Java vs Ruby? Ruby wins...

if for no other reason than the fact that there are much fewer books to confuse you. and here's why

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Creating a Windows service in .NET

much as i would like to, this isn't a real tutorial about creating a Windows service in .NET. there are lots of excellent tutorials in that regard. this is just to highlight some problems i had recently when i created a service. usually, the service sits in the background, waiting for "something to happen", maybe a client connects, a timeout goes off, and all that. my service is a time-based service that performs certain actions when a timer goes off.

to get my service doing some "real" work, i used the System.Timers.Timer class, which has the Elapsed event, which calls a callback method when the timer fires. here's a caveat: the callback for the Elapsed event suppresses all exceptions in .Net 2.0 and lower (i can't categorically say that the behaviour isn't the same in higher versions). forget processing unexpected exceptions in your callback - they'll get supressed. and you may end up like me: after putting in a full day at work, spending the night there, and putting in another full day, you're at the client's and the service runs but doesn't do anything.

my fix? in my callback, i start a separate thread. the thread takes responsibility for doing the processing that was in my callback, and i once again can see what exceptions occur in my processing. by the way, design your tables so none of your fields are allowed the NULL value in .Net. use sensible defaults instead of NULL, becaue you never know when you'll get a System.DBNull object that isn't automatically converted to null. later, then!

Edit: when services run - irrespective of where the executable actually is - the working directory is always C:\WINDOWS\System32. that can be a problem if you access to files residing in the same location as the executable, especially if you don't know where the service executable is (if you think that is strange, think again: you - or someone else - could create an installer that allows the user customize the location of the install). if you need to get access to the executable's location, you can do:

string basepath = System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetName().CodeBase;
System.IO.Path.GetDirectoryName(basepath);

this will retrieve the path in a format such as file:///C:/..., so you'll need to trim off the beginning of the string returned.

i used SharpDevelop for creating my service, as creating the service from scratch (Visual C# 2008 Express) or tusing an application template (Visual Studio 2008) gave me problems when trying to install the service using installutil. SharpDevelop integrates with FxCop, a code analysis tool developed by Microsoft. running FxCop on my executable showed me some things i'd never really noticed before, such as using string.IsNullOrEmpty(variable) instead of if ((variable == string.Empty) || (variable == null)) to check if a string was empty or null.

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Fun and nonsense in Freenode's ##csharp

from time to time i hang out in ##csharp on Freenode. the guys there are great (mostly) - they've helped me out with quite a number of problems. and it's just plain fun to hang out with them. here's a excerpt from the conversation there this morning:

[11:39] <scruz> i don't ever want to be you - link managed and unmanaged code
[11:40] *** Mathius joined
[11:40] * scruz shivers at the thought of interop_madness' pain
[11:40] <Mathius> hi
[11:40] <interop_madness> you you don't want to be on the same planet as me
[11:40] <scruz> what planet is that?
[11:41] <+smellyhippy> Mathius: ello
[11:41] *** SDragon quit (Read error: 104 (Connection reset by peer))
[11:41] *** SDr joined
[11:41] <interop_madness> dunno, but it certainly has no sun shining
[11:41] <scruz> yello Mathius
[11:41] <Mathius> O_o
[11:41] <Mathius> hey hey
[11:41] <scruz> from Earth import Sun
[11:42] <Mathius> >_>
[11:42] <scruz> Sun.shine()
[11:42] <Mathius> public sealed class Earth : INoLight
[11:42] *** gregzx joined
[11:42] <scruz> lol
[11:42] <pandzilla> haha
[11:43] <Mathius> CSC Error: You cannot look for light in an instance of type 'Earth'.


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Multiple IEs on your WinXP machine

if you're like me, you like to use the latest software. that includes browsers. unfortunately, the latest browsers are a really bad idea if you're into web design - specifically standards-based design. because you need to workaround features not supported in older browsers. i made a really big mistake when designing a client's website - i designed it using the latest Firefox, Opera and IE7. it was okay in those browsers. imagine my shock when i viewed it in IE6 and it was fugly. and that was after deployment.

to avoid my mistake, you want to design using IE6. unfortunately, even i don't encourage you to use IE6. so how can you get IE6 for testing your web pages? well, i originally thought of using VirtualBox to create a WinXP disc image on my system - but that's a waste of about 2GB just to test web sites. so i went googling. and i came up with Multiple IEs. at first i thought it was just snake oil, especially when i ran IE6 and went to Help -> About. however, when i tested it, i got IE6's signature crappy rendering - and it was different from IE7's, so i'm quite happy advertising it. thanks to the guys over at TredoSoft!

Cleaning out my C:(loset)

i'm not sure why, but more and more, software installations tend to assume you have just one partition on your machine - that, or you absolutely don't mind it getting filled up with things you don't really know.

lost? let me explain: i'm in the habit of breaking up my harddisk into partitions. i used to leave 5GB on C: for OS files, taking into account that some software will always install some things on C: even if you tell the setup wizard to install on some other partition. that was enough about 4 years back. i upped it to 7.5GB sometime back, and finally to 10GB. now it seems even that isn't enough. i installed Visual Studio 2008 recently, and my free space on C: has plummeted down to less than 2.5GB - without enabling hibernate. i dread what would happen if i installed Adobe products - at least another 400MB would go should i install CS3 Design. yet i have over 14 GB lying fallow on a partition i reserved for installing application software. even with CCleaner installed, i can't free up any space. granted, a heavier-duty application can help with that, but i don't have much hope in that direction.

darn shame what they do to my disk space.

What happened to the Adobe-Yahoo collabo?

i just downloaded Shockwave Player 11 to install on my computer (yes, right now it seems nobody uses Shockwave anymore - Flash seems to have effectively killed Director) and i was surprised - no, shocked - to find the installer prompted me to install the Google toolbar. Google? what happened to Yahoo-integrated search in Adobe Reader? must be because i'm so tired...i'll check again when i do not feel so sleepy ;)

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long time!

haven't been here in a long time. stuff's happening, and sometimes it seems hazy, but i'm sure i'll win. things are looking up now, so i'll be here more often. later!

been so long!

wow! it's really been quite a while since i was here. anybody miss me? guess not, judging from how silent my phone was before now. anyhow, i'm currently back in school. to clear up any issues with my results. and find out if i made the final cut. for service, that is. however, i got in kinda late and so all processing is going to have to wait till today. on my way here, i saw a sign advertising a church's programmes and containing the word 'enlargement'. users of Google mail may tell you that one recurring theme in their spam relates to penile enlargement. considering it's been so long since i've seen the word 'enlargement' in any other context, you can imagine what reading it on that sign initially did to me. maybe i really do have a dirty mind. later!

Microsoft is weird!

seriously. everyone who has programmed in a real programming language knows that numerically-idexed arrays begin at index 0 (sorry, Basic fanboys). however if you're using the Microsoft SQL Server 2005 driver for PHP and you use sqlsrv_fetch_array() with SQLSRV_FETCH_NUMERIC, the array is indexed starting from 1! it's quite easy to miss this - i know i did. all the same, it's great to see Microsoft being so 'benevolent'. Don't tell me: it's just a ploy to migrate Windows developers to SQL Server!

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jus' chillin'

yo. long time, no see. man, the last one week has been - wow. Rental Magica is over - and i really do hope they begin a season 2. i really love that anime. and to think the twins almost made me not watch it! Bleach is on hiatus till April 9 - guess the anime has pretty much caught up with the manga now, and they don't want to introduce fillers at this point. yes, Dami was wrong - the producers chose to stop the anime rather than introduce fillers, or so it seems right now. what else? oh, yeah - i knew Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow was one of the coolest games ever! i saw Konami released it for mobile phones. yes, i love that game. even though i've completed it a number of times, it has awesome replay value...should i start playing it again soon? and it's cool that if you play the game cheat-free, it's very unlikely you'll get a complete soul set. for instance, the Zombie soul is one of the most annoying souls to get - and it can come in very useful in fighting a number of bosses (Manticore and Headhunter, anyone?).

as usual, i didn't prepare for the KMA test today...hope my score turns out good. it's hard to believe - even though the Bible shows precedent for it - but even in a school of ministry, there are people who'll do anything to pass. the test was over and the principal collected the sheets - but since he was tied up in preparing and presenting the video seminar, he didn't take the sheets in. there were people - remember, this is Bible school - that took back their scripts and kept writing even after everyone else had submitted. being smart? i don't like to think so. i think it's a basic lack of integrity coupled with fear of failure that makes people do things like that.

so what's my point? my point is: even if i haven't done that specifically, i have done things like that, showing my integrity can be questioned. for instance, if i flirt with a lady i have no intention of going out with, i'm not walking in integrity, because my thoughts, words and deeds don't add up. anyway, i have to go - power's off and i'm powering this EVDO card with my laptop battery...

Software gripes

i sometimes play with 3D, though the time to do so is getting smaller and smaller recently...and anyway, i have a number of software packages installed, including Wings3D, Blender, Softimage|XSI Mod Tool, and an old version of Amapi. i've also had some experience with Autodesk 3ds max and Maya (very little this one).

the thing is: when i got a video tutorial showing how to model in Softimage|XSI and was using it with the Mod Tool, a recurring thought was: this would have been soooo much easier in Wings or Blender. i can model a mug in Wings in less than 5 minutes flat, including subdivisions. trying to reproduce the same thing in XSI would probably take me over 10 minutes. one reason may be because i'm new to XSI and have the Wings/Blender UI mostly down; another might just be because it really is easier in Wings or Blender. for instance, in the default Wings or Blender interaction mode, rotating your viewport is a matter of clicking (or dragging) your middle mouse button. the same in XSI is press O on the keyboard, then left-click for free rotation; middle or right for axis-constrained rotation (hint to Wings and Blender developers: mouse-controlled axis-constrained rotation isn't a bad idea). selecting polygons in XSI is annoying unless you're using raycasting - you need to lasso (with the risk of selecting something you don't want); in Blender, right-click, in Wings, left-click. so far, i'm trying to convince myself that XSI users aren't idiots (they really aren't).

by a similar token, while i'm now more used to the GIMP, i'd still rather use Paint.NET or Photoshop - simply because i find them easier to use. i'm loving Inkscape though, and Expression 3.3 is nice - but i haven't got the hang of it yet. my point: anyone fanatic about software simply because it's free or it cost them money needs a head check. at the end of the day, it's productivity - which is a relative of ease of use - that matters. 'nuff said.

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i saw you

i saw you last night, you know. i saw - and heard - you. you were at the bus stop. carrying a baby on your back. and you asked me for help. i wanted to, you know. i really did. but it was to 8 at night. and it was just Dad and i at home. i had to do the dinner. i had to return Pastor's flash disk. and i had to rush for a bus. plus i was dead tired. so i ignored your plea. not that i wanted to. because my heart ached for you. i don't know why. but i was sad. so i did what i usually do. i put on my mask. like Ichigo, i changed myself with the mask. unlike Ichigo, i didn't get any stronger. but i kept the sadness to myself. and i got through the night. i remember you now. and though i never helped you last night, i pray you find help. i pray the One who watches over the orphan helps you. and i pray if i ever see anyone like you, i will not be too caught up with life to stop and help them.

this is really hilarious

just look here.

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the spam Google mail accounts attract...and bloody Hellsing

just wondering why the most common spam i get in two Google mail accounts is penile enlargement. must be pretty popular these days. on a far more interesting note, i've seen Hellsing Ultimate episode IV. as bloody and gruesome as the previous three - maybe even more so, with a scene in which Alucard pushes Rip Van Winkle's gun through her (yes, Rip is a girl...for some reason i always pegged her as a very feminine guy...) and start lapping up the blood on the floor of the ship...if you already read the manga, this won't be a spoiler for you...now where did i put that Hellsing manga again...?

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Flock 1.1 out - with webmail support

Flock 1.1 is out, and has webmail (Yahoo! Mail and GMail support!). i'm seriously loving Flock. grab your copy now!

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my boss better not be reading this!

i did it. i wasted today. i spent almost all day playing Rat Pack on Facebook. yes, i feel like a louse. but it was fun! i don't want to do it again, though - too risky to doing anything useful!

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xkcd strikes again - this time with fruity goodness!

f**k grapefruit. by the way, if you read xkcd, check the image properties. sometimes he puts the really funny stuff in the image title.

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On Creativity (but mostly a rant about Lifehacker)

as with email, subscribing to a feed, especially a very frequently updated blog like Lifehacker is a mixed blessing. you can get lots of 'spam' when you subscribe to such a feed ('spam' meaning things you're not interested in). or you can get some really cool stuff, like this article on creativity. personally, i think Lifehacker is really cool - but there's so much there, i have to train myself to ignore things or i'll never get anything done. that said, Gina and the Lifehacker crew do a great job. but when do they actually get round to doing anything else? :D

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As a man thinketh

Got this in my mail recently. Thanks to cable-t-y. PLS GET TO THE END of it! There are two nuns. One of them is known as Sister Mathematical (SM) and the other one is known as Sister Logical (SL). It is getting dark and they are still far away from the convent. SM: Have you noticed that a man has been following us for the past thirty-eight and a half minutes? I wonder what he wants. SL: It's logical. He wants to rape us. SM: Oh, no! At this rate he will reach us in 15 minutes at the most. What can we do? SL: The only logical thing to do of course is to walk faster. SM: It's not working SL: Of course it's not working. The man did the only logical thing. He started to walk faster too. SM: So, what shall we do? At this rate he will reach us in one minute. SL: The only logical thing we can do is split. You go that way and I'll go this way. He cannot follow us both. So the man decided to follow Sister Logical. Sister Mathematical arrives at the convent and is worried what has happened to Sister Logical. Then Sister Logical arrives. SM: Sister Logical! Thank God you are here! Tell me what happened! SL: The only logical thing happened. The man couldn't follow us both, so he followed me. SM: Yes, yes! But what happened then? SL: The only logical thing happened. I started to run as fast as I could and he started to run as fast as he could. SM: And? SL: The only logical thing happened. He reached me. SM: What did you do? SL: The only logical thing to do. I lifted my dress up. SM: Oh, Sister! What did the man do? SL: The only logical thing to do. He pulled down his pants. SM: Oh, no! What happened then? SL: Isn't it logical, Sister? A nun with her dress up can run faster than a man with his pants down............ And those of you who thought the ending would be dirty pray for forgiveness!

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Learning every day!

i consider myself a pretty good Windows user. i'm very conversant with quite a number of features of Windows, and have acquired a number of tricks. in fact, i had a pretty high score in the Brainbench Windows XP Fundamentals test. so i considered myself a bit of a sysadmin.

well, yesterday saw me back in school, and today saw me back in the cafe where i worked as a student (doesn't that sound good? heh). something that had always puzzled me was some computers just suddenly stopped showing the LAN properties, even to administrators. no user could access the network properties and configure them using the GUI. it had happened a couple of times and each time it happened, i would repair/format the computer. today, the same problem occurred - and the Windows XP CD was broken. so i had to try to find a way to configure the network card without formatting if possible, as there was not XP disc on hand. something made me feel strongly like there should be a commandline tool to configure a network interface on Windows. i got to Google, entered a query, and found out about netsh. using netsh, i was able to configure the network interface without a GUI. i guess i did learn something new today.

so much for being a sysadmin

bug in IDLE?

i play around with Python. i 've never done anything serious in it, but it's a very handy tool. it's saved my butt a couple of times at work, or at least saved me some nightmarish coding in C, C++, C# or Java. on most major platforms on which it runs, Python comes with IDLE, which comes with an interactive shell for quickly trying out Python scripts, as well as a 'real' editor for creating scripts.

i've used Python for about 2 projects since starting work - similar things, really...and i've noticed that when i'm writing output to a file and run the script using IDLE, more often than not, the file never gets written to the end. in the latest examples, i created a Python script to create SQL INSERT statements to quickly populate a database to test another application (i probably should actually populate the database directly from the script, but that will be a 'long thing'. besides, i already saved myself a little trouble entering the data myself ;)). anyway, the script includes a option to ask how many rows of data to create. i was expecting to see 200 lines of INSERT statements, but it stopped on the 182nd line. this isn't the first time. i ran it again and something similar happened. i had to open a console window and run the script to get all 200 lines written. i'm not sure if it's a Windows-only bug, but i'm going to report it as soon as i can

Update: i posted the problem in Freenode's #Python, and i was told that i should flush() the file. when i tried it, it worked!

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Saved by the connection string!

more like, saved by ConnectionStrings.com. i can't remember exactly how i got this site, but it must have been one of those days i was crawling...anyway, i was getting frustrated by trying to connect to SQL Server 2005. for some reason, i could not connect to a remote machine running SQL Server 2005. even worse, i was getting connection errors to my local instance of SQL Server 2005 Express! i got the idea of using ODBC as an interface, but i was still having issues, until i visited ConnectionStrings.com. now i have a completely different set of issues, but that's another story...

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seriously...

one of my friends described a situation: "Your life is over, and your problems just began". sometimes i feel like that on this job. i feel like i have very little free time. anyway, enough about my troubles. life goes on, doesn't it? i'm kinda stuck with over 1GB in Audacity data files, as i had to forcibly close Audacity once and had to manually search in my temp folder for the files, since the files are quite important to me. so i'm stuck as the data is in 1MB chunks, and i don't have time to listen to each part...

yes, you read right. i have to listen to each part. the trick i learned from the Audacity website was to arrange the files by date, load them into Winamp, and uisng the wave-out plugin, re-record them. it worked...but there was a problem. some of the 5-second chunks were repeated, so i have to remove duplicates from over 1.5 hours of audio. that may take up to 3 hours, time i'm not sure i have, as this weekend, even though i'm not working, is booked.

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stuff over the past few weeks

last monday, i heard a kettle whistle for the very first time. i'd heard about it, but never really believed it unitl then. so Enid Blyton wasn't lying after all. ah well.

it seems a new version of MapZone is out. still windows-only, though. i'm not sure just how well it would run using Wine, but you can give it a whirl if you're feeling bold.

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what's going on at Trolltech?

quite a number of developers will know Trolltech, the company behind Qt, the cross-platform framework for creating desktop applications (orignally in C++, and more recently, in Java). Qt has a long history and forms the basis of KDE.

anyway, Qt has long been a favourite of C++ developers on *nix systems. Windows developers weren't so lucky. Trolltech released a non-commercial edition of Qt, which i first learned about when Qt was in version 2.3. anyway, i never really used Qt then (even now, i just want to get started with it) but i did keep up to date with it. some open-source developers (originally behind the port of KDE to Cygwin) began an unofficial opensource native Windows. they succeeded, but they had to shut down binary builds because people (who weren't thinking of the implications of what they were doing) kept posting questions about the open-source Qt to the official Trolltech support team. and with the release of Qt 4, the team started creating (again unofficial) patches to the Qt opensource edition to make it build with compilers other than MinGW, which was the only system supported by Trolltech officially.

recently, the project has been closed. there are no new files because as the team says: "This project was closed because the goal to provide Qt/GPL on windows (inclusive msvc support) was achieved". more information can be found here. i guess that's because in the latest version of opensource Qt - even though Trolltech claims that Visual Studio support and integration is only provided with the commercial versions of Qt - you can build Qt and Qt-based applications using commandline tools with other compilers, including Visual Studio. but be careful, any commercial application you create must be completely licensed uner the GPL. as the Trolls themselves say, your product must be licensed exclusively under the GPL.

what i'm wondering is: why the change of heart? and Trolltech seems to have been bought by Nokia. so what happens to developers after this? your guess is as good as mine.

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my battery used to last longer!

i've noticed recently that my computer's battery isn't lasting as long as it was. i'm not quite sure why, but i think because i've installed quite a number of network applications (web server, at least 2 database servers, etc), my firewall program might just be the reason my processor (AMD Turion 64) is constantly running at top speed, instead of stepping down. so i'll do a format soon and change firewall programs, and find out how far.

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Design problems

i have to maintain a list of phone numbers. i also need to maintain the owners' details. but here's a problem: i already have access to the phone number data, but i'll fill up the owners' data as i go along. so here's the problem: how do i do this? quite a number of people have more than one phone number, so the phone number(s) cannot be the primary key. at the end of the day, each person whose data is recorded will have one or more phone numbers, but i currently have phone numbers but no associated personal data. how do i design my database so that i can fill in personal details when they come in, but i won't repeat any information and have a sufficiently extensible database design that can adapt to changing requirements?

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Enjoy your student days

leaving school and working isn't all it's jacked up to be. so many people just want to get out of school and begin their lives, but they're missing a single important thing: they're already living their lives. life started the day you were born, and continues till the day you die. somehow, we tend to miss that patently obvious fact and decide instead to wait for something or other to 'begin' our lives: "when i leave school, i'll really start living", "when i get my dream job, i'll really start living", "when we get married, we'll really start living"...please. you're alive, aren't you? life's going on all around you. assume today's the last day you'll ever live. do what you would if that were true today. then go ahead and do it everyday. each day is meant to be enjoyed to the full and maximized to the last. life is far too short not to be enjoyed; it's far too short for you not to make impact and influence your world. grow every day. hug someone you love. try to leave everyone better than you met them, and don't worry if they choose not to get better. laugh. cry. be human. for crying out loud, when did we become elastic plastic? we have fake eyelashes, fake fur coats, and we've become fake people (the fake fur and eyelashes are kinda okay - the fake people are a big no-no). make a kid laugh. tell someone you love them. there are so many things you can do, it's amazing we waste time with things that really don't bring us any fulfilment. and that's the main thing i want to say: make sure each day leaves you fulfiled. abayo!

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the dangers of copy and paste

copy and paste is dangerous. here's why.

a pastor was at a conference where the speaker said: 'the best years of my life were spent in the arms of a woman who was not my wife!' as the audience gasped, he continued: 'she was my mother!'. everyone clapped. the pastor decided to use the same thing back home. unfortunately he only remembered the first part, so he ended with: 'and i can't remember who she was!'

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mah first day at work

so i've been working. not quite what i'd imagined it to be. so far, it's been great. i was helping my boss with something, and i needed to use regular expressions somewhere down the line. here's the catch: i've never used regexes before. i was going to use Python to create a script to deal with the data, but then i switched to C++. for regex processing, i first employed the GRETA library, but for some reason, it didn't compile using Visual C++ 9.0, so i switched to Boost's regex. for a wonder, i didn't even need to download a pre-built jam executable - it compiled out of the box. Boost compiled, but since it was created before VC++ 9, it didn't recognize the compiler. it did build anyway, but i was getting puzzling errors about the regex library file missing. apparently, i didn't read what i should have - it assumed i build it with VC++ 8.0, and was looking for a library file with the version number embedded in the name - but my build didn't have a version number in the name. it basically amounted to showing the printer to the computer, but not actually plugging it in. ah well. at least i finally got it to work.

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my first day on the job so far...

i want to kill something. i want to rip flesh apart. i want to hit something and watch blood fly. why? i'm on the internet and using plain old Mozilla Firefox. i miss Flock! why should i login to Blogger just because i want to post on my blog? arrgh!

seriously, Flock has been cool...but i said this post was about work, not browsers. so, it's been good. so far. went somewhere with my boss and watched how business is done in Naija. ol' boy, e no easy o! met with an old friend i've not seen in over five years. maybe this is a month for old relationships...but i'll save that for later. anyway, i got to be called 'Sir' by someone older than me - which was quite embarrasing. i have to get used to it though - just not let it get to my head. if it does, maybe you'll do to me what Rooftop MCs have suggested: e la'gi mo! well, gotta go. see y'all later!

Back from school

got back home last night. whew! don't want to do that again. get home late, that is.

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Back in School

well, i made it back to school two days ago. seems in the last few months a number of my friends have hooked up with great girls. i say: "good riddance!" were they planning on hanging with me for the rest of their lives? guys! y'all are great, but...we really can't keep each other warm at night. and i really don't need to know some things. plus, i'm sure you want to have your own kids sometime...most of all, i'm definitely not happy, sorry, gay :D.

seriously, it's weird being back in school, even if it's only after a few weeks. guess it's not that bay's d with my guys around. Woody's around, for one. most of the guys in class have peeled out, so it's rather empty in the library. ah well. got to get some real work done.

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Switched!

at long last, i'm switching from Firefox to Flock, at least for the time being. and i'm liking it very much, so far. sorry, Firefox fanbois out there. the fact that i can use pretty much all my old extensions is a major plus, and i don't need themes.

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Annoyances

i'd like software developers to create their installs such that you can customize as much of the install as possible. take for instance Visual Studio 2008 Express. Even if you install VC++ 2008 Express on some other partition, the Windows SDK headers and libraries will end up on your primary partition - with no way to customize that behaviour. The same thing applies to XNA Game Studio 2.0 - it installs on your primary partition, even if you want to install it elsewhere (like i do!). i realize that system components (such as the .NET Framework) will be installed on the primary drive, but for everything else...as though that wasn't all, what are the strange looking things that got installed when i installed VC#? SQL Server Compact? huh? who wants to use that? i'll install SQL Server as and when i want, you...

stuff, and nonsense

thanks to Dade and some other folks, i'm getting to realize i've really slipped. i've got used to so many bad things i've been ignoring personal excellence. y'all, thanks!

another week gone by. and the year's a week old already. ah well. finally formatted my system, and trying to decide wheter or not to install both VC# 2005 and 2008 Express. i'm not sure i want to try out XNA programming just yet, but if i don't install now, i'll have to reinstall 2008 (it has sexier icons).

Softimage have released a new version of the XSI Mod Tool. For those who don't know what it is, it's a version of Softimage|XSI originally developed for modding games such as Half-Life 2. The latest version (6) also serves as a 3d authoring tool for XNA Game Studio Express. what i like about this version is that you can also use it for noncommercial 3D authoring because it can export to some well-known formats. i realize that this may be a bad move on Softimage's part, because they're effectively giving away XSI, but there are some restrictions on the polygon count that may be exported and so on. indie game developers and lazy modelers should get this.

Happy New Year!

seriously, it's 2008. praise God!

dude, do i still want to get married?

i've toyed about with the idea of getting married, but after this week...dude, taking care of kids is no joke. one reason i want to get married is to have kids. i mean, why not? kids are great - except all the time. this week, i was left at home thrice with my two-year-old nephew, and on the latest with hyperactive triplets about 10 years old. i was basically just chasing after them, and the "hey! i just cleaned this place up!" and "will this ever end?" feelings - among various others, including a sudden desire to strangle someone - came up quite often. still, i made it through - and i will never again (or at least i think i never will) take parenting for granted. if you just want to live your life and enjoy yourself without sacrifice, take my advice: don't bother with any serious relationship or kids. you'll be doing yourself a favour. i think i'm going to sleep it off.

hold the phone!

okay...that was weird. why have my older female relatives started asking if i have a girlfriend and all that related stuff? you know, greet them (or her) for me, and so on? hold the phone, all right? is there anything wrong with being a single black male? like, i'm still young (plus i have a gazillion things to do). besides, i don't think i can handle a relationship yet. Lord knows the last almost-was nearly destroyed me. i still have baggage from it (okay, so it's not that long ago - like that means anything). this isn't to imply that it's only my relatives that do this - they just happened to be the last straw, so to speak. i'd rather that nobody asked - but then it just wouldn't be human. people care about other people - even when it pisses off the other people. it's bad enough that some people can't even let me talk to a female without getting very interested. please, people! i am not interested in anyone at the moment, and i am not dating anyone - nor do i have any plans to do so soon. you need selflessness in a romantic relationship - a virtue i have found i am all-too-lacking in. honestly, i don't know how she put up with my nonsense. and no, you're not entitled to know what went on. so thanks, but don't matchmake, don't ask, just leave me the h*** alone. me and the crew have this covered, aight? don't worry - something is going down. but you gotta trust me that now's not the time. thanks. later, y'all!

The text on the TextEdit icon

Apple's MacOSX Leopard comes with a text editor, TextEdit. the icon is a picture of a ruled sheet of paper and a clutch pencil. what it says is something great, and i think everyone should see it: look here

The truth about Santa Claus: An Engineer's Perspective

sometimes you do get some good 'spam'. i subscribed for news from the developers of IBExpert, and they send me updates on the program and all what not. today, i checked my mail and get this beauty. i'm reproducing it below for everyone to enjoy.

The truth about Santa Claus: An Engineer’s Perspective

1. No known species of reindeer can fly. But there are 300,000 species of living organisms yet to be classified, and while most of these are insects and germs, this does not COMPLETELY rule out flying reindeer which only Santa has ever seen.
2. There are 2 billion children (persons under 18) in the world. BUT since Santa doesn't (appear) to handle the Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and Buddhist children, that reduces the workload to 15% of the total - 378 million according to Population Reference Bureau. At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that's 91.8 million homes. One presumes there's at least one good child in each.
3. Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 822.6 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with good children, Santa has 1/1000th of a second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh and move on to the next house. Assuming that each of these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false but for the purposes of our calculations we will accept), we are now talking about .78 miles per household, a total trip of 75-1/2 million miles, not counting stops to do what most of us must do at least once every 31 hours, plus feeding and etc. This means that Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man- made vehicle on earth, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second - a conventional reindeer can run, tops, 15 miles per hour.
4. The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium-sized lego set (2 pounds), the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting Santa, who is invariably described as overweight. On land, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that 'flying reindeer' (see point #1) could pull TEN TIMES the normal amount, we cannot do the job with eight, or even nine. We need 214,200 reindeer. This increases the payload - not even counting the weight of the sleigh - to 353,430 tons. Again, for comparison - this is four times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth.
5. 353,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance - this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as spacecraft re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer will absorb 14.3 QUINTILLION joules of energy. Per second. Each. In short, they will burst into flame almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them, and create deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team will be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second. Santa, meanwhile, will be subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500 times greater than gravity. A 250-pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force.

In conclusion: If Santa ever DID deliver presents on Christmas Eve, he's dead now.

back home

just got back home. it's great to be home, even if christmas is overrated - as usual. still, there's something to be said for being with family. nothing like family to make you wish you didn't have any. hehehe. anyway, gotta ride, so see y'all. merry christmas (i've been taken to task for saying 'happy holidays').

hey everyone. how's it hanging? i was wondering - what do you do if you have a program that does almost everything you want it to do - but it fails in one or two areas? install two (or more) of them? but then that would violate Occam's Razor. for instance, i use XnView for most of my (decidedly horrible) image management. the full version is a little hefty, but i love it. it supports lots of formats (mostly view), including audio/video files (it seems to have crashed when previewing a Flash Video (.flv) file just now, though) and PDF documents (you'll need Ghostscript installed, though). and it's free for non-commercial use. i love it - but it always crashes when i use it to browse a certain folder on my computer. that folder has 667 image files (and no, i didn't make that up - it really has that many images), a few of which didn't download properly (so only part of the file displays). i'm not sure if it's because of the number of files or the corrupt files, but since it crashes regularly, i had to move the files into subfolders so XnView handled fewer files per folder. that worked, but since i use those images rather often (and have to choose a few from them everytime), i moved them all back into the same folder again and use Windows Explorer's thumbnail view instead. i was on LifeHacker and found out about FastStone image viewer, and while it doesn't have as many perks as i'm used to from XnView - it doesn't crash when browsing that folder. i may not need to use that folder so often anymore, and i'm going to format my computer soon, so it doesn't matter now - but i'm going to reinstall Windows, and will need to choose an image browser. should i install both, or have to choose between them?

it's easier to choose when the difference between the programs is relatively minor. an an example, i blogged about Linotype FontExplorer X recently. it has a lovely iTunes-style interface and it's pretty good (i've not used it much, so be wary of my opinion) - but the one thing i miss from Proxima FontExpert is the ability to temporarily activate a font until the system reboots (it works on the Mac, but it seems the feature didn't - or hasn't - made it to the PC, at least not in the beta). it does the same thing as Bitstream Font Navigator (creates a shortcut to the installed font in your Windows fonts folder). i think it was also on LifeHacker i got a link to Veign CFont Pro. while its interface leaves much to be desired (aesthetically speaking - don't knock it if it works), it does what i want it to do - activate a font temporarily until reboot. so - i should just ignore FontExplorer X and use CFont Pro, right? wrong, because CFont Pro has so far not recognized any font not in the TrueType (.ttf) format. Postscript (.afm + .ini + .pfb + .pfm) and OpenType (.otf) fonts were ignored, a major minus. checking on the features page, it's supposed to support them - so i have no idea what's happening on my machine. maybe there are some missing system components. ah well. we don't live in a perfect world.

weird...innit?

who invented deadlines? can i kill him? pretty please? Microsoft has recently released XNA Game Studio 2.0 (and the price tag is a hefty $0. so if you're a C# developer and would like to create homebrews for Windows or the XBOX - please, help yourself). that's not too surprising - software gets released all the time, right? not that long before that, they also released Visual Studio 2008 (i got the Express edition, and Visual C++ 9.0 Express has some cool stuff out of the box - no need to download the Windows/Platform SDK to develop native Windows applications anymore. whoopee!). what's surprising is that XNA Game Studio 2.0 - get this - integrates seamlessly with Visual Studio 2005 products (specifically for C#), but not with Visual Studio 2008 products (look here for more details). If you're an XNA Game Studio user and want the new version, don't uninstall (or go reinstall) Visual Studio 2005 (if you want, install just VC# 2005 Express), or face the consequences. while there are workarounds, you really didn't sign up for hard work. that's why you became a programmer, wasn't it?

smaller is better, or so i think

back when computer users needed training to use computers (and it really wasn't that long ago), programs generally took the approach that one program was supposed to do one thing - or a very few related things - well. so you would use a graphics program for creating graphics, a word processor to create documents, and a DTP program to lay out documents you wanted to publish. every program had its place. little wonder so many companies released application suites, such as Lotus', Microsoft's and Corel's office application suites. even a giant like Adobe wasn't left out (or why would they have Photoshop, Pagemaker, Illustrator and so on?).

all that changed as users wanted to do more with less and software vendors wanted to win the format wars (i also think that the programming joke about the universe and programmers also holds water, but for the purpose of being nice, i'll leave that out for now). as an example, a program like CorelDRAW - originally a vector illustration program - added more features like bitmap effects and DTP. so many other programs have gone the same way - Photoshop added vectors, word processors became DTP tools, and so on. despite all that, it's still good to see a program that does a few things well. my opinion is, the smaller and more specific the program's feature set is, the better. smaller programs are just easier to master. take for instance, what i use for 3D (even though i don't work in 3D often). more often than not, i do my modeling in Wings3D and then import the model into Blender. there, i do my scene setup, add materials, import textures created/edited in one or more programs and then render (more often than not, using an external renderer). it's not that Blender doesn't have modeling tools - it does - more modeling tools than Wings3D, and in fact, i started using Blender before i started using Wings3D. then why? simply because Wings3D is a much smaller program and takes much less to master than Blender (i also think modeling in Wings3D is simpler, but that's a matter of opinion).

Google Sketchup is another example. it's basically a modeling tool. the (relatively) smaller feature set is one reason it's rather popular (the $0 price tag on the free version is also another reason), but i think even the paid version is popular because it's smaller and the features can be learned in a smaller time.

so am i advocating that software vendors strip out features from their software? not particularly. i merely think that users would rather do a few things very well than a lot of things badly. for instance, while lots of documents can be laid out in a word processor, word processors are still not good enough for some things. otherwise, we would have seen the end of such programs as Pagemaker (people, let's face facts - word processors still suck at DTP) and the LaTeX variants.

in the end, productivity is the key. and i think that we're returning to the time when an application will do a few things well - or why would mashups and web services be so popular? the main obstacle to that is data interchange (the format wars aren't over, even if there are now open standards for data exchange). until the day when we can just create applications using a plugin-type architecture (load graphics, text processing, DTP and PDF output) or we use a workflow, we will be stuck with feature-rich (and therefore feature-useless) and bloated applications (if you need to put incremental search into your application, it's really big). but hey, what do i know? i'm just a college kid with horrible grades. and a horrible attitude. and i reserve the right to be wrong, since we have lost control of the apparatus.

before i leave, though, i'd best say what led me to this rant. i've taken a few cursory looks at both Scribus and Creative Docs .NET. i was looking at the second, and wondering why we needed them - then it hit me. we still want programs that do just what we want them to. failing that, we'd be happy if they'd work as advertised (no, this does not include the kind of people who want 3D programs to have the 'Create Eye-catching Animation' button. i mean people who're actually interested in doing work - if they'll get results). i think it's unfortunate though. we may just have been misinterpreted as saying we want gazillions more features. so hail the (usually) independent developer who codes that app you got so used to you can't do without.

search engine annoyances

man, i'm beginning to hate finding my blog posts in search engine results. when i had my old blog, i mentioned looking for some information about a particular subject and getting my blog post about such things as ranked first by Google. something similar happened recently. what i really want to find out is what someone other than me has to say about it. i know what i already said about it - or i can find out!

Never give up...and various other things

here i am on this rather ordinary morning, hungry and having spent too much time (as usual) on the internet. like most of the people i know, i've dabbled into quite a number of things related to computers - web "design", 3D, programming, design and so on. it so happens that i learned about the wonderful program FontExpert from Proxima Software. i like it a lot - but you can only use it for 15 days for free. since i had the "format bug" for quite a while, i never did have problems using it, as i would use it to install/manage fonts and then format my system not too long after. but recently, i realized that i hadn't formatted my computer in a while. i hadn't designed much in a while, either - so when i needed font management, i installed FontExpert as usual. here's the catch though - i haven't formatted my computer in quite a while, over 6 months in fact. not does it seem i'm going to do so before the year runs out. unfortunately, my shareware use of FontExpert has expired, meaning that times like last night when i wanted to design a quickie for someone - i once again lamented the expiration, and merely used to the fonts installed on my machine

now don't misunderstand me - i have great fonts on my machine. but i limit the number living in my Windows fonts folder to 500 these days (47x isn't so bad) so i can maximize my computer. what i particularly love about FontExpert is its ability to temporarily activate a font - so you can use it until you restart your machine. and no, i can't easily pay for FontExpert because it's like pulling eye teeth to pay online here (the fact that a certain well-known company doesn't allow Nigerians to create accounts with it may help you understand). so i am stuck without a font manager. i'm not interested in certain font managers that create shortcuts fonts you install using them - i'm a weird one, and for any number of reasons i'd rather have a font actually living in the Windows font folder than have a shortcut to it (what if i installed it off a removable disk?).

anyway, i was looking for high-quality free fonts this morning, and once again saw that Linotype has a free font manager for Windows and Mac OS X, Font Explorer X. unfortunately, i missed the beta period for the PC version, and the program isn't available for download anymore - until it's released. seriously in need of a font manager, and without recourse to some avenues to solving my problem, i began searching for a mirrored download for Font Explorer X, especially since there were so many rave reviews. searching on Google didn't yield anything, so i looked using something else, and found a download on the second try (if i was going to tell you what i used, i would have already, so can it). now i have Font Explorer X running in memory on my machine. okay, i'll back down a bit - the download was from the Linotype site - but i didn't visit the site before i found the link.

maybe it's because i'm using the US version of Firefox, but isn't there a word like 'learnt' in English? or why is Firefox telling me i have a spelling error there? i started Breath of Fire IV, and George and Victor got interested, and started playing it too. i've since finished it once (again), but they're still playing it - even though George has more time on the clock than i do (i finished in about 52 hours), and that doesn't include all the times he got his party killed and had to restart (i think the worst that happened to me was i lost my Knight dragon trying to beat the Rider without using Celerity and had to escape that fight...oh, i also got a Game Over trying to Steal the Dragon Tear from Fou-Lu). plus, my characters are all at higher levels than his and i have more Game Points and Fishing Points than he does - even though he's using a walkthrough. what really is the moral of this (supposedly interesting but completely unnecessary) story? experience. what makes one person able to do some things better than others might just be experience. and personal experience is built from doing the thing yourself. there are few things in this life you can master without doing the dull, rote everyday, mundane thing. but experience can beat talent. which is the point of the final episodes of History's Strongest Disciple, Kenichi. and the point of this post. later then!

Exams have started

...so i have very little time to do this. i really need to get out of here. i'll post an update later.

Why should Facebook shut down the group "Fuck Jesus Christ"?

i'm on Facebook, and ordinarily, would like to talk about how cool it is - i mean, i met someone i hadn't seen for over 10 years there...but now's not the time. i merely am asking why Facebook should shut down the above-named group, distasteful as the idea may seem. and no, i haven't lost my faith - i merely want to remove my emotions and tendency to bias the situation, and look at it objectively

my Nigerian friends may have no prior experience of such God-hating, but it's fairly common - which is probably why the group protesting the above-named group has less than 500000 members. statistics aside, i believe that action like forming a counter-group makes no sense. simply because that's what i think the devil wants you to do. join the group, then when they see how many you are they'll believe in Jesus or shut down the group? i wish you luck. you're just wasting your time. you're better off actually evangelizing, than protesting people's decision to express their feelings and thoughts. and the worst thing is that such hate groups thrive when they face pressure. it's the fuel for them. ignore - or bring them to real issues - and they lose steam, for the most part. besides, i don't think Jesus started a 'love Jesus' group when people wanted to kill Him. i think He just ignored the hate and kept loving them. He never met them on the devil's ground. and neither should we, because it's what love did - and continues to do.

as an addendum, i'd like to quote this 'conversation' i read on an edition of Higher Way magazine: -Want an orange? -No thanks, I don't eat oranges. They're not for me. -Why? -I dunno, just never ate one before. -Then how can you tell they're not for you? Why don't you try one an see for yourself? many of these folks who say they hate Jesus have never even met Him before. and since they pride themselves on logic and reason, the honest ones will admit bias when confronted with love. don't beat them over the head with Jesus. even He only did that to people who should have known better. and if we're the only Jesus some of these people will ever see before they get saved, i'd say things aren't exactly looking up (looking at my life, that is.

Supernatural 2007 over!

just got back about half an hour ago from the last meeting of Supernatural 2007. it was great, and 'm tired. need sleep - will do so when my dad leaves for church. my brother came with me as well. later!

web comics i (sometimes) read

yesterday, someone i know was walking with someone else, saw me and said, "i'd like to introduce you to this crazy guy" (the crazy guy being me). anyhow, i'm assumed crazy, and so, to keep my craziness up, i need to get into the heads of crazy people. two webcomics i like are xkcd and very recently - The Usual Dosage - a webcomic that seems to be developer based. so far, The Usual Dosage has only 6 strips, but i especially love the fifth. something has to be said for the sanity of whoever invented regular expressions. it's like an IQ test question i once read, which went something like this:

able, rot, son, king
Which word below shares a common feature with all the words above?
line, sit, take, hope, night

The answer: the words in the first list and 'take' can be prefixed with 'par' to form English words. like i said when i read that: i'm smart, but not crazy. at least, not that crazy.

one more thing: you really should read The Usual Dosage from the first strip to build it up. it makes more sense that way. and one more thing (no, really): start the '1337' series on xkcd. it's a five-part series and it's hilarious. and crazy. seriously crazy - and yes, i know that sounds kinky, like 'dry ice', 'cold sweat', 'jumbo shrimp' and 'clean porn'.

Why web designers used (and continue to use) tables for layout

Yesterday, after the morning session at the second day of Supernatural 2007, i was 'recruited' to format the programme for the night session in Word (don't miss the dripping sarcasm - it's pretty much a trademark). after trying to lay out the document using tabs, i realised why web designers started using tables for layouts - let's face it, your layout options before tables were pretty much limited to using preformatted text, or long strings of spaces. and after Word nearly had me pulling out Bill Gates' hair, i decided that i'd had enough - simply use an invisible table to lay out the programme in 3 columns, and let Word maintain the spacing and neatness of the entire thing. while i was doing that, it suddenly struck me that the first primordial designer probably had the same thoughts as i did - and started us all down the evil road of table-based layouts. i guess until the day when you can tell the software exactly what you want to do, you'll just get stuck with the idiosyncrasies of whatever software you do use.

First night @ Supernatural 2007

Supernatural 2007 kicked off today, and i quite had a great time. met a number of people i hadn't seen in quite a while - and i got to hear a great message that was timely and to the point. now, the onus is on me to do something with what i heard. later!

Now this is crazy!

growing up, i hated my parents, loved them, was indifferent - pretty normal, you would say. however, i just read a story that horrified me silly - a 16 year-old (now 17) is facing charges for attempted murder - he hired someone to take out his parents - ostensibly because they started disciplining him. you can get more about this here, here or here.

web crawling

was crawlin' round the web, doing nothing of absolutely any value, and found this blog that i seemed to have the password to. so i'm writing in it. hope the owner doesn't find me authoring content in his blog. heh (rubbing hands together gleefully), i wonder what kind of evil i should leave here that's untraceable to me...

the cafe got a new link, and i was there stress-testing it. as far as downloading goes - it will suck, in my opinion. still, nothing like being open for business...

if i crawl the web this much, Google should employ and pay me. of course, they'd pay me what i'm worth - nothing!

after the breakup

so this is me again, a few days later. i'm still alive - somehow. and even somehow coping with the 'loss' of my friend. of course, since i was the origin of this loss, i can't really complain. sometimes i wish i could just talk to her - maybe even call her with my phone number hidden - just to hear her voice. it doesn't help that she was really popular with my roommates, and they keep asking about her...even other people ask about her, or tell me that they saw her somewhere...

well, at least one person should be laughing about all this. friend of mine. ever since he met her with me, i don't think he's quite been the same. he was calling her more often than me, flirting with her, and all that - guess he'll be overjoyed that we aren't together anymore, so he can move in to comfort the distressed damsel...ah well. we got into an argument about this guy a few times - me telling her that he was interested in her - she going: "so what do you want me to do? i can't very well act paranoid - what if he's just being friendly?"...ah well. that's just a memory. just hope i made her happy for the time we were together. really. what the heck am i doing? i'm supposed to forget her! but i really don't want to. anyway, i've been blogging about this because i need to make sure this keeps up. the separation, that is. gon' grab me a lil' shut-eye, and i should be much better after.

screamin'

you know how they say that the things that are good for you - like vegetables - always seem unappetizing, while those that don't do you good - like cream donuts - are so hard to resist? evil rarely needs ads, but good things have to work overtime just to get your attention...

anyway, like i said before, there is this girl i'd been seeing. heck, more than seeing. everything started with one kiss, and promptly slid downhill from there on - without brakes. she's good-looking, smart, funny, fun to be with - but it was all wrong. for one thing, she was seeing someone else. for another, our relationship got very physical in a very short time - we might have been sleeping with each other given enough time - that i wonder if there was any real substance to it.

i'd been talking to my friends, and then sought help - i really liked her, but i decided to do what's right and break it off. so i started warming up to it. school closed on a Wednesday. i saw her up till Saturday when i went home, then cut off communications with her. she called me on my birthday (in fact she was the first person to call), i replied, then i called once more - and that was it. i knew she'd be mad, i missed her terribly, but i had to get used to not having her around.

the next time i saw her (last Wednesday), i acted aloof and cold when all i really wanted to do was take her into my arms and hold her close - and knowing my attitude would hurt her. finally broke it off on Friday - and she seemed to be taking it well. if i thought before hurt, it hurt even more yesterday. and then i got a text message. and another. if i wasn't talking to my homeboy, Woody, i might not have resisted replying. she wanted to see me, she wanted me to help with something important. i went out of my way to try to organize her for her but not be personally involved. meanwhile, i was turning into a zombie. i couldn't concentrate on my work, watching movies and anime lost its taste (we used to do this together), and depression was setting in. Woody advised me to go visiting - which basically fell flat because i really couldn't stomach people, and almost everyone seemed to be out last night. saw my pastor, complained to him, went back to my room. while i was out, she called - and it took everything i had to refuse to help personally. if i didn't fall sleep, i don't think i'd have made it through the night. despite what my pastor says about it getting better with each day, and God being on my side because i'm doing what's right - right now, i'm not looking forward to the rest of the year. it doesn't help that most everyone that might have helped out isn't around while i'm staring tetsubo in the face. well, here's to first seeing the month out. guess i'll just have to take it a day at a time. even now i wish i could just somehow wake up and it's all a dream, and she's back in my life. but it isn't going to happen. God, this hurts. is God Aztec? cause right now, i feel like my heart was ripped out and offered to Him.

Ahem, PHP 5 issues!

PHP 5 is such a wonder. i got a chance to use it when the host i'm using changed their PHP version to PHP 5.2.4 recently. before that, i'd been trying to write code compatible with both versions of PHP, and couldn't use exceptions and the like. coming from a background of C++, you might understand a few of the reasons i like PHP 5. anyway, since the host i was using changed their PHP version, i threw out the backward-compatibility and rewrote all my classes to use PHP 5 syntax - which reminds me of C++. of course, this came to bite me in the rear - twice already, and i may still have a few more bites before i'm done.

specifically, for one thing, i started using access modifiers. unfortunately, there was this little bit of my code that required me to access a data member from one class to another. using the old syntax, that was no problem, but when i changed to PHP 5, i automatically made all data members private - which caused an access error, since one class needed access to another's internals. anyway, that was quickly resolved and relatively minor. from my C++ heritage, the concept of destructors is quite cool - objects that 'know' how to clean themselves up when they die make life easy. when rewriting my code for PHP 5, i automatically started using destructors - i mean, let the database connection close itself when it goes out of scope - or shouldn't it? herein lies the problem: i wrapped sessions also and also provided a destructor - that cleaned up the session when the session object went out of scope! of course, i was high on PHP 5 and didn't quite realize that that would defeat the purpose of the session itself - why use sessions that would simply clean themselves up when the current script terminates? it took me quite some time to figure out why i couldn't log in - because the password was correct and when i looked at the access logs on my machine, i saw that i was redirected from the login page to the dashboard and back to the login page. besides, when i tried the wrong password, i got a different error message. d-uh!

Back in school

got back to school yesterday - moved back into my room today. no, i am not sweeping the room. it seems the last 3 or so times we leave campus, i'm about the first person back into the room, and therefore i'm the person who initiates cleaning. well, that's over. let someone else do it. we all live in the same room, don't we? met Toba's girl yesterday. he seems to be okay now that his exams are over. but law school calls - so he and the rest of the guys in final year law are basically packing up now. ah well. won't miss them.

finally! some archiver problems fixed!

for quite a while now, 7-zip has been my major archiver program. it works quite well, isn't large and clunky, and even though its icons suck, is pretty good. i usually use it together with another archiving program - either ZipGenius or IZArc, though ZipGenius has nicer icons. that's because of the ACE archive format - for some reason, there's no support for this in 7-zip. IZArc seems to handle the largest number of formats of the three, though since i don't have it installed, i can't make any definite statement on that. in case you're wondering why i don't just use ZipGenius and ignore 7-zip, it's because 7-zip has the handy feature of extracting all useful information in an archive. that means if an archive is corrupt - say about 4.5kb from the end, when you extract from that archive using 7-zip, all the useful information from that archive up to the corrupt point is kept after it hits the error. other archiving programs delete the file after encountering an error, which may be shooting you in the foot, as even the partial extract can be useful.

anyway, i had some problems with all three. when you tried to extract a series of archives using their shell extensions, all three launched different processes for each archive handled, meaning that if you were extracting two archives using the ZipGenius shell extension, ZipGenius would run twice; for five archives, it would run five times, and so on. the versions of ZipGenius and 7-zip affected were 6.02 and 4.42 respectively (as far as i can tell, the latest version of IZArc still does this. WinRAR has had it right for about as long as i can remember). this may not have been a problem, but let's say all the archives had a file with the same name in them, and you were extracting them into the same location. you'd have to answer the overwrite dialog for each additional archive - which, in case you didn't already figure it out - is annoying (this is more common than you may think at first blush - lots of people put a file named 'readme.txt' into archives).

in addition to that, ZipGenius didn't work well on Vista - which i found out to my chagrin after installing it for a friend. the shell extension kept crashing Windows Explorer - so i uninstalled it and installed IZArc for him. after getting home, i went over to both the 7-zip and ZipGenius sites and got both the latest beta (4.55) and the latest update (6.03) for each of them, and installed it. now, 7-zip uses just one process, no matter how many archives you're extracting, and the shell extension is disabled on Vista for ZipGenius (haven't tried doing the multiple-archive extract with this update though). apart from that, 7-zip quits with an error message if it can't open a file as an archive instead of just opening the folder containing the offending file. also, the ZipGenius update has its shell extension on steroids - not only .zip archives, but .rar and even .tar.gz archives report how many files are contained - but this number can be misleading, especially if the archive is corrupt (like when i was downloading an archive and the download broke...)

what's poppin'

i grew an interest in Avatar - The Last Airbender because i learnt about it on one of an anime site. i started getting low-quality videos of it (up to season 2), and it's really quite nice. It's still ongoing, so those of you who get Nickelodeon should check out the schedule. It should still run another 6+ weeks, but i gather season 3 is what's up these days, so maybe you might want to search YouTube, though when i just searched now, i didn't find any season 1 episodes...but then i'm too busy to look for them properly...

contrary to what i learned about D.Gray-man, the anime is still ongoing. i thought it would end at 51 episodes, but it's still got a long way to go...

Kaze no Stigma, Claymore, Heroic Age and Darker than Black are all ended (at least for now, anyway). someone told me about History's Strongest Disciple Kenichi episode 51, but i can't find it anywhere - i'm starting to think the guy was (at least this once) selling snake oil. also, the last 3 episodes of Karas are out - and the fourth episode has already been fansubbed by Anime-Kraze. i was on the Dattebayo website a few days back, and they'd announced that they'd stop subbing Bleach, so i was surprised that i got Bleach episode 144 - subbed by Dattebayo, no less! on checking the site once again, i found out it was probably a joke on their part, as 'drop Bleach' was replaced by 'not drop Bleach', and the actual announcement was replaced with a Google search for 'dattebayo drop bleach'...

Moms rule!

just came across xkcd. moms rule! (umm, don't bother unless you know at least some SQL)

Psycle 1.8.5 released

having nothing in particular to rant about this early in the morning, i'd like to inform whoever might be reading this blog, has an interest in digital music production, doesn't like piracy, and is willing to work hard (that pretty much eliminates everyone reading this, but if by some miracle you scaled through...) that Psycle 1.8.5 has been released, and you can also get a bunch of VST plugins to go with it...sorry, Windows only. SourceForge hosts, so all you who use download managers beware (no, i will not tell you which mirrors work best. find out yourself).

while we're on the subject, about 4 months back, Psycle's original author passed away in an auto crash. he will be well-missed, as he contributed (wholly or in part) to several audio-related projects, including FLStudio plugins, among others. in other words, even though he didn't live that long, he left a mark - do something with your life (look who's talking...).

i happened to look up his site, and pretty much everything he worked on when he was alive there is free. you can't get too much help, so download away.

arrgh! i hate friends!

okay, updates. school was closed down on wednesday. i only heard about it around 10pm, and i thought it was a sick joke at the time. since i don't have a camera, i didn't record the mass exit. that really sucks, dude. anyhow, i'm in lagos for a few days - have to return to school, you know.

Woody didn't show up for his part of the gig, so i had to fill his shoes. i hate friends! there i was, looking like an idiot, trying to demonstrate the use of wings 3d and blender. i just hope that someone got some idea of what was what. and Dade just had to put the pictures on Photobucket! is he high or something? i've promised his sister that his just reward will be death and dismemberment, unless of course he can pay me off - and i don't come cheap.

Woody didn't tell me he was hopping off to Ghana. and he has to gall to call me from there...(fuming - do i look convincing?) anyhow, i guess he and the girls and guys are doing great over there. they missed being kicked out of school, as school was closed down the night they left.

History's Strongest Disciple Kenichi is over, and we at the church of kenichi in school do bring you greetings from history's strongest pervert - sorry, disciple. or we'd like to think so. my evil twin was over for a few days - had fun with him. well, i guess i'd better go back to looking for free food - why else would i come home today?

waaah!

having nothing in particular i feel like blogging about today, i think i'll just scream.

Long time, no see

it's been quite a while since i last blogged. and that's not good. unfortunately for me, my blog seems be getting quite a bit of popularity, at least as far as i can see. i attended a session of 60 Minutes with the Geeks, and people were pointed to my blog. why, i don't know, since my blog is less techie and more personal. ah well. guess that's the downside to being 'famous' - you lose your personal life. somewhat, anyway.

so what's been happening in my life? lots. but since quite a bit of it also involves other people, i can't say much here. but:

• The anime History's Strongest Disciple Kenichi is over. i think the end was okay, but some people think it's crappy. opinions differ
• Nigeria celebrated her independence. duh.
• i got like, really, really, broke

..among other things, anyway. well, gotta go now. later!

Blender 2.45 out!

the link's not officially on the main Blender website

Autodesk student program

strange, the things i sometimes pick up on the internet. can't remember just how i got this information, but it seems Autodesk - the company behind industry greats like 3ds max, AutoCAD and Maya - has a student program in which you can get free (but restricted) versions of some of their software, including Revit, Inventor and AliasStudio. you can access the student program via this link. better yet, it seems you don't need a school-issued email address to register for the program, but you will need someone from your school faculty to sign you up. all you need do is invite the person to the program, and that person can authorize yours and other email addresses for registration. well, guess at least someone will take advantage of this info...

oh, crap!

it's been quite a while since i last blogged. not exactly my fault. my normal internet connection is down, and i also have to deal with some issues that i'm not exactly happy to write about. i mean, too many people i know and see at least every week or so actually read my blog. not exactly a great motivation to write about myself as freely as i would have otherwise. anyways, i'm not too bad. hope my internet connection gets restored very soon. it's annoying being unable to download anything via browser.

had one of those "why did i ever get out of bed this morning?" days yesterday. it started pretty good, so i thought it was going to be another ordinary day. boy, i was young and foolish and had no idea what was coming my way...i first updated my antivirus program, AVG Free for the first time in about 12 days (i did mention my regular internet connection was down, didn't i?), and then it began detecting OpenSong, a program i'd been using on my machine for well over four months with AVG Free, as a trojan. and then i show up at church and not one person in my team makes it early. worse still, our equipment made it in almost a full hour after service had started - not exactly very comforting setting up while service is going on. the day rapidly went downhill from there on, including the fact that i need to use OpenSong for my work in church. it was not funny ignoring all those virus warnings while working...ah well. the day ended, and i'm still alive, or so i think...though i may be wrong, even if i would like to be proved right...

The "Breakup"

long time, no post. that's what happens when you keep your mind off the important stuff, and get saddled with something as inconsequential as surviving. anyhow, been up to no good since my last post. have returned to school with the best of intentions but have performed the worst of actions.

so i got to the park and was leaving when i saw her again. one thing led to another, and we've got into an argument, all lovey-dovey, and a "breakup". this time, i mean it to be for real. she's just outside now, it's about 3am, and i wish she were here...

to put things in perspective, i promised Woody that i'd not contact her until i returned to school. i broke that. i kept carrying on with her, even though i knew there was no future in it. i guess the worst thing is that i like her. i really do. and i will never again feel superior to my friend who swore he'd kiss a pair of lips before he graduated (he did, they hooked up, and drove each other up the wall - though not necessarily in that order). anyway, i decided that i'd been ambivalent enough, and that i'd "break up" for real this time. i did - about an hour ago. the only good thing is i still feel somewhat numb and pretty sick. spoken like a true jerk. i was warned that there'd be no nice-guy way out of this, and i let it progress too far. guess i really have earned my "Certified Jerk" status.

Rocks and pillows

made it through the night without one phone call. yay. didn't get much sleep though. guess i'll have to swear off anime for a while - it's eating up valuable time and resources (most noticeably harddisk space).

weird. i'm thinking a little different since last night. maybe i was tired last night. women can be noisy, nosy and plain exasperating. plus, they have this ability to make absolutely no sense at all. it really is a talent, and i'm surprised we don't have more female comedy sketches. and Hollywood has it wrong - who says the women are smarter, and usually have it all together? anyway, before i get crucified remotely, women have their redeeming qualities. you've heard how form follows function, right? well, hugging a woman (sometimes irrespective of her actual form) can be like hugging a pillow. guys, no offence, but hugging any of y'all is like, well, hugging a rock. ewwww. who'd get warmth from that?

the truth is, a woman would. remember i said "form follows function"? well, look at it this way: otoko wa senshi. they are created to protect, to provide, and deal with nasties. they're meant to have strength. so they need hardness and rough edges. they're rocks. women on the other hand, are nurturers, feeders (this isn't to say they're supporters relegated to a back role, though they do kind of play a supporting role). they're meant to care and be soft and comfy (i hear the angry mobs coming), a place where a man can shed his strength (at least temporarily) and renew it (now you now why little boys instinctively flex their non-existent muscles around a pretty girl. big boys still do it too, even if they do have muscles. and you can replace muscles with looks, charm, pumped up ride, big bucks, or whatever. it's basically a way of saying, "i'm strong, a rock you can depend and anchor on"). so guys are basically the hero-warrior who rescue to damsel in distress, and the ladies are the damsel for whom the hero-warrior is strong for, the ones who get rescued. or at least that's how it was supposed to be. something happened a long time ago, and got men and women broken inside. now, we just have males and females who don't know what they're supposed to be or do. mendokusai o ne!

Life without limbs

about Nick Vujicic: you can find out more about this remarkable man at his website, Life Without Limbs. Lord knows some of us (looking in mirror) have just about no idea what they take for granted and waste

I really need a tune-up

yo! mina-san, hisashibiri! been almost two weeks since i updated this blog. it feels like an eternity since my last post...

so, let's start with the updates. exams are over and i'm at home! yay! i get to talk with my dad and sister without using a phone - every day! or at least while i'm still home, which is for about a week. and talk about atrophy! i've been trying to design a website for some folks, and since the last one i designed was about 2 years back, and dude - i really suck now! here's a sample of what i did. i'll post the work in progress as i improve on it...good thing it's not due for another couple of weeks...

after i got back to school, i got myself involved with this chick that i've known for about a year or so...we ended up spending quite a bit of time together. this is going to sound arrogant and chauvinistic, but i think she likes me. and i like her too, but...

it's been the story of my life. i've never had a romantic relationship with anyone. and not for lack of trying on my part. Biyi tells me that women tend to like me, and it seems that way to me too, but my experience gives the lie to that. at least one girl has left my life twice without me working up the courage to ask her out. and i was kind of getting to it too... i've had one outright rejection (i've also only asked outright once), i've lost interest a couple times (more often than not, i just run out of steam), i've had to "give up" a girl for a friend (yes, my sickening brand of "honour" does the most amazing things to me) at least once, just about every woman who says she loves me is married, engaged or in a steady relationship...and now, this - but it won't work out. not like this. maybe later, under different circumstances. but it doesn't stop me from aching to call her, talk with her, be with her. call me desperate or a basket case - but i would really like to have someone hold on to my arm like i was her knight in shining armor. and i'm sick of waiting for a stone wall to suddenly cave in.

seems to me i really need to work out my issues - but that doesn't stop me from wondering why i seem to be saddled with unavailable women. ah well. it's just as well i'm not in a relationship right now anyway. i still have a long way to go, and i'm no good as i am right now. i need to get stronger, until i can protect my important people (i really have watched too much anime!)

Cleanliness is next to godliness...

no, that little sweetheart is not in the bible. for a really long time, i thought it was, especially since i thought i saw something like it in a bible. and no, you haven't exceeded your clean limit yet - just for all the closet slobs out there - and don't worry, i happen to be one, even though my membership is rather shaky. no, i'm not explaining myself either.

exams are almost over, so i'd best get back into the troposphere and hang on an antenna, since i'm not done just yet. and why do my friends know my blog? i can't say all the stuff i want to say on this one (and i'm too lazy to create another), ah well. you can't have everything your way, i suppose.

i actually check my mail sometimes, as opposed to merely looking it over and deleting things in it. that's how i found out about Nick Vujicic, an inspiring young man who reaches out to very many people every day. Nick was born in Australia, of Christian parents, and is a about year older than i am. rather ordinary, except he was born without limbs. and he's going for his dreams and making lots of impact. he's truly learned to "count it all joy". reading it this morning was rather sobering for me, as i was depressed and was about giving up on making any significant impact in life. my life has been a long story of uncompleted projects and abandoned dreams. it got to me yesterday, and i really wanted to give up on everything. i might have been voted "Most Likely to Succeed" at my elementary and secondary education levels, but i've not achieved anything of value so far - and i'm talking about almost 10 years ago at the most recent. i wish i could share the mail, but that would mean sharing my dad's email address (GMail does a great job of filtering out spam, but why tempt spammers?). still, i might just reconstruct the mail so you can share in this young man's amazing tale. get - and stay - inspired. life is meant to be lived with passion.

and finally, using Safari as an everyday browser might not have been such a good idea after all, as it crashes faithfully and consistently. Apple still has a long way to go in making this beast tame. till then, i wish them luck.