A year ago I wrote a post about about writing a program to performance test web applications (see Thumper). Since I finished off the original set of python scripts, I haven't really had the time to continue developing this application further in either Java, Ruby or any other language. Fortunately there is someone out there who thinks that threaded performance tools have an inherent flaw. Enter JCrawler ... go out and try it....
I am currently working with a team that uses subversion for day-to-day development but needs to use cvs due to a corporate policy. So I suggested that we create a build on our continuous integration server to automatically merge changes from a subversion working copy to a cvs checkout. I had a quick look on the internet for something to do the merging and managed to find and play with a perl script to merge from svn to cvs, and with a java application that was supposed to do the same....
My application for an iPhone was rejected last week. Apparently I am not a good credit risk for O2 even though I can buy the iPhone and a 12 month contract outright. I wonder if Apple know how many customers are turned away by O2's business practices? So I have bought myself a Sony Ericcson W980. Very nice little toy, looks very cool, 8GB memory and a 3.2 megapixel camera. Oh yes, Vodafone don't seem to think that I am unworthy of a phone plan....
Since switching over to mac I've been using both a Quicksilver trigger, and right-clicking on the little padlock icon in the toolbar, to kick off my screensaver and lock my computer. After updating to Leopard I started to have a flickering screensaver, as if more than one screensaver was active at the same time. This has been bugging the heck out of me, but I've finally come across a solution on Mac OSX Hints (http://www....
Love these videos on SQL database performance best practices - part 1, part 2 and part 3....
For a number of years I've been answering the same question from my wife: "What is the biggest file size that I can attach to an email?" Now the answer to this is straight out of the consultant handbook: "It depends." It depends on your smtp server's limits, the reciever's limits/security policy/attachment filtering/etc. Even Google Docs has limits for file sizes. There are a number of sites that already provide a service whereby someone can upload a file and get a link to paste into an email, so that the recipient can then download the file later....
Its the curse of the internet age: we all have to remember user names and passwords to a whole host of web sites and programs. If you do a web search, you can find a legion of different password keeper programs available for any platform. Open-source, free, or commercial, take your pick. A few years ago, as an exercise in writing a non-web-based program, and because I did not (and still don't) trust anyone else with my passwords, I decided to write my own version of a password keeper, that also helps me to generate some "...
Erk, Avalanche is not as nice as I originally thought. It seems that it tries too hard to keep an average load rate. When responses take too long to return, it sends out more requests. The end result is that it overloads the application server. Damn it, why can't someone write a testing tool that sends out requests at a specified rate. Oh, hang on, that's what Thumper is supposed to do....
Timesheets are the bane of all software developers and consultants. Nobody does them on time, and I for one have difficulty remembering what I did during the week. I know I could simply fill in the timesheet each day, but heck, I am lazy. Over a few years, I've been writing and rewriting scripts to keep a timesheet in a CSV file, so that I can query it at the end of the week to see what I have been up to....
Excel drives me nuts. I have to keep on searching the web just to remember that in a spreadsheet cell you need to press <CTRL><ALT><ENTER> to type in a new line, since simply pressing enter moves you out of the cell. Now that I've blogged about it, I may actually remember how to do it later....