April 2010
3 posts
Unit Testing Aspects
Something that I haven’t really run into is how to unit test an aspect - given how unique the circumstances are required to invoke such an event, I was at a bit of a loss. After some thinking and trial/error, I came up with a cut-down version of what the application uses - a limited Spring configuration, the Spring test suite, JUnit and a lot of assertions.
The Spring config is actually pretty...
Drink the Kool-Aid
“Perhaps the best announced feature of iAds, though, is that it doesn’t
take you outside of the app you’re using to view the ads. Dismiss the ad
whenever you want, and you’re right back where you left off.” Seriously? This is the best announced feature of an advertising platform that can ram things down to you at will, probably blocking the entire UI until you...
Code Attrition
Given my day job as a software developer, I tend to get asked random questions by family and friends about computers. On this occasion, my dad was asking me how to make some C# code work, since he’s working on a C# based project. I popped open the project in Visual Studio, noticed that it compiled, and ran it. It fires up a window that asks you what directory you want to search in, and...
March 2010
3 posts
Bullying and You
Read this and tell me why District Attorney Elizabeth Scheibel (the ‘she’ in the following quote) needs to re-think her worldview, especially in light of the fact that they could probably have saved somebody from suicide.
She said the investigation looked at whether the adults’ failure to help Phoebe amounted to criminal behavior.
“In our opinion, it did not,” she...
NoSQL vs. SQL
The backlash against NoSQL has begun! After enjoying a solid rise in popularity over the last 12-18 months, people are starting to fight back. The problem is that, as always, people are missing the point. NoSQL became popular quickly because it addressed an area that DB servers do not: scalability. Of course many businesses have been running on database servers and have managed to scale them...
DSi XL
“Many gamers only play their Nintendo DS games at home—in bed, in front of the TV while their parents or spouse watch something they’re not interested in.” - http://bit.ly/dBuRNf
I play mine while I’m at the PC waiting for games to load, or while doing something in EVE and there is no action. Gaming while waiting for games.
February 2010
1 post
Wicket Bug
I’ll have to file a bug report for this, since it is so interesting, though more investigation is required to see how pervasive it is.
Generally, when I use Wicket, I don’t use a FeedbackPanel to display error messages to the user. Instead, I use a FormComponent.IVisitor that walks through all the FormComponents for the form that was submitted (via AJAX, natch). Each component is...
January 2010
1 post
HTML5 - Expanded
My HTML 5 tweet needs a bit of expanding - one that 140 characters won’t allow for. One of the blogs I follow is Dive into HTML5 as it provides some great insight and explores some of the new features that HTML5 provides. The most recent entry (that I read) was called A Form of Madness, detailing the new input types that will be brought to the table. As a (terrible) web designer, these...
December 2009
2 posts
µTorrent UI Changes Bad Idea
The new µTorrent UI just doesn’t do it for me; replacing the ‘play’ start button with that weird up-down icon, the other icons, the menu bar style itself - they just don’t fit well together. Changing a UI to make it more functional is one thing, but breaking something that was pretty perfect makes no sense to me.
Math Problem
If Ana leaves point A at 9AM and Michael leaves point A at 9:50AM, what speed is Ana’s fist moving at when she hits Michael for arriving at point B at the exact same moment?
November 2009
2 posts
Dead Trees and eBooks
Last night, as I wrestled with Monday night insomnia, I was thinking about how I prefer reading a dead tree to trying to scan pixels on a screen. My thought process usually ends there - I accepted my preference and moved on. Last night I happened to have a lot of time to kill, so I pondered the root cause - why do I find it difficult to process information from an eBook.
After a while, it...
Business Etiquette
You know what - yes, I was printing a big ole’ document. You wanted to do something using the same multifunction device at the same time? Guess what, you didn’t have to cancel what I was doing! It can scan AND print at the same time! I know that it is a pretty crazy scenario, but still. Next time, just let it go - I promise we can both be happy.
October 2009
1 post
This is Interesting
Apparently there is another Michael Laccetti in the world - seems he lives in the US and went to UAlbany. I can still claim to be somewhat unique as Michael is my anglicized name, but still. The interesting part is that it would appear that he is donates money to UAlbany.
How do I know this? Well, this is where the fun comes in - Google is screwing up pretty hard. You see, I have...
September 2009
2 posts
A Computer in Pictures
x 2 x 4 x 4 x 3
Quote of the Day
“We’re working against opponents who make politics personal—who distort and deny the truth and put partisan gain ahead of the national interest.”
— Michael Ignatieff
August 2009
21 posts
4 tags
Getting Solaris 10 to Authenticate Against...
Brief History: I’m busy setting up a new debug/staging environment at work so that we can consolidate the many tens of old FreeBSD 4.4 (ohgod) and Solaris 9/10 servers into a few distinct Solaris 10 servers. Personally, I would have gone with some sort of Linux distro, but for some reason somebody thinks that Solaris is the way to go. Now, if we were switching to OpenSolaris, I might not...
I unlocked the Coming Down! achievement on Red Faction: Guerrilla! http://ping.fm/1wBha
DoneDone guys got back to me - seems that there is a cookie coming back that I need to rip out and send back in with other requests. Eek!
I unlocked the Bling achievement on Trials HD! http://ping.fm/rxjFl
I unlocked the Tank Buster achievement on Red Faction: Guerrilla! http://ping.fm/6hEDt
DoneDone SOAP API doesn’t seem to be working (for me, at any rate) and JIRA 3.8’s SOAP API uses RPC encoding, which JAX-WS 2.0 doesn’t like.
Using DoneDone Web Services with Apache CXF 2.2.x
I ran into an issue while trying to hook into DoneDone’s web services. Apparently all of the session management in .NET web services is done at the header/cookie level, which is not really a SOAP standard. Given that I’m using Java (CXF specifically), I needed to do some horrible hackery to make this work. Here is the net result! Note: please realize that it is 1:40 on Sunday...
SCRIBEFIREKFFtX6vWlwSCRIBEFIRE
SCRIBEFIREiZ5zqFmZSCRIBEFIRE
I unlocked the The Challenger achievement on Trials HD! http://ping.fm/cRG73
Game reviews: Red Faction - terrific. Trials HD - tons of fun. Batman - Arkham Asylum demo - need the full game already!
Weird, custom reCAPTCHA validation doesn’t seem to play nice with HttpClient, but is okay with manual URLConnection stuff. Bah.
Technology Kills
Reading about clouds and using big distributed datastores and crazy caching… I have to remind myself that scalability is something you think of during the initial phase, but don’t worry about until you start hitting ceilings. Always have to tell myself to get something out rather than get sidetracked by features.
I have to admit that a part of me dies a bit whenever I read a blog post about somebody liking a tag-based MVC framework over Wicket.
So, TTC, is there a reason why you screwed all the windows shut on a brand new bus, then let the driver not turn the AC on? We were all wet.
Does Safari 4 have issues with multiple monitors? A lot of popup windows are on my main window, which is where Safari is NOT.
Methinks rounded button background image is a better way to go instead of JS cruft.
As always, managed to be 15 seconds late for the streetcar. It is a rare skill…
Baguette, salami and some cambozola - keep me powered while I do the work thing.
Scripting a trigger for Perforce is tons of fun. Really.
Angelina Jolie is Scary
Apparently Angelina Jolie reverted to old form by wearing a leather dress to the premiere of Inglorious Basterds - the new Quentin Tarantino flick that I’m planning on seeing. Many a blog was raving about how terrific she looked, how she can show everyone else up, etc, etc. Me? I was wondering if they were blind - she looks like she has an eating disorder and is trying to mimic a...
Dear Enbridge Electric
Dear Enbridge Electric Connections: I know that we had some unhappy moments when we first started our relationship those many moons ago, but I thought we had moved beyond them. Apparently, I am both delusional and horribly wrong. While I was looking away, it seems that you met up with Bell, Rogers and the rest of those monopolies out behind the portables and picked up some bad habits. I expect...