Southwest USA Travelogue - Joshua Tree National Park

You know that feeling? Demolished? Did anybody say jet-lag? We go for the Starbucks revival experience.
At 8.30 AM we are waiting outside for the included transfer to the RV-rent-office. 8.50 AM. Nothing happens except for the arrival of a limousine. A Chinese driver, must be mafia.

"Cruise America?" he asks. (Oh sorry, nothing said). "The limousine, cause I'm late". It sounds so logic. Ready for camping with a RV, transfer by limousine. Best, why not? A nice lady shows us around in our new home for the coming weeks. An extensive video instructs what to do and how (to get rid of the sht) and what not to do (never drive backwards without somebody outside). Several forms to fill in, credit card and off we go. First to a nearby Walmart. For us everything here is big. The Walmart, the packaging, the people. Lots of things to buy. Cheese, butter, toilet paper, Californian wine for just 2$. Not bad, but after paying we are over $150 poorer anyway.

OK. And now we really go. GPS directed to a camp site in Yucca Valley, not far from Joshua Tree National Park. High ways, 6 lanes, 5 lanes, lot of concrete, condition not too good. The navigation shows the lanes we can keep in green. Handy, sometimes we get an extra lane, sometimes we lose two. The further we get from LA, the less cars on the road, the less lanes, the better the road condition. (Huh?) Every now and then we feel the wind, seems to  

be normal here. We see lots of wind mills, hundreds of them. At the camp site the office is open, nobody is there. A sign reads: "Find yourself a place, back in a moment".
Very carefully we park in backwards and we attach the water and the 110 V. Yes, we got light. When we are all settled we have to disconnect again and find our selves a nice steak.

Back at the camp site we talk to some nice people. A lot of older Americans are travelling with their own RV. These guys know Holland but what for, I don't recall. We immediately receive a book about "Earthing". Nice gesture. Still have find out what it is about. Jet-lag. At 8.30 PM it is over and out.

Breakfast at 07.00 AM and we are heading for the Joshua Tree National Park visitors center. We buy a year ticket for all national parks for $ 80, so 4 parks and we're break even.Via the west entrance we enter the park. What a wonderful landscape, full of Joshua trees. According to legend, Mormon pioneers considered the limbs of the Joshua trees to resemble the upstretched arms of Joshua, leading them to the promised land. Actually, I think they are just big Yucca's. Some rock hills

seem to be built up completely of separate stones. There are not many vehicles in the park. Halfway we take an exit to the right, notwithstanding a warning that the road is narrower. No problem for our RV. From the parking we walk to the viewpoint. What a magnificent sight. With a clear sky it must be possible to look into Mexico. We cannot look that far, but the nearby city of Palm Springs, at the opposite side of the valley and at at the foot of the mountains, is 31 kilometers away! The San Andreas Fault line runs through this valley. Because of a warning for aggressive bees we don't stay to long. 

On our way to the northern entrance of the park we pass Skull Rock.

This is our first National Park and we are already very impressed.

For my video impression look at

Joshua Tree National Park

DTAP, a route to Application Lifecycle Management

Modern software should be viewed as a living asset, with a lifecycle that spans the activities that represent the entire lifetime of the product, from identification of business requirements through development, testing, deployment, support, and maintenance, right up to the eventual retirement of the application.

When we want to structure Application Lifecycle Management we need not only thinking in procedures but as well, or may be even more important, we need investing in the complete environment that can support us in this process, including all hard and software tools.
To support the process of Application Lifecycle Management, in this document we will look at implementation possibilities of the so called DTAP environment, i.e. (software) Development, Testing, Acceptance and Production.

Let's have a look at the functional requirements for a DTAP environment.

Development Environment
In this environment, the components (program modules) are programmed and the component tests and component integration tests are carried out. Part of the software development process is as well specifying what to develop. Functional, Detailed, Technical and Release Documentation are all part of this process. All (version-ed) information, including the source code, must be well organised, easily searchable and accessible. Developers need a modern Integrated Development Environment (IDE). “Integrated” should include (but not be limited to):

• Writing and debugging software
• Unit testing
• Source Control
• Build Server
• Version-ed documentation
• Collaboration with other stakeholders
• All related information easily searchable and accessible.

Test Environment

Testers are key members of the development team and test activities should be completely integrated into the software development process. Ideally the same IDE is used by testers, just using other views and tools.

The testers IDE should include (but not be limited to):

• Create test plans and perform tests.
• Create “test labs” in order to test applications in multiple environments. Each lab contains its own databases (automatically) filled with all relevant configuration and functional data. A lab may also include relevant hardware. Configuration or even firmware may be different for each lab.
• Create virtual test environments quickly, deploy the application, and then complete automatic tests.
• Reporting bugs.
• Recording of steps that cause unexpected behavior.
• Generate test cases based on the steps that caused the bugs to appear.

For system integration testing, the test environment is linked with all interacting test environments of systems involved. This includes all hardware and software.

Acceptance Environment

Ideally, the acceptance test environment should be a copy of the production environment. All systems that operate in the production environment are installed and, if necessary, active. The databases contain actual data, anonymously transferred from the production environment (if possible).

In the Acceptance environment, Support & Operations personnel may validate all information in order to establish whether the system can be put into use. Customers may even play a role in this.

For the Support & Operations department the Acceptance Environment is the first step towards the Production Environment, towards going live.

Within the Acceptance Environment Support & Operations must be able (but not be limited) to:

• Create and document release procedures
• Setup an Acceptance Environment resembling a particular Production Environment
• Different Acceptance Environments can be used to test one release based on different Production Environments.
• Test the installation and release of software before installation on a production side.

Production Environment

This is the environment in which all programs are eventually installed. No tests are performed in this environment. Normally, customers take care of the Production environment.

This said, it is of the utmost importance to be accurately informed about erroneous situations in a live system. Support & Operations is the first contact for customers with operational problems. To help Support & Operations with their tasks the Production Environment should support (but not be limited to):

• Exception reports
• Performance reports
• Recording and capturing the sequence of events that caused a bug and to store trace information, together with the appropriate environmental data.

Furthermore, Support & Operations must be able to:

• Have access to all relevant documentation
• Report bugs, including all relevant information gathered
• Report other observations to the development team for analysis and triage.

Ideally the software tools for Support & Operations are integrated with all other tools for software development, testing and acceptance.

The DTAP Environment Implemented

For all but the most trivial of solutions, application development is a multidisciplinary exercise that encompasses a wide variety of tasks and participants. The principal aim of any software development effort is to deliver a quality application that meets the customers’ requirements in a timely and cost-effective manner. However, there are many obstacles that can get in the way of any development team. Many of the problems are caused by a lack of clear and effective communication among developers, project managers, and customers. Other problems may result from a lack of discipline that occurs when developers and project managers misuse or misunderstand the development process. Consequently, adaptable and easy-to-use tooling is critical to help overcome the issues that can arise when producing a potentially complex system.

Visual Studio 2012 and Team Foundation Server help to address these concerns by supplying a collection of tightly integrated tools to support and manage the entire Application Lifecycle.

The primary aims of Visual Studio 2012 and Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2012 are to:

• Prioritize collaboration among everyone involved in developing an application, incorporating customers as equal members of the development team. 
• Deliver timely and actionable feedback to reduce wasted effort and its associated costs.
• Provide natural and appropriate tools for the tasks involved in designing, developing, testing, delivering, and maintaining quality software.
• Support best practices for application development, while remaining independent of any specific methodology.

For more information look at

• Visual Studio 2012 Product Guide

Southwest USA Travelogue: Los Angeles

I am so lucky having opportunities to visit remote spots, make films and write about it.

Today, we try to travel from Amsterdam to Los Angeles.

Traveling might be fun or just stressful. We have to transfer in Houston. Late departure from Schiphol Airport now leaves us with only one hour to go. From International to domestic. Impossible? The arrival hall is packed with people, queued for customs. A yelling lady - incomprehensible "Los Angeles or San Fransisco?" - directs us to the next hall. Queue lengths are here half the size. With the Electronic System for Travel Authorization we still have to leave behind 10 fingerprints and a nice photo. We have luck, do we? The suitcases are already on the luggage belt. However, we may have entered the United States, our suitcases have not. Another queue. No problem. We already have a boarding pass for our transfer flight, but where to drop the suitcases for our flight to Los Angeles? OK. Found it, Next queue, security check, taking too long. Now we really have to run, from the E-terminal to gate C43. Just 10 minutes before STD arriving at the gate, breathless.

So, impossible? Not for us, but for our suitcases it is...

Jet-lag. At 2 AM, sort of conscious again, the phone in our hotel room is flashing. 2.30 AM, nice time to unpack.

"Good morning. How can I help you?". Thanks to Starbucks we revive. We only have one day to experience Los Angeles, thus, renting a car is a requirement. And renting a car is easy and cheap. For the reservation in combination with the booking of the complete America trip we paid only 25 euro's (± $ 33.00), for the whole day.

Straight to Hollywood Boulevard where tourists are trampling the stars of the - mostly rich and - famous. Before we went to the USA I didn't know what to expect from the average American. One of the European prejudices of Americans is being superficial. True or not, we have met a lot of friendly Americans. While trying to pay for the parking with a credit card a big black guy immediately wants to help entering the requested data. After the "No, thank you" on his attempt to sell us a tour he still is friendly.

We drive into the hills to the Griffith park and the Observatory. To the right we look at the famous HOLLYWOOD letters on the hillside, to the left we have a magnificent view over down town LA. We descend in the direction of Sunset Boulevard and through Beverly Hills we reach the expensive Rodeo Drive. If you can't or don't want to spend money here watching the pedestrians won't bore you either.We have some early lunch at a Mexican restaurant and we are in luck. Officially not yet opened, but the Tuesday offers us three different tacos for $1 each, including a large diet Coke!

Next stop: Santa Monica. The famous Pier resembles an amusement park, but the nice weather and people passing by our terrace make our day.

Last stop for today: Venice Beach, home of the hippies. We are surprised by the smell of hash and people demonstrating for the legalization of marijuana. We known this from Holland, but hey, this is America. While the sun is trying to meet the horizon, we form part of the public watching the skaters horizontally taking the turns in the special concrete tracks.

The car navigation guides us back to the car rental and for the 25 euro (plus gasoline) we are even brought back to the hotel in a mini-van.

Watch the video impression of our quick tour Los Angeles.

To be continued...

Don't like like on Facebook

I don't like like on Facebook, because sometimes I do not like the like. Or should I say, it is inappropriate to like a story that can only be disliked. Everybody knows the situations where you would like to show that you have read it, to show sympathy, but a like is telling the contrary.

I even more do not like like on Facebook because they sometimes are invented. Or be more precise, sometimes Facebook speaks for me while I have not spoken. I do get unwanted advertisements within my news feeds. I do not click on them. My "friends" see a message "from me" saying I like this or that company or product. Facebook is making up things.

I do not like the advertisements at all. And now, I even dislike them. Oh yes, that's the problem.  I cannot dislike and I certainly cannot dislike likes from Facebook itself.
May be, if I was living in the States, I could sue Facebook and get millions from them. But I live in the Netherlands and I don't know how to sue Facebook and get millions from them. That's why I am still a programmer, a freelance videomaker and writing this blog. Nevertheless, somebody gets payed because I do not like. Strange world.

There seems to be more going on. Look for Like, Share & Win terror, Facebook is not playing fair play. I am just a simple user of Facebook. I "like" Facebook because so many real friends of mine are on Facebook. But it might be only a matter of time. In the Netherlands Hyves was very popular, but almost vaporized. Facebook had it's unbelievable IPO for over $104 billion! For that money they still have not been able to write a decent Android program and they try to earn money with like's nobody every liked. In my opinion, they are and will be disappointing for shareholders. Not so important for me. They are disappointing users and the huge user base might just vaporize. Nothing is forever.

You can dislike this blog if you dislike like on Facebook. Oh no, this is getting confusing...
Tell me if you disagree, or like this if you do not like like on Facebook.

Document Management with Samsung Galaxy S4 and Google Drive

Did you ever dream about easy archiving of paper documents and invoices?

If you happen to have a Google account then using Google Drive (formerly known as Google Docs) is only a small step. With Google Drive you can create you own directory structure and you can drag your own files into the cloud. Google even has its own (simple) Office Apps to create Word, Excel and PowerPoint equivalents.
Now, if Google is strong in one particular way it is in searching. Google has become big with fast and efficient searching. This is no different if you are searching your own Google email (Gmail) or Google Drive. Search your email on any key word(s). If you have uploaded .pdf files, find them back. All blistering fast.
OK. And now for the goody. Google uses OCR (Optical Character Recognition) on images you upload to Google Drive. So, this is what I did.

Using my brand new Samsung Galaxy S4 mobile phone camera I took some pictures of invoices I received on paper (how old fashioned). Within the Camera App I chose for sharing to Google Drive, selected the appropriate directory and pressed OK. The minute it showed up on my PC screen I was able to select the image on some text I knew was present in this photo. Google immediately found the picture for me. Clicking on the file name opened the image and showed the contents on the screen. Amazing.
There are restrictions. Images have to be smaller than 2 MB. For this reason I had to change the size of the photo. From 13 MB (4128x3096) to 8 MB (3264x2448). The resulting image size was something like 1.7 MB. Enough for the Google OCR to translate all text contained in the picture.
I used a flash from the phone and it might be necessary to enhance the picture. The S4 camera App has some nice features to improve the brightness and contrast. Experiment with some of these settings before sending the image to Google Drive. Also, my first photo was too large. Google did some OCR, but not for the whole picture. So watch out.

Take your chance and enjoy archiving, or should I say: Happy Searching.