CounterMarch Systems Blog - tech

Palm Desktop and Google Calendar

Tue, 03 Oct 2006 21:59:00 -0400

Ever since I got my Treo 650. i've been absolutely (unhealthily) attached to the darn thing. Meetings aren't entirely boring anymore...just pull out the Palm and plan some meetings or handle some email. Heck. even send a text message to the presenter while he's talking (it's been done many times!). I can check my email anytime. anywhere...and that's something of a comfort to me when i'm "unplugged" all day long. But something was missing. Sure. I could always sync back up with my desktop and that was great and all. But it became more and more of a problem to share what I was up to with the "key players". Simply put. all I ever wanted from my Treo was to be able to sync it with Google Calendar. Now I can. and all is (for now) well with the world. I'll post updates as I start to use it more...but for now. i'm really excited!

Awesome DB modeling tool

Thu, 10 Nov 2005 13:27:00 -0400

It does reverse engineering too. I installed it this morning just to check it out and will have to work with it some more before I really lose it. but for now i'm totally impressed. Open source DB modeling (and editing) tool: http://www.fabforce.net/dbdesigner4/ I've only tried it with MySQL so far. but itlooks like it supports just about anything we'd use!

Family Tech Support

Sun, 26 Jun 2005 23:05:00 -0400

I think we can all say that we've scraped crapware. adware. and spyware off computers (none of which are owned by us) too many times to count. I saw this blog post today. Kinda took me back... The last time I had to fix my mom's computer. I made them agree to never put any of that "music theft" software on the computer again. If they did. I immediately earned my lifetime "you don't have to fix this computer again" card. It's been very effective! Aside from that. I did make a few sofware changes to the computer to keep it stable:

Firefox! I removed the IE icon from the desktop and start menu
Windows Update. Auto download and install
Antivirus. I paid for this one and set it to autoupdate and scan as well

So combine the sofware changes and social changes and the box has been rock solid for a year now. Point taken!

ColdFusion 7 on OS X 10.4 "Tiger"

Tue, 31 May 2005 17:09:00 -0400

Thanks to Sean Corfield. i've got a working OS X development machine! JRun 4. CF7. and MySQL are all up and happily running. I put Eclipse on there a few weeks ago too. Sean. your instructions were perfect! Not a single problem. Last time I tried I did not succeed. but that was because the machine really needed an OS upgrade to function properly. Now to move one of my apps off my ThinkPad and onto that machine and see how well things work. Clearly i'll have to get Apache configured as well. but at least for now we're one step closer to having a backup development box. Also coming this week: 1) Summer programming intern! 2) New Dell workstation/server! 3) Completion of one of our 6 July projects! And a lovely day it is outside too.

Connected world

Sun, 22 May 2005 22:42:00 -0400

Reasons why I love my Treo (part 15): I took a picture of my mom with her diploma and instantly emailed it to my brothers so they could experience at least a small part of the graduation ceremony. It was nice to be able to keep up on my email during the slower parts of the ceremony. I was a bit like a little kid. busily playing with a little gadget while the speakers did their thing. The Treo isn't feeling so good right now...it got knocked out of my hands twice this weekend. Now it reboots every time I try to send an email. Not good... On another note. I shot a lot of pictures with my regular film camera too. Uploaded all of those on Friday afternoon to Flickr and shared them with the world. (note to family: http://www.flickr.com/photos/34612171@N00/ ) Does anyone remember the days when you had to wait 3 days just to get prints done? Now I can get a photo CD and double prints in an hour. upload to Flickr in 10 minutes. and involve people in just about everything going on around me in seconds. Once the cellular network scales up to decent bandwidth. we should be able to send realtime video (Flash Communication Server?) out at all times. I love technology!

Sound of my own voice

Thu, 28 Apr 2005 23:22:00 -0400

I started today by recording my presentation for CFUNITED. It took a little over an hour to complete a 49 minute recording. mostly due to a couple false starts. To do the recording I used an open source piece of software called Audacity (http://audacity.sourceforge.net). Coupled with Lame. I was able to crunch a 256MB WAV file into a 46MB MP3 with absolutely no trouble. Last time I tried to make an MP3 it was a pain in the rear! The recording is available here. The corresponding PPT is there too. but there is no recording of the live parts (the admin and code overviews) that I did. You have to come to my session for that! BTW. the next discount for CFUNITED expires on Saturday so get yourself signed up ASAP!

The Offshoring Elephant

Wed, 27 Apr 2005 10:56:00 -0400

Looks like another blogger is doing an 18 part series on "Six Blind Men and the Offshoring Elephant" Parts 1 and 2 are up now...i'd add the RSS feed to your feed reader of choice and keep an eye on it! http://blogs.ittoolbox.com/bi/entrepreneur/archives/003957.asp http://blogs.ittoolbox.com/bi/entrepreneur/archives/003980.asp The writing is more substantial than most blog posts (mine especially included) but I think there's a lot of value here.

Bad programmers

Mon, 25 Apr 2005 16:33:00 -0400

I'm sure we've all had to deal with bad programmers before. Fact of life in any business. really...there are those who suck and those who rule and a whole bunch in between. Whether those in between know the difference is still up for debate. I had to do a small integration project last week that didn't go too well. When you're dealing with Foxpro. pretty much anything is possible. Or. in this case. absolutely nothing. I established an ODBC connection just fine through Windows to this remote database (different server. same network). Went into ColdFusion and set up the ODBC socket connection to that DB connection. All good. until I went to write a record. Or read a record. Or even look at the damn table. No dice. CF complains it can't find the database table. My best guess was that there exists some sort of permission problem between the servers - probably the account that one process runs under blah blah blah. After a few hours of trying to figure it out (ending at 2AM) I gave up and did a "workaround" the details of which I will not be sharing with you today. Or ever ;-) Anyway. the point of this story: Designer of said Foxpro database has been adding fields every now and then. His latest addition. made mere hours after my job was done. was created as a NON NULLABLE FIELD. I mean. seriously. you fool! Of COURSE this breaks two other programs! He didn't test. didn't inform. didn't do anything to validate that this was a good idea. Where did he get his direction? From a non-technical General Manager! And then left the "testing" to this same General Manager! Couldn't believe it. I bet the company lost some business over the weekend due to this. Weekends are a high-traffic period for their website. But they have no way of knowing for sure. The ASP code that inserts into this table isn't wrapped in error-checking of any type. Zip. Zero. None. How did I know he made a change? My code. interfacing with this table for a different purpose. contained a simple error check - if anything failed on the sql execution. I got an email. Simple. 3 lines. no big deal. That's ALL IT TAKES. And yes. mind you. this was in "classic" ASP. a language I know very little about (other than it sucks) and using code samples that weren't commented at all. This is what happens when you take a dinosaur. let him write code in a language that is not the standard on your server (everything else is in CF). use a database platform that makes it very difficult to interface with (ok. so it's only SLIGHTLY worse than Access). and then have no overarching guidelines for informing the other programmers of your changes. Change management. project management. consistent standards and some minimum level of software development best practice experience would have been helpful. God help this guy if his server goes belly up! I can't imagine the recovery effort being pleasant at all.

Deplorable state of car audio

Fri, 01 Apr 2005 01:31:00 -0400

To summarize before I begin: home audio is constantly evolving and at a rather rapid clip. While once it may have seemed odd to hook up a computer to your home stereo. among my friends at least it's expected. Why isn't car audio nearly as cool? I had a long talk with one of my oldest friends (literally...happy 30th. Mark!) tonight and got to talking about portable audio. what the iPod got "right" and nobody else did. and ultimately into "why can't I do this with my car." I want to be able to pull my car into my garage at night and have the onboard audio system sync with my home media server. I want my car stereo to work as simply as my iPod and be as intelligent as one too. Car stereo makers are still full of themselves over being able to read CD-TEXT info off a CD. That's practically ancient! C'mon. guys. let's join the digital revolution already! Start putting onboard storage (or at least SD/CF card readers) in the car and read those MP3/WMA/AAC files for not only the music. but the ID3 info as well. Let me listen to my digital music without ripping to CD format first. I can get a whole lot more music in the car when it's not stored on a silver platter. cripes. I have a 1GB Lexar flash drive on my keychain - you can read off that too! Is it too much to ask to get your car stereo to be a bit more useful? stay tuned for the second part of this rant - how General Motors crippled what could have been an awesome entertainment system in my Saab 9-3. Just think of what could have been possible with the fiber optic bus if the software in the "brains" of the unit were done properly and the "supporting staff" of one more box to do the SD/CF/Flash interface existed. *sigh* Halfway there...too bad ColdFusion can't come to the rescue for this one :-)

Treo 650

Sat, 26 Mar 2005 23:28:00 -0400

I bought myself a new toy for work (yeah right) - a Treo 650. So far. it's awesome :-) Thing is. I said that when i got the HP iPaq 2215 a couple years ago. That device became essentially useless when I got the iPod 'cause I really didn't want to carry more than 2 devices on me when i travel. Unfortunately. i'm tethered to my cell phone. So now i've replaced the iPaq and cell phone with a Treo. Boo yah! I'm working on a project that is targeted for deployment on the smallscreen. Of course. I can't share it with anybody just yet. So if anyone asks. I got the Treo for testing purposes. Yeah. that's right...testing purposes.... :-)

IBM support

Thu, 24 Mar 2005 00:06:00 -0400

Thank you. IBM. for sending me a new keyboard for my T41 so quickly. For some reason. one of the mouse buttons just fell off the keyboard! It was a warranty part and took me all of 10 minutes to swap out. What to do with a half busted keyboard. Hmmm....

Interactive Flash Map

Sat, 19 Mar 2005 19:13:00 -0400

I know doing mapping applications in Flash isn't a big deal anymore. I've never done one personally. but I did just make some mods to one I asked my work-study student to create. This is a map of the upcoming construction season at Lehigh University. The site will be officially "live" sometime next week. The projects on this map start this May and will continue (in some cases) through January of 2007. As you can imagine. it's gonna be kinda messy here for a while ;-) Part of that "messy" environment is the attitudes of some alumni towards a particular change to campus. Whatever...that's the group we have to actively inform in order to reduce opposition. Point: this Flash map is going to be a big part of that communications strategy. We're going to drive a lot of traffic towards it. Sure. it's a 100kb swf. but I think we'll manage. The coolest part is that we've hooked it in to a couple web services to track which items get the most attention and can see in real time the results. I love it and so do the folks who are catching most of the heat here (Alumni Director for one. VP of Facilities for another). My hope is to have a blog up by May that someone (probably me) will maintain that will include frequent updates on the progress of various projects with pictures. Visitors will get a lot more value out of their visit and in turn. will feel like Lehigh's money is well spent.

Plantronics headset

Fri, 18 Mar 2005 19:21:00 -0400

I got the Plantronics headset I was talking about a few days ago. Used it to call my sister-in-law in Germany via Skype and it worked really well. I then used it to hold a project kickoff conference call (again via Skype) with a new client. Good comfort (even after an hour of wear) and sound quality is superb. I highly recommend it!

Voice over IP

Sun, 13 Mar 2005 13:15:00 -0400

Skype has raised the stakes again. I've been using Vonage at home for over a year now. Perfectly reliable. great sound quality. no complaints. Highly reliant on my web connection. but overall very good. Skype is beta testing SkypeIn. SkypeOut allows you to make calls from your PC to any phone anywhere on the PSTN (publicly switched telephone network) for a small per minute fee. Small as in pennies to Germany. where my brother is stationed right now. SkypeIn reverses that...now my brother can call me on my PC from the PSTN. Just read it on /. so i'll be following up more. Accessories I must have: a decent headset that is inconspicuous in public and the USB->RJ11 connector. The headsets i see are mostly the telemarketer type...big. ugly. and meant to be worn for a long time. I want one that is like a handsfree cell phone accessory - tiny. integrated with the mic. Found one today: Plantronics .Audio 30. I'll write up a review once i get it in. It was only $20 so no big loss. BTW. the reason i couldn't use my current car phone thingy was because that's a single jack connector for headphones and mic - the computer splits out those into two inputs. I suppose i could have made an adapter. but who has time for that ;-) As for the RJ11 connector. this is what will allow me to use my house phone for Skype calls. Don't know if I can use this and Vonage on the same phone (are they both SIP and will they conflict? probably!). This box runs about $40 but i found a coupon for $15 off that. Have to learn more before I take the plunge. VoIP will be the death of Verizon. Comcast better not block this traffic to promote their own service either. Damn i hate monopolies!

Offshoring

Wed, 09 Mar 2005 12:42:00 -0400

On the plane back from Phoenix last night I spoke with the guy sitting next to me. He was working on Powerpoint - I was playing with Flash. Turns out he runs a healthcare consulting company and is doing quite well. His company is highly specialized and is very service oriented as opposed to other companies in his niche who are more technology based with a service edge. The workflow system they use supports their service provisioning...and it's built in Filemaker Pro. developed in house. He mentioned they were working on implementing a new workflow system. Being a consultant. my ears perk up and the scent of money filled the cabin. But my interest quickly faded when he told me that they were working with an offshore company to get the system built. He made the claim that "you people are expensive" and that he could have three foreign workers doing the same work for $45/hr. combined. Sure. we're expensive. But I bet this guy bills out in the $200/hr range (no question) and has a decent size staff doing the same. So tell me... If the system is absolutely key to the success of your company. why would you accept a "lowest bid" from a company thousands of miles away? Why would you not want to use a company who could really get to know your business inside and out? Your niche is highly specialized and your workflow (as you told me) was adjusted for every client. How do you plan on educating them in your business process? It's more than just a very tight. well-written spec. I bet I could have learned more about his business in a 4 hour flight than they could in a 50 page system spec. If he's as sharp as I think he is. he should have been able to draw the parallel between his service-oriented approach and using local technology help. For many things. "you just have to be there" to understand it. Consulting is all about that human element. Treating software implementation as a commodity is dramatically undervaluing the art and science of building workable systems. I didn't offer him a card. I'll never win a price war - i'm an American with an expectation of a decent standard of living. Bangalore doesn't interest me at all!