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Thursday, 2 September, 2010

02 Sep

I only spent 10 hours at work yesterday, but when I got home, I worked another hour remotely. All this bug fixing was supposed to have been done last week, but we are over our schedule by a couple of weeks. I have one more bug to fix and then I can take a bit of a rest.

 

I have been using gPodder to gather up podcasts during the week. I copy the files to a flash drive and take them to work. The only problem with this is that the way that gPodder collects podcasts ends up with you having a bunch of directories with md5sums as directory names and when the files are downloaded, they also have md5sums as names. I would like to know what the name of the file really is.

I have come up with a simple solution for this. I add an empty file to each directory. The file is named ‘podcastname.txt’, where podcastname changes for each podcast. I can then instantly identify the podcast and rename the MP3 file before I move it to the flash drive.

 

Silly sign of the day:

 

Free/Open Source Software

 

“It’s Mine, and You Have to Pay (and Pay and Pay) For It”

 

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1 September, 2010

01 Sep

I had a 13 1/2 hour work day yesterday, so when I got home, I went to bed. Nothing to report on home projects, then.

We finished up the debugging of all the code we created on Saturday, Sunday and Monday. I then spent the rest of the day fixing bugs we had accidentally introduced into the rest of the code by incorporating the new piece.

I thought I had one final bug to fix this morning. Every time I sleep with a programming problem, though, I either wake up with a solution or I figure out there are more bugs. In this case, it was both. That incredibly complex piece of code we spent so long on isn’t going to work in two very specific cases. Of course, since my unconscious mind came up with the new problems, it also supplied a possible solution. I will investigate that this morning, too.

 

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Free/Open Source Software

 

 
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Tuesday, 31 August, 2010

31 Aug

The reason I had to work the weekend is a section of the code that would not support searching over an extended time period with lots of data. Basically, since I was told not to use JOINs or UNIONs, as they were very slow with our tables. I was querying one table, getting a list of records for the main table, then generating SQL statements to query the main table for only those records. That works fine for a somewhat small set of results, but it is painfully slow and eats enormous amounts of memory for larger sets. It could even crash the program.

We ended up re-doing the lookup table so it could be easily and fairly quickly be used with the main table using JOINs and UNIONS. That puts the memory usage burden on the database server, which is better able to handle it. It also ups the complexity of the SQL statements I have to generate by a factor of at least three.

So since Saturday, I have been pair programming with a co-worker and we have managed to turn out some code that will produce the correct complex SQL statements. We still have some debugging to do, but that should be fairly straightforward, compared with the actual programming task. And we are only one day late on this.

 

I have also done some work on the soccer program at home. I have finished up the initialize practice sessions dialog, except that it is fed by another dialog that I have not yet done. I have had to modify the database table for this dialog a couple of times to take care of some error conditions. Specifically, it’s easier for the database server to set default values in the creation of a new record than it is for the program to go through and initialize those controls that are tied to that table. When I finish up the practice sessions dialog, then I can finish up the coding for the initialize practice sessions dialog.

 

Silly sign of the day:

 

Free/Open Source Software

 

“It’s Mine, and You Have to Pay (and Pay and Pay) For It”

 

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Monday, 30 August, 2010

30 Aug

I did not go to the North Idaho Fair, attend the Dutch oven contest or go to the technical meeting of the North Idaho Linux Users Group over the weekend. I worked. Both days, all day.

 

Silly sign of the day:

 

Free/Open Source Software

 

“It’s Mine, and You Have to Pay (and Pay and Pay) For It”

 

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Friday, 27 August, 2010

27 Aug

I worked on the soccer program again last night. I added a new table to the database, which will hold practice scheduling information. I also started added the dialog to populate that table. I should be able to finish that up over the weekend, if the North Idaho Fair and the North Idaho Linux Users Group don’t get in the way too much.

There is a Dutch oven contest at the North Idaho Fair tomorrow. It goes from about 10 in the morning until 3 in the afternoon. I did not enter the contest, but I will be talking to the participants. I’m always on the lookout for new recipes.

 

In order to test a TV tuner card I have, I installed Mythbuntu on an old computer that was hanging around here. Only problem is, the computer won’t boot from the hard disk, so I could not re-boot into the newly installed operating system. I will have to look into that, but I suspect the computer would be better off in a junk pile at F1 For Help.

 

Silly sign of the day:

 

Free/Open Source Software

 

“It’s Mine, and You Have to Pay (and Pay and Pay) For It”

 

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Thursday, 26 August, 2010

26 Aug

At work, it took me all day yesterday to write the code to sort the data and remove extraneous entries, but it works really well and I am very happy with it. I just hope they don’t come up with another zinger like that one, though. The file that contains that code is now well over twice as large as it was a couple of weeks ago. I hope I will have some time to refactor the code, so it isn’t as complex or as arcane as it is now.

This month I am celebrating my third year at this job. I am also celebrating my 26th year as a resident of the state of Idaho. I have no intention of changing either status, as I like both conditions.

 

I installed Mythbuntu 10.04 on my DVR computer last night. The install was a complete wipe out of the old 9.04 version, since I am not a big fan of upgrades. They usually cause more problems than they solve.

The installation went very smoothly, especially since I am familiar with the MythTV configuration. I have had a couple of problems, though. The sound was off when I finished the installation. I had to un-install and reinstall the sound driver to get it work. That is one problem I did not have with the older software.

I also had the same problem with 10.04 as I had with 9.04 when it came to playing DVDs and videos in the internal player. That player can’t seem to keep up with the data stream. I will have to point MythTV at the VLC player instead of using the internal player. No big deal – I like VLC.

 

Silly sign of the day:

 

Free/Open Source Software

 

“It’s Mine, and You Have to Pay (and Pay and Pay) For It”

 

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Wednesday, 25 August, 2010

25 Aug

The testers at work came up with a good bug for me to work on, so I had another late work night last night. They want me to sort the data I send to the front-end, so it only gets the amount of data it has requested. I can do that and have fleshed out an approach which I will implement completely this morning. It isn’t as hard to fix as some they’ve thrown my way, so I suppose I should be grateful.

 

I burned a Mythbuntu 10.04 CD last night and tested it on my DVR computer. It boots fine and it looks like it will be a nice upgrade for me. I will install it on the DVR tonight, if they don’t spring any more surprises on me at work. While it is installing, I hope to get some more work done on the soccer program.

 

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Free/Open Source Software

 

 
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Tuesday, 24 August, 2010

24 Aug

I have completely cleaned up all the bugs in my software at work. Until someone finds another bug, that is. There is always one more bug in any piece of software. I will be helping out others with their tasks as they need the help.

 

I have downloaded the latest version of Mythbuntu and I intend to do a fresh install on my DVR computer. to that end, I have also backed up all the videos I have on the box. There were 41 of them, and they take up about 200GB+. So it wasn’t a fast, easy task to back them up.

I hope the new version of MythTV has support for Hulu and that the internal video viewer has better support for encrypted DVDs. There are a few other things I would like to see cleaned up, but for now, they are just on my local wish list.

 

Silly sign of the day:

 

Free/Open Source Software

 

“It’s Mine, and You Have to Pay (and Pay and Pay) For It”

 

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Monday, 23 August, 2010

23 Aug

Once again, I worked over the weekend. I fixed a fairly nasty bug in my code that was introduced by my misunderstanding of what the front-end people told me they wanted. Either that, or they changed their minds sometime in the last few weeks and neglected to tell me at that time. Nice of them to tell me now.

 

I went to the Coeur d’Alene Wooden Boat Show on Saturday. I took lots of pictures and I will post them here when I get a chance. There were three hydroplanes at the show, too – the Miss Bardahl, Miss Treadway and Miss Wahoo. They were there for a demo on the lake. I didn’t stick around for the demo, as I had plenty to do at home.

I worked more on the soccer program. I finished up the Game Schedule dialog and the Available Positions dialog. I completed the layout of the Reset database dialog, but haven’t finished up the actually coding behind the dialog. I have to figure out how to empty a database table so I can finish that dialog. I also started to lay out the Practice Schedule dialog, but I have decided that the database table need to be redesigned so this dialog will be more efficient. My work at this point will return no tangible results until I finish it.

 

Silly sign of the day:

 

Free/Open Source Software

 

“It’s Mine, and You Have to Pay (and Pay and Pay) For It”

 

Local and Other News

 
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Friday, 20 August, 2010

20 Aug

At work, I have been fixing a few small bugs and have been testing searching the database using wildcard search parameters. I have found a few things that need fixing and have bugged them so I can officially fix them.

Since I went to the North Idaho Mineral Club meeting last night, I didn’t do any work on the soccer program. That doesn’t mean I’m not thinking about it, though. I keep a document on Google that is a To Do list for the program. When I think of something that needs doing, I put it in that document. When I finish something in the program, I highlight that object and strike through it. That way it’s still there for documentation and I know I have completed it.

 

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Free/Open Source Software

 

 
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