XSLT – Sorting a Date

Have been doing a bit of work with XSLT lately.  Want to sort by date ?  Have a Date attribute ?

Add this:

<xsl:sort select=”substring-after(substring-after(./Date,’-‘),’-‘)”/>
<xsl:sort select=”substring-before(substring-after(Date,’-‘),’-‘)”/>
<xsl:sort select=”substring-before(./Date,’-‘)”/>

Kerberos on AIX 1.6

This might help.  Saw a few posts when trying to get Kerberos from MIT compiled up on AIX 5.2/5.3

I had a problem with libs – couldn’t find shared libs.  I added this to config/shlib.conf

RPATH_FLAG=-Wl,-brtl,-blibpath:

Its the -brtl that makes the linker see the .so files as well as the .a files.  Dont know why its not added already – but anyway thats what I did.  I also had to load the AIX Berkley Embedded DB package – I just loaded the RPM from the IBM http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/power/software/aix/linux/toolbox/download.html toolbox

Once loaded – the whole thing ran and I was able to use the kinit.c source for an embedded Documentum application to authenticate against an Active Directory.

A bit obscure but it may save you a couple of days getting Kerberos compiled and running on AIX

SQL Sorting by date column stored as a string

Right so you have a column in Oracle table thats stores a date field – trouble is that its stored as a CHAR.  How can I Sort it then ?

This is how….

COLUMN metadataname FORMAT A16;

COLUMN metadatavalue FORMAT A20;

select metadataname, metadatavalue fromectd_prod_3x.ectd_metadata where metadataname = ‘Submission Date’ order by to_date(metadatavalue,’dd/mm/yyyy’);

Moving Forwards ?

Two years ago I bought a Dell PC with Vista on it.  I thought I should move forward with the times.  For a million reasons – most of which seem to be logged on the net anyway, I have to say Vista sucks big time.   Today I just had it – no more of a wasted life with it.  No more waiting and waiting for copy of this and that or for apps to appear – so I installed XP again – back to where I was 2 years ago and I have to say – great.  Unless Microsoft can fix this junk with Windows 7 – then I say make sure your next “PC” is a Mac – simple as that.  Its not worth wasting your life on.  Oh I did give it a good chance – I bought 4Gb of mem to run just in case it was a mem issue – nope.  Just the same.  I will have a look at Windows 7 – maybe in a couple of years but only when I read at least one good post about it….

Velleman USB Board – MIDI Controller…

Anyone who knows about the Velleman USB experimental board knows two things that make it briliant.   The first is that they are superbly designed and the other is that they are made in Belgium.

I used to live in Brussels and it is the worlds finest city.

Anyway, I had a great little project for it – simple but effective.  I wanted to use a Boss dual foot switch to drive a laptop based Midi sequencer.  I use Cakewalk audio Virtual Jukebox to do that.  The foot switchmeans that during a performance you can start and stop the sequencer.

Ok, so its only two switches but it was a useful thing to do..

Stage 1 was to write a small VB app to get the inputs.  Simple enough to do – it uses the DLL to monitor the status if the Velleman digital inputs.  It then executes a SendKeys to the Vitrual Jukebox app.

This app also launches the Cakewalk Jukebox.

Connect the Velleman to the Laptop – USB – nice and easy. Works on Vista, 2003 and 2000.

Now to connect the footswitch.  I use a Boss FS-6. I was using this for a DR880 drum machine, however I wanted a more complex rig.  I drive a keyboard and a drum machine from the laptop now – which means I need the footswitch to control the sequencer.

I use USB to MIDI devices to drive the drum machine and Piano from the laptop – two of these little things.

Thats it – The Cakewalk Virtual Jukebox can now be activated by a footswitch…

Mac… There is no substitute

A little while ago I was lambasting Vista for lots of blue screens.  It just got worse to the point where Vista is so slow and cumbersome.  I wanted a Mac.  But the cost… I have a great PC wont run Vista but why not Mac.  So here is what I did with my 2Gb Dell Inspiron 530

1. I bought MAC OSX – for the licence

2. I downloaded Kalyway Distro 10.5.2

3. Using Acronis Disk Director – created partitions – also loaded the OS Selector

4. Installed MACOS to a 55Gb partition – keeping Vista intact

5. Installed a Realtek ( TP-LINK 3239D ) Dont use the DLINK 530TX – didnt work for me at all

6. Booted and configured – Note Video works but fixed at 1024 x 768 – ok but a bit cramped

7. Downloaded 10.5.3 Plus Kalyway Kernel mods

8. FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS!

9. Found an Nvidia GE Force 6200 – stuck it on…

10 Using NVinject – 03 Version for my card

2 hours of using

Yes Unix is better than windows in every respect.  Tell me why its not…..

iPod thinks its a digital camera

I did this

1. Log in using an ADMINISTRATIVE account
2. Verify you have the following files usbaapl.cat, usbaapl.inf & usbaapl.sys in the following directory “C:\Program Files\Common Files\Apple\Mobile Device Support\Drivers”
3. Single left click on START
4. Single left click on RUN
5. Type in ” devmgmt.msc ” then hit Enter (Don’t type in the quotes)
6. Look for Imaging in the Device Manager window, and click on plus sign (In Vista you may not see the “Imaging” option. Look under “Portable Devices” as an alternative)
7. Now you should see ” Apple iPod ” as a device underneath Imaging (or Portable Devices)
8. Right click on ” Apple iPod ” then single left click on Properties
9. Single left click on the ” Driver ” tab
10. Single left click on ” Update driver ”
11. Select ” Install from a list or specific location ”
12. Single left click on ” Include this location in the search ”
13. Paste ” C:\Program Files\Common Files\Apple\Mobile Device Support\Drivers ” (Don’t type in the quotes) into the box below ” Include this location in the
search ”
14. Single left click next and keep clicking through until ” Apple iPod USB Driver ” is detected.
15. Start up iTunes, and see if you iPod is detected again.