Open Cheese

View pdf files in Firefox (Mac OS X)

Dude — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 11:17:58 +0000

Since the release of Firefox 4.0 I had not been able to view pdf files in Firefox (without a need for downloading the pdf file and opening it with a out-of-browser reader). I could finally solve my problem using the instructions given here. Very handy indeed.

Laptop malfunction/failure rate studied

Dude — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 17:08:01 +0000

Ever wondered why laptops are not lasting these days as much as they used to? There is a study for that. Square Trade has taken the hardship of an extended survey into failure/malfunction rate of laptops and netbooks and has come up with an interesting report. The report suggests that as much as about 30% of laptops kinda fail/malfunction during first three years after their purchase. What more? some brands (Asus, Toshiba, Sony) are more reliable than others. Moreover, the more you pay, the less the trouble that you would have with your laptop (Premium laptops fails less frequently than mainstream laptops and mainstream laptops fail less than netbooks). Wanna read the report in full? Here you can find it.

Disclaimer: Open cheese does not endorse or support the methodology, results, conclusions or any other part of the report. The general disclaimer of the website as well as other standard disclaimers apply as well.

Have your mouse clicks stopped working?

Dude — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:16:50 +0000

In case your mouse click have stopped working (not very unsual in Ubuntu), you can try to use the workarounds suggested here.

IE loosing to Chrome, FireFox, and Safari

Dude — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 20:05:49 +0000

Netapplications just updated its browser market share data to include the October 2009 data. The published data shows that IE is loosing ground mostly to Chrome but also to FireFox and Safari. Here is the hard data:

Month	Internet Explorer	Firefox	Safari	Chrome	Opera	Netscape	Other
December, 2008	70.50%	21.69%	3.41%	1.40%	2.17%	0.42%	0.41%
January, 2009	69.72%	22.11%	3.62%	1.52%	2.23%	0.43%	0.37%
February, 2009	69.23%	22.58%	3.47%	1.54%	2.19%	0.62%	0.37%
March, 2009	68.46%	23.30%	3.63%	1.62%	2.12%	0.50%	0.37%
April, 2009	67.77%	23.84%	3.53%	1.79%	2.04%	0.64%	0.39%
May, 2009	68.10%	22.75%	3.70%	2.18%	2.06%	0.81%	0.40%
June, 2009	68.32%	22.43%	3.79%	2.40%	2.03%	0.60%	0.42%
July, 2009	67.68%	22.47%	4.07%	2.59%	1.97%	0.67%	0.55%
August, 2009	66.97%	22.98%	4.07%	2.84%	2.04%	0.49%	0.61%
September, 2009	65.71%	23.75%	4.24%	3.17%	2.19%	0.35%	0.59%
October, 2009	64.64%	24.07%	4.42%	3.58%	2.17%	0.33%	0.79%

New e-book reader by Creative

Dude — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 11:42:07 +0000

Creative has revealed a prototype of a new e-book reader. Read more here and here.

Web addresses to include non-latin characters

Dude — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 22:17:55 +0000

ICANN finally approved the long anticipated support for non-latin languages as web addresses. Read more here.

How to install support for Flash and other multimedia on Ubuntu

Dude — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 22:12:05 +0000

This guy has a neat tutorial for installing support for Flash and other multimedia on Ubuntu. Give it a try.

Just released: Firefox 3.6 Beta 1

Dude — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 22:07:45 +0000

The latest beta version of Firefox is now available as a preview release. Take it for a test drive and let us know what you think!

Resources for Java programming

Dude — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 21:49:45 +0000

In this post, I want to introduce some of the best IDEs, resources, tutorials, and code examples that I have found on the internet for Java. Java tutorials can be found in many websites, but many of them are outdated and some of them are just not good enough. Not that all the resources I mention are great, but I have tried to be selective. I may update the post as I find new materials on the web. The material also covers Java IDEs and toolkits particularly the ones that are meant for web development and programming (even Ajax is included). Suggestions for improvement and better coverage are welcome.

1. Free Java programming textbook from David J. Eck (Hobart and William Smith Colleges )
Introduction to Programming Using Java, Fifth Edition.

2. The Java tutorials by Sun Microsystems

3. The documentation of the Eclipse IDE

4. NetBeans IDE and its documentation

5. JBuilder and its documentation

6. Google web toolkit is a Java to Javascript compiler that can make your Ajax development a lot easier.

7. Ajax for Java developers: Build dynamic Java applications. parts: 1, 2, 3, and 4.

8. Asynchronous JavaScript Technology and XML (Ajax) With the Java Platform.

9. AJAX Tutorial for Java Programmers

10. The Source for Java Developers

11. A list of resources for Java programming

ASUS introduces first USB 3.0 supportinng motherboard

Dude — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 15:27:17 +0000

ASUS unveils first motherboards to feature true USB 3.0 and SATA 6Gb/s performance. The data trasnfer speed offered by this USB 3.0 motherboard is 10 times more than the predecessor USB 2.0 mode. Read more here.