Maven Timestamp plugin 0.1 released
I just released my first maven plugin. It's really the simplest possible piece of code you could imagine, but yet it makes it's goal (addings a timestamp variable to your build process) a piece of cake. You can find it at http://code.google.com/p/maven-timestamp-plugin/ along with a bugtracker and some docs.
Now, why would I write something as simple as a timestamp plugin? Well, I am the first to admit that adding timestamp in your build process is not exactly rocket science. But unfortunately most of the procedures to do just that made it seem more complicated than it should be. Either you jump through hoops trying to get a filter output back into your pom.xml, or you end up using a plugin that doesn't have the ability to give you a customized date format (who the hell knows at first sight that the timestamp 1212931073482 means 8th june 2008 15:18h?!). So out of this frustration, the timestamp plugin was born. Have fun with it folks 
Fixing your Windows MBR after fu**ing it up with ubuntu or grub
I know I sinned. But Bill Gates wrath was mercyless. I screwed up my MBR on my primary harddrive with an ubuntu install and nothing worked anymore. I couldn't boot either system up because my MBR got overwritten and then something horrible happened.
Well, to make a long story short - the only way I found to make that go away is using the brilliant MBR fix by KÃ¥re Smith which will make your pain (i.e. Grub) disappear in a heartbeat...you just need something to boot your system into DOS mode. Ah well...time to connect that damned old floppy disk drive again *sigh*
3 tools I really dig
Time for a little tool roundup. There are a couple of nice little tools that made my life much easier on the windows platform.
First I'd like to mention the fabulous TreeSize, which shows you the size of your directories in a Treeview. For fans of the good old Directory Opus which, by the way, has been available for the PC for quite some time now, this is a true godsent.
Then there is the super cool launchy, which basically enables you to access every program and play every media file on your computer lightning fast. Not only that, but it also lets you access websites really quickly. It's a real producitvity enhancer.
If you don't own a Mac, but you like the Comic life application that comes with it, you might want to check out the Comic Life for Windows beta. It's great for creating your own comics (Thanks to Serhat for the link).
keyboardsamurais.de migrated from drupal to wordpress
...and I have to say it was a tough ride. First off I'd like to mention to all MySQL developers that I hate their guts for setting swedish character sets and collations as default in the new MySQL 4.1 (well actually I don't, just some tough love here guys 
). As a result some of the old articles may contain strange characters. Most of the comments are gone and my urls that are registered with google are seriously broken.
Anyways I found these Articles to be helpful with the transition:
http://www.thefactz.org/archives/62
http://spindrop.us/2006/05/19/migrating-from-drupal-47-to-wordpress
As for the reason why I switched? Drupal was at the same time too big and too small. It just doesn't work that well as a blogging tool. It's more of a CMS thing. Also, the Drupal API is just daunting. Good luck figuring out a quick hack for drupal on the fly.
P.s.: I spent most of the day fixing the broken links. Now I'm left with 388 mod_rewrite rules - hopefully that will be enough. Sheesh - what a mess this is. First MovableType, then Drupal and now WordPress - all have different urls. This was some major piece of work.
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