tea time with meowkins

Recipe for Happiness Success & Prosperity

Think about love, righteousness, wisdom, bravery, strength, happiness, and benevolence.

Think before you speak or act. Slow down.

Always challenge your own righteousness, opinion, and belief.

Windows No Logon Servers Available Problem (& Solution?)

If you're getting the error saying something like "there are currently no logon servers available to service the logon request", here's a potential solution. Logon to the machine with a different user, connect to the VPN, and use the runas command to ping a machine as the user that cannot log in.

I was trying to add a machine to the domain. Also, I was doing this remotely over the internet. I was at the machine, and I added the machine to the domain while I was connected to the VPN. Adding the machine worked, but when I tried to log in with my domain account, that's when I hit this problem.

Now, I vaguely understand what caused this. I was trying to log into Windows, and therefore I was not logged in as any user, and so I was also not connected to the VPN - so there's no way the machine could contact the work machines to request a logon with a domain user account. I needed to do the logon request while connected to the VPN.

So runas logs the user on, and runs the specified command, and of course, it's purpose is to let you run commands as other users. Thus, runas /user:uname@domain "ping somemachine", logs uname into domain and then runs the ping command. If you are able to execute that command, the user will be able to log into the machine, even if you're offline.

You might be wondering why that works. I don't know exactly, but I think the way Windows works is: it caches some information on the local machine that lets the domain user log in for a while without contacting the logon server. I don't know how long the cached info lasts, but I think it lasts for a few weeks by default. And I'm sure there's some way to configure that in Active Directory.

Happy Windowsing!

PS - I got these results on Windows 7 (x64) hitting a Server 2008 based Active Directory. Not too sure the AD settings, but as anyone familiar with AD knows, there's a ton of settings that effect stuff like this.

Wendy and Hailey

:D

Can't Enable Wireless Fedora 16 + Gnome 3

If you can't get the wireless to turn on, and airplane mode seems to be stuck in the 'on' mode, check the wireless key (or button or switch) on your machine. I have one that you can't tell if it's on or off, and it was off, which explains why I could not connect (Dell Inspiron N4010).

On the wireless drop-down panel, it said wireless was off and no networks appeared. I turned it on, but it didn't go on.

I opened the wireless network settings and tried to turn it on, but it wouldn't go on. I noticed Airplane Mode was on, so I turned it off. It looked like it went off, but the wifi still wouldn't go on. I closed the window and opened it again, and the airplane mode was back on.

I finally thought to check the wifi button on my laptop. I don't have a light that indicates if the wifi card is enabled/disabled, so I can't tell. I pressed the key, and then the wireless turned on automatically.

Happy Networking!

OpenGarden vs Barnacle WiFi Android Tethering

Ok, I'm pretty new to rooting, and I did it because I just got an iPad but I don't want to get another data plan, but I've tried these two tethering apps, and I've found that OpenGarden works on myTouch 3G rooted with ginger yoshi 1.5 (32b), but Barnacle didn't work for me. To be fair, rooting is all hackery. There's a lot of variables involved and there's different stuff to do on each device, so just because Barnacle didn't work on this particular device doesn't mean it's bad software; from what I've seen, it's quite popular. It's also possible I just didn't configure it properly, but of course, I can't find very good documentation on any of these apps, so maybe that's not all my fault.

Anyway – OpenGarden. At first neither my iPad nor my fedora 16 linux laptop connect, but both could see the SSID. I changed the encryption mode from Auto to wpa_suplicant, and that seems to work. On the fedora box, I had to restart the wireless for whatever reason. Why wpa_suplicant? No idea. When I first tried OpenGarden, I got an error saying something about failed to activate wpa_supplicant, so I switched to that, but I still got that error. But I figured I'd give it a shot with the new setting anyway, and it worked.

Barnacle. I tried Barnacle first. It seemed to work fine when I first tried it at home, but I didn't really test it much, just hit google and called it good. Then I was here at work, and the wifi was down, so I fired it up. It seemed to be working at first, but for some reason, the linux box would reconnect as an unknown client (name says "[none]"). Anyway, it still seemed to work, but then after a bit, the phone would reboot and the networking got messed up, so I would have to reset it. I think the phone was only rebooting after I actually went and checked my text messages, but I don't really know what caused it. Like I said, maybe I didn't configure it right, but I don't know what anything in there does, and it should definitely not reboot the phone, so I tried OpenGarden.

Well – I hope this helps someone. If you have any more info please do post, but if you have questions, I probably won't be of much help because I'm not too familiar with rooting and android hackery.

Happy Tethering!

Come Work With Us – We’re Awesome

Ok, here's my pitch on why working here is awesome, because I know you're dying to know. Seriously though, it's a good place to work.

 

Always Training, Always Improving

The main thing that has kept me here is the continuous education and the challenging work. I've been learning new technologies, and developing new skills ever since day 1. I started out as an intern years ago, and just to give you an idea of some of the highlights, I've developed an HTML parser, a printing system, an entire SharePoint reporting solution, and a backend data and payment system. And of course, I've worked on a whole slew of other things across the board, developing not only my software skills, but also my business and communication skills.

 

Flexible Hours

Another awesome thing about working here is the completely flexible work hours. You just have to show up to the meetings, put in your fair share of time, and deliver.

 

Good, Smart People

Also, there's no office politics or drama here. Everyone's cool and hard-working, and we're always working to do the best we can rather than achieve some ulterior motive.

People listen to what you have to say, whether you're the CEO or an intern, whether you're a developer or a sales person or a marketing person. Again, we're just trying to be smart and do our best, and that means listening to people's ideas and concerns.

 

Fun Stuff!

And then there's the fun stuff. We get fresh donuts, Monday mornings, have company lunches twice a month, free soda and snacks, and we do these fun social events from time to time. Like we just had our winter holdiay party last month (we all got iPads!). And then there was this time we went out and had a big picnic at the park, and just hung out and played volley ball.

And one thing that's been really cool for me is that if you want to do some project that you think will be helpful, it's no big deal, you just do it. Actually, we're always encourging people to try new things and think outside the box. We have these Get Out Of Jail Free cards, and the idea is you can do some wild idea, and if it doesn't work out, you can just trade in your Get Out Of Jail Free card.

One cool project I did was a SharePoint list adapter, which was basically making it easier to access the data and hook it into our system. And what's really cool about that is that it really took off and became a greatly demanded part of our SharePoint solution.

We also have this Friday project thing, so you can dedicate Friday afternoons to a different project of your choosing, provided it's remotely interesting to the company, and it's a plus if it helps you develop personally. It's fun because you can do a lot of different things, even if it's not your area of expertise. People have made videos, done blog series, made new apps, and some other things.

I also like the fact that the company hosts blogs for everyone and encourages the whole social media thing. It's a nice outlet, and I think it sort of gives a way to give back sometimes because you can share what you've learned.

 

 

So that's it from my perspective. If you have any questions, feel free to post it in the comments.

Happy job hunting!

Status Update & Apologies to My Recent Commenters

For some reason, I haven't been receiving notifications of comments except for spams, which I've been ignoring so that I can just take a bunch out at once. I've approved the real stuff today, so sorry to those of you that put something legit and I didn't approve it for a while.

A little info about why I've been slacking on the bloggage. This fall/winter has been intensely busy for me. I've been working furiously on charting stuff for the Windward Reports Engine, and working on Code War and self-improvement projects in my free time.

Speaking of Code War, it's coming up in just a couple of weeks - check it out! I did the C++ client, but there's still some stuff that I'm hoping to get worked in before the 28th.

Happy New Years!

PS - I'm working on a new personal website (I don't have one). Hoping to have it up this weekend, but might have to wait a couple weeks otherwise. Stay tuned...

Endurance

One of the most challenging parts of developing software is keeping up your willpower when a task has many parts to it. Why? I don't know, but I have an idea. As a developer, it feels good to make something. If you write a bit of code, like an if-statement that's part of a large process, that's not really something to you. The something is the whole thing, the finished thing; and you have a vision of what that is, or at least you know if you have it or not; and until you do have it, you do not get the pleasure of having created it. The created thing doesn't have to be a separate thing, or a large thing, it just has to be a something in our minds. For example, it could be a whole application, or it could be a minor modification to a method.

But everything is something. You could end up making hundreds of developments in the software, and each is something. So why don't you feel good all the time? Well, I think that what happens is you start with a primary task. This is the main thing you need to accomplish. And usually you do some preprocessing on this task, breaking it down into more tasks, and at some point, you end up with your set of tasks, and you start working on them. Each of these tasks that you have conceived of are the things that give you pleasure to complete. But what happens is that you're toiling away, and you come upon some task for which additional work must be done, work that you did not anticipate. I think most tasks work out this way, some more than others. As these unforseen obstacles accumulate, the completion seems to move further away, and sometimes when it is so far away, and we can see all of these obstacles, we become exhausted and disheartened. It feels like you're not making progress, and worse yet, that you're making negative progress, moving away from the goal.

This seems to be true for any work, not just software development. So the question is – what can you do about it? Well, I'm wondering that myself. But we can already see some things, having explicated this problem, and of course, I have my things that I do. First, the problem seems to have something to do with your perception of what is an anticipated task, and what is an unforseen obstacle. So if you do a good job breaking the problem down in the first place, then you'll probably have an easier time with it. This, of course, presents it's own challenges, but it does seem to help.

Second, when I become exhausted, I try to either just take a break, or switch off to something else. But of course, the problem with this is that it can look like you're just slacking off (maybe you are). And you don't want to give in too easily, or else you won't be extending your endurance (assuming such a thing can be done).

Another thing I try to do, and I think this is a very important one, is think about the people that are depending on me. I try to find a moral driver for my work. Making people's lives easier, making sure that I'm not actually making their lives harder, proliferating happiness, and fending-off pain. Sometimes this is quite revealing, too.

I think there's also a couple other things that factor into this too. Some people just have more drive than others (too many have no drive at all). And if you're working on something you like or dislike to some degree, that will effect your ability to endure proprotinately. But either way, everyone has their limits, and we're wondering about how to blow the doors off those limits.

Well, I'm sure lots of people have ideas and tricks for dealing with this problem, so if you do, please share with us!

Treasure From The Code Dungeon: Native Charts

If you follow my blog, then you know I've been quiet for a while. Well, I've been deep in the code dungeon, toiling away – but now I return with treasure! An awesome new feature, just for you – Native Charts. This lets you carry a regular old chart from Word, Excel, or PowerPoint out to your report. You get a perfect replica on output to Word, Excel, or PowerPoint, but we also carry them out to PDF and HTML – awesome. We're releasing this with version 11, which is coming out very soon. Here's a quick example.

Below I have a regular old report made with AutoTag, and I have the DOCX output version, and the PDF output version. This is a phone bill, and normally you just have all the ugly details, but this month the phone company decides to add a chart to it. It's the same for everyone, and it's just a couple of data points, so they just plop it right into the Word template. Run it through Windward, and voila! Adorable charts for everyone (for a small fee)!

This is cool for those of you that need these kind of charts, but it's also a precursor to something even more awesome – Interactive Charts!!! Stay tuned…

The Template

 

The DOCX Output

 

The PDF Output

Code To Intentions, Minimize Your Variables

 
There's a couple things I've been trying to focus on when I work on code. I feel like it's yeilding good results.

1) Make Your Intentions Clear

If your intentions are clear, you get two good things out of that. First, the person maintaining your code will be able to understand it quickly. Second, that person will be able to understand what the code was supposed to do, not just what it is doing. Obviously, if the maintainer is able to quickly understand your code - both what it says, and what it does - she saves time, and code strong like ox.

2) Minimize Your Variables

If you have to track 20 variables in your head while you're thinking about some piece of code, you're probably going to screw it up. Ok, you're a super smart programmer dude, but still, it's going to be much easier for you to handle one or two variables than 20, no matter how ripped your memory muscles are.

How Do You Do It?

Sure these are nice ideas, maybe, but how do you go about implementing them? Well, here's some ideas.

Use names that highlight the important concepts. If you think about your names that way, it's pretty easy to come up with names that are very clear and concise. Take into consideration what is in scope and what's nearby. If it's obvious that you're working in the List class, maybe the name "settings" is good enough. And if you're using settings but it's not immediately clear that they're list settings, "listSettings" is a good name. Poetry - a few words say so much.

Extract methods - factor-out the algorithms. Do you have a 20-line chunk of code with a comment at the top saying what it's doing? Move it into it's own method, and use that comment as the name. This is a standard refactoring straight out of the Refactoring Book - it is goodness. This reduces your cognitive load when you're reading the code, and it minimizes the variables that are in scope. Now you won't need five cans of Coke to get the job done - you'll drink them anyway, but you'll be able to get more work done!

Keep an Open Mind

See the state of things. See the possibilities. React appropriately. Sometimes you'll be able to code like this, and sometimes you'll have to leave things be and move on.

Happy Coding!

Personal Information Management

There are certain pieces of information where you don't need them very frequently, so you tend to forget them, but when you do need them it's a pain to find them. I'm talking about notes about this or that, things at work, things at home, even things that aren't so important having to do with our social lives or hobbies.

I haven't found a system yet, that keeps all this information and makes it really easy to find it, no matter how frequently you access it. I've tried lots of things. Notebooks, electronic files of all sorts (eg word docs), and some special software apps like OneNote and PersonalBrain (still using my thinking aloud system).

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