Is it okay to text your ex or anyone else for that mater during the Holidays?  Yesterday, being Thanksgiving and all, I received an enormous amount of “Happy Thanksgiving”, “Happy Turkey Day”, “Save a turkey” (from my vegetarian friends), etc… text messages.  I love to text, just like the next person, but I really hate Holiday texts!

They are so impersonal and generic.  I guess on one hand, I should be grateful so many people wanted to wish me a happy day…but what if your ex sends you a text?  Do you respond, even if you are trying to move on?  Are Holidays the exception?  Is it okay to text?

I don’t know, the jury is still out on this question.  Long story short, the ex texted me yesterday.  I didn’t text him or anyone else back for that matter.  I don’t know why he still has my number or contact info and why he continues to use them?  I’m trying my best here, but he’s making it hard!

Maybe it’s not about me and maybe he was just trying to be nice and festive…only time will tell.  Until then, I’m going to do my best to stay clear of my phone for a while.

Example 1 – Read File and close

counter = 1
file = File.new("readfile.rb", "r")
while (line = file.gets)
    puts "#{counter}: #{line}"
    counter = counter + 1
end
file.close

Example 2 – Pass file to block

File.open("readfile.rb", "r") do |infile|
while (line = infile.gets)
    puts "#{counter}: #{line}"
    counter = counter + 1
    end
end

Example 3 – Read File with Exception Handling

counter = 1
begin
    file = File.new("readfile.rb", "r")
    while (line = file.gets)
    puts "#{counter}: #{line}"
    counter = counter + 1
end
file.close

rescue => err
    puts "Exception: #{err}"
    err
end

Modes
r – Read-only, starts at beginning of file (default mode).
r+ – Read-write, starts at beginning of file.
w – Write-only, truncates existing file to zero length or creates a new file for writing.
w+ – Read-write, truncates existing file to zero length or creates a new file for reading and writing.
a – Write-only, starts at end of file if file exists, otherwise creates a new file for writing.
a+ – Read-write, starts at end of file if file exists, otherwise creates a new file for reading and writing.

今天我在使用 gdata(來自 PHP Zend framework) 嘗試存取一段youtube video的影片的時候遇到了標題的error. 我使用了半個小時設定一個正確的 InstalltionChecker.php, 先排除我的伺服器已經裝有 php-xml libraries, ssl libraries, 但仍然無解. Google 沒有提供一個合用的答案.

最後我發現, 是youtube 判定該 video 違反了某些版權協定, 所以返回了 400錯誤碼, 正解是:

<?php
try {
  $yt = new Zend_Gdata_YouTube();
  $videoEntry = $yt->getVideoEntry($key);
} catch(Zend_Gdata_App_HttpException e) {
  //handle error
}
?>

Today i encountered the above error when i am trying to fetch youtube data given the video id using PHP Zend framework suggested by google. I had made half an hour top setup the InstallationChecker.php, which shows the installation had no errors. I further debug using xdebug, cross check php-xml libraries, ssl libraries on the server, but no clue. Google do not provide a solution.

In the end, youtube banned the video because of copyrights, but just throw a response code 400… to solve it:

<?php
try {
  $yt = new Zend_Gdata_YouTube();
  $videoEntry = $yt->getVideoEntry($key);
} catch(Zend_Gdata_App_HttpException e) {
  //handle error
}
?>

Melodious musique de jazz will fill the air once more this fall as the Caribbean’s longest running jazz festival, the Martinique Jazz Festival, will be held November 26 to December 6. The festival, which dates back to 1983, has long provided a showcase for local and international artists to share their talents with a lively and appreciative crowd of music lovers from all corners of the globe. This year will be no exception, as a solid line-up of musicians are set to combine with interactive master classes, film screenings and exhibits to create the ultimate jazz experience under the warm Caribbean sun.

Among the international artists scheduled to perform are Elizabeth Kontomanou (France), the Kenny Barron Trio (USA), and Lionel Loueke (Bénin/USA). A highlight of the event will no doubt be the performance of steel pan master, Andy Narell (USA), who will team with calypso legend, Relator (Trinidad) to perform innovative “PanJazz” selections from their new album, University of Calypso.

Muriel Wiltord, director Americas for the Martinique Promotion Bureau/CMT USA, commented on the festival, stating: “Over the years, the Martinique Jazz Festival has attracted some of the biggest names in jazz and scores of their fans to our shores. We look forward to more of the same in 2009 and beyond.”

Jazz luminaries who have performed at the Martinique Jazz Festival in years past include the Marsalis brothers, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Paquito d’Rivera, Chucho Valdes, and many more.

Martinique Jazz Festival performances will be held primarily at L’Atrium, in the capital city, Fort-de-France, with additional concerts and events held in the towns of Sainte Anne, Sainte Marie, Lamentin, Riviere Salee, Sainte Luce and the La Pagerie Museum in Trois-Ilets, childhood home of Empress Josephine.

The Caribbean island with French flair, The Isle of Flowers, The Rum Capital of the World, The Isle of the Famed Poet (Aimé Césaire) – by any one of its many names Martinique remains one of the most alluring and enchanting destinations in the world; as unforgettable as a summer romance or a first kiss. Named “Best Gourmet Island of the Year 2008″ by Caribbean World Magazine, Martinique is an overseas region of France that stirs the passions with distinctive culinary delights, awe-inspiring natural beauty, a rich cultural history, warm smiles and so much more. Napoleon’s bride, Empress Josephine, was born and raised here. The Pompeii of the Caribbean, St. Pierre, is found here. The finest French products, from Chanel fashions to Limoges porcelain, are readily available here. La Route des Rhums, a tour of the world’s finest rum distilleries based on France’s famed Route des Vins, is offered here. A special place, to be sure, with so much to offer – Martinique c’est magnifique!

Still the only thing fresh in this town is the manure.   The stagnation of inherited inbred ideology lingers with this aire.  To some, this night of memorabilia is their only experience of a dream.  Long lost hopes, from the gates of a requiem walking hand in hand with a Coors light and some road kill at their side.  For others, it was like the day after their cousin married outside of their race… being careful with their words, afraid to ask real questions…  None the less, no real care to take a step out.

After the bar was spit up on by the drooling outsiders, the classmate’s reunited and separated once again into their old cliques. 

Lacking any real truth, with manipulating, superficial honesty, they go back and forth with attacks on each other and those they feel threatened by.   Curtness and lack of propriety in their values and morals with each breath out, they seem to be warm and cozy in their disgusting dialog.  The pot calling the kettle black.  Gossiping about gossipers.  Tragedy of life being so pitiful is the only reality here that is spoken, though the directors of this play haven’t the faintest idea of how the script is as old as their addicted, handed down, rewinded and rewinded ”original ideas” that they all share and pretend are so original.  Each actor plays the part of enabling this to continue, playing ignorant and growing older. 

 I sit to wait for the tow truck.  Keys in the trunk, sister in His bed.  The one exception I saw all night and I offered her to him, best indeed.  To keep myself from a weakness that could bring this place… this heap of a town closer to me.  I doubt there would be any power from him, but I stay careful of tragedy and a trip into hell.

When starting the Admin Server of our domain we encountered following error:

####<Nov 13, 2009 11:58:23 AM CET> <Critical> <WebLogicServer> <machine-name> <as> <Main Thread> <<WLS Kernel>> <> <> <12
58109903043> <BEA-000386> <Server subsystem failed. Reason: java.lang.NumberFormatException: null
java.lang.NumberFormatException: null
        at java.lang.Integer.parseInt(Integer.java:415)
        at java.lang.Integer.parseInt(Integer.java:497)
        at weblogic.ldap.EmbeddedLDAP.validateVDEDirectories(EmbeddedLDAP.java:1035)
        at weblogic.ldap.EmbeddedLDAP.start(EmbeddedLDAP.java:212)
        at weblogic.t3.srvr.SubsystemRequest.run(SubsystemRequest.java:64)
        at weblogic.work.ExecuteThread.execute(ExecuteThread.java:209)
        at weblogic.work.ExecuteThread.run(ExecuteThread.java:181)
>

The first thing we tried is restoring a backup of the ldap folder. This backup can be found at: ../domain-name/server/adminserver/data/ldap/backup/ and should be restored at ../domain-name/server/adminserver/data/ldap/ldapfiles.

When this was not working, we kept looking and stumbled upon a site that told us that this error could be caused when the volume that contains these files is running full. WebLogic will corrupt these files. And the solution is to add ‘replica.num=0′ to the ../domain-name/server/adminserver/data/ldap/config/replicas.prop file. Or just remove this file..

Source: http://ghattus.com/2008/10/number-format-exception-while-starting-weblogic-server.html

What do Caster Semenya, Oscar Pistorius, Eero Mantyranta, and Asmahan Mansour have in common? Their athletic bodies are all contested sites of media speculation. Each athlete has been thrust into the spotlight in calling attention to the means by which their bodies are the exception to, and challenge what we perceive to be, the “norm.” Semenya, for example, has recently been placed in the limelight as a challenge to the long-debated sex/gender binary in sport; Pistorius was brought to the fore for his alleged advantage due to his (dis)ability media status as a “blade runner,” and Mantyranta was in the spotlight for years as an alleged potential drug abuser due to a genetic mutation giving him a “naturally” high blood count. The youngest of these is 11-year-old Mansour, who, in 2007, Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) prevented from participating in a Canadian junior soccer league due to her “choice” to wear a religious headscarf, a Hijab.

In consideration of the vast media attention given to these particular athletes, I have opted to focus on the body as a common theme, or, more specifically, on what constitutes the natural, “normalized” body. I’m interested in the way in which a power-knowledge nexus constructs and shapes bodies as natural or biological, labeling them, categorizing them, and finally stamping them with a seal of approval or, as is the case of these athletes, disapproval. Further, I’m keen to explore, through the case studies listed, the disruption of such norms through these “athletic exceptions.” Within each of these particular case studies, I hope to further examine what it means to be considered “(ab)normal” or biologically “(un)natural,” and the role the media, in addition to its intersection with scientific discourse and sport policy, plays in perpetuating and reinforcing these binaries between norms and exceptions, resultantly hypostatizing both sides of the binary as essential truths, whether that be the truth of normality or abnormality. Such “truths” arising from common sense belief, scientific discourse, and policy that circulate in the popular media serve to determine whether a body is normal and accepted or contested terrain construed as an anomaly.

 The link between scientific discourse, media, and policy is an imperative nexus to comprehend because it allows us to appreciate the way in which knowledge and power are inter-connected and in no way unilateral. For example, scientific discourse problematically intersects with international sporting policy, such as that stipulated by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and FIFA, in terms of its influence in shaping policy regulations and identifying who can compete in the said sport. Regulations for gender testing found in the IOC policy is just one example of this, as is the regulation of disability sport, who counts as able bodied, or what constitutes a “doped” body as opposed to a “natural” body. In this way science underpins policy; it informs it and is deeply embedded within it.[1]

When governing bodies deem cases “exceptional,” since they do not comport with classifications provided within policy guidelines, it is the media which reports these cases to the general public and it is, therefore through this communication medium that such stringent bodily ideals as defined in science and policy are perpetuated. Those exposed to media discussions of these athletic cases thus comprehend the scientific discourse perpetuated as a truth, whereby the body is a biologically classifiable site in which these exceptional cases do not fit; exceptional cases are ousted, “othered,” and construed as abnormal. Not only is this a problem in terms of general public awareness and understanding, but it is also a problem in terms of sport policy. Since the media-policy-science nexus articulates itself as presenting axiomatic truths, cases that fail to conform to policy regulation are reified in the media as abnormal, thus reinforcing policy, and policy remains without change.

Given this intricate nexus between media, policy, and scientific knowledge, it is my task to understand this nexus further, and to articulate how this centers the natural, normal body as the source of scientific investigation. In order to reach this understanding and to trouble contemporary discourses of athletic bodily identity from a scientific perspective, I intend to use the theoretical tools provided in the work of Michel Foucault. Following Foucault’s understanding of power, knowledge, biopower and governmentality, I argue through a biopolitical lens that athletic identity is represented in sport policy and the popular media through a biologically given, pre-determined scope which serves to render the athletic bodily anomaly as exception. Within each case study, I further intend to derive a more nuanced understanding of the exceptional cases through further theoretical exploration. I’ll therefore be drawing on the philosophy of Giles Deleuze and Felix Guattari to discuss the notion of the “naturalness” of the body and the distinction between nature and man, or the natural and synthetic.

Of the four listed case studies, Semenya represents a question of the inter-connectedness of assumptions made regarding the female body, the racialized body, and the national body. Her case elucidates the prevalent belief in an essential female self whereby challenges aimed at Semenya were based on her appearance as not conforming to the stereotypical Western, white female physique. Pistorius, likewise, indicates the difficulty in distinguishing between the able-bodies and disabled, the natural and the synthetic, disrupting the image of the normal biological body and defying the boundaries set by nature in terms of a potential cyborg self. Mantyranta, perhaps the oldest of the cases, competing in the winter Olympics of the 1960s, indicates, similarly to Pistorius, a disruption of the distinction between what we understand as natural or unnatural. Mantyranta is an interesting case given that during his competition era, although he admitted to taking hormones, these had not been banned at this point in time. But, further, he was also suspected of blood doping during his career, yet was found to in fact have a rare genetic mutation giving him a naturally high blood hemoglobin level. The binary between natural and synthetic is found, therefore, within Mantyranta’s own body. Asmahan Mansour perhaps appears the least likely candidate since she may not be deemed to fit into the “body” category as with Semenya, Pistorius, and Mantyranta. However, my purpose for including Mansour is this very fact.

As Jasbir Puar (2008) posits in Terrorist Assemblages: Homonormativity in Queer Times, how can one distinguish so matter-of-factly, whether something so much a “part” of a person’s body like a Hijab or, in Puar’s example a turban, is in reality unnatural and a mere bodily appendage? Surely one may comprehend a Hijab as natural an appendage as, say, someone’s arm or leg? As Puar states, from a Deluezian perspective, it is difficult to comprehend where the line between natural and synthetic begins and ends, which is further echoed in the case of Pistorius. Is his prosthetic limb or “blade” a synthetic appendage, or is it a “natural” part of him?

The purpose of these examples is not to ask the ethical question of what ought to be the case and thus to find a normative standpoint for policy regulations, but rather to challenge normativity itself, putting into question the idea of corporeal “naturalness” and rendering it problematic. In this way, it is hoped that such a study can inform both policy and media in challenging the underpinning reliance on scientific discourse that asserts as axiomatic scientific classifications of identity.

I just finished reading a book called: “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison. It’s my one week assignment for my AFRAS260 class. AFRAS260 is a course with the objective of understanding deeper about Africana Literature.

First of all, I dont often read books. Second, I dont like literature. I think there is too much abstract in literature and I’d prefer stuff that are more realistic. However, this book was a kind of an exception. I find it to be quite interesting.

The Bluest Eye is a book about the lives of black people in the 1940’s. The main character, Pecola, is an eleven-year-old black girl who desperately wants blue eyes. She believed in her whole life that she was ugly, and thought that having blue eyes will make her a better person, so she wouldn’t be treated as bad…

There are way more interesting characters in “The Bluest Eye,”  Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. They all struggled for an acceptable identity in their community.

I strongly recommend buying and reading this book. Get it on Amazon!

This is What Ayne Gets for Her 18th Birthday! from Akmal Khadir on Vimeo.

Effects of Intuition

In the march of pure functional programming toward pervasive mainstream use the notion of effects have become an interesting topic. I’ve begun looking at what you might call “the effect spectrum” or “the effect zoo”: the different kinds of effects and what they do (to your program).

I shall name these functions by personal preference, these names are likely unconventional but they have “symbolic” value.The first examples will not be effects at all but I will gradually move into effects over the next few posts, well maybe just one more post. I have a few ideas queued up on time-slicing, “forced” pre-emption (OS terminology abuse alert) and exceptions.

The structural notation will be a “pseudo/semi-formalism”, Haskell-like.

Exhibit 1: Non [ineffective]

This function takes no arguments, computes nothing, does nothing and returns no result. It is the computational equivalent of brain death.

structure

() → ()

substance

public void non()
{
}

Exhibit 2: Som [ineffective]

This function takes one argument and returns that argument. The “zero” function may be seen as a special case of the “one” function, accepting only the empty tuple.

structure

a → a

substance

public void som<T> (T x)
{
  return x;
}

Exhibit 3: Som-Non [ineffective]

This function takes one argument and returns nothing as a result, never caring about what the argument actually was, you might call this a comatose function: it gets everything you say but can’t respond back with anything (the empty tuple () being the equivalent of silence).

structure

a → ()

substance

public void somnon<T> (T x)
{
}

Exhibit 4: Non-Som [ineffective]

This function takes nothing and returns something. It is the dual of comatose – it can only give and it always gives the same thing.

structure

() → a

substance

public T nonsom<T>()
{
   return default(T);
}

Exhibit 5: Som-Time [time-"in"-effective]

This function takes something and returns that same thing, after some time. You might say it’s the functional equivalent of bullet-time; it slows down time (if e.g. we define time as state-transitions; ticks, or whatever). This means it has an effect, meaning its “effective” but this time-effect also makes it “in-effective”.

structure

a → Δ a

substance

public T somtime<T>(T x)
{
   Thread.Sleep(1000);
   return x;
}

One may argue whether this function actually contains a [side-]effect (messing with time) or not. In a sense all functions mess with time, as in the real world they take time to compute. So the result is some delta into the future where the argument is some point in the past, depending on when you look at it.

It makes me cry to think, Not that.  Whenever I look around I find at least one thing for which this might be said.  Isn’t there an exception to every rule?  The stars, for instance, and the stone.  And from that one, say, Christ, there comes a whole new hope.  Yes.  That would be nice.  It is enough to climb out on my roof and look.  I check off names as if it were a roster in my hand.  A clipboard of names.  A catalogue.  The night has always been.  And I and you and they have not.  Should it find wonder in our faces, too?  Shouldn’t she discover which one of us today rises first and shines most like magnitude?  Tonight another part of me is dead, and yet the bulk still lives.

To break execution when an exception is thrown

Let’s fix C.A.R. Hoare’s billion dollar mistake for C#: Null-pointer dereferences. – Isn’t hindsight great?

By default, C# reference types are nullable, meaning one can assign a null value to a variable of a reference type. These null values can propagate away from the point of origin and spread terror and havoc. There is a good and sound principle in software engineering that says: fail early, fail often. This means that a program should detect or exhibit a software defect right where it occurs (which is as soon as it occurs; well possibly sooner using static analysis and symbolic execution) and it should exibit a predictable behavior towards it, failing each time, reflexively. A program that just carries on can end up making much more damage along the way and can be harder to debug.

Then of course we might choose to interpret what we mean by “fail”. It might be a brutal failure or a recovered failure. The base philosophy has to be that the defect is at least signalled at its origin, handled or not.

One approach to dealing with this issue is using contracts. One can annotate function and method definitions with pre- and post-conditions expressing that the input and output of a piece of code will not and must not accept or deliver a null value. If spread everywhere, this will help catch the error where it occurs. It’s like a finely masked web spread out over the code, which will not allow a null value much freedom to move around before it is caught: thus enforcing the fail fast principle.

In Microsoft .Net, traditionally, there has not been support for contract programming or what is known as Design by Contract from Eiffel. People can write their own assert functions and sprinkle them all over the place which may help but it is not a very good contract solution. Things improve in .Net 4.0 with language-agnostic contract support.

A different approach is to have types help out.

In software engineering we face the same problem over and over again: in an imperative world it used to be fine to have object be mutable by default. In the new manycore world this approach is untennable. Similarly, in the past, it used to be (somewhat) ok to have reference types include null in the domain. It just turns out that in practice this was a really bad mistake. Null-pointer exceptions én masse. In the first case a paradigm shift forces us to change strategy, at least gradually. In the second, a painful history of bugs teaches us better ways.

As an aside, recently Dr. Erik Meijer and team have dualized the IEnumerable/IEnumerator types, creating the quite beautiful IObservable/IObserver types. In other words, the two type sets form eachothers duals. That is not to say that the former is no longer needed but it’s one more example of dualization. Mutable vs Immutable another (well an opposite at least).

New since, what, .Net 2.0 is Nullable<T>. This type allows us to define primitive (struct) types as nullable by wrapping them in another type that signal whether the wrapped value is actually null. It will not work for classes since they are already nullable and the Nullable type is defined to only work for T where T is a struct type.

The obvious thought here is: OK, we had integers that we needed to be nullable. Now we have objects that we need not to be nullable. Let’s “dualize” this. And so I made a simple struct to demonstrate the idea. This would benefit from language support but can really help out on its own. The Nullable<T> type has syntactic support in C# via the T? notation.

The definition is as follows.

  public struct Unnullable<T> where T : class
  {
    public Unnullable(T x)
    {
      if (x == null)
        throw new NullReferenceException();
      item = x;
    }
    
    public T Item
    {
      get
      {
        return item;
      }
    }
    
    private readonly T item;
  }

I made it up an early morning, after waking up far far too early and it has to be tested out thouroughly. But just quickly trying some obvious null assignments fails. Even not assigning a value to a newly declared Unnullable<T> variable will fail at compile-time; well, even before, as Intellisense and background compilation will warn you before you run a regular compile. At least if you use Visual Studio.

It’s impossible to construct an Unmutable that contains a null. So it really is un-nullable. At least if not resorting to evil means such as reflection. If this type is used, whereever it is used it will provide null-safety, i.e. non-nullness.

In a not too distant future we may see this built into C# and VB, maybe even on the class level where we can say that a class is unnullable by design. This may create other problems that we’ll defer indefinitely – for now.

References

- A Channel 9 thread on ideas for C# 5.0

Error Message:

“The CLR has been unable to transition from COM context 0×1979d8 to COM context 0×197868 for 60 seconds. The thread that owns the destination context/apartment is most likely either doing a non pumping wait or processing a very long running operation without pumping Windows messages. This situation generally has a negative performance impact and may even lead to the application becoming non responsive or memory usage accumulating continually over time. To avoid this problem, all single threaded apartment (STA) threads should use pumping wait primitives (such as CoWaitForMultipleHandles) and routinely pump messages during long running operations.”

You get this nasty error message and your life is sucked. This happens when you are debugging your application and using breakpoints.

Fix For The Problem:

Go to menu Debug->Exception-> a form appears. Then in Managed Debug Assistants section, just uncheck the ContextSwitchDeadlock.

Note:

If you are not able to see Exception MenuItem in debug menu, then add it from Tools->Customize->Commands.

It is recommended that you create implicit transactions using the TransactionScope class, so that the ambient transaction context is automatically managed for you. You should also use the TransactionScope and DependentTransaction class for applications that require the use of the same transaction across multiple function calls or multiple thread calls. For more information on this model, see the Implementing an Implicit Transaction using Transaction Scope topic. For more information on writing a transactional application, see Writing a Transactional Application.

The top-most transaction scope is referred to as the root scope.

The TransactionScope class provides several overloaded constructors that accept an enumeration of the type TransactionScopeOption, which defines the transactional behavior of the scope.

A TransactionScope object has three options:

• Join the ambient transaction, or create a new one if one does not exist.
• Be a new root scope, that is, start a new transaction and have that transaction be the new ambient transaction inside its own scope.
• Not take part in a transaction at all. There is no ambient transaction as a result.

If the scope is instantiated with Required, and an ambient transaction is present, the scope joins that transaction. If, on the other hand, there is no ambient transaction, then the scope creates a new transaction, and become the root scope. This is the default value. When Required is used, the code inside the scope does not need to behave differently whether it is the root or just joining the ambient transaction. It should operate identically in both cases.

If the scope is instantiated with RequiresNew, it is always the root scope. It starts a new transaction, and its transaction becomes the new ambient transaction inside the scope.

If the scope is instantiated with Suppress, it never takes part in a transaction, regardless of whether an ambient transaction is present. A scope instantiated with this value always have null as its ambient transaction.

The above options are summarized in the following table.

When a TransactionScope object joins an existing ambient transaction, disposing of the scope object may not end the transaction, unless the scope aborts the transaction. If the ambient transaction was created by a root scope, only when the root scope is disposed of, does Commit get called on the transaction. If the transaction was created manually, the transaction ends when it is either aborted, or committed by its creator.

Although the default and most commonly used value of TransactionScopeOption is Required, each of the other values has its unique purpose.

Suppress is useful when you want to preserve the operations performed by the code section, and do not want to abort the ambient transaction if the operations fail. For example, when you want to perform logging or audit operations, or when you want to publish events to subscribers regardless of whether your ambient transaction commits or aborts. This value allows you to have a non-transactional code section inside a transaction scope.

Setting the TransactionScope isolation level

Interop with COM+

TransactionScope Class (System.Transactions).

The System.Transactions namespace can make the management of transactions quick and easy without the need to inherit from a ServicedComponent. One of the greatest features of the LightweightTransaction object is that it can determine if it needs to promote itself to a distributed transaction. The lightweight transactions are also a faster alternative to using the DTC for local transactions.

All strings being equal…:) this was one strange problem to figure out.

I was using the CF debugger in eclipse yesterday and my ColdFusion (CF8) code kept throwing the same debugger error on simple string equality statements such as : if( stringVar1 EQ stringVar2)

Here is the debugger error:

coldfusion.runtime.Cast$NumberConversionException
The value XX cannot be converted to a number.

It took a little digging to figure out what the problem was but I think I finally got it

It seems that the exception is thrown by any direct comparison of strings. Now if you’ve been using CF as long as I have you are thinking that this is crazy because how else are you supposed to compare strings…. well there apparently is a better way to compare to strings. The solution is to use the compare or comparenocase functions. The way these work is basically as such: if(comparenocase(stringVar1, stringVar2) eq 0)
The function returns 0 if the strings are equivalent, and -1 or +1 if one or the other string is greater or less than the other. If you switch all of your string comparisons to this the debugger exception goes away. Apparently this is one of those cases where CF basically handles the exception gracefully however it still gets reported if the Exception Information option is turned on in the debugger settings on the server. If you uncheck the box marked Exception Information on the Debug Output Settings in the ColdFusion 8 administrator (and restart the server) these debug exceptions go away.

ECM sent me this awesome post from Uncommon Descent. The post explains how someone who doesn’t want to read about intelligent design can learn what intelligent design by doing. That’s right – you can learn about intelligent design by practicing intelligent design.

Excerpt:

Of course a good example of design would be engineering in all its specialties. Unfortunately almost all fields of engineering are inaccessible to laymen for many reasons. But the good news is that there is a field that is theorically and practically available (at least at a basic level) to almost all people (or at least to scientific-minded people as most ID deniers are): computer science. Our suggested patent-pending method to become IDer is based on computer programming. Developing programs gives ID refuters a lot of advantages to learn ID.

(1) Computer programming is an activity where, differently from literature, philosophy, journalism and so on, a severe control overarches all the design cycle. In programming errors matter, also the minor ones are never condoned. This is good discipline for the student, to be always forced to correct his errors. If you write a book filled with errors, no worry, it will be published the same. If you write a program with one error nothing works. This is the difference between storytelling and programming. Usually there are at least two kinds of control or filter: at compilation time and at run-time. Any program works only if it passes the two filters.

[...](2) Computer programs don’t arise by unguided evolution. They entail CSI and only intelligence can create CSI. Whether software were generable by mean of randomness and machines, software houses wouldn’t need to pay legions of expensive programmers. When you are programming you see directly your intelligence at work. Eventually other programmers can help you but no other unintelligent thing can do the job for you.

(3) To develop programs is a good exercise to learn CSI, IC, nested functional hierarchies, sub-functions, structures, dependences among parts, meta-information, libraries, etc.

Intelligent design is nothing more than sequencing a large number of parts into a chain that has function. That’s it – that’s all it is. God is a software engineer. And if you’re interested in seeing some of the published research done by ID theorists, check out this list of their publications in scientific, peer-reviewed research journals. (H/T Truthbomb Apologetics)

There is only one problem with the post at UD, though. They recomment Perl and PHP for the exercise. Perl and PHP are crappy languages for any program longer than 100 lines that needs to be maintained longer than 2 months, or maintained by another developer who did not write it. The readability and maintainability of Perl and PHP are atrocious. Stick with languages like Java, Smalltalk or C#.

Other arguments for a Creator and Designer

To learn more about arguments for a Creator and Designer, check out some of my favorites below, taken from the big list of arguments and counter-arguments:

• The origin of the universe
• The fine-tuning of the universe for complex life
• The galactic, stellar and planetary fine-tuning to provide a habitable environment for complex life
• The origin of the building blocks in the simplest replicating cell
• The origin of biological information in the simplest replicating cell
• The sudden origin of all major body plans in the Cambrian explosion
• The natural limits to biological change

http://sharepointexception.wordpress.com/

SharePoint Exception handling

• In SharePoint always throw SPException Objects to the top of the UI call stack and pass user friendly messages to the SPException object as this will be the message displayed to the user in the browser. Do not pass the Message property of the specific exception into the SPExcetption object as the user may not understand such a technically messages. 
• When exceptions occur in custom feature receivers catch the specific exception, log the error and throw a SPException object to the top of the UI stack as shown below.

public class MyFeatureReciver : SPFeatureReceiver

{

   public override void FeatureActivated(SPFeatureReceiverProperties properties)

   {

      try

      {

         // Do Something

      }

      Catch(ArgumentException)

      {

         PortalLog.LogString(”log Log detailed message.”);

         throw new SPException(“Enter user friendly message.”);

      }

   }

}

If you only catch and log the exception without throwing the SPException  then the  feature will complete the requested feature  activation or de-activation (which ever the user is currently requesting) instead of aborting the feature activation or de-activation.