Gearing Up Windows (to make it usable)

At my workplace I am using Windows Box. I have been using windows since Windows 3.1.x when we use to boot with DOS and then run it to get the GUI. Windows was never this difficult to adjust :( for me.

I have never use windows for my work, I mean I start my career on a Linux box and I just loved it. Customize it the way you like, you always have alternatives for every thing, the community is absolutely wonderful and all of it is open source, Linux is just great specially when you really like to play with software ohh forgot this blog is not about Linux ;).

Due to some environmental constraint I have to use windows, (I have FC 8 as the other booting OS and CentOS in a VM) I was having real hard time on adjusting to windows so I start gearing it up.

I am just listing tools I have install to make windows usable (For me of course):

yod'm 3d: Just can't work without multiple desktop, unfortunately its no longer free-ware, 1.4 is the last free version and its hosted by KLT. My personal experience with Yod'm have been very good, it's a portable application i.e. you don't need to install it and it works straight away.


TrayIt!: Yeah I don't like many application at my Taskbar, I have seen people using 3 even 4 rows taskbar :-0, come on guys use multiple desktop with Tray IT! .
Application which are likely to be accessed from multiple desktops (Your development IDE for instance) should be in system tray, application which just runs in the background (Like real player) should never appear in the taskbar. Tray IT! can do all this (and much more) for you and It is absolutely free.


clipX: Clipboard, yes that's it I just need a good clipboard application and clipX is just great, just press the hotkey and select what to pate.

MoRUN.net Sticker Lite: Instead of using notepad and multiple files to log or temporarily hold things I use sticky notes, again they don't take your taskbar space, you can access them with hotkeys and you don't save as they get saved automatically, MoRUN.net Sticker Lite will do all this fro free.

launchy: Do I really need to say anything? What people still click on start button, click on there desktop icons and use default file manager, with Launchy you just use Hotkeys.

ExplorerXP: I need a tabbed interface File Manager, Its absolutely mandatory I just can't work without a Multi Tab file manager. ExplorerXP Is one such good freeware (for non - commercial use) file manger.

QTTabBar: Multi Tab file manager is so mandatory for me that I have installed two of them, Even if by chance the default file manager is open I can get tabs with QTTabBar. Its an Add-In that gives Tab Browsing Feature to your Explorer. Folder grouping, histories, etc and I love it :). There is just one prerequisite for windowsXP which is Net Framework 2.0 or later should be installed on your system.
My email client is Thunderbird with quite a few addons (reminderfox, Provider for Google Calendar, Lightning, MinimizeToTray, Minimize To Tray Enhancer, Display Mail User Agent to name a few ).

If you are wondering why don't I have screen shoots and all that, I am writing this on Ubuntu 8.10 and I am @ home.

Changing Subversion credentials in Hudson

I was in a need of changing the Credentials of subversion for a project, unfortunately i was not able to find any straight forward link in manage panel. So the Quick hack to achieve this is:

1. go to http://[Hudson_Home]/hudson/scm/SubversionSCM/enterCredential
2. Enter the URL of subversion repository
   
3. Click on Username/password authentication
4. Enter User name and password for the repository
5. press OK

thats it.

Sync reminder Fox toDos and Reminders between thunderbird and firefox

Yeap we all wants to have one todo list, I always put my todos and
reminders in thunderbird but certainly wants to see them in fire fox,
this thing is inbuilt in reminderfox :-)
just change the default file location of firefox's reminder fox with
thunderbirds file.
default file location

Thunderbird's reminder fox file is placed at:
/root/.thunderbird/x6rjxwwf.default/reminderfox/reminderfox.ics

Thunderbird's file location

thats it, now I can add from any of the two and can see them in both apps
this is great!!

Use Time Stamp to Create Files or Folder Using Ant

Every now and then we come across a situation where we are in a need of creating folder with the name of time stamp so that we can keep record of every execution, don't we ;-) ?
Its fairly easy to accomplish this in Ant
use tstamp task.
This is how a set a property "START_TIME" and use it to create that file/folder.
<tstamp>
<format property="START_TIME" pattern="dd_MMM_yy_HH_mm_ss"/>
</tstamp>

Like
<property name="testresults-folder" value="${START_TIME}_TestResults"/>
and create a folder by this property
<mkdir dir="${testresults-folder}"/>

Changing the Default editor for your terminal

You can change the default editor by setting the EDITOR environment variable. In BASH. This default editor is most of the time invoked by -e switch.
To see what is the current EDITOR.

# set | grep EDITOR EDITOR=/bin/nano # which vi (shows the full path of (shell) command vi ) /usr/bin/vi # export EDITOR=/usr/bin/vi verify the current EDITOR # set | grep EDITOR EDITOR=/usr/bin/vi  

--  Regards,  Mubbashir  

WiPeer Create peer-to-peer ad-hoc wireless network

Last weekend My brother and I were trying to create a peer-to-peer ad-hoc wireless network but the experience wasn't turned out successful. wiipeer guys have make it so very easy. Thanks guys!!
wiipeer

Fix Firefox "Unresponsive Script" warnings

Recently i was facing this problem while writing some Automated Web Functional testing using selenium that firefox pops a warning for unresponsive script (for some how i had to use Thread.sleep(1000)).

This is not only annoying but also hearts the efforts for producing unattended scripts.

Google again come to rescue and i got this from. So the solution goes like:
Go the hidden configuration page in Firefox by typing about:config in the address bar . (make sure that you are doing this for the profile you are using for selenium)
In the 'Filter' box, type script_run_time. This will narrow the options to dom.max_script_run_time and dom.max_chrome_script_run_time.

Right-click it and choose Modify. A box pops up. Change the number to something bigger like 40. This is the maximum time a script can run before Firefox considers it 'unresponsive'.

If you can’t find the string in the about:config page, create it by right-clicking anywhere and then choose New—> Integer and enter there name.