| www.flickr.com |
There will be more later on, selecting good shots out of hundreds is not a quick task.
Archive for June of 2008
Some photos from trip to Slovakia
June 27, 2008
Just created flickr account with only a couple photos.
There will be more later on, selecting good shots out of hundreds is not a quick task.
There will be more later on, selecting good shots out of hundreds is not a quick task.
Harnessing Hibernate review available
June 24, 2008
Actually it has been done for some time now but I forgot to post the link here. Feel free to comment as usually.
Something must have gone wrong with packing
June 22, 2008
when it is done on time and there is even empty space left.
Wedding, trekking and culture
June 19, 2008
On Saturday the whole day was spent at a wedding party. The day started at the bride's home, followed by the official part and the church ceremony. Then it was time for the party which was following Hungarian traditions. We had to leave quite early (1 am) in order to be ready and fresh for the next activity.
The three day trip to Slovakia began on Sunday and we headed to the Slovenský raj where we did some trekking. Most of the route was just usual forest path but there were some interesting climbs with ladders. On the last day we visited Slobody cave with great looking stalagmites and stalactites.
Yesterday we made a day trip to Budapest. I visited my previous work place and I chatted with people. Naturally I played couple rounds of csocsó (table football). Too bad I did not win but I don't blame you, Dani. Before evening we checked out the 'Soul and Body' exhibition at Szépművészeti Múzeum - Museum of Fine Arts. The exhibition was pretty good and with our new interest towards photography it was definitely worth a visit.
The last event of the day was the rock opera - István, a király. I have seen the 1983 version and Dóra explained the story while we watched it from TV. Therefore I was able to follow it and it did not become a boring event. The only and usual problem was the loudness of the music. I assume the levels were set for culture consumers closer to 60 years old because the high sounds were disturbingly loud.
Today we have only some shopping to do and then we meet Dóra's relatives. Almost a boring day.
The three day trip to Slovakia began on Sunday and we headed to the Slovenský raj where we did some trekking. Most of the route was just usual forest path but there were some interesting climbs with ladders. On the last day we visited Slobody cave with great looking stalagmites and stalactites.
Yesterday we made a day trip to Budapest. I visited my previous work place and I chatted with people. Naturally I played couple rounds of csocsó (table football). Too bad I did not win but I don't blame you, Dani. Before evening we checked out the 'Soul and Body' exhibition at Szépművészeti Múzeum - Museum of Fine Arts. The exhibition was pretty good and with our new interest towards photography it was definitely worth a visit.
The last event of the day was the rock opera - István, a király. I have seen the 1983 version and Dóra explained the story while we watched it from TV. Therefore I was able to follow it and it did not become a boring event. The only and usual problem was the loudness of the music. I assume the levels were set for culture consumers closer to 60 years old because the high sounds were disturbingly loud.
Today we have only some shopping to do and then we meet Dóra's relatives. Almost a boring day.
About traveling to Hungary, money and teeth
June 13, 2008
We spent whole Wednesday traveling to Hungary along the route: Edinburgh-Glasgow-Prestwick-Budapest-Miskolc. It took around 12 hours from door to door. Everything went pretty well except that I had a bit too heavy suitcase and Ryanair charged me for one overweight kilo which equals 12 pounds. So, if you happen to be flying with plenty of luggage it is worth of checking other options as well. For example easyJet allows 20 kg suitcases without overweight fee compared to Ryanair's 15 kilos. Also the price of extra kilo is 6 GBP compared to 12 GBP.
Yesterday we were busy with closing our Hungarian bank accounts. There were no troubles but as an interesting detail I can tell now that closing Raiffeisen account was free but at OTP you had to pay some handling fees. Then it was time to spend some left over forint notes so we did some shopping and visited dentist. Check up, cleaning and one small filling in a clean and modern private clinic in Miskolc was 55 GBP. The NHS fee for that would be 44.60 GBP but I happy that I got that tooth fixed at the early stage.
I had previous check one year ago and at that time there was something very small but not worth of fixing. I guess my lunch habits in Edinburgh are way unhealthier than in Budapest. In Edinburgh I often take a lunch offer from Boots store which includes drink, sandwich and snack. And that snack is usually Mars or Snickers bar...
Today it is raining and I don't have too much to do. Dóra is at the hairdresser because tomorrow we will visit her cousin's wedding. On Sunday we will go to Slovakia for a trekking so I'd better take partying easily.
Yesterday we were busy with closing our Hungarian bank accounts. There were no troubles but as an interesting detail I can tell now that closing Raiffeisen account was free but at OTP you had to pay some handling fees. Then it was time to spend some left over forint notes so we did some shopping and visited dentist. Check up, cleaning and one small filling in a clean and modern private clinic in Miskolc was 55 GBP. The NHS fee for that would be 44.60 GBP but I happy that I got that tooth fixed at the early stage.
I had previous check one year ago and at that time there was something very small but not worth of fixing. I guess my lunch habits in Edinburgh are way unhealthier than in Budapest. In Edinburgh I often take a lunch offer from Boots store which includes drink, sandwich and snack. And that snack is usually Mars or Snickers bar...
Today it is raining and I don't have too much to do. Dóra is at the hairdresser because tomorrow we will visit her cousin's wedding. On Sunday we will go to Slovakia for a trekking so I'd better take partying easily.
iReport 3 experiences
June 11, 2008
During last couple days I have been working with iReport 3.0.0. I was creating a multipage PDF report for a customer to review data from online forms. I have to say that iReport saved plenty of nerd sweat but it also caused some headache. I did not have the printed documentation (The Definitive Guide to iReport) so I ended up searching forums and other sites.
Getting started was pretty easy but I ran into my first problem when I tried to figure out how to display numerous key-value data pairs on a single page. Creating a subreport and passing the key value to it was the solution and luckily there was a screencast explaining it. So, soon my page was filled with values and the next dilemma was ready.
Creating a multipage report was a bit awkward because it required to have a subreport for each page. And each page was using a subreport already. The trick to get this working was to pass the subreport directory from root to all subreports. After this the report expanded over 8 pages and my creative colleague was ready to modify its layout. It was rather easy for him to start using iReport even he had no previous experience with it.
But he wasn't totally happy with iReport's responsiveness and it was definitely sluggish on his workstation. It turned out that there was something wrong with the new page I created by copying existing page's .jrxml file. This caused the report preview to hang without any errors and eventually he was running several stuck preview processes at the same time. This was solved by simply restarting iReport and creating that new page from scratch.
Meanwhile I was experimenting with other features of iReport and I decided to try out it with a data set which required pivoting. Each row in the database had key-value pair with grouping time stamp. The requirement was to create a table having those keys as a column headers. The database was a bit older Oracle and it did not support pivoting as well as newer versions. The solution was to use iReport's crosstab function which turned out to be quite handy.
It will be interesting to see how iReport will evolve in the future. I have the feeling that there is some demand to improve its multipage handling among some other annoyances. But even with its current status it turned out to be a valuable tool.
Getting started was pretty easy but I ran into my first problem when I tried to figure out how to display numerous key-value data pairs on a single page. Creating a subreport and passing the key value to it was the solution and luckily there was a screencast explaining it. So, soon my page was filled with values and the next dilemma was ready.
Creating a multipage report was a bit awkward because it required to have a subreport for each page. And each page was using a subreport already. The trick to get this working was to pass the subreport directory from root to all subreports. After this the report expanded over 8 pages and my creative colleague was ready to modify its layout. It was rather easy for him to start using iReport even he had no previous experience with it.
But he wasn't totally happy with iReport's responsiveness and it was definitely sluggish on his workstation. It turned out that there was something wrong with the new page I created by copying existing page's .jrxml file. This caused the report preview to hang without any errors and eventually he was running several stuck preview processes at the same time. This was solved by simply restarting iReport and creating that new page from scratch.
Meanwhile I was experimenting with other features of iReport and I decided to try out it with a data set which required pivoting. Each row in the database had key-value pair with grouping time stamp. The requirement was to create a table having those keys as a column headers. The database was a bit older Oracle and it did not support pivoting as well as newer versions. The solution was to use iReport's crosstab function which turned out to be quite handy.
It will be interesting to see how iReport will evolve in the future. I have the feeling that there is some demand to improve its multipage handling among some other annoyances. But even with its current status it turned out to be a valuable tool.
Flu
June 07, 2008
I got my first flu in Edinburgh and I have been doing pretty much nothing today. It is such a shame because weather is sunny and warm outdoors. I hope I will recover fast because after couple days we will have a holiday in Hungary and Slovakia. Flying while having flu is not the most pleasant experience and actually not recommended.
Harnessing Hibernate
June 05, 2008
I have been reading this relatively new book for couple weeks now and it seems to be a good material for Hibernate beginners. There will be a proper review but I will post it to Java User Group Scotland's site when the review is ready. But as an early comment I could recommend Harnessing Hibernate.