TecSpy.com Michael Erskine's Domain

Another holiday over already! A week in Filey/Scarborough/Whitby/Flamborough which was supposed to be camping but whilst choosing a site we got a call from my brother telling us the inner part of our tent was still in the boot of his car! After a week of heavy rain in the area and with high winds on the cliff-top camping sites, we decided to spend a few nights in guest houses. Starting with Scarborough North shore with it's sandy beach and some interesting rock-pooling in the evening's low-tide. Then on to the South shore with donkey rides, shops and penny arcades.

I'm now a proud owner of a 4x4x4 Rubik's Revenge, albeit a copy of one rather than the original article, and I've started writing up my findings of the past few days at a "cubing" page: http://www.tecspy.com/cubing

After a week's camping and cycling in the Forest of Dean[1], the Nottingham Riverside Festival[2] and Leicester Summer Sundae festival[3] last weekend I return to work to find a pay rise waiting for me. Normally extremely broke and very conservative with purchases I figured that since I might not live until Xmas and even then I might be killed in the Xmas shopping riots so I splashed out and bought a Nintendo Wii[4] whilst buying a loaf in a large Tesco store. I consider the price to be reasonable at £179 with Wii Sports and one wireless controller and nunchuk -- I don't forsee the price dropping much in the run up to Xmas and I don't thrive on internet purchasing (waiting for ParcelForce to sneak that card through the letterbox without anyone hearing is not as fun as it used to be!). Last night when the kids were finally subdued I sat up and configured the wireless net connection to our WRT54GL[5]. I got bored of "typing" in the huge WPA2 PSK string of random data so I decided to temporarily simplify the key and after some further failed attempts I reconfigured the security on the router and put it into "Mixed-mode" rather than my previous "G-only". That got it working fine but I was a little disappointed to find that the Opera web browser, now the "Internet Channel"[6], is no longer free and costs 500 Wii Points[7]. I joined Club Nintendo and registered our console and Wii Sports purchases, then filled in a questionnaire which amassed 1500 "Stars"[8] which apparently (if you're very lucky) you can convert into Wii Points, but sadly not enough. I may have to dig deep again to get "The Internet Channel" tonight!

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forest_of_Dean
[2] http://www.nottinghamcity.gov.uk/sitemap/services/leisure_and_culture/ar...
[3] http://www.summersundae.com/
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wii
[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linksys_WRT54G_series#WRT54GL
[6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Channel
[7] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wii_Points
[8] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_Stars_Catalogue

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Ahe-n15rPOs

Well it ain't anywhere near competition speed but I just beat my personal record and I'm now down to 1 minute 31 seconds. I'm still using a set of beginner's algorithms but I've started learning the F2L for the Fridrich method (http://www.learn2cube.com/cfop/f2l/index.php). Soon i'll be able to cut down my overheads!

I was very pleased to receive a Rubik's Cube[1] as a gift on Fathers' Day this year and I decided to learn how to solve it. Yesterday I memorised the last of a full set of beginners' algorithms for the Fridrich Method[2] of solving the classic 3x3x3 cube. Now I'm trying to develop some speed and minimise the mistakes I make and my times are OK: I'm averaging about 2 minutes, 40 seconds with my best speed 2 minutes 19 seconds. I'm using the World Cube Association Competition regulations for scrambling[3] and their handy form for scrambling algorithms[4]. I hope that one day I'll get my head around some of the intermediate algorithms so I can break the 2 minute glass ceiling!

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubik's_Cube
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fridrich_method
[3] http://www.worldcubeassociation.org/regulations/#scrambling
[4] http://www.worldcubeassociation.org/regulations/scrambles/scramble_cube.htm

http://www.cubestation.co.uk/cs2/index.php?page=3x3x3/3x3x3

Whilst skating tonight at Arnold I got competitive with some youngsters and ended up having a gnarly crash. I fell backwards onto my front arm - I was coming back in from a feeble that was overcooked and my right arm was straight out behind me (I skate goofy) and it broke my fall but I was a bit shocked to find my arm was sort of hanging off an feeling really wrong! I grabbed it and it just crunched and clunked back into place with stomach-turning agony. I was able to get up pretty quickly but soon got the shakes and then I had to drive the car which was interesting! I got some ibuprofen from the local co-op and had to do a bit more driving (picking one of the kids up from karate) before getting home to the arnica. Now it just hurts. I've never dislocated a shoulder before. Cycling to work will be interesting in the morning :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dislocated_shoulder

Upgrade time is scary time: something always snaps or gets bent out of shape. Thank god for backups. Drupal seems to have chewed up my image galleries - maybe I'll restore them - maybe I won't bother!

package com.tecspy.jdbc3;

import java.io.StringWriter;
import java.sql.Connection;

import java.sql.ResultSet;
import java.sql.SQLException;

import java.sql.Statement;

import javax.sql.rowset.WebRowSet;

import com.sun.rowset.WebRowSetImpl;

/**
 * Handy JDBC 3.0 SQL XML tools using {@link WebRowSet}.

 *
 * @author Michael Erskine (msemtd)
 */
public class SqlXml {

    /**
     * Get an SQL XML value of a {@link WebRowSet} from the given query on the
     * given {@link Connection}.
     *
     * @param con
     *                Established database connection.

     * @param query
     *                SQL query to be performed.
     * @return Resulting SQL XML.
     * @throws SQLException

     */
    public static String getQueryWebRowSetXml(Connection con, String query)

            throws SQLException {
        // Create statement and execute query...
        Statement stmt = con.createStatement();

        ResultSet rs = stmt.executeQuery(query);
        // Create a WebRowSet and populate with result...
        WebRowSet wrs = new WebRowSetImpl();

        wrs.populate(rs);
        // Get the XML into a String...
        StringWriter sw = new StringWriter();