Monday February 21, 2005

General

Another last entry! Okay, quick back track. I've decided to move my blog to JRoller for obvious reasons. See ya!

(2005-02-21 02:00:40.0) Permalink

Sunday February 20, 2005

General

Last entry from a Sun Java Developer My last day with access to Sun and blogs.sun.com will be on Tuesday 22nd February so this will probably be my last entry.

I've really enjoyed working for Sun and it upsets me having to leave. I suppose for now I won't be able to fulfill one of my ambitions of actually working in the JDK teams. Being at Sun allowed me to extend my Java and J2EE experience to over 8 years and bring my Unix experience to over 15 years. For the last year my team has all been remote, I am in the UK and they were nearly all in the Bay area. That made an interesting working day. Prior to my 3 years at Sun I was with Lutris Technologies Inc for 2 years working on and with both the Enhydra and Enhydra Enterprise. Before that my time (nearly 10 years) was spent with the Santa Cruz Operation Inc (SCOC not SCOX!) in numerous roles.

Whatever new opportunities I pursue I will still be in the Java zone as I just love working with Java. I don't suppose my next employer will be a Californian based technology company, given that all my jobs since graduating have it might even feel a little strange.

Thanks all to who stumbled across my blog. I was never in the top 10 of blogs.sun.com but I have been top of the "grahamm" Google search, that surprised and pleased me. I'm going to continue with "grahamm's blog" over at Blog Drive. I hope you visit my new blog, there is a contact form there if anyone wants to contact me. Also thanks to the rest of blogs.sun.com, it was great being part of this community.

Thanks again and goodbye,

Graham

(2005-02-20 04:25:00.0) Permalink Comments [2]

Films & TV

CSI:NY episode 3 Well I saw my second CSI:NY last night (missed last weeks). The lack of colour is getting very annoying. I keep wanting to adjust my television to compensate. What stops me is when the adverts come on it looks like I'm tripping on something with the riot of over bright colours. Also the story seemed very slow and weak. I hope it gets better.

(2005-02-20 03:32:40.0) Permalink Comments [1]

Monday February 07, 2005

Gadgets

PMR446 (personal mobile radio) I had yesterday afternoon off as vacation, so I decided to go into Maplins in Stevenage. For those who don't know Maplins it is essentially a electrical gadget shop. I love it, I could spend so much money in there it is frightening.

Well this time I picked up a couple of PMR446 walkie talkies as I might have a need for some in the summer (nothing like being ready!). PMR446 is a European wide standard for personal mobile radios on 446Mhz. Well it is nearly Europe wide, I think Monaco don't include themself. The radios have 8 individual channels with 38 additional "sub-channels". This just means that your radio on one of the eight channels will ignore any sub-channel it doesn't recognise. You still share the primary channel with everyone else.

They are suppose to give about 2-3 kilometres. I haven't had a chance to try them out yet over any distance. It says buildings and land relief make a difference so I'm not expecting anything exceptional. A kilometre would be nice.

Well I tried them out on Saturday night as it was time for a Chinese take-away (not had one for ages and ages). So I treked down to the high street and tried to raise Jo who was still at home. Yes they worked, a bit crackly but I could hear every word. The distance isn't that far, probably half a mile, but that is down a hill and through lots of buildings, over an electrified railway and into the car. I was too self conscious to do it on the street.

(2005-02-07 10:30:00.0) Permalink

Wednesday February 02, 2005

Films & TV

CSI observations Last night (Channel) five ran the Miam/NY crossover episode again in readiness for Saturday. With Vegas running just before something became apparent about the way the three settings were filmed in daylight. Vegas had a yellow/white glow, Miami a yellow/orange glow and NY a grey colourless appearance. In fact in the first scene with both David Caruso and Garu Sinise, Caruso is in the background bathed in what looks like sun light, and Sinise in the foreground in a grey cold colourless light. Of course this may have been coincidence as I haven't seen any CSI:NY yet only the crossover. I will wait and see...

(2005-02-02 02:23:12.0) Permalink

Java

Makefiles are satan's contribution to software Probably a bit harsh but one of the places I always have trouble is with Makefiles. Regardless of whether I'm building Java or C I normally fall foul of something (Note: I use Apache Ant for all my own personal projects).

My current pet peeve is with Makefiles and jar files. The part of a source tree I am working in generates lots of class files and a handful of jar files. However the ability of the makefiles to correctly rebuild the jar files after I have touched some source appears to be random. This means on occasions when I'm testing changes I find I'm still using old code. This so wastes my time.

(2005-02-02 01:59:28.0) Permalink Comments [3]

Monday January 31, 2005

Films & TV

New CSI I try not to watch too much TV because it is the great waster of time. However there are times when I just want to sit and be mindlessly entertained. Channel 5 (yes five!) does this for me on Tuesday and Saturday evenings. On Tuesday we are given a double helping of CSI in the form of regular CSI and CSI:Miami. Saturdays was also regular CSI from a different season. However as of the coming weekend we in the UK finally get CSI:New York. Hoorah! Tuesdays will also see the start of season 5 of regular CSI, as Miami continues with it's first season. I only started to get interested in CSI when Channel 5 aired season 2 last year so it is good to see the early stuff again.

Alas though 24 (day 4) started this weekend on Sky One. I really enjoyed 24 on the BBC (no adverts!). I had the chance to see the first half of day 3. I asked at Blockbuster if they had 24 for rent so I could finish my fix. The assistant just laughed.

(2005-01-31 03:26:47.0) Permalink

Sunday January 23, 2005

Places

Unhelpful UK city award winner: Peterborough Took a drive up to Peterborough today to pick my wife's mother up from the railway station. Normally she would travel all the way south to Stevenage but today the line was shut for engineering works. When this happens armies of coaches bus passenger between the two stops. This makes the normal 20-30 minute train journey into just over 1 hour 20 minutes. It's only 50 miles so you can drive it within the hour easily, it's just that the coaches are sssslllloooowwwww. It also meant we (the family) could make a trip of it and visit the Nene Valley.

So we legged it up the A1 and entered the out skirts of Peteboro'. It's all dual carriageways initially (err I mean 'parkways'). We decided to find the station first being strangers to the city. I had done some prior planning and written down a route to the station. That was a good idea except when we got to our first change of direction we missed it because it just wasn't sign posted correctly. By chance we spotted a sign on the crossing road that indicated we should have turned off. The problem being that the exit slip road was at least 100 yards behinds us. No worries, there were other roads into the centre.

As expected it wasn't long before we found signs to the railway station. Now due to the increased number of coaches needed at the station the forecourt and approach was manic. As far as we could see there was a single station staff member directing cars in one direction and coaches in the other. The cars were being directed into the long stay car park. But we didn't want to park, we wanted to pick up and go. Then the staff member started whining at me for not stopping when he asked me to while a coach driver shouted at me to drive on. Where to though? There were cars and coaches stopped everywhere. I suggested to the staff member that he should probably stop more vehicles from entering the station approach. He wandered off cursing.

Then another staff member appeared from somewhere who tried again to signal at me to enter the car park. I shook my head and drove towards the now clear station exit. Then another staff member appeared and said "You can't go this way Sir the road is closed". Eh? Closing the exit, isn't that amazingly stupid given the chaos. I said I just wanted to leave and not be part of the problem. Perhaps I had said the secret word because I was waved on, clear to leave the battlezone behind me.

Actually Peterborough is a great place, especially the Nene Valley. It could just do with a bit more organisation. Sometimes I get a chance to see if the anorak still fits.

(2005-01-23 12:48:45.0) Permalink

Java

webserver + db The other night I was able to grab sometime and continue with one of my own personal Java projects. I wanted to glue together Tomcat and JDOs using JPOX and Derby . This IMHO forms a basic foundation platform for simple web apps. I tend to quickly put together very simple one task apps which are needed for a short period of time.

Then I started to wonder, could I also glue in JAXB and make it generate my JDO classes? Then I could import or export XML directly into the database (either via an web request or as part of some app logic).

Perhaps there is the opportunity to generate (with some help) the JDO metadata from the XML schema. Hmm, given my speed at which my personal project proceed this might be a while. I suspect there are some bright sparks that could quickly tell me the highs and lows of my idea.

(2005-01-23 00:18:32.0) Permalink

Friday January 21, 2005

General

Scaring doorstep cold callers This unexpected incident has given me no end of (evil) fun and I will employ it again purposefully.

Today I had a doorstep sales person cold call trying to sell uPCV double glazing. They started with the normal ramble of only giving a quote, no pressure, etc, etc; when we all know that's not true. At first I couldn't even get a word in. When I did I asked what company did they represent. Lets call the cold caller's company company_A.

I wanted to know because I had already had a cold caller two days earlier trying to sell uPVC double glazing and I assumed it was the follow up pressure call, just reminding me that the fabulous discounts and offers would end today (only for more next week :)). But it wasn't the same company, two days earlier it was company_B!

So before the sales person could continue I piped up "For your interest company_B called round a couple of days ago". The look on the salespersons face was, as in the Mastercard advert, priceless.

Initially it was clearly horror. Over about the next ten silent seconds it turned to resignation and possibly even rejection. The penny had dropped from a long way up and was still falling.

The sales person just backed off down the drive. It was then that I unintentionally added the final nail and said, "They went around all of the street." That was it I suppose, this sales avenue was more or less closed or at least profit less.

All this happened, as I said, unintentionally. It was until I closed the door and sat down to continue with my lunch that I thought about the looks the sales person had given me and what must have been going through their mind at the time. One thing I do know though is I might just suggest something similar the next time a cold caller interrupts me.

(2005-01-21 05:51:53.0) Permalink Comments [2]

Tuesday January 18, 2005

Java

JTree woes (2) Finally got it. The code was trying to collapse the root node and it is this that was causing the corruption and an array out of bounds exception. Removing the collapse call still produces the desired effect. I now need to decide who really was at fault. Either way I don't like the internals of JTree spewing out of bounds exception at me.

Okay next issue...

(2005-01-18 03:11:36.0) Permalink

General

Days are slowly getting longer I can only assume the birds in my garden are going nuts because they can sense the slow lengthening of daylight time. They either chase each other; sing loudly and continously; or root around in the grass and shrubs. A marked change to a month ago when they appeared to feed and then fly off. I (sadly) find it all quite entertaining. I'll do anything to get out of garden chores...

(2005-01-18 01:20:18.0) Permalink

Java

JTree woes Not having a goodtime at the moment. I have a JTree bug where the list gets corrupted on collapsing all branches so only the root node shows. I've trawled the code, I've traced the code, but I still cannot see why it doesn't work in this instance. The very same code works on another panel so I'm suspecting the data is causing grief. So far though I haven't been able to get a deeper hook on the problem.

I hate days like this!

(2005-01-18 01:09:08.0) Permalink

Monday January 17, 2005

General

Super Jumbo I was reading about the A380 super jumbo on Sunday. It is due to be officially unveiled tomorrow with test flights starting in March. I am already mesmerized when watching other large aircraft in flight (like the 747). I get to see them briefly take off when I drive to Guillemont Park and the office. The M25 motorway passes next to London Heathrow. The problem is I am suppose to be driving and not watching the metal birds.

The A380 doesn't enter service till sometime next year and then most likely in the Far East for the first year or so. I will have to wait a little before I see one in the metal.

(2005-01-17 06:03:23.0) Permalink

Sunday January 16, 2005

General

I've woken up in hell First rule of looking after children, make sure there are more adults in control than children. I've got my brother's children staying over. It's hell! Help me! Even my own children have turned into screaming trolls.

(2005-01-16 01:31:40.0) Permalink