Developer Tidbits

While I was organizing my photos, I encountered many instances where the filenames of different photos were the same, so I couldn't place them in the same folder without renaming them. It was fine at first when there only a handful of duplicate filenames, but there had to be better way. There was another scenario where I wanted to insert the year before each video so that I could easily group them. In OSX, there is a built-in tool called Automator, which is found in Applications. Just open it and create an Application. When it opens, just search for rename and drag "Rename Finder Items" to the main window, which will ask you if you want a copy or not. In my case, I did not need a copy. You can change the parameters to something like below. Then save it to your Desktop for easy access. Inserts the year in front of the files. To use this, in Finder, select the files you wish to rename and drag them to the Automator icon that you just saved in your Desktop. I have two

My Nexus S was on CM 10.2 (Android 4.2) for a while and held off upgrading to 10.3 (Android 4.3) because there was little difference in the upgrade. Kitkat (Android 4.4), on the other hand, promised good performance on devices with as little as 512MB, so I jumped at the chance when the first Nexus S (crespo) KitKat nightlies started appearing on Cyanogenmod. I encountered just one hitch in the upgrade and it was related to the clockwork recovery I had. Here are the steps to upgrade from CM 10.2 to CM 11 Nightly. Backup your phone data Backup your SMS messages. I used the SMS Backup and Restore app. Backup your photos. Just copy the \DCIM\Camera folder to your drive. Backup your phone ROM. Just boot to recovery (Power off, Hold Power and Vol Up button until the recover menu comes up) and do a backup. Download the following files on your PC download.cyanogenmod.org/?device=crespo ( cm-11-20131207-NIGHTLY-crespo.zip ) http://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/Google_Apps ( gapps-kk-20131

My car key fell into a street drain where it lay there for at least 5 minutes before somebody was able to fish it out. The first thing you need to do is remove the battery and dry out the electronic parts. I used tissue paper to blot out all visible moisture. When everything appeared to be dry, assembled the key back and tried to open the car. Fortunately, it worked. A couple of hours later, it didn't work anymore. When I checked the battery again, there was a little water and it appeared that there was still moisture inside the casing. The best thing to do here is to find silica gel or a dessicant which you can find inside new shoes or bags. If you can't find any, you can go to a supermarket and buy a pack of rice crackers. I knew One One Rice Crackers had a large pack of dessicant inside. That's the one on the left below. I found the one on the right from a Case Logic bag. Just pack these together with the electronic component of the car key in plastic bag. Seal it and

Pentaho Data Integration (PDI) Kettle does not include all database JDBC drivers by default beginning with version 4.4.0. Oracle and MySQL, in particular are have been taken out. That means all your transformations and jobs that access those databases will not run until you copy the jdbc drivers to the  libext folder. The following table shows the comparison between an older version of PDI. The highlighted rows are no longer bundled by default, so you'll have to copy the drivers over from an previous version or download from the database vendor's website.

I have tried several apps to help manage my To Do list and so far cannot find the optimal system for managing tasks. If you've read  Getting Things Done  by David Allen, the key to an effective system is to have only one entry point for all tasks. To guide you on the path I had taken, here are the tools that I've used so far: Google Tasks - Web. Officially available only on the web but handy because you are already logged in to Gmail, if you use that. GTasks - Android. Syncs to Google Tasks, handles offline but syncing is slow.  Astrid - Android. Syncs to Google Tasks, handles offline but syncing is slow. Taskos - Android. Syncs to Google Tasks, handles offline but syncing is slow. NoNonsense Notes - Android. Syncs to Google Tasks, handles offline but syncing is slow. Any.Do - Android/iOS. Syncs to Google Tasks, handles offline but adding new items and syncing is slow. Wunderlist - Android/iOS/Mac/Windows/Web. Syncs to own server. Handles offline. Fast to enter items.

The Nexus S got its last official Android update (4.1.2) last October 2012. If you want to get to the latest version, you have to go for a custom ROM. The 4.2 Jellybean changelog lists down the new features that are available. There are only a couple of new features that are significant: Quick settings - If you are tired of doing Menu -> System Settings and scrolling, then this should be make things like disabling mobile data or switching to 2G/3G faster. Though one could argue you could get this using Power Toggles. Gesture keyboard - If you don't have Swype, then this should be handy. Though someone backported this feature to 4.0 and 4.1, so you still can get this. Jellybean 4.2 Keyboard New clock - I used to install Ultrachron for the stopwatch and timer. Now, it is built-in. The design is not as intuitive but you'll get used to it. It also looks so much better than Ultrachron. Font enhancement - There are slight tweaks to how text looks. Lock screen widgets

NDD and IDD is not available by default on your new Globe landline to protect you from inadvertent charges due to calls to mobile phones and long distance numbers. Note that these instructions are for Metro Manila accounts. To activate NDD, you need call 730-1000. The problem is, an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) menu greets you at that number and there is no menu option to activate NDD. There is also no easy way to get to a human in the options. For credit card companies, I always use the "Report a lost card" option to reach an agent immediately. It appears there is no such shortcut with Globe's number. After several attempts at the menus, the way I got to an agent was to pretend to customize my plan and select the option that says the information is not helpful. Here's the guide: 730-1000 IVR Menu: 1 - English 1 - Globelines 1 - Customize your plan 1 - Customize your plan 2 - Not helpful 1- Talk to a customer agent It will take about 3 minutes for the