When she kept eating from her brother’s plate, Brandy said, “I will let you eat 1 frie for every 5 pasta you have eaten.”  (Brandy attempted to make her eat more of the pasta for her own sake, not to protect his fries since he was full already)

Rachie defended (of course), “Hey this is not fair.  To be fair, I will eat 1 frie for every pasta I ate.”

Now Brandy had nothing to fight back since he is always the nice and fair guy and he of course, thought that his sister is right.  OK boy, let Daddy show you how…

Then I said, “Oh that’s right we gotta be fair.  So let’s do it this way, Rachie you can have the whole plate of fries from Brandy when you finish your whole plate of pasta.  Fair?”  (hahaha…)

Of course by then Rachie was STARRING at me fiercely, and then started picking fries…  from my plate…  (ok, I tried, and I don’t dare to continue to challenge my little “lovely” Princess…)

The problem that I am running into, seems to be a memory leak in the replay browser.  It seems that it is related to the complexity (or amount) of JavaScript that is on the pages.  The more (or the more complex) the JavaScript, the better chance that you will run into memory access voilation.

So my solution is, to turn off replay browser, and rely more on printing debug messages.  Once I turn off replay browser, VuGen doesn’t crash at all.

I said, “Sure but you guys need to get ‘pinned’ too.”  And I looked at Brandy and said, ” Oh you told me this morning that your forearm is sore.  Let’s get it ‘fix’ then!”

Now this poor little guy was scared (hahaha) and said, “Actually it is much better now.”  He tried hard to move his arm to pretend it is fine.  “And I probably won’t go with you Daddy.”  (one down)

The little girl said with confident, “Daddy, I am all good and healthy so I can go without being ‘pinned’.”

I think (now the evil brain kick-in) and I said (with a serious tone), “Oh you know what, the therapist told me that there is a way to ‘pin’ you so that you can talk more fluently in Cantonese!”

Now she is REALLY scared because she is actually a lot less pain-tolerance than her brother and thought that it is real (HAHAHA, Gotcha).   She quickly stopped looking at me and asked her Mommy, “Mommy is that true?”  (literally in English)

I jumped in and said, “See you are speaking in English again, so you need to be ‘fixed’ too!  Let’s go!”.  Rachie almost cried.  Winnie was laughing and eventually told the little one that there is no such thing.  However, Rachie already lose her mood of going.

(Mission accomplished HAHAHAHAHA)

HAHAHA…  so about the same time, Brandy was walking slowly downstairs too as he has finished his morning routine, with his eyes half open only (of course).  So I asked him, “Hey, do you need to hand in your homework today?”

He said, “Yes?”

Then I asked him, “Did you finish them?”

He said, “No.”  (Now he is QUITE awake)

Now me and him were in my home office, I was busy going through the work that he has done and what else were left to do.  Whereas Brandy was looking at me with his half-blank half-worry mind.  I was thinking to myself, “Come on, is that my homework OR your homework!?”

Some of his work was wrong and some were left out.  We were doing the 100M final-dash (don’t get me wrong, I am just explaining the questions and he was actually doing the work) and the feeling was very funny.  It is like way back when I was in university, rushing for MY homework with Kwong, vma and the group.

Well, actually it is more stressful now than the past, because I know I had a good “team” in the past (thanks Kwong) so I never worry that I can’t finish the work.  But now, I think I get a taste of how Kwong and others feel since Brandy is depending on me (too bad son…  HAHAHAHA)

And don’t even get me started of what kind of parents we are (i.e. rushing kids homework), we are not really good at planning…  right from the start :)  HAHAHA…

So then I pretended I don’t know and when I got back to the table, she said right the way, “I didn’t peak.”  HAHAHA…  I laughed and I said, “I know.”

Now we played and of course I got draw-4 after draw-4.  However, when she played her last card, I immediately said “You didn’t say UNO.” and I played my card.  So she had to draw.  And I did it again and again (HAHAHA poor her)…  and of course I finished the game before her :D

I finally played down my last card  with a evil smile.  She can’t take it anymore.  She picked up the card and crushed it, threw it to the sofa, and said, “You are cheating, it is not fair.”

(HAHAHA… who is cheating here??)

But after that game onwards, she REMEMBERED to call ‘UNO’ everytime.  I guess she learn the hard way :D

He was trying quite hard (and of course serious) to win, and when he got to his last card and said, “UNO”…

I then played a Wild card, and said, “Change color to…” and I started staring at him, looked right into his eyes and asked him, “Is your card YELLOW?” (hahaha…  actually I know it is yellow)  He started to avoid my sight, and I repeated my question, “Don’t avoid my question, is your card YELLOW???”  (hahaha…  FULL pressure)

And you know what he did?  He started trying to take a card from the deck, and I asked him what is he doing.  He said (with slight sadness), “You are not going to change it to yellow…  So I pick a card.”  (HAHAHA…  too bad…)

Then I said,”Change color to YELLOW.”  He almost cried out and played his last card with joy :)

(see I am not such a bad daddy afterall… not all the time I guess…  HAHAHA)

Here is where I read it from.

You can also do it through a more user-friendly way, by going to Start > Accessories > System Tools > Scheduled Tasks.

Here is a link to Microsoft knowledge base that describe how to use the at command.  I think the paper is actually on Windows 2000 but it does apply to other Windows environment I believe.

And of course, they invited my kids to be part of the wedding, The Ringbearer (without the rings…) and the Flower Girl!

At night we were doing a family cake cutting (yeah, we already did that with his friends already but Winnie complained that she hadn’t taken a picture with Brandy.  So we went out to buy another cake :P)

(Rachel kept wanting to blow the candle, and Brandy tried to stop her)

Here it is:

I was asking him why he used his jacket covering his face.  Winnie didn’t wait for Brandy to answer, she said, “If your Daddy is taking photo with you outside your school, will you feel a little bit embarrassed??”  HAHAHA…

Oh well I guess so…  but I guess I shouldn’t have that feeling by then!!!!  :)

Anyways…  here is another one:

Oh I guess would be a little bit annoyed if I were him (taking so many photos)…  BUT TOO BAD NOW THAT I AM THE DADDY AND HE IS THE SON!

But she still couldn’t find the tooth!  She asked Brandy when did he lose it…  and he said he didn’t know.   hahaha…  We guess he lost it probably during lunch :)  Anyways, here he is!

Once Winnie knew that I am going to Boston for my business trip, she started to tell me that there is a very famous seafood restaurant in Boston that I should try, especially their Lobster.  So I went there to try it out…

Now, I don’t know if it is just that day or something, I had their Lobster special (smallest size:  1.25lb to 1.50lb) with stuffing.  I can say that the stuffing is really good (shrimp, scallop and crackers), but the lobster is no where near the quality that I had in Toronto!  I was kind of disappointed.

The next day, I was there again (with other co-workers), and I wasn’t planning to eat lobster there anymore, I was looking at their “Simply Legal” menu.  So I asked the waitress if she can make me Seared Tuna, black and blue (rare inside),  with Cajun flavor.  She said no problem so here I am trying out the Seared Tuna!

It is a really large portion (it is like a real steak size).  Cut it up, YES it is rare inside, and the fish is so fresh!!!  The Cajun flavor add some spiciness to the meat, which is how I like it too.  There isn’t really any sauce that comes with it but the fish is perfect!

Best of all, the dish is not expensive as it is only $23.95!

Legal Seafood – Cajun Seared Tuna
50 Worcester Rd, Framingham, MA
508-766-0617

So Brandy wore it the next day.  He was showing it off to everyone.  He even bring his auntie up to the closet to show off how the light-up skeleton.

After a whole day of fun with the shirt, before his bed time, he asked his mom, “Mommy can I take my tee shirt off for the night?”

We were kind of puzzled since usually if he likes the shirt, he wouldn’t want it taken off, so we’ve asked him why…

He said, “…  I worried that I will scare myself off tonight if I woke up and I see skeleton…”

He is so cute :)  Of course we took it for him.

So I told the kids, “Who win the game of Rock, Paper and Scissors will be able to choose who to sleep with.”

Of course, Rachel said, “If I win, I will choose to sleep with Mommy.”  (She said so because she knew Brandy will not like the idea of sleeping with ME… hahaha)

So they decided to play the game.  Brandy, trying to get a sure win shot, asked Rachel, “What are you going to put out?”

Rachel said without any hesitation, “Rock.”

(I was thinking, oh no, the little princess gave up the answer….)

Brandy smiled and said, “Ok, 1, 2, 3…”

Brandy put out Paper (of course) and Rachel put out…  Scissors!  There was about 5 seconds silent (both me and Winnie couldn’t believe what had happened, and Brandy was shocked by the defeat)

Me and Rachel (now making a funny face) both burst out into laugh…  (and Winnie also wanted to too but she doesn’t like the idea that Rachel is sooooo tricky, so she tried to hide it)

Of course the poor guy Brandy cried and said, “Rachel cheats…  Rachel cheats…  Rachel cheats…”

HAHAHA!!!

I asked my Uncle 3, “Why are you watching cartoon with Brandy?”

Uncle 3 replied (with a little sadness in his eyes), “I turn on the TV and want to watch Olympic. But he (Brandy) came by and said “Well since it is evening now, all the athletes went to sleep already. No more competitions for today so let’s watch something else.”"

HAHAHA… and then I looked at Brandy (it is the kind of I-didn’t-do-it-I-didn’t-do-it and pretend-innocent look) and he said, “I don’t know…”

(No Brandy for sure knows that the Olympics is held in China, and he KNOWS for sure that when it is our night time, it will be their day time as we always talked about it HAHAHA…) 

It is actually on Wiki! and here is the link.  You can print it as a web page, and you can print landscape and the page will be resized to even bigger.

On TTC web site, there is a fancy click-able and drag-able page. It maybe easier for people to plan for a ride but it is not good for printing at all.

On Toronto.ca, there is a PDF version of it but if you look at the document, the font is too small. Moreover, if you print the map on a dark background, the station name is even harder to read!

My Dad helps me learn how to play Wii.
My Dad is 35 years old.
My Dad favourite food is chicken wings.
My Dad is really good at badminton.
My Dad’s favourite place to shop is Best Buy.
At work he is a programmer, writes programs.
At home he just like to do computer, blackberry and Wii. (hahaha…)
Our favourite time together is playing Wii together.

Here is what Rachel said:

My Dad helps me to break the eggs when I’m making a cake. (I never cook with her)
My Dad is 38 years old. (Oh no…)
My Dad favourite food is eggs. (You are right!)
My Dad is really good at tennis. (I never play tennis with Rachel)
My Dad’s favourite place to shop is Home Depot.
At work he sends emails. (hahaha….)
At home he play games – Mario Kart.
Our favourite time together is play game with me – Olympics.

So… It is pretty easy to summarize how do the kids think about me… I am just a playmate. :)

BTW, this is the first time Rachel made me a Father’s Day card!

Happy Father’s Day!

Brandy answered, “Water.”

Then I told him that yes he is right.  And then I started to explain to him that it means water is made of Oxygen and Hydrogen.  (yeah yeah…  very geeky…)

So I asked the kids again, “What can we do with Oxygen?”

Brandy answered, “Breathing?”

I was impressed…  Finally I asked, “What about Hydrogen?”

Brandy was speechless.  All of a sudden, Rachel answered (yes finally she had a chance since usually her brother answered all of the questions), “It is used to hide children.”  (sound close enough to Hydrogen right?)

hahahaha…

Even funnier, after Rachel said that and I was still laughing, Brandy looked at me with a very serious look.  He was amazed why Rachel know that (as if it is correct, hahaha), and disappointed in himself that how come he doesn’t know (hahaha…  he is soooo funny).

So I told him, “Son, don’t be so serious, obviously she made it up on the fly.  It is NOT TRUE.”

During try script (i.e. testing the script) the method is ignored.  So I found the wait method. For example:

wait 5.0;

will stop the script execution for 5 seconds before moving onto the next execution line. More importantly, it can be replayed during try script!

But then I said, “You only asked if you could ‘look at’ the TV and I said yes (睇電視).  So you don’t need the remote to ‘look at’ the TV.  And I haven’t said you can turn on the TV.  (開電視)” (hahaha….)

Now his second try, “I want to see what’s ‘inside’ the TV.” (睇電視裡面)

Then I answered, “You need a screwdriver, not a remote.”

Frustrated (and laughing too), but he continued, “I want to see what’s going on with the TV.” (電視依家做緊乜嘢)

“The TV is standing in front of you letting you look at it.”

There are some tears already…  (poor mama’s boy and Mommy is not around HAHAHA …  你大鑊啦 )

He then worked on it from a different angle (smart boy).  He said, “Push the button on the remote to turn on the TV.”

So I pointed the remote towards myself and pressed the button.  And said, “Nothing happens.”

“Point the remote towards the TV and press the button.”   Brandy’s final try.

I pointed the remote towards the TV but with my hand in front blocking the signal and pressed the button.

He said, “I quit.”  and walked away crying.  Then I turned on the TV.

Poor Brandy…

Then Brandy came along, picked it up, looked at it for a second, and then…

He placed it on the ground, and used his hand moving the running shoe to “simulate” running!  and then he said, “I can run with it, it is ok.”

HAHAHA…

According to LoadRunner Help, here is what you need to do:

“To send a message to the output file, you must enable logging in the run-time settings, and select Always send messages. If you select Send messages only when an error occurs, there is no output from this function.”

This is what I had changed in the Run-time Settings of my script from VuGen, but the log still did NOT appear when I ran the script through the Controller!

After clicking a bit fon controller, I finally figured it out.  When you setup your scenario in the Controller, you will add all the appropriate scripts into the scenario.  From the scenario, you are also allowed to change the Run-time settings of each script.

When I open up the Run-time Settings of my script from my scenario, the changes that I have made above according to the help (Always send messages) is NOT there!  So I tried to refresh the Run-time Settings, and NO it is not updating that.  I have checked all the other Run-time settings of my script and they are all there.

What I have to do is to explicitly do is to change the Run-time Settings in my scenario setup for the scripts (from the controller), NOW the log appeared during the load test!

So lesson learned:  If you want to output log messages during load, you MUST set up the Run-time settings in the scenario on the Controller, NOT VuGen.  I am using LoadRunner 9.10.

Brandy said, “No Daddy I want Mommy’s car, not yours.”

I was shocked and asked why.

Brandy answered, “Your car is a manual and it is too troublesome to drive. Mommy’s car is auto and it is much easier to drive.”

(Come on, don’t you like the feeling of in control? Oh well… no one really wants my car I guess… not even a 5-year-old kid…)

Here is what I’ve got from the help:

“Note: To view the Pages Downloaded per Second graph, you must select Pages per second (HTML Mode only) from the run time settings Preferences tab before your scenario.”

I never manipulate this option in the run time settings, so I checked my scripts. For the scripts with Web Click and Script protocol, by default this option is checked. Therefore the Pages Downloaded per Second monitor / graph is available by default.

HOWEVER, for the scripts with Web HTTP / HTML protocol, by default this option is NOT CHECKED. Therefore the Pages Downloaded per Second monitor / graph is NOT available by default.

Bingo. This solves the mystery of why the Pages Downloaded per Second monitor is available in one of the runs, and it is not available in another one. It is because I have a mix of scripts with different protocols. If the scenario has at least one script with Web Click and Script protocol, then the monitor is available for those scripts. However if the scenario only involves scripts with Web HTTP / HTML protocol, then the monitor is blacked-out!

He asked, “What are you doing so early in the morning?”

I said, “Hm…  Grandpa it is still mid night.”

He was watching me slowly eating my bread, and then he asked, “Can you get me a yogurt?”

Then I said, “Wow, will it be a bit too late for that?”  (don’t really want him to eat fridge stuff at night)

He thought for a second, he asked again, “So what can I eat?  By the way, what are you eating?”

I said, “Bread.”

He asked, “Can you give me one?”

(Oh no, I am so hungry as I haven’t eaten a thing for almost the whole day, and there are only 1 left…)

I said, “Sure.”  (kind of not really wanted to but oh well…  and I was thinking about the Chinese phrase describing how you get rice from a beggar’s bowl… hahaha)

Then I asked him, “Do you want some water?”

He said, “No…  but get me a cup of milk.”

“Ok.  I will boil a cup for you.”

I was half dead (remember I was very sick?) and I was in the kitchen getting the milk ready…  and when I am almost done, I’ve heard Grandpa turning his light off.

I asked, “Oh your milk is almost ready.”

He said, “I am not drinking anymore.”  And he walked to his bed and sleep.

I was standing in the kitchen, still feeling hungry (shared the bread with Grandpa), and I was thinking to myself, “比人玩.”  (is that fun?)

Happy Anniversary to us!

After walking for about 15 minutes, I asked Brandy, “What is our locker number?”

He answered, “Hm…  4526.”

I said, “Yes you are right.”  (and I was thinking, “wow, pretty good kid, but I won’t let you off that easily…  hahahaha….”)

When we are almost done, I asked Brandy again, “What is our locker number baby?”

He answered with a little doubt, “4…5…2…6″.

(His evil dad was thinking to himself, “I have to do something :)”)

Then I asked Brandy, “Are you sure? it is 4526?  or is it 5246?  or is it 4256?  or is it 6245?”

Brandy was then confused (Yes!).  He thought for a while, and then he said (with a final-answer tone).  “5426.”  (Yes Yes!  hahaha!)

So he seemed to stick with 5426 afterwards and when we got back to the locker area, I asked him, “OK Brandy, what’s your final answer?”

He said, “5426.”

I said, “Go find it.”

Then of course he still remembered where the locker is located, and he went there and looked at the number.  His face turned black.

So then I asked, “So where is 5426?”

Brandy frustrated, and said, “You trick me!!!!!!!!!!!”

He was kind of mad at me for about 10 minutes but at the end, he was laughing at himself too :)  (I think because in his heart, he understand that I “didn’t” really trick him, he is just mad at himself not remembering it more than mad at me)

One night after dinner, we saw Brandy wore his hat, and put on his backpack, running around the house.  I asked him what was he doing but he said, “Nothing…”.  After a few days, his mom finally figured it out, he was pretending to be Ness.  One of the Super Smash Bros’ character.  (oh no…)  Here is a picture of Ness:

OK…   Then another morning, Brandy was drawing a picture.  When he was done, he showed it to me happily…  And he know what he drawed?  He was drawing Kirby, with a tweak.

Brandy pointed to his picture and said, “Kirby has grown hair out of his head!”  (is he trying to laugh at me??)  Here is a picture of Kirby (without hair of course):

Oh well, yes he was thinking about the game all the time.  I guess it is just a temporary thing.  We have a few days of vacation and have a number of activities with the babies (Science Center, Easter Egg Hunt…).  They seem to enjoy the time with us, without the game!

He guessed, “Oh it must be… hm… we cook(~燒), we sweat (汗)…” he continued to scratch his head and we laughed… HAHAHA…

So I asked them, what is coke in Cantonese?  (and I told them if they can’t remember they are not going to drink coke again… hahaha)  But  they thought and thought and they don’t remember!  Oh no!!!

You can get the plugin here.  Basically what it does is it adds CAPTCHA protection to your add-comment area.  Everything is hosted on reCAPTCHA site, that is, the graphics generation and the verification.  And the BEST part is, the setup is SUPER EASY!  (The installation is very straight forward)  Here is a summary of what you need to do:

1. download the plugin from the site and upload the plugin to your WordPress plugin directory;
2. you can then activate the plugin on the admin page;
3. you probably will need to create a public / private key on reCAPTCHA site too and put it in the plugin setup.

(There is a step-by-step guide on their site)  You are done!  Even though the color and style of the box may not match with your site’s theme, but the point here is that you can avoid a lot of spam comments!

With my experience, I have installed it for 2 days, and I’ve got 0 spam comment so far!

I have read a news article from techmeme where it says CAPTCHA protection from Google, Hotmail and Yahoo are all broken!  That is, there are now bots (programs) that can “read” this eye-test graphics and successfully create an account.

However, the article also mentioned that the chances of the “bots” successfully register an account (for gmail) is 20% so far…  So I guess now it is a matter of who will win the race…  the spammers or the coporates?

We agree to give him sushi when he is 6…  of course he is not yet 6, but he kept begging us last night.  I guess we gave in and said he is close enough…  so we gave him tamago sushi (cooked egg)

He loves it!

Sometimes I just think that Grandpa doesn’t really know much about what’s happening around him.  But no, he pays attention to what we are doing and what we are talking about.  He knows he is old, and he can’t really help us out much at home…  but whenever he can, he will always help, just like now.

Thanks Grandpa.

She didn’t say much, and point to the ceiling…

She saw the skeleton decoration hanging on the ceiling!  And she was scared about that! HAHAHA…

Event 1: We went to ice skating with the kids! Well, as far as I can remember, the last time that I skate is high school time. I never really learn how to skate, and I can barely keep myself balance on the ice. It is the first time I skate with the babies… Very unfortunately after we were all on the ice (me, Brandy and Rachel) for about 2 minutes, Rachel fell down and somehow i stepped on her little finger!

She cried and she was out. She was soooo mad at me. Sorry baby :( (She calm down and got better after eating snacks)

Event 2: We went to Edwards Garden to do our family photo session! Again, I think I have been to Edwards Garden once, and I think it is again during my high school year… hahaha… the funny part is that Mom and Sis told me to take my GPS with me because they know that I don’t know my way… hahaha… COME ON :)

Anyways, the kids had fun with leave-fight (that is, you play snowball fight with leaves) and I hope that we took some good pictures!

First of all, I should explain, Brandy really doesn’t like people accusing him for something that he never did. And he can easily get upset by that…  So their conversation should be:

Rachel said, “Brandy you said (abc).”  (I don’t remember what the word is…)
Brandy defended, “No I didn’t say that…”  (voice increased slightly)

Rachel said, “Yes you did.”  (she definitely knew that’s the way to get her brother back)

Brandy shouted, “NO I DID NOT (totally out).  You are just 耳花.”

Hm…  What was that?  After a split second, me and Winnie were laughing…  well when people said they saw something which they really didn’t see, we called that:  “眼花“.  So what Brandy want to say was that his little sister heard something which he never said, and he called that “耳花“.

HAHAHA…  Good one Brandy…

Then after “twenty-ten”, she went on 23, 25, 26, 27, … keep circulating…

Now take a look at the second photo, the key is bow…  It is made by their Grandma (of course, not my Mom…  Winnie’s Mom hahaha)!!!  Isn’t it lovely?  I was thinking of selling bows online!  :)

First question… who do you think did the hair cut for Rachel? … not me!! Actually Winnie did that… Unbelievable. Winnie kept asking me to let her cut my hair before, and I have seriously thought about that. But now, NO WAY :)

Second question… do you think Rachel like her new hair style? You can pretty much tell the answer… (oh no)

Winnie told me that in the middle of the hair cut… Rachel actually asked Winnie, “Mommy, can we go back to the old style please?” (sorry baby, no too late)

When they came down from upstairs right after the hair cut, I looked at Rachel and in my mind, I have saying, “What the hack what the hack what the hack…” But of course I just don’t want to make the little girl feel too bad (well probably my look already give it out and damage has been done…) But I just told her (mumble), “No worry baby, you will be ok in 2 weeks, you will be ok in 2 weeks…”

HAHAHA…

Oh well, here is Brandy “Wood” finishing his last hole :)

For Rachel, first take a look at how serious she is about golfing…

And now… Rachel “Gretzky” showing off her putting skill!

What’s so special about this is the whole dragon is made of CDs

And for some reason Brandy loves this, so I took a picture for him (he said he is going to draw it…)

Well the guy in the center is Brandy (who keeps falling), and if you noticed Rachel is the girl with pink pants on the left (sometimes she got covered by another kid). The video is not too interesting since all you see is a 1-minute clip of Brandy kept falling (hahaha…) The funny part is that…This is actually what Brandy and Rachel have done for their first 26 minutes of ice-skating! hahaha…Well you know, you got to admire how patient and fearless they are to learn something. Can anyone of us keep trying and failing for 26 minutes straight to learn a new thing now? (well at least not me, golfing is my example as I am never ever able to hit the golf ball) I really really hope that they can keep this attitude up for however long they can, since I think it is one of the key characteristics to become successful! Never give up!

Don’t they looked GREAT?? (by the way, the helmet mask is mandatory because they are too young and they may not be able to protect their own face / head… Winnie asked me if we should just let Brandy wear his biker helmet to class to save some money hahaha… of course not)

In SilkPerformer 7.3, the function FileCSVLoadGlobal actually has a global row pointer which is shared by all virtual users on multiple agents.

Besides the above function, there are 2 more functions that are needed (described in the knowledge base article from Seague): GlobalResourceEnter, GlobalResourceRelease and GlobalVarInc. GlobalVarInc increments a global variable (shared by all virtual users on multiple agents) by a specific value. GlobalResourceEnter and GlobalResourceRelease wrap around the function GlobalVarInc to signal that it can only be executed by a single virtual user (across all agents) at any time.

Here is a code snippet:

//"fread" identifies the synchronize session
GlobalResourceEnter ( "fread" ) ;
//increment the global variable "frow" and
//assign the value to "nrow" (a local variable)
GlobalVarInc ( "frow" , 1 , nrow ) ;
GlobalResourceRelease ( "fread" ) ;


After the above code, you can then access the file using FileGetRow with the row number stores in nrow. This method is described in the knowledge base article from Segue Software web site.

One draw back of this method is that all the virtual users across multiple agents synchronize on this row pointer access, as opposed to the previous 2 methods where virtual agents on different agents are independent of each other. But of course it is a lot easier to develop and maintain the above code than the algorithms described in previous posts.

There are a few other concerns about the functions which currently I have no way to verify. First with the function FileCSVLoadGlobal. Since it creates a file handle globally through all virtual users on all agents, shouldn’t then accessing the global file handle with the function FileGetNextRow already access a unique row per virtual user?

Secondly, shouldn’t GlobalVarInc itself already allow one 1 virtual user access the variable at any time, since GlobalVarInc manages a global variable?

Anyways, once I’ve got an updated version of SilkPerformer I will try to test these 2 concerns out.

To enable or disable the feature, here is what you need to do. In the instance XML, look for “LoginTimeout“. You can set “enabled” to “true” to enable the feature or set it to “false” to disable the feature.

If you enable the feature, you can then set the “Timeout” value as after how many milliseconds the session will expire. The default I believe is 1,800,000 milliseconds, that is 30 minutes.

Here is the information of how you can do the same task in Configuration Manager (WebSphere Commerce Version 5.6). You can find in the WebSphere Commerce Info Center.

I can agree with the above if a site has more than 100 pages, because the information that a user is looking for maybe scattered on different pages. So the landing page may contain a pointer to more information about what the user is looking for.

However for a site that has 20 pages or less, then I have a different interpretation. When a user hits on the landing page, chances are the information provided on the page has all the user needed. Therefore the site does have a high bounce rate, but it does not necessary mean that the landing pages are not relevant to the visitors. It could as well means that the landing page is a perfect match with what the visitor is looking for.

This is where I found about the definitions of various metrics of Google Analytics.

From wikipedia: CAPTCHA is an acronym for “Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart”. HAHAHA… There is a free implementation that you can use on reCAPTCHA.net. It is suggested by the creator of CAPTCHA.

Back to the question about if SilkPerformer can use the script to identify the character string… I guess my answer will be… no since that’s the whole point of having the string (to tell computers and humans apart!)

Then Brandy said, “No no, Mommy, we should take the bath after Markham Fair.  If we bath before, then we still have to take a bath after because we will be hot and we will sweat.”

You can see how Brandy improves in his logic.  He can now relate different events and make decision or evaluate if a decision is correct.

When he talked to me (in other topics), I realize that he is aware of his newly “acquired” skill and I think he is very proud of it :)  As he keep using this reasoning in different scenarios to challenge your decisions…  hahaha…  Good job Brandy!

To determine the starting row for each agent, we can use this formula:

FileGetNumRows(hFile) / NUM_AGENTS * GetAgentId()

where the function FileGetNumRows returns the total number of rows in the CSV data file, NUM_AGENTS is a constant you can specify in your script, and the function GetAgentId returns the agent number (index starts at 0)

The ending row for each agent is:

FileGetNumRows(hFile) / NUM_AGENTS * (GetAgentId() + 1) - 1

For example, with a total of 10 agents and 100 rows, agent number 0 will use row 0 to row 9. So you can write your loop use those rows by using the function FileGetRow. The rows used are unique per agent.

The drawback for this method is that the scripter has to maintain the constant NUM_AGENTS. If the total number of agents changed, then the scripter has to remember to change this value.

Another consideration is that the above algorithm assumed that the virtual users distributed evenly among agent machines.

The problem is that when there are multiple agent machines. If each agent is using the same CSV file, then the current row pointer is not maintained across the agent. Therefore virtual users on different agent machines will be sharing the same row. In SilkPerformer 7.3 or above, the function FileCSVLoadGlobal maintains the current row pointer across all virtual users on all agent machines. (Good news)

So how do we get unique row per virtual user across multiple agents if we use SilkPerformer 6.5.1? One way to do it is to divide up the CSV data file, and assign a different data file for each agent. Here is an example:

CSVFileLoadGlobal ( hFile , "csvdata" + string ( GetAgentId() ) + ".csv" ) ;

So if you have 10 agents, you will divide up the original CSV data file into 10 different CSV files: csvdata0.csv, csvdata1.csv, ... csvdata9.csv. (note: GetAgentId() starts at 0, not 1) With this setting, each agent will access it’s own CSV data file.

The draw back is that you cannot dynamically add new agents into the testing environment. You have to readjust / create a new CSV file for each new agent machine.

He continued to whisper (and of course everyone can hear him), “I wished sister (Rachel) and Auntie (my sister) to become little pigs.”  Brandy kept laughing about it (and we all did of course)

You see, babies are sooooo simple.  He just wants to have some fun!  Brandy, I wish you can keep this up!

• “An annual income of $89,000 was enough to put an individual among the 1.2 million Canadians who made up the top 5% of the country’s taxfiler population in 2004, according to a new study.”
• “they accounted for 25% of total income.”
• “1.2 million Canadians who comprised the top 5% of income recipients…”

• “Almost half (46%) of the top 5% of the tax-filer population lived in Ontario…”
• “Three out of 10 (31%) families with incomes of more than $250,000 lived in Toronto, followed by Montréal (11%), and Vancouver and Calgary (both 8%).”
• “the top 5% of the taxfiler population received 25% of income and paid 36% of taxes.”
• “The 5% threshold for the United States was $165,000.”

What surprises me most is that I never have an impression that our salary is so different than the States.

Here is the original article from Statistic Canada.

The investigation is targeting sellers who are in the PowerSeller program in 2004 – 2005. To be qualified as a Power Seller, sellers must have at least $1,000 sales a month.

Well I guess it is bad news for those power sellers who have NOT filed any tax on their ebay businesses. Good luck!

Here is the link to the original article from The Globe and Mail.

And the query is extremely simple as follow:

select count (*) from table1;

It is getting so frustrating and unbelievable… so I googled (hahaha)… well I did found out the solution… It is complaining the space between “count” and “(”!!! WHAT the hack (sorry I borrowed the phase from Rachel)? Once I removed the space the query runs!

select count(*) from table1;

Here is the “explaination” from MySQL:

“By default, there must be no whitespace between a function name and the parenthesis following it. This helps the MySQL parser distinguish between function calls and references to tables or columns that happen to have the same name as a function. However, spaces around function arguments are permitted.”

“You can tell the MySQL server to accept spaces after function names by starting it with the –sql-mode=IGNORE_SPACE option.”

Unbelievable!!!! By the way, there is also another variation of the error message:

ERROR 1305 (42000): FUNCTION sampledb.COUNT does not exist

Oh well…

Then after passing the intersection, it says, “Re-Calculating…” Fine, now I knew it meant “turn left”. Rachel then said, “Dad, you make the wrong turn again, and we are lost.” I guess somehow she picked up “Re-Calculating” means I followed the instructions incorrectly.

Well… I kept silent and kept driving (like how your mom / wife told you that you are wrong and how she is right, you will / should / must keep silent too…)

Then finally we were almost there at the last turn, and the GPS said, “turn left”. When I looked at the screen, it meant to turn at next intersection. Therefore I went straight through the traffic light. Rachel said immediately, “You are wrong again! It asked you to turn left.”

hahaha… We turned at the right intersection, and I told her (with a pretend-victory smile of course), “No this time Daddy is right.” Even after she got out of the car, she still doubt that we got to the right place :)

FARTHER denotes physical advancement in distance.
FURTHER denotes advancement to greater degree, as in time.

Here is the link about Farther vs Further. It also includes some exercises at the end so that you can practise how to use the terms. The funniest part it though… if you look at the breadcrumb on the top of page:

Language Arts > Grammar > Grade 9

hahaha…

Then Winnie told her, “Rachel, we are almost done and the exit is really close. Just a few more steps ok?” (It is about 10 minutes walk)

Rachel asked, “So how much farther?”

Winnie said, “Just a little bit farther baby, very close.”

Rachel, paused for a second, stopped facing me and stopped asking me to hold her, started to move forward, mumbled unhappily, “That means it is far…” (She pretty much knew that Winnie didn’t want me to hold her and made up the excuse, and she also knew that she had no chance to get what she wanted… hahaha…. smart girl)

• “… more than three-quarters of toy recalls in recent years were triggered by design faults instead of manufacturing defects.”
• “While he agrees China isn’t without fault – perhaps with some companies taking shortcuts in the manufacturing of the toys – the majority of the problem comes back to the system of toy design and production.”
• “The report says only about 10 per cent of the 550 recalls conducted in the past 20 years by U.S. quality-control authorities were due to manufacturing problems…”
• “About 77 per cent of all the recalls could be attributed to design flaws.”

This is from the summary of the report published on University of Western Ontario website. I also found the actual report posted on AsiaPacific.ca. It has more detailed about the research it has done on the past 20 years of recalls.

I think I have spoken enough about the whole toy recall thing :P The key I want to demonstrate is that I will base my opinions on some form of publications (or you can argue that they are make-up too :P), and you should too!

• “”And Mattel takes full responsibility for these recalls and apologizes personally to you, the Chinese people, and all of our customers who received the toys,” Debrowski said.” (Thomas A. Debrowski, Mattel’s executive vice president)
• “Debrowski acknowledged that “vast majority of those products that were recalled were the result of a design flaw in Mattel’s design, not through a manufacturing flaw in China’s manufacturers.”"

• “In a statement issued by the company, Mattel said its lead-related recalls were “overly inclusive, including toys that may not have had lead in paint in excess of the U.S. standards.”
• “”The follow-up inspections also confirmed that part of the recalled toys complied with the U.S. standards,”"

What are point 3 and 4 saying? To me, I have read, “We (Mattel) lied about the figure to try to get away with our mistakes.”

On one hand, I am really glad that at least Mattel (such a big corporation) will admit that they lied. But on the other hand, an apology is not enough for such a mistake (lie) by such a big corporation. Lesson learned Number 2:

You have to take full responsibility of you have said.

Here is the full article to from News Factor.

The host asked, “You (Ontario Liberal Party) have broken your election promise about not increasing tax, and ended up introducing the health care tax. What makes you think that people should still believe in you?”

Michael answered, “Oh, the introduction of the health care tax is solely because there is a hidden deficit covered up by the previous government…”

The host asked, “So now since there is no more deficit (reported by the Ontario Liberal Party), why did our Premier still insist to keep the health care tax?”

Michael Chan answered, “Well because we have an aging population and more and more spending is needed to improve our health care system.”

The host then asked, “So that means even if there is no such hidden deficit, you will still need to introduce the tax! So you break your promise not because of the hidden deficit!”

Michael Chan can’t really answer that question…!!!

The beauty in the above conversation is that, if you just look at the first 2 questions individually, they really are very standard questions that pretty much will be asked in EVERY debate and interview. The answers are very standard too. I never thought that the 2 questions will have any use at all since pretty much Liberal is saying, “Yes we (Liberal) broke our promise because PC lied first.”

But by chaining the 2 answers together to make such a conclusion that is relatively logical is what surprises me most! I don’t know if the host did that intentionally or not, but the whole setup is well-thought, and it really worths an extra point!

• “…McGunity’s 2003 campaign promise to not increase taxes.”
• “The Liberal government introduced the health-care premium in 2004, which has effectively cost each working Ontarian $900.”

• “Tory labeled the tax as the ‘ultimate broken promise’ and said if elected, his government would abolish the levy by injecting $8.5 billion into the province’s system.”
• “McGuinty defended the tax saying his government needed to compensate for the $5.6-billion deficit it inherited from the previous Conservative government.”

When I was a child, my parents taught me not to lie; now I am a father, I also teach my kids not to lie. You shouldn’t promise something if you can’t keep it.

Here is the article from CTV.

• I lose track of my own schedule so everytime I have to ask Winnie about it.
• I used to know how to tie a tie but Winnie does that all the time for me so I forgot how to do it myself.
• Winnie does all my travel packing so I don’t know how to pack myself (or I will for sure forgot something if I pack myself)

… so on and so forth :)  And honestly, I totally agree with all the friends who said that Winnie has three kids to take care of… HAHAHA…  Thanks Winnie :P

“But I have a Daddy…”

Well, Brandy and Rachel usually sing along, but I never know that Brandy will catch the meaning of the lyrics… so I asked him, “Brandy what did you say again?” He said, “Nothing.”

So I asked him, “Do you know what the song says?” Then he said, “Hm… He said he doesn’t see his Daddy anymore…” (he said it with doubt). Of course I told him he has it right and encouraged him to speak out his thoughts.

I like this song a lot and actually I bought this CD because of this song. Here is the lyrics:

Back when I was a child, before life removed all the innocence
My father would lift me high and dance with my mother and me and then
Spin me around ’til I fell asleep
Then up the stairs he would carry me
And I knew for sure I was loved
If I could get another chance, another walk, another dance with him
I’d play a song that would never, ever end

How I’d love, love, love
To dance with my father again
When I and my mother would disagree
To get my way, I would run from her to him
He’d make me laugh just to comfort me
Then finally make me do just what my mama said
Later that night when I was asleep
He left a dollar under my sheet
Never dreamed that he would be gone from me
If I could steal one final glance, one final step, one final dance with him
I’d play a song that would never, ever end

‘Cause I’d love, love, love
To dance with my father again
Sometimes I’d listen outside her door
And I’d hear how my mother cried for him
I pray for her even more than me
I pray for her even more than me
I know I’m praying for much too much
But could you send back the only man she loved
I know you don’t do it usually
But dear Lord she’s dying
To dance with my father again
Every night I fall asleep and this is all I ever dream

Here is the security update information from Microsoft.

I think on the news, it also mentioned that for the last few recalls that Mattel has, 80% of the recalled toys have design flaws in them.

Please don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that the Chinese manufacturers have done nothing wrong by using the wrong ways to manufacture (i.e. lead paint), all I want to say is the manufacturers shouldn’t take ALL THE BLAME.

That is, even if the toys are manufactured properly, 80% of the toys will still have to be recalled due to Mattel’s design flaw.

Lesson Learned: You shouldn’t use others’ mistakes to cover up your own. (or shouldn’t you? hahaha…)

If you can read Chinese here is the TVB news headline. I am also interested in the original research article… maybe I should ask Kwong to look for it :)

(And yes, I started this news-watching habit around the same time as A6 (wink wink), but I think he may have dropped it by now… hahaha)

• “…on Thursday, …offered a $100 store credit to early buyers of the iPhone, seeking to calm customers angry over an unexpected and steep price cut.”
• “On Wednesday, Apple slashed the price of its $600 iPhone model to $400, saying it wanted to make the combination phone, music player and Web browser more affordable.”
• “…said it sold 270,000 iPhones in the first two days and expects to sell 1 million units by the end of September.”

I was kind of surprised of why Apple cuts the price so quick (and so steep)… My guess (remember it is just a guess) is it is selling a lot less than it projects. In order to sell more during the hype, it has to slash the price.

I do not agree that it is a move for Christmas. I don’t recall they have tried to reduce 1/3 of its iPod price in previous years. I think cutting 1/3 price strongly indicates that it is not selling well at all at $600 (original price). It actually gives me a warning signal that Apple has to do it just 2 months after launch! The sales figure must be missing a lot to a warning level to Apple such that it will do such a move to push.

One thing I don’t agree on the article is that, an analyst said Wall street analysts will ignore the news… I don’t know how he can make such a conclusion, since the in-store credit and the price cut (30% reduce) will definitely make a significant change in revenue (negatively) if the projected sales stays the same.

Here is the information from Yahoo News, and here is what Steve Jobs said about the price cut.

Finally he answered, “Groooooove City.” HAHAHA… The teacher actually was stunned for a moment, wasn’t expecting that answer from a 5-year-old kid (I would expect kids to remember places like Chucky Cheese, WonderLand…). Then she laughed and answered, “Oh, how’s shopping?”

‘A’ ‘a’ Apple (drawing)

Of course, Rachel didn’t recognize any letters, but with the help from the teacher, she was able to read, “A , a” and then she recognized the drawing as apple and said, “apple.”  (The Alphabet book helps the kids to learn both the letters and also the sound that each letter makes)

She kept going, some pictures she need help on like boot and nest, but she was able to recognize most of the drawings, and she was gaining confidence!  (you can hear her reading louder with certainty)  Now we came to the ‘R’, so she said it out loud and clear (with confident), “R , r , Bunny!”  We paused.  She was so proud of herself.  (Of course she didn’t know that the word should be starting with ‘R’) HAHAHA…

Then teacher said, “R, r, Rabbit.”   Ops…  she figured that she was wrong and kind of feel embarrass HAHAHA…  but of course we all cheered her up and she was ok after that :)  So cute!

“What do you expect your child to learn in school?”  I scratched my head for a while…

So here is what I have actually written, “Have fun! and maybe learn some basic counting and language skill.”  (Maybe it sounds funny but honestly that is exactly what I expect from school for the kids)

On the side…  Rachel saw me took a while to fill in the forms, and she bossily yelled from the other end of the classroom (she was playing somewhere else while I was filling in the forms), “Daddy, what take you so long to fill in the form?”  (I was sooo glad that she said it in Cantonese hahaha…)

Anyways, the teacher took back the form from me, and read my comment.  She smiled (and probably thought what kind of Daddy am I…)

Anyways, the teacher asked, “Rachel can you draw me a picture please?”  Of course, she has no problem with it and was drawing and drawing…  (you can’t figure out what she was drawing at all…  a few random strokes here and there, as usual…)

So then the teacher asked, “What did you draw Rachel?”  Well she thought for a second, and point to different places in her “drawing” and said, “A Pond, a wall, a house.”  (believe me, nothing like what she described)  The teacher smiled (I would have laugh…) and said, “Could you write me your name?”

Now…  Rachel looked blank, and whispered to us, “Mommy I don’t know how to write…”  Winnie asked her, “Can you try?”  Rachel said, “No Mommy I don’t know how to write my name…”  (started to look like she want to cry)  Then Winnie said, “Ok try to write an ‘R’ then.”  All of a sudden Rachel didn’t have a blank face anymore…  she pointed to one part of her “drawing” and said, “I wrote an ‘R’ already!”

Then we started to look at her “drawing” and we realized that she did write her signature ‘R’…  hahaha…

(By the way, Rachel’s way of writing an ‘R’ is a circle with 2 legs…  HAHAHA…)

I was shopping for a car at that time, and one of my choices was a Mustang! So I went to the dealership to try it out, and I asked KFC (one of my best friends) to come along. He said (in a very uninterested way), “Yeah sure.” I know he is not a fan of American cars, but I just wanted someone to go with me.  So we walked into the dealership, they had a Mustang Convertible in the showroom.  I looked around, and it is just a little bigger than I expect.  Oh well…  KFC never said a word, until we came out from the dealership…

KFC finally said, “Anson, let me give you 2 reasons why you shouldn’t buy that car…”

“One, it drinks gasoline like crazy and you will probably be paying $40 a week just for driving back and forth to work.”  (well, if you convert to nowadays gas price, that is $60)

“Two, no one can even see you in the car when you are driving, you are too short for it.”

“You are no batman my friend.”

(very very honest opinion HAHAHA…)  Anyways, you know, KFC is right on.  If I still have that car, I will be like working for the gas companies.  Also when I was in the Mustang this week…  I know I am too short for it HAHAHA….  Thanks KFC :)

WAS_root_dir/temp/server_name/instance_name/instance/your_jsp_path/xxx.java

If the JSP is throwing exception, you should be able to see the exception in SystemOut.log. There you can find the translated java file name. Then you can do a find on that file name root from WAS_root_dir/temp.

Actually I was kind of surprised that when I was at the counter checking in, the agent there explicitly told me that “Mr Chan your miles has been credited to your Aeroplan account.”  I wasn’t paying much attention at that time, but it is possible that the lady on the phone put in a comment on my file making sure that they did their job.

Lesson Learned:  You have make enough noise to get the proper attention.  (Hopefully Brandy and Rachel don’t read this before 12 years old hahaha…)

Now, see how cute Brandy is, that’s why I think he looks as “cute” as ME :)

(he keeps asking me why I won’t allow him to buy that green hat…)

(he just loves to do this for photos these days…)

Now this is Rachel’s turn. She really looks as naughty as … the 3-year-old me :) Ladies and Gentlemen, Kung Fu Rachel!

Today the Aeroplan website was down for a while in the morning (Aug 23, 2007), and as usual I looked up the number (that’s why I decided to put it here).

I found the number and I called.  Wow, a new automated voice system, and it asked you if you want to use the new authentication system.  OK sure, it uses voice recognition system so that it can authenticate you by how you say your aeroplan number.  I said my number 3 times, the system recorded it, and good it is successful.

Now it asked you to punch in your web account password . . . without any instructions, how do I do it (with characters)?  So I went to the help menu, sorted it out, and punched my password in, and good it said I am successfully setup with the new authentication system!  Yeah!  Finally a lady answered my call, guess what’s the first thing she said to me?

“Could you please give me your home address and phone number to verify your account?”

(hahaha…)

So I reported the missing credits and then she said, “You are all set.  Your miles will be credited with 4 – 6 weeks.”  I was puzzled, and said, “It used to only take 2 days, and then it shows up online?”

“Oh yes, we have installed a brand new system today and now it takes 4 – 6 weeks to credit miles.”

(Speechless…  Twice in a row, enough is enough…)

Well what a technological ADVANCEMENT Aeroplan!  Keep Up the “GOOD WORK”!

Another time, I called another taxi company, asked for a taxi 6:15am again…  I waited for about 5 minutes, I called the company.  They said that the driver was on his way, give him a minute.  Fine, I waited for another 5 minutes, they called me up, said, “Do you mind calling the driver, he is lost…”  Huh??  hahaha…  Anyways, Mom got dressed in 1 minute and drove me off to the airport.  Sorry Mom…

So I asked my friend Kwong about which limo company did he use, so this is the one he used:  Airline Limousine.  (416-675-3638)  Of course I tried it and the services so far is EXCELLENT!  I ordered a limo at 6:30am.  The driver arrived around 6:25am (I was in the kitchen having breakfast with my Mom…  you know…  just in case…  hahaha…)  and he actually lightly knocked at my door to let me know that he was there!  So Nice!

(Actually once I complained to Kwong how come I can never be able to used those upgrade certificates when I am at the gate.  He then suggested me to upgrade the tickets by calling them ahead.  Thanks Kwong!)

CachMaxExpire specifies the maximum amount of time (in seconds) that an entry survives in cache. It does NOT mean that any cache entry will live that specific amount of time, since each entry will either have a specific expiry time associated with the object (e.g. HTML expires), or a default expiry will be used. It is default to 86400 (1 day).

Note: In Apache 1.3, this parameter is specified in Hours instead of Seconds!

CacheDefaultExpire specifies the amount of time (in seconds) that an entry will live in cache before invalidation, if the object does not provide an expiry date or a last modified date. CacheMaxExpire parameter does NOT override this parameter. It is default to 3600 (1 Hour).

Here is the Apache documentation about these parameters (plus more).

Here is the format you want to put in the Enable trace:
com.ibm.websphere.commerce.WC_SERVER=all=enabled

If you have more than 1 component that you want to trace, then separate each component string (as above) by a colon (:).

Custom code should use the WebSphere Application Server JRas extensions.

I copied the list from WebSphere Commerce version 5.6 Info Center.

Here is how I incorporate Snap in my blog without Plugin:

1. Go to Snap.com to create your Javascript code. It allows you to customize a little bit of how the bubble looks along the steps.
2. For the URL part, I have put in my blog URL (http://www.ahk2chan.com)
3. Once I got the JavaScript code from snap.com, I copy and paste the code into my Theme’s footer PHP.

Done! I don’t know if it will work for everyone since I am sure the WordPress Plugin is created to do something more. But hey it works for me!

For ConnectTimeout and ServerIOTimeout parameters, I have mentioned it before in my previous WAS Plugin post, and I won’t be talking about those parameters in detail this time. However, what I want to add to the previous post is that Solaris does NOT the ServerIOTimeout parameter.

Moreover here is a scenario that ServerIOTimeout is beneficial. When one of the application servers in the cluster went down, the Keep-Alive connections between the plugin and the application server may not be closed properly. What will happen is that the plugin will then used those Keep-Alive connections to fulfill a WAS request. So only when connections are timed out by the OS TCP settings, then the plugin will mark that server down.

Now about the RetryInterval parameter, its units is in seconds, and by default it is set to 60 seconds. Here is an example:

<ServerCluster CloneSeparatorChange="false" LoadBalance="Round Robin" Name="Server_WebSphere_Cluster" PostSizeLimit="10000000" RemoveSpecialHeaders="true" RetryInterval="120">

Once an application server is marked down, the RetryInterval parameter indicates the amount of time the plugin should wait before the plugin should try again to route WAS requests to the marked-down server.

Here is the Technote from IBM talking about using these 3 parameters to handle fail over scenarios.

• “Dean was a Category 5 hurricane – the strongest possible…”
• “It then lost some of its power over land…”
• “…the hurricane’s sustained winds of 165 miles per hour (265 kph) and gusts of up to 200 mph (320 kph) knocked over dozens of power poles and trees.”
• “…the Bay of Campeche, where Mexico’s state oil company has closed and evacuated all of its 407 oil and gas wells, meaning lost production of 2.65 million barrels of crude per day.”

Wow… Can’t even imagine how fast is 200mph.

Aquabells! I just purchased straight through their website. Basically it is like those blow-up balls filled with water instead of air. I will take a photo later with the “deflated” version… So it consists of:

• 2 bars – hallow though, so pretty much no weight
• 8 “weights” (each is advertised as 4 pounds)
• 4 “knobs” (used to lock each end of the bar)

You can put a maximum of 2 weights per side per bar, 4 weights per “dumbbell”, which means approximately 16 pounds per dumbbell.

The fill-up time probably takes about 5 – 10 minutes for 4 weights (that’s all I use). From my experience, I can’t really fill each up COMPLETELY… So I just do best effort :P which is already good enough for me. The other thing that I have yet to observe is if it leaks… (hopefully not…)

Now instead of going to the gym, I can just do the exercise in my hotel room with Power 90. The exericses are actually quite intense, and they are more than enough for me to handle… Thanks Uncle D for all the tips and advice! (Ball Ball highly recommended it too :D )

Once it is deflated it is very light and can be placed in my super small suitcase (I even packed running shoes)

Well after I have explained the ethics behind the story to Brandy again and again (yeah it takes time for kids to learn, repetition and consistency are your best friends), he seems to get the basic idea of never give up, and you do things for fun and not for win!  (I don’t know if he really understands or he just memorized what I told him again and again hahaha…..)

The lady (師奶) from the next table immediately grabbed my Mom’s chair, took it, and switched it back with a chair without a back!! I was like wow, so quick… hahaha…

I know you may think that it is nothing really worth to say much. If the lady did that for an elder, I really won’t mind as much. But you know what, she is doing it for a teenager, those energizer bunnies who won’t even get tired after all-night party!!! Do you think he care about a chair with back or not??

Then she realized that I was stunned by what she just did, and she asked, “Oh are the people coming back? Will there be people still using that (chair)?” She was embarrassed by her own act too (I was so glad she feel that way, otherwise she is hopeless). She asked a few times and I replied a few times, “That’s ok.”

Well I just think that it doesn’t take much to ask nicely right? It is just setting a bad example for our next generations. So please “say please” and “thank you” and “ask nicely” as much as you can :)

Anyways, once Brandy’s heard about that, he tried to defend that (he is always proud of himself when people says he looks like his mommy, because he thinks that his mommy is prettier than his daddy <no way… hahaha>), by telling the auntie the different between him and me…

Brandy said, “no no…  we (me and my Daddy) are different, he has a PSP and a DS AND he can play it anytime he wants, but I can’t!  we are different!”

HAHAHA….  that’s how he sees the different between me and him… HAHAHA…

Then she looked at it and was kind of surprised that she missed a few pieces, and she said, “What the heck?”

I was stunned…  since I don’t know if she was trying to say something worse or what, then I asked her what she said again, and she said, “What the heck?”  (Ok this time, I paid attention to the ‘k’ sound)  She seemed to be able to use this expression in the right context.  really don’t know where she picked that up from…

Anyways, all I can say to her is, “Good luck to your JK (Junior Kindergarten) life this coming Sept…”  (and I really hope that I won’t get called by her teacher complaining about this and that.  hahaha…)

This problem is even worse when I was in business class. (I am lucking enough to be able to upgrade) Firstly I got on the plane first, and therefore EVERYONE passed by me so EVERYONE gave me that look (instead just those who surrounded me)… Then most people in business class probably are serious business-person and they were all thinking “what is this ‘moak tsui’ (木嘴) doing here?” Oh well… I don’t care… :)

Now in my last trip in business class, FINALLY I found one person playing a PSP, and ALSO I found another person playing a Nintendo DS! Bingo, I am not alone :)

Well I think none of the two are more than 15 years old… Oh well well well…

Another day, you’ve heard them talking to each other, the conversation is something like that:

Rachel: Oh what song is it, Brother…
Brandy: err…  Sushi Lemon Tree
(And then they started to discuss about this Sushi Lemon Tree song and didn’t even realize that they had it wrong…)

I was speechless.  HAHAHA….  They are FUNNY :)

I have commented out the line where the plugin hooks into WordPress. The author add 2 hooks: publish_post and also private_to_published. However, I think that when you go from a saved post (WordPress auto-saved your post during edit) to published post, it may trigger both events: publish_post and private_to_published, hence published to mini-feed twice. Here is what I’ve done:

add_action('publish_post', 'wordbook_publish_post');
//add_action('publish_phone', 'wordbook_publish_post');
//add_action('private_to_published', 'wordbook_force_publish_post');

Let’s see!

(Yes I fixed it… but probably I break it too since I think there might be cases where you need to trap those other hooks too… well as long as it works for me :) I don’t mind…)

This is basically the same concept as what live-sync plugin does to Live.  However I find that live-sync actually give you slightly more options to customize how it worked.  For example, live-sync allows you to modify what to post to Live when you create a new blog entry.  The installation is very straight-forward.  It guides you through to generate a Facebook code, and also it guides you through how to install the facebook application (this is needed for displaying the feed).

Here is the link to the WordBook plugin. Now let’s see if it worked!

What you need to do (if that’s what you absolutely need to do), you have to call the JDBCHelper class flush method.  By calling the flush method, the data cached in the AccessBean will be written back to the database, and therefore your query will be able to retreive the data later on within the transaction.  However, that will have a performance hit since you basically have forced a real-time I/O.  So please use with caution.

Rachel is at the center of the video, and please pay attention to the last 8 to 6 second, otherwise you will miss it.

Even though she only put her face in for about a second (and actually that’s what the teacher said she has to improve… to put her head under water longer hahaha…), she has overcome her fear! Daddy is proud of you!