If you represent investors, and have great vision and the ability to understand the widespread effect of a business from a generalized overview, please contact us at blog@joroto.com.

John C. Boukis

Always keep this in mind: If you are buying Joroto’s products, you will be contributing to this morbid lifestyle. You are helping to provide too much money to too few people, and usually they are programmers. Those are the last ones who will know what to do with their success. Here is an expose displaying the effects of success on Joroto:

JB

Edit the files:
./tree/src/main/webapp/styles/simplicity/layout-1col.css and change line 8 to 924 (1024 – 100 which is what it was set to initially). This will set the login.jsp menu to this width.
./tree/src/main/webapp/styles/simplicity/layout.css and change line 11 to 1004 (1024 – 20 which is the same amount that was initially subtracted to arrive at 780px by the appfuse developers). this seems to set all pages to this width.
./tree/src/main/webapp/styles/simplicity/laout-navtop-subright.css and change line 8 to 924. This changes the menu size for the mainMenu.jsp page.

Also, while we’re on the subject of menus, you may want to edit ./tree/src/main/webapp/WEB-INF/menu-config.xml. Notice that your new classes (see previous posts) have a menu item for them. Well they also show up on the Login menu even though the user has to login before being able to access the menu item. This is clunky (IMHO) so I don’t want them there. In this menu-config file, you’ll notice there are no roles= attribute. Put one in there for each menu item and the menu generator (struts-menu) will take care of whether to display the menu item or not. This is one of the good things about these frameworks. You get to do a little config with no programming.
NOTE:
in ./tree/src/main/webapp/styles/simplicity/layout.css in the section marked div#main form ul li – this section affects the box around the Login fields. I added a width to this section and the login box adapted.

The fix:
To fix this, just move the data around in the sample-data.xml file. Poof no more Constraint problem.

Example pseduocode:
Class Communications {
Long uid;
Email email;
{ . . . methods . . . }
}
This Communications class is first in the sample-data.xml file because the Email class was generated second
Class Email {
Long uid;
String emailAddr;
{ . . . methods . . .}
}
So initially I had autogenerated the Email class first. Then made an addition to the email class’s attributes. Then regenerated it with
mvn appfuse:gen -Dentity=Email ; mvn appfuse:install -Dentity=Email
Did my fixup of the ./tree/src/main/webapp/WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml
Finally mvn test
So before the mvn test fix the sample-data.xml file and you’ll be fine.

Peace out.

Purpose:
Which files to edit in order to personalize the existing app for my company.

Remember:
App name is: tree
Company is: joroto.com
Source is in: ./tree/src/

./tree/src/main/resources/mail.properties
Change to be your email and the login properties for your smtp server.

./tree/src/main/resources/ApplicationResources.properties
Search for appfuse and change all to your product or company name. Depends on context.
I added on line 7 the following line
webapp.image=wr_logo3_230×100.jpg
This is our site logo. I can see it being translated into different languages. We can offer one per locale. Also the colors may be offensive in some cultures, and the picture might have cultural significance as well.
This file holds all of the localization (meaning strings to be translated) strings. You’ll see different file names each of which represent a language for a specific country code.

./tree/src/main/webapp/common/header.jsp
I’m putting an image (webapp.img) into the headers instead of the text I entered in the ApplicationResources.properties. First I copied my jpg to the ./tree/src/main/webapp/images directory.
Editing this file, I am interested in commenting out lines 8 and 9. Never delete until release. You never know when you might return to the text version of the page.
Now my header.jsp looks like this:
<%@ include file=”/common/taglibs.jsp”%>
<c:if test=”${pageContext.request.locale.language ne ‘en’}”>
<div id=”switchLocale”><a href=”<c:url value=’/?locale=en’/>”><fmt:message key=”webapp.name”/> in English</a></div>
</c:if>
<div id=”branding”>
<!– TAH 2/13/10
<h1><a href=”<c:url value=’/'/>”><fmt:message key=”webapp.name”/></a></h1>
<p><fmt:message key=”webapp.tagline”/></p>
–>
<a href=”http://www.joroto.com” title=”Logo”>
<img src=”<fmt:message key=”webapp.img” />”
alt=”<fmt:message key=”webapp.name” />” />
</a>
</div>
<hr />
<%– Put constants into request scope –%>
<appfuse:constants scope=”request”/>

Note: I wanted to use the <c:url construct but this would need freemarker to produce a two pass per line mode. Not sure if it can do this, but maybe I’ll have time later to see.
My image is 100 pixels tall so I needed to change the CSS for the header.

Edit   ./tree/src/main/webapp/styles/simplicity/layout.css
I commented out line 22 and added a new line that looks like this:
height: 100px; /* TAH 2/13/10 */

Rerun the jetty:run-war and you’ll see the changes.

Add classes to initial project creation

2/12/2010

Overview:

You have done the QuickStart to see if you can get everything to work. This article assumes you DID indeed get the initial project working. You’re excited and want to “add something” to that project and begin working on your own. You need to read through this with a clear head because there is a gotcha once you get past adding ONE java class file. Not sure why but there is a fix.

Ok here’s the scoop.

Use the videos for the tutorial. They’re up to date. The other tutorials never worked for me.

This is the writeup translating the videos into text. I did not add ANYTHING to this except a little clarification for us newbies.

All we’re doing here is generating CRUD which is not normally what is needed in a real app. However, we do this here to get a feel for how all these frameworks work.

You want to create a Plain Old Java Object (POJO). This is a simply a java class file. One Object per file.

I use cygwin for development on Windows. I need to resetup my Linux box. I will try to write clarifying statements so you can figure out what I am doing.

So let’s say we create a Java Class called Person. Why? Because I need one in my project.

My app name is tree. My company is Joroto.com.

So the path to my source is:

./tree/src/main/java/com/joroto

We’re going to create this Person.java file in a NEW directory called model.

So you now have a directory structure

./tree/src/main/java/com/joroto/model

Step 1 of a “Template for working in Appfuse”. When I say execute Step 1 again, do this with a different Java Class (just trying to be clear).

Create a Person.java file in ./tree/src/main/java/com/joroto/model

Here’s mine so you can first test that this works for you, then extend it. There is a note about renaming files and objects, later in this tutorial. READ THOSE NOTES, maybe even before you do this here. Nothing devastating, but important just the same.

package com.joroto.model;

import org.appfuse.model.BaseObject;

import javax.persistence.*;

import org.compass.annotations.Searchable;

import org.compass.annotations.SearchableComponent;

import org.compass.annotations.SearchableId;

import org.compass.annotations.SearchableProperty;

import java.sql.Timestamp;

// Entity tells the processing framework that you want this object to be backed by a database.

@Entity @Table(name=”person”)

// The searchable is to help identify tables that need a search engine, are highly searched. Might be a “Trails-hibernate” module for search engine like capability.

// http://docs.codehaus.org/display/TRAILS/Querying+entities+and+full-text+search

@Searchable

public class Person extends BaseObject /* implements java.io.Serializable */ {

private Long uid;

private String title; // Mr., Dr. etc.

private String fName; // First name

private String mName; // Anything other than first and last name

private String lName; // Last name

@Override

public String toString() {

String s = new String();

if (mName.length() > 0) {

s=String.format(“%s %s %s %s”, title, fName, mName, lName);

} else {

s=String.format(“%s %s %s”, title, fName, lName);

} // if-else

return s;

}

@Override

public int hashCode() {

throw new UnsupportedOperationException(“Not supported yet.”);

}

@Override

@SuppressWarnings(“EqualsWhichDoesntCheckParameterClass”)

public boolean equals(Object o) {

Person p = (Person)o;

return(p.uid == this.uid);

} // equals

// Getters and Setters

// Indicates that this is the primary key for this event

@Id@GeneratedValue(strategy=GenerationType.AUTO)

@Column(name=”uid”)

public Long getUid() {

return uid;

}

@Column(name=”uid”)

public void setUid(Long uid) {

this.uid = uid;

}

@Column(name=”title”, length=20)

public String getTitle() {

return title;

}

public void setTitle(String s) {

this.title = s;

}

@Column(name=”firstname”, length=100)

public String getFirstName() {

return fName;

}

public void setFirstName(String s) {

this.fName = s;

}

@Column(name=”middlename”, length=100)

public String getMiddleName() {

return mName;

}

public void setMiddleName(String s) {

this.mName = s;

}

@Column(name=”lastname”, length=100)

public String getLastName() {

return lName;

}

public void setLastName(String s) {

this.lName = s;

}

}

The statements with the @ signs are annotations that are used when this code generates the database table. The database table (in Hibernate) will store the information the flows into and out of this class.

That’s all we need to do in this file so save it.

We need to tell the system that we’ve created this and it needs to be backed by hibernate. Open the following file (it is already in the directory structure from your initial generation of the project.

./tree/src/main/resources/hibernate.cfg.xml

Add a new line at line 8 below the other <mapping class…> members.

Add the following line to that new line.

<mapping class=”com.joroto.model.Person”/>

Save and close that file.

You’re ready for the cool automation that Matt and his Magical Minions dreamed up.

In the ./tree directory execute the following command

mvn appfuse:gen -Dentity=Person

If the build is not successful, make a very basic Class file like I did up there. We WILL be able to regenerate the files with more of the Class attributes in it.

After a successful build execute the next command (Matt thinks executing these two commands is “too much” and will release a future version combining the two. However, just “think” of all the work these two command are saving us and you should be sending the guy some percentage of your commercial profits)

mvn appfuse:install -Dentity=Person

And then execute

mvn test

It will work.

mvn jetty:run-war

Point your browser to

Localhost:8080

Go back to the step 1 of this tutorial and enter a new and different Java class. When you get to the mvn test, you’ll notice that it fails the test classes. The Person class is flagged. Matt (not me) to the rescue in his MarkMail app. On the appfuse home, click on Project Information, Mailing Lists and then MarkMail. Enter the error about creating the bean and up pops his answer. You’re asking “where is the error? The console displays where to go, but for clarity go to

./tree/target/surefire-reports

Any .txt file that is not 1k is telling you about the test errors.

Here is Matt’s fix for the problem, then I’ll explain:

Open the file

./tree/src/main/webapp/WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml

There are now three things that need to be done to the file. As you add Classes for CRUD you’ll need to edit its Bean element after you do the mvn appfuse:install -Dentity=Person above.

Add the <context:component-scan base-package=”org.appfuse”/> element.

AND you have to add the element <property name=”sessionFactory” ref=”sessionFactory”/> to each bean. One for the personManager bean and once for (in my case) teventManager bean. So the file now looks like this:

<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”UTF-8″?>

<beans xmlns=”http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans” xmlns:xsi=”http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance”

xmlns:context=”http://www.springframework.org/schema/context”

xsi:schemaLocation=”http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-2.0.xsd

http://www.springframework.org/schema/context http://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context.xsd“

default-lazy-init=”true”>

<!– Activates scanning of @Autowired –>

<context:annotation-config/>

<!– Activates scanning of @Repository and @Service –>

<context:component-scan base-package=”com.joroto”/>

<context:component-scan base-package=”org.appfuse”/>

<!– Add new DAOs here –>

<!–PersonManager-START–>

<bean id=”personManager” class=”org.appfuse.service.impl.GenericManagerImpl”>

<constructor-arg>

<bean class=”org.appfuse.dao.hibernate.GenericDaoHibernate”>

<constructor-arg value=”com.joroto.model.Person”/>

<property name=”sessionFactory” ref=”sessionFactory”/>

</bean>

</constructor-arg>

</bean>

<!–PersonManager-END–>

<!–TeventManager-START–>

<bean id=”teventManager” class=”org.appfuse.service.impl.GenericManagerImpl”>

<constructor-arg>

<bean class=”org.appfuse.dao.hibernate.GenericDaoHibernate”>

<constructor-arg value=”com.joroto.model.Tevent”/>

<property name=”sessionFactory” ref=”sessionFactory”/>

</bean>

</constructor-arg>

</bean>

<!–TeventManager-END–>

<!– Add new Managers here –>

</beans>

Matt was right. This fixes the test errors and you’re off and running. The above file is generated during the gen and install command.

Notes:

mvn clean will clear out the target directory.

Renaming a class

Ok so you want to rename a Class. You need to search the ./tree/src/ directory for your class and all variants and clear them out.

First fix the ./tree/src/main/resources/hibernate.cfg.xml file

Then rename your class, any references inside the file, and finally the name of your class file.

In this case I’m going to rename the Tevent class (which was my second class added. I did not post that above) to Event. So I rename the @Table, the Class name is now Event. Inside the Class is a reference to Tevent that is now Event. Save your class in the

./tree/src/main/java/com/joroto/model directory.

Run the following command from the command line.

mvn clean command to get rid of the target files.

If in cygwin, issue the find command find . -name “[tT]event*” to see all of the files leftover that need to be deleted. In windows search for the name of the OLD class. Delete all those files. In cygwin do this:

find . -name “[tT]event*” | xargs rm -f

Let’s generate the files and test them by running the commands on the command line:

mvn appfuse:gen -Dentity=Event

mvn appfuse:install -Dentity=Event

Edit the file

./tree/src/main/webapp/WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml

Delete the old Class reference for the bean. You have to take out the whole <bean ….> to </bean>

Add the <property … sessionFactory line from above. Save the file. Then enter on the command line:

mvn test

Should be good to go. Lets check. At the command line:

mvn jetty:run-war

Point your browser to localhost:8080

You’ll notice that ALL of the Classes are on the tab bar. You’ll need to clean out the jsp files for the classes that don’t exist. SO. . . Let’s look for all of these references. Change directory to the ./tree/src directory. Run the cygwin command:

grep -lri tevent main/*

This will list the files that need to be cleaned up. I don’t know how to do this automatically, so let’s edit each file looking for the reference to the old class name.

My list is (Use this as a learning experience as to how to modify your web application. These are the pages and values that go to the final html that is output):

main/resources/ApplicationResources.properties - You’ll see the section for your old class. Pretty easy to delete it.

main/resources/struts.xml - You’ll see the section for your old class. Pretty easy to delete it.

main/webapp/common/menu.jsp – You’ll see the section for your old class. Pretty easy to delete it.

main/webapp/WEB-INF/menu-config.xml – You’ll see the section for your old class. Pretty easy to delete it.

Now edit these files:

test/resources/sample-data.xml – You’ll see the section for your old class. Pretty easy to delete it.

test/resources/web-tests.xml – You’ll see the depends clause. Now each time you gen a Class you’ll see it added here. So if you mess up and keep gen’ing the Person class, it will have that many Person entries here. Then down further in the file you’ll see the section for that your old class created. Delete that section.

Change directory back to ./tree

At the command line run

mvn clean

mvn test

The test should be successful. If not, then recheck your editing. Mine always worked. However, your editing is definitely where the problem lies at this time since you’ve already tested the New class you generated above.

Finally, to make sure the old class “stuff” no longer displays in the web app. Execute from the command line:

mvn jetty:run-war

I’m done here. Hopefully this gets you quickly up to speed on this cool stuff that Matt and his Magic Minions create. Kudos to the the AppFuse team.

1) Do not put in an e-mail address until you are ready to send.

2) Copy text from the problem application(s) and try pasting in notepad first, then copying and pasting again into Outlook.

3) Try using any available built-in copy function in the problem application, in my case it was TPX.  TPX has a “COPY” function that captures pure text, versus <CTRL><C> which does more of a screen capture from TPX.

Our business has since migrated to a different e-mail client.  I am not sure but it does not seem to be sensitive to this problem.

@Astro_TJ Are you experiencing flashes due to cosmic rays? Tell us another unique space experience that we may never have heard of. 35 mins ago

“Astro_TJ @joroto Yes,I do see flashes occasionally,when I close
my eyes.Another unique story?The noctilucent clouds are both mesmerizing & beautiful.”

Wow, this IS neat: Noctilucent Clouds in Wikipedia

Seriously, where is it written that just because things have been done “this way”, that “this way” will forevermore be THE ONLY CORRECT WAY? Well ok we’ve seen that in Amazon’s management books, but who are they? People who want to self-promote. Rant over. Bring the rain.
1) Give your top developers the best tools that money can buy. They will produce ten times more than the mediocres.
2) Fire all the mediocres. There is no room in a startup for those people.
3) Budgeting your department DOESN’T mean to say NO to every purchase that you’re asked for. If you trust them with developing the future of the company, they “PROBABLY” aren’t asking for crap that they won’t use. They are saying “I want to be more productive, please help me . . . .Spock. . . . help . . . . me. . . “. Why are you turning them away? For what a $500 piece of software. Are you batty? Fire yourself, THAT IS A SMART MOVE.
4) If they’re late or leave early an hour or 10 minutes. IT . . . IS . . . OK. The world will NOT stop turning ok? Don’t be so draconian to forget about what it means to be a drone. Its hellish sometimes. But guess what pinhead, when you NEED that person to work overtime, they won’t make an excuse to NOT work overtime. Use the T word THINK! (We should make a tshirt of this).

Ok I’m done. I’ve seen enough. I’m going home.
-T-

Steve,
This isn’t a pile on session, I’ve seen the ignorant bashing you incessantly.   I’m too tired). I’m not here to do the same.  Well of course I am. Its fun, its the NEW new thing to bash Apple for not providing everyone their own personal spaceship to Mars (see previous blog post).
iPad: This name, sucks. Steve, next time spend some money on drugs like you used to do (I’m from your past) and come up with something sexy like “The Apple Tablet”. At least it isn’t blah and sound like some hygiene product. That one’s free, pay me and I’ll let Joroto make a memorable descriptive name. We do that for a living. We’re idea men (yes we’re gay mwhahaaa).

The iPad will succeed, and not because Apple’s behind it. Steve did a good job at a first cut features list. One glaring missing one is the video iChat. He would’ve cornered the market on that one. The iChat on the Macbook is seamless, impressive, rock solid, awesome. Now I’ll REALLY tell you what I think.

The price on the iPad is correct.

Those with a hundred gadgets won’t buy it because, well they’re gadget freaks and ran up their credit card bills. They can’t afford it and are envious. Those of us who held off buying a netbook waiting for a tablet type device will buy one. I will be in line for one. I believe it will serve the niche when I ride the tram or wait in queue at the unsympathetic doctor’s office. I need another, um script.
The larger size is good. The display is gorgeous. Processor is fast.
Oh NOOOO no multiple apps ALL running at the same time. Save me Superman ahhhhhh I’m falling. Pinheads listen closely. No a little closer. If you want that BUY A LAPTOP. You’ll have the screen real estate to have a movie AND browser open. OH JOY. You can be completely distracted and not remember either the movie nor what you scanned on the Internet. Duh.
On the netbooks people RAILED at Microsoft for limiting, yet another windows OS, from being able to run only 3 apps because it would bog down the Atom. Well some of our Quad core 4G systems are bogged down by Windows Vista 7. Ummm well my work here is done.

The 3G plan price is excellent.

The ebook reader app (or whatever) is fine and I’ll buy into that one. Where this will kill (small k) the Kindle is in the rich output of the books. I don’t care a rat’s a** about the authors. They will or won’t get paid. If one doesn’t pay the workers, then the workers stop working. Very simple. From what I’ve read, the authors barely get paid anything now. I couldn’t imagine trying to eek out a living as a no-name author. It HAS to be just a Napoleon complex for them. Its like the rush we get from open source (umm I mean others, not us good corporate drones who work for a paycheck).

iPad needs a webcam though Steve. Did you miss this, or as I presume, was this left out because AT&T’s overwhelmed network couldn’t handle the crush as millions buy this device.

Another goodie is the pads wirelessly connecting to each other to play games like the Nintendo DS/DSi playthings do. Can anyone say Apple competes with Nintendo? Nintendo takes the iPlatform VERY seriously (Management: I need a researcher to insert links here). Apple, it seems, is trying to elbow into Nintendo’s bread basket. My son has a DS and MANY games (spoiled brat) and I just bought a DSi for my wife. Yep she asked for one specifically. She uses some brain game, and my son just got Scribblenauts and says it is absolutely awesome. I’ll just take his word for it. We also have a Wii. The little punk beat me at Wii Resort’s Swordplay. One works up a sweat trying to kill his son.

The iPad will sell millions. Up to the 6-8 million in 2010 as predicted by fanboy analysts? Ummm probably not. However by Christmas 2010 I believe they will be closing fast. If they put this A4 processor into the iPhone as rumored then that will send iPhone sales up. However, can the iPhone sales go up higher than they are now? Nokia had better do something or they stand to become the next Microsoft: i.e. marginalized because they have no visionary and are paralyzed with fear about LOSING customers. Nokia needs to slap their senior management, who have been highed to MAINTAIN the business. Idiots. Don’t maintain JACK, grow the sucker. Innovate, or YES the T word THINK.

Apple will win. Others will lose. They don’t know what they don’t know. They don’t ask questions about what they don’t know. If any of you are reading this, then contact Joroto, and we can help you come up with real ideas about either extending your existing products, or creating new products that no one has thought of yet. Until then, we work on our black projects.
-T-

Chinese Web Users Plan Tech Workarounds

A funny thing about network security is that people are always working around it. Someone is always trying to hack into a restricted system. With this in mind I would like to present a a contrarian argument about doing business in China. Keep in mind that this is from a guy who believes in treating people with dignity, respect, and in living a moral life in general.

I ask the question: Is it so bad to do business in China as an Internet services company if one must filter content to comply with the government’s rules? Clearly from the above article we see that people have been able to access content outside of China’s filters. Eventually China may decide it is fighting a losing battle and remove its restrictions. However, Google, or any other company, must pursue business in China first, in order to push the boundaries, and gt the Chinese people excited about the web.

I would never condescend to the Chinese people and think that they are clueless about the restrictions put on their Internet. Emigrants from China may occasionally return to family and inform all of their family and friends of what the rest of the world is seeing on the web. Again, the inevitability of an open web in China seems to be sneaking up on the government whether they like it or not.

I argue to you that all of us technology companies should keep pushing the boundaries with communist countries. At a minimum we can introduce the people to new things and help lead them down the road to eventual information freedom. That freedom may never happen, this is a possibility. However if we segment ourselves from these countries,we remove any chance the people have of discovering the freedom that others enjoy.

1) Go to the SSL link at your Internet Provider. If you are using secure e-mail, this is the POP3/SMTP link in your e-mail configuration.
example: http://host271.hostmonster.com/

2) Click on the “lock” icon in the web browser, or choose SAFETY/SECURITY REPORT, or figure it out for your browser.

3) VIEW CERTIFICATE

4) COPY TO FILE

5) Save the certificate to the hard drive as *.P7B
a) Enable “INCLUDE ALL CERTIFICATES IN THE CERTIFICATION PATH IF POSSIBLE”

6) In your e-mail client (instructions here are for The Bat!)

a)Right click on one of your accounts and select PROPERTIES

b) Select EDIT PERSONAL CERTIFICATES

c) Select IMPORT and choose the certificate file

d) When the certificate entries are displayed:

1) Double click each entry

2) Select ADD TO ADDRESS BOOK

7) Send some e-mail and bask in the glory that you have overcome either your software vendors intelligence or your provider’s pride.

Mr. Know It All can tell us who the culprit is.

In the above article Joel Stein nails how many of us have come to hate the telephone. I bring this up because Tom was just telling me how ubiquitous teleconferencing will replace travel for corporations in the future. While that may be so, most telephones are owned by individuals, and I might suggest that telephone communication among individuals could completely evaporate. Read the article and tell me what you think.

Funny I should come across the above article as Tom was just telling me about a book he just read on Tesla, about Tesla’s amazing inventions and his great understanding of how electricity works. From our discussion it sounds like Tesla had some understandings and accomplishments that have been completely lost in history.

Here is my letter to the Wall Street Journal writer of the above article. I could not let this one slip:

Daniel,

Some facts: God made the human body fairly insulated. We have all heard of people being struck by lightning and surviving. In such cases, the lightning flowed on the outside of the person’s body, then directly into the ground. Their skin would be burned because the electricity penetrated to some level. However to live is a great gift as lightening consists of a current that may be as large as 100,000 amps. Unlike static electricity, this current is quite dangerous as it has the power to penetrate through the body, given the right (or wrong as it may be) circumstances.

Pennsylvania Tax Incentives Questioned

I am not sure if there was a time when I was a true proponent of tax incentives for business growth. There are too many problems with such policies and as the article states, the results can be minimal, even negligible. Number one, if tax incentives become a competition among different states, where does the race end? One state offers a two year tax abatement, so the next state offers five, then next twenty years, and so on. In the end the citizens get hosed as each new deal assures they will get less tax revenue for their area irrespective of how much the area grows with new businesses.
Additional examples of the people being flattened by the corporate steamroller include corporations receiving sweetheart deals from local communities, only to move elsewhere when the deal runs dry or when another deal comes along.

Note the article’s point is that tax incentives are used by companies looking for a location but they are the absolute last factor considered. Labor rates are a priority for location selection. Apply this to a real situation: A company chooses an area with extremely low labor rates. The area then gives the company a tax abatement. I think that this is a slippery slope, a self-perpetuating industrial slave machine that lowers wages and reduces the municipality’s income. Consider that this may be one of the cycles, (another being offshoring) that has helped reduce America’s standard of living, even assuring that generations x, y, z, aa, and bb have a lower standard of living their their baby boomer parents.

Looking at a top down view of taxation, I do not think that corporations should be taxed at all. Such tax gets passed onto the consumers in the form of higher prices, and reduces employee compensation and stock holder returns. (Lest you think I am a proponent of the wealthy investors, many of us average people own stock.)

What actions can increase technology development with no side effects? Individuals starting companies, angel investing, venture capital, and new business partnerships among others. I personally like to leave the government out of the equation completely. Every action the government takes results in even greater negative reactions. Just watch as a health care plan crafted in the name of providing health care to more people actually results in significantly increased costs for us citizens.

I have the latest Rhapsody software and Windows XP. Periodically Rhapsody stops playing music. I click on the song, and no indicator appears to indicate it is attempting to play. I think this is triggered by Windows XP going into standby mode, but I am not positive.

I wrote Real support and the brainless wonder response I got was to shut off all XP power saving features. I lambasted them but have not heard back, and do not think I will hear back in this lifetime.

I found a temporary fix:

1) CTRL-ALT-DEL
2) Shut down the process RHAPHPLR.EXE
3) Restart Rhapsody

At least it brings back the music pretty easily.

Software patent vote delayed

February 13, 2010 update

Here is an interesting blog entry, the title speaks for itself:

Debunking the ‘Patent Troll’ Myth

Go into your iTunes (mine is on the Mac).
Choose Store from the Menu.
View My Account.
Put the credit card security code into the app.
Close that pane.
Click on your iPod device.
Choose update.
Click on Buy now.
WHOA! It works now. AMAZING. Stupid. Imbecile. Mediocre programmers need to be shot. Where is Adolf Eichmann when we need him.
You’re done baby. Wait the 20 minutes to download this puppy.
Remember to BACKUP your iPlatform before upgrading dude and dudettes.

The name “Shark Tank” is apropos in that the cast offers “puny” amounts of money to the entrepreneurs in exchange for a large percentage of the entrepreneur’s business.  The idea that the millionaires convey is that the entrepreneurs will become millionaires themselves if they take one of the highly aggressive deals offered to them.  Of course the investors are bound to make a great deal of money also, or they would otherwise not offer funding.

The entrepreneurs asking for money need to seriously consider the next funding step in their businesses.  Take for example Marian Cruz, inventor of the Turbo Baster.  She accepted $35,000 from Kevin Harrington in exchange for a two percent royalty on all sales.  The first question to ask is what can this amount of money accomplish?  I would say that $35,000 would build a prototype baster, and allow the start of the manufacturing tooling to manufacture the baster.  Of course, this is all in China, as costs in the U.S. would be far higher.  So what happens when this money is quickly burned through?  Marian will need more funding.  She will approach Kevin for the money, and Kevin will state that he needs something in return.  He will forward her some cash, and take an even larger stake in her company, leaving her with practically nothing.

Of course, Kevin may be willing to give this product to his existing manufacturing resources and cover the cost of development.  He might also take the initial manufacturing costs out of Marian’s paltry two percent commission.  None of these details are hammered out in the parts of the show that are shown on television.

Here is a more recent interview with Marian Cruz where she does give us more detail of the business deal.

AfterShark: Why isn’t Marian Cruz’s Turbo Baster cooking yet?

[Check out this cool web site billed as "After Shark" with interviews with the entrepreneurs who appeared on the show.]

In this interview Marian states that she made a licensing deal and that Kevin is going to create the prototype.  If it is a pure licensing deal, and all other costs are covered by Harrington, that answers more of the issues that I presented.  Apparently there is a lot of the show that is not shown on television, and also they may do several takes for each entrepreneur.  This format of only highlighting the major negotiations leaves me uncomfortable as I want to see and understand the entirety of these deals.  That is television for you!

I am not so worried about the inventors being under capitalized seeing these after show interviews.  It does sound like the millionaires are willing to see these projects completely through.  Only time will tell as we continue to keep an eye on the show participants’ lives.  I know that I want to see products such as the Turbo Baster making one billion dollars and offering these budding entrepreneurs massive amounts of cash.   Now that would be cool.

I am working in Excel 2000. Hey, why upgrade? Any feedback on the options in later versions of Excel is certainly welcome.

INSTRUCTIONS:

1) Right click the field(s)

2) Select FORMAT CELLS

3) Select CUSTOM.

4) In the TYPE field, type this: ##.#[$%]

* Use your symbol of choice in place of the percent sign.

The pound signs represent the numbers in your data, so adjust the number of them before or after the decimal as necessary. The period is a decimal, of course. The bracketed expression is telling Excel that “In this country, we use a percent sign rather than a dollar sign.”

Ah, I feel better now.

This will be fun.

Today Tom continually iterated how much he hates people and there is no way he is going. Therefore, if you are interested in talking high-level tech talk with our lead developer, I must apologize. That is okay by me though. At least Tom will not embarrass us by showing up at this posh event wearing the same green polo he has worn to work for the past three months.  Instead, we should send him to CES the next round. That is, if he can bear to sit next to a human being on the plane ride.

July 22, 2009 Update

The event was very cool.  Seven hundred-something did I hear?  More accomplished people in one area than I have ever seen.  Real tough to do this sort of thing at the end of the workday, but well worth it.

1) Go to the ADMIN Panel – http://www.YOURBLOG.com/wp-admin

2) Select TOOLS on the lower left. Use the down arrow to expand the TOOLS section.

3) Select EXPORT

4) Select ALL AUTHORS

5) Select DOWNLOAD EXPORT

6) Save the xml file to your computer.

This backs up posts, comments, essentially the written content. To backup plugin information and other data store in the SQL database, you should do a database backup. This can be done through your Hosting Control Panel.

Here are backup instructions, including how to backup the database. Sure, I am not afraid to send you to another site. It is 3 AM and I am done writing!

WordPress Backups

http://codex.wordpress.org/WordPress_Backups

2-Name it Default.png.

3-Add it to the Resources tab of your Xcode project.

This will add this splash screen automatically to your program when it runs, and will place this graphic on the screen as your app loads into memory and runs.

Select the graphics files with a click, and then scroll down and do a Shift Click (if the files are in a contiguous list). A click is a single tap on the touchpad. The alternate way is to hold down the command key and click once for each additional file. This creates a list of files that you’ll delete.
Now do a two finger tap on the touchpad.
Choose delete.
Choose “Also move to trash”.
Boom they’re gone.
Now go to finder in your project directory. You’ll see the links are still there. So you need to “move them to trash” also. Its the same sequence as above.
Go back to Xcode.
Double finger tap the resources tab.
Choose “Existing files”.
At the top choose the project’s default directory. I choose the drop down control, select my directory where the original graphic is and then select my graphics.
Now click “Add” or press .
Make sure “Copy items into destination group’s folder (if needed)” is selected. I do this so I can zip up the entire development directory and have zero external references.
That’s it. Just another tidbit to hopefully help you develop for the iPlatform.

UPDATE JULY 24, 2009 I found in the following blog the reason for the login failure:  The password must be between 6 and 16 characters.   I used more characters and the page said it was accepted.  However LinkedIn truncated the password to the first 16 digits.  So if you created a password longer than 16 digits, try logging in with the first 16 and you should be good to go.  Lastly, I had no problem using symbols, upper and lowercase letters, and numbers in my password.

Credited article:

Password Format

Recruiting: Enough to Make a Monster Tremble

A clear sign that a formerly super-successful dot com with a spectacular profit margin has turned into a typical Fortune 500 Company run by a myopic big city businessman: The CEO eliminated paper cups in the break rooms.

Newsflash:  Just like Monster.com replaced the newspaper, Monster better think completely out of the box in order to gain some new, currently unknown, advantage over its online competitors.

As I have worked for major corporations that have gone the same route, here is some advice Mr. Iannuzzi: Put the paper cups back. Not only is your business revenue hurting badly, but you just made all of your employees resentful.  These are the people whom you will rely on for innovation and superior service.

Mr. Iannuzzi, I have an idea for you to steal a very cool niche in recruiting. Contact us if you are interested.

JB

Rest assured, Tom is not duplicating the efforts of either of the above shady characters. He is taking a rare break from developing device drivers all day, and developing web apps all night, to spend some time with his family.

I do not miss the twenty-something e-mails a day that each details some new, advanced system or method that gets Tom all excited, but which I could care less about. For one week I have been able to spend most of my time communicating with magazine editors, developers, and users in the tech blogs, continually trying to figure out what we can do for them. People are awesome. Life was never better.

Alas I fear the honeymoon is over, and I will be chastised for my marketing prowess and lack of high level tech insight any minute now…

JB

aGauge WEB SITE

Or visit the Joroto iTunes Store:

Just after seeing the price increase I was notified that AT&T will be dropping Usenet. Tom said this is a decision made solely to gain bandwidth. He is right (only because he is always right…just ask him.)

I feel like I am back in 1999 with Internet companies raising prices and dropping services.  (At least the constant, unexplained communication outages are not still a problem for me.)  Anticipating AT&T pulling another stunt in two or four days, I must look at my options. The only big problem with switching providers is changing my e-mail address. Whoop! Time to register a personal domain, select a permanent e-mail address, and update all of my contacts for the final time. I wonder if “tomslesserbusinesspartner” is taken? In any case, a personal domain can stay with a person forever. This is something I should have done ten years ago.

Registering a domain name is in the ten dollar range. Additionally, if one is already hosting a web site (joroto.com for example), they may be able to use the same hosting service for the new domain (tomslesserbusinesspartner.com). That means the additonal domain’s yearly cost is limisted to the registration fee, which is quite a bargain.

If you are not tech savvy, you should be warned that there is more effort associated with managing your own domain.  This is only moderately difficult, but if I can do it, you can do it faster and better.

Now  I am seriously considering the personal domain option.  Once I have an e-mail address established on my own registered domain, I can switch to any Internet provider, at any time, without having to worry about updating all of my contacts (hi mom!)

Just a thought for the day for the millions of you who just got jacked by AT&T.

Time to surf for a good responsive newsgroup server before AT&T cuts off Usenet on July 15th.  Ideas?

JB

This setup assumes you are hosting your own Wordpress blog, which does support xml-rpc. Edit the url or settings appropriately if you are using Wordpress.com or another protocol.

1) Turn on XML-RPC in Wordpress

Admin Panel
Settings (lower left)
Writing (lower left)
Remote Publishing (middle of page)
XML-RPC – Check this box

2) In Adobe Contribute create the connection

From the Contribute home page, or if the home page is hidden, select the “Ct” icon on the right side of the toolbar to bring it up.

CREATE NEW BLOG CONNECTION

(FYI to manage connections select EDIT/MY CONNECTIONS from the menu…Yea, the EDIT menu makes sense for managing Internet connections. SPLAH!)

What do you want to connect to? CONNECT TO BLOGS
WHO HOSTS YOUR BLOG? OTHER BLOG SERVERS

“What is the URL of your blog” Skip this. Make yourself happy.

USER Type your Wordpress username
PASSWORD Type your Wordpress password

ACCESS POINT

http://www.YOURDOMAIN.com/BLOG DIRECTORTY/xmlrpc.php

DONE

Contribute will download the blog. You may get an error such as “Cannot create template…”, then it may continue to download. You are on your own, I just set up your connection, I do not work here.

Here are the same instructions in a 1-2-3 form. Feel free to copy this to your own reference document:

In Wordpress:

Admin Panel
Settings (lower left)
Writing (lower left)
Remote Publishing (middle of page)
XML-RPC – Check this box

In Adobe Contribute:

CREATE NEW BLOG CONNECTION

CONNECT TO BLOGS

Who hosts your blog? OTHER BLOG SERVERS

“What is the URL of your blog” Skip this. Make yourself happy.

USER Type your Wordpress username
PASSWORD Type your Wordpress password

ACCESS POINT

http://www.YOURDOMAIN.com/BLOG DIRECTORTY/xmlrpc.php

DONE

Many say that bloggers are karaoke journalists. Forget them. Blog on!

jb

Here was our promotional video for our game Trisaic for the iPod.

VIDEO

We were hoping for responses such as “Awe, that’s funny.”  Along with some positive comments like that, we immediately began receiving comments like this:

“LOL, I thought it was funny. Sad thing is, there is probably some truth to it. My nephew had a friend who was a XXXX developer for XXXXX and told me stories of some of the things they would do to meet dead lines.”

Okay, so we are now as worried about you all as we are about our developers.

What comes to your mind as you view this?

JB

President John Boukis states: “In the world of software and web development, electricity is productivity. On Earth Day, we will be monitoring the electricity use of our employees. We have outlined a set of rules that define cheating. Employees will be forbidden from executing such tactics as adding accessories such as portable air conditioners to their personal network stations, or playing 3D games (restricted only on this particular work day.). We have basic monitoring capabilities which will help us determine which individual used the most electricity on Earth Day. The winner of this internal contest will receive an additional $5 million dollars in Joroto stock options.”

Asked about observers’ gut reactions that these actions are generally irresponsible Boukis cautions all to carefully consider their reasoning: “The problem the world faces is not overuse of electricity. The macro problem is that our lifestyle depends on electricity more than ever, and we need to produce a great deal more electricity in order to continue growing our new computer-based economy. ”

“We absolutely believe that energy should be produced using the latest, most efficient, and most sustainable technology.  Every new house should be built with solar panels, and local governments should bury their bureaucracies, and allow the building of private wind turbines in all but the most dense areas, in order to generate significantly more electricity while producing (including manufacturing processes that produce solar and wind power materials) greatly reduced pollution levels.  With this in mind, consider that this contest is a celebration of the computer, and what it has meant to our employees and this company: Creativity and most importantly, freedom. Electricity is productivity. The more electricity we as an IT company use, the more applications we crank out. The more applications, the more revenue, the more we grow, the more people we hire, right on down the line. This is Productive Energy Tap, and we will continue to vehemently promote all of its tenets.”

Find all Joroto products at the following web page:

PRODUCTS

Thank you for coming!

John Boukis
President

blog@joroto.com

Send us information on your capital investment company. Once we research your company, we will provide a generalized design and monetization project plan for your review. If you are able to visualize our concept, work from a  generalized overview, and you show an interest in our project, we will provide a detailed CV for each Joroto employee.

John

Co-Founder & President, Joroto, Inc.