Ambriel Consulting

When you find yourself schema validating in an XML IDE – I mention no names – and the error messages make no sense, use Xerces2 Java instead. Alternatively, use XSV or even Microsoft’s MSXML.

Certain XML IDEs have extremely poor schema implementations. This is unfortunate because they make it so very use to use schema validation and therefore stretched developers will use and trust these poor implementations.

You can ask me for help on this subject, but try Xerces2 Java first.

Service orientation is an architectural concept, not a given if you use an implementation of the web services stack. It is independent of the communication protocol in use. There, that’s off my chest and I can move on…

There’s far too little worthwhile stuff written about service orientation, a problem I aspire to rectify. For the moment, I recommend Fiorano and ThoughtWorks. Both firms seem sensible and committed to delivering engineered solutions rather than merely selling an implementation of web services.

Just today, I fixed a Mac that was behaving oddly. A suspect was one of the cheap maintenance programs for OS X that runs the standard periodic maintenance scripts, fiddles with permissions and so on.

There’s a great article by the X Lab that covers this, so I won’t be a bore, but if you are used to all the maintenance Windows needs, I suggest you take a look before installing one of these utilities.

Amanda seems an appropriate backup tool: it’s the one Red Hat bundle and implicitly recommend.

I run a CentOS Linux server in my office, a Mac Mini serving web sites at Mythic Beasts, and a couple of MacBooks. The Linux server provides Samba shares to the local Macs and, previously, Windows hosts. Amanda backs up the lot to a very large hard drive.

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A friend and senior IT manager this weekend decided to ditch his new notebook and Windows Vista for a Mac. He’s one of several I have seen go this way recently, many of them senior technical staff. Could Microsoft have assumed too much about the loyalty of their customer base when deciding to introduce their flavour of DRM?

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After a child sat on my MacBook Pro, I stripped it to tighten the hinges and reseat the power button. Find out more here.

You do this at your own risk of course.

My work at Lehman Brothers is keeping me fabulously busy. I also have an XBRL training course for CoreFiling coming up.