Patching Mono

I submitted a fix for bug #325128 last night which was the last of the four patches needed get Spring.Net working on the Mono runtime. So far I've submitted patches for:

• TypeDescriptor


• XmlSchema


• HierarchicalDataBoundControl


• ConigurationSection

So far only the TypeDescriptor patch has been accepted and committed to the repository, but hopefully the other three won't be far behind. It's quite important to us that these patches make it into the 2.0 release so we can just use the official builds rather than having to build from source ourselves.

Using MySQL in heterogeneous environments.

If like us you have a requirement to run MySQL in a mixed Windows and Linux environment and you want your database to be portable you will need to change the default case sensitive table name behaviour of MySQL on one of the operating systems. On Windows the default behaviour is case insensitive, on Linux the default behaviour is case sensitive.

I like my table names to stay in the same case I scripted them in so we chose to change Windows to be case sensitive. The fix is pretty simple - you just need to add the following line to your my.ini after [mysqld] and restart your mysql service.

lower_case_table_names = 0

Existing objects won't suddenly change case, but any new tables you add to your database will appear in the same case you scripted it in. See the mysql documentation for more details.

Starting your own business is hard

No one said it would be easy

Along the way you will encounter all sorts of barriers, obstacles and challenges and you are going to have to dig deep to find the drive to carry on.

So when your server blows up, someone you were planning to partner with vanishes of the face of the Internet without warning, a new competitor beats you market, you're working ridiculous hours, and everything looks like it's going pear shaped - remember why you are doing it.

Why are you doing it?

That is a really important question. Be honest with yourself before you start, if your only motivation is money then you probably going to struggle. There are all sorts of reasons people have for wanting to start their own business, change of lifestyle, want to prove they can, the desire to share a really good idea.

I'm still on the journey, but if all I had to pull me through was the desire to make a buck I'd probably have given up by now.

Still, I plan on making plenty of bucks!

Who wouldn't want to be Iron Man?

Or more specifically Tony Stark, I mean come on - the guy has everything a geek could dream of!

I saw the movie last night and although the super hero story and the wow factor of the suit definitely captured my imagination, my slightly geekier side couldn't help but be almost equally impressed by stuff that would have slipped into the background for most of the audience.

Take Tony's bachelor pad for example, how cool is that bedroom? Wake up in the morning and as you step out of bed, your room senses that you're getting up and throws up the news, weather, your daily calendar on transparent screens built into massive windows while simultaneously filling you in verbally on the really important stuff - that's cool. In fact, I thought it was so cool I did a little research thinking maybe there's a fun project there, but alas it seems that transparent display technology is still a few years away yet.

But wait, what about that workshop? It was rammed full of enough hi-tech toys to make any geek wet their pants. A robotic arm that you can give verbal commands to - awesome. A holographic 3d modelling tool - yikes!

The really neat thing is that some of this stuff really isn't that far off at all. Of course we are going to be waiting a wee while before we have a fully integrated AI in our homes...