R10Clean Lite Released

http://www.artenscience.co.uk/artenscience/Blog/files/r10cleanlite.html

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R10Clean 2.0.1 Update

R10Clean 2.0.1 has been released with the following small updates:

R10Clean now defaults to the standard system default encoding.

You can now specify in the preferences the character used for CSV files. Some countries use the ; character as a delimited instead of the comma character.

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R10Decrypt. Free Decryption Tool

A free tool for Decrypting files, documents or text Encrypted using R10Cipher has been released today. It can be downloaded from the R10Cipher website.

This tool will prove useful to those who receive encrypted files but do not need to send them. The total cost of ownership for an R10Cipher solution has therefore been potentially significantly reduced.



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R10Clean V2 Professional Released for Mac/Windows/Linux

R10Clean Version 2 Professional was released today.

This is a free upgrade to existing users. Please email us for a new license key.

WHAT IS IT

A powerful tool for working with, manipulating and cleaning large amounts of data.

WHO IS IT FOR

For anyone frustrated with Excel who needs to clean, fix, de-duplicate or generally manipulate structured or unstructured data.

Download a fully functional trial version, non time restricted, for Windows, Mac OSX or Linux. The Trial Version is limited to manipulating 50 rows of data.



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New Website: Protect Client Data

http://www.protectclientdata.com

R10Cipher 2.0.3 Released

r10Cipher Update Released:

http://www.artenscience.co.uk/artenscience/Blog/files/r10cipher203.html

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Mac Developer Network Podcast - Code Reuse

I was lucky enough to be a guest on the last Mac Developer Roundtable Podcast. The (hotly debated) subject was Code Reuse.

You can download the audio file and see the show notes at the link below:

http://www.mac-developer-network.com/podcasts/mdr/mdr016/

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[NSConference] 16-17th April 2009

http://www.nsconference.com/index.html

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R10Clean 1.9.9 Beta Available for Download

More Information: http://www.artenscience.co.uk/artenscience/Blog/files/r10clean199.html

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Great Review on Version Tracker from Beta Customer of R10Clean

See Pic, Click to Enlarge :-)

http://www.artenscience.co.uk/artenscience/Pages/DataClean.html

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R10Clean Beta 2 - Significant Updates

Significant enhancements to R10Clean Version 2 Beta: http://www.artenscience.co.uk/artenscience/Blog/files/r10clean197beta.html

The home page for the current version of R10Clean is here: http://www.artenscience.co.uk/artenscience/Pages/DataClean.html

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Encrypting and Decrypting Files with R10Cipher

You can download a trial version of R10Cipher for Windows, Mac or Linux here: http://www.r10cipher.com

Double Click R10Cipher to launch the software. You will see the R10Cipher main screen. The Windows XP Version is shown below with the Drag and Drop Encryption Area highlighted:



Enter your Shared Secret (this is your encryption key) into the area at the bottom left of the screen. This can be between 4 and 16 characters. For example: yuetrtytpl*565r0.

Drag one of more files into the Drag and Drop Encryption Area (highlighted above). Press the Batch button to the right of the list of files.

The encrypted files will be saved to your desktop with the same filenames as the originals but with the file extension .r10Enc.


Decrypting Files and Documents

Double Click the encrypted file, following the double click you see this window:



All you have to do is enter the Shared Secret and the file will be decrypted and saved on your Desktop with the same name as the original, pre-encrypted file.

NOTE: Before you use this feature for the first time you may need to associate the R10Enc files with the R10Cipher Software. How you do this depends on your Operating System. We have instructions in the Manual Addendum for Mac OSX and Windows XP.

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macVCR 1.2 Available Free for Download

http://www.artenscience.co.uk/artenscience/Blog/files/macvcrfree.html

macVCR 2.2.5 Available

http://www.artenscience.co.uk/artenscience/Blog/files/macvcr225.html

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R10Cipher Dedicated Website

R10Cipher now has its own dedicated website:

http://www.r10cipher.com/

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R10Clean (formerly DataClean) Version 2 Beta

R10Clean Version Beta available for download:

http://www.artenscience.co.uk/artenscience/Blog/files/r10cleanbeta193.html

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macVCR Dedicated Website

macVCR now has a dedicated website: http://www.macvcr.com



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Setting up Version Control on your Mac with Cornerstone

Cornerstone is a relatively new source control client for the Mac that also comes with Subversion built in. No need to install any additional libraries.

The first thing to do is download and install Cornerstone. You get a 14 day trial so no need to get your credit card out just yet.

Once installed, launch Cornerstone.



Now make two folders on your computer. One is to store the Subversion repository, ie: /Volumes/SJC/Subversion Repository and the other is for storing the working copy of your project ie: /Users/stevecholerton/Desktop/SVN

The first thing to do is create the respository within Cornerstone. Click Add Repository and fill in the details for the drawer window that opens. Click the Add button.



You now have a repository that contains the default folder structure for Subversion.



The next thing you need to do is populate that repository with your project files. Right click the repository and select Import. Fill in the information as requested and click the Import button.



It's a good idea to fill in the change log with something appropriate:



After you press the Commit button it may take a few seconds for your new repository to be populated with your project files.

You should now have a repository populated with your project.



The next step is to create an initial working copy of your project. This is the location where you will actually work with your files. Select your repository and from the Working Copy menu select 'Check Out Working Copy...'



You now have a working copy of your project. You can work with this copy as you would normally. I'll cover checking your changes back into the repository in a later post.



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Oracle Reindex Script

If you wish to reindex all of your Oracle tables in one fell swoop, try the following script:

begin
FOR rec IN (SELECT index_name FROM user_indexes) LOOP
EXECUTE IMMEDIATE 'begin dbms_stats.gather_index_stats(user,:b1); end;' using rec.index_name;
END LOOP;
end;

To check that it has worked correctly, execute the following and look at the last_analyzed column

select index_name, index_type, table_name, uniqueness, num_rows, last_analyzed from user_indexes

PostgreSQL - Creating a New Tablespace and Database

Using pcAdmin III it is straightforward to setup a new Tablespace and Database for use with your PostgeSQL installation. The only 'gotcha' is that you need to specify an absolute path to the Tablespace and the user 'postgres' must be the owner of that directory.



On Windows you can set the owner using the properties of the directory, on the Mac however you will need to so something similar to this:

sudo chown -v postgres data

Make sure you have changed into the parent directory of 'data' before you execute the above command.

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Guitar Porn. Oh Yes.

From John Birch, the guy who made guitars for Tony Iommi in early days of Black Sabbath.

PostgreSQL - First Things First

After installing PostgreSQL the installation is available to access only from the local machine. If however you have installed it on a remote server or VM you will initially be unable to connect. This is because (sensibly) PostgreSQL comes with a highly restrictive table of allowed connections. Therefore the first thing to do is give yourself access to your PostgreSQL database from over the local network.

These are the steps to follow to set this up:

From the machine which contains the PostgreSQL installation, launch the pGAdmin III application. If you don't have this you should run Application Stack Builder included with the PG installation and download it.

Once pGAdmin III is launched it will look something like this:



From the File menu select the option 'Open pg_hba.conf...' This will open a dialog asking you the location of this file. Navigate to your data directory and select the pg_hba.conf file.

You will then see this:



Double Click the third line down in the list and populate the window as follows:



Press OK to close the input window, close the list window, answering Yes to the prompt to Save changes and close pgAdmin III.

You now need to Restart the PostgreSQL server process using the shortcut installed by the PG installer.

Your PG database will now be accessible from your Local Area Network (assuming you use the IP Range 192.168.0.X, if you use a different IP Range then substitute it when editing the pg_hba.conf file.)

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The Most Appropriate Open Source Database ?

An upcoming development of mine ideally needs to store data in a powerful, multi user relational database system. Not a problem - I'm a big fan of Oracle and use it daily. The fly in the ointment this time is that due to the nature of the software the database system needs to be inexpensive, ideally free.

There are several 'free' database systems to choose from. the two most well known and highly rated are MySQL and PostgreSQL. Of the two MySQL seems to be great for 'quick and dirty' data storage while from the research I have done PostgreSQL seems to be far more advanced and with features nearer to what I would expect from Oracle.

I have experience of using MySQL, both locally on my Mac and also as part of the Plesk installation on my dedicated web server. It seems straight forward enough and would probably suit my needs, but the more I read the more drawn towards PostgreSQL I am becoming.

A big benefit of both of these database systems is the ability to install the server software on my Macbook Pro, a big plus when traveling, as Oracle doesn't install on a Mac and requires a seperate VM on which to run.

A very fast download and equally fast installation on my Mac left me very surprised. PostgreSQL really feels very professional and even comes with some nice admin tools. I tried the same exercise on one of my virtual Windows 2003 servers with the same result.

I have yet to do any extensive testing with PostgreSQL but I have already ruled out MySQL. Far from being free, it cannot be used with my commercial application without I first purchase a license. Apparently MySQL is released under the very restrictive GPL license and this effectively means that if I use MySQL as my data store then my commercial application falls under the same licensing - in other words I have to make it Open Source. Which I am not prepared to do.

PostgreSQL on the other hand is released under the far simpler BSD license. Which you can read below: (Click to enlarge the image)



This is a much better fit for my purpose. I'm not sure why MySQL appears to be so much more popular given the restrictions of the licensing ? Maybe it is just easier to use ? Maybe people do not realise how restrictive the licensing is ?

Anyway, it's full steam ahead with evaluating PostgreSQL then. The elephant takes the lead :-)

Note: Another big plus point in favour of PostgreSQL from my point of view is that native drivers are available for my current development platform of choice, REALbasic. No middleware needed ... If PostgreSQL turns out to be as good as I suspect it is, it may well replace Oracle in some of my future higher value commercial applications.



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Snow In My Garden

Nothing to do with Programming or Arten Science or Technology. I just wanted a record of my garden covered in snow :-)