The peak of the storm was predicted at around noon. For once the prediction was spot on, with wind speeds of up to 40m/s (140Km/h). Combined with rain going in all directions, including down. In the afternoon the raining stopped and the wind slackened off from storm to moderate but still gusty. The temperature tapered off from 12C in the morning (5:50) to 8C late afternoon.

I picked up the XML documentation where I left off (I intended to work on it during the weekend but ...). Till we got a mail back from Robby. He had been looking into the file from the German production database that we sent him last Firday. Of course his tool broke on it.
The Germans have unexpected characters in their item descriptions ( >, < &, etc.) and they can't handle that. I had asked some time ago about things to be converted but at first they said no, just send over the data. Then leading and trailing zeroes were a problem, then empty numeric fields were a problem, now this. We will get there eventually but not before we have seen all the possible 'unexpected' stuff. On first notice now they said only the >, < and & were problems, that must be replaced by &gt;,&lt; and &amp;. When I informed them I could change a lot of other accented characters they (grudgingly) admitted that that might not be a bad idea.
They, that is the MSCC which stands for Microsoft Competence Centre but I have some doubts about their first C. They do apply the MS design philosophy, put forward a quick prototype, demand that others do the real work and patch the design afterwards, several times.
Of course the solution had to be ready by noon. Luckily we have an existing function that does the replacements for some other XML handling programs. Unluckily it handles things just a little bit wrong, introducing unwanted spaces.
So I fix that for the other programs as well (tomorrow).

Then there is a message from the NVM. They have one of our v9 programs that doesn't work and they need it working. ASAP (of course). Doing some digging I notice the change request was registered and solved and shipped but never approved and (obviously) never tested. I also find that about a month ago Koen pulled the program back into the test environment and did some changes. The changes indicate that he had no idea what was wrong at the moment. Not surprising because I don't see where the problem could be either. He did however stop working on it (didn't even compile the thing!!) and in typical style there is no external documentation and no in-line comments added since that module was turned over to him in 1995.
Now Koen may be difficult and aggravating but he is a good programmer, usually writing well performing (but unreadable) programs that just work. And it does take me till past six to produce a working solution.

 

Oeps, I noticed today, while preparing the new week that I posted the last two days to the wrong site. Maybe I 25 hours a day, like last Sunday would be a good idea.

Simple logic (the way most global warming scenarios are built).
The storm is raging at 140km/h and
the earth has a circumference (at our latitude) of approximately 20000Km.
Means
the storm will be back in 5.8333 days!

 

Still windy but no longer storming. We did get a few showers though and the temperature didn't shift up nor down. We do have an open and clear sky now, with some starts so maybe it gets cold at last.

I sort of solved the subfile problem (NVM report) yesterday. And it worked but of course the same problem was built in in various places and I solved only one occurrence to see if my solution worked. So today I spent dissecting the rest of the program and transplanting some organs routines. Then I massaged the code till it worked to perfection.

(later: And now, after washing the dishes I think I made one mistake. To be corrected on Thursday because tomorrow is an official holiday in Belgium)

Apart from that I got working on the XML remark from Robby. He requested a change to handle some problem characters (< , > and such). I offered and he accepted to change a bunch of other strange and accented characters using an existing routine.
Now he mails back that some of the replacements are causing problems. He mentions our of them. He doesn't seem to have a clue which are good and which are wrong and only tells which go wrong in the example. Either this or he deliberately refuses to supply a list (I didn't get a reply when I asked for a definite list).
So I am on my own to find out what characters must be replaced and by what. Some info can be found about replacing characters in HTML but that doesn't help because that is what I do now and what doesn't work with XML. After hours of finding interesting but not really relevant stuff I hit the XML site with an article about "character encoding in XML and Perl" ( www.xml.com/print /2000/04/26/encodings/ index.html . Which, combined with some insights gathered shows that the table we are currently using (actually in use for about two years without a problem) is not right.
Which means more work for me.

 

I had some problems getting on line yesterday. I needed 4 tries to get a connection that was acceptably fast. The first two tries provided me with a 900bps and a 1200bps connection! I normally run between 42000bps and 36000bps. The third try went to 28800bps but broke off after about a minute. sigh. The last one was stable at 4200bps. I posted and stopped. By then that conformed to what I called accepatable!
Probably some problems related to the storm.
ajem me finghers krozzed forr ththiz evennnig (but crossed fingers don't type well <g>

The wind refuses to die down though we got some almost still period. At other times it frenzied up again with some heavy rain even. The temperature remains quite low, heaving itself barely over the 10C mark.

All Saints day is a public holiday in Belgium so we have a day off. In the Netherlands it's no holiday (predominantly Protestant so they don't recognise saints) so the office will be quite but not empty.

I visited the cemetery with my father, not that I need to go there to remember my mother but rather out of custom.

Later I did a Shallow Clean (not ^TM RBT of the kitchen. Just before my uncle came for a visit. So I spent the afternoon socialising. Not my favourite pass time but no regrets.

I started (re-started actually) on my cooking and recipe pages. I think I've got a better, more distinct style now then I used in the first iteration, which never got far anyway. Experience does that from time to time.
There isn't enough yet for posting so just an appetiser must do. I have got a bunch of old recipes like that in Ami Pro format under OS/2 waiting to be converted. Watch this space (but don't hold your breath <w>)

The world is wet and windy outside but at last we have reasonably cool (5C) temperatures.

A typical day at the office. A few small issues to be solved quickly, more administration than programming. An other short discussion about the order validation in TeleSales. It's about time to do something here but no firm decision has been reached yet. And the customary change in the XML program <G>

I did send the result of the last changes on the XML program to Robby and I expect an answer back tomorrow. I can send anything they want but Theo (my direct boss) and Louis (the boss just a few steps up the ladder) want to use a uniform solution for all our XML programs. If my current solution isn't acceptable by Robby then he is going to get into trouble.
So we are set for an endgame here. And not a bit too soon. Next Friday the Germans want to implement the XML/FTP stuff. I have finished it for V8 but they are running V9 so ....
Could be an interesting week ahead.

 

Seems like Microsoft has been running Open Source for some years now, as TheRegister implies. This could be a great opportunity for their marketing morons.

I think there is a problem with the DNS server up the line somewhere. I dont's seem to be able to reach any site in the outside world. I always get the respons : "Server could not be located".

Did I mention lately that the world is a wet and windy place to live? Yep we got another windy day with rain and temperatures between 5 and 12C. and about 10 minutes of sunshine.

Of course things start to run smoothly now. Theo got a bit fed up with the delays in the XML stuff (just like me, but who am I) so he grabbed the always present management tool : meetings.
The problem we had (notice the time) was that I had been changing the XML building program tom accommodate the wishes of Robby (not personal of course). Only, whenever I did incorporate one wish he would come up with another one. An unhappy deadline busting situation. So Theo called a meeting with Louis, Robby, Danny (uses the routines that I am tweaking for another project), Sef (the department head) and me to straighten things out.
Of course the test I sent last evening came trough with flying colours. Accepted by Robby, 99.9% chance on acceptance by Danny, almost no change for him anyway (and what has to change will be done by me). So basically the problem is solved.
Of course minutes after getting the all clear from Robby and Danny I get the confirmation from the secretary about the meeting. Totally pointless now.

And I got an acceptance on the FTP part yesterday. So I can start to bring that solution forward to release 7.09. All testing and reworking had been done in 7.08, the old release. Did that today.

And I convinced Ronny to accept the big change in the TeleSales order-validation process. This started out from a set of test that were decide by us and with no options from the opco's to a set of validations where the opco could decide on running or not running and running interactively or running in batch. So we started out with no flexibility and ended up with limited flexibility trough a long and staged process. Ronny has been opposing change at every stage mainly because he looks at things with purely programmers glasses on. Recent discussions, initiated by Theo and with him included, have not brought Ronny over to a more flexible stance. Now, without Theo (got a day off) I could convince him to actually accept a maximum flexibility method. if we get it implemented the validations can be fine tuned for each and every user individually while still keeping the possibility to manage users easily.
Now we only need to work out the detail. Next week.

I guess it just was a good day. the sort of day that you don't feel like achieving much but which proves to be extremely productive if you look at it afterwards.
Tiring too.

 

I have been keeping a check on things and conclude that I can regularly read between 12 and 15 daynotes a day. There are however 32 regulars on my short list (Zannah being the only non-daynotes one). And I usually pick them in the same order. So I anyone is missing an Opera user surfing in from the Netherlands (oce.nl) or from Belgium, sorry I just need 5 extra hours a day.

Yesterday (as mentioned but you couldn't have read that) I couldn't reach anywhere. I guess some problem with DNS because I cannot reach anywhere, I am getting the "could not locate remote server" (or equivalent) message. regardless of the site I want to get at. That is not only while browsing but also when I want to get mail or when I want to login to a server with FTP. I can open the connection to my ISP however. Weird.
And I have no idea how to actually tackle this. And I cannot get help by e-mail (can't get to the server, remember).

The wind definitively is slacking off (almost still now) and the rain is letting up as well with just the one light, five minutes shower. Yet no sun and low temperatures remain (3C out now, and 15C in).

Usual Saturday shopping. Just some wine and apples and things like that. Afterwards I made sure I had an uneventful day ( stayed away from the computers <g> )

Oh, yes. While shopping I visited Masset and I mentioned the DNS problem I was having. He agreed that the best thing would be to call them up. So, once home I looked up their phone number. And went out on the net for a random page, to be able to report more or less accurately what message I got I have to get the message up on screen before I call (only one line you see). Of course the problem was gone.
So I can surf and post and mail again but I don't know what was wrong.

Cool (3C) and dry with just a whisper of a wind. By the time the sun should rise however clouds drifted in resulting in a variable grey and sunny day.

Ideal running weather in the morning.

Apart from sorting out bank slips and other bring money matters I did about nothing.