Older blog entries for CryoBob (starting at number 14)

Work

Got started with Jtrix application fundamentals today. I think being in the same room as a the devlopers has helped me assimilate quite a bit, and I am not finding it too daunting. Managed to run most of the examples and see them working, although Jtrix does seem to take up a heck of alot of resources even when running on a 1Ghz Athlon with 512MB RAM.

I think I am going to enjoy working with the platform, since I have found it quite easy to pick up (so far) and it seems simpler than EJB's (which took me longer than usual to learn).

I can't wait to see how all the magic works i.e. Jtrix allows you to create a node in which applications(netlets) can run, this node could be a single machine or multiple machines, it does not matter. When a new Hosting service for that node comes online, all the applications are immediately aware of it, and can make use of its resources. Pretty neat hey? niksilver will correct this statement if it is wrong I'm sure, but I think I got the just of it.

Well the Jtrix web site has loads of information for those of you who are interested.

Home

Spent last night rebuilding my workstation since I think my wife powered it off while it was in Linux one to many times. fsck could not seem to recover from the errors. Oh well, I still had all the install information from the last time I did it, so the whole process only took about 2 hours.

Right time for the mad commute home

Work

Just finishing up the last few bugfixes on the site, once these have been tested on the live server, we can push these live and I can get started learning alot more about the Jtrix platform.

So lots to learn and lots to do over the coming weeks. Just hope it does not turn my brain into mush. Been a while since I have had to pick up a new API, and learn to program for a new platform.

9 days since my last post. Must have been busy. Well alot of the changes that I made to the Jtrix site have gone live.

So I have had to spend most of the week tweaking and fixing the myriad of little bugs that we missed during testing. everything seems to be working now, just need to keep and eye on it and wait for it to settle down.

On the plus side it is Friday and I can look forward to doing nothing for 2 days.

Peace out

Everyone(well almost) was back in the office today. felt a bit strange since there were only three of us in the office between xmas and new year. All of us new starters with no holiday. Was good since we managed to accomplish quite alot, well I did at least. Susan seemed to be running into a few issues with some of the Jtrix hospitality code.

Managed to get a build across to the staging server, and our sysadmin managed to get our backup web server into a stable state. So we will hopefully be able to test the staging to live build process tomorrow. Now if I can figure out why the jCVS stuff is not working on the staging server, I will be sorted.

A few minor cosmetic bugs still need to be sorted, but they are just annoying more than anything else.

Well first post of the new year. 2002 sounds kinda wierd since I remember reading books about this time when we would all be piloting flying cars, and robot maids would do our worst chores. Not quite there yet, but on the plus side the time off gave me a chance to re-install my desktop.

I managed to shoehorn Ximian gnome on to a base version of Slackware 8. Using alien and Redhat 6.2 packages, everything was a breeze, just a few niggly little library dependencies which I have mostly sorted out. Red-carpet however does not seem to function at all, and keeps segfaulting. Not that I think it would be of much use since I don't have an RPM based system.

Also finally managed to get tickets to LOTR. THought it was a pretty good film, even fairly close to the books storyline.(No flames please, I am not a pedant; jsut the movie and my memories of the book roughly tie up). I thought most of the effects were quite good, just need to wait until it comes out on DVD and I am not sitting in the 3rd row from the front to pass my final judgement.

So back to the full swing of things tomorrow. Best get some sleep since it is about 12am and I need to get up in 6 hours

Well finished off reworking and testing the new error handling functionality of the site. All seems to work OK. Just hope I have not left any forced breakages in the site.

Managed to knock off 2 more smaller tasks at the same time, so I am about a day ahead of schedule. Should keep niksilver happy. Although I did just ask to have the day I gained as a testing day, just to make sure I have not broken any functionality horribly.

Off to do the last bit of Christmas shopping tonight, oh joy --> I just hope the supermarket is not too busy, and my wife does not want to buy too much.

Well after the xmas party it was quite hard to get back into the swing of things, hence the reason for not posting over the past few days.

On the work front, things are going well. I am just over 1/2 way through my task list, and all the changes to the site should be complete by the 10th. This should also give us enough time to test the site on a redundant live server, rather than just our internal staging server.

Started looking at the MrProject application in order to try and bring some sense of order to the updates of the website as well as track my progress. It might be nice to hack some code into evolution that links tasks to MrProject files, or even a web based viewer/updater would be useful. Just need the time, maybe get some done over xmas.

Monday once again, had a fantastic time in Switzerland, although it does get harder to leave every time. Once you get used to the clean air I think your body gets addicted to it.(Oh yeah, that and the chocolate, and the bread and the ...)

Another fairly productive day, managed to complete the re-work of the Forum display engine, as well as update the size of the messages that get sent via email to our subscribers.

Found another bug with the site where 4 warrants are requested at a single click, seems to be a threading issue, so another fairly interesting bug that needs to be fixed in the site. At least it keeps me busy.

Now if I can just figure out where JavaMail is sending my emails I should be able to complete another task, but unfortunately the black hole into which these messages are being sent eludes me.

I had a challenging day - finally something to sink my teeth into after months of mind numbing bordom. I am in the process of reworking the backend objects of our forum software - Jive -(or should I say lack of them) - still need to do a bit of tidy up, but they work very well, and the presentation code is a lot less confusing.

Off to Switzerland tomorrow, for some snow, hiking and loads of chocolate. There are 5 of us going all school mates from South Africa, except for Pete --> He is just tagging along. So best get my laptop up to date so I can do some dev on the plane.

Ciao as they say all over the world

Ok not a particularly productive day, but I learnt alot. Spent the morning getting my development machine in line with the staging and live servers.

Then spent the afternoon trying to organise how to fix the ordering problem in our forums. We have come to the conclusion that we need to have 2 views of the thread data. Guess this will give me a chance to start modifying the site in a big way and refactor a few areas as I do it.

Had a good look at the Jive source today though. In the 50 minutes I spent rooting around in it I discovered that it is actually a damn well designed system and quite nicely extensible too, so congrats guys. However if you could explain to me how to fix the ordering on my site I would appreciate it,but I guess I will work it out in a while.

Nothing like a challenge to keep the brain working.