April :: 2009 :: Chris Jean

Archive for April 2009

Change Default Application When Opening Files in Ubuntu

by Chris Jean

April 21st, 2009

Now that I know how to do this, it seems so easy and straight-forward. To change the default application files of a specific type are opened with, do the following:

Right-click a file that you wish to change the default application for and select Properties.
Click the “Open With” tab.
Select the desired application’s radio button.
- Additional applications can be added if the one you want is not listed. Use the Add button to find the desired application.
- You can also remove applications from the list by highlighting the application and clicking the Remove button.
- Adding applications to or removing applications from this list changes which applications are available in the “Open With” option when you right-click a file.
Click the Close button.

Again, it seems so easy and straight-forward now. Go figure.

Categories Linux, Tips 'n Tricks, Videos, WordPress
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Git Submodules: Adding, Using, Removing, Updating

by Chris Jean

April 20th, 2009

I’ve spent a little more than a month working with Git now. I can honestly say that while there are many things that I like about Git, there are just as many things that I personally find to be a pain in the butt.

Submodules specifically have managed to be a thorn in my side on many occasions. While the concept of submodules is simple, figuring out how to actually work with them can be a chore. I say “figuring out” because not everything about working with submodules is well documented. I’ll cover two of the more difficult things to figure out: removing and updating submodules from your repository.

Categories Development, Tips 'n Tricks
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MySQL Natural Sort Order By on Non-Numeric Field Type

by Chris Jean

April 19th, 2009

I recently worked on a project where I had to sort a set of rows returned from a MySQL query. The problem is that most of the data in the field being sorted is numeric yet the field type is varchar since some of the entries contained characters.

The reason that this is a problem is that MySQL sorts character fields using a method that will produce undesirable results with numeric data. For example, sorting 4, 10, and 50 as character data produces 10, 4, and 50. In most applications, this is highly undesirable.

The solution to this is to force a sorting order that is commonly referred to as a natural sort. Natural sort is just a term that refers to how humans would commonly sort a set of information (numbers as numbers and non-numeric characters alphabetically). Fortunately, this isn’t difficult to achieve in MySQL.

Categories Development, Tips 'n Tricks
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Gaarai is Back and the Jackalope is Jaunty

by Chris Jean

April 18th, 2009

It’s been a month since my last post. For all my regular readers, I’m very sorry for the absense.

There’s a lot of intersting stuff going on right now. Fortunately, with so much going on, I shouldn’t have a lack of topics to talk about.

To get the old post ball rolling again, how could I not start back up with Ubuntu 9.04?

Categories Linux, Random Ramblings
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