Random Code Solutions

HTML5 Appache I won't go into a full explanation here (if you want a tutorial the  HTML5 Rocks  website) but HTML5 appache is a method of caching web content so that, when offline, it can still be accessed One method of doing this is to add a meta tag to each page specifying an appcache file, which will tell the browser to cache that page. But what if you want to tell the browser to cache everything when the site is first accessed? Well HTML5 has a way of doing that too - you still add the meta tag but also specify the files to be cached in the file. When it is accessed, those files will be cached. This though leaves you with a problem - how do you make sure you locate every file to be cached and add them to the file? This is where this plugin can help Plugin The Appcache Eclipse Plugin is a plugin for the Eclipse IDE that will check all your files for your site and add all html, image, css and javascript files to the appcache. Once the plugin is installed, all you n...

I've had this idea for some time of running my own Jenkins CI (continuous integration) server for building my mobile apps.  That was exactly what I intended to run on my Raspberry Pi when it arrived.  Now it has arrived, I thought I would share an issue I had so that others with the same problem can also solve it My Raspberry Pi My Pi is running Raspbian, which is Debian based, so theoretically installing Jenkins is as simple as running apt-get: sudo apt-get install jenkins This certainly installed it ok, but for some reason, it wouldn't start up.  Searching google revealed on possible issue regarding Java versions - specifically that Sun Java currently doesn't run on the Raspberry Pi.  A summary of how to fix that issue is: sudo update-alternatives --config java then chose OpenJDK followed by a reboot of the Pi.Jenkins starts up as expected after boot. However, my installation had already installed OpenJDK, so that wasn't my issue As it turns out...

I've had this weird problem lately on Ubuntu 11.10 (64 bit) - I only seem to have a cursor in some windows and never in any of the system windows (desktop, unity bar etc). Well today it was winding me up so I decided to try and fix it A quick google got me this page: No Cursor in Ubuntu 11.04 with a Legacy Nvidia Card . Not the right version of Ubuntu I know, and I have no idea what video card I have either, as the system info shows it as 'unknown'. But I figured I'd try it anyway Steps from that page: 1. Open a terminal window 2. Stop the x server: sudo service gdm stop 3 Uninstall the nouveau driver: sudo apt-get --purge remove xserver-xorg-video-nouveau 4. Reboot the machine When I got the step 2 though, it said the gdm service wasn't found, so I just did step 3. This unfortunately stopped the cursor moving at all! So I reinstalled the nouveau driver, and now it works! Now idea why! So for anyone who needs this, my steps were: 1. Open a terminal ...

The problem I wanted to be able to create cross-platform mobile applications whilst not having to do it in Javascript.  I've never liked Javascript, I'm not really sure why, maybe I don't fully understand it. The solution I had a brainwave that I could create a functional Java application using Processing (that I have used a lot and, hopefully, will be contributing author to a book on the subject if it ever gets published), port it to processing.js and deploy that as an Apache Cordova ( PhoneGap ) based mobile application.  As a short explanation, Apache Cordova is a cross-platform framework for writing and deploying HTML5 apps to most mobile platforms.  Processing is a graphical Java-based library of which processing.js is the Javascript equivalent.  Using both processing.js and Cordova, I should be able to deploy a java-based application into a cross-platform framework and run it as javascript The code This is the easiest way to do it (there are othe...

This is less a 'code solution' than it is a code issue, in that I don't know how to fix it and abandoned the solution.  I will likely go back and attempt to resolve at some point, but for now I just want to tell you about what I'd wanted to create, what the issues were and how it caused my PhoneGap app to be labelled as "sucks!!!!" As I previously blogged this solution, I figured I should also share these issues The problem I wanted to be able to create cross-platform mobile applications whilst not having to do it in Javascript.  I've never liked Javascript, I'm not really sure why, maybe I don't fully understand it. The solution I had a brainwave that I could create a functional Java application using   Processing  (that I have used a lot and, hopefully, will be contributing author to a book on the subject if it ever gets published), port it to   processing.js   and deploy that as an Apache Cordova ( PhoneGap ) based mobile ...

I spent quite some time today trying to figure out why, when I load an external HTML file into my PhoneGap (Apache Cordova) app, the viewport only filled part of the screen Notice the big space at the bottom and the side border. I couldn't figure it out, so I started searching on Google: Googled solution 1 - Set the viewport meta tag Lots of the solutions I found involved setting the meta tag for the viewport, eg <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, height=device-height, initial-scale=1.0, maximum-scale=1.0/> However, this seemed to have absolutely no effect whatsoever.  I tried many variations of this Googled solution 2 - Set the page to use all the space Other solutions involved setting CSS so that the page filled the screen, eg html, body {   width: 100%;   height: 100%;   padding: 0;   margin: 0; } This also had absolutely no effect.  I was getting confused by now Googled solution 3 - Set Android propert...

How I brute-forced my own keystore password If, like me, you've been in the unfortunate siutation where you have forgotten your own keystore (or certificate key) password then help may be at hand. After some fruitless searching I decide to write my own piece of software to brute force my keystore certificate.  As I am/have been a Java programmer I decided to write it in the language I knew best, and this is how I did it. I have made the  source code  available for anyone who wants it Loading the keystore The Java API already has code for loading a keystore, java.security.KeyStore.  The keystore needs to be placed on the classpath (I just stuck it in the root on my Eclipse project) // Load the keystore in the user's home directory File file = new File(keystoreName); is = new FileInputStream(file); KeyStore keystore = KeyStore.getInstance(KeyStore.getDefaultType()); keystore.load(is, keystorePassword.toCharArray()); return keystore; The above code sim...