Older blog entries for vivekv (starting at number 50)

The poster is now behaving strangely when it works across different timezones. Interesting problem this. When I query advogato for the last posted date, it responds with a date/time information. This is converted by the apache XMLRPC client for java into a Date Object. This date object for some strange reason has my local timezone embedded in it instead of the timezone of the server. Since I live in a timezone that is about 12 hours ahead of Advogato, strange things happen when I use this date to decide on what local files should be posted to advogato. Anybody has any ideas on this? Please drop me a note - vivekv at magic hypen cauldron dot com.

I am hosting the software on my site. Please look at the link called Advogato Poster under the software section. Except for the one bug mentioned above, I think the software works fine.

Life

Spending a relaxed weekend at home. Too hot to attempt to go anywhere. My siste-in-law and family will come over tomorrow. Planning to go to the beach to cool off in the evening.

Open Source

OK, I think I have fixed all the bugs with my poster. If this entry and yesterday's entry posts fine together, then I am ready to release it to the world.

Software

Even though my poster is pretty slick (I wrote it didn't I :-) ?) in a minimalistic sort of way, is anyone aware of a good Palm OS software from which I can write my entires? That is really what I want - Palm OS ->OutLook -> Advogato or something along those lines.

Fri, May 9, 2003

Open Source

OK, I think I have fixed all the bugs with my poster. If this entry and yesterday's entry posts fine together, then I am ready to release it to the world.

Software

Even though my poster is pretty slick (I wrote it didn't I :-) ?) in a minimalistic sort of way, is anyone aware of a good Palm OS software from which I can write my entires? That is really what I want - Palm OS ->OutLook -> Advogato or something along those lines.

Thu, May 8, 2003

Open Source

Whoops ! my advogato poster went nuts when it tried to post multiple days of entires in one go! See the mess it has made for the May 7th entries. Now I have to wait for two more days to see if I am able to post correctly. Shucks...

life

Went out with the entire team today for a dinner. Just to celebrate. Had a good time at the Residency. Dinner and general ribbing.

life

Bought the book - The Art of War by Sun Tzu yesterday. Have heard rave reviews about this book from a lot of sources. Wanted to find out what it was. I knew it was written at around 300 B.C. so if it is still considered good, I better own a copy. So I went in and bought it. This month I have been spending a lot on books. Wife would not approve!

Tue, May 6, 2003

life

OK... its official, I am one more rung up on the corporate ladder. New challenges await me now and new opportunities too.

Open Source

I did not receive any comments on my Team test Development requirements document that I had posted on my site. Hopefully people will find it useful when it gets developed.

Wed, May 7, 2003

Software

Read an article about a product called AspectJ. The concept is based on what is called as "aspect oriented programming" a seemingly different programming paradigm designed to help solve the class of programming problems that can be widely applied across an application. Should probably get to spend more time on it to understand the intricacies.

The advogato poster worked... Yesterday's entry and this one was posted by the poster automatically. Now I have to verify it can do delayed posts correctly (as I had planned) then I am ready to release it to the world.
I have to quickly put together some documentation for this tool. Also code cleanup has to be done to make it presentable.

life

Planning to have a lazy sunday. Hang out with friends during lunch and then come back home. Probably spend some time on the Community Test Development app. Its going to get very busy at work next week. Might as well plan for it.

The weather in Chennai is getting hot - about 35 deg. C it feels really hot outside. It will only get hotter soon.

Stopped by at the inlaw's place on the way back home. They wanted to visit a temple so went to the temple with them. I am not exactly a religious person but I wanted them to be happy. Today happens to be Akshaya Thrithi.. A hindu thing. So the temple visit.

Wrote a quick and dirty tool in Java to add my diary entries to advogato. I have always written diary entries offline but forgot to post them and somehow lost track of them. Now, with this tool, I think I have solved the problem. I will be making it available on my website once I find it stable.

Actually I never checked if someone already has a tool written like this. Just felt the urge to hack and hacked away!

Life

Have been sick for the past few days. Food poisoning - hmmm... have to stop eating at strange places - That andhra mess is danger! Good thing is that it gave me some time off from the regular monotony and was able to focus on test driven development and put together a set of requirements for a new application (see previous post)

Work

We are going live soon. Good! now we can see the fruits of our labour for the past one year.

I have been trying to put down my thoughts on a new test case development tool. Its pretty rough right now and available at my site. Please take a look and give me some feedback on this. Would love to take your feedback to help define the direction for this. Planning to make it an open source project and host it on sourceforge.

Back after a long haitus. Just lazy and lost interest in maintaining a diary. Thought I will start doing it with a different purpose now - asking questions. I want to see how many people respond. Just a thought please dont flame me for that :-)