Crazy Week

Things are pretty crazy around here for me 🙂 My e-mail’s been acting weird and some stuff I send out has not been reaching the receipients because of this SMTP relay program I’ve set up and the thing is that it doesn’t even warn me when mail is not sent out and so I have no idea of knowing who got e-mail from me and who didn’t … I’ve removed the program but now am kind of limited as to e-mailing since I can’t send e-mail from work and I just am not in the mood to fire up my machine once I get home and start sending out e-mails … so I guess my mailing will be sort of restricted for the time being …

Not much on the coding front either since work continues to keep me fairly busy … Plus, I am kind of reluctant to do too much with Blog at the moment since I might be getting Delphi Enterprise after all and if I do, I might want to redo the client-server stuff in MIDAS. So while, I do want to work on Blog, I also don’t want to work on Blog :p I’ve been getting quite a few bug reports about Scope recently as well and I do want to go back to Scope but I don’t know when I will get to it actually since I want to finish Blog first but my indecision about how to proceed with Blog and the fact that work is still keeping me very busy too. I guess we shall see 🙂

Site and Coding Updates

Things are still going at a pretty hectic pace at work but hopefully they should start slowing down a bit soon – otherwise I’m gonna end up a burnt stub <vbg> Anyway, I did manage to find some time finally to at least update the sidebar on the site so that it would show my Wish List :p I also found the time to start work on Blog and it’s going pretty well actually … I got the MidWare stuff to work with DBISAM and for the first time have the Blog client communicating pretty well with the Server – the only problem is that certain operations like saving an entry or deleting an entry throws up a weird error message even though the operation itself was carried out successfully … Guess, I’ll have to find the cause and fix it before I can release the all-new, slimmed down, client-server version of Blog 🙂

Lots of Work :-(

Even more processes to be run and fixes to be done and I’m still trying to catch up on the sleep (and rest <vbg>) I lost over the weekend … Guess, I’m not going to be able to do any further coding on any of my projects till this weekend 🙁

Lots More Work

Things have been so hectic at work since the project launch on Saturday that I haven’t had much time to update this journal … We worked till around 10:00 PM on Saturday and actually got the launch off without a hitch 🙂 Even though the launch went off fine, there were still things to be cleaned up and fixes to be run and processes to be monitored – so I was kept busy most of today too during the day …

During the evening I decided to kick back and relax with a nice session of Phantasy Star Online (in offline mode <vbg>) I had played a lot of PSO on Sunday and I met another really nice person online named Whiplash (and no, it’s not what it sounds like :p) This guy actually gave me a really good weapon and also took the time to see to it that I could actually use the weapon. In fact, he got several rare items for me so that my character’s stats could be bumped up high enough for me to use the weapon (a spread needle) that he gave me.

Work and Wish Lists

Whew! The last couple of days have been extremely busy since the project I’m currently on at work is supposed to be deployed this weekend (and that means I’ll probably be working through the weekend – bummer …). Things were so crazy at times that I didn’t know what the heck was happening … and obviously, I didn’t have the time to post to my journal either even when I got home. However, I have been working on the next incarnation of Blog whenever I had the time and thanks to François Piette’s excellent Midware components, I’ve been able to develop a client/server version of Blog pretty fast! I’ve already got the Blog server coding far enough to have the Blog client be able to log onto it and retrieve information 🙂 I still need to put in authorization, user management and stuff and also check that all the functionality that Blog had previously still works, but so far it’s looking very good indeed …

I had not had any time to check on my Wish List since I’d been too busy with so many other things <vbg> I had checked to see if my Wish List was online several times after I’d set it up last week but the only Fahim Farook that I could find was some guy in Dubai – this must be the same guy who’s been taking up all the user id’s online for Fahim :p Then I did another check yesterday and finally found that my list was online as well … not that anybody would be interested but I just kinda think it’s neat and I will also put a link in the side bar so at least my RL (real life) friends can use it the next time they want to get me a gift <vbg>

New Blog with DBISAM

Guess what? I got the full version of DBISAM yesterday (or actually my password to download the full version) and I installed it today, recompiled Blog and converted my existing data and it works like a charm 🙂 In fact, I’m making this entry into a DBISAM table instead of the Paradox tables I used earlier … I had initially thought of releasing a new build of Blog today itself since the new distribution is less than half the size of the original 5MB download … but then I realized that the table structures would change again since now I have the ability to have shared journals …

So I’ve decided to hold off on a new release till I can at least get minimal multi-user support in so that anybody who uses Blog will not have to run a utility to convert their existing data – of course, if any of you are currently using Blog and do want to keep your entries when switching over to the new format, let me know and I will write a simple utility to do the task – but I don’t want to have to write multiple utilities 🙂

Speaking of utilities, I’ve already got my next project (yes, another one <vbg>) already planned … I was trying to find a good (and free) SMTP server yesterday since I can’t access the SMTP server of my ISP from work and I can’t (and don’t want to …) send personal e-mail through the work SMTP server. But would you believe it that I couldn’t find even one that had all the features that I wanted? 🙂 The closest that I came to was ArgoSoft Mail Server and that is missing one important feature – the ability to auto-detect my DNS server. So I will probably try to write a quick and easy SMTP server which will let you send out e-mail without actually needing another SMTP server to relay through … but then again, none of my projects turn out to be quick <vbg>

ElevateSoft Sponsors DBISAM, Woo Hoo!

I didn’t really have anything much to write today and I was feeling kind of lazy and lethargic but then I got some news that really got me going 🙂 A representative of ElevateSoft wrote to let me know that they’d be willing to give me a free copy of their software! I was elated since I had found DBISAM to be very easy to work with and very fast when I had worked with it and I hadn’t really expected them to be this generous … The only thing they asked in return was that I have a "Created with DBISAM from ElevateSoft" kind of button in the About dialog for Blog. I was more than happy to comply as you may imagine 🙂

Playing PhantasyStar Online

Went back to playing PSO once I got everything else done around the house 🙂 I played for several hours in the evening and went online again as well. I had leveled up enough today to be able to play in the hard mode for the very first time and I immediately gave it a shot <g> It was much harder than I’d imagined and I think I pissed another player who decided to join the game I’d started because he expected an experienced player and I was simply a guy bumbling along :p Oh well, it wasn’t as if I barged in on his game … Plus, I met Malkavian (the guy who invited me into The Vampire Court yesterday) again and he joined the game I was in for a while …

Blog Fixes

I did some more work on Blog using DBISAM. I do like DBISAM a lot and have decided to not release any further versions of Blog if ElevateSoft says no to my request for a discounted version of the software. Instead, I’ll just continue to develop Blog and use it privately … I know that sucks but I guess that’s how things work out sometimes 🙁

I did find out how much of a newbie to Delphi I’d been when I first started work on Blog about two weeks ago though :p Chris had pointed out to me that the Blog screen would not center properly on his screen and this was due to me not setting a simple property on the main form. I’d gone with the default – which was to use design time settings – and since it was set the way I wanted on *my* screen, the final app looked fine on my screen. It just screws up on screens with different resolutions 🙂 The fix was pretty simple once I found it .. but hey, I’d never used Delphi till two weeks ago <g>

Converting to DBISAM

I decided to give DBISAM a whirl today and set to work early in the morning … My existing Paradox tables for Blog converted over great with the data – the only problem was actually something stupid that I’d done, I had set the journal entry time field as a DateTime field instead of a simple time field and had to spend a little time to convert it over. Once that was done, things looked pretty good 🙂 Converting the existing Blog code to use DBISAM was a snap as well since all I had to do was replace the existing TTable components with the DBISAM equivalent.

Since the DBISAM site had said that their trial version was only hampered by a nag screen, I had hoped to distribute Blog with the nag screen on and let the users put up with that minor inconvenience <vbg> since I just can’t go to the expense of buying DBISAM at the moment but when I ran the app I discovered that the nag screen actually said that this trial version using DBISAM was not to be distributed 🙁 Oh well, there goes that idea …

I put aside coding for the rest of the day and decided to just relax. I burnt several CD’s full of Tamil (Indian language) MP3 songs that a friend had lent me. I’d been meaning to buy TDK’s Mojo when it was released but the availability of so many MP3’s and the inability to play them (I mostly listen to music while driving since I don’t have the time at any other time <g>) made me decide to go out and get a hybrid CD player today! So I went and got a Philips Expanium. It’s pretty good since it comes with a cigarette lighter adaptor and a car kit for the price of the player but for anybody who wants control over what they play and how they play it – this certainly is not the player of choice! There is no title display and as far as I can see, there is no easy way to select individual songs .. but fortunately, I just pop in a CD and listen to everything that’s on it and so this is not too much of a problem for me 🙂

While I was out, I saw some pretty cheap DVD’s at Sam’s Club and decided to grab a few too 🙂 I got "Last Man Standing" (I love this kind of rough and gritty action movies <g>), "Tango and Cash" (it was really cheap <g>) and "The Substitute 2" (I already had "The Substitute" and "The Substitute 3" on a double DVD and this completed the collection <g>). Of course, I should have sat down to watch my latest DVD acquistions when I got home but instead, I sat down for a game of "Phantasy Star Online" …

I decided to play online since I’d been playing offline most of the time and spent quite a few hours online but my experience was kind of mixed. I met quite a few people who were willing to help out a newbie and give me rare items but I also found a lot of people who were there just to cheat and steal … Come on! This is just a game!! But then again, I guess the same could be said to me and that I shouldn’t get mad at people for stealing from me but when the only weapon that’s any good that I had gets stolen from me by some idiot, I guess I am justified in being a little miffed 🙂

I did however meet up with a guy who introduced me to "Phantasy Star Online" (PSO) clans 🙂 He belongs to a clan named The Vampire Court and he asked me to join the clan – which I thought was really cool 🙂 He also gave me a mag (it’s kind of like a familiar – go get the game <vbg>) which I didn’t realize at the time was as powerful as it turned out to be – shows just how bright I am :p But I finally went offline around 8 o’clock (yes, I played through the day ..) but went back to playing offline since I was really addicted by this time <g> It was then that I found out how powerful the mag that I’d been given was! So that got me pumped up and I played for about another two hours before finally going to bed …