SQL Developer

At last, I am in my new house, I have working broadband, and (thanks to my recently purchased network cable) I can use Ubuntu again.

I was having an issue with SQL Developer a while back where the application launches but just displays an empty frame. Having tried various different versions of Java, SQL Developer and combinations of the two, I was still none the wiser ... but tonight I finally cracked it! Turns out all I needed to do was turn Visual Effects (System - Preferences - Appearance) off.

Ubuntu + Juniper

I've now successfully set up my development environment on Ubuntu so I can work from home without needing my work laptop. I had a few issues with installing Juniper, but these have now been resolved ...

First issue: Firefox wouldn't install the Java Plugin. Solution: apt-get the plugin and then put a symlink in the Firefox plugins folder ...

> sudo apt-get install sun-java5-plugin sun-java5-fonts

> sudo ln -s /usr/lib/jvm/java-1.5.0-sun/jre

/plugin/i386/ns7/libjavaplugin_oji.so /usr/lib/firefox/plugins

Second issue: the juniper install needs to run as root and will prompt you for the root password. Solution: set a root password ...

> sudo -i
> passwd

To lock the root account again after you've finished ...

> sudo passwd -l root

And should you need to unlock (ie. set the password back to what it was before) ...

> sudo passwd -u root

Third issue: the juniper scripts don't work properly so it attempts to install them every time (note that this doesn't seem to prevent you from logging in!) Solution: You need to overwrite the default scripts with some provided in this rather excellent post on Ubuntu Forums.

Fourth issue: the lastest Subversive plugin for Eclipse doesn't seem to work on Ubuntu. Solution: use the old one:

> http://www.polarion.org/projects/subversive/download/1.1/update-site/

Fifth issue: Eclipse crashing randomly when it attempts to synchronise with SVN. Solution: this was either because I was running Eclipse under Java6 or because I had Java5 and Java6 both installed - it went away when I rolled back to Java5 only.

That should do it!

"Wireless" Revisited

Finally, after several false starts, a solution that works on Vista and Ubuntu ...

Wireless Problems

Another two hours spent trying to get wireless to work on Vista - another two hours of my life that I will never get back. It appears to connect to the router okay, but then says it has "limited connectivity" even though the signal strength is 'excellent'. A quick search reveals that I'm not the only person who has this problem.

So far, I've tried installing the latest drivers for the network adapter and updating the firmware on the router, but still no joy. I can connect without any problems from WinXP, Ubuntu and even a Sony PSP - Vista is the only one that doesn't work! I'm starting to think I might have to get a new router.

Vista = Rubbish

My new laptop arrived and after one day of use, I'm very impressed. I installed the latest version of Ubuntu (8.04) without any problems and within about 2 minutes I had a wireless network connection and was able to surf the net and install my dev environment.

Unfortunately, Mrs Royale still insists on using Windows so - in the interests of domestic harmony - I tried to get the wireless network working on that too. Bearing in mind that I'm an experienced Windows user, I thought this would be a simple task. However, Vista had other ideas and one hour later I still hadn't got it working! :-(

In fact, I've now discovered that Vista has made even this simple task vastly more complicated than it needs to be. EIGHT WINDOWS to create a wireless network connection - is this Microsoft's idea of a joke?!

An Unexpected Upgrade

For some reason, my insurers have decided to replace my stolen laptop (which cost £450 from PC World around 3 months ago) with a much better one! In fact the replacement model is an Acer and currently retails for around £700 - I should get it some time tomorrow. Looks quite nice too ...

Robbed!

Unfortunately, pygame development is temporarily on hold since burglers broke into my flat and stole my laptop! :-(

However, I feel a lot safer knowing that they'll have to get past the Ubuntu login to access any of the information that's on there. :-)

Playing with Pygame

Over the past few weeks I've been writing a 'game' of sorts using Python and Pygame - it's still in the very early stages at present and is less of a game and more of a toy/proof of concept. Nonetheless, I'm fairly pleased with the results so far and since this is the first time I've tried doing any pixel art (or any computer art of any description) I think it looks okay ...


Obviously the player sprite is still a work in progress (although he does have a certain charm!)

For dev tools I'm using Eclipse + PyDev for coding and Gimp for the images.

Goodbye Vista!

So, I finally made the switch to Ubuntu. I'm afraid Windows Vista was the final nail in the coffin for me. I had to buy a new laptop with 2GB of RAM just so I could run it at an acceptable speed, it didn't even come with MS Office (so I was using Open Office anyway) and it just seemed horribly complicated.

Ubuntu, by contrast, seems to be fairly easy to use and it 'just works', which is nice!