Bog Roll

Unix++, Windows--

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 22:16:00 +0100

Today I've been dealing with sending files to Deutsche Bank. I'm using curl to transmit SAP IDoc files to the bank and then using curl to pull report files back. Working with DB is possibly the worst experience I've ever had with a third party and I wouldn't recommend ever working with them.

I've also had to deal with nasty Windows problems. For example curl running under Cygwin on my desktop PC and on a Red Hat box are both happy to send files via a corporate Windows proxy server, curl on AIX is not. Pulling files from any system is fine but there must be a conflict between curl and OpenSSL on AIX and the Windows proxy because it works fine using an alternate Squid proxy on Debian.*

My next problem is that DB said the files would be plain comma separated ASCII text files. It turns out that they are semi-colon separated and their Web-server server is sending files with ASCII CR+LF line-endings, which screws up your shell scripting until you filter them out...**

* And yes I know it could actually be IBM at fault, AIX is weird but it is easier to blame Microsoft - it's normally their fault...

** Again technically webby protocols should be CR+LF but I forget that unlike Perl which magically deals with this, Bash does not.

Desktop Adapted for Dad (4)

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 21:51:00 +0100

My Desktop Adapted for Dad talk has been accepted at this year's Linux'08 meeting. I now have to extend and expand it from about 20 to 45 minutes. I have some extra pieces to add to the story, screen shots and I think it will be okay.

I also have to complete my rsnapshot talk for the next HANTS-LUG meeting and my lean-six-sigma improve stage toll gate review for tomorrow...

SAP Interfacing

Thu, 18 Sep 2008 21:37:00 +0100

This week I've been on a SAP training course at their Heathrow facility near London. It's an okay commute for a few days but I'm glad I don't go that far every day.

The course is interesting enough, it's SAP old and obsolete IDOC/ALE technology, which we'll probably be using on our antique SAP system for some time to come, so it's not a total waste of time.

It's useful stuff but I could have done with it 12-18 months ago...

More BT Hate

Mon, 08 Sep 2008 13:00:00 +0100

When I came back from Holiday the latest BT bill was waiting for me on the door mat. They have charged me £105+VAT to establish my phone line - something they promised that they would not do. So not only did they incorrectly handle the phone move they also screwed up on the billing.

I HATE BT!

Summer Holiday '08 (Day 15-16)

Sun, 07 Sep 2008 22:20:00 +0100

Eventually it had to come to an end. We packed up the tent in the morning just before the heavens opened up and set of north for Saint-Malo. We went slowly through the pretty countryside and checked into our "motel" for our last night in Brittany of this year. We had enough time to pick up a last few essentials in town before settling in for the night.

On the last day we drove through a sleep town to the port to board out ferry home. It was the "worst" day crossing we have had to date, that only means it was cloudy once we were in English waters and we were still able to walk about as long as you were a bit more careful. Overall a decent crossing really.

Summer Holiday '08 (Day 09-14)

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 17:58:00 +0100

The past few days have been a blur of driving to places, looking at something, very short walks, shopping and eating out. Highlights included:

A very weird church in Pleyben with a chocolate factory next door.
A shot walk along the beach at Mousterlin and Beg-Meil.
A really nice walk along to coast near Névez
A fascinating visit to a small fish canning facility in Concarneau: Maison Courtin.
Pont-Aven: pretty enough town but too many art galleries...
Plenty of very nice cider.
Concarneau's own walled town, which is surprisingly not over run with tourist shops and has a nice top of the ramparts walk which is free out of season!

Summer Holiday '08 (Day 07-08)

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 23:15:00 +0100

We started this day by packing up and moving to Concarneau. We drove through some pretty places including the very touristy but none-the-less still pretty Pont-Aven. The campsite in Concarneau wasn't as nice as Croas-an-Ter. It was in the town, more cramped and though not full it was quite busy and noisy. After settling in we walked down to the near by beach before meeting up with family for dinner.

We went for a day trip to L'Archipel des Glénanon the following day. It's a set of small pretty islands in shallow clear sea water and in glorious sunshine it feels like a tropical paradise. Well worth the visit, it's just a shame it was for only a few hours and that a lot of other people where there at the same time...

Summer Holiday '08 (Day 03-07)

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 22:15:00 +0100

The problem with Brittany and any other peninsulas or small islands is that the weather is very volatile and greatly influenced by the sea. That often means that it often starts wet in the morning and then turns out very nice in the afternoon. So we had a few damp starts but nothing to worry about.

First up was went for a nice walk along the river La Laïta and then along the coast to Doëlan via Le Pouldu. It's a very nice river valley leading on to a pretty coast line and even on an overcast day it's enough for me to get a sun tan.

The next day had a very rainy morning we decided to go for a shopping trip to the near by town of Lorient. By the time we arrived it was a swelteringly hot day and it would probably have been best going to the beach!

On the following day we went for a bike ride through Clohars-Carnoët (Kloar-Karnoed) to Doëlan and finally to Kerfany-les-Pins. Another flat sort of day but again enough for me to catch the sun.

On our final day here we biked up to Quimperlé (Kemperle) to hire a canoe for a few hours paddling about on the La Laïta. Great fun and a fantastic way to see this fabulous river valley.

We then packed up the tent from our very nice camp site* and drove on to Concarneau (Konk-Kerne) for the next leg of the holiday.

* Our camp site "Croas-an-Ter" was brilliant. It was mostly empty so the facilities were spotlessly clean. It had lots of cute animals: red squirrels; bats; hedgehogs and rabbits. The plot was lush green grass and it was enormous and we had no noisy neighbours!

Summer Holiday '08 (Day 01-02)

Sun, 24 Aug 2008 13:15:00 +0100

We arrived in Saint-Malo on time and drove to the campsite just north of Le Pouldu. We got the tent up in nice weather and settled in.

On the second day after a damp start we drove to the morning market in Quimperlé. Nice little place, quite busy even on a Sunday.

On Holiday (Day 00)

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 23:08:00 +0100

I'm on Holiday!

Windows Hate (Day 2)

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 18:58:00 +0100

Using Windows is like having an Emery Paper Enema, it's not something a sane person chooses to do. It's taken me two days to get Windows to talk properly to one of our pumps and even then it's not stable. It's going to be a real challenge to get all the data out of the pump and into SAP in time.

On the up side it's Perl programming which is good and I'm now confident it will work, even if it's an evil solution. If only we could use Linux or Unix everywhere, life would be so much easier.

Show Me Do

Sat, 16 Aug 2008 11:41:00 +0100

I'm currently listening to my backlog of ubuntu uk podcast recordings. There was an interesting piece on the Show Me Do site, that provides lots of educational screen casting videos on various open-source topics. Very interesting.

Slide Share

Sat, 16 Aug 2008 11:03:00 +0100

Slide Share is an on-line slide presentation sharing web site. It seems to be popular with the Perl community, this year's YAPC::EU having it's own Slide Share Event.

I've therefore decided to upload all my sides to the site and make them freely available on that site as well as the ones they are currently on. My slides can be found here: www.slideshare.net/drajt and as new ones are created or the old ones updated I'll keep them up to date.

Acer Aspire One

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 21:59:00 +0100

Small/cheap notebooks are all the range since the Asus Eee PC-701 launched. Interestingly many of them come with Linux installed instead of the more typical Microsoft Windows. My current Dell Inspiron is showing it's age, it's way to slow and the case is breaking in quite a few places. I don't use or need a notebook much so I've been unwilling to buy a new full price notebook, even a cheap £300 Dell Inspiron.

The initial Asus created quite a stir and there are now several members of the Eee family and several alternatives from their competitors. The Acer Aspire One looks rather nice and works pretty much out of the box with Debian. Maybe I'll buy one, or then again perhaps I'll not...

Add To Any

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 22:18:00 +0100

As an experiment I've added "Add to Any" links to this blog. I don't know if it's any real use. It does increase the pages render time quite a bit so I may take it away if I can't see any benefit of it.