Radu Cotescu

Gitosis and read-only Git repositories

Radu — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 17:50:26 +0000

When I’ve started working with Git, besides using the quick how-to guides from the official site, I’ve also wanted to read a more detailed book about how this distributed VCS tool should be used in order to benefit from all of its functionalities. One of these books is Pro Git by Scott Chacon, from Apress. [...]

A few clarifications about VMware Server and the Linux kernels

Radu — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 09:12:11 +0000

Since Ubuntu 9.04 appeared back in April, 2009, I’ve started building different scripts that use community supplied patches in order to make the install process of VMware Server as easy as it was supposed to be. Still it seems that many of the users of my scripts misinterpret the help I offered by asking questions [...]

Java 4-Ever

Radu — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 17:22:06 +0000

I have just seen the funniest and geekiest online video ever (via a buddy who sent me the link from the original site). Forget about Intel’s last advertising campaigns. Carefully watch the following one. DISCLAIMER: You must have some basic knowledge about Java, .NET, Microsoft, Linux and open-source. Otherwise you might fail to get the [...]

iOS4 on iPod Touch 2nd generation

Radu — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 21:15:43 +0000

Yesterday I have updated the OS on my iPod Touch 2nd generation to the latest release: iOS4. Because I have an “outdated” model I cannot enjoy the most appealing new features: multitasking and custom home wallpapers. While I can live well without the latter, the former would have been tremendously useful. The UI has changed [...]

OpenX Ad Server: Beginner’s Guide – review

Radu — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 11:51:55 +0000

A few days ago I have finally finished reading the OpenX Ad Server: Beginner’s Guide book, by Murat Yilmaz, that PACKT publishing sent me for review. The book deals with the aspect of installing and configuring the open-source OpenX Ad Server in order to serve advertisement campaigns on your websites. Being a beginner’s guide, the [...]

A very simple JavaScript diff function

Radu — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 12:14:37 +0000

I was faced today with the problem of getting the difference between two JavaScript arrays. After Googling a bit, I haven’t found anything to catch my attention and so I decided to write my own function. It’s not the most efficient way of doing the job and probably not the most elegant either, but it [...]

Oracle TopLink, the ORA-00900 error and stored procedures

Radu — Mon, 31 May 2010 09:11:29 +0000

I was introduced to Oracle’s TopLink ORM package during my second internship at Oracle. Although the API (because TopLink actually became the reference implementation for the JPA 2.0) seemed a bit overwhelming at first, I’ve managed to get a grasp of it quite fast, allowing me to finish the assigned projects in time. The familiarity [...]

Using VirtualBox for virtualizing servers

Radu — Wed, 26 May 2010 22:07:56 +0000

A considerable amount of my diploma project runs on several virtual machines, due to the lack of multiple physical machines required for the job. Of course, Riker isn’t tailored for production regarding this project, but it was built specifically to allow me to develop the code without restrictions. For a load under 10 users I [...]

OpenOffice.org 3, Ubuntu and Romanian fonts

Radu — Sun, 16 May 2010 15:41:18 +0000

Having to write an article dealing with a part of my diploma project for the Students’ Papers Session in my University, I discovered that some fonts (particularly “ș” and “ț”) were displayed awkward in Writer, the word processing software from OpenOffice.org. By awkward I mean that “ș” and “ț” were using other fonts than “s” [...]

Booting Ubuntu from an USB stick

Radu — Tue, 11 May 2010 21:36:35 +0000

Booting Ubuntu from an USB stick is both fast and convenient: fast because an USB stick definitely has better R/W speeds than CDs, convenient because you can alter those files for how many times you want without buying several storage mediums (you could use a CD-RW, but that still would be slow). Nowadays USB sticks [...]