Russell Bateman

Gloria mi insegna a cucinare

2012-01-15T11:48:00.010-07:00

I'm taking cooking classes from Gloria Bonfanti this month.

Observations: I made some really good pizza yesterday, I chose to make a Margherita I believe it's called. When I opened the huge bag of basil leaves, it was like walking into an opium den. I almost passed out from a drug-induced stupor. I'd be making this again today if it weren't that it's my granddaughter's birthday and she's asked for feijoada.

We made risotto e funghi. Gloria likes a lot of salt in the food. When we tasted the risotto, she asked if we liked the taste. I said I did, but that it was too salty by far. She said, "Ah, now that's the French for you."

Then we made a penne with broccoli and sausage dish. It was fun using her kitchen for this: the broccoli blanched and the pasta cooked in little compartments that fit a rack then plunged into a deep fat fryer except filled with boiling water. When she asked how I thought it tasted, I said it was perfect. She said, "Hmmm... there's not nearly enough salt in it."

Next week is pollo con funghi, meatballs in tomato sauce and a section on how to marinate meat and potatoes.

The week after that is tiramisu and crostata al cioccolato.

It's very instructive to see how a practicing chef works. I'm now totally bummed by my own kitchen. I need a real cooktop and real ovens. I'm already starting to think seriously about the ovens because I've got room to do something about it if I want (because of how I redesigned my kitchen when we bought the house).

Technical debt

2012-01-12T14:50:00.008-07:00

Technical debt is a recent metaphor in my industry concocted to refer to the phenomenon that as we write and modify computer program code, its increased complexity costs us more.

The idea is that as programs age, they cost a company more money in terms of developer time and expertise to maintain or enhance them. Debt can also be a function of resources the application consumes, stuff like computer power, database size, increased disk space, memory and network bandwidth requirements.

This debt metaphor applies especially to the accumulation of code that's duplicated, tightly coupled, untested or doesn't fall under paths of known test coverage—all creating the situation where a developer goes in to add a feature and finds either that he cannot do it without breaking something else because of unforeseen dependencies between existing components or must do a great deal more work because there are considerably more points in the source base that demand his attention than might be estimated.

Obviously, reducing existing debt is thought to be important; limiting it in the first place is a pretty big goal.

And yet, this metaphor can be abused.

One might postulate that an application's debt can be seen like a mortgage at a certain interest rate. If the company considers "paying it off," the exercise quickly becomes daunting. A great deal of effort must be expended to make that happen.

Of course, the tools used to measure technical debt are suspicious in and of themselves. Their use and configuration cannot be taken lightly.

In the end, technical debt isn't really like a mortgage because one needn't always pay it down. One particularly nasty component may, in the wisdom of a measuring tool, constitute a huge debt in terms of its complexity. But, tools don't measure the fact that maybe there aren't bugs in it or that there is little or no need to go into that component to do anything. Whatever its cost may be estimated at, if no developer's ever going to have to touch it, the imaginary cost is not important.

Other code that must be touched frequently, such as a user interface, would be an important undertaking full of potential pitfalls. It would be more important to concentrate on doing it right, maybe choosing a widely understood framework, ensuring freater much test coverage, etc. than other components.

Beyond these considerations is the longevity of an application. If an application is soon to be replaced by a new version or by another application altogether, it's not important to spend any more money on it. It's like spending money on janitors to clean up a building that will fall to the wrecking ball.

Nevertheless, this metaphor is apt. And it underlines the need for software development to be agile, invested in test- or behavior-driven development techniques so that no code is written that's not covered by tests.

Test first; then code. State behavior by means of a test first, then code to solve the challenge.

Manly thrills and excitement!

2011-12-30T16:43:00.007-07:00

When young, we fixed stuff ourselves. No big deal; poverty, semi-poverty or just frugality meant that we did it instead of paying someone else to do it.

Somewhere along the way, they figured it out. Auto makers began colluding with dealerships to produce cars that would need a modicum of repairs over their service life. Guys like me who used to know what every last thing under the hood did and what to do when it broke, long ago stopped recognizing much. Television sets, washers, ovens, refrigerators and other electric appliances became unserviceable at the component or subcomponent levels. Too, we get better jobs and better pay wimping out and allowing our manhood to drip away.

Well, today, I cheated the system. I fixed my two-oven stack, saving myself hundreds of dollars.

It used to be that when an oven stopped working, you replaced the heating element that no longer fired.

This is almost never the problem today. Last year, in my old house I kept for (usually related) college students. I lost an oven for want of a magic board to keep it running. Oven manufacturers discontinue component-level replacements after a few years and what was an dream oven I bought brand, spanking new in the late 1990s, an upscale one to boot, was reduced to worthless and I had to replace it.

That unit needed not only the circuit card that ran the oven elements, it also need the logic module—what ran the digit read-out, touch pad, etc.

I learned a few years ago, at the same time that I was first disabused of the out-dated notion that you can simply replace an element when it stops working, that modern ovens turn on and off the elements. This is the clicking sound you're hearing. In this way, they also use less power and need far less current. It cost me something like $350 to learn this lesson, about $200 of it was for a new circuit board.

When I installed my oven in the old house and the stack in my new one, I always ran 8-3 or at least 10-3 with ground to supply them. But I noticed that the ovens' factory cabling wasn't anything like that heavy. This can be because they now cycle on and off making it unnecessary to handle such huge current loads (30 or 40 amps back in the day) for so long a time. (Or, so I theorize.)

What this means is that when the oven goes out (excepting for the logic board), it's likely a relay/solenoid, the thing that goes clickity-click.

Having kept a board I needed to replace in my oven stack a few years back, I reached a conclusion based on inspecting it: the built-in obsolescence relies on the circuit board heating up and slowly letting its solder melt and/or dissipate. You replace the board because it stops functioning. It might have been a relay, but likely it wasn't. It was the board.

I just proved this to myself. I kept that old board and resoldered two relay lugs that were obviously "unsoldered" over the few years I'd had it thinking that if the board ever failed again, I'd at least try the old one now repaired. It was the upper oven.

The lower oven lost its broiler a year ago or so, but I've just been using the upper one. (Besides, everything I put under a broiler is reduced to ash anyway, so I generally avoid using it.) Last week, I lost the whole bottom oven for baking as well—just in time for Christmas dinner.

I'm about to embark on my traditional New Year's Eve dinner. Pulling it off with a single oven isn't pleasant to think about.

Today, I pulled it out, photographed the boards, recognized the new board (which was for the upper oven) and pulled the one for the bottom instead (after also noting all the colored cabling in case my photos weren't sufficient).

Sure enough, the dysfunction was identical to the old board for the top oven. Excited to prove my theory, I dug out my old Weller and applied new solder to two points underneath the board. I reassembled and fired up the lower oven.

Success!!!

I am finally a man again.

Cheap thrills..

2011-11-02T18:15:00.006-06:00

When you can get them, every time you can get them.

Today I polished off a new Apache ant custom task I wrote by publishing it along with some Eclipse projects that illustrate one of the tutorials I used to figure out how to write a custom task. Then I went back in and tested a feature I'd put in, but had forgot to use (it worked). Subsequently, my continuous build (via Jenkins) stopped breaking, well, only after fixing a few things in some SQL scripts that suddenly became visible because of the cool ant task I added to the build.

Yesterday, someone wrote to thank me for that Eclipse, Tomcat, JSP and servlets tutorial I wrote way back in 2008.

Things have wound seriously down at work for the next release of things. I can sigh in relief and look forward to more "planned" (read: non panic-motivated) work.

As I say, cheap thrills.

In the doghouse...

2011-10-25T16:22:00.016-06:00

Sometime last spring, my van's heating and cooling system failed in the sense that I could no longer direct the air anywhere in particular. It was stuck on the floor, which wasn't particularly helpful for refrigeration.

No matter; I ride a motorcycle almost exclusively in the spring, summer and fall. Still, there are those times...

...and, after all, winter is coming: I can't operate this vehicle without a defroster.

Well, I knew that, because this happened before, there was some nasty work in the offing. Julene remembered that the last time, the mechanic reattached some hose to the engine. Yeah, back when I was a child, the manifold vacuum was used to operate many things—using amply large-gauge rubber tubing. Not everything is electric even today.

Well, for the Chevy Astro van, there's a "doghouse" that encloses the back end of the engine compartment isolating it from the cab. The operating manual has instructions and illustrations on how to do that. This doghouse cover must be removed because the hose connects underneath it. It also connects up in a place accessible from the front mixed in a bit with large aluminum tubes that appear related to refrigeration. (I'm not verifying all I'm saying 'cause I'm way past interested in auto mechanics at this point in my life, but most of this is accurate I think.)

At first, I couldn't find any tube likely to the one in question. And the doghouse wouldn't come completely out of the van without removing one of the seats. As (bad) luck would have it, my brother has the same vehicle (a little newer) and the same problem at the same time. If that weren't convenient, his second son married the daughter of the guy who, Julene thinks, fixed this thing the first time. So, a little networking and a visit from my brother after calling the mechanic and he found the broken tube exactly where he learned it would be.

The problem is this tiny gauge (1/8") tube is cooked by the engine over the top of which it's routed, become brittle and ultimately breaks. Mine broke next to the repair splice from the first time. The splice was still good; much of the rest of the tube was brittle.

We went to get a replacement from AutoZone, but they only had ¼" gauge tubing and some tubing connectors, none of which really was the answer, but we were in hard way, night was falling, etc.

We clipped off the tiny hose from its nice factory ends (rubber elbows that mated with a T connector in front and a nipple on a connector at the back under the doghouse) leaving short stubs of that tubing, still not brittle, and cleaned the latter up. We force-fitted these good bits of the remaining skinny tubing into nylon connectors from an $8 box of a million different size tubing connectors purchased from AutoZone, and heated up the ¼" tubing ends to go over the other end of the connector.

This, plus hooking it back up did the trick. My brother did his this morning and reports that it all went much faster as he'd been in on most of the job at my house.

Here are the puzzling bits I learned performing this repair. I'm hoping that after the search engines crawl my post, these points and my account will help someone else.

1. You need a large-gauge star drive to remove the two upper screws holding the console to the frame over the doghouse.

2. In order to remove the upper, passenger-side screw holding the doghouse to the firewall, you must have a flat-blade screwdriver at least 18" long. Nothing else will reach in there because there's precious little room left between a duct and the doghouse.

3. The tubing is tiny and the end under the doghouse is on the driver's side very near the throttle body.

The rest of what's going on is fairly obvious.

Birthday!

2011-10-10T15:59:00.021-06:00

Twenty-seven years ago today, about the time I'm writing this (between three and four in the afternoon), my wife and I got on our motorcycle and headed up to a specially scheduled venue for a party we'd been planning for some time. We were a little tight on space in our tiny car, and we needed to get a few things ready anyway, so we planned for her mother to follow a little later with our three children aged seven, six and four.

Everything was already set up and waiting for us. There were treats including a cake as I remember (no, really) and drinks and even staff to wait on us, hand and foot. The children and their grandmother arrived in plenty of time for the party to start. The only one missing was a special invitee, whom we'd not really met before.

He arrived a little later.

One could accuse him of arriving "late," and certainly he didn't arrive until after all the other guests, but maybe just a little like a wizard, he didn't arrive early or late, but precisely when he meant to.

A great time was had by everyone and we all got along with him so well that we invited our honored and newly met guest to come home with us.

And so he did.

And we've all been delighted by him ever since.

Happy birthday, Thierry Daniel Bateman.

Death of a tabernacle

2011-10-02T17:33:00.011-06:00

As announced yesterday, the Provo Tabernacle is no more. The outside walls will be restored, but the interior, the seating, the gallery, the choir seats and organ will never see the light of day again.

This edifice burned down last December. See story here.

The Church has decided to turn it into a temple. Understandably, the Church is not in the business of rebuilding community centers for secular benefit. However, failing to restore it to its original purpose makes for a very sad loss in that this building has stood for over 120 years as part of the community not only in terms of its spiritual usage, but it has, just as the Salt Lake City Tabernacle, served a local community's other needs. In Provo's case, this has meant hosting concerts (including an appearance by none other than Sergei Rachmaninoff) and community musical programs, school commencement exercises, university student piano, organ and other recitals, and it has served as home now and then to organizations such as the now defunct Utah Valley Choral Society. It has seen many performances of Handel's Messiah.

From a more conventional viewpoint, it long served as the site for stake conferences of various local stakes of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And it served the Roman Catholic community at least once or twice for Christmas Eve mass.

One of the more delightful aspects of this beautiful old building was that it hosted ecclesiastical meetings in a comfortable context and secular events in a cozy, inviting atmosphere appreciated by many Utah Valley residents be they Mormon or not.

And, there is really nothing in terms of a venue that comes close to replacing it.

On the plus side, most if not all of the block immediately south will include considerable green space that the City is hoping will attract people, and therefore shoppers, to central Provo which has for decades defied all efforts at reinvigoration.

Over the years, many Utah communities have learned the lesson that their tabernacles are similarly doomed as they no longer fit a growing Church's agenda or purposes. One by one, these historic structures have either fallen to the wrecking ball or, as in the case of Vernal and Provo, been converted to other purposes, temples in these two cases, a museum in another. Sadly, it's a rich legacy we're losing.

Sibelius : Tervedys !

2011-09-03T20:09:00.038-06:00

Hail, Sibelius!

The 20th of September is the 54th anniversary of Sibelius' death. I was 2½.

No, there is no connection, strained or otherwise, but then, I didn't know Bach from Beethoven either.

Since introduced to his music in the spring of 1974, I've come easily to the opinion there has been no more fabulous composer—in every sense of the term. Jean Sibelius was the most lyrically musical mind the world has ever known. His symphonishe Dichtungen or tone poems are magical, his symphonies superb and unpredictable.

Dark and brooding, nevertheless from his music escape faeric themes that enchant against a contrasting even lugubrious background. Suffused with northern light of waning, cold days, majestic vistas, and stern heroes, it alternates from hypnotic to bewitching.

I've often said in jest that Sibelius is often so ponderous and depressing at times that, by contrast, it makes me feel in a lighter mood. But only in jest.

As a treat, the Public Radio Exchange recently included him in a program series,
13 Days When Music Changed Forever, revolutionary moments when music was fundamentally transformed, hosted by musician and composer Suzanne Vega.

Sibelius is rightfully included. Sibelius is the pinnacle of musical Romanticism, the last word before the descent into dissonant Modernism. Which makes him very relevant today.

If you don't know this composer, the PRX broadcast is a fair introduction, but don't stop there. Take the plunge. I particularly suggest the easy introductions, to wit, the Second and Fifth symphonies, and the tone poems, Finlandia, Pohjola's Daughter, Tapiola, En Saga, the Swan of Tuonela and the Valse Triste. If you like organ, the Surusoitto is considered the echo of his never published and probably destroyed Eighth Symphony. There is much more including the magnificent Violin Concerto in D.

The little grey cells...

2011-08-18T19:58:00.014-06:00

What I haven't told you, because Google disenfranchised my blog about the time it happened, is that I was involved in another exciting medical experience this spring. Here would have been my report Wednesday, 8 June had I been able to file it.

The over-all sensation of the last 10 days is one of having been forced to run through a crowd of people all of whom beat me mercilessly with instruments, some heavy and blunt, some sharp and small. Somewhere in the middle of it, my fifth granddaughter was born! (See post for 31 May 2011.)

In more real terms, I began spontaneously to bleed to death just as I began to mount my motorcycle to go to work on the morning of the first day of June.

Inauspicious!

As soon as Julene could ready herself, we departed in the van (rather than sacrifice her nice car) for the hospital. I adopted the bowl I typically use to make pie crusts, baking powder biscuits and other delights in.

It took the EMT surgeon 2½ hours to stem the flow of blood—failing in the case of about 3 litres of it. He admitted to me later he was plenty worried most of the time. He told me he'd never spent so much time in surgery, never had anyone lose so much blood, and never had to transfuse blood to a patient in over six years. I don't know all that he did, but he said he couldn't find exactly what to fix, so he started reconstructing stuff behind my face until it stopped. I think I'm minus some principal artery in my face now (there are a whole bunch with names I don't remember learning in any of my anatomy classes)—small loss. However, I wasn't there: thank small angels for inventions like general anesthesia.

Waking up was predictably very hard and painful and with my refusal to ingest narcotics (as they nauseate more than anesthetize me), I went home to convalesce Thursday afternoon. Very much in pain, very anxiety-ridden, my blood pressure went up to 220 by nighttime Friday. Saturday morning the doctor reminded me that stroke was a very real possibility, so I returned to the hospital immediately.

They found a cocktail of narcotic and nausea-repressant that did not sicken me (a trial that failed some 10 years ago in unrelated event, so there's history behind this). By Sunday morning all sorts of additional symptoms, contributory and substantial in their own right began to stop asserting themselves though it really took them until today to reach the partial conclusion that I'll be okay. At one point there was discussion that despite improvement, there's an unusual autoimmune shenanigan going on and they say they want to find that. I personally am quite done with the whole thing.

Ultimately, I imagine, a nose-bleed from hell will come take me when, just as last week, I least expect it. It's not lost on me that, while traumatic for the family, that door is probably less desirable than, say, languishing for months or years finally to succumb to cancer. At least not for me.

I'm here; I'm on board with sticking around; I'm eager to determine whether I also lost any little grey cells as Poirot would say. I'll return to work at least by Friday if not as I hope tomorrow. I know it will take a few days to reestablish daily habits and finish clearing the mist...

Thanks to all who wished me well. Apologies to those I didn't adequately notify which include many cherished friends who, being so far away, geographically or shall we say socially, seemed like the easiest to abuse in exchange for lessening the burden on Julene and myself. Work colleagues too. As I say, with a keyboard in my hands, I'm a great communicator, but toss me even my Android phone (even with thumbboard) and it takes a lot to motivate me to extend my news beyond my children, parents and siblings. As it is this note's been devilish hard to write (having lost some of the grey cells devoted to typing skills).

Of course, the Sunday after I wrote this, I re-bled, if only less than a pint. Nevertheless, I solidly revisited the hopeless feeling for a short time of bleeding to death. It stopped at the emergency room and hasn't re-bled since (it's been over two months now) and it's taken me about this long to forget the paranoia.

Nevertheless, I saw my surgeon for the last check-up today and he pronounced me fit, but cautioned me to keep squirting water up my nose and humidifying the air around me at night.

Git, while the gittin's good!

2011-08-17T10:27:00.014-06:00

Since late April I've been investing in learning Git for practical reasons. A new project my team's begun at work wasn't going to be done using Perforce (because we all hate it) and, rather than use Subversion, we thought it would be a great time to see what the future holds (or pay homage to Linus: you decide which).

Git's got some great features (how's that for an alliterative louange?) including administration via gitolite. Yesterday, I spent 7 hours in a course on it to help wrap up three months of stumbling around in the dark and getting bailed out of dangerous situations by my nephew who's an expert with it.

I think the things I like best about Git are:

- git status
- easy manipulation of branches
- git stash
- speed
- did I mention git status?

After using Perforce for a few months, I can't believe how much I've missed a status-revealing command and Git's not only tells you what's what, it tells you what you can do about it.

I think I'm going to have to replace my Subversion server at home.

Lady Lennon is arriving!

2011-05-31T15:57:00.004-06:00

Our fifth grandchild is coming. Even as I write this, Erin is at the hospital in sore travail. Julene and I will drive up to Salt Lake City this evening to see what we may.

We're excited to welcome this little munchkin into our lives!

Defeat reversed...

2011-05-31T15:10:00.005-06:00

Some time ago I wrote that Defeat is inevitable when dealing with oven manufacturer JennAir.

Last week, I hit KSL-TV's classifieds list and purchased a five-year old, little used GE built-in oven to replace my prized JennAir. I dropped it in last Saturday with my youngest son. It took all of 20 minutes and we were puttering. Four twists of the wire nuts.

The new oven is a couple of inches narrower than the old one. This means I'll have to go back with a piece of maple to close the gap in the cabinet.

The new oven is pretty nice. Other than being narrower than a nominal 27" oven (as was the last one), its features measure up including the (missing) meat probe. I wonder if the one I conserved from the JennAir won't work? Convection, programmable, etc. all the features are there.

As I said last time, I will never buy a JennAir again. And I saw plenty to choose from in the classified offerings.

Eclipse and sources under control...

2011-05-23T15:57:00.013-06:00

Of late, I've set up a team source code-control repository from scratch for my work group. This is the first time I've done this for anyone but myself; it's always already been done by the time I joined a team. I haven't been too pleased with the uncertainty at the places I've worked so far--always policy, but never understanding why that policy. Hence my saying something to clear the smoke. There are two camps out there on the web: one for committing the hidden files to source-code control and the other for not committing them. Both are wrong in my opinion.

It seems clear now to me that the following should be the way to do things regarding the “hidden” files in the Eclipse project source base. I'm using Git; the same holds for CVS and Subversion.

.project
It appears you don't want to commit .project to source-code control. You want to create the initial project, then make a copy of this file as .project.sample, and commit that. As each checks out the project source, he or she copies .project.sample to .project, then imports the project in Eclipse.

.gitignore
.project should be marked “ignore” by listing it in the .gitignore at the root of the project. Also in this file are build, bin, etc. since we do not want to include build subdirectories and .class files. I think it’s not a bad idea to include the ignore file, but by doing so, we’d be precluding that anyone maintain a separate, different copy.

.classpath
This is modified by each user's Eclipse, but only when changes such as the addition of a new JAR are made. Therefore, this file should be committed. However, care must be taken not to corrupt this file by adding JARs just any which way.

Addition of new JARs
This must not be done except via copying the new JAR to an internal subdirectory such as WebContent/WEB-INF/lib or other adding via Build Path -> Configure Build Path -> Libraries -> Add JARs (and never Add External JARs).

This ensures a) that the JAR is in the project (there might be a reason not to do it this way with ivy: there certainly is with Maven, but I'm talking old-fashioned stuff here) and b) no full path is added to .classpath.

It's a simple matter thereafter to check out the project (git clone, svn co, etc.), copy .project.sample to .project, then import into Eclipse (File -> Import -> General -> Import existing...) and away you go.

While there are somewhat analogous things going on in NetBeans, and they just may have done it the right way, nevertheless, Eclipse rules. Yes it does.

August 2011 update:
There's little to add except that based on some really bad experiences, I've learned that you absolutely do want to keep the .settings subdirectory under source-code control (in Git or anything else). At very least, the Eclipse Dynamic Web Project is so complex, that gone missing what's in there will make sharing a project pretty much impossible. I tried doing it and not doing it. This is what I learned.

With Usama bin Laden gone, ...

2011-05-02T09:53:00.010-06:00

...it will be up to the State Department or someone deeper in the soup to pick the next object on which to focus our attention in order not to see the sleights of hand.

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

H. L. Mencken

Our lives would be such bliss were the foundation of such only so simple a thing as to find and assassinate worms like bin Laden.

Of Spitfires and Kisses

2011-04-29T07:40:00.046-06:00

The Batemans only stopped being subjects of the crown a scant 138 years ago, so I felt it a minor, personal duty to arise early enough to witness the wedding kiss. There were two very short ones: William is nothing if not the discrete young man.

I wish the new couple all the bliss that royal couples are and have ever been deprived of. I wish them success to exceed the dishonour that has afflicted British royalty since Edward's abdication in 1936.

(I was not up anywhere early enough to sing Jerusalem with the attendees at Westminster, though had it been at a better hour, I would have loved to do that. It's a fascinating anthem and one of my favourites. For all its faults and awful cuisine, I do love Great Britain, a green country, the land of Tolkien, Lewis, Carol, Austen and Shakespeare, concert hall to the Beatles, stage to Eric Clapton, summer garden to Ralph Vaughan Williams. It's the site of the foggy streets of Sherlock Holmes, stomping grounds of Chief Inspector Morse, and the City chambers of Horace Rumpole. I could go on and never stop...)

What brought an actual tear to my eye though, was the unexpected appearance of two Spitfires and an Avro Lancaster ahead of the Royal Air Force fly-over just before the nuptial appearance on Buckingham's well known balcony.

The deep significance of these aircraft, particularly the Spitfires, could not have gone unnoticed by those older present. There are only 44 airworthy Spitfires left in the world today—ever the buff, I looked it up.

That meaning was certainly not lost on me and constituted the emotional highlight of my morning: England would not have seen the coronation of Elizabeth and the wedding of William's parents, nor indeed today's festivities were it not for a few thousand hopeless little aircraft fending off the crushingly superior numbers of the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain 71 years ago. This was a touching tribute to Elizabeth who herself fought on the home front in World War II. It should have reminded the millions looking on of the sacrifice of many millions more for freedom in the world and of a time when Britain stood alone against evil.

God save Britain whose torch lit the beacon America has held up to the world—faltering now in its turn. And God save William and Kate: May they restore honour, decorum and respectability to the monarchy.

Defeat is inevitable!

2011-04-15T10:58:00.005-06:00

What I've learned trying to fix an oven.

After all this time (since December last) and four repair people, we find we'll have to replace the oven in our old house which will be a huge amount of money. It was a primo oven; I installed it brand new 10-15 years ago.

http://www.windofkeltia.com/oven/oven.html

Basically, what we've learned (in case you actually care about this experience) is that without the model number, it's tough to get help (what we've been fighting for so long). The label was plastic and the number had rubbed off along with some of the serial number.

Second, if you buy the wrong brand, customer support can be very poor. JennAir wasn't helpful last December when I contacted them with a partial serial number which they admitted they matched to a list of JennAir products 10 people registered, but refused to give us a list of possible model numbers. Their excuse was that this would somehow compromise confidentiality of other customers. In fact, they pretty well refused to help me determine the model number. I call that very poor customer support (as I can't imagine how a list of possible JennAir oven model numbers pegged to serial numbers including the partial I could give them somehow endangers other customers).

In our case, the last two independent repair persons have worked through similar circumstances with other customers before and they confirm that JennAir has probably discontinued the model and opined honestly that it's been a long time since they cared. They likely don't even produce the board anymore. There are three possible board sets we could try to see if one will fix it, but the source of the boards does not allow returns of those that fail to match. At several hundred dollars per board, ...

Well, you see the problem.

I think there are two morals to this story...

1) Don't put built-in ovens into a rental unit because they're more expensive to replace.
2) Don't purchase JennAir products.

Of course, this was our home and I bought a superb built-in oven when I totally rebuilt the kitchen from the studs out. It wasn't specifically planned that it would become a rental.

The repair folk suggest hitting KSL.com or eBay for a replacement. They say there are people remodeling their kitchens and getting rid of built-in ovens that still work. We'll be trying that approach.

Slain before the gates of happiness...

2011-03-15T13:31:00.030-06:00

Imagine my disappointment yesterday when I discovered my network down.

I had been planning for over a week to spend last night augmenting my quick Latin grammar site by writing a short exposé on Latin conditionals with references to conditional sentences in English and French, the only other languages in which I've any competence to speak authoritatively about this grammatical construct, basically a work of comparative linguistics. In short, I was planning some really good fun.

Instead, I came home to find my house network in tatters, my router utterly un-resurrectable, and my new router difficult to configure. (Well, it was my good fortune, I suppose, even to have a spare router available to install.)

I spent my whole evening getting everything back up and working. I even missed the early minutes of The Event, one of the dramas I try to follow, and raced back to my den every commercial break (by which time I was wrestling with how to get my new router to forward ports 80, 22, etc. through to various of my Linux hosts).

Alas, uesperem perditi.*

What I should have done is to yield to the temptation I repressed to purchase a pie on the way home from work. It was Pi Day after all, and last night's "blood bath" would have been a more suitable celebration of the Ides of March (today) in marking the two thousand fifty-fith anniversary of Cæsar's assassination.

But then, my websites would still be down as I write this.

* Yes, "I lost the evening"—in direct allusion to Vercingetorix' exclamatory utterance as he deposited his weapons in defeat at the knees of Julius Cæsar at Alesia in 52 BC. (See illustration above—I like the ones that surface in various episodes of the comic book, Asterix the Gaul, better, but they're under copyright.)

JSF Facelets: Templating

2011-03-01T18:10:00.007-07:00

This morning I finished my initial research into templating using JavaServer Faces Facelets. This is pursuant to some work I've been doing over the last month or so and three articles discussed in last week's posting.

I've worked with templates in JSF, but never set them up from scratch except for a mindless shot at them 3 years ago using a book I didn't fully understand. It's not been too relevant to my work, except briefly when fixing a few bugs in MarketSplash pages. I'm not really a front-end guy, but I do support some twenty domains benevolently and this technology would come in handy.

So, yeah, a new article—always an article, right?

I've probably got some polishing to do, but the structure and most of the content is there. Casting around for the next thing to look into, I'm thinking Spring Web Flow. If so, there will be another article. Then I'll tuck back into my back-end world where I belong. There some exciting REST stuff coming up later this year.

JavaServer Faces: Facelets

2011-02-24T14:54:00.025-07:00

I've gone and done it: my first full, raging JEE-oriented tutorial, A Simple JSF Facelets Project, in almost three years. In that time I've chosen not to write formal tutorials for a lot of the sub-JEE technologies I've worked with since I felt that others had more than adequately covered the topics. Others like, and very especially, Lars Vogel.

However, I'm on my own again. Just as years ago I couldn't find a tutorial on JSP and servlets that worked (perhaps rather, I couldn't find any that still worked with the new releases of the Eclipse IDE and Web Tools Platform), I have been unable to find a tutorial on Facelets that works.

I've figured out what others have missed and have no explanation why they left their tutorials in a state of unworkability, but I have a theory. They just don't go back to show how to solve problems they forgot they had or answer questions others new to their topic will have, questions they had to answer for themselves, but moved on without taking notes. Their tutorials, once you've followed them and created a project in Eclipse, simply do not work. You're on your own. And others tell me that they've been unable to get anything to work either.

Well, as I'm fond of saying, I'm not the brightest Crayola® in the box. So, I have to take careful notes because often I find myself smack back in the same state of perplexity at why my Tomcat server won't start or why some JSF construct won't render. And if I don't know, there must be someone else who doesn't.

Recently, I exchanged mail with some guy from India who admitted to me that he had tried playing with JSF earlier last year, but just couldn't get things to work. His problem was the same as mine: libraries. The chaos in JSF/Facelet approaches needing JSTL, then no longer needing it in Faces 2.0, etc., libraries coming and going, what version of what library works with what version or versions of other libraries, etc. It's unconscionable. And without the seemingly innate intelligence of these tutorial and book authors who publish then run off to their next thing, I'm obliged to feel my way forward via trial and error, a process I loathe.

And that old, long-winded tutorial I wrote on JSP, servlets and setting up Eclipse? I still get e-mail out of the blue at least once per month thanking me for it. It's still relevant even though it's become mildly embarrassing after journeying so far down the Eclipse and JEE road. I need to rewrite it, to make it more relevant and fix the rather embarrassing admissions of perplexity in my explanations. Now that I know.

Today's tutorial also builds on two other, full-length articles I've written on exposing the recent research I've done on setting up a solid set of libraries to use for JSF, plus additional libraries for Facelets work.

And I show how to internationalize and localize the simple application.

Today's tutorial doesn't go as far as I'd like. I need to wax more forthcoming on aspects that need explaining. That requires much more effort and guesswork. There are also some navigational problems that would be more obvious if the little application did much more than it does. That's very important to fix.

But, I'm moving ahead with the next tutorial. It will be a demonstration of Facelet templating; I just haven't chosen what I'm going to show yet.

Down the road I have plans to integrate Spring web flow. It's a mountain of work I've set for myself.

How does it feel to view the world...

2011-02-11T09:47:00.030-07:00

...from the dominating summit of eighty-one years?

Happy birthday to my father:

Center of attention!

Very young World War II veteran

Old sea dog and world-traveler

Connoisseur of weird and vintage autos
(and a certain redhead)

Perennial geek

Pater familiae

...and all-around great guy!

Butterflied shrimp

2011-02-05T21:06:00.045-07:00

Today we saw the most magnificent shrimp at Costco and couldn't resist picking up 6 of them which, at $13 per pound, ran us a bit more than $8. (I think the vendor was very generous to us.) Then we went home; I was wondering what I'd actually do with them.

Come evening, I knew I couldn't put it off (I'm very superstitious about storing crustaceans in my refrigerator longer than a few hours). On my way up to the kitchen, I decided to butterfly and fry them. Here's the recipe I came up with.

How many per person? We ate three each; I was at the edge. I couldn't eat any more. If they are not the principal foodstuff of your meal, more than two U-8s (8 shrimp per pound) is more than enough per person.

½-2 lbs large gauge shrimp (U-8s are perfect, but a bit smaller is fine)

2 cups water
2 eggs
¾ cup corn starch

— panko bread crumbs
— unsweetened, finely grated coconut (optional)

5 cups frying oil or ghee (or at least 2" deep)

I didn't use coconut: it gets old real fast for me. Julene loves it, though. If you want to use it, mix it thoroughly with the panko crumbs before dredging.

Preparation
Perform mise en place of all ingredients: The batter will separate fairly quickly so it's better that everything be ready at once: oil heated to 350°, shrimp deveined and butterflied, crumbs ready for dredging, batter to hand.

Tip: You can heat the oil while processing the shrimp. I think it's okay to do the first round of battering and dredging even if it's done before the oil is hot.

1. Butterfly shrimp by deveining, removing all shell but the tail. Using a small, but very sharp knife, slash not quite all the way through to open the shrimp up and lay it out flat. Beat it flat with a tool just as you would a breast of chicken, but take great care not to destroy it (it takes a far lighter hand than meat, but it's the same action).

2. In a blender, mix water, eggs and cornstarch until totally homogeneous. Pour into a bowl.

3. Dip shrimp in batter and let drip a couple of seconds to eliminate excess then dredge immediately, piling crumbs on top and pressing down to seat as many as possible. Set aside on a plate. Process all shrimp.

Ensure that oil is hot enough for cooking.

Ready to cook
4. Re-batter shrimp and re-dredge one at a time. As each one is ready, slide it immediately into the oil to cook, count to 20, then remove to drain on a paper towel. This should be enough for them to reach a nice, golden brown color.

Do not over-cook or they will be rubbery. Do not attempt to cook under temperature or you will have to over-cook them to reach golden brown. Ensure that the oil has returned to temperature before repeating step 4 for the next shrimp (or however many you're cooking at once if you're real clever).

It's nice having a tiny sieve to skim the fallen panko between shrimp. I didn't, so halfway through cooking I strained the oil with a large sieve into another pan, then returned the oil to my first pan (only 6 shrimp—so, yeah, it gets pretty messy).

Oh, yes, they were delicious except for the one I over-cooked because my oil had gone cold cooking the previous one. (You don't think I hatched this recipe without mishap and hard knocks, do you?)

Maven of Maven?

2011-02-04T18:05:00.008-07:00

Hmmmmm... no, at least not for now. However, we've made some important strides in groking Maven as used in Eclipse development this week. Long used "as is, as already in place," Maven will henceforth be a tool clutched firmly in our own fist.

http://www.javahotchocolate.com/tutorials/maven.html

Won't get fooled again!

2011-02-01T08:13:00.009-07:00

Tunis falls and a new government is installed.

As I watch Egyptians struggle to throw off their oppressive government in turn, and I see an opposition leader hasten to profit from the situation by assuring the people that he's ready to champion their cause, I can't help but think of what for me was the greatest hit The Who ever had. I don't think I need to say more; the sense and drama of this song doesn't need me to belabor it. It's a story as old as government itself:

Meet the new boss—same as the old boss!

Bet your sweet bippy.

On an obliquely related subject, ...

I naturally went to the web to find a suitable performance of this song and picked the link below. I was doubly rewarded not only a fine performance and the memory of what it's like to be so young and supple (look at what Peter Townshend can do while playing his Les Paul), but I also found this comment below the video. Priceless.

Me: Man, the Rolling Stones are awesome!!!
Friend: The who?
Me: Them too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rp6-wG5LLqE

Sine nomine posmeridiano tempo Dominici

2011-01-30T14:35:00.017-07:00

(Without title for a Sunday afternoon:)

Those without faith live in a world of their own which to them seems logical and final; they take the very unscientific stand that beyond the realm of their own very limited experience, nothing whatever exists.

Hugh Winder Nibley (1910-2004)

Jimmy Page visits Cuba

2011-01-28T05:54:00.008-07:00

Jimmy Page visited Cuba? Popular celebrities are nothing if not inexplicably stupid. That this surprises us is, I think, proof that subconsciously we tend to equate fame, fortune and power with other virtues like education and wisdom when no such correlation is indicated let alone justified.

Singularibus e lemminibus mundum ædificauerunt.

(Of mere lemmings they built a world.)

Xinerama and RANDR incompatibilities

2011-01-25T10:15:00.011-07:00

There's a serious problem in the contention between Xinerama and RANDR in the realm of Linux monitor support since at least the last 5 years. I'm reading about it on the web without reaching any conclusions.

While I've been vaguely aware of this myself for a few years, what motivates my present interest are the two, following unsettling situations.

First, when I go to tailor monitor settings on Maverick Meerkat (System -> Preferences -> Monitors), I cannot. I get an alert to the effect that Linux...

Could not get screen information
RANDR extension is not present

And every time I launch gvim (and also gedit) from the command line, I get (the warning):

Xlib: extension "RANDR" missing on display ":0.0".

Fortunately, my favorite program editor and text processor still works, but I have to admit that the warning has grown old and very annoying.

I've seen these (well, the second example, anyway) before on other systems, perhaps on openSuSE back in the day and I had to ignore them without ever figuring out what to do.

Xinerama and RANDR
What I gather from reading the mostly speculative discussions is that these two are incompatible. Some say to disable Xinerama, but if you're using NVIDIA drivers, you're stuck because without it, it would appear, you cannot configure multiple monitor support in the way I like it: mapping two edge-to-edge for maximum real estate.

russ@russ-elite-book:/etc/X11> fgrep inerama xorg.conf
# Removed Option "Xinerama" "0"
    Option         "Xinerama" "1"
    Option         "TwinViewXineramaInfoOrder" "CRT-0"

What I think is happening in the second example is that an application that opens a GUI appeals to X11 for something that it cannot provide because to have Xinerama enabled is to have RANDR blocked. I've checked with the Synaptic Package Manager to see that both are present on my host. Indeed, both appear to be there:

russ@russ-elite-book:~> ll /usr/lib/libXrandr*
lrwxrwxrwx [...] /usr/lib/libXrandr.so.2 -> libXrandr.so.2.2.0
-rw-r--r-- [...] /usr/lib/libXrandr.so.2.2.0

After so many years, you'd think those who actually know what's going on would, if not in a position in the Linux development ranks or the driver suppliers, simply issue a wiki or other form of explanation as to what's going on and clearly state the choices of action and consequences of adopting each choice.

Well, it's what I'd do. But then, my goal is always to fan away the smoke that encircles those people and technologies waving magic wands and crowned with pointy, black hats emblazoned with moons and stars.

The new wireless printers...

2011-01-08T16:10:00.016-07:00

Even HP's cheapest printers are now wireless and best used that way in my humble opinion 'cause who wants a printer wired to his physical host any more? And who wants his whiney daughter moaning, "Daddy, I can't print out the Internet because your computer's turned off."

Well, sadly, the Windows installation doesn't seem to work: it can never find the thing at the end after installing the drivers. So, just skip trying to make the software work—it won't and I spent a couple of hours with the HP support weenies this afternoon just to prove it. It bugs me that I can't figure out why it fails.

However, the installation does indeed install the drivers on both Windows 7 and XP. So, even though you have to abort the installation seemingly without setting up an actual printer, you can do that afterward. Once that's done, you just print to it as if a "local" IP printer. Check out my note here on how to do that on XP, the harder (interface-wise) of the two platforms to do it on.

Actually, this is an activity that takes some of us way back, but it's a nice refresher for those still basking in the sunlight of Windows XP, the last trustworthy operating system Microsoft ever sold.

It all works perfectly as long as your printer lives on your LAN. I even tried hooking up to it via my Linux host which was, as usual, easier by far than using Windows 7 or XP.

I did not try the old-fashioned USB cable route. I don't ever want to do that again.

Scanner and other stuff
And, if it's not recognized by my computer host, how ever to use the scanner?

Ah, well that seems like an obstacle, but there's a solution.

First, I've not used the client software to scan with anyway, so I can't compare.

But, knowing that all sorts of things regarding this device are accessible in my browser via http://192.168.1.109 (where I pegged it with a static IP address), I just went there to do some scanning. It worked nicely and I'm not real sure that I'd miss the proper, client interface even if it existed.

On tonight's menu...

2010-12-31T09:27:00.009-07:00

...we will be missing the traditional prime rib we've become known for (see illustration in my other post today). We've ironically found it frequently throughout the year and yet no good deals at year's end. So, how about a little variety?

  - French country loaf bread
  - little Quiches
  - assorted appetizers*
  - salad
  - pasta capellacci in a sage and butter sauce
  - meats:
      roast lamb
      pepper steak
      paprika chicken
  - potatoes dauphine
  - mixed vegetables:
      zucchini
      yellow squash
      baby carrots
      sugar snap peas
      baby potatoes
  - triple mousse cake

We're minimizing the portions this year not only just to cut down on what we ingest, but also to minimize the amount of waste we inevitably find when we go to clean up the kitchen the next morning.

* A plate of tasty little things like marinated artichoke hearts, mozarrella balls, varied olives, tiny pickled peppers, tomatoes, etc.

Au menu ce soir...

2010-12-31T07:46:00.037-07:00

A notre repas tradionnel de réveillon, nous invitons les amis habituels plus un sculpteur qui éxerce dans notre voisinage et son épouse. Tout est (toujours) fait maison. La photo ici est d'une année passée. Au menu ce soir :

  - pains
  - quichettes
  - plat crudités*
  - salades**
  - pâtes capellacci en sauce au sauge et au beurre
  - assortiment de viandes :
      gigot d'agneau
      steak au poivre
      poulet au paprika
  - pommes dauphines
  - macédoine de légumes :
      courgettes jaunes et vertes
      carrottes bébé
      petits pois « sugar snap »
      pommes de terre nouvelles
  - gâteau à triple mousse

Nous nous passons de l'entrecôte de bœuf magnifique qu'on fait habituellement—faute de pouvoir en trouver de valable au magasin cette année.

Nous offririons du fromage s'il n'était pas le cas qu'il n'en existe point en Utah : notre seule magasin d'importation de fromages, à Salt Lake City, a fermée voilà quelques années déjà. (Hélas, le Camembert me manque au point d'en chialer.)

Aussi veillerons-nous cette année à ce que les portions soient beaucoup plus petites d'une part pour éliminer l'excès et d'autre part pour limiter le gaspillage typique que nous retrouvons dans la cuisine le lendemain matin.

* Ce plat contiendra un assortiment de délices tels que cœurs d'artichaut, boules de mozarrella, olives de sortes différentes, petits poivrons saumurés, tomates, etc.
** Aux Etats-Unis la salade vient toujours en début du repas (ben, voyons).

Cupcakes in the park

2010-12-25T00:14:00.010-07:00

There was a large and spacious park in a distant city, with many trees and flowers, and visitors come for the day to enjoy it. One afternoon, a table was erected there by a kind and generous gentleman who laid it out with tasty cupcakes, free to all who would take them.

The park was so large that there were many who did not learn at first of the cupcakes, but of those who saw and ate from the table, there were some who were pleased to go throughout the park at the man's bidding to spread a word of invitation. Some came; others stayed away.

There were many more who knew of the table who ignored it. Still others spread rumors about the cupcakes not being tasty or healthy, or the man not being good or kind or fit.

Many were inexplicably opposed to the cupcakes being made available in the first place and angrily wished to ban the man and his table. It went to the point of ridiculing those who would eat the cupcakes as childish, silly and to be avoided.

Some who had eaten the cupcakes were ultimately embarrassed to have done so.

The angry ones acquired a large following. Instead of enjoying their day in the park, they bent their energy upon the task of persuading others not to eat the man's cupcakes.

But, the man persisted; he stayed all day. Seemingly, his supply of cupcakes was endless.

And that's where things stood late in the evening when the park was set to close.

Happy Christmas to all.

Guys' day out...

2010-12-23T21:34:00.015-07:00

The annual guys' day out. We hold it every Christmas holiday. We eat out. We take in a movie. We talk. Guffaws, hyperbole, laughter.

Unplanned. Unrehearsed. If we knew ahead of time what we would do, it wouldn't be spontaneous. It wouldn't be "guys' day out."

This time we saw the recent Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader and we ate copious quantities of roast meats at Tucanos. Love the meat. Love the side dishes. Love the real lemonade made with actual lemons and limes.

Oh, and 3/5ths of us looked for and bought Julene a car, a 2007 Mitsubishi Galant, low mileage, very clean, very pretty. Transferred the spirit of our old Galant into it at the base of the Mother Tree.

We missed Taylor again. Where is that guy anyway?

A Christmas season tragedy

2010-12-17T11:31:00.037-07:00

The Provo Tabernacle burned down this morning. Shortly after 2am, a fire that appears to have begun in the attic structure that would wreck much havoc. The Provo Fire Department responded within a scant minute of the first call, a security guard noticing smoke sometime later, but it was already impossible to reach into the roof. Firefighters attempting to stem the tide from within the building were ultimately withdrawn for safety and the roof itself finally collapsed sometime a couple of hours later.

By the time I got there, shortly after 8am, the scene was reminiscent of something out of a period piece on the Great Fire of London. The walls stand precariously; the four towers still stand, but you can see through the windows and doors the detritus that is all that is left of the interior structure and its contents.

I just finished interviewing with Fox 13. They sent a reporter with camera all the way to my workplace to do this. Owning http://www.provotabernacle.org as I do, I've been getting e-mails and calls for information. I don't have a counter on my site, but I can tell by how hard it is to get into some of my other sites that my nephew Richard's network at home, where my web server took refuge against some ISP trouble I had earlier this year, that the Provo Tabernacle site is getting some serious traffic. Some of the pictures are huge once you reach them via the thumbnails. The prints thereof hung in the back passageways of the tabernacle and are now gone.

I'm glad I can play even a tiny part in the preservation of any of this via my website.

Of course, I'm nothing and nobody with respect to our Tabernacle, and have protested as much, but they seem to want my reaction. They say they want me to be on a television program Sunday morning. I can just see myself finally breaking down in tears...

...because it's been hard this morning. I walked around zombie-like watching them putting out the last tongues of flames when I got there. I took pictures of all that I could reach while respecting the police tape. I turned my head away from people as I crossed by them, but some had the same expression that must have been written upon my face. After getting the first e-mails at work, it really came home to roost when I began to think about all the wonderful things that have gone on in that grand old building including those small few over the last 20-30 years in which I've had my own part.

As I write this, I'm thinking of having sung so much great music there. Some of the greatest moments that come to mind are principally with the Utah Valley Choral Society and Lois Johnson. To name just a few (but the dearest to me)

- Mozart's and Rutter's requiem masses
- Rachmaninoff's Vespers (or All-Night Vigil, yes, in Russian)
- Handel's Messiah
- Rob Millet's and Doc Taylor's arrangements of traditional and folk hymns
- a gala night of opera choruses in German, Russian, Italian, French and English

On two Christmas Eves, I sang under the baton of Mack Wilberg with Doug Bush at the organ.

And now I'm thinking about how I conducted some one hundred men singing two Don Ripplinger arrangements and also my own very first choral arrangement in a stake conference when I was Lewis Billings' stake music chairman. I'm remembering now how directing the congregation there was a little disorienting to me because of the building's delayed acoustics. Imagine: to think I got to conduct choral music in that building! It seems almost a sacrilege.

Those days were wonderful and fulfilling for a young, pretty much talentless music aficionado. Working with others with talent to be a part of something so wonderful as the music we made is an indivisible association with the building in my mind.

I'm sure there was much I don't know or haven't thought about that we lost in this fire. Like an original, Minerva Teichert series painting, the one of the restoration of the Melchizedek Priesthood painted in 1934. This is a heart-breaking loss, significant well beyond the bourns of mere Provo and Utah Valley.

There's the time that Rachmaninoff himself performed. In the middle of his concert, a train on the old line that passed just behind the building rumbled by and the story goes that the great composer and performer showed no more perturbation than simply to suspend his hands above the piano and wait until the noise was finished before continuing his piece. (Okay, I'm an old guy now, but I wasn't around for that.)

Also perishing in the fire, Salt Lake Tabernacle organ pipes deemed surplus from that building's 1917 organ rebuild. Some of the pipes were wood and must certainly have perished; those of metal won't be of any more worth musically.

The stained glass windows might be said not to equal those in the great cathedrals of Europe. I've seen the latter, fair enough. But, I can say that no light was ever warmer and cozier than that pouring in through the beautiful windows of the Provo Tabernacle during a Sunday morning stake conference.

My favorite seat in the tabernacle was on the center aisle, just a few rows from the back, the one with a gallery support. These supports were steel and could be counted on for cooling one's hands or face when pressing up against it during a hot and stuffy meeting.

I remember being disappointed that my own last stake conference was not to be in that building a few months ago, but broadcast by sessions in our stake building. Alas, if I had known. That comfy old chair at grandmother's was always a great place for us children to sit. Then her house burned down and the chair's gone. I don't know who else was thinking about that chair over the years. I always was—hence my website. But I'll bet they're all thinking about now and they will for a long time to come.

I don't know what the best thing to do for the tabernacle is. I can only imagine what the most practical thing to do would be. But my heart is in the building and my voice is for its rebuilding.

In cube hell: casa Russ at HP...

2010-12-13T08:53:00.017-07:00

So, it's back to cube hell once more for me after my September-November hiatus from having to make a physical showing at work.

My life appears to continue its downward spiral toward total entropy in accommodations.

What must we endure for the sake of career advancement and fun? Dilbert just isn't funny anymore.

Most places, Novell for one most notable example, are gradually moving toward the low-walled cube with no privacy for the occupants. It's a fact of life in my industry. Behind my four-person star you behold all the privacy of a conference room—entirely glass. This takes some getting used to. At Quest Software, I actually had a curtain across part of the entry into my cube that would hide the sight of my cross-aisle neighbor scratching and other things. In the present arrangement, a few furtive glances and/or patience are required for executing the necessary movements that sustain life (particularly during the very dry and itchy Utah winter weather).

The downward march...

- Novell: private, hard-walled office with magnificent view of Mount Timpanogos.

- Quest Software: dingy, gloomy, high-wall, private cubicle with no view of the outside world whatsoever.

- GWAVA: my home office, private, little view except of my neighbor's back yard, but all mine.

- Avocent: fairly dingy, two-person, shared cubicle with access to windows viewing Mount Olympus and Real Stadium on one side or the Jordan River temple and Kennecott Copper mine on the other.

- Hewlett-Packard: ½ of a low-wall cubicle open to the world; not a bad view of the outside, I-15, Mount Timpanogos, Utah Lake, etc., very open, just zero privacy.

- Next stop: fold-down tables with fold-down chairs?

Out to lunch...

2010-12-10T21:21:00.014-07:00

Today I indulged in a little, shameless fan worship at noon. Because of work location, it's been a couple of years since I last ate at Rib City in American Fork.

That's where I've been wanting to go since I started at HP. The restaurant is about as close as any other.

I knew that Rib City was owned by the sister of Vincent d'Onofrio and I asked the woman a few pleasant questions about this as she seated us only to find out that she was Toni, the actor's sister. She and her husband own and run this restaurant. I had assumed she lived in California or something, a sort of absentee owner who owned part of the entire chain. In fact, while Rib City is a chain, this is the only one she owns, having closed another in the Salt Lake valley some time back.

The half rack of ribs was on special. We also had the cheese fries with the amazing and spicy fry sauce. I decided on baked beans and cole slaw for my sides. And, yes it was real good, but I already knew it would be.

Toni came back later to chat about her family which was perfectly delightful. Of course, as a bunch of geeks, all of us are undying "Eggar" fans^* and some of us have enjoyed Vincent in Law & Order: Criminal Intent too.

It appears that Vincent comes by from time to time and hangs out at the restaurant. So, we're going to keep an eye out for the opportunity and pleasure of meeting him. His sister is already so much fun to talk to.

^* Edgar, whose name his wife pronounces "Eggar," was a country hick who went to inspect a crater freshly made by a meteorite hit on his farm in Men in Black. His body was usurped and used as a disguise by an "interstellar cockroach." He bid goodbye to his wife and left for New York City. Later, she recounts this to MIB agents Jay and Kay (played by Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones), "But I know Eggar. And that wasn't him. It was more like something else that was wearing him. Like a suit. An Eggar suit."

Working...

2010-12-06T10:48:00.008-07:00

Wow. I just found out that the greater division for which I work at HP is in fact the one that produces printers.

Yeah, that's right: those insanely great printers by Hewlett Packard. Just think...

I've been unknowingly a religionary of this division for most of the last two decades as in my life I've only owned a couple of non-HP printers and have generally refused to buy anything but HP.

Meanwhile, after the obligatory clueless period that lasts a few days, I've settled on a hardware configuration. I put my two Samsung monitors on my i7 notebook along with Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat. I found a crap box to run Windows 7 on which I'll handle e-mail and the odd thing just to keep that off my development host.

Eclipse, Hibernate, Spring, etc. We're just about ready to roll.

(Incidentally, Maverick seems to work just fine. I installed the proprietary NVIDIA drivers and it took a little banging around to get the dual head thing working again, but all is well now.)

Gonna find someone to speak too about beta-testing the next printer out in my diverse home computing environment (Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Linux).

First day at MarketSplash...

2010-12-01T18:04:00.018-07:00

My first day at Hewlett-Packard went well. It's going to be a great place to work. Everybody's polite, there's a tiny and very pleasant HR presence, the building is nice, and the view from the third-floor windows is a luxury unequaled since my Novell days.

And, there's a foolproof way to make an excellent first impression on your new colleagues: get your manager to make your first day on the job an excuse to take the team out for sushi at one of the better places in town! I'm looking forward to someone else starting soon.

Already, I'm booked on a trip to San Francisco the 15th and 16th of December to schmooze with our new teammates from SnapFish with whom we will be working very closely.

Now begins the painful shuffle of attempting to get work done without benefit of competent equipment. I'm supplying my own big monitors, but they will arrive no earlier than tomorrow. Keyboards and mice will not arrive until the end of next week. In the meantime, I've got a notebook computer (HP, of course), a craptastic, unergonomic keyboard and a mouse whose scroll wheel doesn't work. Maybe I'll have better luck scrounging tomorrow.

Retro holiday celebrations starring peanut brittle!

2010-11-30T10:34:00.028-07:00

This recipe comes from my sister, Nesya Collings. It's really good. Peanut brittle is an amazing candy from yesteryear that, in terms of enjoyment, is still very yummy in this world of modern taste.

Following in the footsteps of my man, Alton Brown, ...

How does peanut brittle work? Basically, it's a long period of patient vigilance punctuated at the end by frantic mixing and spreading.

You must just about reach the "hard crack" phase (temperature) of the caramel.
This is what gives the brittle.

The baking soda is the key to being able to eat the candy and it being pleasurable. This ingredient reacts with heat to create carbon dioxide which lightens (adds air bubbles to) the candy so that it can be broken down by your teeth.

How can can you help guarantee the result?

Choose the right peanuts by tasting them ahead of time. If they're rancid, don't buy them (uh, well, don't put them into the candy anyway). Make certain you follow the steps carefully, especially the last one of stirring in the butter, baking soda and vanilla.

Ingredients

  2 cups   sugar
  1 cup    light corn syrup
  1 cup    water
  2¼ cups  raw peanuts*

  ½ tsp    salt
  1 tbsp   butter
  1 tsp    baking soda
  1 tsp    vanilla

* Note: Nesya says she likes to use 1¼ cups raw Spanish peanuts and 1 cup raw peanuts, or all raw Spanish peanuts, but that it’s important for taste for at least half to be Spanish. The raw peanuts cook in the candy.

1. Grease one or two half-size baking sheets with butter and set aside.

2. In a large, heavy saucepan over medium heat combine sugar, corn syrup and water. Cook to 234° (soft ball).

3. Add peanuts and salt. Stir constantly. Cook to 300° (5° under hard crack).

4. Remove from heat and quickly stir in butter, baking soda, then vanilla (all this must be pre-measured and ready at hand). Pour at once onto buttered cookie sheets, spread with spatula and/or tip pan to fill in.

5. Break into pieces when cool.

Other "retro" holiday goodies to check out include divinity, fruit cake, iced sugar cookies and chocolate fudge. Stay away from the "quick" versions that aren't very tasty (especially in fudge recipes) and make the making of holiday treats part of the family holiday schedule itself!

A rare dining success...

2010-11-29T22:00:00.021-07:00

It's rare that dinner comes out with no reason to apologize for at least something. Tonight was such an event. We had two other couples over; they've never been here before.

I wanted things to work out, but the afternoon juggling between a project I'm doing and the evening meal were beginning to make me nervous 'cause it's unsettling to spend all day cooking for a simple evening meal, isn't it? So, except for New Year's Eve, I try not to abandon myself completely to the kitchen with no other activity to redeem my mortal soul.

I made a nice, well mouse-holed loaf of bread (no sugar, no milk, no fats) as accompaniment. Here's the menu:

  Tomatoes with minced garlic

  Salad with creamy Parmesan dressing

  Capellini stuffed with ricotta and parsley in a sage-butter sauce

  Flat-iron steaks seasoned and grilled
  Macedonia of sautéd vegetables

  Pumpkin pie

Our guests were perfect troopers who didn't bat an eye at how rare the steaks were. I think I need more propane for my grill—I was just about to resort to finishing them in a skillet, but in the bright kitchen light they seemed done enough to me (and they were—for me).

Yes, we did bring them back to earth with the pumpkin pie although, as pedestrian as it is, Julene's pumpkin pie is second to none. There was a pile of dishes, but all was perfect including the capellini which, very well, weren't as Venus navel-like every one as they should have been, but for my first time making them and no recipe for the filling, were pretty tasty aided considerably by the delicious sage-butter sauce.

I'll have to get some of these up on russcooks.com, but not tonight.

What's new in Christmas decoration?

2010-11-26T08:34:00.006-07:00

These new Christmas tree decorations are becoming all the rage in France where an artist created them. They're now being produced in a factory. They represent clouds, but are prized for their status as objets d'art.

BlackBerry? iPhone? Android? Who cares?

2010-11-15T10:20:00.006-07:00

I chuckle whenever I get an e-mail from a friend or colleague ending with the statement

Sent from BlackBerry

Does anyone care anymore? After nearly a decade, is anyone amazed that someone else has done e-mail from his Smartphone? This is just free, mass advertising. You acquired a Smartphone for the slim advantage that gives you in exchange for money and a promise of free advertising?

So, I've begun signing my e-mailed replies thus

Sent from my Intel i5 750 Desktop

Do you care? Nor do I. You got back a reply; that's what interested you. You could not possibly care less that I composed the reply on 1980s-era Macintosh, a Timex wrist watch or a XIIth century Chinese abacus.

As long as you get the reply.

If I were a campaign sort of person, I'd say let's get rid of those silly, default signatures from Smartphones.

But I'm not. I don't care. It's only something to blog about on a Monday morning.

Sent from my Intel i5 750 Desktop running Linux

New websites...

2010-11-13T17:08:00.004-07:00

I've got two new domains on tap now, Music for the Christmas Season and the David H. Cannon Family organization, the second such site for that family.

The first one is a convenient place to direct concert-goers (see recent blog entry).

The second started out as a repository for documents that I don't want to keep track of anymore for fear of losing them. However, I've begun to make it a real website.

No more ¿quando? !

2010-11-10T15:26:00.020-07:00

This morning I formally accepted a verbal offer from Hewlett-Packard MarketSplash in American Fork to start 1 December.

The link above (click on the picture) isn't much of a representation of what I'll be doing. That content is descriptive of the original MarketSplash product. The development teams are much broader and do web-based things...

...what I'll be doing: great stuff! This is really what I've wanted to be paid to do: back-end Java work that will include database and various frameworks like Spring, Hibernate, JavaServer Faces (JSF), RESTful servlets and much more. I'm all a-quiver; really!

When you think of Apple, you think of iPhones®, iPods®, Macintoshes, etc. What you don't think of because it's not exactly written all over it is that Apple is also an insanely great software company. Maybe even more so than it is a hardware company.

HP is known for the best printers and scanners anywhere. I myself have never owned any other brand of desktop printer except briefly an early Texas Instruments laser.

On the other hand, I'm going to be one of the guys writing the software. Software is major fun. I'm lucky to be a software guy and lucky to be working as one. It's been a great life; fortunately for me, there's more to come.

Dosai, following your own advice, and other imponderables...

2010-11-09T10:10:00.029-07:00

Last Sunday dinner, I made dosai (singular: dosa), South Indian crêpes from a package. This isn't the first time I've tried to make them, but it is the first time I've resorted to a package. I bought it from my local Indian market.

Yes! Provo has grown up. After years of boasting two world-class Indian restaurants, Provo finally has an Indian store. No more driving to Salt Lake City. No more running out of spices.

Back to my dosai...

I learned a few things. The owner of the store told me to use a non-stick pan. In fact, this is an understatement: if you don't use a nearly pristine non-stick pan, you'll encounter a great deal of grief.

I have two omelette pans, one of which is brand new and the other still in somewhat good condition.

He also told me to spread a small amount of oil out in the pan using an onion cut in half. Worked for me.

From the package, I learned something even more important that totally explains why my dosai never worked in the couple of years I've attempted off and on to make them: start each crêpe out cold. If the pan is more than lukewarm, that is, so warm that it begins to cook the crêpe as soon as you pour the batter, then you will have a thoroughly miserable experience. The batter will stick, then pull away as you spread it and you'll be left with a mess.

Next, I used the bottom of a stainless steel measuring cup to spread about ¼ cup of batter poured in to the middle of the oiled pan around and around until I pushed it out evenly to cover nearly the entire, level surface. Only then turn on the gas; you can turn it up pretty hot.

Cook only one side until light brown and crisp.

The result? Not really handsome dosai, but very serviceable once I got the hang of it.

What was really yummy, however, was the amazing aloo paliya (or potato masala) I prepared to fill the crêpes with. And, I had bought some Knorr® tamarind sauce (not quite chutney thick) with which I garnished them.

Follow your own advice

When you give a piece of advice, it's well to follow it yourself. In my khurma recipe, I advise against adding any coriander, partly because there's already some in the garam masala. Sunday morning, I ground up a bunch of spices in anticipation of the afternoon culinary activities. With a couple of teaspoons of ground coriander left over, I tossed them into my khurma cringing a little. I didn't have to wait long: once on the table and then in my mouth I remembered why I hated my khurma for so many years. More than anything else I did or didn't do, it was putting coriander into this dish that made it inedible. I had this hard and fast list of "standard" spices I always used in this dish. In one case, I was wrong. I also don't use cardamom although I don't know that it's not good.

Aaargh! Don't do that! In the dizzying world of Indian spices it's easy to lose your head and throw the kitchen sink in. Less is often better.

Do, however, throw cilantro (coriander leaves) into the curry as a garnish just before serving. That is a good thing to do.

Admit nothing!

2010-11-02T09:53:00.018-06:00

I committed the all-time faux pas this morning in an interview.

In my defense, the interviewer called one-half hour ahead of scheduled. And I was just sitting down to get my head into it. But, it was set up long enough ago that I was having a hard time remembering the entire context of the interview (and have had numerous dealings with the same recruiter), so I was befuddled at first. So many jobs, so many companies, so many refusals (hehehe). Yesterday afternoon alone, I was better than two hours getting grilled in interviews at a local company.

It's a capital offense not to have researched the product whose development team you are interviewing for. Duh. [Many expletives deleted.] How stupid is that?

So, yeah, I actually knew a lot more than just nothing about it. Checking out what I should have done prior to the interview, I realized that I knew quite a bit at the 64,000-foot level, but I was surprised and inarticulate—a state that I find myself in frequently during interviews. (I guess I'm not getting the hang of this job-seeking thing after all.)

In fact, I could have held my own, but I'm so $*#!! honest that I rush to admit incompetence.

Moral of this sad story: Admit nothing because stupidity might not become apparent in the ensuing interview. And if it does, how is that worse than not having admitted to it in the first place?

Better lesson of this story: As the weeks wear on and the interviews and rejections begin to blur into one giant disappointment, apply due diligence for each since one or two of them in there will be the offer you accept.

On the positive side, the interviewer suggested that I speak with additional engineers on his team. So maybe he correctly perceived that deeper in the awkward cluelessness, there is something useful.

Christmas is finally here!

2010-10-25T09:13:00.019-06:00

Each year for the last 20+ I've sung in a fabulous ensemble at Christmas time. Back then, I organized my own such ensembles, generally smaller, to double the fun during the season, but this one remains as the jewel.

One year I counted exactly nine groups I was with, seven or eight of them being my own.

Sadly, with being too busy and losing all my singing friends to their own busy-ness or generally to growing up, graduating from BYU and moving on with their lives, I've not organized choral groups or sung much in long years with this one exception.

Thus, my vocal abilities, which were never great anyway, have sunk to the point where I must resurrect them each October for use at this one concert in December plus helping out at St. Mary's on Christmas Eve (always a distinct pleasure). I have to work myself through the stage of fits of coughing after Saturday morning's hour and a half practice and mastering the unwelcome vibrato that has beset me in my later years. And, I have to re-deepen my bass in order to sing the low notes I've always reveled in.

This year, outside the addition of a piece we've never done (though I used to do it when I was ward choir director), we sing again a selection of old favorites, see my notes for Music for the Christmas Season. With everyone getting a web-capable hand-held device like an iPhone, I've begun in recent years to offer the entire program with copious notes. (This year's are only just begun, so there is a lot of construction detritus on the page as yet.)

Just now, I'm about to return to some SQL work I've begun, but I'm listening to Mannheim Steamroller's "blue" album, A Fresh Aire Christmas. It's nice to get to the point where listening to Christmas music doesn't get me Julene's evil eye (without which I'd probably listen to it year 'round).

Next up will be Chip Davis' "brown" and "red" albums, then Kurt Bestor's few and probably even that old Carpenters' album. This is only a warm up for serious stuff: I've got all of the Cambridge Singers' albums and the Medieval and Renaissance albums done by Joel Cohen(*) and the Boston Camarata. More still.

I'm just a Christmas-y kind of guy.

(* Yup, for real!)

Crikey! Abbey Road's turned 41

2010-10-13T08:32:00.040-06:00

My son found this somewhere and posted it to Facebook.

The old man in the article is Paul Cole, an American Tourist serendipitously photographed on the album cover. Though a few weeks later he discovered himself there when it came out, he admits never having given it a listen. "It's not my kind of thing. I prefer classical music."

I looked up this Paul Cole. He joined John's and George's Dirt Nap Band in 2008.

Wait a minute: Abbey Road is classical music!

—and not 'cause it just turned 41 a couple of weeks ago. In recent months, millions of people of all ages rediscovered what it is to listen to some pretty classy and very classical music.

Where were you when…
I had just gone back to junior high school in my hometown a month before the album release. Bountiful, Utah was an up-scale suburb of Salt Lake City. As children are ever wont to annoy, Alan Battacchio and I immediately memorized Maxwell's Silver Hammer and sang it at the top of our lungs for days in the hallways between classes.

And uh, yup, I had green bell-bottoms, a paisley shirt and beads. (But I wore shoes and my hair was pretty short.)

[Old man's sigh: Alas, things were simpler then.]

Abbey Road
If you're interested in seeing what's happening on Abbey Road this very minute, check out Visit Abbey Road: The Crossing web cam. This zebra crossing has become quite a tourist attraction and, at any random moment, you'll see people taking pictures of each other—usually from the direction of the original photograph which is almost 180° around from the web cam's point of view. Looking just now I saw this happen myself. Great stuff!

A day of stress passes...

2010-10-07T11:03:00.026-06:00

Last night's little foray into the world of Alton Brown and Rebecca Ray went well enough. But, I'm not a stand-up comedian; my talents lie more along the lines of being a smart alec.

I pre-cooked the paste underbase of my khurma, the part composed of bloomed cumin, four softball-sized onions, a head of garlic, two serrano peppers, a couple of inches of ginger and a large can of crushed tomatoes. It's well I did this; I guess I'd never timed it before and had the vague notion that it was a 45-minute affair. It took twice that time, but was done perfectly so that I could go an hour ahead of time to prepare my demonstration at Macey's grocery in Provo.

If there has been any revelation in Indian for me over the years I tried to do it without satisfaction, it has been the need to cook this base thoroughly! Indeed, the foundation of a good curry sauce is utterly and completely cooked onion (and the other aromates listed here). There are lots of other important things to know, like how best to bloom which spice or aromate, but this one thing is more important than all.

It was a little awkward: electric range, two grates covered with my griddle for baking roti, another for the saag shorba and the remaining one for the khurma, when to light up my rice cooker, an hour to pull off all the dishes, and distraction galore with questions from the attendees (not offended by that).

My one regret was that when it was time to mix some chopped cilantro leaves into the khurma, I didn't have any. I didn't know if the woman running the demonstration for the store had stocked the refrigerator (she had), but under the pressure of direct, public scrutiny, I decided against looking and having possibly to ask her to go get some (which I'd then have to wash, dry and chop). With the addition of that garnish, however, I think the dish would have been perfect.

Indian is complicated: it's easy to over-look preparing something. At home, this is no problem since I usually cook in a very lazy mode, taking 6 hours to piddle around doing what would only require 2. I figure, that way, I won't tire of it. I took the same approach in building the mother of all decks on the back of my house: I started in April and finished in November.

Julene said it was a little spicier than usual. I was going for that; I'm usually conscious of not serving food that the squeamish can't eat, but as someone who could not for medical reasons eat hot and spicy food until just a few years ago, I haven't acquired the taste myself. I'm not averse to eating hot, I just don't because I like to perceive the flavors rather than them losing themselves in my mouth along with my now-numb tongue. Last night, however, I wanted to raise the spiciness just a little. I think I failed, though. I didn't find the curry spicy and the soup wasn't either. I should have discoursed on this fact, but it fell through the cracks.

Imagine: nambi-pambi Indian food. I should be ashamed of myself. Still, this doesn't prevent anyone from leaving seeds and veins from the chilis in when they do the cooking.

So, the attendees were duly polite and appreciative. One man pressed me with more questions about India, the Indians and their religions, meat-eating and all sorts of other cultural issues than culinary ones. And, of course, the difficulty of managing food over an electric range kept interrupting and distracting me—lest disaster ensue. By the end, I couldn't decide if I was doing a food demonstration or teaching a high school geography class with a food demonstration on the side. I surprised myself by how much my dear Indian colleagues have taught me about the Subcontinent over the years. I hope I didn't betray them in any way.

So, as I told the Macey's lady, I'm glad to do this for whatever motivation they may find to ask me, but I don't crave attention or glory or honor and so won't volunteer to keep doing it. I said this in response to her announcing that the next opportunity would not come until after the end of the year. Fine by me.

Last, I was interviewed by the food columnist from the Provo Daily Herald. I had completely spaced that she was there until she came up to me afterward. That can't have been a bad thing.

As if to save me (and I needed it), Julene attended too. She helped clean up the kitchen at the end. We got out of there after 9 pm.

The sharks are beginning to circle!

2010-10-05T09:08:00.013-06:00

The dreaded moment is only hours away...

Tomorrow evening I will present my Indian menu of saag shorba, vegetable khurma, fancy rice and roti at the Provo Macey's grocery.

Already I've had friends pester me to tell them when. I long declined, but now give in. I hope it's too late for most of you.

It is not too late, apparently, for the Provo Herald who are detailing a food columnist to attend and to interview me afterward. This amps up the pressure.

Unfortunately, I can't "do better" because presenting a cooking show isn't something I ever do. While Macey's is talking about me doing this regularly, it's wishful thinking on their part: I'm not so certain. Why would I do this? It was to be a one-shot, let's-see-how-terrifying romp through a personal discomfort zone. A decision taken flippantly and without much commitment.

I have decided I had better put on my best (and only) black chef's jacket, maybe dig around for those trousers I haven't worn in a long time too. (But, I draw the line at donning the toque.)

Nevertheless, these emotional sharks pale in the overall everyday angst of job-seeking especially now that, since last Friday, I can no longer claim to be "employed, seeking new opportunity."

Vivement la retraite ! (How to say that in Hindi?)

Cloning good equipment...

2010-10-01T08:39:00.048-06:00

Last November's build of a Windows 7 box was a qualified success. I'm equivocating only because, a month after building it, I lost the motherboard and had to get a replacement from Intel. It was the luck of the draw and Intel created no obstacles to the exchange although they waited for my old board to arrive before sending me out the new one. (With Dell Computers, you have the new component in hand within a day or so and can then simply reuse the packaging to return the defective component.)

Since replacement, I have had no other trouble attributable to the hardware.

I have had grief with Windows 7 supporting peripheral devices. It simply will not support my internal card reader, my external card reader or my HP Deskjet 5550 printer. As always, I'm willing to admit humbly that I'm a total idiot, but seriously, do you think a platform is really a popular, turn-key solution for the masses if a career software engineer can't overcome what should be simply plug-and-play after several hours bent over the problem? (And Google says I'm not alone!)

Well, I've also got a Linux box next to me, running Ubuntu Lucid Lynx (10.4), but it's just too slow to do my development work on. I find, in particular, that launching the Android device emulator from Eclipse takes more than just "for freaking ever" (as many places on the web say about launching that emulator normally) and is simply intolerable as compared to my Windows box which is long, but tolerable. I think it's the horsepower in my case.

After nearly a year ignoring Linux as my main development host (Avocent was a decidedly Windows shop), I've grown lonesome and decided to clone last year's build to build for myself a competent Linux host again.

So, here's my build-out, arriving from TigerDirect today; I'm a little tamer and it's costing me about $200 less with much more disk (although I later added a 1Tb, unmirrored disk to my existing Windows system):


Case          Ultra X-Blaster Black ATX Mid-Tower
Power Supply  Ultra LSP550 550-Watt SATA-ready, SLI-ready 135mm Fan
Intel Mobo    DP55WB Micro ATX, Intel P55 Express Chipset
CPU           Intel Core i5 750 2.66GHz, 8Mb L3 cache, Quad-Core Lynnfield
DDR3 Memory   2 OCZ 4Gb DDR3 PC10666 1333MHZ 4096Mb
Video Card    GeForce 9500GT 1Gb PCI-E 2.0 VD 01G-P3-N958-LR
Hard Drives   2 Seagate 1Tb LP SATA
Optical Drive LightScribe DVD+R, DVD+RW, DVD-RW, DVD-RAM

Additionally, this will allow me to take that otherwise nice if slow box running nevertheless modern Linux here and use it as a replacement for my old web server still running openSuSE 10.2.

I'm running my two, five-year old Dell 20" wide-aspect monitors for now (3360 x 1050 pixels total) until I swap my bigger Asus pair from the Windows 7 box to Linux.

The hard drives would be arranged in RAID 1 but for the fact that Ubuntu desktop doesn't support RAID. In order to do RAID, you must either use Ubuntu server or an alternate non-GUI installation that only supports Karmic (one release backward) at this hour. So, my installation of Lucid Lynx 64-bit 10.4 was successful and I've built the disks as follows (hoping to facilitate setting up with RAID 1 later):

  16 Gb swap   (/dev/sda)
  80 Gb /
 904 Gb /home
1000 Gb /home2 (/dev/sdb)

I have excellent news: the Android emulator starts up on Linux as quickly as it does on my Windows host. I'm back in business.

Persistence in job-seeking

2010-10-01T08:37:00.004-06:00

One word: Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!

Persistence in Java

2010-09-27T12:52:00.028-06:00

This morning, amid the thousands of other things I'm trying to get done, I decided to formalize my understanding of and opinions on the Java Persistence API (JPA). This is the subject of a new article, Companion Notes on the Java Persistence API and using EclipseLink with Apache Derby at Java Hot Chocolate. I piggy-backed my comments atop an existing tutorial, one of the many fine from among those published by Lars Vogel.

I discuss a few subjects that go beyond the scope of the original tutorial. I note that, while this is a pretty light framework, it's heavier than simply using XStream and the file system which can more easily be done depending on how complex your persistence needs are.

I also discuss the dismal absence of a solution to allow POJOs to evolve respective to this framework and point out that the @Version annotation, whose existence might at first make you think there is such a solution, is really an unrelated, optimistic locking mechanism in JPA.

What's the solution to issuing subsequent updates of your application in which you've made schema changes? There isn't one although I can think of ways to implement one depending on whether you're willing to go outside the framework and test subliminal version references you sprinkle into the POJOs yourself.

It's easy to observe the SQL statements used by JPA via a setting in the metadata file, so no experimentation is necessary to figure out how to go around it. Could you attach triggers to sort some of this out if you wanted to be totally clever (and perhaps a bit obfuscative) in your code to avoid adding too much to your Java corpus?

Each schema class is its own entity and, in the end, each modified class is basically a totally new entity. This is what it comes down to. I've worked on products that couldn't move forward for their schema being so much an anchor around their neck, so I'm interested in having a ready solution next time.

Ah - ha: I've been a victim of bad advice!

2010-09-24T18:30:00.037-06:00

I am freshly disabused of a wide-spread piece of ill advice that I now dare expose.

When I left Novell and entered the job market as a candidate years ago, I learned a number of skills for job-seeking. The one I'm thinking about today is the resume. (If you've been following my blog at all, you know that I've been looking casually, then more intensively for another position since earlier this summer.)

Like everyone else in the software industry, the more years I worked and the more places I worked at, the longer my resume grew. It had disturbingly reached about 4 pages already back then. (Almost sounds like a line out of the mouth of Jacob Marley, doesn't it?)

A veteran of twice attending the LDS Employment workshop, I learned that your resume must not exceed a page or two and, anyway, no one will ever read even to the bottom of the first page before making a decision on whether to consign it to the "round file" or keep it in the list of people to consider.

This makes a great deal of sense to me. Human Resources people process incredible numbers of resumes and can't afford to become students of the life history of everyone applying with their company (times the number of job postings for that company).

Fair enough then, the resume must be short.

Second, the resume's content, like the cover letter, must hook the reader with the idea that you are at very least one of a short, few good candidates for the job. Resolved: the resume must be carefully composed.

However, that's where the resume advice currently propounded by modern would-be employment advisors stops. These would have you eliminate the traditional list of places worked, activities, associated skills and objectives accomplished in favor of a more succinct, "Here's what I can do for you" evoking your entire work history without exploring any of it.

That idea of a short, killer resume is seductive, but erroneous, particularly in my industry.

The truth is that even assuming your resume gets read, you'll be rejected no matter how "cool" it is if the hiring manager or even HR person is unable to get a feeling for who you are and where you've been.

Now, I admit that this may just be my industry. For a teenager vying for his third job as night manager at Pizza Hut, the results-oriented resume may be better. However, I've spent a great deal of effort hob-nobbing with software recruiters, HR folk and engineering managers. To a man (or woman), each has insisted on getting my traditional resume.

In the last few days, one of them took pity upon me cued by an oblique comment I made on the telephone to the effect that I kept having to ante up my old-format resume when I'd been told never to do that. He enlightened me a great deal and I'm relating some of that here.

Merely listing a skill set and technologies employed is meaningless to the resume reader. It's crucially important that your skills be named it is true.

I'm also told that the cover letter gets the resume read or left in the stack (no argument from LDS on that point). And I'm told that the list of skills and technologies performs the same function, i.e.: it keeps the resume reader from tossing the resume into the trash. So far, so good and...

(A parenthesis: To this end, the skills must be listed clearly. The human eye can sort out mistakes at this point, but if the manager is using a query to search a database like Monster, Dice or his company's that comes from a blind, robotic extraction mechanism, he can't be bothered with trying out Java AND Java/JEE AND Java/J2EE, etc. He's only going to try Java AND J2EE or JEE, etc. If you've put "Java/JEE" it's unclear that both "Java" and "JEE" will come out of it: you're at the mercy of the resume parser on that point and you didn't get to write it. You'll probably fair better with something like "Java, JEE (J2EE)" and "Linux (UNIX)", etc.)

But, I'm also told that the engineering manager wants to know "how much skill" one has and "how much acquaintance" one has with the technologies listed. "Extensive experience with relational databases" goes nowhere. What the hiring manager wants to know before going to the trouble and spending the time to interview you is how you gained the skills and the technological familiarity.

The engineering manager figures this out by undertaking an examination of where you've been and what you've been doing most recently. Therefore, it's crucial to say what you've done and how you've done it in order for him to gain an idea of how deep the skills run.

This is an important point: say what technologies and skills were used company by company and project by project. In this way, the manager knows he wants to speak with you. If it's unclear, you're relying on having piqued his interest enough and there not being an adequate number of other candidates.

Another person I'm in contact with actually works occasionally for LDS Employment (I shan't give out his name). He's required to toe the party line on this point even though he knows full well that the advice is unsound or, at least, misapplied when it comes to the software industry. So he's quiet on this point during his "volunteer" life.

In summary...
The resume must be virtually short with content to grab the attention of a) the HR person who is probably not very technical, but has a list of keywords to search on, and b) the engineering manager who wants meat to eat, expects a seasoned professional to have been around the block and have something to show or say about it (i.e.: four pages or more).

If the manager is interested, he'll want to save time by delving into the short statements about each place worked and be able to weigh in his mind the likelihood that the whole resume adds up to someone he wants to go to the trouble to interview. The length of a traditional resume gives him that capability.

Unless your name is Mahatma Ghandi, a one-page resume with a few really powerful statements about you will probably not suffice. Software engineers can only rarely cough up some heart-grabbing assertions such as "increased sales through field leadership by 80% year-over-year" or even "saved three companies' payroll departments 46% in the first quarter after shipping a second, refactored version of the software."

Smartphone wars: our side is winning!

2010-09-21T19:43:00.031-06:00

I knew that sales of Android phones were already surpassing those of Apple's iPhone, but I had no idea that actual Android marketshare had overtaken all other types of smartphones!

Looks like I'm on the winning side. Well, okay, I'm on the winning side to the extent that I fancy myself an Android developer, which I've become of late, having a lot of spare time left over from my present employment debacle as Emerson Network Power closes down Avocent's offices in Salt Lake City. So very sad; but, as I say, an opportunity to learn something new and exciting!

If you've been following, I've also dabbled a wee bit in BlackBerry. (Be warned: I lapse into the arcane for the next few paragraphs.)

That platform is a great deal less exciting than Android because the Java support is constrained to what's referred to as J2ME or Java Platform, Micro Edition. It is super-restrictive, so tiny, there is a great deal missing from it that an ordinary Java programmer finds important. In my case, I need to write an XML parser that runs on BlackBerry because (so far) I haven't found one available. Not a huge task if I settle for just the functionality I need, which is very slight, but a difficult challenge without Java reflection, something missing from J2ME:

import java.lang.reflect.Method;
.
.
.
private void doThis( Class c )
{
Method[] methods = c.getMethods();
.
.
.
}

Sorry, mate: can't possibly do that!

Rolling separate code in the form of a library (JAR) into a BlackBerry application is another mountain I've not succeeded in climbing yet either. It appears to be a black art. Precious little of any code I write for Android will work on the poorer platform and none of it in the form of an external JAR.

Moral: buying BlackBerry is like buying a car sporting a hand crank, spark-advance control and a manual choke in our day.

Anyway, I'm having lots of fun on Android doing some cool things that seem to work well and I'll have an application out in distribution soon. Which is not to say that it will make me any money. It's a free part of a bigger product and money will only come in based on many other factors. Alas, there the planets and stars may never align. Nevertheless, the journey is the reward and I will not have sunk my entire life into it.

Broad experience: the browser plug-in

2010-09-20T09:54:00.028-06:00

My nephew, Richard, rather amazes me by the breadth of his experience sometimes. I think true geeks grow up "broad" now days. Many of the rest of us have had careers in very vertical pursuits sometimes and breadth has come to us more especially at the moments of technological shift, from ALGOL and Fortran to C, from C to C++, from C++ to Java or C#.

Anyway, among the myriad things he's done in his as-yet short career of PHP and web work, streaming video and a few other undertakings is an open source project that grew out of experience gained at Move Networks to enable rapid development and easy maintenance of browser plug-ins written for just about any platform. Move is a now-struggling concern with some pretty super streaming video technology whose future is a bit uncertain to say the least at this point. Browser hosting of video streams was the name of the game.

The project is called FireBreath, but that doesn't so much tell the tale. Check out A Year in the Life of an Open-source Project.

Browser extension vs. plug-in

While we're at it, let's note that there is some confusion in the space between browser extensions and browser plug-ins.

The first is code extending the browser, usually to give it the ability to do rather sweeping things like debugging. I use something called FireBug with my FireFox browser to help me find trouble in my web pages or to inspect other web pages when there's something cool in them I haven't seen before or want to know how to do.

It would be a real stretch to unify the development of browser extensions across multiple browsers and platforms.

The second is a bit more conservative undertaking: the plug-in affects pretty much just the web page being viewed (and not the browser application displaying the web page) and is often brought in via the <embed> tag in HTML I have much experience with, and more modernly, the <object> tag.

An example of this would be something that plays MIDI files or sets up for viewing Windows Media files, both things I do in some of my pages. Apple's Quicktime player and Macromedia's Flash are two more examples of browser plug-ins. I also use temperature converters on my cooking site, from poodwaddle.com that I helped design, and a calendar on other pages of mine (also from poodwaddle) that are plug-ins. You may remember having to install such things before gaining the full user experience of some web sites.

In summary, we've been talking about Richard's plug-in framework, FireBreath, and not about browser extensions.

Irony drips...

2010-09-12T08:47:00.021-06:00

Because of the sorts of things I do on Linux, mostly work related to software development, I have little need ever to print there. For years I've relegated printing, something I do very little of anyway, to whatever box happened to be my primary Windoz computer host. (I always keep a Windoz box alive for my personal use in order to use software I like that won't run on Linux such as PaintShop Pro 7 even though I know that there are solutions to doing that from Linux too.)

Since I acquired a new Windows 7 Professional 64-bit platform late last year, printing has been a largely unworkable solution. At first, in fact, it seemed to work perfectly well, but about the time I lost my motherboard and replaced it, then found I had to reinstall from scratch, it stopped working. While I didn't detect any anomaly during re-installation and resurrection of my data that I had carefully backed up for the most part, nevertheless, printing was thereafter very hit-and-miss. In fact, I had only printed one or two pages just to try things out, so I don't know for certain that it ever worked permanently and well.

How the mighty one has fallen!
Usually, things went like this: Plug my Hewlett-Packard 5550 into a USB port, note that Windows loaded the driver, then print something. Early on, this often worked the first time only to stop working the next time I tried to print. In frustration, and because my office has been in an awkward flux since the first of the year, I'd unplug the USB cable and forget about it for a week or two or three. However, very soon, it would stop working at all.

Of late, I've pulled my hair out over this printer and my Windows box no longer able even to get them to work together a single, initial time. Incidentally, I can't get this box to support my built-in multi-card reader either, nor my external reader. And Google tells me I am not alone by far in my observation: Windows 7 doesn't reliably support printers or card readers.

Decidedly, not only does Windows have its usual troubles with inconsistent interfaces, but since the last version of Windows that worked (XP) in true plug-and-play fashion, its utility has sunk very low indeed.

I mean I'll grant you that I'm an idiot, but so's your grandmother. And yet, until Windows Vista, even she could plug in her new printer or card reader and immediately get a working peripheral with no need to Google to find out how to overcome a lack of support for such common devices. It just worked. It no longer does.

So, that irony I was speaking about...
I grew up under the UNIX operating system in my early career. Configuring a system was a pretty hard thing to do. Even after years getting used to the ease of Linux in doing most things, I continue to be surprised by it. Such was the case this morning.

I really needed to print out a recipe in order easily to take notes on it later today because I'm going to present this recipe to a formal gathering in a local theater. I'm making this dish today. Annoyed at the prospect of spending fruitless hours messing about with getting my printer working on Windows 7, I decided I might be ahead learning to get it running on Linux.

From my UNIX years, I have a knee-jerk expectation that it's not going to be straight-forward, so I cast around up front on the web for some help. Not finding very recent articles on how to get it running (reading out-of-date articles on Linux can be an exercise in frustration as the myriad distros have progressed very rapidly), I gave up and just plugged the #$*@ thing in. A few seconds later, a notice popped up on my desktop announcing my printer by (accurate) name and claiming that it was set up and ready to go. I'm not one to be fooled by such a cheap trick, so I put it to the test, brought my recipe up in Firefox, then printed it. What to my wond'ring, but grateful eyes...

Of course, this dripping irony as I call it is of my own making: I should henceforth believe that Linux can indeed do everything. And, I should turn my back on Windows forever. But I won't. I will still keep my foot in the door out of some sense of misguided interest. And I will continue to snipe and complain about Windows as it falls from utility.

Hehehe, now I'm going to attach my card reader someday soon—another peripheral I've always and only consumed from Windows.

Amy's grand day out!

2010-09-03T10:50:00.031-06:00

I got a call this morning around 1030 announcing that Amy had been in a multi-vehicle accident an hour or so before. She was transported to St. Francis Medical Center in Grand Island, Nebraska.

Amy's health
Amy is in stable condition, very sore, scratched and bruised all over with particular trauma to her knees and chest. It's like someone beat her mercilessly with a rubber hose in a dark alley. She has two cracked ribs. By all rights, those should have broken and punctured her heart or lungs. She has been able to get up more or less by herself to shower, so that's a good sign, right?

Details of the accident
It happened on Interstate 80 south of Shelton, Nebraska, about 25 miles west of Grand Island. She came upon a car that was stopped, veered to avoid it, then found herself embedded in an 18-wheeler. She crossed the median into the truck hitting it more or less head-on. She had to be cut out of her vehicle. She was driving a 2006 Chevrolet Malibu belonging to her employer, KHAS-TV, a television station.

Her boss and one or two coworkers went to the scene soon after the accident and described the vehicle to Julene as "little left to show it had been a car," so that fact and given the apparent little injury to Amy, it is nothing short of a miracle. It was probably a very good thing this happened in KHAS-TV's vehicle instead of hers. And not just because hers would be gone. The station's vehicle was newer, safer and probably bigger.

Julene's trip out
Coincidentally, Julene had planned a trip out there next week; those plans were accelerated a few days. We looked for flights, but from Salt Lake, it's literally impossible to reach Amy faster than it takes just to drive it. So, even if we'd bought a ticket, she couldn't possibly have reached Amy until Saturday evening.

From Provo to Grand Island is 800 miles and dust, 95% of it on Interstate 80. Google Maps says about 13 hours. The major points of itinerary are Evanston, Rock Springs, Rawlins. Laramie, Cheyenne, North Platte, then Grand Island. She took a Garmin GPS, her cell phone and my iPod. She drove our little Mitsubishi Galant, which recently passed inspection, an oil change today, new tires and windshield a month ago.

Saturday, 4 September
Julene reached St. Francis Medical Center in Grand Island around 1400 Central. (I've updated Amy's health higher up.) Julene tells me that everyone acquainted with the details of the accident says nobody survives that sort of thing. It is being proclaimed a miracle.

Everyone from her work is sending her flowers and stuffed animals. Her room is full of them.

Sunday, 5 September
Amy was released today. Julene will be staying with her a few days while she gets better.

Apache Tomcat configuration explained

2010-09-03T07:36:00.001-06:00

In an echo of "better late than never" and a post a couple of weeks ago, I have released a short article detailing the workings of that erstwhile bane of my existence, web.xml.

The impetus for this was the need a few days ago to define two separate RESTful servlets I was comparing in the same server I'm writing.

It's gratifying when one looks back to realize that the scales have completely fallen from one's eyes.

In an uproar!

2010-08-30T09:02:00.001-06:00

I spoke with my son, Danny, this morning about his recent promotion on tour. Since the end of Van's Warped Tour, he's been working another one named Rockstar Uproar doing the same sorts of things as on the tour he's worked for five or six years now. However, he was quickly promoted to "tour festival manager." As I understand it, his duties include the entire layout of the park, the emplacement of the stages, the concessions, where the buses, trucks and trailers are parked, etc.

Uproar will be in Salt Lake City on 15 September out at the USANA amphitheater.

Gotta love bad musicians playing ear-piercing music and shouting the f-word at the top of their amplified lungs!

Apache ant: something mean in our sandpile when we were children?

2010-08-21T18:10:00.001-06:00

I'm always behind the times. For example, my definitive ant tutorial at Java Hot Chocolate.

I should have written this up almost a year ago when I was hot and heavy on it. Instead, I waited until I had a moment, something that never came.

I don't have time today either because I'm busy writing an important application for Android. However, I figure, while it's hot in my mind, while the ant build script I'm writing for my application is closer to what I'd want to present than the humongous thing I wrote last fall for GWAVA, which is proprietary anyway, I had just better do it.

Anyway, I've got it about one-half written today, mostly the ant stuff proper, and I'll finish the Eclipse integration stuff next week, which won't be much more to add in terms of column inches.

However, I'm really behind my time. Maven's been here for what, forever now?

I've been playing with Maven for a couple of years, but because of Eclipse, have just never made the leap. We use Maven at Avocent for our builds, but I haven't undertaken to integrate it for my own use at home yet. And, I still feel very intimidated by it. It's so easy, so powerful and yet so nightmare-ish when things go south.

One day, my Maven prince will come. (Ooooo, did I say really that?)

The tubby gourmet from Provorampour

2010-08-20T16:13:00.002-06:00

Namaste!

Out of the blue this morning I got a ping from the local store of Macey's Grocery chain to do a one-night cooking demonstration in the Little Theatre of their Provo store. I'm thinking of

Saag shorba
Tandoori chicken
Vegetable khurma with cauliflower, also carrots and peas
Fancy rice with traces of roast cumin and coriander, plus saffron threads
Roti brushed with oil, garlic and parsley

I'm having trouble imagining myself as Provo's Indian answer to Yan Can Cook. I mean, some fat, white guy who, until he got corrective surgery at 40, couldn't eat spicy food? On the other hand, I do a passable imitation of Indian software engineers arguing about how much turmeric to add to a dish.

Well, I could do something like a French country loaf. That would take me all of 10 minutes. —Nah, too boring.

I'd have to do the chicken ahead of time because there probably isn't a grill handy, at least not inside the theater, plus I've only got an hour and it would ruin the presentation (and possibly the rest of the food) to have to pop out constantly to watch over the grilling. So, uhhhhh, reheat the chicken in the oven?

I'm supposed to do stand-up, make bird calls or carry on other entertaining antics during the cooking so it doesn't get too boring. I'm thinking I'll have to do a dry-run at home to make certain I've got enough material. Maybe if I work hard on my Indian accent and memorize something out of an episode of Flying Circus? Hmmm... well, I don't want to offend.

They've got an electric range. That will be a challenge, but then, that's what I have to use when I'm doing Thai at the house of my friend, Jay Sevison. Anyway, the trick will be to prepare just enough ahead of time not to fail, but not so much that there's nothing going on during the demonstration.

My nightmare? Someone Indian actually shows up. If this little activity happens, it will be in October. I won't be crying the date from the rooftops for all the reasons you can imagine.

BlackBerry: All in a day's work

2010-08-19T17:13:00.004-06:00

I'm scrambling to get this done before leaving for the Utah Java Users' Group meeting tonight. I'm leaving as soon as I post this.

I've successfully put together a development environment and a Hello World application for BlackBerry. And, as usual, I've written it up concurrently so that a) I have a place to return to for links, information and to see what I've forgotten, and b) others can step up faster and easier, or so I hope.

This is an experiment after nearly three weeks of deep-ending in Android development, quite successfully so far, I might add.

Of course, the two display systems are radically different, so the code I write for one will not be reusable for the other unless I can figure out how to get a little MVC separation, my next project.

At least I'm "up and running" in BlackBerry.

2010-08-07T21:53:00.001-06:00

Today was my annual Van's Warped Tour outing with my youngest son, Danny. It's been a couple of months since I last saw him.

Danny runs a bus, some trucks and a crew who oversee various concessions at the venues. They travel all over the United States and Canada to do this. It goes on nearly three months.

My fellow Provo attendees included my wife, Julene, and her youngest, Sam. Other family members included my daughters, Andrea and Penelope, plus their daughters, Trista and Leila. My son Vic went on tour the night of the Paul McCartney concert and won't be back until October. He's tattooing all over the country out of this RV/bus he's fixed up.

Salt Lake City was treated to a rather cool day, only 90° or so and lots of wind and threatening thunderstorms that mostly glided by the Utah Fairgrounds without disturbing much other than to force the tour crews to stake down some of the tents that had been erected shoddily earlier in the day.

We made our usual pilgrimage to eat at the local Red Ignana, always excellent, best Mex anywhere!

When we got back to the fairgrounds, we wandered around collecting junk for the little girls (my granddaughters) who are always up for the trick-or-treating aspects of the show where their uncle Danny's connections net them at least a pair of sunglasses, a t-shirt, a bag to carry them in and some candy. Speaking of candy, most of us got some Skullcandy® paraphernalia too.

Then we stood on a VIP platform overlooking the main concert venue to watch Big Fish perform until I had my fill of f-words and lewd gestures, and retreated to the bus—probably four songs in all. This annual show has rather become my live, mental image of an old Gothic depiction of what hell will be: bad music, horribly dressed and empty misguided children, as well as vulgar language screamed at the top of amplified lungs. Right off the canvas of Hieronymus: Gotta love it!

Between sorties for food and fun, we chilled on his tour bus and jabbered while his mother and sister did massages in the main business office on the grounds.

A fun time was had by all and we love our Danny. His tour ends in a couple of weeks, then he's doing a two-month Skullcandy tour before coming home in early October.

I have such interesting children. I love them all.

Attaching sources to the Android SDK JAR in Eclipse

2010-08-06T15:14:00.001-06:00

An annoying thing about Android development is that you can't easily penetrate down inside Android library code because of an inexplicably misguided decision by Google engineers who've all but disallowed it. I'll stop editorializing there because I'm trying to be kinder and gentler.

In the land of Eclipse, as long as you have the source, you can easily attach it (refer to it) from the IDE in such a way as to a) Ctrl-click an identifier to jump to its implementation or b) step down into it when running in debug mode.

I spent the greater part of today researching this problem. Much has been written about it, mostly bitter (and justifiable) complaining, but some have tackled the problem and tried to solve it. Maybe the solutions I read worked back a couple of years ago when they were inked on the Internet, but you could not prove it by my own experience following them.

I also found a lot of solutions required somewhat non-standard tools on your utility belt like git, Python and other stuff you might not ordinarily associate with Eclipse use and Java development. I'm no wimp, but my productive hours aren't ones I'll willingly spend on planet Geeky Prime just to show off my technical manhood.

In the end, I solved it (probably again 'cause I'm surely not the first) with help from a more recent website that graciously posts the source code in almost exactly the form I need it for association with Eclipse.

Pursuant to my great frustration and deep-seated desire for no one else to have to rack their brains over this, I've detailed it in my article on Android development on my Hot Chocolate site. See here.

I hope this solution saves more than one person a lot of time.

The hawk's afternoon...

2010-08-03T16:29:00.002-06:00

...or l'après-midi d'un rapace !*

Cruising toward the I-15 on-ramp after work this afternoon, I saw a hawk dropping out of the sky near my road bordering undeveloped land. Its peculiar action drew my attention. Despite my speed, as it was on a corner that I have to take, I saw just about the entire movement.

It fairly floated by the time it was 10 feet above the ground with its tip feathers extended and talons deployed.

As I passed by within probably 20 feet of the spot, it settled on prey I could not see by reason of the ground being elevated just a bit above the roadway and the dry grasses being also just a little too high. Though there were no other vehicles on the street, I had to turn my attention back to my motorcycle: I did not see the mouse or rabbit that supplied the ensuing feast.

It was pretty remarkable, just the sort of thing you'd not think twice about after seeing it on PBS Nature, but this was live and within a few feet of me.

* Meant to evoke Debussy's tone poem, Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune and Mallarmé's verses that inspired it and which also speak of "prey."

Welcome to caste, American style

2010-07-23T10:41:00.001-06:00

“Nowadays, the members of our ruling class admit that they do not read the laws. They don't have to. Because modern laws are primarily grants of discretion, all anybody has to know about them is whom they empower.”

“[...] if you are not among the favored guests at the table where officials make detailed lists of who is to receive what at whose expense, you are on the menu.”

“[This] surely increases the number of people dependent on the ruling class, and teaches Americans that satisfying that class is a surer way of making a living than producing goods and services that people want to buy.”

[Emphasis added.]

Angelo M. Codevilla in America's Ruling Class—And the Perils of Revolution

What this guy says is fundamental to an understanding of where we've come since beginning the Great American Experiment. We all yawned during Civics about this topic because it was so just a part of our past and present. However, few if any other nations in the history of this planet have ever enjoyed the personal and professional liberty American have enjoyed.

Other people (many of us and all we meet from other countries who believe themselves free under their respective political system) do not understand this because they've always lived with oppression. A person born without the physical advantage of another rarely grasps that advantage since each adapts his life to his circumstances.

We ourselves are apathetic to our plight re-adapting ourselves to enduring the requirements of the new, national identity driver's license, what we must do to get our vehicles inspected that is quickly making it impossible to drive older cars, especially ones slightly damaged in accidents, that we must corral together an array of proofs of citizenship each time we begin a new job.

These little encroachments are excused on making us somehow safer and on the fact that, taken each by itself, it's not that big a deal or frustration.

Read this article to understand how a ruling class emerges that turns the rest of a nation's citizenry into slaves. It has been the plight of every country in the world and is now assimilating the United States. It is natural entropy to sink to this level. It has never been the expectation of a people to live truly free under the rule of law and without the boot of oppressors exercising arbitrary, unrighteous dominion upon others.

And there is the insulting insinuation that somehow others could know better for us than we do. Pride is ever man's tempter. Pride to think he's better educated, more intelligent, has better ideas, and can solve other people's problems. Pride is what drove the inquisitor to burn others at the stake for their religious ideas; it is what encourages the atheist to think it's necessary to persecute God-fearers and believers at the point of a gun.

The Great American Experiment is just this: that no expectations are created upon people enjoying life, liberty and private property that are not reasonable and crucial. No laws infringing upon their liberty of action will be created that are other than utterly critical to the well being of the citizenry.

Obviously, you can say that it's crucial that everyone have medical insurance and be forced to pay for it. You can say that everyone should be forced to pay into a pot to support those people who can't pay for themselves.

But, you'd be wrong. You'd be creating rights where none exist. We have the natural right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. No human is born with any right to a job, medical care, guaranteed income or any certain standard of living. The fact that some teary-eyed liberal seizes the opportunity to get the state to pick some richer man's pockets to aid someone handicapped or worse, someone unwilling to lift a finger to help himself, does not create a magical right where none really exists.

It is right to help those who are in need. But it is a choice to do so.

And we put up with it. We debate, then embrace reluctantly all the burdens progressively imposed upon us by our rulers.

It's like a toad tossed into a pot of boiling water. He jumps back out immediately. Wilson and Roosevelt could not impost their ideas of ultimate social order on a people used to autonomy. Instead, they soaked us in a pot of cool water. FDR and every administration since has been turning up the heat a little each time. We lose the right to keep and bear arms. We endure limits to our right to assemble. Etc.

Obama arrives just a little early to impose his agenda of progressive socialism. It's rough on him, but he has faith that we've sunk this low. And I think he's right. I think we're going to get in line because he's done things in less than two years that would have gotten any other president impeached, then thrown into the pokey. We're screaming a little about the change in water temperature, but not too much. Things will go his way. He may even get re-elected.

Read here how this goes, then you can sit back and watch America become just another country in the world.

If you would like to understand how government is really supposed to operate in the United States of America, view this video illustrating a speech by a clear-seeing former United States Secretary of Agriculture.

These are the dog days of summer...

2010-07-21T16:19:00.002-06:00

...and of impending unemployment as noted in an earlier blog. Emerson, parent of Avocent, will shut the doors to its Salt Lake office come the first of October.

No, I haven't found the Java/JEE dream job yet. The dreamiest one slipped from my grasp as some lucky soul internal to the company in question got the chance of his lifetime. Alas for poor me; kudos for him.

But, as my best friend pointed out, grace is not in finite supply nor is it contingent upon the relative hardships, needs—or merits—of potential recipients.

In the meantime, the relief brigade from Infosys has begun arriving. We'll be handing the Avocent Management Platform (AMP) off to them over the next couple of months. It's always fun to work with people from out of town (in this case, way out of town places like India and China).

And, the ride home each afternoon at 1500 is nasty hot in ¼" of leather, gloves and a helmet. On the other hand, the ride into work at 0600 is ordinarily pleasant and cool.

It is unwell with my soul?

2010-07-17T12:58:00.001-06:00

The last couple of weeks have tested me in a rather disturbing way: I depend upon the Internet for survival to an extent similar to food and sleep. You have to wonder just how healthy this can be.

Some background...

Broadweave, the local iProvo ISP monopoly, summarily took me off the Internet saying one of my IP addresses was maliciously attacking other IP addresses on the Internet. They said it's been going on since May and refused to work with me to identify which of my computers might have been doing this. As all of my computers are behind a router, it's not a no-brainer to discover the culprit. I would like to have known a lot more about the attacks (what ports if not what addresses). They rudely turned down all pleas for help. I was basically treated as if I were some evil hacker whose address should be Bluffdale, Utah (the state penitentiary) rather than Happy Valley.

I didn't even have words with them from my side (I try not to do that anymore; it's not productive and one inevitably regrets saying nasty things later).

The point here isn't to rant about Broadweave (although I'm keen to say some very disparaging things about them), but to note that I was without Internet service two weeks ago.

In case you are wondering, I relocated my web server, windofkeltia.com, and associated domains, to my nephew Richard's house. We actually relocated my Java Hot Chocolate pages to one of those five nine's sort of environments where its reliability will be total and never in question as it has been especially with Broadweave's unreasonable treatment.

I moved to Comcast for Internet service. They told me it was none of their business if I used their network for the most heinous denial-of-service attacks on record. They would not turn me off. I'm sure they were exaggerating, but I appreciated that their service will give me the time and liberty to figure out this problem.

Yesterday, I was doing some serious packet sniffing in an effort to discover if there is any malware on any of my computers. I launched Wireshark on Julene's Windows XP box and my Windows 7 box in an attempt to get started. I filtered out port 22, port 80 and port 1990 (SSDP) traffic hoping to minimize the size of the traces, since I don't expect whatever my computer(s) to be doing wrong will be happening on those ports. I kicked off Wireshark and retreated to other occupations including some television viewing.

The inhibitor of IT services strikes me again...

At an unspecified point, my Internet service went south last night. I came back around 2200 to see what sorts of packets were flying between my machines and the Internet only to find my Internet service gone. I rattled around for a bit, called Comcast, then went to bed.

This morning, I arose, mowed a couple of lawns, got some breakfast, chatted with a neighbor, then returned to do battle with the ugly Internet denial monster.

Trying out another router I had, I discovered that both routers failed to get a WAN address from Comcast. Otherwise, my internal LAN worked just fine, but no Internet service.

Comcast passed me off to some service that wanted $150 to fix the problem. I thought this sum might be a little steep to learn some basic factoid and, sure enough, after chatting with two nephews and a neighbor, I re-discovered the latency of cable modems. Comcast had me unplug and then plug back in my modem several times. That's not nearly enough to reset it. At one point, my nephew suggested I try powering down the modem for at least a minute. That jarred something in my distant memory of back when I had used Comcast cable Internet service in the past and so I did that and it immediately solved the problem.

What this comes down to, however, is that I'm not a viable person without Internet service. This fact struck me two weeks ago when Broadweave exorcized me from the human race, and it struck me hard again last night. This is very disturbing. My instinct is that there is something very, very wrong about feeling this way. Nevertheless, thinking about it, and about what I do for a living, it appears an inescapable state of things in my life: I simply work on the Internet. Not only is it where the work I do shows up now, but my very ability to do much work at all (software development using rapidly changing methodologies) assumes an Internet connection.

Alas, I'm useless without it.

Post script:

I know people say a lot of things about Comcast. However, I've been a customer of basic cable television and Internet connection service for a decade or so including at this house and our old house which I never moved to iProvo fiber. I've never found much to complain about. When I call them with a problem, they're usually about as helpful as they should be within the responsibilities of their service.

"Not my job!"

In Broadweave's case, they aren't too interested in helping a single customer remain a customer if they think it's going to be much work to help him. Is this not the conclusion I'm meant to draw? It may be that they don't have the technical competence to offer and just don't want to "get it all over themselves."

Their sanctimony is more than a little surprising, though, and it's odd that they would let a bad situation go on for a couple of months without alerting me, imposing a time limit beyond which they just cut the service off. If I had known in May and they let my service continue until late June, I'd probably have had more than enough time to figure it out even without their help.

Yesterday

2010-07-14T07:46:00.005-06:00

Yesterday, my oldest son took us out for a simply sublime evening with Paul McCartney.

What a showman, this guy!

He played non-stop for just shy of three hours. The mix was probably something like 25% Wings and 74% Beatles plus a Jimmy Hendrix number. Now, there are a lot of Beatles-tribute bands out there, but you have to admit that the best one of all has to be the one coincidentally headed up by Paul McCartney.

There wasn't too much between-song banter, but just a bit. At one point McCartney adopted a sort of ashamed look and said, "You're probably wondering why we keep changing guitars all the time up here. We're just showing off." He then produced, and used, the guitar he recorded with during the Rubber Soul timeframe, a hollow-body Gibson. There were lots of Gibsons used in the show including a Gold Top and another very flashy, hand-decorated Les Paul. I was fighting back a strong case of envy.

Then he launched into an anecdote about Hendrix' first concert in England. It seems after a particularly grueling number during which he had really punished his guitar, flexing it, beating it, etc. he asked if Eric Clapton were in the audience (which he was) and then begged him to come up and tune it back up.

There was a song for Linda, one for John and another for George. There were big fireworks during Live or Let Die with raging gas burners across the front of the stage. Seated down maybe 20 rows back and to the right of stage, we were engulfed in gunpowder for much of the song. Fortunately, there was a light evening breeze.

At one point, he carried the flag of Utah around on the stage waving it while another band member carried the Union Jack.

After Paul left the stage at the end, we clapped for an encore, of course, probably planned. (Well, it's probably all planned, isn't it?) He returned to do Yesterday to the delight of my youngest daughter. I removed my ear protection at that point. After that, we clapped again and cheered. He said, "So, you still wanna rock and roll?!" Whereupon followed a particularly ebullient rendition of Helter Skelter and more clapping and cheering. Then he said, "Well this has to come to an end. We've got to go home and get some rest. And you have to go home too."

Then, they did The End from Abbey Road, the goodbye music, and we kept clapping and cheering. The last number was Sgt. Pepper's, which is goodbye music too, but just to underline the point, several tons of confetti were blown out nearly filling the stadium.

This was Sir Paul's first time in Salt Lake and Utah. I hope he felt our warm welcome. We certainly appreciated his show. All things considered, he very well may never make it back here. So, I count it as a very unique and memorable experience.

Oh yeah! All right! Are you going to be in my dreams, tonight?
Love you. Love you.
And, in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make!

It's Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club band, we hope that you enjoyed the show.

We did. Immensely. Thanks. And thanks, Vic, for taking us. We love you!

In search of the lost khurma

2010-07-12T09:09:00.001-06:00

Yesterday, I almost nailed it.

The saag sorba wasn't particularly close to Bombay House's, but it was excellent nevertheless. (Note to self: find a way to excise the ginger fibers. Use a microplane instead of a fine grater?)

The tandoori chicken was as competent as ever, if not particularly stunning and somewhat lacking in spiciness.

I tried a new, yeast-based naan. I've see these here and there in Internet recipe land and I succumbed to the extra work (mostly timing). I shouldn't have. While it was okay, it wasn't nearly as good as my quickbread (baking powder) naan.

I dry-bloomed some cumin seeds to add to the rice along with a few saffron threads and finely chopped parsley. Competent, nothing to be ashamed of.

Last, however, I made a khurma. This has usually been my downfall, ending up with something sour, bizarre-tasting or otherwise inedible. As I couldn't decide on what to change in my ingredient list, I decided not to change anything and hope for the best. The best happened. I wouldn't trade the same dish from India Palace or Bombay House, but it was pretty edible nonetheless. And it was entirely vegetarian. This will please my daughter.

Unfortunately therefore, I learned nothing. I wonder how this dish will turn out next time since I changed nothing? I probably should think really hard about anything that I may have done differently and write it up all over again.

While I cook mostly only from ingredient lists rather than step-by-step recipes, I do try to write up the experiences as recipes. See my Indian cuisine page.

Rumpole: my curmudgeonly master

2010-07-09T22:07:00.001-06:00

This evening I finished watching my last episode of Rumpole of the Bailey with some regret. I last watched the collection of episodes over two years ago when I received it for Father's Day.

They just get better and better.

Rumpole is like an old friend who lives in a far away place. I don't get to see him that often, so something like a biannual reunion is quite an occasion to celebrate. After so long I get to missing old Sam Bollard (sic), His Lordship Mr. Injustice Graves, Hilda, Uncle Tom and Mr. & Mrs. Erskin-Brown.

And She who must be obeyed is very cooperative during these 44 little visits that last for 45 minutes each interrupting only 3 or 4 episodes with her little urgent business.

Of course, far from settling back with a glassful of Château Thames Embankment, I prefer a nice Fat Boy Nut Sundae; it is, after all a very hot summer here as well as at Number 3, Equity Court.

RESTful web services in Java

2010-07-08T09:31:00.001-06:00

Today I finished annotating a tutorial on this topic. The link at the very end of this post—past the social commentary.

Many, including me, publish tutorials; this is the salvation of the computer software industry in a day where no university program could keep up with the frenetic pace of technology even if it were possible for industry workers to maintain continuous enrollment in such an institution.

In the world of JEE alone, there must be more ways to implement Model/View/Controller separation than Paul Simon knows for dumping an old lover.

This said, many tutorials are written with very questionable literary skill. More still are written by experts who've long gotten beyond the elemental skills that others wanting to capitalize on their knowledge are still in pursuit of. The author can scarcely burden himself with technical accuracy, still less with organizational completeness in his expression's vehicle: the tutorial itself. He has no time at all to coddle the beginner through the process of following it. More's the pity.

In one recent tutorial I reviewed and annotated, the author introduced some new HTML code neither revealing the filename it should garnish nor even which, of half a dozen Eclipse projects written over the course of the tutorial, it should find its way into.

Well, I'm one of the great numbers of dummies.

So, I drop bread crumbs à la Hansel und Gretl in tutorials that interest me (not to mention in my own). I try to cross-reference more difficult operations, especially sub-operations, so that someone struggling to complete his "homework" isn't stopped dead in his tracks, unable to learn the subject because he doesn't know the Eclipse IDE well enough, how to build a library as a JAR, refresh a container server like Tomcat, work around an HTTP status 404 error, etc.

How does this benefit me? Am I fishing for compliments? Maybe. More likely am I proving to myself that I grok the tutorial I'm reviewing or the subject on which I'm writing my own.

My tutorial notes on RESTful Web Services in Java and Jersey can be found here.

G-dang, g-dang, g-dang...

2010-07-07T13:44:00.001-06:00

—or the din summer makes as it pursues its monotonous march.

"Heureusement," say I, for it's my least favorite season.

We are hosting Helene and Taylor, along with baby Kingston, while they are here visiting from Halifax. Carma is here also. I work; Julene vacations.

My nephew, Jacob, is also rooming here until he wings his way off to West Africa. I'm not vacationing for him. I do force him into watching the odd episode of Rumpole.

And yet, it's during the long days that resemble each other that we get the greatest amount of work done, turning them into short days that seem to have disappeared as soon as we turn our head. (I'm never disappointed not to remember days whose temperatures exceed 80°.) These days are signed, "RESTful web services," now become my favorite topic.

Aside from this, there's little to say obviously. We just wait for September's promise of pre-Autumn wind to inflate our sails and pull us free from the doldrums.

Not the dog-days of summer...

2010-07-01T13:27:00.001-06:00

...certainly, but the tedium of awaiting information on the larger parameters of my life such as...

- When and under what conditions will our Emerson employment be terminated?

- When will two promised offers come in so I can make the final decision regarding all three offers?

All three offers promise similar fulfillment. Well, there was a standing one, but I refused it this evening. I'm not ready to take the blue pill and consign myself to Matrix assimilation. Maybe someday when diving dumpsters behind McDonald's has become my last resort, I'll prostrate myself before the agents of Microsoft, bedim my horizons and intone the mantra of .NET. So, two potential offers only now, I guess. "Tell me when will you be mine, tell me quando, quando..."

In the meantime, I'm polishing off a recent review of SQL which, for me, was always a little like typing: something I began doing long before I sat down to acquire the knowledge formally. And, yes, as usual, I've made a stab at writing it up on Hot Chocolate.

And, just today, I'm initiating myself to RESTful web services using Jersey—on the server end of things. I've written to REST services before as a client, but I'm keenly interested in perfecting my understanding of this server end of things. After walking this road a few miles, there will of course be a tutorial. And, while I'm on the subject...

RESTful Web Services Cookbook: Solutions for Improving Scalability and Simplicity by Subbu Allamaraju rocks as a recipe book. It dissects each HTTP operation, discusses problems of idempotency, how to get around problems of and temptation toward statefulness, and describes schemes for asynchrony. Do you know what (and only what) to do with OPTION? Do you know what trouble awaits a service providing TRACE in production mode? What should you try to do with PUT versus using POST? Get this book at a hefty discount from amazon.com.

Summer tedium's remedy

As has happened before, running through the 44-odd episodes of Rumpole of the Bailey brings some relief. It also heightens my antagonism toward split infinitives, imprecision and other abuses of the English language. So, there is a back-slap effect obliging me to watch my tongue more carefully.

Let's blog on Blogspot instead...

2010-06-23T09:55:00.001-06:00

I'm going to revamp my own web pages and move my blog to a more capable and genuine blogging host (to wit: the place you're reading this). That way, I can re-use windofkeltia.com for the root of my web server, which it is. I'm probably not going to try to back-fill this blog with previous entries, but just start now and stop using my old web site.

This coincides also with my imminent departure (at latest, 1 October 2010) from Avocent, Inc. which was purchased by Emerson Network Power earlier this year (or late last year). Emerson have decided not to keep the Salt Lake City, Utah office. Most of our team of about 40 have winged their way "jobwards" and elsewhere. I am myself awaiting a couple of offers right now, though I'm pretty certain which one I'm going to choose. I could be making the transition as early as mid-to-late July.

Whatever the case, I'm counting on this next episode to put the finishing touches on my JEE portfolio though I also plan to be around a long time: I've moved too much since leaving Novell 5 years ago, mostly because the economy hasn't cooperated and, in the case of Quest Software, in order to align myself with the Java/JEE skill set I'd been working on.

So, you can still catch me on russellbateman.com, my formal, professional contact page, or windofkeltia.com where soon I'll restore its more or less index nature to the rest of the web domains I host on my server.

You can also check out my technical articles, tutorials and open notes at javahotchocolate.com (yeah, that's sort of a Mormon joke, but you go find a decent domain name for use these days). They are mostly Java/JEE-related, but you can also get to my notes on many other technologies there.

Best regards,

Russ