August 9th, 2008 / No Comments » / by Drew Loika
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August 9th, 2008 / 2 Comments » / by Drew Loika
According to Mary Hodder, posing (clothed) for Zivity only sexualizes and objectifies women. And according to Meryl Steinberg it’s tantamount to prostitution. That’s right, women’s bodies are dirty and shameful and should always be hidden, and individual women shouldn’t be allowed the freedom to make up their own minds on how to use them.
These two are claiming to be looking out for the other women in Silicon Valley? (And didn’t you know the only thing Cyan Banister is good at is taking off her top?) Perhaps they think women should only be seen in public wearing full length robes so as to hide their dirty bodies? Zivity is FAR from perfect but this level of criticism is just plain ridiculous. Wake me up when a thoughtful discussion of Zivity and its issues is started.
[Note: It's conceivable I'm mischaracterizing Mary or Meryl, more than conceivable actually as I did exaggerate their statements, and that they're just ranting or some such in the post I linked to. However, I really don't see how someone could claim that Zivity equals prostitution or anything similar, even if they're blowing off a little steam.]
August 9th, 2008 / No Comments » / by Drew Loika
While working on the Seed Core Processor code I came across this exception in my WCF code.
An unhandled exception of type ‘System.InvalidOperationException’ occurred in System.ServiceModel.dll
Could not find a base address that matches scheme net.tcp for the endpoint with binding NetTcpBinding. Registered base address schemes are [http].
…
Could not find a base address that matches scheme net.pipe for the endpoint with binding NetNamedPipeBinding. Registered base address schemes are [http].
Given that my code was copied almost directly out of Microsoft’s very helpful Getting Started Tutorial I was a little confused.
Uri BaseAddress = new Uri("net.tcp://localhost/test");// Step 1 of the hosting procedure: Create ServiceHost
ServiceHost SelfHost = new ServiceHost(typeof(SensorServiceProvider), BaseAddress);
try
{
// Step 3 of the hosting procedure: Add a service endpoint(s).////Named pipe endpoint
SelfHost.AddServiceEndpoint(
typeof(SensorServiceContract),
new NetNamedPipeBinding(),
"pipe");//TCP endpoint
SelfHost.AddServiceEndpoint(
typeof(SensorServiceContract),
new NetTcpBinding(),
"tcp");// Step 4 of the hosting procedure: Enable metadata exchange.
ServiceMetadataBehavior mex = new ServiceMetadataBehavior();
mex.HttpGetEnabled = true;
SelfHost.Description.Behaviors.Add(mex);// Step 5 of the hosting procedure: Start the service.
SelfHost.Open();
}
A good half-hour of Googling turned up a variety of possible causes for this exception, none of which turned out to be my problem. I finally found some sample code that revealed the issue, if you haven’t noticed already. The base address is using http, but neither the named pipes or tcp endpoints use this protocol. Changing “http” to “net.pipe” or “net.tcp” will enable the named pipes or tcp endpoints, respectively. And so it would appear I need multiple ServiceHost objects to enable named pipe and tcp access to my service concurrently. (Which will require a singleton and more documentation reading.)
Simple enough, but I’m just starting and it’s easy to miss stuff like this, so I though I’d share and hopefully save the next beginner some head scratching time.
August 8th, 2008 / No Comments » / by Drew Loika
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August 8th, 2008 / No Comments » / by Drew Loika
After weeks of red tape and bureaucracy, Jim was finally able to order our microwave moisture sensor from Hydronix, a company located in England. After a week or so to traverse the pond, we received a large and heavy box on Wednesday.
Unpacking it revealed a variety of contents, including a cable, power supply, usb interface with power supply, case, documentation, software, and a very large sensor and sleeves. (To be welded into place)
And I do mean large! Jim and I were both expecting something smaller than a D-cell MagLite, guess we’ll have to pay more attention to dimensions next time!
After getting everything installed and downloaded, we were EXTREMELY excited to see it give us reasonable readings for a bucket of seed we have and for my Nalgene water bottle. It really looks like we finally (8 months later?!) have a sensor to build the rest of our solution around. More to come!
August 6th, 2008 / No Comments » / by Drew Loika
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August 5th, 2008 / No Comments » / by Drew Loika
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August 4th, 2008 / No Comments » / by Drew Loika
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August 2nd, 2008 / No Comments » / by Drew Loika
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August 2nd, 2008 / No Comments » / by Drew Loika
A fair amount of development has occurred since my last post regarding the Seed Core Processor. After literally weeks of dealing with bureaucracy at OIT the moisture sensor has been ordered and is currently underway from England. Of course, it was just about this time that Marc Timmerman expressed doubts as to whether it would actually work. Doh!
This only served to emphasize the importance of proper abstraction and encapsulation in my architecture and implementation. Of course, this is something of a challenge given the proprietary nature of expensive moisture sensors, but I’m doing my best.
Unfortunately, my effort to open source a library interfacing with the sensor was denied by the company, which claimed it would reveal too much of their intellectual property. (Which they give away readily without NDA.) On the upside, they already had a .NET library for interfacing with the sensor, saving me a lot of tedious serial I/O programming. I’m currently in the process of abstracting and wrapping up this dll into a sensor service using WCF to be deployed on inexpensive embedded hardware near the installation of the sensor(s), leaving the data processing and visualization to a more powerful station that will connect to all the sensors on the LAN. With some more research I hope to find an OSI approved license that will allow me to open source the sensor service, leaving the proprietary Hydronix information wrapped in their dll.
Unfortunately, I don’t think the data analysis, control, and visualization module of the application is a good candidate for open source as the visualization component is proprietary and has a price tag. Furthermore, controlling the moisture content of seed to be pressed for biodiesel isn’t exactly a common activity, and would likely appeal to a small number of other people at best. However, I’m very excited to likely release the sensor service as I’ve benefited a lot from the open source community over the years.
Open source issues aside, the project is progressing if a bit slowly and unsurely. If the sensor arrives soon I’ll be able to test the interface code I’ve written, and if not I’ll be coding up a virtual sensor so that I can begin to test the analysis, control, and visualization. Unfortunately, the specifics of these activities are dependent on what techniques actually end up successfully measuring the moisture content of the seed so I’m hopeful the sensor arrives soon.
