A slightly better blogger post editor

One of the bad things about Blogger is the bad post editor. Today I found out I can choose a slightly better editor. Enable it in Basic settings:

The editor is bit better on image handling. But I'm not quite happy with it since I cannot choose 100% image size. 100 % is the only size that screen shoots look nice.

One thing I still miss is a feature to include source code.

Time to upgrage eclipse when @Override does not work

When using an old version of Eclipse 3.2.1 from September 2006 I got this type of error:
The method actionPerformed(ActionEvent) of type NAME_OF_CLASS_AND_METHOD must override a superclass method

The class had this definition:

@Override
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {

The problem was solved when upgrading to a newer version of Eclipse (3.5). I'm guessing the support for the @Override annotation was a bit limited.

Started with Android

I've started to learn to program Android. From about two weeks of programming I have one good thing and and bad thing to say:

Good: The programmer has a great deal of freedom. For example I can create a program to replace the Home/Start screen application. I can also access all the hardware (for example GPS, SMS, sensors).

Bad: Not to good documented yet. There are many classes in API that lacks documentation and you have to guess how to do things.

More info on the Android developer site.

Linux or Windows on my Notebook?

A friend had a netbook with Ubuntu Netbook Remix. It looked like a nice OS that simplified the netbook experience.

When I finally bough my own netbook I was more or less convinced that I would throw out the existing operative system and install Linux on it. However I have not felt the need to do so. My notebook is fast enough to run Windows XP Home. With the hibernate mode the netbook is relatively fast to boot/start. In the end I don't feel like going through the hassle of reinstalling anything.

If the it had come pre-installed with Linux my feeling is that I would have kept that OS.

Micro USB as a standard on mobile phones

Moble Manufacturers argee to use Micro USB interface to connect to new mobile phones. So what is Mirco USB? Well the answer to that was not so simple to find. One of the pictures on Wikipedia that first claimed to show a Micro USB does not look like it...

I downloaded the USB 2.0 specfication and found this picture:


There is also a micro-A plug. An USB A-type plug are often found at places that gives power (for example your computer). A B plug can most often be found at place that draw power (for example your mobile phone).

To confuse things a bit more the connectors in the USB 3.0 specifications looks "half" different. And in the USB 3.0 specification there is also a AB-plug that can take both a A and B. But the USB 3.0 specification uses more wires so it is a completely different story.

Whats the lesson here? First of all don't always trust Wikipedia! Second, the mist behind an article on a new site can take some time to disperse.

My Compaq Mini

I've bought a Compaq Mini 700 series (730eo) netbook computer. The price was 3000 Swedish kronor (SEK). I've used it for 2 weeks now and gotten myself an opinion of how it is so here is my review.

Pros:

• Small and light. I put my computer on my kitchen scale and it was 1066 grams. The trend now is bigger netbooks but this is still in the smaller range.
• Good keyboard. I've tested a bunch of netbooks at my local store and this had one of the best keyboards
• Good value for money.

Cons:

• Noisy fan and bad fan control. The fan really makes some noise and the fan control is not that good at adapting the speed of the fan. I have solved this problem and I'll post another blog post about it later
• Slow hard drive (4200 RPM). But it is good enough for me. I can even develop Java programs in Eclipse with it. So it does not bug me that much.
• Only a 3 cell battery that lasts 2 hours (3 max). I guess that is a compromise for its small wiegth
• Low quality web cam. Other netbooks have much better (I tried these in the store as well). But that does not bother me that much.

Here is a picture of the keyboard layout (Swedish):


One thing I really like with a netbook is that I can move it around my apartment so easy. I read websites at the kitchen table, use it at the couch when I watch tv and can have it in my lap when I sit at the balcony.

Update: Here is how I fixed the fan control: http://blog.lesc.se/2009/10/how-to-improve-fan-control-on-hpcompaq.html

Resize a dialog with a multi line text field that has fixed width

stackoverflow.com is a great forum to ask questions. Sometimes an answer to a question you ask there will trigger yourself to think in new ways so you can answer you own question. This happened to me in the problem with the dialog with the multi line text field with fixed width: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1048224/get-height-of-multi-line-text-with-fixed-width-to-make-dialog-resize-properly