Currently, using a LuxTrust SmartCard or signing stick to log into the web banking portal snet.lu only works on 32bit Ubuntu due to a bug in their code. Here’s how you can make it work on 64bit Ubuntu as well: Read more →
Until now I had to start a Windows virtual machine to be able to connect to vpn.etat.lu using my LuxTrust Smartcard. After a lot of research and trial-and-failure I was finally able to make it work on Linux.
Before you start: This currently only works with Ubuntu 13.10. On Ubuntu 14.04 there is an issue with the bundled gnutls version (at least I think so), but I didn’t have the time to backport/recompile it. If anyone has a solution, please let me know. (see update at the bottom of the post) Read more →
Opening the mail or SMS client with pre-filled content in Firefox OS is extremely simple:
function startMail(subject, text) {
subject = encodeURIComponent(subject);
text = encodeURIComponent(text);
window.location.href = 'mailto:?subject='+subject+'&body=' + text;
}
function startSMS(text) {
text = encodeURIComponent(text);
window.location.href = 'sms:?body=' + text;
}
What it does is open the “mailto:” or “sms:” protocols, without any address. The subject (mail only) and body (both mail and SMS) are specified as parameters.
Couldn’t be any easier, right?
Ech sinn amgaangen Daten iwwert d’Lëtzebuergesch Sprooch fir de CLDR-Projet zesummenzestellen. CLDR (Common Locale Data Repository) bitt Sproochendaten un (Länner- a Währungsnimm, Datemusteren, etc.), déi dann a Computerapplikatioune kënne benotzt ginn.
D’CLDR-Date gi vu ville verschiddene Produite benotzt (a wann ech “vill” soen, da mengen ech och vill!). E puer Beispiller stinn op cldr.unicode.org ënnert dem Titel “Who uses CLDR?”). Du kanns méi iwwer CLDR op Wikipedia oder um Site vum CLDR-Projet liesen.
Nach méi Produite benotzen d’Daten awer duerch Projeten ewéi ICU (International Components for Unicode) déi di “réi” XML-Daten an aner Formater ëmwandelen déi dann direkt kënnen a verschiddene Programméiersprooche benotzt ginn.
Duerch dëse Bäitrag kritt Lëtzebuergesch déi néideg technesch Basis fir an internationaliséiert Software-Produiten integréiert ze ginn. Et ass also en enorm wichtege Schrëtt.
Bass du lëtzebuergeschen Entwéckler oder einfach just um Lëtzebuergeschen interesséiert? Dann hëllef mer d’Daten ze kontrolléieren. Déi aktuell Versioun steet op GitHub: https://github.com/mweimerskirch/cldr-luxembourgish
Porting an existing Cordova/Phonegap app to FirefoxOS is really easy. After updating to the latest Cordova release, only two more steps were necessary: adding FirefoxOS as a platform to the Cordova app and then calling “prepare” to get it ready for testing/packaging. The process is described here: https://hacks.mozilla.org/2014/02/building-cordova-apps-for-firefox-os/
Plugin support is currently very limited though. While most of the core plugins have been ported (https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/CB-3204) , there is still a lot left to be done.
Testing/debugging apps is straightforward as well using the “App manager” built into Firefox. You can either install one of the FirefoxOS simulators or install the “ADB helper” if you have a real device: https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/labs/fxos-simulator/
After installing, you can run your app in the simulators or on the device with just two clicks. You can find more details here: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Firefox_OS/Using_the_App_Manager
I ran into problems connecting to the device from my Ubuntu machine as the permissions were not set correctly. After some reasearch I found an easy fix. What I did was create a new udev rule file:
sudo nano /etc/udev/rules.d/52-firefoxos.rules
and add a device specific rule for the Geeksphone Keon
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="05c6", ATTR{idProduct}=="8013", MODE="0666", GROUP="plugdev"
If you have a device other than the Keon, your “idVendor” and “idProduct” will be different. You can get them by calling “lsusb”. After creating the udev rule, make sure, your user is in the “plugdev” group and reboot your system. Debugging your app on the device should work now.
A few weeks ago I signed up for the “Firefox OS Phones for PhoneGap Developers” program and got accepted. My free developer device arrived this week. Thanks Mozilla!
I’ve already started porting my “Spellchecker.lu” app and the base functions ran (almost right away) without problems in the simulator after doing only very small modifications.
Testing on the device was a bit more fiddly because I had to manually tweak the user permissions on my Ubuntu machine to be able to access the device via USB. I’ll blog about what I did to fix this during the next days. Now that this issue is resolved, I’m able to update and debug the app on the device with just a single click. Also, because the apps are entirely based on HTML5, there is no need to compile anything, so testing is really straightforward and fast.
Next week I’ll continue with the device specific configuration and I’ll try to get as many more specific functions that are working for the Android and iOS versions of my app on FirefoxOS as well.
I’ve also had some time to test Firefox OS in general. I intend to write a small review during the next days.
Today, there was an article about my project “Spellchecker.lu” on “Wort.lu English”:
Today I co-founded Lightbulb s.à r.l., a Luxembourg based web agency focussing on modern and innovative web sites and web applications.
On June 15th I was on TV (RTL Luxembourg to be precise) to present Spellchecker.lu, a project dedicated to creating a free and open source spelling checker for Luxembourgish. Spellchecker.lu has an “online checker” that runs inside any modern web browser as well as extensions for several open source applications like OpenOffice.org, Mozilla Firefox, Mozilla Thunderbird as well as several others.
You can see a recording of my appearance on the Luxembourgish show “20 vir” by visiting the following page (I appear at position 16:20): tele.rtl.lu/waatleeft/replay/v/20100615/127/19429/
