Skeletondanse

Setting the current time in a J2ME DateField with mode TIME

2009-01-12T14:09:00.002+02:00

So many wasted hours! arg!

If you wanted to create a DateField with only time input (i.e. ask the user to input the time only, not a date as well), with the default value the current system time, all the documentation would point to doing it like this:

DateField df = new DateField ("Enter time:", DateField.TIME);
df.setDate(new Date());

That doesn't work, though. To set the current time in a date field, you need to pass in a date with the year, month and day values of the epoch, and the time that you want to set into the field. Like this:

Calendar epoch = Calendar.getInstance();
epoch.setTime(new Date(0));

Calendar currentTime = Calendar.getInstance();
currentTime.setTime(new Date());
currentTime.set(Calendar.YEAR,epoch.get(Calendar.YEAR));
currentTime.set(Calendar.MONTH,epoch.get(Calendar.MONTH));
currentTime.set(Calendar.DATE,epoch.get(Calendar.DATE));

DateField df = new DateField ("Enter time:", DateField.TIME);
df.setDate(new Date());

JMF on Ubuntu

2008-08-25T23:59:00.003+02:00

Two tweaks seem to be needed to use JMF to capture video from a webcam on Ubuntu:

1. As described in this thread, you need to edit the install script (before running it as it erases itself when run!) you get off Sun's site
- edit the file using vim -b as it is partially a binary file
- change the arguments to tail from 'tail +309' to 'tail -n+309'

2. As described in this thread, copy all the libraries (.so files) in JMFHOME/lib/ to /usr/lib, and run ldconfig (as root) to update.For distribution you would obviously want to do this differently, this is just a quick hack to get started

7 months on..

2008-01-04T09:12:00.000+02:00

I can't say why I'm suddenly back at blogging. Possible factors include:

- New years' resolution to waste less time on Internet randomness
- Presence of 4 essay deadlines (for a total of 14000 words) in the next 7 days, hence a *very* good reason not to waste more time on Internet randomness
- The realization that, 7 months on, 'cups+java printing aargh' is still a recurrent theme in my life
- The almost total decline of all areas of my life not occurring indoors (or rather, in this one dodgy university-issue chair, in my very small room)

Whatever, welcome to 2007!

Except that of course, it's 2008 now. Give me a few months.

CUPS + Java Printing Aaargh

2007-06-04T10:58:00.000+02:00

After being able to print fine from Java in Ubuntu Edgy, I upgraded to Feisty and found that Java was now unable to detect printers using PrintServiceLookup.lookupPrintServices(null, null);

A couple of frustrating hours later, I found this article on the CUPS website explaining the problem (a Java bug, caused by updating to CUPS 1.2). The fix is:

In cupsd.conf, comment out:

#Listen /var/run/cups/cups.sock

leave uncommented:

Listen localhost:631

Another weird Java / CUPS problem I came across was that some Java versions will apparently refuse to print to printers with a - or an @ in the printer name. This wasn't my problem, but it's probably best avoiding these anyway.

shiver

2007-05-25T07:52:00.000+02:00

Kokstad is officially the coldest and most unfortunately named South African town I've been to. The small 800W heater I'm huddling next seems incapable of heating anything further than 30cm away, and burns everthing closer than that.

I'm flying home tomorrow after a week of interviewing district municipalities about water quality monitoring, and showing them a demo of the cellphone reporting system I've developed for my masters (and/or, work). The response has been very positive, particularly in rural districts where they struggle to reach many small, remote water supply schemes.

... and as if that wasn't enough grouching, the power just went out. This has happened a lot in the last week - 2 of the 6 interviews we did took place in the dark.

We've driven through some quite beautiful places, on some difficult roads - my cow avoidance skills are improving. Luckily, cows seem to have a kind of inertia about them - once they decide to head off slowly across the road, they generally keep moving in the same direction, albeit at their own pace and oblivious to passing cars.

Transkei traffic officials have a similar inertia - I swear the two who trapped me doing 77 in a 60 zone, were in exactly the same place the last time I was on this road, maybe 7 years ago.

There's snow everywhere! The oxcart maybe isn't as remarkable, although the photo was taken on the N2, which makes this one seriously brave ox.

Someone saying something worth saying

2007-04-13T10:23:00.000+02:00

"I am a humanist, which means, in part, that I have tried to behave decently without any expectation of regards or punishments after I'm dead."

"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:

THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"

Source of both quotes is slashdot's um, "epitaph thread" following the death of Kurt Vonnegut yesterday.

Lion's Head Sunset

2007-04-10T08:44:00.000+02:00

Rage, rage

2007-03-29T10:23:00.000+02:00

As promised, the GeekDinner rant:

I went along to the Cape Town GeekDinner last night, hoping I'd learn something, and meet some interesting fellow geeks, and generally interact face-to-face with a community that doesn't make a habit of it. It's been a year since my permanently-scarring attempt to infiltrate a CLUG meeting, and I was hoping this would be a slightly more welcoming group of people.

Which they were. It was all going ok, until there was a mostly naked women offered free when you buy space in Teraco's data centre. The presenter showed the data centre layout, the state-of-art generator and fire supression system... and a mostly naked women. Pointing out that, when you buy a whole cage, you get one of those free.

Hold on, what??!

/me turns a deep shade of red, and begins clawing the tablecloth.

What was most disturbing was that none of men around me seemed to see what I was unhappy about. Let me put it this way: Imagine if the presenter joked that you get a strong, strapping member of a marginalised race group free with your server (to carry you there on a litter. or, whatever else you desire. He is yours, after all, he came free with the server). Would this be appropriate? socially acceptable? the norm? No, of course not - I regret even having to use this offensive and degrading example.

So, you wonder why there are so few women in IT. duh.

Please realise that this rant is not, in fact, because I am uncomfortable with this kind of raging misogyny. Those of use who have been lucky enough not to be discouraged by families, sexist teaching, and being locked out of the computer science "clubhouse", are all too familiar with it. What does bother me is that it only perpetuates a view of women that most men hold, consciously or not. I bear no malice towards the friendly guy who, when I tried to ask what Ubuntu version (Kubuntu, EduBuntu, Ubuntu / Dapper, Edgy?) was being passed around, explained to me that "oh, it's just a Linux distro". However, I really am getting tired of having to prove myself every single time I meet new people, just because I'm female and work in IT, and your social conditioning doesn't expect my existence.

To the GeekDinner crowd: I hope you get it right next time. I would have loved to explain to everyone there exactly why I wanted to lynch the guy from Teraco, but I'll settle for this: Please open your eyes to how you view women, and how your actions reinforce stereotypes that the world would be much better off without. And, when you realise there's a problem, and see others engaged in exacerbating it, stick your neck out for a change. As the Encouraging Women in Linux HOWTO points out,

Every time a woman sees a sexist joke or comment, she feels angry, left out, and belittled. Every time a woman sees a man stand up against this behavior, she feels included and valued.

For a change, I'd like to interact with this community as geek first, women second.

The Devil's Actuary

2007-03-18T00:34:00.000+02:00

Came across this during some hard drive spring cleaning - it was lurking in my first-ever Debian install. Written for a short story competition in 2nd year.

----

It was a bright spring morning, alive with birdsong and a gentle breeze, when the actuary had his first visitation from the devil. This event, which lasted a little over a minute, would not have been remarked upon by even the most observant passer-by. Few people risk a second glance at a dark-suited man with a forked tail, reddish and smoking slightly, draped casually over the back of his chair.

The actuary, sweating slightly, was suffering from a severe hangover. One minute he was working late at the office, comfortably siphoning off the retirement funds of little old ladies, and the next he was accosted and dragged to a smoke filled bar by a gang of marauding co-workers. Thinking back, the sudden increase in paedophilia accusations against jolly old men and intra-office flirtation should have warned him that it was Office Christmas Party time again.

One thing led to another. Force-fed on expensive brandy, forcibly rebuffed by inumerable voluptuous secretaries, he had ended the night grateful to have no memory of it.

That morning, things had taken a turn for the worse. For one thing, the office airconditioning unit seemed to be malfunctioning, radiating a fiery heat that smelt slightly of sulphur. Outside, the birdsong had taken on a desperate quality, interspersed by the low hunting mewls of thousands of jet-black cats. If he has listened closely enough, the actuary would have heard tiny avian death rattles, and the growling of larger feline stomachs. The devil took great care with atmospherics. Punctually at 9am, a billowing cloud of acrid smoke filled the actuary's office. As it cleared, he realised that a small, wiry man had appeared. The man coughed viciously for a moment, then brushed off his
suit and pulled from his briefcase a grubby document. "Right," he said, "Let's have it then."

"W-What?" stammered the confused actuary, noticing as he spoke the deceptively sharp pair of horms protruding from his visitor's head. It had become very hot, and he was struggling to think clearly. "Your Soul, please, without delay. You mortals underestimate the precise nature of timing in the torture business. I have a man stretching on the automatic Rack back in hell, and if I leave him too long he will die. That's not really the point of eternal torment, is it?"

"A-a-automatic Rack?" asked the actuary, shaking quite uncontrollably. "Oh yes, hell is very advanced, you know. We have such a surplus of Atheist engineers, really quite convenient. They suffer terribly, he he, when they find out they aren't God. You should see what they've done with the pit of serpents, really very efficient... You do know that you sold me your soul, don't you? It was last night, and a damn mess you made too, all that beer spilt on the contract. I must say, I'm looking forward to having you. We always need actuaries. People are very fickle in their beliefs, we really can't predict or manage that risk without you." The devil winked. It was not a friendly wink. He fingered somthing on his belt that looked like a very small, very sharp drill. The actuary had begun to lose hope that its presence evidenced his visitor's interest in woodwork.

"Oh, yes," the devil continued, "You're going to tell me you were drunk? If your mother, who I have incidentally had the pleasure of meeting personally, by the way, I believe she was an fornicator? Very unfortunate. We have ways and means and whips and chains for that sort. Anyway, she should have taught you that alcohol was the devil's poison." The drill-like item was being waved closer and closer to the actuary's shivering body, and the devil revved it every now and again.

"You know," said the devil, "I think you'll enjoy hell. I do. Nothing beats wailing and gnashing of teeth when it comes to job satisfaction. Being the evil incarnate is something i'm really passionate about." He revved the drill again, and smiled to reveal the foul glint of his razor-sharp teeth. "I used to be an actuary, you know, but that was hardly evil at all. I only did it for the money."

This Valentines' Day, Give Dog Food

2007-02-14T00:09:00.000+02:00

Valentines' day is commercialised, unnecessary, miserable if you're single, and possibly expensive if you're not. You can approach it being bitter and cynical ('I don't do Valentines' day.') or go along with the herd but there isn't much in between.

I'm not really bitter - love is worth celebrating! I have happy memories from Valentines' day, and happy memories from other days, and other kinds of love.

So, here's the idea:

There are many ways that the cost of dinner and a movie / a box of chocolates / whatever else you'd buy on Valentines' day, could be spent. For organisations that rely on donations, this money (or a few hours of your time) could make a huge difference. If you're single this year, or just not into the whole Valentines' day hype, have a look at GreaterGoodSA and see if you can find a way to share some love anyway.

Since I woke up this morning not next to a lover, but next to a small tortoiseshell cat left as a tiny kitten in a stormwater drain, my R50 went to TEARS, the animal rescue society that found her. I feel warm already, and anyway, good sex and sunsets are free :p

Xorg drivers for VIA Unichrome Pro P4M890

2007-02-06T10:56:00.000+02:00

After an entire day with my monitor refusing to refresh at > 60hz, this is somewhere between a rant and a howto - if you're in the same situation, you'll understand! Anyway, the background is that I bought (for a site) the cheapest Foxconn motherboard Sahara sells, which comes with onboard graphics in the form of the VIA P4M890 integrated graphics chipset. Install Ubuntu 6.10, boot, and discover that everything works... except my screen resolution settings. Even when the screen resolution graphical config tool says it's running at 85hz, the way my brain squirms every time I look at the screen tells me it isn't. After establishing that the problem isn't the cheap Sahara monitor (the smallest 17" I've ever seen) or an xorg.conf setting, it's off to the Ubuntu forums, where I find a foretaste of things to come in the form of one user's comment

'Oh, that's a LOVELY piece of hardware *rolls eyes*'

To cut a long and horribly flickering story short, VIA does in fact provide linux drivers for the P4M890 chipset - they're just in the basement, in a locked cabinet hidden in a disused lavatory behind a door with a sign reading "beware of leopard". In fact, they can be found at the Via Arena site, and there's a recent howto here.

Useful things to note, or, avoid making the mistakes I made:

There are xorg and XFree86 drivers here - read the fine print carefully. if you find the install script looking for Xfree86-specific things, don't try to change it, you've downloaded the wrong driver package.
There is also an installation guide, written by someone who does not speak much english. This is ironic, because all their PR material is written by a gushing woman name Fiona Gatt, who speaks perfect english.
The installation guide is supplemented (and also contradicted at times) by the files Installation.txt and src/release.txt inside the source tarball. None of these make much sense alone.
Don't try the OpenChrome drivers, because although in general they seem to be a better idea than the VIA-provided drivers, they don't yet support this chipset (although other Unichrome Pro chipsets apparently are fine)

Lastly, the VIA arena site is almost calculated to instill rage in anyone looking there for graphics drivers. I AM HERE BECAUSE MY REFRESH RATE IS 60HZ, I DO NOT WANT TO BUY YOUR STUFF. OR CLICK ADSENSE ADS. OR GET UNREAL TOURNAMENT MAPS. I JUST WANT MY SCREEN TO STOP FLICKERING. Everything is white. You cannot find xorg drivers unless you know the direct URL. The latest packaged graphics drivers are for Fedora Core 4. aargh.

Underwater Photos

2007-02-06T06:50:00.000+02:00

Taken by my brother over December, here. I'm the scuba diver in the bubbles :p The rest of the photos were taken without scuba gear ('stealth mode'), which apparently is why the turtle was so curious.

Ubuntu Live CD Customization II

2007-02-01T09:45:00.000+02:00

I posted this a while ago, and I've recently updated the Live CD mentioned in the post. It's still based on Ubuntu Dapper Drake, and I still used the howto here to get the basics. A useful find was this script, which frees about 100Mb by removing all the non-essential packages.

Here are few other tweaks:

To place an icon on the desktop when the CD loads, put the relevant .desktop file in /etc/skel/desktop
To put files in the user's home directory, place them in /etc/skel
If one of the files you want the user to be able to access easily is a pdf (such as a user guide), place a shortcut on the desktop be be warned that evince (the standard pdf viewer) doesn't open maximized. Annoyingly, you can't control this from the command line either. What you can do is leave a "last used settings" file in the user's home directory, to fool evince into thinking that the last pdf it opened was opened maximised. The easiest way to do this is to open any pdf, maximise it, close evince and copy the file ~/.gnome2/evince/ev-metadata.xml to /etc/skel/.gnome2/evince/ev-metadata.xml on the livecd.
Usually you'll want to get rid of the "install" icon on the desktop. This avoids the user accidentally installing ubuntu with the CD you swore wouldn't touch their existing operating system. To find the .desktop file to edit (make it point to something else you'd like on your desktop - although according to this howto, you should just be able to edit the script that copies it on, which didn't work for me) use locate ubiquity*.desktop
To change the desktop background to your own 1600×1200 png: Edit the file /var/lib/gconf/debian.defaults/%gconf-tree.xml and change the string /usr/share/backgrounds/warty-final-ubuntu.png to point to your file.

Hungry Ghosts and Misc. Links

2007-02-01T00:38:00.000+02:00

According to Japanese mythology, I'm being tormented at night by

"spirits of jealous or greedy people who, as punishment for their mortal vices, have been cursed with an insatiable hunger for blood"

otherwise known as mosquitos (wikipedia: Hungry ghost). Until DDT is back on pharmacy shelves, there's only one real soultion to late-night buzzing: Lemmings (thanks mike for the link)

For the morning after, though, there's always Caffeine. This helpful site tells you how much of it you'll find in a long list of drinks and foods. I particularly like the Death By Caffeine Calculator.

Another Year

2007-01-24T06:04:00.000+02:00

I like the irony of this photo - watching the sun rise from Lion's Head, while far below, my car is being broken into.

That said, it was a great sunrise.

In other news, NOFX are rumored to be coming to SA... again. I was always a bit cynnical, and this is the third time I've heard The NOFX Rumor, but for the sake of everyone who cut their punk scene teeth on this band I hope it's true. I wasn't among those, and there are a few punk bands I'd rather see - Strung Out and Bad Religion at the top of that list, also Thursday and Rise Against. And Lagwagon last year were great.

It was apparently 35 in the City Bowl today, so I've stayed at work in the semi-aircon until it cools down a bit. I have more to post, later, but I've run out of time. There is cold beer in the fridge at home.

THE MORE OF THIS YOU READ

2007-01-19T03:31:00.000+02:00

[From a full-page ad in the Mail&Gaurdian this week - source: www.tectonic.co.za]

Last year, Telkom recorded a staggering R9.3 billion in pure profit. At your expense. Read on and find out why South Africans continue to pay some of the highest prices for telephony services in the world. Don't expect the government to step in. They couldn't give a hoot. They've got a 38% shareholding. This in itself is like a ticket to act with impunity. And anyway, it's the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) which acts as the watchdog for the telecommunications industry. Their central role is to regulate telecommunications in the public interest. So how come they're not barking noisily and waking up the country about the fact that South Africans pay five times as much for a local call now than they did in 1996? Or that internet access in South Africa is among the most expensive in the world (in fact, you'll pay less for broadband in Morocco, Egypt, Botswana, and Mozambique)? Or that Telkom is only too happy to pay a R15 million fine for failing to deliver basic services where "it was not economical to do so" (Hold the phone, could that be your area they were talking about?) Worse still, Telkom has laid off over 35 000 staff over the past seven years, ensuring that its profits continue sky-rocketing while the rest of the country continues at a snail's pace, waiting up to six inexcusable months or more, to get connected. To anything. And all this from a company that is supposedly "proudly South African"? Indeed, something is very wrong when the only way the public can get through to Telkom is by running a full page newspaper advertisement. Because clearly, Telkom isn't answering the phone.

How Far We've Come

2007-01-15T01:41:00.000+02:00

A bit hesitant to post this, you're never sure who really reads a blog (and i'm hoping my parents have lost the address!) Also, I can't find the site I intially read the article on, and since I'm at work it's going to be hard to search much.

Ah, what the hell: here's the link

I found this while wandering unrelatedly around the web, as you do. How much is true I don't know (a calabash of buzzing bees? hmm) but it's interesting to see how far we've come, and to wonder how history will view our assumptions about sex.

So, it'd be nice if someone would comment for once.... What could be as twisted to our great grandchildren as some of this seems to us? Any ideas?

Help I Can't Think of a Title Devoid Of Tastless Sheep Jokes

2007-01-07T07:18:00.000+02:00

You can't go wrong with gay sheep jokes, to start with, but this article contains some interesting science, too. Turns out that around 8% of rams actually prefer other rams, and "will swiftly pounce on any ram stuck in a fence, the sheep equivalent of prison showers". Ewes, too, might be lesbian, but since female sheep express a desire for sex by standing still, no-one's quite sure (and there may be a lot of frustrated female sheep).

The real punchline, though, is that an actual biological difference (in the size of the hypothalamus), identifiable from the third trimester of pregnancy, has been identified as the cause of homosexual behaviour in sheep. Sheep really are born gay or straight, the first hard evidence scientific evidence of this in mammals.

It's worth reading the whole article, but this fact alone, and the distress it should cause religions the world over, will have me sleeping very soundly tonight.

An End To Hunger

2007-01-06T11:33:00.000+02:00

2 weeks in Mozambique in December (it's 30 degrees... at midnight) is great for sleeping, reading, daydreaming and anything else not requiring actually moving from your hammock. It's just too hot. Since mike moved in last year our house has read quite a bit of China Mieville, and I borrowed Iron Council (closer to a fever dream than some of my fever dreams. brilliant) to take with me, and to use to fend off giant flying insects. I also bought Looking For Jake (his latest book, a collection of short stories) before I left. One story I particularly like is An End To Hunger, conveniently published online by The Register. It's worth reading, particularly for the email from 'Very Hungry Foreign People' on page 3.

Unrelatedly, we managed to get my tattoo to scan at the end of last year :) It's healed well, and I have a few more pictures that I'll download and post. The phone that scanned it successfully was a Nokia N70.

Also, I've finally given in and joined Facebook - suddenly, it seems important to keep in touch, and I'm terrible at it most other ways. Thanks chris for helping with that, your newyears party was great!

1000 more words

2006-12-07T00:15:00.000+02:00

From the collection of Zapiro cartoons on www.sackmanto.co.za - with apologies for the copyright violation. The site also as some interesting quotes from South Africa's Health Minister, like these:

(Aids)... "could also be a God-given opportunity for moral and spiritual growth, a time to review our assumptions about sin and morality".
mg.co.za - 1/4/03

"Look at what Bush is doing. He could invade." ... Manto on why money needs to be spent on defence rather than treating AIDS
Sapa - 19/12/02

Like Majick

2006-12-05T08:54:00.000+02:00

A useful script for batch image processing on Linux using ImageMajick. I found this while looking for a way to resize a whole directory of images - it has a slightly frustrating interface, but it works, and the resulting 150x200 images, all seen together, look effective. The three above were taken here.

Fog Of War

2006-11-06T10:45:00.000+02:00

I'm used to a bit of propoganda with my morning coffee, but this story is the most jaded reporting of a scientific study I've seen in a while.

Amsterdam - Occasional and moderate abuse of the drugs cannabis and ecstasy does not lead to long-term memory impairment or affect ability to concentrate, according to a study conducted at Utrecht University in the Netherlands.

The findings are contained in a doctoral thesis by Gerry Jager, who conducted her research in combination with the Academic Medical Centre in Amsterdam.

"Occasional use of ecstasy (an average of a total of two pills) or frequent cannabis use (several marijuana cigarettes a week over a period of an average of four years) does not lead to long-term abnormalities in memory or ability to concentrate, or related brain activity," Jager found

Abuse? No, that's a Bad Thing and shouldn't be allowed. Abuse, of course, is what happens when people do drugs - we use alcohol to relax, religion to belong, the media to influence how people think but that's not Abuse, theBad Thing.

Another story pops up under related news: Apparently, Europeans have a new favourite drug.

Hallucinogenic "magic mushrooms" are the latest trendy drug among young Europeans because of a growing interest in organic products and Internet marketing

All well, and by the sound of it, pretty good. Not for long: cue Doom, Gloom, Lies (Damned Lies) and Statistics.

According to the European Commission, more than 8 000 people - mainly young men in their 20s and 30s - die of drug overdoses each year. The total number of drug-related deaths - including accidents, violence and Aids - is estimated at over 20 000.

Alright, that's a fair number, and drug overdose deaths are tragic, and sometimes preventable. Whether they're preventable by enforcement is pretty debatable though. For deaths that are 100% preventable though, try these:

Some 70 000 women worldwide die from unsafe abortions each year while many more suffer serious injuries, especially in poor countries, health experts said on Monday.

The above-mentioned "Magic Mushrooms" article also exposed a hitherto-unknown illicit trade: Heroine Imports. Apparently

flows of cocaine and heroine into the continent are rising.

Crates of Wonderwomen? Joans of Arc? Seems a shame - everyone needs a heroine in their life :p

Today

2006-10-30T04:22:00.000+02:00

Today is the greatest
Day I ve ever kown
Cant live for tomorrow
Tomorrows much too long
I burn my eyes out
Before I get out

I wanted more
Than life could ever grant
Bored by the chore
Of saving face

Today is the greatest
Day I have ever known
Cant wait for tomorrow
I might not have that long
Ill tear my heart out
Before I get out

Pink ribbon scars
That never forget
Ive tried so hard
To cleanse these regrets
My angel wings
Were bruised and restrained
My belly stings

Today is
Today is
Today is
The greatest day
That I have ever known

I want to turn you on
I want to turn you round
I want to turn you on
I want to turn you

Today is the greatest
Today is the greatest day
Today is the greatest day
That I have ever known

--

Smashing Pumpkins - Today

Ribbit

2006-10-30T00:47:00.000+02:00

Every Monday needs some Weird. And there are few things weirder than a rain of frogs.

Generating a User Manual From JavaHelp

2006-10-30T00:30:00.000+02:00

I'm working on an application that needs to have the user documentation accessible when you click the big, bright, friendly 'help' button, and also as a printed manual. We're using JavaHelp, which has its moments but seems to do the job, and was quite painless to get going.

JavaHelp needs pages to be in html 3.2 (why? why?) - this means you need to be careful when writing / editing help with a wysiwyg editor. On my system, I get strange-looking pages when editing with nvu, but openoffice works fine.

JhelpDev is a JavaHelp generator. It’s easy to use - create your html pages then use the TOC editor to organise them into a table of contents. Then, export the helpset and related files. The methods to create and display the help from java are:

 /*
  * This method creates the help frame
  *
  */

 private void createHelp() {
  try {
   ClassLoader cl = Welcome.class.getClassLoader();
   URL url = new URL((new File(".")).toURL(), "doc" + File.separator
     + "help.hs");
   JHelp helpViewer = null;
   // Create a new JHelp object with a new HelpSet.
   helpViewer = new JHelp(new HelpSet(cl, url));
   helpViewer.setCurrentID("top");

   frame.setSize(800, 600);
   frame.setTitle("iDART Help System");

   frame.getContentPane().add(helpViewer);
   frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.DISPOSE_ON_CLOSE);

  } catch (Exception e) {
   System.err.println("API Help Set not found");
   e.printStackTrace();
  }
 }

 /*
  * This method displays the help
  *
  */
 private void showHelp() {
  frame.setVisible(true);

 }

Once you’ve got the help working fine from the application, you can turn it into a user manual by:

Generating an ordered list of the files you want to concatenate into the help. Since this order is probably the same as the order of the TOC entries for JavaHelp, it’s easiest to just extract the file names from the xml TOC file.
Use the ordered list as input to htmlcat, a perl script for concatenating html files. This should give you one long html file, in the correct order
Open the html file in your word processor and save it as a document. Insert page breaks as necessary.

The Needle

2006-10-15T07:27:00.000+02:00

My shotcode tattoo - still healing, but it did scan on Friday, with some patience and careful positioning of my head! It didn't point to exactly the right url (something about Sprite, in Spanish..) but i'm still really pleased with it. Better pic to follow

2 Days

2006-10-06T10:38:00.000+02:00

Rocking the Windswept Tundra

2006-10-01T07:09:00.000+02:00

So, despite no daisies in anywhere Rocking the Daisies (in a cow field somewhere near Darling) was good, muddy fun. No clean water, except Valpre from the bar at R8 for 500ml, and also the heavy rain on Saturday night. The Rudimentals, Hogg Hoggidy Hog constituted the punk side of the gig and were fun as always - the Finklesteins also played, giving everyone a chance to trip over eachothers tents looking for the showers (which weren't there. ha ha got you with the flyer, didn't we). Other bands were The Parlotones, who actually got to play this time, and The Dirty Skirts - really good despite being achingly indie and looking very cold in their skinny jeans.

Anyway the whole gig was in aid of South Africans Against Drunk Driving, which is an admirable cause but I think maybe misdirected. Their strategy seems to revolve around stricter laws and better enforcement - both important but not the whole story. I'd rather see the money they raise going towards providing alternative transport so that there is no reason to drink and drive. Enforcement is not a priority to an already stretched police force and judicial system. Along with the taxes already imposed on all alcohol, and the annual contribution of SAB etc to the Industry Association for Responsible Alcohol Use, this could fund some kind of subsidised-but-not-free taxi scheme, which could be much more effective.

Anyway, a cool festival - someone doing something isin any case better than the rest of us just blogging about how things should be done!

Spitting Mad

2006-09-26T07:45:00.000+02:00

From an article on iol today, titled "Zuma Provokes Ire Of Homosexuals"

Speaking at Heritage Day celebrations in KwaDukuza on Sunday, Zuma said: "When I was growing up an ungqingili (a gay) would not have stood in front of me. I would knock him out."

The Sowetan quoted Zuma as saying that same sex marriages were "a disgrace to the nation and to God".

What kind of heritage will we have to celebrate, 5 years from now?

"The stage is set to rip the wings from the
butterfly
Pull the curtain back
Kill all the
houselights"

Thursday, M.Shepard

Life's all about free hats

2006-09-26T01:58:00.000+02:00

Get tested for HIV and get a free 'UCT - taking responsibility' hat! Seriously! Unless they've run out of hats but then you get a water bottle!

But ye, go, get tested - for reasons, see previous post. If you're not at UCT try ATICC in plumstead (021 797 3327). It's also free but you need to make an appointment.

Now to figure out how to type with my post-fingerprick-test sore finger...

Real AIDS Statistics

2006-09-19T05:30:00.000+02:00

A survey published in 2004 found that South Africans spent more time at funerals than they did having their hair cut, shopping or having barbecues. It also found that more than twice as many people had been to a funeral in the past month than had been to a wedding (source: www.avert.org)

Error & Error

2006-09-18T01:48:00.000+02:00

Winston Churchill Quote:

"The United States invariably does the right thing, 
after having exhausted every other alternative."

Another, brought on by listening to microbiologists all week 
(me, not Winston Churchill):

"The water was not fit to drink. To make it palatable, 
we had to add whisky. By diligent effort, I learnt to like it."

make it a double...

Italian sheep

2006-09-08T05:41:00.000+02:00

In my day we passed notes from desk to desk

2006-08-28T01:42:00.000+02:00

and wrote each other long, rambling letters. and day-dreamed, and decorated our school diaries. It's not like we actually listened in class.

I exaggerate, we did listen - when we were being told something we knew we wanted to hear. But every time a new tech craze hits high school, parents seize the opportunity to bemoan their children's 'addiction' to this alien thing, and demand that it be banned. This time it's Mxit, and of course they're all using it to access hardcore porn (hmm. that would be pretty frustrating over GPRS, even if Mxit wasn't just a chat service with no way to send files afaik).

So I was wandering around wikipedia thinking about the blurry and somewhat moralising way we define addiction (and porn, but that's a topic for another day), and I came across some interesting stuff:

The wikipedia article on addiction describes the theories of Thomas Szasz as follows:

In many of his works, he argues that addiction is a choice, and that a drug addict is one who simply prefers a socially taboo substance rather than, say, a low risk lifestyle. In 'Our Right to Drugs', Szasz cites the biography of Malcolm X to corroborate his economic views towards addiction: Malcolm claimed that quitting cigarettes was harder than shaking his heroin addiction. Szasz postulates that humans always have a choice, and it is foolish to call someone an 'addict' just because they prefer a drug induced euphoria to a more popular and socially welcome lifestyle.

In a sense, being 'addicted' to a substance is no different from being 'addicted' to a job that you work everyday.

I would definitely say the man has a point. Addiction to hard work, addiction to being the rescuer, the hero (aid workers, anyone?), addiction to relationships that really aren't all that good for you.

I also found a description of a study on addictive behaviour called Rat Park. Here's the introductory paragraph although I'd recommend reading the whole article.

Rat Park was a study into drug addiction conducted in the 1970s by American psychologist Bruce K. Alexander at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada.

Alexander's hypothesis was that drug addiction is a myth, and that the apparent addiction to morphine commonly observed in laboratory rats exposed to it is attributable to their living conditions, and not to any addictive property of the drug itself. [1] He told the Canadian Senate in 2001 that experiments in which laboratory rats are kept isolated in cramped metal cages, tethered to self-injection apparatus, show only that "severely distressed animals, like severely distressed people, will relieve their distress pharmacologically if they can." [2]

To test his hypothesis, Alexander built Rat Park, a 200-square-foot (18.6 m2) housing colony, 200 times the square footage of a standard laboratory cage. There were 16–20 rats of both sexes in residence, an abundance of food, balls and wheels for play, and private places for mating and giving birth. [3] The results of the experiment appeared to support his hypothesis. Rats who had been forced to consume morphine hydrochloride for 57 days on end were brought to Rat Park and given a choice between plain tap water and water laced with morphine. For the most part, they chose the plain water. "Nothing that we tried," Alexander wrote, "... produced anything that looked like addiction in rats that were housed in a reasonably normal environment." [1]

Weird Weekend List

2006-08-24T01:31:00.000+02:00

1 house, not ours
1 life-size paper mache sheep
2 bottles UV hairspray
1 carpet, with nothing left to lose
1 blow-up dolphin
1 person in full crocodile suit

"What? No. We can't stop here. This is bat country. "

There are times when being engulfed by mountains are the only signs of safety I know

2006-08-20T08:59:00.000+02:00

There are places like the bluffs in Kasilof

and the gravel pits in Sand Lake,
that most of us will never forget.
Those are the things I wanted to speak of,
those are the things that I dream about,
those are the things that I will definitely die with,

'Song for the Fisherman' by 36 Crazyfists.

There are places I'll never forget. That I'll die with.

The edge of the sandspit at pomene, in the gentle late afternoon sun and warm wind

Lake Victoria just before dawn

The rocks on the northern side of Llandudno, staring down into the kelp and the surging sea

Looking across False Bay from platbank, below Cape Point lighthouse

Rocamadour, sacred and intense and beautiful

De Waal Drive at night, looking out over the endless lights

A warm rock on Southern Cross Farm, above the flooded Mooi river

The night sky spreading out above a sand dune at Jangamo, alive with shooting stars

Memstone

So many more. Thinking about this post was the best therapy, and the best inspiration I've found in a long time.

Hi Kim :p

2006-08-04T13:40:00.000+02:00

Aaagh! Give me back my thumb!

2006-07-28T09:28:00.000+02:00

Enucleation Attack: A particularly gruesome method of defeating biometric authentication methods, by physically removing a body part from the user in order to present it to the authentication device

from the Glossary of Computer Security Terms

mutter mutter

2006-07-21T14:53:00.000+02:00

Subverting Subversion

2006-07-21T11:52:00.000+02:00

Background: I committed a whole lot of files to an svn repository, then realised I really didn't want them there at all, and wanted to roll back the whole repository to before the commit happened. I couldn't find an easy way to do this - but here's an effective if nasty little hack, which will work if you have a working copy elsewhere representing the state you want to get the repository back to.

1. Make a temp dir, and copy your working copy to it.
2. Remove all the svn meta-information (found this here)

find . -name .svn -print0 | xargs -0 rm -rf

3. Check out the project from the repository, and copy all the files from your temp dir into the new project dir
4. Commit all the changes

The repository should be back to before your unwanted changes.

I'm hoping someone comes up with the 'right' way to do this, but for now I'm posting to avoid needing to figure it out again the next time.

Mind the Communists

2006-07-06T13:18:00.000+02:00

Kind of as a sequel to my post on powerloss, here's a link to the one of the worst ideas to come out of South Africa in quite a while.

www.crimexposouthafrica.co.za is a site designed to 'inform foreign tourists about South Africa's crippling violence' (this according to IOL). While I wouldn't disagree that a problem exists, and quite a severe one, scaring off foreign tourists will hurt the economy, increase unemployment and extreme poverty, and undoubtedly increase the crime rate.

I'm all for warning tourists to be careful, and also for making crime stats as accurate as possible and as widely available as possible. This isn't the purpose of the site though - no statistics, rather 'first-hand accounts' (read: bias) and 'gruesome pictures' (read: gory voyeurism). Not to mention revenue-generating advertising opportunities (absolutely everywhere) for the site's poor victimised creator. Please Neil Watson, emigrate now - I may be tempted to organise some mob justice.

Checking google to see who else was talking about the site, I came across this gem from the Boerevryheid Forum (who else):

"Hierdie is net wat die wereld nodig het om ver eens en vir altyd die gru dade van die komunistiese regering van nader te beskou.

Ons as Boerevolk moet sulke inisiatiewe 100% ondersteun."

Beware the Red Menace, because as much as you might like to believe it, this isn't 2006.

Another post, from an opinion page on litnet

Natuurlik wil die regime niks aan misdaad doen nie, omdat hy self met misdadige middele - terreur, wetteloosheid en anargie - aan bewind gekom het.

Custom Ubuntu Dapper LiveCD

2006-06-13T18:12:00.000+02:00

I used this really good howto, and the new Ubuntu Dapper Drake liveCD (the liveCD and the install CD are now the same) to make a demo CD so that potential clients can test an application without installing anything. It also stops them from doing strange and wonderful things with the installer, and calling in a panic when it doesn't work!

The howto is really all you need - everything works as it is described. I removed some of the language packs to free space, and installed Sun's JRE1.5 as well as PostgreSQL. To load a database into PostgreSQL, you have to start the database server inside the chroot (usual /etc/init.d/postgresql start) and also remember to stop it before leaving the chroot and unmounting - but that's about as complicated as it gets.

The finished liveCD is available on the iDART product page.

We love your apathy

2006-05-26T10:27:00.000+02:00

Saw this link (www.powerloss.co.za) on chris's site. Basically a hellkom copy ; unfortunately it's a poor one, and as far as i'm concerned it's missing the point quite drastically. Hellkom is about pushing for deregulation in the telecoms industry - we need this, we really do. Powerloss is about whining, and not much else.

This really annoys me, not least the response to it (featured on 5fm? come on.) I completely agree that there are problems with Eskom, with the governement, with many, many things - DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. On a side note, there is absolutely no reason to repeatedly make your point with multiple exclamation marks. !!

There's so much real, relevant advocacy out there. If you're a designer looking for a project, you could look here.

I'm much too idealistic, as usual.

./configure problems - MapServer on FreeBSD

2006-05-18T13:07:00.000+02:00

It's very frustrating to be told by a script that something you know is at a particular location, isn't. Like this:

# ./configure --includedir=/usr/local/include --libdir=/usr/local/lib --with-jpeg=/usr/local/lib --with-png=/usr/local/lib --with-gd=/usr/local/lib --with-libiconv=/usr/local/lib --with-tiff=/usr/local/lib --with-xpm=/usr/X11R6/lib/

configure: checking whether we should include JPEG support...
"Could not find jpeglib.h or libjpeg.a/libjpeg.so in /usr/local/lib."

# ls /usr/local/lib | grep libjpeg.so

libjpeg.so
libjpeg.so.9

(It's...right...there)

Anyway it turns out that actually, you have to replace /usr/local/lib (where the libraries are) with /usr/local (where they are not)... which then works fine. So:

./configure --includedir=/usr/local/include --libdir=/usr/local/lib --with-jpeg=/usr/local --with-png=/usr/local --with-gd=/usr/local --with-libiconv=/usr/local --with-tiff=/usr/local --with-xpm=/usr/X11R6/lib/

Little Red Men

2006-05-15T22:00:00.000+02:00

With forked tails, actually. And, quite cute :p

Conquered my fear of the unknown and installed FreeBSD today - mostly painless, much to my surprise. Even got the linux compatiblilty stuff installed, and PostgreSQL 8.1 (which, incidentally, gave far less trouble than it did the last time I tried to install it on Debian). The server is named olive, after Olive Schreiner.

Somewhat unrelatedly, I came across these two articles recently - both presenting a more realist/pessimist view of Open Source software in the developing world. They bring up some very valid points about what doesn't work, worth considering when trying to come up with something that does.

Algorithms in Africa , an oldish (2001) article from LinuxJournal

Comparison study of free/open source and proprietary software in an African context

mier-r-r-ow

2006-05-14T12:59:00.000+02:00

(happy mothers' day, melissa
from gobbolina the witch's cat)

Confident, cocky, lazy, dead

2006-05-11T17:24:00.000+02:00

From the transcript of an press conference with Jacob Zuma on Radio 702:

The reporter responded: "But Mr Zuma, Aids is a big problem in this country and saying things like taking a shower..."

Zuma retorted: "And hygiene is a big problem in this country. Clean yourself."

If there is a god, please, smite him now.

"You represent a threat, something new, something that can't quite be understood [...] That is dangerous.

2006-05-10T10:30:00.000+02:00

A very cool article on open source in Brazil, here. I really like the comparison to cannabilism, although maybe because at the moment, I'm all for slow, agonising deaths for anything religion-related.

"In 1556, not long after the Portuguese first set foot in Brazil, the Bishop Pero Fernandes Sardinha was shipwrecked on its shores and set about introducing the gospel of Christ to the native "heathens." The locals, impressed with the glorious civilization the bishop represented and eager to absorb it in its totality, promptly ate him.

Thus was born Brazilian culture. Or so wrote the modernist Brazilian poet Oswald de Andrade, whose interpretation of the incident in a 1928 manifesto exalted the cannibals as symbolic role models for all of his country's cultural practitioners. Four decades later, his argument inspired a pair of hyperarticulate pop stars named Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil. Veloso and Gil formed the core of tropicalismo - a very '60s attempt to capture the chaotic, swirling feel of Brazil's perennially uneven modernization, its jumble of wealth and poverty, of rural and urban, of local and global. For the tropicalistas, as for Andrade, there was only one way to thrive in the midst of so much contrast: You couldn't flinch from what was alien to you. You couldn't slavishly imitate it, either. You simply had to swallow it whole."

Times Like These

2006-05-08T20:56:00.000+02:00

it's times like these you learn to live again
it's times like these you give and give again
it's times like these you learn to love again
it's times like these time and time again

Converting SQL JasperReports to use HQL (Updated)

2006-05-08T17:31:00.001+02:00

One problem with JasperReports is the lack of documentation (there's an official manual, but isn't free) - you'd think this would encourage people to write HOWTOs, but these seem pretty thin on the ground, too.

So, a JasperReports HOWTO on converting existing reports using sql queries via jdbc, to use HQL (hibernate query language). HQL makes reports are independent of the underlying database, which is attractive, and as far as syntax HQL is broadly similar to SQL.

I used iReport 1.2.2, a graphical report designer for JasperReports. Before you can use iReport with hibernate, you need to put the jdbc driver for the database you are using (postgresql, in my case) in the lib/ directory of iReport. If you don't do this, you will be given the helpful error "General Error: Could Not Open Connection" when you try to execute the report.

So, to convert you reports to HQL using iReport:

1. Configure your classpath (options>classpath). Make sure your jdbc driver is on it, as well as your hibernate.cfg.xml file and all the hibernate mapping files (.hbm.xml). The persisent classes you are mapping (for example, Drug.class, which is mapped by Drug.hbm.xml) should also be on the classpath.

2. Add the report connection (Data>Connections/Datasources). Add a new connection of type Hibernate Connection.

3. Open a report. Open the Report Query (Data>Report Query). Select HQL as the query language from the drop-down box, and write your query in HQL. Note that it may work better to uncheck 'Automatically Retrieve Fields' while you are writing the query. A good HQL reference is here.

4. If you have a subreport, you will need to a new subreport parameter to pass the hibernate session. The parameter name is HIBERNATE_SESSION and its value is $P{HIBERNATE_SESSION}. You should obviously also edit the subreport to use HQL, as described in steps 1-3, and compile it.

5. You should now be able to run your report in iReport. To fill the compiled report from your application, you will need to pass the hibernate session as a parameter, HIBERNATE_SESSION, as in this snippet (if more code is needed, I can post it):

File n = new File("Reports"+java.io.File.separator);
HashMap map = new HashMap();
map.put("patientId", thePatientId);
map.put("path", n.getCanonicalPath());
map.put("HIBERNATE_SESSION", HibernateUtil.currentSession());

// Report to use
FileInputStream fileInputStream = getJasperReportFromJRXMLorJASPER("Reports"+java.io.File.separator
+"prescriptionHistory");

// Define the connection
Connection connection = HibernateUtil.currentSession().connection();

JasperPrint jp = JasperFillManager.fillReport(fileInputStream, map,
connection);
JasperViewer.viewReport(jp, false);

UPDATED: As it turns out, this is now different in the current version of Hibernate. You do not need to pass the hibernate session from the main report to the subreport, as all the builtin parameters are passed automatically. If you do try and pass the session the old way, it overwrites the builtin session and the subreport gets a null value.

Food (or not) for thought

2006-05-05T15:41:00.000+02:00

From a salon.com article, 'The Case For Globalized Labor'

The U.S. poverty line, defined by the Census Bureau in 2005 at $10,160 for individuals under 65, outstrips the per capita income of every African country.

Automatic Updates Using StableUpdate

2006-05-03T15:29:00.000+02:00

StableUpdate is an open source java project that can be included in applications to add automatic update functionality (allowing the user to check for new versions of the program). It also includes an update generator, which works by comparing an two installations of the software and generates a jar containing the differences.

The documentation isn't all that easy to follow, and I had to change one method (Update.setUpdateFrom(url[] URLS) ) from private to public to get it to work. It also needs to work with a specific directory structure (one main application jar, which needs to be in the bin/ subdirectory along with autoupdate. jar). Once it worked though, it seemed to work really well.

Extract From 'The Beach' by Alex Garland

2006-04-26T17:39:00.000+02:00

[Richard talking to Francoise]
"Do you want me to tell you something funny?"
"What about?"
"Infinity. But it isn't that complicated. I mean, you don't need a degree in-"
Francoise waved a hand in the air, tracing a red pattern with the tip of her cigarette.
"Is that a yes?" I whispered.
"Yes."
"Okay." I coughed quietly. "If you accept that the universe is infinite, then that means there's an infinite amount of chances for things to happen, right?"
She nodded and sucked on the red coal floating by her fingertips.
"Well, if there's an infinite amount of chances for something to happen, then eventually it will happen - no matter how small the likelihood."
"Ah."
"That means somewhere in space there's another planet that, by an incredible series of coincidences, developed exactly the same way as ours. Right down to the smallest detail."
"Is there?"
"Definitely. And there's another which is exactly the same, except that palm tree over there is two feet to the right. And there's another where the tree is two feet to the left. In fact, there're infinite planets with infinite variations on that tree alone..."
Silence. I wondered if she was asleep. "So how about that?" I prompted.
"Interesting," she whispered. "In these planets, everything that can happen will happen."
"Exactly."
"Then in one planet, maybe I am a movie star."
"There's no maybe about it. You live in Beverly Hills and swept last year's Oscars."
"That's good."
"Yeah, but don't forget, somewhere else your film was a flop."
"Oh?"
"It bombed. The critics turned on you, the studio lost a fortune, and you got into booze and Valium. It was pretty ugly."
Francoise rolled on to her side and looked at me. "Tell me about some other worlds," she whispered. In the moonlight her teeth flashed silver as she smiled.
"Well," I replied. "That's a lot to tell."
Etienne stirred and turned over again.
I leaned over and kissed Francoise. She pulled away, or laughed, or shook her head, or closed her eyes and kissed me back. Etienne woke, clasping his mouth in disbelief. Etienne slept. I slept while Francoise kissed Etienne.
Light-years above our garbage bag beds and the steady rush of the surf, all these things happened.

After Francoise had shut her eyes and her breathing had eased into a sleeping rhythm, I crept off my plastic sheet and walked down the sea. I stood in the shallows, slowly sinking as the tide pulled away the sand around my feet. The lights of Koh Samui glowed on the horizon like a trace of sunset. The spread of stars stretched as far as my ceiling back home.

Code 128 Barcode Links

2006-04-21T12:10:00.000+02:00

Code 128 is a barcode symbology. It can encode alphanumeric and special characters, and also offere the possibility of compressing sequences of numbers so that one barcode character represents two digits.

An article on the encoding system, and a good table of the 3 codes and associated barcode symbols (also has a GPLed barcode font, which I can't get to work):

http://grandzebu.net/informatique/codbar-en/code128.htm

Another good reference from a company that sells barcode fonts:

http://www.idautomation.com/code128faq.html#
Code-128CharacterSet

A Java Bean that generates barcodes (does not use a font, and is wider than necessary as a result):

http://jbarcodebean.sourceforge.net/

Best approach I could come up with so far is to use some of the code from jbarcodebean, as well as a basic barcode font made with FontForge (bars and spaces only, width 1,2,3,4 units).

The application previously used the barcode font from http://freebarcodefonts.dobsonsw.com/Code128Samples.htm, which is frustratingly free to download but not to distribute commercially, and definitely not under the GPL

2006-04-19T10:42:00.000+02:00

This day we dance away through our obsession
cut away the pain with surgical presision
A static flash to burn your minds eye
emotionless in doubt
now you dont ever have to feel anything anymore
Anything anymore....

As the skeleton dance, for another chance

Another day alone with our perversions
To eat away ourselves is our religion
If you get me high I'll be right where you are
Just like everybody else, aching for a better view

Here and now we'll scream for more
We can make this so much more

Kill the body and the head'll thrive along
Kill the body and the head'll lead you on
All the coward souls in this place we live
Reside me to wonder if this is really where we all belong

Skeletons dream of touch this close
Curiosity pushes the nail deeper
Fingertips dream of touch this close
Curiosity pushes the nail deeper

Here and now we'll scream for more
We can make this so much more
Kill the body and the head'll thrive along
Kill the body and the head'll lead you on

As the skeleton dance

Strung Out - Skeletondanse