Using SVN on a mac in graphical interface

I found this software that seems to work graet to what I normally do:

"SvnX is an open source GUI for most features of the svn client binary.


It allows you to browse your working copies, spot changes and operate on them but also to browse logs and revisions of your repositories !"

http://www.lachoseinteractive.net/en/community/subversion/svnx/features/

How I (apparently) solved my Macbook wifi problem

Well, going on my mac odyssey, I decide to go for extreme things to solve what apple didn' t. After some research (again, I spent more 5 hours in this), I realised that most people complain of this after Mac OS updates, so I took the DVDs that cam with my Crapbook, and formatted it. I started from scratch to see what was going on

Well apparently the problem solved, but I am now afraid of applying any update that comes from Apple. The Other thing I also realised is that you should never save your wifi connection data in the airport configuration. The best thing is to type every time the password to join the network. It is working on 9 of 10 time I connect now.

The problem I had was basically the macbook dropping more that 60% of the packets when pinging my wifi router on a distance of 30cm.

Mac = Crap

Well, lots of people will see this post and get outraged, but it is sadly true. I will explain my impressions and show what happened to me.

First, I saw lots of people migrating to a Mac, because it is a Unix, good hardware, blah,blah blah. Then I decided to give a try. I bought a Macbook, and my problems started.

The macbook worked really OK for 2 days (yes, 2 days = 48 hours), than it started to have problems with my wifi connection at home. The important detail is that I have other 5 equipments running smoothly in the AP, and the AP is top of range which cost me £140, that is much more than an airport extreme.

I then plugged it on the cable and started an arduous search for solutions. They ranged from software trick up to philosophical thins.

The result was, that after two weeks fighting, I took my macbook to the apple store here in Cambridge. They promptly said me that I would have to change my airport card, and that this usually solves the issue. The things is that after 5 days without the computer it came back with the exact same problem. They also confessed that this is a known issue and that they don't have a solution yet. Probably I will have to way for an OS update to fix this.

What made me really sick with apple is that this problem is recurrent, and I saw in forums a lot of people having problems with Macbook and access points. The brands of the APs normally were Linksys (this means cisco), netgear and belkin. This means to me about 40% of the AP market, according to Google trends.

My real deception was that I was expecting something really good from apple, and what I got was just another crappy PC, packed with a fancy OS and plastic. The thing is that no matter what you buy these days, you will get more of the same.

How to delete Access point in the Nokia S60 3rd Series (n93, e61, etc)

If you have the problem that you mobile just tells your out of memory when trying to delete the Access Points configuration, execute the following procedure:

1. go into the built-in mail application (hit the letter icon on the keyboard)
2. get into the mail settings (Options --> E-mail Settings --> Connection Settings)
3. Then select "Incoming e-mail" or "Outgoing e-mail" doesn't really matter which one.
4. Then scroll down to the "Access point to use" field and select that
5. Select "User defined"
6. Then you have all of your wifi access points listed here, you can, add more, edit existing ones, or delete them. If you want to be able to get to the access point settings via the traditional method, rather than the method listed above, then you need to remove some access points. I don't know how many, but I slimmed my access points down to 18 and I can now get into the access points settings without getting the "out of memory..." error.

Wii - My impressions

Well finally I bought a Nintendo Wii. I just realised that I lost a lot of time. It is a great platform with a lot of different things for you to do. I bought the Wii together with the wii sports, wii play and guitar hero.

Guitar hero is by far the best game I have seen for a long time. Really amazing.

Now I am waiting (for have some money) to buy a a Wii Fit, since that with the wii now I can burn lots of calories, but I think that having the Wii Fit will help me to burn even more.

Another must have for you wii is a modchip. When my Wii arrived I just knew that I would modify it. I waited one week and bought the modchip. Normally my concerns were about voiding the warranty in a brand new console.

The guys behind these modchips are evolving a lot. Now you can buy any modchip (that fits you wii version/model) and solder it in a flat cable, and then later stick this flat cable in the console. You can de-modchip your wii any time you want, but take it out. Then no warranty is voided because you actually haven't modified the wii, you are just using an accessory :)

A tip is have the magic tree-wing screwdriver.

Back to Track and Macbook wifi problems

Well this post is to come back to track with the blog, but also to tell about my new experiences, now with a real macintosh( Not the hackintosh as before).

The first two weeks were horroble, I dicovered an imcompatibility with my WIFI router. After calling apple' s support and draytek (my router brand) support, I solved the problem by myself.

Here are the discoveries:

- The macbook/macos x has a problem of not working very well with short preamble WIFI configurations, so, put your wifi router always in Long preamble. It makes your connection slower, but it with still exist. This means a lot better than before :)

- Change the following parameter on your Macbook

sudo sysctl -w net.inet.tcp.delayed_ack=0

This will make the TCP stack behave differently, making you not waiting for delayed/lost packets that your not that realiable wifi connection will bring.

Well this solved my problems. I hope this post can solve someone else.

UK International Keyboard Layouts

After some developing I am proud to announce that I created a project in SourceForge to have open available and free software to correct the abnormalities of people who own computer bought in the UK (with UK Keyboard) and have to write in other language than English.

With this you can install the new keyboard layout in your machine and start using it like the US International version, being able to have dead-keys and to use accented letters so need to write that email in Portuguese for example.

The address is http://sourceforge.net/projects/ukikl/ andthe windows version is ready to download.

I am planning a Mac Version for the end of this month and a Linux version for the next. I will give update here.

Learning ( how to pick bike locks)

Yesterday I and Giseli went to Clare College to print some stuff she need for the language classes in the afternoon. We arrived and locked our bikes in from of the Old Court. When going out of the college, Giseli's lock was not opening anymore.

Just before leaving home we had used some oil in this lock because it was a bit difficult to open. Apparently the problem just got worst. It was turning the key very well now, but still not opening. We decided to give up, since both were late and left it to solve today.

After arriving again today and expecting for some miracle, Giseli tried the lock again and it was as yesterday. Well we had lunch and then I went to do the dirty job.

First I went to the porters lodge to try to find someone with expertise in cutting locks. The porters are responsible for taking out bikes students leave indefinitely in there.

So they told me the basics:

- Normal (non D-locks) lock can be easily cut with a big scissor to cut metal. You don't need even to do much effort. Very easy job.

- D-locks cannot be cut, but the "hammer strategy" works with them. The porters gave me a big hammer and told to punch on the straight part of the lock. No cheap (less than £50) D-lock will resist to this technique.

In the end, after just 3 tries with the hammer, the lock was open. The porters were right.

This shows why it is so easy to have you bike stolen in Cambridge. The locks that the bike shops sell together with the bikes are really bad, but keep their business in selling bikes... :)

Back to my duties

Well, after a very good and month long vacation in the sunny-sunny Brazil I am back. I have loads of things to do right now and also to write in the blog.

During this time I was in vacation I wrote some posts ideas in my mobile, but due to the lack of internet connectivity I will be feeding this during this week.

PhD a vulcano of feelings

Well this post is being written during my flight from Milan to Heathrow. I spent the last 3 days in Sicily/Italy talking with Giampaolo Bella and his students in University of Catania.

I can say they were really nice to me. Specially Giampaolo that in the beginning was a bit unsure about my ideas for the PhD, but in the end he told me that it could be nice to implement this as an extension of the inductive method. It was a relief, since I believe that Larry doesn't understand fully what I want, but he did. He also did something I was not used any more: he took me by hand and made me see good things and bad things I have been doing lately. In reality I felt that he was expecting a genius, and found just a mortal guy.

Either way, I gave a talk over there in Italian, and it is here:


Talk given in Catania from Jean Martina on Vimeo.