Four Gables Guy

Java static initialization gotcha

2012-01-26T10:42:00.000-08:00

If you have a class which has a singleton instance of itself as a static member, and also use a static inititialization block, then you can run into an issue with initialization like I did where static final members are null.

01 import java.util.*;
02
03 class MySingletonClass {
04 private static final instance = new MySingletonClass();
05 private static final List MY_STRINGS;
06 static {
07 MY_STRINGS = new ArrayList();
08 }
09 public MySingletonClass() {
10 System.out.println("MY_STRINGS: "+MYSTRINGS);
11 }
12 }

The above will throw a NullPointer Exception on line 10 because the MySingletonClass constructor is called BEFORE the static initialization block is executed. So change it to this:

01 import java.util.*;
02
03 class MySingletonClass {
04 private static final instance;
05 private static final List MY_STRINGS;
06 static {
07 MY_STRINGS = new ArrayList();
08 instance = new MySingletonClass();
09 }
10 public MySingletonClass() {
11 System.out.println("MY_STRINGS: "+MYSTRINGS);
12 }
13 }

Now the instance static member variable is not created until AFTER the other static member is initialized. So the constructor can correctly execute the print statement.

Use package-info.java for all your package level annotation needs

2012-01-24T10:44:00.000-08:00

I had a problem, I needed to annotate all the occurrences of java.sql.Timestamp with an XmlJavaTypeAdapter for all classes in a Java package. For example I needed this done in dozens of generated source files:

@XmlJavaTypeAdapter(com.fourgablesguy.dao.hibernate.util.TimestampAdapter.class)
public Timestamp getCreateTs() {
return this.createTs;
}

The TimestampAdapter class is the following:

package com.fourgablesguy.dao.hibernate.util;

import java.sql.Timestamp;
import java.util.Date;

import javax.xml.bind.annotation.adapters.XmlAdapter;

public class TimestampAdapter extends XmlAdapter {

@Override
public Date marshal(Timestamp v) throws Exception {
return new Date(v.getTime());
}

@Override
public Timestamp unmarshal(Date v) throws Exception {
return new Timestamp(v.getTime());
}

}

The reason I needed this done is because Timestamp does not have a public no-arg constructor and XStream could not marshall objects containing Timestamp objects. The nice solution to annotating these is to use package-info.java, you place this file in the same folder as the source java files, but it is not a typical source file. Here is the contents of my package-info.java:

@javax.xml.bind.annotation.adapters.XmlJavaTypeAdapters
({
@javax.xml.bind.annotation.adapters.XmlJavaTypeAdapter(value=com.fourgablesguy.dao.hibernate.util.TimestampAdapter.class,type=java.sql.Timestamp.class)
})
package com.myama.dao.hibernate;

This package-info file is used by Java to annotate all classes in a package, with this single file my problem was resolved. My TimestampAdapter allowed me to marshall Timestamp objects with XStream. I used fully qualified names of classes in the package-info since I was not clear if you could import packages or if you had package access to the enclosing namespace.

Keep your browser updated

2012-01-18T12:41:00.000-08:00

Financial and Health industries are notorious for being slow to adopt better technology and instead cling to inferior hardware/software beyond the logical pain point, web browsers included. As a general philosophy I recommend it would be healthy for these industries to adopt the policy that web browsers be kept updated and applications used by the company be maintained to work correctly with modern browsers.

Here are three good reasons to keep browsers updated:

First, old browsers (and the OS they run on) are vulnerable to attacks.

Second, the web evolves quickly. Old browsers will miss out.

Third, old browsers slow down innovation on the web.

I worked with a previous client who insisted on a dynamic Web 2.0 look to the complex web application I was designing but also demanded compatibility with IE7. Delivering on both of these requirements (latest Internet bells and whistles, like mobile browser compatibility and AJAX, as well as backward compatibility with older browser versions) increases the difficulty level and cost of the site development considerably for a number of reasons:

First you have to test on these older browser versions in addition to testing on the common browsers, which increases the development time. It is not just twice the work, because you have to worry about supporting all browsers with a single application, making a single change requires testing all browsers to make sure fixing an issue in one browser does not break something in another.
Next you have to pare down features and functionality so that it works consistently everywhere, so you might have had a nice dynamic form element or navigation control working in IE9 and FireFox 4, but it all gets tossed out when it cannot work in IE7 (see holding up innovation reason given above).
Also, for some "must have" site features or functionality: developers will usually have to code around older browser version quirks, so instead of writing code in one place to perform a task, it is written one place or one way for modern browsers and another place or another way for older browsers (see slowing down the web). This causes a code maintenance issue as you now have multiple places to check to fix problems or update code for a single feature or site behavior. This is a problem for HTML, CSS, and Javascript as all three can behave differently on different browsers.
Yet another problem that can arise is your Javascript/CSS performance can vary widely in different browser flavors and versions, for example IE7 Javascript benchmarks are miserably slow when compared with more recent versions of IE and other browsers like FireFox or Chrome. This can cause problems where failing to test on the required browser versions can really bite you.
If a performance issue (or any browser version issue) is found late in the development cycle, either because the testing was not done along side development in that version or because developers only used modern browsers for their self verification and validation of the application, then the time needed to fix the entire problem is much larger and more difficult than if it had been caught earlier because much more code is in place to review and repair and test.

99% of businesses do not have the resources to provide application support on dozens of browsers versions, it is less expensive to support the current browsers than to support historical ones. Developers are much happier working with current tech than outdated tech as well. Your clients may not want to upgrade their browsers, they may ‘need’ the old browser to access a neglected internal application which only works with a specific legacy browser, but clients refusing to update their software and maintain their web applications are hurting themselves (and you) in several ways:

old software makes their business less competitive (faster browsers/computers make a more efficient workforce);
old/inferior software has high hidden costs (performance issues, functional issues, security vulnerabilities, feature limitations, and incompatibilities with emerging technologies);
outsourced development vendors always find doing business with clients clinging to old software is more expensive and they increase their bids accordingly (I saw this first hand many times working as a consultant);
some development vendors even flat out refuse business which requires older browser compatibility as a policy / business strategy. This allows their developers freedom to ignore issues only present in older browsers and they can therefore innovate more efficiently.

Newer IE browsers can run in a legacy mode, emulating the previous versions, for those rare cases where a legacy browser mode is needed to use a web site. You can even set preferences for specific sites such that certain sites always use a compatibility mode. The barrier to upgrading to a new browser is mostly self-inflicted because browser creators do everything possible to encourage adoption of the newer version.

How do I test my web application against IE6 and IE7 in Windows 7?

2012-01-17T11:20:00.000-08:00

How do I test my web application against IE6 and IE7 and IE8 and IE9 in Windows 7?

Problem: Windows 7 comes with IE8 or IE9 or IE10 (and does not have a path back to use IE6 or IE7, (and don't patronize me with browser emulation solutions, they all suck.) Microsoft has sunsetted support for IE6 and IE7 is getting closer to being out of support as well.

Solution:

Go here http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/download.aspx

Download the 500 MB Windows XP Mode VHD installer.
Run the installer.
Download Virtual PC if you lack this.
Test with IE6 bundled in the vhd.
Make a second vhd and upgrade to IE7 within the Virtual PC VM.*
Rinse and repeat for IE8, IE9
If you are doing local web development, install the Microsoft Loopback adapter on your host OS.
You now have the ability to test your site in native IE6 and IE7 and IE8, IE9, and IE10.

Other tools exist to emulate or simulate IE6 and IE7 web rendering, but they will always fall short of the mark and open you to risks if they fail to display your site *exactly* the way it displays in the native browser and I recommend that they should not be used for any project where you can use a VM instead.

*For this step there are some special tricks to it. After making a copy of your IE6 vhd file, you need to change it's hardware signature to avoid conflicts with running it in parallel with your IE6 VM.

Windows 7 comes with a command line utility called diskpart that can let you view and change the disk signature.

Open a command prompt as administrator. To do this in Windows 7, click the Windows start menu (the round Windows icon on the left bottom corner), type "cmd" (without the quotes), right click the "cmd.exe" item that appears at the top of your menu, and click the line "Run as administrator". Do this even if you are already logged in as administrator, since on Windows 7, administrators run with reduced rights by default.

A black command prompt window will open. In Windows 7, the title bar of the window will tell you that you are running it as Administrator. If it does not, it means you did not do what I just said above. Return and follow the first step, or you will not be able to successfully carry out the rest of this tutorial.

Type "diskpart" (without the quotes) into the window. (Note: for this and the other commands described here, you'll have to hit the ENTER key after you finish typing your commands for them to take effect.)

Microsoft DiskPart will start. When it is ready, it will issue a "DISKPART>" prompt, allowing you to enter your commands.

Type "list disk" (without the quotes). This will list all the disks that are currently mounted (connected to the system). The disk will not have the usual names and labels that you're accustomed to from the Windows Explorer interface, so you will have to recognize them by their sizes.

Note that "list disk" actually lists the physical disks, and not the partitions that you may have assigned drive letters. This means that if you have 2 physical disks, with 3 partitions on each, so that you have drives C:, D:, E:, F:, G: and H:, "list disk" will only show "Disk 0" and "Disk 1".

To view the signature of a disk, you must first select it. To select a disk, type "select disk x" (without the quotes) where x is the number of the disk from your "list disk" display. When you type (say) "select disk 1", DiskPart will respond by telling you "Disk 1 is now the selected disk".

Now type "uniqueid disk" (again, without the quotes). DiskPart will respond with the disk's signature, a series of hexadecimal digits (or at least I think it's hexadecimal).

To change the signature to some other number, type "uniqueid disk ID=[NEW SIGNATURE]" (without the quotes) where "[NEW SIGNATURE]" stands for the new identifier you want for the disk (without the square brackets and without the quotes). However, before you do that, you may want to type "help uniqueid disk", which will give you more information on how the command works. You may also want to find out the disk signatures of your other disks on your system before you modify your current one so that you don't cause a new signature collision in trying to solve your current problem. In addition, if you're really not sure how many digits you should give your disk, perhaps try changing only one digit of the current signature (eg, increasing or decreasing it by 1). Remember my disclaimer above: I really don't know what I'm talking about here: do it at your own risk.

To quit DiskPart, type "exit". Incidentally, in case you get lost while running DiskPart, when you are at the "DISKPART>" prompt, you can type "help" to get a list of commands. Typing "help" followed by the command typically gives you more info about that command.

Once you've quit DiskPart, type "exit" again to quit the Administrator Command Prompt

(source: http://www.howtohaven.com/system/change-disk-signature.shtml)

Setting up command line Apache Xalan XSLT processor

2011-12-07T10:49:00.000-08:00

You need to put the Xalan jars in the System classpath, create or edit the environment variable called CLASSPATH, set it with a value like this

CLASSPATH=C:\Projects\Java\Runtime\lib\xalan.jar;C:\Projects\Java\Runtime\lib\xml-apis.jar;C:\Projects\Java\Runtime\lib\serializer-2.7.0.jar;

Ultimately you need three JARs on the classpath:

xalan.jar
xml-apis.jar
serializer-#.#.#.jar

You cannot take a shortcut and just specify a folder containing these jars, you must give java the full path to them. For a permanent solution put the three jars in the

\lib\endorsed directory, then the classpath will always have them.

You should already have a JRE or JDK in the system PATH as well:

set PATH=C:\SDKs\jdk1.6.0_18\bin;%PATH%

With that in place you can transform XML using XSLT on the command line with the Xalan parser like this:

java org.apache.xalan.xslt.Process -out output.out -in input.xml -xsl transform.xslt

Where

output.out is the file to create,

input.xml is the input xml file to transform, and

transform.xslt is the XSLT XML file to transform the input xml file with.

This is handy because you can also give the JVM 2GB of heap memory like this to process large input files:

java -Xms2g -Xmx2g org.apache.xalan.xslt.Process -out output.out -in input.xml -xsl transform.xslt

If you are runnng into out of memory heap space errors parsing XML with XSLT, this is a good way to get past that problem. If you cannot get further beyond your out of memory errors, then look at breaking apart the XML with Java or Perl somehow before transforming it with XSLT. You might even be able to use 64-bit JVM to address a huge amount of memory much larger than you probably have available in the physical machine.

How to change the Java heap size for WebSphere Application Server 6.1 profiles

2011-11-09T10:50:00.000-08:00

How to change the Java heap size for WebSphere Application Server 6.1 profiles

Open the integrated solutions console
https://:9044/ibm/console/
Default login is
system:manager

Navigate to the JVM for the server profile you want to change

Application servers > server1 > Process Definition > Java Virtual Machine
Change these values
Initial Heap Size=512
Maximum Heap Size=512
These correspond to the Xms and Xmx params of the JVM. So make sure you do not set Max lower than Initial, nor set Max higher than available OS RAM. I am not sure if adding a K,M,or G to the number will work, it seems by default the numbers are considered MB. Be aware that your JVM is 32 bit so there is a mathematical limit (and practical limit) to how much memory it can address. 3800 MB is where you will likely top out for max heap space unless your OS limits you to 2GB, which puts your heap max down to 1600MB.

You will have to restart the WAS server profile instance to have this change take effect on the JVM.

Increase the memory for MyEclipse Blue IDE

2011-10-21T10:51:00.000-07:00

1. Open this file:
C:\Program Files\Genuitec\MyEclipse Blue Edition 8.0 GA\myeclipse-blue.ini

2. Edit lines so it looks like this at the bottom:

-Xms1024m
-Xmx1024m

This will give you 1GB ram for MyEclipse Blue.

My complete ini file looks like this:

-install
C:/Program Files/Genuitec/MyEclipse Blue Edition 8.0 GA
-vm
C:/Program Files/Genuitec/Common/binary/com.sun.java.jdk.win32.x86_1.6.0.013/jre/bin/client/jvm.dll
-startup
../Common/plugins/org.eclipse.equinox.launcher_1.0.201.R35x_v20090715.jar
--launcher.library
../Common/plugins/org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.win32.win32.x86_1.0.200.v20090519
-vmargs
-Xms1024m
-Xmx1024m
-XX:MaxPermSize=256m
-XX:ReservedCodeCacheSize=64m

Adding a datasource to the maven jetty plugin

2011-10-19T10:56:00.000-07:00

In your pom.xml

           <plugin>
               <groupId>org.mortbay.jetty</groupId>
               <artifactId>maven-jetty-plugin</artifactId>
               <version>6.1.21</version>
               <configuration>
                    <!-- <jettyConfig>src/main/resources/devJetty.xml</jettyConfig>  -->
                    <webXml>${basedir}/src/main/resources/jetty-web.xml</webXml>
                    <jettyEnvXml>${basedir}/src/main/resources/jetty-env.xml</jettyEnvXml>
                   <contextPath>/OCM</contextPath>
                   <scanIntervalSeconds>3</scanIntervalSeconds>
                   <scanTargetPatterns>
                       <scanTargetPattern>
                           <directory>src/main/webapp/WEB-INF</directory>
                           <excludes>
                               <exclude>**/*.jsp</exclude>
                           </excludes>
                           <includes>
                               <include>**/*.properties</include>
                               <include>**/*.xml</include>
                           </includes>
                       </scanTargetPattern>
                   </scanTargetPatterns>
                   <stopKey>foo</stopKey>
                   <stopPort>9966</stopPort>
               </configuration>
           </plugin>
Key lines are
                    <webXml>${basedir}/src/main/resources/jetty-web.xml</webXml>
                    <jettyEnvXml>${basedir}/src/main/resources/jetty-env.xml</jettyEnvXml>

Define your jetty-env.xml like this:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE Configure PUBLIC -//Mort Bay Consulting//DTD Configure//EN http://jetty.mortbay.org/configure.dtd>

<Configure class="org.mortbay.jetty.webapp.WebAppContext">

 <!-- an XADataSource                                                -->
 <New id="MAVENJETTYDS" class="org.mortbay.jetty.plus.naming.Resource">
   <Arg></Arg>
   <Arg>jdbc/datasource</Arg>
   <Arg>
         <New class="org.apache.commons.dbcp.BasicDataSource">
                     <Set name="driverClassName">[[jdbc driver class]]</Set> <!-- for example, com.ibm.db2.jcc.DB2Driver -->
                     <Set name="url">[[jdbc url]]</Set> <!-- for example, jdbc:db2://yourdbhostnameorip:[port]/yourdb -->
                     <Set name="username">[[username]]</Set><!-- for example, yourmom -->
                      <Set name="password">[[password]]</Set><!-- for example, correcthorsebatterystaple -->
                     <Set name="defaultCatalog">[[schema, if needed]]</Set>
         </New>
   </Arg>
  </New>
</Configure>

Then add the ref to your web.xml

<web-app version="2.4" xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee"
   xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
   xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee/web-app_2_4.xsd" id="WebApp_1270163143862">
<pre>
   <!-- SNIP -->

<!-- Bug fix for editing locked CSS and JS running in Jetty -->
<servlet>
   <servlet-name>default</servlet-name>
   <servlet-class>org.mortbay.jetty.servlet.DefaultServlet</servlet-class>
   <init-param>
     <param-name>useFileMappedBuffer</param-name>
     <param-value>false</param-value>
   </init-param>
   <load-on-startup>0</load-on-startup>
</servlet>

       <resource-ref>
         <res-ref-name>jdbc/datasource</res-ref-name>
         <res-type>javax.sql.DataSource</res-type>
         <res-auth>Container</res-auth>
    </resource-ref>

</web-app>

Understanding Maven dependency scope

2011-10-07T09:40:00.000-07:00

You can specify the scope for a dependency in the maven pom file, here are the scope values you can choose and what effect they have:

compile: This dependency is needed for compilation of the main source
test: This dependency is needed for compiling and running tests. It is not needed for compiling the main source or running the final artifact.
runtime: This dependency is needed for running the final artifact. It is not needed for compiling the main source or compiling or running the tests.
provided: This dependency is needed for compiling and/or running the artifact but is not necessary to include in the package, because it is provided by the runtime environment - for example, jsp-api.jar is provided by your web application container, so you don't include it in your WEB-INF/lib (for the example of a webapp); or a plugin or optional package that is a prerequisite for your application, but is not bundled with your application.
system: don't use this one

source: http://docs.codehaus.org/display/MAVENUSER/Dependency+Scopes

JSP debug code

2011-10-04T14:54:00.000-07:00

The following can be pasted into a JSP and then used to display (either in HTML source or in the browser window), the JSP Request, Session, Page, and Application settings for the environment and container the JSP is running within.

I have found this to be a quick useful way to get the lay of the land, when joining a project already in development.


<!-- 
 <%@ page import="java.util.*"%>
 <%
  Object eobj = request.getParameter("error");
  if (eobj != null) {
   Exception exception = null;
   Object obj = request.getAttribute("exception");
   if (obj != null && obj instanceof Exception) {
    exception = (Exception) obj;
   }
   if (exception == null) {
    obj = request.getAttribute("javax.servlet.error.exception");
    if (obj != null && obj instanceof Exception) {
     exception = (Exception) obj;
    }
   }
   if (exception != null) {
 %><pre>
  <%
   exception.printStackTrace(new java.io.PrintWriter(out));
  %>
 </pre>
 <%
  }
  }
  out.println("<h3>Request:</h3><ul>");
  Enumeration names = request.getHeaderNames();
  while (names.hasMoreElements()) {
   String name = (String) names.nextElement();
   out.println("<li>HEADER " + name + ": "
     + request.getHeader(name));
  }

  for (Enumeration e = request.getParameterNames(); e
    .hasMoreElements();) {
   String name = (String) e.nextElement();
   out.println("<li>PARAM " + name + "="
     + request.getParameter(name) + "</li>");
  }

  for (Enumeration e = request.getAttributeNames(); e
    .hasMoreElements();) {
   String name = (String) e.nextElement();
   out.println("<li>ATTRIB " + name + "="
     + request.getAttribute(name) + "</li>");
  }
  out.println("</ul><h3>Session:</h3><ul>");
  for (Enumeration e = session.getAttributeNames(); e
    .hasMoreElements();) {
   String name = (String) e.nextElement();
   out.println("<li>ATTRIB " + name + "="
     + session.getAttribute(name) + "</li>");
  }
  out.println("</ul><h3>Page Scope Attributes:</h3><ul>");
  for (Enumeration e = pageContext
    .getAttributeNamesInScope(pageContext.PAGE_SCOPE); e
    .hasMoreElements();) {
   String name = (String) e.nextElement();
   out.println("<li>ATTRIB "
     + name
     + "="
     + pageContext
       .getAttribute(name, pageContext.PAGE_SCOPE)
     + "</li>");
  }
  out.println("</ul><h3>Application Scope Attributes:</h3><ul>");
  for (Enumeration e = pageContext
    .getAttributeNamesInScope(pageContext.APPLICATION_SCOPE); e
    .hasMoreElements();) {
   String name = (String) e.nextElement();
   if (name.equals("com.sun.jsp.taglibraryCache")) {
    out.print("<li>ATTRIB " + name
      + "= <b>NULL POINTER!</b></li>");
    continue;
   }
   out.print("<li>ATTRIB " + name + "=");
   out.println(pageContext.getAttribute(name,
     pageContext.APPLICATION_SCOPE)
     + "</li>");
  }
  out.println("</ul>");
 %>
 -->

JSP for DataSource Connection Pool testing

2011-10-03T16:00:00.000-07:00

If you need to test a datasource here is a JSP that will help you do it.

<%@ page language="java" contentType="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"
   pageEncoding="ISO-8859-1"%>
<%@ page import="java.sql.*,javax.naming.*,javax.sql.*" %>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1">
<title>Test Data Source</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Test Data Source</h1>
<p>Hello</p>
<%
    DataSource ds = null;
    Connection con = null;
    Statement stmnt = null;
    ResultSet resultSet = null;
   try {
       InitialContext ctx = new InitialContext();
       ds = (DataSource)ctx.lookup("java:comp/env/jdbc/DataSource");
       con = ds.getConnection();
    stmnt = con.createStatement();
    resultSet = stmnt.executeQuery("select * from PERSON");
    if (resultSet != null) {
        %><table><tr><%
       ResultSetMetaData resultSetMetaData = resultSet.getMetaData();
       int nOfColumns = resultSetMetaData.getColumnCount();
       for(int j = 0; j<nOfColumns; j++) {
           String columnLabel = resultSetMetaData.getColumnLabel(j+1);
           %><th><%=columnLabel %></th><%
       }
       %></tr><%
       if (resultSet.getType() != ResultSet.TYPE_FORWARD_ONLY) {
           resultSet.beforeFirst();
       }
       while (resultSet.next()) {
                %><tr><%
               for (int i = 1; i <= nOfColumns; ++i) {
                        %><td><%
                       Object  value = resultSet.getObject(i);
                       if (resultSet.wasNull()) {
                           %><b>null</b><%
                       } else {
                           %><%=value.toString() %><%
                       }
                       %></td><%
               }
               %></tr><%
       }
       %></table><%
    }
   } catch(NamingException e) {
       throw e;
   } catch(SQLException e) {
       throw e;
   } finally {
      try {
        if (resultSet != null) {
          resultSet.close();
        }
      } catch (SQLException e) {
      }
      resultSet = null;
      try {
        if (stmnt != null) {
          stmnt.close();
        }
      } catch (SQLException e) {
      }
      stmnt = null;
      try {
        if (con != null) {
          con.close();
        }
      } catch (SQLException e) {
      }
      con = null;
      ds = null;
   }
%>
</body>
</html>

Just change

java:comp/env/jdbc/DataSource

To what the name of your DataSource connection pool is.

Then change

select * from PERSON

To a test query from this table:

Cloudscape	#SQL SELECT 1
#DB2	#SQL SELECT COUNT(*) FROM SYSIBM.SYSTABLES
#Informix	#SQL SELECT COUNT(*) FROM SYSTABLES
#Microsoft SQL Server	#SQL SELECT COUNT(*) FROM SYSOBJECTS
#MySQL	#SQL SELECT 1
#Oracle	#SQL SELECT 1 FROM DUAL
#PointBase	#SQL SELECT COUNT(*) FROM SYSTABLES
#PostgreSQL	#SQL SELECT 1
#Progress	#SQL SELECT COUNT(*) FROM SYSTABLES
#Sybase	#SQL SELECT COUNT(*) FROM SYSOBJECTS

Do not use this code to interact with a datasource, this should only be used for figuring out what the name of a datasource you created in the J2ee container is and that it is working.

Database test SQL for each vendor

2011-09-26T14:21:00.000-07:00

When I setup a connection pool or database tool with a new database profile I like to test that it works, here are some vendor specific SQL you can use to test your db connection.

Cloudscape	#SQL SELECT 1
#DB2	#SQL SELECT COUNT(*) FROM SYSIBM.SYSTABLES
#Informix	#SQL SELECT COUNT(*) FROM SYSTABLES
#Microsoft SQL Server	#SQL SELECT COUNT(*) FROM SYSOBJECTS
#MySQL	#SQL SELECT 1
#Oracle	#SQL SELECT 1 FROM DUAL
#PointBase	#SQL SELECT COUNT(*) FROM SYSTABLES
#PostgreSQL	#SQL SELECT 1
#Progress	#SQL SELECT COUNT(*) FROM SYSTABLES
#Sybase	#SQL SELECT COUNT(*) FROM SYSOBJECTS

This is useful because you don't often know what tables exist in a database to test a query with, you can't assume select * from person would work if no person table was created. These queries are for the builtin system database resource in the specific vendor database types, they should exist even on a freshly installed or blank database server.

How do I insert CR LF in string column of a DB2 insert statement?

2011-09-19T10:15:00.000-07:00

The insert syntax for adding new lines or line terminators in varchar columns in DB2 is not straightforward:

INSERT INTO EXAMPLE_TABLE ("ID","LEVEL_ID","VERSION","CONTENT","TYPE","FRAGMENT_ID") VALUES (158781,317339,20110701, 'your line of text' || x'0D' || x'0A' || 'your next line of text','HTML',0);

The key to the query is to use || operator to concatenate the strings for the content column. The syntax for adding CR LF is :

'your line of text' || x'0D' || x'0A' 'your next line of text'

DB2 will take the above and combine the strings into a single value for the database. The x'0D' x'0A' is to say hex value OD (carriage return) and hex value 0A (line feed). Windows expects both, for Linux/Unix OS only the 0A character is expected. For some versions of Mac OS you use only 0D, the newest ones use only 0A to end a line. For browsers, 0A is also the only needed character which is often ignored unless surrounded by pre or code tags however having both 0D and 0A will not cause display issues. The newest Windows OS may have support for just 0A as well in some cases.

How do I setup SSL for my apache web server?

2011-09-16T10:14:00.000-07:00

Here is what I did to setup SSL for an apache web server on my local 64 bit Windows 7 box.

Download Apache2 with SSL module.

Install it here C:\Program Files (x86)\Apache Software Foundation\Apache2.2

Create an APACHE_HOME environment variable, from now on this is APACHE_HOME=C:\Program Files (x86)\Apache Software Foundation\Apache2.2

Add %APACHE_HOME%\bin to the path

Make a link to fix a bug with 64-bit Windows:

mklink /D %USERPROFILE%\apache "C:\Program Files (x86)\Apache Software Foundation\Apache2.2\"

Next I did the following:

cd %APACHE_HOME%\bin   openssl req -config "%APACHE_HOME%\conf\openssl.cnf" -new -out "%USERPROFILE%\cg.csr" -keyout "%USERPROFILE%\cg.pem"

Loading 'screen' into random state - done  Generating a 1024 bit RSA private key .. ++++++ ...................++++++ writing new private key to  'C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\cg.pem'  Enter PEM pass phrase:  Verifying - Enter PEM pass phrase:  -----  You are about to be asked to enter information that will be  incorporated into your certificate request. What you are about to  enter is what is called a Distinguished Name or a DN. There are  quite a few fields but you can leave some blank For some fields  there will be a default value, If you enter '.', the field will be  left blank.  -----  Country Name (2 letter code) [AU]:US  State or Province Name (full name) [Some-State]:Utah  Locality Name (eg, city) []:Orem  Organization Name (eg, company) [Internet Widgits Pty Ltd]:CG, LLC  Organizational Unit Name (eg, section) []:Engineering  Common Name (eg, YOUR name) []:   Email Address []:   Please enter the following 'extra' attributes to be sent with your  certificate request A challenge password []:  An optional company name []:

for the "YOUR" name parameter openssl asks for (domain name) I used my machine's network name. (this is important because your HTTPS urls will check for the domain name in the browser request.

Next I did this to create a key file:

openssl rsa -in "%USERPROFILE%\cg.pem" -out "%USERPROFILE%\cg.key"

Enter pass phrase for C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\cg.pem: writing RSA key

Next I ran this to create a certificate file:

openssl x509 -in "%USERPROFILE%\cg.csr" -out "%USERPROFILE%\cg.cert" -req -signkey "%USERPROFILE%\cg.key" -days 365

Loading 'screen' into random state - done  Signature ok subject=/C=US/ST=Utah/L=Orem/O=CG, LLC/OU=Engineering/CN=cg.com Getting Private key

The %USERPROFILE%\cg.key and %USERPROFILE%\cg.cert are used by apache for encrypting data over HTTPS. I copied them into %APACHE_HOME%\conf:

copy "%USERPROFILE%\cg.key" "%APACHE_HOME%\conf"  copy "%USERPROFILE%\cg.cert" "%APACHE_HOME%\conf"

*The excessive use of quotations(") is to account for pesky directory names with spaces fouling up the command line.

Now it is time to configure apache to enable SSL, and configure apache with your generated SSL key and certificate:

uncommment these lines in %APACHE_HOME%\conf\httpd.conf

..  LoadModule ssl_module modules/mod_ssl.so  ...  Include conf/extra/httpd-ssl.conf  ...

Replace localhost with your fully qualified domain name or IP address in httpd.conf and extra/http-ssl.conf

ServerName cg.com:80

Edit the extra/httpd-ssl.conf file and fix the Windows 7 bug using the soft link created earlier:

change this  SSLSessionCache        "shmcb:C:/Program Files (x86)/Apache Software Foundation/Apache2.2/logs/ssl_scache(512000)"   to this  #SSLSessionCache        "shmcb:C:/Program Files (x86)/Apache Software Foundation/Apache2.2/logs/ssl_scache(512000)"  SSLSessionCache        "shmcb:%USERPROFILE%/apache/logs/ssl_scache(512000)"

because the (x86) in the path confuses apache !

Check that this is set and uncommented:

SSLEngine on

Also change these values:

SSLCertificateFile "C:/Program Files (x86)/Apache Software Foundation/Apache2.2/conf/cg.cert"  SSLCertificateKeyFile "C:/Program Files (x86)/Apache Software Foundation/Apache2.2/conf/cg.key"

Restart apache and you should be able to use https urls.

If you don't have mklink, use junction from here http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896768

junction "%USERPROFILE%\apache" "C:\Program Files (x86)\Apache Software Foundation\Apache2.2\"

Or make sure to change the default folder you install Apache HTTPD to one which does not contain parenthesis, I use a set of folders

C:\Apps\

C:\Tools\ as folders to install most software and avoid Program Files and Program Files (x86) default locations for this reason.

For setting up Request Forwarding (Apache as a Proxy server)

Uncomment this in httpd.conf:

LoadModule rewrite_module modules/mod_rewrite.so

Turn off ProxyRequests (apparently the Internet will asplode if you leave it on):

ProxyRequests off

For each path you want to proxy with Apache do this:

ProxyPass ProxyPassReverse /          SetOutputFilter  proxy-html          RequestHeader    unset  Accept-Encoding

For example, if I want to pass all requests made to the Apache web server on /CG root path to a WebSphere J2EE application server running at http://cg.com:9080/CG, then I would create this:

ProxyPass /CG http://cg.com:9080/CG  ProxyPassReverse /CG http://cg.com:9080/CG ProxyPassReverse /          SetOutputFilter  proxy-html          RequestHeader    unset  Accept-Encoding

You may also need to uncomment these lines in httpd.conf to get some of the proxy configuration to work:

LoadModule proxy_module modules/mod_proxy.so

LoadModule headers_module modules/mod_headers.so

LoadModule proxy_module modules/mod_proxy.so

Use this command to restart apache whenever changing the httpd.conf:

httpd.exe -k restart

Also to force HTTPS for a proxy path using Apache Rewrite:

First turn on mod_rewrite in httpd.conf:

LoadModule rewrite_module modules/mod_rewrite.so

Change your location that you want to force HTTPS to this

ProxyPassReverse /          SetOutputFilter  proxy-html          RequestHeader    unset  Accept-Encoding       RewriteEngine On      RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off       RewriteRule (.*) https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI}

Conditional Request Headers

I need to have a redirected request from a login service which sets a response cookie for successful login, add a special header value to the request:

httpd.conf needed this:

SetEnvIf Cookie "x_ldap_userdata=([^;]+)" USERDATA=$1  SetEnvIf Cookie "x_ldap_userdata=([^;]+)" HAVE_USERDATA=1  RequestHeader append LDAP-Username "%{USERDATA}e" env=HAVE_USERDATA

Now the string

LDAP-Username:username

will be added to the header of requests when a cookie for a similar domain and path named x_ldap_userdata has been set in the browser by the login service.

The browser is dumb and just follows the redirect but cannot be told to put a header value in the request, you must add these changes to the httpd.conf to modify the request to include a special authentication header value.

Clear as mud?

I used these links to download apache 2 with ssl and also openssl:

http://downloads.sourceforge.net/gnuwin32/openssl-0.9.8h-1-setup.exe

http://apache.osuosl.org//httpd/binaries/win32/httpd-2.2.17-win32-x86-openssl-0.9.8o.msi

My Smoked Brisket

2011-09-14T19:32:00.000-07:00

Used the rest of my favorite rub, turned out pretty good.

The tomato harvest

2011-08-27T22:27:00.000-07:00

Trip to FarMor's

2011-08-27T22:23:00.000-07:00

We were invited to help harvest some garden vegetables.

dynaTrace evaluation

2011-08-26T10:33:00.000-07:00

dynaTrace can monitor/profile .NET and Java code but I only worked with evaluation of the Java side.

Download the dynatrace full install for linux x86 and windows x86 here product download page

Obtain a license key for evaluation (file will have a name like dynaTrace_license_201107201015.key)

You must have a dynatrace account to download them (dynatrace-3.5.2.2393.msi, dynatrace-3.5.2.2393-linux-x86.jar, dynaTrace_license_201107201015.key)

page dedicated to installation

Define a dedicated VM for dynatrace server/collector, I put the full install jar on a RedHat VM which acted as my server (make sure it has 4GB of RAM)
Run this to install the jar:
java -jar dynatrace-3.5.2.2393-linux-x86.jar

With this extracted to a folder (I put it in ~\dynatrace..) you can start the dyna collector and server with these commands:

cd dynatrace
nohup ./dtserver &
nohup ./dtanalysisserver &
nohup ./dtcollector &
I then ran the install for dynatrace-3.5.2.2393.msi on my desktop, I only installed the dynatrace client on my desktop.

Now you need to copy the dynatrace/agent/lib folder to the servers you want to profile/monitor (do not copy the folder to a path with a space in it like "program files", I put them in c:\tools\dynatrace\agent\lib)

Now you can change the websphere application server JVM arguments to add the dynatrace agent :
-agentpath:"C:\Tools\dynaTrace\dynaTrace 3.5.2\agent\lib\dtagent.dll"=name=OCMWS,server=192.168.1.122
-agentpath:/root/dynatrace-3.5.2/agent/lib/libdtagent.so=name=OCM,server=192.168.1.122

Note: Edit the line above to match the path to where you copied the dynatrace agent dll/so, also give each JVM you are monitoring a different name, and finaly the IP address is the dynatrace server IP address which may be different for you.

To add this to the JVM startup on WebSphere open the IBM console and go to
Servers | application server | server1 | Java Process and Management | Process Definition | Java Virtual Machine | Generic JVM Arguments
prepent the full -agentpath value to the Generic JVM arguments
Click ok and Save your changes, double check that the save took place by entering the console again and checking the generic jvm argument for the new value.

You will have to restart WebSphere to have the JVM startup with the new startup JVM arguments.

Launch the dynaTrace client after doing the above, tools | settings | dynatrace server | connectivity | put in the host IP address.
default values for login are admin:admin, port 2021, test the connection, it should be a green arrow and say success.

Click License, attach the license .key file for dynatrace evaluation: dynaTrace_license_201107201015.key.

Use online videos to see how to use the client to slice and dice the data from the agents and profile your application.

There is no license for the client so you can export captured data and give it to anyone with the client installed and they can view the details of the session and use the client to troubleshoot and make changes.

*nix/cygwin find commands

2011-07-28T11:04:00.001-07:00

I need to keep a record of some Linux/cygwin "find" commands that I find useful. This is sort of a cookbook or quick reference of find commands that are handy to have around.

Print files which were modified within the last 10 days but and NOT in a "CVS", "build" or "classes" folder:

find . -type d -name CVS -prune -o -name build -prune -o -name classes -prune -o -mtime -10 \! -type d -print

Print a sorted list of the largest files above 20000k minimum size

find . -type f -size +20000k -printf '%kk %p\n' | sort -n -r

Print files with XML extensions containing the phrase "search string"

find . -type f -name "*.xml" -exec grep "search string" '{}' /dev/null \; -print

Copy files newer than file X

Where file-x.txt is the file, and /tmp/copy-destination/ is the place you want to copy the files to:

find . -newer file-x.txt $1 | xargs -I {} cp -p $1{} /tmp/copy-destination/

Use OutputStreamWriter not FileWriter

2011-07-28T09:33:00.001-07:00

Search your Java code for FileWriter and replace it with OutputStreamWriter... especially if you write UTF-8 encoded documents. You can run into a nasty problem where you develop your Java code on Linux and then when it runs on Windows, character encoding problems crop up. FileWriter uses a OS System setting to determine what encoding to use, so it will change depending on what OS runs the Java code!

Here is an example of how to use OutputStreamWriter for UTF-8 encoded output.

         OutputStreamWriter out = null;
        try {
             try {
                  out = new OutputStreamWriter(new FileOutputStream(outputFile),"UTF-8");
             } catch (UnsupportedEncodingException e) {
                  throw new RuntimeException(e.getMessage,e);
             }
             try {
                  out.append(yourStringDataToWriteToOutputFile);
                  out.flush();
             } catch (IOException e) {
                  throw new RuntimeException(e.getMessage,e);
             }             
        } catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
             throw new RuntimeException(e.getMessage,e);
        } finally {
             try {
                  out.close();
             } catch (IOException e) {
                  throw new RuntimeException(e.getMessage,e);
             }
        }

Hope this helps you get past file character encoding bugs with Java. Here is a great link on various Java Anti-Patterns which should be avoided when writing enterprise class robust code:

http://www.odi.ch/prog/design/newbies.php

How do I use my web resource bundle within my Spring controller?

2011-06-18T22:01:00.000-07:00

Here is how I did it:

In my controller:



import org.springframework.context.ApplicationContext; ...

@Autowired private ApplicationContext context;

In the resource bundle ApplicationResources.properties

gotocode.error.notfound=Sorry {0} is not recognized as a code.

Back in the controller



public static final String GOTOCODE_NOTFOUND_KEY = "gotocode.error.notfound"; 

public static final String CODE_NOT_FOUND_MESSAGE = "Sorry the entry {0} is not recognized as a code.";

...

public ModelAndView findNextInSeries(String code,..

String errorMessage = context.getMessage(

GOTOCODE_NOTFOUND_KEY, new Object[] { code }, CODE_NOT_FOUND_MESSAGE, Locale.getDefault());

Previously my ApplicationResources.properties was configured in the web.xml







http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee"     xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"     xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee/web-app_2_4.xsd" id="WebApp_1270163143862"></web-app>

 <display-name>Sample Spring Resource Bundle

 <distributable>

     

 <context-param>

 <param-name>javax.servlet.jsp.jstl.fmt.localizationContext

 <param-value>ApplicationResources

As well as in the Spring Application context configuration (dispatcher-servlet.xml):

Setting up Eclipse TPTP for performance monitoring of Jetty run from Maven

2011-06-18T21:52:00.001-07:00

This is a document to help you setup Eclipse TPTP plugin for performance monitoring of J2EE application deployed to Jetty using the jetty-maven-plugin.

Open MyEclipse Configuration center and search for TPTP, download the newest version of TPTP plugin, restart your IDE after the install finishes.

Next go to the TPTP homepage and download the Agent controller for your architecture (I downloaded windows IA32).

Extract the Agent controller zip to C:\Tools\agntctrl.win_ia32-TPTP-4.7.2

Edit your system environment variables and add

RASERVER_HOME=C:\Tools\agntctrl.win_ia32-TPTP-4.7.2 PATH=C:\Tools\agntctrl.win_ia32-TPTP-4.7.2\bin;%PATH%  Open a command prompt and goto agent controller cd C:\Tools\agntctrl.win_ia32-TPTP-4.7.2\bin SetConfig.bat

This should display the following:

C:\Tools\agntctrl.win_ia32-TPTP-4.7.2\bin>SetConfig.bat Specify the fully qualified path of "javaw.exe" (e.g. c:\jdk1.4\jre\bin\javaw.ex e):   Default>"C:\Program Files\IBM\WebSphere\AppServer\java\jre\bin\javaw.exe" (Pre ss  to accept the default value)   New value> Network access mode (ALL=allow any host, LOCAL=allow only this host, CUSTOM=list  of hosts):   Default>"LOCAL" (Press  to accept the default value)   New value>ALL Security enabled. (true/false):   Default>"FALSE" (Press  to accept the default value)   New value>

Start the Agent Controller by launching a command console window with Administrator privledges (Run as Admni..) The change your working directory to

cd C:\Tools\agntctrl.win_ia32-TPTP-4.7.2\bin
ACServer.exe

See this link for more agent controller info http://dev.eclipse.org/viewcvs/viewvc.cgi/platform/org.eclipse.tptp.platform.agentcontroller/src-native-new/packaging_md/windows/getting_started.html?root=TPTP_Project&view=co

This is also a link with good info on TPTP http://eclipse.sys-con.com/node/508048?page=0,2

Configure piAgent and start your application with Maven by adding this to MAVEN_OPTS environment variable:

-XrunpiAgent:server=enabled

From eclipse navigate to Run | Profile Configurations... | Attach to Agent | New

ACServer should be running on localhost port 10002, check this with netstat -a -b -n command or test button in eclipse

Jetty JVM Agent should be detected on the Agent tab. select ONLY ONE of the profile probes, CPU --or-- MEMORY etc.. do NOT select more than one, treat them as mutually exclusive radio buttons rather than check boxes.

You can then perform tasks in your application and save the data captured. Also you can create new reports from the captured data with TPTP eclipse tools.

See http://www.eclipse.org/articles/Article-TPTP-Profiling-Tool/tptpProfilingArticle.html

Why your web browser should be updated often.

2011-06-18T19:36:00.000-07:00

I was reading a book online about 20 things people should understand about the Internet. Number 7 is about keeping your browser updated. Here are the3 simple reasons given:

First, old browsers are vulnerable to attacks

Second, the web evolves quickly. Old browsers will miss out.

Third and last, old browsers slow down innovation on the web.

Here is the book of 20 things http://www.20thingsilearned.com/en-US/old-vs-new-browsers/2

I wish I had this in mind when working with a client who insisted on a dynamic Web 2.0 look to the complex application but also demanded compatibility with IE7.

Delivering on both of these requirements (latest Internet bells and whistles like AJAX as well as backward compatibility with older browser versions) increases the difficulty level and cost of the site development considerably. First you have to test on these older browser versions in addition to testing on the common browsers, which increases the development time. Next you have to pare down features and functionality so that it works consistently everywhere, so you might have had a nice dynamic form or navigation control working in IE9 and FireFox 4, but it all gets tossed out when it cannot work in IE7 (see holding up innovation reason given above). Also for some "must have" site features or functionality: developers will usually have to code around older browser version quirks, so instead of writing code in one place to perform a task, it is written one place or one way for modern browsers and another place or another way for older browsers. This causes a code maintenance issue as you now have multiple places to check to fix problems or update code for a single feature or site behavior. This is a problem for HTML, CSS, and Javascript as all three can behave differently on different browsers. Yet another problem that can arise is your performance can vary widely in different browser flavors and versions, for example IE7 javascript benchmarks are miserably slow when compared with more recent versions of IE and other browsers like FireFox or Chrome. This can cause problems where failing to test on the required browser versions can really bite you. If a performance issue (or any browser version issue) is found late in the development cycle, either because the testing was not done along side development in that version or because developers only used modern browsers for their self verification and validation of the application, then the time to fix the problem is much larger and more difficult than if it had been caught earlier.

The best defense to this situation of having to develop Javascript for modern sites to be used by clunky old browser versions is to use a good library like GWT, jQuery or Dojo. These abstract away many of the browser specific cruft that would drive you mad when trying to implement your site. I am not sure of a solution for this problem as it relates to HTML/CSS however, cross browser CSS is a major pain in the you know what.

Body for Life meal plan

2011-04-28T23:30:00.000-07:00

Read about Body for Life Champion Joshua Sundquist

This was his daily meal plan:
6:00am Meal 1
Multivitamin
1.5 cups of whole grain rolled oats (old fashioned oatmeal) cooked with water and mixed with a scoop of 100% Whey Protein and a teaspoon of Flax Seed Oil (good source of Omega Oils).

7:00–8:00am Workout

8:30am Meal 2
Post-workout meal: Two servings of 100% Whey Protein mixed with a teaspoon of chocolate syrup (this is the only sugar I ate—I like to give my muscles some quick energy for recovery).

11:00am Meal 3
Sandwich made with two slices of 100% whole grain bread, natural peanut butter and two sliced bananas.

2:00pm Meal 4
Grilled chicken breast, brown rice, a serving of raw vegetables

6:00 pm Meal 5
Whole grain pasta, soy protein isolate shake, a serving of raw vegetables

9:00pm Meal 6
Bowl of whole grain cereal (Cheerios^®*, Shredded Wheat^®*, etc) and 100% Whey Protein shake

12:00pm Meal 7
Natural (unsweetened) applesauce mixed with low-fat cottage cheese, serving of Casein Protein shake

3:00am Bonus nutrition
100% Whey Protein shake

	per day serving	per week	per month	per challenge
flax Seed Oil	1	6	24	72
chocolate Syrup	1	6	24	72
100% Whey Protein	4	24	96	288
casein protein	1	6	24	72
unsweetend applesauce	1	6	24	72
chicken breasts	1	6	24	72
raw vegetables	2	12	48	144
100% whole grain bread	2	12	48	144
natural peanut butter	1	6	24	72
bananas	2	12	48	144
oatmeal	1.5	9	36	108
low fat cottage cheese	1	6	24	72
Cheerios	1	6	24	72
Skim Milk	1	6	24	72
Soy Protein Powder	1	6	24	72
Whole grain Pasta	1	6	24	72

Got all that? Great but let me tell you, I gave this plan a shot back in October of 2010, stuck it out for 12 weeks. I actually hated this toward the end, also did not get anywhere on it. I even tried to modify it by reducing portions or eliminating some of the late night meals after not seeing results for 6 weeks. I guess the lesson there is don't do something for 12 weeks if it does not work by 4 weeks. My current weight is under 215lb, I just finished a 12 week challenge at work a "biggest loser" competition, I lost about 20 lbs and 3% body fat. My sister is doing great on an HCG-style program, and so if I gain a single pound back, I am jumping on HCG so hard it might break something. She has lost more weight in 30 days than I lost in 90.

So far 12 Steps to Whole Foods Steps 1-3 are working out for me very consistently (well that along with 6-10 workouts per week.) I do feel great when I workout and eat better, now if I could just get enough sleep. I am surprised that adding two quarts of green smoothies and big salads for lunch and dinner is able to keep me from having hunger pains. I am not vegetarian but I have reduced my meat intake down to a 10th of what it was. Reading the book has made me avoid meat at almost every opportunity, I just see it crawling with diseases and squirming with parasites (or imagine it decaying inside my intestines) and order the vegetarian option.

I also took a running class from Ken Harper who owns the Runners Corner in Orem, that class was great and helped inspire me to make running outside a part of my weekly exercise. I read Born to Run and got the Vibrams Five Fingers which I think is helping to strengthen my weak feet and legs . I am also incorporating weight lifting with a partner from work, supposedly this is a great way to gain muscle and lose fat. The only things I am not doing that I may try are team sports, organized races, and swimming.

Validating XML against a Schema (XSD)

2011-01-02T10:46:00.000-08:00

Notepad++
Notepad++ has an optional plugin to allow you to validate an XML file against an XSD (this is good because it is a free "gratis" tool).

First, download and install Notepad ++ here

Download and add XML tools plugin for Notepad ++ here

Download the ExternalTools.zip as well from the sourceforge link above and extract the contents to the Notepad++ install folder.

Restart Notepad ++

Open XML file to validate, Click Plugins | XML Tools | Validate now

A window will pop up with errors or validation successfully completed message.

jEdit
jEdit also has optional plugin to validate XML against an XSD.

First download jEdit here

Open jEdit and click Plugins | Plugin Manager

Check the box for XML plugin, click install button

Open the XML file, validation errors appear as red underlines.

Also in jEdit you can open Plugins | XML | Parse as XML will open a window and show a tree navigation of the XML jumping to the first error found if any.

cygwin
An optional package to install in cygwin is called libXML2, this package includes a command line tool named xmllint which can also validate XML against an XSD
$ xmllint --schema /cygdrive/c/path/to/xsd/myschema.xsd /cygdrive/c/path/to/xml/myxml.xml

Four Steps

2010-10-29T13:16:00.000-07:00

Debt is a form of enslavement, the victim is deceived into breaking a simple rule:
Spend less than you earn.

Spending less than you earn is very similar to another simple rule many struggle with when overweight:
Eat less than you burn.

Health and wealth and happiness are very inter-related. Getting control of your health can help you to get control of other areas of your life. Taking control of my eating habits helped me break away from other bad behaviors and get my financial situation under control.

With any change in life, you start by learning, then setting goals, making a plan to achieve them, and acting on your plan. The last step is critical, never wait to act. So learn what you should learn, get a plan for your goal, and GO!

1 Learn
You have to learn a better way, you can't keep doing the same thing and expect a different outcome. Learn what to do. For example, don't buy a gym membership and never learn how to safely exercise because you may hurt yourself and be worse off than before. Similarly, you should research budget plans or debt elimination strategies and pick one that you firmly believe will work for you, one that people like you have been successful with. This is also a time to get motivated and inspired by others who have been successful at making the change you are making. Finally, write a list of what benefits you will have from making the change (or start with this list), but keep it handy.

2 Goal != Dream
Good goals should be a specific and small, they should be steps on your journey toward your dreams and desires, their should be a deadline or target date for your goal. A dream to be a millionaire is not a goal. Good example of a goal would be to lose 10 lbs by December 2010, or pay off all credit card balances before July 2011.

3 Plan
Very important third step is to plan, be aware of your life and the obstacles you already have to accomplishing your goal, account for those in your plan. Some unexpected obstacles will blindside you, you may get pregnant, you may have a huge unexpected expense, or experience a job loss. Things happen that are out of your control and can impede your progress, expect them to happen but realize they happen to EVERYONE, and realize obstacles happened to people who were still successful with their goals. Decide to be one of those people, the ones that didn't give up or give in to challenges. Use the knowledge you gained to make a detailed plan. Keep in mind that your plan should not be unreasonable, your plan should be actually physically possible for you to do 100% of the time. Your plan should make sense to you, you need to believe that following the plan will work, not just hope that it will.

4 Act
Make a commitment to accomplish your goal with your plan. Think no-matter-what-I-am-doing-this, then as you act, no-matter-what, do it, stay committed. Decide now that you will always decide to go on, then never change your mind about it. You have to be a stubborn, hard-nosed jerk about it, because excess fat and debt are stubborn hard-nosed jerks too. Use the inspiration and motivation from other successful people to support you and help you to avoid falling backwards into addictive behaviors that take you away from your goal. If you look, you can find inspirational stories from people who had challenges accomplishing the very same thing you are trying to accomplish. Keep at it until you see movement, until you see a change you really are proud of, until you reach that goal, then immediately start over with step one and do it again. Don't bask in your awesomeness for a second, because that's a great time for an old behavior to creep back into your life. You achieved something, it felt great, it was great, don't ruin it by undoing that hard work.

Tynt programming assignment (Part 5)

2010-09-14T12:02:00.000-07:00

Here is my implementation of a Hash collection for Integers:

package com.tynt.app.util;

public class IntegerHash {
 public static final int BUFFER_SIZE = 100;
 
 private IntegerList values;
 private IntegerList valueCounts;
 
 public IntegerHash() {
  values = new IntegerList();
  valueCounts = new IntegerList();
 }
 
 public boolean hasInteger(Integer value) {
  if (value == null) {
   return false;
  }
  for(int i=0;i < values.size();i++) {
   if (values.get(i).compareTo(value) == 0) {
    return true;
   }
  }
  return false;
 }
 
 public Integer getIntegerCount(int index) {
  return valueCounts.get(index);
 }
 
 public Integer getIntegerIndex(Integer value) {
  for(int i=0;i < values.size();i++) {
   if (values.get(i).compareTo(value) == 0) {
    return i;
   }
  }
  return -1;
 }
 
 public void incrementIntegerCount(Integer value) {
  int integerIndex = getIntegerIndex(value);
  valueCounts.put(integerIndex, getIntegerCount(integerIndex)+1);
 }
 
 public void addInteger(Integer value) {
  if (!hasInteger(value)) {
   values.concatenate(value);
   valueCounts.concatenate(1);
  } else {
   incrementIntegerCount(value);
  }
 }
 
 public IntegerList getIntegers() {
  IntegerList vals = new IntegerList();
  for(int i = 0; i < values.size(); i++) {
   vals.concatenate(values.get(i));
  }
  return vals;
 }
 
 public Integer getIntegerFrequency(Integer value) {
  if (hasInteger(value)) {
   int index = getIntegerIndex(value);
   return getIntegerCount(index);
  } else {
   return 0;
  }
 }
}

As you can see, I re-used the IntegerList collection in the Hash collection. Since I am not sorting the IntegerList, I have to iterate through the entire key IntegerList to check for a key in the hash, with a sorted key IntegerList, I could short circuit after the key was larger than the sorted key it was compared with. I am also not implementing a hash algorithm at all, so the collection was not named very well. Implementing a true hash collection was not part of the assignment so I didn't worry about it.

Here is assignment5 using the above collection:

package com.tynt.app;

import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStream;
import java.io.InputStreamReader;

import com.tynt.app.util.*;

public class Assignment5 implements InputReader {

 public String readFile(InputStream is) {
  BufferedReader d = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(is));
  String line;
  IntegerHash unsortedHash = new IntegerHash();
  try {
   line = d.readLine();
   while (line != null) {
    Integer value = null;
    try {
     value = new Integer(Integer.parseInt(line));
    } catch (NumberFormatException e) {
     throw new RuntimeException(e);
    }
    unsortedHash.addInteger(value);
    line = d.readLine();
   }
  } catch (IOException e) {
   throw new RuntimeException(e);
  }
  StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
  IntegerList sortedList = IntegerList.quicksort(unsortedHash.getIntegers());
  if (sortedList == null) {
   sortedList = new IntegerList();
  }
  for (int i=0;i < sortedList.size();i++) {
   sb.append(sortedList.get(i));
   sb.append(" - ");
   sb.append(unsortedHash.getIntegerFrequency(sortedList.get(i)));
   sb.append(NEW_LINE);
  }
  return sb.toString();
 }

}

Finally, with all of the Assignment objects implemented and the tests passing, I can implement the Driver for the project:

package com.tynt.app;

import java.io.*;
import com.tynt.app.util.*;

/**
* Tynt programming challenge
*
* @author Four Gables Guy
*
*/
public class App {
   public static final String header = "********************";

   public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
       String choice = displayChoices();
       while (choice.equals("1") || choice.equals("2") || choice.equals("ALL")) {
           parseChoice(choice);
           if (choice.equals("ALL")) {
               break;
           }
           choice = displayChoices();
       }
   }

   public static void parseChoice(String choice) throws IOException {
       if (choice.equals("1")) {
           doAssignment2();
       } else if (choice.equals("2")) {
           doAssignment3();
       } else if (choice.equals("ALL")) {
           doAssignment2();
           doAssignment3();
       }
   }

   public static String displayChoices() {
       System.out.println(header);
       System.out.println("Enter 1 to parse " + InputReader.INPUT_FILE
               + " and print numbers sorted ascending.");
       System.out.println("Enter 2 to parse " + InputReader.INPUT_FILE
               + " and print numbers sorted ascending.");
       System.out.println("Enter any other characters to quit.");
       System.out.println(header);
       Console console = System.console();
       if (console == null) {
           return "ALL";
       } else {
           String line = console.readLine();
           line = line.trim();
           return line;
       }
   }

   public static void doAssignment2() throws IOException {
       Assignment4 assignment4 = new Assignment4();
       FileInputStream is = new FileInputStream(new File(
               InputReader.INPUT_FILE));
       System.out.println(assignment4.readFile(is));
   }

   public static void doAssignment3() throws IOException {
       Assignment5 assignment5 = new Assignment5();
       FileInputStream is = new FileInputStream(new File(
               InputReader.INPUT_FILE));
       FileOutputStream os = new FileOutputStream(new File(
               InputReader.OUTPUT_FILE));
       String output = assignment5.readFile(is);
       System.out.println(output);
       os.write(output.getBytes());
       os.flush();
       os.close();
   }
}

It is a bit confusing that I named the method's doAssignment2 and doAssignment3 but use Assignment4 and Assignment5 objects. I should have named these assignment classes better. Again it was a small programming assignment, and an easy refactor. Overall, I do think I did a decent job with this assignment and benefitted from the effort.

I created a handy batch file to execute the code called tynt.bat which does this:

java -cp target\program_assignment-1.0-SNAPSHOT.jar com.tynt.app.App

Tynt programming assignment (Part 4)

2010-09-13T11:49:00.000-07:00

Finally, here is where I have to implement the sorting algorithm and collection. I created a List collection I called IntegerList:

package com.tynt.app.util;

public class IntegerList {
 public static final int BUFFER_SIZE = 100;
 private Integer[] internalArray;
 private int size;
 
 public IntegerList() {
  internalArray = new Integer[BUFFER_SIZE];
  size = 0;
 }
 
 public IntegerList(int size) {
  if (size < 0) {
   throw new RuntimeException("Cannot create IntegerList with negative size");
  }
  internalArray = new Integer[size];
  size = 0;
 }
 
 public int size() {
  return size;
 }
 
 public void put(int index, Integer value) {
  if (index > -1 && index < size) {
   internalArray[index] = value;
  } else {
   throw new RuntimeException("Cannot put value "+value+" at index "+index+" IntegerList has size "+size);
  }
 }
 
 public void concatenate(Integer value) {
  if (value == null) {
   throw new RuntimeException("Cannot concatenate null values");
  }
  if (size + 1 == internalArray.length) {
   Integer[] temp = new Integer[internalArray.length + BUFFER_SIZE];
   System.arraycopy(internalArray, 0, temp, 0,
     internalArray.length);
   internalArray = temp;
  }
  internalArray[size++] = value;
 }
 
 public void concatenate(IntegerList values) {
  for (int i = 0 ; i < values.size(); i++) {
   concatenate(values.get(i));
  }
 }
 
 public Integer get(int index) {
  if (index > -1 && index < size) {
   return internalArray[index];
  } else {
   throw new RuntimeException("Cannot access value at "+index+" in IntegerList size "+size);
  }
 }
 
 public Integer remove(int index) {
  if (index > -1 && index < size) {
   Integer result = get(index);
   IntegerList integerList = new IntegerList();
   for(int i = 0; i < size; i++) {
    if (i != index) {
     integerList.concatenate(get(i));
    }
   }
   internalArray = integerList.internalArray;
   size = size - 1;
   return result;
  } else {
   throw new RuntimeException("Cannot access value at "+index+" in IntegerList size "+size);
  }
 }
 
 public static IntegerList quicksort(IntegerList unsorted) {
      IntegerList less = new IntegerList();
      IntegerList greater = new IntegerList();
      if (unsorted.size() <= 1) {
          return unsorted;
      }
      Integer pivot = selectPivot(unsorted);
      for(int i = 0; i < unsorted.size(); i++) {
       Integer value = unsorted.get(i);
       if (value <= pivot) {
        less.concatenate(value);
       } else {
        greater.concatenate(value);
       }
      }
      return concatenate(quicksort(less), pivot, quicksort(greater));
 }
 
 public static Integer selectPivot(IntegerList unsorted) {
  if (unsorted == null || unsorted.size() < 2) {
   throw new RuntimeException("Cannot select pivot on empty or single element list");
  }
  int pivotIndex = unsorted.size() / 2;
  return unsorted.remove(pivotIndex);
 }
 
 public static IntegerList concatenate(IntegerList less, Integer pivot, IntegerList greater) {
  if (less == null | pivot == null || greater == null) {
   throw new RuntimeException("Cannot concatenate null values");
  }
  IntegerList finalList = new IntegerList(less.size()+1+greater.size());
  finalList.concatenate(less);
  finalList.concatenate(pivot);
  finalList.concatenate(greater);
  return finalList;
 }
}

IntegerList implements a quicksort method which returns the IntegerList as a sorted IntegerList. My implementation of quicksort has several drawbacks:

I create additional collections (less,greater,etc...) for each invocation of quicksort and concatenate, so lots of memory could be used up with a long list to sort. It would be less memory to sort the list in-place without recursion/extra collections.
Speaking of recursion, too much recursion could cause a stack overflow as well.

With IntegerList implemented, I can use it to implement Assignment4:

package com.tynt.app;

import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStream;
import java.io.InputStreamReader;

import com.tynt.app.util.*;

public class Assignment4 implements InputReader {

  public String readFile(InputStream is) {
      BufferedReader d = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(is));
      String line;
      IntegerList unsortedList = new IntegerList();
      try {
          line = d.readLine();
          while (line != null) {
              Integer value = null;
              try {
                  value = new Integer(Integer.parseInt(line));
              } catch (NumberFormatException e) {
                  throw new RuntimeException(e);
              }
              unsortedList.concatenate(value);
              line = d.readLine();
          }
      } catch (IOException e) {
          throw new RuntimeException(e);
      }
      StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
      IntegerList sortedList = IntegerList.quicksort(unsortedList);
      if (sortedList == null) {
          sortedList = new IntegerList();
      }
      for (int i=0;i < sortedList.size();i++) {
          sb.append(sortedList.get(i));
          sb.append(NEW_LINE);
      }
      return sb.toString();
  }

}

Still need to implement the Hash collection and driver.

Tynt programming assignment (Part 3)

2010-09-12T11:21:00.000-07:00

I glossed over creating the Assignment1-5 java files in the last post, this was done by first right clicking in eclipse and creating a package under this folder:
src\main\java\com\tynt\app
called
com.tynt.app
Then right clicking the empty package and creating new Class (Assignment1) adding the InputReader interface to the class and stubbing out the interface method:

public String readFile(InputStream is) {
    return null;
}

Just so you know.

For Assignment1 I just wanted to get the code for reading and creating a string from the input stream working:

package com.tynt.app;

import java.io.*;

import com.tynt.app.util.InputReader;

public class Assignment1 implements InputReader {

   /**
    * @return contents of the InputStream as a String
    */
   public String readFile(InputStream is) {
       BufferedReader d = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(is));
       String line;
       StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
       try {
           line = d.readLine();
           while (line != null) {
               sb.append(line);
               sb.append(NEW_LINE);
               line = d.readLine();
           }
       } catch (IOException e) {
           throw new RuntimeException(e);
       }
       return sb.toString();
   }
}

For Assignment2 I decided to use the built-in Java collections classes to test what the output of my custom collection should look like:

package com.tynt.app;

import java.io.*;
import java.util.*;

import com.tynt.app.util.InputReader;

public class Assignment2 implements InputReader {

   /**
    * @return is list of numbers sorted in ascending order
    */
   public String readFile(InputStream is) {
       BufferedReader d = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(is));
       String line;
       SortedSet sortedList = Collections.synchronizedSortedSet(new TreeSet());
       try {
           line = d.readLine();
           while (line != null) {
               Integer value = null;
               try {
                   value = new Integer(Integer.parseInt(line));
               } catch (NumberFormatException e) {
                   throw new RuntimeException(e);
               }
               sortedList.add(value);
               line = d.readLine();
           }
       } catch (IOException e) {
           throw new RuntimeException(e);
       }
       StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
       for(Integer i: sortedList) {
           sb.append(i);
           sb.append(NEW_LINE);
       }
       return sb.toString();
   }

}

Again with Assignment3, I used built-in collections to check what the output should be for the histogram:

package com.tynt.app;

import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStream;
import java.io.InputStreamReader;
import java.util.*;

import com.tynt.app.util.InputReader;

public class Assignment3 implements InputReader {

   /**
    * @return sorted list of numbers and their frequency
    */
   public String readFile(InputStream is) {
       BufferedReader d = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(is));
       String line;
       SortedMap sortedMap = Collections.synchronizedSortedMap(new TreeMap());
       try {
           line = d.readLine();
           while (line != null) {
               Integer value = null;
               try {
                   value = new Integer(Integer.parseInt(line));
               } catch (NumberFormatException e) {
                   throw new RuntimeException(e);
               }
               Integer frequency = 1;
               if (sortedMap.containsKey(value)) {
                   frequency = sortedMap.get(value);
                   frequency += 1;
               }
               sortedMap.put(value, frequency);
               line = d.readLine();
           }
       } catch (IOException e) {
           throw new RuntimeException(e);
       }
       StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
       for(Integer key: sortedMap.keySet()) {
           Integer frequency = sortedMap.get(key);
           sb.append(key);
           sb.append(" - ");
           sb.append(frequency);
           sb.append(NEW_LINE);
       }
       return sb.toString();
   }

}

Assignment4 and Assignment5 actually adhered to the restriction of no built-in collections.

Tynt programming assignment (Part 2)

2010-09-11T11:05:00.000-07:00

Next I generated an eclipse project file for the maven project with this command:

mvn eclipse:eclipse

I opened the projet in eclipse. For the Junit tests I created some test input files here:
src\test\resources\TestData.txt
src\test\resources\BadInput.txt

I then created the unit test java file here:
src\test\java\com\tynt\app\AppTest.java

Here is the source for my unit test:

package com.tynt.app;
import junit.framework.Test;
import junit.framework.TestCase;
import junit.framework.TestSuite;
import java.io.*;
import java.util.*;

import com.tynt.app.util.*;

/**
* Unit test for simple App.
*/
public class AppTest
extends TestCase
{
/**
 * Create the test case
 *
 * @param testName name of the test case
 */
public AppTest( String testName )
{
    super( testName );
}

/**
 * @return the suite of tests being tested
 */
public static Test suite()
{
    return new TestSuite( AppTest.class );
}

/**
 * Test each assignment with input files
 */
public void testApp()
{
    List readers = new ArrayList();
    Assignment1 assignment1 = new Assignment1();
    Assignment2 assignment2 = new Assignment2();
    Assignment3 assignment3 = new Assignment3();
    Assignment4 assignment4 = new Assignment4();
    Assignment5 assignment5 = new Assignment5();
    readers.add(assignment1);
    readers.add(assignment2);
    readers.add(assignment3);
    readers.add(assignment4);
    readers.add(assignment5);
    readerTest(readers,"TestData.txt");   
    try {
        readerTest(readers,"BadInput.txt");
        fail("Bad input should throw RuntimeException");
    } catch (RuntimeException e) {
        assertTrue(true);
    }
}

public void readerTest(List readers, String resource) {
    for (InputReader inputReader : readers) {
        InputStream is = getClass().getClassLoader().getResourceAsStream(resource);
        String result = inputReader.readFile(is);
        System.out.println(result);
    }
}
}

I created an interface I called InputReader to help me test the different assignments against the same input files.

package com.tynt.app.util;

import java.io.*;

public interface InputReader {

public static final String INPUT_FILE = "THire_input.txt";
public static final String OUTPUT_FILE = "THire_histogram.txt";
public static final String NEW_LINE = System.getProperty("line.separator");

/**
 * Reads the InputStream parameter and returns a string of the contents
 *
 * @param is
 *            InputStream to read from
 * @return String of the processed contents of InputStream
 */
public String readFile(InputStream is);
}

I then stubbed out the Assignment1-5 java classes which implement the InputReader interface and ran the package goal for maven using a maven eclipse plugin to fix any typos and get a baseline for beginning implementation.

Tynt programming assignment (Part 1)

2010-09-10T17:35:00.000-07:00

I was a approached by a recruiter for a position at a company in Draper called Tynt.

As part of the hiring process I was given this coding assignment.

Coding Assignment #1
Thank you for your interest in Tynt. As part of our recruitment process we ask candidates to complete a small programming assignment. The assignment is technically easy, but is intended to provide enough scope to allow you to demonstrate your knowledge of good programming practices. Assume that the code you are writing will reside in Tynt's main production codebase.
Development Notes
• There is no time limit to complete this exercise.
• If there are errors in the example, state your assumptions and continue.
• No user interface is required; the program will be run from the console and should
require no command line parameters to execute normally
• Assume that all files (input and output) will be found/created in the same directory as the program executes
• As part of the exercise, you may choose to write unit tests appropriate for the task.
• Use the development tools of your choice, but please write the software in Java.
• You may not use any external libraries with the exception of standard I/O and possibly a unit testing framework.
• You may not use any built-in data structures such as lists, vectors, queues etc. You
must build your solution using basic types such as integers, strings and arrays.
• You may not use any built-in sort or histogram functions.
• Please submit all available aspects of your work (source, buildfiles, executables, test
input/output etc)
• Have Fun!
====================================================================
1) Read an ascii text file named "THire_input.txt" that contains a list of numbers with integer
values, each number separated by a cr/lf
Sample input (THire_input.txt)
6
54
12
22
1
6
2) Sort the numbers in ascending order and write the results to an output file named
"THire_Ascending.txt". Format the file in the same manner as the input file (cr/lf delimiters).
Sample output (THire_Ascending.txt)
1
6
6
12
22

I completed the assignment and submitted my solution but never heard from them, then the recruiter told me they went with someone else. Since I never had the opportunity to hear back from Tynt's hiring team, I decided to blog about my solution and solicit feedback on how I could do a better job.

The assignment tied my hands by not allowing external libraries or built-in Java collections. This is done to make an otherwise simple programming assignment much more labor intensive and error prone in college CS classes. Java loses much of it's value as a programming language when you eliminate the vast libraries available. Ultimately, the code I ended up writing would not belong in an actual enterprise code base precisely because I was required to implement functionality that is provided by the language libraries. Typically you don't roll-your-own implementation of a collection unless you have a very specific need to do it, which this assignment lacks. There was no time limit to complete the exercise (a bit discouraging in that you would think Tynt would have an idea of when they needed to hire the candidate), but that didn't matter because I received five-ten nagging emails from the headhunter asking for status on my progress with it.

On to the implementation, I decided that since this was to be considered code I would put in production, Junit tests were mandatory, as well as a build script. Maven is a fantastic build tool for Java development so I created a new project using Maven as follows:


mvn archetype:create -DgroupId=com.tynt.app -DartifactId=program_assignment

This generated the structure of the project. I edited the maven pom.xml file to add a Junit dependency as well as configure the maven-pmd-plugin, which will evaluate your source and report on potential bugs or bad source formatting. Here is my final pom:


<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
 xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/maven-v4_0_0.xsd">
 <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
 <groupId>com.tynt.app</groupId>
 <artifactId>program_assignment</artifactId>
 <packaging>jar</packaging>
 <version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
 <name>program_assignment</name>
 <description>FourGablesGuy's implementation of programming assignment for Tynt. Reading and parsing text files for numbers.</description>
 <url>http://maven.apache.org</url>
 <build>
  <plugins>
   <plugin>
    <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
    <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>2.3.1</version>
    <configuration>
     <compilerVersion>1.5</compilerVersion>
    </configuration>
   </plugin>
   <plugin>
    <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
    <artifactId>maven-pmd-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>2.5</version>
    <executions>
     <execution>
      <id>pmd_check</id>
      <phase>package</phase>
      <goals>
       <goal>pmd</goal>
      </goals>
     </execution>
    </executions>
    <configuration>
     <sourceEncoding>UTF-8</sourceEncoding>
     <outputEncoding>UTF-8</outputEncoding>
     <targetJdk>1.5</targetJdk>
    </configuration>
   </plugin>
   <plugin>
    <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
    <artifactId>maven-resources-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>2.4.3</version>
    <configuration>
     <encoding>UTF-8</encoding>
    </configuration>
   </plugin>
  </plugins>
 </build>
 <dependencies>
  <dependency>
   <groupId>junit</groupId>
   <artifactId>junit</artifactId>
   <version>3.8.1</version>
   <scope>test</scope>
  </dependency>
 </dependencies>
</project>

To build/update the artifact Jar, you simply run:


mvn package

which will compile source files, run any unit tests, and package the final code.

startSQLRepository can fail to mark ATG Content Administration projects as deployed

2010-09-09T19:44:00.000-07:00

Maybe this will help someone dealing with issues in ATG Service 2006.3.2 or ATG Service 2007.1

Symptom:

The symptom is that a solution is reporting it is not visible in ATG SelfService.You search for the solution but cannot view it and get a message that it is not visible for the current user.

Also, if you look up the solution in dynamo administrator for the j2ee instance running SelfService, it will be missing the status property.

This is an indication that the solution is not marked as deployed in the SolutionSolutionStatus Item Descriptor of the ServiceSharedRepository.

The solution can have audience Everyone-External set, in both Knowledge and SelfService which can make the error a head scratcher.

One way to check this is by connecting to dynamo admin for SelfService and in the /atg/svc/shared/ServiceSharedRepository execute

solutionId = "soln_id" AND deployed = true

If you do not get any rows back, then you probably have this problem, unless you just have not invalidated the caches.

Resolution:

connect to the shared schema with a database tool

update svc_soln_sstatus

set deployed = 0

where soln_id = 'soln_id' and

soln_version = version

where soln_id is the solution having the issue.

and version is the number of the version of the solution that should have been marked as deployed. To find it checked the last_modify_date and status_id columns of the rows returned from the query:

select * from svc_soln_sstatus where

soln_id = 'soln_id'

Make sure to commit the update. And clear the repository caches before rechecking.

Really the two ways you will get the message that a solution is not visible are:

1 the audience property is empty or only contains audiences that the current SelfService user is not a member of.

2 the solution is not marked as deployed in the ServiceSharedRepository SolutionSolutionStatus deployed = 1

Cause:

I suspect bulk importing solutions in with repository XML using startSQLRepository can leave solutions in this state where they are deployed but their status property was not set as deployed. Also messing around with ATG Service data using straight SQL on the database is a dangerous game that can burn you in countless ways.

Disclaimer

I do not accept liability for the consequences of any actions taken on the basis of the information provided by this blog.

The two big questions

2010-08-26T20:11:00.000-07:00

Image: Danilo Rizzuti / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

There are two questions that should be asked of each developer involved before a new software product is launched to clients:

Are you proud of the product you created?
Would you enjoy using it and/or recommend that your family/friends use it?

Asking yourself these two questions while developing and testing the product will change how you program and benefit the project immensely. Why? You must write good code to be proud of it. You will be motivated to do it right the first time. You will think about how your code impacts your reputation as a developer. Also, you must know how you and others would use the product to answer YES to the second question. The best written code won't help anyone if it is for a useless feature. The best written code won't matter if the whole thing becomes painfully slow to use. If their are reasons you don't enjoy the product and love it, then those should be called out sooner rather than later. Answering these questions honestly will reveal problems that testing didn't catch because nobody knows the product better than the developers. If you answer NO, then you should have some specific reasons why. Those reasons for the NO should often become the priority one (P1) issues to fix.

So often, right before a project is to release, only the testers and the managers decide if something should go live. The attitude is almost like, "Thank you Mr. Developer for your work, now we'll take it from here." A few developers will secretly cringe in horror (or internally panic) when it is decided to launch. They have been feverishly working on P1 bugs from the QA team while other severe problems in the product remain unaddressed or untested. Often QA's P1 bugs are, in the developer's opinion, the P5 bugs. Also, there sometimes is this feeling of an adversarial relationship between testing resources and developers as bugs found create more work for developers and bugs missed reflect poorly on the testers. By involving developers in the go-live decision, they are automatically held more accountible for problems in the live code, after all, it got their stamp of approval along with testing and management.

PureText

2010-08-26T18:54:00.000-07:00

Formatted text in the clipboard can be very annoying to paste into rich-text-aware destination applications. Here's a scenario I see a lot, you ctrl+c some information from a Microsoft Word document, your clipboard has all that information as well as formatting information, junk like this is sitting in the clipboard:

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span  lang="DE" ><o:p><span > </span></o:p></span></p>

You then open your Microsoft Exchange email client and paste in the text and yuck, the font has changed to comic sans at 44 point size in bright Green. You just wanted the text to paste in, but you got a lot more.

The quick and dirty solution is to open a plain text editor and paste the text there, then replace the clipboard with a ctrl+c from the plain text editor.

Ctrl+c the formatted text
Open notepad
Ctrl+v, the formatting is gone
Ctrl+a, to select all unformatted text
Ctrl+c, replace the clipboard with unformatted text
Alt+Tab,Tab,Tab to get the target Application window
Ctrl+v, paste in unformatted text into the target application

Microsoft has provided a quick menu when pasting text that you can use to remove formatting, eliminating some of the annoyance but that only helps when you use their software. If you aren't able to eliminate the formatting, you could be left with having to manually re-style the pasted text, which is painfully time-consuming and frustratingly unnecessary busy work.

PureText can help out here, it essentially performs the steps to remove formatting for you each time you press ctrl+v. So to paste plain text copied from a richly formatted source with PureText installed you simple do this:

Highlight the text to copy
Ctrl+c, clipboard has the formatted text
Switch to the target application
Ctrl+v, glorious unformatted plain text is magically pasted in

The program can be mapped to a different keyboard shortcut from ctrl+v in case you want to sometimes preserve the formatting of copied text. In that situation ctrl+v works as usual, ctrl+p (or whatever key press you decide to use) will paste in the plain text.

A tool like this would be an excellent productivity enhancer for anyone who is authoring with browser WYSIWYG text editors like TinyMCE, and having to cut and paste between other sources. These in-browser editors are have some rich text functionality, but usually just enough to cause problems when pasting and you end up putting a lot of junk like special font settings and “Microsoft specific characters” into your application database by using ctrl+c, ctrl+v without it. This invisible styling then rears it's ugly head when you try to present the material in a browser, you get lots of square boxes in contractions or hyphenations as well as mysterious font changes as the styling interacts in unpredictable ways with the HTML page styles and CSS.

Keeping your resume fresh

2010-08-21T12:15:00.000-07:00

Image: Image: Tom Curtis / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Your resume and portfolio is a marketing tool for you. Keep it fresh with your latest victories. It does not look good for a resume to only have three year old accomplishments (it's akin to a neglected castle). It is a shame when the best candidates for an opportunity are overlooked because of a stale resume and a lesser-skilled but better documented person will get the job instead. I have not been perfect at this, but I do keep a screenshot archive of web applications I was involved with. Each time a big project is completed or even when a big undertaking is conquered, I take that as a cue to update my resume with some important descriptive words about the project and what I did to help bring it home. I usually pick up a few new technologies with each project that also have helped fill out my documented developer skills.

Keeping it fresh is also a good idea because you never know when you will be asked to pack up and get out, US companies are loyal only to themselves and their shareholders and will layoff good employees at the first sign of trouble. Letting your resume go stale or failing to document your completed projects, new skills, and personal wins will impact your own professional success.

I also solicit feedback from managers and developers I work with and use the positive comments they make in my references section. I try to time my request for feedback such that I get a good positive note and the person can easily remember a specific positive thing to say about me. The manager or developer is usually are happy to do that for me, after all, I just helped them out.

You can't escape single quotes in SQL inserts with \

2010-08-21T12:12:00.000-07:00

To escape single quote marks in DB2 SQL inserts you cannot use the backslash character. This will NOT work:

insert into LCDDB_NCD_BNFT_CTGRY_REF (BNFT_CTGRY_CD,BNFT_CTGRY_DESC,BNFT_CTGRY_EFCTV_DT,BNFT_CTGRY_TRMNTN_DT)
values (52,'Physicians\' Services','2002-8-2',null)

To insert a single quote mark in DB2 with SQL insert you have to replace single quotes with two (2) single quotes.

insert into LCDDB_NCD_BNFT_CTGRY_REF (BNFT_CTGRY_CD,BNFT_CTGRY_DESC,BNFT_CTGRY_EFCTV_DT,BNFT_CTGRY_TRMNTN_DT)
values (52,'Physicians'' Services','2002-8-2',null)

OpenDNS Family Shield Setup guide

2010-08-05T06:01:00.000-07:00

I learned recently of a free service to help protect my family from explicit web content. In this post I want to explain how it works and how to set it up.

Access to the Internet is no longer restricted to personal computers, you can connect game systems (XBOX 360, Playstation 3, Nintendo Wii), you can connect blue ray players and watch movies transmitted over the internet, you can tether your cell phone to use your home internet and browse web sites, your iTouch can wirelessly connect to the Internet, the list goes on. Their is no 100% guaranteed way to protect all of these devices at all times from all explicit or harmful content that may exist other than turning them all off or never having them.
However, it is possible to filter out known hazards and setting up your computer with a filter takes minutes to do.

There are programs you can install on your computer like NetNanny which will protect that machine only, but you would have to find software for each device connecting to the Internet to use that method. Most modern setups for Internet access will have what is called a network router, all devices within your home, that use the same internet service, will connect to this common device. It is here at the router that the filter will be the most effective, essentially limiting and protecting all devices that may make Internet requests. I use Comcast for my Internet service and have a cheap Microsoft router for my home network.

If you only have one device in your home on the Internet OpenDNS Family Shield will also work for it and it is even less complex to setup. Go here: http://www.opendns.com/start and click sign up under the "OpenDNS Basic" option. Follow the steps to change your DNS on your router or computer. Essentially I needed to change my routers DNS settings from automatic to manual and give these two DNS server IP addresses:

208.67.222.222
208.67.220.220

There is a test page as part of the setup guide openDNS provides that will show you if you are successful in changing the DNS servers to openDNS. Routers will have passwords to protect them from being configured, when you try to configure your router, you will be prompted to login, if the password has never been set, it will be a factory password like user: admin password: admin or even blank; each brand is different. If you cannot login to the router because you forgot or never knew the password, then you may have to reset the router by holding down a button on the actual router device. This will clear all settings and you may have to reconfigure the router just to get back on the Internet again, get your internet service provider on the phone to help you do this or recruit a local tech to help out.

If you are still following along the setup and got the successful page, you should be able to click to open the OpenDNS Dashboard. If you ran into problems getting the test page to report success, try restarting your computer first then check the test page again, if still not working try restarting the router. If still not working, try the single-computer-only setup instructions. If still having trouble, recruit a local computer savvy individual to help you.

Once successful, the openDNS success page will have a link to launch the OpenDNS Dashboard, do it! In here you need to click Settings and add your IP address as a named network, it will already be filled in and you just click "add this network" and give it the name "Home". On that same settings tab, click the link to download an important program to keep your computer protected, the link is at the bottom near the text
Keep your network's IP up-to-date with our free software.
If you use Windows Operating system, click Windows link for the Windows version of the software, if you use Mac click the Mac link. Run the program to install the IP updater software, this is critical for most Internet connections because your dynamic IP address will change periodically and OpenDNS has to associate your Internet filter preferences with your ever-changing IP address. If you have paid for a static IP address, you don't need the IP updater software.
Again on the settings tab, click the dropdown box for your networks, pick the named network called "Home" you created earlier. On the left you can pick "Web Content Filtering" and select how locked down you want the Internet, some preconfigured options are categorized as High, Med, Low. It defaults to NONE which is no better than where you started, so change it to something above NONE at least!

On the left menus, pick Stats and Logs and check the box to enable Stats and Logs and click Apply button. Now all requests from all devices connected to your router are logged! This is good because if someone tried to access explicit web sites, you will be able to see when this occurred and what site was attempted. Keep in mind sometimes sites will show up in the list that the user did not intend to access, they may have gone to espn.com and an advertiser pulled an ad from an explicit site. This ad would be blocked and show up in the log. So don't automatically ground someone for a week because of a log entry.

Hope this helps you out.

This made me laugh

2010-05-10T19:53:00.000-07:00

source: http://xkcd.com/627/

71st Tuesday weigh-in

2010-05-04T15:56:00.000-07:00

223.0 lb

Worked out today on treadmill for 30 minutes at 11, the machine had puddles of my sweat by the end.

I have not been feeling great since about mid February, so I am trying to reboot my workouts now to see if it helps.

that's not the whole story... I've been thinking a lot about Steve too:

Pheysey, Stephen Grant Stephen Grant Pheysey Stephen Grant Pheysey, 23, 
died Saturday, May 7, 2005, at his home, of alcohol poisoning. Steve was a 
wonderful son, brother, and friend, and will be sorely missed. Steve was 
born on November 24, 1981, in Provo, Utah to James H. and Rebecca Duckett 
Pheysey. Steve attended Cascade Elementary, Canyon View Junior High, and 
graduated from Orem High School in 1999. He was awarded the Heritage 
scholarship to Brigham Young University and the Honors at Entrance 
scholarship to the University of Utah. He was currently a senior, majoring 
in Business Administration at the University of Utah. Steve was a brilliant 
young man with many interests and hobbies. He loved buying and fixing 
European sports cars, going rock and ice climbing with his brothers and 
friends, preparing gourmet and ethnic food for family and friends, 
flyfishing, bowhunting, and most outdoor activities. He loved learning and 
was an avid reader. He enjoyed using his talents and knowledge to help 
others. He was preceded in death by his grandparents, Harriett Pheysey, 
Jack Duckett, Irene Duckett, and a younger brother, William Robert Pheysey. 
Steve is survived by his parents, Jim and Becky Pheysey, three brothers, 
Michael (April) Pheysey, David Pheysey, Matthew Pheysey, one sister, Andie 
Pheysey, grandfather, Herbert Pheysey, and numerous aunts, uncles and 
cousins. Family services were held Saturday, May 14, 2005, at Berg Mortuary 
in Provo. Interment was at Provo City Cemetery. Published in the Daily 
Herald on 5/17/2005.

I wish I had reached out to him and I want a do over, I want him to be rescued if not by me then someone else. I need a time machine.

69th & 70th weigh-in

2010-03-26T04:51:00.000-07:00

69th 222.0 lb

70th 221.5 lb

I did a Golds Gym corporate wellness fitness test yesterday and here were my stats:

Flexibility test: 15 in (ranking: Average, 20 is Excellent)
Three minute stair step test: 84 beats per minute (ranking: Good, <81 is Excellent)
One minute push up test: 41 (ranking: Good, >45 is Excellent)

Today I ran 3.55 miles in 30 minutes, it kicked my butt.

68th Tuesday weigh-in

2010-03-09T09:07:00.000-08:00

223.0 lb

Back up a bit from 221.0 lb. I have made a personal commitment to a 12 week body for life program, my free day is Tuesday. I have been successful on the body for life plan in the past, having lost 60lbs, my goal is to lose 6% bodyfat (17% bodyfat). I'll post some pictures at the end of the 12 weeks as well.

I plan to eat 5-6 meals a day six days a week, and have a free-day once a week. I plan to weigh in each Tuesday to track my progress on weight-loss. I will also take some pictures as well periodically during the 3 month program. Thanks in advance for your support.

Coping with requirement descoping

2010-03-02T16:02:00.000-08:00

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I am in the middle of a frantic ATG code push. The QA cycle (as usual) was a painfully short 2 days. Since the project is pretty large and was months in development, many areas of the UI were changed. Some of the changes were accepted by the QA and business team, but other changes were found to be too wonky to rollout live to thousands of agents. It was inevitable that the business side would request à la carte features from the overal design implemented to roll live (due to the short qa and hard deadline). Problems arise when removing (descoping) a rejected UI change which breaks other features because of dependencies.

I was able to deliever a rapid turnaround on descoping large functional sections of a code push. I did this by keeping a record of each file that was add/changed/removed for the project as well as correlated which business requirement(s) were the motivation behind the file's change.

Traceability saved the day.

I have not been as diciplined in the past with keeping track of changes for a project, let along keeping record of how the changes correlate to the busines requirements. Now, having done this, it is something that has helped me in the following specific ways:

fulfill all the documented requirements of the project,
quickly descope rejected code,
rapidly find and fix bugs found against requirements,
perform code reviews and explain the moving parts quickly,
provide detailed rollout plans for the changes,
merge in other changes into the project with ease

Not every project may be large enough to require record keeping like this. Keeping track of this stuff is boring but the benefits of doing it really make it worth the effort for me. (Just like documenting my knowledge has.)

67th Tuesday weigh-in

2010-02-27T00:27:00.000-08:00

221.0 lb

Down 3 lbs. Worked out the whole week and was careful my food. A very good week for me.

66th Tuesday weigh-in

2010-02-22T20:26:00.000-08:00

224.0 lb

Up 1.0 and I blame the deep dish pizza at Gino's East in downtown Chicago. At least I exercised at the hotel gym while I was on the road. By the way, traveling while sick really sucks. The best food I ate in the windy city was the deep dish pizza at Gino's followed by fantastic burger at Rock Bottom. I really hated the ribs at Weber Grill or whatever that place was called... I like moist sweet ribs but these were much too dry, spicy and tough, that didn't prevent me from eating them all anyway for some reason...

FourGablesGuy's Best Practice tip #1478: Don't use email clients to store your knowledge

2010-02-09T20:25:00.000-08:00

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

If you were to lose all your email messages today, how high of a disaster would that be for you:

as an employee or
personally?

Scale where 1 is "no big deal" and 10 being "I am ruined, RUINED!!!"

If I am tempted to save an email after I have read it, I stop and think:
"Why do I want to save this? "
"Oh, it is because I will/might need this info again later."
"Well, if that is the case, it should then be put in a secure place or made into a blog post, forum post, document, etc.. on a knowledge site."

I don't always put important learned information in a blog post or in a secure archive, and sometimes I am searching my email for something that I didn't put in a place I could easily find later... However, I think the more consistently I avoid storing knowledge in my email box (either in folders, sent items, trash, etc..) the better off I will be. It takes some time up front to move knowledge to the place it belongs but it takes even more time to scour your email folders for the one bit of info out of your email-haystack when you need later. If I do have to search and find information in my email, then I always move that data into a better place, because the fact I needed the information twice indicates I will need it yet again.

In my opinion we should treat email as an ephemeral messaging tool, not as a personal knowledge compendium. So until Google Wave gets broad adoption, email is like a sticky note on your desk, neither should be used to preserve important knowledge.

Addendum: Email is a bad choice, but some do survive using it as a knowledge base tool. However, the absolute worst place to maintain important knowledge would be your IM chat history. IM chat toools are great and I use them to ask and answer questions, but I kick myself when I am looking through old chat history for a nugget of information to reuse that I neglected to preserve better. I also am frustrated when managers/coworkers repeatedly ask me questions in chat that I have answered weeks or months previously. I am trying to establish the habit to put the answers I give/receive in IM chat on a wiki or (maybe an email..) or somewhere more permanent so that I can refer back to the more stable place later. IM chat is a double-edged sword, it is fast and convenient in the short term, but you can be hurt long term by failing to capture knowledge from your chat sessions.

Awesome Personal Finance Tool

2010-02-09T20:07:00.000-08:00

I have been using an online personal finance software program for about 5 years now and love it. The tool is called Mvelopes and was started by a company in Draper, UT (Finicity). The CEO is Steven Smith last time I checked. The biggest reason I have continued to use Mvelopes is because I am lazy. I don't ever want to manually enter in receipts. I don't want to keep a log book of checks I write either. Mvelopes takes away 99% of the effort required to keep track of your family spending because the software crawls your online banks, credit cards, mortgages, 401Ks, auto loans, student loans, etc.. and digests the transactions from them presenting all of them in a consolidated simple interface. I don't have to do anything but setup my accounts in Mvelopes and login once or twice a month to reconcile spending to my budget goals (or the buckets I have setup for types of spending.)

If you are looking for a tool that can help you plan and coordinate your spending, reconcile purchases so you can always pay off your card balances and always have money for the charges and checks you and your spouse make, Mvelopes is it. You can use if from any computer, Linux, Windows or Mac (you just need a browser with Adobe flash extension.) I would recommend getting coaching sessions as well to help you get the most from the tool. Mvelopes does provide free online chat support as well.

If you use the software consistently, then it will pay for itself 10 times over time.

I think another similar web-based tool exists called Mint but I have never tried that one to know how it compares.

65th Tuesday weigh-in

2010-02-09T08:35:00.001-08:00

223.0 lb

No change from last week, I think I would have been down had I laid off Rebecca's brownies. The superbowl party was in Eagle Mountain and the location was really swank. Food was great and I think I did well avoiding over indulging, fast Sunday probably helped a lot too.

64th Tuesday weigh-in

2010-02-05T14:30:00.000-08:00

223.0 lb

Up 0.5 again. So I was sick and stayed up too late and missed some workouts, and yes, I am like a broken record on my blog writing that. Winter sucks. Ran 3.5 miles in under 30 minutes today so I am still feeling good about my exercise, I just need to be consistent about going to bed and going to the gym. I am torn a bit because I want to work on a side project for my company (and my career) which cuts into my family/sleep time. I did track my food on the daily plate, but I really only track M-F and don't track dinner, which I plan to change to track EVERYTHING... the annoyance of having to input and track my chocolate-covered almonds should help me from eating them, right? I do feel good when I am able to track exercise on the dailyplate, seeing those extra calories show up is a nice bonus, seeing some better results would be nice too.

I hope when they say, "You change from the inside out", it is really true. Nothing big or earth shattering has happened to myself on the outside, body fat and scale measurements don't seem to move much for me either. But on the inside I am establishing a habit to exercise and monitor my food intake.

63rd Tuesday weigh-in

2010-01-28T16:02:00.001-08:00

222.5 lb

Up 0.5 lb due to some illness and missing workouts. I have been keeping up on tracking food on the daily plate website (on weekdays at least). I have a new Golds corporate wellness personal trainer (no explanation for why the other trainer is gone), she is mostly a cookie cutter version of the previous one... with the same advice as trainer before. I am motivated to post better numbers, nothing I have done seems to have moved the needle on my body fat measurement, which I think is strange. At least over the past month I lost almost 2 lbs from the previous weigh-in.

She did have a good comment about workouts... you have to push yourself hard to make improvements. I think some of my workouts got repetitive and weren't challenging like workouts challenged me when I first started so long ago. I may need to try something drastic break out of the rut.

62nd Tuesday weigh-in

2010-01-19T08:39:00.000-08:00

222.0 lb

Yay I am down again. I have a monthly weigh-in next week with with my impersonal trainer so I hope to post some good numbers there. I also did check my bodyfat at the annual Lehi legacy center fitness expo: it was 23.1 % which is less than it was back in January of 2009 but not by much, only about 0.4% lower. However this year I did the fitness test as well. I did 25 push-ups in 30 seconds which I am pretty confident I would not have been able to do last January.

61st Tuesday weigh-in

2010-01-14T10:06:00.000-08:00

224.5 lb

Up 2.5 lb. Did well on exercise and just slacked off on tracking food. Eleanor was up vomiting Monday night, we thought the worst was over then Wednesday around 6PM I got stomach cramps and at around 2AM I gave in and puked my guts out. This morning Rebecca is throwing up, oh and J threw up last night as well.

Despite all this, I still have it way better than those in Haiti..

60th Tuesday weigh-in

2010-01-05T07:22:00.000-08:00

222.0 lbs

Yay, down 3.5 lbs.

59th Tuesday weigh-in

2010-01-01T16:46:00.001-08:00

225.5 lb

Up 3.0 lbs! Yeah... I wasn't very cautious with portion size this last week over the holidays and ended up bloated for my weigh-in. I did well on my exercise plan and only missed on Christmas day. Today I forgot a belt and some old jeans of mine I was wearing kept slipping down, which is a great problem to have.

58th Tuesday weigh-in

2009-12-28T20:45:00.000-08:00

222.5 lb

Down 1.0 lbs last Tuesday. Now for tomorrow's Tuesday weigh-in.. I think I have bad news. I may be back up +3 lbs.. due to some over eating on Christmas Eve, and a game night. I have been good about working out, only missed on Christmas day in the past week.

57th Tuesday weigh-in

2009-12-15T18:33:00.000-08:00

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dptr/ / CC BY 2.0

223.5 lb

No change from last week. I hit the gym all 6 days and tracked my food during the week. Sometimes the scale is just a jerk.

56th Tuesday weigh-in

2009-12-08T19:35:00.000-08:00

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jdickert/ / CC BY 2.0

223.5 lb

Down 1.5 lbs! Three weeks in a row with a loss to report. I think tracking food on the daily plate is a great way to keep me from overeating, it is really the only thing different I have been doing lately (well I have not been eating lots of candy and snacks either.)

55th Tuesday weigh-in

2009-12-01T18:01:00.000-08:00

225.0 lb

Loss of 0.5 lb, and this over Thanksgiving! I am so proud of that. I jogged/ran 3 laps around Nathan's house in Cedar City to work off some of that pecan pie, they said one lap was 1.5 miles, on the last lap some neighbor dogs chased me down the street, it really got the blood pumping running for my life!

Tracking my daily food intake on the daily plate is working well. My personal trainer visit was this week, I was about the same as last month on body fat (23%) and weight. That is better than being 5 lbs heavier but I was hoping for a loss on body fat. On average Americans gain 8lbs over the November - December holiday season. Let's see if I can bring that average down a tick by losing that much. Negative 8 pounds by January 1st, 2010!

54th Tuesday weigh-in

2009-11-18T17:35:00.001-08:00

225.5 lb

Oops, forgot to post this. I even eeked out a loss. Go me.

53rd Tuesday weigh-in

2009-11-17T08:40:00.000-08:00

226.0 lb

Aargh! The numbers on the scale sucked.. but I still fit great in my new jeans. I have exercised all 6 days faithfully and tracked my food 5 of the 7 days. It was fun to see Grandpa and Candace last night, but it was a bummer that Linc and Randy punked me and didn't show up. Next up: Hannah's birthday, Thanksgiving, ward party, work party, Christmas party, New Years party... but most importantly: more weekly posts with losses!

52nd Tuesday weigh-in

2009-11-13T17:19:00.000-08:00

http://www.flickr.com/photos/publicdomainphotos/ / CC BY 2.0

225 lb

Gain of 2lbs... but, to focus on the positives, I am wearing size 34 jeans without too much trouble which is a huge improvement over size 38's. Blue cheese dip and pretzel crisps are probably not a good thing for me to have around... but it's worth it occasionally. Rebecca's birthday party had me eating cobbler and ice cream which didn't help me either. At least I am hitting the gym consistently. I am also tracking food I eat but I slack off on tracking food I eat on the weekend. It has been a year since I started weekly weigh ins. I will keep doing them as I feel it keeps me from gaining or getting off track and helps to motivate me to lose. I have a more energy than I used to and, with two kids, I need every femto-joule I can get.

51st Tuesday weigh-in

2009-11-04T06:58:00.000-08:00

223.0 lb

Loss of 0.5 lb, yay. Tracking food on thedailyplate again helped, Halloween candy and carmel apples did not help. Exercised as usual.

50th Tuesday weigh-in

2009-10-28T19:00:00.001-07:00

http://www.flickr.com/photos/peasap/ / CC BY 2.0

223.5 lb

Loss of 1.0 lb from last week. I still hate cold mornings.. but I am so glad to post another loss! I love thedailyplate.com it is so awesome and just the right price. Rebecca finds the coolest sites. Two more weeks will make a year of weekly weigh-ins. I think tracking my food on thedailyplate.com is a key component of losing weight because I still do not have the hang of portion control such that I know when to stop eating intuitively.

49th Tuesday weigh-in

2009-10-20T18:20:00.000-07:00

http://www.flickr.com/photos/devious_madness/ / CC BY 2.0

224.5 lb

Down 0.5 lb. I pushed pretty hard this last week and I hate cold mornings...

Mon: Eliptical X 30min @ Golds
Tues: Weights (single sets X 12 reps) @ Golds
Wed: StairStep X 30min @ legacy center gym
Thur: Weights (6 sets on chest only) @ Golds
Fri: Treadmill X 30min @ Golds
Sat: Weights (single sets X 12 reps) @ legacy center gym
Sun: I lay in bed tired and sick
Mon: Stationary recumbent bike @ legacy center (everything else was in use)
Tues: Weights @ legacy center gym

48th Tuesday weigh-in

2009-10-14T07:05:00.000-07:00

225.0 lb

Loss of 1.5 lb from last week. YAY! Rebecca's sticky rice and mango dessert was awesome (I had two servings of that.) She also made some cinnamon rolls which were delicious. Rebecca took me to Cafe Rio as well on Monday and I was able to try a Banbury Cross donut, and, oh my... those are good!

So with all that happening, I have still kept up on my goal to stop eating after 8 pm, drink gallon of water per day, exercise six days per week. A landscaping project on Saturday and Fast Sunday probably helped me a little as well.

47th Tuesday weigh-in

2009-10-05T19:53:00.000-07:00

226.5 lb

This week I have been faithfully doing my ankle exercises and hit the gym all days but one, so 5 days. I missed one weight lifting day due to staying up until 2:00am gaming on Friday. Walking is so much easier with the heel lift, it was really miraculous, I walked out of the Dr. office faster than I have walked in years.. I can walk fast without pain through parking lots. Running is still sore on my ankle but it is not so painful that I limp-run. I am more a 'wince-runner' now. I have new duds on order from amazon. I would love to "buy local" but that usually means paying $40 more for the exact same pair of shoes, so 'local' can forget it! Last time I got a killer deal on overstock.com for my Brooks Beast's but this time they didn't have my size.
So I guess I am up 1.5 this week from last week. I have another weigh in with the personal trainer this month that I am preparing for. I was a little down last month and I want to be down again in October.

46th Tuesday weigh-in

2009-09-29T20:11:00.000-07:00

source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/7438870@N04/ / CC BY 2.0

225.0 lb

I did all my exercises (3 cardio 3 weight lifting) and watched my food intake carefully. I have had some major pain in my ankle this last weekend, so much that walking was excruciating. So I met with a physical therapist this week. It would have been easy to just let the ankle injury pain keep me away from the gym, but instead I turned it around and made it into something I plan to beat rather than be beaten by it. I made a mistake once before of taking time off from the gym to rest a painful heel, but a week turned to a month and I was off track for a long time after. The physical therapist informed me that my left leg is 1 cm shorter than my right leg, and I am a severe over-pronator. My feet are tight and have very little flexibility and it appears my lack of flexibility is a mechanical issue from short Achilles tendons. He put a shoe insert under just my left heel and walking is much nicer for me with it in. I also need to switch out my running shoes more frequently than I have been, every 6 months, going forward. I have a set of exercises I need to do to strengthen my ankle and leg muscles as well. Things like balance on one foot for one minute three times. If I do all this, I will be broke from buying shoes, and look goofy at the gym doing the flamingo, but I will able to run/walk comfortably. So I plan to go for it.

45th Tuesday weigh-in

2009-09-23T18:16:00.001-07:00

225.0 lb

That's more like it, down 1.5 lb. It's good to show a loss today as I have a health assessment with the trainee-trainer on Thursday. I do need to make a correction from last week, Rebecca is skinnier and looks even better now than when we were first engaged and married. So she is not as attractive as when we married, she is even more attractive to me. However, I do have to correct her from time to time, because she sometimes says, "- back when we were dating..." and I have to remind her that we haven't stopped dating by taking her out. If you have ideas for fun dates I could take her on, then please let me know. If the idea is really good, I will surprise her with it.

44th Tuesday weigh-in

2009-09-15T20:37:00.001-07:00

226.5 lb

Strange to be up so much, I didn't overeat all week until Friday night when I had waaay more pizza than I should have. Then I took the family to the Pleasant Grove Hog's Heaven CookOff on Saturday night and enjoyed some nice ribs and pulled pork. We got leftovers so it was BBQ Sunday and Monday too. But I really don't think I am "up", just retaining water / extra food from the weekend of extra grease and salt. I don't feel heavy and did exercise the entire week consistently. If I can lose body fat and gain muscle, that is fine with me.

I am as motivated as ever to post good numbers here and at my monthly weigh-in with the "impersonal" trainer, Heather. Seriously she has been a huge let down. It has been like torture to get any kind of personalized help from her, she just wants to measure this and weigh that, then give me a pre-printed handout and a smile-see-ya-next-month-bah-bye. If anything she has demotivated more than motivated. So Heather gets zero credit from me for any progress I am making.

My plan for next week is to push myself at the gym on cardio harder than I have been. I also plan to eat midmeal snacks so I am not tempted to overeat at dinner. Finally, I like Rebecca's strategy to stop eating by 8pm, so I am stealing that one from her. Rebecca, by the way, has been rocking it in weight loss these past few months and is breaking out skinny clothes left and right. She really puts me to shame with her progress, her pants are loose and her figure is as stunning as when we got married.

43rd Tuesday weigh-in

2009-09-08T18:17:00.000-07:00

Image: flickr owner D Sharon Pruitt

225 lb

Down 0.5 lb. I worked out all week in Austin and didn't let jet lag stop me from going on Saturday either. When I ran the neighborhood 5K earlier this year a neighbor commented to me after, "Harley, you're an animal." And they meant it, that felt good to hear; I wish I had a video of it to watch to help me stay motivated.

I asked Rebecca to look at the photo I posted last week and compare it to me now. She could not tell if I looked much different now than in the photo at Halloween in 2008, all I can say to that is: ouch.. I can tell you I lift a lot more weight now than I did in 2008. Exercises that were tough at 100 lbs, I do now at 135 lbs. I have been able to do lifts heavier than I ever recorded or can remember doing them. I do more cardio now than in Oct 2008 also. My blood pressure is lower, cholesterol is at a healthier level, I have less body fat too. But the truth is the truth, I do not look much different on the outside and have not lost much weight in almost 12 months. Some of my pants are still snug which I was hoping would be loose by now, at least I am not afraid they will tear open when bending over or the button fall off taking a deep breath. I didn't have a personal trainer in Oct 2008 or any real clear goals for my health. Yes I could have crash dieted and suffered and struggled against myself and pushed myself much harder, but I have no regrets. I am happy with the progress.

I guess I am just saying I have changed and continue to change whether is shows on the outside or not, whether the numbers on the scale are good or not, I am changing slowly and the change is from the inside out. One day the outside will catch up to the inside. The inscription on my iPod Rebecca gave me says: Be the change... which is part of a favorite quote of mine: Be the change you want to see in the world. Good motto to live by if you ask me.

42nd Tuesday weigh-in

2009-09-05T20:53:00.000-07:00

226.5 lb

Up 1.0 lb from last Tuesday, synopsis is: travel sucks. Anyway I made some dietary u-turns and by Friday I was back to 225.5 lb despite the non-stop buffet available to me. I was hard to turn down my manager / client for dinner but I ate with him once that week and had planned on a lunch with him as well, enough's enough. I am proud that I didn't have soda or appetizers and that I worked out every day of the week of travel. Photo is me from 2008 Halloween party, probably the closest photo I have of myself back when I started my Tuesday weigh-ins in Nov 2008. I was a "farmer" for Halloween that year. It is fitting that I am eating a candy bar... that is how I got so off track, one snack at a time.

41st Tuesday weigh-in

2009-08-26T13:51:00.000-07:00

225.5 lb

Loss of 0.5 lb from last week. I have been drinking a gallon of water per day for a few weeks as well as hitting the gym all six planned days. I think drinking lots water helps me feel better and I am always well hydrated. I still have days where I am totally wiped out of all energy, usually Sunday after gaming on Saturday... Also finally had my monthly weigh-in with the personal trainer and I was down 1% body fat from last month.

As the above picture illustrates: we have an overflow of zucchini from our garden, tomatoes go as fast as they're ready. Joeseph and Sue came by our house recently and I got to serve them up some of my garden tomatoes which were promptly devoured and then gushed over. Tomatoes are so good raw with a little salt, but an open-faced tomato-mayo sandwich on homemade dutch-oven bread is fantastic. Store-bought tomatoes are painful to eat once you have had the real deal. We don't keep up with the yellow summer squash either but have some zucchini and squash two or three times a week at minimum. My mom says I should make ratatouille with all this stuff... I just need eggplant. Rebecca freezes and gives away some zucchini to try and use all that the garden is producing.

40th Tuesday weigh-in

2009-08-19T20:02:00.000-07:00

source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ericmcgregor/346990046/

226.0 lb

Down 0.5 lb from last Tuesday. Yay a loss. The camping trip did not "trip" me up.

39th Tuesday weigh-in

2009-08-17T08:32:00.001-07:00

photo courtesy of http://photodaisy.blogspot.com/

226.5 lb

I really need to post my weight on time. Same as the previous week, no change. I am not fazed by it. I had a camping trip scheduled and have planned on being extra cautious so I am not up for my personal trainer weigh-in next week.

38th Tuesday weigh-in

2009-08-05T05:53:00.000-07:00

226.5 lb

I did really well last week on exercise (6 days, 3 cardio, 3 lifting) but... starting on Thursday with lunch at JCW's with some friends from Novell, then dinner at Chili's with Rebecca on Friday, then french fries and game night candy+soda on Saturday and finally a roast dinner on Sunday... I am lucky to be back down to only 1/2 lb up.
My percent body fat is 29% so I think I am keeping muscle while doing this which is a plus.

37th Tuesday weigh-in

2009-08-03T14:04:00.000-07:00

226 lb

Yuck I did not do well last week, even slacked off on posting this dismal weigh-in until a day before the 38th weigh in. Anything I write is just and excuse for too much food intake and not enough sweat output.

I tried out Lincoln's new stationary bike, it is silent, and by that I mean all you can hear while using it is your wheezing asthmatic breathing and thumping heart beats as it tries to pump blood through cholesterol clogged arteries. I did however dominate a 30 minute program giving myself a slight ego boost. The fear of losing my XBOX has kept me at the gym all the past week to stem the tide of gains. I have even downed over a gallon of water today to try and release any/all retained water.

36th Tuesday weigh-in

2009-07-23T08:34:00.000-07:00

224.5 lb

No change. The birthday party and pizza party in Cedar City didn't help me lose. I feel good though. I love exercising and having more energy from exercise, I just don't love the sore feet and ankles.

35th Tuesday weigh-in

2009-07-16T08:40:00.000-07:00

224.5 lb

Neglected to post the bad news of a gain, until now. The steaks and cake I had on Sunday are probably the primary cause of my gain on Tuesday but I think they were worth it. I have been much better this week (since Sunday) by eating shakes for lunch and dinner and eating much more fresh fruits and vegetables. I have a weigh in on this Friday with a personal trainer as well. I really want to show at least a fat percentage loss for that weigh-in as it will track my progress for the past month. I can establish a habit of consistent exercise and go for a long streak of consistent exercise but after a consecutive three days of slacking off, it is really hard for me to get back in the habit again.

A certain neice told me something

2009-07-11T14:31:00.000-07:00

Shortly after I got married in 2005, this niece said to me, "Now that you're married, you're going to get fat." I took it as a challenge and complement at the same time.

While I am not thin now (..yet), what she didn't know is I certainly am not as fat as I was before marriage, BEHOLD:

The above is me on the left "living the dream" at 320 lbs. So yes I am down about 100lbs from 2002 and I did it without surgery or personal trainers/expensive diet food etc... I do owe a lot to a Nordic Track recumbent bike and a book called "Body for Life" by Bill Philips.

In your face niece! She's probably too busy and/or cool to read my blog anyway.

34th Tuesday weigh-in

2009-07-09T09:49:00.000-07:00

223lb

Up 1 lb again. I have been having too much food on the vacation. Got my XBOX360 setup with a short network cable but need a longer cable and phone jack installed to make the setup permanent (i.e. not having wires strung up everywhere). Rebecca signed up for NetFlix and so we watched Wall-e via XBOX last night. Linc was able to setup my VMware to run OSX and the iPhone SDK and used it to finish Assignment 1A for the Stanford iPhone development class.

33rd Tuesday weigh-in

2009-07-01T14:44:00.000-07:00

222 lb

1.0 lb loss from last week. I was hoping for more but that is almost always the case. I am sore from doing dumbbell lunges, I only did 24 reps but it was enough to cause some major tightness and soreness today.
I watched the wedding video we had done with Rebecca on our anniversary and I can't tell if I am heavier or lighter now than I was back then. I think that is a good thing because it probably means I am about the same weight as I was then. Next year I plan on mocking my former self as a wimp and a fatty by losing more weight and building more muscle. Just finished a homemade sandbox for the back yard but 10 bags of sand was not nearly enough, 20 more bags and we will have a pretty sweet play area for Eleanor. I have some pics but they are still on the camera which does you no good.

Last Sunday in June

2009-06-28T13:58:00.001-07:00

This year has been unusually wet. I think today has been a more typical June weather day and so I got the urge to take some pictures.

Our peach tree and "baby J" honey crisp apple trees also look fantastic this year; I wish we had thought to plant a tree the year E was born as well.

I took some shots in the garden of our tomato, zucchini, and squash plants.

I started two batches of no-knead dutch oven bread last night and baked them today to go with dinner.

E helped pick carrots out of the garden. Which we peeled and put into a crock pot for a roast tonight.

Rebecca and I want to start planning our landscaping (not that we have money to invest in it yet..) We need more shade in the backyard and want to put in some shade trees.

32nd Tuesday weigh-in

2009-06-24T07:38:00.000-07:00

223 lb

Same as last week and I have missed two of the last three workouts this week. I have just been tired and the bed is too comfortable. I think I have been doing ok on my portions and food; I just have not been exercising consistently.

Rest in Peace Layton E

2009-06-22T07:53:00.000-07:00

He could play the guitar so well. I owe a lot to him, growing up I wanted to be like him, specifically I wanted to be smart and make good money in the computer industry. He was an inspiration to me. He loved to play music. Layton was a brilliant engineer and designed processor chips with a drafting table, pencil, and ruler! He was a math genius and could prove if a chip had been designed with flaws that would cause heat issues by doing matrix inversions of the transistors (or something way more cool and complecated). He designed chips that could run on mili-amps or even pico-amps of power. He had some niche knowledge that was in very high demand and rare to find and could work with other very smart people and hold his own. Layton wasn't perfect, none of us are. I am not perfect and have just as many flaws as Layton, if not more. Rest in Peace Layton, I hope they have rock music in heaven. I miss you.

31st Tuesday weigh-in

2009-06-16T09:08:00.001-07:00

223 lb

Up 0.5 lb, I was sick the whole week and did not make it to the gym until this Monday when I did stairmaster for 30 mins. I am glad I am not gaining that much without exercise and now that I am recuperated, time to get back on the treadmill and drop some more pounds.

30th Tuesday weigh-in

2009-06-10T10:21:00.000-07:00

222.5 lb

Up 1 lb from last week. I have been sick since Sunday and missed workouts Mon,Tues and Wed this week to rest and recuperate. I enjoyed weight lifting three days a week last week, I am going to continue that once I am recovered.
Rebecca has helped me to save money and eat less junk and more vegetables by making dinner at home on the weekend. Thank you Rebecca!

29th Tuesday weigh-in

2009-06-03T07:20:00.001-07:00

221.5 lb

No change from last week. I think my indulgences at Wing Shack, Chili's (ribs), Bombay House (Chicken Makhani and Chicken Coconut Kuruma) with Naan, and Good and Plenty candies were enough to keep me from a loss, thankfully I kicked my butt on a 5K to keep from gaining.

Rebecca has been adding in vegetables to meals more and more. The problem I have with vegetables is gas... ever since I started drinking a V8 in the morning, I have been having intestinal trouble and feel bloated.

I have been tracking my weight weekly for over 200 days now but have not really lost even 20 lbs. So if you see me with a doughnut, slap my hand so I drop it.

Ran a 5K on Saturday

2009-06-01T14:19:00.000-07:00

My feet are super sore, bruised, swollen and stiff after running a 5K. Do I need to run more often? Or only run on flat treadmills/track surfaces? Rebecca says I am banned from running on pavement.

I think I did it in about 35 minutes, it was a disorganized 5K... but free so I can't complain. Next time, if there ever is one, I will take a watch so I can know how long I take to run it. I did it pushing E in our mountain buggy jogging stroller, and no walking or stopping. Bad news is my weight is still high today. I hope to break even tomorrow on the scale. ...Run a 5K and still gain weight... that ain't right. We also helped clean the LDS chapel after the 5K, so it was a busy morning Saturday.

28th Tuesday weigh-in

2009-05-28T08:34:00.000-07:00

221.5 lb

Loss of 0.5 lb from last week.

I really cannot convey how fantastic weekly weigh-ins are for me. There is no escape, every Tuesday I have to face the facts. Did I exercise ? Did I track my eating? The scale doesn't lie, it just weighs my fat butt. If I let myself slip on week, I can make a correction quickly... I really would hate to dig myself out of a hole only to fall back in again because I let old habits return.

27th Tuesday weigh-in

2009-05-21T13:57:00.000-07:00

222 lb

two steps forward and two steps back, gain of 2lb from last week. I actually am not too concerned with this because I started lifting again and that can cause water retention. To be 100% honest, I also ate more than I should have over the weekend which included soda, candy, salty chips and crackers and birthday desserts, i.e. lots of junk.

I started lifting because my new personal trainer recommended it. Also my personal trainer recommended my base calories be 2200, thedailyplate had me at ~1800... according to her, I should lose 1 lb a week from staying at 2200 calories per day. Any exercise on top would be additional loss of weight. She also said diet should not be restricted to lose more than 1 lb per week and the rest of weight loss should come from exercise rather than further calorie restrictions. She told me if I eat less calories than my basal metabolic rate, then I will lose muscle rather than fat due to my body entering starvation mode. So I really hope I have not been doing damage to myself for the past six months slowing down my metabolism and losing muscle etc... My numbers are looking scary, my bodyfat measured by the trainer was still 23.5%.. it was at that in January... when I weighed 229 lb..

I am sad to miss camping this weekend due to rainy weather but will have fun anyway and not have to sit in memorial day traffic. Rebecca and I are planning to buy a van and sell her car but the main hangup we have is gas mileage... the van only gets 18 mpg city... and we would have to get a loan on it (we both despise debt.) The homemade panini's were fabulous, what a great idea. Rebecca got a George foreman grill so we can continue having them at home.

26th Tuesday weigh-in

2009-05-12T15:26:00.000-07:00

219 lb

2lb loss from last week. Goal I set was to lose around 19 more by July 17th. Tracking what I eat helped with the loss, also running a chainsaw for a few hours cutting firewood along with manually cutting down a few dead branches with Randy and a long rope saw contraption helped burn off the campfire smores. Rebecca has pictures of Eleanor camping, pester her to post them.

Side note: The garden is looking good I can see lots of chard and radishes, maybe a few beets and carrots too. My tomato plants are huge! I need to plant them in the garden before too long. I also need to gather up the stuff for a garden drip system, turn on my sprinklers before the free rain stops, and buy some black plastic for the tomatoes to grow over...

Busy Busy Busy

25th Tuesday weigh-in

2009-05-07T08:16:00.000-07:00

221 lb

Up 2 lb. Too much salt and candy and too little water and vegetables I think. Oh and the homemade bread is addictive. I did stay with my daily cardio exercise.

I am really glad I do this each week. It keeps me honest with myself on what I am doing and what I am not doing. The main reasons for the gain this week is because of snacking and not being accountable on the dailyplate for what I was eating in the evenings and on the weekend. Also, I have been drinking a lot of caffine (at least two 12 oz cans per day) and so I have not been sleeping/feeling as well as I could be.

24th Tuesday weigh-in

2009-04-28T18:46:00.000-07:00

219.0 lb

Down 0.5 lb from last week. Total loss of 8.5 lb toward goal to lose 30 by my birthday.

Found my shoes on overstock.com for $74... so at least I did not pay $120 twice... but I am still arg som en spik!

I missed one morning cardio workout this past week, I just didn't wake up in time.

Still haven't started the lunch or after work weight lifting at Gold's. Maybe if Linc were to join...

I think I overate over the weekend so I was not able to post a higher loss, but even 0.5lb is better than staying the same or gaining it back.

23rd Tuesday weigh-in

2009-04-23T15:23:00.000-07:00

219.5lb

Down 0.5 lb from last week. Total loss of 8lb toward my new goal I set on weigh-in 18 to lose 30 lbs by my birthday.

12 weeks and 19.5lbs to go. Goal is still doable but I need more 2.5lb loss weeks to give me a comfortable buffer for any bad weigh-in weeks.

I haven't been hitting the gym at lunch which I plan to pick up again. I had two pairs of shoes before Austin but am back down to one because I left a new pair at the hotel and they didn't put them in the lost and found. So my new $120 shoes are gone and I have to shuffle my old pair around until I have time/money to re-buy some more.

22nd Tuesday weigh-in

2009-04-05T18:00:00.001-07:00

220 lb

Easter dinner is a killer for a diet. I skipped lunch but still ended up 2000 calories over that day.
Have not missed any workouts at least.

21st Tuesday weigh-in

2009-04-05T17:59:00.000-07:00

??? lb
(218 lb on Saturday, loss of 2.5 from the week before)

No scale to use, I will update with my weight on Saturday again.

I am really digging thedailyplate on livestrong.com, might even spring for a gold membership. I think I am on track to lose 2 lbs but we'll see. It will be good to be back on a schedule like I was before, weighing in each Tuesday, but I am not letting myself become a victim of circumstances. I haven't missed a single workout in the past three weeks and have tracked just about every bite on the calorie site and, lo and behold, I consistently lose weight doing that.

20th Tuesday weigh-in

2009-04-02T21:05:00.000-07:00

??? lb
(I weighed in Saturday morning at 220.5 lb down 2 lb from last Saturday)

Whoa I am late with this post and don't even have a weight to report. I'm sorry, but I refuse to lug a bathroom scale up and down the airport. I will weigh in Saturday and edit this post with the number. I am proud to say: I have kept track of what I ate every day on the livestrong.com meal tracker and worked out everyday this past week except Sunday.

I hear it is snowing in Utah. I am so glad I am not driving in that junk to the gym. But now I wonder if the spring garden I worked so feverishly on to plant in March is going to be a total bust, Rebecca said nothing is sprouting up and the furrows are full of snow. I worry that maybe if I had planted it a weekend earlier, it might have had a chance to sprout during that brief warm period of about a week we had before the weather betrayed us.

Doh! Forgot something

2009-03-30T19:42:00.000-07:00

I forgot to kidnap my wife and take her with me... But I also forgot to take the cable to transfer the pictures from my digital camera to my computer, so I can't submit my receipts for my expense report like I planned. I can at least take the pictures so they are ready to send, oh well, I blame Hillary because her laptop had a card reader built in.

Sometimes life is just a game of hurry-up-and-wait. I hurry, hurry to the airport to be on time or early, then wait at the gate because my flight is delayed at the last minute. I hurry exercise and get to work, then wait in boring meetings for people to stop flapping their lips without saying anything new. I rush to get back from lunch but have to wait around for two hours because of unforeseen events.
I hurried all morning last Saturday to get the house ready for Christina to come and for me to be gone again, but I eventually gave up and spent some down time with Rebecca once the kids were asleep.

On a side note, I am proud that I have not turned on the TV in my hotel room yet.