Nate's blog

I decided that I wanted to see the whole android app publishing process. So I made a very simple app called ‘Risk Battle Simulation’. What it basically does is make it simpler to roll risk dice. You can view the app here.

Facebook recently made it so when you click on a picture you see it in a lightbox. The idea is nice but the execution needs some work. If you would like to go back to seeing pictures normally on their own page follow these easy steps.

1) Click on any picture that you want to see.
2) In the address bar of your browser (where you type in the URLs of websites) go to the end of the current address and delete just the “&theater” part.
3) Hit enter and go back to seeing that picture normally.

I spent sometime today trying to compile and then run Java using Notepad++ so I figured that I would write a guide explaining how to do it.

For those of you who don’t know Notepad++ is one of my favorite text editors.

Step 1) Download and install the Java JDK from http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index.html

Step 2) Setup your path variables

Step 2.1) Go to your control panel and search for path

Step 2.2) Click on edit the system environment variables

Step 2.3) Click on environment variables

Step 2.4) Find your path setting

Step 2.5) Click on your path variable and then click on the edit button

Step 2.6) At the end of your path variable add the following: “;C:\Program Files\Java\jdk%JDK-VERSION%\bin” where %JDK-VERSION% is your JDK version number. (You can also find this by browsing to c:/program files/java and looking at the folders there)

Step 3) Log off your computer and then log back in. (You can also reboot if you want, but that is unnecessary)

Step 4) Somewhere on your computer make a new text file and add the following to it:

cd /d “%1″
javac %2 -Xlint:all
if errorlevel 1 goto finish
java %3
:finish
pause

Step 5) Rename this file to CompileJava.bat (if the file name does not end it .txt before you rename you will need to do this first)

Step 6) Copy this file to C:/Program Files/Notepad++

Step 7) Hit the “F5″ key and type the following into the text field $(NPP_DIRECTORY)\CompileJava.bat “$(CURRENT_DIRECTORY)” “$(FILE_NAME)” “$(NAME_PART)”

Step 8 ) Click on save and name the command something like “CompileJava”, you can also set up a key command if you like.

Step 9) You can now access your command from the “Run” menu

Thats it, your now ready to create and run Java code from Notepad++! One important note though, only Java programs with default package will compile and run.

Cried goes to Tech Travel Think for the .bat code.

My new website is mylifeishopkins.com (My Life Is Hopkins or MLIH). Its a website that allows students to post small anecdotes about life at Johns Hopkins University. I made the website during finals week when I should probably have been studying. The bulk of the work took 2 hours and I made a few tweaks over break. The site has grown really quickly and has gained over 200 members in the past 3 days!

So in 2008 I made a post about funny keyboard shortcuts. Here is an updated version of that post.

Like the old post these will only work on windows (windows 7 to be more specific).

1) “Windows Key” + “+” then “Windows Key” + “-” then “Ctrl” + “Alt” +”I” – This will invert the colors on the screen.

2) “Windows Key” + “+” then “Ctrl” + “Alt” + “F” – This will make it so the screen is magnified.

3) “Left Alt” + “Left Shift” + “Num Lock” – This will make it so the number pad can move the mouse around. It can be fun to enable this and then play around with the number pad when someone else is using the computer to confuse them.

4) “Windows Key” + “R” then type in “shutdown -f -t 0″ – This will enable you to shutdown the computer quickly. It will also make it so windows won’t wait for programs to close, it will shutdown right then and there.

5) “Shift” then “Shift” then “Shift” then “Shift” then “Shift- This will turn on “Sticky Keys” which will make it so when anyone presses the “Shift”, “Ctrl”, “Alt”, or “Windows Key” and then lets go of the key the computer will act as if they are still holding the key down.