New Anime Series: Dragon Collection

April 11, 2014 by Mark Myers Leave a comment

First Episode(s) Review for: Dragon Collection

Summary:

Young and gutsy boy is pulled into a new video game only to find him self in the real world of said video game, there he saves a defenceless animal who turns out to have great power that comes out when the lad gets drawn into a card duel (dear lord I could just copy and paste this summery is been used so many times)

Animation:

Saturday morning bright and shiny animation, well nicely done, very obviously drawn straight over static back grounds (yes I know nearly all animation is like that but this is quite blatant), its the kind of animation that the other members of the household love.

Plot Potential:

Well its another card game anime, with exactly the plot flow you would expect, as long as you are happy with that you can sit back and enjoy it.

Music:

bouncy bouncy, fun fun fun fun

Reminds me of:

More Monster Rancher than Pokemon and looks more like a version of Magic Knight Rayearth aimed at boys than either of them

Overall:

You never know with these merchandise based anime if they will go the the distance as they are so closely tired to the success of the product they are selling, but while not want I would call gripping , this is the kind of thing I would have loved as a 12 year old lad on Saturday morning and to be fair its still lots of fun and a stress free way to spend 24 mins.

Disclaimer: These are mini reviews of anime’s that are fresh out in Japan and are not licensed in the UK, buy them once they have been licensed or at the very least buy the merchandise, remember if the anime makers make a loss, THEY WILL STOP MAKING ANIME!!

Connections Db Tip1: getting the Connections db Schema version

April 10, 2014 by Mark Myers Leave a comment

One of the many little bundles of joy when dealing with back end SQL code on ‘living’* application such as IBM Connections, is that SQL that may have worked for one version or service pack might not work for another

To cater for this you might have to write for or at least be able to handle the diferent versions of a database, when doing this you tend not to use the actual product version ie “Connections 4.5.0.0.” but the db schema number for each database, thankfully IBM store the db schema for each database in Connections (though not with a great deal of consistency), the following is the SQL to get this for each of the databases that make up connections.

Connections App: Files

BD: FILES

Table: PRODUCT

Connection v4.5 Base Schema Number: 82

SQL to get Schema

SELECT SCHEMA_VERSION FROM "FILES"."PRODUCT";

***
#####Connections App: Activities
_BD:_ OPNACT

_Table:_ OA_SCHEMA

_Connection v4.5 Base Schema Number:_ 56
SQL to get Schema

SELECT DBSCHEMAVER FROM "ACTIVITIES"."OA_SCHEMA";

***
#####Connections App: Blogs
_BD:_ BLOGS

_Table:_ ROLLER_PROPERTIES

_Connection v4.5 Base Schema Number:_ 51
SQL to get Schema

SELECT DBMS_LOB.substr(VALUE, 3000) FROM "BLOGS"."ROLLER_PROPERTIES" where NAME = 'database.schema.version';

_Notes:_ The rotten sods have stored it as a “Clob” data format (basically Binary) so the SQL is a bit more complex.
***
#####Connections App: Communities
_BD:_ SNCOMM

_Table:_ SNCOMM_SCHEMA

_Connection v4.5 Base Schema Number:_ 77
SQL to get Schema

SELECT DBSCHEMAVER FROM "SNCOMM"."SNCOMM_SCHEMA";

***
#####Connections App: Community Events
_BD:_ SNCOMM

_Table:_ CA_SCHEMA

_Connection v4.5 Base Schema Number:_ 15
SQL to get Schema

SELECT DBSCHEMAVER FROM "CALENDAR"."CA_SCHEMA";

***
#####Connections App: BookMarks
_BD:_ DOGEAR

_Table:_ DOGEAR_SCHEMA

_Connection v4.5 Base Schema Number:_ 15
SQL to get Schema

SELECT DBSCHEMAVER FROM "DOGEAR"."DOGEAR_SCHEMA";

***
#####Connections App: Forums
_BD:_ FORUM

_Table:_ DF_SCHEMA

_Connection v4.5 Base Schema Number:_ 27
SQL to get Schema

SELECT DBSCHEMAVER FROM "FORUM"."DF_SCHEMA";

***
#####Connections App: HomePage , News, Search
_BD:_ HOMEPAGE

_Table:_ HOMEPAGE_SCHEMA

_Connection v4.5 Base Schema Number:_ 210
SQL to get Schema

SELECT DBSCHEMAVER FROM "HOMEPAGE"."HOMEPAGE_SCHEMA";

***
#####Connections App: Metrics
_BD:_ METRICS

_Table:_ PRODUCT

_Connection v4.5 Base Schema Number:_ 34
SQL to get Schema

SELECT SCHEMA_VERSION FROM "METRICS"."PRODUCT";

***
#####Connections App: Mobile
_BD:_ MOBILE

_Table:_ ROLLER_PROPERTIES

_Connection v4.5 Base Schema Number:_ 1
SQL to get Schema

SELECT VALUE FROM "MOBILE"."ROLLER_PROPERTIES" where NAME = 'database.schema.version';

***
#####Connections App: Profiles
_BD:_ PEOPLEDB

_Table:_ SNPROF_SCHEMA

_Connection v4.5 Base Schema Number:_ 36
SQL to get Schema

SELECT DBSCHEMAVER FROM "EMPINST"."SNPROF_SCHEMA";

***
#####Connections App: Wiki
_BD:_ WIKIS

_Table:_ PRODUCT

_Connection v4.5 Base Schema Number:_ 82
SQL to get Schema

SELECT SCHEMA_VERSION FROM "WIKIS"."PRODUCT";

***

*By living I mean ‘the feckers keep changing them’
_NOTE: All these tips are not officaliy sanctioned by IBM as they do not release DB schema info to the public, so you use them at your own risk, Also if IBM are reading this and I either have somthing wrong or you have documented this for the public, then please tell me and I will correct_ 🙂
_NOTE: I’m not a proper Connections / Web Sphere admin, If you want proper Web Sphere and Connections admin you want [the Turtle Partnership](http://www.turtleweb.com/)_

A.B.D. News letter 2014 No 25

April 9, 2014 by Mark Myers Leave a comment

news letter no 25

CSC Event No.1

April 8, 2014 by Mark Myers Leave a comment

Another late event review, but what can you do 🙂

So the first CSC event is done and I feel it was a great success particularly for a first event in a new format.

A lot of this due to the organisers effort, the same as with all good conferences, in this case Gabriella Davis, Mike Smith and Matt White (the rest of us can best be called helpers)

I really really enjoyed the day, it was the right mix of tech and none tech, and even with only 2 paths there were times when I wanted to be in both rooms at the same time, I learnt far more than I expected particularly in the life sessions (the “The challenge of home working” workshop was fascinating), it also gave me a wonderful heads up on various technical subjects that I am bit behind on (or even missed totally in the general overload of the Internet), both of these areas were key as with a lot of other conferences its all about the corporation rather than the worker and technical subjects are limited by vendor or product, where as here they are only limited by how useful and interesting they are.

You could see people getting into the far more interactive/discussion format of the event after the first couple of sessions, and this will grow as nearly everybody has something they can teach the rest of the attendees.

The finances of the event were a bit different to normal conferences, but once you understand the underlying reason for the conference they make sense, The Turtles and LDC footed the whole bill :/ with no sponsors or other help, but we were not allowed to do any sales pitches (Matt White even made sure my slide deck template was as low key as possible) and this is because the conference and its future siblings are genuinely not a sales pitch, it is plan that Gab has come up with to try and rejuvenate and expand the IBM Social Community, there were and still are a lot of good people in it but due to a variety of reasons it is getting smaller as people move to other technologies (such is life), personally I think that this is because the existing “yellow bubble” is very inward facing and while what used to be called ‘Groupware’ is now called ‘Social’ used to be limited to only a couple of vendors every bugger is now at it and so the community needs to flow with that.

So to sum up, I felt we achieved a good break through and now need to get the balance of future events right (not too many not to few and of what sort as well as getting the right useful subjects in place) so we can build on the Idea, we have proved to those people who did not come thinking it was a sales pitch that it was not judging by the feedback we have got this is exactly what people want.

viva la Community

Stupidly I did not take any photos, which is extra dumb considering how nice the venue was but here is my short 10 min slide deck (though slide share seems have done something odd with my fonts)

New Anime Series: Blade and Soul

April 7, 2014 by Mark Myers Leave a comment

First Episode(s) Review for: Blade and Soul

Summary:

A silent killer on the run from an empire is hired to defend a village under threat from same said empire, she performs her duty perfectly but will her presence bring down the wrath of the empires own army of Killers? (the answer is Yes)

Animation:

Slightly odd animation, excellent detail and glorious fight scenes, with sharp character design against near watercolour backgrounds and for some reason CGI flags.

Plot Potential:

I have not played the game that the anime is based off but it seems to be giving them plenty of plot to go with and it is moving along fast even on the first episode, it’s rare that I cant treat a game based anime as background but there is simply too much plot (a good thing)

Music:

Tribal fight music, nothing notable and I cant remember any lyrics, suitable but not outstanding

Reminds me of:

Ninja Scroll the series with shades of Fairy Tail and a bit of the story of Scrapped Princess

Overall:

Even before the opening credits it was obvious that this came from either an RPG or a computer game (just too many huge pairs of boobs), but it flows well and if it was not for the slightly suspect number of scantly clad ladies with swords there is nothing that stops it being a full blown plot filled series, I will be watching with interest.