Year: 2010

Apple LED Cinema Display with a PC

This is a really random post, but like the MySQL Bit post, it took me ages to find the right information on the internet, so thought I would blog it. I wondered if it was possible to run the 24″/27″ Apple LED Cinema Display which only have a DisplayPort input with a PC that normally only have a VGA or DVI adaptor. I’ve realised it is using these adaptors:

http://www.atlona.com/Atlona-DVI-to-Mini-DisplayPort-Converter-p-17859.htmlhttp://www.atlona.com/Atlona-Dual-Link-DVI-to-Mini-DisplayPort-Converter-USB-Powered.html

However the caveats are:

  • – VGA only supports up to 2048×1533 and I’m not sure if the above will take a VGA signal to DVI
  • – The first model which is DVI only supports up to 1920×1200
  • – The second model which supports the full 2560×1440 of the 27″ required a Dual Link DVI, which as few PCs have as have as a DisplayPort adaptor

Long and short of it is, if you really want to from a laptop you’ll get low resolution at best, from a desktop your best bet is to buy a graphics card with a DisplayPort adaptor output, or better yet get a mac. I think part of the reason for DisplayPort over VGA/DVI and even HDMI is the higher resolution.

Cut & Paste and Tabs in Finder

Just a quick post about things I’m liking right now:

1) Tabs in Finder thanks to Total Finder.

2) Cut & Paste, thanks to Move Addict. Apple say they don’t include this because its a user interface inconsistency compared to cut & paste of text which deletes the text when you cut it. On windows when you cut a file, it only deletes it after you paste. But still I think its a better way to move multiple files than dragging and dropping.

Titanium Autocomplete Eclipse

Update
Appcelerator just announced that they’ve acquired Aptana. Not sure if it had anything to do with me pointing them in that direction via my plugin, but that would probably mean that I eventually stop maintaing this, since they’ll produce a much more integrated solution. Looking forward to it though!!!!

Original
I’ve been using Accelerator Titanium to create iPhone applications in JavaScript. One thing JavaScript is missing is really good editor with autocompletion / code completion. I recently found Aptana and wanted a way to autocomplete from the Titanium API in that. I’ve created ScriptDoc compatible JavaScript header file that does the job.

Installation
1) Install Aptana standalone or as an eclipse plugin.
2) Download the javascript header file
3) Switch to the Aptana perspective in eclipse
4) Set Aptana as the default javascript editor in preferences
5) Add the timobile.js to the references

Other points of interest:
– You can download the PHP file here that I use to create the JavaScript header file from the Titanium API JSON file. Run the PHP script in the same directory as the api.json file from Titanium.
– I’m working on an Eclipse plugin, you can view the source here.
– If you’re wondering why there are function names like Titanium_UI_Window, these are to act as dummy return types, because Aptana ScriptDoc didn’t allow me to return an Object in a name space like Titanium.UI.Window.
– Mbirth has a JSDoc code completion file here, but Adobe no longer seem to distribute JSEclipse so I’m not sure how it would work in Eclipse.

Grrr Apple

I love my mac and my iPhone, but I wish they wouldn’t do things that are bad for the developer and the end user. I know the latest SDK fineprint might be beyond the average user, but I don’t like it, and I think it overall isn’t good to close a system even more.

Found these interesting thoughts about it:
http://www.taoeffect.com/blog/2010/04/steve-jobs-response-on-section-3-3-1/
http://daringfireball.net/2010/04/why_apple_changed_section_331

If you want to do something join, even if its just vent, join this facebook group.

Writing Word/RTF Docs In Java

Working on Zest I’ve need something to write a document that get be opened by word. I’ve found several posts about this, so just thought I’d summarise what I thought:

1) You can use srw, which is really easy to create an RTF file, and I’ve modified it to support columns.
2) You can use iText but I think you have to use a version prior to the latest one.
3) You can use Apache POI to create an actual word .doc but you have to load from a template and you have to preset margins in the template.
4) You can use OpenOffice UNO but its complicated and users need openoffice installed to run your app.

Chrome my firefox

I like the idea of tabs on top (wish safari hadn’t removed it) and I like Chrome’s integrated address/search bar. But firefox has the addons and is my browser of choice. I recently found these two programs that do what I want to do:
Omni Bar – Merge the address bar and search bar
GrApple Crisp – Tabs on top and mac like skin