CMake is awesome for building C++ projects and worth few hours to learn and start using it: http://www.techminded.net/blog/modular-c-projects-with-cmake.html

IT as service

Many of software developers and people other IT-related specialists really like their jobs. Like not because of good salary or nice office, not only because of this. They primarily getting fun from software engineering process. Programming, analytic, graphic design all these thing give man ability to feel joy of creation, to take part in competition between just the same but not, of course, as good as You creators. So more creation tasks they have in project more joy they have. Almost nobody like monotonous, small and non-creative tasks like fixing defects (bugs), support and develop 3rd party software.
This situation counterparts for non-IT people. Let's imaging you bring your car to service to have regular examination or just to change oil in engine. But service man made serious face and said that they should reassemble engine entirely from scratch in order to make this car able to move again. Or may be reassemble and change everything under the hood. And sure he can not believe that this car was able to drive before. You're lucky that you brought this crap to him and engineers that assembled and served it before are unskilled morons and actually real idiots. And one more thing ... This will take 3 months and cost you several hundred thousands ...
If you drive(ed) a modern car you probably has no chance to check if all things that was proposed are really needed. And you probably will not agree as you were going to just replace the oil. And you will probably try to find another service that will propose you twice cheaper solution or maybe 10 times cheaper. IT industry is kind a magic allows to perform similar looking things for really different time and price. And you probably already had same situation a month ago or you will agree this time but no more further payments. Because you just want to drive your car and not really interested to understand and have under-the-hood problems.
 This situation often is not objectively visible and understandable by IT guys as they are getting fun from job. And IT-guy is in most cases honest with you when saying that "we should rewrite everything from scratch" even if he repeats this often. One more thing here is that IT is industry of youth people. Young specialists are cheaper, more motivated, they lobby new and beautiful technologies and patterns .. and they are getting skilled on tasks like "reassemble from scratch" or "invent new kind of wheel" but not with changing oil. Getting fun and skill with your investment;)
This entry is primarily for IT-people to see the other 'client' side of process.So if you are on the developer side:
Don't try to sell 'refactoring', 'bugfixing' tasks, especially when system is developed by you, nothing from requirements was changed and will not really changed after you get it finished. You can get approval but only with high risk to loose client and reputation damage.
If you are product/business owner:
Ask what real value you will gain for your investment if you offered to invest in 'refactoring' or 'modernization' of your project.

VmWare Player on Ubuntu 12.04 with 3.2 kernel

I really don't like software that once upon a time say something, does something and than cruses and probably delete all you work results. I and you probably too hate such kind of software especially at this moments. All I want from software is to "Just work". No cool new features, updaters, asking windows and freezing for unknown reason windows please. Software must me dump and dowhatimsaying. That's why I like *nix operating systems. They still have plain and simply working software.

But software developers and product managers are working hard to bring colorfull and dialogfull world from win/mac to our spartan consoles. Recently lanched VmWare Player I got an updating window that falls after some processing and blocked usage of software:

Figuring out the problem, I tried different ways reading logs, googling and installing and uninstalling. I tried even to launch VirtualBox instead and got greeting update message:

But will not be able to run vmware image. Arrrggghhhh !!!!! What a really bastards all these people...
Both VmWare and VirtualBox and many other software always asking you to update themselves or performing updates without an permission. I know this can be disabled from application settings but this is really annoying to spend hours tweaking software on your every device or get suddenly failing behavior. Software is an tool but not Artifice Intelligence unit an required only to do what user has been requested. Do without thinking for him or asking. I want "I know what I'm doing, baby, mode" to be switched by one press/command for every software.
On this problem: googling more I found thread with VmWare Player patch for 3.2 kernel was proposed.
http://jkhofmann.dyndns.org/wordpress/?p=2008&lang=en
It required an older version of VmWare and not worked even after I downgraded my. So I had to open patch shell script (patch-modules_3.2.0.sh) and comment out version checking lines:
#[ -z "$product" ] && error "Sorry, this script is only for VMWare WorkStation $vmreqver or VMWare Player $plreqver
That helped and after some compiling by patch I got my VmWare Player working back.

Gotta Mindmaping software ?

Gotta Mindmaping software ?

Today I visited the website of mindmapping software I prefer to use name SciPlore to download distribution and install it. But noticed message they suggest to swtich to other product named Docear: http://www.docear.org/ Well, it looks at least much better.

And behave like more smarter and comfortable tool. If you are user of FreeMind, XMind, Kdissert/Semantik or some other not very friendly or expensive software I totally recommend you to try this one. Btw, they offer some features for nerds;)

I've written an article on the way you can setup automatic sync of your WebDAV space that can be provided GoDaddy Online File Folder, Yandex.Disk and many other file hostings or your corporate information system. Hope it will be helpful:
http://techminded.net/blog/syncronize-webdav-with-local-folder.html

I've written an article on how to install Liferay CMS with separate MySQL database on Linux. Check it out:
http://www.techminded.net/blog/install-liferay-6-on-linux-with-external-mysql-database.html

Windows 8: empty

Installation process requires almost nothing from technical skills, but you will have to setup 3-5 pages of personal data. Later I was force to fill my personal data again, when clicked on 'Music', but my honest acceptance haven't made me able to have anything more than seeing beautiful images, the app didn't launched.

Will it sync my porn if I start work with my girlfriend's PC ?
New Windows 8 brings new level of user interface experience emptiness. All you will see is monocolored background with overrough forms and glam fotos.

With new version you will have all simplified apps even for old good information apps

Internet explorer is also for fingers but not for brain

And even epic 'Start' Button is disappeared ... and replaced with dashboard you probably already seen many times under metro label

But happily your are still able to switch to desktop from phone/tablet mode

Starcraft2 on Linux

A number of years ago it's was a real quest to run Windows games on Linux. Nowadays the situation is a bit better at least for not very fresh and famous games. You can get your favorite game with installer that is as easy to use as Ubuntu Store .. okok, few more clicks are required:). It's called PlayOnLinux, it's free and available in repos. Here is screenshot of Starcraft 2 installed with PlayOnLinux:
Honestly, I have not recompiled the kernel to have it. Unfortunately, windows have noisy installers making users to click unnecessary buttons and decline unwanted bonuses (like browser bars of statistic sending) so we will probably never have the ability to install such apps from repos or packages. The gameplay is quite fine and has no lags except random sound disappearance that is connected to my laziness to uninstall PulseAudio.