Me and my iPad

Already one month that I’ve got my iPad… and I don’t know how I have lived before it. I’m a
computer professional and I’m not afraid of a computer. So when Steve announced the iPad I felt a
little bit frustrated because I was wondering what will be the use of this big iPhone.

This tool is very cool and I want it to surf the web.

The cons

1. Don’t use it for writing

I’m a french speaker. So when you want to do special french characters it will takes you hour to
write something. It ‘s adapted to write short text and commands. It’s a little bit hard to
navigate in a big text in an edition mode.

2. You need a computer

Without a computer, you could do fast nothing. At the first start up iPad claims to be connected. One
big part of the iPad miracle is all the pre-processing done on your computer.
I tried to do some RDP… it not very conftable. You need a computer to upgrade the system

3. Wellcome in the Apple world

You are in the club… but hard to go out the fence. Everything is locked down by default. You
can unlock it but it’s your responsability.

4. Apple store… give me you money.

The apple store is a cash machine… for apple. You’re sollicited to pay for everything on the
iPad and sometimes it’s not for the goods. Apple has succedded in the micro-payment strategy.
Nothing is very

5. Keep it synch

The synch process it a little bit slow (I’m working under windows)

The pros…

1. It’s amazing to surf with your finger

It’s a pretty cool experience to go and conquer the web with your finger. The zoom is so easy and
it’s too cool to click anywhere.

2. Just open it and your surfing

Before that when you need to go on the we if you’re not on your computer it takes you time to do
it. Now just click, the iPad is ready and go… no wait !

3. Application on one click !

The same for the application. No wait… everything is fast… it

4. And it goes on, goes on…

The battery is very cool and it is serious… you can “work” for 10 hours. I understand why there
is no USB and Webcam and other battery consumer… the iPad is optimized and you can feel it !

5. The perfect tool for non-geek…

My little boy and my wife are what we can call technically, non-geek person… and you know what,
they feel confortable with the iPad. This is the perfect demonstration.

6. And too cool the appStore…

Here it’s like when going to the … you can find everything but nothing. A lot of stuff but

Conclusion… I think that Apple has done a kind of miracle. When I’m facing my computer screen
which is very big… I often wonder to do it with my fingers… The iPad has open a new area in
the computer world. Now the computer won’t be personnal again

The cCounter class.

* When programming a very long an complex agent it’s very fine to display the agent stats at the end of the agent’s execution. These stats could be a lot of numeric data. It’s a pain to declare and manage all these variables.
* For doing this you need to create a lot of different counters and it’s very boring to manage the init part of these counters, the increment and the display. And what a pain if you want to add a new counter…
* With my solution you will find this very easy to manage and you will add a lot of interesting counters in your next complex agent.
* The idea is to put every counter in a class which will manage for us the boring job.
* This class will init the counter, manage the increment and give us the text.

Here the code :

'  Class counter v1.0
'  By Pierre Koerber

Class cCounter
lCounter List As Long

Public Function incrementCount(sCounterName As String)
If Iselement(lCounter(sCounterName)) = False Then
lCounter(sCounterName) = 1
Else
lCounter(sCounterName) = lCounter(sCounterName) + 1
End If
End Function

Public Function toString() As String
Dim sRes As String
Forall x In lCounter

If sRes = "" Then
sRes = Listtag(x) + "=" + Cstr(x)
Else
sRes = sRes + "," + Listtag(x) + "=" + Cstr(x)
End If
End Forall
toString = sRes
End Function

End Class

'-------------------------------

' calling code, this allows you to manage three counter in a easy and cool way.

'-------------------------------

sub initialize
dim counter as new cCounter()

set doc = dc.getFirstDocument
while not(doc is nothing)
if doc.Subject(0) = "" then
Call counter.incrementCount("Err")
else

call counter.incrementCount("Treated")
end if

Call counter.incrementCount("RcdTreated")
set doc = dc.getNextDocument(doc)
wend

log(counter.toString())

end sub


Diary of my switch to ubuntu 8.10…

Remember last year post :

http://pierrekoerber.wordpress.com/2008/03/10/diary-of-my-switch-to-kubuntu/

After giving up because facing some wireless troubles, I did it again… The fact is that after one year of moderate use, my old laptop was completely unusable. WinXp was so slow, I read a lot of articles of how to boost an XP system but, what a big job and you know I haven’t so much time. I’m using an old Dell Inspirion 9200, with hh 60 gigas and 700 of RAM.

I burned the 8.10 version on a CD and went on to the installation.

The installation process went perfectly. After that I should connected my laptop to internet with the internal network car. After that ubuntu proposed me to upgrade the installation. After a reboot (like in the windows world) the system has auto-detected my internal wireless card and proposed to me the right native driver. (what a luck). I was beginning to try to install the NDIS Wrapper… but how lucky to bypass this challenge.

After installing the must-have application, I have a brand new laptop… the feeling is that the hardware is responding like a brand new PC. The interface is pretty good, and it’s really a pleasure to work with ubuntu. If like me you have an old laptop, you should try to make it young again with ubuntu.

My test is superficial, for the moment I haven’t done serious use of open-office product and so on… but we will see.

Greetings !

Install the domino server java console

For me the java console is a lost gem for the notes administrators.

It is a good feature because it allows to administrate all your server from one single point. It will run the console separatly from your notes client, and this is good because the admin client sucks ! it give you more but that’s not the subject of this post.

This article allows you to configure your Windows server to make it run.

First you should modify the start of your server to make it load the domino controller and the java console.

Take “the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControllSet\Services” key and look for the Lotus Domino key.  In there you will find an entry called ImagePath.  The add to the service’s parameter the -c to load the domino controler and the -jc if you want to load the java console the machine.

After that your server should start as in this picture :

You could start the console from your notes client directory to have the same on you computer… nice isn’it.

My virtual Lab

To improve my skills and to move forward, I just start with late to move on with visualization.

My workstation is a Windows VISTA, I know that I’m already cataloged with a big dummy sticker on my back but you know, I’m open-minded !

So to work set up my stuff I choose VIRTUAL PC 2007… you know what, it’s free ! (I know that I have already pay it to microsoft with all the craps I’ve bought to them indirectly)

One bad point is that Virtual PC doesn’t seem to enjoy ubuntu… so I’m using it with windows XP.

First problem, not enough memory on my vista computer… I bought 2 gigas of memory to have 4 giga… and you know what, VISTA 32 bit version doesn’t manage more than 3 gig of memory… thanks microsfot !

Second problem, impossible to address the virtual host from my pc because I’m using a wireless card. I found a nice blog entry which help me to fix the issue, let’s share with you :

http://www.tipandtrick.net/2008/how-to-bridge-virtual-pc-2007-to-use-host-computer-wireless-network-adapter/#comment-5793

And now everything is up, no big waste of time, no money waste ! who doesn’t think our world isn’t perfect ?

Google Chrome : review

This week the biggest event was the beta of google chrome. Everyone was excited at the office with this big news !

So the war of the browser is taking a new dimension. As the CEO of Mizilla is saying, it’s a good thing that a new participant is coming in the race… the benefit is for all the users. For myself I have a big waiting of the new google’s cellular plateform : Android. This month HTC should release the first device with this brand new technology. So the war of the mobile phones is still going on with some new competitors… As we can see the tech world is shaken by google ! from my point of view I enjoy Google because they are making the things going further and this is good.

So, what about Chrome :

1. It’s amazing how fast it starts. Firefox is looking like a big and slow program in regards of that. So for that reason, I like it.

2. The design. It’s a pretty design, simple and performant. Firefox is looking a little bit more sad with it’s old fashion grey (like application in windows 3.1…)

3. The usability (end user) for day to day browsing, no problem, simple and fast. I like the url bar which is acting as a search engine. Brillant.Firefox is as good as Chrome for that.

4. The usability (web designer). Chrome seems to have some pretty nice tools for debugging and trapping javascript. Firefox is ready too with some excellent extension like firebug.

5. The speed : the javascript engine is amazing. It will put the google apps on steroïds. Firefox will follow and improve very soon its javascript engine. Concurrence is good !

6. Bookmark management : I don’t enjoy it, I prefer the firefox way.

7. Global impression : Google Chrome is an excellent product (it’s only a beta !!) and I will use it for my main browsing.

And what about IE in my review… IE, I don’t use this crap software.  So in conclusion, the best thing you should do is to have a look by yourself.

Greetings from Switzerland !

Remove the space in a string…

Last week I was searching a way to suppress spaces in a string. I thought about the trim function… but it doesn’t do the magic.
After several minutes of thinking with the web I found a simple way…
The conclusion is : we become stupid, we can’t think first, we’re going on the web…

Dim x as string
x=”1  2   2 3  4 5″
‘*** Packed x without spaces !
x = replace(x, ” “, “”)

My favorite free apps under Windows…

Here my version 1.0 of my favorites windows applications… enjoy !

1. Development and source editing : Notespad ++

A powerfull text editor with multi-tab and add-on… try it, and rock your text editing…

2. JAVA IDE -> eclipse

The perfect JAVA editor and rich client plateform. It made me change my mind upon JAVA.

3. Image editing – the gimpShop

A free spin-off software from the Gimp… easier for time to time image editing.

4. Icon editing – free

This program is the perfect icon editor… great… and very useful.

5. PDF creator

Make your PC a real PDF engine… very good program, with command automation capabilities

6. Remote control – client and Server

If you don’t have windows XP pro or vista pro… you can install this to have a remote access on your machines… great stuff

7. FTP – client and server

The perfect FTP tool… could be easily integrated in a client or server solution.

8. Folder size

Something which seems missing in windows explorer… try it and stick to it…

Format your lotusscript, but not on WordPress…

In a previous post I told you about the possibility to format your lotusscript on the WEB… I found a running version of the lotus notes database on the WEB… it works like a charm.

Here the link :

http://www.joelitton.net/A559B2/ls2html.nsf/ConvertLS

My problem is that I couldn’t insert the generated code directly on my WordPress blog… so no nice formatted lotusscript for the moment, I keep on fighting against the tech…

See you.

Pierre

Diary of my switch to kubuntu…

Here some facts about my switch to kubuntu… I’m not a beginner with linux, I have already have a try on this in 2001. It was very interesting but it takes me times. Days are so short so I gave up.

0. Leaving windows…

Windows XP is not so bad, but my laptop began to be so slow after 3 years. So I decide to reinstall it.

The decision to switch to Kubuntu is in fact a switch in my mind to face my laziness to fight against my bad old habits. So, after facing this fact, I decided to switch my laptop from Windows XP to Kubuntu… this small article will describe my way to my escape of windows.

1. The installation… everything went right.

It is very amazing the progress that the setup of linux has done… it was very easy to install the kubuntu on my 3 years old Dell Inspirion laptop. I was very exciting to have one big try of kubuntu… I was happy to give some fresh air to my old hardware with a true operating system.

2. The DVD support.

First surprise : let’s go to finish the tuning of my machine with a little DVD playing in the background… just launch the multi-media player… and damne, facing the first surprise. It didn’t run… I search the Internet to find some magic commands to make it run. It wasn’t a serious issue, but first disapointment.

Here the links : were I found the “hack” to make my DVD running

http://roberthanson.blogspot.com/2005/11/prototypejs-periodicalexecuter.html

2. I was very exciting to make run Eclipse on Kubuntu… In fact after installing all the java stuff, Eclipse didn’t want to start, it put an ugly java error. Very disapointing.

3. The network, it ran like a charm, just plug the wire in the network interface… but what about the wireless… I began to install NDISWrapper, tried to put my windows driver to make it run without success. It didn’t matter, I would do it later.

4. Surfing under linux. I tried to surf with firefox. Firefox is not rendering like under windows. The fonts aren’t very precise on the screen. The nightmare continues everytime I face a pluggin installation… command line and so one… very stressful.

4. After one week on Kubuntu here my conclusion :

The interface (KDE 3.5) is cool. The display is cool.

The boot is very fast.

The rest is very difficult for a profane. You should have some knowledges to manage your system and you should have time to understand the underlaying concepts of this new OS. For me it wasn’t possible to deal with that… no time for administring my laptop for hours. It took me one sunday to try to have a one for one equivalent under linux, without success. I understand that Linux isn’t ready for the retail market… too complex. The good news is that kubuntu is much better than the suse linux I tried some years ago… but it isn’t mature for day to day work.

After one week-end of installation and one week under linux, I resigned. I took my windows XP setup and bring back my laptop to its old configuration. First surprise it took me only 30 minutes to finish the installation with the installation of my favorite applications and pluggins in firefox. Windows XP is not so bad… I’m still a linux believer, but not now… it should improve a lot before it will be possible to make it run in the hand of Mr Smith.

Tell me more about your tries with Linux…

Greetings !