Klausi's Weblog - software

Screencasts with RecordMyDesktop, ffmpeg conversion for HTML5 video

Klaus Purer — Sun, 12 May 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Producing a demo video for my DrupalCon Portland presentation caused a bit frustration with video editing tools, so here is a simple solution to cut and convert a video on Ubuntu.…

Git diff --color-words

Klaus Purer — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Git command for better patch review.

Web Service Composition in Drupal

Klaus Purer — Wed, 11 May 2011 00:00:00 +0000

A master thesis written by Klaus Purer at the Vienna University of Technology, released in May 2011.

Abstract:

Building web applications has become a complex task and often requires interaction with other web applications, such as web services. Drupal is a free and open source content management system and framework that provides a rich platform for rapid web development. The modular and extensible nature of Drupal allows developers to customize and embrace the core functionality and to create new features. This thesis is about investigating and implementing a web service client module for Drupal that is able to consume classical WS* web services as well as RESTful web services.

Home WiFi setup with Ubuntu, Asus RT-N56U and Linksys WMP600N

Klaus Purer — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 00:00:00 +0000

A summary about setting up a 802.11n wireless network at home, also for future self-reference.

Running PHP 5.3 and 5.2 in parallel with nginx

Klaus Purer — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 00:00:00 +0000

The problem: you want to upgrade your Ubuntu server, but you still need PHP 5.2 for some old web sites (i.e. Drupal 5 is not PHP 5.3 compatible).
The solution: Go with the packaged PHP 5.3 for your new sites and compile PHP 5.2 yourself for the old ones. As we use the nginx webserver with FastCGI, we can choose per site which PHP CGI binary will handle the requests.

Ubuntu talking Elvish or Klingon?

Klaus Purer — Mon, 17 May 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Funny screenshot I captured yesterday (I guess this bug was originally caused by outputting binary data in a terminal):

Lightning talk about hooks in Drupal

Klaus Purer — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 00:00:00 +0000

I will attend the Drupal Core Developer Summit at Drupalcon San Francisco, so I had to prepare a short lighting talk about a topic that bothers me in Drupal. As I ran into an issue of implementing a hook by accident recently, I decided to come up with some suggestions how to improve the situation. I have attached the PDF I will submit.

Gmail and postmaster

Klaus Purer — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0000

The Gmail spam filter works fine most time, but be careful if you are the postmaster of a mail server and want to check delivery failure notifications in your Gmail account.

A master thesis about Drupal and Web Services

Klaus Purer — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0000

In the last weeks I thought about a topic for my master thesis at the Vienna University of Technology, and I came up with the idea of integrating Drupal and Web Services.

Drupal Core update script

Klaus Purer — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Update: Do not use this script anymore, drush provides a very good upgrade mechanism itself now!

Upgrading Drupal core can be a very tedious task - especially if you run a Drupal multi site installation (backup database, put site into maintenance mode, run update DB script, put site online again - repeat for every single site). We use Drush and a custom bash script to make life much more easier on our fsinf.at Drupal farm.

Ruby on Rails Setup on Ubuntu 9.10

Klaus Purer — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 00:00:00 +0000

I'm working on a Ruby on Rails project right now and had to setup an environment on my Ubuntu 9.10 system. Here are the install commands for your reference if you want to get it done fast.

Thunderbird 3 quick test

Klaus Purer — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Just tested the new Mozilla Thunderbird 3 mailclient, here is a very short review what has changed since version 2.

Development and deployment workflow at Absolventen.at

Klaus Purer — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Here you can find the slides to my Drupalcamp Vienna presentation about development and deployment at Absolventen.at.

PHP vs. Python vs. Ruby

Klaus Purer — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0000

I did an interesting programming language comparison last semester and wrote up a paper called "PHP vs. Python vs. Ruby – The web scripting language shootout". I'm not completely satisfied with it as it does not dig deep enough into the details, but it provides a good introduction and overview. As my time was limited and the seminar was only worth 3 ECTS, further investigation and experiments were not done - I would appreciate any additional references on this topic, feel free to post a comment or contact me.

Stirb Wordpress, stirb!

Klaus Purer — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Endlich geschafft: Mein Weblog läuft jetzt auf Drupal und nicht mehr auf dem unsympathischen Wordpress. Gleichzeitig bin ich umgezogen - ich will mal den Webspace der TU ausprobieren. Seit einiger Zeit bietet der ZID ja PHP- und Mysql-Unterstützung an, sodass hier auch Content Management Systeme aufgezogen werden können.

The sidux way of life - Beispiel OpenOffice 3

Klaus Purer — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Eine Ikhaya Meldung auf ubuntuusers.de samt Diskussion brachte mich letztens ein bisschen zum Lächeln: OpenOffice 3 wird nicht in Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex enthalten sein. Großes Wehklagen war bei den Fans von Ubuntu (gleichzeitig Fans aktueller Software) zu hören, so was wird mir bei der Distribution meiner Wahl jedenfalls nicht passieren.…

Python Dbus Gajim Magic

Klaus Purer — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I like Dbus because it allows desktop applications to communicate with each other. I also like Python, a powerful scripting language that is perfect for short tasks with a minimum of commands. And finally I like Gajim, the instant messenger of my choice for the XMPP-Jabber network (the only free [free as in free speech] instant messaging network!).

Display the currently playing song from rythmbox as gajim status message

Klaus Purer — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I found a nice feature in the preferences of my instant messenger gajim, where a check box says "Set status message to reflect currently playing music track". My only problem was that i could not enable the option, because it was greyed out and not active. First I tried to find a plugin for my musicplayer r hythmbox, but the information I found seemed to be old and several web pages said that gajim and rhythmbox should work together natively. I remembered that most GNOME applications use D-Bus to communicate with each other. I supposed that there was a D-Bus package missing on my Sidux system, so I searched the package repository with "apt-cache search dbus" and found a package named "python-dbus". Since I know that gajim is written in python I installed the package and had success: After a restart of gajim the option was now available and worked when enabled.

Sidux - der nächste Schritt

Klaus Purer — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Lange habe ich auf meinem Desktop-Rechner Ubuntu GNU/Linux eingesetzt, was für mich zumeist sehr bequem funktioniert hat. Am Anfang wusste ich kaum wie man eine Shell bedient - es war bei Ubuntu auch nur selten notwendig, vieles ging über grafische Konfigurationstools oder man befragte einfach das ausgezeichnete Ubuntuusers-Wiki. Die Jahre zogen ins Land, auf der Uni wurde auch viel mit GNU/Linux/Unix gemacht und ich begann schön langsam die Innereien eines debian-artigen Betriebssystems kennenzulernen (Ubuntu basiert ja auf Debian). Die Philosophie von freier bzw. open source Software überzeugte mich immer mehr, und ich konnte fast ganz auf Windows XP verzichten (XP habe ich heute noch im Dualboot, Vista habe ich gar nie probiert).

Windows Vista gratis

Klaus Purer — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Jetzt gibt es ein unglaubliches Angebot: Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate Edition kann gratis aus dem Internet heruntergeladen werden, und das völlig legal! Diese Version ist außerdem auf Sicherheit ausgelegt und benötigt daher keinen Virenscanner und keine Firewall! Mitgeliefert werden volle 3D-Effekte, das Microsoft Office Professional Paket und Adobe Photoshop!