No pain no gain

This weekend I managed to convince my wife that it would be a wonderful idea to buy a Nintendo Wii console. So I immediately went out to the next electronics store and bought a Wii and a second Wiimote. And what should I say, the weekend was a blast. We had loads of fun with the included WiiSports, especially with Tennis. Granted the graphics looks really outdated on the big 37″ screen, but what it lacks in graphics it makes up in gameplay. And the Wiimote controller just has this let-my-try-appeal which you can’t resist. So now I need some more games, preferably those with a high WAF (Wife Acceptance Factor). So if you have any secret tips, please let me know.

In the meantime I started working on my first OSX application. It will be a utility to securely store your passwords and it will use the PasswordSafe file format, so that you can exchange data across multiple platforms. I know that there exists a PasswordSafe Java version which will run on OSX, but I don’t like it very much in terms of usability. It just does not feel like a Mac application, and all other Mac applications in that area can not handle the PasswordSafe file format which is for me absolutely necessary. Anyway, I think this is a good area to master Objective-C and Cocoa and I will keep you updated on the progress… provided that I will not spend all my time in front of the Wii

MySQL uses character set definitions on different levels. There is a default character set for the MySQL server, one character set for each database, one for each table and even one for a single column. You should generally take care that you use a consistent dataset for all columns and tables inside a database and the database itself. There exists no SQL-command or command line utility to convert a database from one character set to another. Therefore I will describe a quick way to accomplish this.

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Unfortunately the xmlrpc Library used by the GNL.tv web standings display is not compatible with PHP5 and the library seems to be no longer supported by its developer. So if you want to run GNL.tv with PHP5 you need to patch that library, which is actually pretty easy to do.

Open the file xmlrpc.php in your favorite text editor and go to line 436. You should now see the following code:

$this = &$array["methodResponse"]["fault"]["value"]["struct"]["member"];
$this[0]["name"] = "faultCode";
$this[0]["value"]["int"] = $faultCode;
$this[1]["name"] = "faultString";
$this[1]["value"]["string"] = $faultString;

We need to rename $this to $temp, so change the above lines to this:

$temp = &$array["methodResponse"]["fault"]["value"]["struct"]["member"];
$temp[0]["name"] = "faultCode";
$temp[0]["value"]["int"] = $faultCode;
$temp[1]["name"] = "faultString";
$temp[1]["value"]["string"] = $faultString;

That’s it. Now everything should work fine in PHP5.

This weekend I have been playing 2 gigs with my band Seventy-Seven. Funny how completely different these 2 gigs can turn out. We played the first gig on Friday night in a trendy venue named Schranne in the city center of Munich. Our mix of 70ies & 80ies Disco with a little bit of Pop and Rock seemed to be exactly what the audience wanted to hear, so we had a real party going on in there and overall it was a great success.

Then on saturday we were booked to play on a summer party at a local soccer club. We have been playing there last year on a similar occasion and we had quite a good time. But this year was completely different. It seems like there were completely different people. Most of the time we had the feeling that we were disturbing the audience instead of entertaining it. In between our sets they have been playing folk music from CD. No wonder we did not fit in there. German folk music is like the musical counter pole to Disco & Pop. Luckily we had to stop after 2/3rd of our program because the police paid a visit as the organizer did not register the party with the authorities.

So the bottom line is: If you are hiring a band for an event, do not search for a band that meets your personal taste, but try to find a band that meets the taste of your guests. This will make it a far more pleasent experience for everybody.

Does the world need another blog? Probably not. But nevertheless here I am and I have decided to convert my existing website to a blog. Until now I used my web presence to distribute my two open source applications GNL.tv and TIR2Joy. This will stay the same and you will still find these applications on this site for download.

A big part of the blog will be dedicated to various development topics. I work as a Java developer in a software company in Munich so there will probably be some topics around J2EE development. In my spare time I administer virtual-racing.org, a large computer gaming site, which is based around PHP and Typo3. So I will also cover the topics administration, content management and PHP development a little bit.

Recently I got hooked on OSX. I bought a MacBook and originally planned on primarily running Windows XP on it in Bootcamp. But as time progressed I found myself booting more and more into OSX and now I am really impressed by this operating system. I just started learning Cocoa and Objective-C and will soon start a software project in the area of audio applications. Of course I will keep you updated on that one.

So, just stay tuned, I hope there will be some interesting pieces of information that you will find on this page.