CTO, Software engineer and Team leader
My work
How to add Syntax Highlight to WordPress
Jul 2nd
I wrote quite a while ago about How to implement Syntax Highlight in your WordPress blog. It used an forward, yet permanent approach: modify you’re theme’s header.php. But is it enough?
Lately, I wanted to update my blog’s theme to the newest version. But hey! I had a lot of modifications such the one above that kept me from doing a smooth update: BNR Slider, custom images for RSS and Twitter, hints, Syntax Highlight and so on.
The newest solution that I come up with is using a child theme, feature provided by WordPress engine. Basically, you have a theme applied to you blog that you like. Instead of modifying it, you create a new folder in theme’s directory with a special name who’ll be applied OVER your base theme, customizing only the aspects you need. Assuming that your theme’s name is MyFavoriteTheme, you’ll have to create the child theme as MyFavoriteTheme-child.
In order to use your new theme, you’ll have to create in the MyFavoriteTheme-child folder two files:
- styles.css – required – who’ll mark your folder as a child theme
- functions.php – optional – for our example is required, as we’ll write code inside of it
Add Silverlight to WordPress
Jun 4th
As I presented earlier, you can easily create a Silverlight video player and you can see it working pretty nice. Not to mention that it can play a lot of formats and it is only 344 kb in size! Now let’s see how this is possible and how can one do it on his website.
From the start, Silverlight was meant to be as easiest as possible to develop and deploy. Also, the cross browser (running on all major browsers) and cross platform (running on Linux, Mac OSX and Windows) was a requirement. But more than this, not to depend on the server side on .Net framework was also important. So you can deploy and run (only for running you’ll need the Silverlight Runtime installed) your app no matter the OS (Operating System).
This is why we discuss today on adding Silverlight to WordPress and not on How to deploy Silverlight on Linux. From the server’s OS point of view, Silverlight is just another file so you don’t need any plugin nor installs on the server side. It is on the client side where it is downloaded, setup with parameters and processed and here you need to install the Silverlight runtime – a mere of 4 Mb. If you’ve developed prior Adobe Flash application, you’ll feel very natural on the process. So let’s begin our ride to add your Silverlight application to WordPress.
Step 1.
Develop your Silverlight application. You should have a .xap file built in order to go further.
Silverlight VideoPlayer for RailsCasts
Jun 1st
I am and will be a Microsoft Developer. While working for convenience with other tools, I love strong type languages. I don’t want to ship products because I saved once and hit “s” one more time, so my product will be shipped with that small, human and yet unpardonable error in code.
How many times did you loose your time and effort with PHP in order to find a small mistake like this?
In my pursue on Microsoft tools path I started enjoying the Silverlight technology. Who might not know, Silverlight is a competitor to Flash. By now, on its 4th version, is way above Adobe Flash in almost all areas (I actually worked with Flex and Flash recently, so I really know what I’m talking about):
- Easy to develop : the C# language is a world class, easy to write in, with good compiler, a lot of resources and a VERY good IDE (try to write code and animations in same time in that Flash IDE and you’ll see what I mean)
- Supports Full HD (there are examples on the net with 2 or 3 full HD movies playing), while Flash just tries to get HD with lots of CPU used.
- The model of development is the same for in Browser and Out of Browser – you don’t need to change the tool from Flash to Flex in order to have same product for Desktop and Web.
Railscasts Silverlight video player
May 31st
This is my second shot to create a better player for Railcasts. As you can see, it goes better and better. Who knows what might be next?
If you want to know more about the process through which this player was designed you can read also:
- How and why I choose the Silverlight platform
- How to integrate your Silverlight content with your WordPress blog (and presumable all blog systems who allow you to add JavaScript)
Create a simple HTML .MOV player
May 26th
As a Ruby developer, I work quite a lot with their “special” plugins called gems. The nice fact about the gems is that they bring lots of functionality. By example, there’s a gem for paginating a collection who takes just few parameters and not only that finds out how many objects the collection has, but also how to split them, generating the corresponding links and serving to the original container (that used to show the entire collection) only the collection part that is representative in the context of current page and items per page.
Before someone new to a specific gem starts thinking to implement it, usually searches on the net for examples. The most important gems are described and exemplified in Railscasts.com. The content is excelent, the quality is good, sound is nice but the format chosen for movies is Apple’s .MOV proprietary format. There are few plugins to install for playing the files with MediaPlayer, but frankly I wanted a quicker solution than go on some obscure websites and getting from there a creepy .exe installer.
So I’ve created a simple .mov player that will replace the 33 MB of useless QuickTime Player (if you’re a Mac user, you have already this installed so you’ll not need my hack).
So let’s see some code!
First, I decided to use the Object method in order to play mov files. Apple provides a .cab file, who is able to play this files in browser. More documentation on its parameters you can find in their Embedding tutorial.
Don’t forget to add a link to JQuery library!
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.4.2.min.js"></script>
The html code is shown below and it is pretty straight forward:
<body>
<div class="media">
<div class="navigationTabs">
<input type="text" id="txtURL" style="width:75%"/>
<input type="button" id="btnPlayMov" value="Play"/>
<input type="button" id="btnClearMov" value="Clear"/>
</div>
<div id="divPlayer">
http://media.railscasts.com/videos/188_declarative_authorization.mov
</div>
</div>
</body>
The JavaScript is a little bit trickier as it involves JQuery. For a newbie, it is pretty hard to debug, but after a while you’ll just feel it:
$(function() {
// bind an onClick event for this second Flash container
$("#btnPlayMov").click(function() {
var _height = "306px";
var _width = "400px";
var _movie = $('#txtURL').val();
var _html = '';
$("#divPlayer").html(_html);
});
$("#btnClearMov").click(function() {
$("#divPlayer").html("http://media.railscasts.com/videos/188_declarative_authorization.mov");
})
})
Not to mention that it works in all major browsers (IE 8, FireFox 3.6 and Chrome) !
How to add ui-icons to JQuery tabs
May 25th
While working in UniBonn, I have a lot of contact with Ruby on Rails and JQuery; I actually started loving its interactivity and stability. But lately I encountered a small situation with the tabs object that they offer.
This is their default view, with Redmond theme applied. Nice and clean, you might say. But what’s missing? These tabs don’t support images. So you’ll not be able to show an image to specify, let’s say, that this tab has some updated information or a warning that something important is inside that tab.
I wanted to have some kind of control on specifying how the tab should look when I wanted my users to understand that something important is inside and requires their immediate attention.
As I searched through the website, I found the mentions of how to change the tab looks into an “error” style, so that it will attract attention no matter how tired the users are. In the Theming area of JQuery UI website, I found the help for Layout Helpers. Basically, you can specify additional classes who can override the theming of an element. Under Interaction cues, you’ll find all you need to set your elements style to highlighting, error, disable etc.
"Windows Live Writer" won’t upload images to WordPress
May 15th
I’ve used WordPress for almost two years now and today I faced a big challenge: I couldn’t post my articles who contained images to Word press with my Windows LiveWriter application.
Note: This comes after a long period in which I didn’t upgrade the plugins of my WordPress application ( I had 11 of them pending upgrade). Also, I had a full system reinstall (you know, the one with formatting the system drive). After that, I reinstalled and configured all my tools, starting with Visual Studio and ending with Paint .Net.
Because I had a lot of stuff to write, in the first free moment that I had a little time, I started my Live Writer and configured it to be able to post on my blog. When finishing the article, I tried to post it as a draft to www.radupoenaru.com and check if there’s something to be modified.
And when I hit the button that saves draft on my blog, bang! -I got this error:
Research on LASIK
Apr 22nd
When starting such an important process as LASIK surgery (on which your sight is affected) it is crucial to get as many information as you can. You might want to bing it, to Google it and also ask your friends about it. Also discuss with professionals! You never know when you will find someone who already had it and can give their own personal impression.
I found a lot of information on the Softpedia forum, in an interesting article How to "Fix" Your Vision? and a very large list of discussions (in Romanian). I read a lot of advices pros and cons like:
- All about vision: “Choosing the right eye surgeon probably is the single most important step you can take to decrease any risks associated with LASIK. An experienced, reputable surgeon will make sure you are properly screened and let you know up front if you aren't a good candidate for LASIK eye surgery.”
- Presentation of LASIK on Wikipedia
- More about Lasik Technology
- after the surgery I found out the FDA’s opinion on Lasik – it can be fully read under Home > Medical Devices > Products and Medical Procedures > Surgery and Life Support Devices : here ( excerpt from their site: Food and Drug Administration is an agency within the Department of Health and Human Services and consists of centers and offices, which are listed in menu at left. The FDA is responsible for protecting the public health by assuring the safety, efficacy, and security of human and veterinary drugs, biological products, medical devices, our nation’s food supply, cosmetics, products that emit radiation, and tobacco products.)
Among others, FDA presents the main risk factors associated with this operation:
- Blepharitis. Inflammation of the eyelids with crusting of the eyelashes, that may increase the risk of infection or inflammation of the cornea after LASIK.
- Large pupils. Make sure this evaluation is done in a dark room. Although anyone may have large pupils, younger patients and patients on certain medications may be particularly prone to having large pupils under dim lighting conditions. This can cause symptoms such as glare, halos, starbursts, and ghost images (double vision) after surgery. In some patients these symptoms may be debilitating. For example, a patient may no longer be able to drive a car at night or in certain weather conditions, such as fog.
- Thin Corneas. The cornea is the thin clear covering of the eye that is over the iris, the colored part of the eye. Most refractive procedures change the eye’s focusing power by reshaping the cornea (for example, by removing tissue). Performing a refractive procedure on a cornea that is too thin may result in blinding complications.
- Previous refractive surgery (e.g., RK, PRK, LASIK). Additional refractive surgery may not be recommended. The decision to have additional refractive surgery must be made in consultation with your doctor after careful consideration of your unique situation.
- Dry Eyes. LASIK surgery tends to aggravate this condition.
Because during the research I also looked for centers, I found out that in Istanbul there is a clinic named EyeStar or its Romanian version who uses the latest lasers(Wavelight Allgretto 400 hz eye- Q) and technologies to improve vision:
Our laser, the Wavelight Allegretto Wave Eye-Q 500Hz/400Hz. is the newest, fastest, and most advanced FDA-approved eye laser platform on the market. It is reputed for the most precise outcomes, and the highest level of safety and patient comfort.
Another argument pro was that a former colleague ,with whom I’ve worked in Alensa, had the same LASIK for myopia in this clinic and she was very happy about her choice. Also I liked very much their care for their clients: lifetime warranty for the operation, included transportation to and from the clinic, help in your native language (native English, German, Bulgarian, Japanese, French, Italian, Romanian, Russian, Turkish, Spanish).
Next, I’ll present to you the Discussions with Patient coordinators.
UniBonn
Mar 2nd
Position: Assistant Researcher ( WHK or Wissenschaftliche Hilfskraft )
Starting 1. March 2010 I work in Informatik 3 Department of Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität in Bonn.
My master is a joint effort between Uni Bonn and RWTH Aachen. During my master, I had the pleasure to be part in the Agile Lab, where I encountered two PHD students, Pascal Bihler and Mark von Zeschau. They are true developers, result driven people and fair judges of our activity. During this lab, which was intensive, we had 3 weeks as developers in an almost real company environment. From 9 to 18, if you know what I mean.
The experience that I had we very nice and as soon as I could, I discussed with them about joining their development team. Now I have the pleasure of developing a project that will affect all students that will study in this department.
The project is an upgrade to the existing system and will be developed in Ruby on Rails and have a Postgres database, allowing students to have a better application experience. The basis of it are an interactive and dynamic application who has several workflows, involving both possible future students and professors into finding the best candidates for this fine university.
My responsibilities are:
- development in Ruby code on Rails platform
- database migrations / upgrades
- installing / configuring gems
- CSS / interface design
- JQuery JavaScript client side interaction
- testing of the application
This is one more important task who caries with it big responsibilities, but I’m feeling very good about it!
