Albaroud’s Weblog

Events:

- CDLG and SSG have been launched

- did work for others (Jason Enzi, Cale Vardy)
- proposed a web calender database for Neill Wycik, waiting for approval
- got new wireless internet connection; fixed computer at work; can work at home now.
- frequent foot doctor visits have wasted my time a bit.

SSG and CDLG:

- Painstakingly CDLG was finished
- finally finished the (poorly designed form.jsp page)
- noticed that SSG tends to hang after X labels; however, if minimizd/maximied, this is avoided. Now, every 7 Splash Screens, SSG will minimize/maxinimze Corel Draw to avoid this problem.
- Encountered and solved a very strange error: Bad invoke() code returned from IDrawInvoke…
-> this is because the funcitons that call pass bad arguments.
-> Another more indepth problem with this was that, pieces of corel draw become corrupted from overuse. For example, Corel Draw could not save PDFs anymore, and when trying to do this with CDLG, a bad invoke() code would be returned. To correct this problem, the entire machine had to be restarted.
- It was noticed that the font size used in the templates was insufficent to show the special (TM) (C) (R) characters. To correct this, the CorelDrawFileObject class had to be motified, to increase the font size for these special characters.
- a lot of smaller tasks were done: tweaking templates, addimg more robust error checking, editing the multiple.jsp tempaltes, etc.

- CDLG launch was an interesting experience. The first problem that occured was that, the LDAP cached password, and intranet password for vdc@ca.ibm.com differed. A major problem with WAS V6.1 is that, even if one updates the intranet password, the LDAP cache is not updated. So a conflict occurs, and it becomes impossible to sign into WAS Integrated Solutions Console. I was lucky: someone set windows to remember the password!
There are two solutions to this problem: one) keep changing the intranet password until, you are allowed to use the same password over again.
2) While changing your intranet passowrd, sign in to the console. Then update the LDAP cache BEFORE the connection times out ( log in to console.change password, update cache, logout of console).

This was not the only problem however. WAS apparently does not do automatic mappings from CDLG to the App Server “server1″. This was corrected by simply mapping them manually in Step 2 of the (simplifed) installation process, “component mapping to servers”.

- Coming up: Other tasks that have to be done, before I leave include:
- a full Server Health Check
- CDLG is currently down on time of writing this, it has to be put back up ASAP. component mapping seems to be inoperative in WAS.
- CDLG minor tasks:
- change font size of text in various places
- more robust error checking
- proper JavaDoc-Umentation thoughout the classes.
- a Problem Determination document must be made, to assist new interns and staff in my absence>
- the language box in Form.jsp adds “undefined’ if nothing is selected in the multi-select box.
- minor tweaks to web pages…

– The barcode generator in CDLG is broken; it appends another set of ** around the bar code, making it unreadable for maunfacturers in Ireland and Boulder, US.

- problems:
- my taking of the rapid change in environemt was bad; i should detect when massive changes to my routine will occur, and specifically, when I want to do isnt feasible given the amount of time I put in. I need to be more realistic, I guess…
- i need to communicate with my team more; i have recieved a few small warning about this. As I am the only full time programmer in the deaprtment, it is crutial.