If you ever get this:

waldo@waldonbma Home $ ./bin/java -version
Bus error: 10

after having followed this article, it is most likely because an Apple update messed up the symbolic links. Regardless of where your 1.5.0 installation is, the 1.5.0 and 1.5 symlinks need to be as follow:

The leap second that just passed on midnight GMT on 30 June 2012 caused some of my servers to experience a significant spike in CPU utilisation. In specific, a MySQL server and JBoss Java servers were pretty much messed up.

I tried to restart MySQL - did restart but immediately went back to 92% CPU usage. Tried killing JBoss and restarting that - it would not shut down cleanly and it would not even begin to start up again. So I bounced the box - it seems fine now.

The workaround seems to be to set the date like this:

I have heard endless wailing and howling from students when they were asked to write a computer program on paper. They always claim that it is ridiculous as you will never need to write a program without a computer, that it is too hard and that they cannot debug their code that way.

I've always liked doing that. In fact, about 6 months before I received my computer I wrote a 3000 line application on paper for some graphics software I wanted to create. Now do take note that I have never really programmed before, so when I finally managed to implement the code on the computer, it was only about 60% accurate.

I like doing that because it forces you to stop and think about what you are doing. It forces you to do manual code review, to play through algorithms and state tables in your head. Programming that way, even when done on a computer, consistently produces better quality applications.

A recent surge in fake anti virus software seem to harass and upset several of my clients. These malware are not detected by many anti virus applications such as Avira, Microsoft Security Essentials etc. Yet they cause endless issues for the end user. Take a look at this error screen a client sent me:

The red arrows are my annotations. At first glance this could be mistaken for a real BSOD error - indeed, I fell for it initially. But upon trying to identify the location of the file SPCMDCOM.sys I realised that this file did not exist - already a sign something is fishy. Compare the spelling to the last line - the file's name is misspelt! Now read through the actual text - and you will realise this is not a Microsoft error but rather a fake message from the malware application itself, instilling fear and forcing you to purchase the fake malware to "remove" the virus and clean your computer.

This is a 3 month old top of the line $2400 MacBook Air 13.3" with an i7 1.8GHz processor. Yet it cannot play a simple 1080i HD movie without stuttering tremendously.