Remote Shutdown

Have you ever found yourself using Microsoft Remote Desktop without access to the physical machine and you need to reboot it? Or sometimes you have access to the physical machine but there isn't a keyboard hooked up for some bizarre reason that makes perfect sense to you. If so then you probably already know this and this post is pointless, but every so often I encounter someone that doesn't know the about shutdown.exe. Microsoft has a pretty old article about How To Use the Remote Shutdown Tool to Shut Down and Restart a Computer in Windows 2000. My use of shutdown.exe is to force a restart now:

c:\shutdown -t 00 -f -r

Installing JDeveloper on Mac

Installing JDeveloper on Mac could be easier, but it's not. I have found many lists of directions but none of them are as simple and straight forward as the ones that can be found http://blogs.sun.com/bobby/entry/tip_installing_jdeveloper_on_mac.

Remote Desktop to Windows from Mac

I've been doing a lot of remote desktoping lately from my Mac. A lot of remote desktoping. Windows has great support for Remote Desktop, but the Remote Desktop client for Mac leaves some to be desired. And this is where I've been using CoRD.

CoRD is a free open source Windows remote desktop client. It has presets for multiple computers, or the same computer just with different settings such as resolution. I find this handy for when I'm using my laptop with it's built-in display or an external display, or remote when the connection is a bit slower.

The user interface is pretty good but I would change some things if it were up to me. The only lacking feature is audio isn't sent to the client but that isn't a big deal. There's also a bug when entering full screen mode on a second monitor. But other than that, if you remote desktop from a Mac then I highly suggest CoRD.

Two Suns in China

I read about this when it happened last month but had to blog about it because I find it amazing, still. And I have a story to go along with it. Apparently scientists are puzzled too. It's some sort of atmospheric distortion.

This is a true story. When I was a kid I woke up in the middle of the night and I saw two moons in the sky. I thought aliens were coming to get us. Seriously! I was like 9 years old. What conclusion would you come to? I remember going to the library and researching all kinds of stuff well above my head. When I got to college many years later I did more research. I asked people. I asked professors. I did searches on the internet when it became available. The closest I ever got was that it was Mars coming super close to earth but that wasn't it because the moon was well above setting. It was the freakiest thing I'd ever seen. So My conclusion is it is a super rare occurrence of atmospheric light bending and I got to see it. Lucky me!

I find this sort of thing absolutely amazing!

No Insert Key on Mac Keyboard

If you've ever run a Mac as your host computer and used Remote Desktop, VNC or VMWare then chances are you've somehow gotten into Overwrite mode in a text editor by accident and couldn't figure out how to get out. There are quite a few documented cases out there: here and here. The problem is as Apple's documentation suggests this cannot be done with an Apple laptop keyboard. Well I have found the magic incantation! At least it works for me (some of the time):

Fn + Right Command + delete

This will put my cursor in and out of insert/overwrite mode. Hopefully it works for you. If it doesn't work for you and you have a better version please post a comment.

Update: Today I finally figured out the key combination that makes me enter into Overwrite mode: Fn. So if you press Fn again it brings you out of it. Apparently the scan code for the Fn key and the Insert key are quite similar in some cases but not all, very ood.

Google Motion

This is pretty cool. I can't wait for them to add this to mobile devices.

Ya know, with Objects

I think the old Borland Turbo literature was the best in the industry and that's why Borland compilers took off. That and the price. And the features. Take this product box from Turbo Pascal 5.5 as an example:

You take one sports car and with objects you can have a convertible or a hard top with a fin. inheritance makes perfect sense!

Too bad abstract concepts like interfaces and anonymous methods are more difficult to explain.

Free Amazon Prime for Parents

If you buy any kid related things on Amazon you can qualify for a free Amazon Prime account. Head on over to www.amazon.com/mom. The gist is you get free 2 day shipping. Every product you buy your free Amazon Prime account is extended for another chunk of time to get you free 2 day shipping. It's a pretty sweet deal.

Facebook's Cookies

Am I overly paranoid that I close the tab that had Facebook open and remove all the cookies associated with Facebook? I don't think so. But some might.

iPad2 the Computer for Everyone

Truth be told, I have envisioned devices like this for years. Back when I was working on the Touch and Gesturing features for Delphi, I had hopes/visions/predictions that Windows 7 would get a makeover and run on devices like this. But nothing ever happened. Backup about 10 years, I wanted to make a "kitchen computer" or "house computer" that could be used by my grandma. At the time though the pressure sensitive touch displays were terrible and huge. That project didn't go very far. Gotta hand it to Apple for going out on a limb and using the capacitive touch display. Not many companies are willing to go out on a limb and build cool stuff. I know it's in Apple's DNA because I have a lot of friends that work there. Calling this an intersection of technology and liberal arts is probably a really good way of putting it. The term "post PC" keeps coming from Apple to describe the iPad 2 which is an aggressive term, but I can't fault them, they've got some good cards and they've played them well. I just got an iPhone now that it's on Verizon. It's a nice device. When it the iPhone 4 was release some equated it to a Leica camera. I have to admit, it does have a Leica like feeling. Pretty crappy antenna though, even on Verizon.

Text Placement in a Java JList

This is just for future reference so I don't have to dig around for the answer.

private static final int LIST_LEFT_MARGIN = 5;

jList1.setCellRenderer(new DefaultListCellRenderer() {
  public Component getListCellRendererComponent(JList list, Object value,
    int index, boolean isSelected, boolean cellHasFocus) {
      super.getListCellRendererComponent(list, value,
                                         index, isSelected, cellHasFocus);
      this.setBorder(BorderFactory.createEmptyBorder(0, LIST_LEFT_MARGIN, 0, 0));
      return this;
    }
  }
}

Code

If there has been anything I've learned over the years is "take some pride in your code". You can quote me on that.