Entries by Daniel E. Markle

Be warned when using java.util.Date and java.sql.Timestamp; these cannot be converted back and forth cleanly due to different precisions and the way they store dates internally. Unfortunately Java's date handling classes are pretty much well known to have seriously annoying issues. And be especially careful with java.util.Date vs java.sql.Date; the latter isn't 'actually' a timestamp like the former, so times will get truncated.

The new features in Solaris and its legendary stability have convinced me to give it a try. 

It has quite a few differences from Linux, some of them obviously better and others that are quite obnoxious to a seasoned Linux administrator.  What follows are some notes on a sample configuration setting up RAID and ZFS on a pair of 80GB disks.  I used Solaris 10 06/06, this short howto for the RAID information (with quite a few modifications for Solaris 10), and lots of man page reading.

I expect to follow this up with more notes on Solaris in the following weeks.

Few better ways exist to enjoy coding than hanging out outside, enjoying some fresh air, and firing up Netbeans.  Although it does make me crave one of those newer laptops with brighter screens.

I started using Netbean's Matisse for production applications, and have been astounded at how quickly I've been able to develop an application.  Between all I have learned about Java recently and the power this tool gives me to rapidly develop a Swing application, it is going to be tough for me to do web development until I find a similar tool.  I might have to give Sun's Creator tool a try, although now I am so used to Netbeans 5 I feel inclined to hold out for their updated version.

I have been working on a company-wide PDF search using Lucene and PDFBox.  Everything is being indexed nicely (tip, when debugging wierd search results with Lucene, try Luke sooner instead of later, chances are you need to tune your index options) and I have a pretty html page where users can do plain text searches of all our PDFs or by category.

As hundreds to thousands of results can be returned, I want an easy way for users to page through the results.  Traditionally with PHP or Perl I would parse http get options for the starting results and manually make some navigation code for this.  I am lazy though, so I started searching for Java libraries to help make this easier.  I hit the jackpot with the Display tag library.

One of my favorite sites to get music VGMix, has been down for a while now while they rewrite the site.  I found a new site for my gaming music fix, OverClocked Remix.  They have some incredible music there.  I highly recommend the Chrono Symphonic, it is definitely a contender for the best music I've ever heard anywhere.  No doubt I'm rather biased since Chrono Trigger is one of my favorite games, but I am convinced you will love it if you are a fan of this style of music.  I recommend the torrent, which definitely seems to be the easiest way to get it.

There was much excitement this week when Sun released a version of Java under a license that is supposed to allow Linux distributions to legally package it.  Debian almost immediately made it available in their non-free package repository.  However, it seems no one actually checked the license.  The much vaunted new license is actually very hostile to redistribution, completely useless to the very Linux distributions it is supposed to enable packaging with.

Hopefully this is just a mistake and they have an actually usable license to be released soon.  If not this is a huge mistake by Sun which is going to backfire in their faces quite loudly.

I have seen a depressing trend lately towards full-gloss laptop displays and computer screens.  It is hard to find screens anymore at retail outlets without a mirror-like glossy shine.  Although they look pretty at first glance, you can tell in seconds how unusable they are when you can see a perfect reflection of yourself and/or the store lights superimposed on the screen.  Now even Apple is in with the trend; just look at their sample image on that page; half the screen is unusable from glare even on their promotional page.

I was thrilled when LCDs came out that we were finally rid of the horrible glare problems of shiny glass CRT displays; however now the industry seems determined to bring mirror-like reflections back with a vengeance.

At 9:05 p.m. May 8, 2006 Aidan Robert Pincin was born at Harrisburg Hospital to Jason and Georgette Pincin.  He weighed 7 lbs. 2 oz. and was 22 inches long.

His initials being ARP, there's apparently already some debate about which variant of the protocol he most closely matches.  Fortunately both parents are able to provide mediation to prevent packet conflicts, and handle the frequent requests.

While looking around for the latest games and toys, I found this game, called N.  It would be impossible for me to best the developer's short summary:

"play as a ninja trapped in a world of well-meaning, inadvertantly homicidal robots"

This game can be quite frustratingly difficult at times, which the developer also has an amusing quote for:

"the number of attempts allowed is infinite, however, your patience may not be."

However frustrating the game can be at times, I've found it to be quite addicting.  You will know for sure you're hooked when you are walking down the hallways at work and you find yourself looking around, just making sure there are no ninja-seeking rockets or drones following you.

I like OS X's X11 implementation.  It allows X applications to rather cleanly mesh with the OS X environment.  However, when setting up X11 apps for end users X has a habit of popping up a terminal window.  Instead of making users close this window all the time, place a plain text .xinitrc file in their home directory with this line and only this line:

exec quartz-wm

This will disable xterm from starting when X starts.

With Hibernate's new EJB3 Annotation support, you can easily write classes, add annotations in code, and have Hibernate generate your database schemas for you without needing to manually build any xml config files or build your database schemas yourself.  This is really bleeding edge though, so it has some issues.  The Hibernate tools classes haven't caught up to the new feature set, for example, so when you try:

java -cp <classpaths> org.hibernate.tool.hbm2ddl.SchemaExport --config=hibernate.xml.cfg

To get the schema out so you can build your database, you get errors like:

org.hibernate.MappingException: An AnnotationConfiguration instance is required to use <blah>

Even when everything is properly setup and you have included the Hibernate Annotations jars in your classpath.  Fortunately, there is a simple workaround.

After having spent an hour trying to figure out why Netbeans 5.0 wasn't working with my Java 1.5 enum syntax, I stumbled upon the cause.  By default, Netbeans projects force the source version to Java 1.4.  If you want to use Java 1.5 constructs in Netbeans projects, be sure to de-select the "set source level to 1.4" checkbox when creating a new project, or set the source level to 1.5 in the sources preference for the project.

Behold, the last orange drink from our local vending machine.  I have been consuming considerable quantities of this product over the past few months ever since it first appeared in our drink machine.  Sick of carbonated beverages, this tasty drink has satisfied me well.  Alas, the orange drink slot in our machine is now filled with Orange Tea, which slid into place with my purchase of this beverage.

Rose Knuth, one of my closest friend's mom passed away Sunday, April 23.  I'll miss her cheerful smile and her jestful jibes about being a troublemaker.  Growing up, it was always a pleasure to visit, as whenever I stayed long enough I frequently got a chance to sample some of her excellent cooking.  Perhaps it wasn't gourmet cuisine, but for one like me who was raised on the basics with little variety, it was a treat to sample her creations while dodging falling walnuts on the deck under the trees.

I have been using Yahoo Widgets when I want to use Microsoft Windows recently.  I like its ability to have the widgets show on the desktop unlike Mac OS 10's widgets where you have to hit a button to see them each time.  It does however have some rather bothersome annoyances.