CaptRespect's Blog

Free Half-life 2 and Episode One

nospam@example.com (Jonathon Roberts) — 2007-10-12T21:24:01Z

Anyone want a free copy of Half-life 2 and Half-life 2: Episode One with no strings attached?

Just leave a comment or drop me an email. I've only got one copy to give, so first come first serve.

I just got the Orange Box from Valve for Episode 2, Portal and TF2. It also included Half-life 2 and Episode 1, but since I already own them, I can gift them away.

Avoiding Overusing Java Interfaces

nospam@example.com (Jonathon Roberts) — 2007-09-20T02:07:21Z

Everyone knows that a good interface is a good thing for a Java program. Interfaces help keep your program flexible and loosely coupled while also enforcing a solid contract between your objects.

But like everything else, too many interfaces are too much of a good thing. Abusing interfaces makes your code hard to follow. There can be too much code hiding, it becomes a burden to have to remember which implementation of your interface is being used. You can get to an explosion of files due to each class having an interface defined. This is one mistake I've been making lately. It's time to define some guidelines:

1. Don't use "Impl" in the class name.

If you can't think of a good descriptive name for your interface, maybe you shouldn't be defining it. I've found that for each class I have named MyInterfaceImpl I only ever have one implementation and that it probably would never make sense to have another implementation. Later on, if you do create a new implementation, a good name will probably also reveal itself. Refactoring to use the new interface is pretty straight forward.

2. If your interfaces keep changing, maybe you're better off without it.

An interface that is constantly changing may indicate that it is too fine grained. Maybe you can change that interface to use more general terms, or maybe you want to ditch it completely till it reveilles itself later.

3. Keep the interfaces small.

Noone wants to mock your 50+ method interface. (Yes, I'm looking at you ResultSet) Your interface should fit on an index card. If it can't, ask if you really need it. Is it too fine grained? Can you generalize it or break it up?

Dispite all this, remember that interfaces are still your friend. If you can cleanly define one, by all means do it. Just don't over do it.

Blockbuster Total Access now has Limited Access

nospam@example.com (Jonathon Roberts) — 2007-09-10T04:26:22Z

When Blockbuster offered it's Total Access it seemed too good to be true. For the same price as Netflix you could get double the movies by returning them at the store. Now blockbuster has limited my in-store returns to 5 per month, unless I cough up 7 more dollars a month for same plan I currently have. The strange thing is that it's not a universal thing for everyone. It's not even regional. They now base the plans that they will offer you based on your spending history at the store! Turns out that if you've been buying candy or new movies regularly, or just not renting that many movies, they may keep you on the unlimited plan. If you've been renting too many movies and not buying anything at the store, they may not renew your plan at all!

I don't know how I feel about all this, seems almost too personal. Imagine if Wallmart started to charge you more than everyone else for certain items, because you kept buying the stuff on sale.

Then there is the fact that the Total Access has only been out for a year. Giving the customer something then turning around and immediately taking it away is a good way to piss the customer off. Taking it away for some and not other's is a guaranteed way to piss them off.

It's not like it's the first time Blockbuster has pulled some shady marketing. Remember the whole "No late fees" campaign? Sure there was no "late fee", just a "restocking fee" if you return your movie late.

I have to say that the old NetFlix account is looking pretty good again.

You can get all the details on the blockbuster deal here: http://www.knowzy.com/total-access-changes.htm

The Diabetic Chick

nospam@example.com (Jonathon Roberts) — 2007-09-10T03:10:58Z

I just finished up with the design of The Diabetic Chick blog. Probably going to be a bit more popular than this blog. It's amazing what you can do when you actually have a good theme. Up next for the site is going to be Google's ad sense and probably a forum. Maybe soon we will be raking in the cash.

I got to hand it to the folks at Serendipity. Their well laid out CSS makes it a breeze to customize.

Java Package Naming Conventions

nospam@example.com (Jonathon Roberts) — 2007-09-05T04:05:13Z

Naming your packages in Java seems pretty straight forward, but by changing your naming conventions a little you can track your dependencies a lot better.

The usual standard for a package name seems to be url.application.module
So something like : com.captrespect.roxorapp.dao

But what happens when the same class can be used in different applications and is not application specific? How do you tell which classes are specific to your app and which are not?
It may be best to not violate the DRY (Don't repeat yourself) principal and go the trouble of packaging all my potential common classes into a common jar. A good programmer will eventually refactor the code down to this if need be. But this is not trivial work, you've got an app to finish, and you aren't even sure if the class is going to be used in other applications at all. (But want to leave the option open)

Say for example, com.captrespect.roxorapp.dao has two classes in it:

RoxorDAO.java
QueryExecuter.java

RoxorDAO will use the generic class QueryExecuter to run the queries. QueryExecuter has nothing to do with RoxorApp and is a candidate for one day being refactored into a common jar.

To be able tell this at a glance, change your package naming conventions a little. So you would have

com.captrespect.dao.QueryExecuter and
com.captrespect.roxorapp.dao.RoxorDAO

Just because the source of the QueryExecuter is in your application, doesn't mean that you should name it that way.
This has minimal impact on your application while making it easy move the QueryExecuter into a separate common jar all without having to rename the package and make edits to all your dao's later.

Of course there is always a downside, mainly with logging.
If you are using log4j, you won't be able to configure the logger for the whole app with just one line: com.captrepsect.roxorapp=DEBUG
This will come into play when you have more than one application deployed on the same server.
But I see this as a limitation with the logger, and the benefits outweigh the cost of a few extra lines in your log4j.properties file.

Three podcasts you can Respect

nospam@example.com (Jonathon Roberts) — 2007-08-31T03:28:31Z

Here are some podcasts that you should be listening to:

1. Radio Lab (http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/)

A science and culture show, mostly about simple things with not so simple answers. Why do we sleep? How are ants and bees so organized? How does your brain determine morality?
Hosted by Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich, the show is always entertaining. One thing it's not is two guys droning on for an hour about a topic. Instead the show will often open with a quick story to setup the topic, music will set the tone, and the sound effects will keep you from zoning out. The show is heavily researched with interviews from professionals and history on the topic at hand. It's like a good show on the Discovery channel. (Think Mythbusters, only more professional and with less zany mindless explosions... in a good way)
Each show lasts about an hour.

The Respect
It's probably the best podcast out there. Hell, it's probably the best radio show out there. The show has a good pace and will leave you wondering where the hour went.
NPR means it's commercial free.

The Disrespect
It's produced by NPR, which means probably about a third of the show is your tax dollars at work.
To contradict that, it only has five shows a season, which leaves you wanting more.

2. Croncast (www.croncast.com)

Married couple banter at it's best. This is what podcasting is all about. No corporate sponsors, no commercials, no format, no topics. This show is one guys passion and his wife that got dragged into the whole thing. Kris and Betsy sit down three times a week and just talk about what's been going on in their lives. Somehow the show just works. You'll get stories about vacations, in laws, kids, Goodwill, nerd conventions and money problems. The show is so intimate, you'll start to feel like these two are your close friends that you know everything about, but never met or even talked to. The show is funny. You'll find yourself getting strange looks on the bus when you start laughing out loud at inside jokes.

The Respect:
The 30 minute show comes out three times a week, every week, for the last 3 years. Almost without fail. A crazy amount of work, especially since they don't even get paid for it.
The audio quality of the show is top notch. Kris now has career in setting up podcasts so the show sounds every bit as good (if not better) than any other podcast out there. They don't skimp on the bandwidth or hardware just because it's a free, although I'm sure that Betsy has tried.

The Disrespect:
No disrespect for this show, listen to a few episodes and you'll be hooked.

3. This American Life (www.thislife.org)

Short stories about what it's like to live in the United States. Hosted by Ira Glass, this hour long show is a podcast, a radio show and a TV show on Showtime. It's always a few stories centered around a theme, Breaking up with your boyfriend, building a dream house, sham record labels, road trips. The show is usually pretty interesting, although can be a bit slow at times. It's a good show to get a different perspective on how other people live.

The Respect
The show is popular, and this time popular means good. It's won several awards. As a matter of fact, you've probably already heard of it and I'm wasting my time.
It's truly unique. There isn't anything like it.

The Disrespect:
The show can a bit dull at times. Authors reading from their book for a half hour...
Defiantly a liberal show, sometimes political. Get'er done, Bush supporters, probably won't like it.

GET Parameters in JSF

nospam@example.com (Jonathon Roberts) — 2007-08-08T00:38:37Z

We recently started a new project at work. The web application was going to be started by linking from another page. The links were going to look a little something like this:

http://mysuperapp.com/appname?mygetparam=program1
http://mysuperapp.com/appname?mygetparam=program2
http://mysuperapp.com/appname?mygetparam=program3

A few weeks before I remembered reading about how hard is was to use GET parameters in a JSF application. So a red flag went up in my head, and I did a little research. A bunch of sites told me that is hard to get your components to send requests via GET parameters, but it turns out it's actually easy to bind GET parameters to your backing bean. (Just putting them in the url is cludgy)

All you have to do is use the param object in your el expression:

<managed-bean>
<managed-bean-name>myBean</managed-bean-name>
<managed-bean-class>com.mysuperapp.MyBean</managed-bean-class>
<managed-bean-scope>request</managed-bean-scope>
<managed-property>
<property-name>myPropery</property-name>
<value>#{param.mygetparam}</value>
</managed-property>
</managed-bean>

Now your request scope backing bean has the value from the url.

Easy.

Super Garden Pond 3.0

nospam@example.com (Jonathon Roberts) — 2007-06-28T00:29:00Z

After the third dead mouse, I thought maybe it was was time to look into a better filter for my pond. Good pond filters are expensive. My garden pond is only about 200 gallons and I didn't feel like dropping $250 just to keep a little water clean. That doesn't even include the filter.

After three more dead birds and a mole, I decided that mass grave of backyard critters was getting crowded and drained the pond. It was time to get serious about filtration, do some research and, most of all, find out how to do it cheap.

Turns out with a bucket, some sponges, a little PVC and a lot of electrical tape, you can build your very own biological filter. A biological filter is a filter that traps biological material in the filter long enough for beneficial bacteria to build up in side of it and eat it. The beneficial inside the filter will actually clean the water. At least in theory....

So first I gathered some supplies.

__________________
UPDATE

Regulars readers of this blog are probably wondering where the rest of this post is.
I planned on writing instructions and detailing everything I did to create my filter. I even took pictures as I built it. Now I'm just waiting for the for the water to clear up for the before and after pictures. Two months later, I'm still waiting. Sigh...

Blog 2.0

nospam@example.com (Jonathon Roberts) — 2007-02-12T22:04:39Z

It's new and improved!

That old and inferior blog had to go.

I finally got Verizon FIOS installed. 15mb download and 2mb upload, and Speakeasy's speed test actually confirms this. The installation went really smooth. The install took about 2 hours and went exactly as described. Some new cable in the wall and some some new phone equipment in the garage, and I've got the fastest Internet connection I've ever had for less loot than the last one cost.

Verizon hooked me up with an Actiontec M142WR wireless router. I haven't used it too much for anything other than my one computer, but it sure looks impressive. It's got 4 ports one the back for wired connections, a fat antenna, a vertical stand, and some nice looking firewall software. It can also handle coax, supposedly Verizon will start allowing you to use your current cable wiring if you don't want to have CAT 5 cable run through your house. At the end of the the year, they should be bringing the TV service to my area. With Comcast/Adelpha raising prices yet again, you can be sure I'll be one of the first to switch.

Back to the point, because I switched ISP's I lost my static IP. So now the blog is hosted by GoDaddy.com It should be a lot faster and more reliable now.

My new job is going to allow me to work only 4 days a week, so I plan on using that 5th day for blogging and starting development on a new exciting project in early March.

It's going to be a great year.