How to Install Swedish BankID on Ubuntu 11.10 64-bits

First download the Swedish BankID program from https://install.bankid.com/.

Unzip the file.

$ tar -xvf BISP-.tar.gz

Install BankID

$ cd BISP-
sudo ./install..sh -i

The last part is only for 64-bit OS and that is to simulate your 32-bit Firefox pluging to run on your 64-bit OS. To do that you need the ia32-libs and nspluginwrapper packages. On a clean installed computer they are not installed.

To install them

$ sudo apt-get install ia32-libs nspluginwrapper

Then install the BankID plugin in Firefox.

$ sudo nspluginwrapper -i /usr/local/lib/personal/libplugins.so

Now restart Firefox and test your plugin via https://install.bankid.com/

To read more in depth of the installation, see http://ubuntu-se.org/wiki/NexusPersonal.

Can Programmers Learn Something from Industrial Design?

Another interest of mine is design and art. Which I will not write more about on this technical blog, but I recently got aquinted with the designer Dieter Rams (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dieter_Rams) who is interesting in many ways, but one thing that I think is of interest to share on this blog is his famous:

Ten Principles for Good Desing

1. Good design is innovative.

2. Good design makes a product useful.

3. Good design is aesthetic.

4. Good desing makes a product understandable.

5. Good design is unobtrusive.

6. Good design is honest.

7. Good design is long-lasting.

8. Good desing is thorough, down to the last detail.

9. Good design is environmentally-friendly.

10. Good design is as little design as possible.

Where my favourite is the last ”Good design is as little design as possible.”. Like James Bond would have said it ”Less is more.” Or maybe as a programmers would have put it ”KISS”.

You can read more of these principles here http://www.vitsoe.com/en/gb/about/dieterrams/gooddesign.

Is Oracle Making any Progress with Pushing Java Forword?

Well in one sense, Oracle have managed to release a new Java version 7, but there are still some differences to solve to make the work go faster and smother.

Read more about the Java 7 ballot
http://jcp.org/en/jsr/results?id=5111

and for the Java 8 ballot release.
http://jcp.org/en/jsr/results?id=5112

One can clearly see that the fighting of lawyers are still going on for the license of Java. I hope they solve it and comes to an agrement so that the evolving of Java progresses faster, than it has since Java 5.

For history of previous Java releases, please read
http://magnus-k-karlsson.blogspot.com/2010/10/jaoo-day-4-java-future-at-oracle.html

How to Disable the Overlay Scrollbar in Ubuntu 11.01 and 11.10

How to Disable the Overlay Scrollbar in Ubuntu 11.01 and 11.10

I like the new look of Unity, but there is one thing that keeps bugging me and that is the new Overlay Scrollbar. To remove it, do the following from the Terminal.

First you need to become root

$ sudo su

Then export the following setting:

$ echo export LIBOVERLAY_SCROLLBAR=0 > /etc/X11/Xsession.d/80overlayscrollbars

Last reboot and voilà the classical scrollbar is back.