OSX android AVD wont save from eclipse ADT

I couldn't get AVDs to save (it was giving me a null error) from within the Eclipse ADT.
Turns out you need to make sure your .android folder in your home directory is owned by you and is writeable.

E.g.

sudo chown -R yourusername:staff ~/.android
sudo chmod -R 770 ~/.android

postgres - how to list all tables

Here is the best way (I have found) to list all tables in a postgres database

select relname from pg_class pc left join pg_namespace ns ON ns.oid=pc.relnamespace where pc.relkind='r' and nspname='public' order by relname asc;

Microsofts Silverlight Distribution Campaign

The next time you want to download something from Microsoft (not that I ever do WANT to), you will find that you are encouraged to try the new 'downloads' site.
Guess what web technology this site uses? Silverlight.
Now if at some point in the future Microsoft provide this new site in Silverlight format only then that means there will be a huge take up of their technology.
How can Microsoft rule the web? Not by creating decent standards based web browsers but by forcing users to use their proprietary software.

Gran Paradiso Alpha 7

As I'm typing this now, I'm using what will ultimately be the best web browser available.
Yes, Gran Paradiso is shaping up nicely with the latest release 'Alpha7'.
The first thing you will notice on opening Gran Paradiso is that nothing has been done to the theme yet - and I welcome that!
Its nice to see that the developers have focussed on much more importing issues, for example:

1) Full ACID2 compliance - try it out yourself and see the yellow smiley face rendered to perfection. Then open the same in IE7 and laugh at how badly it comes to rendering the page correctly.

2) Speed - pages seem to be opening a lot faster than they did with Firefox 2

3) Bug fixes - So far I have noticed that the dreaded cursor in an input field within an absolutely positioned div has been fixed! Nice one. Now my popup dhtml dialogs can be used properly.

On the downside, its still only an alpha and I've literally been using it for about 10 minutes (excluding the time taken to complete this blog). However, it is looking very very nice.

Javascript Alpha Background PNG Fix IE6

Want to fix the background PNG 24 Alpha image of an element in IE6?

Here's how I do it

function FixIEPngBG(elmnt){
if ((navigator.appVersion.indexOf('MSIE 6')>-1) && (document.body.filters)){
bkg = (elmnt.background? elmnt.background : (elmnt.style.backgroundImage? elmnt.style.backgroundImage : elmnt.currentStyle.backgroundImage));
bkg=bkg.replace('url(', '');
bkg=bkg.replace(')', '');
while (bkg.indexOf('"')>-1){
bkg=bkg.replace('"', '');
}
elmnt.style.backgroundImage="url(images/blank.gif)"; // has to have a background image otherwise it wont be recognised on drag.
elmnt.style.filter="progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.AlphaImageLoader(src='"+bkg+"', sizingMethod='scale');";
}
}

Linux Ready For The Desktop

As most people working in IT will know, requests from friends, colleagues and family to rescue dead PCs come with the job.
Recently I recovered data for a colleague. The data was recovered from a dodgy windows XP machine (not even sp2).
Rather than try to fix the dodgy XP installation, I recommended the owner of the PC try Ubuntu.
Ubuntu comes with CD burning software, open office suite, firefox, email software, pretty much everything a basic user would want.
Anyway, I received a text message today saying that the PC actually worked better with Ubuntu than the dodgy version of XP!
The soundcard had never worked under XP and it worked perfectly with Ubuntu.
Not only this, every peripheral attached to the machine worked perfectly too.
All they had to do was transfer their recovered data to the Ubuntu machine and then they had a perfect installation.
Maybe I will be ditching my XP installation for Ubuntu (as soon as my 24track firewire mixing desk is supported).

Ask a Ninja

Rather than sit there reading my blog, why not check out www.askaninja.com.
If you ever wanted to know a ninjas view point on any subject, or you need a tricky question explained by someone with lightening reactions, then this is the site for you.
I thought it was hilarious - especially the explanation of Pod-casting.