Saliya's Blogs

Java Threads and Concurrency

The Sun's tutorial (http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/essential/concurrency/index.html) on concurrency with Java is a great place to start with multi-threading.

Have fun with threads :)

Batch Resize Images

I was searching for a tool to scale images batch wise in Ubuntu and it seems that ImageMagick is just the one for it. Here's how you can get it working as well.

Step1: install ImageMagick

$ sudo apt-get install imagemagick

Step2: go to the images folder and type

$ mogrify -sample 1280 x 800 *.JPG

Here 1280 x 800 is the final size you want and *.JPG is the file set.

To get more info on command options, visit http://linuxuser32.wordpress.com/2007/06/16/batch-image-convert-scale-thumbnail-jpegs-pdf/

Playing with BlueProximity

I recently came across this nice blog which had a post on locking the screen automatically. Anyway after seeing the comments I found it will be interesting to use Bluetooth to achieve this. I wanted to write some script on my own to get it done. Anyway as an initial step I tried BlueProximity which comes with Ubuntu. Here is a list of steps to get everything working.

1. Install blueproximity:
$ sudo apt-get install blueproximity

2. Pair up your computer with your phone using Bluetooth. You can use System -> Preferences -> Bluetooth to do so.

3. start blueproximity:
$ blueproximity &

You will see the blueproximity icon appearing on your system panel.

4. Configure blueproximity to suit your likings, i.e. the distance after which your screen will get locked, time duration, etc.

That's it.

Anyway it is not kicking unless I can write my own code :D

Lectures at UoM

I started lecturing Data Structures and Algorithms to Level 2 students of the Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka. Overall, it is a great experience and I really enjoy it. The bottom line that I understand is that it is only when you start teaching that you understand that you have to learn more ;)