wissel.net

At least when it comes to software development. Rather use "tasks/units of work left to do". Geek and poke sum it up nicely:

Do you want to know more®? Read a book and sign the manifesto

Posted by Stephan H Wissel At 1:50 PM, Category Software | Permalink | Comments (2) |      

The phone rings.

He: Hello this is [name changed to protect the innocent] from [insert a big bank]. Can I speak to Mr. Stephan?

Me: Hello there, Stephan speaking

He: This is regarding [pretty usual transaction]

Me: OK

He: Let me ask you some questions to establish your identity

Me: OK

He: What is your account # and [secret question about pets, sports, cities, keywords - you know]

Me: Ah - why would I tell you that?

He: To establish your identity

Me: You called my mobile, so? How should I know you are from the bank

He: Sir I work for [insert a big bank]

Me: Yeah, how should I know that you are who you claim, you not even show a number

He: But I have to establish your identity

Me: And I need to know who you are. I've been burned once with stolen bank data

He: Can I know your account number now

Me: How can I trust you? Don't get me wrong, it is not personal, just security concerns

He: But I work for [insert a big bank]

Me: How would I know. You call out of the blue, with no number in the display, you could be anybody

He: We are not getting anywhere

Me: Right. Why don't I call you back?

He: Uhm - I don't have a callback number

Me: There you go (of course THAT part of the bank call centre is different from the part that takes in calls)

He (sounding desperate since I'm spoiling the average customer handling time): OK Sir, it is about [type of transaction] filed [date] and [value]. You used Internet banking last at [DateAndTime]

Me (feeling very sorry for the guy, assessing the risk: could he have obtained this information in a scam?): OK, I still don't trust you, but here we go. (passing ID information)

(This is actually a very risky behaviour. The very essence of scamming is to obtain a piece of information and use it against the victim to pretend you are a trusted party. E.g. Using a stolen logo is just the simples form of it. Kevin Mitnick was particularly good at Social Engineering, read for yourself. )

He: There is a signature missing

Me: Perfect, I wanted to cancel that transaction anyway.

He: So I cancel for you, have a great day.

Me: Bye! (taking mental note to change the ID information)

What is [insert a big bank] thinking? Disclosing a financial transaction to a stranger (ok the stranger in possession of the customer's hand phone) and expecting customers to blindly trust a caller. Such behaviour invites systematic scamming.

Posted by Stephan H Wissel At 2:41 AM, Category Business | Permalink | Comments (0) |      

I kissed a lot of frogs before I found the optimal travel power adaptor. Finally the Mitch & Mark travel adaptor available from the Krisshop made it. These are my criteria:

• Must support all countries (a no brainer)
• Must have an indicator light (places I go often have dead sockets)
• Must have a USB outlet for charging devices or powering one or the other gadget.
• Must not have any fragile pieces sticking out, so it can survive my chronical equipment mistreatment

The Mitch & Mark fulfils all these criteria, all plugs retract for transport mode (I also carry a slim minimalistic adaptor since often I need more than one or the sockets are very cramped.).

Since all of these stuff is made in China, you can track down the original manufacturer.

Posted by Stephan H Wissel At 10:23 AM, Category Travel | Permalink | Comments (0) |      

I'm using a 3G modem for a while now. Works well as long as I'm in Singapore, once leaving it becomes an extortionist tool (30$ per MB is 10x more expensive than SMS and that's a rip off already). So typically I borrow the local modem from my colleagues in the country I visit, leaving me with guilt of depriving them from salvation in boring meetings. Not any more. I just added a Sapido GR1102 mobile hotspot to my toolbox. It's a bit bulky compared to dedicated devices like the Huawei E5 and even doesn't have 3G connectivity. However it has 2 USB ports where you can plug-in your off-the-mill 3G modem and either storage or a web cam. For a frequent country hopper like me that's the ideal solution. No fiddeling with data sim cards and provider settings, just grab a colleague's stick and share the SSID of the device with her. When in range of a network it also works as a router or access point. In the router function it can connect to a WIFI network and serve as hotspot. A nice feature when connecting a zoo of devices to the hotel network. The device is powered either by AC, a DC adapter or a standard USB cable. I haven't tested the WebCam yet.

The Huawei E5 in comparison:

Posted by Stephan H Wissel At 10:03 AM, Category Technology | Permalink | Comments (0) |      

Walking military vehicles were a novelty in the earlier Starwars® and I always wondered what are they good for other than stumble over rebel wires.

Now Boston Dynamics is actually building them (and they are much smarter than me, so they know what they are good for):




Boston Dynamics has a wide range of really kewl robots and it probably is fun to work there, even if some of the robots are outright creepy and really small.

Posted by Stephan H. Wissel At 11:48 PM, Category After hours | Permalink | Comments (1) |      

The faulty -or not- drive is a WD10EADS and WD10EACS is on the supported list. However Erik tells me today:
a) It must be the drive (I bet it is not)
b) Unfortunately if a drive is not on our hardware compatibility list we cannot support it. Drive manufacturers have been no to make updates to their drives that make then incompatible with our devices. What the exact issue with these drives are we cannot say.

Basically: Customer go away!

Posted by Stephan H Wissel At 2:43 PM, Category Technology | Permalink | Comments (2) |      

The session evaluations are in. This is what you told us about about the sessions I was involved:

• AD107 (Enhance Your Existing Applications with XPages) with Steve Castledine
  • Good - Usable when I get home
  • Excellent - Just what we need in order to keep up the pressure regarding open source and the rest of the wolf pack of the competition.
  • Excellent - I'm finally sold on XPage.
  • Excellent - WONDERFUL
  • Excellent - Excellent content
  • Excellent - I would really like to try uses Xpages in some of our current Web applications
  • Excellent - Great step by step session on XPages enhancement.
  • Excellent - These guys are always enjoyable and knowledgeable
  • Good - However, no reason to rush through the slides - when we finished 10-15 minutes before time!!!
  • Excellent - Great presentation. Good information on how to get started with xpages
  • Good - It is somewhat hard to keep up the pace trying to digest, learn and follow the presentation. Its going too fast.
  • Excellent - Well done. Speakers created a great rapport with the audiance.
  • Excellent - But why so hurry? They quit more than 10 minutes before 11.00
  • Excellent - great job guys. good sense of humor balanced with straight talk.
  • Excellent - Both superb
  • Excellent - Very enjoyable and clear presenters
  • Excellent - Both presenters did a great job. Seemed to know the material very well.
  • Worked great together, provided excellent examples and material.
  • Excellent speakers, a whole lot of information to digest in an hour but really excited to get into xpages at work
  • The comparrisson was excellent - it gives a very good view of what one can and can't do with xPages.
  • The room was absolutely freezing -- I left early and yes, I had a light jacket on.
  • Thanks!
• AD111 (Harnessing the Power of Server-Side JavaScript and Other Advanced XPage Techniques) with Tim Tripcony
  • Excellent - Excellent stuff for new XPages developers and even for exeprienced ones.
  • Excellent - Very interesting and I can't wait until I could dowload the code examples Excellent - lots of good stuff...would be nice to have some more of what Tim had to say in the actual slide deck, like a bit more detail on the caching stuff
  • Good - IT WAS GOOD
  • Excellent - The best session this year!
  • Excellent - Great stuff! I had no idea Xpages were so powerful.
  • Excellent - They are both very talented with a great sense of humor
  • Excellent - relaxed and ready, everything you could ask for in speakers. bring these guys back for more!
  • Excellent - Good material, well-presented. A good team.
  • Excellent - Very clear enjoyable speakers, I get more from these sessions than if they are dry.
  • Thanks, guys, looking forward to the sample code.
  • parts of SSJS may still elude me...but this session has moved me to the next phase of grieving for my beloved lotuscript...I now accept that there are bigger and better things, perhaps this will finally bring me to closure
  • Best session of this Lotusphere

Thanks for the great feedback!

Posted by Stephan H Wissel At 2:06 PM, Category Lotusphere2010 | Permalink | Comments (2) |      

The Federal Government of India is undertaking a mammoth task of assigning a unique identification number to more than a billion Indians. There is an organization named UIDAI set up for this really interesting project. Since it is government you have committees and tenders. The database will use biometrics to establish identities, which someone could either brand as an Orwellian nightmare or a step to establishing enforceable citizens rights (you need to be someone to own something, especially title deeds) for everybody.
A quick peek on the site shows that it is running Apache/2.2.3. UIDAI seems to like the idea of OpenSource and invites contributors to participate in the project. I think this is a great idea to promote Indian technology and Indian engineering proficiency. Securing a database with a billion biometric profiles that needs to be accessed by thousands (if not millions) of legitimate users is a dream challenge for any IT architect and security professional (what type of dream is in the eye of the beholder). It is also very laudable, that all the documents are in the open for the world to see. I like this transparency. But where is light there is shadow. Reading the code contribution statement I find (emphasis mine):

6. If the Client Software or a module developed by any Developer is accepted by the Authority for implementation in the field for enrolment, the contribution of the Registered Developer will be recognized. However, the source code, documentation and IPR will belong to the Authority. Accordingly, the Registered Developer will be required to enter into appropriate agreements transferring all rights and intellectual property to the Authority for their product and contribution.
7. This effort for creation of the enrollment software is completely voluntary and the Authority is under no obligation to provide any financial incentive or consideration to the concerned Registered Developer for the product.

Let me translate that into plain English: We take your code, we take your rights, we won't compensate you, so you are in for the fame [only] (and in #8: we are not liable for the rights we hold). While later on it is stated, that the authority might open source the code at their discretion, the #6 requirement is in direct conflict with any known OpenSource licence like the GPL, LGPL, MPL, APL or any of the other OpenSource licences.
I'm curious how that will work out.

Posted by Stephan H Wissel At 12:30 AM, Category Software | Permalink | Comments (0) |      

I had trouble with my ReadyNAS NV+ before. Now it seems like a deja vu. In October the SMART error count of disk 3 went up and the automated messages suggested that the drive might fail any time soon. So I replaced disk3. The ReadyNAS resynced the drive and live seems good. Before I left for winter holiday I shut down all systems. After my return and rebooting my infrastructure everything seemed normal. Only after a few days I got the message that disk 3 had failed and needed replacement. I shut down the unit and checked if any of the connectors had a problem. Then I tried to reboot. The ReadyNAS wouldn't come up claiming disks being defective (on that little LCD in the front panel). Since I had to travel I shut down the unit and left it. So after my return I tried again. Now the ReadyNAS booted and claimed it would resync drive 3 and it might take a while. So I left it. In the morning the unit claims that disk 4 was dead now. So I opened a ticket with Netgear. Having had bad experience with their phone support before I opted for online submission. Now we are playing ping-pong and I get one message after the other that won't bring me closer to resolving my issues. There are a number of things that irk me:

1. I had 5 replies from TechSupport so far. 6 replies from 5 different people (and I start to suspect, that the name is system generated): Erik, Kelvin, Nick, Thomas and Orson
2. Support claimed that the WD10EADS in my system isn't on their compatibility list However there is the WD10EACS, which is just an earlier model.
3. Thomas mentioned to get a data recovery working he needs to escalate the case, but when I asked for that I got another round of check this check that.
4. Every reply starts with "Thank you for choosing Netgear". That's not necessary after the first round
5. The statement We will do our best to help resolve your case in the least possible time. is lacking the <irony> tags

Netgear is moving dangerously close to my No-Fly-Zone (I wonder if DLink does NAS with RAID).

Posted by Stephan H. Wissel At 7:18 PM, Category Technology | Permalink | Comments (4) |      

In Tim's and my Lotusphere session AD111 we rendered data from an XPage into a ODT document. Once you get the hang of it and it is easy to implement export to text, spreadsheet or presentations. One nice aspect: no server side OpenOffice or Symphony code is needed. Here is how you do it:

1. In DDE use Window, Show Eclipse Views, Other (Alt+Shift+Q Q) and select "Navigator"
2. Locate the WebContent/WEB-INF folder and add 2 directories: src and lib
3. Download the Java toolkit from ODF Toolkit and add odfdom.jar to your WebContent/WEB-INF/lib directory
4. Right click on your NSF and select Project Properties. Then select Java Build Path. In the source tab add the src folder you created in step 2. In the Libraries tab add the odfdom.jar you copied in step 3
5. Create the class you want to use for rendering the content (rendering logic goes there). It should have a method that takes an OutputStream as parameter (I called it render)
6. Optional: define your new class to be a managed bean. Once you do that it can be used as if it is a native global variable. To do this locate the faces-config.xml in the WEB-INF directory and add a bean definition. Could look like this:
   

   <faces-config>
     <managed-bean>
       <managed-bean-name>stuff</managed-bean-name>
       <managed-bean-class>com.lotusphere2010.ad111.Sample</managed-bean-class>
       <managed-bean-scope>session</managed-bean-scope>
     </managed-bean>
   <faces-config>
   

7. Create a new XPage, go to the page properties, basics and set rendered=false. You can see in the XSP source
   <xp:view xmlns:xp="http://www.ibm.com/xsp/core" rendered="false">
8. Add code (see below) in the beforeRenderResponse event. It is important to use this event, so you can get hand on the OutputStream rather than the writer
9. The ODFToolkit requires one additional setting for security, so locate [NotesInstallDir]/jvm/lib/security/java.policy file (you need to do that on the server too) and add:
   grant { permission java.lang.RuntimePermission "shutdownHooks"; };
10. You are all set. Enjoy. As usual YMMV

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Posted by Stephan H Wissel At 2:38 PM, Category XPages | Permalink | Comments (1) |