msicuu2.exe – Windows Install Cleanup
0Adding color to Eclipse ala Textmate themes
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I finally found a bunch of files to enable theming in the Eclipse IDE like the themes one can find for Textmate or Vim. Here are a bunch of popular themes for syntax coloring. To use these files, download the EPF files, and then import them into Eclipse via File > Import > Preferences… and picking any of the files below to apply the theme.![]()
Installing MySQL gem on Mac OS X Leopard
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Installing the MySQL gem on Leopard was much more painful than I thought. I had the 64-bit version of MySQL already installed. So I had to uninstall MySQL on Leopard, which was a challenge all on its own. Here is what I did (after stopping MySQL, and backing up my databases first, of course):
sudo rm /usr/local/mysql sudo rm -rf /usr/local/mysql* sudo rm -rf /Library/StartupItems/MySQLCOM sudo rm -rf /Library/PreferencePanes/My* sudo rm -rf /Library/Receipts/mysql* sudo rm -rf /Library/Receipts/MySQL* vi /etc/hostconfig # remove the line MYSQLCOM=-YES-
Then I had to install the 32-bit version of MySQL for Mac OS X. After that is installed, I had to use the following to get the gem to compile:
sudo env ARCHFLAGS="-arch i386" gem install mysql -- \ --with-mysql-dir=/usr/local/mysql --with-mysql-lib=/usr/local/mysql/lib \ --with-mysql-include=/usr/local/mysql/include
iPhone UI for Rails applications
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Configuring Gmail as SMTP Relay on Postfix
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Elastix uses Postfix, and getting Postfix configured to use Gmail as a SMTP Relay has been incredibly painful to do. This should not be as difficult as it turned out to be, but here is what I had to do to get things working.
Edit the /etc/postfix/main.cf file
nano /etc/postfix/main.cf
Change these lines to your external domain and the name of your elastix server:
################################ #Ingresado por yb-webadmin mydomain = myrealdomain.gotdns.org myhostname = elastix.myrealdomain.gotdns.org
Change the following line
#relayhost = [an.ip.add.ress]to
relayhost = [smtp.gmail.com]:587
Create a new file /etc/postfix/sasl_passwd and put the following line in it
[smtp.gmail.com]:587 loginname@gmail.com:password
Then run the following command
postmap hash:/etc/postfix/sasl_passwd
Create a directory /etc/postfix/certs. Generate a self-signed certificate as follows
cd /etc/postfix/certs openssl req -new -x509 -keyout cakey.pem -out cacert.pem -days 365 openssl genrsa -out gm.key 1024 openssl req -new -key gm.key -out gm.csr openssl ca -cert cacert.pem -keyfile cakey.pem -out ./gm.pem -infiles gm.csr
If you get an error that says something like
Could not open directory ../../CA/newcerts
then do the following before you run the commands above
mkdir -p ../../CA/newcerts touch ../../CA/index.txt echo "01" > ../../CA/serial
and after you are done, you can remove the above directory using
rm -rf ../../CA
Add the following lines to /etc/postfix/main.cf
smtp_sasl_auth_enable = yes smtp_sasl_password_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/sasl_passwd smtp_sasl_security_options = smtp_use_tls = yes smtp_sasl_security_options = noanonymous smtp_sasl_tls_security_options = noanonymous smtp_tls_note_starttls_offer = yes tls_random_source = dev:/dev/urandom smtp_tls_scert_verifydepth = 5 smtp_tls_key_file=/etc/postfix/certs/gm.key smtp_tls_cert_file=/etc/postfix/certs/gm.pem smtpd_tls_ask_ccert = yes smtpd_tls_req_ccert =no smtp_tls_enforce_peername = no
And finally run
postfix reload
Check your setup by sending a test email
mail myself@myemail.comAnd check the logs for anything going wrong
tail -f /var/log/maillog
How to Choose a Doctor
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Having a child is a exhilarating experience. Dealing with the health system in this country however, evokes the exact opposite emotion. One of the most traumatic experiences we had to revisit with the birth of our child was to pick a doctor, a pediatrician, for him and a OB/GYN for my wife. For myself, it was never really an issue, as I rarely visited the doctor. With a pregnancy and a child however, the doctor is critical, as we are likely to see that person a lot more than our parents
So I got to thinking – how do you pick a doctor. What do I look for in a doctor… (more…)
The Organic Craze
1
The baby industry thrives on the ‘guilt syndrome’
Making parents feel guilty if they don’t buy top of the line stuff for them. The other thing its amazingly cashed in on is the organic craze. I never bought into this organic phenomenon really. And now while shopping for baby stuff, its amazing what they have come out with. Organic clothes, burpcloths, even mattresses!!! The question is – how long will you protect the child? How will you build their immunity? They are going to grow into a world of normal food at school and outside. pollutants, not to forget that trips to India will surely ‘ need to have’ them develop a strong immune system.
It’s a hard thing to resist though. Peer pressure and the ‘guilt syndrome’ did make me go organic to some extent, but I refuse to let it too much into the baby’s life. I don’t want a baby that’s going to fall sick every time he makes a trip to India or gets exposed to some dust. At the same time I don’t want to expose him to toxins that are unnecessary. Trying to find a middle ground here, and hopefully it will be beneficial for him in the long run!
How hard it is to find baby room decor?
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The answer is ‘quite a bit’. You have extremely few stores to choose from, and if you are doing the shopping at the last minute like I did, chances are that you will not be very patient while researching.
The few standard stores to look at decor for is Babies R Us, Pottery Barn, Walmart etc. I discovered and liked Land of Nod, that has some unique stuff, Gap Baby Home , Target (which has some very affordable cute baby stuff) The best route I felt was to go online. It doesn’t require you to walk around in the store and waste your energy (which you don’t have much of
and also because the options are many more.
I tried hard to like Pottery Barn but unfortunately couldn’t. While all those around me raved about stuff at Pottery Barn, turns out that I have not bought a single piece from there!! I guess to each his own.
The nursery is not complete yet, but I think it wil be an evolving thing. And we’ll keep changing as baby grows older!!
Typing in Indian Languages
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I have always been interested in typing in Indian languages on computers, but wanted it to be as easy as typing the equivalent in English and have it transliterate dynamically. Alas, due to the complexity of indian languages and the variation in how people type the equivalent in english, it is hard for that method to be reliably correct all the time.
That method however seems to be called RTS by most folks in the know of such things. I created a custom dictionary file for my Pidgin Instant Messenger that lets me type in Hindi by using the Text Replacement plugin. You can just download my version of the dict file and replace the one in the settings directory of your Pidgin installation – and enable the Text Replacement plugin. And voila – you can be typing in Hindi on IM too! And since most IM clients show international characters correctly, the people on the other side do not have to be using Pidgin to be able to see your Hindi. In fact, it works great on gmail’s version of GTalk, and even Fring on the iPhone! Here is my Pidgin Text Replacement plugin Hindi Transliteration dictionary
And to type in Indian languages on my blog, I am using the Indic Input Extension firefox extension. It supports RTS method of input in most languages, but also supports WX – which is very close to RTS, but just uses capital letters for the stronger version of a letter (k is क and K is ख). And it is called WX since only W and X are different than what is obvious – त is w and द is x. The other thing that took me a while to figure out was how to get half characters like त् – the answer is _ – the underscore key allows you to shorten the character just before it. This allows you more control over how the word is displayed. And it allows you to switch between English and the Indian language with just a Ctrl+Space. Beautiful!
In Thunderbird, my email client, unfortunately the above plugin is not available. So I use the Indic IME plugin. The only downside with the Indic IME plugin is that it does not support RTS. So you have to use the WX notation with Indic IME. Since the RTS is kind of unreliable on what it spits out, getting used to WX for Indian languages is probably the best option anyway.
The Thunderbird IndicIME plugin has it limited to versions 2.0a1. I edited the file to make it work on Thunderbird versions that are current. Indic IME Plugin modified for Thunderbird version 2.1
So here is the WX notation in Telugu
And MozDev hosts a version of the Hindi WX notation


