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 …