i.justrealized

This is more of a personal note. You may find it useful too.

Here’s how to ignore files and folders using Git. You can create a file “.gitignore” and place in the files and folders that you wish to ignore (separated with a line break).

In the file: “./.gitignore”

Here’s a list of standard things to do a .gitignore. It ignores the thumbnail files generated by Mac OSX and Windows. (I’m on Windows Vista.) You can place this on the top folder of your Git project:

“nbproject” is for NetBeans.

In the file: “./app/.gitignore”

Well, if you use CakePHP, you may want to add an additional .gitignore file in your CakePHP app directory:

I am open to suggestions what other files or folders are good to ignore but these are all I can recall. You can read more about gitignore at kernal.org.

I’ve been using Ubuntu more these couple of weeks. The bonus is that it feels a little faster. I also managed to install Ubuntu “The Intrepid Ibex” 8.10 into my netbook. I own an Acer AspireOne with the Intel Atom N270. (Trust me I know little what I am babbling.)

Previously I had Hardy Heron installed and it didn’t work too well. Several hardware fail to work out of the box and I’m not the kinda person good at configuring Linux. But the Intrepid Ibex has been great. Most hardware worked after the install with the exception of the wireless module. The fix is easy though you require an existing LAN point to download the new driver.

I installed all the necessaries like NetBeans and the Dust theme. Also installed Sun’s Java.

(Screenshot of NetBeans IDE 6.5 with Dust theme. Call me blind, but I always work with a font size that huge. I manage to get Consolas into Ubuntu too.)

Sound is working but it’s almost inaudible so I would say that sound isn’t working at all. The earphone socket doesn’t appear to be working too. I couldn’t fix that but I can’t give a damn. I’m just pleased NetBeans is working and I can use the internet.

And yeah, I also experienced a freeze up once but couldn’t reproduce the situation.

I’ve been working a little more in Ubuntu these days. I found it to be slightly faster. Especially with the performance of NetBeans. It’s a joy to work with NetBeans. In Windows Vista, it’s shit slow. I don’t know why, it’s probably due to all the overheads from the services launched during start up.

I feel lighter now.

The funny thing is that I got more productive in Ubuntu not because it’s a better platform in terms of functionality but just because there are lesser distractions. Most of my leisure stuff are in Windows Vista. I use Windows Live Messenger so often there. In Ubuntu I don’t like Pidgin and I miss my custom emoticons, hehe1.

I auto-hide the rather useless bottom panel which only use twice a day and rely most on keyboard shortcuts. I also enabled the Windowlist screenlet and use it as a taskbar replacement.

Ubuntu’s still hard to use

• I hate exploring my folders so I don’t explore folders much any more.
• There’re too many clicks involve in organizing my files so I never download anything any more.
• Finding music in my Windows hard disk through Ubuntu is so hard and I don’t know how to create a link to directly link to me the folder.

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Great news for NetBeans users, NetBeans 6.5 has been released. I’ve been using the development versions for quite some time. Mainly use it for my school’s Java assignment. I was previously using Eclipse. I kinda prefer NetBeans now.

NetBeans.org is proud to announce the availability of NetBeans IDE 6.5!

NetBeans IDE 6.5 offers simplified and rapid development of web, enterprise, desktop, and mobile applications with PHP, JavaScript, Java, C/C++, Ruby, and Groovy.

New features include a robust IDE for PHP, JavaScript debugging for Firefox and IE, and support for Groovy and Grails. The release also delivers a number of enhancements for Java, Ruby on Rails, and C/C++ development. Java highlights include: built-in support for Hibernate, Eclipse project import, and compile on save. Combining excellent out of the box experience, compelling features, and a great plugin ecosystem, NetBeans IDE 6.5 is a must-download for all developers.

NetBeans IDE 6.5 is currently available in English, Japanese, Simplified Chinese and Brazilian Portuguese. There are several community contributed localization efforts underway to support additional languages. Join the efforts today. (Source: NetBeans)

NetBeans 6.5 now comes with a plugin that lets you code PHP. I tried it and thought it is pretty decent. I haven’t really used it much on PHP. The inbuilt SVN is cool. It would be cooler if they could support Git. Git isn’t well supported in Windows and it’d be great if NetBeans could do something about it.

You can download NetBeans 6.5 now.

Okay, main news is that Java SE 6 Update 10 is out. I’ve been using Update 10 beta since a month ago. I got it simply to see the Java Swing menu fonts using ClearType and that’s all.

Let’s side track a little to look at how sucky a state Java download page is in.

Sun Microsystem probably has the worst marketing team. Java SE 6 Update 10 is now. Before update 10 was probably update 7. The numbers doesn’t seem to be incremental.

But that’s okay, that’s just Sun’s way of doing thing. The version after Java 1.4.2 is Java 5. Java can’t compute elementary math. Java Standard Edition 6 is also known as Java 1.6.

You go to their Java SE download page and you see:

• Java SE Runtime Environment (JRE) 6 Update 10
• Java SE Development Kit (JDK) 6 Update 10
• JDK 6 Update 10 with Java EE
• JDK 6 Update 10 with NetBeans 6.1
• JRE 6 Update 7 for Intel Itanium®
• JDK 6 Update 7 for Intel Itanium®
• JDK DST Timezone Update Tool - 1.3.9
• Java SE 6 Documentation
• Java SE 6 JDK Source Code
• and other friends like Java Cryptography Extension (JCE) Unlimited Strength Jurisdiction Policy

Usually you just need whatever’s that’s need at the top. New Java developers would no doubt get intimidated by the choices available. They should have separated the developer page from the rest of the Java site. And on the developer page, there really should just be 3 options:

• Java Standard Edition 6
• Java Enterprise Edition 6
• others…

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One of the things I always do is to rename my variables in the current Java class. I always use Find & Replace but it can be rather destructive at times. I just realized you could hit Ctrl + R to do just that!

That saved me lots of click. It’s a simple feature but it always makes me happy when I use it.

Press Ctrl + R when your cursor is on the variable name you want to change. It changes all the variables for you. In the above screenshot, I changed the variable from ‘testing’ to ‘changeToSomethingNew’ and it recognizes that it should only change property ‘testing’ in the class scope. Pretty smart I say.