Openbox on Arch: file associations

Configuring file associations is easy if you’re using a full-featured desktop environment, such as KDE, Gnome or Xfce. In such case, xdg-open delegates the task of opening file to kde-open, gnome-open or exo-open, depending on the environment. But with Openbox and similar environments it’s not that easy.

It’s likely that when you click on a just downloaded PDF file, it opens in Firefox and not in Evince or Okular (or your any PDF-reader of choice), because xdg-open defaults to Firefox.

One possible solution is to install a part of KDE, Gnome or Xfce environment, and use one of the *-open family. But we’ll try a more “pure” solution.

Image concatenation with Imagemagick

Concatenation of multiple images can easily be done with tools such as GIMP, but easily doesn’t always mean fast. So let’s assume that we want to tile some images, e.g. to create an image sprite we will use on our webpage. And assume we want to do it fast.

Intel KMS and setting correct DPI in xorg-server-1.7.x

Today I switched from xorg-server-1.6.5 to xorg-server-1.7.6, as it is now available in portage and considered as stable.

Paweł Hajdan’s advice, I’ve found on Planet Gentoo, allowed me to avoid all the driver problems, such as broken keyboard or touchpad.

But a major xorg-server update without any problems would be boring, wouldn’t it?

Normal distribution and histogram in R

I spent much time lately seeking for a tool that would allow me to easily draw a histogram with a normal distribution curve on the same diagram. I could create the histogram in OOCalc, by using the FREQUENCY() function and creating a column chart, but I found no way to add a curve, so I gave up. I started searching for something more powerful than OpenOffice. Of course, no Windows applications were allowed.

I googled my problem up before trying to use Maxima or something similar, and I found R. I haven’t heard about the R project earlier, but I decided to give it a try. And it was worth trying. Even if I were able to do the same in Octave or Maxima, I don’t think it could have been done easier.

Fixing broken Python on Gentoo with Paludis

Have you ever run a script that should do some things you wanted it to do, but instead you ended up with your system partially messed up? Unfortunately, such things do happen.

I have no idea how simple setup.py script could destroy Python libraries, but Gentoo with messed up Python (and furthermore, with unusable Portage) didn’t seem to be useful. So I had to find a solution.

And developer said: "Let there be a website"...

…and there was a website.

So.. uhm..

It’s intended to be, as the header says, my place on the web, and (as the header doesn’t say) my little playground. A place to write about some topics that I have on my mind, and, by the way, a place to test some Ruby on Rails features in production environment.