I added the second-biggest efficiency improvement since supporting the Enter key in the task input field. Also, this release is probably the last of the version 1 branch.
Author: Robert Lohr
Software Developer, Technology Enthusiast, Sports Enthusiast, Metalhead
NVIDIA GTX 970 vs. AMD HD 7870 vs. NVIDIA GTX 560 Ti
My gaming PC is about two years old now (read this and this for more information) and although I didn’t really have any serious, permanent performance issues in games, I felt that it was about time to change something.
Here’s a short review and benchmark comparison of NVIDIA’s latest GTX 970 vs. the AMD Radeon HD 7870 (quite a mouthful) that I had installed before. The latter also had to show what it can do compared to an older NVIDIA GTX 560 Ti.
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The Pitfall of Trying to Be Too Smart When Using dllexport/dllimport
As a seasoned C++ developer I should’ve been aware of this which makes it a little bit embarrassing. But, since this issue has cost me several hours of searching through the Internet over the course of two or three days, I thought it might be worth sharing. Maybe somebody else is trying to be too smart or just doesn’t know better.
The problem? It is summarized in short in this StackOverflow question that I posted. With this blog post I’ll be a bit more elaborate and show some details.
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Grails Startup Error: ASSERTION FAILED at JPLISAgent.c
Grails always has something new to offer, not only features but also random bugs (unfortunately). Out of the blue I couldn’t even let Grails show its own version (grails –version) let alone perform any other action. This is all I got for each and every command I tried to execute.
*** java.lang.instrument ASSERTION FAILED ***: "!errorOutstanding" with message transform method call failed at ../../../src/share/instrument/JPLISAgent.c line: 844 Exception: java.lang.StackOverflowError thrown from the UncaughtExceptionHandler in thread "main"
The following runtimes were used:
- Windows 7 64bit
- Java 7 Update 71 64bit
- Grails 2.4.4
Of course I removed all temporary files and folders, the “target” folder of the project and the “.grails”, “.groovy”, “.m2” and “.ivy” folders in the user directory. Nothing helped. Some say it has to do with forking processes, but playing with those settings didn’t change a thing. After all, the error happens way earlier.
Then I came across a post that mentioned to create the “.inputrc” file (on a Linux system) because through debugging it was found that Grails tries to access this files. Well, I’m not using Linux, but since I was already in the “helplessly desperate” phase I wanted to give it a shot. Surprisingly, this file already existed.
Solution: I deleted “.inputrc” from the user folder et voilà, Grails worked again.
ASRock P67 Pro3 BIOS Error Code 97
Recently I wanted to install a Gigabyte Radeon HD7870 in an older PC with an ASRock P67 Pro3 Mainboard. The surprise was big when the monitor didn’t show an image and the computer didn’t boot. Instead, the mainboard’s debug panel showed the error code 97. According to the manual this means “Console Output devices connect”. Not connectED but more likely in the process of initializing the graphics card and failing while doing that.
There’s an easy fix for that. Installing the latest BIOS version (3.30, installed at the time was 2.02) resolved the issue and the computer booted without problems.
WorkTracker v1.2.3 Released (Now with Linux Support)
My little work-tracking tool has received some love recently and is now available in a more bug-free version. But not only that, I have made a foray into a foreign world and now support compilation on Linux and, to put the icing on the cake, even provide a deb package for Debian based distributions.
Grails Upgrade 2.3 to 2.4: Validation Errors
Recently I have updated our Grails 2.3 based web application to Grails 2.4. Although the 2.3 release was working fine, one doesn’t want to fall too far behind. I know out of experience that this can happen very fast. If you wait too long, then at some point the migration to a newer version is almost like starting from scratch, instead of just updating a few lines of code to accommodate for deprecated APIs. The biggest problem I encountered going to version 2.4 was a behavioral change regarding the validation.
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Samsung R50 WVM 1730 Disassembled
In my second year as a trainee (nine long years ago) I bought myself a Samsung R50 notebook to replace my aging desktop PC and also take it with me to school (and play games on it – at home of course). At the time this computer was very efficient from a mobile perspective and also well suited to play serious games. Of course, at some point several years later its age became apparent and this year on April 8 the installed operating system, Windows XP, finally became officially obsolete. Since then the computer was sitting at my mother’s house, waiting for… well… a resurrection!Read More »
The Most Powerful First Song of an Album (Pt. 3)
How about a little music again? In my two previous posts (part 1, part 2) I alluded that I had selected a total of fifteen songs from my music library which I consider to be a kick-ass way to open up an album. It has been more than three months now since the last post and it’s about damn time to conclude this series. Get ready to bang your head into oblivion.
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Performance Iterating Directories Revisited
I have written about the performance of iterating directories before, in the context of Java and its switch from version 6 to 7 that brought with it the new Java NIO API. For whatever reason I felt the urge to do something similar again, but this time I wanted to compare two different approaches to recursively scanning a directory’s contents:
- Use recursive function calls (a function that calls itself over and over again for each directory)
- Use an iterative approach (a function keeps a list of directories and iterates this list)
To make things more interesting, I implemented this in C++ using the Windows API and the Qt framework, in C# in combination with its buddy the .NET framework and, for good measure, I also threw in the old Java code from over a year ago.
Update (26.12.2014): I added additional data at the bottom of the article.
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WorkTracker v1.2.2 Released
It has been around three months since the last release, June 22nd to be exact. Since then I have made some small changes along the way, but didn’t publish them because they haven’t been in the shape that I wanted them to be for a release, but still good and helpful enough for me to use them on a daily basis. The biggest new feature is an editor. Second comes the translation and around them gather a few improvements regarding usability.
Visit the GitHub page to download the latest version.Read More »
Windows Phone: 3 Months Later
What started out as a reasonable decision at the beginning of 2014 now reached its climax with the Surface Pro 3: switching away from Apple, in every regard, and move to the Microsoft platform. First the PC, then the phone and lastly the tablet. Since having a Windows based PC is nothing unusual (although I might be one of the few that actually came to like Windows 8 – just as I was one of the few that liked Vista over XP; what does that say about me?) and the Surface is still too new to write about it in any meaningful way, that only leaves us with the phone.
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C# LINQ Performance vs. Iteration
It’s been a while since I have written something related to programming. Time to remedy that.
Just recently my interest for the C# language rose again and to get back up to speed with the fundamentals I swallowed all videos of an absolute beginners guide on Microsoft Virtual Academy. Something that has been touched briefly was LINQ and my initial thought was: how’s the performance of that compared to how I would usually write it in C++ – where my expertise is?
Mind you, I’m not comparing C# vs C++, but merely LINQ vs. old-school iteration. Let’s go and find out.
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The Most Powerful First Song of an Album (Pt. 2)
In the first „The Most Powerful First Song of an Album“ I stopped after five tracks, just because I had already written a lot of words. But it also made sense from the perspective of how many items I actually have on my list. If it all works out (read: this post will be quite long as well) then there will be another post with the last five tracks.
So, let’s continue with the next five songs, shall we?Read More »
Windows Phone 8.1 + Lumia Cyan Firmware
A few days ago Microsoft and Nokia released Windows Phone 8.1 through the Lumia Cyan Firmware update to the public (global availability). Typical nerd that I am, I passed on going to bed but rather installed it immediately.
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The Gameslinger 