Log monitors / viewers

Posted by mkhairul - July 25, 2007 at 09:07:27 pm - 1 Comment

Categories: blog

No, not logs that goes down the toilet. Text logs. To be precise a real-time log viewer / monitoring software (color filtering would be nice though).

Blast from the past

I’ve done a simple application in VB once, for an MMU student, quite simple actually and I did it in 30 minutes and earned RM75 for it (I earned RM800 per month at that time, so 75 an hour is a lot for me). The application was a real-time log viewer. Periodically reads the file in which it is opened with and checks it every minute. Comparing the hash result of the file and updating it if necessary thus real-time.

Now, I just might hook the application to the windows kernel and detects for any handle or activities related to the file.

I thought I saw something.. 

.. similar on AnalogX. They got some useful stuffs there (which I always forget about). But nevertheless I cant find it. I Googled, search through sourceforge, and googled again, tweak my keywords little by little, trying to close in to the solution. Found ABLogfile, works nice but crashes when I use it to open up my codeigniter’s logfile.

Conclusion

After 40 minutes of relentless searching through google’s results (full of commercial links, even though I put in "free" / "open source"), at last, I found it. Not one but two. First one is Log Veneer. Looks nice and all, but still in version 0.1, so I’d have to give it at them that they’re doing a great job. I’ll have to come and take a look later and maybe try to join the dev.

The other one is Trace Log. I’ll have to put it in my toolbox (along with others, firebug, selenium, etc). I should have known about this sooner but as Sephris always say, Two and two were always four.

Annoying Mobile Phone Joystick

Posted by mkhairul - July 22, 2007 at 08:07:38 pm - No Comments

Categories: blog

Currently I’m using Sony Ericsson K700 (I think, I dont know much about mobile phones). This phone, a second hand phone, is getting really really annoying. The joystick is unresponsive. After years of exposure to unstable systems (frequent BSODs), my patience have increased to a point where I resist the urge to smash annoying stuffs like this (nothing good comes out of smashing stuffs, unless you like picking up the pieces).

So anyway, I googled some stuffs and found Tutorial - Fix most Joystick problems - K700, K750 etc. Nice. Now I have to find some contact cleaner. I hope there’s some in OU.

I guess I’ll have to look for it on my way back home tomorrow. Hopefully I can put the pieces back together (taking apart is easy). 

Hamachi Woes

Posted by mkhairul - July 21, 2007 at 06:07:12 am - No Comments

Categories: blog

Hamachi is one of those zero-configuration VPN (virtual private networking) thing. In the early days, Hamachi works just fine, you dont have to touch anything (zero really means zero) but now, you have to set some up (there goes zero-configuration) to play games online.

The common questions/comments: 

"It worked in the older version, but doesn’t anymore. Why?" In
order to make Hamachi more compatible with real VPN environments, the
binding order was changed to have Hamachi’s adapter have the lowest
priority. Games are particularly bad at not having a networking setup
capable of intelligently working on a multiple network adapter system.
Instructions in raising the Hamachi adapter’s priority are in the first
link above. 

Before the config, my friends and I cant see each other’s game. I searched for every (almost) and didn’t find any solution. I thought my friends did a thorough search, for that, I dismissed Hamachi’s forum in my search. I tried wippien but same problem, cant play online games (can’t even establish VPN connection). After giving up on wippien, I went back and search through Hamachi’s forum just in case they missed something (which I should be doing in the first place).

At the top of the forum in the Gaming category,  there it is. Before posting about games not working (Can’t see games). Which leads me to Hamachi:Gaming over Hamachi. Anyway it works now, for me but still there’s a bit of a problem, I can’t see the games that my friends created (he can see mine just fine). Bugs me.
 

Pinging °ÿ ?

Posted by mkhairul - July 18, 2007 at 10:07:45 pm - No Comments

Categories: blog

As weird as it gets, my housemate woke up from his sleep and starts modifying shit on his computer. After an hour later, he realized he’s done something bad, unspeakably bad.

Actually, his pc can’t connect to anywhere. It doesn’t even know its own IP Address (ping 127.0.0.1 results in pinging °ÿ with 32 bytes of data, but it shows everything else’s right in ipconfig). After going through piles of links. None solved it. Keywords such as "unable automatically ip parameters network card", APIPA (Automatic Private IP Addressing), and some other kind of shit. None solved it.

We also went to the wild wild registry and adjust few stuffs, hoping it’ll fix it. But nay, twas a futile attemp.

After the fire of hope being doused from his soul, he decided to do a system restore. I start to search for other solution. And I noticed, when I ping 127.0.0.1 it results in pinging °ÿ. I searched for it and found an entry in devhardware.com’s forum. It’s winsock related.

Googled for "setting winsock", and leads to "Repair/Reset Winsock settings", which in turn, points to the hero of the moment. WinSock XP Fix. Case closed. Stomach growling. I must devour some food.

Diagram is for yEd

Posted by mkhairul - July 11, 2007 at 11:07:01 pm - No Comments

Categories: Development, blog

Yesterday I was searching for a modelling software, diagramming to be exact. Went through lots of site, I wonder why wikipedia’s List of UML Tools (if it does now, refer to timestamp) doesn’t list yEd. But anyway, in my search I stumbled into umlet’s diagram samples (which refreshes alot of my memory, +1 Wisdom).

When I say, went through lots of site, almost all of the non-proprietary category of List of UML Tools, and others. Toad Data Modeller, to name a few.

In the past, I’ve used Diagram Studio and pleased with it because there’s none as good as it at that time (if there is I didn’t find it, *shrugs*). But now, yEd will takeover (not as interesting as Diagram Studio but gets the job done). R.I.P. DS, you shall be remembered.

Arise jQuery!

Posted by mkhairul - July 10, 2007 at 10:07:21 am - No Comments

Categories: blog

I don’t have much time in my hands, there’s a limit on my ability to dig into frameworks. Maybe I spent too much time on games. Yeah, thats the problem but it’s also my motivation for software development (trying to get a foot into game development). So it cancels out the bad part.

I read other’s thoughts on it (no, I’m not a psionicist), on blogs. Javascript frameworks that is. I picked up an RSS feed, someone blogging about A few days with YUI. I’ve also spent a few days with YUI, at first I thought it was great, with all the design pattern library and stuff, but then when I used it for a while, I become fed up. Too much code for simple stuffs.

That’s when I switched to mootools, which was great at first impression. Small stuffs, customizable and cool effects. Ok fine. I used it for a couple of days, tried to put a couple of other effects and that’s when thing starts to go ugly. Some effect stutters and halted. Hrm. After that I start looking for other frameworks for comparison. Some have poor docs some incomplete examples, not much adoption, etc. I stayed true to mootools.

There’s an effect that I wanted to implement and tried to put in another library, scriptaculous I think, and things started to get ugly. Errors, hundreds of them, going to thousands. Firebug was counting errors like an idiot savant chanting PI decimals.

Then, enter jQuery. It was my saviour. Fast, smooth, plays nice with others, elegant, much much more. And the adoption rate is freakishly amazing (digg, wordpress, etc). I ditched mootools for jQuery. No hard feelings. After I have chosen jQuery months later, Digg announce their adoption of jQuery. A big grin.

Longan

Posted by mkhairul - July 7, 2007 at 02:07:41 pm - No Comments

Categories: blog

Longan, nice and nutritional. Bought it a little bit under 1kg (1kg = RM7), costs me RM6.

In search of PHP IDEs

Posted by mkhairul - July 7, 2007 at 01:07:37 am - 3 Comments

Categories: blog

Every 6 months or so, I went on a journey through the net, searching for IDEs dan could ease my fingers off from the keyboard. This year, code completion / code assist feature is my main target. 

Project view, function reference, code folding, debuggers, are the features I needed to be on the IDE that I’m using. Sometimes here and there, I whip out Notepad++ to do some quick editing. Different syntax highlight and coloring between editors doesn’t bother me much. I quickly adapt due to heavy switching between IDEs and editors.

And here I am, scouring the web, for IDEs found a few like

• Komodo Edit (lack project view, cant import directories instead of individual files)
• Aptana (no PHP code assist profile, uses Eclipse as the core though, stripped off unnecessary stuff),
• Intype, not an IDE but still looks interesting. Found in codeigniter’s forum while searching code completion IDE (besides Scite)
• Lots more, search for PHP Development Tools in wikipedia

After searching through PDT (PHP Development Tools), found that Code Completion feature will be done this year (aptana will be integrated too, yeay!). So, I think I’ll just stick with easyeclipse. I gets the work done. Other than that is each person’s preferences. If you like to use vi / vim / emacs, good to know, pico or nano is fine with me.

 

Update: I prefer free softwares. Zend Studio, Dreamweaver, can’t afford it.

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