Faster Flex Builder Compile Time

To increase Flex Builder compile time during development, the following tweak helped my Flex 3 builder to go from 30 seconds to just a few seconds for a medium sized project.
Open project property, under Flex Compiler -> Additional compiler arguments, add " -incremental -keep-generated-actionscript"

It definitely helps me go from compile once every hour, to every few minutes. Such that I can get immediate feedback through compiler errors or warnings.

file 'lib' not found

When installing Ruby on Rails using command: gem install rails
Got this error message: file 'lib' not found
Seems like it's fixed by running gem instal rdoc followed by gem install rails again.

Cross Site XMLHttpRequest

• IE8 and above:
  • use XDomainRequest instead
  • Can only cross from HTTP to HTTP or HTTPS to HTTPS (i.e. if web page is served from HTTP, then cannot cross-site access HTTPS. Or web page served over SSL cannot cross site access HTTP content. Will get "Access Denied" error.)
• Cross site request server must send this response header:  Access-Control-Allow-Orig *

Useful Sysinternals Utilities

As a software engineer (not system administrator), I found the following tools from Sysinternal to be useful.

• Autoruns: mainly used to turn off unnecessary executables during boot and login to speed up system boot performance
• Portmon: used to monitor serial port traffic (similar to wireshark for network traffic)
• Process Explorer: used mainly to find file locks, so that I know which process to kill to be able to free up the lock.
• Process Monitor
• PsExec: remote execute console application. Examples:

• psexec \\vm-001 ipconfig /all
• psexec \\vm-001 cmd
• This command copies the program test.exe to the remote system and executes it interactively: psexec \\vm-001 -c test.exe

• PsKill: kill local or remote processes. Mainly used in server software for house keeping (for example: kill stuck Office Automation process)
• PsService
• ZoomIt: usefuly for presentation. Zoom in screen, draw lines on the screen.

Disable Touchpad on Dell Laptop

Problem
Ever frustrated with Touchpad being overly sensitive?

I frequently got random mouse movements and clicks while using Laptop's keyboard. They are caused by the Touchpad being overly sensitive. It is especially a problem when I am using remote desktop working on another computer. I guess the Touchpad sensitivity settings does not work on remote desktop client?

And this is a major frustration, because when I finish typing a line of code, they frequently show up on the wrong line, and did not show up anywhere at all, because the random mouse clicks has took their focus away.

Research
Today, finally it struck me that I should disable this thing. And turns out the latest DELL tool has some nice options available. For one thing, I can permanently enable/disable "Pointing Stick", "Pointing Stick Buttons", "Touchpad", and "Touchpad Buttons". But, there is also a very nice feature called: "Disable Touchpad/Point Stick when external USB mouse is present". This is really a very user friendly feature that I never thought of searching for before.

Conclusion
I put a check next to the option:  "Disable Touchpad/Point Stick when external USB mouse is present", and got a wireless mouse. Problem solved. Happily typing code again.

Google Code Search will be shutdown January 15, 2012

http://techcrunch.com/2011/10/14/google-axes-more-services-jaiku-code-search-more/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29
It was a very useful tool for me.

Portable Mouse with a Hook or Loop

Goal: to allow portable mouse to be even more portable

Going to meeting with a laptop, a pen and notebook (made with paper) and a mouse can be a handful (not to mention when you have a cup of coffee). What if we have a hook or ring on the mouse so that it can dangle on a finger (or belt?).
 
Potential Solutions
- retractable ring
- foldable ring
- hook

Need to pay attention of location of ring or hook so that they don't interfere with normal mouse use.