Bastiaan en Lily's blog

I'm running ahead of myself here but since I haven't posted anything here for awhile now but our site address is going to be amended with BasenLily.me.

I've been way to busy lately to do any personal posts however today there was a topic on the Omnis discussion list about subwindows and communication between them and their parent windows that made me want to write a little something about it. The topic has come up many times in the past and since it is something I've done a lot with it seemed like a good idea to do a little sample library and add some explanation.

Subwindows are basically windows that are contained within another window. They are Omnis Studio's answer to be able to reuse visual components in multiple places in your application. This can be anything from a subwindow containing a single component/field to a subwindow that allows you to enter an entire record consisting of a dozen entry fields.

The problem herein is how to properly communicate between the subwindow and its parent window.
Object Orientation states that any object should not assume or directly influence another object that contains/uses it. That is the only way to guarantee an object can be reused in multiple places without any restrictions in the behavior of the object that uses it. A subwindow and it's parent however always have a symbiotic relationship in one form or another and some measure of communication between them is required. The parent window communicating with the subwindow is easy as this is simply done through public methods, but the subwindow (as it interacts directly with the user) communicating back to the parent, now their lies the problem.

Yet again it's proved what a weird and wonderful place the internet is. We're not sure yet what happened but it seemed that someone installed some malicous tunneling software on our server, god only knows what sortah trouble these guys where up to.

We had to shut some parts of the server down in order to clean up the mess and change some things hopefully to prevent a repeat. Unfortunately that meant my site and some others where down for a while.

Looks like we're back up :)

Couple of days late but I still want to wish everyone a Happy Newyear! We've had a busy couple of days and I have many more busy days ahead of me... Hope to have time for my little blog again soon...

Last weekend we were walking around the Lane Cove Plaza and there was a little fair going on. One of the expositions was Chris Tudor's Christmas photoshoot stand. We had him take a few pictures of Blake and talked to him that we've wanted to do a small family photoshoot for a little while. From one thing came another and on Monday we were at his home taking pictures which turned out to be a very pleasant experience.

Whow, this was a hefty week on the subject of Dutch Tax. My heart sank to an absolute low in the middle of the week but the end result seems to be a positive conclusion after all.

I'm sure one could write a book on ATM interfaces and how bad they are. I'm not going to do that though the realization as an IT person is that I rather have people who haven't got an inkling of proper interfaces but are geniusses on safeguarding electronic money transfers writing the ATM software then the other way around :)

I'm just going to rant a few lines on a very simple thing that not only applies to ATMs but to many other scenarios as well..

Some months back there was a discussion on the Omnis lists on how to navigate lists in Omnis Studio effectively. That discussion lead to some interesting discussion given by several people and I've been wanting to summize them on my blog for some time but never got around to it. Even today I don't have time to do a proper writeup but since I just wrote a routine I wanted to share I've decided to do a quick post about these.

I specifically thank Kelly Burgess who gave some great tips on this subject

Well at least we got one step further in this ordeal. Called the tax department again last night. They hadn't received my letters, atleast according to what the guy could see though I would have expected the first one to have arrived at least. They probably ended up at the wrong persons desk. Alas.

The good news though is that my initial phonecall has bore fruit so my well meant thanks go out to the lovely lady that helped me that night/morning.

I haven't blogged in a while not for lack of wanting but because I've simply been way to busy. Having two kids sounds like a good excuse but the reality in that is that I rather spend time with my kids then sit behind a dumb computer. Still it is indeed exhausting and there have been days that both myself and Lily are ready to pull our hair out. In that my hat is off to Lily, the amount of energy required to take care of our kids day in day out, I doubt I would do as good a job if I was in her shoes.

Work has kept me equally busy, Daniel went on his much deserved retirement a week or two back so it's been full hands on deck. Still we're doing some amazing stuff so I'm having the greatest time.

Unfortunately though, it isn't wanting to blog and give an update on how the family is doing that draws me back. It is pure frustration with the Dutch Tax System.
The rest of this blog post will therefor be in Dutch.

Finally I've got a little bit of time to write a family related post. I need to find some time to continue with my object posts but I'm sure I will soon.

The past few weeks have been pretty busy; Linsey getting fever for a couple of days due to some virus doing the rounds here and me not feeling honky dory as a result either didn't help much. Blake's been a real trooper so far without a sign of getting ill and is starting to sleep better and better; for a moment we thought Lily was getting sick as well but a good nights rest seems to have cured that. So it was time to treat the family to a much deserved outing..

Every since the whole discussion about object variables and object references in Studio came up this has been linguring in my mind so before I continue with my discussion on a way to use object variables in Omnis I felt compelled to do some ranting :)

I can't be certain but I imagine this discussion lies at the heart of the decision making of how Omnis originally implemented their object model and what direction they took it in.

As I was bragging about this on the Omnis list let's start doing a writeup about this. This will be a multipart writeup on object memory management in Omnis Studio 4 using object references.

This part we'll look at a simple retain/release object base class that allows us to track a single instance of an object that is being used by different parts of the system. It is a widely used model though my primary inspiration has been the use of it in Cocoa.
For the second part we'll look at implementing a copying scheme for our objects.
For the third part we'll look at auto releasing objects, why we need to do this and how we can implement this in Omnis.
The final part we'll look into tracking retains and releases in order to find memory leaks (not just leaks happening but finding the source).

I've been way to busy to mind my blog the past few weeks. Things are finally starting to settle down and we're getting back into a pattern. I'm even finding some time for hobbies, though marginally and at the cost of much needed sleep:)

My internal clock is really messed up, I feel like I've been a new father for over a month now but its only been just over two weeks. Mind you, I went back to work last week already, I had taken some time off before Blake was born, and I'm taking some more time off later in the month. Anyway that may alter my perception of time.

It's hard to figure out whether its between my ears but it feels like these past few weeks have been alot more tiring then when we had Linsey. Maybe its because we now have two children or maybe there is just to much going living in a different country and having just moved and all, I never really was very good with change. Happily though it looks like Lily is having less difficulty then last time.

Mind you, the above said, I couldn't be a more proud father and I wouldn't give this up for the world.

In the news today, we finally have a phone line, also have internet again, but the most smashing news of the day (well actually yesterday), our son was born!!

Well, loosing the recent content of our site was a bit of a downer, it also means that the latest updates of what has been going on have all disappeared. I'm not going to rewrite it all but just to bring those who are interested back up to speed...

Well, it's database management 101 and we advise it to all our clients, MAKE A BACKUP BEFORE YOU UPGRADE!!

Offcourse I did not and offcourse my latest backup was a month old. Brrrrr. Anyways, I've upgraded to Openblog 1.2.1 which hopefully will stop spammers in their tracks.

Unfortunately I've lost one of my latest Omnis tutorial blog posts (if someone has it archived somewhere...) and the latest posts about our situation here in Sydney. Awell, c'est la vie!!

Owh we've also moved house :D

I've placed my old Omnis tutorials back on this blog. They where originally posted on www.omniscentral.com. You can find them by clicking Omnis in the navigation on the right side of this site.

Note that these are already over a year old and I simply copy/pasted them over from my original transcripts. I will go through them at some point and clean them up a little so they show correct. I''ll also see if I can get the original demo libraries back online, not sure if I still have them somewhere.

The past year working actively with Omnis Studio 4 (at my previous work we were still doing most of our work in Studio 3) I have learned some new tricks and I''ve been writing actively on the omnis mailing list (http://www.omnis-dev.com/) about this. If I can find the time I may continue this series but I make no promises :)

Yup, i went out to the store today to buy DVD player #4 of this year today. We bought a cheap DVD player at Aldi when we just moved to Sydney because our DVD player from Holland hadn''t arrived yet. That DVD player desided to blow its amplifyer probably because the only way to get some resonable sound out of it was running it on its max setting. I had off course lost the reciept and since my old trusty DVD player had been sitting in a corner ever since it had arrived from Holland, I decided to use that instead. About a month back, after 4 trusty years of operation and abuse, it also decided it had enough.

So everything being closed I just ran into the local Coles, they had this cheap 50 dollar DVD player (it would be discounted to 29 a few weeks afterwards grrrr) so I thought I would give that a go. My trusty playstation only plays region 2 DVDs and my WII off course doesnt come with a DVD player software at all (go Nintendo!). This player from Coles turned out to be a region 4 player so I''ve been switching back and forth between the playstation and the MTV (yeah MTV!) DVD player.

Last week we decided to finally get a STB for free arial digital (not really worth the 29 bucks I paid for it but they are pulling the plug on the analog system soon). Plugging it in seems to have caused a small surge and blew the internal fuse on the MTV Player.. Hurray!

I had enough of this cheap stuff and went out to get a proper DVD player at Dick Smith today. I wasn''t ready to get a blue ray yet (we don''t have a capable TV anyways) but I did want to get a good DVD player and found a really nicely specced LG one. After making sure with the sales guy it was region free as I''m tired of switching we went home.. Its a good player, I''ve got Wall-E running on it now and I must say, sweeet! It is however, Region 4.... BLAST!

I''ll try and see if photobucket.com does the trick for now. I don''t like relying on free services like this but until I add something to the blog to do this ourselves..

It looks like photobucket doesn''t remember the orientation so I''ll add more pictures after I change them :)

Still working on supporting pictures correctly, will make a post soon with some cool pictures we made over the past weeks.

For now though, a little rant about our current housing situation. Yeah we''re moving again... For the first time in my life I am not moving by choice but out of circumstance...

As you can see I''ve started to use some new blog software. Some things won''t work right for a little while but it is all in the name of progress:)

I was shocked to read this in the online paper today:
Visa article on www.news.com.au
This is the same xenophobic crap we get in Holland right now. Well let me tell you something about 457 Visa''s as this is the Visa that allows me to work in Australia for the next 4 years.
Forgetting for a moment how high the requirements are for getting a 457 Visa, the minimum salary level is but an inkling of this, lets look at this from an employers perspective...

Well just going to keep it short :) I''ve been all alone for the past few weeks. Lily and Linsey are off to a well deserved break in HK. Soon I will see them again, for now I''ll have to do it with some pictures Francis made for us.
Francis, where is my wife? Only pictures of Linsey la!

Whow, we are in 2009 already!!
We''ve had our first culture shock during the holidays here. First because of the obvious fact that a white christmas here is caused by sunglare. It hit 40 degrees on some days during the holidays. The other is that in Holland, during Christmas restaurants have their best day and we usually go out, here everything is CLOSED. Needless to say we had moments where we simply didn''t know what to do...
Other then that, Linsey has been sick a few days but is feeling better, she''s really starting to enjoy going to the local swimming pool to which I try to take her atleast once a week, and I''ve been swimming nearly every day and finally started loosing weight again.
On the weight subject, after loosing so much weight I''ve been careful to keep it up. But staying a month in HK just before we moved, and having the most hectic two months of my life just before the move and just after the move, I had put exercising on the backburner. The result... I had gained 10kg compared to my lowest weight (85kg).
I picked up swimming after we moved to Lane Cove and settled down but kept swinging around 92kg for a long while. I''ve finally managed to get back under 90kg which I''m very chuffed about. I''ve set a target to be back on 85kg before the end of summer.
Two things I''m particularly proud at, at this point is that I''m doing this without medication this time, and I''m getting more and more muscles. I''m really starting to loose that geeky exterior I''ve had my whole life :D
Well knock on wood that I keep it up, wish me luck!!
Ok, time for pictures! Besides getting loads of new toys Linsey''s favorite present during the holidays is her new trike. She actually gets mad at us every time we leave the house without it :D

She''s getting very acrobatic too, there is a childrens gym close by that we''re thinking about taking her after she''s back from her trip to HK.

And no, we didn''t let her climb the tree :D
Two more random pictures from our day out in the park:

Well sorry to say, little about family today, I want to blog about something entirely different.
I''ve been passionate about cars for most of my adult life, driven around circuits the last few years and tinkered around with them loads too.
Some time ago I started reading into electric cars. Not because I''m such an eco friendly guy, far from it, my interest was mostly fueled, well simply by interest when I ran into the subject. Electric cars just seemed like a neat novel idea (while its for from novel turns out, they''ve been around for well over a century).
In the last year or so however I''ve been taking this more and more serious and really started reading up on the subject. I was amazed to find there is a large community out there who are actively building electric cars and have been doing so for many years. I was also amazed to find that the technology and knowladge to undertake such a project has been around for decades as well. Its been since the early nineteens that battery technology, which seems to have been the #1 reason to not go down the electric route seems to have caught up enough to make electric cars as usable as a normal petrol car for commuter driving. Since recently advances in lithium based batteries, all though currently still on the expensive side for the car hobbiest, have even brought electric cars really into competition with their petrol based brothers.
Now I''m far from starting my own conversion project, right now me and Lily are concentrating hard on getting our lives up and running here in Australia, it''ll be awhile before I start getting into such expensive hobbies again (but one can dream right).
Still, there is loads of cool stuff out there and I''m sure to be following it more and more closely. Also here in Australia electric car enthousiasts seem to be a well represented bunch, so thats pretty cool too :)
Here is atleast one link that really struck me that any car nut would enjoy: http://www.evcapri.com/

We''ve been pretty busy lately, just the normal tidbits in life. Lots to do at work, lots to do at home. Not much to tell though.
Got some cool new pictures though :) To start off with, it was Lily''s birthday a few days ago, so we had some great cake:) One of the things we got in a store in chatswood is this small plasma globe that linsey just loves:

And some more pictures of Linsey:

She just loves to make that mad face :)
Finally, our ''pets'':

There are loads of these white parrots around here, they fly in from time to time and sit on our little balcony or in the kitchen window. Very cute. They make alot of noise though :)

It''s still in an experimental stage but I''ve started a second blog focused at my profession so I can keep this site purely related to my personal life.
You can find it here: [url]http://bastiaan.olij.biz
As you can see its on a new domain called olij.biz, we might expand on that at some point. It''s a domain I started with my cousin Klaas who through a completely different path ended up in the same business I am in. Keep an eye on it, we plan to add some interesting stuff to it in the future.
It''s also made me realize this site should really be update some day soon.
In the mean while, Linsey is growing up faster and faster:) I took her out swimming the other day for the first time and she loved it! Lily has been taking some new vids of her so check out her youtube page, they are really cute!
I''ve been gobbling up books in a new scifi series. I ran into it by accident when I was looking for something new to read. Picked up a copy of Star Strike, the first in a trilogy by Ian Douglas (an alias for Digg | Technorati | del.icio.us | Stumbleupon | reddit | Furl