2008.10.27
Monitor Process Progress on Unix
I often run file-processing commands that take many hours to
finish, and I therefore need a way to monitor their progress.
The Perkin-Elmer/Concurrent OS32 system I worked-on for a couple
of years back in 1993 (don't ask)
had a facility that displayed for any executing
command the percentage of work that was completed.
When I first saw this facility working on the programs I maintained,
I couldn't believe my eyes, because I was sure that those rusty
Cobol programs didn't contain any functionality to monitor their progress.
Continue reading "Monitor Process Progress on Unix"Last modified: Monday, October 27, 2008 2:34 pm
2008.10.18
A Look at Zero-Defect Code
The US
National Security Agency
has released a case study showing how to
develop zero-defect code in a cost-effective manner.
The researchers of the project conclude that,
if adopted widely, the practices advocated in the case study
could help make commercial software programs more reliable and less vulnerable.
I examined a small part of the case study's code, and was not impressed.
Continue reading "A Look at Zero-Defect Code"Last modified: Saturday, October 18, 2008 1:39 pm
2008.10.16
Missing the Point
A number of Greek web sites offer for download a very strange Excel form.
Continue reading "Missing the Point"Last modified: Thursday, October 16, 2008 5:36 pm
2008.10.08
An Inadvertent Denial of Service Attack
If you're wondering why this blog was down for the past few hours, here is
the story.
In an earlier blog post I listed a small script
I'm using to lock-away door knockers who attempt to break into our
group's computer by trying various passwords.
If you like puzzles, read the script again and think how it
could be used against us by isolating our computer from the entire world.
Continue reading "An Inadvertent Denial of Service Attack"Last modified: Wednesday, October 8, 2008 10:10 am
2008.10.06
Suspend Windows from the Command Line
I used to leave my computer up all night, but I've come to realize that this
is ecologically unsound.
Now I suspend it before going to sleep, but this missed running
a daily job that used to run at 03:00 am.
The job marks my students' exercises and send me email with the next day's
appointments.
I thus decided to schedule the task to wakeup my computer at 3:00 am,
run the job, and then suspend it again.
The Windows scheduler allows you to specify a wakeup option,
but not a subsequent suspend.
Furthermore, it seems that Windows lacks a way to suspend from the
command line (while maintaining the ability to hibernate), and the
only free tools on the web are distributed in executable form,
so I ended writing a small tool myself.
Continue reading "Suspend Windows from the Command Line"Last modified: Monday, October 6, 2008 7:25 pm
