Henry Chen

jTDS JDBC driver

2005-04-01T20:23:00.000-06:00

I was using MS jdbc driver for hibernate and encountered an "cannot re-read" error when performing query. Google it, found it is a microsoft bug. Recommended jdbc driver is jTDS, the most performanced one. The company just contribute it to SourceForge.

NOTE: setting in the jdbc, example

jdbc.driverClassName=net.sourceforge.jtds.jdbc.Driver
jdbc.url=jdbc:jtds:sqlserver://hchen:1433;DatabaseName=SGMDB

2005-04-01T20:22:00.000-06:00

Log4j.properties

2005-03-29T08:04:00.000-06:00

To run tomcat in Eclipse enviroment, the Log4j.properties file has to be put under the /WEB-INF/classes folder directly. Have a classpath pointed to the file in eclipse has no use.

Name based Virtual host on IIS6

2005-03-24T17:27:00.000-06:00

To do this, we need:

1. Create a new website with the wizard.
2. When asked for an IP address, specify one that is already being used by other website, say www.domain.com.
3 When asked for the host header, enter the www.domain2.com of the site.

Now we can have both www.domain.com and www.domain2.com accessed at the same ip address.
Note: The key is the "host header". It can be changed by clicking on "Advanced" to the right of the IP address.

Character Encoding in Tapestry

2005-03-22T22:04:00.000-06:00

I need to output CHinese on webpage and gb2312 is required. I was testing for a night and didn't find a way to do this untill I saw this post on mailinglist.

In short, should add something like this:

to the .application file or to the relevant .page files and the templateswould use the UTF-8 encoding.

and then extends BasePage like this:

public IMarkupWriter getResponseWriter(OutputStream out) {
HTMLWriter writer = new HTMLWriter("text/html; charset=GB2312",
out);
//getPage().getEngine().setLocale(Locale.CHINESE);
return writer;
}

Reference:
Encoding

Recover SVN

2005-03-22T15:37:00.000-06:00

When accessing SVN, froze and no response. Shutdown the service didn't help. Do this:

1. Shutdown apache2, svnserver.
2. svnadmin recover REPOS_PATH
3. Finally if you don't change the permission of REPOS_PAH/db to apache:apache. You got the following:

svn: Berkeley DB error while opening environment for filesystem /var/svn/buzzsponge-dev/db:
Permission denied

MSSQL install

2005-03-22T14:16:00.000-06:00

I was struggling for a whole day to get MS SQL DEV installed on my machine. The processes were run but with no reponse. After shutdown the services one by one, finally got the source of the problem. It is caused by an IBM service QCTray. After terminating this service, the installer ran successfully.

Reverse DNS

2005-03-22T11:58:00.000-06:00

I knew today that if the mailserver don't have reserse DNS resolve for ip address. Most ISP will refuse the emails sent by it. My server is of this kind.

SQL server problem

2005-03-21T15:45:00.000-06:00

I installed/reinstalled MSSQl 2000 developer Edition for 3 times with the following error every time.

Encountered an unexpected error while checking the sector size for file 'd:\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL\data\tempdb.mdf'.

Finally found the problem is the permission. System and administrators should be assigned to the installation folder with full access permission. MS explains here.

Uninstalling MSSQL

2005-03-21T09:53:00.000-06:00

appwiz.cpl failed to use uninstall MSSQL. Have to do it manually. Besides all the files under the installation folder. We also need to delete some entries in registry:

1. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MSSQLServer
2. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINES\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSDTC

Backup all database on SQLserver

2005-03-15T10:55:00.000-06:00

I found the sp below is useful. Originated from here.

USE master
GO

CREATE PROCEDURE sp_QuickBackup
AS
EXEC sp_MSForEachDB 'IF ''?'' <> ''tempdb'' BACKUP DATABASE [?] TO
DISK = ''c:\SQL Backups\?.bak'''
GO

SMTP problem

2005-03-14T18:06:00.000-06:00

Can't send any email out on ChinaAutoMarket mail server. Windows event shows things like this:

由于原因 Unable to bind to the destination server in DNS.
，向远程域 'gmail.com' 传递邮件失败。

Seeking reason and solution...

Unicode problem for MySQL clients

2005-03-12T17:28:00.000-06:00

After trying various MySQL client tools such as Navicat, sqlyog and MySQL Control Center, to my supprise, none of them supports UTF8 completely. Finally I tried phpMyAdmin and it displayed All chinese utf8 characters correctly, inserts are correctly done too.

Import data from Access2002 via MyODBC3.51

1. Texts in Access are store as unicode but turned into latin1 after import.
2. Migration from latin1 to utf8:
(a) Alter table xxx character set GBK; (The content saved in latin1 field is actually GBK encoded. --don't know why)
(b) Alter table xxx modify column1 varbinary(40);
or Alter table xxx modify column1 binary(40);
or Alter table xxx modify column1 blob;
(because no conversion is done when change from/to binary data)
(c) Alter table xxx modify column1 varchar(40) character set GBK; or else...
(d) Repeat step (b)&(c) with all other text columns (char, varchar, text)
(c) Alter table xxx convert to character set utf8; (We need to convert GBK to utf8)

This is very lengthy and boring. I hope there is some other smarter conversion from access to MySQL 4.1 out there.

Runtime

2005-03-11T16:24:00.000-06:00

For windows:
need to add "cmd /c"
Runtime.getRuntime().exec("cmd /c dir /s")

IIS time logging

2005-03-10T17:05:00.000-06:00

Time found in IIS W3C log file is set to GMT. So AWstats shows logs in GMT, very weird. Google it, find the explanation here:

FAQ-COM300 : DIFFERENCE BETWEEN LOCAL HOURS AND AWSTATS REPORTED HOURS
PROBLEM:
I use IIS and there's a difference between local hour and AWStats reported hour. For example I made a hit on a page at 4:00 and AWStats report I hit it at 2:00.
SOLUTION:
This is not a problem of time in your local client host. AWStats use only time reported in logs by your server and all time are related to server hour. The problem is that IIS in some foreign versions puts GMT time in its log file (and not local time). So, you have also GMT time in your statistics.
You can wait that Microsoft change this in next IIS versions. However, Microsoft sheet Q271196 "IIS Log File Entries Have the Incorrect Date and Time Stamp" says:
The selected log file format is the W3C Extended Log File Format. The extended log file format is defined in the W3C Working Draft WD-logfile-960323 specification by Phillip M. Hallam-Baker and Brian Behlendorf. This document defines the Date and Time files to always be in GMT. This behavior is by design.
So this means this way of working might never be changed, so another chance is to use the AWStats plugin 'timezone'. Warning, this plugin need the perl module Time::Local and it reduces seriously AWStats speed.
To enable the plugin, uncomment the following line in your config file.
LoadPlugin="timezone TZ"
where TZ is value of your signed timezone (+2 for Paris, -8 for ...)

AWStats

2005-03-10T15:45:00.000-06:00

Get AWStats Installed. But when tried to parse log from IIS, all entries were dropped. Finally found the reason is wrong sequence in "LogFormat" directive in the .conf file. Can't just c&p the setting from the installation guide. The sequence is identified at the top of the log file that IIS created.

ACCESS -> MySQL

2005-03-09T18:14:00.000-06:00

Use MySQL ODBC connector to do this. Very smooth. But one problem.

If I create the MySQL database as utf8, then each Chinese character being takes 4-bytes space. UTF8 use 3-bytes for Chinese character, that is weird. But if the MySQL database is created using default (latin1). Then each Chinese character takes 2 bytes. in both cases, they are correctly displayed in mysql client tool.

Finally I found the problem is because myodbc-3.51 doesn't support Unicode yet.

MySQL UTF8

2005-03-09T17:56:00.000-06:00

Character set problem again!

I think MySQL 4.1 does a really good job in character set issue. But I think the documentation can be better. I understand the concept of character_set_client, character_set_connection, character_set_results. But it doesn't work on me. Here is what I've tried out.

Default_character_set = utf8
(1) Enter mysql prompt, do nothing, select a table. The Chinese characters are shown corrrectly. No matter the character_set of the database is set to utf8 or the default latin1

(2)mysql> set NAMES utf8; (or set character_set_client= utf8; set character_set_connection= utf8; set character_set_result= utf8)
mysql> select * from comp_type;

All Chinese characters are corrupted.

(3) set NAMES utf8;
set character_set_result= latin1;

All Chinese are correctly shown.

Here is the explaination of character set from MySQL website.
Why this happens?

This doesn't really hurt because I can use latin1 instead of utf8(the database is still utf8) but just don't understand. :(

Upgrading chinaautomarket.com

2005-03-09T17:43:00.000-06:00

Now have to spend some time to think about replacing the outdated access database for chinaautomarket.com. I first migrated the whole database to MSSQL, but the performance is shocking--slow! I don't know where the problem is. I built the nonclustered indexes for tables. But it didn't help much. The database is about 300M big, the biggest table is about 120M, when I do a full text search in sql analyzer, it took me over 30 seconds constantly! I have 1G memory on that server and the memory usage was at around 800M. Then I tried mysql 4.1 on the same machine, it is better but still far away from satisfaction - about 20s. I tried it on my desktop at home. The speed was amazing - less than 1 sec. I'm so confused. WHy? I used the smallest configuration -64M memory for MySQL. I 'm going to try more and see why it differs this much.

2005-02-25T14:41:00.000-06:00

自古不谋万世者,不足谋一时；不谋全局者，不足谋一域。

IIS

2005-02-22T18:00:00.000-06:00

1. In order to use ssi on IIS for .html and .htm, have to do the following:

- Start up Internet Service Manager
- Select the web site you want to do the processing on
- Right click on it and select Properties
- Select Home Directory
- If necessary, create an application
- Press Configuration
- Select .shtml and press Edit
- Copy down the information in the dialog
- Press Cancel
- Press Add
- Use the file extension .htm and .html, use all the other information that you copied down
- Restart IIS for good measure

Gentoo update

2005-02-21T13:14:00.000-06:00

1. php 5 can't compile due to GCC 3.5

grep: /usr/lib/gcc-lib/i386-pc-linux-gnu/3.3.4/libstdc++.la: No such file or directory
/bin/sed: can't read /usr/lib/gcc-lib/i386-pc-linux-gnu/3.3.4/libstdc++.la: No such file or directory
libtool: link: `/usr/lib/gcc-lib/i386-pc-linux-gnu/3.3.4/libstdc++.la' is not a valid libtool archive
make: *** [libphp5.la] Error 1
make: *** Waiting for unfinished jobs....
libtool: link: cannot find the library `/usr/lib/gcc-lib/i386-pc-linux-gnu/3.3.4/libstdc++.la'
make: *** [sapi/cli/php] Error 1

Fix it:
fix_libtool_files.sh 3.3.4
or
gcc-config 1

Related discussion here.

2. Can't merge mailbase

* Checking for possible file collisions...
* //etc/pam.d/pop3 exists and wasn't provided by mailbase
* //etc/pam.d/imap exists and wasn't provided by mailbase

* Those files listed above have to be removed in order to
* install this version of mailbase.

* If you edited them, remember to backup and when restoring make
* sure the first line in each file is:
* # Provided by mailbase (dont remove this line!)

!!! ERROR: net-mail/mailbase-0.00-r8 failed.
!!! Function pkg_setup, Line 50, Exitcode 0
!!! Can't be installed, files will collide
!!! If you need support, post the topmost build error, NOT this status message.

Realted discussion here.

Oh My God!

2005-02-15T20:16:00.000-06:00

Just talked to my friend in China and mentioned my blog. Now matter how he tried, he cant visit my blog, not only mine, none of the whole Google Blogger. It seems the IP address is blocked by the govenment. Damn it.

Nokia + Microsoft

2005-02-15T19:43:00.000-06:00

Nokia Makes Deal to Use Microsoft's Music Formats

Nokia Makes Deal to Use Microsoft's Music Formats. They are gonna use it on their mobilephones. This reminds us that the multimedia age of mobile devices has arrived. Both Audio or Video content will spread around on our cellphones. For young people, it would be exciting to send a self made audio/video over internet to their significants' cellphone.

CTUAAA 2005

2005-02-14T16:14:00.000-06:00

2005 Chiao-Tung University North America Alumni Association (CTUAAA) 2005 Reunion in Chicago

It seems the organizer is from Taiwan?

CW will text you your voicemails

2005-02-14T16:12:00.000-06:00

This is very good idea! Just not sure how they fix the accuracy and performance problem. Maybe it could be better if it is sent to email.

Wallop

2005-02-10T14:29:00.000-06:00

Just got a refer from my friend and tried Microsoft wallop out. It is fancy. The look and feel and the effects when you click and move your mouse. But more supprisingly, I found everything is Flash! It's unbelievable and remove all my excitements. Hmm...Microsoft should develop their own way...no activeX. Maybe they realize it is too dangerous.

Apache URL

2005-02-10T10:58:00.000-06:00

Avoid case sensitive in URL:

For Gentoo,
1. First make sure in /etc/apache2/conf/apache2.conf, mod_speling.so is loaded that is:

LoadModule speling_module modules/mod_speling.so

2. In /etc/apache2/conf/commonapache2.conf, add the following

CheckSpelling on

It will disable case sensitive in URL and check the spelling as well. This will slow down apache too.

鸡年快乐！

2005-02-08T12:18:00.000-06:00

上午给家里打了一个小时的电话，给GF打了一个小时的电话。发现线路居然完全没有我想象中的拥挤。在北京时间12点左右打得，先试了OneSuite,接入号码都打不进去，试了几次以后改用擎天电讯，拨了三次就通了。看来擎天的质量确实不错。春节大家都挺无聊的。

Digital Painting

2005-02-08T12:05:00.000-06:00

Put LCD in a wood frame and show people art works. Sounds like ridiculous but people are now trying to push it to the market. I saw the samples today in a Focus group. It looks not bad. Much better than I've imagined. But a little bit pricier, $1500 for a 19 inches big "picture", and picture is charged at $100 for each (Photo format is proprietary and protected by copy rights). They now use flash memory to hold the picture, one for each. In the future they want to network them and management of hotel or such can replace the hanging pictures without physically moving them.

Acegi Authentication

2005-02-06T13:42:00.000-06:00

Thanks for Matt Raible's comment which pointed me to Acegi. When I was reading Securing Your Java Applications - Acegi Security Style, I found and browsed to the author - Matthew E. Porter's company's website. To my suprise, a window poped up and Matt said hello to me when I was reading their solution. He is a great guy and we talked about the Acegi solution - his company is using it on internal system and customer portal. I had a question on How to authenticate using existed user db. He said Acegi can do such by implementing AthenticationDAO. It is very helpful. Seems I have to pick up Acegi now. He sponsors the Forums of Acegi. And his Blogger.

Happy Chinese Luna New Year!

2005-02-05T23:59:00.000-06:00

今天在朱涛家里吃晚饭，算是年夜饭了:)
还有两个浙江公派出来到IIT读MPA(Master of Public Admistration)的朋友。聊得挺开心。发现现在国内做美国学校中介的好像油水挺多。而且这种留学走的是J1签证，很容易过，她们说到目前为止没有被拒签的。美国professional教育向中国开放还没有多久，宣传作的也不够，看来这里面大有文章可做。

Use webservices in Flash MX

2005-02-05T12:43:00.000-06:00

Flash Remoting for J2EE Developers
This article talks about how to connect Flash MX from client to server webservices. Very helpful for solving the problem of submitting data from Flash to backend db. Since constructing url in Tapestry is a headache.

JRoller

2005-02-04T16:21:00.000-06:00

JRoller doesn't support unicode? I cant type chinese.... Painful. I try to install our own rollerweblog on gentoo box. It requires mysql 4.1 or up to support unicode, but gentoo mysql 4.1 ebuild is still Masked. I don't want to risk it. How many ppl are using mysql 4.1 for production under Gentoo?

Tapestry+Sping+Hibernate

2005-02-04T12:31:00.000-06:00

After carefully research on the net, we finally decided to choose Tapestry+Sping+Hibernate. There is alot to learn. I've kinda experience of Hibernate but know nothing about Tapestry and Spring. I found Appfuse is a good base to kick off, but seems Raible is much more interested in Struts than Tapestry....but it is still a good tuitorial for Spring+Hibernate.
Also, downloaded the petshop example for study. Hopefully I can get through quickly.

phpBB installation

2004-10-13T19:40:00.000-05:00

1. Install phpBB on Gentoo, when run install.php, gave an error mesg:

The PHP configuration on your server doesn't support the database type that you chose

Solved:
Failtal emerge mod_php, run:

USE="mysql" emerge mod_php

2004-05-27T23:23:00.000-05:00

C++ VS. JAVA

Gentoo Emerge Usage

2004-05-18T19:05:00.000-05:00

emerge -pv mod_perl
emerge esync

cd /usr/portage/app-portage/
emerge app-portage/esearch

eupdatedb
esync

Eclipse Trainning

2004-05-18T14:32:00.000-05:00

1. Preference->Java->Code Style->Code Templates->Comments->Types
Change {$user} -> Henry Chen

Bugzilla installation

2004-05-18T14:14:00.000-05:00

The Solution:

Alias /bugzilla /var/www/bugzilla

#PerlModule Apache2::ModPerl::Registry

#SetHandler perl-script
#PerlHandler ModPerl::Registry::handler

Options +ExecCGI +FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride Limit

Order Allow,Deny
Allow from 128.2.0.0/16 128.237.0.0/16

------------------
LoadModule perl_module /usr/lib/apache2-extramodules/mod_perl.so

Problems in Installing Bugzilla

Mod_Perl
* perl -e '$"="\n";print "@INC\n";'
* in commonapache2.conf add: PerlSwitches -Mlib=/var/www/Bugzilla
* chmod +x +r *.pl

MySQL

GRANT SELECT,INSERT,UPDATE,DELETE,INDEX,ALTER,CREATE,
DROP,REFERENCES ON bugs.* TO bugs@localhost
IDENTIFIED BY '$db_pass';

should have 'LOCK TABLES' privilege as well.

GRANT SELECT,INSERT,UPDATE,DELETE,INDEX,ALTER,CREATE,
DROP,REFERENCES,LOCK TABLES ON bugs.* TO bugs@localhost
IDENTIFIED BY '$db_pass';

Gentoo Emerge Usage

2004-05-18T09:50:00.000-05:00

Good link

I have been using Gentoo for about a year now, and either I've been doing things wrong, or things have changed

What I used to do: (This means don't do it this way)

To update all packages on the system:
Code:
emerge sync
emerge -upv world
emerge -u world

To install a ~x86 package on a x86 system:
Code:
ACCEPT_KEYWORDS=~x86 emerge samba
emerge -i net-fs/samba-2.2.8a

To clean up unwanted packages on your system:
Code:
cd /var/db/pkg
ls
#look through each directory for packages that aren't needed
emerge unmerge [package]

What I do now:

I've done a lot of reading today in these forums, and found out I was doing it all wrong! I think I'm not the only one, so here is what I have learned:

To update all packages on your system:
Code:
emerge sync
emerge -uDpv world
emerge -uDv world