Eclipse Wrong File Encoding

Couple of weeks ago brought to my attention the fact that could not visualize correctly the Latin1 characters like ç, é, ã, etc… from the web pages created with the Eclipse. At the time I was wondering if I had missing something from the Java application nd so tried to fix over the programming side. Turns out that the problem is related to the Eclipse support for what they call “Text file encoding”, which by default comes with the OS default charset encoding option.

If you’re facing problems with your application like what I have described, I think that it’s worth to double check your Eclipse configuration once again. Here is the path so you can go straight to the point:

1. Open Eclipse’s Preferences (in the Mac OS just hit CMD + ,)
2. Go to General > Workspace and look for the “Text file encoding” dialog box.
3. Select “Other” and then pick the ISO-8859-1 option.

Are you looking for Virtualization? Get rid of Parallels!

Are you looking for Virtualization solution? From many years I am hearing friends talking about virtualization with Virtualbox, VMware, Xen and others. Couple of friends although recommended me Parallels for Mac OS X. Which supposedly had a nice interface and a smoothly intergration with the Mac OS X.

If you’re thinking to work with Parallels, here is my advice: don’t waste your time and money!

I tell you why… try to install Solaris 10 as Guest OS. Parallels claims that Solaris is supported. Bullshit! Install it and will see that none of the pre-defined network adapters (virtual network interface) are recognized by Solaris. I tried to wast time and get things working properly with Parallels, opening a support ticket and ask for help. As you may imagine after 2-3 days they escalated the problem to the higher support level and in the 6th day, they replied with the standard answer: please install the latest software release and apply the Linux Tools procedures described here (link to the page). What?!? I am asking Solaris support for god sake not Linux! After that I completely gave up!

I can build a list of bugs from Parallels. In either case if you’re still planning to install it, you have to be prepared. Get your soul prepared to deal with this DEVIL!

Here are some of the major problems that I faced and the main reason for writing this post:

If you apply the Parallels software update, the Parallels Tools from your Windows XP (Guest OS) will be invalidated. The worst part is the fact that Parallels tries to update the Tools to the latest release (great isn’t?). However once the installation is about to be completed then the installation process hangs and never finishes! For completeness, when you click on cancel (the only action that you can take btw), the installation performed is entirely rolledback.

Another annoying problem is the Parallels needless machine resource consumption. Sometimes the Parallels process is consuming almost 80% of my computer resources. I can tell you, this is not related to some heavy application that I am running in the Guest OS (which by the way is the Mac OS Snow Leopard). Actually both my Guest OS and my Host OS are doing nothing! So another bug to the list! This one is really annoying… when this happens I have to shutdown the Guest OS and start it again.

What a shit application, don’t you agree?

There are more but I think that you got the point…

Here are some great options and certainly much better then Parallels:

SUN Virtualbox
VMware (VMware Fusion)
XEN

I am currently testing the SUN Virtualbox. So far so great! I will reserve sometime to mention about it on my next posts… stay tuned!

Cheers!

Sendmail on Solaris 10

Sendmail is probably the worst mail server application ever written. Not even worth to mention that is the award-winner of the TOP-10 buggiest program ever written from decades (I believe that sendmail is #1 on the list). I hate it by heart! I still don’t understand why SUN engineers still supports the sendmail on their Solaris OS. Postfix or Qmail should be used instead (Qmail is the best option but due to license restrictions Postfix can be used). Long time ago I used to work with my Qmail high-availability project (qmail-nmx).

In either case here is my piece of advice when you’re installing Solaris 10: Disable sendmail completely from your system!

In order to help you out with this I am including here the procedures that I always do once got Solaris 10 installed:

# svcadm disable -s sendmail
# svcs sendmail

As output from the last command you should see the following:
STATE [...] FMRI
disabled [...] svc:/network/smtp:sendmail

Done!

Acentuação no Mac OS X – Leopard

Sempre que instalo um Mac OS X uma das primeiras coisas que faço é aplicar o mapa de acentuação para o teclado internacional. Não consigo me acostumar com a maneira Macintosh para acentuação (ALT/OPTION + e + e para obter “é”); afinal de contas são anos trabalhando com o Linux e Windows.

Como todo UNIX like … Mac OS X também suporta mapas para suas teclas e combinações. Felizmente Rainer Brockerhoff já fez o trabalho de mapeamento e criou um mapa que nos permite trabalhar da mesma maneira na qual estamos acostumados. Sem mais rodeios aqui vai o procedimento para instalação e configuração do seu teclado:

1. Faça o download do arquivo http://www.brockerhoff.net/usi/USI12.dmg
2. Duplo click no arquivo DMG.
3. Abra o Finder (click no Finder na barra ou Abra o Machintosh HD).
4. Click no Machintosh HD > Library > Keyboard Layouts (note que esse caminho pode estar traduzido no seu Mac OS X; Machintosh HD > Bliblioteca > Keyboard Layouts)
5. Copie o arquivo U.S. International (o que tem a bandeira americana com acentos em cima) para dentro desse diretório. Note que você terá que possuir privilégios de administrador para realizar essa tarefa. Se não o tiver verifique com a pessoa que o tenha.
6. Faça o logout e entre novamente com o seu usuário.
7. Após isso basta você selecionar o mapa recem instalado no caminho: System Preferences > Language & Text > Input Sources (novamente, esse caminho pode estar traduzido na sua versão do Mac OS X).
8. Selecione o mapa U.S. Internacional (mesmo icone que você copiou anteriormente).
9. Feito. Agora você já pode acentuar da maneira que estamos acostumados.

Na página do autor você encontrará todo o procedimento para realizar a atividade descrita acima.
Mais detalhes: http://www.brockerhoff.net/usi/

Apenas me limitei a comentar um pouco sobre o assunto. Afinal de contas nunca se sabe quando vamos precisar referenciar a esse artigo (geralmente isso acontece quando minha mulher está precisando de ajuda ).

Converting Divx to MP4 using Video LAN

Recently looking for a solution I realized that Video LAN is that powerful for converting Divx to MP4 files. As you may be guessing I wanted to have some of the videos on my iPhone.

Although the websites out there guides you through the required steps to get it done, none of them mention you that Video LAN release 1.0.1 does not support MPEG4-Audio codec. I am not so sure why Video LAN latest release does not provide you this support. In either case the 0.9.9a release does. Download it from the archives and Have fun!