Unfortunately things have bogged down. I could blame it on the kid's school starting, Mrs. Skyhound going back to work, various appointments, etc. But the real problem is that the new Sync feature is, well... out of sync.
The Sync feature allows the user to synchronize their data between two computers. The main point of this is so we can easily move our observing preparations onto our laptop to take into the field, and then easily move the results, such as log entries, back to our desktop. It's a sort of non-destructive backup/restore process, that seamlessly merges the data on one computer into the data on another without losing anything in the process.
Unfortunately, doing that is a huge pain in the ass. Actually, since we are talking about multiple databases here: observing lists, images, logs, notes, telescopes, locations, charts, observers, object notes, web links, etc., it's more like a huge pain in the ass times 50.
I originally did the groundwork for this code last fall. In the meantime, I dramatically underestimated how much of it had been completed back then. Not only that, but changes I have made since have to be folded in and it's been a bit like folding bowling balls into a soufflé. Worse yet, I discovered that I had cheated last fall and much of the code didn't really do what I wanted it to do.
** Sigh **
So while the beta test team is hopefully enjoying some time away from SkyTools I am working hard trying to get, well... back in sync.
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Thursday, August 9, 2007
The Campground Commute
The Skyhound kids wanted to go camping again before school started, but the Mrs. and I were too busy for a long trip away from home. So we hit on the idea of camping in our own forest here in the Sacramento Mountains. After all, people come from a long way to camp here so why shouldn't we? So we pitched our tent at a local campground less than 0.8 miles away from home! I spent several days commuting to work from the camp site.
I've been hunkered down for the last few days trying to get the next test version ready. The backup and restore functions are finished and they successfully restored my own SkyTools 2 files, which was no small feat. In addition there have been a lot of minor fixes.
The hitch is that I have finally decided to dump the InstallShield installer. Those people are nothing but money grubbers anyhow. Their business model is designed to milk large corporations of significant sums of money. I am not a large cooperation with large sums of money. I wish I had never given them any of mine in the first place; their installer has been nothing but trouble from the start. What really ticks me off is the way they lured me in with what appeared to be a fully functional program, but hidden deep inside were intentional limitations meant to make me pony up more money for a more sophisticated version.
So the next task is to create a new install script using the NSIS installer. But I'm too burned out to start the process... I miss the tent! It kept me from working too much. Time for a break.
I've been hunkered down for the last few days trying to get the next test version ready. The backup and restore functions are finished and they successfully restored my own SkyTools 2 files, which was no small feat. In addition there have been a lot of minor fixes.
The hitch is that I have finally decided to dump the InstallShield installer. Those people are nothing but money grubbers anyhow. Their business model is designed to milk large corporations of significant sums of money. I am not a large cooperation with large sums of money. I wish I had never given them any of mine in the first place; their installer has been nothing but trouble from the start. What really ticks me off is the way they lured me in with what appeared to be a fully functional program, but hidden deep inside were intentional limitations meant to make me pony up more money for a more sophisticated version.
So the next task is to create a new install script using the NSIS installer. But I'm too burned out to start the process... I miss the tent! It kept me from working too much. Time for a break.
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Beta Moving Along
We've been testing the standard edition for about a week now. It's been pretty harried. There are sixteen testers and it can be difficult to keep up with them. They have generated a lot of bugs for me to fix! But I don't mind that because fixing bugs is usually pretty simple and often fun. Sort of like doing detective work. You never know where it'll end up. And I can usually fix a bunch of them pretty quickly, which gives a great feeling of satisfaction.
We just did our first test of the new automatic program update, with mixed success. Lots of bugs got fixed, but the update itself was pretty rocky. I have a list of things I want to do better the next time, but of course they won't have the fixes in hand until they finish the update! So we'll have to muddle through at least one more time.
Even with all that going on--loads of emails, and fixing bugs--I've been spending most of my time struggling with trying to finish part of the program that's been giving me trouble for some time. I've gone back and forth on the design, wasting many hours of work, trying to get it right. Today I wrestled the monster to the ground and I think it has finally succumbed! I have some cleanup to do tomorrow and then I'll be free to move on to other things.
I want to get the data backup and restore features finished so we can start testing them, followed by the new sync feature, which will transfer data between SkyTools installations to bring them in sync. This kind of database work can be tedious and I'm not really looking forward to it. But when I get those two things done it will be clear sailing after that. I'll be able to finish up some of the more interesting new features and testing them should be more fun too.
We just did our first test of the new automatic program update, with mixed success. Lots of bugs got fixed, but the update itself was pretty rocky. I have a list of things I want to do better the next time, but of course they won't have the fixes in hand until they finish the update! So we'll have to muddle through at least one more time.
Even with all that going on--loads of emails, and fixing bugs--I've been spending most of my time struggling with trying to finish part of the program that's been giving me trouble for some time. I've gone back and forth on the design, wasting many hours of work, trying to get it right. Today I wrestled the monster to the ground and I think it has finally succumbed! I have some cleanup to do tomorrow and then I'll be free to move on to other things.
I want to get the data backup and restore features finished so we can start testing them, followed by the new sync feature, which will transfer data between SkyTools installations to bring them in sync. This kind of database work can be tedious and I'm not really looking forward to it. But when I get those two things done it will be clear sailing after that. I'll be able to finish up some of the more interesting new features and testing them should be more fun too.
Friday, July 13, 2007
Now Taking Volunteers for the Standard Edition Beta Test
It was a pretty exciting day as we officially started taking volunteers for the standard edition beta test. I will choose the primary team members by Tuesday and put the CD-Rs in the mail on Wednesday. Soon after the fun will begin!
The beta test web page is here:
http://www.skyhound.com/st3/st3beta.html
We've already had quite a few volunteers and I expect many more over the weekend. So far the majority were SkyTools 2 beta test team members and I'm excited to work with them again. It'll be like getting the old gang back together. I don't get to work with other people on SkyTools much; working with the beta test team is something I very much enjoy. That and it will all soon be coming together, which is enormously satisfying. SkyTools 3 has been four years in development (too long by any standard). I've been through a lot during that time and faced quite a bit of adversity, from corrupted data files to lying very near death in the ICU after a botched operation. It will be truly wonderful to finally see this baby out the door.
The beta test web page is here:
http://www.skyhound.com/st3/st3beta.html
We've already had quite a few volunteers and I expect many more over the weekend. So far the majority were SkyTools 2 beta test team members and I'm excited to work with them again. It'll be like getting the old gang back together. I don't get to work with other people on SkyTools much; working with the beta test team is something I very much enjoy. That and it will all soon be coming together, which is enormously satisfying. SkyTools 3 has been four years in development (too long by any standard). I've been through a lot during that time and faced quite a bit of adversity, from corrupted data files to lying very near death in the ICU after a botched operation. It will be truly wonderful to finally see this baby out the door.
Monday, July 2, 2007
Standard Edition Beta Test set for 15th
I had a nasty go-round with the Quasar database, but I'll spare you the details. Now that the databases are all but finished I've been working on getting the standard edition of the program together to be put on a CDROM. I have also been working on making sure SkyTools can find all of its files in their new destinations (scattered all over the computer thanks to Mr. Gates) and have been preparing the program for proper use with Vista.
All in all, things are going well! I bet the boss (Mrs. Skyhound) $100 that I could have the beta test process moving along by the 15th. I will be posting a call for testers on or before that date. After all, a hundred dollars is a hundred dollars!
All in all, things are going well! I bet the boss (Mrs. Skyhound) $100 that I could have the beta test process moving along by the 15th. I will be posting a call for testers on or before that date. After all, a hundred dollars is a hundred dollars!
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
522,066,543
Last week was so annoying that I was thinking of writing a post entitled Open Cluster F**k. I intended to redo the open cluster positions by hand, but decided I'd have one last search of the literature before I took that fairly large project on. As it turns out I found a resource that had everything I needed to greatly improve the cluster data! I must admit, however, to some frustration with myself for not being previously aware of this catalog and with nearly missing it entirely. But there was also a catch (there always seems to be one). In the new catalog each cluster is identified with only one designation and the positions of the clusters had changed, sometimes dramatically. That made it difficult to match them to the clusters in my existing database (this is unfortunately a requirement). So I had to write yet another program to do the matching. It turned into a nasty little problem. Sometimes it feels like matching objects is all I do. I need a break!
At 4 AM one morning I awoke suddenly, realizing that the power was out. I worried about my now-silent computer that had been so busy crunching stars while I slept. Had the UPS shut it down gracefully? I had a look outside and the sky had cleared. Imagine having the lights go out in the surrounding community and you can't tell the difference! I am very lucky. The other amazing thing is that you could still clearly see everything in my observing area, illuminated by nothing but starlight. One thing I discovered when I moved to the top of a 9000ft mountain is that a "dark" transparent sky isn't really dark at all. But I digress.
I waited in vain for the power to return the next day. It didn't come back until 24 hours later, and I was again asleep. The next day I had to go to Las Cruces, so I lost two full days of work. By the time I got back to it, I had trouble remembering what I had been working on so enthusiastically. I hate that.
Anyhow, once again I can report that it all turned out well in the end. The Open Cluster database is improved dramatically with data that was not available when I built ST2. And my computer picked up where it had left off, marching right on with matching those millions of stars for the new stellar database.
Speaking of that, I have to admit to some second guessing regarding my project to create a much larger stellar database. People keep asking me, "Is that really necessary?" This is what always happens when I come up with one of my big ideas. It seems like everyone I know tries to shoot it (and me) down. Don't get me wrong--they mean well, but I have this tendency to go out on a limb with some new innovation and most of the time the people around me don't see it the way I do. Add to that my own fears and insecurities about being out there on that limb and it can be disheartening. Fortunately most of my innovations have turned out for the best, but for a few spectacular exceptions, But the "proof is in the pudding" as they say, and I naturally worry that I'm making a mistake, particularly when it is a long-term project. On the one hand having a much deeper database seems like a no-brainer, but on the other there is that nagging question: do people really need that many stars?
What if I build it and they don't come?
The Pudding Comes out of the Oven
At 5:33 PM today an historic moment occurred (at least for me). The last star was added to the new "pro" stellar database, bringing the total number of stars to over 522 million. Yowza! Leave it to me to be off by a factor of two in my estimate! Apparently I overestimated how many stars would be excluded due to various reasons. SkyTools 2 in comparison, like all other current software, ships with a mere 20 million (or so) stars. So is this a revolution in the making?
Oddly, I also managed to get my estimate for the final size of the database wrong by a factor of two. Thankfully, I overestimated that one. The map database comes to just under 4.3 GB, which is small enough to fit on a single DVD-ROM. This development opens up some interesting possibilities with regard to how we may offer the "pro" version. But again, I digress.
As the database neared completion I was able to play with the parts of the sky that were available. I used ST3 a lot to check out the new open cluster positions and sizes. It looks great. And there sure are lots of stars! There is also a more subtle effect: so many more of the stars now have colors that the display is very pleasing. I got used to it very quickly.
Then I had the "wow" moment. I was looking at NGC 7142, an open cluster dear to my heart, in the ST3 Interactive Atlas when I had the idea to compare it to the old ST2 view. I fired up ST2 and was immediately struck by the difference. As you zoom in with ST2 you quickly reach the point where the existing stars merely get bigger and no new stars appear. You can see for yourself below:
After spending so much time with ST3, not only did it feel like most of the sky was missing in ST2, but the position and size of the cluster is, well, rather embarrassing! So do I feel like I've wasted my time with these databases? No Way!
What a relief.
At 4 AM one morning I awoke suddenly, realizing that the power was out. I worried about my now-silent computer that had been so busy crunching stars while I slept. Had the UPS shut it down gracefully? I had a look outside and the sky had cleared. Imagine having the lights go out in the surrounding community and you can't tell the difference! I am very lucky. The other amazing thing is that you could still clearly see everything in my observing area, illuminated by nothing but starlight. One thing I discovered when I moved to the top of a 9000ft mountain is that a "dark" transparent sky isn't really dark at all. But I digress.
I waited in vain for the power to return the next day. It didn't come back until 24 hours later, and I was again asleep. The next day I had to go to Las Cruces, so I lost two full days of work. By the time I got back to it, I had trouble remembering what I had been working on so enthusiastically. I hate that.
Anyhow, once again I can report that it all turned out well in the end. The Open Cluster database is improved dramatically with data that was not available when I built ST2. And my computer picked up where it had left off, marching right on with matching those millions of stars for the new stellar database.
Speaking of that, I have to admit to some second guessing regarding my project to create a much larger stellar database. People keep asking me, "Is that really necessary?" This is what always happens when I come up with one of my big ideas. It seems like everyone I know tries to shoot it (and me) down. Don't get me wrong--they mean well, but I have this tendency to go out on a limb with some new innovation and most of the time the people around me don't see it the way I do. Add to that my own fears and insecurities about being out there on that limb and it can be disheartening. Fortunately most of my innovations have turned out for the best, but for a few spectacular exceptions, But the "proof is in the pudding" as they say, and I naturally worry that I'm making a mistake, particularly when it is a long-term project. On the one hand having a much deeper database seems like a no-brainer, but on the other there is that nagging question: do people really need that many stars?
What if I build it and they don't come?
The Pudding Comes out of the Oven
At 5:33 PM today an historic moment occurred (at least for me). The last star was added to the new "pro" stellar database, bringing the total number of stars to over 522 million. Yowza! Leave it to me to be off by a factor of two in my estimate! Apparently I overestimated how many stars would be excluded due to various reasons. SkyTools 2 in comparison, like all other current software, ships with a mere 20 million (or so) stars. So is this a revolution in the making?
Oddly, I also managed to get my estimate for the final size of the database wrong by a factor of two. Thankfully, I overestimated that one. The map database comes to just under 4.3 GB, which is small enough to fit on a single DVD-ROM. This development opens up some interesting possibilities with regard to how we may offer the "pro" version. But again, I digress.
As the database neared completion I was able to play with the parts of the sky that were available. I used ST3 a lot to check out the new open cluster positions and sizes. It looks great. And there sure are lots of stars! There is also a more subtle effect: so many more of the stars now have colors that the display is very pleasing. I got used to it very quickly.
Then I had the "wow" moment. I was looking at NGC 7142, an open cluster dear to my heart, in the ST3 Interactive Atlas when I had the idea to compare it to the old ST2 view. I fired up ST2 and was immediately struck by the difference. As you zoom in with ST2 you quickly reach the point where the existing stars merely get bigger and no new stars appear. You can see for yourself below:
What a relief.
Thursday, June 7, 2007
Working Vacation
Well, sort of. This past week Mrs. Skyhound has been away at a conference and the Skyhound kids are out of school. Between feeding them, clothing them, taking them to their baseball games, following both the Stanley Cup and Louis Vuitton Cup finals with them, and separating the two of them when they fight, I haven't had a lot of time to work.
Nonetheless there have been some important milestones. In addition to working in here and there the tying up of little loose ends, I added even more improved data to the planetary nebula database (it's really looking good).
But the big news is that I finished the end-to-end testing of the new stellar database and it passed with flying colors. The final count was 16,330,450 stars, including over 50,000 variables and 72,089 multiple star systems. I don't have a final count for the total number of double-star pairs, but it is likely close to 100,000. I also ran many tests on special cases, such as the long-period binary pair BL Cet and UV Cet, Barnard's star, etc. Everything is go.
It was time to start creating the full database for the "pro" version, which will add large numbers of faint stars down to magnitude 20. There are a total of 24 declination bands, of which 3 are now complete. At the current rate it looks like it may take a week running continuously to finish the database, bringing the total number of stars to something around 250 million. SkyTools is really impressive when targeted in the bands already completed. It seems like you can zoom in forever and the stars just keep coming!
Nonetheless there have been some important milestones. In addition to working in here and there the tying up of little loose ends, I added even more improved data to the planetary nebula database (it's really looking good).
But the big news is that I finished the end-to-end testing of the new stellar database and it passed with flying colors. The final count was 16,330,450 stars, including over 50,000 variables and 72,089 multiple star systems. I don't have a final count for the total number of double-star pairs, but it is likely close to 100,000. I also ran many tests on special cases, such as the long-period binary pair BL Cet and UV Cet, Barnard's star, etc. Everything is go.
It was time to start creating the full database for the "pro" version, which will add large numbers of faint stars down to magnitude 20. There are a total of 24 declination bands, of which 3 are now complete. At the current rate it looks like it may take a week running continuously to finish the database, bringing the total number of stars to something around 250 million. SkyTools is really impressive when targeted in the bands already completed. It seems like you can zoom in forever and the stars just keep coming!
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