Global node.js modules on Windows

 No Responses »
Oct 192016
 

I’m using node.js on Windows. Not ideal, I know. Installing node modules globally means something else than you might expect. Globally means “not in the project folder”. It does not mean “for all users on this computer”, like you’re used to when installing applications.

Node itself is installed in the “Program Files” folder by default. To enable a Windows-like “global” install, try using:

npm config set prefix "%ProgramFiles%\nodejs"

That way the “–global” directive will install the module in the node folder itself, making it available globally in the node way of thinking and in the Windows way of thinking.

Of course, if you didn’t install node.js in the default folder, just replace the “%ProgramFiles%\nodejs” with yours.

If for some reason you want things back to what it was, remove the prefix by issuing the following command:

npm config rm prefix

Mailserver for developers: Papercut

 No Responses »
Nov 162015
 

When you are a developer, you probably know this problem: you need to send mails from your application, but you cannot just use your company’s mailserver for developing/testing purposes. So you end up using Gmail or even installing a mailserver on your development PC.

When you’re using Windows, you probably don’t need to. There is this great *free* tool that enables you to receive mail via SMTP. It does not send mail, but you can view what the mailmessage was, including a option to view the headers etc. It’s called Papercut. It hides conveniently in your system tray. Go check it out!

WildFly console and NVidia

 No Responses »
Mar 312015
 

You know how internet surfing works. You read something, click on some links, and finally you don’t even know where you came from. Anyways. That made me try WildFly, the AS formerly known as JBoss AS.

And you know the drill. Download zipfile, unpack, goto bin folder and start. Browse to localhost/something.

Can’t find the console. Well shit.

Do you have an NVidia videocard in your system, and did you install all the drivers and stuff? You probably have NVidia Networks Service as one of you running processes. Kill it. Now restart WildFly and browse to the console.

You’re welcome.

New disk and … Windows 8.1

 No Responses »
Dec 302013
 

The OCZ Vertex4 was diagnosed dead by the store/support center as well, but they don’t sell OCZ’s anymore. They offered me a replacement drive instead, and with a small extra payment I bought the Samsung 840 Pro 128GB.

And since I need to reinstall the whole shebang anyway, I bought Windows 8.1 as well.

New disk + Windows 8.1

New disk + Windows 8.1

PIP for Windows

 No Responses »
Dec 062013
 

If you need to install Python packages on Windows, I suggest you use pip-win. I just used it with Python (vanilla) 3.3 for Windows and it works like a charm.

The first time you browse/select the Python executable it will download and install the environment needed (pip and virtualenv). After successful installation, you can enter your pip-command in the second field. That’s all.

Plex (Media Server)

 No Responses »
Aug 082013
 

Experimenting with Spotify, throw (Sony), DLNA, uPnP and knowing that my Squeezebox server is something that will obsolete in a while, I found something that might just be right. Of course it does not have the nice hardware like the Squeezebox itself, but I get some stuff in return.

I found Plex. It is a mediaserver that you run on a computer in your home. It indexes your music, your movies, and your pictures. And with the Plex clients, you can browse and even play that content. DLNA browsing is not so surprising, but DLNA by itself does not help if the browser/client does not know how to handle a specific filetype. My phone does not know how to handle a movie in MKV format. It does not recognize my camera’s RAW format. Plex does. And it does it well.

The client app on my phone was not free, it was € 3.71 or something like US$ 5.

When connected to WiFi on my local LAN, I can play content (movies will be the main bottleneck) in any quality, even 20Mbps in 1080p is no problem. But you don’t always have your own WiFi at your disposal, that’s why you can connect your server to myPlex. On the server you enter the myPlex account information, and you enter the same credentials in the Android app. This is how they find each other, much like the Squeezebox has.
Now I can still see everything on my server, and from within the client I can choose the quality I want the data to be streamed to me. If you’re on a tight data-subscription, you can turn the quality down, but when that is of no concern you can turn it up as much as you like (or as much as your provider lets you).

Just tested all this, and tonight in the restaurant I could show a movie in full HD with subtitles. Over just 3G. Don’t worry, it was just a test, we had a lovely dinner with no movies 😉

Multi monitor gaming

 No Responses »
Jun 242013
 

I extended my PC with two old monitors I got from my sister/brother-in-law. An HP1955 and an HP2035, with resolutions up to 1280×1024 and 1600×1200 respectively. Since my main screen is FullHD (1920 x 1080), Eyefinity on the RadeOn 7970 will set the height of all to 1024 when you put them in a group. Giving me a total resolution of 3840×1024. Not the best the card can do, but the best in this setup.

To save me the trouble of constantly setting up the group and gaming, and then switching back to a normal extended desktop (with max resolutions on each monitor), I created two presets in the Catalyst Control center. Easy. Just do your setup, go to Presets (second item in the accordion) and click on Add Preset. Name the preset so you can recognize it. Do another setup and add it too. Now you can switch between the presets by right-clicking on the system tray icon of the Catalyst Control Center and selecting “Invoke preset”. Choose the appropriate preset, and you’re done.

New PC

 No Responses »
Oct 162012
 

Last week my PC died. I was working in Windows, went to the living room for some coffee or something else, and when I came back there was an error on the screen telling me that Windows couldn’t not find this and that volume (the D: drive). Not sure why this was, I restarted Windows only to find that it would not boot without checking the faulty volume.

But it took ages to get even some progress, so I restarted again. Same story. I thought: let’s really powerdown by flipping the switch on the backside of the PC. So I did. Flipping it on again blew out the power in the whole room. And the bedroom. A fuse blew! Restoring the power brought everything back to live, except my PC. Dead as a doornail.

 

Earlier I bought a new powersupply, to no rescure: more was broken. Yesterday I bought a new motherboard, an Intel Core i5-3570 CPU and 16GB of memory to go with that. I installed the whole shebang, only to find that Windows does not like major changes. Windows is autistic. I tried the repair option by booting from the Windows DVD, but that did not help a bit.

So I reinstalling my system now. Great. No dataloss I guess, the data is not on the Windows disk.

Can not start Android VD

 No Responses »
Sep 182012
 

I created an AVD of Android version 4.1 with the Google APIs. I wanted to emulate my Galaxy Nexus, so I gave it the proper memory and resolution. Upon starting the AVD, this error comes up:


Failed to allocate memory: 8

Turns out I cannot use the Nexus screen resolution, and need to switch to a lower resolution to be able to start the AVD. Not sure why, but I thought you might want to know about this workaround.

 Older Entries