Mathieu Jobin's Life and Thoughts

How to make Rails ActiveRecord::Migration default to MyISAM

Mathieu Jobin — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 13:56:00 -0700

Some people perfer InnoDB, other MyISAM. This post ain't about a MySQL-Engine flame war but about letting people choice.

Fact is, the excellent Migration system shipped with rubyonrails and ActiveRecord is defaulting to InnoDB. The doc shows how you can specify the engine on each create_table statement. but then your migration are mysql-only because these engine options will not be supported by sqlite or MSSQL. and I dont want to copy/paste these options to all of my create table. I want to change the default.

unfortunately Rails supply no options for it

fortunately Rails is built on Ruby.

so you can simply overwrite the proper method by adding it to your config/environment.rb

module ActiveRecord
        module ConnectionAdapters
                class MysqlAdapter < AbstractAdapter
                        def create_table(table_name, options = {}) #:nodoc:
                                super(table_name, options.reverse_merge(:options => "ENGINE=MyISAM"))
                        end
                end
        end
end

it feels good to get rid of useless stuff

Mathieu Jobin — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 08:13:00 -0700

real good

[somekool@rockinTV ~]$ sudo pacman -R gail libgnomecanvas ruby-gnomecanvas \
                                     libbonobouiruby-gnome2 libgnomeui nautilus-cd-burner \
                                     gnome-python gnome-media rhythmbox
checking dependencies...
( 1/10) removing rhythmbox                          [########################################] 100%
( 2/10) removing gnome-media                        [########################################] 100%
( 3/10) removing gnome-python                       [########################################] 100%
( 4/10) removing nautilus-cd-burner                 [########################################] 100%
( 5/10) removing ruby-gnome2                        [########################################] 100%
( 6/10) removing libgnomeui                         [########################################] 100%
( 7/10) removing libbonoboui                        [########################################] 100%
( 8/10) removing ruby-gnomecanvas                   [########################################] 100%
( 9/10) removing libgnomecanvas                     [########################################] 100%
(10/10) removing gail                               [########################################] 100%
[somekool@rockinTV ~]$

make money from not fixing your search engine

Mathieu Jobin — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 13:33:00 -0700

Amazon and Ebay showed us all the way, failed incoming search queries has got to be handled in a way to keep your customer around. But what do you do when you are too big to have any talented programmers and have too much overload in your corporate bureaucracy that you can't get anything done.

You find a way to make money from not fixing your search engine. That's what the Guinness world record website has done. Apparently so, I tried searching for several keywords: "No matching records found" is all I got as an answer.

use your cellphone, text this number to receive paid spam until you spend hours with your cellphone company to get rid of these. is it me or this is looking REAL bad.

List of go software for the iphone

Mathieu Jobin — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 19:13:00 -0700

How, this is exciting.... I just got my iphone today and it looks like 5 games are either, announced, being developped or available for the iphone and the ipod touch.

I am of course talking here about go, igo, baduk, weiqi, weiki, goe, you name it. it the best game in the universe.

Sente:Goban : Can't find it anywhere, but I have been told by email by a developer they are working on a iphone version of their excellent software
SmartGo : It has been said in this conversation that a iphone version of smart go has been demoed at the US congress 2008 in portland. Update: it came out on September 11 click here to download it
ishudan : Actually seems to be a client/server PHP software, aimed to be working well on the iphone.
tetsuki : This is the one that should make it to the AppStore. but when? Update: it came out on October 3, click here to download it
igo : ~~And finaly but not the least. iGo from Robota seems to be the only installable iphone software at the moment. It has to be installed manually through ssh, and it is not compatible with firmware 2.x~~ Now on the AppStore, and it's awesome.

I hope you have a great time practicing your go on the iphone

Question from Emily

Mathieu Jobin — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 18:47:00 -0700

Subject

Negative Balance

Question

When I type in my salary in an income entry, it shows a negative balance of that amount (e.g., I type in 2770, and it shows a balance of -2770). When I then type in my expenses, it reduces the negative amount by that number (so, income is 2770, gas is 40, balance shows -2730). So it seems the program is confusing my expenses and income. I really want to use this site, but I can't figure out how to get it to work.

Also, when I go to edit an entry, I can't find the way to edit the "reapeats" section.

Please Help!

Hi,

1 - Yes this is true. but this is only for per-page-total on the transactions list page. it is the way the system works, this total is mainly used when you do a search, actually. you can ignore it. "Home" page and "Stats" page are most important.

2 - to edit recurring options, you must edit the recurring record under the recurring expenses list page. at stored expenses in your transaction list are now just regular transactions.

have fun budgeting.

justbudget support team

Evaluate your Go style.

Mathieu Jobin — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 14:11:00 -0700

MOUHAHAHAHAHA, this is what I wrote when I was at about question 3 or 4. I did not want to forget my first thoughts while concentrating on the quiz. so I wrote it down.

hi, great test, thank you very much.

but it does not work for one reason.

I know I am a greedy player and I am trying to stop. when I answer 15 questions from 15 different board situation, I can force myself not to be greedy. but when I play 120+ moves on one board. its hard to stop being greedy.

I hope it makes sense.

I played. BBCCC AACBC CEDBC

and my result is ...

Your style is greedy

You like territory so much and it seems that we have similar playing styles. Nowadays lot of top players plays for territory too. You may know that if you grab too much cash, you will have some weak groups on the board. You must work more on Life&Death problems – they can help you to save such groups. You may also improve your ability of defending weak groups by trying “Kill-all Go”: Place 17 handicap stones and try to live as white (even with a very small group). If you are not able to live inside – make the handicap smaller.

MOUHAHAHAHAHA, I was wrong, you are right and your test works.

after reviewing quickly, just to make sure I did not made mistake writing my choices down. I realize E at #12 was bad. but remember I was not trying to change my decisions when doing this quick review. I was simply trying to remember what I had just chose. I will try again next month.

http://style.baduk.org/

Atari 2600 game collection

Mathieu Jobin — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 11:13:00 -0700

http://mightygodking.com/index.php/2008/04/21/fun-from-yesterday/

I have been waiting for this for soooo long

Mathieu Jobin — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 15:23:00 -0800

You might all already know that Today is the day Apple has released his new notebooks featuring the Intel Core2Duo Penryn Processor and the now famous MultiTouch trackpad.

I am now sitting here, waiting for my new computer I just bought over the internet a few hours ago.

15" Pro 2.5Mhz 6MB cache, 7200rpm are the options I have chosen.

Core 2 Duo T9300 for the Win !!!

congrats to me ! yei yei !

It is so funny I had made myself waiting for so long. 7 years. Yes, 7 years ago, I fell on my knees for the G4 Cube, what a beautiful creature, running the new Unix-based operating system.

since then we've seen many more beautiful creatures from Apple, the G4 iMac, the G5 iMac. I also had the chance to work on a PowerMac G5 in Vancouver and an Intel iMac 20" and a ibook in Japan.

Now it's my turn, my first very own Apple. And god, do I know this is the best deal ever with this brand new Intel processor ... T9300 yattah !

Firefox taking 1 gigabyte of ram

Mathieu Jobin — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 07:43:00 -0800

well, I must admit, it rarely pass 150MB in normal circumstance... I just thought it would be fun to push it further up. I could have waited more but I was tired. As funny as it may sound, my 2GB ram WinXP system did not suffer too much from it. Eventually I should try to max up the ram entirely see what would happen.

I passed the Gakusei level at Kanjibox.

Mathieu Jobin — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 07:53:00 -0800

Congratulations! You completed Gakusei level.

Your final score is 967 Pts!

Yahoo !!! 967 Pts!!!

but eh,... that's nothing, now I need to be able to write them all from memory.

Collections of great links from today.

Mathieu Jobin — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 09:07:00 -0800

and a copy paste from a Facebook update from the Green Party of Canada.

Breaking News: Greens are Canada's new third party! 2:58am Wednesday, Nov 14, 2007

Dear Friends,

Today is a historic first for the Green Party of Canada.

Today, for the first time in our 24-year history, we are polling as one of Canada's top three parties in a national survey of voter intentions.

The Green Party is nationally in third place. We can win seats. You can help us do it.

The latest Strategic Counsel survey for the Globe and Mail/CTV News shows that the Green Party with 13% has overtaken both the NDP (12%) and the Bloc Quebecois (11%) for the first time ever. Also, Green support in the west now stands at a strong 18%, ahead of the fourth-place NDP (16%).

We must ask for Canadians' help to ensure that Elizabeth May is in the nationally televised leaders' debates. If Elizabeth is in the debates, there is no doubt in my mind that we will elect Green MPs.

[The Green Party has never won any seats in Canada (federally or provincially), nor has the Green Party been included in any televised debates... yet]

Visit the group for more info. :)

Trouble shooting the internet : part #<no count available>

Mathieu Jobin — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 01:27:00 -0800

Hey everybody.

I was at my friends place tonight. and we had sort of a geek night. we both work in <insert computer related fields here> and ... well anyway... we've got some trouble making his inboard sata raid controller working and I ended up on that website relating to a similar problem.

"Via VT8237 Serial ATA BIOS Setting Utility V 2.10

Scan Devices Please Wait!
Press <Tab> key into user window!

(Tab doesn't work BTW)

Hardware Initiate Failed Please Check the Device!!!
The BIOS does not be installed. Press <g> to continue"

the original question of the thread was that pressing TAB when the raid controller was asking us to would simply do nothing. and tonight. my friend figured out that the bios simply had PS2 support disabled. Microsoft Windows (the OS I respect very much hahahaha) is later on adding his own PS2 support so the BIOS did not need to support the keyboard device ... Until you really need it. mouhahaha.

Bush says: swiss cheeze ain't gonna work.

Mathieu Jobin — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 20:06:00 -0800

first time in 8 years he is going to the countries he is destroying. Thanks god he is bringing wisdom to this world. determined to set peace between the two countries.Bush says: swiss cheeze ain't gonna work.

love you too

let's pay more tax this year, increase poverty and do war.

"do war" ? what...? war isn't a verb yet ? what a shame, I am warring you. wait, it is a verb.

Iraq has been warred! ハハハハハ.

thanks bush for such entertaining planet.

Magic Finger : Find the G Spot!

Mathieu Jobin — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 09:20:00 -0800

Excellent Videos

Mathieu Jobin — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 09:17:00 -0800

Tony v. Paul From the vault... Awesome stop motion fight. Just turn off your brain and enjoy.

Dice Stacking Vol 3 Nobody knows what the hell this is, but this kid sure is getting much better at it.

Bell Mobilité

Mathieu Jobin — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 14:30:00 -0800

Merci! Il y a des gens qui rendre public leur mésaventure avec nos cher compagnie monopolistique. Ecoutez ca.

KDE4 User Review : better than expected !!!

Mathieu Jobin — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 12:00:00 -0800

I have been waiting for KDE4 for a while already.... And now it has gotten much closer to the goal and it's time for a real survival test...

Due to my old computer slightly lacking horsepower, I recently switched from Gentoo to Ubuntu. tried Gnome for a little while but wasn't for me, really. Then I installed kubuntu-desktop and followed the quick steps shown on kubuntu.org about KDE4 rc2. Really easy install...

From KDE 3.5.8 I could already see many applications in the menu which had got duplicate for their KDE4 counterpart letting me try them from within my desktop. but on the early morning of December 26th, without knowing if it would work at all, I decided to give the already installed KDE4 a try. Without expecting much it shine onto my screen promptly.

Fired up, I am looking at what is to become the next best and most popular desktop on the planet. Let see what Santa-san has in store... read on for more details ...

Hey it launched... and quickly... I'd have to shut it off and launch it again to check the speed for sure but I did not wait so much that I cared.

First thing I notice is the top-right corner which contains a config tool icon, letting me add plasmoids easily. I tried them all. there is a nice little collection so far, nothing too fancy but nothing crashed at least. The "Button" plasmoid, a launcher button does not seems to work. it only shows a file icon of a binary file. But overall, I can say Plasma already works wonderfully. The quick access to the calendar isn't there yet. But what I can see if a very solid platform with endless possibilities, I can't wait to learn how to customize my new shiny desktop.

Second thing I notice : The new beautiful widget sets. they aren't Plastik or Keramik anymore. It's Oxygen, Oh god that every button and scrollbar are pretty. One thing I like a bit less, is the background of the panel at the bottom. That gray and wide border just does not cut it. But I know for sure it will be uber easy to change very soon.

These buttons appears on mouseover.

Now that good news and bad news never comes alone, I realize that I forgot to backup my ~/.kde folder and I might not be able to run KDE3 again with this user. Don't do the same mistake as me, and backup your user's config or user KDE4 under a separate user. (clock ticking...) After giving a quick look at my home directory, it seems like KDE4 applications have created their config and stuff under ~/.kde4, leaving my ~/.kde intact. I don't know for sure but it really seems like so. Therefore, everything is great.

What a wonderfully stable and fast first experience. Now I understand why they call it a RC2 release. It definitely ain't Beta anymore. I can feel the release coming soon by seeing how stable this desktop is.

Now more in details about what I personally use...

I recently started learning to play Go and for some strange reason, when I was starting qGo under KDE 3.5.8, I had no sound: I did not care that much to investigate into the problem, but here that I launch it under KDE4 and ItJustWorks(tm). Wow.

Kompose, which I use as an application switcher under KDE3 works just as fine under KDE4.

The Add applet tool to add plasmoid onto the desktop is really easy to use and while I could not find a place to click on the panel to add a pager to it, I discovered I could simply drag-n-drop an plasmoid from the add-applet dialog to the panel and Voila! ItJustWorks(tm)

I recently had to switch to pidgin because I cannot type japanese in Qt applications (please help) and it made me discover a little annoying bug. No GTK+ apps with a systray can run on KDE4 yet. Apparently caused with missing argb implementation in GTK+. (ain't exact but just to make the story short ...) There is bug ticket in both team's bugzilla so, things should get fix soon. In the mean time, don't be surprise if you see an error like this one.

somekool@somekool-laptop:~/packages/kload$ pidgin
The program 'pidgin' received an X Window System error.
This probably reflects a bug in the program.
The error was 'BadMatch (invalid parameter attributes)'.
  (Details: serial 373 error_code 8 request_code 2 minor_code 0)
  (Note to programmers: normally, X errors are reported asynchronously;
   that is, you will receive the error a while after causing it.
   To debug your program, run it with the --sync command line
   option to change this behavior. You can then get a meaningful
   backtrace from your debugger if you break on the gdk_x_error() function.)
somekool@somekool-laptop:~/packages/kload$

But that bug made me discover something very cool about KDE4. See, in order to track if the problem was related with kwin or plasma, someone on IRC made my relogin using the "failsafe" option which does not load any windowmanager or anything but an xterm. from the xterm, I manually lunched kwin-kde4 and then pidgin. Worked !!! Then I launch plasma-kde4 and BAM! pidgin crashed. So that tells me two things. One. the problem is definitely with plasma, more precisely the systray applet. TWO and the best... KDE4 can pretty much be run by launching these two program only. I suppose there is more under the hood when you launch the default startkde BUT ... think about it how this desktop has gotten much lighter. kwin and plasma and that is pretty much it. Anyone looking for a minimalistic, yet powerful desktop. KDE is in the HOUSE ! Add to that the huge optimization Trolltech have included in Qt4, this desktop is gonna be faster than a silk made and turbo propulsed rocket. How wonderful.

The Alt-F2 krunner application has totally been redesigned. The black is a little too much and makes labels unreadable here. But Oh that I love this new button "Show system activity" its like launching top in a nice GUI window, but it is much slicker, smaller and faster than the kde3 counterpart ksysgard. unbelievably awesome job. And how the process are easily sorted for the user to see the apps they care about... Wow.

I have been a heavy user of the ALT-F2 feature since early KDE1. I even believe I had a more rudimentary equivalent on the same hotkey under WindowMaker back in the days I was only running kmail and kfm from within WindowMaker. But even though KDE4 pushed the bar even further, their own new competitor might change my mind. The redesign K-Menu is awesome. I never liked the Windows(tm)-ish K-Menu but now look for yourself...

KDE4 Application Launcher - Search feature ! yé !

KDE4 Application Launcher - Applications library KDE4 Application Launcher - My Computer KDE4 Application Launcher - Recent KDE4 Application Launcher - Shutdown

And finaly, the most awaited Konsole with Split view.

Unfortunately, tabs are mirrored on each split views. So it ain't like 4 konsole tiled. I hope it changes in the final release.

That's about it. I have been running KDE4 RC2 for close to a week now, without a serious glitch. I am looking forward redesigning this panel to suit my taste.

Conclusion, what do I see is something totally new yet built on the powerful base kde is known for. There is not that many and that fancy plasma applet yet but one can clearly see how the plateform is ready for the world to develop upon.

Cheers to KDE and lets make 2008 the year of KDE on the User desktops and Business workstations. Not to forget the 400th anniversary of the oldest city in North America (Québec city). Please visit us and happy coding.

Le party du nouvel an c'est à la Place d'Youville (Québec, Québec, Canada) que ça se passe.

Mathieu Jobin — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 12:01:00 -0800

Bonjour à tous et merci de rejoindre cette évènement. Juste un petit message pour rappeler à tous que Sydney en Australie attire 1,200,000 personnes et New York entre 800,000 et 1,000,000 chaque année à leur Party du Nouvel An respectif. (Source CHIK FM) Alors on a de la compétition, mais montrons leur de quoi Québec est capable. Invitez toute votre monde à nous joindre sur la place D'Youville.

J'aimerais également noter que la ville d'Hikone au Japon, fêtait ses 400ieme en 2007 et même si la petite ville n'a que 100,000 habitant, elle a attirer 764,484 visiteurs pour leur évènement de clôture. ( http://www.hikone-400th.jp/ )

Aidez vous les uns les autres à faire de Québec la destination mondial de choix pour toute l'année 2008.

PS: ceux qui parle d'autreS langueS, faites de la pub sur le net !!!

http://monquebec2008.sympatico.msn.ca/MonQuebec2008/?module=events&id=1&eventid=281

SVP Pardonnez à ceux qui ont pèché et à ceux qui manque de professionalisme et qui donne de la publicité gratuite à Microsoft. Nous ne somme pas tous parfait, ni Bell, ni Sympatico.

Hikaru no GO - Boom in Japan

Mathieu Jobin — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 15:18:00 -0800

Windows Explorer?

Mathieu Jobin — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 05:45:00 -0800

Maybe you guys can help me. Since 1995, I have been struggling with this Windows Explorer trying to manage my windows. But all I can see is files and directories. Every forum I went to over the last 13 years have been only filled with impolite people trying to tell me I did not understand a thing and that, of course, files and directories were shown in the Windows Explorer and not windows.

Then I ask, why isn't it called the File Explorer? After all, it is a file manager that lets you explore your files and directory.

Ma deuxième éclair pendant une tempête de neige

Mathieu Jobin — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 17:34:00 -0800

Bienvenue à vous tous mes chères Québécois. Mon site n'a pas l'habitude d'attirer autant de francophone. Je vous souhaite donc la bienvenue et je remercie tout ceux qui ont récemment laissé un commentaire sur mon billet (post) de l'an dernier.

Et juste afin de préciser les informations sur ce fameux post de l'an dernier. Notez que c'était mon 28ième hiver et Je n'avais jamais vu ça de ma vie avant l'an dernier. C'est donc la deuxième année consécutive que j'assiste à une éclair pendant une tempête de neige.

J'étais au Japon et 2006 à été, mondialement, une année record de chaleur et nous avons eu très peu de neige là où j'étais comparativement aux autres années. Je crois donc que ces éclairs sont très clairement relié au réchauffement de la planète (Global Warming). Et ce peu importe ce que Wikipedia peut en dire.

Notez par contre que selon les évènements que Wikipedia relate, il ne s'agit pas de quelque chose de très commun mais plutôt rare. Et il s'agit d'un type d'évènement récent. (2000 et +).

START WORRYING NOW !

How many kanjis do I know ?

Mathieu Jobin — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 09:31:00 -0800

As of today, this is my status ;)

Immigration à Quebec (revue du MediaMatin)

Mathieu Jobin — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 12:56:00 -0800

Au Québec, 79,6 % de la population (5,7 millions d’habitants) a le français comme langue maternelle. C’est la première fois depuis 1931 que ce pourcentage est inférieur à 80.
Au Canada, un habitant sur cinq est né à l’étranger, ce qui fait du pays l’un des plus multiculturels du monde, devant les États-Unis et juste derrière l’Australie.

Ça ne se bouscule pas fort pour venir à Québec

Le Saguenay perd son monde

De l’Europe, de l’Afrique...

Et le Le tunnel de l’oubli à Québec.

Very cool mitsubishi ads from Canada

Mathieu Jobin — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 18:52:00 -0800

choque culturelle

Mathieu Jobin — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 13:32:00 -0800

je pourrais en ecrire plusieurs, mais on va commencer par une petite que jai realiser hier. cest bien connu, on dit que le choque culturel ce passe au retour.

quand jetais au japon, ca ma toujours parru normal de voir des japonais partout mais maintenant que je suis de retour.... hier je regardais les gens au tour de moi et jetais surpris de voir autant de quebecois autour de moi.

pourtant, ya 18-20 fois moins de quebecois que je japonais.