Today, I found this great link that made me laugh:
JEFF KEMP ON ORACLE: SQL Injection License Plate
It looks like the original is here. This takes the XKCD comic one step further — very funny.
Category: Great Links
jTDS
Today, I was looking for a Sybase JDBC driver, and found this software project:
It is a open source JDBC driver for both SQL Server and Sybase. I haven’t had much opportunity to use it, but it looks great. They claim to be very fast.
I have started incorporating it into my query tool: Project Shaphan.
Here are some links and information to help you get started:
Here is the code that I am working with to create a link:
try {
Class.forName("net.sourceforge.jtds.jdbc.Driver");
} catch (ClassNotFoundException e) {
(new ProjectJobException(e)).displayException();
}
String serverType = optionsGUI.getServerType();
String serverName = optionsGUI.getServerName();
String portNumber = optionsGUI.getPort().trim();
if(portNumber.length() > 0) {
portNumber = ":" + portNumber;
}
String userName = optionsGUI.getUser();
String password = optionsGUI.getPassword();
try {
connection = DriverManager.getConnection("jdbc:jtds:" + serverType + "://" + serverName + portNumber, userName, password);
} catch (SQLException e) {
(new ProjectJobException(e)).displayException();
}
ShaphanApp.getMainWindow().getSQLEditorsPane().setConnection(new ConnectionDetails(connection, ConnectionDetails.CONN_TYPE_SQL_SERVER));
Great Links: System76
I just discovered a new PC manufacturer (at least new to me): System76. It comes with Ubuntu preinstalled, which sounds cool to me. The price wasn’t too bad either. The 17″ laptop (Bonobo performance) is what interested me since 17″ is what I currently have.
I am not ready for a new laptop (especially considering I just replaced my battery and my hard drive is pretty new too), but this is an option I want to consider the next time I am in the market.
The specs on the 17″ laptop looked pretty good (although I haven’t compared to other vendors). The two things I noticed right off were the battery and the keyboard. The battery was only 6 cell, and I am getting spoiled by my 9 cell battery. I didn’t see any option to upgrade to the 9 cell, and if I had to replace the battery, how would I know which model to buy? Since Dell is pretty popular, lots of options exist for their models. What about System76? Also, the keyboard is more compact with lots of wasted space around the edges. My Dell keyboard has more space around the edges and more extra buttons like volume buttons.
The two things that I would think would be important with Linux laptops would be the price and the innovation. The price wasn’t too bad (without doing comparisons), but the innovation wasn’t the greatest. The hardware offerings weren’t too bad for the innovation department, but I would expect more to make it standout. Maybe an ergonomic keyboard or a big escape button (for vi users) would make the case standout. The Ubuntu logo on the “Start” key was a good touch though. Those are all observations without actually touching or using it.
–Just some thoughts. I would love to hear opinions from people who actually have a System76 computer.
Olympics in Linux
I went to watch the Olympics on my Linux laptop, and I didn’t have the correct plugin. I found a post that pointed me to installing the Moonlight plugin. It pointed to a website with both the download link and the installation instructions. Now, I already had Mono installed from the repositories, but all I had to do was install the XPI addon for Firefox that I downloaded from the website.
Resources
Creating Sheet Music in Linux
I found an excellent link about music typesetting programs:
The program that I tried was MuseScore, which seemed to work very nicely. It seemed a little rough (as in, it crashed a couple of times), but it got the job done for me.
I was able to install MuseScore from Synaptic with the mscore package. There is also a mscore-common package as well.
Ayatana Project
The other day, I ran across the Ayatana Project. I guess that is the parent project for some of the applets at the top of the Ubuntu desktop. The home for the project is here.
I noticed that they have a Evolution indicator. A Thunderbird version might be nice, and a GMail version would be even better for me.
The indicator applet is what got me started looking at this project. I currently have Empathy (allows me Google-Talk access) and Evolution in this applet. I saw a question about Skype, which looked really great. I would love to see what else they can put in here, like GMail, Skype, Facebook, etc.
Great Links: Image Search
This post caught my eye the other day. Apparently, Google is allowing you to search for images by license. This is great if you are looking for images for things like Power Point presentations and such.
Google Operating System: Usage Rights Options in Google Image Search
Interesting: Java Application Store
I saw this post the other day. Sun is coming out with a Java store to deliver applications. These stores are getting to be a trend! I have a “Market” for my Android phone. iPhone has the same type of thing. Linux has the repositories of packages, which though you can’t purchase programs, you can easily install programs in much the same way.
Right now, it looks like the store is just in beta. I am curious to see how this works and how it catches on.
Resources
Great Link: Handling ^M
When working in a mixed environment, you are bound to run into those ^M characters at the end of your lines at some point. Here is a great link describing how to fix it. They talk about vi, but gVim works the same way.
Oracle Applications – Business & Technology: Removing ”^M” from SQL*Loader datafile
Great Links: Free Software List
I ran across this interesting link listing free software. I think most of it is Windows-based software though.
Here it is: