Adam Kruszewski :: WebLog();

Here is a short list of plugins which I use with Mozilla Firefox:

• Session Manager - allows you to save your session, switch between sessions etc. very handy tool.
• URL Link - adds context menu item to text selection to open selected url.
• BugMeNot - adds context menu to textfields to automatically login using data gathered by bugmenot.com sevice.
• Colorful tabs - does what it says (but doesn't work with few pixmap based themes)
• Cookie safe - gives you control over your cookies (and unobtrusivelly warns you when you got new one).
• del.icio.us Bookmarks - makes using del.icio.us so much easier.
  
• Download manager tweak - gives you more power over look of builtin download manager (ie. you can put it in sidebar)
• Faviconize tab - you can remove given tab name and leave only its icon (useful with plugin below).
• PermaTabs - you can make tabs 'permanent' preventing their closing or navigating within to other sites.
• FEBE - allows you to backup and restore your firefox profile (I use version 5.0 beta right now).
  
• Firefox Showcase - gives you nice 'compose' view of all your tabs.
  
• FireFTP - very capable ftp client right in your web browser.
  
• Gmail Manager - a small but capable gmail notifier for firefox statusbar.
  
• Google Preview - inserts site preview image alongsite google results.
  
• Grease Monkey - with use of scripts from userscripts.org gives you power over how some sites behave/looks. (ex. you can have today dilbert comic on the google front page ;-))
  
• Link Alert - shows a small icon near mouse cursor to indicate the type of target link. (ie. new window, pdf file, etc)
  
• Ook? Video Ook! - allows you to download videos from youtube, google.video and so on.
  
• PDF Download - each time you'll try to navigate to pdf file it'll ask if you want to open it or save it.
  
• Performancing - just a blog editor embedded into firefox. (I'm using it right now)
  
• Remove It Permanently - allows you to visually remove parts of web pages. (eg. ads)
  
• Save Complete - it enchances save page capability to save also styles/images references from css styles, so your saved page should look just like when being on-line.
  
• Tiny.pl - url shortening in page context menu (using tiny.pl service)
  
• TrashMail.net - adds context menu to text fields to paste trashmail.net generated disposable email addresses.
  
• Update Notifier - extended update notifier near firefox thobber.
  

• Molybdenum - allows to edit and play selenium tests.
• Aardvark - useful to select and inspect dom elements in html page.
• View dependencies - shows all page dependencies and their details in page information dialog.
  
• Web Developer - it doesn't need to be introduced
  
• FireBug - javascript debugger with stepping through code and more.
  

powered by performancing firefox

Europe has become a Banana Republic.

One of the best made presentations/talks I have ever seen: Dick Hardt - Identity 2.0. I have appreciated every millisecond of it

Two screenshots of some minor improbable glitches of software (you know -- those things that happen only one in lifetime and are really hard to replicate in developement environment :->) that I have used for past few days.
First: Windows Explorer Search bar:

For past two years I was studying on Poznan University of Technology (Poland), Institute of Computer Science (with speciality profile: Computer Networks and Distributed Systems). I have passed my final exam last monday, so I have now a Master degree. Large part of my Master Thesis was an implementation of File System with builtin semantic search capabilities.
I have written it in Java, using combination of Linux + FUSE + FUSE-J + Apache Lucene and Apache Derby database. Besides of a little bottleneck caused by exceptions usage for error reporting in FUSE-J, coding of this proof-of-concept filesystem was just a breeze. As of functionality of this filesystem, it allows to append meta-data to files (in form of multiple "attribute=value" pairs), some of those attributes ware auto guessed (from id3 tags of mp3 files or properties of PDF files). After adding those attributes to files, User could query for them just accessing a specially named "virtual" directory (eg. directory [ artist: "Mike Oldfield" ] would contain all music files with artist attribute set to "Mike Oldfield"). If file content can be turned into a text representation it is stored in attribute name "content" which is default attribute for all searches (so no need to type "[ content: blah ]", "[ blah ]" is sufficient). Whole interaction with filesystem is made by standard system calls so it is completly useable from any shell and doesn't need any specially patched file managers/applications.
I have uploaded a short flash movie from linux console session if someone is interested how it looks like from a BaSH perspective.

I hope finishing my studies will allow me to blog more often

Probably many owners of Sun Java Studio Creator (and very likely also other Sun Studio products) had sometimes problems connecting to update center. It wouldn't be such issue if it wouldn't persist whole day or even two and the error message would mean something useful (it is always a 'connection refused' msg. even if it try to connect for a few minutes and exchange a couple of kilobytes in both directions)
Last time when I couldn't connect I decided to investigate this issue. So armed with tcpdump I tried to unveil ip addres of update server. You can imagine my how much I was surprised when I saw raw HTTP session with my serial number in it. It is 2005 and I saw unencrypted http session with some sensitive information!!! (one can argue if serial number is a sensitive information but it is directly connected to my personal data in vendor's database, and besides -- it costs me 99 bucks to have one). First rational (besides WTF) question that came to my mind was "how hard it would be to enbrace https for SUN?!" It takes me 3 minutes to proxy tomcat with ssl enabled Apache Web Server. It could even have a self signed certificate, cause they could "teach" JSC to trust it "out of the box". I wonder how many products with auto update ability send such data on unencrypted wires? (and how much products send sensitive informations without user knowledge at all)

PS. if you own JSC and want to know if update site is alive or crawling with OOM exception just enter this url a browser substituting <SN> with your serial number (without SN you should get "auth error" response):

TechEd 2005 EMEA is just over, leaving me tired ( not exacly the event tired me, but the way back home; flying 2h from Amsterdam to Warsaw, spending over 1h on Warsaw Central Station to buy a ticket and standing 5h from Warsaw to Bydgoszcz in overfilled train; I just hate travelling when the holiday season opens ). There ware many interesting sessions and other attractions. I'll only list sessions I enjoyed most:

• "Microsoft and Open Source" - a Chalk-and-Talks session lead by Steven Adler, Thomas Lee, Bill Hilf and Mark Thompson
• "Agile Developement" - Panel discussion by Roy Osherove, James World, Randy Miller and Andrew Cheesman
• "The Future of Software" - keynote by David Veskevitch

I recommend watching a marvelous movie about essence of Trusted Computing.
IMO something like TC can be useful for internal use in corporate computers, when corporation can decide what is ligit and what is not. But it doesn't change fact that TC, in it's current form, is designed to limit Rights of End Users. And personally I doesn't want my rights being limited by anyone than my wife ;-) (but maybe it is a fear associated with being a 'root' ? ;-))

I have bought MSI M510C notebook recently (2.9Kg, 15" SXGA+, 512MB of ram, 40GB hard disk, ATI Radeon 9700M, Celeron M 1.5GHz, builtin Intel/Pro Wireless 2200BG and 4400 mAh battery).
I have chosen this model mainly because all of it's hardware is supported by GNU/*/Linux operating system. Now I have Ubuntu Linux running on it and I can say it just rocks
Installing Warty (I got install disc from ubuntu's shipit project) was a breeze -- but, like always, problems occured right after successful installation. Grub just hang after "Loading stage 1.5..." message.
This was rather simple to fix: boot with ubuntu installation cd, go to disk partitioning wizard (this loads all necessary modules for ide harddisk support), change to second console, mount /dev/hda1 on /target, chroot /target, apt-get install lilo, create simple /etc/lilo.conf, run lilo and reboot.
For newer (bleeding edge ) software I have dist-upgraded to Hoary and added few things that waren't auto probed to /etc/modules:

psmouse # \ those two are rather weird
ide-cd  # / to be not auto-probed.
p4_clockmod
cpufreq_userspace
cpufreq_ondemand
cpufreq_powersave

Everyone posting those then why I shouldn't?

One thing I would like to do in 2005 (and which I'm sure will be hard) is to post blog entries often.
To achieve this first I'll try assemble simple post-to-blojsom plugin for Eclipse in my spare time (probably a good way to make use of recently bought book ). I hope it will make posting easier for me.

PS. I have four gmail invites lying around. If someone doesn't have gmail account yet then drop me an email or comment.

I'm putting ashesh on my head for not blogging almost 2 months, life flowed between my hands too fast in this time. But at last We (Natalie and I) have almost arranged our new home (we have even a living christmas tree) and it became very warm place. Now I should have more time to play with Java and blog about some interesting things (I hope).
Last month I have crushed my PocketPC (Asus MyPal A620BT) which realized me how how much listening to podcasts was important to me (now traffic jams are just making me crazy).

For everyone who spends New Year's Day in Home with firends I want to recommend a little game I had apt-get'ed today: Jump n' Bump. A game for 2-4 playes who controls a cute little bunnies who jump on a screen wide environment with goal to crush your friends.
I have played for 3h today with my wife and I can say only "Happy jumping!"