Category: Technology

All things geeky.

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Hillary is going out..why is she following me?

Like The Whispers on LOST, I’ve heard hushed chatter all day long about how Hillary is dropping out of the race tomorrow. Naturally, I raised an eyebrow when my email informed me that @Hillary2008 was started following my Twitter account today. Back before October of last year, I started following presidential candidates wise enough to be using technology to their advantage. Edwards, Thompson, and Obama used it the best.

Now I can’t remember which one but one of the candidates even opened Twitter up for questions while he was on CNN (or some other live show); unfortunately I was walking out the door and didn’t get to fire off any questions nor watch the program.Joe Biden opened Twitter up for questions while he was on a live chat with The Washington Post. What a powerful way to use the Internet! Putting Twitter ahead of the reporters and phones!

Early on, it became evident that @Hillary2008 was not the real Hillary Clinton. Today Hillary2008 follows 787 people and is followed by 829 people. The real Hillary Clinton appears to be @HillaryClinton and follows 0 people with 4,140 people following her which means she doesn’t understand Twitter. (Randy, are you listening? 0/66) Barack Obama at @BarackObama is following 35,777 people and has 34,765 people following him; his updates are frequent and does not read like a staffer is trying to impersonate him. Seems early on in the campaign that @BarackObama even sent @ replies to followers (but I cannot find an example right now).

I personally belief that either the people behind Hillary2008 gave the account over to the campaign or decided to start working it as true Hillary fans that actually understand the technology. What’s to understand about Twitter? It’s bi-directional. We use our feed readers and RSS for push news and headlines. If all you are doing is using Twitter to push your urls and try to get people to your site, then for all practical purposes, you are a spammer. Even news sites like @Knoxnews responds to its followers. If you listen to them, they’ll listen to you! @SantaClaus is a hoot! Not only does he work the Twitter account around the holiday, but he responds to almost everyone that mentions him and he does year round! Interactivity is the key to Twitter. Of course, Leo Laporte breaks this theory by following 441 people and having 39821 people follow him. He’s this anomaly I just haven’t figured out yet. Of course, as much as I can’t figure out why you would want to follow him (and his ego), I find myself that compelled to follow more of him. Long and short of it, if you have a zero in either following or followers, you are using Twitter poorly.

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Collation?

You mean like getting the papers from the copier in order?

You know, I have probably exported and imported data from hundreds of databases at this point in my life. And never, I say never, have I ever had a collation problem. Collation has to deal with how a database handles issues of sort order, case sensitivity, and sensitivity to accents. It becomes important when your database is not US centric or is going to serve an International audience. Last night it got me.

I tried directly updating data on a server that is probably located in Amsterdam and ended up with:

Cannot resolve the collation conflict between "Latin1_General_CI_AS" and "SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS" in the equal to operation

Ugh.

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Mondays begin with error messages

Just once I’d like a Monday to start off with something that doesn’t look like this:

An error occured while Parsing an XML document.
Content is not allowed in prolog.

Update: The XML file had been corrupted on uploading it to the production server. Uploading a zip file and extracting it on the server solved the problem. Also added trim() to make sure there was no extraneous whitespace.

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Take THAT you evil code!

Yes! I have been fighting a horrid coding problem and the code just lost! I beat it! I mean this is the type of problem that makes you have bald spots and want to give up programming for something less painful like digging latrines in third countries. This is like I’ve been trying to build a car engine but everything is in metric and all my tools are SAE and the client doesn’t care about the engine but really wants to know why the paint isn’t on the car yet. Oh how I want to be beyond the paint and putting the last bit of polish on the application. Today I should be able to make much progress. Oh wait, no I have to be at the body shop by 8am! Guess my workday will begin at 10am. How frustrating!

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I like digital billboards

A good friend of mine and I disagree on this topic. There is a digital billboard at Lovell Road and I think it is far more attractive than the traditional billboards. That said, I think billboards in general are eye sores and blemishes to the landscape; however, they serve a purpose. Without billboards, the alphabet game would take forever! Without billboards, South of the Border would be just another Mexican restaurant. Without billboards, who would buy pecans at warehouses with plantation like facades?! If we aren’t going to make billboards disappear altogether, and I wish we would, let’s give them some utility.

I have a vision for billboards that is in conflict with my normal anti-big brother stance. My vision is right out of Minority Report. If all our billboards were digital, when an Amber Alert happened, every billboard could instantly change to be the same message showing the abductor’s picture, the child’s picture, and a description of the car. If you were driving down the interstate and saw such a message extending from horizon to horizon I think you would be much more aware of that car on the road. The abductor would certainly be moved!

Additionally, I think if cities approve digital billboards, that they should come with an easement that gives the city the right to scroll traffic alerts on the bottom or top of the billboard. We have expensive digital signs across our interstates that warn of traffic times, congestion, detours and so forth. But how many times have you passed the sign to ask your passengers, "Did you catch that?" With an easement on the digital billboards the same message could be presented for miles upon miles and the expense is already being made by the billboard company. I believe it is very win-win!

See also Knoxnews: Digital billboards get several endorsements and Knoxviews:Scenic Knoxville Needs Your Help to Stop Digital Billboards and Knoxvoice:Lights On.

Update: Digital billboards in Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina push Amber Alerts but are so bright that they are blinding and damage night vision. Sounds like a road hazard to me but also sounds correctable through standards for brightness or perhaps color choices. Thanks Brettbum!

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Twitter gives power to the people

I once walked into a McDonald’s yelling, "I want to see a manager and I want to see a manager NOW!" Granted, they probably had the right to get the police involved but in seconds I was in front of the 30 or more other grumbling customers shuffling their feet while waiting to get to the registers. I had the power of voice. I was not afraid to speak loudly and clearly.

I explained, courteously, loudly, and with a tone of agitation to the manager and every person in the restaurant that I was working at a software company nearby, on a tight deadline, and had sat in their drive-thru for nearly 30 minutes to receive a small order of french fries and a cheese burger. Upon returning to my office, I found the fries to be terribly cold and the cheese burger was nothing more than two buns with cheese and a pickle. How is a cheese burger a burger without the meat?! Before I finished, people started lining up behind me saying, "Mine is missing the meat also." "Me too!" etc.

Everyone heard my message and by the time I left, each person in line received their food with the cashier opening the paper on the burger to prove that there was meat between the bun. Not only did I have a voice that got heard but I had an immediate impact on the lives of other people.

Twitter gives us that same voice on the Internet. Twitter connects disaster victims to family and friends. Twitter connects businesses to clients for sales and support. Twitter keeps us out of traffic jams. And Twitter helps free people from jail!

James Karl Buck helped free himself from an Egyptian jail with a one-word blog post from his cell phone. [Source, CNN, Student ‘Twitters’ his way out of Egyptian jail]

Has Twitter made a difference in your life yet?

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Video Comments Now Allowed

Thanks to the power of Seesmic, you can now comment on any Reality Me post by simply using your webcam. Below the regular comment box, you will find a link "add a video comment"
Video comment
If you have a Seesmic account, you can log in and post a video. I have also opened comments up for anonymous comments which means you don’t have to have a Seesmic account. Try it out! You will be prompted to allow the plug to use your webcam and nothing gets installed on your computer. I have heard that there may be a problem with the video commenting and WordPress 2.5.1 but I am sure that will be addressed rapidly.

Update: If you add Seesmic video comments to your blog, be sure to immediately add yourself to the wiki. It takes only seconds. I could have been within the first 100 but ended up being like 187 because I waited to look at the wiki.

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C|Net doesn’t like my comments

C|Net posted a story called N.Y. court upholds school cell phone ban and I replied with this comment:

I find it disheartening that for reasons which sound fearful and lacking of understanding “…contending the mobile gadgets can promote cheating and harassment…” that schools fail to teach a tool which will be integral to our children’s success in life once they leave school. Schools should be teaching our children how to use the tools on the cell phones including productivity management (calendar apps, todos, alerts), etiquette (better to learn it in school than on their first job!), emailing, sms, Internet searching from the phone, social networking (that’s how contracts and sales will be landed, jobs offered, and an edge above the rest secured), and so on.

Address issues of “cheating and harassment” on an individual basis and let’s not limit our children’s education based on speculation!

I have more here including a video where teaching cellphones in school proved to be successful: http://realityme.net/2008/02/23/teach-cell-phones-dont-ban-them/

Now, I had some difficulty submitting the comment so it may have appeared as though I tried to submit it three times. The comment is now gone. Instead blather like this is left:

It is so funny to hear people say that their little johnny is such a perfect child and that they have the right to reach him in the event of a comet hitting the earth. First of all, johnny is a little pervert cheater with no respect for his teacher or the classroom. Second of all, the parents are just as bad as their kid. Sick sick sick. They all need to be be put back on track and taught what is right and what is wrong. They can stomp their feet and throw a tantrum or they can pull their heads out of their butts and see the light. Boo hoo… Cry me a river. We never had cell phones when I was in school. Somehow I survived. Somehow may parents picked me up from football. Somehow they picked me up when I was sick at school. Somehow they were contacted when I threw spit balls. Kids and parents nowdays are screwed up big time.

I have read the C|NET terms of use and unless the relevant link to Reality Me can be construed as advertising then there was no justification for the comment deletion. If the link was a problem, remove the link! I have reposted the comment but if it disappears I simply won’t participate in C|Net discussions anymore.

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Import from iWeb to WordPress

I helped Chris the Carpenter and Kari the Herbalist set up YurtTrash and The Lifted Lorax Show recently. They were using iWeb and importing to WordPress did not look promising. Fortunately, they decided against importing so I ceased seeking out a solution or writing one myself. Melinda has asked about the solution for importing from iWeb to WordPress. Luckily, Dan of MaciVerse wrote an excellent guide on March 8, 2008 How To: Import your iWeb Blog to WordPress. Since MaciVerse is down right now, I am reproducing his entire post (minus pictures) for prosperity:

Update: Looks like MaciVerse is back up. I just caught caught it during Maciverse’s face lift.

Continue reading Import from iWeb to WordPress

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Stupid CF Configuration Errors and MS SQL

You know when you are on a tight schedule, the stupidity that comes with MS SQL, ColdFusion and a Windows Server can make you go bald. There is no reason for something as simple as creating a datasource to be throwing dumb error messages!

Connection verification failed for data source: foo
java.sql.SQLException: [Macromedia][SQLServer JDBC Driver][SQLServer]Login failed for user ‘foouser’. Reason: The password of the account must be changed.
The root cause was that: java.sql.SQLException: [Macromedia][SQLServer JDBC Driver][SQLServer]Login failed for user ‘foouser’. Reason: The password of the account must be changed.

The password has been changed half a dozen times!

Update: Ah! Either 1) Know what your password policy is and make sure your password is compliant or 2) turn off “Enforce password policy” and “User must change password at next login” (which was my problem). For a datasource, you can probably remove the check from “Enforce password expiration” as well. Note that if you try to do all three of these at once that you will get errors. Remove “User must change password at next login” first then “Enforce password expiration” then “Enforce password policy”.

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Why didn’t you just do that in the first place?

Years ago I ripped all the paneling out of the downstairs, tore out cabinetry, plumbing, a sink, and a wall. I waterproofed the concrete block wall first by filling any cracks with a mortar then painting the block with a thick waterproofing sealing primer. The wife asked, "why is this taking so long?" I then created studs for the new wall which included a walk-in closet and a nook that the previous setup did not include. The wife asked, "why is this taking so long?" I pre-drilled the studs for wiring and ran electric, cable (to multiple drops), and ethernet (to multiple drops). The wife asked, "why is this taking so long?" Next I insulated the walls and hung the drywall. The wife asked, "why is this taking so long?" Finally I was able to do the tedious step of applying joint compound (spackling) to fill the gaps and cover the drywall screws. If you mess up the joint compound, the mistake will be clearly seen when paint is applyed. I sanded and sanded and reapplied compound and sanded and sanded. The wife asked, "why is this taking so long?" Finally I was able to put a coat of paint on. The wife asked, "why didn’t you do that in the first place?"

Often my programming is very similar. A lot of detail goes into the framework of the site, that is the behind the scenes stuff that nobody ever sees. As a matter of fact, if I have done my job well, anything complex should be hidden from the user and the website should leave them with a "wow that’s easy! I could do this!" feeling.

My current project involves using ColdFusion to fetch a large amount of data from a data provider (some other company that has a really big database which frequently updates) in an xml format then parse it to save the results in my client’s database. I have made it over a huge challenge! But all my work is invisible to the frustrated client. I’ll put up the visible side shortly and I fear the client will ask, "why didn’t you do that in the first place?"