If like me you have sometimes troubles reloading into mysql a big dump made from it. The PhpMyAdmin page crashing, or putting some weird error like 'MySql has gone away' or using another client with the same kind of troubles. You may want to know about this :

A lot of client software are not implementing some unusual errors raised by the server like in this case the 1153 : Packet too large and then are just using another one instead (or crash) like "MySql has gone away".

So if you don't know why you re not able to load a complete database sql file without crashing go to the url above or simply add :

SVN is great, yes. CVS was already great actually. Except that I've been struggling with a stupid bug/weird behaviour !

If like me you have the error :

"svn: Not authorized to open root of edit operation"

on a checkout even when you had the right to import your own files (and you are authenticated) ! So basically looks like you had the right to write something but not to read it ! Even if in the authz file you gave yourself all the rights on all the files...

Then praise for the following explanation :

edit the svnserve.cnf

and if like me you just wanted to avoid anonymous users by letting the line : "anon-access = read" commented, you re wrong ! You do have to specify "anon-access = none" and magically you can read your own files (yes even if you were of course authenticated, it has an effect).

I don't even try to understand... 5 Hours to find this.

Who said that swiss are slow ? : I've just been notified to fetch my work permit... after working since the 20th of february ! And all my work colleagues hired since (some of them by me) even those a couple of weeks ago, all have them already.

Vaud state must be really slow.

Funny this, I'm now part of the planet's side of those who need to ask gently if I can work...

That's neat. Have a look, but you may need the latest version of shockwave

http://interact10ways.com/usa/information_interactive.htm

This blog had not even been "deployed" publicly that it had already a long period of inactivity !

Indeed July/August had been quite hectic with some big movings, no internet access (hence the inactivity in this poor blog) and a lot of work (which means not even enough time to blog a little during lunch) and some well earned high speed holidays in the middle.

Now it is official I'm living in Carouge, small town which is part of Geneva (arguably one of the cutest part of Geneva) in Switzerland, I'm kinda swissified I'm afraid. Broadband has just been installed, she's hot. And... believe it, I'll even have soon a computer ! Yes, I tell you, it helps to update a website

This site will soon be properly "launched" (linked and advertized a bit more) and nicely updated now that I'm looking for the computer later on this evening...

C'est bien.

Bon ok je vais la faire plus longue :

Inside Man c'est spike lee qui se prend tout un coup pour hitchcock avec un thriller / film de gangsters au scénario machiavélique, à la réalisation chiadée, au suspens haletant, avec une fin qu'on-se-demande-bien-comment-elle-va-arriver-nom-d'une-pipe et 2^10 fausses pistes.

Soyons clair comme souvent le réalisme est quelque peu malmené et on peut facilement trouver des points de discussions a mégoter, si on s'en donne la peine, mais force est de constater que le concept du film retombe très bien sur ses pattes et qu'on en reste bluffé par l'intelligence déployée. C'est parfois tellement bien mené que si vous allez faire un tour sur le forum du film du site imdb, un grand nombre de personnes (dont je ne divulguerais pas la nationalité maîtresse du monde) semble perdu par les ressorts de l'intrigue. Il faut donc être un peu attentif mais comme le fim ne souffre pas de longueur malgré finalement ... "peu" d'action, on reste suffisamment accroché pour peu qu'on ait pas à aller chercher des cacahouètes ou de l'eau à sa copine/labrador/rejeton pendant la projection. La réalisation plutôt moderne de spike lee (sans forcément tomber dans de l'intellectualisme pointu d'un film d'auteur : ca reste un film d'action) et des dialogues affûtés et plein d'humour souvent en décalage avec l'action font très bien monter la sauce d'une recette aux ingrédients juteux et choisis avec précision. Il se paye même le luxe et le jouissif délire d'une scène décapatante entre le flic qui finit par être escorté par les preneurs d'otages dans la banque et le chef de la bande avec lequel il devise de philosophie et de "criminalité". Scène quasi culte si vous me demandez mon avis.

Bref, Inside Man c'est du tout bon. Pas le film du siècle non plus mais un bon film d"actions", à mettre au même niveau qu'un "Ocean's 11", assez vite oublié peut être mais quelle agréable façon de passer quelques heures.

Seul détail qui personnellement me choque un peu : le choix de Clive Owen pour le chef de bande. Non pas que je n'aime pas cet acteur - au contraire d'ailleurs - mais il ne va pas du tout dans le rôle. Sans dévoiler d'informations sur le film, la seule bonne raison de l'avoir choisi c'est ... que justement il n'a pas la tête de l'emploi - vu que le ressort du film est de dérouter le flic... et le spectateur.

Inside Man de spike lee avec Denzel Washington (le flic), Clive Owen (le bad guy), Jodie Foster la ... euh femme. (No spoilers)

At work, the product manager of the piece of software we are developing based on Joomla!, asked us at some point "Why the admin console is so bloody slow ???".

Well indeed, a simple html page was taking ages to be built and/or downloaded on a LAN with the server being an outrageously powerful piece of hardware for the job to be done. And the server was 10 meters away from my laptop.

Ok joomla is definitely not a racing horse but still, why oh why taking 5 or 6 seconds to build a simple admin page every time we click on something (and joomla users know that a lot of page refreshes are needed if you want to do anything).

Strangely enough the same pages under Firefox are lightning fast. Sadly the target is Internet Explorer only. I had to investigate all down the line, put timers everywhere in the php and javascript code etc... Result of the battle: FF 0.3 secs, IE 4.3 secs at its best !

This, in fact, comes from the admin menu printed as a banner on all admin pages. This is built using another opensource piece of software called JsCookmenu. Rather than being processed on the server, it is built from a multidimensionnal array by the javascript itself. Hmmm well ok, why not.

Quickly enough I was able to determine that the problem was coming from the way it is built : a 60 KB(!) string that the browser must parse on the fly (because built by javascript) before a classic innerHTML setter. Huh ok, innerHTML was "invented" by IE but definitely looks quite slow here, weird... but us - as (a little bit) geeks - tend sometimes to drop the investigations thinking "hey whatever, FF beats IE clearly, cant compare isnt it ?".

Until I found another computer not on our LAN where suddenly the admin was quite fast. My mind clicked this time ! Oh bloody stupid macafee get out of my way ? Reload --> lightning fast !

What's the problem ? Simply that this menu (by the way only around 50 items) is intensively based on "onmouse*" kind of events. Each of the 50 items (and the spacers !) has the 4 : onmouseup, onmousedown, onmouseover, onmouseout events defined. So everytime the html parser finds the start of an event definition the browser gives the control to the anti-virus that instantiates lots of stuff just to parse a 50 bytes string and imply replies "this is a virus or not..." and trashes everything. And this takes something like 0.2 secs (!) and 100% CPU every time of every event assignation of every menu item of every page... Even if of course this is the same code EVERY time ! In this menu this is actually exactly the same string as this is the same call every time, even the parameters are the same if I remember well.

The result is that the poor computer is completely STUCK for 4 seconds (100 % CPU, cant click on anything on the page). Nice one.

It was already quite a pain these "On access scanners" when it slows down the launching of any program because of the .exe scan prior to it but on the other hand this is indeed a nice protection for non-techies who dont really know much about viruses. But now, completely screwing the computer while checking all the small javascripts handlers strings every time is a hell of a nightmare ! 

So, If you are using joomla! and you find it slow on the admin console : disable your anti virus, if sometimes you find web pages that seem too slow to be because of the network latency, try disable your antivirus before a refresh... you never know, it can make your life easier.

Be AFRAID of javascript you people, you never know how evil this technology is. Or is it evil anti virus technology ?