Wavy’s World

For the Fallen

David Harris — Sun, 8 Nov 2009 18:14:53 +0800

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

Condensation

David Harris — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 00:16:50 +0800

I was playing with the macro end of my 18-55 lens. I quite like this shot.

The Trees

David Harris — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 00:05:56 +0800

This used to be the view from our balcony:

Now, it looks like this:

I used to like looking at those trees.

Bohemian Rhapsody as never before

David Harris — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 15:32:29 +0800

This is quite simply amazing: Bohemian Rhapsody as produced by a heap of old tech gear

Barack to visit West Ham

David Harris — Wed, 1 Apr 2009 20:28:46 +0800

According to the Ilford Recorder, President Barack Obama is intending to take a little time out from G20 discussions to visit Upton Park

A West Ham insider told the Recorder: "We have all been told that the President is coming and some of his enormous bodyguards have been down to look around the stadium for security purposes.

"We have all been sworn to secrecy, but this sort of thing always gets out, and we are not sure exactly when he is going to arrive anyway. We've been told to keep the kettle on just in case."

The President will be shown round the stadium by US international Jonathan Spe-ctor, who, like Obama, hails from Chicago.

Unfortunately, this bit (plus the date) gives the game away a tad:

He will also be shown around the club shop, although in the current economic climate, he will apparently only be offered a 10 per cent discount on anything he wishes to purchase.

Bug in XPages?

David Harris — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 22:07:50 +0800

I must start this post with a warning: Technical content ahead!!! Luddites among you venture ye no further.

Right.

Over the last few weeks I've been delving into the new development feature of Lotus Domino, XPages. This, essentially, is a way to build good looking web applications in Domino on the fly, and, generally, it ROCKS! (ahem).

In addition to an IBM course run by my southern friend, Stephan, I've also been using Declan Lynch's tutorial series, which is excellent. The first step you actually take while following it is setting the sample database to use a new XPage-related tool called themes, which allows you to set the styles to be applied to the application using CSS, plus some other stuff.

Having used the one in the tutorial for about thirty odd lessons, IBM's OneUI them, I decided to use my own modified version of it. Whoops.

It broke.

Revisiting the application this afternoon, all the layout had disappeared. When I looked at the source, it was still trying to use the old theme, which was bizarre, since I'd not just changed the app to use the new one, but removed the old one from the list of themes available.

OK, I thought, maybe it's being cached, so I did what no-one should EVER do on a production server, and removed the CSS files for the old theme.

Eh-Ehhh!!! Wrong move, now there was no styling being applied at all, yet when I looked at the source, it was still trying to load the old files. OK, remove them from the development environment entirely, ie the Domino Designer client, in case there's some funny caching going on there.

No.

This was seriously annoying me now, especially since we've just submitted a bid to build an application using XPages, so I need to know how to fic this damn problem. Out came the packet sniffer, so I could see what the browser was asking for, and yes, it was asking for the old files, as one would expect, for the simple reason that it's been told by the server to ask for them.

I went over the application, local and server copies using every interface the Designer client provides that I thought I could use. Nothing.

Then I had a brainwave - back to using something that has rarely let me down in over ten years of using Lotus software either as administrator or as developer, NotesPeek.

Fired it up and opened up the Design note collection, and there, at the bottom, I saw this:

This is not good. There is only supposed to be one each of WEB-INF/face-config.xml and WEB-INF/xsp.properties, and there were two. Lo and behold, the reference to the old theme was in the copies that shouldn't have been there. I suspect that there was somehow a replication conflict between local and server replicas that wasn't handled properly, and the older version was taking precedence.

Anyway, one quick Kill agent using a bit of Lotuscript (something else that has served me very well in the past) using the NoteID, and all was right again.

All in all, it was intensely frustrating, up until the point where I found the problem and resolved it, which is satisfying in equal proportion.

Beautiful

David Harris — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 23:56:00 +0800

Read it and weep. With joy and hope.

Consistent with the requirements of the Federal torture statute, 18 U.S.C. 2340 2340A, section 1003 of the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, 42 U.S.C. 2000dd, the Convention Against Torture, Common Article 3, and other laws regulating the treatment and interrogation of individuals detained in any armed conflict, such persons shall in all circumstances be treated humanely and shall not be subjected to violence to life and person (including murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment, and torture), nor to outrages upon personal dignity (including humiliating and degrading treatment), whenever such individuals are in the custody or under the effective control of an officer, employee, or other agent of the United States Government or detained within a facility owned, operated, or controlled by a department or agency of the United States.
[....]
From this day forward, unless the Attorney General with appropriate consultation provides further guidance, officers, employees, and other agents of the United States Government may, in conducting interrogations, act in reliance upon Army Field Manual 2-22.3, but may not, in conducting interrogations, rely upon any interpretation of the law governing interrogation -- including interpretations of Federal criminal laws, the Convention Against Torture, Common Article 3, Army Field Manual 2 22.3, and its predecessor document, Army Field Manual 34-52 -- issued by the Department of Justice between September 11, 2001, and January 20, 2009.

From James Wimberley at the Reality Based Community ("Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts")

Inauguration

David Harris — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 01:55:41 +0800

Some thoughts about the last two hours...

Rick Warren was, on balance, given his Invocation, a mistake. Aside from his late references to Isa and Yeshua, the last thing he was was inclusive.

I couldn't work out who muffed the oath of office - Jeff Toobin on CNN reckons it was the Chief Justice.

Obama's speech: A bit too much God for personal taste, but generally good. Also, with all the references to returning to the Constitution, and the Rule of Law, and (paraphrase ahead) "working by theses values again", this was an utter repudiation of the last eight years.

And the benediction by Rev Lowery was by turns inspiring and funny - even I chorused Amen at the end!!

Another couple moments - CNN's shots of Barack with Michelle behind during the Star Spangled Banner was touching.

Joe Biden taking a photo for Mahlia Obama - sweet, very grand-fatherly

Having Captain Sully of the Hudson was on the podium was a very astute move.

Finally, apparently (ie according to David Gergen CNN) the new President doesn't usually escort the outgoing President to his transport away from the Capitol, as Obama did Bush. I watched that and had the impression that Obama just wanted to make sure that Bush was on that helicopter (no longer Marine 1, that's Obama's now) and on his way out of town. With the horse he rode in on.

Change is here!!!

David Harris — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 23:53:11 +0800

On November 4th last year, voters of the United States did what hundreds of millions of people across the world hoped, prayed for and elected Barack Hussein Obama the 44th President of the USA.

In one short hour, he will become President, being sworn in by the Chief Justice and holding Abraham Lincoln's Bible in his hand.

At last.

America, we salute you. Welcome back!!!

Not going to Lotusphere

David Harris — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 19:31:40 +0800

Yet again, I'm not going to Lotusphere, the huge conference for all of us who make a shekel using, administering or developing in Lotus software. As loads of people whose sites I read regularly are sat in the keynote session in about 2 hours time, I'll be following events and announcements vicariously through those same people and through LotusphereLive

I'm a Missing GONAD (Geeky Order of Notes Admins and Developers, since you were wondering, of which I'm the Worshipful Grand Dragon for Malaysia. Yeah, don't ask).

I'm not going to Lotusphere.