How to set up a VNC web (Java) client for Ubuntu

Alan Hartless — Mon, 24 May 2010 03:55:36 +0100

I've had to play with this every time I reinstall Ubuntu and want to setup a VNC web client which is really handy when I'm work and need to access my PC at home for whatever reason.

First, make sure you have remote desktop enabled by going to Menu -> System -> Preferences -> Remote Desktop. Click "Allow other users to view your desktop" and "Allow other users to control your desktop." For my use, since I VNC into my desktop from remote locations and thus willRead More...

Cron job script to purge Joomla's expired cache

Alan Hartless — Sat, 22 May 2010 18:48:39 +0100

I found that Joomla's caching feature can cause my server to run out of space quickly unless the admin consistently purges expired cache. Since Joomla only has a manual mechanism in place to be able to do this, I decided to create a script that can be run by a cron job to handle this for me.

Its quite simple. First, I load Joomla's framework then simply call the function to purge the cache.

$mainframe = startJoomla();

jimport('joomla.filesystem.folder');

ATI driver issues in Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid

Alan Hartless — Sat, 01 May 2010 02:54:35 +0100

Well, it never fails that when I upgrade Ubuntu, I run into a few issues. Gotta love open source. :-)

The issue was with my ATI drivers. I had initially installed them using ATI's script for the catalyst 10.4 driver which is suppose to have support for Ubuntu 10.04. But after installing it, every little movement was super choppy and jerky. So I decided to remove it. Usually easy enough right? Just a sudo apt-get remove fglrx and success? Nope.

Western Digital My Passport SE 1TB Portable Drive

Alan Hartless — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 01:31:37 +0100

So, my well used WD 160GB portable drive started clicking. I heavily use it to store my web development files and when the clicks started, I became very nervous. So, I did a search for a new drive. Well, as I often do, I impulsively bought the WD My Password SE 1TB drive from Amazon thinking, wow that much space, so portable and decently priced! (It was as much as my 160GB I bought two years ago). I began nightly backups (wonderful tool rsync is) until my new drive arrRead More...

2009 Newsletter

Alan Hartless — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 04:09:31 +0100

Dear Family and Friends,

A belated Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all! We hope that 2009 treated you well and that 2010 will be full of new mercies and blessings.

It’s hard to believe that we have begun our third year in Houston, Texas. We are far from becoming true “Texans” though. Thus far, we have resisted buying over-sized vehicles, using phrases such as “fixin to,” calling all non-alcoholic carbonated beRead More...

Tasktop - A must have Eclipse plugin

Alan Hartless — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 17:37:08 +0100

I'm always on the search for a decent piece of software to help track the time I spend on various coding projects for clients. Before I found Tasktop, I was already using Mylyn tasks to plan out items I needed to do for various projects. But I used a timer no my phone, then manually recorded the time into another project tracker such as Zoho Projects, JForce, or Trac. A pain in the you know what if you know what I mean. As I usually do when I have had enough with my cuRead More...

New Google Apps Mail Look

Alan Hartless — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 06:00:00 +0100

I like it. Looks much more professional and not so "bright and bubbly." I like the label drop down where I can select as many labels as I want by selecting or deselecting the check boxes then clicking Apply. Rows look more tight as well. The colors are more tame and appealing.

I was looking forward to themes but I like the new look so much, now I really don't care.

Do you like the new look? Why or why not?

2008 Newsletter

Alan Hartless — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 06:00:00 +0100

Dear friends and family,

We hope this letter finds you well. Last year when I sat down to write this letter, it was on our back porch under sunny skies and 75 degree weather. Today, I am bundled up in my warmest fleece because its 34 degrees - For Houstonians, that’s cold! Don’t fret though, they are predicting 72 degrees for Christmas day and we’re OK with that.

I guess we are officially Houstonians since we have been here just over aRead More...

I've been invited to join the jFusion team!

Alan Hartless — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 06:00:00 +0100

I recently came across jFusion, a powerful and revolutionary Joomla component to bridge Joomla with various softwares. I started testing out its plugin for vBulletin (the forum software used on this site). After posting some questions, hacks, and suggestions, I offered to help out in developing the vBulletin plugin. I was soon afterward invited to join the team! I, along with another gentleman named Haythem, will be maintaining the vBulletin plugin.

We haveRead More...

Getting 32bit Eclipse with Aptana to work on Ubuntu Ibex 64bit

Alan Hartless — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 06:00:00 +0100

UPDATE 2010 May 23: For Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid), it is no longer required to download and install the individual 32bit libraries. Just follow step number 2 and 9-12.

I decided to upgrade my version of Eclipse to the latest, 3.4. I have a 32bit laptop and a 64 bit desktop. I hate having to maintain two copies of Eclipse so I maintain one 32bit version of Eclipse on my jump drive. Obviously, this poses some problems with my 64bit desktop. There a Read More...

4000 jobs about to be rifted...I'm thankful

Alan Hartless — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 05:00:00 +0100

So I work for UTMB under Correctional Managed Care (CMC). UTMB is about to layoff 4000 jobs due to the devastation caused by Hurricane Ike. CMC has promised that our jobs are safe. Because, our hospital was attached to UTMB on Galveston Island and the political battles going on, we will not be able to get back to the way things were for who knows how long, if ever. Thus, we are getting bounced around. Our job duties have changed multiple times thus far.&nbsRead More...

My excellent wife

Alan Hartless — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 05:00:00 +0100

An excellent wife who can find? She is far more precious than jewels. ~Proverbs 31:10

My wife is so excellent. She is so patient, loving , caring, supporting, and sacrificial. I am so undeserving of such an excellent wife! But now that I have her, I would not trade her for all the jewels of the world, the world itself, or even the universe!

Assembla.com

Alan Hartless — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 18:35:49 +0100

So I stumbled upon assembla.com back in the early stages of phpScheduleEm and instantly fell in love. At the time I was hosting my own SVN/Trac server but was a pain because of issues with my ISP. I did a search to see if there were any services out there to host svn/trac for me. During that search, I happened to stumble upon assembla, a feature rich site full of tools for the software developer.

At the time, assembla was completely free. But just within the last week they are begRead More...

Received my 16gb microSDHC card today

Alan Hartless — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 05:00:00 +0100

Yahoo! I received my 16gb microSDHC card today. It doubles the capacity of my ATT Tilt. I now do not have to be so picky as to what music to place on the Tilt. I can now adequately test if I like TomTom or CoPilot better because I can fit both sets of maps on the card. And best of all, I only spent $86 bucks which includes shipping by ordering it from the UK because it isn't available in the states yet :-) (And when it does, it is suppose to reRead More...

Launched www.hartlessbydesign.com

Alan Hartless — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 05:00:00 +0100

I've launched http://www.hartlessbydesign.com. It will be where I host the web applications I release. I created an application for work to streamline the scheduling of our employees. We haven't had a chance to use because of Ike but hopefully we will within a couple months. Anyway, check it out!

Looks like my bank was bought out

Alan Hartless — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 05:00:00 +0100

Well, Wachovia was bought out by Citibank. It always makes me nervous when banks get bought out. It changes everything from new cards, to different online banking options, to statement availability, to whatever. Everything. We'll see what Citi changes when they finish absorbing Wachovia. Erg.

WooHoo, We Have Power!

Alan Hartless — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 05:00:00 +0100

Day 6 and we have power. Yay!

We are home now; God is good

Alan Hartless — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 05:00:00 +0100

We are home now. We received a call from a neighbor that power was back on so we decided to come home. We found the power off when we arrived but it was back on within a couple hours of being home. The Lord really spared us from significant damage. Houses in our neighborhood had their fences knocked over, shutters blown off, gutters fallen down, and decent roof damage. Our windows, shutters, and gutters were all intact. Our fence is still standing and our roof also seems intact. Our peRead More...

Sounds like we've been blessed

Alan Hartless — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 05:00:00 +0100

We are still in San Antonio. We were able to get in touch with our neighbors. They said that we may need to replace our roof but they didn't see any window damage and our fence is intact. Our pecan tree in the backyard split and is laying over onto their shed in their backyard but no damage. It sounds like we have been really blessed!

Prayerfully there will not be any damage from leakage.

Houston is still saying we cannot return so we are going to stay in San AnRead More...

In-laws' property sustained minimal damage