Scala, Java, Unix, MacOS tutorials (page 402)

I had to work with Nagios a lot this morning, in particular reading through the nagios.log log file. If you're ever read that log file, or looked at some other Linux/Unix log files, you've seen records that display the time in an epoch time format, which looks like this:

1219822177

If you can read the epoch time format and know the actual human readable date and time, you're a better person than I am (or you've been looking at Nagios, Linux, or Unix log files too long).

iPhone/iOS FAQ: How do I delete/remove/uninstall iPhone applications?

When I learned how to move iPhone app icons around, I also learned how to remove iPhone apps. Here’s a short tutorial on how to delete iPhone apps.

iPhone apps FAQ: How do I move iPhone apps or app icons? (Related: How do I move iPod or iPad app icons?)

I'm a relatively new owner of an Apple iPhone 3G, and last night, quite by accident, I learned how to move iPhone apps (applications) from one place to another on the iPhone screen. The technique to move an iPhone app is a bit of fun; here's how you do it.

vi/vim question: How do I convert all occurrences of ABC to XYZ in a file using the vi/vim editor?

Answer: This is actually easy to do with the vi or vim editor. Just go into "last line mode" by typing the ":" character, then enter a command like this to replace all occurrences of the string ABC with the string XYZ:

In the category of best practices I have to include my thoughts today on unit tests as a form of "comments/documentation you can compile". Let me explain:

I recently had the experience of (a) working on a small but complicated software development project, (b) leaving that project for six months, and then (c) being asked to work on it again. All I can say it wow -- what a great experience it was to come back to a project that was loaded with unit and code coverage tests.

Spring application context FAQ: Can you provide an example of using a Spring application context file in a standalone Java application?

Perl flock FAQ: Can you show me how to lock a file with the Perl flock function?

Sure, here are a couple of quick file-locking examples with Perl and the Perl flock function.

Perl flock example #1

In the first Perl flock example I'll show how to lock a file, but I'll intentionally do it in a bad way, and lock a file for roughly 20 seconds while I write records to it and sleep in between the writes:

Java String replace FAQ: Why isn't my Java String replace / replaceAll / replaceFirst code working?

The Java String class has several methods that usually make it really easy to replace one text pattern with another. I say "usually" because what occassionally happens is that I forget that a Java String is immutable (it can't be changed), so I accidentally try some String replace, replaceAll, or replaceFirst code that looks like this:

I'm not going to spend too much time showing this Perl SOAP client solution, but if you're having problems using the Perl SOAP::Lite module as a client running against a modern web service, this sample Perl code may help solve the problem.

First, I'd like to show what my original Perl SOAP client code looked like when I was using it as a SOAP client running against several Axis and XFire web services:

The iPhone really has a way of changing your day. Zealous over-statement you say? Let's explore it.

First, let's take a look at a typical day in the life of an iPhone owner:

I'm not going to explain this very much, but here's an Expect script that I wrote to test an FTP server:

I don't like the off-the-shelf process of developing web applications with Ant and Tomcat on Windows computers. Rather than get into my angst, here's the way I think the Ant build process should work with Tomcat:

Here's an Ant copy task example where I begin with a hierarchical structure of jar files in my development environment (in my lib folder), then flatten out all my lib subdirectories into one directory in my production environment when I copy all the jar files to my production library directory (using the flatten attribute of the Ant copy task):

Ant FAQ: How to use echo commands to debug Ant build scripts.

I've been moving back and forth between a ton of different computers lately -- Mac, Linux, and Windows computers -- and I had some problems with an Ant build script. This particular Ant script is complex, and I kept making mistakes, and needed a good way to debug the build process as I set up my application on these different systems.

I've had an Altec Lansing inMotion iM600 speaker system for almost half a year now, and I'm very pleased with it. It supports older iPods, like the iPod Nano I used to have; the sound quality is very good; and I love that it can run on either AC power (i.e., plugged into an electrical wall socket) or you can disconnect it and run it off the battery for a very long time -- it hasn't died on me yet during normal use.

An amazing thing to me about Apple is their willingness to ship an incomplete product. The one negative thing that stands out for me on the iPhone 3G is that I can't copy-and-paste between applications -- and the software is currently on version 2.0.1!

My Altec Lansing inMotion iM600 product review has been moved here.

Whenever I plug my iPhone 3G into accessories that I used previously with my old iPod -- including an Altec Lansing iM600 external speaker system and a JVC car stereo -- I get the scary message "This accessory is not made to work with iPhone" (followed by a message about switching to airplane mode). That message is almost mind-blowing scary like "Your iPhone is going to be fried if you stay plugged in to this device". Is it really that bad?

It's pretty easy to email a web page to a friend using Apple's iPhone. When you're looking at a web page using Safari on the iPhone just press the "+" icon on the menubar at the bottom of the screen. This brings up a menu with several items on it; just press the "Mail Link to this Page" button. This takes you over to the Mail application, automatically filling in the Subject field with the title from the web page, and adding the link to the content area.

iTunes App Store credit card FAQ: "Hey, I don't ever want to buy a paid app for my iPhone, and I don't ever want to buy DRM songs from the iTunes store -- is there any way I can create an iTunes App Store account without a credit card?!"