Truck Driver Tech

Creating a Morning Ritual

2010-06-10T09:17:00.001-06:00

Well today was the 1st day of my 30 day test of getting up at 5:30 am. The kids weren’t as cooperative as I had hoped last night but what do you expect right?

The alarm went off on schedule at 5:30 so I promptly dismissed it and wondered what I was thinking yesterday. I did manage to roll out by 5:51, not what I had planned but better than the usual 7:00. I was in kind of a daze for awhile since I didn’t have a concrete plan of activities. I ended up doing some reading of Les Strouds, Survive. I’ve gotten hooked on the SurvivorMan series. I did some pushups, had my protein drink, and enjoyed the rain.

Not a bad start.

Blogwriter Lite for iTouch

2009-11-27T21:34:00.001-07:00

Well I am going to give this app a try. I'm not really a text type of guy. This app Is free so you can't upload pictures with it but I just LOVE my new iTouch. I haven't been blogging for quite awhile.

FTP resolve IP address

2009-05-06T14:51:00.001-06:00

I can’t believe I didn’t think of this! (Actually I can but that’s a different story.)

An associate was trying to get the IP address of a site she had just FTP through the browser to.

Fairly simple.

open cmd window.
ping ftp://somesite.com
resolves the IP addresss dotted notation.

One thing to note is it will time out but who cares! We got the IP address we were looking for. Pretty smart!

Thanks Bruce!

Blasted AntiVirXP08

2008-08-30T18:55:00.002-06:00

Well, I knew it was going to happen. One of the kids happened to stumble upon the Spyware, Malware crap that is AntiVirXP08. I should have read all of the instructions at this helpful site. I should have read all the instructions but I didn't so now I'm waiting on a XP OS CD trying to repair the Windows installation. I think I should have tried some more things. I didn't read through the comments. There are some good tidbits of info in the comments.

So if you get this good luck. As for me I have changed the password of the logon of my computer and the kids are all getting a lecture.

Birthday Burrito, Arriba!!!!

2008-04-15T10:26:00.001-06:00

We have a tradition here in the IT department known as Birthday Burrito. We go take the birthday "kid" out for a nice burrito for lunch. We usually go to La Frontera, they have a kickin' Somthered Burrito with onions, delicious!!!

Yesterday was a 2-for-1 deal, Randy and Martin, not the same day but close enough. The boss was payin' this time so it was off to Guadalahonky's which is also some pretty good mexican food.

Don't Randy and Martin look excited. I think we need to continue this sombrero thing!!

WD My Book 500GB Home Edition: backup plan

2008-02-17T22:07:00.001-07:00

Taxes came back!! Sweet! After discussing with the wife why it might be good to backup her 20,000+ pics, I was given the okay. Yes it's over 20 Thousand pictures. Thank God for digital. I think we still have about 100 rolls of film to develop before they die, but that's another dilemma. This is how I solved my current dilemma.

Introducing the Western Digital My Book Home Edition. It's an external Hard Drive. A pretty good one. It's technically a 500GB SATA drive. We purchased it from Costco for $129. It comes with some software. A program called WD anywhere backup, which I found less than useful. It didn't have enough features for me and my circumstances. It also comes with some Google software you could just download from the net. Again basically useless.

My current configuration is a 36GB OS drive and a 160GB data drive. I don't save anything to the OS drive, it's just the OS and programs. All data goes to the Data drive so I don't have to worry about my data when I need to do major config changes to the OS. The My Book comes pre-formatted to FAT 32, so that was a problem. Solution= reformat it to NTFS. I chose to use Windows XP pro backup utility. First I did a backup of the DATA drive and then I used the utility to do incremental backups daily at 10 pm.

So nothing fancy. Will it work, I believe so. Should I have a backup plan offsite, probably. Wish me luck, now back to that College Algebra.

CES in Las Vegas Hoot, Hoot!

2008-01-08T22:40:00.001-07:00

Well CES is going on in Las Vegas right now. I asked my boss if they would send me next year.

"Send the hardware boys," she exclaimed, "We do software."

"Curses!$%#" and I thought I might get a chance to stay at the Hooters Casino courtesy of work. Oh well that's life.

Edit Word tip for AS400 QRY

2007-08-20T10:02:00.001-06:00

I had a user call me this early Monday morning with a request. He needed some subtotals on a query he was running. So I copied it to my library and started to work.

The first error I noticed was a "Edit word for T01.CURVAL total was not specified." So that meant we had a problem in the Report Column Formatting. A problem within the T01.CURVAL specification. The option set was 4 i.e. Edit word. It was set like this:

Edit word . . . . . ' , , 0 . -'
Edit word for
summary total . .

Nothing was set for the summary total. This was the first thing to fix. Every time I tried to set it I got a "Edit word does not match length for total summary function" error. Finally the ever helpful F1 function saved the day. It turns out that the length of a total field is 3 digits longer than the numeric field. Once I knew that it was simple.

He also wasn't getting the subtotals he wanted. His city report break was set to level "2", but hadn't set or formatted the level "2" break.

A couple of fairly easy things. I was just able to see them cause I was taking a quick look. I had fresh eyes, he had probably been working on it a while. Sometimes it just takes a fresh perspective.

FTP on the 400 or the iSeries (lessons learned)

2007-08-14T16:18:00.001-06:00

I got the simple assignment of sending some source code to a sister company. It would have been simple if I had only done it a couple of times. Windows to Windows is pretty straight forward. You can just zip and e-mail. With the iSeries I decided I would use FTP. Quick and easy, right?!

FTP can be done with only a few parameters. It can be pretty powerful, if you know what you're doing. I was trying pretty simple. This is the code I was trying to do.

FTP 'www.sisterco.com/SourceFromMe/'

put BASICDB/SRCSAVF SAVF

Pretty lowkey and nitty gritty, huh!? Well I got some errors. "Cannot find host 'www.sisterco.com/SourceFromMe' " I checked everything I could think of. I tried to check case, just the domain name, with http, nothing worked. I then decided to try and send it to my Laptop. Command line, IPCONFIG (got my address), back to the iSeries. Try......with no luck.

I broke down and started to ask some questions. No surprise I'm not running a FTP server on my laptop, the iSeries is. So instead of doing a push try a get. This worked marvelously. I then used FileZilla to send to the SisterCo.

A couple of notes:

You may need to change transfer type to BINARY to avoid possible translation errors.
You may need a userid and password. (I had this going to the iSeries to do the get.

Let me know if I forgot anything major. Later......

Smileys, Smileys, & More Smileys

2007-07-08T09:14:00.000-06:00

I have been using Windows Live writer for a little while. It has some issues, but oh well. I don't have the time to improve it. Thanks go out to Rahul Soni. I think the Spaces emoticon plugin was kind of weak. Rahul's rocks.

What can I say I'm a sucker for Smileys

Users- They make it easy to Debug

2007-07-07T08:32:00.001-06:00

I just love Blaugh.com. This site always has a good chuckle.

We have a user where I work, "God bless her!" that always seems to have issues. It's OK, really who doesn't? I like that, sort of, about old people. They are not interested in pretense. They speak their mind.

I have found with my "special" user the best way to help her is to remote her desktop. We just speak on different wavelengths. So if I can just peep in on what it is she is trying to do, it really helps. What have you found helps when dealing with unclear user requests? Hit me up in the comments, thanks.

Programmer Business Cards?

2007-06-28T16:11:00.001-06:00

This is a new thing for me. I have been a programmer now (officially) for 1 yr. To be honest, I don't think I have had more than a couple of opportunities when I could have used a "business card." Do programmers need business cards? GT said he has only used a handful in the couple decades he has worked as a programmer. However the new Kid on the block says she has used them quite frequently.

So do I need a business card? I don't know. What do you think? I guess if I had some then the opportunities might present themselves. It would be kind of like that process when you buy a new car and then you see them EVERYWHERE. Work would pay for them. So should I get some. I don't know, probably. Get the cards and let them collect dust.

Windows Live Writer 2 (Beta) up for Grabs

2007-06-14T17:12:00.001-06:00

The Writer Zone actually released it on May 30th. I'm only a couple of weeks behind. It, as standard for beta, came with a few bugs. So far there are 3 I know of. Two are documented on the Writer Zone.

Installation issues. (Didn't happen to me.)
System Hangs while running LiveWriter. (Again lucky.)
Doesn't refresh categories from Blogger.(Not so lucky.)

The first 2 issues are documented at the Writer Zone. Even though I didn't have an issue with the system "hangin" I followed their solution. Basically Windows starts a service which greedily hogs the CPU. Which is kind of Typical. To fix this is a 2 step process.

Stop the Service. net stop "Windows Live Setup Service"
Disable at startup. sc config "WLSetupSvc" start= disabled

So for awhile I am going to try this Desktop editor. Let me know what you use. I know there are a lot of "Blogger" blogs out there. Does everybody just use the online WYSIWYG? Isn't there a choice?

Viva la Revolucion!

I might have blue screened myself

2007-06-09T16:22:00.001-06:00

I think this might have been me for the last couple of months.

Good news though. School is out. I got a "B" and a "C-" not the greatest grades but Hey at least I don't have to take these 2 classes over.

A "COMMON" Experience

2007-03-27T22:51:00.000-06:00

Have you heard of "COMMON"? It’s an organization for users of the iSeries and AS/400 IBM midrange systems. It is setup to be a forum for education and networking to further develop and enable users. They have webinars, webcasts, seminars, and a yearly conference. That conference this year will be at the end of April. I have been fortunate enough to be going. Yep! Work is sending me. I am so excited!!

I have been a blue collar man for so long. It is different to be getting such an opportunity. Work is footing the bill. I could never afford such an expense. There will be tons to learn. They are having like 500 sessions. There are technical sessions, professional development, business strategy, PHP, Websphere, RPGIV, and much more. I have only recently been perusing the session guide. It is actually a bit overwhelming. There is quite the emphasis on Web Applications. I want to take some classes that will help me with some current projects. I also want to learn some things that will help me as I move forward with my career. I will probably only take a few classes that lean towards IT Management. I am going to decide on a course of study in the next couple of days.

Decisions, decisions. I’ve heard the best choice is the firm choice. You pick something and stick with it.

Appreciation is Sweet!

2007-02-26T18:56:00.000-07:00

Today was a pretty good day. I am the "Newbie" here and I have struggled a fair bit. The people here have been great. They have taught me a lot.

One of the other programmers, a senior programmer/analyst, is really focused. She knows a ton. She has probably forgot more than I will ever learn. She has such a vast store of knowledge that I will admit I am a little bit intimidated. Heck, I’m kinda scared. Seriously though I look up to her. I am very glad she’s on my side.

Here’s what happened today. We had implemented a "search" function. A user was doing a name search on FREDDY’S and getting a SELECTOR ERROR. We tried to replicate the error and typed in FREDDY which worked. I suggested "just for giggles" put the apostrophe in. That was the bug.

"Good one Charlie! " She exclaimed. It sure feels good when you get one right!

Windows Vista is it just Hype?

2007-02-13T06:52:00.000-07:00

So does that sound about right? I think the guys over at Blaugh might be on to something. I know it will have all these great graphics and all. The thing is I think Windows XP is already memory intensive. If you have studied software evolution and I have, just a little. This is the mantra: "Software pushes hardware." It can be frustrating too! We have really good hardware, just think of how far we have come in the last 5 years. Not even a decade. It's a vicious cycle. It seems backwards compatibility is becoming less and less of an issue.

That's life, right?!

Post2Blog: Blog Editor Review

2007-02-07T08:36:00.000-07:00

I downloaded Post2Blog yesterday from GiveawayoftheDay. There has only been a few applications that I have wanted so far but it’s nice that they are free. This application has quite a few features.

Microsoft Word post2blog toolbar.

Full text editor, can display the HTML.

Upload images via FTP, to Imageshack, Flickr.

Supports over 30 Blog types (Blogger, Wordpress, Moveable Type, are just a couple.)

Ability to manage several blogs from one editor.

Portable version that can be run from a USB thumbdrive or jumpdrive. (Very cool.)

Smileys obviously.

Ping a dozen or more ping services. (Technorati, Weblogs, Ping-O-Matic.)

Export to Google base or create a PDF from up to 50 recent Posts.

Works with a few RSS services, RSS Bandit and SharpReader.

Add Technorati, Buzzwords, del.icio.us, and 43 words tags.

Insert Chitika and Adsenseads into your posts.

Amazon affiliate link feature.

What didn’t work was importing the Title from recent posts. I was glad to discover the "publishing" of titles worked. Also where are my labels or categories? The cost is a little high as well, $39.95. There is a ’free’ version, the express. Well I plan to do more testing and will post an update.

If you have tried Post2Blog let me know what you think.

Test Post with Post2BLog

2007-02-06T22:09:00.000-07:00

Well I did a review and then Post2BLog kind of hosed my system. So the review I was working on for the last hour. Gone. Thanks, now I am out of time. Maybe tomorrow.

Secure Gmail at public CPU

2007-01-30T09:21:00.001-07:00

Do you find yourself using the public library computer? What about the local University computer? You just want to hop on and check the Gmail. You can't wait to see if you won that newest StarWars gadget off of Ebay.

Well I stumbled across this tip at Lifehacker, Ithink. I love the simplicity of it all.

When you type in the URL just add an s like : https://gmail.google.com. That way you are using the Secure 128-bit encryption.

Another little suggestion to beat "keyloggers" is to amid typing in your password, type random alphameric characters into other fields. So the password "secret" could end up s45tedfchurxze98top. The red characters being actually typed in the password box and the others being typed in the search box, another window, or the url bar.

It takes a little time but what is your security worth? I want to get a flash drive all configured, so I can just plug and work. Once I get that going I'll post. So anyone got that "Gdrive"?

Danes 1 GB jumpdrive

2007-01-22T17:51:00.000-07:00

I lost my Crucial 256 MB jumpdrive last week. It drove me nuts! I think it might have been stolen. So it was off to the store to get a new one. Some how I ended up in Target, Jackpot!

I really only had 2 requirements.

It had to be at least a Gig.
It needed to be cheap, $.

Well, this one definitely fit the bill. It's a Dane-Elec 1 GB USB 2.0 Drive. It was regularly $49.99, when I walked in it was on sale for $17.99! You can't beat that. So far so good. I like the USB 2.0. FAST!!
Here's one thing that I have always found interesting. It is a 1 GB drive. However it really has 965 MB, not a 1000 MB. I have to admit though there are 1012.486 bytes available.

I guess Math will never be my strong suit.

So my review. It's awesome.
I love it.
What do you like to use for portable storage?

Favicons: neat little things

2007-01-19T23:50:00.001-07:00

Well it was time to have a little fun so I decided to build a favicon for this site. What is a favicon? Well if you look up in the address bar there is a little graphic to the left of the address. This graphic is a favicon. "Favorite Icon" is what it means. I'm guessing here. It took just a little bit of research but here's the jist of adding a favicon.

First jump over to here. You can make a favicon from an uploaded pic.

This is my favicon.

Then you need to insert this code between the<HEAD>opening tag and the </HEAD>closing tag.

http://www.whereverhosted.com/favicon.ico is the URL where you have your favicon hosted. Thanks also goes out to BlogU, check their post out about adding a favicon.

UPDATE: I had a hard time finding where exactly to put it so here's what I did.

Go to Layout, edit HTML, and download the template.
Open it in "Word" search for "head", keep going through til you find the /head tag.
Insert it just before
Upload and SHAAZAAMM!

Debug Tips: RPGLE w/ SQL

2007-01-17T20:53:00.001-07:00

I learned this one today. We were debugging an RPGLE program w/ embedded SQL. While stepping through we discovered our bug pretty quick. So to end the debug session, we hit F3 to exit. This closed most of the files we had open. Yeah, a few files were left open. This could have posed a dirty data issue. After a brief analysis of the open files we discovered the files were opened by our embedded SQL.

This led to a discussion about "open" files and the process involved with "running" a program. I learned that the AS400 actually opens a new "instance" of a program and you will have object locks on files. There are good reasons to do this. If you look at some web applications, such as a "shopping cart", you want more than one.

I know I am omitting some details. I am a simple guy and I try to keep it simple. This has led me to a new process when I am debugging a program. If I think I might or do know I have some files open.

log out and log back in. (Sort of a reboot.)
check the library list. (I keep missing this.

If you have any ideas or suggestions, let me know.

USB Batteries

2007-01-17T08:05:00.001-07:00

These are really pretty cool. Rechargeable batteries have been around for awhile, but these have a nice twist. Some engineer got pretty clever on this one. He has tapped into one of the useful features of the grand USB port. It's power supplication. That's right! He has incorporated the charger into the battery.

Here is the low down on these Badboys. When it is time to recharge, you just pop the battery top to expose the male USB connector. You don't have to remember where the charger is, just find an available USB port. They are everywhere today; laptop, desktop,or USB hub.

You can purchase them from ThinkGeek.com and thanks go out to Techzi.

The Electricity Flows at CES

2007-01-10T13:04:00.001-07:00

This has always been cool. When I was a kid I wanted one of these so bad. CNET has an article up on the new Taser C2, a stungun for everyone. Didn't you want to ZAP your big brother with 50 volts?! Well there are some practical uses. Here are the specs:

15 foot range.
lithium powere magazine.
integrated LED light to improve aim.
trigger safety cover.
available in 4 colors: black, silver, pink and "electric" blue.

What they have done is removed some of the police taser features. So what you won't get:

Taser cam interface (you can't record your bro' writhing in pain.)
dataport management
digital display

Is it worth the $299 pricetag? That will be based on your personal situation. Just to have as a toy? Probably not.