced meat (optional) corn flour Method prepare polenta by adding corn flour to boiling water in proportion (1:2....