World of Leion » Howtos

Enable middle scroll in Ubuntu Firefox

Leion — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 09:56:42 +0000

I have this issue with Ubuntu Firefox: I am not able to use the middle click on my mouse for scrolling.

Finally found the solution to my problem: A rather simple one too. Just follow the following steps:

Type about:config into the Firefox address bar.
Look for general.autoScroll and set it to true
Look for middlemouse.contentLoadURL and set it to false

Middle click scrolling should work now. If it still does not work, then the X11 configurations need to be tweaked. For more information, look up here.

Shoot your tv

Leion — Sat, 18 Nov 2006 05:44:30 +0000

When I was young, there was a famous video game. You are a hunter and you shoot ducks with a gun.

I have always wondered how it works. I finally find out today, after more than 15 years.

“Here’s what happens. You shoot at a duck, which appears on an ordinary TV screen. The gun is connected to the game console; pressing the trigger blackens the screen, then causes a duck-shaped white target to appear momentarily. If your aim is true, a photo sensor in the gun detects the shift from dark to light, and bingo–dead duck. In short, the TV emits the light pulse and the gun detects it, not the other way around.” – Source

This is very fascinatin. I great fact to know.

How to defeat a RSS reader

Leion — Sat, 04 Nov 2006 06:34:51 +0000

RSS is really a good thing.

I used it for reading my friends’ blogs off a single site. Recently I found out that one of a friend’s blog do not seem to be updated on my RSS reader. I surf to his blog and realise what happened.

He had put an entry that is dated in the future. This means that this entry will always be the first entry in his blog. Not a problem actually. Just that my google reader no longer works. All his new entries are no longer picked up. I suspect this is because the reader only matches the first entry in the RSS feed to determine if there are any new entries.

While I have not tried using other RSS readers, I think the same results will be reproduced. So it is back to normal blog hoping to get all the information now. At least before google reader change the way it loads new lists…

Adding human readable Google sitemap

Leion — Thu, 01 Jun 2006 19:25:13 +0000

This aims to describe the steps in getting a human readable Google sitemap into the WordPress blogging system. First of all, download the google sitemap generator plugin.

NOTE: If you downloaded version 3.1.0.1 or newer, you may skip the steps below. The new version already support the human-readableness out of the box. The information below is applicable only for the older versions.

Open up the php file, look for line 1100 for this line.

$s.="\n";

Add the following line after it.

$s.="ef=\"gss.xsl\"?>\n";

Now save the file, upload and activate it.

Make a sitemap.xml file on the blog root and make it writable.

Download the gss.xsl stylesheet to display the xml file. Read more about the style sheet here.

Save it to the same location as your sitemap.

Now, edit the .htaccess file and add at the bottom the following:

AddType application/xml .xsl

Now the stylesheet can can be viewed when it is opened. So you can just add it to your page as a regular link. I put mine in the sidebar. The sitemap can be read by humans and google bots now!

Adding favicon to WordPress

Leion — Wed, 26 Apr 2006 17:43:42 +0000

I just found out that icon beside the url at the browser address bar is called a ‘favicon’. Actually I wanted to make one of those icons long ago. I just do not know what is that called. Now I finally know. Ok the steps to make it are really simple. The instructions are for WordPress users but the steps are valid for any website. Just change the pathnames. They are:

Choose your picture, make sure it is squarish
Resize it such that is is only 16 by 16 pixels
Convert to ICO format OR upload that picture to this site and have it converted for you
Upload the newly made favicon.ico to your /wp-includes/images/ directory or any other prefered directory
Open up your header.php file, or go to your header section of all your webpages
Add in the following, anywhere between the and tags: ef=”favicon.ico” />

That’s it!

The website made returned an animated icon as well. To use it just follow the instructions included in the zip file. It is very helpful. Ok I shall list that extra instruction here as well.

The animated file is called animated_favicon1.gif

Put the gif file with the favicon as mentioned above

Add the following in the header.php file as well: ef=”animated_favicon1.gif” type=”image/gif” />

Done!

Now, your webpage will show the animated gif while the page is loading. And when the page has done loading, the ico picture will be displayed.

Origami cd sleeve

Leion — Tue, 24 Jan 2006 01:41:05 +0000

Sometimes when I burn a cdr and I want to pass to a friend, I do not have a jewel case to put the cd in. It is too expensive to get one for each cd I give away. Hence, I make my own paper cd sleeves. It is more environmental friendly than plastic ones too.

Things needed:
A4 size paper and the CDR of course. I will refer the shorter length as the height and the longer length as the width.

Step 1:
Fold up at the left side of the length of the paper, about 4 cm or about 2 fingers’ width.

Step 2:
Fold back the fold in half, so that the paper looks like a ‘h’ or ‘z’, depending on how you look at it. This is the catch for the cd sleeve. More about it later.

Step 3:
Place the CDR roughly at the middle of the height into the groove as shown above.
Fold up the width nicely so that the paper still looks like a rectangle from the top.
How much up? As much as the paper allows without moving the CD.

Step 4:
Repeat the same for the top side of the paper. The CDR should be almost completely covered by now. The CDR should be restricted from moving now by 3 sides. This is the base of the cd sleeve.

Step 5:
Fold the left side over to the right such that the CDR is now restricted completed from moving. The tall part below is the cover of the cd sleeve.

Fold the cover down completely.

Step 6:
Turn the paper over. As can be seen below, there is an excess of more than a finger’s width.

Fold the excess part inwards so that only half the original excess part is left dangling out as excess.

Step 7:
At the 2 corners of the excess parts, fold inwards so that there are 2 triangles. See the picture below.

Step 8:
Now, for the resultant excess part in, So the excess part is now covering the base of the squareish cd sleeve.

Step 9:
Hold up the almost completed cd sleeve. The catch should be seen clearly. Put a finger in it for the next step.

Step 10:
Insert the excess part in step 8 into the catch. And you are done.

END PRODUCT:

Modifications:
Instead of 1 CDR, this design should be able to hold 3 CDR. Just skip step 7 as the excess cover will be lesser. However the cover catch may not be able to hold as tightly as the original design.