Workaround: iTunes+QuickTime installer failing to abort if not enough space for recovery info

Interesting dialog showing when there’s not enough space for iTunes+QuickTime installer to save recovery info. It says you can press Cancel button, but there’s only an Abort one there. Maybe that’s the reason [:-p] it does nothing (this message just keeps reappearing when you press Abort)? Apart from the joke, there’s a possibility the reason for the failure to cancel is that the installer was launched via the Apple Update application instead of downloading and running it manually.

You can press Ignore to go on installing with no recovery info stored (assuming there’s enough space to install the s/w), else try using the Process Explorer (press CTRL+ALT+DEL) to kill the installer process.

If you did press Abort several times (which fails) and then pressed Ignore then Apple Update will tell you the installation failed and will have to repeat the installation (plus wait for re-downloading the content sadly).

Visual Studio 2010 launches in 2 weeks

Visual Studio 2010 launches in two weeks, and you can either join the global launch live in Las Vegas or join at the virtual launch event. And if you still haven’t tried Visual Studio 2010, go download the release candidate today.

Fix: Blogger stopped showing your Gravatar image?

Automattic (makers of WordPress) recently upgraded the Gravatar service into a home-page to a user’s profile and social networks, as pictured at the following article: http://thenextweb.com/apps/2010/03/26/wordpress-turns-gravatar-social-network/

However you may find that Google’s Blogger service is now showing a broken image link instead of your Gravatar image at your blog on blogspot.com. Easy to fix: edit your profile info at Blogger, click on the image parameter there and wait a bit for it to reload the image, then save your profile info again.

Also, it’s good to edit your profile settings at Gravatar.org to connect to Blogger, Facebook etc. in order to verify your identity. Can also add links to your websites to be shown at your public profile page (seems that if you don’t update your profile [and possibly verify your id via some social network connection] your Gravatar profile is by default kept private).

Specifying .JAR file dependencies (at APPLET tag’s ARCHIVE parameter or at JAR’s manifest file)

To specify multiple .JAR files at HTML APPLET’s tag ARCHIVE parameter, edit the applet tag in the HTML page and change the following parameter:

ARCHIVE = "myapplet.jar"

to say

ARCHIVE = "myapplet.jar,lib/jbcl-rt.jar,lib/jgl.zip"

assuming you place all those JAR files together on the server (the “lib/…” ones in a subfolder called “lib”) with the HTML file.  Note that the proper separator at the archive parameter is a comma, not the semicolon typically used in CLASSPATH values.

In newer Java versions a .JAR can also reference other .JAR files (dependencies) in it’s included manifest.mf file, which is the preferred method. Note below that a space is used as the separator.

Main-Class: com.somecompany.someproduct.Main
Class-Path: lib/jbcl-rt.jar lib/jgl.zip

Useful reading:

• Java Glossary – JAR: http://mindprod.com/jgloss/jar.html
• O’Reilly Media – Managing Component Dependencies using ClassLoaders: http://onjava.com/pub/a/onjava/2005/04/13/dependencies.html

On Run-Length-Encoding (RLE) compression

If you ever have to work with legacy code directly manipulating BMP image files, this Wikipedia article on RLE is a useful reading, since RLE (Run-Length-Encoding) is one of the popular compression schemes used in the BMP image container format.

Although simple, RLE when used on palletized images (especially drawings on simple Paint-like programs) can do a decent compression. Can even apply it on each color plane separately if storing Red/Green/Blue fields separately in some custom image format (or HSI, CMYK, or whatever color representation we use).

Τηλεφωνικοί αριθμοί άμεσης επικοινωνίας με την Ελληνική Αστυνομία

Από σχετική ιστοσελίδα της Ελληνικής Αστυνομίας:

Οι παρακάτω τριψήφιοι και τετραψήφιοι αριθμοί αντιστοιχούν σε τηλεφωνικές γραμμές που λειτουργούν σε 24ωρη βάση και στις οποίες οι πολίτες μπορούν να απευθύνονται για πληροφορίες, παράπονα και καταγγελίες:

100: Τηλεφωνική επικοινωνία για άμεση αστυνομική επέμβαση σε κάθε νομό της χώρας.

109: Τηλεφωνική επικοινωνία με τις Υπηρεσίες Δίωξης Ναρκωτικών Αττικής, Θεσσαλονίκης και Πάτρας, για καταγγελίες σχετικές με ναρκωτικά.

1156: Παροχή πληροφοριών για εξαφανισθέντες ανήλικους

170, 1964 και 1014: Επικοινωνία με την Δ.Α.Ε.Ε.Β. (Αντιτρομοκρατική) για παροχή πληροφοριών για θέματα τρομοκρατίας. Διασφαλίζεται απόλυτα το απόρρητο της επικοινωνίας, καθώς και η ανωνυμία του ατόμου που τηλεφωνεί (δεν είναι δυνατή η αναγνώριση κλήσης).

1033: Δυνατότητα τηλεφωνικής επικοινωνίας με όλες τις Αστυνομικές υπηρεσίες των νομών Αττικής, Θεσσαλονίκης, Σερρών, Πιερίας και Πέλλας.

Σε κάθε περίπτωση μπορείτε να απευθύνεστε και στην πλησιέστερη Αστυνομική Αρχή.

Links on Visualization

• Edward Tufte: http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/
• Julie Steele, Noah Iliinsky / Beautiful Visualization – O’Reilly Media: http://oreilly.com/catalog/0636920000617
• Ben Fry: http://benfry.com/
• Rick Barraza: http://www.cynergysystems.com/blogs/page/rickbarraza
• Descry – Lab – MIX Online: http://www.visitmix.com/labs/descry/
• FlowingData – Data Visualization and Statistics: http://flowingdata.com/

Converting C structs and unions to Pascal (or Object Pascal / Delphi) records

I’ve been recently adding support for QuickTime TimeCode tracks to the JEDI QuickTime library’s "qt_QuickTimeComponents.pas" file and I thought I should share a quick reminder on how we convert C structs (records) and unions (sets) into Pascal (Delphi / Object Pascal in this case) records:

Structs:

struct TimeCodeCounter {
long counter;
};
typedef struct TimeCodeCounter TimeCodeCounter;

type
long=integer; //in JEDI QuickTime I opted to create aliases for common C types to avoid converting them to Pascal equivalents everywhere
TimeCodeCounter = record
  counter:long;
 end;

Unions:

union TimeCodeRecord {
TimeCodeTime t;
TimeCodeCounter c;
};

type TimeCodeRecord = record
case integer of //C’s union
  0: (t: TimeCodeTime);
  1: (c: TimeCodeCounter);
end;

Do note that you should use "packed record" in Pascal if the C code uses respective #pragma command to define 0-packing gap between record fields (the default for C and Pascal compilers is to do field alignment to word [16-bit] boundaries for optimization purposes)

Windows 2000, XP SP2 and Vista End of Life Support

Just yesterday got this announcement from Microsoft:

Windows 2000 Professional and Windows 2000 Server are approaching 10 years since their launch and both products will go out of support on July 13, 2010.

Windows XP was launched back in 2001. While support for the product will continue, Service Pack 2 will go out of support on July 13, 2010. From that date onwards, Microsoft will no longer support or provide free security updates for Windows XP SP2.  Please install the free Service Pack 3 for Windows XP to have the most secure and supported Windows XP platform.

Finally, Windows Vista with no Service Packs installed will end support on April 13 2010.  Please install the free Service Pack 2 for Windows Vista to have the most secure and supported Windows Vista platform.

For more information:

http://blogs.technet.com/lifecycle/archive/2010/02/24/end-of-support-for-windows-xp-sp2-and-windows-vista-with-no-service-packs-installed.aspx

Resources:

• Service Pack 3 for Windows XP: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=68C48DAD-BC34-40BE-8D85-6BB4F56F5110&displaylang=en
• Service Pack 2 for Windows Vista: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-vista/default.aspx

MySQL command for manual backup (as used by OSCommerce)

Here’s the command OSCommerce‘s administration panel launches in order to backup the e-shop’s MySQL database:

mysql -hDOMAIN -uUSER -p DATABASE < /var/www/vhosts/MYDOMAIN.COM/subdomains/SUBDOMAIN/httpdocs/admin/backups/db_DATABASE-DATETIME.sql