I finished the year with some big changes. After living for over twenty years at our last location, we’ve moved to a new part of our home state. There are several reasons, but mostly, we’re moving to be closer to my work. But there are challenges.

I’m the primary income earner in our household. But, the opportunities at our last location were somewhat limited for programmers like me. There are a handful of companies that employ more than one or two programmers. I’ve worked at one of them. I wouldn’t work for another. The rest don’t offer much in the way of a challenge or compensation.

For these reasons, I’ve been working remotely for five out of the last six years. Living mostly out of hotels, it has been a worthwhile sacrifice because it has allowed us to send our kids to the college of their choice (schools in the University of California system) while incurring minimum debt. For the last three years, I’ve been working for a company near our new location. So, all things considered, we moved.

And then, (after we sign ALL the documents related to purchasing a home), the client that is paying for the development project that I’m working on has some financial trouble. Almost overnight, he has stopped paying his bills. Which puts my employer in the tough spot of trying to pay us what he can without going broke himself.

For sure, that has added some stress onto our move. However that is not the worst of it. Worse, than having to worry about where your next paycheck is coming from, is the fact that we are having to make do without… television.

When planning on moving to our new place, our thought was to use the internet as a source for much of our television watching (we only watch a handful of channels anyway), supplemented with over-the-air (OTA) broadcasts of the main television networks.

So, we have set up the HD television (which we are borrowing from our youngest daughter; long story there!) and perform the “auto-scan” of channels.

Nothing. As in “no channels found.” How can that be? This is one of those new-fangled High Definition digital flat-screen TVs. They get everything, right?

It turns out that our new home is about 100 miles from the transmission towers used by the broadcast stations in this region. To make matters worse, we are in a television “shadow” such that most television signals simply pass over the top of our area, without giving the people here a chance to catch the signal. So that’s why all the neighbors have satellite dishes on their homes.

On the plus side, it has allowed us to find some new shows like Misfits and some old ones like Corner Gas. Also, since most network shows are available on the networks’ websites, we will still be able to watch most of our shows. Just a day later than most people.

Maybe this will make me read more books…. Nah!

Worse than the protests themselves, has been the police reaction to many of these protesters. In New York city there is corroborated video evidence of  police reaction that was inappropriate in scale and force. VIDEO.

In the (formerly) great state of California, we have one of the premier public university systems in the nation. The ten campuses in the UC system consistently rank in the top forty in almost every listing with several of the campuses almost always in the top five.

In the last few years, California has hit a speed-bump economically (like most other states). That has resulted in cuts to public education which include, not only the UC, but the wonderful California State University  system, local community colleges and the local school districts.

My children have had the privilege of attending UC Campuses. This is no mean feat, as admission to these campuses is reserved for those students who finish in the top 10% of students within the state. These campuses are research-oriented and employ many distinguished professors in a wide variety of areas of study. To see a Nobel laureate walking across campus is not uncommon.

In the last two years, there has been a 30% increase in tuition for attending these campuses. This is a drastic increase, out of line with the amount of services the state has had to cut elsewhere. To add insult to injury, these increases in tuition have come with increases in pay to chancellors, regents and campus presidents throughout the system.

This is not acceptable. Increases in tuition, should be met with decreases in compensation for the people administering the campus organization itself. But much like the people that OWS is trying to shame (to no avail), the chancellors, regents, and campus administrators seem to have their human sense of shame removed.

Yesterday, on the campus of UC Davis, a student protest was met with a disproportionate police reaction. VIDEO.

But enough is enough. A professor on campus, has sent an open letter to the Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi spelling out in no uncertain terms why she MUST resign. I agree wholeheartedly. My students have benefited from the time they spent on this campus. For a Chancellor to put students in harm’s way, for any reason, is not acceptable.

As an insult to the intelligence of the people who have seen the video of the incident, Katehi has sent out an email that is nothing short of outrageous. EMAIL

Am I advocating for the sort of out-of-control actions that we have seen elsewhere? Absolutely not. But I am advocating for the end of disproportionate response to what was (until then) a truly peaceful protest.

Lastly, I have included a small sample application to illustrate the process.

I hope some people find this useful.

For most of that time I’ve used the Priceline “Name Your Own Price” system with good success. That system allows you to specify a “star level” that you want and a “price level” that you are willing to pay and through some black magic they (often) find a hotel matching your requested star level at your offered price.

But every so often, something goes wrong. Today, what went wrong is that the hotel that I “won” is not up-to-snuff with regards to its assigned star level.

This week, I ended up bidding on 2.5 star hotels. In this area, 2.5 star hotels include hotels such as Marriot’s Courtyard Inn, Springhill Suites, and Hilton’s Hampton Inn. But this week, I won a stay at hotel that is not in that league. Not by a long shot. If I were to give this hotel a star rating, it would be a 1 star hotel.

Where did things go wrong? Priceline’s custom ratings system. If you visit the priceline web site, you will see that they rate hotels:

We consider a number of factors in evaluating the quality of participating hotels such as: amenities, facilities, reputation, brand, other rating services, customer feedback from guests who have stayed at the hotel, etc to assign a single star rating.

What’s missing? Quality. A hotel may have a pool, but if you wouldn’t even fish out that pool why should it count as an “amenity”?

This “1-star” hotel offers a pool, spa, breakfast and other amenities. However, the quality of those amenities is poor enough that one would not recommend them to anyone else. That is the case with this week’s hotel. The amenities are of poor quality. But in the Priceline world, the quality of amenities does not seem to be of any importance. Just the number of amenities.

So, next week, I will have to go up a star level and have to pay more, just to know that my chances of getting this hotel again are diminished.

Finally, to add insult to injury, I had to pay $70/night to get this low quality hotel. Whereas, I normally pay $50/night for a much better quality hotel (timing is everything n the Priceline world).  But the “normal” price for this hotel is $82/night. So I only saved $12/night. On a normal week, I pay $50/night for a room that goes for $130/night. That’s a savings worth mentioning.

In a perfect world we all can agree on what a 2.5 star hotel. Until then, we can just hope that some day Priceline begins to fall in line with everyone else.

So, now, I am trying to decide whether to convert that page (and its excellent SEO state) into a more general page that would be useful to more people, or whether to let my page drop down the rankings over time.

Decisions… decisions….

You can download it here: Complete MySQL and iTextSharp Project (C#).

This is just a sample / how-to. The code provides no error checking, nor does it provide any optimizations. It simply generates a PDF from a MySQL data source.

Some notes: This project follows the model which we use on a GoDaddy hosted site. Because of this, the MySQL command that we use is a “Text” command and not a stored procedure. If we were on almost any other host, we could (and should) use stored procedures to minimize attacks, especially SQL injection.

As for the iTextSharp code, we create some tables for display using the “long way”. I create and populate a Table object at a very granular level. A much more elegant way to generate the PDF would be to generate some HTML (suitable for a display/ preview) and then parse that same HTML for use as the content of the PDF.

However, difference in version 4.x and 5.x of iTextSharp have changed HTML parsing. Whereas, the code I present here, will work in 4.x and (hopefully) 5.x.

Again, this is just a simple example project. I’m sure that your particular application may have some differences that prevent this code from working as-is. But no warranty/guarantee is expressed or implied. So if this doesn’t work for you, or if you end up wiping your hard drive, it’s your fault!

I hope that you find this useful.

I work as a programmer by day. So downloading source code, modifying it, and compiling it into a usable application is not foreign to me. Nor should it be. After all, I’m a professional (I still can’t believe that they pay me to do this!)

Most of the developers who contact me ask pretty normal questions about getting iTextSharp on GoDaddy such as “Why can’t I generate any temporary files?”, “What is your strategy for cacheing the PDF output?”, etc.

But I am staggered by the number of contacts that I get from *ahem* professional developers who don’t know how do any of the tasks mentioned above.

I wrote the new step-by-step instructions after I was contacted by a developer who started out with the normal questions, but who finished by asking me to download the latest source, compile it and provide it to him for use on his site. (I had pointed him to a downloadable version of the DLL which I use on my site; but he insisted that he needed the newer verion of the DLL).

With these new step-by-step instructions, I have done everything except click the mouse and type the code change required for anyone to create their own version of the latest iTextSharp DLL.

We’ll see what kinds of questions these new step-by-step instructions prompt. “Winners” will be posted here!

Zatoichi (from the first movie)

This morning I was getting dressed and I happened to grab an old T-Shirt that I had made at CafePress. It features a picture of Zatoichi the Blind Swordsman and the phrase “What would Zatoichi do?” That got me reminiscing about about the Zatoichi series of movies which starred Shintaro Katsu back in the 60′s.

Up until recently, the Independent Film Channel (IFC) showed movies, un-cut. In fact, that was their slogan “always uncut” or something along those lines. Now, they’re just another commercial laden cable channel. But more on that later.

IFC used to have a “Samurai Saturday” during which they would show an older Samurai

Drawing his sword

movie, usually released through Janus Films. Fortunately for me, the Janus film collection apparently includes the Zatoichi series of films.

The quick-n-dirty on Zatoichi goes like this: Zatoichi is a blind swordsman whose other senses have made up for his lack of eyesight. So much so, that he has become and adroit swordsman who uses his skill to write wrongs along Japan’s countryside. He travels the countryside using the cover story of being a masseuse. We also get to see that he enjoys gambling, sake and a rollicking good time. Often, the local citizenry is besieged by a bad or corrupt crime boss who is bullying the townspeople. Zatoichi, being a defender of the downtrodden, usually comes to the rescue and forces the bad guys to relent to his superior skill with a sword.

In the first two movies we see him fall in love with a woman who is subsequently killed. This leaves him unable to truly love another until later in the series when he proposes marriage to a woman who, again, gets killed.

Zatoichi has a soft spot for kids

Like any good traveling good guy, Zatoichi has a soft spot for children. In at least one movie, Zatoichi is in charge of a young boy and we see Zatoichi forgo some rice balls so that his charge can get a meal. If there is one thing that we learn, is that Zatoichi loves to eat, so in that scene, we see that his heart truly goes out to that boy.

We also learn, in another film, that he was born with sight, and that he lost his sight when he was about six or eight years old (I’m writing this from memory, so I may be off a bit here). But that he can’t really remember “colors” anymore, as an adult. It makes one think about the concept of losing something like sight or hearing and later not being able to remember “color” or “sound.”

Then of course is his iconic “cane sword.” Since Zatoichi travels as a masseur he doesn’t want to draw attention to himself. So he carried a straight sword encased in a sheath that looks like a simple, straight walking stick or cane. Everyone is unsuspecting, until trouble starts. Then Watch Out! When he brings the sheath up to his face and begins drawing out the sword, you know that mayhem is coming, and soon!

Since he is blind, Zatoichi uses a unique fighting style in which he often handles the blade in a reverse/inverse fashion. That is, he holds the sword upside-down such that it is pointing down and back with the sharp edge facing front. From this position Zatoichi can swing the blade using what kind of resembles a punch which causes the blade to swing around and strike his opponent. Hard to describe. You need to see it for yourself.

In the end, we see a battle-worn Zatoichi triumphant, yet realizing that he must move on, since the bad guys will be coming for him.

These movies brought me a great deal of enjoyment. The stories are simple: good guy vs. bad army, with the good guy always winning. And on Saturday morning, that’s a nice thing to wake up to.

You can find the movies on Amazon and elsewhere. I hope that you take the time to see one. Hopefully you will enjoy them as much as I have.

Mankind

Every Wednesday, our boss takes us out to lunch. Like all geeks do, we started talking about some pretty fanciful topics, including Time Travel.

Ignoring the laws of physics (and the bewildered stares of the young ladies at the next table), we developed complex strategies of how we would use time travel to peek into alternate futures. (Think “Quantum Leap” with a touch of “Doctor Who”). Anyway, that got me reminiscing about my own internet past. 

Prior to registering this domain (several years ago, now) I maintained a website on a server hosted by my ISP. I can still remember the sounds of my modem syncing with the modems at TheSocket.

In case you didn’t know, there’s a cool service provided by WaybackMachine.org that archives websites from long ago.

So I looked up a site that I maintained dedicated to professional wrestling. That’s right, the WWF (now the WWE). There I had some interesting stuff, including a page that llowed you to Rate your Favorite Wrestler and a page where you could write a Love Letter to Chyna. These pages were a lot of simple HTML (mostly)

Maintaining this site took a couple of hours every week. Especially the Love Letters to Chyna page. Chyna (real name Joanie Laurer) had a lot fans, back in the day. I received several love letters for her every single day. The best ones, I made it to the site. Of course, it took a bit of work to get them on the site. The letters came in as an email, which I had to parse, edit, convert to HTML and then post to the site. A lot of work, but it was well worth it.

I always wondered if she ever stopped by to read the letters.

Sometimes I wonder just how much better that site could have been had I had a blog engine like the one I use now; or how much easier the Love Letters to Chyna page would have been to maintain had I had access to a simple database for storing those love letters. But all that contributed to my being here, now. So I guess that in the end it was all for the best.

This is how I feel.

Like a lot of geeks, I wear eyeglasses. I’ve worn them since about my junior year in High School (good ole Piner High School). Also, like a lot of geeks my head is kind of big. And not just because I’m good looking and smart (let the laughing commence), but because there’s a lot of grey matter stored in the gourd on my shoulders.

Unfortunately, having a big head makes finding new eyeglasses frames difficult. More difficult than it should, in my opinion. Here’s what I’ve gone through in the last few weeks. Does this sound familiar?

This recent activity started when I realized that I can not read any hand-held items while wearing my glasses any more. I knew what that meant: bi-focals. The scourge of eyeglass wearers everywhere. Sure they help you read things without having to remove your eyeglasses. But they are a visible reminder that you are not as young as you once were.

When did I get old enough for bifocals? Heck, when did I become an adult? I don’t feel any different than I did when I was 25. Back then I still felt like a teenager. And yes, sometimes I still feel like a teenager. That’s a good thing. Right?

Anyway, back to my story. So I see my Optometrist and get my prescription updated. My left eye seems to be getting weaker and my right eye hasn’t changed much since I was 30, or so. (I hadn’t really noticed that my left eye had become weaker, but now that I am aware of it, I can see (no pun intended) that, yes, my left eye is definitely weaker).

Step 2 is to pick out a new frame for my glasses. The last glasses have been pretty nondescript: generic looking metal frames with a rectangular shape.

This time, however, I tried to find something a bit more fashionable. So, the optician showed me something similar to what “the kids” are wearing these days. The only glitch is that they were a tiny bit smaller than the frames I wore previously. Still, they looked OK and so I went ahead and purchased them.

About a week after I bought them, I went back in to get a small adjustment made. While there, I spoke to the optician who fitted me with my glasses, and I mentioned that the glasses seemed a bit tighter than my old pair. I also mentioned that their frame selection had few frames that fit my big head. She mentioned that she, too, had trouble finding frames that fit her well. If she can’t find frames, that doesn’t bode well for me. I mean, she works there for goodness’ sakes.

(This reminds me of the time when I was in the Navy and an instructor mentioned that the standard issue gas mask then in use did not fit Hispanics well because we tended to have over large heads.)

So, like a good geek, I took to the internet in search of a solution to my problem.

There are many sites that offer eyeglasses online. But here, too, there aren’t that many sites that offer frames that I like and that fit my head. Most are too narrow, and even when you find a lens size that is adequate, there may be other size options that prevent me from buying the frames. So I guess that I may need to re-cycle my old frames in order to get glasses that fit well. Or I may need to get frames that aren’t exactly what I want, but are closer to being fashionable than my previous pair.

But what I really need is to find some fashionable frames that are designed for larger heads.

If you have an entrepreneurial spirit, this could be your next opportunity!