I always forget how useful is the “$(<selector>).load(‘url’, {para: meter});” function on jQuery.

It is really a problem solver when loading HTML structures.  I am converting some old code where I got HTML fragments to replace some existing content on the page and using the usual process, I’d have to do the AJAX query, call a callback procedure and then there I’d replace the contents of the section / div / whatever I wanted.

With jQuery.load I can do that on a single call and in a more effective way.

Silly thing and so simple that I always keep forgetting about it.

I always forget and have to search for the correct order of things here…

There are some VCS — as in Version Control System — (and DVCS, where the “D” stands for Distributed) where you can create a copy of the repository on your own system and then somewhat easily move it to the server or copy it there using the VCS software itself.

Mercurial seems to require that the thing be done in two stages:

1. Create the repository on the central (reference) server
2. Clone the repository on each workstation

So, here are the commands that should be run to accomplish that:

At the reference server

hg init <repository_name>

At the workstation

hg clone ssh://user@server//path/to/repository/<repository_name> <local_name>

Yes, it is that simple…  But since I work for a long time on projects, I always forget to double the slash after the server name while cloning and that I need to create the repository on the server “first”, to later start working with it locally.

I could probably do the opposite and revert the clone order, but then I am not sure if “push” and “pull” would be switched or if something else would be required to make them work.

I bought two new beer glasses yesterday.

From two classic beers: Erdinger (their Urweisse beer was the one I wrote about a few minutes ago) and Paulaner.

Both glasses are tall, beautiful and very different from the ones we use here in Brazil.

Every country has its tradition and here we’re used to small glasses and sharing our beers.  In England, for example, people are used to pints and drinking their beers on their own.

Nice acquisitions to what might start as a new kind of hobby or collection…  I haven’t decided yet.

Anyway, drinking my regular beer on them made it taste better.  I credit that to the shape of those glasses…

Just bought this beer yesterday…  Delicious.

A bit stronger than most that I’m used to drink and it is great.

Erdinger makes great beers and if you haven’t tried one, you should taste it.

In fact, even though it is stronger, it is easier to drink than most Brazilian beers.  (And this includes my favorite one: Bohemia.)

There is a bad thing, though: it is over too soon, so one bottle is not enough

The cost, here in Brazil, is also a problem: it costs from 3 to 4 times more than a premium beer.  It is an imported beer, though, but you drink one a day, not much more than that.

Continuing with updates from Factory, I’m now using KDE 4.2.

Several things have improved, the interface is as clean as 4.1’s was and I feel that some things take less resources.

It is worth a change for anyone running KDE 4.x to update to KDE 4.2.  But be aware that some configurations might be lost, so backup your settings before the change, just in case.

I work for a company that does off shore for other companies from the same group.  There are two types of activities that are done worldwide (100+ countries): internal support and support to external business partners (mostly clients, some suppliers, etc.).

As I work with networks and data transmission, and I lead a team that interfaces with external business partners almost 100% of the time, it is common to get some support requests for problems that really aren’t our problems.

It is something that is annoying because when there is a problem — specially in production environment — we need to stop working on everything else and solve that.  Out of those, 99.999% of the times the problem isn’t on our end: we work with thousands of business partners and have the structure in place to work with them: servers, network, firewalls, etc.  Everything is working fine, debugged and stable — there are some destabilizing changes from time to time, of course, but those are rare and very well tested.  Then, there comes the question from the external business partner: “We can’t connect to your server.  What did you change?  We need to submit that data today!”

Last time this happened, I had a meeting with an Indian company from 1:30 AM to 3 AM here…  And what was the issue?  They could manually submit data, but their automation couldn’t.

Anyone that can solve a hard problem — such as adding 2+2 — can see that there is something wrong with that and that something is probably at their end…  But no, this didn’t happen.  So, we scheduled a meeting and after one hour asking questions and asking about changes, they said that they changed the server: manual process (working) was from one host, automated process from another.  When asked to manually test from the new host, it didn’t work as well.  The problem?  They changed from one server to another and didn’t update their own firewall policies…  And then, it is our fault…

Second time there even was a paging sent to our team: data corrupted.  Oh well, the customer had to fix it and not us as we don’t change data in any way.  Even within our own company, business first assumes it is our fault and then we have to insist to have them go to the customer.

Now, back to the subject:

1. Make a change procedure, schedule times, analyze impact, etc.
2. Keep a backup of all of your changes.  Never demise the server after the change, you might need something from it back or reverting back to the old server in case something goes wrong
3. Check everything that has to be changed (servers, configurations, user profiles, firewalls, IP addresses, etc.)
4. Have a “recent changes” log and don’t assume that one change is irrelevant, specially when talking to other companies trying to solve a problem
5. Check your company first: go to your IT team or contractor, ask what has been changed, why it worked before and what is exactly the problem you’re having
6. If it is a connectivity problem, check that you can connect to other sites that provide a similar service / interface, check that you can get out of your network to the Internet from the same host that will be used and that is presenting the failure
7. Supply the support team a traceroute / tracert output from the failing host to their server

Give the support team from both companies enough information to solve your problem.  Guessing is too time consuming, error prone and isn’t something specialists like doing without enough information to discard the most obvious problems first.

“Help us to help you”, I always say (no, I didn’t create this expression, but I really enjoyed it!).

Lots of things happening lately.

Several big projects that required a lot of attention, a new team has been assigned to me — so now I’m leading my old team and the new one — and I have a third team to put together…

Besides all that, there’s the marriage that is closer: April 18th, 2009. 

I hope to be able to post more, though…

It is interesting how we never get bored while creating different solutions.

I’m improving the design of an application — and I guess if I am improving it then it was really ugly before… — and needed to add a column that will be larger than the other ones.  Unfortunately, unless you have your data displayed already then all columns will be shown with the same width.

How to solve that?  Using an old trick!

First of all, you define — using colspans, if possible — what is the proportion of the expanded column.

After that, you just specify that such a table should be rendered with a fixed layout in your CSS:

table-layout: fixed;

This will do the trick and render the table the correct way.

Two other versions about the previous video.

Sometimes data differ, but the information is the same.  One of them is narrated.

Enjoy.