bogdan.Weblog

Atunci când cumperi un laptop nou trebuie să nu te grăbeşti şi să iei în considerare toate aspectele, mai ales dacă te conectezi la internet cu un telefon Zapp (Z110 în cazul de faţă dar cred că se aplică şi altor modele – Z710i, Z510i, Z530i, Z525i etc.) şi noul laptop are Windows Vista. Pentru că Zapp nu are drivere actualizate pentru terminalele sale, configurarea conexiunii sub Windows Vista e o mică aventură. Vestea bună e că se poate!

De ce aveţi nevoie:

• un terminal Zapp, în cazul ăsta Z110
• un calculator (portabil sau nu) cu Windows Vista
• CD-ul de instalare pentru terminalul respectiv sau acest pachet sau acest fişier
• acest fisier, pe care îl puteţi lua şi de aici
• o conexiune la internet, alta decât cea prin Zapp pe care o configurăm

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The mobile version of my blog is available starting today. Thanks Andy Moore for your fine plugin!

If your phone can read QR-code, scan the code below and save the link to your bookmarks.

Since many users requested it, I took some time and upgraded my Picasa LightBox plugin to work with the new Wordpress 2.5. It’s not done yet, but I guess I’m on the right track and the new plugin should be released very soon. In the mean time, check out the clip below to see what to expect.

As you can see, albums and pictures are not properly aligned; actually, the photos window is a total mess. A few users tested the plugin and they said it works fine, except for the messy look and a glitch with Fluency Admin interface plugin. Thanks Mark and Mario for reporting back.

UPDATE: Beta version now available:

PicasaLightBox 2 Beta Plugin

Don’t forget you still need the LightBox plugin.

Picasa Plugin for WordPress

Download it | See it in action

Latest version: 0.2.2b, released on 2008/03/02

Picasa LightBox is a WordPress plugin that lets you easily add Picasa images to your WordPress posts and pages.

You can add Picasa images to your posts and pages without using any custom tags. Just click the Picasa Photos tab, browse your albums and select the picture you want to insert. Picasa LightBox does not download Picasa images to your server. Instead it displays them directly from Picasa. Picasa LightBox currently supports only public Picasa albums. Picasa LightBox inserts pure HTML code into your posts or pages so you can easily customize it to fit your needs.

Picasa LightBox doesn’t work with Wordpress 2.5! If you are using Wordpress 2.5 this plugin is not what you are looking for. Picasa LightBox has been tested with Wordpress up to version 2.3.3.

Update: Since a lot of people requested it, I decided to upgrade the plugin to work with Wordpress 2.5. Check out the progress here:
http://bogde.ro/computers/picasa-ligthbox-2-preview.htm

If you like this plugin, don’t forget to vote on the official WP Plugins page!

If you wish to support this plugin, consider making a donation!

Important

• Make sure you have a LightBox plugin enabled. Picasa LightBox doesn’t work without a LightBox plugin.
• To install, place the ‘picasa-lightbox’ folder into your wp-content/plugins/ folder. Log in as admin to activate it (under the Plugins tab), and change Picasa LightBox settings under Options -> Picasa LightBox.

Version History

• 2007-10-26: v.0.1.1b – Beta version. First public release.
• 2007-11-05: v.0.2.0b – Beta version.
  The pathname for “class-snoopy.php” is no longer hardwired (thanks to Andy C). “class-snoopy.php” is included with the plugin.
• 2007-11-11: v.0.2.1b – Beta version.
  Minor tweaks and some cleanup. “class-snoopy.php” is no longer included with the plugin to avoid conflicts when other plugins use the same class.
• 2008-03-02: v.0.2.2b – Beta version.
  Minor tweaks and cleanup.

Aproape am terminat aplicaţia la care lucrez de câteva luni…

Am testat ieri pe Vista aplicaţia la care lucrez de vreo săptămână şi sunt foarte încântat că merge chiar mai bine decât mă aşteptam. Mă gândeam c-o să am probleme cu salvarea setărilor, din cauza pemisiunilor pe fişiere.

Aplicaţia va face backup automat la site-urile găzduite pe servere cu CPanel.

Am avut probleme ceva probleme cu funcţia InternetReadFile în sensul că din diferite motive un fişier de pe internet nu putea fi accesat. Astfel, funcţia îmi bloca întreaga aplicaţie, chiar dacă foloseam thread-uri. În sfârşit am găsit soluţia (care merge pe WinXP cu IE 6, dar s-ar putea să nu meargă pe versiuni mai vechi.

Soluţia este setarea unui timeout pentru conexiune cu:

InternetSetOption(NetHandle, INTERNET_OPTION_RECEIVE_TIMEOUT, @timeout, sizeof(timeout));

Întreaga funcţie e mai jos. Eu nu am nevoie să-mi dea excepţii, d-aia am comentat unele chestii.

function DownloadFile(const url: string): string;
var
NetHandle: HINTERNET;
UrlHandle: HINTERNET;
Buffer: array[0..1024] of Char;
BytesRead: dWord;
timeout: longint;
begin
Result := ”;
NetHandle := InternetOpen(’Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 1.1.4322)’, INTERNET_OPEN_TYPE_PRECONFIG, nil, nil, 0);
if Assigned(NetHandle) then
begin
timeout := 10000; // timeout in 10 seconds
InternetSetOption(NetHandle, INTERNET_OPTION_RECEIVE_TIMEOUT, @timeout, sizeof(timeout));
UrlHandle := InternetOpenUrl(NetHandle, PChar(Url), nil, 0, INTERNET_FLAG_RELOAD, 0);
if Assigned(UrlHandle) then // UrlHandle valid? then proceed with download
begin
FillChar(Buffer, SizeOf(Buffer), 0);
repeat
Result := Result + Buffer;
FillChar(Buffer, SizeOf(Buffer), 0);
InternetReadFile(UrlHandle, @Buffer, SizeOf(Buffer), BytesRead);
until BytesRead = 0;
InternetCloseHandle(UrlHandle);
end
else // UrlHandle is not valid raise an exception
//raise Exception.CreateFmt(’Cannot open URL %s’, [Url]);
Result := ”;
InternetCloseHandle(NetHandle);
end
else // NetHandle is not valid raise an exception
//raise Exception.Create(’Unable to initialize Wininet!’);
Result := ”;
end;

Ieri am reuşit să produc o coliziune MD5 folosind md5coll.c (http://www.stachliu.com.nyud.net:8090/collisions.html):

unsigned int m0[32] = {
0xc4e44da4, 0xb3dec330, 0×181d7535, 0×1793a5dc,
0x5f711f50, 0×36e6da04, 0xe5360143, 0×7f5f3836,
0×06346d51, 0×40b34c03, 0×865c9c6b, 0×14ba379b,
0xc3a412f0, 0xcefd64f8, 0x3c4339a7, 0×9a9df391,
0×6ebdf279, 0×9994bb54, 0×442af1a7, 0xd71b0968,
0xb84f57d9, 0xfc396508, 0×75eb2cf6, 0×6d3cfdcb,
0×7c33a755, 0×26a2b5bc, 0×981b43f2, 0xbd61cc95,
0xb622fccd, 0×1888196c, 0x655feca7, 0xf8535a73,
};
unsigned int m1[32] = {
0xc4e44da4, 0xb3dec330, 0×181d7535, 0×1793a5dc,
0xdf711f50, 0×36e6da04, 0xe5360143, 0×7f5f3836,
0×06346d51, 0×40b34c03, 0×865c9c6b, 0×14bab79b,
0xc3a412f0, 0xcefd64f8, 0xbc4339a7, 0×9a9df391,
0×6ebdf279, 0×9994bb54, 0×442af1a7, 0xd71b0968,
0x384f57d9, 0xfc396508, 0×75eb2cf6, 0×6d3cfdcb,
0×7c33a755, 0×26a2b5bc, 0×981b43f2, 0xbd614c95,
0xb622fccd, 0×1888196c, 0xe55feca7, 0xf8535a73,
};

Totul a durat aproximativ 12 ore (de joi 17.03.2006 ora 15:24 până vineri 18.03.2006 ora 3:27) pe un laptop Toshiba Satellite Pro cu Celeron Mobile la 1,6MHz si 1024MB RAM, rulând Fedora Core 4 cu gcc 4.0.0 (20050519).

Mi-am luat zilele trecute un alt harddisk şi a trebuit să reinstalez sistemele de operare (Fedora Core 4, Windows XP şi Windows 2000). Dacă de obicei folosesc bootloader-ul din Linux (Grub), de data asta am zis să încerc altceva şi să integrez Fedora în bootloader-ul din Windows XP.

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