Mark Derricutt's Disturbing thoughts from a developing mind...

OSGi based Integration testing with TestNG and Apache Felix

Mark Derricutt — Tue, 13 May 2008 10:37:00 GMT

Over the last month or so I've been getting my feet wet with a new job, new team mates, and new technology - with the majority of my time getting my head around OSGi and our custom OSGi orientated build tool. Now that I've settled in and starting to see my code take shape it's starting to irk me that I have ZERO tests in any of the code I've written - everything has been a developed under a cycle of code, build, update, test, repeat whilst single stepping through the code in the debugger.

Initially I was 'ok' with the lack of tests as I was still experimenting inside the debugger, interactively hacking my way through foreign code. However now I need to move on from the hacking and get something a little more respectable along with some reproducible tests.

However, now I have a series of OSGi bundles which are exporting services, listening and interacting with other bundles, and doing all manner of things which crossed the boundary of a single bundle - this means I'm needing integration tests more than unit tests.

After thinking up various interesting, but overkill ways of OSGi-enabling TestNG to provide some nice integration testing I settled on the simplest approach (which also looks to be the best, and most flexible so far): embed felix - we already had a custom Felix launcher so this was very much similar (and so simple that it's almost not worth blogging about).

The basic test class simply starts and stops an embedded felix instance:

public class FelixTest {
  private Felix m_felix;

  @BeforeTest
  public void setupFelix() throws IOException, BundleException {
    Map configMap = new StringMap(false);
    configMap.put(Constants.FRAMEWORK_SYSTEMPACKAGES,
      "org.osgi.framework; version=1.3.0," +
      "org.osgi.service.packageadmin; version=1.2.0," +
      "org.osgi.service.startlevel; version=1.0.0," +
      "org.osgi.service.url; version=1.0.0");

    configMap.put(BundleCache.CACHE_PROFILE_PROP, "test");
    File file = File.createTempFile("osgi", "testng");
    file.delete();
    file.mkdir();
    file.deleteOnExit();

    configMap.put(BundleCache.CACHE_PROFILE_DIR_PROP, file.getPath());
    // Create an instance of the framework.
    m_felix = new Felix(configMap, new ArrayList());
    m_felix.start();
  }

  @AfterTest
  public void turnOffFelix() throws BundleException {
    m_felix.stop();
  }
}

This simply starts the Felix OSGi container, with a fresh/temp profile directory. Now comes the actual test:

  @Test
  public void testSomethingWithFelix() throws BundleException, InterruptedException {
    BundleContext bundleContext = m_felix.getBundleContext();

    bundleContext
      .installBundle("file:///Users/amrk/temp/osgi-test/test-rest/target/test-rest-1.0-SNAPSHOT.jar")
      .start();
    bundleContext
      .installBundle("file:///Users/amrk/temp/osgi-test/test-client/target/test-client-1.0-SNAPSHOT.jar")
      .start();

    Bundle[] bundles = bundleContext.getBundles();
    for (Bundle bundle : bundles) {
      assert bungle.getState() == Bundle.ACTIVE
        : "Bundle " + bundle.getSymbolicName() + " is not started.";
    }

    ServiceReference sr = bundleContext.getServiceReference(MyService.class.getName());
    if (sr != null) {
      Object myService = bundleContext.getService(sr);
      if (myService != null) {
        method("run").in(myService).invoke();
      }
    } else {
      assert false: "No Service Reference for MyService";
    }
  }

The test starts off by installing and starting two bundles from the file system then checks they all have the ACTIVE state (meaning they installed, resolved, and started running without problem). The test then looks up a service which should be exported from the test-rest bundle, then via reflection (using FEST-Reflect) executes the service. (reflection is used here as 'myService' service is an instance of MyService from the OSGi bundles class loader and not from the tests class loader.)

Now I have a good base for writing OSGi based integration tests that easily be extended with database creations/migrations and anything else that may come to mind.

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New INBOX:0 Strategy

Mark Derricutt — Mon, 12 May 2008 04:52:00 GMT

For the last month or so I've been able to sit myself at INBOX:0 quite consistently and have been experimenting with various ways of keeping it that way - I think I've got a decent working setup now which takes advantage of a change in GMail's URL handling (I believe it always worked, only now the search urls are exposed to the browser: https://mail.google.com/a/DOMAIN/#search/is%3Aunread).

So I now have Firefox configured to open 4 GMail tabs on start up with the following searches:

to:me in:inbox is:unread
to:me is:unread
in:inbox is:unread
is:unread

The four searches give me easy access to direct personal email, personal email that's been filed away for less importance, anything else unread in the INBOX, and finally - anything anywhere that's unread. It works like a 4-step program, and so far seems to work quite well.

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The Music of 2008 - week 19

Mark Derricutt — Sun, 11 May 2008 10:07:00 GMT

HB - Frozen Inside
Iron Maiden - Dance of Death / A Matter Of Life And Death / No Prayer For The Dying
Iron Saviour - Megatropolis
Isis - In The Absence of Truth
Nine Inch Nails - The Slip
Rob Rock - Garden of Chaos

itunes, music, music

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Cold As Ice - New Music Video from Edwin Derricutt

Mark Derricutt — Thu, 08 May 2008 12:26:00 GMT

Looks like my bro recently posted the new Cold As Ice music video to YouTube without telling anyone:

Like the song? Why not buy the album off iTunes or CDBaby? - go on - you know you want to.

derricutt, music, music, video, youtube

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OSGi is Shiny

Mark Derricutt — Wed, 07 May 2008 11:42:00 GMT

At tonight's JavaCom meeting I gave a short lightening talk on OSGi - I was caught a little unprepared and hadn't realized the meeting was tonight so it was a bit rushed together - still the presentation went well - I still need to work more on slowing down, and not jumping ahead of my slides:

| View | Upload your own

As with the presentation itself, seeing some code actually run is more interesting than mere slides, so I recorded a short screen cast showing the two small bundles in operation.

It wasn't a big turn out tonight, but it was still a good night out.

java, javacom, maven

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The Music of 2008 - week 18

Mark Derricutt — Sun, 04 May 2008 10:20:00 GMT

Some more new music with minor A-Z tour - part of me is getting tired with the tour, but I'm still enjoying revisiting music I've not heard in ages and having it filter into my regular playlists. Still, I feel I need to get back into more tech posts.

Arsis - We Are The Nightware
Incrave - Dead End
In Flames - Reroute To Remain / Soundtrack To Your Escape / Trigger EP
Into Eternity - The Scattering of Ashes
Iron Fire - Blade Of Triumph
Power Quest - Master of Illusion
Soul Embraced - Dead Alive
Testament - The Formation of Damnation
Tiamat - Amanethes

itunes, music, music

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Java 6 now available for Apple Mac's

Mark Derricutt — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 05:25:00 GMT

Apple has finally released Java 6 for OSX:

About Java for Mac OS X 10.5 Update 1

This Java for Mac OS X 10.5 Update 1 adds Java SE 6 version 1.6.0_05 to your Mac. This update does not replace the existing installation of J2SE 5.0 or change the default version of Java.

— Java for Mac OS X 10.5 Update 1

Let there be rejoicing!

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WANTED: More control over JDK Annotation Targets

Mark Derricutt — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 22:32:00 GMT

I recently hit an interesting bug in the TestNG plugin for IntelliJ IDEA. The bug was triggered by a null being set on a Properties instance, and after a hour or so working out what was going on I managed to reproduce the problem with the following test setup:

public class SomeTest {
  public void someMethod() {
    class SomeClass {
      @Test(groups = "test")
      public void thisTestBreaksThings() {
        assert true;
      }
    }
  }

  @Test(dependsOnGroups = "test")
  public void thisTestTriggersABreak() {
    assert true;
  }
}

When running the test method "thisTestTriggersABreak", the IDEA plugin searches for any dependent tests which may be needed to bring into the generated suite. In this instance, the plugin finds the @Test method "thisTestBreaksThings" and adds "SomeClass" to the suite, however a PsiClass instance will return null for anonymous and local classes, which then triggers the NullPointerException later on.

The initial patch for the problem was to simply abort the test run when such an invalid test setup is encountered, with the next step is to add an inspection to highlight, and help prevent the problem - however I wondering if this check should be at the annotation/language level rather than at the IDE plugin level.

Currently an annotation's target member can be defined with @Target (see java.lang.annotation.ElementType), but this doesn't allow us to specify any further context - such as "only methods of public classes" (I'm not even sure what syntax would be appropriate, or possible for this). For this functionality I suspect I'd have go to the annotation processor route, but AFAIK this would only work at compile time, so I'd still be needing IDE specific intentions anyway.

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The Music of 2008 - week 17

Mark Derricutt — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 11:00:00 GMT

August Burns Red - Messengers
Ihsahn - The Adversary
Impellitteri - Eye Of The Hurricane / Screaming Symphony
In Flames - Clayman / Colony / Come Clarity
Meshuggah - obZen
Secret & Whisper - Great White Whale
Seventh Avenue - Terium

itunes, music, music

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The Music of 2008 - week 16

Mark Derricutt — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 08:49:00 GMT

In honor of my new head unit I thought it's about time to break this A-Z tour of iTunes and catch up on some of the recent music I've picked up and not really heard yet. Of course I'll be back to the tours shortly.

Children of Bodom - Blood Drunk
Descend To Rise - Standing At This Safe Place
Destroy The Runner - I, Lucifer
Iced Earth - Framing Armageddon / The Glorious Burden / Horror Show / Something Wicked This Way Comes / Tribute to the Gods
In Flames - A Sense Of Purpose
Johansson - The Last Viking
Kingdom of Sorrow - Kingdom of Sorrow
Lauren Thomson - Our Love Is Due
Midnattsol - Nordlys
Moonspell - Under Satanae
MyChildren MyBride - Unbreakable
Novembre - The Blue
Oh, Sleeper - When I Am God
Rage - Carved In Stone
Saving Grace - Between Enemy Lines
Soilent Green - The Inevitable Collapse In the Presence of Conviction
Solitude Aeturnus - Alone
Tarja - My Winter Storm
To-Mera - Delusions / Transcendental
Tom Waits - Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards

itunes, music, music

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Alpine IDA-X001

Mark Derricutt — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 07:12:00 GMT

Last week I picked up an Alpine IDA-X001 "built for iPod" head unit for the car. Previously I'd been using a mixed variation of FM transmitters, tape adapters, or simply driving with headphones - the later sounds the best, but I find it seriously impaired my spacial awareness (no - I didn't crash into any thing or any one, but I could see how it could easily happen).

I knew it was time to hunt out a head unit that supported iPod's and since the car already had a great sounding Alpine unit I thought I'd start there - and I didn't need to look long before I found the IDA-X001:

After a week of using the head unit I can safely say I'm in love with it. Finally I have killer sounds once more in the car, I'd forgotten how well the stock speakers sounded when blasted loudly. So what are the key things that make me love this unit so much, beyond the sound?

No cables - the lack of cables dangling around the gears and/or hand break would have to be the best non-music feature hands down. Safety is of course somewhat important and having a plethora of cables dangling is a major safety risk.
Song title display - It's surprising how many songs I've either forgotten the names of, or just never actually knew in the first place. When the modern music workflow tends to be "buy cd, rip cd, store cd case, listen with iPod in pocket" it's easy to never actually know the name (or full name) of a song.
Radio aerial only extends when using the radio - as shockingly obvious as this might seem, one thing that really annoyed me with the original head unit was that even when using CDs, or tapes the radio's aerial would be deployed. Finally I can sit in an automated car wash and listen to my music!
Protected/unprotected AAC music files play! As someone whose purchased a fair amount of music from the iTunes music store being able to play said music was a key requirement of the head unit. I'm glad to say the play flawlessly.

It's a fairly small list really, but the effect of those small things makes the purchase worth it. However, with every positives there's a few negatives:

The stock Alpine CD changer doesn't work with the IDA-X001. I knew this going in, and I rarely use the changer so it's no major problem. You can get adapters/converters which can connect older Alpine gear to the new AI-NET interface, however it seems this didn't work with my changer ;(
Song title display doesn't always change properly - I've noticed a few times that the song information gets "stuck" and doesn't update properly when a song changes. So far this has only happened 3-4 times and only when transitioning between iTMS purchased AAC songs (maybe a bug in the AAC support?), simply cycling the units inputs to FM/USB/iPod seems to clear the confusion.
Changing the head unit to play in shuffled mode sets the iPod to also be in shuffle mode - I'm not entirely sure how content is played via the head unit, but I suspect it simply operates as a remote control/speaker dock and relies on the iPod to actually play its music. Only - I want the car on shuffle, but the iPod itself :(

All in all nothing to shake a stick at, it's a wonderful head unit and I couldn't be more pleased.

music, music

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Envy Code R PR7 vs PR6 - Preview thoughts

Mark Derricutt — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 11:25:00 GMT

For a while now I've been a major fan of Damien Guard's Envy Code R programming font, and have been using preview 6 as my primary coding font for ages. I was lucky enough to get sent a preview version of PR7 which I've been using for most of the day so far and have a few immediate thoughts...

Note: All screen shots and usage so far is under Java 6, IntelliJ IDEA, Ubuntu Hardy Heron. The left version is PR6 and the right PR7.

When using 13pt I'm not noticing that many differences yet - I suppose this in itself is a testament to how good PR6 already was. I'm sure the more I use it I'll start to notice some of the finer adjustments:

It's when I drop myself to smaller font sizes do we really see the improvements Damien's recently made. I normally prefer working with a slightly smaller font, using 11pt clearly shows a marked improvement:

And for the masochists among us, a 10pt variation, which was pretty much unusable has become clean, crisp, readable - but still way to small for use at the resolution of this laptop.

As it stands, I believe the 12pt setting is my current "sweet spot" for this machine and I'm looking forward to trying out PR7 on the Mac once I get home tonight, and I'm definitely looking forward to a publicly available PR7 release - great work Damien!

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Uncomfortably Numb

Mark Derricutt — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 13:33:00 GMT

So I was sitting there talking to my Dad on MSN earlier, when shortly after commenting he hadn't dislocated his hip for awhile (long story) he goes silent, then follows up with "just dislocated the hip... calling ambulance":

Initially I just paused, or lagged as a surreal numbness uncomfortably came over me - know what pain my dad must be feeling as he says he's calling an ambulance. I re-read what I'm seeing, subtly noticing that what was well typed (spelling errors aside) has turned into what I can only imagine was an agonizing one handed chicken pecked attempt at typing a goodbye message.

Knowing that I'm a 6 or so hour drive away, and hopelessly useless for anything in the situation leaves me feeling empty and drained.

Hope you're feeling better soon dad - miss you, love you.

derricutt

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The Music of 2008 - week 15

Mark Derricutt — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 08:51:00 GMT

Hammerfall - Crimson Thunder / I Want Out / Legacy of Kings / Renegade / Threshold
Haste The Day - Pressure The Hinges / When Everything Falls
Hate Eternal - Fury & Flames
Head Control System - Murder Nature
Heathen - Victims of Deception / 2005 Demo
Hell Yeah - Hell Yeah
Helloween - The Dark Ride / Gambling With The Devil / Keeper of the Seven Keys Part II / Keeper Of The Seven Keys: The Legacy / Rabit Don't Come Easy
Henning Pauly - Credit Where Credit Is Due
Hevein - Sound Over Matter
Hillsong - Savior King
Holy Soldier - Holy Soldier / Last Train
HTP - Hughes Turner Project
I - Between Two Worlds
Iced Earth - Days of Purgatory

itunes, music, music

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Keep On Galloping by Korpiklaani

Mark Derricutt — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 05:01:00 GMT

I thought Eluveitie had a great video for Inis Mona, but Korpiklaani continue to rule the finish folk metal scene for me:

music, music, video

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The Music of 2008 - week 14

Mark Derricutt — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 09:13:00 GMT

Dream Theater - Greatest Hit... and 21 other pretty cool songs
Glass Casket - We Are Gathered Here Today...
Glass Hammer - Culture of Ascent / On To Evermore
Glenn Hughes - Music for the Divine / Soul Mover
God Forbid - IV: Constitution of Treason
Grant Green - Green Street
Grave Digger - The Last Support / Liberty or Death
Great Sorrow - New Day Comes
Green Day - American Idiot
His Infernal Majesty (HIM) - Dark Light / Deep Shadows and Brilliant Highlights / Greatest Love Songs Vol. 666 / Love Metal / Razorblade Romance / Venus Doom
Haji's Kitchen - Haji's Kitchen
Hammerfall - Chapter V: Unbent, Unbowed, Unbroken
In Flames - The Mirror's Truth EP

itunes, music, music

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The Music of 2008 - week 13

Mark Derricutt — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 09:55:00 GMT

Frameshift - An Absence of Empathy / Unweaving The Rainbow
Frank Black - Fast Man Raider Man
Front Line Assembly - Artificial Soldier
Galactic Cowboys - At The End Of The Day / Galactic Cowboys / The Horse That Bud Bought / Let It Go / Machine Fish
Gamma Ray - Land Of The Free Pt II / Majestic / No World Order / Powerplant / Somewhere Out In Space
Gary Moore - After The War
The Gatering - Home / A Noise Severe
Ghost Brigade - Demo Recordings
Giant - Last of the Runaways

itunes, music, music

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The Music of 2008 - week 12

Mark Derricutt — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 06:47:00 GMT

Baroness - The Red Album
Dark Moor - Beyond The Sea
Epicurean - A Consequence of Design
The Flower Kings - Space Revolver / Stardust We Are / The Sum of No Evil / Unfold The Future

A shorter music week this week apart from the fact most of these Flower King's albums are long double albums.

we most certainly have a new drummer in the band, his name is Erik Hammarstöm, he is from Stockholm, he is 32 years old and have played drums for 25 years.

He is a terrific drummer (needless to say), we were all in awe after his "audition"so all fans will be VERY pleased, he is a bit of every drummer we've had, all the best bits. (yeah that's right, Dr. Frankenstien put him together of our drummer leftovers!)

— The Flower Kings - The Official Site

It's a shame to read that Zoltan is once again no longer part of the band, but I'm sure I won't be disappointed with whatever the band releases next.

itunes, music, music

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Mercenary - Isolation

Mark Derricutt — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 00:20:00 GMT

From Denmark's Mercenary comes the single Isolation off the album "Architect of Lies":

I'm loving how Youtube is now giving me the option to watch hi-res quality videos. If only I could work out how to embed those hi-res ones.

music, video, youtube

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The Music of 2008 - week 11

Mark Derricutt — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 09:20:00 GMT

Fight - War Of Words
Finntroll - Nattfodd
Fireball Ministry - Their Rock Is Not Our Rock
Firewind - Allegiance / Forged By Fire
Fission - Crater
The Flower Kings - Adam & Eve / Alive On Planet Earth / Back In The World Of Adventures / Flower Power / Paradox Hotel / The Rainmaker

itunes, music, music

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Job Search 2.0

Mark Derricutt — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 09:18:00 GMT

Four weeks ago I gave notice at Bulletin and start working with the guys at SecureMX tomorrow. I've been meaning to write something on this for the last four weeks or so but never really managed to get there. In a quite timely blog post Ted Leung wrote regarding his recent move to Sun Microsystems:

Having a blog turned out to be quite important. At least one opportunity came via e-mail with a preamble that went like this: “You don’t know me, but I’ve been a reader of your blog for a long time”.

— Job Search 2.0 at Ted Leung on the Air

The gig at SMX came via similar means with the dev manager having been following my blog, and another employee mentioning I was possibly looking around and landed on my doorstep quite out of the blue.

It's been an interesting 5 years at Bulletin with a mixture of interesting, and hair-pulling projects (I'm sure I used to have hair!) and I'm sure the move from filthy SMS spammer to Anti-spammer will be an interesting ride with SMX over the next few years and beyond.

life, mobile, spam

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Edwin Derricutt - Live Videos from the Hallertau 2008

Mark Derricutt — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 12:47:00 GMT

Just got home from another excellent performance of Edwin Derricutt's at the Hallertau Brew Bar, some photos are up on flickr:

…along with some videos - starting with '3 Hours South' which was a new tune for me:

…followed by “You've Got Me”:

…and finally “Symmetry”:

The evening was a great night out with good friends, good food, and great music. If you're in Auckland this Saturday (March 15th, 2008) come along to the Baptist Tabernacle at 429 Queen Street (tickets available online or at the door) - see you there!

music, music, video, youtube

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The Music of 2008 - week 10

Mark Derricutt — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 09:16:00 GMT

Alpha Galetes - A Stimulus for Reason
Extol - The Blueprint Dives / Burial / Synergy / Undeceived
Extreme - Extreme / III Sides To Every Story / Pornograffitti / Waiting For The Punchline
Fall of the Leafe - Aerolithe
Fates Warning - Awaken The Guardian / Disconnected / Inside Out / FMX / Night On Broken / No Exit / Perfect Symmetry / A Pleasant Shade of Grey / The Spectre Within
Fear Factory - Archetype / Demanufacture / Fear Is The Mindkiller / Obsolete / Remanufacture / Soul Of A New Machine / Transgresssion
Felt - Colour of the Sky

itunes, music, music

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Infected - Scott Sigler

Mark Derricutt — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 03:06:00 GMT

Scott Sigler pimps the new book:

Buying this book might not save Perry's balls, and it might make you loose sleep for a week, but you'll never regret it.

books, video, youtube

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The Music of 2008 - week 9

Mark Derricutt — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 10:05:00 GMT

Biomechanical - Cannibalised
Dark Fortress - Eidolon
Death Angel - Killing Season
Edwin Derricutt - Symmetry
Elis - Griefshire
Eluveitie - Slania
Emperor - IX Equilibrium / Prometheus: The Discipline Of Fire
Enslaved - Below The Lights / Ruun / Vikingligr Veldi's
Entombed - The Ten Amendments
Ephel Duath - Pain Necessary To Know / The Painter's Palette
Epica - Consign To Oblivion / The Divine Conspiracy
Eternal Tears Of Sorrow - Before The Bleeding Sun / Chaotic Beauty
Evanescence - The Open Door
Ever Since - Between Heaven And Hell
Evergrey - Monday Morning Apocalypse / Recreation Day / Solitude-Dominance-Tragedy
Everwood - The Raven's Nest
Evidence One - The Sky Is The Limit
Exodus - Another Lesson In Violence / The Atrocity Exhibition... Exhibit A / Bonded By Blood / Fabulous Disaster / Impact Is Imminent / Pleasures Of The Flesh / Shovel Headed Kill Machine / Tempo Of The Damned

itunes, music, music

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U2 Performance Photos from 24 November 2006

Mon, 27 Nov 2006 02:41:00 GMT

I never made it to the gig - but the photos sure look good...

Cheap Trick playing Wellington

Wed, 04 Oct 2006 03:48:00 GMT

No group of musicians more perfectly bridged British Invasion pop and American punk than Cheap Trick. For more than 30 years Cheap Trick have been the de facto heroes of American rock’n’roll. They have released 15 albums since their debut in 1977, and are spoken about in revered tones by both fans of melodic pop and heavy rock.

'Ah men,' sigh lone church women - New Zealand's source for oddstuff - strange, weird

Tue, 12 Sep 2006 23:42:00 GMT

A man drought has hit the church and could be pushing some single women away. The shortage is so dire that Christian women are being forced outside the church or are getting into unsuitable relationships, Challenge Weekly warns this month.

» MobiCamp - Coolz0r - Marketing Thoughts

Thu, 24 Aug 2006 23:42:00 GMT

MobiCamp is like BarCamp or FooCamp or CaseCamp, but then for the mobile industry and people who’re interested in mobile solutions. MobiCamp is a no-holds-barred school of mobile thought—and one you can’t buy your way into.

Open Source Symposium - Auckland

Mon, 21 Aug 2006 21:10:00 GMT

Open Source has reached a level of awareness and deployment that Red Hat together with IDC is bringing you the inaugural Open Source Symposium (OSS) 2006. This is THE show that will introduce you to the solutions and technologies available from the open source world. For the first time in 14 Asia Pacific cities, come hear from the the Linux community, customers, developers, users, Red Hat and its partners about the challenges, the challengers, ground breaking technology and trends. In conjunction with the Open Source Symposium, Red Hat is holding an Executive Forum and Red Hat Developer Day in selected cities for topical discussions.

The seven ways that people search the Web. By Paul Boutin

Mon, 14 Aug 2006 23:41:00 GMT

You Are What You Search...

My Boring Ass Life » The Red Bank Stash Signing: A Day That Will Live in Infamy

Wed, 09 Aug 2006 02:31:00 GMT

And after a moment’s fancy of the Asbury Park Press headline that might read “Clerks-Guy Has Fan Rolled by Cops”, I say to Walt “Let’s move the sign. Put it at the end of the two hundred people.”

Festival Primers: our most anticipated in top tens

Mon, 26 Jun 2006 20:34:00 GMT

With programmes already browsed, checked, underlined and dotted since their release to the public earlier this week, our own personal must-sees from the 160+ strong lineup have invariable made their way into a handful of curated top ten lists. We consider the following essential viewing – or at the very least, films we hope will inspire, invigorate, surprise or provoke debate.

Borders New Zealand - Winter Reading Guide

Mon, 26 Jun 2006 11:30:00 GMT

Google Web Toolkit - Build AJAX apps in the Java language

Wed, 17 May 2006 01:33:00 GMT

Nice looking AJAX toolkit.

The Rolling Stones at Western Springs - 17 Apr 2006 - Rolling Stones tour

Tue, 18 Apr 2006 01:08:00 GMT

Talking of predictability, Canadian pop-metallers Nickelback were an incongruous opener, one bullshit power ballad after another.

Useless, absurd, must, need, appalled, just, infuriating, essential, etc. - Signal vs. Noise (by 37signals)

Wed, 12 Apr 2006 21:51:00 GMT

While we appreciate customers who take the time to write in and tell us what they want, the way people phrase things often leads to raised eyebrows. Every feature that’s missing is essential, a must-have, and the fact that it’s missing is killing someone.

The State of Linux: Substantial Growth in New Zealand

Wed, 12 Apr 2006 07:45:00 GMT

Much of the continued explosive growth of Linux adoption in New Zealand and Australia remains unseen, unannounced and often behind the scenes.

New Zealand's source for technology news on Stuff.co.nz: Text message charges rise

Wed, 12 Apr 2006 05:27:00 GMT

Vodafone is tripling the charge for New Zealand post-paid cellphone customers to send a text message back to New Zealand from Australia, from 20 cents to about 64 cents.

Red Hat cancels Fedora Foundation: Builder AU: Program: At Work

Mon, 10 Apr 2006 11:01:00 GMT

Red Hat has dismantled the Fedora Foundation, an initiative conceived as an entity to provide intellectual-property protections to the open-source realm but whose mission grew impractically broad.

cellular-news | New Zealand Testing Dynamic Optimization of Mobile Networks

Mon, 10 Apr 2006 10:54:00 GMT

Dynamic optimization, which has significant implications for mobile network operators around the world, is being tested on Telecom New Zealand's commercial 027 network in the Lower Hutt, Taranaki, Bay of Plenty and Mt. Eden regions. Lucent originally built the 027 mobile network and currently manages it for Telecom New Zealand.

Computerworld > Java growth in New Zealand doubles in four years

Fri, 07 Apr 2006 02:31:00 GMT

Need for speed

Wed, 01 Mar 2006 05:56:00 GMT

Auckland City has responded to the broadband challenge issued by central government and today endorsed further investigation of options to achieve full-speed broadband at significantly lower costs for Auckland city.

Seven Secrets of Successful Programmers

Fri, 03 Feb 2006 05:41:00 GMT

It is one of the most pervasive misunderstandings in computing that the source code is for the computer's consumption.