foxpro.catalyst «

FoxPro workBLOGS and MORE… . . .

Problems of code reliability in Microsoft Visual Foxpro.

Last Saturday, after two consecutive days of another batch of client visits, I found myself in a crowded mall with a three feet plant in my right hand. While others are carrying their shopping bags, new shirts, shoes or whatever thing they have decided to waste their money on, I was carrying a plant.

The feeling is weird and surreal that not even Tim Burton taking a hallucination steroid can portray it.

Anyway, the plant’s not mine though I don’t mind owning it after carrying it in that mall. I made a different purchase that day, which includes a brand new spankin’ 80GB 7200 Seagate hard disk and one 128MB DDRAM which I am currently using in this PC.

I have moved my old WindowsME into the primary slave slot and installed WindowsXP on this new drive. While others might cringe and scream when they hear the word WindowsME, I on the other hand have only good things to say about it. It has been with me for almost two years and 20+ database projects. So it stays there as a primary slave disk so that I can simply switch drive slots in case, God forbid, something goes wrong with this WindowsXP of mine.

I haven’t had a major crash while WindowsME was holding the steering wheel. The WindowsXPerience so far has been good though. Hope it remains that way until Microsoft releases the second service pack for Longhorn.

This CD rot thing is scary. So at three in the morning after compiling some database programs I spent some time randomly picking old CDRs and raising them up against the light looking for any signs of constellations and alien life forms.

So far this home-made Hubble hasn’t found one. I can now sleep well.

I have had bad experiences with generic CDRs before and I have learned my lessons.

Importance(Data.Security + Media.Reliability) > CD.Price

This, my friend, is applicable in any constellation this universe holds.

Before today… make that yesterday, since it is already 2AM and I have just decided to call it a day in terms of database-related works, it was a consecutive three day client visits for me. It is quite a busy start for this week. And it will be busier in the days to come since I’m targeting to complete most of these projects by the end of May.

Haven’t done much surfing lately too so I can’t give you interesting links for now. What I do these days is copy the links that my RSSReader grabs for me and save this batch on an Excel file which I will later copy and paste inside HTTrack for some midnight-to-morning ‘pulling’. So far I haven’t read those articles yet.

I’m also planning to take some time to do some updates at pixelcatalyst.lair which I have been neglecting these days. PixelWorkz, the site from where pixelcatalyst.lair was derived will turn five years this 19th of May so probably I’d be uploading some stuff which I haven’t had the time to upload for months already. These would include the artworks I submitted to DepthCore during last month’s Submergence release and something related to the on going collaboration between me and ShadowElement. Add a batch of tutorials and some stock photos.

OK… this feed just came in: West Wind Html Help Builder 3.25 released.

From the Editor: The Birth of a New Generation by David Stevenson. .NET Rocks! interviews DonXML.

Beware of sasser. Rumors claim that it can cause baldness and irritation of the skin. More info and helpful links here.

Random quickie-mind blobs.

• If you can’t afford to buy your dream house, create them in photoshop. Better… make them look edible.
• PixelPalooza winners from Icon Factory. I have this ‘thing’ for desktop icons. I strongly believed they are ewoks or some other cuddly character from Star Wars before they were reborn in this era.
• Who needs Albert Einstein and education when you can measure the speed of light using marshmallows..? Oh you can even eat the marshmallows after the experiment.
• With Google Inc.’s S1 filing comes a lot of things. I won’t even include a hyperlink this time. The news is everywhere in the ‘net for the past few days. From news to analysis to estimates on how many machines Google is running to their quirks that makes you love Google even more.

Geek humor: If you take a close look at the form Google filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the exact value of its planned offering is $2,718,281,828 dollars, which some would immediately recognize as the mathematical constant e.

E, for those not blessed with a Ph.D. and a job at Google, is Euler’s number, which is used as the base for natural logarithms.

• Fibonacci is everywhere. It’s even in the pattern of Elmo’s underwear.
• The latest from mind control technology, eh? MY relationship with my pet pterodactyl uses a technology two steps ahead of this one. But I don’t have any plans of sharing it for now. Besides I’m not sure if it is error-proof already. I haven’t seen my pterodactyl for three months already. If you see one with a barcode in it’s neck that reads ‘0987253251129‘ please be kind enough to inform me. Just be careful not to touch the mouth part… the pterodactyl’s saliva is equivalent to superglue.
• May 2004 issue of MSDN is out. It even has a downloadable .chm version.
• Ever wondered why Microsoft settled with Sun? Well that at least is according to Tom Yager.

Hmmm… seriously, anyone have any ideas how to track that pterodactyl of mine?

It’s about time someone wrote about the ‘Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics‘. But we can’t deny these ‘inconsistencies’ are worth watching.

I think I need a pause button too.

In a different note, I was thinking about matters related to competition this afternoon. Something that deals about not being afraid of one, but instead using it as a means to improve yourself and your craft. I’ll elaborate later. Right now I’m amazed at what coffee can do these days. There’s even a can that could ‘self chill‘.

I’m looking forward to a drink that would teach my imaginary pet tiger to code in between meals.

To download our Foxpro file of the day, proceed to Universal Thread.VFPZone‘s download section and search for ‘PDM’. If you’re lucky you’ll find the Project Documenting Machine. You’ll also see the comments that often state how impressive that downloadable project is that documents almost every aspect of your VisualFoxpro project and outputs it in multiple HTML format. To top it’s rich features, it includes the VisualFoxpro source codes and some nifty plug-ins.

What else can you ask for..?

Also… I saw a new batch of sample chapters at Hentzenwerke’s Developers Studio Apartment. These topics ranges from Visual Foxpro, OpenOffice.org, Linux, internet-related matters and software development.

After visiting a client yesterday and installing some program upgrades and at the same time fixing some corrupted index files, I met my former boss (although I still consider him as my boss up to this day). Since this country is composed of 7000++ islands apart, it took more than a year and five more planned meetings that didn’t pushed through before yesterday.

You see… my former officemates in the ComCen department (and even the students of the same school) considers our Boss an influential and motivational person in terms of molding your 512-bit skills, making you a better programmer/IT-individual. Not only skills are developed but visions and philosophies in life, as well.

We discussed a lot of things, from IT-related projects and developments in our country to his 1000 grams of vitamins C. Topics which includes humorous grudges to our previous employers (they’re funny now but they were not that funny before) were also the spice of the day. From software development to pricing the project to his clothing problem. Like me when traveling, The Boss also refrains from washing clothes and packs things enough to last. Problem arrives when vacations and travels are extended. I usually ‘recycle’… Boss prefers buying new clothes.

There are a lot more insightful things discussed in that short meeting which would take longer than the release of Longhorn if I’ll discuss them all here but overall it was very nice meeting him again.

Hopefully he had solved his clothing-related problems by now.

I decided to create a patch to my ‘im-in-a-freon-less-room-and-i-can’t-work-well’ problem. So armed with two arms and a key I decided to invade the Simulation Room which has an air conditioning unit for almost two months already.

For those who have no idea how hot and uncomfortable it is to work in an air condition-less room in this part of the world in this part of the year I’ll give you an overview. It’s like being tied arms and feet in the middle of the desert with no water, no clothes accompanied by seven fierce vultures surrounding you, calculating which part of your body would be their appetizer. The calculation of which part of your body would be the main course… buffered in the background tasks in their bald heads.

And you won’t even mind them having turns pecking on you for you’re concentrated on a certain algorithm you are working on to solve a certain problem. Neurons generate much heat when they’re processing things. Add the existing heat of your environment already and the vultures and for sure the desired output is indirectly proportional to the combined heat. Well at least, it depends on which side are you rooting for, the vultures or me.

So what can a poor database programmer like me do?

Beg… rant… coo… woo the upper management. Do some ‘pray-overs’ for the management’s soul. Chant the words ‘aircon-aircon’ subliminally in their ears when they’re around. Pretend to be sick. Trust me I’ve done them all.

I can’t blame them though. A ‘tight budget’ is hard wall to break through. And considering that I am still alive working on my IT room for a year now sans the aircon, my plead is below the company’s priority.

But heaven loves programmers… especially cuddly ones like me. For some heavenly-infused turn of events this Simulator Room is now vacant after a week of summer classes. And now I’m an invader of this room… along with my WinAmp and, of course, VisualFoxpro.

There is really a big difference when you’re working inside a comfortable room. It makes you refrain from thinking horrible things and focus more on your database projects in a faster pace. I was able to finish phase one of a five page-tabbed prototype of a new project named Valhalla in four hours.

Let’s all recite our creed… ‘Freons are friend…’

Five rules of data normalization.

I’ve been following the updates and articles inside West Wind Technologies for months now, but it was only recently that I have discovered that Rick Strahl, the main brain behind that site, maintains a blog. West Wind is a good resource if you’re into developing Visual Foxpro applications for the web. Rick Strahl discusses programming issues on his blog and there are helpful whitepapers, articles and downloadable stuff in that site as well.

One of his recent blog discusses Open source and making money.

Speaking of ‘insightful blogs’ here’s Lenn Pryor’s take on Evangelism, dogma, rhetoric, and believing and Joel Spolsky’s views on Perfectionism.

Note to self: Refrain from lambasting VB when evangelizing VisualFoxpro.

While the next article link is not a blog, it is a good read too. Besides anything Google-related is interesting. Google and Akamai: Cult of Secrecy versus Kingdom of Openness

WHOA… while this might be a ten day old news already, still… this gives a new level to the word ‘upgrade’.

The new software, beamed across 188 million miles of space, should permit Spirit to travel longer distances across the rocky terrain by allowing it to independently negotiate obstacles that previously stumped its navigation software. Opportunity’s landing site on the far side of the planet is relatively obstacle-free.

A second part of the software package should allow the rovers to recover from computer memory problems like the one that struck Spirit less than three weeks into its mission.

The third portion should allow Opportunity to enter into “deep sleep” mode at night. That will cut off electricity to a stuck heater that had been coming on unnecessarily.

Link

How about giving ‘interception’ and ‘cracking’ a new meaning too? Something like a bored 25 year old ‘hacker’ decides to patch the twin rovers with an algorithm that makes them dance the rumba for a couple of minutes every 12 earth hours.

Ah… even Yoda will rejoice.

I’m reading this list where a certain member posted about having problems with Product-A (which is by the way a default program of OperatingSystem-A). It seems that his copy of Product-A shows a sexy picture of Drew Barrymore but closes a split second after the whole picture is displayed. Same thing happens if he opens a picture of a fire-breathing dragon devouring one of our funny presidentiables with an awkward hair-do. So like most humans online these days he asks in the list about the problem instead of RTFMin’ or doing other RTFM-related tasks first.

One of the recent replies surprised me. It suggested junking Product-A and using Product-B instead, even calling Product-A names that would make even my imaginary pet tiger cringe upon hearing them.

Though in some ways Product-B is indeed better than Product-A, and in a way switching to Product-B could probably ‘solve’ the problem, it still bothers me that most humans think and approach problems this way.

If finding alternatives is the first way of ‘solving’ problems then there must be something wrong with one’s problem solving techniques. Finding alternatives is an escapist way of solving problems. Solve a problem by finding the root of the problem and what causes the problem. That’s how real programmers tackle things. Finding alternative should be the last means of solving problems and is in a way considered a lazy and coward’s way of finding solutions.

If such a practice continues what we’ll have is a world filled with looping alternatives after alternatives whose main existence is brought upon by the attitude of escaping from a certain problem which in the first place has not been solved at all, how can it have been when the attempt to attempt fell flat?

I’m not saying of course that alternatives are useless. What I’m saying is in every problem there’s a root cause which one has to know and tackle first before choosing other better alternatives.

Besides Drew Barrymore looks prettier when displayed with Product-A.

Before proceeding to the ‘main thoughts’ of this post, I’ll give a link to this time traveller that probably needs your help. Note that it is a link to Museum of Hoaxes but who knows if it is indeed true.

Code Tuning Techniques: How to make FoxPro applications faster. It’s interesting seeing that an unswitched loop is faster than a switched loop. In any given day before reading this comparison, you can find me using the switched loop for reasons that I refrain from repeating lines of code as possible. Hmm… I’ll do some testing if I encounter this and decide if it’s about time to break some ‘old programming habbits’.

One of the joys of freelancing is meeting new clients. Especially if those clients are recommended by one of your clients.

JOY++ if your new client is cheerful, nice to talk to and is open to ideas of innovation. Add more happy smiles if she treats you to a great lunch (and a free coke in can).

I’ve been concentrating on freelance projects for almost a couple of years since I decided to transfer places and leave my old work. So far… I’m happy with the outcome. Last month, I was even ready to leave the regular job I’m in to focus more on freelance projects, but I do have a lot of things to accomplish on that job. One cannot just left responsibilities behind.

Besides I’m beginning to have this affinity for that WindowsXP infused Shanara on that office of mine.

If there’s a tip I could give about freelancing (which I know other ‘good’ and honest freelancers know already and is a common sense to start with) is to take good care of your clients. Taking good care would mean that not only you will deliver reliable services (in my case database programs), but suggest ways for them to improve the ‘other systems’ existing in their place.

Give cheaper alternatives to them… like suggesting OpenOffice. Just imagine the amount of money they could save especially if these are institutions that have 100++ computers running in their community.

Introduce them to utilities one can find abundantly in the ‘net that delivers and improves the performance of computers.

There are a lot more you can do which are often a derivative of sharing what you know already to begin with. Don’t hesitate sharing those things.

Though online dictionary.com defines ‘freelancing’ as this:

free�lance
n. also free lance (frlns)

A person who sells services to employers without a long-term commitment to any of them.
An uncommitted independent, as in politics or social life.
A medieval mercenary.

… I don’t agree with it. In fact you should be the opposite.

Well… being a ‘medieval mercenary’ sounds cool though. It reminds me of a rugged version of TheGreenLantern in improvised armor plates armed with home-made weapons with a vision to change the world and is actually doing it.

Sunday once again… marathon bloggin’ day. As you can see one of the little problems that I have with this site is I often have ideas which I’m a having a hard time following up.

Sometimes I end up giving hints of what I’ll post next but they’re left there… just hints. And I do have a lot of things I want to post but until now they’re still buffered in the chambers of my mind well protected from porn-related neurons.

For example last week… make that two week ago (see I’m that lagging that far behind), I was reading Rory Blyth’s post about wanting to hire U2’s The Edge to ‘code’. Ah yes I’ve posted something about giving up being a programmer to become a ‘rocker’ a couple of months ago but that is not the point here. It is stressing the importance of having ‘simple appearances of code’ with elegant and efficient approaches over complexity-infused ones which are oftentimes slower. One of the many reasons why I’m using VisualFoxpro over Visual Basic when it comes to database-related development is it’s simplicity and the clarity of its syntax and semantics.

Anyway Rory Blythe is one of the funniest bloggers you’ll see on the ‘net. I’ve been reading his blogs since that Goodbye Keiko post. He also co-hosts DotNetRocks! together with Carl Franklin.

And of course there’s Dave Barry too (and his affinitity towards pi�ata)… on and off the ‘net in periodicals and other types of syndication. But if you’d ask me where I first read things from Dave, I would point you to a doddering old Linux-powered machine we had in our former office which has this feature that generates random Dave Barry and Murphy’s Law related snips.

The previous three paragraphs alone shows how I easily get lost. One cool thing leads to another. And just as I have organized my thoughts on what I have to blog, an info-flood of related and un-related stuff comes along. This is probably one of the reasons why Scoble separated his blogs related to his personal experiences with another set of posts from the things he receives from his feeds daily. There are tons of cool stuff that can be found in the ‘net if one takes more time to read instead of Ragnarokin’ and gearing into porn-overdrive.

And those influx of ‘cool’ articles often leads your reading-to-blogging process astray. You find self reading about guns being prevented from firing if it’s not the owner who’s handling it but requires embedding chips in the owner’ hand… and Signal Discovery… and studies about brains and beauty… and infotech related articles but as you’re about to blog about it, you find an article about an ex-porn star and her house, or rather, palace and then you again find yourself thinking… ‘probably I am really in the wrong business.’ If i’d be blogging about libido-inducing links I’d probably be cruising on a slick HAMBURGER-GHini instead of buying burgers which come with free Mike Wachowski cars in it.

And then you find out about an instruction on how to create a USB turd and view a PC case for hamsters and then you realized once again… oh wait I think am in the right field… forget porn.

And when you talk about porn, you can’t help yourself but remember how the ‘old internet’ looks like, which for heavenly reasons is slowly being brought back these days. Yes… through RSS. No porns… no pop-ups, no worms, ad-less and spyware-less (28 spywares for each computer is the average these days).

And then I’m reminded to post that collection of information about RSS. I kept on ‘evangelizing’ them to my friends and former classmates but then I’m often faced with that ‘What the fuck is RSS?’ question. (Yes some of them are that rude [“,]) And then you find yourself explaining things for the Nth time and wishing that you have finished that blog about RSS and can just link to that blog and make things easier for yourself.

Ah yes I should finish that ‘What the fsck is RSS’ section and I should end this very blog as well.