Aug 17 2008

Neat little Screenlets for Ubuntu

Category: UbuntuPhil @ 3:33 pm

Probably doing more messing around than I should be, but I think I’m finally done. My main goal is no more Microsoft Windows! We have a laptop which I will use to do my checkbook and any other mundane tasks, but everything else I want to do on this new machine. When I was looking for software to install to make the machine feel more slick, I happened upon Screenlets.org. I don’t think I’m a big fan of the implementation, but they do look pretty cool! All of the screenlets are written in python, and creates a 10 to 20 meg python process. When I first started playing with the tool, I think I chewed up about 70% of my memory! I have sence upgraded to 4Gig of 1066 OCZ Reaper memory, so I’m not going to worry about a few python processes! There are a boat load of widgets, but I am only using a few to monitor the behavior of my new machine.

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Aug 13 2008

Cool Image Viewing Plug-in

Category: EclipsePhil @ 9:00 pm

Just installed a nice little image viewer for Eclipse tonight… called QuickImage. Seems to work pretty cool, has lots of nice features. You have view thumb nails size pictures, easily navigate around a big picture, and some in see more detail on the image.

Works pretty slick when you are looking at a big ERD or UML diagram.

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Aug 13 2008

Back to blogging at home…

Category: BloggingPhil @ 7:56 pm

Now that I have my new box all setup, single boot, no windows, only have Ubuntu 64-bit running on it, it was time to setup WordPress again!

I really wanted to find a better way to publish than using the internal blog publisher, so I gave ScribeFire a try… Only played with it a little bit tonight, but is was super easy to configure and seems to work pretty well. I have not tired a fancy post yet, but it seems to have lots of nice features.

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Nov 01 2007

Log4JDBC, A Sybase Logging Experiment

Category: JavaPhil @ 8:19 pm

Sybase jConnect 6.0 comes with several examples and I kind of thought this debugging example might prove valuable. The main goal of this exercise was to get parameter substitution working when queries are envoked to simplify debugging via logging. It looked like it could be promising from the documentation, and it was very easy to setup, provided you had the jconn3d.jar.

final String url = "jdbc:sybase:Tds:localhost:5003/database";
final String classes = "SybConnection:SybStatement:Debug:STATIC";
final SybDriver sybDriver = (SybDriver) DriverManager.getDriver(url);
final Debug logger = sybDriver.getDebug();
logger.debug(true, classes);

The debug library produced lots of information about what was happening, unfortunately, it was very chatty and not very descriptive; it printed out conversion and type information, but as codes rather than the “readible” values, and the worst part was that none values were displayed.

com.sybase.jdbc3.jdbc.SybConnection(Thread[main,5,main]): autocommit state is: true
com.sybase.jdbc3.jdbc.SybConnection(Thread[main,5,main]): initProtocol()
(Thread[main,5,main]): processEscapes( {call STP1(?, ?, ?, ?, ?)} )
(Thread[main,5,main]): converted buffer = 'STP1 ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?'
(Thread[main,5,main]): numString(5) --> 5
(Thread[main,5,main]): dataTypeInfo Param: 12, converted to TDS type 39, length = 9
(Thread[main,5,main]): dataTypeInfo Param: 4, converted to TDS type 38, length = 4
(Thread[main,5,main]): dataTypeInfo Param: 12, converted to TDS type 39, length = 9
(Thread[main,5,main]): dataTypeInfo Param: 12, converted to TDS type 39, length = 32
(Thread[main,5,main]): dataTypeInfo Param: 4, converted to TDS type 38, length = 0
(Thread[main,5,main]): dataTypeInfo Param: 4, converted to TDS type 38, length = 0
(Thread[main,5,main]): dataTypeInfo Param: 1, converted to TDS type 39, length = 0
(Thread[main,5,main]): dataTypeInfo Param: 4, converted to TDS type 38, length = 0

Another really nice option seems to be the log4jdbc
library. It is also very easy to use; just change a couple JDBC
configuration properties. It actually provided all of the information
we were looking for and quickly integrated with our Spring and
Hibernate environment. It was highly configurable, and one of the
nicest things was that it would actually provide “timings” on all of
the executed sql. The seems like a really good tool to use during
development and testing, not sure if I would run it in a production
environment; I guess it depends on the requirements of the system.

FINE 10/29/2007 09:58:33 AM [Slf4jSpyLogDelegator.sqlTimingOccured()][main]
org.apache.commons.dbcp.DelegatingPreparedStatement.execute(DelegatingPreparedStatement.java:169)
2. {STP_Name('111129922', '5', '144808258', 'DM043BD4C600006EDC00000001 ', <out>, <out>,
<out>,<out>,<out>,<out>,<out>,<out>,<out>,<out>,<out>,<out>,, )} {executed in 79 msec}

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Oct 31 2007

Crap4J

Category: Java,TestingPhil @ 7:27 pm

Everyone knows that I’m always preaching about code quality and testing, and yesterday I was reading something on the web that I just thought was just too funny. There is actually an Eclipse plug-in called crap4j. It provides a metric to identify code which is difficult to understand, test, or maintain. CRAP actually stands for Change Risk Analysis and Predictions. Here was an interesting blog on CRAP. I have not had the time to read more about this metric, but I like tools that help provide feedback to developers, in my opinion, these tools only help us write better code, and seldom get in the way. The biggest problem is usually getting the team to buy into them. Hopefully, I will have some time to learn about this metric and actually try the plug-in; but with the name and logo like they selected, how can it be bad?

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Oct 30 2007

Lean Development and Kanban

Category: Software DevelopmentPhil @ 7:27 pm

I’m currently reading the Lean Software Development book, it is so interesting… such a different way of thinking and actually “accomplishing” work….    I can only hope that the projects I am currently supporting will move to this style of software development some day….  I once interviewed at a company that fully embraced the XP methodology… it was so cool (from the wall-sized picture of the project, to the story board, to the standing meeting, so progressive), it actually started my evangelism of this process at my current employer.  I can’t recommend this book enough, especially if you want to see a contrast to traditional software development, and hopefully you guys will then be drinking the same kool-aid as me!

Anyway, I was reading a magazine this morning, and to my surprise there was an article on Kanban; which I was just reading about last night.   The article also talked about a piece of software, which I thought was interesting; having software to help manage a lean/agile project looked very interesting… We have used the office windows as our board on previous projects, not nearly as cool. Even Source Forge has a Kaban tool.

I just think it is a neat way of “depicting” and “choosing” the work that needs to be done… It is a very different way of thinking and managing a project.

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Oct 28 2007

Guitar Update

Category: GuitarPhil @ 7:27 pm

I took my acoustic in to Melody Music in Leesburg last weekend to get a tune up. My teacher said that it needed a little work. I had the neck tweaked and some new strings put on; I actually thought the action was a little to high. It is much harder to play than my electric. The point of this rant is that music stores are so intimidating, they seem to always make you feel like such a loser. One of the guys said that I if could not play the guitar, then I should take up the clarinet! Anyway, I got the guitar back today and it rocks. Taylor guitars sound so sweet, the new strings make it sound brand new again. So, when you are in the market for an acoustic, don’t overlook Taylor!

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Sep 07 2007

Getting to the root…

Category: Software DevelopmentPhil @ 7:27 pm

This is probably common knowledge, but I think is root cause is generally overlooked and many times we just don’t care what is really causing the problem, just how quickly can we fix it…  I recently read this in the Lean Software Development book, and thought it was really interesting and simple; something that I should focus on more… So, I started Googling the 5 Whys this morning and found out a couple of interesting things…  This approach was first used (or documented) by Toyota, which much of the Lean book is based upon. What I did not realize was that is now rolled into Six Sigma.  Here is a quick Wiki page you can read too…  I just think this is something we should all keep in our problem solving toolkit, it never hurts to ask!

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