Timothy Chen Allen

Originally posted by John Dunn:
Wow man, I'm really sorry about that. Sounds like you have a real positive attitude in spite of the situation, which is really admirable. Good luck with everything!!

helpful link?

Thanks for the link-- there do seem to be a lot of books out there. The positive attitude is essential. Thanks, John.

Originally posted by Ellen Zhao:
Tim you are strong and all my admirations to you! I searched on amazon.com with the key word "when a parent is seriously ill", they don't have this book but the result list contains some books look like making sense. You might like to check out some of them.

I have no idea what Fibromyalgia is. Can this illness be cured?

For your son, is it possible to make a medical check for him to make sure whether he would have that illness in the future? My best wish is that he would never have that, but if there's possibility, does it help if you take action for him early enough?

And Tim are you still living in Barcelona? My winter break just started, I'm considering a trip to there again...

[ February 16, 2005: Message edited by: Ellen Zhao ]

Fibromyalgia is a treatable but non-curable disease that causes chronic debilitating pain. It seems like it mainly affects women, especially those that have done hard physical labor all their lives-- like my wife. We're getting her good care, and she doesn't seem to suffer as much as before. But of course it affects things she can do as a mother, and at some point we'll want to explain that to our son. Fibro is not contagious.

We moved from Barcelona to New Orleans in the States a year ago. I guess I'd better update my profile! Thanks for your response.

My wife has been diagnosed with a fairly serious illness-- Fibromyalgia. I am looking for resources for how to deal with this with our three year old son. Does anyone know of a good book about how to communicate with your children when a parent is seriously ill? I heard about a book, When a Parent is Seriously Ill by Leigh Collins and Courtney Nathan, but I can't find it on Amazon. Is it a good book? Thanks in advance.

Hi everybody,
I'm looking for a full time job in the New Orleans area. Here's what I generally highlight on my resume:
- Business Intelligence Technical Architect (4 years employed by Oracle
doing this, plus one large Microsoft Analysis Services job since then).
- ERP Technical Architect (2 years working with J.D.Edwards (Now
PeopleSoft)).
- Visual Basic/ASP (10 years), Perl (4 years), PL/SQL (4 years), Java (1
year), C/C++ programmer (1 year). My programming experience has been
mostly client/server work creating user interfaces for databases and BI
systems, web based systems for eCommerce and decision support, and XML
based web systems. I've also written a good deal of ETL and data
hygiene systems in Perl.
- DBA for Oracle (6 years), SQL Server (4 years), Sybase (2 years).
- UNIX, Linux, AIX and Windows installations and configurations of ERP,
Business Intelligence, and database systems . Some system administrator
skills on these systems.
- Civilian leadership/project management experience (teams of 3-5
programmers during 2 years) as well as military leadership.
- eCommerce experience (two years).
- Technical training experience.
- I've consulted to the telecommunications, legal, manufacturing,
construction, and health care industries as well as others.
- Fluent Spanish.
- Held Top Secret clearances in the Marines and as a civilian.
I'm trying to move back more to the programming side of the house, preferably fixed plant rather than consulting. I've enjoyed consulting as a Technical Architect, but I'm ready to do something else.
My availability is 26 Jan 2004. Please contact me at [email protected] if you have questions are would like a copy of my full resume. Thanks in advance.
Tim Allen
[email protected]

Originally posted by Siegfried Heintze:
What happens if I put a swing applet on a public site and someone visits the site and does not have a JVM installed?
If they have a JVM installed, do they necessarily have the swing components the applet would need?
Are there any reasons to use flash and javascript instead of java applets? Flash, of course, requires a download but I believe the installation of the flash client is completely automated.
I don't believe the installation of the JVM is completely automated. Is that true?
Thanks,
Siegfried

1. If it's MS Internet Explorer, they get a message saying they must download the JVM. Then they are taken to a site that explains why MS no longer produces a JVM. Nice, eh?
2. They can very likely not have the Swing components they need. If you are writing Applets for a public site, you might consider using AWT instead of Swing. If you control the clients' machines (like in an intranet), then you can get away with requiring the latest JVM.
3. Asking if you should use Flash on a Java site is like asking a room full of barbers if you should become a long-haired hippie and never cut your hair again. That said, it depends on what you want. I'm not sure, but I think a lot more people have the Flash plugin because it is easier to install. My wife did it, for instance, and she'd never be able to install the JVM.
For straight presentations, Flash does some nice stuff. But there is a lot of garbage out there (see my company's website http://www.oportuna.es for a particularly bad example), so Flash has a pretty bad name. I think it does what it does just fine. I just enjoy working with Java a lot more.
Good luck!

I am trying to set full screen mode. Here is a simple version of my code which causes the problem:
import java.awt.*; import javax.swing.JFrame; public class FullScreen { public static void main(String[] args) { new FullScreen().go(); } public void go() { JFrame window = new JFrame(); GraphicsEnvironment environment = GraphicsEnvironment.getLocalGraphicsEnvironment(); GraphicsDevice device = environment.getDefaultScreenDevice(); device.setFullScreenWindow(window); try { Thread.sleep(500); } catch (InterruptedException ex) { System.out.println(ex); } finally { device.setFullScreenWindow(null); } } }
This code gets causes this exception:
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.InternalError: Could not get display mode at sun.awt.Win32GraphicsDevice.getCurrentDisplayMode(Native Method) at sun.awt.Win32GraphicsDevice.getDisplayMode(Win32GraphicsDevice.java:329) at java.awt.GraphicsDevice.setFullScreenWindow(GraphicsDevice.java:195) at sun.awt.Win32GraphicsDevice.setFullScreenWindow(Win32GraphicsDevice.java:261) at FullScreen.go(FullScreen.java:12) at FullScreen.main(FullScreen.java:5)
My version of the SDK is J2EE 1.4.2, and my runtime is:
java version "1.4.2" Java(TM) 2 Runtime Environment, Standard Edition (build 1.4.2-b28) Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 1.4.2-b28, mixed mode)
My video card is a Trident Video Accelerator Blade 3D/MVP4. I'm using Windows XP Home edition.
Has anyone else gotten this exception? Is there a workaround? Thanks in advance.

I have a table like this. It's a ledger. Each entry is associated with an invoice number, and there is a transaction type and a description. The table is sorted by invoice and transaction type:
Transaction Invoice Type Description 1 FEE Work done 1 PAY Jan payment 2 IVA VAT Tax 3 PAY Feb Payment 3 PAY Supplement
I need to extract a listing of invoices and their descriptions-- however, the client is only interested in the very first description of each invoice, so this isn't about doing a concatonation.
If I do this right, the list above will produce:
Transaction Invoice Type Description 1 FEE Work done 2 IVA VAT Tax 3 PAY Feb Payment
I'm currently doing this with a cursor (I'm in SQL Server 2000), but there are 700,000 records, so this is taking far too long. How can I do this without a cursor (I run through the list, recording the inveoice number, and write out the record to another table when the invoice number changes), or at least more quickly? Thanks in advance.
[ November 20, 2003: Message edited by: Tim Allen ]

It's not just broken English-- this happens to everyone who has to speak someone else's language.
I live in Barcelona. There are two principle languages here, Spanish and Catalan. I speak pretty good Spanish-- good enough that my Spanish wife married me and we now have Real Big Arguments in Spanish.
However, my Spanish isn't perfect. About the time that it got "good enough" that I could survive, work, etc, people stopped correcting me. Think-- when you hear a non-native speaker in your language say something equivalent to, "The CEO is here and want to speak to you", do you immediately correct the person? probably not. If you do, it probably becomes a big apology: "Say, um, do you mind if I, um, make a suggestion about how to say that a little tiny bit better?"
The difference is even greater when it comes to Catalan. For political reasons, it is nice to be able to speak some catalan if you are in Barcelona. But basically, if you can say some very basic phrases and then fill in with "Catalanized" Spanish, no one will *ever* correct you. Seeing an American speak Catalan is kind of like watching a dog dance-- it's not that he does it well, it's just that he does it...
I know that not speaking the native language will make you feel less competitive with the natives-- it's true, you may have a harder time advancing as a result of your English (I know that I will never be technical director of my current company because of this). People may tell you that this will not make a difference, but that's BS. You have to consider if this is okay with you when you consider moving somewhere where you might have to learn the language.

This weekend I was talking with a friend who told me that in his opinion, Sadaam had been the necessary "Strong Man" to hold together the Shi'a, Sunni, Kurds and other peoples who were artificially (and misguidedly) put together in a single country.
It was also his opinion that Gulf War I had been stopped short of actually removing Sadaam because President Bush, Sr. knew that the power vacuum left by removing him would probably be worse than actually having him.
He also mentioned that Sadaam had met with April Glaspie, the Ambassador to Iraq, very shortly before the invasion, and that she had said that the USA would not get involved if Iraq attacked Kuwait. I didn't know that.
Opinions?
[ November 17, 2003: Message edited by: Tim Allen ]

Any place but Spain!
Spain Pros:
More days of sunshine than any other European country.
Spain cons:

Low natality

High housing costs

2nd lowest pay in Europe

We smoke more than any other European country

No one saves

More recreational drug use among young people than almost all other European countries

Weird schooling system makes average students think earning 50% on a test is great

Spanish Universities are expensive and elitist-- in-demand majors are virtually impossible to enter

Spaniards live at home with mama and papa until they are in their thirties because the combination of low pay and high housing costs make it impossible to do otherwise.

Thank god for Spanish sunshine, because if it wasn't for that there would be no reason to live here.

Hi,
I've just played "Scared" (http://www.brackeen.com/home/scared/index.html). It's a first person shooter a la Quake in a Java Applet. It's the best Applet I've ever seen.
The author is Dave Brackeen, the author of Developing Games in Java. Check it out, it really changed my conceptions of how fast an Applet can be.

Originally posted by Paul Wheaton:

Yesterday was the first time I fell a tree that could kill me.

Don't sell yourself short, Paul. All trees can kill you-- just ask Euell Gibbons.
I remember with some satisfaction building the first few layers of a log cabin when I was a kid, circa 12 years old. I did it with my own bare hands and a single-headed axe. I remember the smell and feel of the pine sap in my hands and my clothes.
I learned to chew tobacco out there, and eventually my trips out into the woods to work on the cabin turned into an opportunity to sit on the logs and dip snuff. When I was thirteen I invited over my friends and we camped out in the first few layers of the log cabin, drinking beer and smoking cigars.
I never did finish the log cabin, and one year when I went home to visit my folks, I tried to find it. It was gone. My father had cut it up for firewood.
When I'm stressed out now, I think about sitting on those logs with the axe in my hands, watching the squirrels run around in the trees above me.

I have been learning to use JApplets, since they are part of Swing, and Swing is the new thing, right? But I just looked at the examples in the COde Barn and they are all based on Applets-- they don't even import javax.swing.*. And the JavaRanch cow quiz is based on Applets, not JApplets.
Why is this? Should general consumption applets be based on Applet instead of JApplet, since I can't count on the user to have a 1.2 compliant browser plugin?
Thanks in advance.

One important thing to do in a happy marriage is accept and enjoy growing old together.
Since women age poorly, this is easier for the guy. You can enjoy prodding and making fun of your wife as her body parts begin to sag and her face gets all wrinkly. It's especially fun to poke her ever increasing posterior and say "ah, yes, ole dumplin".
If she says something about you getting older too, chuckle lovingly and then wink at the next firm skinned twenty year old girl who comes along. If it works for Sean Connery it should work for you!
Remember that your wife's body will seem more and more her enemy as she gets older. She'll go through a drying up and shrinking period known as "Menopause" when she gets a bit older. It will be less stressful for everyone if you clear out and go fishing when she begins to experience this. She's liable to become all weepy and puffy and have hot flashes. That's when you really need to come through as a husband and make sure your club memberships are all in order so you can clear out and get out of her (thinning) hair.

Originally posted by Eugene Kononov:
Anyway, here is the story so far, first draft:
Was that the entire story? Where is the culmination and the surpirse? I think you've been influenced by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra too much. Throw some drama into the plot, and then we'll talk 'bout it.

�No! The whole story would have to be a lot longer than that-- I mean you could read this in a single trip to the toilet. At this point I'm interested in whether I'm saying something laughable technically.
Actually, Cervantes was really quite long-winded by comparison!
If I continue with this, I promise it will be a lot more dramatic-- I'm kind of thinking the whole cracking thing will be just one relatively unimportant layer of the whole thing.