Log4Tailer 1.42 released

I released Log4Tailer 1.42 http://code.google.com/p/log4tailer/ on Monday. It is just a minor release affecting mostly on the final reports once you finish tailing a log. Log4Tailer allows you to tail logs in colors amongst other features. It is very useful for software testers and developers alike. I’ve found myself multiple times tailing logs in black and white using the “Tail” Linux command line, which was a pain for my eyes to try to discern information from thousands of lines. In my career I’ve seen some software testers missing “warnings” or even “error” log4j log traces, missing important information that can lead to a bug, and a long etcetera. Some of the features maybe are not going to be that important, but the core functionality, i.e. tailing with colors is really a killer app if used properly along with top notch terminal managers like Terminator hosted in launchpad https://launchpad.net/terminator. Make your live easier and enjoy .

Sound in Amarok 2.0.2 and Ubuntu Jaunty 9.04

I really like Amarok, but apparently in Ubuntu 9.04 Gnome as a Desktop, when installing amarok it does not play sound at all. After some investigation, apparently amarok uses Phonon and you need to make sure you have the xine phonon backend. But that apparently is not enough. Installing xine-console solves the problem. I’ve read that installing xine-ui solves the problem as well.

Although I love the simplicity of Gnome, there are some Kde applications that simply rock, name it:

• Amarok
• Kile
• and Kopete, that apparently it has video built in, something that pidgin has not yet.

Yes, you can have Gnome Desktop and use Kde applications.

Log4tailer, tailing your logs in multicolor

I’ve been hacking recently a lot with Python in my spare time, and to be honest, it is very powerful, lots of fun, and object oriented. It allows me to quickly transform my thinking into real code and python incredible and huge standard library helps a lot. One of the projects I’ve been hacking is log4tailer. Log4tailer is a multicolored python tailer for log4j formatted logs. If your job requires tailing logs every now and again, then you will feel the frustration I’ve had multiple times when using the linux command line “tail”. I began using launchpad and bazaar version control system to code log4tailer, but I just decided to use googlecode as I feel much more comfortable using subversion. The link to log4tailer is http://code.google.com/p/log4tailer/ and an image:

Firefox Extensions

Firefox extensions are a way to enhance your surfing experiences. Many people just don’t know that they exist or just forget about them. Here a list of the more powerful and useful extensions:

Adblock

All-in-One Sidebar

Clippings

DownThemAll

FasterFox

FlashGot

Google Notebook (Highly recommended) from Google

NoScript

Sage

ScrapBook (Highly recommended) I can’t live without it!!

Tab Mix Plus

User Agent Switcher

More in http://www.mozilla.com/add-ons/

And a screenshot of my installed extensions:

Quite sick of Evolution

Evolution is really a nice email and pim software but backing up your email is a pain in the ass. Every time I switch or upgrade my system, having your previous evolution mail back on track can be a painful experience. Just read this:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MigrateEvolutionToNewComputer

So, I’ve decided to work with Thunderbird as my email client, and Sunbird as an standalone calendar app.

Linux is surprising

I’ve been using Linux for a long time, and every now and then I get nice surprises. Today I’ve discovered a new media player that I’ve never heard about before. It’s called QuodLibet and is made by my favourite programming language Python. As it is made in python running it in Ubuntu is just a piece of cake. Just download the sources, untar them, and voilà. You can read more about this awesome program at http://www.sacredchao.net/quodlibet

Enjoy listening to music!!!