28 Tuesday May 2013
Posted in Books, Oracle, Technology
I shall be reviewing the new Packt book on Getting Started with Oracle Event Processing (details at http://bit.ly/ZTpzCh). The full review will be posted here, but will probably tweet as I go (www.twitter.com/mp3monster). Given one of the authors is Alexandre Alves I have high hopes for the book given what I found when reviewing of his OSGi In Depth book he wrote for Manning.
22 Wednesday May 2013
Posted in Music
Tags
Over the last few years it has become a common thing for artists (or more precisely record labels on behalf of artists) to offer the advance purchase of CDs with the offer of download of the album in an electronic format (MP3 or FLAC typically).
I have to admit I’ve plumped for the additional cost of this option a couple of time recently, falling for e impatient view that the CD will take time in the post and the download on release date will allow me to hear the album at the 1st opportunity.
But present purchases have just shown me to be a bit of a mug, as the CD has arrived a day or two before the official release date, allowing me to rip the album for myself and loading it onto a USB stick so I can hear it in the car 1st thing Monday morning on my way to work.
So, what is the point of the additional premium? The CD arrives early, it is faster for me to rip the CD myself (in fact modern Blu Ray drives can spin the CD so fast that it takes longer to login to a website for the download than the rip process).
So why not allow advance order purchases to download the MP3 version immediately? The risk of leak – well better to allow the MP3 to be downloaded rather than ripped as it means you can trace the leak by ‘water marking’ the download to a transaction. It can’t be the chat scoring because you can count e physical media (unless the real value is for the record company to count such purchases as 2 copies of the album in the sales stats).
I think going forward I’m going to stick to just physical plus personal ripping.
13 Monday May 2013
Posted in Books, General, Technology
I recently completed a review for Packt Publishing of some course videos on Netbeans 7 with JavaEE, which concentrated particularly at JSF and related technologies such as JPQL. The videos are a natural follow on from the author’s book Java EE 6 Development With NetBeans 7
I have to say that David Heffelfinger’s videos did a good job of walking through the basics of the technologies and would suggest that they’re worth checking out if you want to quickly get your head around this area of Java.
For more on this kind of thing checkout David’s blog – http://www.ensode.net/roller/dheffelfinger/
Only catch – I don’t know when the videos will get published officially at the moment.
Update:videos likely to be published mid June
13 Monday May 2013
Posted in General, Technology
Tags
I’ve started to use Oracle’s JDeveloper more and more, not just because I’m working with the AIA (Application Integration Architecture) Foundation Pack but also as an XSD Editor for designing interface definitions.
I’ve spent sometime trying to find a solution that can compete with XML Spy but without the huge price tag. I’ve tried OxygenXML, Eclipse, Visual Studio among others and concluded that its very good for a free tool. Perhaps still not as good as XMLSpy – but thats the difference between an IDE and a dedicated XSD/XML tool.
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JDeveloper design view- with a lot of similarities to XMLSpy in presentation |
You might think, that to use JDeveloper I have to commit to using the Oracle technology stack (and the big price tag that comes with), but this isn’t the case.
Not to mention Oracle have very much caught up with the Open Source World of Maven, there is a growing library of plugins both Official and Open Source covering a plethora of things from JUnit integration to Python & Groovy language syntaxes.
One of the nice things with XMLSpy and VisualStudio is the ability to copy into other documents the pretty formatted text (colour coded syntax etc) – making schemas or code fragments easier to look at in a document. However out of the box JDeveloper doesn’t do this out of the box. But it would seem that this capability wasn’t just wanted by me, so an extension has been written Chris Hughes that solves this problem called jdev-copyashtml.
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Once downloaded go to Help –> Check for Updates and step through so you can then choose your download – as shown.
Once installed you’ll need to restart JDeveloper. To then configure to plugin to work as you want go to Tools –> Preferences… Where you should be able to find Copy As HTML/RTF in the left menu tree to get the options to configure the plugin behaviour.
If you’re going from Windows application to another then you want the Rich Text Format setting. After that rather than Ctrl+C its Ctrl+H to copy and carry the pretty formatting/colours etc.
14 Monday Jan 2013
Posted in Technology, TOGAF
Tags
My employer is increasingly aligning its architecture team (of which I am a member) to TOGAF. As is the tradition, new year means start reviewing things like personal development plans. So I thought I’d compare my skills base against that of the TOGAF skills framework (http://pubs.opengroup.org/architecture/togaf9-doc/arch/chap52.html). Now being a bit geeky, I wanted to do the comparison using a spreadsheet rather than print the document and scribble on it – means I can keep a tab on how things progress/change as go. However I haven’t been able to locate a spreadsheet representation of the HTML/PDF documentation surprisingly, so I knocked one together. Amusingly I found a couple of colour coding/level errors in the tables of version 8 of TOGAF as provided by the Open Group.
Feel free to use the spreadsheet as you see fit (TOGAF 9.1 Architecture Skills Framework Spreadsheet), obviously within the constraints of the Open Group’s terms.
26 Thursday Jul 2012
Posted in General
Unfortunately some one kindly scrapped the side of my Alfa Romeo. So whilst the cosmetic damage was being dealt with I had a couple of loan cars. Rather trying to write a review like a car magazine (carry capacity of a boot etc) I thought I’d share my observations that made me laugh, wince and smile.
The Nissan 1st ….
A car loaded with all the electrical toys from the sensible like Bluetooth to a G Force meter (in a 1.6 petrol powered car)!!
The MP3/music selection scored well on the geek-o-meter by being a central touch screen. But trying to change album (folder) whilst was just stupidly difficult and dangerous whilst driving.
Reversing and you got a reward looking camera – great to make sure no children’s toys to accidentally squash, but the truth is those old fashioned wing mirrors far more helpful.
I think the Juke is just a jacked up small car. But jacking it up ruined any handling there was. For all the electronics I still experienced understeer and traction loss at 20mph in the damp.
I Nalso do a lot of motorway driving, and the slab sided shape and ride height made the car suffer from cross winds.
Now for the Insignia ….
This time a diesel SRi. A lot less in the gadget department, and an odd mix in my opinion. So we had sat nav which couldn’t take post codes. But no Bluetooth hands free, I’d have happily swapped the 2 features.
The screen was a good size and could use it with a BMW Idrive style control (dial based control next to handbrake ). But the screen only changed background colours at night too bright still.
On the subject of handbrake rather than a traditional leaver it had a little electronic switch. To then disengage you had to do a learner like hill start release (try to power so car strains against the breaks). This can’t do much for your pads and disks.
We had electric windows at the front but at the back it was still manual. I didnt think anyone did that anymore.
Automatic headlights – nice. But no auto dimming review mirror.
It looks like Vauxhall haven’t learnt from Alfa’s mistake of 10 years ago – pretty shaped mirrors are useless. Accepted the side profile of the car wasn’t bad, but what an ugly rear.
Given the car had Vauxhall’s sport tag (SRi) the drivers seat was part electric but no lumber adjustment and the seat back angle was as clumsy leaver.
Finally I did find the car handling was a bit fidgety on the motorway which was tiring on the arms after a couple of hours driving. Probably the the price of a lighter car with good fuel economy.
And with the return of the Alfa…
Heavier Thant the Insignia and as a result not as efficient but so finessed for a driver experience. That midrange acceleration is deeply satisfying. My only grouch the MP3 info display is poor. But I can for give that.
17 Sunday Jun 2012
Posted in Music
The Word has two little columns about vinyl record stores battling against the odds.
The fist is a new store that have combined food with vinyl in Brighton called Pie and Vinyl. With improving vinyl sales there is hope for them to buck the trend of record stores.
The second story is about the famous Pandemonium Records in Manchester where the owner famously won’t sell the record to you if it’s his last copy. Sadly the store needs help – it’s in a basement which is now suffering from chronic damp and the landlord wants the store gone. If you can help then please contact them.
12 Tuesday Jun 2012
Been quiet for a while, but thought it is time I shared a bit on what I’ve been reading recently. Firstly the fascinating but rather scholarly biography of Alan Lomax – The Man Who Recorded the World: A Biography of Alan Lomax. If you’ve not come across Alan Lomax and his father John Lomax, their contribution to music was the work to captured music initially in the US, but Alan also worked in Europe for a while
The book itself is a substantial volume, and at times feels very scholarly in nature – but then Alan approached his subject in a manner that was scholarly. It does however make the reading a bit dry at times, but ultimately very rewarding. If you want to seriously understand some musicc history you can’t go wrong with this book.
In brilliant contrast is Perfecting Sound Forever: The Story of Recorded Music
15 Thursday Sep 2011
Posted in Music
I was pondering what is the difference might between a singer/songwriter and a group. Obviously in the former the recording contract is in an individual’s name and for the egos a name up in lights and perhaps a different award category to groupd (yes another month or so and we’ll be thinking about Album of the year etc). But is that it?
You may jump up and, you fool its obvious, the song writing credits, but then very few groups collectively write lyrics; nine times out of ten the singer is also the lyrist – sensible really he has got to get his mouth around the words. Not convinced, lets look at some example – U2 – Bono; Coldplay – Chris Martin; Radiohead – Thom York. Yes some groups have multiple contributors lyrically, but they’re in the minority.
So is it the music? This stands a bit better to closer scrutiny but not by much, many singer/songwriters have had the same musicians working with them for years and contributing to the music composition process, for example Tom McRae and Jamie Cullum. At the other end you have bands where one on individual has been the common factor, and often extremely strong in their vision that the music is heavily based on their input, for example The Fall (Mark E Smith is the only common factor on all albums) and Yes (Chris Squire is the only common thread).
So next time you’re tempted to pigeon hole someone as a singer/songwriter think about it.
30 Tuesday Aug 2011
Posted in General
I was browsing through this month’s hot and popular apps in iTunes store and came across Project Magazine which claims to be the 1st magazine dedicated to be published only via the iPad.
The magazine has got some creditable names working on the magazine and backed by Virgin Digital Media – so far so good. So I thought I’d download the app see if I can see any of the magazines’ writing – the electronic equivalent of leafing through the magazine on the stand before buying. Sensibly the app offers an issue preview option before buying at £1.99 (not bad when you think Esquire, FHM etc cost best part of £5 per issue).
So I thought I’d preview the latest issue, what you get is a full screen view of the current issue’s cover, something you can read and see without asking for a preview. Talk about fall down on the final hurdle. Even the web offering of the major press allow you to see some of their writing before subscribing. A key buying incentive is seeing the magazine and getting the feel of what will be like.
Perhaps Project Mag will realise this quickly and soon, otherwise they’re going to be missing sales, and probably lots of them.
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