Mandelbrot set browser in 100 lines of code

When I started to learn go a while back I created a small web server in approximately 100 lines of code using only the standard library.  This server is a fully functional production quality web server that renders the Mandelbrot set in a png and serves it - no external web resources required.
I find this is the perfect example of the elegance of creating web services in go. Here is a quick demo of the server in action:

Browsing the Mandelbrot set

All the source is released using the MIT license and is accessible here:
https://github.com/sverrirab/mandelbrot-go

Google Account Chooser

Do you use Google Account Authentication?  Then you have seen this window a few times I would guess:

Having to select the correct account every single time is tedious and and that is the reason I created  a Chrome Extension that remembers your choice and automatically selects the right account for this domain (my use case I always use the same account for the same domain).
Install the Chrome Extension - Google Account Chooser for yourself and try it out.  The source code is all Open Source under MIT license and information along with Frequently Asked Questions can be found on the Project Home Page.

1. You just install the extension from here: Google Account Chooser
2. Log into a Google Account Authentication enabled site and see the icon light up with blue.
3. Click the Icon for Options (disable for site, unselect account.

The extension does not store any credentials just the email address and domain and only has access to the account selection page.  It uses Chrome Sync so stores this across your computers if you have that enabled.  Read the source code if you want to be sure! 

Hope you find this useful!

Your book has an update available

Today I received my first ever update for a book.  It felt rather good actually - pressing update to get a new and improved version of a book I purchased several months ago.  The experience was a lot more pleasant than my first update for the software for my TV.  The minutes that it spent with "Do not power of..." message felt like a lifetime.

This feature of electronic books is definitely second on the list of my favorite benefits of online books after availability.  The list of my non-favorites is a topic for a separate post (starts with DRM).

For the curious the book was Tactics Time! 1001 Chess Tactics from the Games of Everyday Chess Players on my Amazon Kindle - highly recommended if you love Chess Puzzles.

Working with multiple Google Accounts just got easier

I'm one of many that have multiple Google Accounts.  Some of them are personal, other work, school or related to projects I work on.  I don't have an exact count but I guess I have currently access to at least 6 different accounts.  Until now it has been a major pain using more than one of them at the same time.  I've tried multiple approaches such as running multiple browsers, such as Chrome and Firefox or Chrome and Chromium but I've always found that annoying.
Even though you can technically log into multiple accounts and switch between them it still doesn't work properly and even Google warns you when you log into your second account that it might not work for some of their domains.  Current example is Blogger.com :).
Add new user
There is finally a solution to this and it is a new but well hidden feature in Chrome.  Go to your wrench menu -> Settings and select "Add new user".  This user is a standalone browser session with plugins, browser sync and all the goodies you have come to know and love.
This means that multiple users is on par with browser sync as my favorite Google Chrome feature :)
Finally a screen shot of my setup.  One user for work, the other for my personal mail and pages.  You can switch between User sessions or simply windows and see which session you are in by the user selectable icon in the top right corner.

The only limitation I have found is that I can't user the same Google Account to sync my bookmarks across both sessions, but this is a restriction I'm willing to live with.

Chrome to the Throne

Chrome is finally the most used web browser

The main reason everyone should be excited about this is of course that this means continued innovation in the web/browser space and more importantly users are now safer from malware than ever before.  This can not only benefit the internet ecosystem as a whole.

Chrome surpasses IE (Source: StatCounter)

You can debate wether Chrome is more secure than other browser, most notably IE.  But you can not debate the fact that Chrome has raised the bar and everyone else is following suit.

Fixing file permissions on Windows

Access is Denied

I have been having issues cleaning up my hard drive because of files with weird permission settings.  I had endless "Access is Denied" messages and could not delete the files from the Command Prompt or Windows Explorer even with elevation to Administrator rights.

GUI Failure

I have long ago given up on the Windows Security Dialogs.  They are trying to simplify a system so complicated that you cannot make it understandable.  Look to the right for an example.  Three nested dialogs and a popup that contains too much information.  At this point you can only guess which option is right.  Add to it the confusion of inherited permissions and file vs folder permissions and you simply have no chance of doing the right thing.

The solution

Is to find a folder up in your folder hierarchy that has the right permissions and apply that.  Step 1 is to run a command prompt as administrator:

cd to the folder that has the right permssions (cd c:\stuff in my case) and issue this command:

icacls broken /reset /t /c /l /q

As shown in this image:

And everything should be working again.