The person who inspired me is dead. James Oliver Rigney, Jr. (Robert Jordan) left us on September 16, 2007 and I've not been writing since. The Dragon is gone, but life has to go on I suppose. Oh well. To Robert Jordan, "May you shelter in the palm of the Creator's hand, and may the last embrace of the mother welcome you home."

Now, let's get back to business. For the past few months, we, at Covalent Technology, have been struggling to meet deadlines and looking for new contracts:

• PetroProjek - Enterprise Business Solution (EBS)
  This marks our first entry into oil & gas industry. Originally, we played around with Compiere, ADempiere & OpenBravo and decided to customize one these open-source ERP solutions to meet PetroProjek's requirements. However, after 2 months, we realized that they are full of bugs and unreliable, and since we're no Java experts, we've decided to abandon all of them. We don't want to take any risk and run into trouble later in the development or deployment phase. As a result, we'll be using Covalentia instead to develop PetroProjek's Enterprise Business Solution.
• Covalentia Version 2.6
  Covalentia Version 2.6 is in progress. We've delayed/postponed the release date due to lack of resources. In addition, we're also waiting for the next release of Mono so that Covalentia can be deployed on Windows & Linux platforms easily without having to change so many things. We've scrapped Gaia and fully utilize Microsoft ASP.NET Ajax instead regardless of whatever platform Covalentia will be running on.
• TD Aziz VMS Upgrade
  TD Aziz has finally agreed to upgrade its Valuation Management System (VMS) that we developed back in 2004/2005 to our latest platform, Covalentia Version 2.6. We're slowly migrating the entire application and targeting everything to be ready by May 2008.
• MOCCIS & Cagamodal - Enterprise Loan Management System
  This is another work in progress. The solution is ~70% completed and we're waiting for the clients to execute the User Acceptance Test (UAT) before proceeding to the next phase to refine the existing modules and adding reports and financial modules.
• Asia Move Machine - ProperTrack.com Portal & Support System
  On behalf of our client, we're pleased to announce the release of ProperTrack.com portal. Feel free to visit and use the services provided.
• InnoFund
  This is going no where. We've completed our part by successfully reaching 3/5 of the milestones, but the government fails to do their part, which is the most important part - to release the rest of money to us so that we can continue developing Covalentia. It's a terrible thing to stop half way. What if I hired more people assuming that the money would come in? Well, luckily I didn't. So, never believe whatever that the government say. They are just unreliable. May be it's time to change the government. They don't deserve free salary.

That's pretty much what I've to say this time around. Later.

Now, I just can’t wait to go to the VW showroom to pay for the down-payment of a new Passat. I’m just kidding .

• Knowledge in object-oriented programming, C#, ASP.Net, Javascript, AJAX, any database
• Knowledge in Mono is an advantage
• No experience/certification required – training will be provided
• Willing to learn and use our platform – Covalentia (www.covalentia.net)
• Positive, creative and innovative
• A minimum of Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science/Information Technology

• To assist in developing/enhancing Covalentia
• To assist in servicing Covalent Technology’s clients (may be located from time-to-time on-site at clients’ places) – implement changes in design and coding using Covalentia and provide technical expertise
• To develop new products using Covalentia

• Some knowledge/skills in Information Technology (Software) industry – training will be provided
• Good public relation & communication and critical thinking skills - able to work independently and interact well with all level of people
• Well organized, self-motivated and results oriented
• A minimum of diploma in any disciplines, preferably Information Technology

• To assist in compiling business requirement studies of the existing clients – attending meetings and providing follow-ups & feedbacks
• To assist in compiling product documentations and help files
• To assist in promoting/marketing of Covalentia, Covalent Technology’s products and getting new businesses

• Renaming SystemTbl table to ConfigurationTbl
  Oracle doesn’t seem to like that name, anything ‘SYSTEM’ is probably a reserved word. So, we have to rename the table to ConfigurationTbl. And while we’re at it, why not remove and add the following items:
  • Remove SystemPath column – put this variable in the web.config file instead and rename it to ApplicationPath.
  • Add a new column – ErrorLogEmail to store the Error Log E-mail address.
• Renaming of the following tables (and their corresponding primary keys) and stored procedures because Oracle limits the length of identifiers (table name, column name etc) to only 30 characters.
  • UserGroupSubModuleFunctionTypeTbl table to UserGroupSmftTbl
  • UserSubModuleFunctionTypeTbl table to UserSmftTbl
  • DeleteUserGroupSubModuleFunctionTypesByUserGroup stored procedure to DeleteUgsmftByUg
  • DeleteUserSubModuleFunctionTypesByUser stored procedure to DeleteUsmftByU
  • DeleteUserSubModuleFunctionTypesByUserGroup stored procedure to DeleteUsmftByUg
• Naming convention
  Covalentia uses the following naming convention for tables and columns respectively: TableName and ColumnName
  Oracle (and PostgreSQL), however, doesn’t allow this. Well, not really, you could preserve the case but this will cause some major problems when coding Covalentia as I have to add “TableName”.“ColumnName” here and there (with “) in the SQL queries. So, we have to stick with TABLENAME and COLUMNNAME (all capital case) for Oracle and tablename and columnname (all lower case) for PostgreSQL. As you may already realize that this may cause problems when generating Business Objects, Component and Control classes and User Controls (classes names, variables names and web controls IDs etc).
  
  MySQL, on the other hand, strictly sets the table names to be lower cases. This, however, doesn’t hurt much as we can manually change them before we generate the Business Objects. The rest, ie. the column names, are fine and work like a charm. If you’re deploying your database server on a Linux machine, don’t forget to set the lower_case_table_names=1 in the my.cnf file under the [mysqld] section.
  
  We’re going to come up with a solution to this problem in the next release (Covalentia Version 2.3 Reloaded).

So, stay tuned .

Covalent Technology has just secured a grant (fund) under the Enterprise Innovation Fund Scheme from the Government of Malaysia (Ministry of Science & Technology). We've returned the draft agreement and signed the acceptance letter on May 03, 2007. Now, we're waiting for the official agreement to be released and signed by both parties (that'll take some time or a lot I suppose ). The fund which amounts to RM 177,020 (~USD 50k) will help to sustain FREE Covalentia for another year. We've outlined a few things that we want to do:

• To further develop Covalentia to become an open source cross-platform Rapid Application Development Tool for .NET  that supports not only web-based application development, but also windows  and console applications, and windows and web services
• To help beginners or junior programmers of local companies and government agencies to quickly produce .NET applications faster and more efficiently to lower development costs and risks
• To develop Covalentia E-Learning & Certification Program and online interactive support to help ICT students and unemployed graduates to learn and use Covalentia, polish their skills in .NET programming and be market-ready – to produce more highly skilled human capital

• Multi-database Version
  • To redevelop and test Data Access Layer and Object Relational Mapping component to support other major database servers such as PostgreSQL and Oracle servers
  • Target Completion Date: 01 June 2007
• Cross-platform Version
  • To tweak, compile and run Covalentia on Linux operating system using Mono and Grasshopper Frameworks
  • Target Completion Date: 01 September 2007
• Multi-project-type Version
  • To develop and test multi-project-type components to support:
    • Web Application (Done)
    • Console Application Template (Done)
    • Windows Service Template (Done)
    • Web Service Template (Done)
    • Windows Application
  • Target Completion Date: 01 December 2007
• Covalentia E-Learning & Certification Program
  • To finalize contents, release and market Covalentia E-Learning & Certification Program and online interactive support/help
  • Target Completion Date: 01 March 2008
• Product Documentation, Testing and Benchmarking
  • To finalize product documentation and tutorials, and to run final test and benchmarking on Covalentia
  • Target Completion Date: 01 April 2008

When there's money, there'll be a lot of possibilites. A lot of things could happen. We might end up buying a beamer instead. Just kiddin' . But, definitely, we're going to require more resources to reach these objectives and milestones. So, if you're interested to join us, do contact us, and we'll see what we can do together .

Oh, and preferrably women and married .

• Configuring MySQL database
  • gedit /etc/my.cnf
• Add the following line under the [mysqld] section:
  • lower_case_table_names = 1
• Configure the Replication Slave Section, please refer to my previous entry
• Save the file
• Restart the MySQL Server
  
• Next, configure the VNC Server so that I can access the server remotely
  • gedit /etc/sysconfig/vncservers
  • Uncomment VNCSERVERS:"1:cozta"
  • Uncomment VNCSERVERARGS:"-geometry 1280x800 -depth 16
  • Save the file
    
  • gedit /home/cozta/.vnc/xstartup
  • Uncomment unset SESSION_MANAGER
  • Uncomment exec /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc
  • Save the file
• Restart VNC Server
  • service vncserver restart

I think that's about it . And NO, we don't host gold or moolah on any of our server. So, if you're a hacker, DO NOT try to hack them because you're not gonna get anythin'. Go play someplace else (or with somethin' else or with yourself) .

Well, before I forget, I better jot down everythin' that I did today for future reference .

• Download firefox-2.0.0.3.tar.gz from www.firefox.com
• Execute the followings:
  • mv firefox-2.0.0.3.tar.gz /usr/local
  • cd /usr/local
  • tar xzf firefox-2.0.0.3.tar.gz
  • mv /usr/bin/firefox /usr/bin/firefox1
  • ln -s /usr/local/firefox/firefox /usr/bin/firefox
• Download compat-libstdc++-33-3.2.3-47.fc4.i386.rpm
• Execute the followings:
  • rpm -i compat-libstdc++-33-3.2.3-47.fc4.i386.rpm
• Finally, close all your Firefox browsers and start a new one

And we're done!

By default, I’m a Windows user. The last time I used Linux or Unix platform heavily was back then in Cornell, around 10 years or so ago. I have lost my touch and limited skills, and I think it’s time to hone them.

The goal is to run MySQL 5.0 and PostgreSQL on Fedora Core 4 so that I can do various testing and development works, such as replication (I don’t have enough machines to do clustering and so that has to wait) and perhaps start on my Mono project.

The first thing to do was to Google on ‘how to install fedora core 4’ and ‘how to install mysql 5 on fedora core 4’. Well, I didn’t really like what I saw – a lot of people complained about plenty of problems. But, surprisingly, it didn’t take me too long to successfully get the box up and running. Or may be I was just lucky, heh :

• Pentium 4 1.4GHz
• 256MB of RAM
• 40G Hard Drive
• Boot to Fedora Core 4 DVD and install using the graphical interface
• Skip the Media Check
• Select the Server installation
• Disable the Firewall and SELinux
• Add the followings in the Packages:
  • Gnome – IMHO Gnome is much better than KDE, but some other people think otherwise. It’s totally up to you
  • Graphical Internet
  • FTP
  • MySQL Database
  • Development Tools
• Click through to complete the installation
• Create a default user
• Login to the box using root
• Open up Firefox and download the followings:
  • http://dev.mysql.com:
    • MySQL-server-community-5.0.37-0.rhel4.i386.rpm
    • MySQL-client-community-5.0.37-0.rhel4.i386.rpm
    • MySQL-shared-compat-5.0.37-0.rhel4.i386.rpm
    • mysql-gui-tools-5.0r11-rhel4-i386.tar.gz
  • http://rpm.pbone.net/index.php3/stat/4/idpl/1991817/com/ptt-beta2.i386.rpm.html:
    • ptt-beta2.i386.rpm
  • http://rpm.pbone.net/index.php3/stat/4/idpl/1692645/com/j2re-1.4.2-11.2.el4.rf.i586.rpm.html
    • j2re-1.4.2-11.2.el4.rf.i586.rpm
• Remove the existing MySQL 4.1:
  • yum remove '*mysql*'
• Install MySQL 5.0 Server & Client:
  • rpm –i MySQL-server-community-5.0.37-0.rhel4.i386.rpm
  • rpm –i MySQL-client-community-5.0.37-0.rhel4.i386.rpm
• Start, Stop & Restart MySQL Server, and create a root password:
  • /etc/init.d/mysql start | stop | restart
  • mysqladmin –u root password ‘’
• Login to MySQL Client:
  • mysql –u root –p
  • Enter your root password
  • mysql> drop database test;
  • mysql> quit;
• Install MySQL GUI Tools (Administrator & Browser):
  • rpm –i ptt-beta2.i386.rpm
  • rpm –i j2re-1.4.2-11.2.el4.rf.i586.rpm
  • rpm -i MySQL-shared-compat-5.0.37-0.rhel4.i386.rpm
  • tar –zxf mysql-gui-tools-5.0r11-rhel4-i386.tar.gz
  • rpm –ivh mysql-gui-tools-5.0r11-1rhel4.i386.rpm
  • rpm –ivh mysql-administrator-5.0r11-1rhel4.i386.rpm
  • rpm –ivh mysql-query-browser-5.0r11-1rhel4.i386.rpm
• Finally, run your MySQL Administrator (from Start Menu -> Programming -> MySQL Administrator) and enter your login information:
  • Server hostname: localhost
  • Username: root
  • Password:

And we're DONE!

At the moment, I have this box running as a Slave server (READ only) for the Covalentia.2.2 (Enterprise Edition) Live Demo at our Mirror Site at covalentia.dyndns.org. Feel free to check it out .

One my clients complained the other day that their application using Covalentia with MySQL database has become a lil bit slower than usual as the data grows in size. So, I thought I should come up with a version that supports Master & Slaves (MySQL Replication) servers. The idea is to execute the CREATE, UPDATE and DELETE functions on the Master database server, and READ on one of the Slave machines. In addition, I will have to move the Reporting Service to another machine which will Read from another Slave machine. This way I can minimize the load on the current application and database servers.

And apparently, it didn't take me too long to do this:

• Changed the web.config file to add the following connection string for the Slave database server:
  <add key="SlaveConnectionString" value="server=localhost;UID=<slave_user>;Password=<slave_password>;Database=covalentia_v22;Max Pool Size=500"/>
• Opened up the /DataAccess/Objects.cs file
• Looked for GetObject & GetObjects regions
• Looked for methods under these two regions that do not have "string connectionString" parameter - these methods load the connection string from the web.config file
• Added the following codes:
  if (System.Configuration.ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["SlaveConnectionString"] != null)
  {
       return whatever - edited to System.Configuration.ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["SlaveConnectionString"]
  }
  else
  {
       return whatever - no change
  }
  
  There should be 4 methods in total.
• Compiled

However, before I could proceed with the testing, I needed a Slave database server. Luckily, I still have my old-and-underutilized iASUS notebook which I primarily use to back-up my files. And so, I installed MySQL Server 5.0 on this machine and set it up as a Slave as follows:

Slave (old notebook - Windows XP Professional):

• Opened up the my.ini file
• Added the following:
  log-error
  master-host=<master_hostname>
  master-user=<master_user>
  master-password=<master_password>
  server-id=2
  replicate-do-db=covalentia_v22
  relay-log=<slave_machine_name>-relay-bin

Master (my current notebook - Windows XP Professional):

• Opened up the my.ini file
• Added the following:
  log-error
  log-bin=
  server-id=1
• Opened up MySQL Command Line, entered and executed the following command:
  mysql>grant all privileges on *.* to '<master_user>'@'%' identified by '<master_password>' with grant option;
  
  
• Restarted the MySQL Master database server
• Restarted the MySQL Slave database server

And that should be it. Done! Oh not quite. I needed to test it to see that this setup's really working. And the simplest test was to logon to Covalentia and browse to Administration Module --> Log Management --> User Log, and hit the Search button. I could see the latest log entry and, thus, the READing from my Slave server was successful.

I shall be a good slave and upload this latest version ASAP  .

Covalent Technology is back in business. My goal is to turn this company around – solve the financial crisis that has long haunted my Excel spread sheet – before the end of this year, before I move on to another venture.

Our Covalentia Community Portal is back, newly hosted at VPSLand.com. Like I mentioned previously, the price that they’re charging is relatively cheap and they provide excellent support and fast response. I’d recommend this company to anyone who wants to try out Virtual Private Server. But if you just need a simple ASP.NET hosting, well, you can come to us. It’s not FREE, but it’s so cheap that it becomes negligible or relatively FREE . Contact us at support@covalentia.net (we have a new e-mail now, it's no longer support@covalent-tech.com).

On the MOCCIS Trading project, I managed to sort all the problems out. In fact, I’ve learned a lot about IBM DB2 and I might consider putting it in the next release of Covalentia. NOT! .

And finally, my Enterprise Innovation Fund (EIF) from the Ministry of Science, Technology & Innovative Malaysia, has been approved. It took them 5 months to evaluate and I don’t know how long they’ll take to disburse the money. 6 months perhaps? I asked for RM 250K (~USD 71K) but the total amount approved is only RM 177,020.00 (~USD 50K). I’m not sure how they came up with that figure, on what basis etc. But why not just round it to, say, RM 177K or 178K? Oh well, in any event, I’m just glad and I hope that the fund WILL be disbursed. This money will be used to buy me a lot of lunches and dinners that I’ve skipped. And the rest will be used to further develop FREE Covalentia. I’d say, may be, 10% of the total amount. Hmm that should be more than enough eh?

Oh, and if you guys would like to donate, to add up to this amount (help me fill my belly with food and more food), DO NOT hesitate .

http://ajax.asp.net/documentation/Migration_Guide_RC_to_RTM.aspx

I don’t see that many changes, so I think that it should be relatively straightforward.

If you have any question, please don’t hesitate to e-mail me at support@covalent-tech.com. Oh, and thank you for your support .