VMware player 4.0.3 on Ubuntu 12.04

VMware player has some well-known issues with setting up the network for player under Ubuntu 12.04 (that is, where Ubuntu is the host OS).

With one small change, I followed the great instructions here: http://www.kartook.com/2012/05/vmware-virtual-network-device-unable-to-loadcompile-vm-player-4-0-2-in-ubuntu-12-04/

The change is that the script you download has the recognised version numbers hardcoded in the header.

Before you run the script (patch-modules_3.2.0.sh), open the file using your preferred text editor, and change the 4.0.2 to 4.0.3, so it looks like:

   plreqver=4.0.3

The script (and VMware player) seems to run fine for VMware Player 4.0.3 on Ubuntu 12.04. If it should make a difference, I'm running x86_64 Ubuntu 12.04.

Empty an Oracle schema, leave an empty schema

What it says on the tin. Sufficient code analysis will reveal that some bizarre schema dependencies may not be destroyed by this; but experience will show that's not actually a problem :-)

---

set echo off
set verify off
set serveroutput on size 100000

-- Disable all contraints
BEGIN
  FOR c IN
  (SELECT c.owner, c.table_name, c.constraint_name
   FROM user_constraints c, user_tables t
   WHERE c.table_name = t.table_name
   AND c.status = 'ENABLED'
   ORDER BY c.constraint_type DESC)
  LOOP
    dbms_utility.exec_ddl_statement('alter table ' || c.owner || '.' || c.table_name || ' disable constraint ' || c.constraint_name);
  END LOOP;
END;
/

-- remove all objects
declare

cursor dropObjectsCusor is
select 'drop ' || object_type || ' ' || object_name as sqlDropStmt
from user_objects
where object_type <> 'TABLE' and object_type <> 'INDEX'
order by object_type;

cursor dropTablesCusor is
select 'truncate table ' || object_name as sqlTruncTbl,
'drop table ' || object_name || ' cascade constraints' as sqlDropTbl
from user_objects
where object_type = 'TABLE'
order by object_type;

begin

for ob in dropTablesCusor
loop
begin
  execute immediate ob.sqlTruncTbl;
exception when others then dbms_output.put_line('Could not delete a thingA.');
end;
begin
  execute immediate ob.sqlDropTbl;
exception when others then dbms_output.put_line('Could not delete a thingB.');
end;
end loop;

for ob in dropObjectsCusor
loop
begin
  execute immediate ob.sqlDropStmt;
exception when others then dbms_output.put_line('Could not delete a thingC.');
end;
end loop;


end;
/
purge recyclebin;

CSV parser in JavaScript

I wanted a JavaScript based CSV parser. I couldn't find a good one (that would allow multi-character delimiters, and text qualifiers), so I wrote it. The textToArray function should run under any js implementation; but the demonstration of it is written for a ringojs environment.

Call textToArray with a line of delimited text, and the delimiter and text qualifier you're expecting to find; it will give back an array of the elements it finds.

var textToArray = function (txtLine, del, txtQual) {
    "use strict";
    var datArr = [], newStr = "";
    while (txtLine.length > 0) {
        if (txtLine.substr(0, txtQual.length) === txtQual) {
            // get quoted block
            newStr = txtLine.substr(0, txtQual.length + txtLine.indexOf(txtQual, txtQual.length));
            datArr.push(newStr.substr(txtQual.length, newStr.length - txtQual.length * 2));
        }
        else {
            // get data block
            if (txtLine.indexOf(del) !== -1) {
                newStr = txtLine.substr(0, txtLine.indexOf(del));
            } else {
                newStr = txtLine;
            }
            datArr.push(newStr);
        }
        txtLine = txtLine.substr(newStr.length + del.length, txtLine.length);
    }
    return datArr;
};


var fs = require('fs');
var con = require('console');
var del = ";;";
var txtQual = "\"\""; // a pair of quotes.
var file = fs.open('D:/ringojs-0.8/test.txt');
var line = "";
for (line in file) {
    con.log(textToArray(line, del, txtQual).join("---"));
}

Sane coding templates for javascript

It's just craziness. Apparently it's possible to treat JavaScript like a real programming language. Very exciting stuff, given that it seems to be becoming the ethernet of programming languages - despite many and varied shortcomings it's versatility, ubiquity, and low barriers to entry are likely to ensure it sees off any competitors.

Here ( http://www.crockford.com/javascript/private.html ) is a handy clip and keep guide of how to implement common object orientation patterns. James Crockford's excellent musing continue through to inheritance too, http://javascript.crockford.com/inheritance.html

Make no mistake, I don't love Javascript, but it's got a lot of momentum. We (the technically involved population) should embrace patterns of Javascript use that will make it sustainable into the future. We need to embrace the sane subset of the language's use.

node.js is good; mongodb and couchdb are stubbornly continuing to exist, and web browsers (whether on smart phones, or desktops) aren't going anywhere. Javascript is a fact, get used to it.

Should I buy a new graphics card?

I entered into a "more detailed than necessary" examination of this. The basic questions are:

• What will it cost?
• What sort of improvement to performance can I expect (can I play Shogun 2)?
• Will any power savings pay for some new card?

Given my current rig is a pair of nVidia 8800 GT (2 x 512MB) in an SLI config; and Shogun 2 reports graphics requirements as "AMD Radeon HD 5000 and 6000 series graphics cards or equivalent" (pcgamer.com), I had no idea. I went looking for benchmarks, and couldn't find everything (my old/current  rig, and some equivalent to the Radeons) on the same page.

I compiled some stats from previous years, did some (very) rough math and came up with this worksheet:
GPU decision worksheet. It turns out that my pair of 8800GT offers identical performance to a (more) modern GeForce GTX 460 (1GB RAM), which offers sufficient performance to play Shogun 2.

The upshot of this? I can play Shogun 2 on my current rig, and it's very unlikely that I can recover the cost of the new GPU through power savings. No new kit for me :-(

How to build a (modern) Windows Server

http://jeremywaldrop.wordpress.com/2008/10/28/how-to-build-a-windows-2008-vmware-esx-vm-template/

Excellent. I think some of the decisions are little odd (turn off the firewall?!?), but this covers a lot of ground.

The cloud - public, private, and the appliances within

I talked to a sales guy the other day, one of the better ones. Not only was he forthcoming, helpful, and charming, he was knowledgable and experienced; a rare breed. I had been out of this vendor's loop for a bit and asked what was going on; he mentioned all kinds of things he thought I'd be interested in, including a big cloud push for the vendor's software. Great. I segued into software appliances and he told me they were dead. Not limping, not re-purposed - DEAD.

From a techie's point of view (which is, to be fair, not the same as a salesman's) I see these as points along a continuum, or at least pre-requisite. "The Cloud" is all about ecomomies of scale, and industrialisation of information technology. In order to achieve the desired outcomes from The Cloud, standardisation and mechanisation are pre-requisites. A software applicance is a standardised "unit" (when properly built), an abstraction of an underlying mechanisation, it's the thing you want in The Cloud.

Amazon knows this, rPath knows this, VMware knows this, and Google has been doing this implicitly (as have all big web shops) since its inception; but the commentariat seem to have completely missed it, the analysts have missed it, and most of the vendors have missed it. It's a joke.

The Cloud is only a cloud while the hard bits are hidden. When the hard bits start peeking out, The Cloud becomes The Mess. When the hard bits get hidden, you're running someone else's software, on someone else's hardware (or your own - pick a public or private cloud as suits you), and we all become a lot more happy withthe result.

The Cloud == Appliances.

TIBCO fiddles

In brief:

1. When fiddling with TIBCO Software, use an OpenSUSE virtual machine, it hurts less.
2. Oracle XE is very handy for fiddling with TIBCO software - Here's a great web page explaining how to set it up on OpenSUSE - http://forums.opensuse.org/install-boot-login/414654-how-install-oraclexe-opensuse-11-1-a.html
3. Give your VM about 2GB RAM, or more.
4. Create a different Unix user for each 'build' (ActiveMatrix v2 suite, ActiveMatrix v3 suite, BusinessWorks/Administrator suite, etc.). Don't let them read/write to each other's files, ever.
5. Do not install gcj, OpenJDK, or anything remotely like Java and not made by Sun and/or Oracle.

Further Time Machine-esque behaviour

My earlier post on Time Machine-esque backups ( http://lastinfinitetentacle.blogspot.com/2009/06/backups-for-lazy.html )  has some useful links for getting regular differential backups going. However, it can be done more neatly, particularly when it come to Windows, and I've come across a nifty solution here http://www.robgolding.com/blog/2009/01/14/leveraging-vss-and-robocopy-for-robust-backups/

This approach requires the vshadow.exe application, which is its own can of worms. Typically, vshadow ships with a/the Windows SDK - ServerFault has some info ( http://serverfault.com/questions/137126/vss-error-521-when-attempting-backup/137254#137254 ) which suggests getting the Vista era SDK (v6.1, from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=e6e1c3df-a74f-4207-8586-711ebe331cdc&displaylang=en ). You will only need to install the "Win32 Developer Tools" component; you can ignore everything else.

Using VSS (Volume Shadow Service) will allow an internally-consistent copy to be made of a Windows drive. All I then need to do is port the script here ( http://serverfault.com/questions/27397/sync-lvm-snapshots-to-backup-server/168034#168034 ) to Windows. I could use the script to push the image onto the file server, where it can update SVN repository (a physical backup, for bare metal recovery). Handling the (Windows) shadow drive can be achieved using the Windows-native 'dd' from http://www.gmgsystemsinc.com/fau/ . The same dd tool can be used for an 'easy' recovery. If I get this right, it should be Windows native, and easy to install/maintain.

A separate job will pick out user directories for the Time Machine treatment (more of a logical backup, also on my file server, for basic file recovery) via the mercifully short script I previously linked to, thus: http://blog.interlinked.org/tutorials/rsync_time_machine.html

Technically, I could use Zumastor/ddsnap on the file server to get snapshots/revisions, and I still might...

MDX for the hard of thinking

That includes me. Between Mondrian's exciting behaviour (at least that of the schema editor) and the vagaries of MDX, I'm finding this OLAP stuff hard to get into. This is a nice rundown on what MDX is. I'm still hoping there's a nifty Mondrian intro I haven't found yet.  http://www.databasejournal.com/features/mssql/article.php/10894_1495511_6/MDX-at-First-Glance-Introduction-to-SQL-Server-MDX-Essentials.htm