I ran into one small problem.  I was modifying a project that I had already been working with.  So when I tried running the cmake commands to generate the Release and Debug makefiles

mkdir Release Debug
cmake -E chdir Debug/ cmake -G "Unix Makefiles" ../ -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE:STRING=Debug
cmake -E chdir Release/ cmake -G "Unix Makefiles" ../ -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE:STRING=Release

nothing was written to the Release or Debug folder.  To fix this, I had to first delete the CMakeCache.txt file from my project folder.

rm CMakeCache.txt

The procedure entry point sqlite3_clear_bindings
could not be located in the dynamic link
library SQLite3.dll.

To fix it, copy SQLite3.dll from

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Apple\Apple Application Support

to

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Apple\Mobile Device Support

It looks like other people might get slightly different errors, so you may need to copy other DLLs also.

My guess as to what is happening here is that putting a copy of the DLLs with the Apple software causes the Apple software to use that copy.  Otherwise it gets whichever  version of the DLL comes up first in the system search path.  Since many tools use some of these support libraries, it’s a bit of a crap shoot.

The last time I had to fix this problem, The How-To Geeg blog article here helped me remember what to do.

You could visit the APOD website each day.  Or better,  Windows users can run the APOD Wallpaper app and receive a different breathtaking image on your desktop background each morning.  The app puts a little icon of the planet Jupiter in your Systray.  Right mousing on Jupiter pops up a menu that will bring up the APOD Wallpaper settings, show you the astronomer’s explanation of the day’s image, or take you to the APOD website.

The app is easy to install.  It comes in a Zip file.  Just unzip it into a convenient location (such as c:\Program Files\APOD), and run it.  In the Settings you can tell it to automatically run when Windows starts.  There are a couple of other Windows apps that do nearly the same thing.  Linux and Mac users have several choices, too.

I’ve built some miscellaneous one-off GUIs with various Python toolkits like Tkinter and wxPython, but this time I wanted just a simple confirmation popup.  In this case it was to pause so I could attach a debugger.

The comment on this page of the tkinterbook had exactly what I needed.  Also, there is a page showing examples of all the different simple popups you can make using this approach.  One benefit of using this approach is that Tkinter is bundled with Python, so there are no additional packages to install.

Here’s the simplest code snippet:

import Tkinter, tkMessageBox
Tkinter.Tk().withdraw() # suppress blank Tk root window in Windows
  ...
tkMessageBox.showinfo("Debugging", "Attach debugger, then click OK")

You can, of course, get much fancier with some of the popup versions, and you can capture the return value from the user interaction.

But just in case: the order of the color-coded conductors (from left to right when inserted up into the RJ45 connector with the contacts facing you) is:

• Orange Stripe
• Orange
• Green Stripe
• Blue
• Blue Stripe
• Green
• Brown Stripe
• Brown

…and crimp!

 Tips:  Remember to push the wires all the way up into the connector so the wires go under the contacts.  Then, push the cable’s outer insulation up into the connector, too, so that the connector’s plastic wedge will grab and hold the insulation when crimped.

I’ll try to be better.

I found the article referenced above while trying to solve something that was turning out convoluted in my csh script (redirect just stderr to /dev/null). It was trivial in sh.

It is a definite trade-off, though, when it’s something you don’t use daily, where maintainability is a concern, and where you work with people who pull their hair out even at the csh syntax.

But if the Folder Pane just comes up as a blank space, it could be due to a previous crash of Thunderbird, or corruption of some auxiliary files that need to be rebuilt. Here’s how to fix it:

• Exit Thunderbird
• Find your profile folder.  In Windows, you can navigate directly to your profile folder at the following path:
     C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\<profile>\
• In Linux, look for it here:
     ~/.thunderbird/<profile>/
• or here:
     ~/.mozilla_thunderbird/<profile>/
• The AppData folder might be hidden: to show hidden folders, open a Windows Explorer window and choose
  “Organize → Folder and Search Options → Folder Options → View (tab) → Show hidden files and folders”
• You can (should) make a backup copy of your profile folder now, in case something goes wrong
• In the profile folder, rename the session.json and foldertree.json
  files (to session.json.bad and foldertree.json.bad)
• Restart Thunderbird

If something goes wrong, you can restore your old session.json and foldertree.json files, then go searching for a different solution.

3DS is an aging binary interchange format for 3D models. OBJ is another aging, but ASCII-based format for 3D models.

Here is a simple Python script that converts one or more files from 3DS format to OBJ format using Blender:

# Convert 3ds to obj using Blender
#
# Run as follows:
#   blender -b dummy.blend -P bl_3ds2obj.py -- file.3ds ...
#
# dummy.blend is just an empty Blender file needed as an argument.
# Put one or more .3ds files on the end of the command.
# The .obj files will be created with the same name (and path) as
# the .3ds file, but with the .obj extension.
# The export creates a .mtl file for each .obj file also.

import bpy
import sys
import os.path

for i in range(1, len(sys.argv)):
    if sys.argv[i] == "--":
        break

for file in sys.argv[i+1:]:
    # Start with an empty scene
    bpy.ops.object.select_all(action="SELECT")
    bpy.ops.object.delete()

    # Read a .3ds file
    bpy.ops.import_scene.autodesk_3ds(filepath=file)

    # Write a .obj file
    outfile = os.path.splitext(file)[0]+".obj"
    bpy.ops.export_scene.obj(filepath=outfile)

Save the script code in a file named blender_3ds2obj.py.  You will also need a Blender file to use as a placeholder in the command line.  You can save an empty file from Blender, or use an existing one.  Assume it is called dummy.blend.

To convert 3DS files, use the following command:

blender -b dummy.blend -P bl_3ds2obj.py -- file1.3ds file2.3ds file3.3ds

Tack on as many 3DS files to the end of the command as you want.

Note:  This assumes that dummy.blend and bl_3ds2obj.py are in the same folder as your 3DS files.  If not, you will need to specify the proper path to each.