Abnormalogue

Hungry Jack

admin — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 19:42:58 +0000

Humorous Factor: 7.0

Immaturity Factor: 8.5

Disturbing Factor: 5.5

Queasiness Factor: 0.5

Abnormality Factor: 5.4

Today I went shopping with my wife.

My favorite part was when she took the Hungry Jack off the shelf. Tee-hee.

Electronics is fun

admin — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 21:06:31 +0000

I recently took up a new hobby. Electronics. As I mentioned before in another post, I am not really good with real world physical things. That’s why I’m, luckily, a software engineer. I do, however, like the challenge of writing software that controls real world things.

Electricity astounds me in the fact that I have absolutely no knowledge of how it works. Until I bought the book Make: Electronics (Learning by Discovery), which is a wonderful guide that really assumes you know nothing about electricity and teaches the theory behind it, if you care to read it, which I do, along with examples that reinforce the theories. Today I did the first experiment which was tasting the power of a 9-volt battery (ouch!) and learning how to use a strange device called a multimeter. I can finally measure the resistance between two points. And the measurement is ohms. Wow, look at me.

Anyone scared or fascinated by electronics should really pick up a copy of this expertly crafted workbook.

Now, on to Experiment 2. Here’s hoping I’m not sticking a fork into a toaster, and tasting the power of AC current.

Bread: Old Hobby New Again

admin — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 20:24:17 +0000

Back a couple of years ago I was lucky to pick up a copy of the The Bread Baker’s Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread by Peter Reinhart which is an extraordinary book on not just recipes but about the multiple processes that take place when baking bread from scratch. Somewhere along the way, I had stopped baking bread but I have recently started again, with this book as a guide and I am enjoying it immensely. There is nothing more satisfying than creating artisan bread with nothing but simple ingredients and your bare hands.

Now I know I have blogged recently about my concerns over people taking pictures of their meals and displaying them as a Smörgåsbord on Facebook here for others to laud about but my picture of bread here represents art, yes, and I guess food. I’m sure many of you might see this as the same thing, which is fair.

Regardless, I urge anyone with a love for cooking, or creating, or art, to pick up this book and try a few recipes. He even has three simple recipes for creating white bread. The breads range from the simple, to the more complicated artisan breads, to even the sourdough varieties which requires diligence to keep the yeast starter alive, essentially forever, in your fridge. At one point I kept the starter alive for roughly two months. Going on vacation was not favorable for it, and the smell was not a nice welcome home (it smells almost as bad on day one).

So here, I present my picture of Potato Rosemary Bread (made with the optional garlic). It is delicious.

Simple CSS Code Indentation

admin — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 18:12:24 +0000

Since I will be frequently supplying code examples, I initially devised a way to handle code indentation through css. My first attempt works, but was pretty sad, not to mention a space waster. And anyone who develops web pages knows the important of css as opposed to styling in an html document. First, it separates content from presentation, and it also reduces the download size to your end user. And smaller file sizes means your content will load in their browsers more quickly, taking away the variable of server load, of course.

So here is my first attempt:

style.css

.codeindent-3 {

padding-left: 10px;

}

.codeindent-3 {

padding-left: 20px;

}

.codeindent-9 {

padding-left: 30px;

}

.codeindent-12 {

padding-left: 40px;

}

.codeindent-15 {

padding-left: 50px;

}

.codeindent-18 {

padding-left:60px;

}

code.html

method Test()

{

int a = 0;

for (int = 0; i < 5; ++i)

{

a = a + i;

}

Now if you copy the above examples into a stylesheet file name style.css and code.html you will see that the html is rendered with a perfectly formatted code example. However, looking at the example it certainly takes a lot of selectors to handle nesting of lines of code. In some complex code examples further indenting selectors would beed to be defined which is not sustainable.

As a software engineer, I wanted to simplify this greatly. Here is the simplified version. Note that the simplicity comes from the css itself, not necessarily from the markup. It completely alleviates the need to defined multiple nesting levels in your stylesheet.

style.css

div.indent {

padding-left: 2em;

}

code.html

method Test()

{

int a = 0;

for (int = 0; i < 5; ++i)

{

a = a + i;

}

At some point it’d be nice to write a quick C# program to generate the indented text. Even with the simpler example, it’s still quite the pain to get the formatting just right for display in a div area for copying the examples.

I hope this has helped anyone who needs to embed formatted code examples in their web pages

REST Easy

admin — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 01:02:44 +0000

I recently had the opportunity to work on a project in which we implemented REST as part of a solution. Since REST simply uses the HTTP protocol, how it is used is open to the desired architecture of the solution as long as it follows the HTTP protocol.

The REST vs SOAP debate is blogged about all over the place so I’m not going to go into that here. I believe, but have no proof, that anywhere SOAP is used, so too can REST with the added benefit that any stream can be returned with REST instead of just xml.

In this post, I am going to present the simplest code sample possible for implementing REST in .Net. In this example I will be returning a stream (formatted to xml, although JSON is certainly another option) and will be doing an HTTP GET to retrieve the information.

So here is the simplest example to get REST in .Net up and running.

This example assume the use of the .Net Framework 4.0.

First create a new WCF Service Application and ensure that you create a reference to the 4.0 .Net library System.ServiceModel.Activation.

The code base consists of three files.

Global.asax.cs

Global.asax.cs

using System;

using System.ServiceModel.Activation;

using System.Web;

using System.Web.Routing;

namespace SimpleRest

{

public class Global : System.Web.HttpApplication

{

public void Application_Start(object sender, EventArgs e)

{

RouteTable.Routes.Add(new ServiceRoute(“simplerest/”, new WebServiceHostFactory(), typeof(SimpleRestService)));

}

SimpleRestService.cs

using System;

using System.ServiceModel;

using System.ServiceModel.Web;

using System.ServiceModel.Activation;

using System.Text;

using System.Xml;

using System.IO;

namespace SimpleRest

{

[ServiceContract]

[ServiceBehavior(InstanceContextMode = InstanceContextMode.PerCall)]

[AspNetCompatibilityRequirements(RequirementsMode = AspNetCompatibilityRequirementsMode.Required)]

public class SimpleRestService

{

[WebGet(UriTemplate = "", BodyStyle = WebMessageBodyStyle.Bare, ResponseFormat = WebMessageFormat.Xml)]

public Stream HTTPGetRequest()

{

WebOperationContext.Current.OutgoingResponse.ContentType = “text/plain”;

String action = WebOperationContext.Current.IncomingRequest.UriTemplateMatch.QueryParameters["Action"].ToLower().Trim();

MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream();

if (action == “getnumbers1to”)

{

UriTemplateMatch match = WebOperationContext.Current.UriTemplateMatch;

string lastNumber = match.QueryParameters["lastnumber"];

using (XmlWriter writer = XmlWriter.Create(ms))

{

writer.WriteStartDocument();

writer.WriteStartElement(“numbers”);

for (int i = 0; i < int.Parse(lastNumber); ++i)

{

writer.WriteStartElement(“number”);

writer.WriteString((i + 1).ToString());

writer.WriteEndElement();

}

writer.WriteEndElement();

writer.WriteEndDocument();

}

ms.Position = 0;

return ms;

}

web.config

What this example does:

It’s a fairly simple example. I’ve created a REST URI format of the type http://server/simplerest?getnumbers1to&lastnumber=12. If you compile the example and debug it and type that url into the web browser you will see something like this:

12…[lastnumber]

What is happening in the code:

The web.config file is there for one reason only. The setting up of routes for REST requires the code base to require ASP.NET compatability. That’s it.

The Global.asax.cs file sets up the REST route table. Essentially you specify as many routes as you want. In this example we picked simplerest which then is required to be part of a query. The route table can also be version friendly, so we could set up a route such as simplerest/v1.0 and so on. You’ll notice the type of the service class is passed to add the new route.

Finally the SimpleRestService is the WCF service. In this example I don’t have an interface because my goal is to make the code base as small as possible. This is the meat of processing the REST GET request. It gets the action for the incoming request, ex. ?action=getnumbersfrom1to. Then it uses the current UriTemplateMatch object to get the lastnumber value. It checks if it’s the one action we support and creates a MemoryStream which contains an xml-friendly format to be displayed in the browser by using an XmlTextWriter.

Why I wrote this example:

To figure out how to do this I did a number of things. First, I bought the following book, which I highly recommend.

I love tech books and I wanted to add this to my library. Then, because I didn’t have the luxury of studying the book, I googled many sites until I figured out how to implement REST for my solution. The problem was, even after googling many sites there was still not a short cohesive example that I could find for setting up REST in the easiest manner possible. For this post, I condensed my knowledge to under 50 lines of code.

What is wrong with this example:

Well, everything, really. The one thing the code does right is it works. Let’s say I was your manager and I asked you to create me a RESTful .Net service and I gave you the REST interface I wanted supported and you delivered me the above piece of code. You’d be fired immediately. The code does not follow an object-oriented design paradigm, there is no error handling, no loose coupling, non-extensible, not data driven, and I can go on. The purpose of this code is so you can take the simplest possible example of what it takes to get a REST service up and running and deploy it in a sound architecture of your choosing.

I hope you enjoyed this REST example as much as I did writing it.

Unemployed, but still a Software Engineer

admin — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 22:26:51 +0000

So I’ve been thinking about what to do with this archive.

At my last two positions which lasted for a total of 11 years, I have been working as a senior software engineer working with mainly .Net technologies. I go beyond a simple coder in that I can do everything from the database, including design, to the middle-tier (or n-tier) to the UI layer (not design, mind-you, shudder), machine maintenance, builds, manage IIS, and all sorts of other various technical tasks. So I realize there are tons of software blogs out there covering any topic I can and will discuss. However, I plan to use this archive as a place for these things:

Things that interest me relating to software.
A log of answers to common problems that I find myself going to the Internet for again and again.
Software topics that are beyond my main skills–I like to keep sharp and as current as possible with my discipline.
Reviews of software, whether it be retail, or open source.
Answers to anyone’s questions relating to software engineering. If it’s not a topic that I’m familiar with, I will do my best to find the answer.

I kind of want to make this a repository of sorts. There are so many things I can do within the realm of software development that I just inherently know how to do. However, time and time again I find myself quickly googling stuff I’ve done a million times before. How to I create a new anonymous type? How do I serialize an object to xml? I’ve done that millions of times, and yes it is only three lines of code. Why can’t I remember? And, as always, this forum is also for you to discuss, bring up more topics, and hopefully make this a place where developers can come to chat, solve problems, learn, and simply have fun.

Disclaimer: All code examples presented in my blog have been written and tested by me. Use them at your own risk. I will not be responsible for any use of the code in this blog for descriptive or example purposes. The code is not production nor enterprise ready. That being said, feel free to use, modify, and distribute the examples as you wish.

Stay Away from my Retina

admin — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 14:18:38 +0000

Well, here it is. My first one. A laser pointer. Truthfully, I’ve never gotten one of these because I have kids and I wouldn’t want to make a midnight trip to the hospital because one of them blew out his retina(s). Then I’d have to throw the laser pointer away and go cross-country as a road scholar preaching against the dangers of laser pointers in the proximity of retinas. I keep this one under lock and key to prevent such a situation from ever occurring. The only two reasons I can think of why people have laser pointer is they are frequent presenters or they have cats or dogs. I have three cats. And let me tell you the fun never stops at least until after the first 10 minutes. But now I can claim I am in that higher echelon of humans that owns a laser pointer. Now how many can admit that?

Plated Food

admin — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 19:36:51 +0000

Humorous Factor: 5.0

Immaturity Factor: 0.5

Disturbing Factor: 3.0

Queasiness Factor: 1.5

Abnormality Factor: 2.5

As Facebook and blogs have slowly invaded all of our lives it seems that the one constant is that people seem to post pictures of what they are about to consume or have consumed. While it might be exciting for someone to share with the world the consumables that they will place into their mouth, chew, swallow, digest, and eventually pass as waste, it seems like such odd behavior. They say a picture is a thousand words but a picture of your food deducts 2000 points. So the next time a succulent steak, or a meaty sandwich from the Carnegie Deli in New York City, or a simple tuna melt is begging to have its picture taken, please don’t. No one wants to see it. Really.

And by the way, the picture posted here is what I had for lunch. Taco spaghetti. You should really try it some time. It is delicious.

Abnormality Factor: 5.6

H.R. Pufnstuf

admin — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 15:49:46 +0000

Humorous Factor: 8.5

Immaturity Factor: 2.0

Disturbing Factor: 6.0

Queasiness Factor: 1.0

Abnormality Factor: 4.4

While I hate to admit it, even in my most feverish nightmare, I have to agree with Pop Culture Ninja when he expresses that H.R. PufnStuf should be on the top 10 list of retro movies ready for a big screen remake. The fact that he lists it as number one, I believe, does this strange series, not born out of the pits of Tartarus, but of the minds of two gents named Sid and Marty Kroft, great justice.

Here’s why.

Growing up I was too young to enjoy the series in its first run. It’s a good thing my parents didn’t plop me down for an episode or two like I did with my kids and Teletubbies, for surely my infant brain would have melted. (Apologies to my kids here). I did catch it in reruns, though. And I’m glad I did.

Every episode I would sit enrapt by the struggle of Jimmy, H.R. Pufnstuf and his gang to protect Jimmy’s dearly loved magical talking flute named Freddy from Witchie-Poo. Basically it was a battle between the good, Jimmy, Freddy, the titular H.R Pufnstuff, and Cling and Clang, and the bad, Witchie-Poo, the vulture, the spider, and the bat. This is exactly what my still forming neurons needed to make me who I am today. And the fantastical trippy set pieces never disappointed.

With that said, there was always a certain amount of queasiness I experienced when I saw Jimmy, I’m assuming because of his outfit, Freddy (who wouldn’t feel disturbed by a shimmery golden talking flute?), H.R. Pufnstuf–who knew at my age that he was a dragon?–and especially Witchie-Poo and her Vroom Broom who made the Wicked Witch of the West look like a grandmotherly type who made the most awesome oatmeal cookies one has ever tasted.

Kudos to you Mr. And Mr. Kroft for making my childhood a lot more interesting and substantially more surreal. Your brainchild deserves a big theater wide release. Shoot for the stars, or at least Living Island, with an IMAX/3D release.

Abnormalogue Guided Tour

admin — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 16:09:36 +0000

Pages

Home will take you to the last 20 posts in the blog.
Mission Statement will tell you why our blog exists
Contact Us will tell you how to contact Abnormalogue if you are too meek to comment or want to discuss a matter in private.

Categories

Home will take you to the twenty most recent posts in the blog.
Abnormalities is the meat of this site. My list of abnormal ramblings and things that I rate with an abnormal factor. Agree or disagree, feel free to comment!
Software is for anything software related, being the software engineer I am. That was Senior Social Engineer at my last job. Hmph!
Interests contains subcategories in things besides abnormalities that I blog about. They are Gaming, Movies, TV, Tech, Reading, Writing, BreadMaking, Electronics, Movie Making, and Stop Motion Animation.

This site is for you, my future fans. Feel free to enjoy, use it as you will, and visit frequently.

Sincerely,

Abnormal

Welcome to Abnormalogue

admin — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 16:34:53 +0000

Ok, let’s get this out of the way. No one reads the first post of a new blog that google hasn’t had the chance to index yet and is a mere speck of the web. And who am I kidding? A first post by an out of work software engineer who registered a domain name and got a blog up in a couple of hours.

Stick with me, though. I plan to post at least once a day and in my next post, I’ll give you the guided tour.