paul.luminos.nl

Pixplicity website launched

noemail@noemail.org (Paul) — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 15:44:16 +0100

Over the past year, as we have been developing genetic software at CrimsonBase, my colleagues and I have been time and time again approached to use our expertise to develop Android apps.

We're happy to announce our new venture, Pixplicity!

FaceSelector: facilitate annotating faces

noemail@noemail.org (Paul) — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 14:04:41 +0100

Looking for a customizable tool to annotate photographs of faces?

As part of my master, I needed to generate a data set with labeled facial features, including head_top, head_bottom, eye_left, eye_right, nose and mouth. I put together a simple Java SWT-based application that makes annotating photographs easy.

To get the source code compiled:

Download and extract this ZIP
Grab the latest SWT library from Eclipse.org and put swt.jar in the project's lib folder
In Eclipse, create a project from existing source and specify the project directory
Edit FaceSelector to specify the desired fields and path to the data set

That's it; you should be all set!

TryAgain: new life for the age-old add-on

noemail@noemail.org (Paul) — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 19:17:48 +0200

TryAgain is a Firefox add-on that keeps trying to load a webpage when the server cannot be reached.

WiFi out of range? Reddit not responding? TryAgain is one of the first add-ons I add to a fresh installation of Firefox, because it's such a simple solution to a common annoyance.

The original version came in the form of a userscript back in April, 2006, soon replaced by a Firefox add-on with added functionality. As the years progressed, Mathijs (add-on caretaker) moved to Chrome, leaving reviewers complaining that it wouldn't work in the latest versions of Firefox.

Fear not! New life has come to TryAgain. I have taken the add-on upon myself as a hobby project, and have already added functionality some reviews asked for:

Improved UI
Option to remove network diagnostic tips
Query DownForEveryoneOrJustMe.com
Portuguese (Brazil) locale

The version currently pending Mozilla review (3.3) doesn't include the last two features, but I assure you that as soon as it's published, I'll submit the next version.

L4D Launcher (version 1.5)

noemail@noemail.org (Paul) — Sat, 15 May 2010 21:51:03 +0200

I'm delighted to announce L4D Launcher version 1.5!

Left 4 Dead 2 support has been long awaited and is finally here. Whether Steam is installed or not, you are able to launch Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2 network games—even using custom maps!

The Launcher now also checks in for updates every 14 days; so no need to check this blog.

Download L4D Launcher (597 KB)

Update March 3, 2011: The project has been migrated to SourceForge, as project L4D Launcher. Binaries can be downloaded from there, but the source code is also freely available through SVN.

Microsoft .NET framework required.

SWT Javadocs for Windows and Mac

noemail@noemail.org (Paul) — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 12:02:23 +0100

Since Eclipse Galileo, the documentation for SWT has been assimilated into the Eclipse Help pages. This is nice if you want to look something up on the net, but is a royal pain in the ass if you want to hook up your IDE to the SWT Javadocs.

It annoyed me so much that I grabbed the source from CVS, compiled it, generated the Javadocs and bundled them in Jars for you, me and the rest of the world to use.

Provide the path to the Jar, and specify doc as the path within the archive

SWT build 3636 (March 2^nd, 2010)

The browser showdown

noemail@noemail.org (Paul) — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 12:51:13 +0100

My colleagues have been insisting that I switch from Firefox to Chrome on grounds that Google's browser is simply much faster. I am quite familiar with Chrome, and it is fast indeed.

I would be inclined to label it the fastest browser were it not for two things:

The title "fastest browser on Earth" is taken by Opera 10.5 (though still beta)
Chrome 5.0—Google's latest beta—crashes unceasingly and seems slower than all of it's predecessors

That said, I took a moment to run all of the candidates through the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark to get a empirical result.

Sure enough: Opera 10.5 is the fastest browser, and not by a little, either. It is twice as fast as the fastest Firefox yet, 3.7 alpha. Remarkably, it is 50% faster than Chrome 4.0.

Chrome 5.0 never succeed in finishing the test, crashing well into each attempt. At the rate it was going, though, its score would have been miserable.

In daily use, there is a noticeable speed difference between Firefox and Chrome, and similarly between Chrome and Opera, but the overwhelming number of features that Firefox provides over the competition (and the promising speed improvements) hasn't quite swayed me.

The blue bar towering above the Internet Explorer logo comes, of course, as no surprise.

Update August 8^th:

Opera 10.60: 430ms
Safari 5.0.1: 460ms
Chrome 5.0b: 470ms
Internet Explorer 9.0a: 560ms (Platform Preview v1.9.7)
Firefox 4.0b3: 680ms

Compiling Java Jars to Linux native libraries

noemail@noemail.org (Paul) — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 12:49:48 +0100

I had successfully compiled my Java application to native code on Linux, but linking it to make an executable was causing undefined reference errors.

Providing the Jar path seemed sufficient, so I was puzzled why it wasn't working. The obvious then dawned upon me: linking native code of course requires native libraries.

Here's how to do it.

You have to compile the imported Jars into .so libraries individually. Make sure to provide the Jars in the --classpath, both while compiling the libraries as while compiling your code.

An example, where I'm compiling the GNU crypto library to an object file:

gcj --classpath=source/:libs/gnu-crypto.jar -fjni
   -c libs/gnu-crypto.jar -o libs/gnu-crypto.o

Then compile the object file to a native library:

gcj -shared -fPIC
   -o libs/libgnu-crypto.o libs/gnu-crypto.o
   -o libs/libgnu-crypto.so

Finally, execute your executable through a shell script referencing the library path. For example:

#!/bin/sh
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=./libs/:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH
exec ./MyJavaApp $*

This is from my answer at StackOverflow.

Scanning double-sided pages into a single PDF

noemail@noemail.org (Paul) — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 14:54:14 +0100

Having to scan 150 double-sided sheets, I ran into the problem of merging them into a single PDF file. We have an Automatic Document Feeder at the office, but it can only scan one side at a time, giving me two PDFs; one with all fronts, one with all backs.

The problem consists of two parts:

The PDF containing the backs is in reversed page order, since I simply flipped the stack over and put it back in the ADF.
The two PDF files need to be interleaved into a single file such that the back of page 1 lies between the front of page 1 and the front of page 2.

No fear, the PDF Toolkit is to the rescue!

To address problem 1, simply enter the following command:

pdftk backs.pdf cat end-1 output backs-rev.pdf

To address problem 2, enter the following set of commands:

mkdir pages
pdftk fronts.pdf burst output pages\%04d_a.pdf
pdftk backs-rev.pdf burst output pages\%04d_b.pdf
pdftk pages\*_?.pdf cat output combined.pdf

Presto! You have all the pages neatly combined into combined.pdf — in the correct order! You can then proceed to delete the temporary pages folder.

L4D Launcher (version 1.4.1)

noemail@noemail.org (Paul) — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 23:09:24 +0100

Another new version of L4D Launcher is available, updating it to version 1.4.1.41673!

This minor update allows modified install locations to be automatically detected via Steam's application list.

Download L4D Launcher (565 KB)
You will need the .NET Framework version 2.0 or newer.

I can assure you that the next major release will include support for Left 4 Dead 2!

Update May 15, 2010: updated to version 1.5.

Update March 3, 2011: The project has been migrated to SourceForge, as project L4D Launcher. Binaries can be downloaded from there, but the source code is also freely available through SVN.

Context menu remains on top of windows

noemail@noemail.org (Paul) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 21:35:48 +0100

In Windows XP and Vista, a selected item from a context menu will occasionally remain on-screen, lingering on top of other applications and obstructing your view.

On two separate Vista machines I can consistently reproduce the problem by crashing Google Chrome, but other than that, it's difficult to say why this tends to happen.

Temporarily fixing the phenomenon on Vista

Open Windows' Services window from the Control Panel's Administrative Tools, or by entering services.msc into the Run dialog.
Locate "Desktop Window Manager Session Manager" and click Restart. Your screen will flicker twice and the overlay should disappear.

If you want to run the above via the command line instead, simply enter these two commands into a command prompt with administrator privileges:

net stop uxsms
net start uxsms

Preventing the problem in the future

By altering Windows' performance settings, you can disable the root cause of the problem: fading-out of context menus. This takes a little away from the visual experience of Vista, but if you are consistently being bothered by the perpetual "hovering context menu", here's a solution.

Open the Windows' System window, and select "Advanced system settings" from the panel on the left.
Under the Advanced tab, click Settings... in the Performance frame.
In the list of Visual Effects, locate "Fade out menu items after clicking" and uncheck it.