Yesterday on a quick move we decided to head to the movies. Feeling keen to see the new Will Smith movie " Seven Pounds" (btw it’s German title is "Seven Lifes"), to be honest, I wasn’t really aware about what I would see.
But having heard about it a bit I didn’t really expect an easy to consume movie though.

The movie does start somewhat confusing and it really needs a while for you getting an idea about what is going on here. And believe me or not, I really can’t imagine some thoughtfully and caring person not leaving the cinema later on feeling "touched" by the story.

The movie is as fascinating as scaring at the end. And the idea behind about balancing something bad you have done or forced earlier with something good now - however good it might be - is something "rather" strange. Especially as for we all know about it doesn’t work! Nothing in world can make something not having happend first.

It is our fate or luck …. however you like to see it …. that our brain is made to forget about bad things quickly and instead thend to store nice and pleasant memories even more "pleasant" as they might have been really.

As a commited organ donator this story touches me in several ways. First of all seeing what can be done is great and encourages me in my thinking. But on a second look, it is very deep touching as well and I can’t ommit me thinking that such doing (story or not) would turn the whole tingy into an absurdness???

I really can say this movie keeps me busy thinking about! It is a touching movie – not sure I would call it "good" movie though!

Dealing with performance issues is always dragging. Now being called as an expert and pleased to join a workshop about advising and solving performance issues is much more "delicate".

Mostly you don’t know all people in advance and the application itself is something totally new. The customers is already upset and grumpy and very often another "expert" has already tried to advise. So preparing for such an workshop always does consume a lot of time. Time you need to get confident about things first. And for sure time to find things not working proper or at least suboptimal to have something back in case no one else … has something to say!

So next week I will head into such a workshop and last few days I did deeply dig a database and did try to find out about the problems this customer is dealing with. Tiring for sure! But also interesting on the other side.

As mentioned you know nothing about the application. You just have the database, their info and indicator and the incoming SQL as for to analyze. Now I haven’t done since a while, but now after investigation I’m once again impressed about what you can find out about …. when you look at things first.

This people do really not know about coding and relational databases. They have quickly ported some "Access" & "Excel" crime soft project into a bigger environment and more users and now feel curious  about why it doesn’t perform as wished.

So from principle it is easy. I already see the way to the end of the tunnel were light does appear again …. Just …. Hm! …. How to tell it the customer without upsetting him immediately?

You might have recognised that lately I turned a bit quiet here?. Yeah, this happens from time to time when something does trap my interest totally.
Now in this specific case it was the wish to transfer all my stored SMS from the old mobile phone to my newly bought iPhone. Not Possible??

Hah! Sure there is no straight way to do and  what a pity the original client software by Motorola does not even allow you to dump the info. But why shouldn’t it be possible though?
With a strong will there is a solution for every thing! Believe me!!

Now searching for info, I found snychonizing services on the net … How cool! Passing on the SMS to them and loose Origin and Timestamp at the end? NEVER!

But querying Google brought up the info that there are P2KTools to dump the Motorola and even they have issues, I was able to dump the messages into ascii files.
This was a beginning for sure.

But now back to the iPhone. How to syncronize it? Looking into things brough up the info about http://youarchive.it and a loadable tool called iTextuploader. A quick test of both ended up with the sureness it works reliable and fine. Checking options even told me there is a bidirectional exchange possible, but the web frontend didn’t allow me to add the older messages.

Ok! So there seemd to be no quick solutions at hand first. Next investigation brought up the info that on the iPhone the SMS info is stored within a SQLite database …a database???
Great! That was the answer of everything. Downloading the db from the iPhone was easily done. In fact – lazy as I was – I just did send it as an email with attachment to myself.

Then it needed 10 to 15 minutes analyzing the internal structure of the database and another hour adding the messages and adjusting and correcting the database integrity again.
Uploading it directly to the device?! Nah, the risk damaging my new SMS info by overwriting the db directly seemed to high.

So I went back to the webservice and used their "old way" uploading messages through the webinterface by uploading the db … in that case the prepared one.
And?! Nothing! No complains, no warning, no errors …. purely loaded and now visible within the web application.

With the offered export  funtion of the pages I marked all message for to restore them on the phone and back at the iPhone I told iTextuploader (uploader ROFL) to download them.
Wasn’t that easy? Now I have SMS info on the iPhone out of a time the device was not even invented.

You are much into fish sticks? Your chance might be there soon ….. when the frost outside here has gone …..

Actually I’m a bit worrying about I could loose all my crew members out in the pond again. Back in 1997 when we moved in into our house I used a few days during summer to dig a big hole outside in the backyard. Ok, it never was intened as just a big hole only and since years it has become a nice and neat biotope for a lot of animals and fishes living and breading there. And to be honest last year I started myself thinking about it now would be time to get rid of some fish. As it looks they seems to bread endles, by reproducing them quicker as I’m able keep pace with counting them. Just honestly!! I had another "get rid off" in mind …

Now with temperatures being stable down below 0°C since nearly two weeks, the pond is frozen and covered by solid ice since days. Unfortunately there is not much to do for me …. you just can’t heat all the outside at the end. And I really start to worry about I could end up similar like a few years ago. During a similar strong winter the pond was solid frozen for over three weeks and later on …. all life had gone (at least in the pool).

Sure I’m innocent! An innocent victim of weather conditions. You’re with me? I can hardly be responsible for weather, winter and frost this year! Can I?
But thinking back remembering friends making me up for moth and badly calling me a fish murderer again and again …. Does really make me feeling scared now! Gulp …. Big Gulp!!

The first working week in a new year is always something special. Usually you had a few days off and therefore you lost a bit of your rhythm and starting now again it does for sure need one or two days to get back into it again.

For me and my feeling the first week of this year was rather short but pleasant. Winter has reached us and with outside temperatures outside more than unpleasant, I did spent a lot of time inside playing with stuff I’m interested in.

Feeling fascinated by my new toy I could have anyway not stop making effort learning about playing with it until I would have accomplished my self defined mission.  But now having "done", I nearly feel a bit sad about it didn’t need more effort to succeed.

Besides that all also a few things lasting from last year, which had really kept me busy thinking about, finally did take an interesting and unexpected direction … to the better! … as I think and therefore I really can’t complain at all.

It was a short, but interesting and pleasant first week this year for sure for me.

The week has passed and I’m a few days older now. But who cares? This year I’m anyway looking forward in time passing quickly. Knowing about at the end of the year I hopefully will be able to head off again into a long and overdue trip, I nearly can’t await months passing quick. But about this trip I will tell you in another post later this year.