Codewut Because Software Matters

So, here it is. Thanks to http://isitdarkoutside.com you will never have to trouble yourself with the question "is it dark outside?" anymore. This super-advanced Android application will let you focus on more important questions such as "which shoe goes on which foot?" from now on. Thank us later.

download APK file here

Version 0.1 - 2010-02-07,

• New icon
• Public release

Version 0.0.1 - 2010-02-05,

• better errorhandling (missing location status, no network)
• Added sunrise and sundset hours to the information dialog

Version 0.0.0 - 2010-02-05
N/A - Dev-Snapshot, link removed

It's actually pretty simple, but many small things can go wrong. So, here is your small boilerplate code for a XUL overlay which renders a small canvas area in the status bar:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
 
<overlay id="myOverlay"
  xmlns="http://www.mozilla.org/keymaster/gatekeeper/there.is.only.xul"
  xmlns:html="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
 
  <statusbar id="status-bar">
    <statusbarpanel>
      <box>
        <html:canvas id="myCanvas" width="15" height="15" style="border:1px solid black;"/>
      </box>
    </statusbarpanel>
  </statusbar>
</overlay>

and some simple painting in JS:

var canvas = window.document.getElementById("myCanvas");
var ctx = canvas.getContext("2d");
ctx.fillStyle = "red";
ctx.fillRect(5,5,5,5);

If done right, you will get a result like this

CANVAS in XUL

Dear Diary

Today kicked off rather troublesome. After installing the developer edition of SQL Server 2008 I've decided to get rid of the SQL Server Express Edition. Why would I want to run multiple versions of SQL Server on the same machine? This turned out not to be a very good idea, especially when you are about developing ASP.NET applications using Visual Studio. Once you try to run an ASP.NET application which requires some kind of role management and/or personalization (Web Parts do), you will run into this pretty error:

IIS SQL Error

Yes, the local IIS is still referencing the SQL Server Express datasource. One would assume that you could change those settings somewhere within Visual Studio as you can change the Port of the ASP.NET application. Well… Don’t waste time as I did. It is not that easy, here is what you need to do:

Create a new Database dedicated to the IIS, for the sake of simplicity we’ll call it “IIS”:

Create a new IIS Database

Locate and run “aspnet_regsql.exe”. In my case it is "C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\aspnet_regsql.exe". Here you want to stick with the first option (Configure SQL Server for application services) and point it to the freshly created database on the next and let the configuration tool initialize the empty db.

Initialize the new Database

Almost done, you still need to point the LocalSqlServer configuration not to use the SQLEXPRESS Server but the dedicated Database. Locate the machine.config and provide the connection string to the IIS Database:

Modify machine.config

Dear Diary:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc425499.aspx - specifications for the exchange protocol and other related "stuff" (cab-file format for instance) #specs #api #exchange

So, seems there is a HTTP REST-Like interface to Active Sync aaaaand a WEBDAVy way to access your Mailbox... Sounds cool, might be a handy solution to a problem we ran into at the office recently. Here is a small PHP Example: http://www.troywolf.com/articles/php/exchange_webdav_examples.php

Woohoo! SVN builds of XBMC are getting pretty smooooooooth and stable. I think that Acer Revo box I purchased some time ago will be able to replace the rockstabe Popcorn Hour A-100 in no time.

Oh, in case you have been wondering what's so special about this: What you see is an Intel Atom based SFF PC powered by the NVidia ION chipset. Yes, 1080p decoding on the GPU. And yes, It's running on Linux, the Windows version of XBMC is not doing a great job regarding offloading video decoding onto the GPU yet.

So far I have found 2 issues with the current build. The decoder uses 16-235 colorspace instead of 0-255, so you will be missing some contrast. Does not apply to all videos though, old DIVX files decode correctly. The other issue is really a minor one, XBMC won't run when you use compiz at the same time.

There is also a new feature in the current dev snapshot I could not give a try, XBMC does support some fancy SD upscaling on the GPU. Unfortunately the ION Chipset does not support the "VDPAU Featureset C" - only newer cards like the GT2XX series do.

And here is the updated video. A bit less blurry / shaky but still crappy.

tested version: xbmc_9.04.3+svn23321-jaunty1

Just in case you run into OutOfMemory Exceptions while requesting a large data chunk from the MySQL: the JDBC driver will load ALL (yes, ALL) rows before passing it to your fancy, agile and low-footprint routine. Tweaking the fetchSize property of a statement won't do any good either... well, not without some voodoo. So, here is how you can get the JDBC driver to get you a nice and tight StreamingResultSet:

Connection connection = dataSource.getConnection();
Statement st = connection.createStatement(java.sql.ResultSet.TYPE_FORWARD_ONLY, java.sql.ResultSet.CONCUR_READ_ONLY);
st.setFetchSize(Integer.MIN_VALUE); // Inter.MIN_VALUE <- and ONLY this value, 1,5 or 100 won't fix your problem.
ResultSet rs = st.executeQuery("select * from someREALLYHugeTable");

Reflection and me? Big friends. With all the love and hate a good friendship should have. A few days ago it was all about hate again. I had a bunch of service classes, some of them would implement a generic interface... Let's call it IHasAdorable - so a Service-Implementation could look like this:

public class MarketMerchant : IHasAdorable<CheeseBurger>, IProductSeller
{
  // defined in IHasAdorable
  CheeseBurger BuyAdorable() 
  { 
    return new AdorableCheeseburger(); 
  }
 
  // defined in IProductSeller
  IProduct Buy(String eanCode) 
  { 
    if (eanCode.equals("12345"))
      return this.bigStackOfSmellyFishburgers.Pop();
    else
      throw new IAmSoSorryException("We don't have any of these!");
  }
}

Now lets assume we want to browse through ALL market merchants and have a look if they have any adorable products. Let's skip the iteration process and pay attention to the probing of all market merchants in order to buy a adorable product from each of them. First attempt might be to use "is":

  IProductSeller merchant;
  // iteration goes here
  if (merchant is IHasAdorable<object>)
  {
    // this wont work. We are selling something very special, not just a stupid object!
    // Casting to IHasAdorable<> won't even compile.    
  }

  typeof(IHasAdorable<object>).IsAssignableFrom(merchant) 

  // `1 means there is 1 Generic parameter 
  Type adorableInterfaceType = merchant.GetType().GetInterface("IHasAdorable`1"); 
 
  if (adorableInterfaceType != null)
  {
    // yay, the merchant has adorable products, what whould those be!?
    Type adorableProductType = adorableInterfaceType.GetGenericArguments()[0];
 
    // here is the magic we need to get the correct IHasAdorable Type 
    // with "filled in" generic type.
    Type genericAdorableInterfaceType = 
      typeof(IHasAdorable<>).MakeGenericType(adorableProductType);
    MethodInfo mi = genericAdorableInterfaceType.GetMethod("BuyAdorable");
    myBagOfAdorableProducts.Add(mi.invoke(merchant,null));    
  }

If you run into the same issue, disable IPv6 support in Firefox:
about:config -> network.dns.disableIPv6 -> true
Apparently Firefox and Microsoft Internet Information Server do not like to play together nicely on Vista without human intervention.

There you go

#!/bin/sh
 
########################################################################
## Scans all jar files within a directory (recursively) for a class 
## name
## Usage: findClass /tmp/ MyFunnyClass
########################################################################
 
black='\E[30;47m'
red='\E[31;40m\033[1m'
green='\E[32;47m'
yellow='\E[33;40m'
blue='\E[34;40m\033[1m'
magenta='\E[35;47m'
cyan='\E[36;47m'
white='\E[37;47m'
alias Reset="tput sgr0"      
 
cecho () 
{
  local default_msg=" "
  message=${1:-$default_msg}   # Defaults to default message.
  color=${2:-$black}           # Defaults to black, if not specified.
  echo -e -n "$color"
  echo -n "$message"
  Reset                      # Reset to normal.
  return
} 
 
clsln()
{
	fillLine " ";
} 
 
fillLine()
{
        let tw=$(tput cols)-1;
        for (( c=0 ; c < $tw; c++))
        do
                echo -n "$1";
        done
        echo -e -n '\r'
}
 
echo 
echo -n Scanning Folder: 
cecho "$1" $yellow
echo -n for Class: 
cecho "$2" $yellow
echo
 
fillLine "."
echo
for i in $(find $1 -name '*jar');
do
	clsln;
        echo -n -e "Scanning :";
	cecho $i $blue
	echo -n -e '\r';
 
        out=$(jar vft $i | egrep $2);
 
        if [ "$out" ]
        then
		clsln;
		fillLine "*"
		echo
		echo -n -e 'Possble hit in file:'
		cecho $i $blue
		echo
                echo "$out" $red
		echo
		fillLine "*"
		echo
		echo
        fi
done;
clsln;
echo;