Category: Noteworthy

Noteworthy entries.

MySQL Workbench on Debian Squeeze 6.0.6

MySQL Workbench on Debian Squeeze 6.0.6

I spent about an hour compiling MySQL Workbench from source earlier today. After about 20 newly satisfied dependencies and an hour of actual building, I fired it up and discovered I wasn’t able to connect to any MySQL server through an SSH tunnel, which I have to be able to do.

I was able to find a deb package, mysql-workbench-gpl-5.2.39-1ubu1004-i386.deb, that seems to work quite well on Debian Squeeze 6.0.6. The package was mentioned in this forum post at debian.net. The package itself was the MySQL-provided deb for Ubuntu 10.04.

After I installed that deb, MySQL Workbench was able to connect to a MySQL server through an SSH tunnel. I must, must remember this for future Debian Squeeze installs.

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WordPress Theme: Unwakeable 1.5.6

Two Unwakeable releases within a month is a record. Anyway, Unwakeable 1.5.6 is available for download.

Unwakeable was again denied for inclusion in the WordPress Themes Directory. All the issues you see listed on that trac ticket have been fixed. I have yet to submit Unwakeable 1.5.6 to the themes directory.

You can find a detailed list of changes at the Unwakeable GitHub repo. If you notice any problems please report an issue.

The biggest change in 1.5.6 is the inclusion of comment_form. The WordPress Themes Directory requires use of comment_form. K2 had a custom form in place for comments, so I removed that form and replaced it with the comment_form function. Changes other than that were pretty negligible (ie: replacing blog_info(‘url’) with ‘echo home_url()’).

You can see Unwakeable 1.5.6 in action here.

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WordPress Theme: Unwakeable 1.5.5

Unwakeable 1.5.5 is available for download.

Not a whole lot has changed since 1.5.3, but the changes that were made are significant. Unwakeable 1.5.5 is compatible with WordPress 3.1.

The most notable change is the removal of title.gif file. That was the image file with “Unwakeable” written on it that sat in the top left corner. Instead of that image, text is now used. The name of the WordPress site is pulled and used in place of the image. You can see a demo over at the Unwakeable demo site.

I’ve also added support for custom menus that were introduced in WordPress 3.0. By default, the top menu is a list of pages. If you want to use a custom menu just set one up in your WordPress dashboard (Appearance –> Menus) and set that menu as the “primary navigation”.

My goal with this release of Unwakeable was to get it included in the WordPress theme directory. It’s still pending approval or rejection in the theme directory. If it’s rejected I’ll make the necessary changes, bump the version number, and submit it again.

If you’re interested in the exact changes that were made in Unwakeable 1.5.5, have a look at the following revisions in subversion:
r131
r132
r133
r134

The latest revision is r135 but that was just to tag the 1.5.5 release in subversion.

If you have problems or find something broken, please submit an issue on Github and I’ll look into it.

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Theme Changed to Mystique!

It’s been a very long time since I’ve changed the look of this website. I previously used my Unwakeable theme for WordPress, but wanted to switch to something else.

I came across the Mystique theme the other day and thought it had a nice look to it, so that’s what I’m using now. Just a base Mystique install, nothing changed but a bit of custom CSS added.

I’ll probably stick with Mystique for a while before switching to something else again. I do know that I’m not going to keep this theme as long as I did Unwakeable. I’m going to try switching up themes every six months or so.

Also been thinking about moving this site to Drupal for a while. I’ve never really used Drupal much, never on a live site anyway. We’re starting to use Drupal at work and I’ve liked it pretty well so far, although I still like the WordPress dashboard better.

What do you think of this new theme?

Update 1/21/2011:
I did end up having to modify an image that comes with Mystique. The image was box.png and it overlays the categories, tags, archives, etc on the right sidebar. I have an extensive archive (going back to March 2002). The image was only 2000 pixels high, so I had to make it a bit taller. So that’s really the only change I’ve made, bringing that image from 2000 pixels high to 3000 pixels high.

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Tip: List of Voice Commands for Kinect on Xbox 360

I came across this list of voice commands for Kinect on the Xbox 360.

I wanted to document them here as well for future reference. I also get quite a bit of traffic related to Xbox 360 stuff, so someone else reading might find it useful.

Please be aware that this is not a complete list. This list mostly covers voice commands that let you interact with the Xbox 360 Dashboard, not specific games. There are, however, voice commands for some apps: Hulu Plus, Last.fm, Netflix, ESPN and Zune.

You need to say “Xbox” before saying these voice commands.

Open Tray (only if there’s no disc inserted) -> Opens Tray
Kinect -> Opens Kinect Hub
Dashboard -> Takes you back to dashboard
ESPN -> Starts ESPN
Zune -> Starts Zune Marketplace
Video Kinect -> Starts Video Kinect
Trailer -> Starts Trailer
Dance Central -> Starts Game trailer
Play Game (disc) -> launches game
Next – > Takes you to next blade
Previous -> Takes you to previous blade
Sign In -> Signs you in
Achievements -> shows lists of achievements
friends -> shows friendslist
Face Id -> starts Face ID
Yes
Cancel
No
Last Fm -> Starts Last FM

Voice Commands In Last FM:

Love -> hearts song
Ban – > bans song
next -> skips song
play -> plays playlist

Voice Commands for Last FM, Hulu Plus, Netflix, ESPN and Zune

fast-forward -> Fast forward a video or song
rewind -> Rewind a video or song
pause -> Pause video or song
play -> Play a video or song
next -> Skip to next video or song
previous -> Skip to previous video or song

[ad]
If you’re aware of any voice commands that are missing, please leave a comment describing the voice command and I’ll get it added to this page.

UPDATE 1/3/2011:
I just came across the official Xbox Support “How to control your Xbox 360 console by using your voice” page. It doesn’t list all the voice commands listed above, hopefully they will update it with all the voice commands at some point.

UPDATE 1/17/2012:
Martyn Herb left a comment with a tip on how to turn your Xbox 360 off via a Kinect voice command. Before you can turn your Xbox 360 off, you need to say “Go to settings”. Once you’re at the system settings panel, you can then say “xbox turn off” to shut your Xbox 360 down.

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