Brendon from Provoke was in our student rag this week- in the Bunch of 5s Question and Answer section

Obviously down here trying to pilfer some student talent....

Pity I was in Perth otherwise I might have had to drag him out for a Tech Ed Geek Festesque Boozup @ a student pub.

OK... So I've got a stored proc that does some searching in the DB. Something like

DECLARE @ResultsOfFTSQuery TABLE (componentid int)
 IF (@FullTextSearch <> '')
 BEGIN
  INSERT @FTSResults SELECT ComponentID FROM Components WHERE CONTAINS (Rendering,@FullTextSearch)
 END

 SELECT TOP 10000 *
 FROM  TheTable WHERE
      (TheKeyID in (SELECT ComponentID FROM @FTSResults)) AND .....

And the performance gets REALLY bad as the results of the first query increases. Simply adding a PRIMARY KEY to the table variable increased performance from 40 secs down to sub 1 sec.

DECLARE @ResultsOfFTSQuery TABLE (componentid int PRIMARY KEY)

This article notes that you can't have 'real' indexes on table variables, but if you create a PRIMARY KEY or UNIQUE contstraint you get one for free.

I'm off to spend some time trying to find other procs I can optimise

Sean has blogged that Nathan Mercer has joined the DPE team.

This is really cool. Nathan is a really good bugger so that's just great. Sean has done a bloody good job- taken his almost empty team and stocked it with a whole load of really talented people.

[PERSONAL RANT]
Sean says he doesn't like the term evangelist. I'm the opposite. I reckon it's a GREAT term. I'd love to have it on my business card someday.

Oh wait... I own the company... maybe I could put it on my business card.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

*this is the BLAH BLAH. To download the goodies try this post*

I was over in Perth last week and a couple of things happened. One is I caught up with Nick Randolph and we had a chat about integrating Subversion and Gemini. The second is I came to the conclusion that I had kinda been neglecting the technical side of my blog- too much politicking for me. So I'm going to try and be a little more tech focused over the next few months.

But anyway. Onto the topic of the post. We have some stuff here @ Kognition that we have implemented to allow us to link our version controll system (Subversion) with our Issue Management system (Gemini). What it allows us to do is have the check in comments from version control entered against issues into our issue control system to close the development/debug loop. We also have some stuff to allow us to integrate issue reporting directly into our applications for exceptions that are thrown.

Here is some stuff from our CTO, Nick Head on how it all fits together. It was put together by Nick and Simon 'Skip' Gardiner... I'm just a lowly user of the system

“its pretty easy to implement once you know the API's etc. We have two internal tools we have developed for integrating Gemini and SVN: an exception management framework for reporting bugs to Gemini, and an SVN post-commit hook so that comments and file modifications can be logged against the correct work item in Gemini.

The first one is a no-brainer - we just have a form that pops up whenever an unhandled exception ocurrs. All projects contain a project ID matching up with the Gemini project. We query the Gemini WS for the project's components, display them as a drop down, and let the user enter any additional repro details for the bug. Then when they hit submit, we get the full stack trace of the error, enabling us to fix the bug much faster than we would previously.

The next tool is a C# command line app that we install in the post-commit folder on our SVN server. This gets invoked on every commit. If the dev adds a bug ID in the comment in the format #nnn we know that its related to an issue in Gemini. We get the commit's revision number, query SVN for the comment and the changed files, then using the Gemini WS we add a comment to the issue.

I love that last little tool - means we have an effective way of tracking what files were modified for each issue.

We've thought about releasing these tools with an open source BSD license, but we just don't have the time at the moment to productify them (e.g clean up the code) and make them generic enough for use by other parties.

Actually, screw it - we will release the tools.”

Got a new pair of red shoes yesterday. THey are super sweet ltd edition Pumas. REd but with little mint green rubber space invaders on the back. Look out for them @ Tech Ed this year!

I'm in Perth at the moment. We're at a Surgical conference pitching our new piece of surgical audit software. It's a really clever bit of kit that runs on both Pocket PC and Desktop using broadly the same code base. The team at Kognition have building the midnight oil recently getting it together and it REALLY kicks some ass. We might blog a bit more detail on it further down the track.

I'm staying at the Emerald Hotel which, if you ever end up in Perth, is really rather good. It was just the cheapie that the travel agent suggested but it's close to the convention center and close to Kings path to go running. Oh, the broadband is cheap too and works happily with my WiFi router  If you want to get back into your morning running routine then Western Aus is the place to do it. Your body, still on NZ time, wakes up at about 4am so you are more than ready to rock by 6am.

Kings park is a great place to go running. From the city yu want to run over the freeway overpass and up Mount Street. While going up Mount St oggle at all the nice apartments. THen I've been running east around the edge of the Mount admiring the sunset. Finally to finish there is a monstrosity called Jacobs Ladder which is really just a SUPER eivl set of stairs. Get to them off Mount St on the way home. One jog up these turns my legs to jelly.

Reason I've been slack at blogging recently has been my high travel schedule. Should calm down for a bit now. Added a new category called 'On THe Road'.... will try and blog more.

Sean McB's blogged about the early bird registrations being open.

It's @ Sky City again which is OK... I do like the 'maze like ness' of the Edge a bit more.... I do hope the speakers get to stay @ Sky City Grand.... they don't have in room broadband at the normal Sky City hotel... though Sean has promised that the WiFi for the event this year is gnna kick ass.

The pricing looks pretty sharp for Tech Ed (about the same as last year) and the content is going to be good. Hopefully y'all might see me there with my Red Shoes on....

My friend Sandy (in Singapore) has blogged about the ANZAC day service we attended there.

It was quite an amazing experience. I purchased a Poppy - my 3rd for the year having also purchased one in Shanghai @ the get together there, one at the Shell Station in Huntly (on the actual Friday before ANZAC in NZ).

As dawn broke I left my Poppy atop the headstone of 'An Unknown New Zealand Soldier'.

So the Catholic Church elected well known Vatican hard ass Ratzinger as the next Pope. The chances for liberal reform are now probably much lower than with John Paul.... oh well.... at least he's 78 already.

THe ACT Party have moved their website from JSP to .NET.

Gavin has the details here, here and here.

Sounds like they are doing lots of REALLY cool shit such as dynaimically generated RSS feeds- i.e. do a search and then save the search as an RSS feed.....

“Making the switch to a Microsoft product isn't an issue of ideology, it's just that .Net is a great platform for doing the stuff we want to do. Rodney loves the Open Source, but our existing platform had a couple of really frustrating bugs. So we rebuilt it.”

Amen Brother!

Could have given the UI a bit more of a makeover though....It's not immediatly obvious how I use all the whiz bang features.

Darryl is joining Microsoft in Wellington as a Developer Evangelist.... good stuff mate! You'll have a blast!

I've only ever had one composite lay up helmet and that was a home made glass/carbon jobbie I built away back in about 97. But when I found that Grateful Heads were flicking seconds stock on EBay for 1/2 price I snapped one up. I'm not sure what denotes a cosmetic second but I couldn't for the life of me find anything whatsoever wrong with it. Arguably there may, just may, possibly, if examined with a magnifying glass, be sme dry spots on one side... but they took several minutes of finding. The helmet is Red/Black marbled color- it looks cool. Feels really stabe on my head, the fitting system is good, nothing fancy, but good. The layup seems pretty strng but I still reckong I'd go for the heavier layup in a creeking helmet. I got the bird shape which is a Snyder design with a slight peak at the front. Looks cool even on my fat head. THe helmet has not drainage holes but the liner pretty well seals off when on your head- still wouldn't want to be in a foot pin swimmer situation wearing it though. A nice thing about the lack of drainage holes is you can use the helmet a as adrinking vessel!

Shipping to NZ was reasonable and Julie from Rain and Snow was really helpful in that she transshipped my IR Shorty Cag with the helmet to save $$$. Next time I think I'd buy a few and bring em over for frinds. All in all a great lid- it's got a few scratches already.

I'm not sure about others but those 'As Seen On TV' products scare me. ANything that requires resort to those sorts of markting tactics can't be any good... right? WRONG! My lovely wife and I received a George Foreman Grill as a wedding present. At first we were like what do we want with yet another electric powere kitchen appliance. The funny thing is that we've yet to actually take it off the bench and put it away in the cupboard. It is literally used for almost every single meal.

So why is it so good?  Obviously the fact that all the fat runs off is a great thing for weight and health but for me the biggest thing is the speed I can cook at on it. Because both the top and bottom plate are heated you can cook in under 1/2 the time you would usually. The non stick surface is flawless and cleans easily- I've done about 30 meals on it an no signs of peeling or bubbling.

Not sure how much it cost but I honestly think it's the best investment a busy health concious person could make.

So my getting back into whitewater kayaking has meant some serious splurging on new gear. Back when I was relativly good I was but a poor student I had to rely on the generosity of others for nice gear. Now I've got a little more of the disposable folding stuff so I can afford to get a few nice bits of kit. So herewith my run down of the Kokatat Gore Tex Drytop- picked it up @ www.nrsweb.com for US$279 which I thought was pretty good.

As a general rule I don't like wearing a drytop- I'm somewhat of a minimalist when it comes to outdoor body adornment and I'd generally much rather just wear a shorty cag or a rashtop. So this was a bit of an adventurous purchase for me. But, my intention is to paddle all winter this year and that'll mean paddling in snowy weather- a bit much for a 3 season top even with my hi tech sub dermal insulating keg pack midrift.

I've paddled the drytop for a few sessions now- all runs down rivers but with a bit of park n' playboating along the way. It is the first drytop I have owned that is actually dry. I suffered no leakage through the seals whatsoever. The Gore Tex really does work- I think that far more than say with a moutaineering jacket you really notice the breathable fabric- when you are hermtically sealed in latex you can't healp but sweat your ass off. The workmanship and materials on the Wave are top notch certainly up there in terms of paddling gear companies and equipment vendors in general. Seam sealing done well, no lose threads. Can't speak to the durability of the fabric and jacket yet but everything indicates that it will be durable.

So what are the downsides. I think that the design is a little long in the tooth. In particular the inner tube in the double tunnel is only a draw string. This means that even though the seals keep the jacket dry you end up with any water in ya boat running up through the inner tunnel and then wicking it's way through your polyprop undies. Others have commented on the outer seal on neck being somewhat tight- I have a BIG neck (like had to trip about 5 rings off the latex) But I didn't find it too bad- smaller than might be desirable but not the end of the world.

So would I get another one? Well, I think they may have discontinued this model, replacing it with the Rogue. But, next time around I think I'll probably look at an Immersion Research Entrant Competition LX. I have the Competition short sleeve and it's not too bad. I'm also dead keen to have a look at the 2005 Bomber Gear models as they too look pretty sweet. ALl in all a good bargain was had and I'll be happy t wear the Wave all winter long. I got some Polyester base layer stuff from Krapmandthu which is great as well. I've always been a fan of Polyester garments- never been sure what drives kiwi paddlers to keep wearing filthy smelly polyprop- and then leaving it in their wet gear box in my car!

Oh... only other downside was I couldn't get red- only mango yellow.

SO I knocked up a few blog entries on the plane on the way over... I'll post them now. Might fill in some links on em later on as the internet here is BORKED.

First post is a bit of a rant... oh welll I'll post it anyway.

So the Sunday Start Times has engaged Mr Mike Hosking (yes that breakfast show guy) to do wine reviews of all things. But the guy is a fruitloop....

He's there talking about stuff that arrived in his in tray this week. The new Moby CD he says. Moby is a wierdo says Mr Hosking (his A list status means he's met him), but a brilliant musician... like he'd know. Third CD's no good though he says. Is Mike talking about the latest CD? Can't be the same Moby I'm thinking about. I couldn't/shouldn't/wouldn't like to guess from my armchair (OK, shitty Air NZ coach seat) as to how many Albums Moby has produced but it sure as hell ain't three- I've got at least that many of his on the rack at home that well and truely predate 'Play', his 'first' album? I'll tell you what though- they'd be well wasted on the Mike Hoskings of the world- not brilliant wine snob music that's for sure- really 'wierd' stuff.

of IP data... and I wanted to travel from Hangzhou China to Wellington, NZ I'd try to take a nice direcdt route.

But OH NO. Just did a trace route from here to TRademe.

We went through 30 hops to get there. But get this. We went

China (China Telecom)->Japan (Sprint) -> USA (Sprint) -> Australia (AT&T) -> F'ing Japan Again (AT&T) -> NZ

Would the telcos in this world PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE sort your shit out. You are f'ing up the internet for the rest of us.

FWIW a trace to Telecom.co.nz looks to come directly through a Telecdom Global Gateway router here in China in 20 hops.....

— Ken Pier, Xerox PARC

OK. So I'm getting set for a decent chunk of overseas travel over the next month (DUD-CHC-AKL-HKG-PDY-HGH-PDY-HKG-AKL-SIN-AKL-CHC-DUD-AKL-PER-AKL-DUD)... and I ask around the office if anyone has anyting on their list of 'never forget stuff'... and Nick comes back with a link to The Universal Packing List. VERY VERY cool- you just punch in where/when you are going and what you are doing and it builds an instruction list for ya.

Check out this INSANE video of some river surfing in Montreal....

Includes obligatory half naked surfer babes.....

http://www.2imagine.net/blogger2005/endless.html

Note: it turns into a somewhat lame Drago Rossi Squashtail add halfway through :-( Still they throw the odd flip turn and helix.... but I reckon the Orbit Fish looks like a nicer boat- yet to try it on a big wave though and it's a bit small for me anyway.

Tamihere McClairy

http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/sounds/Tamihere%20McClairy.mp3