Technology Dribble

I’ve written a file archiving process in ASP that auto creates the directory structure on the main archive folder. The process uses the first four characters of the file to create the directory. It then proceeds to place the file in that directory. As a result all files with common first four characters are placed in a single directory.

Anyway, one of the files archived had the name LPT199999.csv. The ASP process created the archive directory with the name LPT1 and placed the file in it with no issues at all. The only problem is LPT1 is a reserve-word, and when you try to copy this directory to another, it fails with the following error:

When you try to delete the folder named LPT1, you get the following error:

Fortunately, there is a way to delete the directory and prevent further problems. You need to use a syntax that bypasses the typical reserve-word checks completely. For example, you can possibly remove any directory with a command such as:

RMDIR \\.\driveletter:\path\filename

eg. In my case, I deleted all files in the LPT1 directory and ran the following command to remove the directory:

RMDIR \\.\C:\backupdir\LPT1

That’s it… Too easy!

At some point in time, you start to wonder, how useful is Facebook.com? After you muddle through the crap that people write in their profile comment, you start to realize, what a waste of space. 99% of the stuff written on the notification is not even mildly amusing.

It’s become just another platform to promote the “look at me” generation, an era where too much attention is never enough. What do I need to write now in order to get people to comment on my post? Hmmmm… hang on… that’s not shocking or offensive enough… let me just tweak it a little… There… that’s better. You just wasted three hours of you life looking at photos of your friend’s friend’s friend who you don’t even know.

On the surface it appears to not be a problem at all. But if you think about it, it actually exposes a much bigger problem. You see, Facebook is a social “environment”, a place where children and adults alike congregate into one “event”. Once you log in, you get immersed into a world far beyond your knowledge, which can be dangerous especially if you’re a child. You get thrown into a world of unsolicited, uncensored point of views, and visual images from people who you don’t even know existed. It is a perfect example of technology trying to mimic complicated social frameworks and failed miserably.

Get a life. Go out and talk to some real people. Ban your kids from accessing Facebook or MySpace (or at least limit their time on it). I’ve deactivated my facebook profile. I was just hoping that there was a delete button so there was no turning back. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a waste of my time.

Peace.

I’ve just recently acquired a Sony Ericsson W705a. Very nice phone, looks and feels good, with a premium feel. Nice navigation icons, and loaded with features. The phone came with a PC suite/PC Media Manager CD. Well, I installed the Sony Ericsson PC Suite software and found the whole process easy and the software itself was very easy to use. Youre able synch your phone’s contact list with your PC’s, backup and restore phone contents, view/edit contacts, etc.

Within the suite, under applications, you’re also able to update your phones firmware using the Sony Ericsson Update Service.

So I did.

This was when I started getting synchronisation problems. I couldn’t access the contacts on my phone anymore through the suite. I couldn’t synch my phone and computer, which kept failing with some error code I couldn’t remember.

I tried to fix the problem by updating the PC Suite, through the Help -> Search for updates option. The software advised that my version was the latest (Version 5.007.01). I tried unintalling/re-installing the suite, installing the suite to another machine (this method actually failed to recognize my phone altogether), to no avail.

Fortunately for you, the fix is quite simple:

1.  Uninstall Sony Ericsson PC Suite on your computer.
2. Go to http://www.sonyericsson.com/cws/support/softwaredownloads/detailed/pcsuite/w705a?cc=ca&lc=en and download the latest version of the PC Suite manually (at the time of writing this article, Version 6.009.00).
3. Install the downloaded software.

That’s it. Too easy!

I’ve just bought myself a NetComm NB9WMAXX, an ADSL2+ Wireless Broadband Modem Router with VoIP gateway. I wanted to fully utilise my broadband account by making phone calls through the internet. Expensive equipment (AU$279.00) but I figured it would pay for itself when I start making big savings on my telephone bill.

I signed up for a VoIP account with Internode because I heard good things about it from a work friend. I installed my brand new modem, configured it with my VoIP account details, and at first, everything was great.

That was until I realised that the modem didn’t handle IVR or call forwards too well. IVR, Interactive voice response, is the interactive technology that allows a computer to detect voice and keypad inputs (eg. “press 1 for this, press 2 for that” OR “say yes if this is correct” etc.). This default configuration also cannot handle phone calls to a number that is diverted to another.

In both scenarios, the phone call “drops out”, ie. the call goes silent all of a sudden (can’t hear anything at all). I searched high and low for a solution online but to no avail. One particular site, however, hinted the problem. The following page http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies-archive.cfm/532842.html suggested to “have a look at your RFC2833 Outband DTMF options. Maybe ask your Voice Service Provider what settings they support”.

So I did. NetComm NB9WMAXX modem by default sets the “RFC2833 Outband DTMF” attribute to “Auto Negotiation”. I found that this configuration is what causes the problem with IVR and forwarded calls. Unfortunately, I tinkered with every possible configuration on the modem to no avail. NetComm NB9WMAXX is just not compatible with Internode VoIP and vice versa. Don’t bother calling NetComm or Internode support either because they won’t listen to you. NetComm does not have support for Internode VoIP.  Internode VoIP does not support NetComm NB9WMAXX. The hardware and service provider is just not compatible with each other.

To resolve my issue, I signed up with MyNetFone, which one of the many service providers supported by NetComm. I didn’t get the problem again and I’m one happy customer!

The following outlines the best configuration for the NetComm NB9WMAXX Modem with an Internode VoIP account:

Interface name: ppp_8_35_1
Local selection: AUS – Australia (Set to your country)

Preferred codec:  G729
Preferred ptime:  20

Use SIP Proxy: Checked
SIP Proxy: [Your service provider SIP]
SIP Proxy port: 5060
Register Expire Time: 300
SIP domain name: [Your service provider SIP]

Use SIP Outbound Proxy: Unchecked

Enable SIP tag matching (Uncheck for Vonage Interop): checked
Remote server for SIP log messages: unchecked

DispName: [Your VoIP Phone Number]
VoIP Phone Number: [Your VoIP Phone Number]
Auth. ID: [Your VoIP Phone Number]
Auth. Password: [Your VoIP Password]

PSTN route rule: Fixed
PSTN route data: Phone 1
Emergengy calls: Landline
Number: 1. 000 (set to your local emergency number) 2. [Blank]

Max Digits: 24

RFC2833 Outband DTMF: Auto Negotiation

[Leave the rest as the default]

Please Note: I found out through my own various systematic testing that NetComm NB9WMAXX is not compatible Internode VoIP and vice versa. I tinkered with every possible configuration available on the NetComm NB9WMAXX to no avail. I even went as far as Telnet-ing to the modem and turning off the firewall but still experienced problems. I ended up signing up with MyNetFone and all my problems disappeared! For more details about my ordeal, read my next post NetComm NB9WMAXX Drops Out When Using IVR (or when dialled number is forwarded).

In order to allow web access to a different directory outside the root directory, use the Alias directive. The Alias directive will map any directory into the web root.

For example if you want to create a virtual directory called test, and the directory is in the D:/example/test, then modify your httpd.conf and add the following entry at the bottom of the file:

Alias /test D:/example/test

On a typical Windows installation, the httpd.conf file is usually located in the following directory:

C:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Apache2.2\conf\httpd.conf

The URL http://www.example.com/test/dir/file.html will be served from:

D:/example/test/dir/file.html

For more information visit the Apache HTTP Server Version 2.2 documentation.

Loading a file into a BLOB object in Oracle is easy. All we need to do is use the DBMS_LOB package to load the file into a temporary LOB object. This is demonstrated in the following example.

This example assumes that you have a directory object set up where the files are stored. In this example the following object is used:

CREATE DIRECTORY FILEUPLOADS AS '/home_new/dmt/public_html/fileuploads';

Use the following function to load a file based on the filename parameter and return the BLOB reference for processing:

CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION loadBlobFromFile(p_file_name VARCHAR2) RETURN BLOB AS
  dest_loc  BLOB := empty_blob();
  src_loc   BFILE := BFILENAME('FILEUPLOADS', p_file_name);
BEGIN
  -- Open source binary file from OS
  DBMS_LOB.OPEN(src_loc, DBMS_LOB.LOB_READONLY);

  -- Create temporary LOB object
  DBMS_LOB.CREATETEMPORARY(
        lob_loc => dest_loc
      , cache   => true
      , dur     => dbms_lob.session
  );

  -- Open temporary lob
  DBMS_LOB.OPEN(dest_loc, DBMS_LOB.LOB_READWRITE);

  -- Load binary file into temporary LOB
  DBMS_LOB.LOADFROMFILE(
        dest_lob => dest_loc
      , src_lob  => src_loc
      , amount   => DBMS_LOB.getLength(src_loc));

  -- Close lob objects
  DBMS_LOB.CLOSE(dest_loc);
  DBMS_LOB.CLOSE(src_loc);

  -- Return temporary LOB object
  RETURN dest_loc;
END loadBlobFromFile;
/

Easy as that.

I’ve just found out that MCEBuddy also works for converting MP4 to DivX.

To convert MP4 to DivX, just follow the instructions below.

1. Go to http://mcebuddy.com/, and follow the instruction to install MCEBuddy.
2. Once installed, open MCEBuddy, tick “File Selection” and enter either *.mp4 (to convert only MPG files) or *.* (to convert any format to AVI – I’ve found that MCEBuddy converts DVR-MS, MPG, and MP4 files effectively!).

What a great tool!

Well, minimum size for both Oracle datatypes is 1 byte. So in terms of storage, they’ll both consume either null or 1 byte in storage space. So, when declaring a character datatype with a length of 1, it doesn’t really matter which one you use. The rules change when the length is greater than 1 though.

This is because CHAR is a fixed character data, so values held in this datatype is always RPAD’ed with blanks. Storing character data as VARCHAR2 will save space on, not just the character field, but any indexes that reference it.

As a personal preference, I always use VARCHAR2. The most important practice though is to be consistent. For example, if you use CHAR for a 1 byte character datatype and VARCHAR2 for everything else, then stick with it throughout your whole database.