Medge

Another issue with SQLServer 2005

2007-01-18T11:18:00.000+10:30

Remote servers.

Our main database is an Ingres database, the web database is now SQLServer 2005. Occasionally we need to link data from both(for checks etc). Unfortunately Ingres cannot do cross catalog queries(no idea why, but as Postgres can't either, I blame the designer). Fortunately if you link in a remote server in SQLServer you can perform cross catalog selects. Simply set up a remote server for each Ingres catalog and use :

select *

from ingresdb1..owner.table_name

union all

from ingresdb2..owner.table_name

making sure you have set ansi_null and ansi_warnings to on.

However after I set up an ODBC connection to Ingres on the SQLServer 2005 database(which is no fun either as you need to set up IngresNet first and log in using the admin password) and then set up a remote server to Ingres in the SQLServer manager I ran a test query, it brought the whole server down.

Now MySQL cannot link to remote servers(that I know of), but I have yet to ask it to do something I know it can do and have it crash completely, I used to be able to say that was mostly true of SQLServer, but the 2005 server has been online for two weeks and crashed more than a dozen times in that period.

DON'T USE IT! EVER!

SQL Server 2005

2007-01-17T15:10:00.000+10:30

Stick with me on this one:
I've just installed the client tools for SQLServer 2005. I have a small C: drive and needed to install it on my E: drive.

I tell the installer to install to e:\program files\Microsoft...
It tells me there isn't enough room
I check drive e: to see that there is enough room, restart the installer and try again
It still fails!
I notice there is a button on the installer that will tell me how much disk space it needs
- it needs 150mb on e:
- 1.4GB on c:
- It will install .net 2.0, visual studio developer and a whole lot more on the c: drive and I cannot change it
I uninstall a couple of applications and move them to the e: drive
I get enough room on my c: drive(just)
It installs

All I want to do is set up a regular backup on the database. It's is simple on the previous versions of SQLServer, but on 2005 it isn't.
I end up using the maintenance wizard to build a job that will back up the database. At the end it tells me that 1) The T-SQL isn't the real T-SQL that it will run as I have asked for weird configurations and 2) It cannot save the job as their is an error. It's a fucking wizard, I typed and selected nothing, just clicked 'next' a lot.
I think I have got it running but I've used a large number of versions of SQLServer and one of the good things about it is the minimal time it takes to dump a large database. In this version it is taking forever.

In summary SQLServer adds very little to the database engine, server, whatever, just a lot of added crap to the extras and uses a hugh amount of disc space to achieve it.
I really hate Microsoft; SQLServer was their only worthwhile product but it now appears the SQLServer development team has been infiltrated by the marketing code bloaters.

Word to the wise, a database server serves data! Add tools to make backup easier and you are away.
MySQL must be very happy with SQLServer 2005 as it's just another good reason to migrate to MySQL.

PS: The JTDS JDBC driver still talks to it, which is one thing.

Open Office 2.1

2006-12-14T08:52:00.000+10:30

I've written a mail merge for OOo documents. Originally targeting OOo 1.x (now removed) with extensive rewrites to cover 2.0(OOo became 100% standards compliant). With the release of OOo 2.1 I checked to ensure it still functioned as expected, as it is still complying to the same standards this should be a no-brainer. It was, my mail merge runs against OOo 2.1 just as it did against OOo 2.0.

Take some notes here Microsoft - no wait, you do understand standards, but if you conform to a standard then you will sell less crap. The power of open source, open standards.

Lessons to be learnt

2006-11-07T16:30:00.000+10:30

If your name is Gene and you are attending a Guy Fawkes party at a friends house do not let either myself or Neil anywhere near the blue touch paper. Sometime, however, this is unavoidable.

Things to remember

2006-10-31T10:42:00.000+10:30

1) Never try to put lazy loader into daomedge. Honestly! I've tried three times now and each time I come across another section that will be compromised if I did. I should remember that I wrote it to be simple and for the user to handle the persistence. I don't want the value objects to know about the DAO. The DAO is transient.

2) The company that we get our system from hasn't got a clue! I have spent a large amount of my time trying to find the link between a data table and a reference table. It doesn't seem to exist, anywhere. Reference information on a data table. Important information used in calculations stored in a FREE TEXT FIELD! What the hell are they thinking? They haven't heard of normalization or any other data design concept.

I need a drink.

As a footnote: I am loving the inline spell checker in Firefox 2.0!

This site is the funniest yet.

2006-09-01T09:19:00.000+09:30

Again I thought this was a good religious parody site but then I realised it was true (despite this).

So funny...

Then there is this...

2006-08-26T10:44:00.000+09:30

...which isn't funny at all. http://www.human-rights-and-christian-persecution.org/coptic.html.

And it keeps getting funnier...

2006-08-26T10:32:00.000+09:30

... every single time I see this type of thing.

Firstly this :

Willisee : "Please god don't let the plane crash.".

[Plane crashes]

Willisee : "Ah, god must exist!".

is, well, just plain weird.

Secondly

Christ, like all those crucifed by the romans, died of asphyxiation. To do this they needed to be tied or nailed up for sometime. Nails through the palms of the hands won't do it which is why the romans et al nailed the victims through the wrists any stimgata wounds in the palms is wrong, totally and utterly wrong. One of the earliest sects, the coptics, gets it right.

And this one is funnier

2006-08-21T17:06:00.000+09:30

Funny, funny stuff

Madonna and Kabbalah.
Here's a thought, put Madonna in a room of very toxic and high grade nuclear waste and let her clean it up with a jar of her kabbalah fluid.

She would get points (from me at least)for actually attempting it. I doubt she has that kind of faith in it.
If she actually succeeds in cleaning it up Mr Randi has a million dollars to give her(or her favourite charity).

A brilliant joke!

2006-08-20T16:21:00.000+09:30

This is a wonderful joke.
That is until you follow this link at the bottom.

Home Again

2006-07-07T15:01:00.000+09:30

This puts a lie to the holiday blog, could be bothered really.

However, some observations about the latest trip:

We were told, on the flight to the US, that it is against the law to gather in groups of more than two while queuing for the toilets. It is part of the US security arrangements, I presume because terrorists first get on the plane and then work out what they are going to do.

I can see that security has been tightened up in Japan and the US, in Japan the security guards are conspicuous and your photo is taken unobtrusively going through the airport. In the US we are photographed, finger printed, interogated and at every check point my shoes where x-rayed.

In Japan the extended security measures where noticable, but didn't get in the way, in the US they created delays. Remember we weren't going to the US, but were transit to Canada. After the initial bullshit that went on, Bean insisted we get some buffalo wings at LA airport so I could remind myself that there are some really great things about the US, stuff we genuinely like. It worked; real buffalo wings whose sauce clawed your eyes out as they approached, and were so hot I nearly didn't finish them!

Yeah Sony

2005-12-02T21:38:00.000+10:30

Mirrormask is to get an Australian release, yeah.

Well, when I say Australian, I mean Sydney and Melbourne

Sony are complete bastards

You cannot copy the film, you cannot get the film from the US(wrong zone) and we sure as hell ain't going to let you see it at the cinema.

Good thing de-zoned DVD players are all over the place and are here to stay, if the ACCC has anything to do with it, otherwise I'd never get to see it.

Human Rights

2005-12-02T21:12:00.000+10:30

Mandatory death sentences are a violation of human rights. A death sentence does not deter anything. 14 Years, 420 people in Singapore, and people still smuggle drugs into the country. 29 years 1000 people in the US and people are still murdered.

The population of Singapore seems to be behind the mandatory death sentence and Howard seems to think that it will affect the people to people relationship between the two countries. Nothing official though. Australia and the world have imposed trade sanctions against countries for less.

If anything is to come from Nguyen Tuong Van's execution is that the Singapore government and people will learn that they cannot violate human rights like that and not, as our moronic Prime Minister suggests, that the youth of Australia will now avoid taking drugs.

There was an article in the local paper(The Advertiser) where a woman said they Nguyen should hang as her 21 year old daughter died from a heroin overdose. I wouldn't blame the drug smuggler, I'd blame the pusher who put her on to the drug(neither of them where Nguyen), but mostly I'd blame the person mostly responsible for her daughter's death, her daughter.

Remember, all of you remember, a drug addict is a drug addict by choice. Take responsibility for your own actions people.

ACCC And DVD zones, final post (until something happens)

2005-11-30T15:58:00.000+10:30

I have just got a phone call from an nice guy called Jon at the ACCC. He said that as manufacturers are releasing de-zoned players and have no plans to stop, the ACCC feel that it is not an issue: but if one of them do (like Sony did with their Playstations) then they will be willing to step in.

So, as the situation now stands, dezoned players in Australia are going to easily available, don't listen to any retail outlets about plans to legislate against dezoning of players and if they do then the ACCC will be willing to intervene.

Jon mentioned that the issue might involve the Australian Copyright Council, but this isn't really a copyright issue, other than the parallel importing of DVD's being explicitly exempt from the parallel importing of other media, which I suspect is because the DVD's are zoned. The argument that it is all about release dates is hardly relevant as

It won't be a parallel import if it isn't available here yet

Release dates of DVD's are usually a long time after the cinema releases world wide

If the cinema release date in Australia is post the US DVD release date then that serves them right for leaving us out of the loop

When it comes to TV shows, then the people to blame are the Australian networks (usually channel nine), so again it serves them right

unfortunately the Australian Copyright Council is unhelpful when it comes to asking about issues re copyright law or justification behind decisions.

It boils down to this: The ACCC doesn't want to spend the money to fix something that isn't broken, yet. Particularly as the fallout will be global.

So the answer to the question "Will the ACCC do something about zoned DVD players if the manufacturers(eg Sony) start insisting their players must be zoned?" is "Yes".

The answer to the question "Aren't manufacturers insisting that all players be zoned in Australia now?" is "No, not that we know, and we would know! Don't listen to retail outlets anywhere, they don't know. But if it did happen we'll be there."

Alright that was paraphrased, but it was quite a simple answer to a simple question, woner why it took so long to get it.

ACCC Still behind the times...

2005-11-25T13:16:00.000+10:30

The Australian High Court has ruled that the use of Mod Chips to play games from other zones was legally protected by our copyright rules; CNET article.
This should also apply to DVD players, but it currently has not been explicitly stated. The ACCC is in a good position to try again, if they could be bothered.

I'll check.

Syd Barrett

2005-09-12T14:20:00.000+09:30

After a very vivid dream last night where I was visited by Syd Barrett and we discussed his health and well being. I also had trouble finding my copy of Crazy Diamond for him to sign.

I mentioned this to Helen and she pointed out that this is just the kind of thing that Syd is likely to do, but that I hadn't pointed out anywhere on my site that I was Pink Floyd fan.

So here I am, just in case Syd is browsing and stumbles across my site; I am a Pink Floyd fan!.
That ought to do it.

As a foot note we made great strides towards both of our mental well being.

What do Beavis and Butt-head and James Bond have to do with each other?

2005-08-18T15:44:00.000+09:30

Over on Poppy Z Brite's blog she mentions the idea of substituting a word in a book title with the word "butt". Apparently a Beavis and Butt-head special.

I have come across this before, only it was the word "dog" and movie titles, the best series of titles being the Bond films.

On Her Majesty' Secret Dog

Dogs Are Forever

The Dog Who Loved Me

From Russia With Dog

But after a bit of this we started to use the word "beaver", but "butt" works just as well.

CBLDF and First amendment Protection

2005-08-11T11:45:00.000+09:30

These two organisations are there to stop censorship, a worthwhile endeavour in anyones language.
To this end ebay has some nice auctions up.

Lots of neat places to turn up...

MirrorMask

2005-08-07T17:31:00.000+09:30

It is possible that MirrorMask is not getting a theatrical release in Australia and it should.

A single letter sent to Sony Pictures Austrlia will translate in their mind as a hundred people wanting to see it. A good form letter is here (rtf).
DOwnload, change the dates and names, print, sign, post. It's a crazy idea but it might just work!

What Am I? [with fixed link]

2005-08-03T17:22:00.000+09:30

From www.whatiam.net:

"In today's America, ask a growing number of high school and college students; their teachers and professors; the self-anointed media elite and/or hard working men and women of all ethnicities, the question, 'What is a Republican?', and you'll be told ' ... a rich, greedy, egotistical individual, motivated only by money and the desire to accumulate more and more of it, at the expense of the environment ... the working poor ... and all whom they exploit...'

"I am a Republican ... I am none of those things ... and I don't know any Republicans who are."

And then there is a list of what he is. You might want to read that first.

Firstly this ad cost him $US104,655.60 to run. It would take me four years to earn that much after tax, assuming I don't eat, live etc. So far from being "none of those things" he is rich.

From his list, he is definitely egotistical.

He knows his God is the one true God. So he is amazingly arrogant. He doesn't claim not to be though, so that is one thing.

He claims to be a loving husband and father; then spends up to 80 hours per week away from his family giving them a "better life". So he is motivated by money. Ideally earn enough to be comfortable, and enjoy your family and your life.

He says he know all about the depression, and yet strives to reproduce it by using the stock market.

He claims that he understands about free speech, but decries anyone who actually uses it and disagrees with him.

He condemns those who claim there is racism in the US. I'll bet he will say "some of my friends are black!", but it would never occur to him to say that some of his friends are white.

He says he is proud that his president uses his belief in God, despite the constitution. So he is proud his president acts illegally.

He is also proud that his president doesn't confirm to the political whims of foreign governments. Is he also proud that his president insists those foreign governments conform to the political whims of his president?

All in all, I would agree with the premise of this advert. If I am asked what is a republican in the future, I will not reply '... a rich, greedy, egotistical individual, motivated only by money and the desire to accumulate more and more of it, at the expense of the environment ... the working poor ... and all whom they exploit...', instead it will be the more succinct '... they a wanker!'

SourceForge

2005-07-29T16:45:00.000+09:30

I've got a couple of java projects on sourceforge(daomedge and mailmerge). Today I released a new version of daomedge. Sourceforge is insisting each version has a unique name(ideally the version number is attached), this is probably a good time, but I'm not totally sold.

It would also have been nice if they told us this was happening.

Then again, they might have and I'd not read it.

The practical upshot of all this is futire releases of daomedge will be daomedge-x.x.x.jar etc.

Continuum 3

2005-07-20T08:52:00.000+09:30

Ever had one of those days where you have been so busy that we don't notice you are really enjoying yourself? We've just had two of them, although Bean was a bit slack on the Saturday as she was reading Harry Potter (She finished it as well).

I have to say that looking after Neil Gaiman was, again, a lovely experience. He is one of mother natures genuine sweet hearts. The only real complaint I could made about the whole con, was that, as Neil's minders, we didn't get to see much of the other guests. Richard Harland was enthusiastic and fun, Robin Hobb came across as being lovely, although a bit quiet. We "pulled rank" a little to get into the closing ceremony early and see Poppy Z Brite who is a sweet person with a lovely smile.

All in all the weekend was a success; people enjoyed themselves, we caught up with old friends and made new ones.

I was talking to Jocko, the fan guest of honour, about whether or not he was giving the con value for money, he was unsure and I remember that we were unsure when we were FGoH. Bean and I were Fan Guests before at Constantinople, if you can cast you mind back that far. Fan Guests are not, usually, chosen for what the convention can get from on the day but for what they have done for fandom over the years, in that respect Jocko was real value for money.
He didn't turn up to be on the panel he was meant to be on with me, he had been distracted by another one, but that was OK as the panel went well and you cannot get annoyed with Jocko, about anything, ever.

Just feel the need to name drop now (what do you mean NOW?). Other people we caught up with:
Trudi Canavan, Sean Williams (Why do we only catch up with Sean in Melbourne or Perth), Sean McMullen (With his delightful daughter Catherine in tow), Bean has a lovely photo of Sean and Catherine, looks odd as it seems to depict Sean strangling his daughter but is, in fact, Sean with Catherine's head on his shoulder and his hand wrapped around her head, a spontaneous, loving moment. Jack Dann was there, as well, being Jack Dann.

The maskobello was really good; lovely goth outfits attached to beautiful goth people abound, some really good and eerie costumes. I went as Jack Sparrow and won a signed MirrorMask book. Neil wrote "To Captain Jack Sparrow. Where's the rum?" in it. I was chuffed.

Am I getting through to people?

2005-07-01T20:28:00.000+09:30

Today, whilst walking to the pub, I was passing a man in the street, on the outside.

I am a fast walker and tend to overtake a lot of people, I usually do this on the outside so as to make it consistent with the driving style.

All of a sudden this guy needed to cross the road and made little "I'm turning left signs". He then checked his blind spot, saw me and apologized for cutting me off. He hadn't, but only because he checked first.

Most of the time I find myself dodging around people who don't look and usually don't care, this guy did both. It's those nice, little, social things that put a smile on your face.

Are we having fun yet...

2005-06-21T14:05:00.000+09:30

Lack of choice, lack of competition, precedent and the like are not enough.

There is no legal recourse based on refusal to supply an item.

Unless that refusal is illegal. The ACCC has some examples that cover this, but it boils down to "If it is not illegal to refuse supply, then the supplier can refuse supply". My point is, and always has been, is that it should be illegal to supply zoned DVD players in Australia.

Consider parallel importing of CD's. The ACCC fought for and got that through, and it will stay. What makes DVD's different?

Hollywood, that's all.

If zoning wasn't introduced in the first place, we would be allowed to parallel import DVD's. Hollywood created the zoning idea, and we accepted it. The ACCC doesn't seem to fully understand the situation, they just keep telling me that that's the way it is.

And it boils down to copyright, zoning does nothing to prevent pirating, nothing at all.

DVD Zoning should be illegal in Australia

2005-06-16T14:36:00.000+09:30

Did you know that the Trade Practices Act (TPA) prevent practices that restrict consumer choice? Did you know that DVD's are exempt from the parallel importing copyright amendment?

Why?

The TPA allows you to select the DVD release you want, regardless of region because different regions get different versions (and different titles in some cases). Check out DVD Compare for the full details. Add to that the PAL/NTSC differences
(PAL Speed up ) and we get a very good reason to allow parallel importing and protection against zoning in the TPA.

So I fire off a query to the ACCC about this to see if they are doing anything about it.

They aren't!

I got a message back explaining the regioning system (which, oddly enough, I know all about) with a single paragraph explaining why they are doing nothing (There is no real difference between regions). I cannot reproduce the entire thing here as they have a copyright notice on the base of all their emails.

The question remains; Why are the ACCC scared of Hollywood?

They are also scared of the banks.

Come back Allan Fels, please. The ACCC has lost it's teeth, we need a champion.

Twenty minutes of research on the web and you can get enough ammunition for the TPA to remove zoning permanently, provided you have the authority. The ACCC has the authority, but it doesn't have the johnstons!

From Sydney

2005-06-10T22:19:00.000+09:30

Singing...

Good morning QANTAS, the world says hello,

Outsource your maintanence and your planes won't go...

The air conditioning was playing up. We sat on the tarmac revving the engine
trying to get the air conditioner running properly. And we still didn't get any lemon soaked paper napkins.
Full plane, already delayed for twenty minutes. No happy people on board at all. Our mid-flight dining experience was a packet of peanuts.

QANTAS just isn't trying to be good anymore. Anyone for a boycott?

To top it all off, we were held up coming into Adelaide, planes were circling the airport, there was some congestion! Alright, it was because of the weather, but for a moment there I felt like our little airport had grown up.

Banks Are Shite

2005-06-06T09:49:00.000+09:30

Bank SA particularly, Bank SA Credit card fees (this links to them as they are a prick to find to normally) are too high. Way too high.

We had a credit balance prior to going to Japan. We are charged with 2.5% foreign conversion fee, after they used a slightly low exchange rate anyway, 1.25% cash advance fee, which is wrong as they are not advancing cash to us, the card was in credit, and a foreign bank ATM fee of $1.50, as there is no BankSA ATMs in Osaka that is a bit off. The final tally here is 30000 yen withdraw cost us $378.83, their exchange rate was 82.48, giving us 15.13 in fees.

The ACCC seem to be too scared of the banks to attack them over fees, the government is likewise, way too scared.

All to protect the shareholders, who probably haven't invested directly into the bank at all.

Word to the wise banks: Protect your shareholders by increasing you business, increase you business by respecting your customers, provide service!

Hate banks so much.

We also deal with the PowerState credit union, they are just as bad.

Our business will go to the bank with no fees, when one comes around, not like BankWest who have a Zero Card, apart it being next to impossible to find their fees online, they do exists and are high, too high.

I will post them as soon as they arrive(I had to ask for them via the help line, and they are sending me an application kit, which includes the fees list.)
CPS has it marginally better, in that they do not charge account keeping fees, and you pay less if you have more invested. The fact that they charge at all makes them evil^tm.

Copyright Owners and Parallel Imports

2005-06-06T09:15:00.000+09:30

DVD's are exempt from the parallel import copyright amendments act. This includes the software amendment act of 2001.

The democrats have specifically called for a definition of DVD in this regard as they want to protect the Australian Film Industry from overseas competition.

Parallel importing does not infringe on the copyright owners rights, we can only import legally from a country that is a signee of the Berne agreement. The copyright owner is still the owner of the copyright.

How does buying a legitimate copy of a film infringe that, no matter where you buy it?

It can't. People seem to be of the impression that we would be buying a US film over an Australian film, not that we are buying a US copy of an Australian film (Not that there would be much point, but still... [Although if Mad Max had been release in the original US dubbed version in the US I might be tempted to get that, but I'd have both versions]).

On top of all this, the importing of DVD's from other zones is completely legal if they are different (eg 24/25 frames per second issues between PAL and NTSC, getting different extras on a DVD, getting a copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone outside the US. It's Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone over here. Thus buying a DVD from the US is not parallel importing anyway. It is covered by the Trade Practices Act of 1974, that prevents restriction of consumer choice and zoning does restrict choice.

It's the Nazi Party

2005-05-16T11:44:00.000+09:30

Why is it that there is such negativity towards the Japanese about WWII and not towards others?

Is it because of their treatment of their prisoners and members of the civilian populations?.

No, can't be. German's treatment of the Jews was terrible, but they aren't condemned as much.

Is it due to their revisionist history?

No, all nations are guilty of that one.

So what is it?

I have a theory.

Remember in WWI the Japanese were allies of England, and the German POW's kept by the Japanese reported very humane treatment. So what happened in WWII?

Very simply put the Japanese had a military, fascist government in power, they had tried the whole western democracy thing, helped along by the Japanese industrial machine that filled the gap in Europe caused by WWI, and an expanding population both of which required an expansion of imports into Japan and opened the Japanese economy to the Wall Street triggered depression (Another reason where share markets and economist should be outlawed).

This is the kind of social climate where fascism breeds. There were political assassinations and free speech suppression throughout Japan. The Nazi party was doing all this as well. Both were promising a new world order, both became allies and, with Italy, became an axis of power.

People around the world are aware of the atrocities of the Nazi party. People remember them with fear and loathing, but the Nazi party is not Germany. When we refer to the awful history of Germany, we point to the Nazi's, not to Germans, with Japan we do not have that direct a target, so we point to Japan and the Japanese. We know it was the fascists but we have no easily remembered, conveniant label for them

Just a thought.

WMD, Osama bin Laden

2005-04-10T10:32:00.000+09:30

Tony Blair is using the relative success of the Iraqi democratic process to justify his actions. George W. is doing the same thing.

This is bullshit! These two went into Iraq as part of their war on terror and to stop Saddam Hussein using his weapons of mass destruction. Saddam didn't have weapons of mass destruction, the war on terror is focused, or should be focused, on Osama bin Laden, who has nothing to do with Saddam.

The end justifies the means?

If Blair et al. had gone into Iraq with the sole purpose of liberating the Iraqi people, and had the support of the Iraqi people, things would be different. He didn't, they aren't.

The war on terror is a perpetual war, one with no solid enemy, one with no way of defining victory and, more importantly, one that you can use to justify all sorts of draconian activities at home.

Iraq is far from liberated, it is, at least, on the right path, but what of the cost?

The US and the UK went in with guns blazing, all gung ho, macho bullshit. They had no plan for the invasion, and no real objectives for while they are there.

The only objectives where "address the WMD threat" and the only plan was "go to Iraq", it is not enough.

George W. will not re-elected, Tony Blair should not be re-elected.

The sad thing is, as an Australian, our "leader" followed these two fools blindly. The US and UK have elected people who thinks they are the worlds police force, and that everybody on the planet wants to be a UK or US citizen. We elected and Australian who believes them.

One bad thing about democracy is that people vote with their hearts, even if their hearts are full of fear. The good thing about democracy is that people learn and get to change their minds.

After the next elections we will not have George W. Bush, John W. Howard or Tony W. Blair in charge of anything.

Of all the days for it to happen.

2005-03-11T20:10:00.000+10:30

I found a couple of bugs in my DAO package this morning. Actually three, two of them are really embarrassing, and obvious, and stupid. The third was a genuine bug, a typo that in initial checks looked right.

BUT

I am writing this at work as I use it for all of my data access, the fixes are ready to go and I figured I'd get them published before anyone saw the bugs.

I work for SATAC and they use the Adelaide University Network which, today, got flooded out. DNS went away, outside links went away, our phone system died. Version 2.0.1 of my DAO is all zipped up with nowhere to go.

To top it all off, I am in Sydney next week and won't de able to get to it until Wednesday.

A slight retraction.

2005-03-03T15:56:00.000+10:30

I have just spent three days on an Ingres training course.

Once again, warnings about playing nice came from all sectors.

Part of this course was learning about the internal architecture of Ingres and how it handles tables, logging, backup and recovery. I was in complete control of an Ingres database server, mine to configure, manipulate and break if I wanted.

Ingres is a pretty good database system.

There I said it.

It would appear my main problems come from legacy constructs, poor design and bad implementations. This system needs an enema!

The negatives of Ingres are thus:

Lack of cross table support

Ingres Net

Minimal JDBC support

Lack of cross catalog support means we cannot logically and physically divide a database into basic groups that allow greater control of access.

Ingres Net is a throwback to propriatry network protocols. We can safely get rid of it.

I say JDBC support is minimal because I found a bug in the JDBC connections that turns out not to be a bug, but a limitation. The JDBC doesn't have any really understanding of the client setup, so it cannot figure out how to change the database times from GMT to local. This morning I wrote a quick java class to allow that to happen (using the symbol.tbl file). It took my four hours, and that includes the crude symbol.tbl editor. I've sent it to CA, they might use it.

That's all. My concerns about the insane data table layouts where unfounded, it's actually similar to MySQL. The wierdness that is the backups is just the ongoing struggle that we have with checking audit trails and the like that are not supported in the in-house system. Speed issues are a design issue. None of these things are Ingres faults. Some naming conventions are odd, to do an ascii backup of the database, you unload it. To backup normally you checkpoint it, to restore it is a rollforward. These names do make sense once you have looked under the hood, and with journalling and checkpoints the restoration of a database is fast and you can recover everything to the last correct transaction. This is done by the use on a very elegant solution.

At the end of the day, though, the lack of catalogs is a biggy!

All there agreed that the report writer is archaic and has only one T and is only really used to produce a once off quick and dirty report on the fly for people who don't need it to be pretty.

You can set local variables in scripts from selects, just not in an obvious way, and I've forgotten it already. I'm on another course in a fortnight, will keep you informed.

Blind as Blind Can Be

2005-02-25T12:15:00.000+10:30

I have just spent a couple of days trying to make my JAR builder work.

The resulting JAR file failed to be readable by anything. So I unzip it(using WinZip) and change the manifest to something nice, re zip it and it works.

Back to the code, fix the manifest builder, re-run the code.

The resulting JAR file still fails to be readable by anything. So I unzip it, compare the new manifest with the manifest in jdom.jar, make changes, re zip it and it works.

Back to the code, fix the manifest builder, re-run the code.

The resulting JAR file still fails to be readable by anything. So I unzip it, do nothing, re zip it and it works.

So it's some setting or other.

Look for available settings in JarEntry, JarOutputStream et al.

Nothing helps me.

Open pre and post winzip jar files in ultra edit.

Notice extra character in zip entry at the beginning of the file name.

Fix code, re-run, still fails.

By this time I am annoyed, angry, looking for info about bugs in JarOutputStream etc.

Deep breath, try again. Open both pre and post winzip jar files, stare for about ten minutes. Sees it

Fix code, it works.

Note to self, remember which slash works.

Code was :


String act = file.getPath().substring( top.getPath().length() + 1 );

Code is :


String act = file.getPath().substring( top.getPath().length() + 1 ).replace( File.separatorChar, '/');

Two days of frustration. I blame C/CPM and Microsoft.

Ingres, oh ingres!

2005-02-23T12:31:00.000+10:30

Another posting as to the insanity that is ingres.

Check out these sql statements:


select date('now');

----------------------
2005-02-23 11:45:00.0


select date('today');

----------------------
2005-02-22 00:00:00.0


select date_trunc('day', date('now'));

----------------------
2005-02-22 00:00:00.0

and more importantly:


select *
  from receipt
 where receipt_date between date('today')
                        and date('today') + date('1 day');

---------------------
128 rows affected

Did the above statement retrieve the correct rows?

No.

When dates are stored in Ingres they are stored in Universal time (GMT), this allows us to share a database across time zones and still sort on correct order. The client side code converts all incoming and out going dates to GMT, by adding/subtracting the appropriate amout, however, internally it fails to do this.

The above query in South Australia returns all rows from 22^nd Feb 2005 09:30:00 to 23^rd Feb 2005 09:30:00, as we are nine and a half hours in front of GMT. To make it work as required we use:


select *
  from receipt
 where receipt_date between date('today') + date('14 hour') + date('30 minute')
                        and date('today') + date('1 day') + date('14 hour') + date('30 minute');

---------------------
149 rows affected

PROVIDED you run this query before 9:30 in the morning. After 9:30am it needs to read:


select *
  from receipt
 where receipt_date between (date('today') - date('1 day')) + date('14 hour') + date('30 minute')
                        and (date('today') - date('1 day')) + date('1 day') + date('14 hour') + date('30 minute');

---------------------
149 rows affected

The 14:30 addition counters the GMT storage, as the dates are stored as GMT, so a transaction at midnight will be stamped 14:30 the previous day.

Now, you could use the system date to figure out which query to use, but you can't. You could always query the datebase to find out the time, but that's affected the same way, and you cannot retrieve that into a local variable.

Ingres Ingres Ingres

2005-02-18T12:02:00.000+10:30

I've just had the displeasure of writting a REPORT in Ingres using the REPORT WRITER.

It is complete crap!

No, ok I have to admit it has it's place - the mid 80's.

Windows Security Seminar 2005

2005-02-17T20:46:00.000+10:30

My boss is in Poland on a personal matter, so I was volunteered to go the the Windows Security Seminar 2005 in his place.

Before I went my wife made me promise I'd keep my mouth shut.

Before I went my work collegues made me promise to keep my mouth shut.

Gad, what a reputation!

There were two parts to this, firstly there was the security thing and secondly they had a bit of a preview of SQLServer 2005.

Security

I spent a long time listening to adverts for Windows Server 2003 service pack 1 and Windows XP service pack 2, which when used together with proper firewalls set up will help protect your systems. I watched intently as the presenters showed us how to configure you fire wall with only thirty or so clicks of the mouse and a full knowledge of port numbers and hosting. I sat a watched them add extra ports to servers and enabled and disabled services through smart wizards that know what you are running on your server(Really, Windows can detect what software is currently running, smart huh?). All this to enhance the out of the box customer security experience (Not making that last phrase up by the way).

At the end of the day what did I find; Microsoft has placed a complex user interface to produce their equivalent of iptables. I could edit the settings in Notepad (like I would with iptables) but, as it is all in the windows registry, I can't. I need to use the wizards. Wizard training comes at a cost though (Hogwarts anyone?). Install XP SP2 and you don't need to be a network expert to secure your system, but if you want it to do anything nice and still be secure, you do still need a security expert.

I have broadband at home with one Linux box and two windows boxes. The XP box is running the XP firewall, the windows 2000 box is currently turned off as I have no desk to put it on and the linux box is running nothing. I use a hardware firewall. Originally I had dial up through a windows box, number of attacks - too many to mention. Via the hardware firewall to the same unprotected windows box - NONE. I counted them, twice!

To be fair, it looks like they have made major improvements to the security of their systems, but you need to upgrade everything to Windows Server 2003 SP1 and Windows XP SP2 to use them. Not all hardware can handle it, and it brings windows to the security level Unix users have enjoyed for a long time.

The worst attacks against any computer network is through social engineering. Try it, ring up some one in you organisation, tell them you are the help desk and need to install a patch for them and you need their password. Most of the time they will tell you! Ask them thier credit card details while you are at it.

To combat this you need to use social engineering as well, training and common sense rules.

A quick check list:

DO NOT open an attachment EVER, unless you are expecting it.

Never tell anyone your password. Any system admins who need to access you machine remotly will use their own account, it has a larger number of priviledges than yours.

Use strong passwords. IE if everybody knows you are a WWE fan, TheRock is not a good password.

Never write down a password, EVER!

Keep virus software up to date.

Use a anti-spybot tool.Spybot - search and destroy is pretty good.

Don't use compromised software (like outlook and IE). Instead Thunderbird and Firefox.

Ideally use Linux or Mac OSX or another Unix based operating system.

Use a good hardware firewall (if you have a network to protect, Cisco et al).

Just be a little bit careful, don't download everything a site tells you you need.

Never be afraid to ask.

Show hidden and system files in windows explorer (They are just flags and you can flag any file as a system file and viruses often do, as a very simple way of hiding them

Do not hide extensions for known file types. In outlook the I-Love-You attachment is shown as a text file if you hide the known extensions (i-love-you.txt), but as it really is if you unhide the extensions (i-love-you.txt.exe) which is a program.

In Outlook, turn off the preview window, as this automatically loads up IE for HTML e-mails and IE will automatically run VBScripts on a web page, so that old idea that you cannot get a virus simple downloading e-mail becomes invalid.

There are pricks out there who get off on how clever they are in "hacking" your computer. Most of them are "script kiddies" who compare to the true crackers of legend the way that a thug with a gun in a service station compares to a real cat burglar. Both do evil anti-social things, but at least one is an artist. Once the Windows security issues are solved properly the internet will speed up again and cracking will once again be the realm of the geeks in trench coats with no social life producing code that has to be (grudgingly admittedly) admired.

SQLServer 2005

The new version, has more bells and whistles than you can point a stick at. It does the same core stuff just as well and SQLServer 2000 and SQLServer 7.0, but now to administor the server you need Visual Studio! Am I missing something here? To me a database server should be a database server, nothing more, nothing less, definately not everything to everyone.

"You do not need the white coat brigade to get your reports anymore, just use our simple interface." says one presenter.

But you need to be trained to use that simple interface, management will then start coming back to the white coats to write their reports again. Why all this "increase you business" functionality bullshit? Mysql, that's why. It is simple, fast, easily maintained and free. A database server that serves data and nothing else, add a free web server (tomcat, apache) and maybe JBoss(Application server) if you really need it, throw in OpenOffice and, bingo, no more Microsoft products. You are free!(pun intended).

Will Windows and IE 7 be like Windows and IE6(I'd put money on it being so)

2005-02-16T10:43:00.000+10:30

What is the basic underlying problem with running IE on windows?

This is how real operating systems run an application:

Kernel

Network

GUI (Windows)

Application (Firefox)

If you attack the Applications security holes(which tend to be minimal as it is fully self contained), you can crash it. If you get the application to take up too much memory they system will slow down. You cannot attack the application and get access to the Kernel or Network level. The most common holes are buffer overruns. IE I tell you I am sending you 1MB of data and then send you 2MB of data. In that extra 1MB I have a program to run. Firefox doesn't run programmes so it might crash, but nothing else happens.

You are right that Firefox does run programmes, will it gets helper files and plugins to run them( Flash, Real Player, Shockwave(unless you are on Linux) etc ) it also runs java applets(via the installed java runtime). The helper files might have security holes, but they will exist under IE too. java applets can only access its own sandpit, ie it will not be able to touch the your machine.

This is how Microsoft runs applications (This might change in longhorn, but I doubt it)

KeNetrnwoeGrkUIl

Application (Firefox)

This is how Microsoft runs Internet Explorer (This also might change in longhorn, but I doubt it)

KeNeIntertrnwoneteGExplrkUorerIl

If you attack an Internet Explorer security hole, which are numerous as it is relying on large parts of the kernel to protect it and to interpret the incoming information, you then have access to the kernel and Network layers. Imagine I have done the buffer overrun thing mentioned above, I have now placed the programme in the kernel memory space. The kernels job is to run programmes, so it will happily run my code.

On top of all this we have the .NET principle, in which Internet Explorer will download programmes and run them. Oh it asks you if you trust the sender, but you might need to trust the sender to get your free iPod, so you say yes, and down comes the free iPod .NET application and the free "I'll format you hard disk" .NET application. Nicely set up so that whenever you visit a certain site it formats your hard drive. If someone wrote a Java Applet to format a hard drive, whenever you visited their site you would format their hard drive, yours would still be intact.

I doubt if Microsoft will change this practice, as it is part of their core ideal where everything is integrated into the kernel, so it runs seamlessly and fast. Microsoft are attempting to deliver and entire computer based solution for everyone which is easy to use. It might be a fine goal, but it is impossible, particularly with the speed of innovation in the computer industry and the large range of hardware available.

There is really only two choices in this environment:

Deliver discrete independent packages that can be bundled together in any way.(linux)

Restrict the environment, integrate a lot, offer a minimal series of APIs (access to the kernel)that run the rest. The application needs to be pretty independent.(Apple)

Ingres again shows us it's true colors

2005-02-15T15:37:00.000+10:30

Report writer.

A nice, powerful reporting tool for ingres.

Except

Documentation is vitually non-existent(hard to find)

Local variables are hard to use

You cannot retrieve a variable in a select statement

Not a long list, but the third point makes it next to useless, if they introduced the idea that you can do this:


.SETUP
       select date_from = date_trunc('day', date('now') - date('1 day') );
       select date_to = date_trunc('day', date('now') );

It would be a very nice tool indeed, as it stands it lacks this very important functionality. If you try to do this it tells you you cannot retrieve anything in the setup area, which you are not.

It would be nice if CA cleaned up the report writer so that the query syntax was the same as it is everywhere else.

Also, if a session table needs to have the "on commit preserve rows;" flag then automatically apply it, don't error out and tell me to do it, I don't care!

A joke, right?

2005-02-08T13:33:00.000+10:30

This site : Rice In 2008 is a joke, right?
It has to be, but I cannot see anything on it that implies it is a joke.

Of course it won't happen. Is Rice the best qualified for the job she's in? No idea, haven't seen the full list of candidates. If she was in the democrats, the answer would be, "Yes she is.". But as a republican it could simply be a token appointment to appease swinging white voters and convince the world that the GOP is not a racist party. They will never let her run for president. The argument they would put forward is that they are not reverse racists* either. No Rice will never be a republican president, she is both the wrong gender and color.

I hope she won't become president, because, based on her current performance re Iraq and WMD's I think she would be worse than W. Ditto goes for Cheney and any other republican.

*Reverse Racism: Racism that promotes a race as being all good. It is, perhaps, more insidious than normal racial vilification as a lot of people don't see it as racism. A black person is not, by default, a good, kind, intelligent and caring person, nor are they a bad, evil, dumb and callous person, they are just a person. The same can be said for anyone regardless of race, gender or sexual orientation.

Events From Recent Times

2005-02-07T13:34:00.000+10:30

The pope is unwell.

In the past the vatican has always claimed that the pope is recovering right up to the time they admit that he is dead.

No opinions on the current health of the current pope, just saying is all.

The G7 summit has concluded that they might as well right off the third worlds debt.
No shit Sherlock!
It's about time. They are now figuring out how to pay for it. How about, don't. Maybe your banks will then be worth on paper what they are actually worth!

It is interesting to note that there was one dissenting voice; from Washington.
No shit Sherlock.

Condoleezza Rice has suggested to Israel that they need to do some more towards the peace process
No shit Sherlock!

Condoleezza Rice has also told Russia that they need to do something to improve their democratic process if they are to remain friends with the US

Hang on girl, you haven't invaded Iran or North Korea yet!

So Rice has now listed the next set of wars (in order):

Iran

North Korea

Syria

Israel

Russia

In Iraq we have Shiites proclaiming that they will implement good muslim law. How about implementing fair law that allows freedom of religion. Pass laws that protect individuals from harm and prosecution yet allows them the freedom to choose thier own path in life. Complete and true seperation of Church and State. Then you can point you finger at the US Administration and say "shape up or else." as there is no real seperation of church and state in the US.

Preemptive counter point:

Yeah, right. Try running for US president on and Athiest/Muslim/Jewish ticket, see how far you get.

Bill O'Reilly

2005-02-03T15:49:00.000+10:30

I have just seen Outfoxed. Well worth the look if you can.

Bill O'Reilly

is a right wing bigot.

is a liar.

is ignorant.

has opinions that are based on nothing at all.

is a complete moron.

is a racist.

is prejudice against every minority there is.

hates every country that isn't the US.

will hate the US as soon as you elect a democrat.

refuses to think.

forms an idea and will never let it go even if you present him with the truth.

has the most narrow view of anyone I've seen talk.

has an agenda to keep people ignorant.

This list can go on and on.

I could contratulate him on the increased chocolate rations he has managed, but he wouldn't get it; that would mean reading something other than the bible, or Bush administration propaganda, and that is never going to happen (1984 - Another book well worth the read).

One wonders why Rupert Murdock allows him to continue...

Oh, right, yeah. It's Rupert!

The US and democracy.

2005-01-31T10:41:00.000+10:30

The electoral college is a sham.

Why?

Let us assume a 50% voter turn out for 5 candidates. This is how it breaks down:

(I know in practical terms it doesn't work this way, but the best way to show the limits of a system is to take it to extremes)

You need 8.65%(17.30% of those who turned up) of the votes to become president.

All you need to do is win in these states (In order):

Wyoming

D.C.

Vermont

North Dakota

Alaska

South Dakota

Rhode Island

Delaware

Montana

Hawaii

New Hampshire

Maine

Idaho

Nebraska

West Virginia

New Mexico

Iowa

Nevada

Kansas

Arkansas

Utah

Mississippi

Connecticut

Louisiana

Alabama

Oklahoma

Colorado

Minnesota

Oregon

Kentucky

South Carolina

Missouri

Tennessee

Massachusetts

Wisconsin

Maryland

Washington

Arizona

North Carolina

Indiana

and you get the electoral college votes.

This is because the lack of proprtional represenetation. Consider Wyomin has a voting population of approx 275,000 and 3 electoral college votes, giving you 92,000 votes to get one electoral college vote. Were as Texas has 12,165,200 votes for 34 votes meaning a vote requires 358,000 voters.

So you list all the states and order them by the electoral college vote/voter number proportion, win enough of them to get the 269 required electoral college votes from the top down and bingo.

In other countries you get seats which override the states and are based mainly on population. It would be hugly improved if:

the number of electoral college votes reflected the population of each state

Votes were cast at the electoral college in proportion to the way the votes where cast.(A couple of states are already doing this)

Option preferential voting was introduced.

How we do it.

In Australia we use preferential voting, so at the end of the day the person the majority prefered will get in, based on seats. It doesn't matter how many candidates there are. Voting is compulsory here, so we get a 95% voter turnout. So a candidate needs 50% of the vote in a seat to win. An Australian political party can win with 25% of the vote (50% of the votes in 50% of the seats). We do not vote for the Prime Minister at all; the party with the most seats appoints the Prime Minister.

I would nice if we did vote directly for the prime minister so ultimate say goes to someone with 50% preferences. Or maybe we vote in a President who has power over the Prime Minister as head of state(and not the Queen's Representative that we use now).

Ingres Is Not Competing with MySQL because...

2005-01-28T16:01:00.000+10:30

MySQL doesn't have stored procedures!

Holy cow!

Really!

It does in version 5.0!

Ingres stored procedures do not allow you to return a result set.
So I cannot get around the MAJOR limitation (one of the MAJOR limitation, for there are several) where the command:


help table tableName

doesn't run through a JDBC or ODBC connection. Why? No idea! So I thought I'd try this:


create procedure sp_help (objectName as varchar(255) ) as

BEGIN

  select column_name from $ingres.iicolumns where table_name = :objectName

END

But no, won't work (but does betray which database I learnt first). Can only select into a local variable and cannot output it into anything. This means that Ingres procedures are design to execute business rules and retain data integrity. This puts the business rules on the database server where they do not belong, at all, ever. So take away the primary function of stored procedures and you are left with nothing. Ingres doesn't have real stored procedures. MySQL version 5.0 does. And it's built in help commands run through JDBC/ODBC etc.
No limitations there.

Ingres is not long for this world, either that or release 4.0 will be so different from release 3.0 that it brings it into the 21st century.

Throw in the speed gains you get from MySQL, the ease of administration and configuration, the choices and the huge support network, I'd agree with CA that Ingres is not competing with MySQL, MySQL is so much better.

The worm and MySQL

By the way the worm that exploits MySQL is not a hole in MySQL but a hole in how it is installed. The same thing can be done with Ingres, you just need the super user password for a windows installation and you're away. You can dump blobs to a local file as well.

Simply avoid an easy to guess root password, do not open port 3306 to the internet, do not have the root able to login from anywhere but the localhost, any of these will stop it.

And it's Ted Turner saying this...

2005-01-28T11:08:00.000+10:30

According to a report from Asscociated Press Ted Turner has accused Fox of being a propoganda arm of the GoP.

Ted Turner!

FOX must be bad if Ted Turner is accusing them.

Ted Turner!

CNN!

It's been a large number of years since I gave any credance to CNN being an impartial news service, they tended to be too much pro-republicans(Actually being pro-either way is a bad for a news service) for my liking. SkyNews and BBC World seem to do better.

It's a bit like Hugh Hefner accusing Larry Flint of publishing porn. Yes he is, but Kettle/Pot!

A conversation between President W and Medge

2005-01-21T11:22:00.000+10:30

George W Bush: At this second gathering, our duties are defined not by the words I use, but by the history we have seen together. For a half century, America defended our own freedom by standing watch on distant borders.

Medge: So World War Two wasn't about defending America's freedom and Pearl Harbor didn't happen?

George W Bush: From the day of our founding, we have proclaimed that every man and woman on this earth has rights, and dignity, and matchless value, because they bear the image of the Maker of Heaven and Earth.

Medge: Not according to the constitution of the United States. In fact the consitution of the United states specifically states that God or whatever has no place in politics. I always figured the US considered everyone to be equal, regardless of who they look like.

George W Bush: Across the generations we have proclaimed the imperative of self-government, because no one is fit to be a master, and no one deserves to be a slave.

Medge: If this is related to the above comment let me draw you attention to that period between you nations founding anf the civil war, where the use of slave labor contributed to the mighty wealth of the US.

George W Bush: So it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.

Medge: Which simply means you want to establish a military presense in all areas to protect the oil

George W Bush: Freedom, by its nature, must be chosen, and defended by citizens, and sustained by the rule of law and the protection of minorities.

Medge: Unless those minorities are not christian and white.

George W Bush: America's influence is not unlimited.

Medge: But it will be once you get your way.

George W Bush:America will not pretend that jailed dissidents prefer their chains, or that women welcome humiliation and servitude, or that any human being aspires to live at the mercy of bullies.

Medge: Unless it is Saudi Arabia

George W Bush: We will encourage reform in other governments by making clear that success in our relations will require the decent treatment of their own people.

Medge: Unless it is Saudi Arabia

George W Bush: America's belief in human dignity will guide our policies.

Medge: Unless we put them in a military jail.

George W Bush:We do not accept the existence of permanent tyranny because we do not accept the possibility of permanent slavery.

Medge: Unless it is Saudi Arabia

George W Bush: Liberty will come to those who love it.

Medge: And American Style liberty to all, even if they don't want it.

George W Bush: All who live in tyranny and hopelessness can know: the United States will not ignore your oppression, or excuse your oppressors.

Medge: Unless it is Saudi Arabia

George W Bush: Today, I also speak anew to my fellow citizens.

Medge: Would that be the Have or the Have Mores?

George W Bush: From all of you, I have asked patience in the hard task of securing America, which you have granted in good measure. Our country has accepted obligations that are difficult to fulfil, and would be dishonourable to abandon.

Medge: So neither then

George W Bush: I ask our youngest citizens to believe the evidence of your eyes.

Medge: Look for that evidence children, George W here will hide it away. Particularly if it is a little bit embarrasing.

George W Bush: You have seen duty and allegiance in the determined faces of our soldiers. You have seen that life is fragile, and evil is real, and courage triumphs.

Medge: Except in Iraq

George W Bush: Make the choice to serve in a cause larger than your wants, larger than yourself - and in your days you will add not just to the wealth of our country, but to its character.

Medge: But you can get out of it if you are rich enough.

George W Bush: America has need of idealism and courage, because we have essential work at home - the unfinished work of American freedom. In a world moving toward liberty, we are determined to show the meaning and promise of liberty.

Medge: And you know the company that will be paid for that work.

George W Bush: In America's ideal of freedom, citizens find the dignity and security of economic independence, instead of labouring on the edge of subsistence.

Medge: Unless you are a US citizen living under the poverty line, or on social welfare about to have all of that cut.

George W Bush: And now we will extend this vision by reforming great institutions to serve the needs of our time.

Medge: Another reference to THAT company

George W Bush: To give every American a stake in the promise and future of our country, we will bring the highest standards to our schools, and build an ownership society.

Medge: shouldn't that read "To give every American shareholder..."

George W Bush: By making every citizen an agent of his or her own destiny, we will give our fellow Americans greater freedom from want and fear, and make our society more prosperous and just and equal.

Medge: He is washing his hands of all those naughty poor people.

George W Bush: Self-government relies, in the end, on the governing of the self.

Medge: Slow down the Einstein, I'm not sure I follow you logic there.

George W Bush: Not because we consider ourselves a chosen nation; God moves and chooses as He wills.

Medge: Umm, ...

George W Bush: America, in this young century, proclaims liberty throughout all the world, and to all the inhabitants thereof.

Medge: Unless it is Saudi Arabia

I didn't address the whole 'tolerance' and 'equality' stuff, as that was too obvious. All in all it was a pretty speech but we know it has no substance, no real truth. At the end of the day he will invade Iran and treat them like he treated Iraq, he will push the deficit to record highs, the ecomony will strengthen because of the insane spending, and leave a complete mess for the democrats next time round. The rich will get richer, the poor poorer, there will be greater homelessness and social disorder.

And a prediction from left field, he will send in the troops to fire on US citizens under the banner of "Freedom" and "Homeland Security" when they rise up against the administration.

Liberty for all in the United States of Haliburton.

No worries, I'm back!

2005-01-18T20:39:00.000+10:30

Today's topic:
Adelaide Drivers
I have had a car park in Adelaide for three days now, so I am driving to work again. Yeah! Unfortunatly this brings me up against Adelaide drivers. Now amongst my social group I am considered to be a very good driver, considerate, calm, law abiding etc. I've driven around the UK, the US, NZ and a large part of Australia so I have been exposed to a number of styles and I know my driving to be average at best; but compared to Adelaide driver I am a smegging genius. I worked with someone who got their license in Norway. There they tale you out onto an ice sheet make you drive and the instructor slams the hand brake on with no warning. If you loose control you do not pass.

For any one from overseas wanting to drive in Adelaide remember we have slightly modified rules:

Give way rules apply to others.

Yellow lights tell you that you might have time to get through.

When traffic light turn red, you have two to three seconds to fly through them.

You can turn right against a red light if you have waited long enough for your turn.(We drive on the left here)

Indicators are there to tell people that you are about to hit them.

If you car can do 80km/h then that is the speed limit in a 50 zone.

It is perfectly ok to fly passed someone doing 20km/h over the speed limit if you are then going to have to do 20km/h below the speed limit in front of them.

I would love to get half of Adelaide to drive in LA or New York or Minneapolis or anyone of dozens of US cities I've driven in.

If you jump a red light there you hit someone.

If you change lanes without indicating you hit someone.

If someone indicate that they want your lane and you ignore it, you hit someone.

If you slow down to merge on an interstate, you hit someone.

If you are in the least bit timid, you hit someone.

If you are too aggressive, you hit some one.

If you don't give way, you hit someone.

If you are not alert, you hit someone.

And the clincher:

If you hit someone in LA they might pull a gun.

Remember these people are not bad drivers they are very good drivers, they assume you know what you are doing. Most people in Adelaide do not.

You have to drive properly there. And in the UK, and in Melbourne and Sydney and Brisbane. Canberra not so much and NZ there is no one on the road with you.

Is this actually legal?

2005-01-17T15:19:00.000+10:30

A positive blog entry!
Bought a new camera on Thursday. A nice digital (Canon EOS 20D) Bean and I had been looking around for a while, checking reviews and finding prices. The stores where this camera was cheapest were all sold out but we did find it at our local camera house store at 120 Grenfell St(Twin City Camera House). They patiently waited while we played with the demo model, placed all sorts of lenses on the thing, took lots of photos and finally said yes we'll have one. Can you match this other stores figure. After some umming and ahhing we agreed on a cash price and the deal was done. It was really nice to talk to people who understand what you want, when you want it and how much you expect to pay for it all.

The only problem is, we are aware that the other lenses you can get would be great too, so the expense will go up. I am also looking to get a digital video (Sanyo VPC-C4) when it becomes available. Will most likely go to the same place.

Cigarette Butts Are Litter Too

2005-01-13T15:16:00.000+10:30

Cigarette Butts Are Litter Too

Just because you go through a lot of them and they are small doesn't make them not litter. Stubbing it out on the ground is one thing, leaving it there is unacceptable. It is littering, if that doesn't make you change your ways remember littering is illegal and on top of all that you will be fined for doing it. Put it in a bin, or if there is no bin around keep it until you get to a bin.

Teaspoons Are Washing Up Too.

Just because you go through a lot of them and they are small doesn't mean they don't need washing. Stiring you coffee with the sugar spoon is one thing but chucking the resulting spoon in the sink and leaving it is unacceptable. Teaspoons are in limited supply and it is always me who goes into the office kitchen to find no clean teaspoons.

Code going the other way

2005-01-12T08:40:00.000+10:30

It might be simple code but...

One of the ways for Australians to get into University is by sitting a STAT exam. There are two type of STAT exams Multiple Choice and Written English. The Multiple Choice version is the most common and QTAC takes on the results from the examinimg body(Acer), stores them correctly and submits the results to the central body(TISC). It doesn't deal with the Written English results at all. I had to write a quick java application to convert the result file from Acer into something TISC could use. Simple process. QTAC heard from TISC that we do this and wanted the app for themselves, so I sent it to them. With a list of jars that were needed and I even sent them the jars themselves (log4j, edbc, etc.) They used, it worked without any issues, they didn't call me, email me or anything. It just worked.

I am a little proud of that!

XP What a crock of shite

2004-12-30T23:49:00.000+10:30

I've just installed my first XP box on my home network. It was one of the most painful experiences I have had in recent times. To convince it that I do know what I am doing when it comes to network security and access (namely SAMBA) it tells me to fuck off and that it knows better. I get the impression it is better if you are running an XP domain, but I am not and I do not want to, but as an IT professional I know what I am doing, convincing XP that is nest to impossiable. God I hate Microsoft. For crying out load let me use my machine as I want to! You do not know better. By all means set up defaults to protect the unaware, but make it easy to configure usage, access and permissions to my needs. Never assume that the setup is fully under your control, Bill you are a moron. It is far easier for a malicous hacker to control my machine (XP SP2) than me and I have the right to do so.
If it wasn't for my need to run

Shockwave
VPN to an XP network

XP and Microsoft will be outta here. Long live FC3 and all the rest. It's gotta be better than some prick in Redmond telling me how to run my network.

Another QTAC innovation

2004-12-21T20:02:00.000+10:30

It was simple, really. A minor path to the behind the scenes batch processes. A new library file for the batch process to run. A small change, a bug fix really.
So I rsync the distribution directory (which is rsync'd from QTAC) with the working directory. Systems fail all over the place. JCBridge breaks completely and needs a restart, users can no longer log in. The log in process goes through the JCBridge to make it faster because:
Connection con = DriverManager.getConnection(url, userID, password); takes too long to execute!
It takes only a few seconds to shutdown the server and restart, particularly as we have written a script to do it for us, in the correct order, to keep the cache being executed in the correct way, but still! A new patch to a library batch process kills the users connections! Question still on the cards: Why are we using this software?

Sharks and stuff

2004-12-20T19:38:00.000+10:30

Adelaide's local parochial newspaper The Advertiser has a feed back section I read it today, I rarely do, I was reminded why.
Recently an 18 year man was taken by a shark of an Adelaide beach. The response to this has been fifty/fifty. Half of the respondants understand the situation and say leave the shark alone; the other half are a bunch of loosers.
The man's father has said that the shark does not deserve to die. If you really want to live on this planet, you have to take risks. You can remain inside your home, order you supplies over the phone, but you risk them not coming, or being wrong. If you go out you risk injury and death.
Everything we do has an inherent risk, we cannot eliminate it all, but that's the point. At all times we weigh up the risks against the advantages, "Is it worth the risk?" we ask ourselves. If it's worth it, then we do it, if not we don't, and each one of us is different in what we accept. Now consider that none of those useless morons who want to kill the shark want to ban cars, alcohol or tobacco and more people are killed by these every year then shark.
Lets start by removing the real threats to life and limb; Wars, John W. Howard, George W. Bush, Cars, Drugs(Of all sorts), Ozone depleting chemicals, Water, Earth, Trees, Oxygen, Fire, Electricity, Religion, Dogs; the list goes on and on. All of these are way above shark.

I give up, really...

2004-12-18T14:24:00.000+10:30

I have just had one of those days. The bash script I wrote and ran on the test server to upgrade to the latest QTAC distribution failed. It ran correctly on the test server, on the main server it failed because of the shite that is Ingres. No details here; ask me, via comments, if you are interested.

Unfortunately the script was one of those run once only type things as it destroys the original structures and creates new ones in their place. I have a backup, needless to say, but that is beside the point. It failed, I fixed, I fixed again, I looked at the log, I undid, I fixed and it ran. It failed on one old database(which I will address on Monday), but it is all in place.

Execute the new version of the application - all is fine, look into the obscure logging for that application and see "cannot cache forced_offer_reasons table does not exist or is not owned by you". And hey, it's right, the table doesn't exist. QTAC failed to mention that one, now we have trouble calculating fields(yes, I know, but if I explained first stage normalisation to QTAC their heads would explode). No errors at the front end, that all looks fine. So now, I have to write a script to create that table and run it against 11 databases.

Questions asked are:

If they failed to tell us this, what else do they leave out?

If the errors aren't reported fully, what are we missing?

Can I convince QTAC to normalise/redesign before I go completely insane?

What is the point of having the "cache_control" table, specifically designed to slow the system down and cuase us more headaches, when there is no entry on it that says to cache the forced_offer_reason table?

Do QTAC add tables without thinking (Yes) and then loose track of their purpose and forget about them?

Why do we have yet another table which is a simple valid values look up table there are dozens on each database and one would do?

Why the smeg are we still using Ingres?

And once more,

Why don't UniSA et al consider OASys a threat to our core business?

It is a testimony to the staff at SATAC that they get it right every year.

-medge

This post is quite slanderous, I know, but just give me a chance to show everyone in a public forum.

Who spys on the spybots?

2004-12-14T17:06:00.000+10:30

This from slash dot, it appears the Australian Police have been given powers to tap your computer. They can, with a warrant, install spyware on your home computers without your knowledge. Once again a Benjamin Franklin quote springs to mind:

Someone who gives up an amount of liberty for security deserves neither.

Rant

What are they thinking? Why didn't the ALP stop this, question this or, it seems, even read this? This is crap!

So What's Wrong?

Anyone who argues that if you have nothing to hide, what's the problem? Simple really, what if they decide to pass a law in the interests of security that makes it illegal to gather in a group of more than four people or view this posting as the type of critisism that is a prelude to terrorist activity and make this illegal?

Perhaps I email a friend that I intend to leave the house this evening with only $10 in my wallet (odd hting to post out, but hey..) I could get arrested for vagrancy!

Do We Trust Them?

Further more; do you really trust these people to keep within the original bounds of this law? We are looking down the barrel of 1984, book burning, thought police etc. How specific is this? If you scan one of my hard drives you will find at least one item that is illegal,well was illegal, to have; read "The Hacker Crackdown" by Bruce Sterling and you will know what it is. You will also find a series of plans that involve the potential destruction of a large city, and one item that is anti-religious. Except the illegal article, they are all either short stories or chapters of novels I am working on.

Currently

There are a number of cameras around Adelaide that are meant to be there to protect us "For you safety". Is this because violent crime is on the way up? No, because it isn't. Is it because the can find criminals just walking down the street? No, they cannot. Are they there to curb the amount of vandalism? No, there aren't. Just what are they looking out for? Violent crime reporting is up, violent crime is down. No, they are there because someone somewhere thought "What if...?" and came up with a solution to a non-existent problem.

A Real Problem

Are these people looking for key words of is there to be some intelligence behind it.
Key word and phrase searches will cause problems; consider the phrase "child sex" if that is blocked or flagged as evil you stop all of the web-sites entitled "Child sex victim support group". If you check up on anyone posting about terrorism and bombing, you pretty much eliminate all news papers. Perhaps they just check for "Osama bin Laden", which means we will only ever get FOX news feeds.

I get hundreds of e-mails a day, keeping me informed about the goings and comings of our business. Of these I need to action maybe four or five a day. There is way too much information to concentrate of it all, it tends to be glossed over and I search for specifics. I have missed a couple of important things over the last couple of months because there is too much information. You cannot, seriously, except to analyse the data coming in to find threats. You can only find specific information types, like credit card numbers, pins, passwords etc. Consider this:
I will be painting my outhouse in "Maximum Green" on December 13th next year.
It's not a threat to anyone, is it?

Finally

I give advanced warning: If I find spyware on anyone's computer it goes, I will not care how it got there, it's gone.

Mod Chips - Are they a threat?

2004-12-09T09:53:00.000+10:30

Simply put: No.

Most console mods I know of are to multi-zone the DVD capabilities not to pirate games. In fact I have seen my nephews get quite angry at the idea of pirating games.

In Australia it is border line illegal to sell zoned players, all it needs is a supreme court discission that put two pieces of legislation together(Copyright Ammendment Act 1992 and Trade Practices Act 1972) for it to be made illegal. These make it legal to parallel import movies and music, and illegal to restrict choice. So all we really need is to show that there is a DVD with different options/extras from a different zone, easily done, or there is no way of getting Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in zone 4 (It's Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone over here) or even that in zone 4 the Movie is in PAL format which gives you 25fps play back and not NTSC where it is the original 24fps.

It is quite straight forward really, zoning is illegal in Australia.

The ACCC has ruled that modding a Sony Play Station is fine, but it is still illegal to copy games.

A small rant

2004-12-08T17:05:00.000+10:30

I cannot believe I am sitting at work running a restore on an Ingres database because the suplliers of our software do not use version controls/cannot design software to save their life/do not have a clue about release schedules.
Seriously, we are approaching the most impartant time of the year and they send us a major upgrade, if we don't do this, we don't get to have minor bug fixes. It is insane. Each time we do this I have to change the back end structures and as we use slightly different database rules and procedures to them it is possible for me to screw the entire thing up if I follow their instructions to the letter.
It isn't made any easier by the fact that we have eleven databases, all of which need to be updated in the same way and some processes I need to create a script, edit the script and execute the script seperately for each database.
All this due to crap database design and crap software design.
Remind me again why this situation isn't considered a threat to our core business?
Thanks for listening.

Is it Saudi Arabia's Turn Next?

2004-12-07T11:19:00.000+10:30

Forget the threat to the US(oops, my bad, I meant the free world) from Iran's weapons of mass destruction, the next war will be in Saudi Arabia. After all the terrorism against US personnel is on the increase add to that the government sanctioned killings, the human right attrocities, the links to known terrorist organisations; any one of which would have had the US bully boys moving in to protect the oil(Oops, my bad, I meant the people). So is a war against Saudi Arabia a reality? Hell no! They are our friends.

Really it's not the same as Sadam Hussein, honest, after all Sadam at least paid lip service to the idea of a secular government.

Ingres Has Its Limits

2004-12-07T10:09:00.000+10:30

Unfortunately we run an Ingres database for our internal systems.
Fortunately our web stuff uses SQLServer 2000 for its backend so we have a workaround for one of Ingres' major limitations(You know there is a problem when you are praising the quality of a Microsoft product). Ingres does not allow cross catalog joins, you can set up a distributed database but that requires an insane amount of work and repeated definitions.

The solution:

Set up Ingres ODBC on the Windows 2K server.

Make sure it auto starts etc.

Add an ODBC entry for each Ingres database you wish to access.

Go into SQLServer Enterprise manager.

Add a remote server for each ODBC entry with appropriate security access.

The sql


  select *

     from RemoteServerName1..schema.tablename1 as a

          inner join RemoteServerName2..schema.tablename2 as b

             on a.pkfield = b.pkfield

now works.
We now have the ability to do cross catalog joins on an Ingres database server.

Diminished Responsibility

2004-12-06T19:59:00.000+10:30

Today's subject is: Office toilet toilet rolls.
It takes no effort to change them, particularly when there are new ones sitting in view, but people do not. It's like smokers who believe that cigarette butts are not litter or coffee drinkers who don't believe that teaspoons need cleaning. People who refuse to take their supermarket trolley to a returns area despite it being a few feet away.

All these people seem to think it is someone else's problemand, god forbid, if you actually call them up on it they abuse you.

It's all part of being in a large group and figuring someone else will clean it up or replace it or return it. Mostly it's all about not getting caught, which explains the abuse if you do actually catch them. Not taking responsability for your own actions is no way to behave. You come over as a complete moron, as opposed to someone who simply made a mistake.

We've all grown up in a well established society, if you don't want to play by the rules (ie a quick thought as to the consequences of your actions) then feel free to leave society behind. That means electricity, water, clothes, food, cigarettes, internet access, etc. If you want to play here, play fair, clean up after yourself, have the strength to say sorry occasionally, admit mistakes. It is all give and take here just be sure that you balance of give and take is even.

Redevelopment

2004-11-30T19:36:00.000+10:30

Ever had one of those moments...
We were discussing plans for house extensions and Kerri asked what we really needed them for. She thought for a second or two and said "Why don't you just move that couch around?"
And it works!
Kerri Valkova: Designer extraordinaire

Bean Hits 40...

2004-11-30T13:16:00.000+10:30

...and to celebrate we had a kareoke party. Lots of people turned up and for the most part had fun. I was still suffering from a cold and Bean was still recovering from one, but people sang and danced lots. The theme was Berlin Cabaret, which sounded like a good idea at the time, but was not the easiest thing to define. I fell back on a costume I had seen someone wear at the Berlin Cabaret in the Weinmar Room in Adelaide.
It was hot, damn hot. Didn't fire up the brazier we had borrowed really did not need it.
Friends from Melbourne came over, some brought children, some a desire to shop and one brought knitting needles and she proceeded to knit a coaster from balloon ribbons. It wrapped up around threeish and little Nykita slept through most of it.

Home Page and Other Things

2004-11-30T13:13:00.000+10:30

Our home page is here by the way.

Introduction

2004-11-30T12:49:00.000+10:30

Because I rant at people about my political views.
Because I Bean and I travel and it would be nice to type up a diary.
And simply because everyone else is doing it.