Java Thinking

A friend pointed out this article to me which says in summary: "No matter how much you try, you can’t stop people from sticking beans up their nose." Its well worth reading, especially if you continually see crazy things happening at work, and need a way to deal with it. In a similar fashion, I've also stumbled across a couple of comics which happen to describe (too accurately) most of the real world: OneFTE.com and PhD Comics . And lets not forget Dilbert . At least we can laugh about it. I've been having trouble with my MythTV install. I've installed 2 tuner cards (one is a single tuner, the other dual) and when I reboot they seem to be randomly assigned to /dev/dvb/adapterX - I finally started looking into it, and found this reference which has helped me permanently assign the first card - which should be consistent across reboots. However, I've still got to set up the second card, and test properly. An article (from 2007!) pointing out how Ron Jefferie...

I think viewing server logs has always been more difficult than it should have been for me. For example, when I'm developing and debugging applications deployed to the dev and test servers, if you want to see the various log files involved it requires: Logging in to the server (if you have an account) Finding the log files (if you remember where they are and have permissions to read them) Tailing in a console Some places its not trivial to get accounts and permissions - but anyway, the point is it takes more time than its worth to find that log file and see whats going on. To make it easier, I created vsConsole - a java (grails) based web application that polls agents on the servers - so with a couple of clicks you can be tailing your favourite log file on your dev/test server. It works well for our testers that I work with on my day job - it saves them the hassle of ssh and unix accounts and permissions. The convenience of a browser based application is in their opin...

I recently bought a Virgin Mobile Broadband (Australia) PrePaid USB modem - a Huawei e160e. I activated it over the phone, and when I plugged it in to my Dell Inspiron 1525 running Ubuntu 9.10, I could see that it was connected to the network (this modem flashes a blue light every 3 seconds when connected to the mobile network). But, try as I might, I couldn't get it connected. Every time I tried, it would just disconnect. Looking in the system logs, I'd see: Jan  6 12:42:57 paul-laptop pppd[2846]: Plugin /usr/lib/pppd/2.4.4/nm-pppd-plugin.so loaded. Jan  6 12:42:57 paul-laptop pppd[2846]: pppd 2.4.5 started by root, uid 0 Jan  6 12:42:57 paul-laptop pppd[2846]: Using interface ppp0 Jan  6 12:42:57 paul-laptop pppd[2846]: Connect: ppp0 <--> /dev/ttyUSB0 Jan  6 12:42:57 paul-laptop pppd[2846]: CHAP authentication succeeded Jan  6 12:42:57 paul-laptop pppd[2846]: CHAP authentication succeeded Jan  6 12:43:06 paul-laptop pppd[2846]: Modem ...

Right now, I'm trying out EasyPeasy on my laptop - an Ubuntu Netbook based edition optimized for low power consumption and pre-installed with propriety codecs and software. I thought I'd try it out hoping to get more battery life, and also to take the netbook interface for a drive. I figure its got some attractive qualities - it differs in the way you access the system menus and opens applications full screen.

Know of any companies in Sydney that engage in REAL agile projects - properly? Let me know, I'm interested! I had a javascript drop-down menu that youtube video interferred with - when the menu dropped down, the youtube object covered it! I found the answer here -  http://geekswithblogs.net/steveclements/archive/2007/03/03/107839.aspx - where the solution is simple: Add nested element to object tag: <param name="wmode" value="transparent"/> And attribute to embed tag: wmode="transparent" Spending too much time travelling to and from work makes me appreciate the idea of telecommuting. I've noticed that Canonical (Ubuntu) advertises home based jobs, but all companies I know are strongly against it - and although they don't advertise the fact , it is an unspoken policy. Right now, I probably don't have the best home for accommodating telecommunting, but I did come across the OfficePod the other day - a brilliant idea, your office ...

I've noticed a bunch of websites that just don't pay any attention to detail. Little things: banking sites that don't remember your settings (i.e. for exporting statements) and you have to set them every time you export, for every account log forms you fill it to register, and when you fail validation (like getting the CAPTCHA wrong), some parts of your form are now blank and you have to fill them in again (or you get to the bottom where they ask you to accept the terms and conditions, and when you view them it navigates away from the form you are on) paying for things online is still very difficult! It took me almost an hour to pay for an extension I bought the other day - very confusing paypal process, which I haven't fully researched to know what is going on Maybe these are symptoms of trying to do too much - and never doing anything very well? The banking site in question never seems to change, so perhaps they just aren't in a position where they can make ...

Looking for some icons? Check out the fantastic work available @ webtoolkit4.me - there are some really good icon sets. I'm always trying to find better ways of doing things and find incredible resistance to even the simplest of improvements - things that I would consider no-brainers end up subjected to business cases and long winded "evaluations of all the options". Well, the Pragmatic Programmers have released a book that might be exactly what I need: Driving Technical Change "Finding cool languages, tools, or development techniques is easy—new ones are popping up every day. Convincing co-workers to adopt them is the hard part. The problem is political, and in political fights, logic doesn’t win for logic’s sake. Hard evidence of a superior solution is not enough. But that reality can be tough for programmers to overcome." Myself and a co-worker have a keen interest in developing our agile skills, and would also like to infect the rest of the team with our en...