Tag: software

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Foxit Reader Firefox Plugin

Foxit Reader is a leaner and meaner alternative to Acrobat Reader for reading Portable Document Format (PDF) files. I’ve been using it for some time but disliked the fact that PDF files opened outside of Firefox. Finally, while trying to view my credit card statement online and having it complain about needing to install Acrobat Reader, I decided I’ve had enough.

I googled for a solution and found out about the Foxit Reader Firefox Plugin. I looked for it at the Foxit Software website to no avail. Finally I found instructions on how to install it: After downloading and installing Foxit Reader, run it then click Help->Check for Updates Now. On the tree view, you will see the plugin. Select, add, and install it. You may need to restart Firefox but once you’re done, you can now view PDF files from within Firefox. Problem solved!

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JSF on Tomcat 6

I tried my hands on JSF last Friday. It didn’t go as smoothly as I expected.

Being the bleeding edge kind of person :P I set it up using Tomcat 6 and a quick start package from Exadel. The package already has all the jar files you need and you only need to type in (or  cut-and-paste) some missing java code and jsp scripts. That done, I tried accessing /jskfs/pages. It didn’t work so I tried accessing directly inputname.jsp:

java.lang.NullPointerException
com.sun.faces.taglib.jsf_core.LoadBundleTag.doStartTag(LoadBundleTag.java:96)

I figured, hey maybe I should try the latest reference implementation. That would also be in keeping up with being a bleeding edge kind of person :P So I went to Sun and downloaded latest  reference implementation mojarra-1.2_09-b02-FCS-binary.zip, installed it to /jskfs/WEB-INF/lib, and again tried accessing inputname.jsp:

javax.servlet.ServletException: java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: com.sun.faces.taglib.jsf_core.LoadBundleTag.setBasename(Ljava/lang/String;)

It got worse. Figuring that the reference implementation is incomplete (don’t ask why). So I went to Apache.org and downloaded MyFaces, their implementation of JSF: myfaces-core-1.2.4-bin.zip. I installed it and tried again:

SEVERE: Error configuring application listener of class com.sun.faces.config.ConfigureListener

I took a look at the web.xml file, found, and commented this out:

<listener>
<listener-class>com.sun.faces.config.ConfigureListener</listener-class>
</listener>

I tried again:

javax.servlet.ServletException: java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: com/sun/faces/taglib/jsf_core/LoadBundleTag

I read somewhere that flushing the web app’s files in the work directory sometimes works so I did and then tried again:

javax.servlet.jsp.JspException: No faces context?!
org.apache.myfaces.taglib.core.LoadBundleTag.doStartTag(LoadBundleTag.java:77)

I tried accessing via the entry point /jskfs/pages. It finally worked.

On a hunch, I went full circle and restored the original jar files, cleared the work directory, and tried accessing via the entry point again. Guess what? It worked 8-}

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Google Chrome: The Browser War Is Joined

Google has released the beta of Chrome, their own browser. Chrome joins the ongoing free-for-all browser war between Firefox (my personal favorite), Internet Explorer (the current leader by virtue of its being pre-installed along with windows), Opera, and some other smaller players. Looks like this is going to be a pretty exciting next few months.

First impressions: Most visible is the slick minimalist UI whose most notable feature are the tabs being above the address bar. This does make sense if you think about it. As for the way it displays web pages, there seems to be nothing markedly different compared to say Firefox. This is not surprising since they’re supposed to be using the same rendering engine. But its primary selling point is that it is supposed to be faster. A longish narrative about that and more here. Not sure if I’m just imagining it but it does seem just a bit so.

Not bad. But what else are you expecting from Google?

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Write Protected USB Storage Devices

I encountered a vexing problem right about the time I got my Nokia 5310. My Thinkpad T60 won’t write to the phone when connected as a storage device. I thought it was a phone problem and I asked Nokia Support for help but as expected, they weren’t really able to help. Meanwhile, I was stuck using Bluetooth to transfer files. No fun. Later, I noticed that my external hard drives, card readers, and generally USB storage devices don’t work either. I tried searching for a solution and eventually I found it. You just need to use the registry editor to delete the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\StorageDevicePolicies\WriteProtect. Voila! I can now write to USB storage devices. How that key got into my system registry, I don’t know. Another one of the many wonders of Windows.

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Firefox 3 Is OUT!

I’ve been using the betas and the release candidates of Firefox 3 for some time. But now the final is out! I, of course, am already using it. Based on my experience using the betas, RCs, and now the final, it’s definitely a huge improvement over Firefox 2. My biggest irritation with Firefox 2 has been the memory leak and it seems to be gone or at least majorly minimized. That alone is good reason to use Firefox 3. Get it here! Now!