The PHPUnit documentation is a cryptic and sparse when describing how to install PHPUnit on windows.

I am assuming that PHP is already installed and working.

Steps:

1. Download the latest version of PHPUnit (currently 3.4.9) from here http://pear.phpunit.de/get/
2. Extract to somewhere (I put it in my PHP directory)
3. Edit the phpunit.bat file. At the bottom of the file there are two lines:
   set PHPBIN="@php_bin@"
%PHPBIN% "@bin_dir@\phpunit" %*
4. Change them to something like this:
   set PHPBIN="C:\Program Files (x86)\PHP\php.exe"
%PHPBIN% "C:\Program Files (x86)\PHP\phpunit.php" %*
5. To test if PHPUnit is working run “phpunit --help” from a command  prompt (PHP directory needs to be set in the path environment variable).

After half a day of digging it turns out the problem was that the Return-Path header was being set to the user that the web server runs as. Which was a non-existent email address.

To set the Return-Path in PHP on a unix environment use:
mail('nobody@example.com', 'the subject', 'the message', null, '-fwebmaster@example.com');

In windows envioronment use:
ini_set('sendmail_from', 'webmaster@example.com);

For more information see: http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.mail.php

As the model name suggest its a 130mm (5.1″) Newtonian Reflecting telescope. It has a focal length of 650mm and a focal ratio of F/5. For more detailed spesifications see the  SkyWatcher BKP13065EQ2 page. The scope cost $500 NZD before shipping.

The first thing to note is how easy the setup was. I found instructions very easy to understand and follow and had the telescope setup under and hour (all tools were provided in the box). And seeing as this was the first time I’ve setup a telescope I don’t think thats to bad. The instructions are well written with easy to follow diagrams. They also contain details on how to polar align the scope, collimating the optics, even calculating the magnification and true field of view.

The scope looks nice all in black with a slight sparkle to it.

It comes with 2 eye pieces, a 25mm and a 10mm. These are probably fine for a first telescope, but I’ll likely want to pick up some more and maybe some filters at a later date.

The mount feels quite sturdy, with adjustable height. Seems to manage the scope and 3.5 kg counter weight easily (once balanced correctly).  One of the main criteria I was looking for a first telescope was portability. Once fully assembled the whole thing is difficult to move around, but can easily be broken down to manageable pieces in a couple of minutes.

I can’t really comment on the viewing experience as I haven’t had a chance to do any night viewing yet. I’ve only had the scope for one night and it was clouded out. Expect a follow up

Conclusion:
I can’t really find a fault with the SkyWatcher BKP13065EQ2 telescope. It looks good, has excellent instructions, simple to setup and reasonably portable.

For example if you have a folder C:\Music and sub folders in the format ”Artist – Album” like below:

C:\Music\Artist1 – Album1
C:\Music\Artist1 – Album2
C:\Music\Artist2 – Album1

It will turn it into:

C:\Music\Artist1\Artits1 – Album1
C:\Music\Artist1\Artist1 – Album2
C:\Music\Artits2\Artits2 – Album1

Just copy the below code into a text file, rename it something like “music mover.vbs” put it in your root music directory (C:\Music\ in my example) and run it. Your music should now be in folders by artist.

Script is:

Dim fso, folderObj, folders, outputFile, currentDir, newFolder, dashPos, folderName

Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
currentDir = fso.GetAbsolutePathName(".") + "\"

Set outputFile = fso.CreateTextFile(currentDir&"\FileList.txt", True) 'file for loging things
Set folderObj = fso.GetFolder(currentDir)

Set folders = folderObj.SubFolders

For each folderIdx In folders
	newFolder = ""
	dashPos = InStr(folderIdx.Name, "-")
	folderName = currentDir + folderIdx.Name

	if dashPos <> 0 then 'we found a dash in the folder name (asuming that there are no artists or albums with dashes in their names the format is Artist - Album)

		newFolder = currentDir + Trim(Left(folderIdx.Name, dashPos-1))

		if not fso.FolderExists(newFolder) then
			fso.CreateFolder(newFolder)
			outputFile.WriteLine("Created new folder (" + Trim(Left(folderIdx.Name, dashPos-1)) + ")")
		else
			outputFile.WriteLine("Folder already exists (" + Trim(Left(folderIdx.Name, dashPos-1)) + ")")
		End If		

		outputFile.WriteLine(" - Added (" + folderIdx.Name + ")")
		Call fso.MoveFolder(folderName, newFolder + "\\")

	End If
Next

outputFile.Close

If I feel like it I might write a script that does the opposite, takes Music\Artist\Artist – Album and moves them to Music\Artist – Album.

You get this error “Illegal column width – check Left and Right margins”. The work around is to create the table with only one row and the desired columns and then use AddRow() to add up to 255 rows.

See the IBM technote for more infomation.

Somewhere along the galactic plane (this was actually taken by my friend with a similar camera but I tweaked it in Photoshop a bit)

Taken early morning, the two stars arn’t actually stars they are Venus (the bright one) and Mars

I’m not using composite applications introduced in Lotus Notes 8, I assume it handles this kind of thing a lot better. But the java client is to heavy weight and all our database (Applications) and they use the standard design elements anyway.

If you try and create a table with more than 255 rows you will get the error:

“Table can have only 255 rows”

List of Domino limits

Solution:
The solution is to basically keep creating new tables when you hit the row limit. The only problem is that it creates a gap between the tables which may mess up the layout a little.

Here is a simple function I wrote to break up an array into multiple tables if there are to many rows and add it to rich text field

rtField – the field you want to add the tables to
tableData – a 2D array that gets converted into a table (this holds the table data)
rows – the number of rows in the tableData array
cols – the number of columns in the tableData array

Sub CreateTable(rtField As NotesRichTextItem, tableData As Variant, rows As Integer, cols As Integer)
    numFullTablesToAdd% = 0
    numFullTablesToAdd% = Fix(rows/255)
    ‘add tables first
    For i%=1 To numFullTablesToAdd%
        Call rtField.AppendTable(255, cols) ‘ max row tables
    Next   
    Call rtField.AppendTable(rows Mod 255, cols) ‘ whats left
    Dim rtnav As NotesRichTextNavigator
    Set rtnav = rtField.CreateNavigator
    ‘Dim rtTable As NotesRichTextTable
    Call rtnav.FindFirstElement(RTELEM_TYPE_TABLECELL)
    For r%=0 To rows-1
        For c%=0 To cols-1
            Call rtField.BeginInsert(rtnav)
            Call rtField.AppendText(tableData(r%, c%))
            Call rtField.EndInsert
            Call rtnav.FindNextElement(RTELEM_TYPE_TABLECELL)
        Next
    Next
End Sub

There maybe a way to instead create a table with HTML but I haven’t worked out out yet. Will update if I find a better solution

Seems easy enough to create posts. The live preview is cool.

I think my next step is to pick up a pair of binoculors or a cheep telescope and get out there myself

So I decided to by a new TV (40″ Samsung 6 series) and while in the store trying to decide the sales guy goes on about HDMI cables, specifically Monster cables. I never really believe what those sales guys say, anyway the top cable was around NZ$400 and I remember reading somewhere that there is very little difference between a cheap HDMI cable and an expensive one. So I did a bit of digging.

Most of the info I came a cross wasn’t very official or scientific but in short it seems that for short lengths (less than 2 meters) cheap cables perform comparatively to expensive ones. Unless you want to future prof for ultra HD (higher than 1080p) go for a cheaper one.

To elaborate/rant a bit more. You may have heard people say that because HDMI is a digital signal the signal only gets there or it doesn’t. But I don’t think that’s necessarily true (from what I’ve read).

Now I’m not an electrical engineer so I wont pretend to know about electrical properties of HDMI cables but I’m a software engineer by day so I like to think I know a little bit about software and hardware. A signal is going to degrade along a cable no matter if its a digital or analog but where as an analog signal can be cleaned up by the reviver it can never be identical to the transmitted signal. Where as with a digital signal depending on how bad the signal has degraded and how good the error correcting software is the signal can be fixed up to be exactly like the transmitted data.

But unlike Ethernet(well TCP/IP protocol) if some data is unable to be error corrected it can request the data to be resent. Technically a video signal could do the same but practically its to late by the time the corrupt data is requested and resent it most likely wouldn’t be valid anymore . How the receiver handles the signal becomes important. I don’t know what the HDMI spec says bout error correcting but it apparently says that to comply with the spec it is only allowed to loose 1 pixel per billion. I wouldn’t be surprised if different receivers handled it differently. Say some data about one pixel is received that has errors in it the first thing its going to do is try and correct it, but say it can’t what does it do with the corrupt data? Does it just throw out the data and make the pixel black? Does it throw out the whole frame that the pixel data was for? Does it just display the corrupt pixel data? Or does it try to guess what the pixel should be like based on surrounding pixels? There are other complex ways of dealing with the data but this may come down to individual implementations on the receiver.

(What I say may not be true but I try to base it on what I know)

Here are some links that give some more HDMI cable info/tests:
Gizmodo test HDMI cables: Part II and Part III
Imforitive HDMI cable info
HDMI Cable Tests
Offical HDMI site
Why Monster cables cost so much
HDMI on Wikipedia