Monday, 23 November 2009

Monday, 9 November 2009

Drawing an ellipse using Gimp

The following explains how to draw an ellipse using Gimp.
  1. Create a new layer (Layer->New layer)
  2. Set the new layer size to be the same as your image
  3. Set the new layer “Fill type” to “Transparency”
  4. Select the ellipse selection tool (Tools->Selection tools->Ellipse select)
  5. Draw an ellipse (left click and drag)
  6. Select the Bucket Fill tool (Tools->Paint tools->Bucket fill)
  7. Select a fill color and click in the ellipse
  8. Right click in the ellipse ans select Select->Shrink
  9. Type in the width of the ellipse border you need and click OK
  10. With the ellipse still selected, go to Edit->Clear
Acknowledgment: this is a blatant copy from http://www.tishon.net/index.php/2009/08/09/how-to-draw-an-ellipse-in-gimp/. I reproduce it here just in case the original ever disappears.

Wednesday, 23 September 2009

Monday, 13 July 2009

Use the following command to generate the ANTLR lexer and parser:
java org.antlr.Tool -debug "C:\Visual Studio 2008\Projects\ANTLR\ANTLR\ANTLR\Grammar.g"

This will create files Grammar.cs and Grammar.cs in the same directory as the grammar (.g) file. It will create IsisPapyrus.tokens in the current directory.

I prefer to cd to the directory where the grammar file first so that all three files are created in the same directory.

Monday, 29 June 2009

Eclipse plugins

Use the Eclipse Help / Install New Software... menu item for both of the following.

For JavaScript, JSDT is required. This is in the J2EE version of Eclipse.

Wednesday, 22 April 2009

Show hex values of characters in an SQL Server field

-- The @position variable holds the position of the character currently
-- being processed. The @nstring variable is the Unicode character
-- string to process.
DECLARE @position int, @nstring nvarchar(max)
-- Initialize the current position variable to the first character in
-- the string.
SET @position = 1
-- Initialize the character string variable to the string to process.
-- Notice that there is an N before the start of the string, which
-- indicates that the data following the N is Unicode data.
SELECT @nstring = colname FROM table WHERE criterion_col = value
-- Print the character number of the position of the string you are at,
-- the actual Unicode character you are processing, and the UNICODE
-- value for this particular character.
PRINT 'Character #' + ' ' + 'Unicode Character' + ' ' + 'UNICODE Value'
WHILE @position <= DATALENGTH(@nstring)
-- While these are still characters in the character string,
BEGIN
SELECT @position AS pos,
CONVERT(char(17), SUBSTRING(@nstring, @position, 1)) AS [Unicode char],UNICODE(SUBSTRING(@nstring, @position, 1)) AS val
SELECT @position = @position + 1
END

Friday, 20 March 2009

Debugging a Nirva Java service in Eclipse

The JVM included with Nirva includes the possibility to use an external debugging tool (such as eclipse). This allows to position break points, watch expressions, etc. and follow step by step what is going on inside the service.

To configure Nirva to enable this option the following parameters should be added to the JVM parameters on the Parameters screen of the Nirva console :
-Xdebug -Xrunjdwp:transport=dt_socket,server=y,suspend=y,address=1044

In Eclipse, you need to create a Debugging configuration for the project. To do this select "Open Debug Dialog" from the Debugging menu (with a "Bug" icon). In the dialog create a new "Remote Java Application" configuration. Select your service project and configure the host to localhost and the port to 1044.

Sunday, 22 February 2009

Starting cygwin

Open a command window and enter the following commands:
  • cd C:\cygwin\bin
  • bash

Wednesday, 11 February 2009

I am starting Word as follows:
  • cd /d C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12
  • winword /z"C:\templates_folder\template.dotm" /w /q

Switches:
  • /z : Start with the specified template (there is also a /t switch that does the same thing except that it does not invoke the Document_New macro)
  • /w : Start a new Windows process even if Word is already running
  • /q : Suppress the startup splash screen