How to Add Bitcoin URI to Firefox to Open Bitcoin Client Automatically

It’s easy to extend functionality of Firefox by using its about:config page. In this tutorial, we will be adding bitcoin: URI handler so that Firefox is able to open a chosen Bitcoin client to use the address and open it.

  1. Type about:config in Firefox address bar.
  2. Confirm by clicking “I’ll be careful, I promise” button, if Firefox complains about warranty void. (If you have already used about:config, then this warning does not appear)
  3. Search for “handler.expose”
  4. Right click anywhere on empty space and add new Boolean value
  5. Write in “network.protocol-handler.expose.bitcoin”
  6. Write in “false” for value
  7. Click a bitcoin: URI link and Firefox will ask you about Bitcoin software (client) to use
  8. Select Bitcoin client by locating it on a drive (look in /usr/bin/ on Ubuntu or C:\Program Files\ on Windows)
  9. Test by donating any Bitcoin amount, if this article helped you: bitcoin:1EuuVdEUe6zPCdpFW5HWGPWBRatYEJ7A5P

April 25, 2013 at 19:28 :: Filed under Internet :: [*] :: No Comments ::

JustCloud on Linux / Ubuntu

JustCloud offers a new Linux client for Debian-based systems, e.g. Ubuntu and others.

You can choose to download 32 bit or 64 bit versions. However, what the website doesn’t tell you is that JustCloud client for Linux has some dependencies and you need to install them manually before installing JustCloud. Those dependencies / packages are:

  • rdiff
  • librsync1

So, download JustCloud and do this:

sudo apt-get install rdiff librsync1
sudo dpkg -i ./JustCloud_64.deb

Change the second line to match the path to JustCloud package.

If you don’t install these dependencies on Linux before, you can encounter this error:

Selecting previously unselected package justcloud.
(Reading database ... 410236 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking justcloud (from ./JustCloud_64.deb) ...
install
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of justcloud:
 justcloud depends on rdiff; however:
  Package rdiff is not installed.
dpkg: error processing justcloud (--install):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Errors were encountered while processing:
 justcloud

November 23, 2012 at 21:21 :: Filed under Internet :: [*] :: No Comments ::

QuickText for Thunderbird 17 (TB 17)

Quicktext extension / addon compatible with Thundebird 17.0 is available directly from the author’s website:

http://extensions.hesslow.se/download/22/quicktext_0.9.11.4.xpi (link to download)

November 22, 2012 at 11:20 :: Filed under Internet :: [*] :: No Comments ::

Shimano Nexus 7 Hub SG-7C18 Lock Ring Problem

I had a flat on my rear wheel. My bicycle is equipped with Shimano Nexus SG-7C18 7-speed coaster brake and in order to change a tube you need to remove both the chain and the internal Nexus 7 hub cassette joint.

Shimano Nexus 7 hub cassette joint and lock ring

Shimano Nexus 7 hub cassette joint (39) and lock ring (13)

That part seemed easy to do, but the trouble came when I tried to reinstall the Shimano Nexus 7 hub cassette joint with cable and lock ring. Even when hub twist shifter was set to speed 1 as advised and had the matching yellow arrows (shifter cassette joint) and dots (lock ring) properly positioned, lock ring wouldn’t lock by turning. It seemed as there wasn’t enough space between the ring and the cassette joint as the lock ring locks in grooves behind the casing.

After I took the bicycle to a mechanic, he told me he had a hard time locking the lock ring, too. His advise was to put shifter in position (speed) 1, put the cassette joint on the hub, use your fingers to open (tension) the cassette joint as wide as possible and this creates enough space for the lock ring to be locked. I hope I won’t have to repeat this procedure as it seems overly complicated. One would expect better from Shimano.

Complete list of Shimano Nexus 7 internal hub parts as well as installation instructions are available as PDF files directly from Shimano website.

July 30, 2012 at 13:02 :: Filed under Rants :: [*] :: 3 Comments ::

Art at Bratislava Public Transport Stops

Interesting street art initiative started to pop up in Bratislava, specifically at the bus and tram stops.

An unknown person has been installing animal symbols on the public transportation stop signs. As you can see from the pictures below, different animals have been spotted – a cow, a dog, a cat, a bat and some others.

Bratislava public transportation company DPB denounced the activity as illegal as no permission has been obtained. They are presumably open to discuss it, if the unknown author approaches them, though.

May 25, 2012 at 00:47 :: Filed under Musings :: [*] :: No Comments ::

Think Globally, Act Locally

‘Local character’ is thus no mere accidental old-world quaintness, as its mimics think and say. It is attained only in course of adequate grasp and treatment of the whole environment, and in active sympathy with the essential and characteristic life of the place concerned.

Patrik Geddes, a pioneer in town planning

Although, the meaning of the phrase ‘thinking globally, acting locally’ has changed over the years, the fact is that acting locally is more important that trying to act globally. The local environment and changes in it form and shape people and their well-being compared to high or global politic decisions. Of course, the change in taxation or other laws affect your well-being, too, but they don’t directly affect your environment. Your actions however can strongly contribute to the improvement of the local conditions and possibly have an effect on larger communities as well.

As the quote says – the treatment of the whole environment – is important. Therefore, this should be the basic rule for the city and other local bureaucrats – to consult people affected in the places or communities (I have always envied those posted official notices on local changes in environment in the UK). Traffic decisions, gardening decisions and other local improvements (or degradations) could have a grave impact on the overall well-being of a community and so they should be treated as such1.

1 The question is if there are enough processes in question available to consult public on the changes before or during the planning stage? There is Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), but this comes too late – usually after the planning is already done – and only has a status of a recommendation, therefore often ignored by the traffic planners or developers.

February 6, 2012 at 13:04 :: Filed under Musings, Politics :: [*] :: 2 Comments ::

Sergei Einsenstein’s Strike, Music by Alloy Orchestra

Strike - music by Alloy Orchestra

Strike - music by Alloy Orchestra

Found in this wonderful guide to 420 free movies that you can watch online, Strike is a early communist propaganda movie by the director Sergei Eisenstein. His another well-known propaganda movie is The Battleship Potemkin and is also now in public domain. Both of them are silent movies and many bands has composed soundtrack later. He employed unique movie editing techniques that can be still seen in the movies nowadays.

One of the soundtracks available for the Strike movie was composed by Alloy Orchestra. Unfortunately, it is not available anywhere online and Alloy Orchestra sells it only as full DVD including the movie.

I have downloaded the movie Strike from Internet Archive and separated the audio track as a MP3 in 128 kbps quality. You can download it here: Alloy Orchestra – Strike.

I hope Alloy Orchestra will soon publish the full quality music (FLAC or MP3 320 kbps) of theirs on Bandcamp (or Amazon at least), so we can buy it online without requiring their fans to buy a DVD you will never watch.

October 4, 2011 at 20:42 :: Filed under Musings :: [*] :: No Comments ::

Strabag Sues and Censors Transparency Website in Slovakia

A Slovak branch of Strabag, a construction company, has sued the website www.znasichdani.sk (translates as From our taxes, run by Fair-play Alliance, won 1st Prize App prestigious prize of Open Data Challenge) that connects information available in the Slovak Trade registry with the awarded public sector contracts.

A slovak district court issued a preliminary ban (preliminary injunction) on displaying some information available on the website, which is an absurd case of judicial and corporate abuse as the information provided is already available on multiple public sector websites including information on Strabag and its managing director, Jarmila Povazanova.

STRABAG is committed to social responsibility and takes measures…

…measures to abuse its corporate powers and censor websites that try to defy corruption and display information on awarded public contracts. Well done, Strabag. Joining Deutsche Telekom in corruption?

June 27, 2011 at 15:51 :: Filed under Politics, Rants :: [*] :: 1 Comment ::

Facebook Comments Box Indexable and Crawlable by the Search Engines

SEOMoz community member Roy Peleg writes about how to make the Facebook comments (part of the Facebook comments box iframe) indexable and crawlable by the search engines including Google.

He links to a PHP script that basically pulls out comments from the API: http://www.rayhe.net/fb/comments.phps and inserts them into a page.

He writes:

So basically you can now use Facebook Comments Box on your site and serve GoogleBot (or any other crawler/browser agent) with the comments to have them crawled & indexed. Obviously this won’t be considered as cloaking as you’re serving Google exactly what the users see (just like creating an HTML version for a Flash website).

However, trying to cloak (although having noble intentions) is just wrong in any case. Specially, when current methods and possibilities allow us to provide content visible only to the search engines. Instead of using the easiest way, Roy Peleg recommends one of the Google banned techniques.

What is the easiest way I am talking about?

Using the plain old <noscript> element that is well suited for this purpose (search engines do not use Javascript, so they will “see” alternate content provided on the page):

The
NOSCRIPT

element allows authors to provide alternate content when a script is not executed. The content of a
NOSCRIPT

element should only be rendered by a script-aware user agent in the following cases:

  • The user agent is configured not to evaluate scripts.
  • The user agent doesn’t support a scripting language invoked by a
    SCRIPT

    element earlier in the document.

User agents that do not support client-side scripts must render this element’s contents.

Easy, peasy and accessible, dear Roy Peleg.

June 16, 2011 at 11:37 :: Filed under Internet, Musings :: [*] :: 1 Comment ::

Cycle The World (You Will, Guys, You Will!)

I received a message from my friends in Vienna about a German couple that is on their way around the world… on bike. They asked me, if I would be able to host them in Bratislava. Am I able to host somebody cycling around the world? That’s a courage I like, so definitely: yes!

Andreas and Johanna came yesterday with their heavy duty bikes (really, weight of their luggage on bikes is around 60 kgs).

They liked Bratislava and today in the morning moved further on to the south of Slovakia by Danube river, unsure about where they are going to end. But sometimes, path is the goal, and in their case, traveling around, seeing new villages, cities, regions, countries or even continents, meeting new people seems to be way they like it. And yes, they will finally come back to Hamburg in two or three years, where their trip has begun.

So, good luck, guys and enjoy your great adventure!

March 31, 2011 at 23:40 :: Filed under Musings :: [*] :: 1 Comment ::

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