John Lokanis

I always flush the buffer, read 10000 chars with 1ms timeout and then send my command. I also make sure that my target is not set to echo the command. (or if it does, I deal with it explicitly). This has worked well for me in a large system with 100s of ports for many years.

I suspected as much. Looks like "build your own" is my only choice.

Here is a strange request but I am casting a wide net to see if anyone has seen a solution to this. I need a device that can route a USB dongle to a DUT's USB port. I need to be able to simulate the insertion and removal of the USB dongle without physical access to the dongle. I need this to be controlled via Ethernet. Ideally, this product would allow me to insert a single USB dongle and route it to multiple DUTs simultaneously. If that is not possible, I could insert multiple dongles and route them 1 to 1. So, why do we need this? Well, our product is designed to boot off a USB dongle and get us a basic OS that we can then use to load a full test OS from a network server. But, once we install the network OS, we want to reboot and not see the dongle anymore. Right now we need someone to physically pull the dongle from the DUT. We would like to automate this process. thanks for any ideas, thoughts or sympathy... -John

Did anyone record Darren's Tips and Tricks session? I was so disappointed that I had to miss it...

I have used both. They both seem to work, but the mobile app does not show my personal events I have setup. The mobile app is better at showing me what other sessions are available at a particular time. Cant believe my whole calendar is fully booked and I had to skip several key sessions again. NI really needs to gauge interest in the sessions before they lock in times so they can avoid overlap of the most popular ones.

I got an email from NI with the links and my access code. I would have assumed everyone who is registered and paid in full should have gotten the same email. Maybe I am a beta tester of the system? I would check your registration with NI to verify everything is correct.

The session register is up and running. Access the NIWeek App online or on your smart phone. On your PC/laptop go to http://portal.niw2012.alliancetech.com/ On a smart phone go to http://mobile.niw2012.alliancetech.com/ You will need your confirmation number to sign in. For some strange reason there is only one 'What's New in LabVIEW 2012' session and it conflicts with one that JKI guys are doing. Bummer...

What are you trying to accomplish, exactly? I have used prebuild and post build actions to add versioning to unversioned things (like web services) and to modify the installer dialog message so it reflects the version of the EXE it will be installing.

I believe if you set a breakpoint in the original, you can cause all the clones to halt at that breakpoint and give you access to them. Kinda annoying but it should work. I too have longed for a clone browser and tried to implement one but failed...

Me too! See you all there!

Thanks Mark! I'll take a look at it.

I agree that total control of it is impossible. What I am pointing out is the current state of the economy is an under damped system, prone to wild fluctuations. This was not always the case. Between the FDR and Reagan eras we had an over damped economy. This was due to laws and regulations put in place after the great depression to limit what risks banks could take on. Reagan started to erode this, Clinton continued the erosion and Bush2 finished the job. These changes led directly to the economic collapse in 2008. If you want to understand this, there are several good sources. Read ‘All the Devils Are Here’ or watch the documentary film ‘The Inside Job’. Also, there was a recent edition of Frontline on PBS that you might still be able to TIVO when they replay it. What I am proposing is a return to the over damped economy, where we return to slow steady growth and limit the ‘financial innovations’ that the banks are currently doing. If you disagree with that, then study up on what the purpose of a bank is. It is not supposed to be a profit center. A good analogy is the power grid. The bank is not the generator and it is not the consumer. It is the transmission line. Its job is to facilitate the flow of electricity (money). Due to resistance (interest) it is not a lossless conductor but is was never intended to function as a source of power (creating money from nothing). When we let the banks start playing their gambling games with CDOs, derivatives, etc, we invited disaster. This is because companies are now always focused on the short term gain and not on long term stability. The stock market is rigged to enforce this perverse inventive by how they reward or punish companies based on their last quarter’s numbers. Currently, the banks are fighting against the return of these regulations. And we are still very much at risk for systemic failure. Maybe even more so now that the banks are even bigger than before. If you need an immediate real world example of this, just read the recent news from JP Morgan. I’m sorry but that is a load of BS. The scientists are not becoming political advocates. They are just laying out the facts. The environmentalists are the ones taking the political advocacy. Don't confuse one with the other. I don't know what 'point' it is that you think is being missed, but the scientific method is the only process we have for understanding our reality. Science is the pursuit of facts and the creation of hypotheses that fit those facts to allow us to understand reality. As more facts are discovered, those hypotheses are adjusted to fit the new data. I have never heard a scientist lay claim to something called truth. Just the nature of reality. I don’t know what you think ‘TRUTH’ is but I have heard so many interpretations of that word that it really has no meaning to reality. You can believe what you want but don’t mistake those beliefs for what really exists in the world around you. If you want some simple facts, here are a few: The planet is getting warmer. This is happening at a much faster rate than it has ever happened in the history of the planet. This added energy into our climate system is causing more extremes in our weather. Over the next several decades, there will be significant impacts to where humans can live and grow food on our planet. There are steps we can take to mitigate the rate of this change and perhaps avoid the most extreme effects. So, you can ‘believe’ what you what but the climate doesn’t care what you believe. I, for one, would like to leave my children and grandchildren with something resembling a decent planet to live on. But, I don’t have the ‘faith’ in humanity to fix this. It’s the ‘old frog in the pot of water’ fable. Most of those loopholes were put there by lobbyists. I don’t think we need a larger amount of laws. Just better laws with less loopholes. And stronger enforcement of those laws. A good example of this is the current regulations that the financial industry is fighting against. They have been lobbying the GOP leadership to simply not fund the regulatory agencies so they cannot enforce the laws on the books. Corporations are not people. People have first amendment rights. People have the right to speak their opinions freely. As I have been trying to point out, the ‘people’ running a corporation use it as a mask to deflect criticism for their actions. If you or I were to act as a corporation is supposed to (doing everything in our power to improve our financial position) then we would not have many friends and would be rejected by society. The entity we call a corporation is not alive. It does not have a conscious. It does not have empathy, sympathy or understanding. It is not human. Therefore it is not entitled to human rights. So, if the people who make up the corporation (or whatever collective entity they belong to) want to speak freely, they should be allowed to as individuals. And we should be able to see who they are when we listen to their points of view so we can consider what they are saying within that context. I personally think the current law that SCOTUS decided on actually hurts the first amendment much more than it supports it. This is because it allows the speech of the individual to be completely drowned out by big money. Money is not speech. Speech is speech. Really? You seriously think corporations pay for all the environmental impacts of their actions? Have you ever heard of superfund? How about that plant up in Canada that has been polluting the Columbia river. (http://www.uswaterne.../3epabat12.html) Do you really think BP has paid or ever will pay the full cost of the impacts of the gulf oil spill? Now, granted, many products would cost a lot more if all environmental impacts were factored into the price. So, we instead spread the cost out across the taxpayers. But the problem with that is it hides the price signal. Consumers cannot make a choice on products that have more or less impact on their environment because the true cost is hidden to them. And the result is companies do not choose the methods that have the least environmental impacts because their profit is not effected. Can we ever fix this entirely? Probably not. But should we try to do better? I think so. If only voters would act in their economic self-interest... They can have a voice, but the current process is to let them write the legislation themselves. Why are we even paying the lawmakers anymore? All they do is solicit money and cast the occasional vote. http://www.bloomberg...state-laws.html Well, I disagree. Why shouldn’t they have to pay the 35% to bring the money back in. In reality, with all the loopholes in the tax law, US companies pay a much lower rate than that. (http://thinkprogress...-low/?mobile=nc) Now, if you think the rate is too high, then that is a discussion we could talk about. I would be in favor of a lower rate and less loopholes. That would even the playing field between companies who can afford the best tax lawyers and those who can’t. But this crazy 5% rate with little more than a promise to use the fund for job growth is ridiculous. If you want to do that, then force them to spend it on expansion. But that again is stupid. Taxes have little if any impact on job creation. We have had massive job growth when taxes were high. And we currently have the lowest rates in decades but slow growth. Growth is based on one thing: demand. If a company can make more money by hiring and producing more, then they will. The line about how an entrepreneur with a great idea will only create a company if his taxes are low is BS. If I have a million dollar idea and the tax rate is 40% instead of 30%, I’m still going to do it because 60% of a million dollars is still more than 0% if I don’t even try! Oh, and if the so-called small business owner reinvested their profits in the company instead of extracting them as personal income, then they would not have to pay taxes on that money in the first place. But again, there needs to be demand for there to be growth. So, the 1% are not job creators and never will be. The consumer is the job creator and always will be. Oh, and remember the bank bailouts? Remember Paulson saying we gave them the money and they promised to use it to lend? How well did that work? Guess there wasn’t any profit in supporting main street (the taxpayers). While this thread has been interesting, it is taking up a lot of my time. Don’t you have work to do too Dave?

Yes, you are. I am not against corporations. They are just out of control right now in our society. We need to keep them on a much shorter leash. I would much rather have slow steady growth and a planet we can still survive on then this crazy roller-coaster economy with massive concentrations of wealth and increasing ignorance of scientific facts that point to a worse future for everyone. Nope. Quite the opposite. I think we need better laws to govern them and limit their ability to influence those laws. I don't believe there is one standard moral code. But I know there are external costs (like pollution) that corporations are not forced to incorporate into their profit/loss calculations. This should be changed so corporations make better choices. My main point is a corporation will never make a moral choice. They must be forced to control themselves by a society who enacts laws to govern their behavior. Too many people think corporations will do what is in the public's best interest if you leave them unfettered by regulations. That is pure fantasy. Agreed. I would simply counter with the fact that most people in our society are either unaware, uneducated or unmotivated to take any action that will result in 'free market forces' affecting corporate behavior. Try to keep in mind that you and I live in a very nice bubble of well educated and somewhat politically aware members of our society. We do not represent the majority of our country. So we cannot expect them to act in these ideal free market ways like you listed. We need specialists who understand these complex issues to help create solutions so we have a stable economy. Yes. And all branches of government need to consider the consequences. There is an interesting story (http://www.thisameri..._Transcript.pdf) about how McCain and Feingold sat in the court the day that was decided and commented to each other how it was clear the justices had very little understanding about how campaign financing worked. Yes. Best way to prevent that is to audit the regulators and to remove the perverse incentives (like allowing corporations to choose who regulated then and then having the regulatory agency budget determined by how many companies it regulates. This is one area where competition is VERY bad.) I understand how you feel corporations should have some say in what regulations are imposed on them, but in the real world, that just does not work. Giving them the power they have now has guaranteed failure of regulatory agencies. It is just way to profitable for them to invest in lobbiest than to deal with the costs of a regulation. Go Read this: (http://www.npr.org/b...t-in-a-lobbyist) Agreed. In a feeble attempt to get back on topic, I wonder if the incentives for the convention center to 'green up' their facility will also lead NI to do the same at their corporate headquarters? (yes, I know nobody other than myself and Dave are reading this thread anymore, but at least I tried) Now get back to work! That FPGA must have finished compiling by now!

My point was the people who run the corporations hide behind the construct to justify immoral or more correctly amoral behavior. Even CEOs will say not to blame them for what their company does to the environment, citizens, other entities as long as they follow the law and do these things in the name of 'increasing shareholder value'. So, since corporations are amoral, we need to take away these 'human rights' that were incorrectly granted them. We need deal with them for what they really are. That is one reason I get upset at people who deride government regulations. "We the government" are the only thing keeping corporations in check. You cannot expect the free market to enforce moral behavior on an amoral entity. If you try that, you may find yourself in a can of Daklu soda...

Of course as soon as I asked that question, I figured out the solution... Here is the updated project... Prep for reuse.zip

I have been re-factoring and cleaning up some old code for packaging into reuse libraries. After doing several common edits to each file, I decided to automate the process a bit. The result was a simple tool to adjust the controls, panel positions, connector pane, add error clusters and comments. I decided to share it here so others could borrow some of my ideas and suggest more. As it is, this is saving me a lot of editing time. I hope you find it helpful too. Prep for reuse.zip -John One improvement I would like to make is for it to scan all open VIs in all application instances on the machine. Right now, it must run in the same app instance as the target VI. Any ideas how to get references to all app instances active on a target machine?

While the majority of people may have good intentions, our society has built a construct (the corporation) to allow a group of people to shed all their morals. Now, I am not saying that all companies are immoral, but there is a strong incentive (profit, maximizing shareholder value) to take actions without considering consequence that do not effect profit. So, a corporation is not necessarily evil, but like a shark in the ocean, it will take every opportunity to eat (profit), regardless if it is a fish, a seal or a surfer that it eats. So, it is very dangerous to allow that kind of motivation to go unchecked. That is why I feel government is the peoples response to the corporate construct. Our job is to erect the shark barriers so we don't get eaten in the process. If it was legal and Exxon could make more money grinding up baby seals and selling them to you as Seal Soda, then they would. Morals don't come into pay, only profits. An excellent example of this in the news today is the cyber warfare bills. The government want companies to invest in security to protect the internet from cyber attacks. And while these attacks have the potential to be devastating to the country's infrastructure, the corporations don't want to pay for it because it does not lead to greater profits. But, since the internet backbone is privately owned, the government cannot just implement the security measures themselves. So, we are all left vulnerable because there is no money to be made in being safe. So, what are we (the government) to do? Force the corporations to pay? Pay the tab out of taxpayer money? Or declare eminent domain over the internet and take it away from the corporations? (I would just like to note that in my last post, I tried to get this thread back on topic. Looks like that didn't work and I admit this post only makes it worse. Let's see if we can get this even further off topic now...)

Too many donuts is part of the problem... At least in the US. Also, too many people in the world. With limited resources (energy, water, clean air, a place to dump our trash), we will always be on a course to destruction until we all learn to limit our population to a sustainable level. If we don't, someday the planet will do it for us. (famine, disease, etc...) But, on a more positive note and back to the original topic, I hope this means I won't need a sweater when attending NI Week this year! -John

Interesting comments about messaging. I wonder if NI would ever consider extending dataflow to include 'messageflow'. Perhaps adding another layer on top of LabVIEW to define the flow of messages between actors? Something along the lines of the state-chart add-on? Since there is a push to mainstream the actor framework, this might be on the long term roadmap.

Heretic! Burn him! Seriously though, competition is a good thing. If the MS product can nudge NI to implement some IDE improvements or accelerate the transition of LV from nitch language to a more widely accepted and available (read: lower barriers to entry) language, then that is good for all of us. I wonder how this compares to NI Mindstorms environment which uses and MDI interface. Obviously that is designed for novices and children but there seems to be some similarities. Also, look at their web builder IDE for another view at dataflow language IDEs.

I am well aware of that. I purposely used shall to make this an enforced requirement. But, since I don't have to meet ISO or IEEE9001, this is more of a 'do as I say, not as I do' requirement... BTW: your post resulted in LAVA sending me 8 emails! Seems a bit excessive for a quoted reply...

Fair enough, but consider the audience too. If most of your devs are CLADs (or equivalent) the best option is to steer them in the right direction for now and worry about exceptions later.

How about: You should strive to keep you block diagram the minimum size possible without impeding the clarity of your code. I have seen some noobs simply maximize the BD on every VI even if there is barely any code in it. Personally, I try to keep my FP and BD as small as I can so I can fit more open ones on the screen at once. This helps me with debugging. I also use 2 monitors but rarely let my BD extend to the second one. The main exception being VIs that use a lot of property nodes, as mentioned above. And I don't make sub VIs for the sake of making sub-VIs. On the other hand, a sub-vi does not need to be a reusable component. It just needs to have a single functional purpose within the application. If you find yourself writing a second of code and commenting it with statements like 'here is where we calculate the blah de-blah blah thingy' then consider that a candidate for a sub-vi. My end goal is a BD that is a simple string of VIs with the minimum number of connections required between them and that clearly show the flow of actions within the application. As for BD size, our coding guidelines officially state: Size considerations The block diagram shall not exceed the size of a standard monitor. This would be 1440x900 in most cases; however this could change in the future. The size of the diagram should be kept to a minimum while still including a reasonable amount of white space for readability. If the diagram becomes too large, sections of the code should be refactored into sub-vis. Obviously, I sometimes violate this standard, but it is a good rule to try to live by, if for no other reason than it makes the code more 'portable' when viewed on other dev's machines for code reviews.

All good points Dave. Thanks for the feedback.