The Tech, The Science and Space

Posted on February 28, 2007 by Arthur

For no New Horizon’s Flybyreason I was earlier up than normal, today: with the extra time I had I looked into several compiler-compilers (or parsers/scanners) targetting C#. I ran into a couple of ones: First of all there’s ANTLER (Public Domain, needs runtime). Secondly, there’s GOLD (written in VB, Freeware, needs runtime), which can output to multiple programming languages, including C#, ADA and Java. And there’s COCO/R (other link), a system I’m actually familiar with, if I just can find those earlier experiments.

The hunt for the Higgs Boson is almost on: Today, a milestone was reached in the construction of the LHC, as the BBC reports (reporter’s impression). Cern has a report too.

Two flybys made it in the news: First ESA’s Rosetta made it past Mars (News in chronological order: 1, 2, 3) and shot some pretty images. And then, just today, NASA’s ‘New Horizon’s’ probe flew by Jupiter and sent back imagery from Jupiter and some of its moons (news at NASA, fly by trajectory).

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Roll up the Rim 2007

Posted on February 28, 2007 by Arthur

Hey: it’s Tim Hortons “Roll up the rim 2007″ Rules and Regulations the new accounting year clocking in and, guess what: Tim Hortons’ Roll Up The Rim 2007 has just started. This means another glorious year of more ‘less winning donuts’ and more ‘less winning coffees’. Go Team.

I was actually shocked when opening the regulations the first time: The break-down of winning cups per size has gone. This makes the paper easier to read, but far less interesting for the number crunching “Medium-sized” coffee drinkers among us. There’s no way telling which size cup you should buy.

The most important change is that it looks like that the regions have been tossed up too: this year, Ontario is now (definitely) the place to go if you want to win that ‘frozen-fried’ delicious donut. The Atlantic provinces region distribution shows a slight rise of winning cups. The biggest loser appears to be Alberta (and Saskatchawan): Which is basically because Manitoba has been added to this region, while number of cups distributed there, remained level.

As for the major prices/region distribution: This year, Hortons obviously targets the green-minded coffee drinkers by having a Hybrid (Camry) as the main price (last year it was the Toyota Rav4). Notably, this year’s Plasma TV’s size is substantially smaller than last year’s (40 vs 50 inch). And hey, I’m not sure if I’d prefer an iPod nano above a Broil King BBQ.

Previous entries: 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003 and 2002.

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Disk-less

Posted on February 23, 2007 by Arthur

If you work in the tech industry, you may become aware of that in the near future, people may consider you old-fashioned when you talk about 5 1/4 and 3 1/2 inch disks and disk drives. I think I’ve told that particular story many times before (“I did not put in that diskdrive upside-down”1).

But think of it: while people may forget what those things were exactly for, everybody knows the meaning of that disk-icon (“Save”/”Save as”/”Save All”) in their favourite editor, word processor and spreadsheet program.

If your kid (or kids, for that matter) asks you what exactly that ‘square thing is’ in the ‘File menu’ or ‘on the File toolbar’, think of this poor post, which was saved to this server after I pressed a ‘disk-icon-less save’ button.

1 The funny thing is, is that I can’t find that entry on his blog. But let me add to that, that it was my dad who came in between the two arguing twin brothers and kindly suggested I take it out and put it in the right way.

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Owner-draw

Posted on February 21, 2007 by Arthur

One point with which I want to close off for today: Ownerdraw stuff in C#. Yesterday, I was comparing code to create owner-draw listboxes and comboboxes in both Delphi and C# and noticed how remarkably easy it’s to switch from Delphi to C#: if you did this in Delphi before, the procedure is almost the same in C# (once again this is not surprising if you know who designed C#, earlier at xsamplex)

In Delphi for example, most VCL components have an ‘ownerdraw’ property: switching this one to either true (or to a specific enumerated value like ‘Ownerdrawfixed’), you generally capture two events to draw (and colour) individual items. The same is true for C#: you set the DrawMode property either to ‘OwnerDrawFixed’ or ‘OwnerDrawVariable’. Which one you choose depends on what you plan to do with the listbox.

As mentioned earlier, code to actually draw an item is done in an event: for this C# has the DrawItem event. I’m not going to explain the code, because it should speak for itself. 

private void cboDataSources_DrawItem(object sender, DrawItemEventArgs e)
{

    if (e.Index > -1)
    {
        TDataSourceType nt = 
           (cboDataSources.Items[e.Index] as TDataSource).SourceType;

        // Background first!
        e.DrawBackground();

        if (nt == TDataSourceType.System)
        {
            // Draw image from image list...
            imlSources.Draw(e.Graphics, e.Bounds.X, e.Bounds.Y + 1, 0);
            e.Graphics.DrawString(cboDataSources.Items[e.Index].ToString(),
                e.Font, Brushes.Black, e.Bounds.X + 18, e.Bounds.Y + 2);
        }

        // ... other code removed...
        //

        // and then draw the focus rectangle...
        e.DrawFocusRectangle();
    }
}

What do you mean, it smells like Delphi?

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Code and gear

Posted on February 21, 2007 by Arthur

Yesterday, I received an e-mail from CodeGear that the new Delphi platform has been released (or here for fancy images). A bit expensive and I fear for the future of the Delphi environment: notice how the environment now closely seems to mimic the Visual Studio IDE. If you need to create genuine (native) Win32 applications, I guess there are only 2 viable languages left: Object Pascal and C++.

Back in the days, Alfons and I (and many others) wondered why the makers of Turbo Pascal never considered standardizing the language: At that point, Alfons turned to C++ while I decided to focus on Delphi. Later on, on a professional level, I made the decision to leave Delphi and go on the SQL, C and Uniface route. That was the best decision I ever made in my career: first of all I was seriously thrown in the deep. Secondly, I learned to love VMS, and (from then on) other Unices.

But going back to CodeGear: I see that they released their PHP for Delphi product, which appears to be the Delphi IDE geared to create PHP websites (it doesn’t generate executables, no). It includes the (so called) PHP VCL. Right, the point of that is?1.

And maybe that’s the problem I have with older Borland products: They are generally good products and obviously, Delphi is one of them. But, the main question is, where is the roadmap (Missing roadmap from the CEO’s notes)?

1 I see that the PHP VCL has been open-sourced under the LGPL.

Posted in Ordinateurs, Programming | Tagged | Comments Off on Code and gear

Sources

Posted on February 19, 2007 by Arthur

I was reading this posting All these sourcesat Slashdot (“OSS Music composer gaining attention”), which is about a developer who has started a Buzz-like music ‘tracker’ in C#. The part that caught my eye at the linked article was the following paragraph (Italics mine):

The day the source code to Buzz got lost was a very sad day and there was absolutely nothing anyone could do. We’d just had an updated version of Buzz released and suddenly everyone realised there would *never* be another one.

Then I went back to the development log of Rosegarden (that outstanding MIDI composer for KDE/Linux, website), which reminds us that there was indeed a Windows branch:

1995-1996: Andy makes a sibling version of Rosegarden for Microsoft Windows, adding a significant amount of extra sequencer functionality. Then he loses the only copy of the source code in a hard disc crash. You can still have the 32-bit binaries if you like, but they might not work. Don’t come crying to us if you blow up your computer.

I think I have exactly one backup of my oldest sources, (covering 1995 to 2002) which have been put on (exactly) one 700 MB CD ROM. Compressed. Then, when working on my first Toshiba (2004?), all of my sources from then on where stored in a personal folder called ‘Sources’ (how original) with many (many) subfolders, all of them containing some sort of project, library or explanation. This folder has moved with me since then and currently covers 3.5 gig of space. Naturally, I always include the executables too (that is in case I ever lose my sources1). And what not.

If you just started programming and you think you’re a hotshot: Think about the Megabytes of code you can write in the next 10 years. Oh: and don’t forget to make backups too.

1 I did lose code over the years: Missing in action are the original WordPlay/Scrabble server (PHP, this is the one I once demoed to explain separation of UI, Code and data), a NNTP statistics collector (Python, this one actually worked too and I have no idea why I wrote it) and a directory synchronizer (Python too). I recently recovered that last one though (sheer luck) when cleaning up a directory on a ‘free hosting’ server (that was the same day I wrote code to extract passwords from a popular FTP program): The code actually still works, but I have no idea how or why I actually wrote it. I don’t understand the code either, anymore, which is worst than actually losing code).

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The S

Posted on February 18, 2007 by Arthur

The third week of February is just around the corner, and guess what? It’s almost Spring! Idle hope maybe, since we’re still skimming the low -10s. For now, on average, Winter seems to have been cold but not as cold as the previous years: just last week we missed out on the snow fun that came from the US.

I’m not sure if I mentioned this before: Local businesses have been slowly moving online. Quite a change compared to 6-7 years ago, when only a handful understood dynamic content. Two of the locals (recently) announcing their online presence are The Daily News and the commercial radiostation ‘The Mix-100.9’ nee, ‘Big Dog’. The News needs an ‘Extreme Makeover’ for sure: the site looks unattractive, unprofessional and chaotic. For local news, even CBC-NS does a better job. It’s a start, though.

I have mixed feelings about the site for the local radiostation: I don’t like the use of (some) external plugins and I’m not sure what the point is of live streaming their content. Would you listen to a local radiostation when you are abroad? Once again, Big Dog’s net presence is a start. I see that their site provides even more actual local news.

Posted in Truro NS | Tagged | 3 Comments

Singing fish (and other links)

Posted on February 16, 2007 by Arthur

Yesterday, I noticed that The Singing Fish has (officially) become part of AOL: it now redirects to Video@AOL.com. I generally stay clear from everything AOL, but the original Singing Fish was actually a good site to find audio fragments.

Over at Metafilter, a thread about the Japanese sex slaves (the European/Asian women forced into sex slavery by Japanese forces).

It’s official! Blame Hungary! (Notice the slightly fitting title of that article).

No Blame Canada today, but what is it with so many empty promises coming from Canada? There was that announcement of the first quantum computer made by a Canadian company, but apparently, it wasn’t as revolutionary as was promised. It reminds a bit of that 2003 cloning story: If your claim is discussed in the media, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a fact (more at Slashdot).

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Abug.

Posted on February 15, 2007 by Arthur

There’s a bug in the latest WP version that apparently puts extremely low numbers in the ‘attachment’s’ post_parent field: I haven’t figured out why this happens, but my suspicion is that the defect is in the update query in either a post or attachment1.

That said, it makes totally no sense to tie attachments to posts.

1A-Ha. It’s the Autosave.

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You asked: Satellite A100-TA9 review

Posted on February 14, 2007 by Arthur

ThereThe A100-TA9 we go again: you ask and I’ll take a look at it.

To start right off: It appears that Toshiba has been rushing to get laptops out before the official Vista release, last week. Their current A100 high-end laptop (the VA-9) features almost exactly the same case (the black/silver coloured one) but comes with slighly different hardware: for example the VA9 comes with a T5500 processor, while the TA9 has a T5600. Both are (as you probably know) Duo Core 2 processors (wikipedia). Other slight differences between the two is that the VA9 apparently comes with a 200 Gig harddrive, while the TA9 comes with ‘only’ 160 gig: additionally, the VA9 comes with Windows Vista Home Premium. Since the TA9 is basically a slightly older model (Fall 2006), it comes with Windows XP (or Media Center, generally). You may (or you may not) consider upgrading to Windows Vista (as discussed here).

Continue reading →

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Airport. Cake.

Posted on February 12, 2007 by Arthur

Minor things of note:

Travelers traveling to Canada via Nova Scotia: the Halifax International Airport has been officially renamed to Robert Stanfield Airport. If I’m not wrong, this is the 3rd Canadian airport named to a popular Canadian politician. Which reminds me of the question of today: why do Canadian airport codes start with a Y?

Earlier this weekend, I felt like making an ‘English cake’ (or pound cake) from scratch. It’s no secret that making these kind of cakes is part of the Dutch curriculum. Well, maybe it isn’t anymore, thanks to cutbacks in the educational system. Better yet, I made one when I was 12 or 13 years old. I have no idea what grade I got for it: I mean, cooking can’t be harder than Math or English, right? The recipe is so simple: 150 grams of flour, 150 grams of sugar, 150 grams of butter, 3 to 4 eggs, a lick of vanilla extract (or lemon juice). I forgot that we had a mixer somewhere, so I ended up mixing the stuff up with a whisk (“the hard way”). Right on. Keep mixing, bro! Cover for 1/2 hour and bake for another 1/2 to 1 hour after that. No baking powder needed.

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Keroncong Kemayoran

Posted on February 11, 2007 by Arthur

The week before we buried our dad, Alfons took it upon him to compile the music for the funeral, that is from beginning to end. I think I was asked about my preferences, but decided to leave most of the stuff to the ones who wanted to take part of this process of mourning. For the compilation, Alfons relied on my Dad’s iPod and picked out the music that Dad (literally) liked the most. One of them ended up to be the traditional Indonesian Keroncong Kemayoran (sample 40+seconds). I remember that many funeral attendees were surprised to hear the tunes of the Kemayoran during the lowering of the casket1.

That said, the web has pretty much nothing to tell about keroncong: there’s this (nifty) Google book about the ‘Music of Malaysia’, which (indeed) covers the chord progression of the typical Indonesian and Malaysian music styles. Or this (recently) uploaded video at YouTube featuring young Indonesian musicians2 playing the song during an Indonesian Night in Tempe, Arizona (the irony of the name of the city, if you’re familiar with the Malaysian language).

When I was a younger person, I didn’t understand my Dad’s mixed feeling towards the nation that gave birth to him, but chased him away ‘like a dog’ (as he frequently joked about). One can only assume that this particular Kroncong Kemayoran was the silver lining in his life: from the careless young kid hanging around with the native Indonesians, the Japanese occupation, to the Bersiap (the Indonesian independence fight).

Bitter, but sweet nonetheless.

1 I’m actually not sure if it was played during or after the lowering of the casket.
2 Courtesy of

Posted in Past-the-bridge | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Cold and photos

Posted on February 11, 2007 by Arthur

I read Stairwaythat it is going to be cold for a while: temperatures have been sticking between the -15 and lower for the last days, nee, weeks.

With these kind of temperatures, making pictures puts a toll on the charge of the camera batteries: Alfons passed on three to me, and today, one of them gave up within the hour. Not to mention that the lens’ autofocus mechanism doesn’t really like these temperatures either. I should find a way to keep the camera (and particularly the lens) warm, or within operating temperatures.

Talking about photos: CBC has photos of the snow storm that hit Europe, last Thursday. The series include a picture of The Netherlands; an uninspiring scene depicting a windmill in the snow.

And then, the winner of the 50th annual World Press Photo contest was announced: The winning picture shows a group of young Lebanese driving through a South Beirut neighbourhood. I was actually more impressed by this photo. Other galleries can be found here.

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