Me, Myself, and Dusty

I was successful in installing Kindle for PC via Wine on Ubuntu Lucid 64-bit by using the installer found at the following address and setting it (this app, not globally) to run in Win98 mode.  The newest Kindle installer seems to fail miserably, but this older version seems to run like a champ.

In Windows-land you could hold ALT and type numbers on the keypad to type extended characters like copyright symbols, degree symbols, etc.  In Linux (at least if you're using Gnome) you can type the Unicode codes directly and you don't even need to have a keypad (good for those on laptops).

Press CTRL-SHIFT-U (this starts the Unicode typing mode)
Type the Unicode code (find the codes at http://www.unicode.org/charts/ for whatever you want to type)
Press SPACE (this ends the Unicode typing mode)

So for example you could type:  CTRL-SHIFT-U, A, 9, SPACE and you'll end up with this: ©

If you don't like typing the SPACE at the end, you could just keep holding down CTRL-SHIFT through the whole thing.  When you release CTRL-SHIFT it will end the Unicode mode for you.  Then the example of that is:  Hold CTRL-SHIFT, U, A, 9, Release CTRL-SHIFT and you'll get the same result.  It's a little awkward to hold CTRL-SHIFT while typing a list of characters, so you'll have to decide which method is better for you.

Keep in mind that if you find a code that starts with one or more zeros, you don't have to type them.  So you might find the © listed as 00A9, but you only need to type A9 instead.  If it ends with zeros you must type those, though.

Here are some examples that might interest you:

Copyright © = A9
Degree ° = B0
Deg F ℉ = 2109
Deg C ℃ = 2103
Trademark ™ = 2122
Phone ☎ = 260E
Information ℹ = 2139

Useful Links:
http://www.unicode.org/charts/ (all Unicode Charts)
http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U2600.pdf (Misc Symbols)

Using ListView?  You must watch this presentation about ListView at Google I/O 2010.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDBM6wVEO70

I've been developing Android apps using Eclipse on Ubuntu.  Things have been going great until a recent update from Ubuntu caused Eclipse to start locking up on me when using the Content Assist feature.  I ended up disabling that feature altogether.  Ugh.

So I finally figured it out.  I had two versions of XULRunner installed: xulrunner-1.9.1 and xulrunner-1.9.2.  I removed xulrunner-1.9.1 and now all is well.

If you have a similar problem be sure that Eclipse isn't trying to use conflicting versions or trying to use multiple versions of XULRunner simultaneously.  I don't know the "real" problem, but I do know that this fixed it.

Hoorah.

Installing Google::Checkout::* in Debian:

apt-get install libxml-writer-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl libdate-manip-perl

cpan Google::Checkout::General::GCO

Installing Net::Amazon::S3 in Debian?  This might help.  I'm documenting it here because I have had to do this so many times in the past few weeks.  It's not hard, but it's definitely annoying to have to find all the modules that Net::Amazon::S3 depends on.

apt-get install libxml-libxml-perl libmoose-perl libmoosex-strictconstructor-perl libregexp-common-perl libclass-mop-perl libdatetime-format-iso8601-perl libdigest-md5-file-perl libnamespace-clean-perl libtest-use-ok-perl libtime-duration-parse-perl libdatetime-format-natural-perl libdatetime-set-perl libdatetime-perl libexception-class-perl libtest-warn-perl libtest-differences-perl libtest-deep-perl libmodule-build-perl liblwp-useragent-determined-perl

cpan Data::Stream::Bulk

cpan DateTimeX::Easy

cpan MooseX::Types::DateTimeX

cpan DateTime::Format::HTTP

cpan Net::Amazon::S3


And then if you get tired of any of the warnings when you "use" it, try this at the top of your code:

open(my $olderr, '>&', \*STDERR);
close(STDERR);
eval('use Net::Amazon::S3');
open(STDERR, '>&', $olderr);



Note to self:  dmidecode is great.  I should interface with it for some good stuff.

If you get the error "Error claiming USB interface: Device or resource busy" when flashing your Nokia N810 via USB, this might help:

sudo modprobe -r cdc_phonet

(source: talk.maemo.org)

General information and directions to help flash your N810 can be found here:
http://wiki.maemo.org/Updating_the_tablet_firmware


[updated 2010-03-24]:
In Ubuntu 9.10 it seems to still fail even after removing cdc_phonet, so you have to remove phonet too.

sudo rmmod phonet
sudo rmmod cdc_phonet

(source: talk.maemo.org)

So, Verizon says this in their Terms of Service:

"Anyone using more than 5 GB per line in a given month is presumed to be using the service in a manner prohibited above, and we reserve the right to immediately terminate the service of any such person without notice."

This is attached to a plan with this feature:

"Includes Unlimited Data Usage"

Unlimited? I don't call death-by-exceeding-5GB an unlimited data usage plan.

There are two specific tools that are making my life very easy right now.

1) MySQL Workbench

This is made of awesome.  It's not without its bugs (and boy does it have those), but it does a fantastic job of helping structure the database tables without needing to deal with more details than I need.  And its free (and open-source).  Plus they supply a 64-bit DEB file if you need such a thing.  I recommend getting the stable version.  The beta/dev version doesn't seem to have database sync for some reason.  It allows you to automatically update a live local or remote database server without a worry.  You will not want to be without that!

2) Rose::DB::Object

This handles many-to-many relationships so much better than Class::DBI did.  I've recently moved to R::DB::O and am not looking back.  It subclasses beautifully and helps me keep my database details and my logic separate.  Plus it deals with so much other stuff that I'm not sure how I lived without it.  There is a great tutorial, too.