Thought is the blossom; language the bud; action the fruit behind it.
–Ralph Waldo Emerson
He was so learned that he could name a horse in nine languages; so ignorant that he bought a cow to ride on.
–Benjamin Franklin
What is the shortest word in the English language that contains the letters: abcdef? Answer: feedback. Don’t forget that feedback is one of the essential elements of good communication.
–Source Unknown
The day before Halloween, winter arrived in South Central Alaska. Now is the time for many months of indoor computer learning. In the summer, I stay outside in the midnight sun as long as possible.
My gaol this winter is to expand my computer programming skills. At work I use C# and Visual Studio 2010 to develop rich desktop applications with access to Oracle and SQL server.
At home, I have grown weary of Microsoft. I use VM Player to get to my old copy of windows XP. My host computer is Ubuntu 10.04. I have numerous Ubuntu desktops and servers that are virtualized and accessible via VM Player.
I want to write software in my new environment. My question started out to be What Language? I have realized this is not the right question. Read the rest of this entry »
A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged; it is the skin of a living thought, and may vary greatly in color and content according to the circumstances and the time in which it is used.
–Oliver Wendell Holmes
Writing crystallizes thought and thought produces action.
–Paul J. Meyer
Good character is like a rubber ball — thrown down hard — it bounces right back. Good reputation is like a crystal ball — thrown for gain — shattered and cracked.
–Linall Jr. A. L.
The problem occurred when I updated to Windows 7. My Crystal Reports Viewer no longer worked. The web site recognized that it was missing but the install did not work. Nothing I tried seemed to work, I found an answer on a Microsoft web site BUT the answer was flawed. This blog shows how overcome the flawed answer and make it work.
When the server needs to install the Crystal Reports Viewer, the files are extracted from a CAB file stored on the server at location like http://yourwebsitewherecrystalisinstalled/crystalreportviewers11/ActiveXControls/ActiveXViewer.cab
Tags: Crystal Reports, Windows7
Recently, I needed to configure an Oracle ODBC connection on a Windows 7, 64 bit, workstation. Oracle was loaded and functioning properly. But no Oracle ODBC driver could be found. In fact, all the ODBC drivers were missing except for Microsoft SQL Server. Even the Excel ODBC driver was missing.
I rechecked my Oracle install, I confirmed that I was running as an administrator but the drivers just were not available. Through a team effort, we found the solution. It is not obvious and I have no clue what Microsoft’s thought process is.
I documented this solution because I am afraid I will forget it and it was hard to find this solution. I hope other people find this of some help.
The actor becomes an emotional athlete. The process is painful — my personal life suffers.
-Al Pacino
I work with C# during the day. At night, I am learning Python. I try to apply my C# knowledge to coding in Python. In C#, I use properties frequently. Properties almost always have a getter method. To write to a property, there is a setter method.
I created a Python class with a property but the setter never ran. Finally, I found out why: Something about new-style class in Python. I needed to derive my classes from object, not the default parent class.
Wrong : class MyClass():
Right : class MyClass(object):
My vocation is more in composition really than anything else — building up harmonies using the guitar, orchestrating the guitar like an army, a guitar army.
-Jimmy Page
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will make me go in a corner and cry by myself for hours.
–Eric Idle
The world is a tragedy to those who feel, but a comedy to those who think.
-Horace Walpole
Men show their character in nothing more clearly than what they think laughable.
-Johann von Goethe
You can find lots of good information at the Django Project. I will be following one of the options in the installation guide. First I will download the latest django, here and save into my newly create django folder in my home directory.
Action is the foundational key to all success.
-Anthony Robbins
Whiskey has killed more men than bullets, but most men would rather be full of whiskey than bullets.
-Logan Pearsall Smith
TurnKey Linux is a great organization. The have built dozens of appliances based on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Server. These appliances can be run as virtual machines or on bare metal. Most require only 256 MB of RAM. Lately, I have been experimenting with the Django Appliance.
The Django version in this appliance is 1.1.1 I wanted to upgrade the Django to a later version. This blog will show how to do the update. The idea how to do this upgrade came from an entry in the TurnKey Linux Forum.
First, verify the version of Django.
python >>> import django >>> django.VERSION
Press ctrl-d to exit the python interpreter. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Appliance, Django, Python, TurnKey Linux, Ubuntu
Great discoveries and improvements invariably involve the co-operation of many minds. I may be given credit for having blazed the trail but when I look at the subsequent developments I feel the credit is due to others rather than to myself.
-Alexander Graham Bell
You have heard the story, haven’t you, about the man who was tarred and feathered and carried out of town on a rail? A man in the crowd asked him how he liked it. His reply was that if it was not for the honor of the thing, he would much rather walk.
-Abraham Lincoln
A gem cannot be polished without friction, nor a man perfected without trials.
-Chinese Proverb
Among Life’s precious jewels, Genuine and rare, The one that we call friendship Has worth beyond compare.
-Source Unknown
I learned a lot of useful information at Ruby on Rails Tutorial.
Open up a terminal window - Type the following commands.
mkdir ruby cd ruby wget ftp://ftp.ruby-lang.org/pub/ruby/1.9/ruby-1.9.2-p180.tar.gz tar -zxvf ruby-1.9.2-p180.tar.gz
