Friday January 14, 2005

General

Firefox icon I've noticed something about the Firefox icon which bugs me everytime I see it now. I love the Mozilla products and the icons are great. But why can't the poor little fox have it's head pointing towards us. Seeing the back of it's head just doesn't look right to me. I know it's silly issue but does anyone else agree? Can we get the Firefox turned around?

(2005-01-14 02:47:01.0) Permalink Comments [4]

Monday January 10, 2005

General

Media camped out near the office It appears that this tribunal is happening a couple of doors down from the office. Couple of big vans with satellite dishes on top and people standing around in the rain with microphones. Lovely job. Makes a change to all the police dramas they film across the road at the courts (some real, some fictional) .

(2005-01-10 05:02:53.0) Permalink

Wednesday December 22, 2004

General

RTFM Okay so tonight as Jo (my wife) was out I thought I'd try out the Hauppage Nova-T TV tuner card I purchased last week. Two friends, David and Justin, and I ordered a Nova-T each to try out MythTv. Like Justin, I hadn't declared my new toy to the rest of the house. When the package arrived I intercepted my box and quickly pushed the other two onto David. I think I got away with it but unfortunately Justin was rumbled. This no doubt means his credit card statements will be scrutinised for the next year.

Back to the story, so I plugged the card into my nice cube PC which claims to have TV out and S-VHS. Well I couldn't get the video out to work. I dug out the manual for the motherboard only to find that I needed to change a small motherboard jumper located in the worst possible place. Eventually with tweezers and a small screwdriver I was able to change the jumper. Very fiddly.

Still no video out and I don't have a S-VHS lead so I couldn't try that. As a stop gap I decided to use my Trust VGA to video gizmo. Works great, the image is acceptable for short viewing periods. The downside is that all the cables are wired directly to the gizmo, S-VHS; video; power (which is a keyboard pass-thru); and of course a VGA pass-thru connector. It's like picking up a bowl of spaghetti.

Anyway thought I'd try it out under Windows first just to make sure that the card worked. Windows 2000 recognised the new card; the drivers loaded fine; the applications loaded fine; did I want to scan for channels?, of course.

First problem, channel 22 hung the scanner app. My Freeview box identifies 22 as the first MUX on the Crystal Palace transmitter. Then I remembered that David had already told me that "overlay" didn't work, so I set the software to "force" (I think) and tried again. Yee Haa! The tuner found channels. Here we go!

Second problem. After the scanning the app disappeared and all I got left with was an error dialog. Now each time I try to start the app all I get is the same error. Time to read the manual and check the specs again. Doh! The specs only ever mention Windows XP. But it let me install it on Windows 2000, eh?

Next I checked the web site. Yep that agrees, the 1.2 software is only for Windows XP. It also gives the impression that new hardware will only work with new software. So no Windows 2000 drivers, boo hoo.

Now I'm out of luck as I don't have XP and don't intend getting it either. Oh well, not really a problem as I'm going to use Linux eventually anyway so that I can run MythTV. So time to get installing I think...

(2004-12-22 14:54:43.0) Permalink

Tuesday December 21, 2004

General

Fellow bloggers Met fellow blogger Paul today without realising. As Paul has mentioned before, he supports the PTS and Sustaining folk in Sparc House at Guillemont Park Campus (GMP). Paul kindly said that if I needed anything I should just ask. That's good when the office and lab you are in are strange to you (thanks Paul!).

The Watford Sun office recently moved all of its lab equipement to GMP. Today my visit was to see if I could help set the systems up. Well in truth I wanted to see what my machines were doing. I've been without them for a while and needed to either get on with my work or switch to something else till the machines were usable again.

At the end of the day I actually really enjoyed putting machines on racks and hooking up the cables. I haven't tinkered in a lab for a long while. Also by doing something it felt a whole lot better than whining, something I had been doing most of last week.

(2004-12-21 16:18:02.0) Permalink

Friday December 10, 2004

General

Digital camera plague... I have nothing against digital cameras except one annoyance. I've recently attended my youngest's pre-school play. This is the fifth event in two weeks. Understandably every parent has got some form of camera (me included). Most appear to be digital or at least reasonably hi-tech.

The annoyance is the continual chorus of beeps and dings from the cameras as they are "fiddled" with. After a while I found this really distracting. One parent a couple of rows in front had a camera that beeped loudled on every button press, including the zoom button which he liked to use extensively. Beep beep beep.

I think its time for a new sign to sit alongside the "switch off mobile phones" sign seen in many public places, "switch off noisy cameras".

On a final note, I must start using the red eye feature. One shot of my youngest makes her looks as if she is a terminator. Very scary!

(2004-12-10 03:22:51.0) Permalink

Tuesday November 30, 2004

General

Simple things... for simple minds.

Mildly amusing for five minutes Build A Better Bush.

(2004-11-30 06:28:24.0) Permalink

Friday November 19, 2004

General

When will you people get it... the 4th paragraph and the discussion of "proprietary" is just plainly spreading mis-information. Too many times I've heard that the opposite to proprietary software is open free software. Not so.

The OS is there to enrich the (virtual) machine on which programs run on. This enrichment comes in many forms and levels of detail, one such being what you expect from a Unix or Unix like operating system. Now as long as your OS provides these services in a standard way you can normally achieve some form of source or binary compatibility. To the application how this standard service is achieved is practically irrelevant.

This all reminds me of just over ten years ago when SCO (SCOC from Santa Cruz, not SCOX Provo) was developing SCO OpenServer. OpenServer at time was just discounted by many customers because it wasn't SVR4 based (it was SVR3.2). When in reality SCO had been furiously adding many SVR4 interfaces and services to OpenServer. From an applications point of view the distinction was getting smaller with each week.

So going back to the original mis-information, yes Solaris is currently proprietary with respect to it's innards. However the application exposed Unix interfaces and services that applications use are not proprietary. It is these same interfaces and services that exist in Linux, Unixware, Openserver, HP-UX, AIX IRIX, Ultrix, and Tru64 (apologies if I missed someone out).

I think people forget that these interfaces and services are not proprietary, and that also doesn't make them instantly free and open. The comparison is just wrong. It is not a money thing, people are making money from selling open source software (and good luck to them!).

What people should be interested in is how well the "innards" of an OS implement the standard services and interfaces. The metrics of scalability, reliability and performance are the real differentiators. It is also these metrics that are harder to acheive than just putting your source code on the web for everyone to see.

As for Scott's comment on "interoperable only with the same brand" we don't need spell out who he is talking about.

(2004-11-19 02:32:28.0) Permalink Comments [1]

Thursday November 18, 2004

Java

Intelligent data with Derby, JDO and JPOX... these three items give me something that I have wanted for a long time in my own personal Java apps.

Many times when crafting a Java app I've wanted to have an intelligent data store. Something that I can fire queries at and something that has persistence so that it is available the next time the app is run.

Well of course there are many ways to do this with vanilla Java, custom maps and collections, serialization, etc, etc. All very awkward, especially the data querying.

What I really wanted was a relational database type mechanism that I could throw objects at and then query later. However writing all the classes to wrap the SQL is a drag and specific to each object/table. Also for my sins in the past I had only really ever used Sybase which was far too heavy weight for my Java apps.

In my last job I did get to play with an embedded Java relational database called InstantDB which my last company, Lutris, originally bought and distributed with Enhydra. To make life easier talking to IDB (or any other RDBMS) Enhydra had a package called DODS (Data Object Design Studio). In essence you described some container objects and where they would live in a RDBMS, and DODS generated classes that hid the SQL. It was clunky but it kind of worked.

As I said I wanted to return to the RDBMS object persistence and do it in as a general way as possible. Since my days at Lutris there are some new technologies available that are worth looking at.

Instead of InstandDB a natural choice is Derby, a Java embedded (or standalone server) RDBMS (originally Cloudscape). My first impressions were, "this is really neat". So Derby gives me my data store.

Next is the convenient object to data store mechanism. Well this is where JDO (or Java Data Objects) comes. You have to do more than DODS because you have to generate your inital data objects yourself (the objects that will live in the RDBMS). JDO then "enhances" the classes files. This is the bit that I don't really like. Enhancing your data objects involves modifying the class files and inserting code into them. This all sounds dodgy to me but it works. DODS is different because it generates all the data objects and guts as Java source that then must be compiled.

Included with JDO is JDOQL (query language). This gives you a way of acquiring a collection of a single class of object using a query. The query can refer to the fields of the data object to narrow down the field of returned objects.

JPOX comes into this because it is an implementation of the JDO standard. And it also works with Derby! The two can hook up to provide a RDBMS backed JDO configuration.

After some days of head scratching last evening I finally cracked it. Now I have a simple person object that I cam insert into my data store. Then I cam query fields in my person object when I need to retrieve specifc objects.

When I get a chance I'm going to try something a little more ambitous. A good resource for JDO information is JDOCentral.

(2004-11-18 17:00:43.0) Permalink

General

England's first snow of winter... well okay a light dusting.



The BBC make it all sound more glamorous. I had to photograph it because the kids won't believe me tomorrow morning. Well at least it made it as far south a North Herts and it is quite early (and quite rare) for the south east. I suspect this is all we will see this season.

Before anyone points out that this is nothing like real snow, I know, but here in the UK just the thought of snow sends people spinning in panic. I expect tomorrow the UK to be gridlocked with no roads or trains running.

(2004-11-18 16:20:14.0) Permalink

General

So which planet is HP on? If they think they are in this universe they are clearly mistaken.

I know I probably shouldn't be doing this, I should just get on with my work but I've just read Martin Finks web page and it distracted me sufficiently that I'm here in my blog.

Darn it, just found this Get the Real Story about Solaris on x86 as well. Some real interesting "Facts" in here people.

For instance, "Fact 1" with regards to binary compatibility did we (Sun) ever say SPARC and x86 were binary compatible? Okay so I followed the [4] reference that HP have supplied. This eventually led me back to a Sun website and FAQ item #26. For starters they've referenced an Itanium item not a SPARC/Opteron item. What they really want is FAQ #25. Which does clearly state that SPARC and x86 are not binary compatible. So where's the sensationalism HP? All they have done is peddle the same facts that we've already given out.

As for endianess, where is the news here? From what I understand HP have got a bigger problem with customer systems and endianess. [In case some readers have forgotten, HP bought Compaq, who bought Digital, so it's really HP Tru64]

"Fact 2", proprietary Solaris? Is it any more proprietary than Windows, HP-UX and Tru64? I couldn't find the links on the HP web site that said their OSes were any more open source than Solaris. We also sell Linux and so does HP, everything HP levels at Sun can quite easily be levelled back at HP. No high ground.

"Fact 3", yes why would you mix the management of the two systems. Did HP miss the consolidation pitch that Sun gives? It's not the only pitch we give, it's just one of the many choices we give our customers.

And so on and so on. I could continue but I tire you the reader and myself the writer.

Lastly though I would like to thank Martin for acknowledging the launch of Solaris 10.

ps: Is Linux HP's dirty little secret? I notice in HP's 4th quarter results both HP-UX and Alpha get a mention, but not Windows, x86, Itanium, Opteron or Linux. Obviously these were not interesting enough for HP to mention.

(2004-11-18 06:45:53.0) Permalink Comments [2]

Tuesday November 02, 2004

General

Galatic smoking ban... what with the new inter-galatic smoking ban for everywhere but Earth's United Kingdom we are seeing a marked increase in extraterrestrial tourism at the moment. This picture was recently snapped at a popular UK holiday spot.



Unfortunately the UK is very unprepared for influx of off world visitors. One representative of Dalek Tours was concerned that his party might need to register themselves for the London congestion charge or risk the chance of receiving a penalty charge. Transport for London were not available for comment.



(2004-11-02 07:49:45.0) Permalink

Monday November 01, 2004

General

New UK TV channel... I was thinking exactly along the same lines as Another TV.... I had seen the promos touting a new 24 hour service (bascially just repeats of ITV1 shows) so I thought I'd look up the schedules.

Hmm, I don't call 24 hours of watchable programming teleshopping from 2am! We have enough of this trash already infecting our bandwidth starved terrestial digital service.

British TV appears to have hit a rut where channel programmers believe that re-cycling programme for a second (or third) time will envigour the watching public to tune to.

Hats off to the BBC for How Do You Think You Are. A look into the family past of well know British television celebrities.

(2004-11-01 12:56:59.0) Permalink

Wednesday October 20, 2004

Java

JAXB frustration re-visited...

well last night I fixed my JAXB problem. Well actually I read a forum about a different problem that made me look again at my problem. My schema has a complex type AnyOldThingType which is just used to contain a string:

<xsd:complexType name="AnyOldThingType">
    <xsd:simpleContent>'
        <xsd:extension base="xsd:string">
            [...attribute groups...]
        </xsd:extension>
    </xsd:simpleContent>
</xsd:complexType>

Earlier in the schema I have a global element referencing my complex type:

<xsd:element name="anyOldThing" type="AnyOldThingType"/>

When JAXB's xjc compiler builds the interfaces and implementation classes for my schema it generates two interfaces AnyOldThing and AnyOldThingType. Likewise the generated ObjectFactory also contains two methods for creating implementations of the two interfaces:

 AnyOldThing 	createAnyOldThing()
          Create an instance of AnyOldthing
 AnyOldThingType 	createAnyOldThingType()
          Create an instance of AnyOldThingType

I never really understood why the two methods were needed. When I tried to create an instance of the anyOldThing tag I used the createAnyOldThingType() method.

This is where I was going wrong. This just creates the contents, not the tag itself. Hence the enclosing tag was adopting the contents and attributes.

Once I switched over to the other method (createAnyOldThing()) the tag and the correct contents appeared in my new marshalled file. Hoorah!

Monday October 18, 2004

Java

JAXB frustrations... aaarrrggghhh! I spent sometime this evening playing with JAXB. I've got a schema, I can unmarshal a file, marshal it back to file, no problem. However when I try and replace nodes within the Java representation I can't correctly marshal back to a file. The new tags contents (a string) and it attributes appear on the parent tag, the new tag is no where to be seen.

I've employed a validation handler, but that tells me all is fine.

Time to bang my head against a wall, then go to bed and sleep on it.

(2004-10-18 16:50:02.0) Permalink

Tuesday October 12, 2004

General

Come on do your homework... just received one of those phishing scam emails telling me to re-activate my online bank account by clicking on the enclosed link. This is my reply:

Come on you idiots you can do better than that. Do your homework you slackers. If you are going to con people at least make it look convincing.

You are scamming customers of a UK bank. So why do you put a US toll free number. DOH!

Thankfully I am using Mozilla so the URL you sent shows the fake part.

The final nail in the coffin is that contrary to what you put in the email the bank you picked on has absolutely no customer care! I know I have spent over a year clearing up their incompetence with regard to my house move.

There that feels a whole lot better.

(2004-10-12 14:48:09.0) Permalink