“Bog je pitanje, a ne odgovor”

http://nap.ba/new/vijest.php?id=19901

Germany further eases working visa rules

Germany further eases the rules for employment of the citizens from the Balkan states.
Source
This is another indicator of the German demographic situation and the falling number of available (skilled) workers there.

More info with links

Bruce Dickinson visits Sarajevo again

Just like in the middle of the siege of Sarajevo, Bruce Dickinson paid a visit to the city.

Article in Slobodna Bosna
 

The future is jobless

http://wadhwa.com/2014/07/21/were-heading-into-a-jobless-future-no-matter-what-the-government-does/

Hydrogen-powered bicycles... in Vienna!

Benefits of spending time in nature

http://us2.campaign-archive1.com/?u=f8c108c927254d2f049ca19c0&id=b1efbfb8d1

Current Australian stats are depressing

http://www.smh.com.au/national/health/australians-are-fat-and-unfit-but-at-least-we-are-drinking-and-smoking-less-20151207-glhycn.html

A few interesting TED talks on sleep

Starting from this, there are a couple of related videos on sleep, what happens in the brain during sleep, and on the natural sleeping patterns.

Evolutionary tree of religions

Thanks to @DJakovljevic and @Simon_E_Davies, here is a tree chart of world religions.

Battery technology inflection point

Earlier this month, the investment bank Lazard published its first analysis of the costs of various storage technologies, and it showed that for some of them, costs were rapidly declining. The bank said the energy storage industry was at an "inflection point" similar to the one renewable energy saw eight years ago

 Source: On Clean Energy, the Wind Blows From Germany

Problems

"Happiness is not the absence of problems, it's the ability to deal with them"

Happiness is not the absence of problems, it's the ability to deal with them

A photo posted by Posts by Dr Happy (@thehappinessinstitute) on Aug 29, 2015 at 5:12pm PDT

Link

A range of interesting books, available under CC

Lots of interesting books. Found the site through search that led to A Primer on Communication Studies, more specifically - nonverbal communication.

http://2012books.lardbucket.org/

Genetic Maps (of Europe)

Eupedia has a decent section with genetic maps of Europe. These are divided into paternal (Y-DNA) maps and maternal (mtDNA) maps.
For me, the interesting group to follow is I2a1, shown below.

It is a base for a theory of the oldest known inhabitants of Europe, from the last ice age. The concentration is the highest in the Balkans mountaneous area.
More significantly, it also proves that there really is no difference among the many nationalities in the region who were involved in bloody conflicts throughout known history.

Extremely interesting is the full world map of human migration. More specificaly, map of genetic migration:

Politicians in Western Balkans born in Bosnia

Interesting information. A number of current and former officials in the countries of the Western Balkans were born in Bosnia:
BiH, rasadnik balkanskih lidera: Najvažniji političari porijeklom iz naše zemlje  (link)

Zen Stories

I love the koan about the finger and the dog.

http://truththeory.com/2015/11/13/7-zen-stories-that-might-just-give-you-a-glimpse-of-enlightenment/

Islamic State creation contemplated in 2012

Some interesting information is to be found in a declassified document from the Defense Intelligence Agency: “Establish a Salafist Principality in Syria”, Facilitate Rise of Islamic State “In Order to Isolate the Syrian Regime” (link)

In any case, this current development of relations was to be expected, in a way. Al Qaeda was not a much better example.

Dealing with People

The link below contains a great summary of Dr. Rick Brinkman's quadrant for understanding the types of behaviour and their approach.

Source: Dealing with People, Chapter 3: The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions

The end of the article contains the scheme used to understand the type of behaviour while the whole text above explains each of the types.

More on the topic in the book "Dealing with difficult people".

Nestajanje maslacaka

Divno opisano

http://mrakovackabb.com/2015/10/15/nestajanje-maslacaka/
 

How to handle the rise of the robots?

Quite an interesting topic. The book handling it certainly deserved the title of the Book of the Year.

NY Times review

To solve this, we might need an algorithm (a robot).

What ISIS really wants

Excellent (and long) story about ideological and religious pillars of the califate.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/03/what-isis-really-wants/384980/

The "way of life"

- "What IS your role here?"

- "I'm concerned with a preservation of a way of life."
- "And a damn good one."

Link to the scene from Missing (1982).

All quiet on the Western front, it seems. Nothing's changed in a while. If ever.

More support against sugar

"Diabetes experts tell G20 to tax sugar to save lives and money" - http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKKCN0T02NZ20151111

Some updated Bosnian stats

Unemployment

IMF estimate: ~28% (link).
CIA World Factbook: ~45%

Income

World Bank puts the country into the Upper middle income group (link). Well situated compared to the rest of the world.

Salary Explorer (link) shows the average monthly salary in Bosnia to be ~1,300 BAM and median 1,200 BAM. This is €650 and €600, respectively.
Of course, to even get to this survey, one would be educated enough to know English, have an access to the computer, *and* be employed, all at the same time. Quite a feat, considering that almost the third of those who are able, actually do not work.
Another survey (link) states that 25,000 BAM is the most common salary. This is clearly expressed on an annual level, making it higher than 2,000 BAM per month. Phew! Again, only 71 correspondent there so hardly a representative sample.

Xinhua reported in 2014 that the average salary in Bosnia was €422 (link). The negative side is that this was 1.4% less than the year before.

GDP

Index Mundi (link) has a generally good collection of statistics. It is great that the GDP doubled since 1998, making it to US$ 9833 in 2014.
The rest of stats - link.

References

Sources:

• Index Mundi (link)
• CIA World Factbook, Bosnia and Herzegovina (link)
• Google Public Data Explorer (link)
• World Bank (link)

Poor Things - First-World Problems

It's been years and I still can't get this image out of my head.

Source: Poor Things

Star and Crescent

Following an interesting tour in the Vienna Museum, and finding that on the top of the St.Stephen's tower (the famous Stephansdom) there used to be a crescent and a star until the second Otoman siege of the city in 1683, this symbol looked quite interesting for further investigation. Wikipedia, as usual, contains excellent information on history.

Wikipedia - Star and Crescent

In addition to this, there is an interesting text titled The six pointed star and the crescent, that describes some history behind the symbols.

Taking breaks at work

http://www.cio.de/i/detail/artikel/2900421/1/695914/EL_1353943804232493944753/

Dubioza Kolektiv - Free.mp3

Genijalno.

This is now an official The Pirate Bay song.

Documentaries Online

Link to the original article

Vic

That Sugar

Wonderfully done. Quite educational with significant new insights.
Plus it was great seeing Melbourne again. Even if only on the big screen.

http://thatsugarfilm.com/

Another useful reference from the film is a book Salt, Sugar, Fat - How the Food Giants Hooked Us.

Here is a 10-minute part of Dr. Oz with some additional information.

Borders reemerge in EU

http://openeurope.org.uk/daily-shakeup/irish-think-tank-warns-brexit-could-reduce-uk-irish-trade-by-20/#section-2

Immortality

http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/diet-and-fitness/research-finds-increasing-steps-cuts-death-rate-by-48-20151104-gkr20v.html

Story of Carlos the Jackal

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2014/whats-up-with-the-notorious-terrorist-carlos-the-jackal

WHO Q&A on the carcinogenicity of red and processed meat

Here are the Q&A on the recently published findings about processed meats being characterized as level 1 - carcinogenic to humans, and red meat being characterized as level 2A - probably carcinogenic:

Q&A on the carcinogenicity of the consumption of red meat and processed meat

Lithium-Air: A Breakthrough

FT: Cambridge chemists make super-battery breakthrough (link)
A breakthrough has been demonstrated that would allow creation of Lithium-air batteries that would have five times larger capacity than the best batteries in use today. This would mean either batteries five times smaller or batteries with five times more energy stored. In any case, if this works out I'm looking forward to having smaller mobile phones (again) as well as finally getting that electric motorcycle!

Where have the blueberries gone?!

My favourite is RED #40!

Blueberries faked in cereals, muffins, bagels and other food products - Food Investigations 

Unfortunately, the situation in Europe is not much better: Fake food being sold by criminal organizations across Europe

Corn - genetic engineering at it's best?

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/science/25creature.html?referer=&_r=0

Ena Kadic was from Bihac

Ena Kadic, former Miss Austria, died in hospital after an accident in Austrian Alps.
She was born in Bihac, Bosnia and Herzegovina (former Yugoslavia).

http://news.yahoo.com/ex-miss-austria-dies-mountain-fall-094148695.html

A case that shapes data transfer rules

http://uk.mobile.reuters.com/article/idUKKCN0SD1TE20151019?irpc=932

Landfillharmonic

A wonderful film!

http://www.landfillharmonicmovie.com/

Sonic Pi - learn to code

Beautiful presentation on creativity, technology, and programming. I haven't seen something this good and important in a while. Explains the role of technology today. Please watch, share, and apply!
This also explains why I love my profession so much that I spend a lot of my spare time doing the same thing.

http://sonic-pi.net/

Learning to code is such an important feat in the 21st century. A whole new world opens up once you learn to create something. The beauty of Open Source, and the licensing models that sprung in the recent years, is that there are so many projects out there that you can use, borrow ideas from, or contribute to, or link together and create something new. Platforms like GitHub, which stores source code for free, enabled an explosion of exchange of ideas, concepts, and solutions available as source code. Knowing how to read and write this code is becoming increasingly important.

The implementation is the most exciting part. Even if you are not a professional programmer, you can still write the code that does something useful for yourself. There are hardware platforms like Raspberry Pi, or Android and other PCs on USB sticks, or simply common phones and tablets. Many of these are increasingly available for under $100 and are more capable than a machine that landed humans on the Moon.

You can also contribute to existing projects and add to ideas and solutions already implemented. A wide field of options opens up once you start.

Receive SMS Online

Here is a list of services that offer free SMS receipt online with numbers in Australia:

• http://receivefreesms.com/
• http://receive-sms-now.com/ 
• http://www.receiveonlinesms.biz/
• http://freesmsverification.com/  

The numbers are not reliable, however, so don't expect to use them for the long-term.

Hybrids match diesel fuel economy

Certain grades of the Prius that goes on sale in Japan in December will achieve as much as 40 kilometers (25 miles) per liter under Japan standards.

That is 2.5 liters per 100km. Half the fuel it used to take on the diesel cars I considered quite good in fuel efficiency.

Source: Prius Takes on Diesels as Hybrids Seen Gaining From VW Scandal (link)

Syria

Here's a different view on Syria. It gets much more complicated than is visible from the Western news and the focus on side-effects.

https://youtu.be/cCdaExnIpGs

More documentary footage from the ground: https://youtu.be/K25XBJolG5w

Seeing the recordings from the place very much reminds me of scenario that was unfolding in Bosnia in the 1990's, which I happened to experience first-hand.

Interview(s) with Zbigniew Brzezinski

https://youtu.be/MMmLkNw--JE
At 11:11, excellent comment on Islamic fundamentalism.

List of Bilderberg conference participants 2015

It is impressive to see so many participants from Austria, considering it's geographical size. Obviously, the sphere of influence is not that small.

http://www.bilderbergmeetings.org/participants.html

Syria: The Last Assignment

Just watching Syria: The Last Assignment, a footage taken among the rebels in Syria: Free Syrian Army, Al-Tawhid Brigade, Al-Nusra Front, Ahrar Al-Sham, and ISIL. Unfortunately, cameraman Yasser Faisol al-Jumaili's last assignment.
One version of the film can be seen online at Al Jazeera (link).

More about cold and flu

Once you already have a flu, there is not much you can do. But some remedies are universal - chicken soup and ginger tea.

http://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/cold-guide/chicken-soup-and-recipes-for-cold

Prevention, as usual, is the best medicine.

http://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/cold-guide/exercise-when-you-have-cold

How to avoid the flu

Here's something very practical. Scientific facts about flu.

Bloomberg - How to Avoid Getting Sick This Fall http://bloom.bg/1JUYane

Collection of documentaries on history

http://historum.com/history-films-television/50390-seriously-awesome-list-full-documentaries.html

Out of the collection above, here is a documentary on the second siege of Vienna in 1683.

Also one about the first siege in 1529 - https://youtu.be/pPXDgUrg5E8

Holy Roman Empire

Being sick certainly has its advantages. It is also great to have so much content available at the click of a mouse button. For example, here are half a million results for the videos about the history of the Holy Roman Empire:
https://www.google.com/search?q=history%20of%20holy%20roman%20empire%20youtube
Now I can finally learn more about this piece of history of European civilization.
A 5-part series (link)

Etiquette in Vienna U-Bahn

Pay attention to the #12. "Act disgusted if the waiting time is more than 3 minutes"

http://www.viennawurstelstand.com/index.php/how-to/a-guide-to-viennas-u-bahn-etiquette/

Big Oil's problems

From Balloons in Search of Needles, by John Mauldin

I’ve read that over $1.2 trillion of scheduled Big Oil investments have been delayed or taken off the table. The majors have a depletion problem. They have to find new oil, and in size, to be able to make up their losses from reduced production from older fields. While small, independent companies can do very well drilling 10 or 20 wells at reduced costs, the majors need to find huge “plays,” which are typically in inhospitable places and cost more per barrel to pull out of the ground. $50 oil just doesn’t cut it.

Someone is going to eat those losses. Depending who it is and how big they are, we could see some sizable energy industry defaults and bankruptcies over the next year. There’s an outside chance the spillover could affect some hedge funds and make them unwind other positions. That’s how you get a “contagion” going.

The core of good business idea

The core of good business is to sell something people need. But successful business is the one that manages to artificially create that need.
The comic below illustrates how this works. Coincidentally, this whole concept is described in the latest book by Nobel laureate Robert Schiller and George A. Akerlof, Phishing for Phools. The point being the quesion whether the artificial creation of this need is ethical.
For reference, here is a description of phishing for those not familiar with the concept.
This is well portrayed in the movie The Wolf of Wall Street with the example of selling a pen. How to do it right, and how not to do it.

Super blood moon eclipse

Guess I've missed the sight later at night but the Moon did appear unusually larger!

Awesome photos of Sunday night's rare super blood moon eclipse — there won't be another one until 2033

Introduction to models for Android apps

https://medium.com/@artem_zin/m-model-from-mvc-mvp-in-android-flow-and-mortar-bd1e50c45395

Full circle - create a desktop application with Node.js

http://tutorialzine.com/2015/01/your-first-node-webkit-app/

Decision Theory

Something for reading - http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Decision_theory

Finding a mobile phone

With the flood of new devices on the market, it gets more and more difficult to find something that matches one's needs. Quite contrary to what one would expect. Below are some useful links in finding a device:

• GSM Arena search (link)
• GSM Arena phone comparison (link)
• My customized search (link)
• DX (link)

Currently, my favourite from that list would be Lenovo P70.

Wileyfox, cheap phones coming

http://wileyfox.com/

Customize installation path of Visual Studio

If the default graphical UI of the installer does not allow for customization of the destination path for installation of Visual Studio, there is still a way to adjust it.
Visual Studio (in this case 2013) installer accepts command-line parameters.
/CustomInstallPath parameter (reference) should help in this case.

Here is another useful utility - TaskKill, which can kill (/im /f) all instances of the installation executable in case it starts multiplying own processes.

Online Training

Here are some links to online training courses:

• O'Reilly Learning Paths
• GraspSkills

Use different colours based on the theme

Here is just a quick reference on what is involved when you want to use different colours based on the selected theme in an Android app:

• In attrs.xml, define an attribute that references an item in a theme. Add a line, i.e.
  

  name="calculator_button_background" format="reference" />

• In themes.xml, add the item
  

  name="calculator_button_background">@color/color_dialog_number_button

• The colour can be a direct @color or, in this case, can use predefined colour in colors.xml
  

  name="color_dialog_number_button">#474747

 Then, based on the selected theme, the R.attr.calculator_button_background or ?attr/calculator_button_background will reference the colour defined in themes.xml.

Android: Drawable Resources, Reference

Link: https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/resources/drawable-resource.html

Field naming convention for Android Java

Follow Field Naming Conventions

• Non-public, non-static field names start with m.
  
• Static field names start with s.
  
• Other fields start with a lower case letter.
  
• Public static final fields (constants) are ALL_CAPS_WITH_UNDERSCORES.
  

More: Code Style Guides

Disable windows defender in Windows 10

http://www.tenforums.com/antivirus-firewalls-system-security/5879-permanently-disable-windows-defender.html

Visual Studio 2015 keyboard shortcuts

Link

Visual Studio 2015 and Visual Studio Code

While Visual Studio 2015 is the next product version in the line, Visual Studio Code is a surprise. Fast start, MarkDown preview, syntaxt highlighting and intellisense. Seems like a great text editor. Currently in preview version and free.

Downloads

Disable annoying Tools panel in new Adobe Acrobat DC

Somebody clever at Adobe forums has found an easy way to disable the annoying Tools panel in the new Acrobat Reader. The product, btw, is now called Adobe Acrobat DC and offers some neat cloud integration so that you can see your documents across different devices. This probably means that any file you open goes to the cloud so beware when opening confidential documents.

The solution, in brief, is:

Go to the install directory, i.e." C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Acrobat Reader DC\Reader\AcroApp\ENU". Create a new subfolder (I used "Disabled"). Move 3 files from the "ENU" folder into the new "Disabled" folder: AppCenter_R.aapp & Home.aapp & Viewer.aapp. Open a PDF and no more Tool Pane!  I originally moved just the "Viewer" file but if you clicked on "Home" or "Tools" on the toolbar you couldn't go back to the "Document." Moving all 3 files takes care of that issue.

Link

On a positive note, the new Reader is very fast when opening documents and is a welcome upgrade to the previous version.
Android version, on the other hand, takes a bit longer to start.

Reduce the size of WinSxS directory

This is particularly useful on tablets with limited space on system drive.

How to Reduce the Size of the WinSxS directory and Free Up Disk Space on Windows Server 2012 R2 and Windows 8.1 or do we even need to? (link)

A couple of useful hints:

• There is a scheduled task in Servicing folder, that cleans up the WinSxS automatically.
• Running Disk Cleanup Wizard will run the above task, too.
• Console command for the above is "Dism.exe /online /cleanup-image /StartComponentCleanup"
• /ResetBase ("Dism.exe /online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup /ResetBase") removes all the superseded versions of files, which prevents uninstalling updates but also saves quite a bit of space.
• Check space used with "Dism.exe /online /Cleanup-Image /AnalyzeComponentStore".

Font Icons in Android Apps

While vector graphics implementation is moving quite slowly, there is another interesting development in the similar direction. The point in question being avoiding multiple different sizes of images and using one image that scales well. This can be achieved only with vector images and, as mentioned, direct support for SVG is quite slow. The alternative is coming from the world of web applications.
Font Awesome, for example, is a great way of using a custom font that contains icons instead of letters. That way, icons can be drawn anywhere in a very simple way. They scale well, and their colour can be customized. They are monochrome, with one colour available for the icon content and, being usually transparent, another one is available as the background colour.
This is quite enough for most purposes. It is very light on resources and easy to implement.

Here are a few links to articles and the library that allows the same for Android apps.

• How to use font icons in Android
• Android FontIcon Library, introduction 
• FontIcon library on GitHub

The implementation is quite easy and this represent the easiest way to use scalable graphics in Android apps so far.

Below are some useful services that allow operations on icon fonts:

• Fontastic
• IcoMoon
• Fontello 
• We love font icons

8-core Lenovo phone for 135 Euros!

Forget the huge modern mobile phones. I think my next phone will be something like this:
Lenovo A806

List of custom ROMs for Lenovo phones - here

There are also Xiaomi models available and those could be an even better deal.

Updating Amazon country settings

Purchasing e-books from Amazon can be confusing if you have accounts in multiple countries. Apparently, there can be only one country active and it defines which Kindle store can be used to purchase e-books. Below is the link to the country settings where the country can be selected:
http://www.amazon.com/myx

How to install Firefox Dev Edition on F21

How to install Firefox Dev Edition on F21

Handling boot options with Windows 8.1

Handy if having multiple operating systems installed.

How to restore Windows 8 GUI boot-loader

DriveDroid

Mount drives to a PC directly from an Android device

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.softwarebakery.drivedroid&hl=en&referrer=utm_source%3Dgoogle%26utm_medium%3Dorganic%26utm_term%3Ddrivedroid&pcampaignid=APPU_1_Mi59Ve6EG8H1UsOigJAK

What is Code? A perspective of the other side

http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-paul-ford-what-is-code/

Wickr - a safe messenger

Wickr is one of the better solutions in the wave of safe messaging platforms appearing as of late.
Link
 

Adding a dropdown (spinner) to toolbar in Android app

Here is a very elegant and simple solution on how to add a Spinner (a dropdown) to a toolbar in an Android app.
Add a Spinner as menu item and set the action view class

<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
xmlns:yourapp="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto" >

  <item android:id="@+id/spinner"
    yourapp:showAsAction="ifRoom"
    yourapp:actionViewClass="android.widget.Spinner" />
</menu>

Then handle the contents in onCreateMenuItem, as usual.

@Override
public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
    getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.menu_layout, menu);
    MenuItem item = menu.findItem(R.id.spinner);
    Spinner spinner = (Spinner) MenuItemCompat.getActionView(item);
    spinner.setAdapter(adapter); // set the adapter to provide layout of rows and content
    s.setOnItemSelectedListener(onItemSelectedListener); // set the listener, to perform actions based on item selection
} 

Source

Android Studio and 32/64-bit JDK

Here is a tip in case you run into 32/64-bit JDK issues with Android Studio and related tools.
Initially I had 64-bit JDK, running on 64-bit Windows, using 64-bit Android Studio.
After installing SmartGit, it required me to install 32-bit JDK. Hm... A little bit of research shows that there is no bit difference in my circumstances, so I go ahead and replace the 64-bit JDK with the 32-bit one. This made SmartGit run fine.
The next issue was running the Android Studio. It complained that it needs a 64-bit JDK. Whoa!
Fortunately, it turns out that Android Studio comes with two .exe files - 32-bit studio.exe and 64-bit studio64.exe. The default shortcut uses the 64-bit version.
Running studio.exe (and adjusting the shortcut to use this file) fixes the problem. All systems go, again.

Google Photos

Google has finally come up with a dedicated site just for photos: https://photos.google.com/
Picasa, Google+ Photos have finally evolved into an independent site that only handles your photographs.
The desktop and mobile apps can back up your photos automatically and the capacity is unlimited as long as you keep the photos at certain size. This is not a bad option but I still believe Flickr is a decent competitor.
Sharing is still on Google's side because of integration with Google accounts.

Developing Universal Windows Apps with HTML and JavaScript Jump Start

Introduction course to Universal Windows Apps.

Developing Universal Windows Apps with HTML and JavaScript Jump Start

 

Android Emulators

Recently I've heard about two viable alternatives to the Android emulators I knew - Bluestacks and the emulator that ships with Android SDK. That tells me there is plenty going on in this area so here are some links for the reference:

• Genymotion 
• Andy
• Bluestacks
• Android SDK

Links:

Top 7 Free Android Emulators for PC - Windows 7/8/8.1/10 | Run Android apps on Computer PC/Windows 7/8.1/10-. : TechApple : . Communicating Technology In an Easy Way

 

DB Browser for SQLite

DB Browser for SQLite

 

Lock down dependencies in npm package versions

Shrinkwrap command allows specifying which package versions to use. Often there is a mess when upgrading one package in a chain, or (trying) migrating from Node to io.js, when one package doesn't work and brings down all the others that depend on it.

shrinkwrap | npm Documentation

Android Drawables

Excellent resource for Android drawables. Here you can see all the drawables (icons) available in Android system and visually compare their appearance across different OS versions.

Useful when searching for an icon to use in menus (actionbar, toolbar, drawers, etc.).

Android Drawables

 

Morse Code Translator

How convenient!

Morse Code Translator

 

Force Git to use https:// instead of git://

Unable to clone tools using 'npm install' while behind a corporate proxy · Issue #6 · aurelia/framework
Put
    [url "https://"]
        insteadOf = git://
into your .gitconfig

Andy the Android Emulator

Here is an Android Emulator for desktop machines, that claims more features than the other existing emulators out there. It is free and worth trying out.

Andy the Android Emulator

What is Akka?

What is Akka | Akka.NET

Eliminate JS code smells

reveal.js - The HTML Presentation Framework

JavaScript Instance Methods

Wonder how many developers actively use instance methods - apply, bind, and call.

Function JavaScript API

 

Mozilla Webmaker

Mozilla Webmaker - a service for creating web sites, similar to google sites.

Webmaker

Microsoft to run Android

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/microsoft-allow-android-apps-windows-151823408.html Microsoft Corp is set to allow apps from rival Google Inc's Android system onto its own Windows phones later this year, two sources familiar with the matter said on Wednesday. The move would mark a radical shift for Microsoft, which has struggled to attract users and has only 3 percent of the global smartphone market. Microsoft is expected to make the announcement at its developer conference in San Francisco later on Wednesday. Microsoft still dominates the PC market but has failed to get any real traction on tablets and phones, partly because of a lack of apps.

Microsoft Expression Web is no more

Was looking to do some HTML design again so I needed to install the tool I used to use for this purpose. This was Microsoft Web Expression, quite capable at a time.
However, it turns out that it does not exist any more, for all practical sakes and purposes. Visual Studio 2013 (and onward) will be the tool recommended by Microsoft.
Let's see if that works. This might mean that Web Storm is to become my default editor for HTML pages, as well.
Microsoft Expression Changes | Microsoft Expression

Android Performance Patterns

Just found an interesting link at an Udacity course:

Android Performance Patterns - YouTube

 

CyanogenMod & Microsoft - is this now official?

After the April fools' joke, there are reports that look official

Cyanogen Announces Strategic Partnership With Microsoft

 

Enable swipe typing on CM12

http://forum.cyanogenmod.org/topic/105877-gesture-typing-not-working-due-to-a-missing-google-library/

Good tutorial on Android development

Android application (performance and more) analysis tools - Tutorial

SQLite encryption on Android

SQLCipher: Encrypted Database | The Guardian Project

Create a bootable USB

http://rufus.akeo.ie/

Fix for unknown baseband on I9300

Edit 2015-03-30: I see from other sources that TWRP 2.8.6.0 could be too big for recovery partition on I9300 so beware!

After flashing the latest TWRP with Flashify, the phone fell into a boot loop. Here is a list of recovery procedures performed in case I need them again.
So, first I used a USB stick modem to get Internet. SIM extender or an original remains of the card were needed to fit the SIM card into the USB modem.

Recovery

Then, via PC, I flashed TWRP with Odin, using PDA option. This fixed the recovery and the phone booted into OS.

Baseband / Modem

However, the phone would not connect to network. The baseband was unknown and IMEI did not show up at all when trying with *#06# code on the phone.
The solution for this was to flash the modem.

1. Get the latest firmware from SamMobile
2. Extract the files to get modem.bin.
3. Download img2tar tool from xda. It is also possible to use Tar for Windows but this is safer as it generates md5 hash as well.
4. Flash the resulting modem.tar.md5 file using Odin, via Phone option (not PDA). This is with Odin 3.07.

This fixed the baseband and the phone correctly recognised that there is no SIM card.

Beautiful Markdown editor

Thanks to the article I just read, I learned about a few more Markdown editors. There used to be very few to choose from and none had a great performance. Nowadays the situation is a bit better and here is a gem:

Haroopad - The Next Document processor based on Markdown

 

Android App Launching Made Gorgeous

Great article on mechanics of launching of Android apps.

If you were annoyed by the blank screen that shows up before your app starts, here are a few tips on how to make it look good.

Android App Launching Made Gorgeous - Cyril Mottier

 

Cleaning up NVidia download files

The article below lists several locations that contain files that NVidia Network Service piles up. These can amount to gigabytes of junk files. Even though I have the latest drivers installed, the network service still downloads about 10 versions in the past.

Needless to say, there is no setting to prevent this. My solution was to disable the network service and occasionally check for updates manually.

Cleaning up old NVIDIA driver files to save disk space (updated) - GameplayInside

Oh, finally...

No, the browser is not going away but the name has so many negative conotations that it is much better that it is about to disappear.

Microsoft is killing off the Internet Explorer brand | The Verge

 

Google: Another service goes down

Another Google service is shutting down. This is becomming a recurring story.

A source-code-hosting service Google Code is due for burrial. On the positive side, the service was OK but never got any big popularity. It was surpassed by the likes of SourceForge, BitBucket, GitHub, even Bazaar or Visual Studio Online.

If they (Google) continue like this, soon there won't be much to use of them at all. Their new products are failures and the successful ones are getting killed by the company itself. Wonder what this will turn to.

Google Open Source Blog: Bidding farewell to Google Code

Telegram Messenger

Here is a new messenger that drops most of the limitations of other chat apps. It has me interested so far and warrants some time to try it out more thoroughly.

Telegram Messenger

 

Android Device Manager won't start

Today, all of a sudden, AVD Manager won't start, giving the

FATAL:.//android/base/sockets/SocketWaiter.cpp:88:Check failed: isValidFd(fd). fd 1132 max1024

error. The issue seems to have something to do with the network:

Issue 102361 - android - Emulator will not start, fails with Check failed in SocketWaiter.cpp:89 - Android Open Source Project - Issue Tracker - Google Project Hosting

So, the solution is to run the emulator with parameter "-http-proxy none" or specify a real proxy.

Sync Google Calendar with Outlook

Haven't tested this software but here it is for reference and a later trial.

Calendar Sync for Outlook and Google Calendar

Since something messed up my contact details in Google Contacts, I thought it would be useful to have an offline backup of all the important data like calendar, contacts, and notes. Just like in the old times.

 

MyPhoneExplorer syncs Android to Outlook

MyPhoneExplorer syncs calendar and address book between Android and Outlook on PC.

FJ Software Development

Custom domains for Blogger blogs

Setting up a custom domain is now really easy...

How do I use a custom domain name for my blog? - Blogger Help

 

(Video) Overview of ECMAScript 6

A 90 minute overview of ECMAScript 6 (video)

Tiddlywiki Node version!

I am using Tiddlywiki for small searchable wikis. It is quite compact and runs in a browser. The HTML version, that is.

Now there is a Node version that works very well and offers a few benefits but also drawbacks. In brief,

Pros:

• External links now can be used, as opposed to when using the TiddlyDesktop
• easier upgrade process

Cons:

• Requires installation of Node.js

The posts are now split in separate files, which is preferrable but I can't put that into either Pros nor Cons. The served directory is clean and therefore easy to sync via cloud. It contains only one small info file in addition to your content.

TiddlyWiki — a non-linear personal web notebook

TFS Branching Strategies

Looking for guides on branching strategies using TFS or migrating to Git.

Version Control Guide (ex-Branching & Merging) - Downloads

 

Microsoft and Cyanogen

This would be quite an interesting development, if it materializes.

Microsoft Said to Be in Talks With Cyanogen Over Android Deal - Bloomberg Business

 

IFL Science

Fantastic site with lots of interesting stuff to read!

IFLScience

 

Free Antivirus review for 2015

PC Magazine tests free version of antivirus products.

The Best Free Antivirus for 2015 | PCMag.com

BitDefender still tops the charts. No replacement needed for now.

 

Official Cyanogenmod 12 nightlies for Nexus 7

Nexus 7 2013, WiFi, users rejoice.
Official Cyanogenmod 12, based on Android 5 Lollipop, are available for download at the link below:

• https://download.cyanogenmod.org/?device=flo

The change log for the device is here:

• Cyanogen change log, flo
  

Lollipop - Unofficial build for Samsung Galaxy S2 (I9100)

This ROM is also in advanced beta stage so I assume it can already be used for most daily purposes.

[ROM][5.0.2][I9100] CyanogenMod 12 [BETA][01… | Samsung Galaxy S II I9100 | XDA Forums