Exclusive Lifehacker Download: Trick out Google Reader with Better GReader

Firefox only: Greasemonkey scripters have come up with a few Google Reader user scripts that make some welcome GReader tweaks like maximizing the viewing area, skipping Google's default subscribe mechanism, and adding keyboard shortcuts. Today I've rolled up those three useful scripts into a single Firefox extension, called Better GReader.

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PMS v1.3.1 released today!

Since my last release of PMS I have been hard at work fixing some of the bugs and problems that surfaced as a larger user group started making use of PMS. Today I release version 1.3.1 and you can see the results of ICIS research work via the publications listing found on their site, just follow the Research link.

A listing of the fixed tickets can be found in the PMS Trac

• Milestone 1.3 (closed tickets)
• Tickets included in 1.3.1 release branch.

Furthermore, a new site has been opened to host the ICIS PMS at http://pms.cs.ru.nl.

WordPress - separating Trackbacks and Pings from normal comments

I have not been getting Trackbacks and Pings mixed in with my comments for some time now and thought it might be nice to sort that out once and for all in my theme. A starting point was provided by cre8d-design.com, but was not looking exactly as ordered as I wanted it to be. I prefer the Trackbacks and Pings to be summaries and the actual comments to be complete. Here is the results (see my Linux courses page for example of resulting Comments, Trackbacks and Pings):

# edit your themes comments.php file and
# look for the starting points I have provided.
#
<!-- You can start editing here. -->

</code><h3 id="trackbacks">Trackbacks/Pings</h3>
<ul class="commentlist">



<li class="">smaller">
id="comment-">
<p><cite> 
by  —  @ <a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?
blogID=3868547292717970492&postID=5015798110612907785#
comment-%3C?php%20comment_ID%28%29%20%20%20%20
%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20?%3E"></a></cite></p>

comment_approved == '0') : ?>
<em>Your comment is awaiting moderation.</em>



</li>
</ul>

<h3 id="comments">Comments</h3>
<ol class="commentlist">


<li class="">" id="comment-">
<cite></cite>

comment_approved == '0') : ?>
<em>Your comment is awaiting moderation.</em>

<p class="commentmetadata">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post- edit.g?
blogID=3868547292717970492amp;postID=5015798110612907785#
comment-%3C?php%20comment_ID%28%29%20%20%
20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20?%3E" title=""> at </a> </p>
</li>
</ol>

I hope this helps you to sort out something for your own site with regards to Comments, Trackbacks and Pings. ;-)

Tux in the Indy 500!

The Tux 500 project is using the Indy 500 to promote Tux with a “We are Linux!” video and this very cool shot of the car:

Can you find the Tux?

Den Bosch - Oss - Maas - Den Bosch

Nice Sunday morning ride today, sunny and warm with a different route towards Oss and swinging around to the Mass river before heading back. Was with Marcel and we completed a leisurely ride of 48 km’s in about two hours.

Java on Guice - Dependency Injection (video)

A bit long (53 minutes) and informally presented, but still rather interesting video on testing. Some background on Guice for those not aware of it:

"Google Guice is an open source Dependency Injection framework from Google. Guice is based on annotations and generics unlike Spring which depends on XML of Java for wiring dependencies. Guice injects constructors, fields and methods (any methods with any number of arguments, not just setters). Guice provides support for custom scopes, static member injection, Spring as well as Struts 2.x integration and AOP Alliance method interception. Guice is available at Google Code. You can find the User guide and Javadocs from there."

Follow-up: Linux courses available online free!

This week I was Dugg on a page I have had on my site for some time now, an amazing experience to watch.

I put a new plug-in for Digg and Delicious on my site and was testing it by using my Linux courses available online free page. Well, this took off like a rocket and the web-server was straining very hard just to keep up (and failing to do so more often than not)… I was able to recover from the problems by turning on the site caching plug-in but it was still a very busy day.

The hit counter took off on the first day far above my normal average of around 200-250 visitors and peaked at 964 hits. Day two was the high point, 7314 hits! Day three saw a drop to 844 and day four (weekdays all of them) was back down to 292 hits. Today is Saturday and it is afternoon my time with the counter up to 1536 hits and counting.

The Digg.com site has a feature that ranks the top 10 most popular Dugg articles in the first 12 hours of their lives (from the point that they hit the status of ‘popular’). My courses hit the #3 spot before time ran out:

Ranked #3 on Digg.com

I have kept an eye on the comments as the material in the courses that was posted is a bit old. I teach these every so often and it has been some time since the last course was taught. I only update the material when on a paid assignment (so if hired I customize and update to the clients wishes). This was noted by a few people in the comments.

Other than that, was nice to see that there is apparently a big need of on-line free courses for Linux. Maybe a good idea to start an Open Source Project that provides this? Would there be enough interest in maintaining a set of courses on-line?

I wonder…

Wanna peek at United States Marines Boot Camp?

Gimp and 3D DVD box covers plugin

The blog, as days pass by as a nice plugin for Gimp to allow you to change any image you want into a ready to print 3D DVD box cover. You can download his plugin, dvdcoverdisplayer.py, "...and store it in the .gimp2.2/plug-ins/ directory in your home directory, and then make it executable. Then, get yourself a DVD cover image from somewhere, open it in the Gimp, and click Python-Fu ==> DVD Cover to get the pretty 3D version."

He would be happy to hear any comments you have over on his site. ;-)