Tweets of the month

Waiting for Christ-mas
20 Dec

Back on track. Thanks to Jo and Rialva ;)
16 Dec

After a paperwork detour, back to writing
16 Dec

Amazing tool for PDF hacking based on the iText library: http://www.pdflabs.com/tools/pdftk-the-pdf-toolkit/
15 Dec

"You lost today, kid. But that doesn't mean you have to like it." -- IJ3
13 Dec

Outline changes are mostly done. Now I'll resume writing.
10 Dec

Listening to Indiana Jones soundtrack
7 Dec

"Adventure is out there" - just don't be afraid to face it in the eye
6 Dec

"Adventure is out there!" -- Thanks Joana for reminding me of joy everyday
6 Dec

Just attended César Pimentel's PhD defense presentation. Good presentation! Good luck for the rest of the evaluation!
6 Dec

Back to writing
3 Dec

In this whole WikiLeaks business I see mostly useless gossip. In the middle of so much noise is there anything worth revealing?
2 Dec

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

Lucy Pevensie: Aslan, will we ever meet with you in our world?
Aslan: You shall.
Lucy Pevensie: How?
Aslan: Because there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there.

How to Train Your Dragon

How to Train Your Dragon

Astrid: [punches Hiccup] That's for kidnapping me.
[Kisses Hiccup]
Astrid: That's for everything else.

PDF Hacking

Adobe Reader X is the latest and very improved version of Acrobat's PDF Reader. The most significant changes for me were in the browser integration with Firefox. It is so much better now. The user interface is also leaner.

For me, the PDF Reading choice is settled, but for small PDF adjustments, like joining files or rotating pages, Adobe Acrobat is an expensive option.

If you are comfortable with the command prompt, there is a free and powerful option: PDF Toolkit. It is based on the iText library explained in the Manning book iText in Action.

To install pdftk, go to the web page and download the package for your operating system. For Windows, download the zip file and unzip it to C:\Program Files\pdftk.

Next, go to Start Menu, right-click on Computer, select Properties, and choose "Advanced system settings" from the left sidebar. Next press "Environment variables" button.
Create an environment variable called PDFTK_HOME and set it to pdftk folder path.
Next, add %PDFTK_HOME%\bin to the PATH variable. You can now open new command prompts and type the following command to read the help: pdftk -h

Here are a few useful examples (there are more described in the help output):

:: To concatenate xpto.pdf and xpty.pdf and output result to xpt.pdf
C:\Users\Me> pdftk xpto.pdf xpty.pdf cat output xpt.pdf

:: To rotate xpt.pdf from page 1 to end 90 degrees counter-clockwise and output to xpt-rotated.pdf
C:\Users\Me> pdftk xpt.pdf cat 1-endL output xpt-rotated.pdf

The page rotation setting can cause pdftk to rotate pages and documents. Each option sets the page rotation as follows (in degrees):
N: 0, E: 90, S: 180, W: 270, L: -90, R: +90, D: +180.
L, R, and D make relative adjustments to a page’s rotation.

How to reset Picasa?

Picasa is very nice program by Google to manage photo collections. However, sometimes it is useful to "reset" Picasa to factory settings, especially when you move lots of files around.

*** WARNING *** This procedure will destroy your Picasa settings and your albums.

The first thing to do is to delete the Picasa database and albums.
Exit Picasa and go to %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Google\ (in Windows Vista or 7) or to %USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\application data\google\ (in Windows XP) an delete the Picasa folders.

After this, there is still metadata in ".picasa.ini" or "Picasa.ini" files in the image folders.

Open Windows Explorer, choose "Tools" -> "Folder Options" in the menu, go to the "View" tab, and select the "Show hidden files and folders" option.
Search for *picasa.ini files, check if only the right files were found, and then delete them.

This will completely reset Picasa so you can start fresh!

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References: Google support thread 1, thread 2

Using delicious to map the internet

I've been using Delicious since 2008, and it has become a very important part of my "work dispatch engine".

Delicious is a web site where you keep a collection of your favorite bookmarks. The good thing about it, is that it is a Folksnomy. This means that you type words (known as tags) to classify the page's contents. Later, when you need to find your pages, you can search them using the tags.

For example, let's say I want to bookmark the following page on delicious:
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/java/library/j-jws19/index.html

I click the bookmark option on the Firefox add-on, and I would type the following words: IBM article 2010 java web service

Later, when I want to search my bookmarked IBM articles, I just go to my page and type the tag words:
http://www.delicious.com/mflpar/IBM+article

Delicious is also very useful to find out what other people are bookmarking. It is much more well informed than a typical Google query.
Before I finish this post, I just want to add some tips for choosing your tags wisely:

• Don't glue words, separate them for more flexibility (e.g. type web service instead of webservice)
• Use the word in the singular instead of plural (or the other way around, just be consistent)
• Use the root word (e.g. name, instead of naming) whenever possible

Enjoy! :)

at, on, in

This is one of the recurring doubts I have when writing in English...
Hope this helps! :)

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Prepositions of Time: at, on, and in

We use at to designate specific times.

• The train is due at 12:15 p.m.

We use on to designate days and dates.

• My brother is coming on Monday.
• We're having a party on the Fourth of July.

We use in for nonspecific times during a day, a month, a season, or a year.

• She likes to jog in the morning.
• It's too cold in winter to run outside.
• He started the job in 1971.
• He's going to quit in August.

Prepositions of Place: at, on, and in

We use at for specific addresses.

• Grammar English lives at 55 Boretz Road in Durham.

We use on to designate names of streets, avenues, etc.

• Her house is on Boretz Road.

And we use in for the names of land-areas (towns, counties, states, countries, and continents).

• She lives in Durham.
• Durham is in Windham County.
• Windham County is in Connecticut.

Source: http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/prepositions.htm