Adventures in stupid technology
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Google superfast DNS servers
Google recently announced that it has set up a couple of free public DNS servers (8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4) in its continuing effort to “speed up” the Internets. Unfortunately after testing them it looks like I’ll be sticking with my Verizon provided DNS servers. Here’s what I found:
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Get PHPUnit to work in NetBeans 6.7
Unit testing is one way software engineers can meet quality assurance goals for large and/or critical development projects. PHPUnit is a popular choice among a number of frameworks designed for unit testing PHP code, but as I found out quite difficult to setup on Windows with NetBeans 6.7 and XAMPP. Here’s how to got it…
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Compare two files in two clicks
Windows is a great operating system for games, managing multimedia, and running millions of applications. For development though, I’ve always been used to Linux, UNIX or Solaris command line tools like “vi”, “diff”, “grep” and the like. Since I only have one notebook filled with gigabytes of family pictures, movies and mp3’s, a free copy…
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Create an RSS feed web app for the iPhone/iPod
A week ago I posted an article showcasing a basic RSS feed web app for the iPhone/iPod Touch. In this post I’ll attempt to demonstrate how I built that application so you can make your own. First a little background: Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is a way of keeping up with frequently changing published content.…
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SimplePie + iWebKit + iPod/iPhone
I spent an evening looking at SimplePie and iWebkit and ended up building a web-based RSS feed application for the iPod/iPhone in just a couple of hours. The application lets me access my favorite APM and NPR podcast feeds without having to download or synchronize/find them with iTunes first. It streams the podcasts directly to…
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Exporting Google DOCS in Word format
A month or so ago I needed to collaborate on a Software Engineering project with a couple of classmates. The task was to write a requirements document for a fictional software application which our team would be working on for the remainder of the semester. I decided that we should use Google DOCS because of…
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Free Anti-virus Program from Microsoft
Microsoft hasn’t made much money on its security software suite called OneCare so they scrapped it in July, renamed the Anti-virus component “Security Essentials” and decided to give it away for free. I’ve tried all the leading free Anti-virus contenders (AVG, AntiVir, Kaspersky and Nod32) and most have either annoying purchase reminders or are bloated…
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Get Windows 7 for $29.99
Here’s another reason to go back to school during the recession: Get cheap software just for being a student. In a previous article I showed you how to get Office 2007 Ultimate for $60 bucks, now Microsoft is making their latest and greatest in operating systems available to students for $29.99. Here’s how:
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Hulu Desktop vs BOXEE
After spending months patiently waiting for BOXEE to come out with a version that actually worked on Windows I was saddened to finally find an interface that is buggy, slow and unintuitive. Meanwhile Hulu – the online video portal for which BOXEE was in part designed – comes out with it’s own beta desktop software.…
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Fix HP 1020 print spooler subsystem crash
Lets say you’re working one day and thinking to yourself: “Hey you know what would be awesome? If I could print this large PDF file on my brand new HP 1020 Laser printer – because that’s what I bought it for – that’s what would be awesome!” Unfortunately though, when you click print all you…