Manuel's Blog thoughts, technologies and life

25Jul/105

[ro] Redesign pentru automatele de bilete de tramvai Arad

În recenta mea vizită în Arad am observat că în multe stații de tramvai sunt prezente automate pentru achiziționarea biletelor. Am fost foarte fericit să văd automatele și să număr rapid pe degete avantajele pe care le aduc:

18Dec/090

[en] New old things

Since I've been back home I've discovered (and redescovered) lots of things. One of those things is a paper I wrote on Star Trek last year. I think I tried to post it on my blog some other time, but anywho, I've uploaded it to slideshare so you can find it at: http://www.slideshare.net/manuelciosici/short-introduction-into-the-star-trek-universe-2745359

Filed under: GEEK, homo urbanus No Comments
8Dec/090

[en] Using php on your Ubuntu to get the TED talks

Intro

Anyone who knows me a little knows I'm a big fan of the presentations on TED.com. I watch them, adore them, I learn from them and I try to imitate the techniques of good speakers there. My Google Reader is subscribed to the RSS feed of ted.com and I download almost every presentation from their site almost as soon as they appear. But wouldn't it be nice if the episodes came strainght to my computer? Of course it would, and there are some programs that can help with that, but this article isn't about them. This article is about going all geeky and having a custom solution. Let's start!

18Nov/093

[en] The things I hate about fronter

I keep having problems when I try to use my school's Virtual Learning System based on fronter, so I thought instead of getting pissed off all the time I might just write all my non likes in here. Maybe, a very distant maybe, some fronter developer stumbles upon them and decides they're worthy to take into consideration. So here I go:

  • HTML Frames? Come on! Where am I? In the 90s?
  • No "Remember my username and password" option? Why? You think I want to waste my fingers inputting my credentials? I have important things to type, like chat.
  • Where's the unified search? Ok, I'll live without that. Where's the file search? None?! What do you think I'm doing in my spare time? Indexing my teachers' presentation documents and required reading?
  • Can I haz calendar export for my calendar? No? Thank you, I loooove having to remember everything.
  • News news news.... where's Google Reader? Shit, your RSS feeds don't work there, actually they don't work anywhere.
  • Ok, I had this message from my teacher on the classroom wall, but that was a while ago. Where's the archive? No archive? Great, I'll just have to copy-paste everything all the time and keep my own archive.
  • Class cancelled. Where's the warning email? No email. :| Ahaaa... I have to go to school to find out or keep logging in all the time.
  • I forgot the date for the school party. Need to go to the news archive. Which is.... in wonderland. I wonder if Alice is on Facebook, maybe she can help....?!
  • Browsing through the file archive .... shit, it's 7 pm already? Thank you fronter for making me wait for you to reload the page every time I click a folder on the explorer tab on the left!
  • Java? Why do you require Java? You're not using it for anything? Let's all require things. I require some common sense from someone selling a VLE for $$, I want that VLE to work.
  • Social social social... is dead. Fronter, why do you make it hard to socialize with other students in the school? Why can't I browse classes to find the girl from last Friday's party?
  • I am having a presentation next week. Fronter can you help me send a message to the common student room? What do you mean you can't? There's no common student room? We shouldn't communicate with people out of our class, why? Fronter, don't you tell me to shut up, how'bout I shut up this Firefox tab. See ya', ain't gonna miss ya'!

Stay tuned. There will be more to come (unfortunately). In the meantime, what problems do you have with fronter?

8Nov/090

[en] Ubuntu 9.10

The new version of Ubuntu was released a bit over a week ago. I've been running it since

1Apr/090

Ubuntu 9.04 Beta first impressions

UPDATE:

Today was the second day of using that Ubuntu machine and when the class was over and I tried to shut down the computer I noticed a new window that requires confirmation before shutting down the computer. The window is timed so if no action is take the computer shuts down a minute later, also the window is similar to the one OS X uses before shutting down. I believe this is a nice usability improvement since I accidentaly shut down my computer a few time when I was hasty.

Another new thing for 9.04 is that Ctrl + Alt + Backspace has been deactivated.

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Today I upgraded  my school computer to Ubuntu 9.04 Beta 64 bit. Let's see a list of changes

  • New boot image. - I don't like it, I liked the old 8.10 progress bar more, it seemed more stylish
  • Despre Gnome
  • . I would habe liked it if they integrated usplash in 9.04.
  • Gnome 2.26 - Nothing bad to comment, seems a little more orange than the predecesor. Bad criticism? I would have liked to be able to take a Nautilus tab from one window and drag it to another.
  • Brasero - new version, knows how to edit case covers.
  • ext4 support - I couldn't test this one since the system is installed on ReiserFS, but I barely wait to have the opportunity
  • New notification system - I like it a lot and works quite well (see image)
  • Looks like quite a few 64bit bugs have been fixed.
  • Notification
  • Looks like Flash doesn't work after upgrade.
  • Terminalul has a new font that I like.

That's all for a quick, first view. For those of you who try to keep up with Ubuntu's code names, 9.04 is called Jaunty Jackalope.UPDATE:

Astăzi a fost a doua zi de utilizat calculatorul cu Ubuntu, iar când s-a terminat ora și am încercat să sting computerul am observat o fereastră nouă care cere confirmare pentru stingere. Fereastra este temporizată, așa că dacă utilizatorul nu face nimic, după un minut calculatorul se va stinge, fereastra este similară cu cea pe care o folosește OS X înainte de a se stinge. Cred că fereastra este un mare plus de uzabilitate, mai ales că am stins calculatorul accidental de vreo două ori din cauză că mă grăbeam și nu eram foarte atent.

Încă un lucru nou pentru 9.04 este că a fost dezactivată combinația Ctrl + Alt + Backspace.

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Am actualizat astăzi calculatorul de la școală la Ubuntu 9.04 Beta 64 bit. Hai să vedem o listă de schimbări:

  • Imagine de boot nouă. - Mie nu îmi place, îmi plăcea mai mult bara de progres din 8.10, parcă avea mai mult
  • Despre Gnome
  • stil. Mi-ar fi plăcut dacă ar fi integrat în 9.04 și usplash ca să fie mai lină bara de progres.
  • Gnome 2.26 - Nimic de comentat, place, parcă e ceva mai portocaliu ca precedentul. De cârcotit? Mi-ar fi plăcut să pot scoate dintr-o fereastră Nautilus taburile și să le pun într-alta.
  • Brasero - versiune nouă, știe să editeze și coperți, numai de bine.
  • Suport ext4 - ăsta n-am avut cum să-l testez având în vedere că sistemul e instalat pe ReiserFS, dar abia aștept să am ocazia
  • Sistem nou de notificare - îmi place foarte mult merge destul de bine (vezi imaginea)
  • Se pare că s-a reparat destul de multe buguri ale versiunii de 64 de biți.
  • Notification
  • Se pare că flash nu funcționează după upgrade.
  • Terminalul are un font nou care îmi place.

Cam atât pentru primele impresii. Pentru cei care încearcă să țină pasul și cu numele versiunilor de Ubuntu, 9.04 are numele de cod Jaunty Jackalope.

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16Feb/090

Details on Eliberatica 2009 are up

Lucian Savluc shared (through his blog) some details about this year's Eiberatica conference. Probably the best piece of news is the lower attendence price. I hope I'll get to attend Eliberatica this year.Lucian Savluc a împărtășit (prin blogul lui) niște detalii despre conferința Eliberatica de anul acesta. Probabil cea mai bună veste este prețul de participare mai mic. Sper să merg și eu anul acesta la Eliberatica.

Filed under: Blogosphere, GEEK No Comments
9Feb/094

[tutorial] Yahoo! like emoticons/smileys in Pidgin

You've probably just switched from Yahoo! Messenger to Pidgin (or maybe even from Windows to Linux) and you're mostly happy, but for the emoticons. Pidgin comes with it's own emoticons set and the're nothing like the ones Yahoo! Messenger uses. Here's how you can have Yahoo! Messenger like emoticons on Pidgin:

Poate că tocmai ai trecut de la Yahoo! Messenger la Pidgin (sau poate chiar ai schimbat Windows-ul pe Linux) și ești fericit atâta timp cât nu vorbim despre emoticonuri. Pidgin vine cu propriul lui set de emoticonuri, emoticon-uri care nu seamănă deloc cu cele pe care le folosește Yahoo! Messenger. Uite cum poți să ai emoticon-uri de Yahoo! Messenger pe Pidgin:

5Feb/092

[tutorial] How to set up remote HTTP control interface for VLC player

VLC player has a built in HTTP control interface (a web interface) which allows the user to remotely control the VLC player. In this tutorial I will show you how to set up the web interface. The screen shots in this tutorial are made on a Windows Vista machine, but the steps apply for Linux too.VLC player has a built in HTTP control interface (a web interface) which allows the user to remotely control the VLC player. In this tutorial I will show you how to set up the web interface. The screen shots in this tutorial are made on a Windows Vista machine, but the steps apply for Linux too.

5Feb/090

VLC…iPhone update 5th of February 2009

It's been a while since my last update on the project. Here's what changed since last time: