BPI inside

Author: admin

  • University stress

    As you have noticed it’s already the time of the semester where all the homework, projects and preparations for exams accumulate towards the same date.

    The upcoming weekend is again the most pressing date of this semester as this is one of the last presence lectures for some of our lectures. And the last presence lecture is often used for end-term exams.

    Furthermore there are some presentations and handins to be finished by Saturday.

    What’s currently taking most of my time is my project work for this semester. I don’t know if I’ve already hinted somewhere in a post on that but let me give you a short intro.

    I’m creating a framework for Java which allows developers to define the structure of any file in some sort of description language, hand this and a file containing data in this format to a parser which is created out of the description language and get out a data structure which contains the contents of the file in an easy accessible way for the developer.

    Initially the project was about researching such frameworks, comparing them to each other and create a prototype implementation for an application within our company. After I have handed in the description and plan for my project work I found out that there is no framework existing for the Java language which comes even near the functionality I’ve been looking for. Nothing. Nada. I just found something similar to that implemented for Python, it’s called Construct and resembles quite exactly what I’ve been looking for.

    So I decided to resurrect my old lexer and parser know-how and create a framework on my own. Since I’ve already worked on a thesis in the past which involved creation of a C++ parser I knew that finding the right tools to use and creating a language from scratch is not something one can pull off without a great deal of theoretical background in that area. I already knew which problems I probably will be facing and how to avoid several caveats and until now it turns out that I’m not very far off of my expectations.

    Just that I need some more time to get it finished 😛

    Nevertheless, what I’ve also been thinking of is that maybe I’ll open source this framework if there aren’t obstacles for that like copyright or usage issues with the university or my employer for which I’m implementing this.

    Maybe there will be updates on this in the future… maybe.

  • Recalling my first steps in GUI programming

    Yesterday I read an article about object oriented languages (don’t remember which one, seems it wasn’t so important) when I recognized a small note on that article which mentioned a programming language I haven’t heard of for quite some years.

    Profan²

    Profan² was the first programming language I encountered which supported GUI elements, about 13 years ago. I used it to program basic stuff (don’t remember anymore, what exactly) on Windows 3.11. Before that I’ve only been programming BASIC and Assembler on my C64.
    When I read about it it gave me a quite nostalgic feeling and some nice memories on my first steps in the creational world of IT and I’m happy to see, that one of my "childhood toys" is still existing today 🙂

  • Vacation backlog

    Yesterday I was one in the department who got the order to get rid of accumulated holiday and compensatory time. The target was set to have at most 10 days combined by the end of this year.

    I personally have collected quite a large backlog over the last few years which means now I’ve got quite a hard time to shrink this pile of time. In fact, I could go on vacation for four months straight.

    I’m not very happy with that because I like to work and be productive and tinker with problems and optimize stuff and so on. But I can also understand the position of our company because they have to keep the monetary value of these holidays and overtime hours aside and it builds up quite some weight on the balance sheet.

    So, now I’m busy planning how I’m going to distribute that time and thinking about what I’m going to do in that spare time.

    If you had four additional (and unexpected) months in your life, how would you spend them?

  • Moving is now almost completed

    Our moving action is now almost completed, just one or two boxes still not completely emptied and some waste to get rid of.

    We’ve now also got new company in the apartment, namely Blacky and Sheila, two nice and active cats which keep us busy all day long when we don’t know what to do with our time.

    Both have their specialties, as every cat has, like Sheila following anybody like a dog or Blacky always trying to cover under something like chairs, carpets or blankets. But both are very open to visitors 🙂

    There are no photos available yet, but if there is time, there will be pictures.

    On the bad side, the moving has cost us a lot of time which is missing now for the university work. A lot has accumulated but we think when we make not everything perfect and polished, it will be doable.

  • Sign of Life…

    Just a short note that this blog is not abandoned but just "on vacation". Lots of things have been going on in my private life in the last weeks and currently I’m busy with moving out from home into a new apartment.

    Furthermore my new mobile computer arrived today and there will be quite some work and setup to do until I can start getting productive with that new toy.

  • United Domains Poster for FREE

    United Domains is giving away their World map with the matching domain-endings for free to all bloggers and twitters.

    United Domains World Map

    If you like to have a large one one too, just head over to the Linkbait and follow the instructions. The mapsize is 120x60cm and looks surely as nice as in the enlarged web-view.

    (via cachy)

  • Acquiring a new laptop computer

    Just as a note of that I’m still alive and relatively well, I’d like to notice that I’ve decided to buy a new laptop.
    There is a special program at our university which allows students to buy mobile computers at a reduced price.

    As my old laptop is now slowly beginning to fall apart, I’ve ordered a HP EliteBook 8530w. My variant is with the Intel Core2 Duo T9550 processor, WUXGA Display and apparently a ruggedized case.

    I’m very curious when it’ll arrive…

  • Speeding up the Logitech Harmony Software

    As I’ve just recognized I’ve forgotten to write a notice here that we’ve bought a Logitech Harmony 785 programmable remote control.
    This thing is quite interesting and fun to play around with, but it’s also not so easy to configure as the standard off-the-shelf remote. The only thing is, that the configuration software on the PC is on the one hand not very intuitive and on the other hand… slow… as… hell…

    Well at least I can offer a solution against the slowness.

    The problem with the Logitech Harmony software seems to be, that Logitech bundles it with an older version of the Java Runtime environment. Something like Java 1.5 or so.
    To speed up the software yourself you need a recent Java JRE installed on your computer somewhere, with at least a version equal or greater than JRE 6.
    The following procedure is:

    1. Navigate to the installation directory of Logitech Harmony (something like "C:Program FilesLogitechLogitech Harmony Remote Software 7")
    2. go into the "jre" subdirectory and delete everything there (or back it up somewhere)
    3. next locate the JRE directory of Java (something like "C:Program FilesJavajre6")
    4. copy the "bin" and "lib" subdirectories of the Java JRE 6 directory to the Logitech "jre" directory
    5. finished

    When you start up your Logitech Harmony software now, it should feel smother and react faster. I don’t know exactly why this works but I suspect that the JRE of Java 6 is more advanced and faster in the areas which are used by the Harmony software than the JRE 5 which comes bundled with the software itself.

    This is a relatively easy modification to do but if you’re changing the configuration of your remote often, this can be something which helps you to make your changes faster.

  • University term (almost) over now

    Just wrote the last written exam for the past term at the university. Now the most of the stress for that term is over.
    There are just one or two exercises left to hand in and then we can relax for one or two days until the next term starts.

    The beginning of the upcoming term should be not so stressful at the beginning, so we can use this period to breathe a bit more.

    One of the subjects I’m curious most in the next term will be "Computer Graphics", which seems to be the largest one. I think this one will be very interesting.

    On another note, I’ve just noticed that my StackOverflow.com reputation score has just exceeded 1.000 points 🙂 Yay.

  • Internal review results

    Last week another round of the internal reviews started.
    The purpose of those reviews is to perform a two-way-feedback on the work performance of the employee. What went right, where are the strengths of the person, what went wrong, where are the weaknesses and what are the possible ways in the future to improve the personal performance.

    I’ve had mine mid last week and there haven’t been much surprises. One thing I’ve already recognized personally is, that I’m not as active in my main project because I’m constantly disturbed by other stuff which arises from old projects where I’m the only one left to do the work.
    Also, the project management got the impression, that I’m more "connected" with the older projects than with my main one which is partly true partly false.
    True in the case that I’m more confident in the older projects as I’m the impersonated knowledge of almost everything which is necessary for those projects. False in the case because that doesn’t mean that I’m not trying to increase my knowledge in the current project. But I could have done better.

    Of course there were an equally number of good points but I don’t want to elaborate on that because I cannot improve there. My improvement chances lie in the points where I got feedback that it could be better and I’m definitely working on it!