I Choose [Not] To Blog

meebome

jason — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 12:12:12 +0000

Just added a meebome widget to my blog sidebar.

I’ve been using meebo for a while, now, as my primary IM “unifier”. ICQ, Y!IM, AIM, MSN… all on the same page.

I used to use gaim, and was mostly satisfied with it, but meebo allows me to forget about proxy and network settings regardless of where I’m using it.

Test Post from Writely

jason — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 18:58:02 +0000

Just a test to check out Writely
Seems pretty cool: Ctrl-S saves.

And all the usual shortcuts seem to work.

Google-Ranking the 50 States

jason — Wed, 03 May 2006 13:05:25 +0000

I was thinking this morning about a statistic that I once heard. It stated that the probability of Texas coming up in any given conversation was above 50%. I don’t know if this is actually true, but I think it has some truthiness to it.
This made me wonder about the popularity of the individual 50 states in Google’s index, so I did some quick checking. Here are the top 5 states, with their result count:

California	2,750,000,000
New York	2,450,000,000
Texas	1,340,000,000
Massachusetts	1,170,000,000
Washington	1,030,000,000

Nothing too astonishing there. Texas is a distant 3rd, after New York. Washington made the top 5. I excluded results with “D.C.” and “DC” , but it may be that Washington is still benefitting significantly from our first President and the many things honoring his name.

Here are the bottom 5:

Wyoming	316,000,000
Vermont	294,000,000
West Virginia	286,000,000
North Dakota	278,000,000
South Dakota	254,000,000

Sorry, South Dakota. You got your hide tanned by states with much smaller populations.

I was a little surprised that Virginia ranks 29th (several steps behind even Hawaii and Alaska), given that it’s the “.com capital of the world”, right? ;-)

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Diff Classes in 2 Jar Files

jason — Mon, 01 May 2006 15:24:06 +0000

I had the need to get an overview of the differences between 2 jar files, so I created a simple Ruby script that simply wraps the output of jar, javap, and diff (I’m using Cygwin diff on WinXP).

Here’s jardiff.rb:

#! /usr/bin/ruby

if ARGV.size !=2
  puts “USAGE: ruby jardiff.rb “
  puts “\nNOTE: ‘diff’ command must be on the path and JAVA_HOME environment variable must point to a valid JDK install”
  exit
end

# —————————————————————————–

# check arguments
jar1=ARGV[0].tr(“\\”,“/”)
if (!File.exists? jar1)
print “#{jar1} can’t be found”
exit
end

jar2=ARGV[1].tr(“\\”,“/”)
if (!File.exists? jar2)
print “#{jar2} can’t be found”
exit
end

# —————————————————————————–

# constants, exec commands : customize, if you wish

WIDTH=100
JAVA_HOME=ENV["JAVA_HOME"].tr(“\\”,“/”)
JAR_CMD=“#{JAVA_HOME}/bin/jar tf”
JAVAP_CMD=“#{JAVA_HOME}/bin/javap -public”
# diff currently assumed to be on the path
DIFF_CMD=“diff -wBW #{WIDTH}”
HR=“=”*WIDTH

# —————————————————————————–

require “Tempfile”

# Utility functions

# wrapper around diff
def filediff(f1, f2)
#print “filediff #{f1} #{f2}\n”
`#{DIFF_CMD} #{f1} #{f2}`
end

# wrapper around jar tf
def get_jar_classes (jar_file)
`#{JAR_CMD} #{jar_file}`.reject { |v| !v.match(/\.class$/) }.collect { |v| v.strip.tr(“/”,“.”).sub(“.class”, “”) }.sort
end

# wrapper around javap
def javap(jar_file,class_name)
`#{JAVAP_CMD} -classpath #{jar_file} #{class_name}`
end

# wrapper around Tempfile : returns tempfile or block value
# ? don’t know why Tempfile.open doesn’t return the block value
def tmpfile()
  result = tf = Tempfile.new(“jardiff”)
  if block_given?
    begin
      result = yield tf
    ensure
      tf.close unless tf.nil?
    end
  end
  result
end

# —————————————————————————–

print “Comparing classes in #{jar1} with those in #{jar2}\n”

# examine the jar files, pull out a list of class names from each
classes1 = get_jar_classes jar1
classes2 = get_jar_classes jar2

f1 = tmpfile() { |f| f.puts(classes1.join(“\n”)); f.path }
f2 = tmpfile() { |f| f.puts(classes2.join(“\n”)); f.path }

diff = filediff(f1, f2)
if (diff.strip.length > 0)
print “#{HR}\n#{”*** Differences ***“.center(WIDTH)}\n#{diff}#{HR}\n”
end

# —————————————————————————–

same_list = (classes1&classes2).sort

print “Comparing method signatures for #{same_list.size} classes\n”

# diff each class that occurs in both jars

same_list.each do |cn|
  f1 = tmpfile() { |f| f.puts javap(jar1, cn); f.path }
  f2 = tmpfile() { |f| f.puts javap(jar2, cn); f.path }
  diff = filediff(f1, f2)
  if (diff.strip.length > 0)
    print “#{HR}\n#{”*** Differences in #{cn} ***”.center(WIDTH)}\n#{diff}#{HR}\n”
  end
end

# —————————————————————————–

Oracle SQL Developer 1.0 Released

jason — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 18:09:31 +0000

It looks like Oracle’s Project Raptor has graduated and become SQL Developer 1.0.
I really don’t know what took Oracle so long to come up with their own tools. I’m somewhat surprised that they didn’t just purchase Quest Software (given their recent buying spree) and package TOAD with the database.

Regardless, ~~Raptor~~ SQL Developer is quite nice for my needs and a bargain to boot!

BTW: You can import your connections from an older Raptor install if you right-click the Connections tree item, select “Import Connections…”, and select [Raptor-Install]/jdev/system/oracle.onlinedb.11.0.0.36.49/IDEConnections.xml.

Strolling down the streets of Seattle…

jason — Wed, 01 Mar 2006 14:46:05 +0000

It’s been a long time since the last time I visited Seattle. Now, I can revisit some old stomping grounds via the Windows Live Local/Virtual Earth Preview. Ahh… sipping coffee in Westlake cente while watching the marionnette performances… Russian pastries at Pike Place while looking into the exotic musical instrument shop… bookstores along 1st Ave…

Migrated from Blogger to WordPress

jason — Fri, 03 Feb 2006 14:00:26 +0000

So, along with changing web hosts, I have moved from Blogger to WordPress. Dreamhost had a simple 1-click installer for WP 2.0, plus WP 2.0 has an amazingly simple Blogger importer. It logs into Blogger, tweaks your template, republishes, parses the newly-generated pages, and imports them into WP posts.

NICE JOB, GUYS!

The only thing I’ve noticed so far that the importer missed was my site subtitle (”Ridiculous ideas. Insightful comments. Blank verse.”), so I changed via the WP admin screens.

Of course, now I have to go through my old posts, which are all “Uncategorized”. Plus, I’ve [temporarily] lost my Google Adsense, my del.icio.us link roll, and of course my ~~hideous~~beautiful old template. Still, the ability to have more control over the site is worth it. And WordPress r0X0rs!

Moved to Dreamhost

jason — Fri, 03 Feb 2006 13:35:27 +0000

I have changed hosts from 1and1.com to Dreamhost. I was using the free professional preview package from 1and1, but I think it was going to expire soon. Plus, there was a pretty good Dreamhost code: ‘DREAM77′ to save $77 off a yearly plan.

I had to change my nameservers with my domain registrar (GoDaddy). Took a while for updated NS and MX records to propagate, but they seem OK now.
Dreamhost has some nice 1 click installs. One of which is the WordPress 2.0 install. More on that later…

Full disclosure: Yes, my links to Dreamhost are referral links. Dreamhost Dreamhost Dreamhost ;-P

Fish Party?

Jason — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 20:49:00 +0000

Two adjacent bumper stickers:

Poisson for Delegate

Mark Herring for State Senate

OK, yes I’m easily amused.

Neither candidate has endorsed this blog entry. ;-P

Unique Properties – Revisited

Jason — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 21:27:00 +0000

Back in August, I posted a simple Java utility for sorting out the definitive property value when a property is defined multiple times in a properties file. Here’s a simple Ruby script that does the same thing, but with far fewer bytes:


#Get filename
puts "Enter Properties File Name:"
fname = gets.strip
puts

# Create a unique collection of keys,
# skipping comments
propHash=Hash.new
File.readlines(fname).each do |line|
  if line =~ /^([^#.]+)[=,:](.+)/
    propHash[$1.rstrip] = $2.lstrip
  end
end

#output the results
propHash.keys.each do |k|
  puts "#{k}=" + propHash[k]
end