Crouching tiger, coding monkey

So when running the current version (5.0.4 at time of writing) of Surround SCM on Windows Vista there is a little problem. Instead of seeing this:

you end up getting this:

with a demeaning warning that looks like this:

And, well, that just stinks. If you take away the Aero shininess from Vista all you have left is Windows XP with a lot of Allow or Deny popup boxes. Fear not though, here’s how to fix it.

First, let me explain what is going on. Surround SCM uses a product called Guiffy to do its Diff/Merge functionality and Guiffy is written in Java. (Surround SCM is in C++ for the curious.) When the Surround client starts up it creates a JVM so that when you ask for a diff or a merge Guiffy can launch and do all the crunching. Unfortunately, the current version of Surround ships with JRE 1.4 which apparently gets along with Aero as well as Paris gets along with Nicole.

Essentially, when the JRE 1.4 starts Vista throws up its hands in exasperation, says “This is NOT hot” and switches to basic mode.

To fix this, follow this link to Sun’s Java download page and download the JRE 6u1 for Windows.

Once the magic gnomes of the internet have delivered it to your computer install it and stare at this progress screen for a while. (Or maybe go get a drink or a bagel or a bacon sandwich or something.)

Once it is done installing go the Tools menu of the Surround client and select User Options.

From here you are going to need to change the JRE setting from what it currently is:

to what we want it to be, the new Sun JRE. Your install path may vary, but you get the idea. Then just quit the Surround client, start it up again and ta-da you’re set.

Last night over at the Jeff Atwood’s blog he posted a really good article about Javascript. It reminded of a basketball game I played in probably 8 or 9 years ago now. (Brace for tangent in 5.. 4.. 3.. 2.. 1..)

At my previous job, back in the high times of the dot-com boom, one of the best perks was the daily lunchtime basketball games. Before the start of one of those games, a senior architect asked me what I thought the next big thing was going to be. I’m thinking he was looking for an outside opinion of someone not too long out of college. Maybe someone with an eye on the cutting edge. Most likely he was just being polite.

Regardless, my initial answer was the inspired, “Hmm, I really don’t know.” He was curious if things like handheld devices were going to be where the action was. I remember thinking about how much I didn’t use the Palm IIIx I had bought and figured that that was probably not going to be it. To be honest I’m not sure what answer I eventually gave him, it was probably something hand-wavy about the web or the internet.

Just between us, let’s pretend I laid out the future design for Digg or YouTube.

Anyhow, I do remember at the time thinking that never in a million bazillion years would Javascript take off. I fully expected it to get seated at the same table with a bunch of other failed technologies. And not a good table, but a really crappy one. Like one that is right in front of the DJ at a wedding reception so when you leave all you can hear is the Electric Slide ringing in your ears.

Man, did I back the wrong horse on that one. That JavaScript (or ECMAScript as his mother calls him) is darn near everywhere.

Oh well, live and learn I guess. At least I was right about Digg and YouTube though.

So today something happened that has never happened in all my years of computer use. I had to use Cmd+ (translation from Mac-speak: increase the text size) a website I was reading because the font was too small for my eyes.

When the hell did that happen?

I remember being in college working on a 14″ monitor with a Linux configuration that was decidedly unhealthy (read: the monitor could have blown up at any moment because of the hotrodded refresh rate) just so I could get the most screen real estate that I could. Now I find myself drawn toward Web 2.0-style websites simply because they are shiny and have big fonts.

*Insert your own geriatric chimpanzee joke here*

To try to deflect attention away from my vision deterioration I’ll leave with a link that was passed along to me.

http://flashface.ctapt.de/

It is a Flash based website for creating police-style artist renditions of faces. I have no idea what use something like this has, but who hasn’t wanted to see their face on a Wanted poster. Err, hmm, never mind about that.

The other day I had the joy and the privilege to debug some printing code. Oh yeah, it was as much as fun as you might be thinking. To make it even better the bug was showing up only on certain distributions of Linux. Seriously, you can dial back the jealously now, I already realize how lucky I am.

Cursing at the printer took me back to my days in college working in the computer labs. Back then Linux was old Infomagic CD’s and getting anything to come out of the printer, whether it was what you wanted or not, was a major accomplishment.

*wavy screen and chime music*
*wavy screen and chime music*
*wavy screen and chime music*

The year was 1995-ish and this thing called the Internet was just starting to become all the rage. But that’s not really the point, that’s a cheap hook to set the tone and mood. Back then I was a “Student Lab Consultant” or some such title which translated directly into “Dude that sat at the desk with the phone in the public computer labs.”

Now being the dude with the phone meant that you did lots of things, but only three things were really important.

1. Help people clean off all the viruses they brought into the lab on the 3.5″ floppy disks that they’ve had since the 6th grade.

2. Consul them when said floppy from the 6th grade goes to that great disk drive in the sky taking their thesis with it.

3. Keep the stupid printers running.

That last one was the bad one. The first two the user had only themselves to blame, the other one was your fault. (Even if it wasn’t your fault, like say if there was no more blank paper in the lab.) It brings a warm feeling to my heart thinking about all the times an irate graduate student screamed at me because they couldn’t print out their research paper for a class that started in two minutes. No matter how many times I told them that a “A Study of the Radiation of the Enzyme Aldehyde Oxidase Decoduosomethingoranother in the Fruit Fly Drosophila melanogaster” probably wasn’t going to be a best seller it didn’t matter.

In fact, it is probably a testament to my fight or flight breakaway speed that I wasn’t bludgeoned to death with a toner cartridge. Or perhaps a thesis about fruit flies.

Regardless, the lesson then still applies today, printers are out to get you at all times. They are not be trusted and must be watched carefully. Speaking of which, I haven’t seen that LaserJet in a while, I wonder where he is…