Category Archives: Tips

Clean a PostgreSQL database directory

Posted on September 11, 2008 by James Murty

After building a database using an ill-judged algorithm, I ended up with junk in the database that consumed 600MB of space in the Postgres data directory. Deleting the bad data did not free this space immediately, and I was too … Continue reading →

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SSH Tip: Redirect External Internet Traffic to a Dev Machine

Posted on July 20, 2008 by James Murty

When developing a web site or application, you may sometimes need to expose the development version running inside your network to the public Internet. This can be necessary to test the communication between your application and an external service, such … Continue reading →

Posted in Coding, Tips | 3 Comments

Textmate: Use Command-Escape as a Shortcut to the Gear Menu

Posted on June 22, 2008 by James Murty

Textmate is a superb text/code editor for the Mac that makes extensive use of keyboard shortcuts to make your life easier. One of the most important shortcuts in Textmate is Control-Escape, which opens a “Gear” menu with important context-sensitive functions. … Continue reading →

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Script to build a Java classpath

Posted on May 13, 2008 by James Murty

If you need to compile or run Java programs from the command line, it can be a real hassle to identify all the jar libraries the program requires and include them in your classpath. Here is a short script that … Continue reading →

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Gmail bug? Conversation labels do not apply to new messages

Posted on March 13, 2008 by James Murty

Gmail has a nasty bug (or quirk) that I have only just discovered. It explains why I sometimes have trouble searching for specific emails in my archive. To use Gmail effectively you will need to know about this bug, and … Continue reading →

Posted in Tips | 6 Comments

Gmail mobile phone application for Google Apps

Posted on February 29, 2008 by James Murty

I have been using Google Apps – Google’s set of hosted email and collaboration tools that are available from your own domain name – for some time now. The service works very well but it has one annoying drawback: many … Continue reading →

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