HalfLoaded.com

So, as most of those who know could have guessed, I’ve become the computer fix-it guy over here. Between our firewalls, proxies and lack of reliable phones, troubleshooting is made difficult. The past week, I have had to fix four computers. That makes nine complete format and OS reinstalls. Of those, all nine had Windows Vista installed. I’m not a Vista guru but it seems to me that Vista was rushed to market. In every case, the only resort available was to upgrade them to XP. I say upgrade because the stability and performance after moving them to XP was remarkable. Every Marine was glad to have the reboots snappy and system stable. Most of them just figured the slowness of their computers was due to the laptop and not due to the bloated operating system Microsoft released.

Only one of them I was able to salvage. I found a nice little hack to reset any users password using Linux and some intuitive programming. This is definitely one of those “must have”’s for the toolbox. The funny thing was, once I restored the Marine’s password, he asked if I could put XP on his laptop just because Vista was so annoying, bloated and slow.

I was also reading a story on how RedHat plans to capitalize on Microsoft’s release of Vista and the slowdown in the economy. I guess both of these type of events have, historically, led to the adoption of alternative software and operating systems. I really hope so. It would be nice to see some more competition out there. Mac has made a nice stand recently with their products. I guess we will see.

For me, I look forward to the late November release of Fedora 10. I’m going to be building up a new computer based on the “Ultimate Budget Box” on Ars Technica’s website. Sub-$500 isn’t bad for a full system with speakers, LCD monitor, keyboard, mouse, etc. Plus, it only pulls 90 watts which will help with the electricity bill.

Anyway, I guess this is all wishful thinking.

This must have been the longest streak without posting yet. It has been nearly two months. A lot has happened here in Iraq but OPSEC rules the roost so I can’t talk about any of it. I will say that the weather is getting cooler, a lot cooler. The highs have only been in the mid to upper 90’s. Between the weather and the fact that home is within sight, everybody is in a chipper mood.

Now, I just wish you all didn’t ruin the economy while we were gone!

A

Well, it wasn’t the greatest way to spend a birthday but I did get to mark another day off the calendar. That is about all I am liberty to discuss. Here is a picture from the sunrise this morning here in Iraq. I hope everyone is well. Thank you all for the birthday wishes. I can’t wait to get home.

One of my biggest hurdles I have come across since taking on Java is really getting my head wrapped around the OOP (object oriented programming) idea. Most of my previous experience wtih visual basic and php was procedural programming. Because of this, my mind is stuck thinking in those terms.

All the e-books I have been going over describe OOP as something that “should” be easy to grasp. A class is a classification of an object. An object is a noun, like a dog, that can be described attributes or fields: four legs, two ears, two eyes, brown, tail, etc. A method is how that dog interacts with other objects: playFetch(), catchFrisbee(), peeOnLeg(), etc.

Okay, so that seems pretty simple. I get these things. However, I don’t see how the hell I can relate that methodology to creating an application for LDAP or even a simple calcualtor for Marine Corps Cutting Scores (the score that gets us promoted).

Luckily, the internet has a plethora of information and I found it on a Stanford student’s website. Jos Claerbout wrote the paper back in 1999. It isn’t on the intricacies of Java. Since OOP is a method or style or paradigm of programming, it doesn’t change as much over time so the age of the document is less relevant than its style.

Mr. Claerbout’s paper is called Don’t fear the OOP. He uses a trashy western novel as his focus to describe OOP. Each idea is presented in “pretty” colors. If in green, the idea is discussed in terms any literate human could understand. If in yellow, it is a bit more programmatical but still not full fledged “programming talk”. And, if in red, it is all about the code. I can’t say I have ever read a paper that used these styles of teaching but it works. It has been a great reference to put me over that edge so I can get beyond the rut I’ve been stuck in.

The internet really is a great place…

I have been flipping between Windows and Linux for quite some time now and I’ve finally decided to stick to Linux for the remainder of my “vacation”. I’ve been looking into object oriented programming for a while. I think it’s time I either get serious about technology or get out of the sector.

Java offers a unique opportunity. Sun has announced plans to open source java and it is beginning to take shape. I think this will help guarantee it will be around a while. On top of that, Java and C# share a lot of similarities so it won’t lock me in to one language for life. I find I actually use more Java based programs than C# based. So, I began looking into learning Java and found that it is a real pain trying to get any software in this part of the world. I plugged in my linux hard drive and found that I already had Eclipse installed (an open source IDE (Integrated Development Environment)). Next thing I knew, I had everything in front of me to begin coding away. The best part is, it is all free. Free as in beer. Free as in speech.

A little searching on the web found a plethora of Computer Science courses related to OOP and Java. And people wonder why I love the internet and open source so much.

The other day I was contacted by a Cpt Miller with the Connecticut Army National Guard (CTARNG). It turns out that the entire CTARNG uses the program I wrote called Active Directory UserMod Assistant. Cpt Miller needed some modifications made to make it work in his environment. I was able to help him out with his mods. It was a bit odd getting a request like that in Iraq. He didn’t know I was here but it was nice knowing that the program I wrote is helping out the Military.

The tricky part was coding without Active Directory and without any of my reference materials. The changes he was looking for were fairly trivial. I was just excited to do some actual work on a computer besides another roster in excel.

I’ve been having a strange issue with a PCMCIA card on my wife’s computer. Every time the machine is rebooted, you are required to “Scan for Hardware Changes” in device manager. It does not automatically detect that the PCMCIA card is still plugged in. After searching google high and low for a solution, I thought about seeing if I could write a script that would automatically run a hardware scan at logon. Here is what I came up with:

1. Download DevCon.exe from Microsoft: DevCon.exe
2. Extract either the 32-bit or 64-bit executable to C:\Windows\System32\
3. Create a file called: “devcon_rescan.cmd”
4. Put the following text in it:
   @echo off
devcon.exe /rescan
5. Copy the file to C:\Windows\System32\
6. Open the registry editor: Start –> Run –> regedit
7. Go To: HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
8. Create a new string value called: DevCon
9. Right click the new value and select Modify. Type in the path to the batch file you made (i.e. “C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\devcon_scan.cmd”)

Hope this helps somebody.

So, I am posting this everywhere and I now realize why new parents are so annoying. Last night, at 11:52pm, nearly 15 hours into labor, Rose gave birth to our first baby. She is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. Rose had a pretty hard labor. Everything was progressing pretty quickly until baby decided she couldn’t make it down the birth canal. I am being blamed for her big head but I don’t really care now.

The doctors had to do an emergency cesarean section because of mom’s fever and baby’s heart rate. We were all scared but everything went smooth and she came out crying and breathing on her own.

I don’t know how I am going to leave her or her mom in six days. It will probably be the hardest thing I’ve ever done.

Sorry about the broken comments. I updated the back-end of the website due to some security concerns and forgot to replace some of my php code. They should be working again. I’ll try not to do that again ;)…

Here are some links for our upcoming deployment…

• 2d LAAD Bn Photo Albums
• Contact Me
• MotoMail - Send letters via e-mail
• Multi-National Forces West - The command for Al Anbar Province, Iraq (Good source for news. The part the national media doesn’t tell you)