dannyt

I think the Database idea is great for errors, we did something similar in adding error messages to our test results report and they were imported into our DB wih all the oher results. However that does not work for general logging of which error loging is only a small subset off

I have looked at and played with jgcode's eror logger and it did work for me, but error logging and debug loging are differnt in scope, in my view. I must admit you have reminded me I was going to look at extending that example code into a full logger tool.

Hi Jody, I must say that looks very interesting, thank you for the link and the blog post. I am just about to look into logging at my new company fo a LabVIEW project I have inherited that has none at present and as I used to have it I miss it a lot. We use to have a log system that logged, different levels, not as clearly defined as your levels, but here were a couple of issues with this. I should say this was not a Real-time system but a PC based test executive. One problem is that of functionality within the code, if you turn on Trace you would get a lot of logging messages, as we had trace logging all over the place. But what happens if I want a Trace type level but I am only interested in say GPIB write & reads or maybe only telnet command sent or read from our UUT. The other problem I saw was that of the "if only we had the logging turn on" problem. There were situation where rare unexpected behaviour or errors occurred, you would know something had happened after a UUT had been tested, but on the retest after you have "turned logging on" all went well so you have no extra information. I had thought to solve this by basically defaulting all logging to a Trace level and flagging logged messages in a functional way i.e. GPIB: TELET: SERIAL:, I would run a separate logging process to collect and deal with this data. Options to deal with the data could be, write all data to file when PC not busy, or maybe just keep all logging for an individual test stage and if that stage runs OK and a PASS is generated throw it away but if a fail or error occurs then log it to file. If you do decide to release this to the community, I for one will be very pleased to have a play with it. Cheers Dannyt

Well what can I say. I am posting this from my new ..... Wait for it Ipad2 Yes, at the weekend I went into a shop and help both a Zoom and an IPad in my hands at the same time and played with them and the IPad won for me. Mind you all Sunday, I wanted to throw it in the bin. I was updating to IOS5 and it failed so went into recovery, then nothing I could be would get it working again. I uninstalled iTunes and reinstalled it, tried a laptop and a PC. On Monday morning somebody at work had a go and it worked first time. I did not know if I was really please or really pissed off. Anyway, I have had working a couple of days now and really like it, Lava looks great on the IPBoard app Cheers all Danny

Over the last couple of days I ave found I cannot download anything from the code respository. Is anybody else haveing a similar problem ? Downloading TBL Top level baseline package and presntion file also downloading Mark's Icon editor [#10850.1] An internal error occurred. Please contact an administrator cheers Dannyt

well lots of comments thanks all. Though some of the comments almost tempted me down the netbook route, I stepped back from that. If I really want to do some work I will just use my PC at my study desk or maybe get a powerfull laptop, for any real work I do like a big screen, old age so sight going and I also like a good keyboard. So I am definitly looking at what John nicely called a "consumption device" plus to carry various pdf manuals around on. I still have a very old Nokia phone, it's battries last many days and it makes phone calls which is all I want from a phone really, I cannot justify, to myself, the cost of both a Tablet & a pretty smartphone and I have concluded FOR ME the smartphone are a little to big to be a handy phone & a little to small to be anything else. I have since my original post removed the Samsung and now am with the IPad2 or the Motorola Zoom, the Zoom has heavily come down in price in the UK now £329 for 32GB, with GPS, 3G USB port & a MicroSD slot (as typing this I have just found it for £257 !!! that has to be wrong !!!!). So for the IPAD2 we are talking about 1/3 more cost without the 3G, GPS and no USB ports........ It just shows how good the Ipad2 is "or appears" that I am still pondering. Danny PS A quick update the £257 option site also had an Ipad2 on it for £408, but looking closer and reading a little more it all seems a little fishy to me possilby a far east grey import scheme so I will forget that at least

Thanks for the various input guys, There is no question the IPad and Mac are good products even qualiy products that do what they do well. I understand the limitatios of the IPad technically I supoose I do not quite undrstand what the impact of those limitations is. If I had the cash I would get one of each as I suspect happliy and paly but life is not like that, I may add to my problems and look at netbooks as well Danny

Hi All, I have finally accepted I need something other than my home PC to keep up to date with Lava, NI and much other stuff. Something that is easy, quick and convenient to use in comfort. It look like it comes down to an Ipad2 or a Samsung Tab. I would get an Ipad2 today except for two things * No Flash support Is this really a problem, how much do people miss it, I suspect I will not be able to see NI live webcasts, but could I see the playbacks and the other good stuff NI put out. How about VI shots. * No separate users accounts Whatever I get, I know I will not be able to keep it to myself, both wife and daughter will want to use as well, however I will have work related documents emails etc., and there seems no easy way separate this stuff. So I would be grateful for opinions for any device owners both pros and cons, Finally is the Ipad2 OK with pdf, I have quite a few technical books / manuals in html & pdf I hope to hold on whatever I buy. cheers Dannyt

Hi Phillip & Asbo Guys thanks for your suggestion, I have finally got to the bottom of this problem. I was focusing on the wrong area as happens at times. What I was unaware of was that the settings on the BERF Tester itself had also been played with. Though I did look at the testers setting I missed something and as all seemed to work OK when I disconected the NIC I foolishly focused on them. I turned out that the BERT TX profile had an invalid destination MAC address in it, I still do not really understand how with the NIC's disconnect I did not still get errors but setting the MAC address correct has fix my problem. I now need to read up more on unmanaged switches and Layer 2 testing. thanks again Dannyt

I am using the devcon command line utility to programmatically disable the NIC from within LabVIEW, I have confirmed the NIC is disabled by using Wireshark, a BroadCom utility software package and IPConfig /all I have diabled IPv6, QOS in fact everthing but IPv4, my IP addresses are all static and manually set. I noticed I said in my original mail I was connect to a "router" it should really say a "switch" Maybe I will try and disable manually just to see what happens. cheers Danny

Hi I wonder if anybody could shed some light on a problem I am having. I have an inherited, a test station that I am reliably ensured used to work OK. In my test setup I have two NIC’s in a PC used to control two UUT's. The Ethernet cables from each NIC goes to a separate non-configurable NetGear Router GS605 , from each router one cable runs to a UUT and another to a Bit Error Rate Tester. During normal testing I need to talk to and configure the UUT. At a particular point in the test I setup a loop to the BERT tester and try to measure the Bit Error Rate. Obviously and traffic from the PC’s cards will be seem by the BERT Tester as error bit so I need to ensure there is non. This has in the past be achieved by set the NIC state to disabled. Before the test station was shipped over to me this disabling of the card, worked. However I am now finding that when I disable the NIC’s the LED on the appropriate router port does not go out but switchs from green to yellow (amber) and when I start up the traffic in the BERT tester the LED flashes and I see errors . I should add I have the same test software, the same hardware but that Windows 7 has been re-installed on my test machine since it last worked. To get the test to work now I need to physically take the Ethernet cables out of the PC. Does anybody have any ideas or suggestions, I do wonder what is the difference is between physically disconnecting a cable from a NIC and disabling it. cheers Dannyt

Hi I am not sure if anybody found this package useful or not, but I am sorry to say that due to a change in my circumstance http://lavag.org/topic/15036-a-change-in-personell-circumstances/ I no longer have access to a ClearCase system and there must regrettable say I can no longer support this package. I am quite prepared to offer help and answer questions for anybody who want to use it. As I have used ClearCase for many years I am sure I could still help extend the package if somebody with a ClearCase system could do some testing cheers Dannyt

Hi All, I have not had time to keep up with Lava ,the last week or so as I have left my previous position and started a new role with a start-up company called Sub10 Systems http://www.sub10systems.com as their Test Engineering Manager and as this is a start-up company that means Test Engineering is me and I am Test Engineering. Sub10, design, develop & sell Millimetre Wireless Ethernet Bridges and have just taken over HUBER + Suhner’s SENCITY Link product line and are moving production to Devon in the UK. I am currently very busy getting all the test stations up and running correctly. I have moved from working in a team of four LabVIEW programmers, using ClearCase and doing peer code review of all our code to working on using Mercurial or SVN, (note to self ..must get that in place ASAP) In my previous role, I had worked on the code base for around 4 years and had completely re-written the top level executives based on the JKI-State machine. I have now inherited code all new to me for several test station, on a brand new product. I will say the majority of the code is quite well written, which is a great relief to me. But I guess life will be very busy for a month or two to come. I am hoping I will still have time to keep up with Lava and that I make it to the UK NI Days 2011, I am also hoping that my new Developer suite licence arrives in the post tomorrow as my evaluation period runs out soon. Cheers Dannyt

I was actually expecting a lot worse than that from your initial post :-) I have certainly seen a lot worse that that.

Hi, You seem to link the size of you program /project to the size of you VI block diagram and this is not the case. For your own sake and the sake of anybody else who works on or supports your LabVIEW code look at breaking your VI down with the correct usage of SubVI's. Historically our project contained a number of large block diagram but over time we have broken these all done in single screen one, in most case a lot less than a single screen. The benefit are huge in terms of understanding what each subvi is doing and seeing at a glance the flow and intend of your code. I shudder to think how we used to do it. The creation of SubVI may at first seem like an unwanted overhead in time and effort when you start, but the pay back over time is huge. Our project control at testing of our full product line, it contains over 1000 VI's 90%+ of which have block diagrams around half a screen size. I would be worth looking at these sources http://www.ni.com/pdf/manuals/321393d.pdf Chaper 6 of the LabVIEW Development Guidelines http://www.bloomy.com/lvstyle/ - a very good book on LabVIEW style cheers Danny

Hello One feature I really like about the dark side Forums is the Solution Accepted one. I can see that it would not be as important on LAVA as a lot of LAVA posting are more general discussion rather than straight question. But it would be a nice additional feature for the future I think if supported by IPBoard. cheers Danny

Have you taken this problem to your NI Technical Support person ? I would for a problem like this

This is a very valid concern, and it makes we wonder what if any guideline there should be concerning OpenG functional coverage.

Hi Do you mean something like this ? Is this is the type of thing you want to do ? I was not sure. If it is, then when you open the custom menu editor you can just use the up, down, left, right arrows at the top to move & indent your menus. If this is not what you mean just ignore me :-) Dannyt

The illustration is great, I do like it, but I still avoid using global's at present mainly due to one issue :-) Though the Novice & Guru image in the illustration are the same there is a journey that needs to be taken to get from one to the other. When working in a team situation where there is a mix of abilities and a novice sees the use of global's, there can be an "over enthusiastic" use of them. Curbing that uses feels a little like when I tell my daughter it it bad for her to spend to long on her Laptop and only to do a hour at a time while I sit at a PC all day long.

I sort of agree with the question above, what is the use case for checking a string just looks like an MD5 string, it is either a correct valid md5 string for something or it is not. Maybe I am just not seeing the obvious here. Danny

If you have access to a copy of the VI Analyser Toolkit, it can find all sort of hidden items and it selects them to so you can then delete them or use your arrow keys to move them back into view

OK I am getting there with the new unread contents pages, I see it potential. So have a like from me plus this is my 301 post yippeee

Again most of the talk here has been about "Professional Indemnity" both hardware & software, but the other type of insurance some Clients insisted I had was "Personnel Indemnity", this is touched on in Felix post the sort of Health & Safety at work type stuff. If I am on a clients site representing myself as my own Company (i.e. a typical UK contractor) I am not covered by my Clients Liability Insurance, so for example I my just be sitting at a desk writing code I leave my bag on the floor and somebody trips over the bags strap I (or my company) can be liable.

Hi, I am no longer work as a software consultant, but I did for about 5 or 6 years and in the UK I found it very common that companies insisted that I had some form of Professional Indemnity & also Personal Indemnity policy. Having such policy's also help with the "proof" that I was not a "disguised employee" to the tax office (something UK consultants will know about). I would have thought that in the US where litigation seem much more rife one would take out such policy's by default and only not have them if there was a very good reason not to. Danny