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Ubuntu Brother Printer-Scanner Network Setup

How to Setup Brother MFC-6490CW Network Printer with Ubuntu

  1. Configure your router to reserve a static IP address for your printer. This way your computer will always know which address to contact the printer on.
    Here's a rough guide on how to do that: http://lifehacker.com/5822605/how-to-set-up-dhcp-reservations-so-you-never-have-to-check-an-ip-address-again
    Make a note of your printer's IP address.

How to setup a Logitech webcam microphone with Skype on Ubuntu Linux

I bought a new webcam recently. The camera worked with Ubuntu as soon as I plugged it in but but the microphone didn't work with Skype until I set it up. This is very easy but it took me a very long time to figure out so I thought I'd make a note here in case anyone has the same trouble.

Dropbox Commit Graphs

For my dissertation, I've shown bar charts for commits in every week. I think these are x100 better for showing ACTUAL progress and it was clear where I had made less progress than some weeks (though this was entirely justified).

Unfortunately, as good as Dropbox is, it really lacks a graphing tool (I did try to find one) or any kind of statistical analysis. It's been a bit of a pain to get what I wanted, but I managed in the end. See attachment to this post for an example :)

PHP session cookie problems with Google Chrome and Internet Explorer

In this post, I describe two potential pitfalls with handling session cookies in Google Chrome and Internet Explorer while developing websites, and how to avoid them. The problem in Google Chrome relates to its handling of local/internal hostnames, and the problem in Internet Explorer relates to its privacy settings and compact privacy policies.

The state of HTML5 video

Like a lot of people, I'm pretty excited about HTML5, particularly for including audio and video in web pages. However, while it has great potential, there's still a lot of work to be done before it's easily usable by everyone. I'm not talking so much about bugs in the way browsers handle specific elements or the ongoing codec war, which have been covered in detail in many places, but more about the surrounding ecosystem.