blog

James Davidson: The Copiale Cipher

Sat, 12 Nov 2011 09:24:00 -0800

The Copiale Cipher used by an 18th century secret society has been deciphered.

Decrypting secret codes has to appeal to the kid in all of us.

James Davidson: Android It Is, Then

Sat, 14 May 2011 18:37:00 -0700

After the discusison on picking up a Maemo device, it just did not work out that way.

First, the successor to the N810, the N900 was never released in Canada. So I'll have to wait for a Maemo device I could use I thought. Second, Nokia partnered with Intel to merge Maemo and Moblin into Meego. Ok, I can wait a bit longer unit a Meego device is available in Canada.

But then the final event just killed it. Nokia decided that another mobile OS would be better for its future devices. As they say, "I don't do Windows."

So that leaves me with Android. And, as soon as it was available in Canada, I got myself a Nexus S.

James Davidson: git notes

Thu, 16 Sep 2010 21:54:00 -0700

The ProGit blog has a nice post on using the new git notes feature.

James Davidson: Emacs Daemon

Tue, 06 Apr 2010 21:48:00 -0700

Just now catching up with using Emacs in daemon mode. On that blog post, an anonymous commentor shows the best way to use emacsclient to start the Emacs server if it is not already started.

One last note is that the -c option will result in the same behaviour as the -t option if the DISPLAY environment variable is not set.

James Davidson: Chromium and Flash on x86_64

Mon, 29 Mar 2010 20:52:00 -0700

I am starting to feel the slowness of Firefox so I wanted to see if Chromium could fulfill my web browser needs. So far so good.

The first big issue was getting Flash working with my x86_64 version of Chromium. I found a tidy set of instructions to get and install the 64-bit Flash plugin. Just make sure you get the latest version of the plugin.

Update: The 64-bit version of flash is too old and has many security vulnerabilities. You should really get the latest 32-bit version and use the 32-bit plugin wrapper for your browser if you run a 64-bit version of Linux.

James Davidson: Fix Pidgin to work again with AIM and ICQ

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 21:36:00 -0800

Recently I have been getting "Received unexpected response from..." errors. I found a TechSpot blog with a fix that worked for me.

James Davidson: This is not the Droid you're looking for

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 15:38:00 -0800

I am not the only person pondering what mobile platform to get.

Though as I blogged already, I'll be going with Maemo.

James Davidson: Better Presentations

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 14:09:00 -0800

Just listened to the IT Conversations podcast Great Public Communications Skills which covers Carmine Gallo's new book, The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs: How to be Insanely Great in Front of Any Audience.

Two clips Carmine mentions specifically to watch are:

The return of Steve Jobs at MacWorld Expo 1997.
iPhone release at MacWorld 2007 (jump to 26min mark)

What I found interesting is that these 2 presentations, approximately 10 years appart, use the same presentation techniques.

James Davidson: Choosing Android or Maemo

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 22:16:00 -0800

I have devices that run both Android (OpenMoko Freerunner) and Maemo (N810). With new devices now available that run newer versions of Android and Maemo, I was trying to decide which one I would get (the WAF will not allow both).

The Google Maps Navigation announcement really made me want the new Motorola Milestone phone. That is a sweet app.

However, after reading Harald Welte's summary of Android Mythbusters and Comparing Freedom on Maemo and Android Android does not seem like the platform I want. If reviews of the just now shipping N900 are positive, that will be my choice.

James Davidson: F-Spot Mangles EXIF Dates

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 22:05:00 -0700

My wife has been organizing all our family photos using F-Spot for several years. After a long bout of inactivity, she started to work through the mass of photos that we have just been collecting and not sorting through. After she imported the pictured, she noticed that the date of the photos that F-Spot was reporting was off from when she remembered taking the pictures.

Well it turns out that F-Spot is indeed getting the dates wrong and is changing the EXIF header dates to be incorrect as well! A good summary of the problem is F-Spot Considered Harmful.

I think I'll take a look at digikam.