Twin Cities Skijoring Trails

Fall is in the air and skiing season will be here before we know it. With that being said, here is my first skijoring post! Last year I went to a skijoring presentation by SkijorNow and they passed out some information. One of the most useful handouts was a list of skijroing trails around the Twins Cities here in Minnesota. I haven't skied many of these trails, so I'm not promising anything. Try to call ahead to confirm rules and ensure these locations are still dog friendly.

I will hopefully post a link to a GoogleDocs spreadsheet with the same information: Coming Soon!

• Anoka Parks & Rec.
• Bunker Hills
• 7 miles
• MN Ski Pass required
• City of Bumsville 
• Alimagnet
• 4.75 km
• Open for skijoring on Tuesdays & Thursdays
• Dakota County Park & Rec. Park
• Lake Byllesby Regionail
• 2.6 miles
• Minneapolis Park 
• Theodore Wirth; Front Rec. 9
• Minneapolis Ski Pass Required
• Theodore Wirth; JD Rivers/Wirth
• Minneapolis Ski Pass Required
• Francis A. Gross Golf Course
• 3.7 km
• Minneapolis Ski Pass Required
• Hiawatha Golf Course
• 4.1 km
• Minneapolis Ski Pass Required
• Columbia Golf Course
• Minneapolis Ski Pass Required
• St. Paul Park & Rec. 
• Highland 9 Golf Course
• Hillhgreat grooming
• Three Rivers Park District
• Baker Park
• 4 miles
• Multi-use trail. Excellent grooming. Slightly hilly.
• Elm Creek Park Reserve
• 9 miles
• Snowmobile trail open for dog sledding & skijoring on weekdays during daylight hours 5 am to I0 am. Multiple entry points to the trail.
• Cleary Lake Regional Park
• 1.3 miles
• Crow-Hassen Park Reserve
• 5 miles
• Snowmobile trail open for dog sledding & skijoring on weekdays during daylight hours 5 am to 10 am. Out & Back 5  miles one way.
• http://www.threeriversparks.org/activities/skijoring.aspx
• MN State Park 
• Fort Snelling; Mendota Trail
• 12 miles
• Flat, rnulti-use non-motorized trail along the Mendota side of the Minnesota river. Not groomed. Out and back five miles one way.
• Washington County Park & Rec.
• Lake Elmo Park Reserve; Walking Trail
• 2.1 miles
• Multi used trail shared with walkers and snowshoers. Trail is packed. Washington County Vehicle Permit required.

ORA-01733 error on View insert

I came across an interesting PeopleSoft error when trying to use a custom Component Interface I created. I was using the CI in an ExcelToCi, in CREATE mode. Everything seemed to be working fine until I submitted the data. All the rows submitted went to error, giving the "ORA-01733:virtual column not allowed here" SQL error.

The error was happening when the CI was trying to insert new rows into a custom View I created on the Component. The View was built using the %SelectAll() meta-sql. When I resolved the SQL to take a better look, I noticed there were date fields. Since the meta-sql resolves these date fields with to_char() functions, the insert was throwing the error.

I changed the View SQL to list all the fields manually and removed the meta-sql. Once this was done, and I re-created the view, the ExcelToCi worked just fine. All the data rows were submitted successfully.

Process Definition File Dependency

This is a post from my old kbenson.net site.  In my blogger stats I have seen some traffic being redirected from this old post. I pulled the page back from Google cache, so it is mostly the same. However the screenshots are missing; I will attempt to recreate them soon. so I had to recreate them.

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I had a head banger on a simple issue today.  It took a few hours to realize what the issue was, turned out to be way too obvious.  In PeopleSoft process scheduler we have setup some Process Definitions with a File Dependency turned on.  What this does is Block a process from running until a file is found.  This is setup in the Process Definition on the Process Definition Options tab under the On File Creation section.

Well today we updated the Wait for File path.  We rescheduled our processes but in the Parameters it still had the old file path.  After some head scratching I looked in PeopleBooks where it says this file path can be set at runtime.   So I looked and sure enough this value is stored on each Run Control Id.  It will only pull from the Process Definition if it is a new Run Control Id or if the filepath is blank.

Here is some SQL to help with this situation

• Process Sched Parameters
• SELECT prcsinstance,
         prcsfilename
  FROM   psprcsparms
  ORDER  BY prcsinstance DESC 
• Stored at Process Defn Level
• SELECT prcsname,
         prcsfilename
  FROM   ps_prcsdefn
  WHERE  prcsname LIKE 'TEST123' 
• Stored at Run Control Level
• SELECT a.prcsfilename,
         a.*
  FROM   ps_prcsruncntldtl a
  WHERE  a.prcsname LIKE 'TEST123'

• Update Run Control to match current Process Definition
• UPDATE ps_prcsruncntldtl a
  SET    a.prcsfilename = (SELECT c.prcsfilename
                           FROM   ps_prcsdefn c
                           WHERE  a.prcstype = c.prcstype
                                  AND a.prcsname = c.prcsname)
  WHERE  a.prcstype = 'Application Engine'
         AND a.prcsname = 'TEST123'
         AND EXISTS (SELECT 'X'
                     FROM   ps_prcsdefn b
                     WHERE  a.prcstype = b.prcstype
                            AND a.prcsname = b.prcsname)

PeopleSoft Expense Report : Status stuck in "Submission in Progress"

Today I returned to the office after being at Oracle OpenWorld all last week.  After I caught up on emails, a co-worker came to me with an issue the Training team was seeing in our Training environment.  This environment gets refreshed every weekend, so there a normally very few issues. However, the past few weeks they were having issues submitting Expense report sheets for approval.  When the user would submit, the status would change to "Submission in Process" and wouldn't move forward in the approval process.  The sheet would show no approvers and the expected approvers had no new work in their worklist.

They all assumed some AWE or Security configuration was missing or messed up.  This didn't make sense to me, since the environment was being refreshed weekly and working fine up to this point.  That being said, I still looked there for a solution, as I had no other ideas.  Everything seemed to look OK, matching our production environment for the most part.  I then remembered that Expense approvals use a Service Operation!  I went to Monitor Asynchronous Servives for Integration Broker, and sure enough there were multiple EX_APPROVAL messages waiting in a status of New.

It turns out, for whatever reason the Integration Broker Pub\Sub server wasn't being brought up.  Once an admin ensured IB was up and running, we started seeing the EX_APPROVAL messages flow to Done.  All the previous sheets in status  "Submission in Process" were now "Submitted".  These sheets also showed in the manager's worklist, ready for approval.  To anyone familiar with Expenses this would probably be a first step in troubleshooting, but I figured I would write this up just in case others are new to the module like I am.

For more information, I would recommend reviewing this Doc in My Oracle Support: How does the Expenses Approval Workflow work and is setup in FSCM 8.9, 9.0, and 9.1? ID 650548.1.

Upgrading my Motorola DROID to CyanogenMod 7

I rooted my original Motorola DROID to CyanogenMod last year sometime.  It has treated me well, with a lot of cool features and apps. However, recently it has been acting up and just became very frustrating. After seeing CM7 perform on my Nook, I figured it was time to upgrade.

I went and downloaded the latest stable version of CM7 for my DROID.  I renamed the file update.zip and placed it on my microSD card in the root directory.  I then placed the card back into my phone and started up the ROM Manager app.  I selected Install ROM from SD Card and selected update.zip.

Now here is where the issues started. I only select Wipe Dalvik Cache and pushed OK.  The phone rebooted and installed the update but then got stuck on the CranogenMod loading screen.  It is the picture of the Android logo on a skateboard, with an arrow circle going round and round.  After about 5 minutes of this, I removed the battery.

It turns out I needed to wipe Data and Cache!  So, at this point I needed to NOT boot into the new install. To do this I powered off the phone. Next I powered on the phone while holding down the X button.  This booted to a menu giving me many options.  I selected the option to wipe data, then selected OK. After this completed, I went ahead and installed the update.zip file again. I then rebooted, and it worked! My new install of CM7 is looking wonderful!

Enabling Full Access to Market on Rooted Nook Color

My previous post was a guide to install Cyanogenmod(CM7) on a Nook Color.  At first glance, these steps worked perfectly and nothing was wrong. However, it soon became clear that I did not have full access to all Apps in the Google Market.  I first noticed Facebook showed up in the Market but did not have a button to Install.  I also found out that other apps, including Angry Birds, wouldn't install in CM7 on my Nook. This was annoying and confusing, but I figured it must be some strange issue with the fresh install and maybe after a few reboots and data\cache clears this issue would go away.  Well this was not the case, and the final straw was when I noticed Google Books wouldn't install for me.  This was one of the main reason I made the jump to a 7" tablet, outside of the sub $200 price of coarse.  I wanted a full functional tablet but also a better way to read my Google Books.

After some research, I found that this is a fairly recent issue for rooted Nooks.  It is caused by the latest update to the Google Market app.  After the update, some previously installed apps stopped updating and installing was disabled. Another odd omission is the Movies menu in the Market home. Instead there is a small blank space after Books.  If you see this then your access is being restricted.

I found a forum post on mobileread.com which walks you through a work around.  I completed the following steps and everything seemed to work just fine! Check out the post for more details and further conversation.

1. Clear Market data in Application Info
2. Navigate to System folder in Root Explorer and "Mount R/W"
3. Long-press build.prop and "Open in Text Editor"
4. Find "qemu.sf.lcd_density=161" and change it to 160
5. Reboot
6. Run Market

Creating a CyanogenMod Bootable SD for Nook Color

I have been waiting a while for a sub $200 tablet that isn't complete junk. I came across a few blog postings mentioning the refurbished Nook Color, currently selling for $179 shipped at Buy.com. While the Nook is sold as an eReader, it can easily be rooted enabling a full Android install. In fact, you can even create bootable SD cards to run custom mods. This leaves the delivered Nook software installed on the internal memory and leaves your warranty intact.

This past week I purchased a Nook and a 32gb microSDHC card. I played around with the Nook software for about 10 minutes, then decided it was time for CyanogenMod(CM7)! I have this installed on my phone and I really think it is hands down the best custom Android mod. Below are the steps I took to create my bootable SD card for the Nook. Keep in mind these instructions are for Windows users.

1. Create a directory on your local machine to download some install files to.
2. Download the latest stable version of CM7 and Google Apps from here and save in your new directory. 
• Google Apps is really optional, but you will want to install this so you can access Google Market, etc.
• Here are the files I downloaded.
• update-cm-7.0.3-encore-signed.zip
• gapps-gb-20110613-signed.zip
• Do NOT unzip these files.
3. Download this SD installer image for CM7 and save in your new directory.
• File can be found here from this page.
• It is size-agnostic so the size of your SD card should not matter.
• Use 7zip to unzip this file to get the image
• Download 7zip if you don't have it.
4. Next we need an Image Writer program for Windows. I used win32 Disk Imager and it worked great!
• Program can be found here from this page.
• Unzip the file to find the program.
5. Insert your SD card into your computer's card reader.
6. Open the win32 Disk Imager program
• Select the disk image from Step 3.
• Write the image to your SD card.
7. Open your SD card in a File Explorer, copy the zip files there from Step 2.
• Put these files in the root directory, no subfolders.
• SD Card will likely be labeled boot at this point.
8. Turn your Nook completely off and insert the SD card.
• The Nook needs to be completely off or the installer will not work.
• If you forget this you may need to start the SD imaging steps over.
9. Turn on your Nook and the installer program should boot up and start installing.
• You will see ANDROID in blue text, then scrolling log of install progress with the Linux penguin image.
10. Once complete the screen will go blank and power off.
• I have seen some how-to's saying you need to manually power-off. However, for me it did this by it's self.
11. Power on your Nook, you will see the ANDROID text again and then the CM7 skateboard image.
12. Choose Setup Wizard when prompted.
13. Run through the Wizard and setup.
• I chose to skip Account and Network setup in the wizard.  After it was complete, I went and setup this on my own.
14. CM7 should now be installed.
15. If you want your normal Nook software back, simply power off, remove the SD card and power back on.
• There are solutions out there to enable dual boot without removing the SD card. I plan on holding off on this for awhile, but check this out if you want to try it for yourself.

References:

• http://www.androidtablets.net/forum/nook-color-technical/13156-how-cm7-bootable-sd.html
• http://glasskeys.com/2011/06/27/how-to-make-a-bootable-sd-card-running-cyanogenmod-for-the-nook-color/