Interesting Genetics project

This is genetic migration project.
You have to pay $100 to take part but get the the results in about 6 weeks.
This gives the migration route of your ancestors.

It is this kind of project that makes IBM stand out as a research company.
When the project is complete the data will be released into the public domain.

Adventures In Linux

I have recently obtained an old pc.
Work was throwing it out – it is a PII 333MHz with 256MB RAM and a 4GB HD.
I thought it might make a good linux box.

I can get it to boot Knoppix 3.9 – however the install to CD option failed.
I picked up the Mandriva Linux magazine from WHSmiths.
Mandriva installs OK.

Unfortuantely it was unable to get the graphics driver to work.
After a quick look around I found the /etc/X11/XF86Config file, once I had set the
screen resolution down to 1074 x 768 then kde could start.

OK it was not a working out of the box that it should have been – but for an older system it was not too difficult to configure.

An End to Collation Blues

Collation in SQL Server 2000 is oftern a minefield.
The collation must exactly match on a join or the query will fail if both fields have a defined
collation.

There are lots of absolutely identical collations (for example the default UK and US settings are identical yet incompatible).

There is no easy way of correcting the databases collation other than using DTS to completely copy the database.

The following is the solution to all collation blues:

COLLATE database_default
This needs to be after the appropriate join :

    select a
    from foo
    where bar1 = bar2
COLLATE database_default

This eliminates the problem.

Java to CSharp Compiler

Of late I have been thinking of how to convert business objects that are Plain Old Java Objects into C# code.

Here is sed for windows, the stream editor.

The following sed commands:

s/main/Main/
s/String/string/
s/System.out.println/System.Console.WriteLine/

Can transform the cannonical java hello world:

public class Hello
{
         public static void main(String[] args)
         {
                  System.out.println(“Hello, World”);
         }
}

into the cannonical C# hello world

public class Hello
{
         public static void main(String[] args)
         {
                  System.out.println(“Hello, World”);
         }
}

This is a starting point for a java to c# cross complier.

It would be interesting to try to apply this to a more complex java application.
Add a few interop base classes and we have a useful product.

Given that the two languages have very similar syntax it could be an easy task.
The only trick would be replacing extends and implements, but the super sed that I linked to has multi-line pattern matching!