My company has been doing a lot of cleaning house lately and one of the much-needed fixups has been to set up a new server to host our SVN repository. As a result we have to re-point lots of checkouts at the new server. It’s a very simple process using either of two commands. The first is svn switch –relocate, the second is simply svn relocate.  [note that svn switch –relocate is deprecated in 1.7! Use svn relocate going forward!]

Usage is simple, but it’s important to get the URLs correct!

svn switch --relocate http://old.server.url/trunk http://new.server.url/trunk

This is the 'new' 1.7 way:
svn relocate http://old.server.url/trunk http://new.server.url/trunk

It’s also worth noting that you cannot switch branches while you relocate. For instance, if you need to move to a new server AND switch to a branch, do it in two separate steps.

Refer to the svnbook for more information:

http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.7/svn.ref.svn.c.switch.html
http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.7/svn.ref.svn.c.relocate.html

Wow, I really get the spam. It outnumbers the real comments by a factor of 40:1!

The most important news today is that many websites on the internet are blacked out in protest of two bills, SOPA and PIPA.  If you haven’t heard about these bills yet, now is a great time to do-so and to write to your representative.  You can read more here among other places:  http://wordpress.org/news/2012/01/internet-blackout/

The best thing to do is to take ACTION:

http://americancensorship.org/

Tonight I’m trying to import my MP3 collection into a new iTunes install (10.5.0.142) on top of a fresh OS (Windows 7) install. I’ve had troubles in the past with this: Duplicated albums and songs, songs getting moved to different albums, etc. So I decided to import a couple albums at a time and keep a really close eye on it as it progresses.

The first two or three artists imported just fine, but on the 4th one (Dada, two albums) I noticed that the songs were all mixed together and the album titles were lost. Worse, I looked in the file system and saw that instead of two album folders there were now three, the new one called “Unknown Album” now contained all of the mp3s that belonged in the other two real albums. On one hand I’m very glad that I decided to do this bit by bit, but on the other hand…THIS IS VERY ANNOYING!

So, I removed the songs from iTunes (careful to keep the files) and moved the MP3s back where they belonged. Then I turned OFF the “Keep iTunes Media folder organized” option under Edit->Preferences->Advanced. This stopped iTunes from moving my mp3s to “Unknown Album” BUT it still didn’t bring the Album into iTunes so I was stuck with the prospect of figuring out which song belonged to which album and editing a LOT of data. Not good enough!

So I started searching for answers.  After a bit of searching around I found this thread which gave me something to try: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2807880?start=0&tstart=0

Sure enough.  If my MP3s were encoded by iTunes 9x then they lose the album data on import to iTunes 10.  Wow, very annoying but at least I have something to go on.  After a bit of testing I’ve found I can get them to import correctly if I remove the “Encoded by” tag whenever that tag is iTunes 9.

At this point I’m going to upgrade to iTunes 10.5.1 and see if that helps.  If not maybe I should really be done with iTunes…

This week I reinstalled my OS (long overdue!) and while I was at it got the latest releases of many pieces of software I use. These updates included both NetBeans 7.0.1 and TortoiseSVN 1.7.1.   Then I used TortioseSVN to check out a project and opened the project in NetBeans.  Next time I started NetBeans I was presented with the following message:

org.tigris.subversion.javahl.ClientException: The path ‘C:\Users\path to my project‘ appears to be part of a Subversion 1.7 or greater
working copy.  Please upgrade your Subversion client to use this
working copy.

After some web searching I realized that the upgrade to Tortoise 1.7.1 meant that I was now using the 1.7 Subversion client…which has some significant differences from the 1.6 client.  It also became apparent that NetBeans hasn’t yet upgraded to Subversion 1.7, but they will do-so soon.  

Here is a link to the story, with some work-arounds if you’re interested:  http://netbeans.org/projects/versioncontrol/pages/Subversion1_7.  I’ve decided I’ll use only TortoiseSVN for my SVN Needs until the NetBeans release that supports SVN 1.7 comes along.

Last Friday I had my final Physical Therapy appointment.  I have to say that this really gives me mixed feelings.  First off I can’t believe it’s been 6 months since my ACL reconstruction surgery.  Second, I can’t believe it’s only been six months since the surgery.  Next, I feel nervous.  Why nervous? Let me explain.

The 6 month Physical Therapy appointment is a special one in that the Physical Therapist had me perform a series of stepping, hopping, jumping tests.  I performed each of these tests first with my unaffected leg, then again with my affected leg.  The idea is to establish a % of capability between the two.  I went into this appointment pretty sure that my affected leg was significantly behind the unaffected one.  I’d had a couple setbacks over the summer; the worst of these was a really long lasting case of bronchitis that kept me off the more aggressive PT routines (jogging) for several weeks.

Long story short, I was correct.  My affected leg is at about 75% of the unaffected one.  My Physical Therapist says that they like to release people to do their prior level of activity (in my case downhill skiing only when the affected leg is around 85-90% of the unaffected one).  What does that mean for me?  Well, it simply means more physical therapy.  Continue running, continue the strengthening exercises, continue the agility exercises.

He also told me that this is completely normal.  All through the process, right from the beginning, everyone has said “As quick as 6 months from your surgery to full capacity”.  As quick as.  But, of course, that’s the optimal case, right?  The case where annoying illness and normal life responsibilities…and let’s face it, laziness at times…don’t interfere with the program to work that leg back into shape!  To be fair, several people at Tria corrected me when I said “6 months” by saying AT LEAST 6 months.  Several of my friends have had ACL reconstruction and each of them said (when I mentioned the 6 month number) “count on a year”.  Yet here I am…thinking to myself that I’ve somehow fallen behind because I’m at 75% after 6 months.

Or, maybe I’m just afraid that without a looming Physical therapy appointment every two weeks I’ll fall further behind?  On the other hand, there’s a brand new ski season in the air…Time to work out!

I maintain several websites as Subversion Checkouts.  I’ve had great luck with this as long as everyone on my team follows a few rules, and I thought I’d start saving & sharing some of them here.  This brief article explains the use of a couple of key SVN commands.

One of the things I’ve gotten in the habit of lately is to check the version of each and every file that I’m about to update whenever I do a big server update like we did last night for a busy website.  In this case it was VERY helpful to have done-so because I accidentally released a new beta version of  a few files that our client hadn’t approved yet.  Since I have the ‘list’ of all files that I’ve changed it’s quite easy to revert a few if necessary.  It works very well.

svn status -u

    *   3362   new_feature/feature.msi

    *   3362   new_feature/feature.exe

svn up -r3362

I performed this update right inside the ‘not-ready-for-prime-time’ folder and it caused these files to update back to the revision closest to 3362.  BAM!  Done and Done.  Note that this update-to-revision is not sticky, so I’ll have to be careful if I update the server again before these particular files are approved.  Also, note that I’ve ignored another best-practice here which is that I should have had my developer put this beta area on a branch, which would have avoided this issue all-together; but that is a topic for another post.

(Fri, Jul 22nd)

The big news today is that I had my 3 month check-in with the Surgeon.  I went into this one feeling very nervous because my leg feels a bit weird and the swelling still hasn’t gone down ever since London and CONvergence.  It was a very quick check-in where he had me lay back and he moved my knee joint around for about 30 seconds.  It mad this weird ‘clunk’ feeling/sound when he did it ( the exact feeling that made me nervous that I’d damaged the graft).  He said “Feel that clunk?  That’s your ACL”.  I said “Is that good?”  He said “Yes, that is a very healthy ACL.  It’s starting to get stronger again too!”.  Then he proceeded to remind me that while it’s getting better all the time it is still too soon for “cutting and pivoting”.  He also suggested that I hold off on starting jogging until the swelling abates a bit.

Relief!  That’s what I’m feeling this afternoon.  I”m so very happy that I didn’t damage anything.  w00t!

Apparently I was so relieved that I skipped my evening PT…

(Sat, Jul 23rd)

Tonight I’m going to see U2!  I’ll almost certainly over-work the knee again but I still got in the AM PT session.  I really ought to ice it.

(Sun, Jul 24th)

The U2 concert was really fantastic!  There were some glitches…such as heavy rain at times but the band played on and the rain, thunder and lightning really made the light show dramatic.  The only downside is that I never sat down during the whole show…I’m sure my knee is going to swell right up again in the morning.

It’s been a long time since my last knee-related update. So here’s what is up. I’m coming up on 5 months since surgery and things are really progressing. The big news is that I’ve been running for the past month and a half. It’s coming along OK, though I did have a setback with a nasty case of bronchitis that kept me off my feet for several weeks. It still hampers my breathing now 6 weeks after the initial onset (argh!). My knee, is reacting well to the running finally after several rough weeks at the beginning.

When I first started running it was mostly walking with a few 1 minute very-slow jogs interspersed. They hurt. My knee ‘pinched’ with every stride and I really felt I had to step with care to keep it stabilized.

Once I upgraded to 3 minute walk, 2 minute run cycles, I quickly realized that I was tensing up my affected leg something fierce, and ended up with some pretty bad cramps after running. It took a couple weeks to gain enough confidence/strength to trust my knee and leg to do what they were supposed to so I could relax.

Now in the past couple weeks I’ve switched to 3 minute run, 2 minute walk cycles. My knee is not the limiting factor anymore, it doesn’t hurt and feels nearly as stable as the other one. I’m still dealing with some cramping from over-tensing, and still dealing with post-bronchitis and generally being out of shape too. That said it’s getting easier each time, and I’ll switch to 4 run/ 1 walk cycles next week.

I’m also doing “unsupported” hopping and agility work now, the scariest of which is hopping from the ‘good’ leg to the ‘bad’ one and back again. My leg is up to it, so it’s mostly a confidence building exercise. There are also a variety of ‘ladders’ which I’d never done before but which are typical agility exercises for soccer players. It really feels good to be starting into the lateral, pivoting movements. Makes me realize I’m going to need all of the months yet ’til winter to be ready for it though!

And the last bit of news, I can kneel again. Weird how much you can use that skill as a dad..and how much you miss it when it’s gone. I still have to do it carefully, but I can split my weight evenly between my knees without too much discomfort.

All in all, things are progressing well!

Day 57 (Wed, Jun 22nd)

This is NOT the view from our hotel room

Today is a travel day from Blackpool, UK to London.  First off…we really should have booked in advance!  It is pricey.  We waited ’til after 9:30 to save nearly 50% and still it was like 70/lbs per person!  Of course, this meant that our 5-6 hr ride blew most of Wednesday.

Anyway, it was nice traveling on a fast train and getting a look at the english countryside.  Then came the more difficult part.  We had to take 3 separate tubes to get from the train station to our hotel, hauling our unwieldy luggage the whole way.  We made it to our final tube exit without too much trial, though my knee was really feeling it.

Then we took a wrong turn out of the tube station and walked an unnecessary 1/2 mile before we corrected and found the hotel.  We stayed in an over-priced, under-appointed hotel, but the location was fantastic.  If we’d had a view (we didn’t) we could have seen the London Eye just a few blocks away.  We spent an hour or two freshening up, getting hooked up on wifi, etc.

After that we met my boss & his wife & took a ride on the ‘eye, then walked around, found some nice pubs to visit, enjoyed some wonderful Cask Ales, etc.

I sure do wish that the American public was more interested in cask ales!  They are so very tasty.  At least we have some choices here at home on occasion.

Day 58 (Thu, Jun 23rd)

CopperMan

Today we did the lazy version of sight-seeing.  We slept in a bit, wandered around Trafalgar Square, spent a couple hours in the National Gallery.  After that we had good intentions to head over to St. Paul’s (which we’d missed on previous trips) but got seduced by Sherlock Holmes Pub ( 10 Northumberland Street).  We had a great time sitting outside and chatting with some locals and some other travelers.  After that we decided to just take a closer look at the area south of Trafalgar Square and so we wandered down Whitehall past Scotland Yard, The Cavalry Museum, 10 Downing Street etc.

After some nosing about we found a little place to grab some OK, but not terribly memorable dinner in a nice surrounding.  Then we caught up with my boss and his wife again for some post dinner pub crawling around Trafalgar square.  Finally we hit the tube for a quick ride back to our hotel.

All in all, a lot of time on my feet, my knee would really have liked an ice pack but there was none forthcoming…

Day 59 (Fri, Jun 24th)

This day was a lot like yesterday…lots of walking around.  We circled St. Paul’s and went in for a bit, walked across the millennium bridge and back, and saw the entirely unimpressive ‘London Bridge’.  (It’s a very normal bridge that crosses the Thames into London city center).  However, from this bridge you can look down the Thames to the east and see the HMS Belfast, Tower Bridge and the Tower of London just beyond.

But today we went west, though, and took a quick look at the Golden Hinde (It’s a recreation of the Sir Francis Drake ship that circumnavigated the globe in the 1500s http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Hind).  Then we wandered our way over to the Globe Theater to see a production of Dr. Faustus.  It was a fantastic show for these amateur eyes.  It was quite long, though, and sitting in cramped quarters was still problematic for my knee.  Thankfully I was seated on the right-end of a row where I could put my leg out into the aisle when I needed to.

We finished off the day with suggestions from friends who’d lived in our ‘neighborhood’ … go to this restaurant, make a reservation, stop at that store to get the wine for the restaurant (no liquor license), stop into another pub to enjoy the evening until reservation time.  It all worked out famously.  If you’re ever going to stay in Southwark, drop me a note and I’ll fill in the details for you!

Day 60 (Sat, Jun 25th)

The long travel day back to Minneapolis was mostly uneventful.  We didn’t have any delays, my leg held up, though feeling tender and beaten, and we made it home.

Day 61 (Sun, Jun 26th)

It’s really time to start with PT again…maybe tomorrow.

Day 62 (Mon, Jun 27th)

Finally I return to my normal PT…but for how long?

Day 63 (Tue, Jun 28th)

Stay the course!