Michel Weimerskirch

LuxTrust Signing Stick on Ubuntu 8.04

michel — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 10:27:41 +0000

I got my free Signing Stick this week, paid by the Luxembourgish government. I can now identify myself on public service websites as well as digitally sign all my mails and documents.

Unfortunately, I ran into a few problems when I tried to activate it on my Ubuntu machine. After a few tries and an unsuccessful call to the helpdesk, I finally got it to work. Here’s a small step-by-step guide:

- Install the pcsc package from the Ubuntu repositories: apt-get install pcsc
- Install the driver (downloadable from drivers.luxtrust.lu): dpkg -i libgemsafe0_5.1.0-02_i386_v2.deb
- Start the pcsc server (it should restart automatically after a reboot): /etc/init.d/pcscd start
- Run the “pinmgt” tool: First, choose “Change PIN” and then choose “Unblock PIN” (Important! For some reason the activation didn’t work for me without this step: I constantly got a “PIN is uninitialized” error.)
- Afterwards, unplug the stick and plug it back in.

Now, you should be able to complete the activation on activate.luxtust.lu.

Spellchecker.lu downloads released

michel — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 08:35:30 +0000

As of today, the Luxembourgish spellchecking dictionary as well as the thesaurus are finally available for download on spellchecker.lu. There are packages for OpenOffice.org 2 and 3 as well as for Mozilla Firefox 3 and Mozilla Thunderbird. Additionaly, there is an Ubuntu package as well as a plugin for OOo that checks for a phonological rule called the “Eifeler Regel”, which is specific to Luxembourgish.

Trip to Munich

michel — Thu, 22 May 2008 20:27:25 +0000

I recently made a trip to Munich to visit Marc and Philip. I’ve never been to Munich before, so it was quite interesting. The photo gallery that I set up contains a few impressions that I captured during the three days that I stayed there. Among other things, I visited the Olympiapark, the BMW-Welt, the English Garden, the Garching Campus of the Technical University of Munich as well as several parts of the inner city.

Virtrag iwwer Spellchecker.lu (+Slides)

michel — Wed, 14 May 2008 11:33:14 +0000

De Moien hat ech op der Uni Lëtzebuerg op Invitatioun vum Prof. Dr. Peter Gilles e Virtrag iwwer Spellchecker.lu. Nieft enger klenger Introduktioun (Wat ass spellchecker.lu?) an enger Demonstratioun vum Online-Checker a vun der OpenOffice-Integratioun, sinn ech och op technesch Detailer agaangen (Wéi ass d’Wierderlëscht erstallt ginn, wat fir Problemer sinn opgetratt, wéi kann ee feststellen ob en Text Lëtzebuergesch ass, …?).

Download:
- Presentatioun Spellchecker.lu (PDF fir um Schierm ze kucken)
- Presentatioun Spellchecker.lu (PDF fir auszedrocken)

Spellchecker.lu relaunch

michel — Mon, 12 May 2008 13:22:36 +0000

As of today, the new version of spellchecker.lu is online. Because of my university studies the experimental beta phase has lasted longer than planned. But after almost exactly two years after the initial release, the free spellchecker for Luxembourgish now has a new website, a nicer logo, an improved online checker as well as a thesaurus (synonym dictionary).

The online checker features the following improvements:

A more intuitive interface
A wordlist (also called ”dictionary”) of almost 500′000 words and word forms
Improved correction of common mistakes (found in instant messaging)
Improved correction of the so-called “Eifeler Regel” which is unique to Luxembourgish
Easy-to-use feedback form

Visit spellchchecker.lu for more information.

TinyMCE spellchecker now with official enchant library

michel — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 19:47:14 +0000

TinyMCE 3.0.8 as well as an updated spellchecker plugin have been released. If you use the spellchecker plugin with the PSpellShell engine you should upgrade as soon as possible. I discovered a serious security issue which has been fixed in the new version. My enchant plugin is now also included by default. A changelog is available here.

[Updated] TinyMCE spellchecker plugin with enchant library

michel — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 12:39:11 +0000

TinyMCE (my favourite WYSIWYG editor) comes with a very nice spellchecker plugin. As the supported spellchecking engines were not powerful enough for my needs, I decided to modify the plugin so it supports the enchant library and thus a large number of spellchecking engines.

You can download the EnchantSpell class here. Using it is quite simple:

Install Enchant and a spellchecking engine of your choice. I prefer Hunspell. (see this post for a guide on how to install the newest versions on Ubuntu 8.4)
Install TinyMCE and the TinyMCE Spellchecker (both available here)
Unpack EnchantSpell.php to tiny_mce/plugins/spellchecker/classes
Add $config['general.engine']=’EnchantSpell’; to tiny_mce/plugins/spellchecker/config.php

That’s it. Have fun

[Update: The class is now included in the official release. So there is no need to download it separately anymore.]

Installing php-enchant on Ubuntu 8.4

michel — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 22:07:05 +0000

For the upcoming version of the online spellchecker for spellchecker.lu I decided to use a combination of enchant/hunspell as the core spellchecking engine. However, the versions of libenchant and hunspell that come with the new Ubuntu 8.4 are not really up-to-date, so I compiled my own versions. As a reference for myself, this is a small howto:

Remove old versions if they are installed:

apt-get remove --purge libenchant1c2a libenchant-dev hunspell

Install necessary development libraries

apt-get install libglib2.0-dev
apt-get install php5-dev php-pear

Installing hunspell and enchant is pretty straightforward:

# Install hunspell
tar xzvf hunspell-1.2.2.tar.gz
cd hunspell-1.2.2
./configure --libdir=/usr/lib/
make install

# Install enchant:
tar xzvf enchant-1.4.1.tar.gz
cd enchant-1.4.1
./configure --with-myspell-dir=/usr/share/myspell/dicts --libdir=/usr/lib/
make install

Now php-enchant can be installed very easily using pecl:

pecl install enchant

To enable the php extension, I did this:

echo "extension=enchant.so" > /etc/php5/conf.d/enchant.ini

That’s it. A usage example can be found in the PHP manual:
http://php.net/manual/en/enchant.examples.php

Škoda Fabia Greenline

michel — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 12:56:21 +0000

After waiting about 10 weeks I finally got my brand new car: a Škoda Fabia Greenline (1.4 TDI DPF/59 kW). As its name suggests it is designed to be economical and environmentally-friendly. Its CO2 emissions do not exceed 109 g/km while only consuming 4.1l/100km (that is, according to the ads).

The equipment is based on the second-generation Fabia Ambiente featuring a few performance optimisations like tyres with low roll resistance and various aerodynamic optimisations. On the inside, it features a stylish MP3 CD player with an external audio connector (for my iPod ) as well as a semi-automatic air conditioning system. Things like electric front windows, electric heated mirrors as well as an adjustable steering wheel round off the experience.

Even though it is a relatively small car, the new Fabia manages to effectively use the interior space in order to provide a more-than-reasonable level of comfort.

CASES-Communiqué: Äntwert vum Minister Jeannot Krecké

michel — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 17:03:44 +0000

Virun e puer Wochen hat ech iwwert e Communiqué vum CASES-Service an iwwert d’Reaktioun an der Chamber geschriwwen. Virun enger knapper Woch ass elo eng Äntwert vum zoustännege Minister Jeannot Krecké komm. Wéi ugekënnegt dofir hei e puer Auszich aus sénger Äntwert (ouni Commentaire, meng Meenung hunn ech schon an deenen zwee aneren posts ausgedréckt):

Le site web en question a été manipulé par un cybercriminel pour rediriger les internautes de façon clandestine vers un site hébergé en Russie distribuant des malware Cette manipulation a été rendue possible par un serveur sur lequel le site a été hébergé et qui présentait certaines vulnérabilités techniques dont l’exploitation rendait la manipulation du site possible.

Donierft ginn et dann nach generell Informatiounen wat “Malware” ass. Méi interessant ass awer d’Begrënnung firwat de Communiqué esou ondétailéiert war:

Considérant le grand nombre de sitesweb infectés, la publication du nom d’un seul site touché n’aurait présenté aucune valeur ajoutée (…)

Wéi gesot ouni Commentaire…

De ganzen Text ass ze fannen op CHD.lu (leider ass et net méiglech d’Dokumenter direkt ze verlinken).