jessn's blog

Nokia Strategy 2011

2011-02-16T10:40:00.004+01:00

Microsoft gets Nokia, a company that sells Half a Billion Phones a Year, to install Microsoft's OS.
Microsoft gets Nokia Maps.
Microsoft gets the OVI Store.
Microsoft gets Nokias Mobile Camera Technology / team.
Nokia gets Bing and a crappy OS that isn't even doing well on its own.

Source: Nokia Strategy 2011

Conclusion
RIP Nokia (1865 - 2011)
Nokia was founded in 1865 by Fredrik Idestam.
Nokia was killed in 2011 by Stephan Elop.
Thanks so much :-\

Desktop Cube Effect on Windows

2010-11-26T18:45:00.013+01:00

Jealous of your geeky Linux friends? Do you want Beryl running under Linux, you should check out Yod’m 3D. It is a small application for Windows XP / Vista that will give you a decent substitute for the “Desktop Cube” effect. Below you will find a link to an older, but very-well working freeware version.

Download from instructables.com
(requires log in)

Direct download

Threads in C++ ...

2010-08-05T13:37:00.026+02:00

... is fairly simple.
Threads in C++ can be done by a simple and workable 3-step approach. Doing it in the right way will make it equivalent to i.e. the Java-approach, where you have to either inherit from a class (java.lang.Thread) or implement an interface (java.lang.Runnable).

Create a base class, that you might call "Thread". This class will be equivalent to the java.lang.Thread class.
Class A (your custom worker class) must inherit from the Thread class (cf. step 1).
Create an instance of your class A and call its start() method.

-- snip --
class Thread {
static DWORD WINAPI ThreadFunc(LPVOID pv) {
try { (reinterpret_cast<Thread*>(pv))->run(); }
catch(...) { }
return 0;
}
public:
typedef DWORD threadid;
virtual void run() = 0;
void start() {
threadid id;
::CreateThread(NULL, 0, ThreadFunc, this, 0, &id);
}
//...
}
};

class A : public Thread {
virtual void run() { /* To Do */ }
// ...
}


Thread * p = new A();
if (p) p->start(); // Spawns it in a new thread
-- snip --

The Danish social democratic battle song

2010-07-01T08:49:00.005+02:00

This is the Danish social democratic "battle song". I apologize in advance to the English readers for the missing translation of the song, but translation of songs and lyric make no sense due to the grammar and rhyme.

Hvem skal nu betale?
Hvem har råd til mer' ?
Hvem har mange penge, penge?
Jeg har ikke fler' !
Hvem skal nu betale?
Hvem har råd til mer' ?
Hvem har mange penge, penge?
Jeg har ikke fler'!

Please note that this post does not necessarily reflect my political view.

Personality type: INTP

2009-09-02T11:17:00.005+02:00

INTP

Architect — "It's Not Theoretically Possible"

INTPs live rich worlds inside their minds, which are full of imagination and excitement. Consequently, they sometimes find the external world pales in comparison. This may result in a lack of motivation to form and maintain relationships. INTPs are not likely to have a very large circle of significant relationships in their lives. They're much more likely to have a few very close relationships, which they hold in great esteem and with great affection. Since the INTP's primary focus and attention is turned inwards, aimed towards seeking clarity from abstract ideas, they are not naturally tuned into others' emotional feelings and needs. They tend to be difficult to get to know well, and hold back parts of themselves until the other person has proven themselves "worthy" of hearing the INTP's thoughts. Holding Knowledge and Brain Power above all else in importance, the INTP will choose to be around people who they consider to be intelligent. Once the INTP has committed themself to a relationship, they tend to be very faithful and loyal, and form affectionate attachments which are pure and straight-forward. The INTP has no interest or understanding of game-playing with regards to relationships. However, if something happens which the INTP considers irreconciliable, they will leave the relationship and not look back.

Two former colleagues in London

2009-08-24T09:55:00.006+02:00

In the beginning of August (6-9/8 2009) two former colleagues enjoyed a pleasent visit in London where the yearly Great British Beer Festival took place. An unknown amount of Guinness was consumed combined with other very good and tasty Ales that includes both bronze and silver winners. Finally enjoying a cold Guinness along the Thames a sunny evening is a great opportunity to relax and have a couple of hours off.

Three Gentlemen in London

2009-07-02T11:04:00.008+02:00

Within the period of 48 hours (26-28/6 2009) three gentlemen have been invading London. Lots of Guinness have been consumed and a dozen of night clubs and pubs have been visited. The average temperature about 28-30 degrees (35+ degrees in the tube) just intensified the thirst for the cold Guinness. Even the visit at Wimbledon required a cold Guinness.

The photo is from Tiger Tiger that is one of the night clubs located in Central London.

Lock My Computer Programmatically in C#?

2009-05-25T11:08:00.011+02:00

The following code is used to Lock a Computer programmatically. It is nothing but calling a hook on the user32.dll library and commands also exist for shut down, log off, restart...

Process.Start(@"C:\WINDOWS\system32\rundll32.exe",
     "user32.dll,LockWorkStation");

Addional information on how to use .NET Process class can be found at MSDN or by following the link below.

Process Class Documentation

Three gentlemen in London

2008-12-17T11:54:00.003+01:00

In the period 8. - 12. August 2008, three gentlemen have been visiting London (again). One of the have-to-join events this time was of course the yearly Great British Beer Festival, where an unlimited number of pints was consumed. You just cannot get enough of the taste of good beers (especially stouts and ales). During the time we also watched a football match at Wembley Stadium and what a spectatular view from the seats we got and with more than 50.000 visitors almost all the seats were taken.

Christmas beer is going to be released soon

2008-11-04T08:01:00.001+01:00

Under normal circumstances Wednesday the 5. November 2008 at 11:59 pm would be the day where the Christmas beer is going to be released, but it has been rescheduled for some years ago because of the schools. We have all have been looking forward to that Wednesday and now we have to wait two more days.

Friday the 7. November 2008

I'll strongly emphasis that Wednesday and Friday is not the same, they don't even start with the same letter. The schools felt offended because of the empty class rooms the following Thursday, but I don't find that as a legal reason to move a red-letter day. You don't move christmas eve or Constitution Day just because they occur in the middle of the week, you adjust!

There are several remedies to ensure the students will be in the class rooms the following day such as a mandatory assignment followed by an oral presentation, which is highly weighed in the regular grades. In the other words, the schools just have to think out of the box.

Audi takes the winner position again

2008-06-16T09:51:00.001+02:00

It is a pleasure to tell that Audi once again has won the 24 hrs Le Mans race. This is the eight time the winning car is an Audi and it is the sixth time it has been driven by Tom Kristen. This really makes it a pleasure to drive an Audi.

Quote:
After a fierce fightm the Audi R10 no. 2 driven by Tom Kristensen, Allan McNish and Dindo Capello has won the 24 Heures du Mans 2008. This is Tom Kristensen's 8^th victory here at Le Mans. The three Audi drivers did a great job in wining this race with a slower car than the Peugeot 908. The Peugeot 908 HDi FAP no. 7 driven by Jacques Villeneuve, Nicolas Minassian and Marc Gene arrived second and the no. 9 of Frank Montagny, Christian Klein and Ricardo Zonta arrived third. Pescarolo Sport arrived first in the unofficial petrol LMP1 category.

Source: www.leman-sensations.com

The pleasure of driving an Audi A3

2008-05-25T18:33:00.002+02:00

I am proud to announce that I'm now driving an Audi A3. It is really a pleasure to be driving such a fabulous car. Why drive with the windows or sunroof open, when you can switch on the climate control and enjoy the chilly breeze while you cruise. The quote below is from a review taken from the Auto Express magazine.

Quote:
The Audi is a relaxed cruiser, with a good ride, well-controlled damping and plenty of suspension travel. Only really nasty surfaces send shocks into the cabin. Body control and front-end grip are good too, although the handling does lack ultimate dynamic appeal, with slower steering and more body movement than racier competitors. However, it’s easy to drive, composed and well mannered. Engines are generally good too.

Source: Auto Express

Another two gentlemen in Milan

2008-05-24T14:38:00.003+02:00

During the time May 16. - 18. 2008, another two gentlemen have had a cloudy and rainy 48 hours stay in Milan. Luckily, when two gentlemen are abroad, a few clouds and rain are not enough to ruin the stay. They have really been enjoying the stay and visited "a few" bars especially the ones located at corso como. Secondly, it is really a pleasure to have a real italian pizza with a thin bottom and a delicious topping served with a good cold italian white wine. Italy is indeed the country of pasta and pizza.

During the stay "unfortunately" not everything went as expected. We did try to "hunt down" a few pints of Guinness, but both gentlemen had to realise that it was not the country of Guinness. With all respect we did find a substitute, another irish stout, but that was of course not the same as Guinness and we own Arthur Guinness an apology for that.

Another two gentlemen in London

2008-01-31T18:24:00.000+01:00

Two gentlemen have returned from a weekend (12. - 14. january) in Central London. We have been visiting an unlimited number of pubs in Soho and that includes one gay pub, but that was more a coincidence.

Of course we visited the nightclub of all nightclubs located in the South West end of London (Stockwell) and that was of course The Swan! :-) They had live music during our stay and the place was very well-attended.

To read more about the Swan, click here.

Two gentlemen in Dublin

2007-08-16T11:26:00.000+02:00

For about 1-2 weeks ago my friend and I just returned from the country of Guinness (aka Ireland). It is a exciting country with a lot of historic background. A visit to the Guinness brewery and the St. Jameson Distillery is definitely a most, when visiting the country. Pictures from the trip will soon be available at my homepage.

Upgraded Internet connection

2007-04-13T01:14:00.000+02:00

The date April 2nd 2007 that is the official date (the actual date was April 3rd) where my Internet connection got upgraded from a 6 mbit / 256 kbit to a much faster connection with a speed up to 20 mbit / 2 mbit (avg speed 16 mbit / 1.8 mbit). It is really a pleasure having such an Internet connection. I just downloaded data with the size of two CD's (approx. 1.2 Gb) , which just took ten minutes.

A God really exists! :-)

Release of Connection Pool Lib

2007-04-01T18:06:00.001+02:00

I have previously published an article at codeproject.com that describes the design of a connection pool. The source included with that article is not complete, but it still works! I have now taken the next step and finished the implementatin of the connection pool.

The implemenation is divided into three dynamic libraries:

database.dll
contains the abstraction layer of the pool
adoadapter.dll
contains a concrete ADO implementation of the pool
settings.dll
contains functionality to store the settings in the registry

Compared to the source included with the article at codeproject, this implementation has been enhanced further i.e. :

the connection string is now stored encrypted in the registry.
the abstraction layer has been put into its own dynamic link library. This makes it possible to encapsulate the vendor specific implementation and it becomes easier to change from one database to another.
the methods aquire() and release() are now made thread-safe.
the storing logic has been moved into a separate dynamic link library, which makes it possible to store the settings another place if a dynamic link library with the same interface is made by deriving the implementation from the abstract CPoolSettings class.

The snippet below illustrates briefly how the connection pool is used.

-- snip --
#include "database.h"
#include "adoadapter.h"

#import "msado15.dll" rename_namespace("")
rename("EOF", "ADO_EOF") rename("BOF", "ADO_BOF")

CPoolFactory * factory = new CADOPoolFactory;
CPool * pool = factory->getPool();
CResource * res = pool->aquire();
// use the connection, i.e.
// recordset->Open("SELECT STMT",
// res->getConnectionVariant() /* we use it here */,
// adOpenDynamic, adLockOptimistic, adCmdText);
// ...
// recordset->Close()
pool->release(res);
res = NULL;
-- snip --

First time the pool is used it will store the initial size and an encrypted connection string (with default values) in the registry. The connection string that containts the default values are written in plaintext to a file named "pool-regvalues.txt", which easily can be modified and pasted into the registry.

Another (and maybe incomplete) implementation of the connection pool in C# can be found at one of my elderly posts, which can be accessed here.

Download C++ library

(if the link fails by left-clicking on it, then right-click and choose "Save target as..." or "Copy link address")

Defence of my bachelor

2006-12-12T19:42:00.000+01:00

Finally my bachelor dissertation has been hand over to the university on schedule of course. The defence of my bachelor degree is now well-done too. I got an A for an excellent defence; a very good presentation, which did put the subject very-well into perspective.

The subject was evaluating software architecture with the usage of architectural design decisions. The evaluation was primary based on ATAM, where the ATAM method has been slightly modified.

I would like to give my thanks to the people, who were an important support to me and especially a thanks to my advisor associate professor Klaus Marius Hansen and my fellow student Jesper Palm Mortensen for encouraging me to finish the thesis in time and also for helping me producing the work.

My gratitude to all people that were supporting me and helping me at the university of Aarhus and at Ementor Denmark A/S.

Download presentation

Unit Test and C++

2006-10-03T14:54:00.000+02:00

What is CppUnit?
CppUnit is a C++ unit testing framework. It started its life as a port of [WWW] JUnit to C++ by Michael Feathers. For a quick tour of unit testing with CppUnit, see [WWW] the Cookbook in the latest documentation. For an introduction to unit testing, see [Wiki]UnitTest, [Wiki]ProgrammerTest, and [Wiki]CodeUnitTestFirst at the [Wiki]C2.com wiki.

Related links:
C/C++ unit testing tools

Official member of CAMRA

2006-09-21T09:04:00.000+02:00

I'm proud to present that I'm now officially a member of Campaign for Real Ale. I have finally received my membership card, which means discounts at the most popular pubs world-wide. Now the membership is no longer "just" an amount that has been drawn from my account. :-)

Hashing using Crypto API

2006-09-11T22:06:00.000+02:00

Hashing is one of the basic and often used features when working with crypto systems. It is used widely and can be used with different purposes. This publication describes how to use hashing with the MS Crypto API that sticks with the Win32 platform.

Download PDF

Codeproject article

Encryption with Crypto API

2006-09-11T21:40:00.000+02:00

Using information technology today gets more and more sophisticated. The information that is being transferred and stored are often classified material of some kind and it is often necessary to prevent it from being read by third parties. The keyword for this particular problem is (both logical and physical) security. This publication describes how to use encryption with the MS Crypto API that sticks with the Win32 platform.

Download PDF

Codeproject article

New RSS feed address

2006-08-07T17:34:00.000+02:00

Due to limitations at my blog account the address for my RSS feed is now changed to the following

http://feeds.feedburner.com/JessnBlog

The RSS icon at the top of this blog will send you to the that url as well.

Two Gentlemen in London

2006-08-07T09:14:00.010+02:00

One of my friends and I have just returned from another fabulous week in London.

During the entire stay the weather was terrific even that it was very hot. The last days the temperature was about 30+ degrees. The picture from the glass dome is taken one of the first days where it still was a bit cloudy, but still fabulous to visit the London Eye.

Of course one of the have-to events on the trip was the Great British Beer Festival. The Festival was held at Earl's Court and arranged by the British beer organization, Campaign for Real Ale.

SharePoint BlogPart by Steen Molberg

2006-07-24T11:45:00.000+02:00

Version 1.2 of an excellent SharePoint BlogPart made by Steen Molberg has now been released. Indeed, it took some time before it was relased, but it was definately worth waiting for. Steen is a very good friend and he manages SharePoint and its features at expert level.

BlogPart v1.2

Thanks for the acknowledgement and the pleasent words. It has been a pleasure to contribute to the blogpart and it will always be.