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Showing posts from June, 2010

Checking the database

The code currently uploaded to my java project at covers only the front end of the application. I have not formalized the back end. It remains a collection of code scraps, which I use from time to time to check what is in the database, or less often to change what is in the database. I have not formalized it because I am currently the only user. In previous incarnations of the app I have incorporated data queries, with all sorts of filters and user customization, which no one has understood how to use. My current ad hoc query code is as follows: public class ItemdbQuery { public static void main(String args[]) throws ClassNotFoundException, SQLException { /** * These are shared variable declarations */ Connection connect = null; Statement stat = null; /** * This is the start of the main code. */ System.out.println("try connection"); try { // Load database driver Class.forName("org.apache.derby.jdbc.ClientDriver"); // Make connection String connn = &

MS Outlook Slow to Start

It is embarrassing, whatever ones business, if a client rings up for an appointment, and you have to keep them waiting for 30 or more seconds while MS Outlook cranks into action. It is especially embarrassing if the client is calling to ask you to build a new computer for them, which they hope will be quick and easy to use. My old excuse was that I was using a Dell Pentium III laptop, which for sentimental reasons I didn't have the heart to throw out. But I am now using a recently built system using a Pentium Core 2 Duo processor and 2 GB RAM to run Windows XP pro. So what is my excuse now? When I built the system I partitioned the hard drive and put an identical OS on both partitions. The idea was that the C drive would be my top copy, and the D drive would be for experimentation. But I was so paranoid about intalling anything on the C drive, the D drive became my de-facto working drive. And it is the D drive on which MS Outlook displays the flash screen for 30

Revisiting old code

When I first began this blog , I was pretty down on the official Java Tutorial on the Sun website . I was especially down on the Java Tutorial trail JDBC(TM) Database Access , which describes how to make a connection with a database. But a year later, I find myself scanning my own blog, which I thought comprised the finest pearls of clarity and wisdom, and I can't find any description, let alone a better description, of how to connect to a database without using a GUI app like NetBeans. There is an entry, entitled " Building a financial mini-app ", which describes an application of such a connection, but it is distinctly unhelpful to anyone wanting to build such a tool for themselves. Indeed I found it distinctly unhelpful even to me, trying to re-apply my own code. I shall therefore attempt to re-write the page in a slightly less cryptic fashion. This has nothing to do with my Rasch-Itembank project at java.net, but for me it is a useful exercise