Java Thinking

I've occasionally been frustrated by the output of 'ps -ef' not showing the full command line for the processes. Well, it turns out that the solution is as simple as piping the output to a file - i.e. 'ps -ef > ps.txt' - now I can easily see the FULL command line for my java processes. I bought a new WIFI router this week. My old one was getting flaky, and for some reason I've always had trouble with some of the url shorteners such as bit.ly and t.co - they just couldn't be resolved. So I bought a basic Netgear WNR1000 which satisfied all of my criteria. One of the things I like most is that it has a switch to turn off the wireless when I don't need it. This helps with security as well as saving power. I've almost finished porting my latest application to AppEngine (Python). Lucky its a small application! I'm constantly being reminded that its useful to have skills in a lightweight technology to bootstrap and test ideas quickly. If that id...

This post is on the money. Humorous and accurate. I've seen this all before. There is a very interesting podcast on the software patent situation at NPR Planet Money. I'm in a bind! I'm ready to launch a new app (Grails based), but my VPS with 768MB memory can't handle it (its running vsconsole already, and apache, mysql etc). Unfortunately I can't add more memory until next month! They are out of stock!! I signed up for CloudFoundry.com (still in BETA), but it I haven't been able to find out how to use my own domain, or how to extract the data when/if I need to. I could easily port it to AppEngine (Python). It's a small app so it wouldn't be much effort but I'd rather spend the effort on new features!

I am currently working on a JSF2 application at work, and I mostly use Firefox during the development process because I use SeleniumIDE as a development/productivity tool to quickly log in as different users and drive the browser to a certain point. Imagine my surprise when I found out that something didn't work in IE8 . I could see IE reporting a JavaScript error, but the details were useless. Even with the developer tools in IE, I couldn't identify what or where the error was. This page didn't have any JavaScript written by me - its all the JSF generated code. All I could do is use the process of elimination and trial and error to rearrange the page and subtlety change code  until it worked. Its hard to believe that IE is still in this state, especially when faced with the competition from Chrome (built in developer tools ) and Firefox (add-on FireBug for developer tools). I'm using VMWare Fusion on my MacBook AIR to run an Ubuntu server for testing purposes. I...

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.