PostgreSQL usability - PgAdmin-III and Pg need some usability love

As anyone who's read much here will know, I'm a huge fan of PostgreSQL, the powerful open source relational database management system. It is an amazingly project with a team that keeps on releasing high quality updates full of very useful new features and improvements.

This is my blog, so there must be a "but", right? You're quite right.

I already wrote a PostgreSQL: Great even when you can see the warts in response to a perhaps overly glowing write-up someone did a while ago. I'm not covering that again here; this post is specifically about a topic more and more dear to my heart, that of usability.

As a long-time UNIX geek I've always found PostgreSQL quite easy to use, because I live on the command line where psql is just wonderful. Recently, though, I had to use PostgreSQL on Windows, and in the process couldn't help seeing it from the new user's point of view. In fact, I tried to think like a new user as I performed the tasks I needed to do.

It wasn't all roses. I knew enough about Pg to get past the issues pretty easily, but some of them would be real roadblocks for new or even intermediate users, and I think they're worth highlighting. Many of the issues were with PgAdmin-III, but far from all of them.

This post started out as a minor critique of a few usability sore points in Pg and PgAdmin-III. As I went through step-by-step producing screenshots and thinking through the process as a user, though, I realised it's an absolute, complete and utter train-wreck. If this had been my first experience with PostgreSQL, I'd be a MySQL, MS-SQL or Oracle user now.

You CAN download legal Windows 7 ISO images, it's just well hidden

UPDATE 2015-04-08: It looks like the ISOs are no longer available from DigitalRiver, or at least not at their old locations, since Windows 7 went EOL.

Yesterday I had a frustrating time after discovering that the one and only non-OEM-contaminated Win7Pro x64 disk I had was faulty - half way through a win7 reinstall. All I wanted was a download of replacement media, as I had a license already. This should've been simple, but no! Microsoft direct you to your OEM or retailer in all documentation on the topic, never even hinting that you can just download the ISOs without needing MSDN.

I even called Microsoft support, which is a mark of desperation if ever I saw one. They were as unhelpful as expected, patronisingly explaining that the license key is from a computer manufacturer so I have to contact them for replacement media. Even though I don't want the OEM's butchered Windows install media, I just want stock win7. I don't want the mangled Windows the OEM supplies, and even if I did they'd only post it to me not offer a download. They also only supply service pack 0, and I needed SP1-integrated ISOs.

I have a license to the product. You can't use the media without a license. The media have no copy protection so it's not like they particularly try to prevent their copying/distribution. Yet the official story is that you just can't download it unless you've bought an new license to a retail version online through Microsoft Store. Pathetic.

After too long digging around the net I found out that, yes, you can just download the ISOs after all. Microsoft just apparently don't admit it or talk about it. That's customer-hostile even for them. Go here:

http://www.mydigitallife.info/official-windows-7-sp1-iso-from-digital-river/

or http://www.mytechguide.org/10042/windows-7-service-pack-sp1-official-digitalriver-download/

... to get service pack 1 ISOs. Legally, from Digital River, MS's online/digital distributor. Yes, that means you must have a valid license and key to use them, as normal.

They even provide SHA1 checksums, which NOBODY seems to publish for Windows ISOs or pretty much anything else in the Windows world.

• Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 x86 SHA1:
  92C1ADA4FF09C76EC2F1974940624CAB7F822F62
• Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 (SP1-U Media Refresh) x86 SHA1:
  65FCE0F445D9BF7E78E43F17E441E08C63722657
• Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 x64 SHA1:
  1693B6CB50B90D96FC3C04E4329604FEBA88CD51
• Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 (SP1-U Media Refresh) x64 SHA1:
  36AE90DEFBAD9D9539E649B193AE573B77A71C83

I've verified the x64 SP1-U checksum to match what I downloaded from Digital River. I haven't checked the others.

Arquillian initially overpromises and frustrates, but delivers real benefits

Arquillian is changing fairly rapidly, and the Arquillian folks are paying a lot of attention to feedback. This post discusses Arquillian 1.0.0.Final, and more importantly the ShinkWrap Resolver and ShrinkWrap Dependency extensions. A lot has already improved since I wrote this, though most of it hasn't hit -Final versions yet.

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After seeing a lot of talk, hype and excitement about Arquillian on twitter for several months, I finally got around to introducing it into a new project to give it a try. I'm told it'll make testing massively easier and save me tons of time, so using it is a no-brainer.

Tweet to @craigdevel After my recent experience I recommend that you start using it too - but you'll need to be prepared for some rough edges and the need for workarounds until a few point releases have gone by.

To jump straight to the summary of it all, click here, or read on for the whole experience.

Fixing "Jam in Area A" (E3-6) on Xerox Phaser 5500

My Xerox Phaser 5500N has been failing to print with phantom "Jam in Area A" errors for the last few days. No paper is actually jammed in the printer, it just reports a jam after printing the first page. When viewing the jam log or the web interface, the jam code was "E3-6", which is documented in the manual only as "fuser area".

It turns out that the Xerox 5500 has a common failure point - arguably a design flaw - in the fuser exit switch.

Xerox support wanted $210 to come and look at the printer, wouldn't guarantee to even bring appropriate parts, and said it'd cost another $210 plus parts if they had to come back with parts to repair it. They wouldn't talk about the jam code or do any phone support of any kind at all. Payment for the site visit was to be made up front before they'd even book a tech, and they wouldn't give me an ETA before I paid. They don't sell parts, and won't provide service manuals. This made me very, very angry.

Instead of paying Xerox over $400, I paid the supermarket up the road $3 for some super-glue. After removing the fuser I could see that the fuser exit switch lever had broken, so I just glued it back on and got the printer working again. Depending on the nature of the fault, you might not even need the glue.

DIY data recovery

While perusing ZDNet Australia I encountered this article about data recovery, which appears to be a thinly veiled piece of advertorial about a data recover firm.

The article pissed me off. It doesn't mention the importance of preventative action like good, well-tested backups. It certainly doesn't bother considering the possibility that you can recover from common cases of data loss yourself or with help from a techie friend, avoiding paying huge sums to the DR firm.

Here are a few tips for recovering lost pictures, documents, etc from a hard drive that's in reasonable physical condition but isn't readable from the computer. The same techniques apply to flash media like Compact Flash, MMC, SD Card, USB memory keys, etc, many of which have the unreliable FAT32 file system on them by default and are very prone to being rendered unreadable by minor file system corruption.

You should not attempt these tips unless you can accept the small risk that you might actually make the problem worse. Most importantly, do not attempt any of these steps if you suspect your hard drive has a serious mechanical fault - say it stopped working after being dropped and now makes sqeaky scratchy noises, it was immersed, it was burned, etc. Attempting to power on a hard drive that's damaged like that will make later recovery harder, so you should take drives with serious physical damage straight to DR pros.

For the other 99% of cases, read on.

Humidity sensor plans made

Quite a bit of reading has suggested that capacitive FDR (Frequency-Domain Reflectometry) and TDR (Time-Domain Reflectometry) approaches are going to be impractical when very low cost is a requirement. Resistive continues to look pretty unattractive, so I think TDT (Time-Domain Transmissive) is going to be the approach I focus on.

All this would be much easier if the abundant prior work on this topic weren't locked away behind expensive journal paywalls or commercial secrecy agreements. The few people who seem to have done it for hobby purposes mostly show up asking questions on forums and mailing lists; they never seem to write their results up. Needless to say, I'm frustrated, but I'm going to try to do something about it.

So: In TDT, capacitance is measured by sending a pulse or wave down an insulated loop or line through the soil. The capacitance in the line is altered by the amount of water surrounding the line. As the capacitance of a conductor alters the time it takes for a pulse to propagate through the wire, the capacitance can be measured by timing how long a high pulse takes to propagate through the line.

There's more to the NBN than fast Internet

People keep on framing debate about Australia's NBN (National Broadband Network) as if it's all about building a new service for faster Internet and that keeping the existing copper POTS infrastructure is a viable option.

Cost of services to end users as compared to POTS introduction

Look at the history of telephone rollouts. Initially they were unaffordable for many and there was a great deal of doubt about their utility - after all, you could usually just go to the local post office if you wanted to make a call, so what was the big deal?

Things are a bit different now.

On the other hand, unlike telephone rollouts (and their later enabling of MODEMs and dial-up banks) the NBN replaces an existing service. In that regard it's quite different, so we can't draw a direct comparison with the infrastructure rollout for phones. One could argue that the NBN is improving an existing service, rather than creating a new service, and at its cost is economically unjustifiable.

The POTS network is ailing

There's a reason why copper is being decomissioned where the NBN is being rolled out, and it's not just to provide economic incentive to push people onto the NBN and help fund it.

The copper phone network is ailing. There aren't enough physical lines to service increasing population densities as discrete houses are replaced with flats, high density developments, etc. High-frequency cross-talk from multiple ADSL services on long parallel copper lines is degrading service and causing poorer results for all users. Junctions and pits are needing more and more maintenance as they age and corrode. Installing new copper is more and more expensive as the price for copper goes through the roof.

Money spent on the copper network is being sunk into a network that's going to have to be dropped or massively rebuilt at some point. There's going to be a point where it's better to stop spending on it and replace it instead.

Given that, the NBN rollout is the replacement of infrastructure that'll otherwise become more and more overloaded, ineffective, and expensive to operate. I increasingly see its actual performance benefits as secondary. It's more like replacing that falling-down school with a fancy new building that happens to have air-conditioning and pretty skylights, but has to be built anyway because the old one has to be knocked down and rebuilt soon one way or another.