Dumitru Postoronca

Building custom Swing components (JTreeView with checkboxes)

nospam@example.com (Dumitru Postoronca) — 2008-09-29T16:46:33Z

When building a reasonably complex Swing application, more often than not you might end up needing a GUI component that is not made available in the Java distribution. In the following tutorial I will present the required steps to make a working treeview with checkboxes that allows the user to browse his/her filesystem.

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Pictures taken in UK

nospam@example.com (Dumitru Postoronca) — 2008-09-17T05:32:18Z

Pictures taken in La Ciotat, France

nospam@example.com (Dumitru Postoronca) — 2008-09-16T05:37:00Z

now this is what I call bad luck

nospam@example.com (Dumitru Postoronca) — 2008-04-25T20:40:05Z

After waiting for 2 days for a reply from SUN, this is what I get:

Hi. This is the qmail-send program at [mycompany].com. I'm afraid I wasn't able to deliver your message to the following addresses. This is a permanent error; I've given up. Sorry it didn't work out.

<[Somebody]@Sun.COM>: Sorry, I wasn't able to establish an SMTP connection. (#4.4.1) I'm not going to try again; this message has been in the queue too long.

Now what are the odds of either a) your web hosting company, that hosts almost 100k domains, has it's internet connection down for a few days or b) sun's mail servers are down ?!

Can it get any worse than that?

I'm using old software or xmms is old

nospam@example.com (Dumitru Postoronca) — 2007-11-02T15:10:41Z

xmms about window showing last copyright - 2004

Today a friend of mine told me that XMMS package was missing from Slackware 12. At first, I thought it was a codec (mp3?) issue, but upon looking this thing up, I found out that the last release was in 2004 (!). I can't believe it :)

I got so used to the release early, release often model and also, considering that just a few days ago I upgraded to the new Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon (version 7.10, that is) I could have bet I don't have any software older than 6 months.

Oh well, seems I have to look for a replacement for XMMS soon.

Update:

I have switched to Audacious, because it looks similar to XMMS and also takes less screen space than other players, such as Rhythmbox.

Issues with multilanguage sites

nospam@example.com (Dumitru Postoronca) — 2007-10-21T22:22:36Z

In the past few years I've noticed an increasing amount of sites that are being translated from English into other languages (specifically, Romanian). Even though I'm sure this will help those that don't know english that well, I find this transition to be disturbing for me:

I am used to reading stuff in english, even though I have to admit, my Firefox language preferences are: 1. Romanian, 2. English, 3. Russian. Stumbling upon a site that has been translated into romanian is ok, but what I hate is sites that are posting half-translations online, because at first glace you can't figure that the text is in multiple languages on the same page!

So, my mind starts "parsing" the text using english, then I get to some incomprehensible text, which after some time I figure that it's Romanian, now my mind has to "load" the Romanian dictionary to "parse" the following text, then it becomes incomprehensible again, this is the moment when I realize that the text is alternating: english, romanian, then english again.

Wtf? Stop messing with my head, just post the whole page in Romanian if you have it, or leave it in English!

An example of such a mess is that PHP Manual TOC:

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Cakephp - first impressions

nospam@example.com (Dumitru Postoronca) — 2007-10-21T21:33:40Z

Recently, I've started a project and selected CakePHP as the framework I should build it on. I was somewhat familiar with Cake and MVC, so starting up wasn't such a big problem, but (as with many other "magic-based" frameworks, I guess) I quickly ran into trouble:

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Nice Linux Ad

nospam@example.com (Dumitru Postoronca) — 2007-09-13T21:07:23Z

Really nice Linux Ad:

Cum e sa-ti platesti restanta la 2 noaptea

nospam@example.com (Dumitru Postoronca) — 2007-06-15T17:27:09Z

Cred ca cu totii ati vazut cozile infernale pentru plata restantelor de la ASE. Marti, am zis ca nu stau in coada aia jumatate de zi, miercuri - am zis la fel. Joi, am mai venit o data la ASE sa fac cunostinta cu orarul restantelor pentru anul 4 si am vazut aceeasi coada interminabila la casierii asa ca am zis ca plec la CityBank, dar nu in Victoriei pentru ca stiam ca e super-coada si acolo.

Am mers la sediul din Piata Muncii ca sa vad si acolo o coada de vreo 30 oameni (foarte mica fata de ce se intampla la ASE) asa ca am hotarat cu niste prieteni ca venim pe la 12-1 noaptea, cand n-o sa mai fie nimeni. Zis si facut, putin dupa ora 1 eram la CityBank din Piata Muncii, doar ca spre surpriza noastra - era coada! Stam in coada 5 minute, inarmati cu bancote de 50/100 RON, numai ca sa aflam ca (surpriza!) masinaria aia inteligenta primeste doar bancnote de 1 si 10 RON! Ne hotaram ca eu sa raman sa injur in timp ce prietenii mei pleaca sa caute unde sa schimbe banii.

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Thoughts on new Ubuntu 7.04

nospam@example.com (Dumitru Postoronca) — 2007-05-02T20:26:39Z

Yesterday I upgraded my system from Ubuntu 6.10 to 7.04 (how to?). The installation went well, the only thing the installer complained about was my tomcat 5.5 package, which I just ignored because I was going to uninstall it anyways.

Some thoughts:

the system boots faster with the new stock kernel
hdparam shows me ~60MB/s with my PATA hdd
no JMicron-related problems on my Gigabyte 965P-DS3P
mplayer is working (used to crash on 6.10)

Finally, check the Howto: Set up Feisty for speed guide for tips on how to further improve your system performace.

Trip to Bran / Moeciu

nospam@example.com (Dumitru Postoronca) — 2006-11-26T03:32:00Z

Creating and Drawing Diagrams on Web

nospam@example.com (Dumitru Postoronca) — 2006-08-03T22:40:30Z

I found an interesting site that allows you to draw various diagrams (www.gliffy.com) only using your web browser. The application is made in Flash, has undo, copy/paste and export to PNG, JPEG and SVG features.

Yet another nice free thing :)

Rain in Bucharest (updated)

nospam@example.com (Dumitru Postoronca) — 2006-07-14T01:22:33Z

A little rain flooded the intersection in front of my apartment:

Update: Added two videos with the floating car:

Bucharest Architecture

nospam@example.com (Dumitru Postoronca) — 2006-07-14T00:36:28Z

Here are some interesting pictures took in the middle of Bucharest:

For those interested, it's between Universitate and Unirii :).

Trip to Brasov

nospam@example.com (Dumitru Postoronca) — 2006-05-15T01:03:50Z

About 3 weeks ago I went on a trip to Brasov. I thought I'd post some pictures during my trip through the woods :) to Poiana Brasov.