Digital Converter Box Or New TV? An Easy Choice

The Electronic Jungle: Kevin Hunt
May 29, 2008

Q: When TV stations change to the new broadcast system next year, will I still be able to use my existing VCR and DVD players? I have not decided between a conversion box or new TV. I also have a TV with a built-in VCR, which also has an attached DVD player. Both TVs are getting broadcast signals from a roof-top antenna — no cable or dish.

— Frank Wall, Downers Grove, Ill.

A: You'll be able to send the signal from the converter box to your VCR or DVR. But I wouldn't be surprised if by next February, when the analog signals disappear, you will have bought an HDTV.

The main point is this: most programs you write are going to read documents written in a specific XML vocabulary. They are not going to be designed to handle absolutely any well-formed document that comes down the pipe. Your programs will make assumptions about the content and structure of those documents, just as they now make assumptions about the content and structure of external objects.

private static BigInteger readFibonacciXMLRPCResponse(
   InputStream in) throws IOException, NumberFormatException, 
   StringIndexOutOfBoundsException {
    
    StringBuffer sb = new StringBuffer();
    Reader reader = new InputStreamReader(in, "UTF-8");
    int c;
    while ((c = in.read()) != -1) sb.append((char) c);
    
    String document = sb.toString();
    String startTag = "";
    String endTag = "";
    int start = document.indexOf(startTag) + startTag.length();
    int end = document.indexOf(endTag);
    String result = document.substring(start, end);
    return new BigInteger(result);
    
  } 

Straight text parsing is not the appropriate tool with which to navigate an XML document. The structure and semantics of an XML document is encoded in the document’s markup, its tags and its attributes; and you need a tool that is designed to recognize and understand this structure as well as reporting any possible errors in this structure. This tool is called an XML parser.

Labels: java, xml

package com.rufwork.run;

import java.util.Comparator;

public class JoeComparator implements Comparator {

        public int compare(Object arg0, Object arg1) {
                int intReturn = 0;
                String strFirst = arg0.toString();
            String strSecond = arg1.toString();

            int intShorter = 0;
            
            if (strFirst.length() < strSecond.length()) {
                intShorter = strFirst.length();
            }   else    {
                intShorter = strSecond.length();
            }

            int i = 0;
            
            while (0 == intReturn && i<intShorter)      {
                int intCharForFirst = strFirst.charAt(i);
                int intCharForSecond = strSecond.charAt(i);
                
                // we want "space" to come *after* all chars
                // otherwise "special sauce" comes *before* 
                // "special"
                if (32 == intCharForFirst)      {
                        intCharForFirst = 257;
                }
                if (32 == intCharForSecond)     {
                        intCharForSecond = 257;
                }
                
                if (intCharForFirst < intCharForSecond) {
                        intReturn = -1;
                } else if (intCharForFirst > intCharForSecond)  {
                        intReturn = 1;
                }
                
                i++;
            }

            // we only know right now that the strings are the same
            // to the length of the shorter string.
            if (0 == intReturn) {
                if (strFirst.length() < strSecond.length())     {
                        intReturn = -1; // strFirst comes first
                }       else if (strFirst.length() > strSecond.length())        {
                        intReturn = 1;
                }       // if they are the same length, stay at 0
            }

            
            if (false)  {       // some debugging jive
                if (1==intReturn)       {
                        System.out.println(strFirst 
                                + " is larger than " + strSecond);
                    } else if (-1==intReturn)   {
                        System.out.println(strSecond 
                                + " is larger than " + strFirst);
                    } else if (0 ==intReturn)   {
                        System.out.println("Same strings: " 
                                + strFirst + " :: " + strSecond);
                    }   else    {
                        System.out.println("Something wack happend: " 
                                + strFirst + " :: " + strSecond);
                    }
            }

            return intReturn;
        }

        /**
         * @param args
         */
        public static void main(String[] args) {
                // TODO Auto-generated method stub

        }

}

Labels: ascii, code, java

The TextAreaDemo example introduces an editable text area with a special feature — a word completion function. As the user types in words, the program suggests hints to complete the word whenever the program's vocabulary contains a word that starts with what has been typed.

GroupLayout layout = new GroupLayout(getContentPane());
getContentPane().setLayout(layout);

//Create a parallel group for the horizontal axis
ParallelGroup hGroup = 
 layout.createParallelGroup(GroupLayout.Alignment.LEADING);
//Create a sequential and a parallel groups
SequentialGroup h1 = layout.createSequentialGroup();
ParallelGroup h2 = 
 layout.createParallelGroup(GroupLayout.Alignment.TRAILING);
//Add a scroll panel and a label to the parallel group h2
h2.addComponent(jScrollPane1, 
 GroupLayout.Alignment.LEADING, 
 GroupLayout.DEFAULT_SIZE, 212, 
 Short.MAX_VALUE);
h2.addComponent(jLabel1, 
 GroupLayout.Alignment.LEADING, 
 GroupLayout.DEFAULT_SIZE, 212, 
 Short.MAX_VALUE);

//Add a container gap to the sequential group h1
h1.addContainerGap();
// Add the group h2 to the group h1
h1.addGroup(h2);
h1.addContainerGap();
//Add the group h1 to hGroup
hGroup.addGroup(Alignment.TRAILING,h1);
//Create the horizontal group
layout.setHorizontalGroup(hGroup);

//Create a parallel group for the vertical axis
ParallelGroup vGroup = 
 layout.createParallelGroup(GroupLayout.Alignment.LEADING);
//Create a sequential group
SequentialGroup v1 = layout.createSequentialGroup();
//Add a container gap to the sequential group v1
v1.addContainerGap();
//Add a label to the sequential group v1
v1.addComponent(jLabel1);
v1.addPreferredGap(LayoutStyle.ComponentPlacement.RELATED);
//Add scroll panel to the sequential group v1
v1.addComponent(jScrollPane1, 
 GroupLayout.DEFAULT_SIZE, 100, 
 Short.MAX_VALUE);
v1.addContainerGap();
//Add the group v1 to vGroup
vGroup.addGroup(v1);
//Create the vertical group
layout.setVerticalGroup(vGroup);
pack();

BorderLayout layout = new BorderLayout();
getContentPane().setLayout(layout);
  
this.getContentPane().add(jScrollPane1, BorderLayout.CENTER);
this.getContentPane().add(jLabel1, BorderLayout.NORTH);
this.pack();

Note: This lesson covers writing layout code by hand, which can be challenging. If you are not interested in learning all the details of layout management, you might prefer to use the GroupLayout layout manager combined with a builder tool to lay out your GUI. One such builder tool is the NetBeans IDE. Otherwise, if you want to code by hand and do not want to use GroupLayout, then GridBagLayout is recommended as the next most flexible and powerful layout manager.

Labels: java, market, pimpige

The larger problem, though, is that Flash breaks the web and defies established conventions that make the web usable. There are no hyperlinks per se (only clickable spots), no way to determine where clicking will take you, and no way to get back there (that is, no URIs or URLs). Even worse—and one of the reasons Flash is so beloved by certain types of content creators—Flash is a black hole; nothing comes out, which makes Flash entirely inaccessible for reuse, collaboration, or whatever the next great idea on the web is.

18. Will I receive High-Definition TV with the aid of a converter?
No. Analog televisions are not capable of displaying high-definition resolution, but the picture will generally be better with a converter.

How often have you copied something only to find that you need it a few minutes later but you've already copied another item over it on the Mac Clipboard? PTHPasteboard watches you while you work and keeps a copy of any items that you have copied to your Clipboard (you can specify how many entries are cached) and also saves the clipboard through restarts. I keep it configured as a default startup item.

* NeoOffice:
* Flip4Mac: (Windows Media Player alternative)
* TextWrangler (serious text editor)
* Firefox & Thunderbird
* CyberDuck (FTP and SFTP client)
* Adium: (multi-service chat client)
* ImageTricks (sue with OS X Tiger's Core Image filters)
* MAMP (server software)
* iBackup (free backup software)
* Vienna (RSS and Atom reader)

* ToyViewer Image Viewer/Editor
* PTHPasteboard Multiple Clipboard Utility
* SpotInside Spotlight Search Enhancer
* OnyX System Maintenance and Cleaning Utility
* TigerLaunch Application Launcher
* Seashore Cocoa Open Source Graphics Program for OS X

Labels: browsers, F/free, graphicConverter, office, os x, vim

Daniel Rogers was having problems with widescreen DVDs and apparently stumbled on this page and got these techniques to work. He then got ambitious and created a new perl script which automatically fixes DVD images. It's a pretty cool script: it copies the IFO files from a mounted DVD image, determines which ones are encoded as widescreen, repairs the appropriate bits of those files, and creates a new, burnable DVD image. He doesn't have a web page up at the moment, but you can get the script from his server at www.phasevelocity.org/idvd-ws-fix. I haven't had an opportunity to try it yet, but the script looks reasonable enough (although I don't speak perl).

Labels: apple, iMovie, SSTP

And so if Apple, under Jobs, is tightly focused, what is it that they're focused on? It's not the pro market. It's mobility — iPhone, iPod, MacBook Air. Adobe is a good company with good products, but they don't fit into Apple's focus at all.

The group also is providing a glimpse at the road map of Office for Mac by announcing the return of Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) in the next version.

Labels: .NET, business, microsoft, office, vista

VueScan is a powerful, easy to use program that:
* works with 750 flatbed and film scanners
* runs on Mac OS X, Windows and Linux
* has been downloaded more than 5 million times

Labels: business, graphicConverter, shareware

Labels: Other Stuff