... was the XML Aficionado, when he took this photo today:
It is indeed a grim place, and it is no secret that this is somewhere in Vienna, Austria (since that is quite obviously where I've spent this week - as can be seen in recent blog postings). But the question is: where in Vienna, and what place is this? I'll provide just one hint: DiffDog would have loved that place.
Be the first one to comment on this XML Aficionado blog with the correct answer, and you'll win one single-user license of Altova DiffDog 2008, the essential differencing and merging utility for developers.
Disclaimer: all blog comments subject to review; prize cannot be exchanged for cash; void where prohibited; winner responsible for all taxes and dues; employees of Altova GmbH and Altova Inc as well as Falk family members are eligible to participate, since the location of the above photo is only known to me personally and I was alone when taking that photo; batteries not included; no animal was harmed in the taking of the above photo; if you are reading this, then you (a) are probably a lawyer and/or (b) don't need any glasses...
There are many reasons why one would need to use the Windows CharMap utility from time to time - be it to insert special mathematical characters, Greek letters, to properly write Daisuke Matsuzaka-san's name in Kanji (松坂 大輔), or enter any other Unicode characters into your XML documents - but one use was mostly on my mind this week in Austria: the need to write German Umlaut characters (ä, ö, ü) and the German sharp-s character (ß) when you want to write proper German text. This is, of course, next to impossible when you have non-German keyboard, because none of these characters are available on the standard US keyboard layout.
Unfortunately the Windows CharMap utility isn't really that helpful at all when you want to type those characters, because you have to find it (typically it's hidden away under Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools) and then you have to copy/paste every character into your word processor or e-mail program one at a time.
I was, therefore, very happy to rediscover an old "friend" this week: PopChar is a character map replacement utility and much more. I say rediscover, because I used to use PopChar all the time some 15+ years ago on the Mac, but they now have a Windows version 3.2 as well, and it is just so much more powerful and useful than CharMap.
After installing PopChar for the first time, you get to adjust some preferences, such as whether you want PopChar to auto-start every time you login, or what hot-key you want to associate with PopChar (I use Ctrl-~ on my laptop). From then on PopChar lives happily among the task bar icons in the lower right corner of your screen. Then, when you want to insert a special character into your word processing document, e-mail, or XML document in your favorite XML editor, all you have to do is hit the hot-key and PopChar pops up with a list of characters that you can insert. Click on the character you want, and PopChar inserts it at you current cursor position in whatever document you've been working on, and disappears again. Fast, convenient, and unobtrusive.
The PopChar display is highly customizable, too, and you can pick either ASCII mode or Unicode depending on what characters you need to work with. The font size of the characters can be adjusted as well as the width and height of the window. You can select what font you want to use, and PopChar can optionally also style those characters in the selected font when you insert them into your document, which is highly useful if you pick some special symbols from a Dingbats or similar font.
But working with Unicode characters in XML documents is where PopChar truly shines, which is why I am writing about this gem of a utility on XML Aficionado. In this screen shot I have entered "ka" as a search term and PopChar immediately displays only those characters that contain "ka" in either the character name or the Unicode Block name. In my example, I was searching for the Devanagari letter ka (क), and PopChar found it quite easily, and also showed me Arabic letter kaf (ك), as well as the Cyrillic letter ka (к). In addition to the search function, you can choose to display all characters grouped by Unicode block, you can immediately jump to a particular block by picking it from a drop-down menu. The available characters in the display do, of course, depend on the kind of font you have selected, and the number of glyphs present in that font, so for intensive Unicode work in various exotic scripts a font such as Arial Unicode MS is highly recommended.
Equally useful is the ability to choose between 3 different insertion modes: regular character, styled character (i.e. including font information), and HTML code. The latter one is really crucial for HTML and XML work, because PopChar can automatically insert the proper character entity, such as € for the Euro currency symbol (€), or the numeric character entity, such as ∯ for the surface integral (∯).
In this screen shot I have selected HTML insertion mode, and you can immediately see the HTML code for any character as I hover over them with the mouse - very useful! I have added some red ovals to indicate where the HTML code is displayed. This insertion mode is actually what I used to write this blog entry and insert the special characters in the preceding paragraph.
Bottom line is: if you need to type special characters frequently, if you work a lot with Unicode, or if you need character entities in HTML and XML, then you should definitely give PopChar a try.
PopChar is available to download as a trial version (with only a subset of all characters available for insertion) and a license key is quite affordable at € 29.99 per user (with multi-user discounts available).
Oh, and for you Mac users out there, they also have a Mac version.
P.S. If your browser or feed reader doesn't display some or all of the above Unicode characters, that simply means that you don't have a font installed on your computer that contains the corresponding glyphs for some of the more exotic scripts.
Wichtiger Hinweis:
Die Inanspruchnahme des Online-Standardtickets abweichend vom verkehrsüblichen Weg zur schnelleren Erreichung des Bestimmungsortes und in vorwärtsstrebender Richtung gilt dabei nicht als aufzahlungspflichtige Umwegfahrt.
Important Notice:
The utilization of the online standard ticket deviating from the usual
traffic path for the faster arrival at the destination city and in a
forward-going direction does not constitute a detour that would require extra
payment.
I am writing this quick report from the airport lounge in San Francisco, as I am waiting for my flight to Frankfurt and onward to Vienna for a week of meetings at Altova GmbH's headquarters in Austria. You just have to love Wi-Fi access - how did we ever get anything done before the Internet, laptops, Wi-Fi networks, and blogs?
With a week of conference sessions and trade show work in Las Vegas behind me, here is a quick summary of what I perceived to be some of the highlights of IBM's Information-On-Demand show from an XML Aficionado's perspective:
IBM announced DB2 version 9.5 (scheduled to ship October 31st), which contains several feature enhancements to the pureXML functionality, including inlining of XML, compression, several performance improvements for transactional XML, and the first implementation of XQuery Update in a major database. The last bit is probably the most interesting, because of the lack of updating capabilities in the original XQuery specs, which was exclusively focused on queries (analog to the SELECT statement in SQL). XQuery Update provides the ability to insert, delete, or update any node, i.e. potentially just one single element or attribute in the database, which should provide a huge difference to current implementation, where the entire XML document typically needs to be written back to a column in the database.
Altova's Nick Nagel, spoke on XML-Driven Data Management in a Developer Den session on Wednesday, which was well-attended. Nick's presentation addressed a "top-down" approach to data modeling using XSD (XML Schema Definition language) as a data modeling language with implications for data storage and retrieval as pureXML in DB2. Nick spoke on how XSD in turn can drive process implementation serving as formal design document, and how XML facilitates process development by enabling automated data binding, data mapping, as well as storage and retrieval with XPath 2.0 and XQuery. He also showed several screenshots on how Altova's tools can make working with XML in DB2 easier for developers.
IBM's Berni Schiefer conducted a Birds of a Feather session on Performance Tips, Conundrums and Experiences with DB2, where he answered customer questions and spoke in-depth about performance tuning of DB2, including tuning for pureXML. He also gave a few other interesting talks, but I did unfortunately not have time to attend those.
There were also plenty of interesting customer talks about how they are using XML, as well as more in-depth sessions on various aspects of pureXML in DB2, but my flight is boarding in a few minutes, so I don't have enough time to report on those anymore.
I had the pleasure of having dinner at Shibuya twice this week: on Tuesday I invited our trade show booth team to celebrate a successful presence at the IBM Information-On-Demand conference and trade show in Las Vegas, and on Thursday I ate a quick bite at the Sushi bar before seeing KA by Cirque du Soleil.
Shibuya is located in the MGM Grand casino in Las Vegas and features regular restaurant tables, teppan-yaki style tables, where the chef grills at the table, and a fantastic Sushi bar right below a gigantic virtual aquarium.
For our trade show team dinner we set at a regular table and were served by a very competent, friendly, and knowledgeable waiter.
To start the evening off we had cocktails, and I can only highly recommend the Shibuya Cocktail: it is a delightful Vodka- and Sake-based drink with crushed sake-flavored ice, that give it a unique texture and taste. Not too sweet, but also not too dry. If you like Cosmopolitans, you will definitely enjoy the Shibuya Cocktail, although it is not nearly as sour as a Cosmo.
The Sake menu at Shibuya is simply impressive. They boast the largest selection of Sakes in the country, and while I cannot verify that claim, it certainly sounds plausible, given that their menu is practically a book. The sakes are nicely organized in separate groups between the honjōzō-shu, ginjō-shu, and daiginjō-shu. When you order a bottle, the waiter brings a little "business card" for each guest that describes the Sake that is being served. We had two junmai-daiginjōs and they were equally exquisite. My favorite was the Wataribune from Ibaraki Prefecture: light and pure, with subtle hints of pineapple and peaches.
The appetizers are inspired and range from Kobe-Beef-Tataki to Toro-Tartar. They are all wonderfully presented and simply delicious. Make sure to order some Edamame and a seaweed salad to share for the table, and don't skip the Miso soup. It is also a good idea to order a few appetizers and share with friends to take in all the different tastes.
While the menu certainly has a wonderful variety of warm dishes that are probably excellent, we didn't try any of them. I simply cannot help it: when I'm faced with a spectacular Sushi bar, that's what I'll have. The Sushi menu has a broad selection of Nigiri, Nori-maki, and Temaki, and all the fish is freshly flown into Las Vegas for them. The O-Toro that I had melted like butter and was just wonderful. There is a Spider-Roll (soft-shell crab) on the speciality side that is to die for. And I can also highly recommend the Negi-Toro (or Toro Scallion) maki. An inspired combination is the Yellow Tail and Jalapeño maki - the spiciness of the Jalapeño very nicely compliments the Yellow Tail and is slightly subdued by the Sushi rice, so as to not be totally "in your face".
The only thing on the menu that I disagree with, is the Hinomaru roll - Buffalo Mozzarella and basil in a Sushi Roll? Who's ever heard of that combination? However, John Judy actually tried the dish and insisted that it was not only delicious, but also argued that it is permissible to try such new cuisine cross-over variations. I don't know about that - when it comes to Sushi I'm a bit of a traditionalist....
But during my second visit I saw many other people order the dish, so I guess it must be pretty good - maybe I'll try it some day, during a future visit to Las Vegas.
On my second visit I also had the honor of sitting right at the Sushi bar in front of Master Sushi Chef Yoshinori Nakazawa, who directs a team of 5 sushi chefs and they are truly experts at the art of creating Sushi.
Watching Nakazawa-san work his magic up-close was inspiring and made the visit to Shibuya a mesmerizing experience. And the Sushi tastes even better when you sit right at the bar and it appears in front of you the very second that the chef has finished his creation - and a true creation it is, with all the detail that goes into making each piece.
If you are brave enough to leave some room for dessert, you will be aptly rewarded. My favorite is definitely the Mochi ice-cream, which comes in 3 flavors and is just spectacular. A thin layer of Mochi wrapped around fruit and green-tea flavored ice - heavenly!
To end the evening, I recommend a cup of hot Genmaicha to round things off.
In my opinion, the Sushi at Shibuya is at the pinnacle of Sushi restaurants in America, and puts Shibuya on par - if not even above - my favorite Sushi places in San Francisco. More on those in a future review here on the XML Aficionado blog.
My rating: ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ (5 out of a possible 5 diamonds).
At the award breakfast today the actual "winner" didn't even show up, but we received the above Certificate of Excellence. The judging was done by a panel of CTOs, experts, and IBM executives, and they were positively impressed by the new DB2-specific functionality of our XML editor.
The former is a detailed analysis of the OOXML vs. ODF controversy from a developer's perspective, including interviews with Burton Group analyst Peter O'Kelly, Microsoft's Brian Jones, and me.
The latter is a review of the new Altov XMLSpy 2008 release (in German).
I could not help, but notice an interesting synchronicity between the various announcements and news clips about these three firms in the last 2-3 weeks or so:
Office, Social Networking, Search, Office, Social Networking, Search, ... — is it just me, or is there some kind of pattern here?
And it all seems to revolve around online advertising platforms. Hmmmm.
