Automatically regulating volume on a USB headset with Ubuntu

When you connect an external speaker or headset to your computer you normally expect the sound to play over those and you'd also expect the integrated speakers to mute. Windows does that well and you'd expect that Ubuntu can do that as well, unfortunately it doesn't. Not without some scripting. So here we go: The … Continue reading Automatically regulating volume on a USB headset with Ubuntu →

On coarse- vs. fine-grained synchronization

Performance related topics seem to constantly attract attention and everyone seems to have strong opinions on the matter. Writing code that can be proved [1] to perform according to a certain pattern is probably not the worst place to start with, although the web is full of counterintuitive [2] examples [3] where hardware details weigh … Continue reading On coarse- vs. fine-grained synchronization →

Ubuntu 12.04 (64bit) on the Asus N56VB

With quite some regret I had to decommission the trusty HP 4720s - readers of this blog will remember the love-hate relationship that grew to come between Ubuntu, it and I. Now it's time to try Ubuntu on the new laptop: Asus N56VB. Because I'm not much for experiments (those come to find me on … Continue reading Ubuntu 12.04 (64bit) on the Asus N56VB →

Tomcat, Spring and memory leaks when undeploying or redeploying an web application

In this post I'll talk about a new kind of memory leak in Spring applications involving transaction management and initializing beans. About memory leaks when undeploying a web application While developing a web application with Spring and Tomcat I frequently run out of heap space. The web is full of stories about this. There is … Continue reading Tomcat, Spring and memory leaks when undeploying or redeploying an web application →

Increasing window resize corner in Ubuntu 12.04

Resizing a window in Unity/Ubuntu 12.04 is quite a pain as one needs to target the 1 pixel border of the lower right corner. Fortunately the width can be increased: Edit /usr/share/themes/Ambiance/metacity-1/metacity-theme-1.xml and increase the widths, i.e.: <distance name="left_width" value="8"/> <distance name="right_width" value="8"/> <distance name="bottom_height" value="8"/> Log out and in again.