Tuesday, October 26, 2004

New PalmOne Treo 650

I will not buy it.
I will not buy it.
I will not buy it.
I will not buy it.
I will not buy it.
I will not buy it.
I will not buy it.
I will not buy it.
I will not buy it.

The new PalmOne Treo 650 is out. It has a high-resolution screen at 320x320, supports bluetooth and a myriad of other improvements over the 600.

Update on Verizon Broadband Access Card PC5220

I've had my broadband card for about a few weeks and I installed a major upgrade today worthy of mention.

When you receive the PC5220 from the dealer, they give you an install disk with a connection manager. So, I installed this software. Then I checked for updates and installed the latest update.

The problem was that instead of always connecting to National Broadband Access, sometimes (usually at most inconvenient times), it would connect at 1xRTT.

Broadband Access = ~500kb connection
1xRTT = ~60-80kb connection

So, herein lies the problem; I'm paying for broadband and getting slacker connections.

Then, before I called Verizon to copiously complain about the connection, I checked verizon wireless support online.

Hidden (yes, not easily found), is a VZAccess Manager, and the "Venturi" Client which is kind of like an accelerator. Needless to say, after disabling the original software and installing the new software, I've been cranking out some good results.

My slowest download speed was 508kb, and fastest was 557kb.

I definitely recommend the Verizon Broadband Access Card, unless, you live in Research Triangle Park, where Nextel is field testing a super-duper broadband wireless system.


Jaba Jaba, Dooo..

Well, I've finally sucumbed to all the criticism and bowed down to learn java. In the past I've dutifully hacked out java as needed for file i/o, and other mundane tasks.

As I've worked side-by-side in the trenches with webMethods' PS folks, invariably, they have all said that while my flow code is great, the use of loops should be and can be avoided if I would only use JAVA.

So, I decided that in an effort to "better" myself, I would apply java in every situation where I thought a switch to java would provide a significant processing savings.

This is my first all out effort to create a java service that actually does something useful besides "Hello World." Remember to create StringList1, StringList2 as inputs and CombinedStringLists as the output. The idea is to input two string lists and combine them as one. Sure I could have used the built-in services to do this, but I wanted to learn how to use vectors.

Also, I don't know how much this will save in processing time, but it was fun to build. Here's the code:

/*

Remember to do your imports:

import java.util.*
import java.lang.reflect.Array

*/

// pipeline
IDataCursor pipelineCursor = pipeline.getCursor();
String[] StringList1 = IDataUtil.getStringArray( pipelineCursor, "StringList1" );
String[] StringList2 = IDataUtil.getStringArray( pipelineCursor, "StringList2" );
pipelineCursor.destroy();

// create new vector to store both of the arrays
Vector v = new Vector();

// add each array to the vector. If you add new inputs, add them here.

v.addAll(Arrays.asList(StringList1));
v.addAll(Arrays.asList(StringList2));

String[] CombinedStringList = new String[Array.getLength(StringList1) + Array.getLength(StringList2)];
v.copyInto(CombinedStringList);

IDataCursor pipelineCursor_1 = pipeline.getCursor();
IDataUtil.put( pipelineCursor_1, "CombinedStringList", CombinedStringList );
pipelineCursor_1.destroy();


Thursday, October 21, 2004

Wireless Broadband: HUH? Sweet Connectivity..

I decided to ditch my T-Mobile wireless data connection and replace it with a new service that is available in a handful of cities.

I bought an Audiovox PC5220 Wireless Broadband card. It is a PCMCIA card from Verizon that provides 300-500kb bandwidth anywhere you can get a signal. The technology is called EVDO. It works everywhere that I do. There are over 20 airports and 14 cities that comprise the service coverage area.

This means that when I am on client site, I can surf the web, use my chat client, connect to remote systems, etc. without needed to connect to their internal LAN.

I have used the service in Atlanta, Washington DC and Northern Virginia and can report that it rocks.

I use it mainly at my desk and in transit or while waiting for flights. The service is fast enough to download fairly large files. I downloaded two webMethods images for my customer (6.01 and 6.1) and it took about 20 minutes for each image.

I also use the service to connect to my Corporate Intranet and to manage my electronic affairs.

I recommend it highly to anyone who lives in the current coverage area. It is especially relevant for road warriors with ONE laptop who travel too frequently to justify a broadband connection at home or only need it part-time. It is also an alternative for those who cannot get broadband cable or DSL due to converage restrictions.

Check http://www.verizon.com/ for details. Look for Broadband wireless.


Tuesday, October 12, 2004

Adapter Hell

Well, I'm definitely in Adapter Hell. I am working on a proprietary adapter that has (imagine this) no available documentation.

I have to work with the PM/Business Analyst to get the inputs and review for the outputs to see if they are correct.

I will say, that this adapter is interesting because it exposes the entire financial system for message processing. The upside is that a system that is truly difficult to integrate can be integrated. The downside is that the integration, due to lack of documentation, becomes itself, a huge arguous task.


Cheers to all.

R

Friday, October 08, 2004

6.01 vs. 6.1

I am working on an upgrade project wherein the old adapter resides in the 6.0x environments and the new adapter resides only in the 6.1 environment.

The major difference is the support of the JVM and a bunch of deprecated services that I have to rewrite the codebase against.

I will replace the old services with the new optimized services.

I'll keep everyone up to date with anything out of the ordinary. I am working on a government-only adapter that does not see any service in the commercial inventory.

Part of my training and approach methodology has been to take a deep look at the java docs / api documentation for Integration Server, which is something that I have never taken the opportunity to do.

I am humbled.

Ray