04.30.09

difference

Posted in programming, work at 5:25 pm by paul

You should not ever have to figure this out: the difference between the Unix and Visual Basic epochs is 2212147696.

This will come in handy if you ever find yourself in a position where you need to call VB methods from Perl, and then process the date in Perl. I, for example, find myself compelled to use the COM/VB API of a vendor’s product to extract log data and stuff (really, copy) into a tracking database. The database is supported by a Perl module, making it easier to process all the data. I had no inkling to rewrite (and then maintain) it in Visual Basic, and time/date logic is an important part of the requirements.

So that’s it. The Unix epoch is January 1, 1970 and the Visual Basic epoch is January 1, 100. Perl’s DateTime and Time::Local modules do not handle the year 100 well, so one cannot simply get a Unix time in seconds for that date.

As far as I can tell, this fact is documented nowhere else.

04.06.09

bedroom

Posted in Uncategorized at 6:10 am by paul

After way too long living with a bunch of stuff stashed in the corner of the bedroom, we finally got around to laying down the rug, leveling the cabinets, securing them to the wall, and re-building the bed frame.

It took almost the whole weekend. At least we are ready to add a few plants and some art.