Archive for November, 2006

WikiMatrix: find the best for your needs

Did you ever wonder what the best Wiki for your needs is? There are simply hundreds of different Wiki Systems on the Internet, some general purpose, others are really specialised. Now you can compare the most popular (and some unknown ones too) using WikiMatrix. They also have detailed information for every system, like MediaWiki or DokuWiki. WikiMatrix Nice objective comparison.
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Using apt4rpm with OpenSuSe

Yast is nice… for configuration purposes. But it’s a dreadful package manager, because it takes quite some time to load up all the stuff, synchronize with remote repositories or whatever it does before giving the user the option to actually do something usefull. There are alternatives however, the guys at Debian have created a tool called apt which does not have all that overhead, does not have a GUI like Yast (although there are many nice GUIs like Synaptic) and just works. Ready to install apt? Then let’s get started:
rpm -hv –install ftp://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/linux/misc/apt4rpm/10.1/apt{-libs,}-0.5.15lorg3-0.suse1010.rb0.i586.rpm
This will install the apt suite, that’s all there is. Now you’ll have to configure it. Take a look at /etc/apt/sources.list, here you can add additional rpm repositories, but for starters we just use Guru’s RPM Repository.
# Fastest repository comes first, with netselect it is possible to determine # the fastest repository easily. # The list with all available components can be found at: # http://linux01.gwdg.de/apt4rpm # Some components provide experimental software, select wisely! # http://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/linux/suse/apt/SuSE/10.1-i386/examples/sources.list.FTP # Consult the link above if you want to include uri’s for src rpms rpm      ftp://ftp4.gwdg.de/pub/linux/suse/apt SuSE/10.1-i386 packman packman-i686 rpmkeys base non-oss extra update-drpm update-prpm update gnome mozilla samba3 suser-rbos suser-crauch suser-jengelh jacklab suser-oc2pus suser-guru usr-local-bin suser-tcousin suser-scorot suser-sbarnin kernel-of-the-day kraxel wine suse-people suse-projects security-drpm security-prpm security rpm-src  ftp://ftp4.gwdg.de/pub/linux/suse/apt SuSE/10.1-i386 packman packman-i686 rpmkeys base non-oss extra update-drpm update-prpm update gnome mozilla samba3 suser-rbos suser-crauch suser-jengelh jacklab suser-oc2pus suser-guru usr-local-bin suser-tcousin suser-scorot suser-sbarnin kernel-of-the-day kraxel wine suse-people suse-projects security-drpm security-prpm security
Or just download it from here. Then update the local cache of packages:
apt-get update
and from there one you can install anything by just running the following command:
apt-get install
but clearly you’d have to know the packagename first so try:
apt-cache search
First thing I installed? Gaim-2beta5 :D
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Is Java bad? Ask Ajaxian…

Ajaxian has once again a new Post about a new Library, this time a URL Parser. All nice and shiny but it isn’t the library I want to write about, it’s the finishing comment they put in there:
This smells like a Java group writing JavaScript to me with the camelCase and thus p.getUsername() instead of p.username.
Why should it be negative to immitate Java? I’m a Java-Programmer myself and I try to use as much as I can from my experience when writing Ajax applications. I think the Ajax community could learn a lot from the Java style of doing things instead of being so snobbish…
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Google adds JSON interfaces

Great news for all the Google-Addicts: the GData group has just added JSON interfaces for their services! From the official post:
For those of you who have been trying to build client-side GData mashups but have been thwarted by the same-origin policy, we have some good news for you: you can now get public Base, Blogger, and Calendar feeds as JSON! This means that you can start displaying GData in your web page with a little JavaScript.
In other words it is now possible to define a callback function and simply add a script-tag to your page, and the browser will go and fetch the data, that will then be handled by that function. No need for the server to proxy the data through, eliminating the need of complex caching mechanisms, just fetch the data from the source :)
 function handleJson(json) {   alert("The title of the feed is: " + json.feed.title.$t); }
It’s as simple as it gets. Being the browser the one who fetches the data greatly improves speed and reduces bandwidth for the originating server. Supported Services for now are: but I’m sure more will follow soon :D Just take a look at the official post for more information.
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Essential JavaScript

Getting tired of those 250 KB Libraries? Robert Nyman got the answer:
The web is littered with full-blown JavaScript libraries who say they will save your day and make your web development life much easier. You get encouraged to include these “mere 80 KB” libraries that is supposed to be the solution to all your needs, and practically make the web site work by itself. Needless to say, I’m not a big follower of JavaScript libraries,, especially since they almost always include lots of superfluous code, so I thought I’d put together a tiny library with only essential JavaScript functions. The result of that is EJ – Essential JavaScript. EJ consists of functions that I use all the time and they make writing JavaScript go faster and the result is being able to do work more efficiently. It is also about having the things you would write again and again for every web site you produce in one neat and tiny file instead, to be able to focus on the new things you need to address. Here are the functions included:
He only includes the most used functions:
  • $. The old favourite. No fancy arrays here though
  • getElementsByClassName
  • addClassName
  • removeClassName
  • getElementsByAttribute
  • preventDefaultBehavior
  • getStyle
everything more is too much :D
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