Jason L. Froebe: Ramblings of a Geek

Our contest for today is for the new, exciting WHOLE AND CHUNKY FRUIT BOX from TCF Organics.  The box contains a wide selection of fruits, some whole (obviously) and some already cut and prepped for you!  Anything that is appropriate to cut, like pineapple and melons, will arrive cut up and ready to eat.  Things that would turn brown, like apples, pears, and bananas, arrive whole, perfect for out-of-hand eating.

The box is normally a $35 value, including delivery.  And TCF is letting me give one away!

So, you want the details?  Not a problem!

To win this wonderful box full of fruit, delivered right to your door, you need to live within 100 miles of Chicago.  Please click this link to make sure that you are part of the delivery area.  If you enter, and aren’t eligible, I’m sorry to say that I’ll have to choose someone else.  So please, only enter if you can actually get the box.

Otherwise, all you have to do is leave a comment [at http://k2p2.net/blog2/2009/06/29/contest-time], saying what day TCF delivers to your area.  (You can find that out, conveniently enough, here.)

Delivering Affordable Organic Food to Homes in Illinois, Wisconsin and Indiana For 20 Years

If you’ve been following the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan, you would know that the last “book” will be released in three separate volumes.  Why?  Because there is just so many plots and subplots and subsub plots and subsubsub plots ….  plots to wrap up.

Click on the image to pre-order the book from Amazon.

The Gathering Storm

Brandon Sanderson will be taking over writing the last book as Robert Jordan died last year.  See the full size cover over at Dragonmount.  It will be released on November 3rd of this year (2009). 

I just uploaded the Perl module Flickr::Simple2 version 0.03 to CPAN (PAUSE) so it might be a few minutes/hours before it shows up in the CPAN mirrors.

Revision history for Perl extension Flickr::Simple2.

0.03  Wed May 13 11:18:00 2009
- significant changes to the API to make more methods of the Flickr API available.
- using Iterator::Simple so we can retrieve one photo at a time and internalize the handling of Flickr Photo *pages*
0.02  Initial CPAN release
0.01  Thu Feb 12 11:33:35 2009
- original version; created by h2xs 1.23 with options
-XA -n Flickr::Simple2

At work we have three generic LCD monitors mounted on a pole to view monitoring metrics for our Oracle & Sybase database servers. On a previous machine that was cannibalized for another task, we ran Microsoft Windows XP to drive the three monitors.

Last week we were given a hand me down desktop, a Dell Optiplex GX520 with integrated Intel 82945G/GZ video on the motherboard. When we added the NVidia GeForce4 MX 4000 low profile video card, Windows XP for whatever reason was unable to use both video cards. I proposed Kubuntu 9.04 Linux as an alternative. As it was only myself that I had to convince to make the attempt, I was hard pressed to say no

The Intel 82945G/GZ video card will be the primary card and must be attached to “Screen 0″ in the ServerLayout section.

The NVidia video card has two connectors:

1. A standard VGA port driven by a GeForce4 MX 4000 GPU < - Primary nvidia port
2. A super-video port driven by a Quadro NVS 110M

After the base install of the operating system, XWindows was only able to see the Intel video card. After much tinkering with the /etc/xorg.conf file, I was able to get all three LCD monitors to work with Xinerama. There are a number of gotchas that you might run into:

• If the integrated Intel video card is set to Auto in the BIOS, the card will be completely disabled. You need to disable Auto
• You need to know which Nvidia Device entry drives the VGA connector. It must be initialized prior to the S-Video port.
• Disable NVidia’s TwinView and metamodes option lines in the Screen Section.
• Use sudo lspci to identify the pci bus ids. You will need to put them in the Device Sections.
• The integrated Intel video card must use the vesa video driver as the intel video driver will stacktrace when used with xinerama.

If you’re not using Oracle’s RMAN for backup management but you have turned on archive mode for hot backups, you can create a job in Enterprise Manager (Maintenance -> Manage Current Backups).

Recently I ran into a problem with one our Enterprise Manager installs where scheduled jobs would not run. So, I wrote a very simple RMAN script to clear out the references to any archive files that I’ve moved elsewhere or deleted:

The following is a patch for bug 45563 in Exception::Class::TCF:

Useless localization of scalar assignment at Exception-Class-TCF/lib/Exception/Class/TCF.pm line 255.

Index: lib/Exception/Class/TCF.pm
===================================================================
— lib/Exception/Class/TCF.pm (revision 83)
+++ lib/Exception/Class/TCF.pm (working copy)
@@ -251,8 +251,11 @@
my($block,@catches) = @_;
my($exc,@args,$res);
&$pushFrame;
- $HANDLE_WARN &&
- local ( $SIG{’__WARN__’} = sub { throw Exception::Class::TCF::Warning @_; } );
+
+ if ($HANDLE_WARN) {
+ local ( $SIG{’__WARN__’} ) = sub { throw Exception::Class::TCF::Warning @_; };
+ }
+
$dTHROWING = 0;
$res = eval { &$block() };
$exc = $EXCEPTION;

Toll Free USA: 1-800-318-0631
Toll Free USA: 1-866-562-7219
Toll Free Canada: 1-877-722 3755
Direct Number: 1-408-349-1572
Yahoo Fax Number: 1-408-349-3301

India’s National Programme of Technology Enhanced Learning provides technical lectures from all seven Indian Institutes of Technology and Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.

The Video Courses are organised as PLAYLISTS under the following Categories:

1. Core Sciences
2. Civil Engineering
3. Computer Science and Engineering
4. Electrical Engineering
5. Electronics and Communication Engineering
6. Mechanical Engineering

Lecture 21 PERL – Part I from the Computer Science & Engineering’s Internet Technologies course is an excellent example of these training videos:

Microsoft quietly added the capability for font anti-aliasing (font smoothing) in Windows XP Service Pack 3.  This applies to Terminal Services (Remote Desktop / Remote Assistance) connections. This is very easy to do.  Just open up regedit (Start->cmd -> regedit) and make the following change:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server\WinStations]

New DWORD Key: AllowFontAntiAlias

Value: 00000001

That’s it

Lewis Cunningham has once again given us a gem from the world of Oracle’s relational DBMS!  This time, he has written ORA_Tweet, an API to send/receive Tweets (microblog posts) from within Oracle 11g.  Major kudos to Lewis Cunningham for writing and releasing ORA Tweet to Sourceforge.net

Call the Twitter API from within an Oracle database. ORA_Tweet uses the UTL_HTTP API within Oracle to call the update_status API. It is written completely in PL/SQL.

So, my question is…  Will someone write a Flickr API for Sybase ASE?

We can see the output of the script:

The article I submitted (migration to Oracle from Sybase and surviving in the workplace) was so very different as to the article that was published.  My piece was too controversial for ISUG to release (Sybase to Oracle) so it was changed, not be me and not by the editor.  It became a weird Unix to Windows rant.  Yup, I agreed to the revised article but was trying to calm a screaming toddler and pamper a pregnant lady… not excuses just explaining where my brain was when I agreed to it.  ugh what a mess.

Ultimately, the publication of the article was my fault.  So please, just ignore my article in the Jan/Feb 2009 issue of the ISUG Technical Journal.

Sybase Workspace

Sybase

is an Eclipse distribution that uses highly customized Data Tools Platform (DTP) plugins.  Updating the Sybase version of DTP with the standard DTP release from Eclipse will break Sybase’s Workspace.

Last night I updated Workspace’s DTP with the standard DTP release from Eclipse’s website.  Several oddities started showing up when accessing the DTP releases:

Configuring the db connection

Testing the connection worked fine but when you open the database connection to a Sybase ASE database errors are reported:

Multiple errors have occurred

and

Connection errors

If you run into this issue, you will need to uninstall Sybase’s Workspace (delete the %SYBASE%/Workspace directory after the uninstall is complete) to resolve it.

I’ve created feature request CR 565285 with Sybase:

Workspace’s DTP (data tools platform) should be updated with the DTP current release from Eclipse. This will allow developers that work in a mixed environment to use Workspace with non-Sybase DBMS’s (view stored procedures, triggers, etc).

If you believe that this feature request is desired, please let Sybase know.

Earth Core

I’ve been listening to the free audio book, Earth Core, by Scott Sigler on Podiobooks.com.

The premise is when a mysterious double sided platinum blade is found in a cave,  the largest deposit of platinum (multi billion $$$) on the planet is discovered three miles under a mountain.  A mining company, called Earth Core, needs not only to stake a claim but find a way to extract the platinum.   The miners have their hands full when the platinum ‘deposit’ fights back.

From the super ex-CIA agent to the spelunking uber-geologist, the story is a wild one.  I’m very impressed with Mr. Sigler’s ability to make the characters and the scenario seem very real.

If you are into adventure stories and a little gore won’t phase you, treat yourself to a good time by reading or listening to Earth Core.  You won’t forget it.

Note that upgrading the BIOS using an USB thumb drive is NOT needed if you have Windows XP or Windows Vista installed on your Acer Aspire One netbook.

Prepare the USB thumb drive (need 64MB or larger):

1. Install FreeDOS on your USB thumbdrive by using Unetbootin.
2. Download the latest (currently 3309) BIOS from Acer’s ftp server
3. Extract all the files in the zip file onto your USB thumb drive

On the Acer Aspire One machine:

1. Insert the prepared USB thumb drive into an USB port on the Aspire One
2. Reboot
3. Hit the “F12″ button every second or so until the boot drive menu appears
4. Choose the option for USB HD or similar
5. Hit enter when presented with a PC Linux boot screen (it will boot into FreeDOS)
6. When the FreeDOS boot menu shows up, choose “safe mode” (no drivers loaded)
7. From the dos prompt, change to the c drive by typing “C:” and enter
8. Type “dir *.bat”, you should see 3309.bat (if you downloaded the 3309 BIOS).  Run that by typing “3309.bat”
9. If all goes well, reboot

Above is a variant of the instructions found on Macles website.

Flickr

Flickr::Simple2 is an XML::Simple based Perl API to communicate with Flickr.  It is in the early phases of development… comments are welcome

You will need to supply your own Flickr API key.

I released version 0.02 to Perl’s CPAN repository this morning after several delays related to the birth of my son a week ago.  As always, comments and constructive critism are welcome.

QweryBuilder uses innovative ideas to provide developers with the ability to easily insert, extract and modify data from a variety of databases.

The goal of QweryBuilder is to increase a database developer’s productivity. It contains many time saving features.

SQL Editor

QweryBuilder - SQL Editor

• Script auto complete
• Custom auto complete lists
• Code Templates
• Display column list for tables and views in editor
• Display procedure parameters in editor
• Keyboard shortcut to open procedures
• Generate and insert new GUIDs
• Syntax folding
• Auto indenting

Criteria Query

QweryBuilder - Criteria Query

• Form view criteria screen for easy data retrieval
• Updateable result set
  • Insert nulls, GUID’s, and computed values into results
  • Insert, delete and update data rows
  • Generate insert statements from results
  • Create graphs from result data

Graphic Query

QweryBuilder - Graphic Query

• Create queries graphically
• Cross table querying without writing SQL

Other Features

• Support for Microsoft SQL Server, Sybase ASE, SQL Anywhere and Oracle
• DDL Browser
• Database Search
• Visual Difference
• Code Formatter
• Getting Started Window
  • Displays last used connections, files and database objects
  • Easily navigate to the last thing you were working on
• Clipboard Saver
• File Browser
• Object Browser

Linux Journal Archive 2008 CDROM

The Linux Journal has just made their yearly Archive CDROM available for purchase.  It includes EVERY Linux Journal  article from March 1994 to December 2008.  At $32 USD, it is a real bargain!