Let the Pie Explain

August 6th, 2011 Thomasso

I am going to use this post as an excuse to try out my Pie Graph (easy chart builder plug-in) and let this visual representation explain how my day went. I did work today, putting in a full 10 hour day. It was necessary becuase we are still having massive server issues at my work, and some of the equipment is still not installed that is needed for us to move into the final phase of the new system.

These are exciting times, for both myself and my employer, but the wear and tear is taking its toll on me.

Here is how my day stacked up:

The promise made by my employer was that If I work this weekend, I can have a long weekend next week. I agreed, and here we are at day 7. I am so tired.

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New Poll, New Plug-in

August 5th, 2011 Thomasso

I did a little house cleaning here on the blog. I got rid of many old files and plug-ins from Word Press becuase I noticed that over half of them were no longer supported. Doing a little house cleaning on the blog seems like the best thing to do while having some free time at the personal computer, so I seize the opportunity this time and really went at it.

I had plug-ins dating from as far back as 2004! Imagine the possible security risks? Shocking!

Anyway, all is clean and mostly up to date with some fresh plug-ins to replace the old, and the complete deletion of unwanted and unsupported files.

One plug-in I replaced was my Poll plug-in. It was one of those early 2004 plug-ins that had a lot of staying power. It looked good, but was fraught with many limitations. So, off to the deletion chamber it went, and is replaced with a plug-in called UPM Poll, something that I will give a few days to try and see how well it works.

The poll is up, along the side bar, at the right for this post, at the very top of the page. Please have a go at it, and cast your vote. I would really like to see how it works, and see how it looks too, and see if it holds up to the previous poll plug-in I had before. I know, another weather poll.

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Just testing a new Plug-in

August 1st, 2011 Thomasso

OK, I am testing out this new plug-in that I installed on my  blog, on WordPress called “Easy Chart Builder.”  I want to start using more charts on my blog. Doing it through SPSS, and R, and then copying the images over, is getting too cumbersome, so I am hoping that I found an easer way.

OK, lets see if this work?

ADDED: August 2nd, 2011. I have taken out the test graph.

It looks like I am limited with scaling on each graph I do. According to the creator of the plug-in, this graph will resize to fit into an iphone, or touch pad’s screen. The graph looks great, but I wonder if it will be too much work to code the data into it, rather then just pasting an image in from R, or SPSS? The Statistician’s conundrum.

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Ad Blocking While Surfing the Net

July 8th, 2011 Thomasso

I am sort of a rebel when it comes to what I allow into my home. When watching TV, I see very few commercials as my home-made PVR simply allows me to fast forward through them. I only listen to ad free radio content, preferably, CBC Radio One from Vancouver, and when I am surfing the net, I try to cut out as many ads as I can.

In my quest to rid ads altogether from my Intranet experience, I am finding this battle more and more challenging to do. For example, on two of the most visited places I go while using my browser, ads are like the plague there, and when I block the ads on those sites, the ad companies seem to try harder to circumvent the code that blocks them from the programs that I am using to block them altogether. Now it has gotten to the point that when I block URLs that contain adds from within my browser I might as well not look at them becuase they are void of any useful information. I know this sounds drastic, but when I am doing research, I brows hundreds of websites in one sitting, and I can have several very clever pieces of code do some very funny things to my browser that try and grab my attention in those sittings.

I have had a site that had some web code that tried to shut down my browser. One site that tried to open several pop-up windows, even with the pop-up blocker on. And even one web site that had a scrip that tried to open my email program and send out an email to that company!

I never bothered to report these website becuase there is no one really worthwhile to report to except for the web hosting company and domain name companies that are suppose to regulate what these people/organisation do online. So, it is really a free for all world out there, with law enforcement agencies overwhelmed, and with very little powers in the first place, why bother. Could they really combat this problem anyway?

So this is what I do to cut out most of the ads. Now, I target the legitimate ads. The illegitimate ads are much tougher to cut becuase, well, they are illegitimate. So, the first thing you need to do is down load the FireFox web browser. I am sorry if your running Window$, OK, I am. These fixes are not going to fully help you out becuase of the nature of your operating system. It is proprietary, and as such, it needs to send advertising to you–because that is what you paid for. That is capitalism, so deal with it. However, if you want a good chunk of these ads stopped, and you value your on-line time, then use LINUX. There, my plug!

Here is a really good website to get you started blocking ads, especially those Google ads. You can use it on Window$ too.

How to Get Rid of Google Ads!

The plug-in for FireFox is here: Adblock Plus — for annoyance-free web surfing. Adblock plus 1.3.9

So, give it a shot. I think you will be happy with the results, and how much faster some of the web sites load up too!

Added, July 10, 2011: Now that I have lived with the ad blocker for a few days now, I can safely say that it is working out great. It does not wreck any the off web pages that have mass amounts of advertising on them, and so far, it seems to be catching all the scrips that sneak ads onto your browser. I’m giving it 8 out of 10.

Posted in Blog and Web Tech, Diatribe, Featured Software, General, Nifty Plug-ins, Socail Media, Social Justice | Comments Off

More Programing Work – Yay.

March 15th, 2011 Thomasso

As luck would have it, I needed more money, as if none of us do, and there in a text message plea for help, from a friend, came an offer for a small job. An offer popped up that sort of landed on his lap, and then he slid it over to me. I said yes. A company in the lower mainland (Vancouver, BC) needed a whole pile of web development work done on their sites. They have their own servers, and tons of clients, but not enough specialised staff to keep up with the demand and workload.  I guess lately they had gone through a substantial increase in business when they took over some foreign contracts, and then found themselves short handed.

I had a good talk with the company owner. He told me that it was actually finding the qualified talent that is hurting him. He had several hundred applications, but the manager learned through some rough experiences with former workers that people often over qualify themselves, so he now checks everyone’s credentials. He told me that roughly, off the top of his head, that at least a quarter of all his applicants lied on their qualifications when they submit their resumes. I thought this was a very interesting bit of news.

So, for a small fee, I created some XML code for their favourite piece of graphics software to make fancy widgets that they can customise. They wanted a dedicated button program that they could use for one of their clients, a school. The goal was to create buttons that could have text customised, change colour and logos easily, and have it uploaded to this website with a press of the Enter button. In less than an evening I had three different prototypes that they could test. They liked two out of the three, so the deal was made. And did I mention that was for Linux applications?

The great news is, there could be more opportunities later on down the road.

I bet you are asking why I did not get a job with them?

They were sufficient with their IT department and had no software/programmers staff vacancies. None of the other positions I qualified for, or would want. But I am sure they will keep in touch with me. They like my work, service and price.

Posted in Art, Blog and Web Tech, General, Nifty Plug-ins, Photographs, Software | 1 Comment »

TweetDeck on Ubuntu 10.04

September 12th, 2010 Thomasso

I used TweetDeck a while ago, but stopped when I had issues with Adobe-Air as there were some bugs and installation issues when they moved up to a newer version. Since then, 2008-2009, a lot has changed, and both the Ubuntu repository and Adobe have changed to accommodate the tweeting population of LINUX users. Of course, this is my opinion as there are still some who say it still has a long ways to go.

All I’m going to do is show you how easy it is now to stall both the Adobe-Air program and TweetDeck for Ubuntu 10.04, as compared to what it was like back in the of Hardy (Ubuntu 8.04). Oh those were the days. Running the program is another post for later on.

Step one:

You need Adobe-Air Application Loader on your system. This is now so super easy becuase it sits in the repository. Use the repository, as I heard from some of my friends that the downloaded version from Adobe has some bugs in it still.  Just go to Synaptic, type in Adobe, and you should see it there. Mark it for installation, and fifty percent of the work is done. System –> Administration –> Synaptic Package Manager.

Adobe-AIR Application Loader can be found in: Applications –> Accessories. You should not have to worry about it again becuase once it is loaded on your system it should recognise any AIR file when you double click on it.

Step Two:

Click Here for TweetDeck’s Website: http://www.tweetdeck.com/

With the Adobe-AIR Application Loader happily installed on your system, the next step is to get TweetDeck. Go to the TweetDeck website, click on “Desktop,” and you should be whisked of to the page that has the download button on it. Please refer to the image below.

For me the Install Button did not do anything. I think it has to do with LINUX does not like self extracting files from outside sources off the net. Which is a good thing becuase that is how you catch ninety percent of those viruses and other garbage that people like to shove onto your system. So you will have to download the TweekDeck file on to your system. In my case, the file was “TweetDeck_0_35.0.1.air” at the time of this entry.

Make note of were you down loaded the TweetDeck AIR file (Commonly found in $Home/Download, directory)  and you should be able to just double click on it to start the installation. If it does not start the self extraction, then try and make it an executable by right clicking on it and go to Properties, then click on the Permission Tab and choose “Execute.”

On my system TweetDeck is found in Applications –> Accessories –> TweetDeck.

Happy Tweeting!

This is what TweetDeck looks like in action. I will take some getting use to with multiple columns and some of the update/streaming features it has if you are only used to using the Twitter Web Site, or some of the single column programs like GTwitter and Twitux.

A BUG:

One problem I did encounter which seems to be a problem for other users too is I lost my menu and desktop tray icons. I chose not to put the icon on my Desktop, but I figure that must of also meant not choosing to put a Desktop Icon when I first set up DweetDeck. After the next boot-up I lost the menu link.To get it back that took a little working around. This is what I did:

• I first created a launcher right on my Desktop by right clicking and choosing “Create Launcher…”

• I left “Type” as “Application,” and filled in the Name and Comment as TweetDeck

• The “Command” I put in opt/TweetDeck/bin/TweetDeck

• For the TweetDeck Icon, click the icon link (Upper Left hand coroner of the Launcher Window) and follow this directory: opt/TweetDeck/share/icons   and choose the TweetDeck_128.png image as your icon.

This will create a icon on your Desktop. You can move it up into the Desktop Tray, and edit your menu and place it in there too. If you are not sure, write me a comment and I will add more details on how to do that.

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This is Just a Little Test Post to Get My Twitter-feed Working – Not Important

July 21st, 2010 Thomasso

I’m setting up my Twitter Feed to work with the blog. This is tough getting everything just right with so many settings, yikes.

Lets see if I can get this damn thing to tweet for me.

Added: Success! It worked! Yeah!

Now when I post, my Twitter feeds are send out to alert everyone that I have posted. Am I doing the world a favour by broadcasting my blog posts and jumping on the social media bandwagon, or is all this internet stuff just a complete waist of time and energy? Well, I kind of like it, and I am paying for it.

Heh heh, it appears that there are some who are anti-social media. I guess not everyone is a fan of networking. Hey-this is how you get the “better” employer to notice you, as compared to the social Luddite employers who are still stuck in the 80′s.

Posted in Blog Problems, General, Nifty Plug-ins | 5 Comments »

Installing Flash and Java for FireFox for Ubuntu 10.04

May 7th, 2010 Thomasso

This is for my friends who have either upgraded to Ubuntu 10.04, Lucid Lynx, or just did a fresh install, and are having problems with their Flash and Java for web sites like www.pogo.com. If you have installed from a fresh installation, or did a major upgrade from the last long term support release, more than likely your Flash and Java have been reconfigured.

The first part of this how-to is installing Flash, and the second part deals with installing Java and adding the plugins for FireFox, which are easy to follow, but they look daunting and seem labour intensive, but trust me, they are not.

PART ONE

Flash is not open source, it is propitiatory software, meaning that you cannot freely reconfigure it, or copy it and write to it, and is licensed. I personally have some issues with having it, especially on my open source machine, but because it is so wide spread on the net many web sites use it; it is practically unavoidable.

There are two ways of getting it. First is from the repositories used through synaptic (Ubuntu). Although I prefer to use that version of flash, I have found that in my travels it has some bugs that makes some of the web sites not function so well. The second, is to use Adobe Flash Player’s software, which is of the better of the two. I will direct you to use Adobe here.

You can find the download page here: http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/

Once at that page, you should see, “Download Adobe Flash player”, “Adobe Flash Player version 10.0.45.2 Linux,” the current version at the time of this writing. Below that you will see a small drop-down box that you can click on that will have the following four options: choose: “.deb for Ubuntu 8.04+” Click on it, and the file should start downloading onto your hard-drive after you agree with the terms and conditions of the software.

This file should download quickly.

Once the “install_flash_player_10_linux.deb” has finished, double click on it and the installer will open and begin installing it on to your system.

Next, I recommend that you install the flash plugin for FireFox, called FlashGot. You can get it by clicking on tools –> Add-ons, in the FireFox menu, and choose the tab “Get Add-ons.” Then search “FlashGot,” in the search box, and once found, click “Add to FireFox.”

And that is it. Restart FireFox for the plugins to take effect and Adobe Flash to run.

To test to see if your Flash is properly working in FireFox, I would recommend that you try this web site : http://www.barbie.com Why? This is one of the most Flash ridden web sites I have ever seen!

PART TWO

Now for the Java and Java plugin for FireFox. I would only start this process if you plan on playing games over at pogo.com, otherwise, just ignore this section.

You need Java to navigate through Pogo and play the games that are on that web site. This link is the best site I have seen for installing and setting up Java to work with FireFox for Ubuntu. These Ten plus steps look like a lot of hard work, but it is not. The whole process should take you about 15 minutes, and once done you will have the proper Java and Java plugins running with FireFox. Please click on the following link to get to the Java website where the instructions are.

Click here for installation instructions: JAVA. (You are reading the left-hand column!)

Note: if you are running the 64bit version of Ubuntu 10.04, you can find those instruction their also.

If you want, please leave me some feed back here and let me know if this was helpful or not. Good Luck and happy gaming!

***NOTE: After Aug 2010, I have turned off the comments. I am getting too much comment SPAM. This page does get about, on average,  5 hits per day!

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I Like Google’s Street View Maps

October 22nd, 2009 Thomasso

This is so cool! I remember the Google truck driving around town, going from street to street, with this weird looking camera sitting on a tripod on its deck. In a way it is freaky knowing that the world can now see your street, house, even the garbage can and mess on the lawn. Only if there was some warning? This adds a whole new dimension of public view.The Google Street View service started up on October 7, 2009 for some areas of Canada, mostly the large cities and their urban areas. They got  much of the Lower mainland, the Fraser Valley and Metro Vancouver area covered.

View Larger Map

Above, you can use your mouse to move the 360 degree picture around to see the main street in Fort Langley, and the street I live on. Of course I am not going to show the exact location, for privacy reasons. Have fun, take a tour of Fort Langley and the rest of the Metro Vancouver area – street by street!

I’ve already used the Google Street View for finding what a house or building looks like before I leave to visit it. I can see many more uses such as road conditions for large trucks, or parking spaces–whether it is pay parking or free public parking. The list seems endless.

I even checked to see if my image was captured becuase I did see that truck drive by me while I was walking to the market that day. No, I’m on it, or at least that I am aware of?

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Don’t Mind me, Adding Plugins….

December 18th, 2007 Thomasso

I’m just experimenting with setting up Flash on the Blog here. This is taking more time than I thought?

/images/X.flv


If you are interested, I’ve just installed a Flash plugin on my Blog, called FlashVideoPlayer for Word Press. So far it has worked right out of the box, and seems to have lots of goodies as far as settings goes. But it needs that Thomasso Touch; it is not quite right…..

OK, another test for the FLASH Plugin, but this time I’m using streaming video. This video was from the Fraser River Flood of last June, 2007, the same video I uploaded to YouTube then. I think I can get the quality a bit better here on this Flash Player.

/images/fraser_jun112007.flv


The above video is 21.4MB and about 5:11min in length. When I converted the mpeg to flash, It had developed a flicker on the bottom? Weird? So I decreased the side of the video, 340 x 280, and the problem went away. At least the quality of the video is good compared to streaming AVI.

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