Grumbles

“Always listen to the experts. They’ll tell you what can’t be done and why. Then do it.” ~Robert Heinlein

Sitting at my desk vigorously coding, and the office starts to come alive.  A friend of mine stops by to say hello we chat for a bit, we exchange some experiences with the technologies we are working with and we both move on with our day.   Or at least he did, i unfortunately got derailed.  During our discussion we were talking about Reflection vs. Serialization and which one was faster and under which circumstances.  Somehow, not quite sure how, it brought back some bad memories from my undergrad at Randolph Macon College.  I was a Math/Computer Science double major and constantly finding myself doubting the things i was learning.  During my times at Macon (RMC) there were 3 main things that i couldn’t accept.  The fact the PI never repeats, The Halting Problem, and People abusing Infinity.  There is no way for me to fully explain my grumbles with these theories/proofs but i will try, often unsuccessfully, to explain whats going on in my head.

 

PI

Even though it is bad form, feel free to skip this one, I will start with the theory that i have the least stable argument against: how does PI not repeat itself?  I find it hard to believe that the “most famous” irrational number Π does not repeat itself.  I guess my issues stem from the fact that this number is used all throughout science and engineering fields yet can’t be fully calculated.  This number can accurately describe the ratio of a circles circumference to diameter.  This number is also the ratio of  the circles area to the square of its radius.  Yes i am currently just throwing to very simple well known formulas at you.   I guess my unfounded believes are based on the fact that we just haven’t been able to calculate with enough precision PI and that the proof of PI’s irrationality  is done through “reductio ad absurdum.”  This method of proof, which i have major issues with,  is proof by contradiction.  You start with the assumption that PI is irrational and then magically deduce that oh wait… since we can’t prove it is.. it is false.  

 

Halting Problem

Alan Touring “proved” that it is not possible to design a program that can not “Given a description of a program and a finite input, decide whether the program finishes running or will run forever, given that input”.  Yet again i have issues with a proof that is proven by assuming it is true, and the deduced that it is not possible.  An outline of the proof can be found here Wikipedia Halting.  They start with the assumption that they have a program, i will call Super-P, that can determine given ANY input and program it can determine if it will halt.  Well they throw a monkey wrench at Super-Z and pass it itself.   Their conclusion is no matter what the program determines you will get into an infinite loop and thus your program isn’t really a true slayer of the halting problem.  My issues stem from the first assumption. We assumed that our program can determine for any input if a program will halt.  With that assumption the program that we are describing can also determine if itself halts.  They set the proof up to fail.  I think it is very easy to prove something wrong then prove it true.. and i am still waiting on a halting problem proof that i believe…

Infinity

Last but not least Infinity.  Question is simple… how is:

2∞ > ∞

So the idea is 2 * infinity is greater than infinity.  Aneurysm forms just thinking about it.  We have a number that represents something that doesn’t end.  If it doesn’t end then how is 2*Infinity greater?  You can’t ever calculate 2* Infinity because in order to start the calculation it would have to end. I.e.

99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999….. (-> Infinity)

          * 2

         ______________________________________

Alright… so where do you start? We multiply starting at the right and move left?  Now i know this is a theoretical concept… but to me… Infinity is Infinity there is no such thing as N*Infinity.  Above wasn’t a technical proof… but maybe it could be.  If you prove u can’t multiple infinity, i guess that would prove that 2∞ > ∞ can’t be true… thus absurdum is hit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Easy HD Backup.

Preparing for the worst.

Unfortunately I did not.  I really wish i had taken the time to do some type of HD backups, if i had, i would not have lost everything.  A lot of people believe you need to pay money for a good HD backup software.  Thanks to Linux this is not true, as i will illustrate below you can do it for free!

My Troubles

Most of you, probably everyone besides me, do not care about my troubles but here’s how my week went down.  Monday morning 7 AM i get into work, resume standby and start my day.  Computer is running horribly slow so i start doin some diagnostics.  I turn to the event viewer and see the following message:

The device, \Device\Harddisk0\D, has a bad block.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
YIKES.  I have a C drive (purely for windows and windows partition dependant components) and a D drive for everything else.  I share the D drive between my Windows and Linux OS.  I quickly restart and boot into Linux so i can start to backup my crap.  I boot into Ubuntu and start copying my email, documents, etc to my External Hard-drive.  I copy my email, some of my programing projects, and get to my Documents.  I start to copy everything and notice that it is stating it will take almost a day to complete, i decided to ditch my pictures and just take my documents.  Well that proved to be a tragic mistake.  I finish my documents and decide to try to get my pictures one more time… computer hard locks.  As a result i am force to hard reset and upon restart i get an unrecognized boot device.  Good bye Mr. Hard drive.

Recovery Attempts.

In attempt to save my disk i instantly used a rescue CD to scan my HD for partitions.  The recovery disc gave me all the info i needed to recreate my partition table (First Sectors, and Number of sectors).  I jot them down and try to recreate the partition table and am constantly hit with I/O Write Failed error in Linux.  I run a ntfsfix and a fsck and find out that the sector that went bad bridges my Extended partition.  So it sits before and after the sector that begins the Logical partition that my D drive is located on.  That didn’t come out clean so for example lets say my Primary Partition starts at sector 63 and ends at 1024.  My extended partition starts at 2048 and ends at infinity.  Well the sectors that went bad were 2040-2050.  As a result it was not letting me we write the parition table.    I am sure there is some way to fix my issue, at least to recover my data, but after a day of attempting and i am sure some horribly rash and impatient decisions, i lost everything.

Pessimistic Backup Strategy

Well if you can’t control the future, you can the past.  I now have scripted a routine to automatically perform a backup once a month of my important files (Sandbox, Documents, Pictures).  I will no longer have to worry about losing data.   during the process i came a cross a free way to do HD Imaging.  Its very fast, and like i said, most importantly free.  The tools required are an External Hard Drive and a Ubuntu Live cd.  Steps are outlined below(Pictures might follow, but i am running out of space).

1. Download the Ubuntu Live CD (http://www.ubuntu.com/GetUbuntu/download) and burn the ISO.
2. Make sure your External HD is in the NTFS format.  If it is not you will not be able to create a file larger than 4 GBs(assuming it is Fat32).  If your HD is unfortunatly formated in the wrong FS type perform a convert and get that thing to the 20th century.
3. Boot into Ubuntu and choose the option “Try Ubuntu without any change to your computer”.  This will load Ubuntu into memory without touching the HD.  (Completely safe..)
4. Once you boot into linux make sure you know which devices you are going to backup.  For me i have a sata drive and i was backing up my primary (/dev/sda1) and my storage (/dev/sda5).  If you are using ide it might be hda, just an fyi.
5. Make sure your External Drive is mounted R/W and you know where once again for me it was mounted to  /media/My\ Passport.

Now the fun begins.  To backup your stuff issue the following command.

#  sudo ntfsclone –save-image –output /media/My \Passport\backups\laptop\backup_c.img /dev/sda1

It took my computer about 5 minutes to backup my C drive (only about 3 GB used) and 10 for my D (~5 GB).

In the event you ever need to perform a full restore the process is simple.

1. Format your hard-drive.  I used GParted but you can do it however you want.  If you use GParted just execute sudo gparted in a terminal and it will launch the GUI.  Its a pretty simple process.   I created a Primary Drive, and then a Storage drive 60 GBs and and then a Linux Partition about 5 GBs.  One thing i was able to do was restore the image to a different sized HD!  I was able to load my old storage drive which was about 40 GBs into the larger one seamlessly.
2. When you are ready to restore type the following command in a terminal

#sudo ntfsclone –restore-image –overwrite /dev/sda1 /media/My\ Passport\backups\laptop\backup_c.img

After about 10 minutes you are done!

Conclusion.

I actually use this technique to re-load my computer once i am done on a project.  I have saved off a “fresh” OS install that has a computer that is configured to run java and one that has the full .net stack (SQL Server 2005, BizTalk, Visual Studio 2005 and 2008, etc) and in less then 30 minutes i can have a computer that has been completely rebuilt.  It truly is a powerful tool if you use it to its full potential.

Twitter….

Out of no where…

Where IN the WORLD did http://www.twitter.comcome from?  Seriously.  A couple of weeks ago i hear the peeps at Fox And Friends give it a little shout out, i heard a random story about some, dumb, NBA player twittering durring half time… and now all i hear is how i should twitter…. SO I DID.

And the twittering begins..

After almost 4 days of twittering, i still dont understand.  I was able to successfully create a username, and then it hit… whats next?  I then messed around with different backgrounds till i settled on a neat little tree.  Still no clue what was going on i looked at the screen and twitter asked What are you doing?  Well its rude not to respond so i typed… “Can’t believe I am awake at 5:30 AM.”  And hit submit.  I then waited… and waited… then i realized.. just like this blog… no one is going to read it…tucked my head and then walked away.

Voila

All the sudden the magic began… i got a message from my friend Danny who had awoken from his slumber and posted what he was doing.  I was ecstatic to find out that he was letting me know what was going on.  Then the tragedy happened… Danny wasn’t posting to my wall… he wasn’t even talking to me.. he didn’t even know i had added him as a friend.  I was ashamed.  I went from feeling like a part of something… to being a complete loser again.    So yet again.. i tucked my head and walked away.

 

BAM.  and the Twittering Continues….

Being the trooper i am, i continually posted my status… and then the real magic began.. i had my first bite.  Danny (probably because he felt bad that i did not have 1 follower post a message in relation to any of my messages) responded to my status.  It was almost like we were having a conversation.  But we weren’t.  We were sitting in the same room, messaging each other.  Yet again confidence was shattered.

Shaq

Shaq is really the only reason i twitter.  He seriously is one messed up dude.  How does a 7 foot tall NBA player find the time to twitter so well(http://twitpic.com/2egj4)?  I have now raised the bar.. and want to follow in Shaq’s footsteps.   I constantly log on to see what nonsense he has posted…

 

 

Well just like this blog.. i really have yet to find the true purpose of twitter, and still have no followers.  But i will continue my voyage into the lonely oblivion.. and hopefuly things will turn around looking to Shaq for motivation.

 

http://twitter.com/NCapito

To Bail Out Or Die.

Bailouts?
Is it morally wrong to want the government to stop saving companies? I think i would be a little more empathetic if the people we were saving were really struggling, i.e. homegrown shops and restaurants. I would guess 8 out of 10 people would support bailing out their local flairs if they were truly hurting, but to bail out multi-million dollar companies who failed to re-invent their business model, to me that seems wrong. These companies have made MILLIONs of dollars? Why would WE be saving them. Shouldn’t they have some type of business model that would allow for trying economic times?

Who am I talking about?

I don’t get as angry when we talk about protecting banks from a colossal collapse as i do when i hear that yet another multi-billion dollar bailout is being tossed toward the car companies (General Motors, Chrysler) . 

So what should we do?

American Car Companies?

If you can turn a profit, your business model is tragically flawed.  You are in business to make money right?  So if you are not making money why would you even want to stay in business?  How do you make an argument… if you give me more money i can change my business model and turn a profit.  Are you going to buy some new equipment?  Why do you need money?  ’ you need to maybe work on re-inventing your product so customers want to buy your products?  I don’t understand what money brings?  Besides maybe allowing a company to continue to employee people.  Why not just give more money to the unemployment office?  I really think we let them fail.  Another, hopefully better organized company will form with an idea that will re-invent the way we think of automobiles.  It’s the American way, won company fails, and another sprouts. 

 

 

 

 

Banks?

We devise a strategy to reassure that Checking and Savings (FDIC Insured accounts) are safe.  They have done this by guaranteeing 250k in investments.  Anything else i.e. investment and boring…… better luck next time.  We are treating financial contracts like NFL contracts, they mean nothing.  What good is a written agreement if either side can get out whenever they please?  The government can’t force banks to lend to people that are in good financial status.   The government can’t tell a person that you can only borrow x amount of money if you are making Y, but  a bank can choose not to loan someone money especially if they think they wont abide by the terms of the lease(borrowing way too much money).  People make money by managing risk, if you dont do it correctly there is always chance of failure.    Banks chose to lend to high risk customers, they now need to learn from their mistakes and move on.  A contract is a contract, people were buying in over their head  in hopes to turn a profit on a house.  The only way to teach responsibility is to hold people accountable, and giving a judge the right to re-write mortgages is not the right way to go.  If you are in over your head, you need to talk to your bank, and if they let you re-structure your lease.  If that fails… its time to sell your house or declare bankruptcy.

 

 

Before you go…

Unlike most American reality TV show viewers, i do not like to see people fail.  If you don’t allow people to fail no one can succeed…. it is a painful thought, but the economy is only going to move after the toxic clears.  The faster we can clean up the faster we will rebuild.  Propping up banks and companies only delay the process and we just need to grit and bear it.  So if you agree with what i say… write your congressman and express your concerns….

 

BizTalk MaxConnections

BizTalk enables users to configure WCF host to limit the maximum connections to a particular address.  Through some painful trial an error I was able to get this setting to do what the documentation so easily described.  To help save others from facing similar issues that i had i decided to help a brother out.

    <system.net>

        <connectionManagement>

              <add address = “*“ maxconnection = “2“ />

        </connectionManagement>

    </system.net>

The connectionManagement element in the btsntsvc.config file is designed to specify the number of connections to a given address.  By default BizTalk allows for 2 connections for any given WCF host.    If you are calling http://someiishost/MyService.svc and http://someiishost/MyOtherService.svc BizTalk would only allow 2 simultaneous calls to the someiishost address.  As a result as soon as the request hits the send port, even if a connection is not available,  BizTalk starts a send timeout and if a response is not returned in the allotted Send Time Out it cancels the request and starts a retry. 

 What I originally found was that this setting was particularly useful when trying to increase throughput.  I went from only having 2 services instances running at a time, to 10 (because of WCF service throttling).  I increased the wild card * from 2 to 125.  This worked great, but I ran into major issues when trying to use anything besides a wild card.  The documentation states that the address attribute can be any dns or ip address.  For my environment I found this to be false.  I finally came to the conclusion that the address needed to be prefixed with ‘http://.’  I then found a difference between a computer hosted service, and a service hosted through a header.

 

Computer Hosted Service

For accessing a service on a network that is hosted on a computer I found that the computer name was case sensitive, and could not be fully qualified.  So http://MYCOMPUTERNAME , http://MYCOMPUTERNAME.FullyQualifiied.DomainName.com  did not work.  I even ping’ed COMPUTERNAME, computername, computername.fullyqualified.com all of which resolved to the same address.   So my conclusion was whenever a computer is hosting the service the format is “http://computername” (My blowing I know, wait till you see the next issue).  Example computername setting:

     <system.net>

 <connectionManagement>

<add address = “*“ maxconnection = “125″ />

<add address = “http://mycomputername” maxconnection = “2“ />

<add address = “http://myheader.domain.com” maxconnection = “4“ />

        </connectionManagement>

    </system.net>

Host Header/Load Balanced Service

Ready for your headache?   So I found the solution in our dev environment it was now time to deploy to production.   The main difference between DEV and PROD environment was that the services were hosted behind a load balancer.  As a result we had configured a host header (myheader) for our web site.   I restart the host instances and tested the connectionManagement setting and to my surprise… the throttling setting is not working yet again.  After some more agony I came to find out that the host header had to be fully qualified.   This time the correct address was http://myheader .domain.com .  I do some old school analysis and run ping on myheader and myheader.domain.com get the same IP yet again. 

I still can’t explain why/how the setting was resolving address, but if you are seeing a similar issue, throw all logic aside and try the above.

 

 

Virigina Drivers, and their darn Hazard Lights

It twas’ a  Rainy Thursday night and after a very interesting journey home.  After a rocky landing, dead battery, and torrential down pour, i finally made it onto the road, and more importantly the interstate, my speed way back to home.

 

Like I said, it was raining, heavily, outside and me and my Mazda protege was conservatively trekking home.  I was going a modest 60 in a 65 zone, the Mazda doesn’t like to go very fast in the rain, it starts thinking we are water skiing, and starts to get a little frisky on the road ways.  Cars are passing me, and I honestly didn’t have a problem with it.

 

UNTIL

All the sudden it was hazard time!  I don’t know why, i can’t explain it, i can’t rationalize it, quite honestly i can feel the aneurysm developing in my brain. 

Here is what i have come up with…

 

 

Someone thought hey., its been raining hard 45 minutes now, maybe i should make sure everyone else knows, its raining reallllly hard

Or maybe some brilliant individual thought, hey its raining lets cut my hazard lights on so all the other drivers don’t know whether i am breaking, turning, or pulling off the side of the road. 

 

I was furious.  I don’t mind people cutting them on if they are going to be idiots and drive 25-40 in a 65 zone.  Thats completely fine with me, you guys be safe, and i will quietly pass you and be on my way.   But to have your hazards on and be going 60-65 in a 65 zone, that’s just stupid. 

 

The only thing dummer(and yes dummer is not an english word, but it IS in my vocab), is to cut your hazard lights on because someone else has theirs on.  In my situation there were at least 5 cars all going the speed limit with there hazard lights on…

 

Seriously?  Did they think that people driving on the interstate, didn’t understand that monsoon rain + fast speed = hazard?

 

 

I dunno.

BizTalk SQL Adaptor Error (Transaction Can’t Enlist)

Yestarday i was deploying an BizTalk application that i had been using for a while, with one minor change, the backend database.  I switched from a local development database, using Windows Authentication, to a production data base with SQL Authentication.  The only real thing that changed was the authentication, but regardless i was receiving the error below:

Error: 

The adapter “SQL” raised an error message. Details “New transaction cannot enlist in the specified transaction coordinator. “.

 

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

 

Solution:

 ControlPanel->Administrative Tools -> Component Services

Expand

- ComponentServices

    -Computer

         +My Computer

                Right Click My Computer and select “Properties”

 

 

 

And configure DTC with the below settings

 

If it is too complicated, you are doing something wrong.

Recently i found myself fighting to come up with a “good” way to accomplish what i needed to code.  I was dealing with logic to determine if something existed, and if the data was the same, if either condition was true i needed to update and then save changes.

 

I basically had the below.

function ( int id, int attributex, int attributey){

item x = null;

x = find(id);

if( x ==null){

item = new item();

item.attributex = attributex;

item.attributey = attributey

}else{

if(attribute x changed || attribute y changed){

item.attributex = attributex;

item.attributey = attributey;

}

}

 Add(item);

SaveChanges();

 

}

 

So basically the problem was that i only wanted to update the DB if it DNE or if something changed, but i didn’t want to copy the SaveChanges, or Add logic inside the two else statements.  So i tried a couple of different approaches, setting a Boolean if something changed,  reorganizing logic.  Until i realized what i was trying to do was wrong!

 

Basically there were two differn’t use cases.  If it doesn’t exist i wanted to ADD it and then Save changes.  But if it was an update, i simply just wanted to update it, and save changes.  Before i was trying to add AND update for both cases, which logically was wrong.

 

 

Basically this made me think back to all the times when i had been fighting with something for a good amount of time, before realizing that the reason it was so complicated was because fundamentally it was wrong.

 

 

So i guess the reason i wasted your time, and all these words, was so next time you find something that is way too complicated, i want you to think about it and come to the conclusion: the reason it is soo hard, is because you have the wrong solution!.

 

 

Anything is possible, you just need to find the right way to acomplish your goal.

Flight Delays (Part 2)

Microtel

So this is really a personal rant on an individual, but after my flight got canceled I got the pleasure of being shafted with a stay at a local hotel, Microtel. I was actually astonished when I arrived and there was a like 10 deep at the reception desk. I instantly diagnosed the problem, the “receptionist” that was “dealing” with the customers was completely incompetent, I think a 10 year old could have done a better job. So with 10 people waiting she decided to answer the phone that was ringing, not once, but 5 TIMES!, no exaggeration. She kept answer the phone one after another, did she multi task? OF COURSE NOT. She answered the phone, one after another, not even taking customers in between

Midnight delays, and flight cancelations..

I learned a couple things from my recent travel nightmare with US Airways:
When your flight gets delayed, check where it is coming from, if the flight has arrived check whether, or do your best to find out what is wrong with the plan. If it hasn’t arrived then start calculating when it’s going to get there. So if it is coming from Boston, they might not say it, but you aren’t leaving until about 30 minutes after it arrives(cleaned and loaded). During my experience they didn’t tell us the flight hasn’t left yet, they kept us in the dark, so do some research on your own… you got the time.

If you get stranded without a flight, like I did on Thursday, grab a hotel. Now my first time doing this I got majorly screwed. The airlines offered me a “voucher” for a cheap say at a hotel. I took them up on it and ended up staying at a roach motel (Microtel brand) in Charlotte.
When you get the voucher call the number, they will give you a hotel deal, if it sounds like a piece of crap, aka Microtel, ask to talk to a customer representative. They will transfer you to someone who will list off all the options, and then you can make a better choice.

I found this out after I arrived at my hotel. And BTW the deal they got me, $45 per night was only $5 cheaper than the rate of the hotel. So be careful, the deal might not be as good as you might think.
Let it be known!

If a company is doing bad business. LET THEM KNOW! I have said before that when you fly you just have to know you are at the mercy of corporate America. The only thing we can do is inform the public, us, that we had a bad experience. If enough people complain, and share their experiences, we will be able to delineate the good from the bad carriers.
Jet Blue Plug.
I used to be a firm believer in US Airways, but now they have dropped down to my AirTran category, and they are average. Fly JET BLUE! No I don’t get a kick form saying that but if you want Direct TV, Direct Flight, and XM radio, consider flying BLUE.

Take care.

Flight Delays (Part 1)

I don’t think I should be writing this article after traveling Sunday with a 6 hour delay, and returning Thursday with a 2 hour delay which forced an overnight stay in a roach hotel.

Flying is awesome, I LOVE flying; I love getting places quickly, and simply love the view from high in a plan.

But with flying comes annoyances and here goes my first!

Case Study

Last Sunday July 27^th I got the pleasure of a 6 hour delay flight to FL.  Instead of telling me that we could not leave until the plane that is taxiing us arrives (from Boston) they casually keep pushing back the departure time. 

After an important message staying the fact that the flight from Boston had departed, an overly frazzled man walks to the counter and states that “he is going to take a different flight home.” 

The lady jokingly laughs and says “oh this poor man missed the last announcement, let him take his flight”. 

Well for some reason or another he was very unhappy with this poor ladies attitude, asked for her name she replied “Angela.” 

“Well Angela”, he says “I am going to go file a complaint, Angela, what’s your last name!” (At this point he is screaming) she of course refuses to give it to him and concedes and walks away. 

Me bored at this point, rolls over and goes to sleep.  Only to be awakened by this poor dude yelling in the middle of the air port.  “YOUR GOING DOWN ANGELA, NO ONE TREATS ME LIKE THAT,”… blah blah blah threat threat threat,  ..

“I am going to call the police!” Angelia says.

And here comes the money shot… “YOU call the police. I want you to call the police!” angry man says. 

Well I guess Angela got the last laugh because she called the police, and they came.  Oh did they come all 5 of them came and took Mr. Anxiety away.  10 minutes later Mr. Angry is now Mr Calm and is apologizing to Angela.

 The End

What I don’t like, people who are strung out on stress because they are on Vacation.  It’s like as soon as they know they are on vacation, instead of relaxing they get a nervous tick.  It’s time to start worrying, plan and do as much as possible, and also do your best to get worked up on all worked up all kinds of little things like cold food, traffic, delays, etc.   

This guy supposedly was a “frequent” flyer, I am assuming he didn’t learn those tactics during his tenure flying.  Did he seriously think his rant was going to do something? Or did he flip?  Completely go bonkers and had to unleash his uncontrollable rant that had been secretly building for some time now.

I can’t answer that, because I only know the angry man for about 15 minutes, during 10 of which he was yelling.   I will say when traveling you just need to roll with the punches.  Honestly you have no say what is going on.  The airline industry is going to do whatever they have to do in order to make money, and they don’t care who they step on in the way

 

 

Part2