Again I find myself thinking about how to write as little code as possible when developing applications for various mobile platform. I do find it annoying in the extreme, that iOS, Android and Windows Phone all have mutually incompatible technologies. As if they were doing it on purpose. But maybe they just do? It helps the companies to lock in software developers as well as end users, doesn't it? Maybe … more »

Sometimes you want to automate some SSH command execution and don't really care about checking the remote machines in more »

There is no doubt - spammers are becoming cleverer every day. I've added CAPTCHA verification to my site in order to prevent spam comments from being submitted. It really helped - previously I used to remove about 10-20 of them on daily basis, offering everything from child pornography to grey mortgages. However, even after the new safety measures have been introduced, I still get a couple of comments a week, … more »

Google provides APIs to access its data using various languages. You can manipulate Google calendars, contacts, documents etc. Most of the time the usage is pretty straightforward, but sometimes it is not clear how to achieve a specific goal. For example, it took me some time to figure out how to download all events for a given calendar. The main reason behind the difficulty is the upper limit Google places … more »

I have been introduced to Markdown format some time ago and today I find it extremely convenient for most of the writing I need to do. Markdown is essentially "markup without markup" - it requires you to do very little in order to format your text and it can be easily converted in a number of other formats, such as PDF, Word, ODT, LaTeX, HTML, Docbook etc. From experience I … more »

If you want to right-align the "Help" (or any other) menu entry in your menu bar in a WPF application, you can use the following example: Code sample taken from here . more »

WPF is still relatively new and many developers are only scratching the surface of its abilities. Coming from a different framework, one must learn anew how to do the familiar tasks. Sometimes you need to to trigger a click or some other event for one of your WPF controls, such as a button, a menu or a checkbox, directly from code. There are no methods on the controls to invoke … more »

I was quite surprised to learn that Iran is actually importing almost half of its petroleum. This is despite the fact, that the country is one of the largest oil producers in the world. Also, the price is heavily subsidized - a liter would cost you around 5 pence! However, they are about to cut the import and start imposing limits for consumption, according to this article from BBC . more »

We are all devastated by the terrible events in Oslo, Norway, where almost 100 people were killed in two closely linked incidents of terrorism. Browsing the news about these events, I couldn't help but notice facial similarity between the alleged executor of the terrible acts, a certain Anders Behring Breivik, and the notoriously famous manager of Wikileaks, Julian Assange. more »

I've been experimenting with GWT (Google Web Toolkit) recently. GWT allows you to write responsive and consistent user web interfaces in a subset of Java programming language. The source code is then compiled into JavaScript, which can be run in any supported web browser. This concept looks very attractive to me. While I've done a fair amount of web development, including JavaScript, in my earlier days, including writing some Ajax … more »