Flying Cow

In this place, it seems like such a shame

Sun, 13 Mar 2005 08:16:42 GMT

My, how times change. Though it all looks different now, I know it's still the same.

I have a job for over 14 months now. Looking back, it amuses me how I considered myself a programmer. If I have the misfortune of having to go through on of my old programs, I'll probably die. Needless to say, my style has changed considerably for the better. Or so I like to tell myself.

So, in this time at work, I wrote central database access class, which handles a connection to a database, and then everything you could possibly want to do with it. I wrote a tool that generates the entire table-driven data layer, based on the layout of the database. I wrote a data-binding layer in which you simply assign the relative data layer class to the form, set a property on the controls that corresponds to a field name in the database, and just run it. And, of course, created derivative versions of the majority of the controls we use, including a whole inheritance tree of forms. WineSales (A debtors, products, stock and POS management system aimed at wine cellars) is supposedly finished; I washed my hands of it as soon as possible. It's no where nearly as robust a program as the WineProduction (A system that handles the creation of wine, starting the intake of grapes, all the way to bottling [Supposedly. This latter part doesn't exist yet.]) I'm currently working on with another guy.

So, in this time at home, I've done comparatively little of noteworthiness, but for continual upgrades to my PC (Which I'm trying desperately trying to avoid lately in favour of saving money). Mostly a new power supply (A PC Power & Cooling TurboCool 510), a new case (Now a Cooler Master CMStacker) and harddrives (Nine of them, totaling 1.33TiB). I've been taking driving lessons, though haven't had any this month due to a course in Cape Town (Building a .NET Distributed Application Framework using Patterns & Practices) which finished yesterday. The test is set for 29 April. Good luck to me, then. Hmm, and I can't think of anything else; that's so sad.

I'm addicted to DotA at this time; haven't played Quake 3 since... maybe last weekend, actually. Still on 64k ISDN, sadly enough. Uncapped ADSL is available at long last (At roughly $80 a month for just ISP charges; it's still about $155 per month in all). And, of course, father shoots it down the moment he hears the words "always on." Somehow, that equates to "I'll always be on." :P But it's okay...

And, to leave you with something random:

[09:09:47] [@Chung]: pee pee
[09:10:20] [Zelphar]: Comparatively random, your statement scores a 7/10

Cake or death!

Sun, 01 Aug 2004 20:13:21 GMT

An applicable subject for this long awaited post, I like to think.

The packages arrived, I have harddrives. ...and they're full. Again. So, I'm ordering more. Which will be the third order, the second being expected any day now. Yes, I have been bitten by the upgrade bug. More like have my legs gnawed off, but yes. Even so, my computer is still too noisy. With this super quiet CPU HSF, and the super quiet Samsungs... I now hear everything else. :O Oh well.

My job has been converted to that of the permanent variety. Which I'm rather glad about. Ever so slightly. ;)

I have still not been for a follow-up driving lesson. I'm 19 and don't know how to drive.

Clans changed, I'm now co-leader of the Q3 division of a clan with the tags xTc. I'd decided on the name Speed before I learned those were to be our tags. Imaging my surprise.

LANs, LANs and.. a few more LANs. One big one back in early June, hence my drives being full. And several here. Yes, I never thought that would happen. But it did, and it went just fine. Pity I spent most of the time playing Morrowind.

Hehe, as you can see, my life still revolves plainly around computers. I go to work, spend 9 hours on one, then come home, and spend another 2 to 4 hours on another one. I'm not an addict - I just work here.

"It wants to bounce"

Sun, 02 May 2004 18:25:14 GMT

Glee. Package one of three arrived Thursday. Got it Friday afternoon. Aaaand.. it's not the one with the drives. :/ After phoning around for too long, I eventually got through to Customs in Cape Town, and they told me they'd received the second package of three that day, and that it'd take one or two days for processing. Thus, I expect two of three on Wednesday, Thursday at the latest. Three of three is being sent surface, as it was the CD suitcases, and thus, low priority.

One of three contained only my CCFLs and my new CPU fan. 18dB at its loudest, 13dB at its quietest. The latter is so quiet, I couldn't hear it over the fan in the power supply half a meter away, which itself isn't particularly noisy. Ahhh, lemony fresh silence is mine. ..I suddenly have craving for ice-water with a hint of lemon. Hmm, maybe I can arrange that. Anyway.

Work went, this week. Finished up the control, apart from one or two bugs, and documented it. Monday was a half-day for me, and Tuesday was a public holiday.

Figures I forget about Monday until this point, seeing as Monday, I only wrote the exam for my learner's license. Yes, I still don't know how to drive. Passed it, just as I arrogantly told everyone I would. And thus, Monday morning, my mom took me to a long strip of fairly quiet, wide road, where she put me in the driver's seat, and told me to drive. So I drove, and stopped, and drove, and stopped again (All because she told me to. Was to teach pulling away and such.), and then I turned left at an intersection. Another guy at the intersection followed behind me, but kept a massive following distance. Smart guy. Stopping was fairly smooth, save for the very end - I was never told that just keep the braking constant would result in a full stop, so at the end of my stops, there was always a large jolt as I pressed it all the way. Oops. :D I don't much like driving, though. Still scares me.

Another completely unproductive weekend. Lovely. (Not really, because there are a number of things I keep putting off :/ )

I win, therefor, I lose

Sun, 25 Apr 2004 19:52:22 GMT

I don't remember why I win, though.

Last Friday, my computer decides to freeze booting at "Applying security policy..." Refuses to go past that point. So I install Win2k on a 3GB hastily, and that's what I'm still on. Because my drives are STILL not here. :<

I did work, and work I did. I ordered a few things through work, most notably a UPS. Given that, during the past two weeks, we've had more lightning than in the past 3 years or so.

I started a journal for my inane code ramblings. For all zero of you interested. :P Basically a clear recap about what I said about the combobox and the itemdata property, so far. Hopefully, I'll update it weekly.

Carlo came around today. Visited for a time, along with his sister, and Jaques came 'round for help reinstalling his system. His laptop seemed to introduce a virus into my inner sanctum... network, couldn't access even my firewall at first. Thus, I thought it had crashed. c.c But, it hadn't, though I only realized this after I hard rebooted it. Ewps. Ah well. Virus scan found nothing. Anti-virus seems rather useless these days. They should extent anti-virus into anti-broken software. It would scan for known problems in your OS, and then fix them for you. Now that's software worth paying for. His windows update thingie took over 2 hours though. Only left here about an hour ago. :/

I only learned of Happy Tree Friends this week. Leeched it from a guy at work who isn't there that often. Before: 7GB free space. After: 400MB. Mmmm, violence. Equilibrium is also a fairly good movie.

And that is all for now, my chittens.

Yet another contribution to society

Sat, 17 Apr 2004 19:53:11 GMT

Say, in .NET, you want to create a control that creates other controls at runtime. Or even some custom object. Either way, you expose this control's properties by exposing the control itself in a read-only property. All well and good. You can set its properties, and it reacts to them. The only problem is, the .NET designer doesn't add any changes you make to it to the "Windows Form Designer" section or whatever it's called. This means that all changes you make to this inner control at design time are lost, and you would otherwise have to set it "manually" at runtime. Create a custom TypeDescriptor? That's too much work. And don't even bother looking into the CodeDOMSerializer - it doesn't seem to exist in VB.NET. Long and short of it is, use the DesignerSerializationVisibility attribute to "Content". Time for an example!

Right, in my current project, I'm creating a universal textbox, derived from the base textbox class. This textbox will do all sorts of magical things, such as handle numeric fields, limit input to certain numeric ranges, limit the number of decimals, handle currency and negative values, format the number by the current system formatting settings, allow limiting of certain characters, or limiting input exclusively to a certain set of characters, change colours depending on whether or not its content have changed, if it is read-only, or if it is a mandatory field, and now, lastly, enable "Browse for a Folder" or "Open File" or "Save File" functionality (No, it won't write your code for you). The last requires that a button be associated with the control, that you may do the actual browsing for whatever task you're trying to complete. If you had to do this part manually, there'd be no point to having this custom control do anything, as, once you have to manually add the button and background code, you may as well do all the rest too. Thus, when the control is in "browse" mode, it must create a button, position it just to the right of itself, and handle the button's events and such. Okay, sure, but what if you want to allow the programmer to make changes to the button, such as its size, position, image, text, etc.? You could always expose every property that you want exposed, but that's tiresome and messy. Or, you could expose the button itself. Here's a snippet of just that:

[Error: Irreparable invalid markup ('<browsable(true),>') in entry. Owner must fix manually. Raw contents below.]

Say, in .NET, you want to create a control that creates other controls at runtime. Or even some custom object. Either way, you expose this control's properties by exposing the control itself in a read-only property. All well and good. You can set its properties, and it reacts to them. The only problem is, the .NET designer doesn't add any changes you make to it to the "Windows Form Designer" section or whatever it's called. This means that all changes you make to this inner control at design time are lost, and you would otherwise have to set it "manually" at runtime. Create a custom TypeDescriptor? That's too much work. And don't even bother looking into the CodeDOMSerializer - it doesn't seem to exist in VB.NET. Long and short of it is, use the DesignerSerializationVisibility attribute to "Content". Time for an example!

<lj-cut text="Example, with rambling-style prologue">
Right, in my current project, I'm creating a universal textbox, derived from the base textbox class. This textbox will do all sorts of magical things, such as handle numeric fields, limit input to certain numeric ranges, limit the number of decimals, handle currency and negative values, format the number by the current system formatting settings, allow limiting of certain characters, or limiting input exclusively to a certain set of characters, change colours depending on whether or not its content have changed, if it is read-only, or if it is a mandatory field, and now, lastly, enable "Browse for a Folder" or "Open File" or "Save File" functionality (No, it won't write your code for you). The last requires that a button be associated with the control, that you may do the actual browsing for whatever task you're trying to complete. If you had to do this part manually, there'd be no point to having this custom control do anything, as, once you have to manually add the button and background code, you may as well do all the rest too. Thus, when the control is in "browse" mode, it must create a button, position it just to the right of itself, and handle the button's events and such. Okay, sure, but what if you want to allow the programmer to make changes to the button, such as its size, position, image, text, etc.? You could always expose every property that you want exposed, but that's tiresome and messy. Or, you could expose the button itself. Here's a snippet of just that:

<pre>
<Browsable(True), _
Description("Specifies the button control to use when the ContentType is set to Folder, FileOpen or FileSave. This is to allow you to directly get and set the properties related to the control."), _
Category("Behavior"), _
DesignerSerializationVisibility(DesignerSerializationVisibility.Content)> _
Public ReadOnly Property BrowseButton() As System.Windows.Forms.Button
Get
Return btnBrowse
End Get
End Property
</pre>
</lj-cut>

Just that tiny piece of code will have any programmer-made changes stored and applied automatically at runtime. It only took me 3 hours to find out how, too. Thank you, Microsoft, for the wonderful job you've done on .NET's documentation. <i>Not really.</i>

Cabbiges!

Sat, 10 Apr 2004 23:55:59 GMT

This entire week, I worked on a class derived from the textbox in .NET. By now, it can do virtually everything, short of programming your app for you. I don't like .NET's security permissions. Bitch won't let me call API functions when run through the network. :P

I've taken Tuesday off, and, as you may or may not care, Wednesday is election day, where all us working peons get to go vote for which superior peon we want to serve under. Thus, I have a nice couple days off. :>

Hardware still hasn't arrived yet. Yes, I am impatient. Went and asked today at the post office - shall do again Tuesday afternoon. Hopehopehope. Speaking of hardware, you can not believe the difference a hardware firewall makes. Friday, I helped Carlo reinstall his system. Dual-booting 98SE and Win2k, seeing as his scanner hates anything after 98. And the "net send" pop-ups he's getting! As well as that stupid RPC exploit still doing the rounds. You have not lived until you have used internet with a hardware firewall firmly in place.

Tonight, went to Carlo's again, had a movie evening with him and Andre. Watched Clock Stoppers, mildly amusing, and more interesting, the physics debates that ensued. We then "watched" Tears of the Sun. I say "watched" because we didn't really pay attention to the story line - we kept making these jokes about how they were looking for cabbiges and couldn't find them. Yes, definately an inside joke, that. Such fun...

Change

Sun, 04 Apr 2004 00:53:32 GMT

You know what else pisses me off? The way people tend to take everything in the worst possible way. Why can the words "like" and "love," among others, not be taken platonically anymore? Why is it that they must immediately have some or other sexual meaning or connotation? Just another facet of society that makes the world a happier, nicer place to live in, I'm sure.

Screw your society, I'm gonna go start my own.

Fri, 02 Apr 2004 21:42:06 GMT

Well, today was one of the worst days I've had in a long time. Yet, I feel good about it.

Earlier this week, I fixed a bug in the update wizard - the success counter was being overwritten instead of added to. This resulted in false reports of failiure. So I fix that. Wednesday or Thursday, Therina comes to me, saying it still has that problem, but only on some XP machines. Will I please look at it? I don't. Mostly just because I'm petty. Anyway, she comes and asks me today, going on about how it makes the company look bad, etc., etc., etc. So I look into it. Two files are failing, both GID (Related to the help system), both set hidden. So, on some systems, it won't let you copy over files set hidden. I explain this to her. 4. Bloody. Times. She still doesn't understand - if she can copy and paste in explorer, said hidden files, then why can'y my program do that. I explain that explorer has a whole list of permission checks it goes through before actually copying the file, ensuring that readonly and such are unset, prompting you sometimes about stuff like that - my program just uses the CopyFile API. Understand? No, she says. At this point, I just "Yah. Yah. Yah." to everything else she says and leave. I do tests. It is the hidden attribute. So, I changed my program so that it transparently unsets all bloody attributes, copies the file, and sets the attributes back, save the readonly, which they don't want set. Ever. "It was the hidden attribute. But the program works now. Rebuild the update files," I tell her. The end. And, can you believe, this is a "programmer" that's been working there 13 years. Oh. My. Word.

That was the start of my day. :D

The afternoon spent fixing poor code, trying to implement new functionality, when virtually NONE of their (Specifically Alastair's) adheres to any true specification. Many strong thoughts floated through my head of the desire to beat in heads with blunt objects. So, this is now the number one thing that pisses me off: Poorly written code, which I now have to work with.

So, 4:30pm came, okay, weekend at last, get home, turn off the alarm with the remote, and find the backdoor, deadbolted. ..ookay, how am I gonna get in, Dad? Okay, maybe he didn't deadbolt the other back door. So, put my keyboard (Which I take to work, as it's the only one that has the key configuration I use) in my bag, and climb over the garden gate, only to have the keyboard fall out and break (Crack) all along the left-hand edge. I almost started kicking it around the pavement at that point. But, I restrained myself, tried climbing over the gate again, succeeded, and went on to find that the other back door was deadbolted too. How nice. I phone my dad, who was in Cape Town for the evening (Visiting his parents, his mom who'd just had a hip replacement, specifically), asking how I'm supposed to get in. He suggest I break a tiny window in the wash room, get in that way. I decided to leave it. Went off walking around in town.

On my way to my first stop, brooding over my crappy day, I noticed a girl shortly before she passed me, walking in the opposite direction to me. Crying. And, at that point, everything changed. My day wasn't that bad. After all, I wasn't the one crying.

This stupid thing is still not sorted with Gerhard (The way he's reacted to my leaving his clan). So I walked to his house, phoned on my cell while standing on the pavement outside. He wasn't there, so his mom said. No matter. Walked to Carlo's then, which I'd been planning to do anyway, as he's just finished his first set of tests for mechatronics. So, visited with him all evening. Jaques pitched up too, had dinner there, with chopsticks, no less. I was fairly successful, for my first attempt - managed to clean my bowl of the rice. :>

Aftwards, went off with Carlo and Jaques to a party they'd been planning to attend for an hour or so. And lo, there's Gerhard. Who pretended to by blind, thus excommunicating me. Haha. At least I now know where I stand. Richard also arrived at the party with his girlfriend some time later. As we were leaving, Richard gave me a hug. Which is the first hug I've received from a guy. And I liked it.

I

Sun, 28 Mar 2004 19:56:57 GMT

I'm dead. Not really.

I am ever so slightly closer to getting my hardware. :/

I feel that work goes fairly well - we're apparently ahead of schedule.

I want to make an LCD thingie for my compy, but I need a PCI LPT card. I have a guy who's willing to trade for some old hardware of mine, but I have to get it working first. Or get the other board back from Gerhard, who probably hates me now (He was the leader of the clan I left).

I suddenly want to write a clone of TotalCopy, because I notice that it, being rather retarded, when prompting you to replace files, manages to get them mixed up.

I also want to suddenly write some elite LCD software.

I want to point out to all poor deprived .NET users that the now-missing ItemData can be restored to comboboxes, listboxes and checkedlistboxes. Create a derived class, shadow the items property, having it set a flag to determine if said property has been called, and create two collections - one StringCollection (For itemdata) and a DictionaryCollection (For item to itemdata association) (If I recall the name correctly). Add an Item and ItemData property that retrieves and sets items and itemdata at the specified indices (Items can be set - remove from the collection, then insert new item at old index - you should probably Sync [See below] afterwards, if the list is sorted). Add numerous methods that duplicate those found in Items, however, adding the option of specifying ItemData with the Add and Insert methods. Also, upon adding or inserting, add the item first, get it's index, insert the specified itemdata at said index in itemdata collection, or just an empty string, then add both the item and itemdata to the DictionaryCollection. Also create a Sync method that is called internally every time it finds that the flag from the Items property has been set. Within this, clear the item data collection, iterate through the items, retrieving assoicated itemdata from the DictionaryCollection, if availible, otherwise an empty string. Next, clear the item-itemdata association collection, and iterate through the items, adding the item-itemdata pairs back into the DictionaryCollection. This took me two days, in all, given that I was trying to create a derived class from the ObjectCollection that the items property is made from, at first. That won't work - the base controls like having internal pointers to the collection, and, when you override the collection, it gets confused - the dropdown portion of the combobox will be set to 1 line high, and, upon selecting an item, it will crash with an ArguementOutOfRangeException. Yes, I know this paragraph was incoherrent.

I have 480 teabags, in boxes, on my one bed.

"I am Satan's waffle"

Sun, 14 Mar 2004 20:17:50 GMT

I swear, that's what I thought he said. Oh well...

Now, to rant on about VB.NET. The controls act like an after thought. For one, they don't work properly. My word, I have never seen such shoddy software from such a large corporation before, I'm downright disgusted. Let's take something as simple as a label / caption control. It's fine.. save that it likes to add two spaces to the end of it. Or, when you set it bold, the text gets printed out nicely for the first 66%, then the kerning just gets lower and lower until each letter is touching its neighbour. Lovely. Conversely, I like the editor. Even though it is rather slow. And unweildy. And error trapping takes longer than just having the user close the crashed program and start it again. :D

Enough of that. This week, I almost finished my quota. But not quite. Because .NET won't let me add controls or objects to a collection. Bitch. I hate having to do work-arounds, because a language is just too damn stupid to do things right by itself. ...that's one finger I could point at a lot of things, mind you. *looks at GetModuleFileName*

Importing. Well, my cousin has ordered the stuff. :D Shall arrive at his place presently, and then hopefully a mere 2, 3 weeks until I have it in my clutches. Mwuhahaha.

With the new clan. Well, it's fine so far. Save that Gerhard and Jerome seem to have excommunicated me, not to mention abanning me in #clancd and #paarlgamers. The former, I can understand, but the latter? Still, as Anton and Jaques pointed out, they're just being childish. Rohann, on the other hand, seems to have taken it fairly well - he's still not happy with me, but at least we're still on talking terms. Mike, I have no idea - he seemed pretty angry, leaving messages in the topic naming me a backstabber. Mmm, libel. Because I told Jerome and Rohann what I was doing, and I haven't been able to tell Gerhard, because he's never online. One of the reasons I left CD - what good is a leader if he's never there? This paragraph, overly spammy, stop now.

I need to clean my room. I said I'd do it Tuesday. Then Friday. Then Saturday. Then today. Still hasn't happened. At least I got a little done, Tuesday. Moo.

Sun, 07 Mar 2004 20:29:23 GMT

Lookie! I didn't even know my computer could do this!

Of course, it was at 2.5GHz at the time.

Got a smidge of harddrive corruption because of this afternoon's experimenting, lost my settings, still, funfun. Managed to restore the accounts settings, so all's good. Still, can't wait to reinstall and stoof. Arr!

Didn't really finish the ProgLib thingie. It works.. to an extent. Still no support for multiple catagories, but at least the UI looks sweet. Doesn't help that I forgot to get Morgan's contribution to the project, so I'll have to do that tomorrow. :>

I WANT TO DIE!

Fri, 05 Mar 2004 18:38:35 GMT

...not really. It's all Peace Maker ep 19's fault. Still, brilliant show. <3

Well, apart from Therina moaning about stupid things with regard to the update wizard (She wants it bigger. That's right, BIGGER. Yeah. I'm gonna go resize over a hundred controls now. Not really! That, and she wants that gay install blue/black gradient background. That she can have, even though I disagree strongly), it's done.

Progtest, I was doing fixes and stuff. And upgrades. I say was, because I've kinda been pulled off that project. Still, it now has nifty features such as auto-complete on some fields, database upgrade facilities, full storage of colour, based on all priority and status settings (No selecting yet - that's another day's work), and other such niceties.

The new project. Donkerhoek Data had a Sales management package. Had, because it's now scrapped. And we have to re-write it, from scratch, in 3 months. DOOM! Hopefully, I survive this. Still, I get EXP from this whole little thing, so that's good. Currently rushing around, trying to get ProgLib (Library of useful code and stuff) working in time for Monday, which is when we start the new Sales. Viva la PHP. But I'm suffering javascript errors now. :< Still, at least this is the kind of dev I love. Though I wish I knew more PHP than I do. But I have no time to learn at this point. Well, I do, really, but it's too troublesome. :>

Hardware. Well, sent the other email, asked for confirmation, a week later, a guy who checks his email daily still hasn't replied. So, sent a final email, telling him to leave it - I'll go with my aunt. At least, this way, I know things will actually happen. Harddrives. Neeeeed.

This is the world's most hastily-written post. And this is the world's best song.

:§

Sat, 28 Feb 2004 18:53:17 GMT

I like that smiley.

So, the update wizard is now finished, apart from any bugs that may be lurking. ...actually, no, I lie. It has the slight problem that, irrelevant of how the update went, it always reports it as having been successful. Still, VBScript scripting works, stuff works, I'm happy. To give you an idea of the number of functions I exposed to the script, at 1024x768 in 8pt, it's about two screen lengths. Yarr.

I have a bank account, and now I have a visa card too. Glee. I can buy stuff. Not really, because my money is all allocated to hardware. Which I asked for to be ordered. When he has-going-to-will-issing checks his email though. :/ So far, he hasn't responded, as he usually only checks it during the week. :< Hopefully I don't have to wait too long. I'm continually having to delete stuff for more space. This is not fun.

Ran around with Carlo today, did stuff. Like wash his car. And watch Freddie vs. Jason, one of the worse movies I've seen. It's so predictible... then again, that may be because of my highly tuned prediction engine, thanks to an Afrikaans soapie. Not a normal soapie, though, because it's like one day, someone tells me it's a soapie and I respond "Whaaaat?!" So, yeah.

Hardware hardware hardware hardware hardware hardware hardware import! import!

Which reminds me. The Lord of the Rings Badger special is well worth watching. Actually, I like its music even more than the original. IN FACT. I'm gonna go watch it now.

:§

Sun, 22 Feb 2004 21:28:13 GMT

Hmm. Still not done the updating project. Hehe. They extended my deadline, so I decided to add additional functions. Which I went rampant with. Also settled on using Nullsoft's NSIS for the packaging. Other stuff happened, but I'm lazy.

Brought my new work machine home for the weekend, for tweaking and stuff. But, I procrastinated and got no tweaking done. Wanted: another 24 hours.

*2 hours later* Hmm, almost done that. Ehh.

Got a bank account yesterday morning. Because I couldn't get to it previously. So, I have one at last. Joy. Income for me.

I sleep now.

Sun, 15 Feb 2004 19:15:54 GMT

Hmm, strangely depressed at this time. Ah well.

Slaved away at work. Of course. The update wizard is almost done, but, not quite. Heh. Splitting to stiffy remains, the last bits of installer (Recursive network install code, as well as the ability to go back and change stuff, is somewhat nightmarish to implement), and... no, that's it.

In other news, I'm trying to buy a $10 motherboard & CPU. Is a low-end VIA C3-based thingie, but it'd do good for NAT or something like that. No, no URL for you, seeing as a similar $5 offer was sold out before I could have it ordered. :/

Saw Carlo today. Poor guy is dying over at Stellenbosch University. Mechatronics is the course he's on. 4 or 5 years, and here, a month into it, he's already studying to 11pm to keep up. Still, if anyone I know could do it, I'd say it's him. Me? I'm too lazy. Heh, I find myself with the attitude of Shikamaru (From Naruto) - stuff is just to troublesome to bother. *looks at clouds*

もういっかい

Fri, 06 Feb 2004 21:07:10 GMT

Another week gone by. ProgTest is out and running. And, of course, not everything is implemented, but it's still fully functional. And, of course, there are already a whole slew of changes they would like. But first, I was assigned another project, once again, from scratch and by myself. But this time, I got free reign. Woo. They want their software update procedure made streamlined and user-friendly. This basically entails writing a form of installer. Only, not. I've settled on a wizard interface, which, by the specs, must include options such as installing over the network, checking for newer updates over the internet and putting the installer onto stiffies, for those computers that don't have network or internet access. For the actual installation, I'm leaving that up the the coder of the program, they can write the scripts and exact directories and stuff, scripting which I'm implementing through a form of Windows Scripting Host (Which I spent 2.5 hours looking for, until I realized it wasn't installed on the machine I was working on), exposing nice functions and such through a class module. Not to mention the ability to change every bit of text seen throughout the wizard. Fairly good stuff.

I want to learn Japanese. Seeing as I use the IME on occasion to slap together random hiragana characters for image editing purposes. I already know a massive.. one letter, based on phonetic pronounciation. Shi: し. I also know a few short phrases off by heart. Like the subject, mou ikkai - one more time. Not that I would be able to read it if I saw it anywhere.

I swear, I'm going dyslexic. "connec," "doen'st," "isntall" are just a few of the words I can no longer spell correctly the first try.

A nice shortcut to get around manually creating documents for printing (As in, creating and manipulating a DC) is to use the InternetExplorer aka. WebBrowser control - create the document in HTML, then view and print through the control. The documentation states that using the ExecWB method with the OLECMDID_PRINT* command will do the trick. And it works on Windows 98, too. But not on Windows XP. Visual Basic 4 documentation suggests sending the CTRL+P keys to the control as a means of bringing up the print dialog. This doesn't work either (Though it will make keyboard lights blink off for a split second!). The workaround: The InternetExplorer / WebBrowser control is made up of three windows, the second nested inside the first, the third inside the second. You want the handle for the inner-most window. Don't use the HWND property of the control - this, in my experience, led to a crash. Instead, use the FindWindowEx API, in this order... in fact, let me code the entire thing in pseudo-code:

hwnd[0] = FindWindowEx ( [Control Container / Parent], 0, "Shell Embedding", "");   //Outer - Control
hwnd[1] = FindWindowEx (hwnd[0], 0, "Shell DocObject View", "");                    //Middle - Used by IE
hwnd[2] = FindWindowEx (hwnd[1], 0, "Internet Explorer_Server", "");                //Inner - Renderer

SetFocus (hwnd[2]);                                                                 //API SetFocus

PostMessage (hwnd[2], WM_LBUTTONDOWN, 0, 0x10001);                                  //Won't work without these:
PostMessage (hwnd[2], WM_LBUTTONUP, MK_LBUTTON, 0x10001);                           //one to cancel the other

SendMessage (hwnd[2], WM_COMMAND, 0x1001B, 0);                                      //Print dialog

//NOTE: Use hwnd[1] for these - NOT hwnd[2]

SendMessage (hwnd[1], WM_COMMAND, 0x104, 0);                                        //Print dialog again
SendMessage (hwnd[1], WM_COMMAND, 0x103, 0);                                        //Page setup dialog
SendMessage (hwnd[1], WM_COMMAND, 0x115, 0);                                        //Print preview dialog

Of course, you can try with and without the two PostMessage commands. Didn't seem to work without, in my case.

* - Actually, it might be called something like OLEEXECCMD_PRINT. I forget - don't have a coding enviroment, let along documentation installed at the moment.

So, tomorrow, bank. To hopefully open an account, and claim my first paycheck. Money good. Napster bad.

Sun, 01 Feb 2004 20:14:52 GMT

Ahh, another week closer to my death. Code, eat, sleep. This is virtually all I do now. THe only thing I'm complaining about is the headaches and mild nausea. What they are caused by, I have no idea, but they usually start around 2pm. Could be the rubbish screen I work on (Yellow ghosts), some high-pitched noise that I've noticed two or three times at work, or, as my mom believes, wheat. I don't wanna give up wheat. ;.; Just like I can't live without dairy, specifically, cheese. Anyway.

Importing. I'm still no closer. Yaaaaaaaay! :P While I am soon to be paid for my work, there's this whole agreement with my parents that, once working, I contribute to the household expenses. 50% of my take-home salary or R1500 per month, whichever is less. This is fine and all. Usually. My mom wanted me to be allowed to spend my first paycheck in its entirety. My father refuses. Okay, fine. Well, I want to import stuff, the Rand is gonna weaken now, and there's another guy waiting on me to do it, as he also wants a few things. Not to mention the guy actually buying and sending the stuff. So, can I lend the money that I lack? Follow a myriad of excuses, all through which I work it out. My brother, having been sent to boarding, caused a lot of expenses, what with school clothes, etc. So, the family is currently in overdraft. And my 50% is the way out of that. And that's why he also refuses to lend me money. Frankly, this pisses me off incredibly. Because, who has to pay the additional costs when the exchange rate goes up? Me. Not him. ..haha, rereading that, I sound incredibly selfish. Right now, I honestly don't care. I've been waiting months now. And now I have to wait longer.

Anyhow. I wanted to sign up for a bank account. But, apart from ID, as well as proof of residence, they want proof of income. Such as a payslip. WHICH I HAVEN'T RECEIVED YET BECAUSE I DON'T HAVE A BANK ACCOUNT FOR MY EMPLOYERS TO DEPOSIT MONEY INTO. Jeez. So now I have to get a letter from Donkerhoek Data stating that I'm employed by them. Speaking of which, I've been offered a 6 month contract with them. I'm taking it. Seriously, to have a job like this, at my age and experience level, is basically a miracle, in this country. Hope I get a permanent position. I actually enjoy coding day in, day out.

Nearing completion of my program. Just printing, reports, a bug fix to renaming databases, and the creation of new ones left to be done. That, and the section for selecting colours on a per-user basis. Of this, reports and creations will be the hardest - the former, because it entails complexy SQL statements, the latter, because I don't know it it's possible to create an Access database through code using ADO. RDO, yup. DAO, sure. ADOX, of course. ADO, you're screwed. :P

My hands hurt. Like in the thumb muscles and along the line that folding your thumb inwards makes. Dunno why. :<

My, what an angsty whiney post.

Mon, 26 Jan 2004 03:36:10 GMT

Joy. 5am, and I'm unable to sleep.

Work goes fairly well, almost done with the program. My mom's not happy though - she just feels they're getting cheap labour. Heh. I don't really care. I dunno.. I don't think they're going to offer me a permanent position, based on what Mark said to me on Friday. Then again, he was rather unclear, so I may have misunderstood. Horray.

Friday before last, the guy with whom I was getting a lift had his car wrecked. He and his girlfriend shared it between then, and she had it that day. She was on her way to come fetch us, when she smashed into a pickup. Not sure on the details. She's okay, though, apart from a nasty bruise. Mark said Johann could use one of the company cars until he got his replaced, which was nice of him. THough, I never realized just how difficult it is to get a good car. Nothing Johann's seen so far is both within his price range and decent quality. :/

Even though I registered over 3 months ago for an ID, and even though it was issued a month ago, I still haven't received it. Go figure. So yesterday, trotted off to get a temporary ID, got one, and then registered to vote. If there was a Psycho Loony Party, I'd vote for them. Only because, chances are, it won't make a difference to the election winner (ANC). :P

So, eh. I dunno what I'm going to do about importing. Seems I won't have enough money to buy all the lovely things I want. A list which has, miraculously grown by 3 or so items. Oops.

Michael's gone now. Thursday, he left for that school in Swellendam. Apparently, he'll be back every other weekend, if not more often. Still, sounds like he's doing fairly well so far. I hope he is. He and I were getting on well, the past week or so. We made Naruto ringtones on my cellphone. :>

And now, something useful, with regard to programming with ADO and SQL. Completely undocumented problems. Haw. If ever you find that it doesn't want to accept a perfectly valid SQL statement, check your field names. If they are spelt correctly (Remember to keep the same tense! I forgot I was using past. :/), it may be that some of them are reserved words. That's right, undocumented reserved words, that they'll let you create, but then bitch about when you try to use them with descriptive errors like "Syntax error in INSERT INTO statement." :P In my case, the reserved words were Module and Section. The solution? Affix square brackets to the beginning and end of every field name in your SQL statements, just to be safe. Solved.

Mon, 12 Jan 2004 04:17:29 GMT

So, my first week of work went fairly well. I find out as soon as I get there that, instead of an upgrade, I'm supposed to rewrite the program from scratch. ...ouch. It's basically the internal bug tracking system they use - they want new features and such, because, although the current version works, that's it. It works. I need to learn databases. I also need more sleep. Overall, though, I'd dare say I'm enjoying myself. Job satisfaction is what it's all about.

Still haven't mastered my cellphone. Imagine that. Tricksy little bugger.

Perhaps getting ready to burn a bridge. In fact, I'll even give you details. My father wants to install content censorship software (No, this is not standard anti-porn software. It does everything, from logging instant messenger conversations [Perhaps even IRC] to blocking certain TCP/IP port ranges). In this case, CyberSitter, as it's a once-off payment. That's all fine and dandy, but for the fact that he wants to install it on all computers that have internet access. Which includes mine. Now, excuse me, but I'm 18 years old. I finished school. I'm currently holding down an eight to five job. And you want to force content censorship software onto my computer? Thing is, I can't exactly tell him no. Because that'll lead to all sorts of consequences. Screw it. If I get a permanent position at Donkerhoek, I'm getting my own internet subscription. Probably wireless broadband, which is due to arrive in Cape Town sometime in March (Even though it's being released sometime this month up in Pretoria). Mmmmm, broadband.

Ordered one of the items I want (That thar Arctic Cooling VGA Silencer, that graphics card heatsink thing. http://www.guru3d.com/admin/imageview.php?image=1527). Hopefully, the postage will wind up a little less than $23, seeing as international orders have to be confirmed by email. I'm not paying $23 for shipping when the item itself cost $20. And this for USPS airmail shipping. I know that it would really cost closer to $10 to airmail the item in question. Shall argue with them if they insist upon $23. Or, just take my business elsewhere, even though it'll take a couple weeks longer to get the heatsink. Oh well.

Usefulness

Sat, 03 Jan 2004 09:51:55 GMT

Do you often play movies/shows/whatever (avi, the like) on your computer? Struggle with codecs? This is the best fix I've yet found, which basically removes everything you don't need, decluttering your computer. http://forums.animesuki.com/showthread.php?p=1816#post1816

While you're there, get GSpot - while this short guide is great, it does mean you make do with fewer codecs, and, inevitably, you will find yourself lacking a specific codec some day (I found that I lacked the AC3 audio codec). Google the codec GSpot says is missing, install it, and there you go. Simple, elegant, and, far as I've found, flawless.

"I am a consumer whore!" "And how!"

Fri, 02 Jan 2004 22:05:48 GMT

I win. Less and less, I'm using the name Eldren. Now only on Fluff and this journal. And, of course, my email address.

Hmm, three weeks without a proper entry. I've deprived you, yes.

So. When Lazya was here, we went to a cherry farm, to pick cherries. And we did. Ended up with over 4 kilograms of cherries. Oops. But that was fun.

Attended the LAN, Carnage, as planned. Sadly, Rohann didn't make it, so it was just Mike and Jerome that accompanied me. Was a fun LAN, very Q3-based. Well, it would be, given that SA's arguably best Q3 player, Ph4ntom, was there. There was a Q3 contest that I didn't bother finishing. Mike and Jerome payed against Ph4ntom in it - Mike was raped like 80-0, and Jerome about 53-4. Still, fun. Played a 2v2 with Jerome against Ph4ntom and one of his fellow clan-members (So, it was a section eight vs. CD 2v2) - they raped us, about 100-12. Sad, really. Leeched stuff, too much, really, and I have no harddrive space. ;.;

Poked around getting a job. One of the places that I sent my CV to phoned back, asking for an interview. So I went. Two hours after I got home, there was a phone call asking for a follow-up interview. It's as a programmer, seeing as they had someone, but he pulled out at the last minute. I'm not nearly as experienced or qualified as he was, but they need someone. However, seeing as I lack experience, they want to see how well I work with them first, so they've offered me a small project (2-4 weeks long) on a trial basis and I've accepted. Thus, I start Monday. That was quick. c.c

Umm, last Monday, went to a small LAN at Mike's. I've now discovered how horrible capped ADSL is. International sites load... well, I've seen sloths move faster. If the sites load at all. Local sites are fine, though - all four of us could play quake with a 50ms ping. Fun times. Played a lot of WarCraft 3, Jerome's favourite game, that was fun, and, I was introduced to Wolfenstein - Enemy Territory. I'm addicted now. ;.; As I'm addicted to NFS:U. As I'm getting addicted to Halo. I must stop playing games. :/

In other news, after playing Halo for about 4, 5 hours last night, I quit for the evening, after saving. I notice the install created poop on my desktop, like gamespy and one of those stupid "My" folders Microsoft loves so much. Uninstall gamespy, delete the folder. Come back today, and my profile is gone. It was in the folder. Now, wouldn't it be logical to keep that stuff in the same directory as the game itself? Or a sub-directory of it? Nooooo, we're dealing with Microsoft. Logical? No, my logic is flawed, they're always right. *fake-grovels* I don't feel like playing to where I was. Still, I am the master of the warthog. I love that vehicle - I get it places it was never meant to go. On the island silent cartographer bit? I got it inside both buildings. Hah. Suck my gunner's machine gun, bitches. Unfortunately, I have the unfortunate ability to kill my crew as fast as I kill aliens by driving over them - flipping the warthog sometimes results in my crew getting crushed. Awwww.

So, got my matric results. Gokuk. Or, at least, it's pronounced like that. Japanese for "You pass!" So, I got that cellphone as graduation gift. I didn't get a 1337 number, like I wanted. Aww. Still, 29seloo isn't too bad. 295-3100.

Hmmm, anything else? Oh. My room got all nice and clean. But it's a bit messy again. Not nearly as bad as it was before, though. That's about it... oh, wait. Last weekend, the exchange rate. It was, against the US dollar, an interesting 666 cents. :D

Sun, 14 Dec 2003 21:55:16 GMT

I think this is the first time I've sat for a minute, trying to figure out how to start. Not that I have much to say. Went to Cape Town on Wednesday and Friday, Wednesday to visit grandmother in Fishhoek and to sell more stuff and to buy an AIUHB, Friday to buy clothes and buy a switch. Yay. I have a switch now. 16-port 10/100 CNet thingie, which supports trunking. Fairly nice feature that, lacking gigabit ports. I have clothes for work now. And a silver tie. Now all I need is that black jacket (Suit and tie kind of jacket) I found at Woolworths - thing is, it cost R400. *dies* Oh, but how good that jacket would look with my silver tie and my maroon shirt. Hmm, in other news, my cousin, Lazya is here for a few days. Plan to attend a LAN next weekend. Tuesday, put the shelves into my cupboard, my room is gettinv cleaner. Still not fully clean yet. Hmm, that's about all for now. I really need to get back to work on my projects, while there's time.

I am a...

Sun, 14 Dec 2003 16:16:37 GMT

Spatial Thinkers:
Tend to think in pictures, and can develop good mental models of the physical world.
Think well in three dimensions
Have a flair for working with objects

Like other spatial thinkers, Leonardo had a talent for designing buildings and machinery. He also invented a new style of map making Other Spatial Thinkers include
Pablo Picasso, Michelangelo, Isambard Kingdom Brunel

Careers which suit Spatial Thinkers include
Mechanic, Photographer, Artist, Architect, Engineer, Builder, Set designer

Haha, damn straight.

Bend your hooftas!

Mon, 08 Dec 2003 03:54:59 GMT

Monday was the first time I cried. I have no idea why, either, was just sitting there, listening to Rammstein (And not a particularly sad-sounding song either, like Klavier [Piano]) and I just started. Odd. I like to think I'm past it. But I wonder if I really am.

Been playing Quake2 most of this week gone by. Haha, what a waste of time. Fun, anyhow.

Started working on a Naruto (Specifically, Kakashi. Damn, he's a cool teacher) wallpaper. I shall pimp it when/if I'm done. I wish I had better art skills. :/

Room is still a mess, but I'm putting in shelves tomorrow, so that'll lead to some order forming. Yay.

Friday, went to Cape Town, sold stuff. Though the one guy couldn't make it, tried to arrange again, didn't work out. :P

Last week, Carlo invited me to go with him on a hike Saturday, help erect a cross on top (Not overly religious event - it needed fixing, is all. More shortly). I thought he meant Paarl Mountain (Really a hill). He meant the Drakenstein Mountains over to the east. It took us about 3 hours hiking to get to the top. Half of that at basically a 45 degree incline. Never again. Coming down was more painful. Every stone you step on goes through your shoe, and your foot folds around it. I joked that by the time we got down, there'd be no stones left on the mountain - they'd all be in my feet. And plenty of stones there were - all along the path. Ow. If feet can be bruised, that's the way to do it. Anyhow. We started hiking at 5:30am, and were back down by 13:20. What we did at the top; up there, a cross was erected many years ago for the Italian POWs that built the pass over the Drakenstein mountains. It's been replaced four times so far. However, this fourth replacement, a 6 meter long stainless steel cross fell down. Was taken down with a helicopter, repaired, and brought back up. And it was up to us to erect it. Yoh, that was a dangerous job, actually. The wind was strong enough to push you off your feet. Funny story, Carlo asked me to take photos (He was holding a rope), and there's a perfect photo of my shadow, taken as I nearly fell off a rock. Anyhow, we got it up, all proud and all. There were 15 people in all, 8 of which, including me and Carlo, who hiked up - the others got a helicopter ride. :P Also, only 11 actually helped erecting the thing. No cranes, helicopters or pullys. Just plain ropes and manpower. But if that thing had toppled over before the 5 support wires were hooked up, jeez. Anyhow. Never again am I climbing a mountain. I now know what old peoples' knees feel like - I couldn't bend mine without pain, Saturday evening. Still stiff now.

Went to a party at Carlo's yesterday evening. Sad one, really, seeing as it kinda fizzled out with Andre leaving early and the others following suit soon after. Boo.

Anyhow, that was your weekly spam. Enjoy.

"mmm, death"

Mon, 01 Dec 2003 04:56:54 GMT

I hunger. As is normal after having stayed up since 7, yesterday. 7pm.

Monday, Carlo and Jaques came round, we played a long ass game of M:TG. Carlo won, of course, ending with an unblockable 25 damage move. Bastard. ;)

The rest of the week was spent, more or less, in preperation of the LAN I was to attend on Friday. Which I did (For example, I finally implemented my double-binds weapons selection system for Quake, where two weapons are bound to a single key). Lasted through to Sunday morning. In all that time, I slept maybe 6 hours. Heh, of course, I'm the only person who would watch Hikaru no Go while everyone else is sleeping, waiting for a 4th wind. Which never came. Aww. On a seperate note, I now want to play Go. Anyhow, played the standard LAN games, leeched some, dispensed computer knowledge. And lost my precious... err, yellow screwdriver. Also beat the clan leader, Jerome (Malcimis), in Quake. Both times we played. Which I (Zelphar) am fairly proud of. Heh, Gozzy (Another clan member. His rail and LG are deadly) and I are the only ones up at this hour. Well, at least, until a couple of minutes. Cracked myself at this:

[06:45:08] ::: Quit: (Gozzy) (mewo@rrba-ip-nas-1-p280.telkom-ipnet.co.za) (Quit: Zelphar > Malcimis)