Well, I couldn’t hold off the inspiration any longer. I sat down with my trusty Melody Assistant, from Myriad, and wrote a small little piece for oboe, clarinet, flute and strings (violin, viola and cello).

It’s very simple in structure, but this is, I think, the first time I’ve been able to make something that sounds good, conforms to common structural guidelines, and actually has a bit of structure. I’m rather proud of it.

Listen to it here, if you want to.

Vi har en duva på kontoret här
Som smiter in och ställer till.
En riktigt förslagen duva den är
Som bygga bo under disken vill.

Se, dörren lämnas öppen en liten stund
Och vem tittar då nyfiket in?
Lilla duvan, som vill få en blund
Under mörka, kalla disken sin.

Finns månne här plats för en liten duva?
Finns det rum för det i vår vision?
Som snällt vill lägga sig och ruva
Eller blir det därmed en kulturkollision?

Blir alla då på duvan arga?
Trots att den är så snäll och fin?
Folk ryter och vill lilla duvan sarga
Och slänga den i en högtrycksturbin?

Kanske det är bäst att låta den flyga
Och bygga bo någon annanstans
När vi ej våra känslor kan tygla
Så den inte får nån sportslig chans.

Så stänger vi försiktigt dörren vår
För vi vill nog inte ha något duve-bo
Trots värmen i alla rum och vrår
Bäst ändå att jobba i lugn och ro.

Over the past few days I’ve been dabbling around with some demo versions of music software, to see how it all works together, and I must say I’m becoming somewhat impressed.

Using FL Studio and Garritan Personal Orchestra, I selected the Full Organ, added an enormous amount of large cathedral reverb, tuned the sound a little, and then sat down to record on my digital piano.

Here’s the result. What do you think?

Good book to read for anyone working with PHP.

It started off easy enough, you know, don’t trust input, always escape output, stuff like that. “Yeah, yeah”, I thought, “I learned that in kindergarten”.

But with each chapter, my attitude kind of changed from a “yada, yada” to “hmmmm” to “oops”.

The author doesn’t quite go into great depths of PHP programming, and there are some answers that are somewhat simplified; but with each merciless chapter, he brings up exploit after exploit, asking “did you think about this? and this? you thought about that, didn’t you?”

And you’re left wondering about that particular piece of code you wrote a few months back, because in the back of your head, you know that you didn’t think about that.

I have now resolved never to trust a programmer who hasn’t read at least a few good books about computer security (and can tell me which books he read).

Neither do I trust myself.

Ralph Hulett: “Number Five Freeway”

There will be no web hotel scripts for Windows. It’s impossible, or at any rate simply not worth it.

Pray we don’t get a lot of ASP.NET customers.

Over the past few days I’ve been trying to build a number of Windows server administration scripts – you know, for adding users to the Active Directory, creating new IIS websites, doing various stuff – and I get the distinct feeling that this is not something you normally do.

Whereas Linux has tools that do the job pretty much for you – everything is script-based anyhow, there is no point-and-click GUI – Windows requires you to dig into scripting, PowerShell, WSH objects, or any similar methodology to try to automate the task.

It’s almost like no one has ever done this before. And the few who have managed to penetrate the API’s enough to do so, have gone on to become employed at the Microsoft Scripting department as technology gurus.

There is a short clip from Monty Python that summarizes my feelings about this. It’s available here, in MP3 format.

This seems to be the state-of-the-art way to change access rights on a file in PowerShell:

$colRights = [System.Security.AccessControl.FileSystemRights]“Read”

$InheritanceFlag = [System.Security.AccessControl.InheritanceFlags]::None
$PropagationFlag = [System.Security.AccessControl.PropagationFlags]::None

$objType =[System.Security.AccessControl.AccessControlType]::Allow

$objUser = New-Object System.Security.Principal.NTAccount(“domain\user”)

$objACE = New-Object System.Security.AccessControl.FileSystemAccessRule `
($objUser, $colRights, $InheritanceFlag, $PropagationFlag, $objType)

$objACL = Get-ACL “c:\testfile”
$objACL.RemoveAccessRuleAll($objACE)

Set-ACL “c:\testfile” $objACL

Funny… The unix version would be something like

chmod 600 /testfile

I… uh… I don’t know. I’m tired. I want to go home now.

I’ve been thinking. That’s never a good sign. :)

I build a lot of software systems. If I’m not designing a web platform for support cases, I’m building systems for PowerPoint presentations, or custom PHP frameworks, or… well, you name it.

But wherever I look, I’m almost invariably being replaced. The things I implement are being gradually replaced with standardized systems – which, I admit, is not a bad way to go. There is substantial power in a well-established platform with support behind it.

And yet, I cannot keep from dreaming. I see things… better ways of doing things, better designs, better user interfaces. I see ways of improving things. It’s like there is resident within me a power to dream; a power that is relentless, that causes me to skip five steps ahead when others just see two. The question that burns within me is the constant “why not?” that forces me to challenge everything, including myself, and strive for an elegance in software design that I otherwise seem to see so little of. Not that I’m bragging, I just… dream.

But so little of what I do can be maintained. It’s like I’m destined to be an oddball that pioneers ahead, but is always replaced by a standard product after a few years. And it leads me to think.

Do I actually do anything useful? Does it matter what I do? So much of my heart and passion goes into things that no one will ever see. Am I, in fact, a roadblock to other people? Do I paint myself and other people into corners which they will then have to get out of?

Maybe I should stop and just use normal off-the-shelf tools. Use Drupal or WordPress instead of building my own system. And yet, it’s difficult to bring myself to do so because it’s so ugly and normal and conventional and limiting. It feels like I’m being relegated to writing instruction manuals for blenders, instead of some new novel I’m dreaming of…

Is there a place for dreamers in our society? Where do I really fit in?

Will anything I do ever last?

“I don’t really want an answer. I just want to send this cosmic question out into the void. So good night, dear void.” (You’ve Got Mail)

Very soon, I shall have enough power to destroy the entire world!

Muahahahahahahah!!!!

(… no, not really. But I like the phrase disturbingly much.)