Most of my dreams are fairly uneventful. The more interesting dreams are relatively far and few in between. I can count on one hand my three or four most interesting (in all of my life), those being "the turnaround," "big bird," "superhero" and last night "southern belle." Yes, I title my dreams. I'll summarize my previous dreams before going into "southern belle."
"The turnaround" was my anti-nightmare dream. I think I was about 8 years old, and it started out as one of those typical running from a monster but can't move fast enough dreams. But at some point, I just got angry. I had enough of being chased, I turned and even tho' the monster was a LOT bigger, I attacked it. I never had another nightmare of that sort again.
"Big bird..." what can I say? It started out as one of my other more interesting dreams, a repetitive dream. The dream started as it usually does, driving down an alternate world Rt. 93 toward an alternate world Boston. Usually the dream takes me right into downtown Boston but not this time. This time I veered off an exit heading West. The road turned into a country road and there was a pull off area, so I did. I got out of my car and I heard a crashing noise in the surrounding woods and out popped Big Bird. He ran straight at me and all of a sudden I became Big Bird (looking out through the costume and everything) and was heading back into the woods, down a rough path. I began to hear chanting and a man speaking. I snuck up to where the sound was and saw a large circle of people with one man "preaching" and the others all murmuring excitedly and nodding, etc. I listened closely and heard the man speak about... the elliptical orbits of the planets in our solar system. So at that point, I had to get across the circle, my path continued on the other side. I started stepping through the crowd (still Big Bird) saying "excuse me, sorry, excuse me" all the way across and then I ran like crazy. Next thing I knew I was in the kitchen of the house I grew up in (Stoneham) relating the story to my parents.
"Superhero" was just fun! I got to play a spy, then a superhero-like person who could fly and was super-strong and I had to battle with aliens. Enough said about that!
Last night's dream was different. As far as I know, I am always a part of my dreams. Last night I was not. Not only was I not involved in any way, but the dream I had was just bizarre. It was set in the Civil War era and centered around the life of a young woman, a Southern Belle. I was just a 3rd person point of view, a sort of floating camera. It started all happy, her family owned a plantation, she was rich. I will breeze through this a bit: In the process of the North Army coming and going (gaining ground, losing ground) she somehow had half her face shot off. Literally gone, just a sort of pit. She took to wearing a porcelain half-mask and continued on with her life. Fast forward, the North finally took control of the region, she was placed under house arrest and her house was occupied by Northern troops. (Again, I am skipping detail, but the dream itself kept jumping into the future). Finally, she irritated the Northern soldiers in her house so much they took away her porcelain mask and her face was filled with what looked like terracotta instead, and she was chained up with her own slaves.
And that is pretty much how it ended, as I awoke because my arm went numb due to my daughter being in our bed last night and I slept on one side at the edge of the bed all night.
Anyway, that dream will go down as one of my more interesting ones, I think.
Back to work, I have deployments to make and testing to be done.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Just a brief update.
Nothing much going on. That's not true, tons of things are going on, but nothing Earth shattering. Isaac and cub scouts, Anabelle and Space Pirates and soon, Daisies, work for me, choral group for Sandra... Anyway, I just added an RSS feature to my own web site - see if it works for you:
Mike's Junkyard Blog
Select the link and add it to your favorite RSS reader.
As for the site itself; It's my site where I muck around, play mostly. I wrote it in Euphoria. You can see some of the source code by clicking the links on the "links" page.
Mike's Junkyard Blog
Select the link and add it to your favorite RSS reader.
As for the site itself; It's my site where I muck around, play mostly. I wrote it in Euphoria. You can see some of the source code by clicking the links on the "links" page.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Geode Caching and Windows 7
We geo-cached today. We broke a personal record and found a series of 30 caches over 4 hours. It was a blast! Isaac came up with his own joke: What do you get when you cross a rock with geo-caching? Geode-caching (hence the title). Pretty funny!
We also went to the carnival that was in town. Sandi, Isaac and Anabelle drove, I decided to walk Cookie (one of our dogs) to the carnival. We got there and at first she was just a little anxious. Over time she grew more and more anxious until a booth where you threw darts at balloons just pushed her over the edge and the poor thing was terrified. I took her away from the carnival and waited for Sandi and the kids to finish up.
Other than that the only thing left to announce is that I am legal now with Windows 7. My official copy of Win 7 Ultimate arrived today and I've installed it. It was a bit of a pain since there was no upgrade path from beta to final, but that's alright, sort of starting with a clean system and I saved off a lot of my data ahead of time - using the transfer took and some manual backups. I kind of miss the little beta message at the bottom, right-hand corner of the screen.
We also went to the carnival that was in town. Sandi, Isaac and Anabelle drove, I decided to walk Cookie (one of our dogs) to the carnival. We got there and at first she was just a little anxious. Over time she grew more and more anxious until a booth where you threw darts at balloons just pushed her over the edge and the poor thing was terrified. I took her away from the carnival and waited for Sandi and the kids to finish up.
Other than that the only thing left to announce is that I am legal now with Windows 7. My official copy of Win 7 Ultimate arrived today and I've installed it. It was a bit of a pain since there was no upgrade path from beta to final, but that's alright, sort of starting with a clean system and I saved off a lot of my data ahead of time - using the transfer took and some manual backups. I kind of miss the little beta message at the bottom, right-hand corner of the screen.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Crowning achievements as a programmer
I guess "crowning achievements" is a bit extreme, but there are several applications or bugs I've worked on that I was pleased with. I'll just list some of them out and provide a brief explanation as to what the were and why I was pleased with them.
1) My first program used on-the-job ever. I was working as a material handler and going to school for CS at night. I wrote a program to create receipt documents for items that were not expected or properly shipped to our site (at DEC).
2) ARS (Action Reporting System). This was probably my first MAJOR application. It was basically a "call desk" application that allowed users from several facilities to log requests to various operations groups. It could be for IT or Facilities and others. It was flexible, and well laid out, but it took me several months longer than I had estimated it would take.
3) Automated backups. Not really a programming task, altho' it did involved making changes to some of our software that helped manage our tape library. Not only did I automate backups for 3 sites, but also met with the operations managers of several other sites and we created a rotating schedule with one another to store our tapes off-site; this saved DEC about $250,000 per year (Or was that per quarter? I cannot remember now) in off-site storage fees and also in personnel.
4) My first "money making" application. It was a silly application that ran on Windows or Mac OS (7 or 8). It's purpose was for tracking software on company-owned computers and adding the lists to our asset tracking software that the companies also used to manage their physical inventory.
5) Another application used in conjunction with our inventory software. It tracked (and kept an ongoing history of) a company's parts inventory in a manufacturing site. It was also smart enough to predict (based on past usage) when you would need to reorder. The fun part was devising a file layout that acted as not only a file of current inventory, but mapped the actual history of the transactions.
6) Mortgage application. It was huge. It was powerful. And we had a chance to make good money on it by selling it to a competitor but we did not and they squashed us anyway (since they dominated the market). A LOT of dynamic data mapping and interesting structures and logic managing it all.
7) Data mapper. Heh. What? Mapping data? Big deal! Well this one was. It had to map LOC and BA data from one bank to another (back in the day of large bank takeovers). Both banks used completely different tracking and management systems. It was a challenge but it was great fun! It had to be dynamic, determining how it should map raw data on the fly, not in any specific format.
7a) DES. I had to implement a DES encryption library in DEC BASIC, and some basic methods to do stuff like encrypt/decrypt/generate PINs, MACs, etc.
8) Bug #1. I was working in OpenVMS for DEC and THE Andrew Goldstein logged a bug report and it was assigned to me. I looked at it and pretty much figured out the issue within a week but I spent over a month looking at it simply because it was logged by Mr. VMS and I did not want to blow it. Turned out it was NOT a bug, but a POTENTIAL bug if we ever completed an unused section of our backup code (a framework was in place but never activated, the bug was in that code). I documented the heck out of it and closed the bug.
9) Bug #2. I worked in the security section of the VMS group. I got to see some cool bugs. This problem was in memory management. A few lines of assembly language were out of place and an object was being cleared when it should not have (under very special circumstances). It was my first big kernel issue.
10) Bug #3. This one was daunting. But, like the bug before it, it simply came down to code being executed in a certain order that caused an issue. I can't actually go into detail with this one. I can say it was obscure.
11) Finally, in my current job, I wrote a little servlet that conformed to certain library specifications that would indicate to the caller whether or not items were available for use based on certain criteria. It was designed to be simple and very quick because it was called on the fly from someone else's website that interlinked their library services with our permission services. It was a lot of fun to write and my first solo project after moving.
And that's the short list of the things I had the most fun with. I have written many other applications (including disk scanners that were used by other people in their own products) and graphical queue management software, graphical system management software, data gathering software (for QA), data generators, data sifters, etc., but those stand out in my memory.
1) My first program used on-the-job ever. I was working as a material handler and going to school for CS at night. I wrote a program to create receipt documents for items that were not expected or properly shipped to our site (at DEC).
2) ARS (Action Reporting System). This was probably my first MAJOR application. It was basically a "call desk" application that allowed users from several facilities to log requests to various operations groups. It could be for IT or Facilities and others. It was flexible, and well laid out, but it took me several months longer than I had estimated it would take.
3) Automated backups. Not really a programming task, altho' it did involved making changes to some of our software that helped manage our tape library. Not only did I automate backups for 3 sites, but also met with the operations managers of several other sites and we created a rotating schedule with one another to store our tapes off-site; this saved DEC about $250,000 per year (Or was that per quarter? I cannot remember now) in off-site storage fees and also in personnel.
4) My first "money making" application. It was a silly application that ran on Windows or Mac OS (7 or 8). It's purpose was for tracking software on company-owned computers and adding the lists to our asset tracking software that the companies also used to manage their physical inventory.
5) Another application used in conjunction with our inventory software. It tracked (and kept an ongoing history of) a company's parts inventory in a manufacturing site. It was also smart enough to predict (based on past usage) when you would need to reorder. The fun part was devising a file layout that acted as not only a file of current inventory, but mapped the actual history of the transactions.
6) Mortgage application. It was huge. It was powerful. And we had a chance to make good money on it by selling it to a competitor but we did not and they squashed us anyway (since they dominated the market). A LOT of dynamic data mapping and interesting structures and logic managing it all.
7) Data mapper. Heh. What? Mapping data? Big deal! Well this one was. It had to map LOC and BA data from one bank to another (back in the day of large bank takeovers). Both banks used completely different tracking and management systems. It was a challenge but it was great fun! It had to be dynamic, determining how it should map raw data on the fly, not in any specific format.
7a) DES. I had to implement a DES encryption library in DEC BASIC, and some basic methods to do stuff like encrypt/decrypt/generate PINs, MACs, etc.
8) Bug #1. I was working in OpenVMS for DEC and THE Andrew Goldstein logged a bug report and it was assigned to me. I looked at it and pretty much figured out the issue within a week but I spent over a month looking at it simply because it was logged by Mr. VMS and I did not want to blow it. Turned out it was NOT a bug, but a POTENTIAL bug if we ever completed an unused section of our backup code (a framework was in place but never activated, the bug was in that code). I documented the heck out of it and closed the bug.
9) Bug #2. I worked in the security section of the VMS group. I got to see some cool bugs. This problem was in memory management. A few lines of assembly language were out of place and an object was being cleared when it should not have (under very special circumstances). It was my first big kernel issue.
10) Bug #3. This one was daunting. But, like the bug before it, it simply came down to code being executed in a certain order that caused an issue. I can't actually go into detail with this one. I can say it was obscure.
11) Finally, in my current job, I wrote a little servlet that conformed to certain library specifications that would indicate to the caller whether or not items were available for use based on certain criteria. It was designed to be simple and very quick because it was called on the fly from someone else's website that interlinked their library services with our permission services. It was a lot of fun to write and my first solo project after moving.
And that's the short list of the things I had the most fun with. I have written many other applications (including disk scanners that were used by other people in their own products) and graphical queue management software, graphical system management software, data gathering software (for QA), data generators, data sifters, etc., but those stand out in my memory.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Another Mac OS X and Windows 7 comparison of sorts.
There are a number of reasons why I still prefer OS X over Windows, specifically, 10.6 vs. 7.
First let me list why I like Windows 7:
1. MUCH improved Task Bar.
2. Less of a resource hog than Vista (more like XP).
3. Polish (it is very pretty).
4. I can play my favorite games, natively.
5. Improved preferences and UAC controls.
6. Some really useful development tools are Windows-only.
7. Explorer favorites can be renamed. **
8. Improved searching.
Now what I do NOT like about Mac OS X:
1. The dock is hacked from NEXTSTEP.
2. Cannot rename items in the places section without renaming the original. **
Now onto a comparison of the features I prefer in Mac OS X over Windows and some explanations of what I do not like in Mac OS X.
I am a fan of older and alternative operating systems. There have been many that SHOULD still be alive today but are not because of competition with Microsoft and Apple. One of those is the grandparent of Mac OS X: NEXTSTEP. Mac OS X is an amalgam of Mac OS and NEXTSTEP - mostly NEXTSTEP under the hood, but with the UI of Mac OS fused into the front end.
Whenever two separate paradigms are fused into one there are going to be problems. One of the problems is the Dock. The Dock in NEXTSTEP made complete sense in the context of the NEXTSTEP UI. It was almost genius. But fusing the Dock into the Mac OS UI makes little sense, they come from different parents, they have differing pedigrees and really are not meant to be together. That being said, the Dock is STILL useful and I appreciate having it as an application switcher.
Another problem is that it took many releases to make the NEXTSTEP equivalent of Finder work [spatially] like the Mac OS Finder. It still does not behave 100% like the old Finder, but Apple has improved it over the years.
The other thing that bothers me about the Finder is that if you rename an item in the "Places" section, it renames the original. OUCH. This should be a "soft link" and you should be able to call it whatever you want. If you have an application or folder with a LONG name and want to abbreviate it, you should be able to do that in Places.
But what I DO like like about Finder is that it incorporates 2 features of the NEXTSTEP equivalent [the WorkSpace Manager] that I cannot live without: Column Mode and breadcrumbs. Column mode is simply (for me) the BEST way to browse files if you no longer have the true Finder spatial mode. Open a windows and zip back and forth through level after level of folders... it is great. And with that, you can have a breadcrumb trail telling you where you are and enabling you to jump back along the path at any position. In fairness, the breadcrumb of Finder is also crippled. It was a MAJOR part of the NEXTSTEP interface and had prominence, you could not miss it. Now it is relegated to a small strip of real estate at the bottom of the window.
Another inherited aspect of NEXTSTEP is the command line interface. Yes, OS X is more or less POSIX compliant and has a SH or BASH interface. This is far different from Mac OS. Mac OS was 100% UI. NEXTSTEP and Mac OS X are UIs layered on top of an entire, functional operating system that has a command line interface. And I love it. I love getting down into the nitty gritty, modifying things at the Terminal level. Brings me back to the "good old days" of VMS and other mainframe operating systems (time shares to some).
Finally, for whatever reason, OS X just feels like everything works well together. Windows can have a disjointed feel to it, flipping from application to application... in OS X (while not perfect) applications feel like they are implemented from a parent class of objects and they all bear familial resemblances.
Oops! One last nitpick. Games STILL stink on OS X. The latest trend for game producers is to create Mac OS X versions as well as PC versions... but this is a lie. In reality the developers are simply wrapping their games in CIDER... a WINE derivative that enables Windows applications to run on Mac OS X (or Linux). This is really not cool in my book, on the other hand you take what you can get, right? But performance is always worse on OS X than playing the game in Windows because of this layer that tricks the games into thinking they are running on Windows and the libraries that must map Windows functionality to Mac OS X functionality, etc.
Oh wait, still not done...
When my copy of Windows Ultimate arrives, it is possible I will shift back to Windows 7 at some point, but I might have to wait for improved calendar and email functionality, which is crippled in Windows and "just works GREAT" in OS X.
We shall see. There is always Linux!
First let me list why I like Windows 7:
1. MUCH improved Task Bar.
2. Less of a resource hog than Vista (more like XP).
3. Polish (it is very pretty).
4. I can play my favorite games, natively.
5. Improved preferences and UAC controls.
6. Some really useful development tools are Windows-only.
7. Explorer favorites can be renamed. **
8. Improved searching.
Now what I do NOT like about Mac OS X:
1. The dock is hacked from NEXTSTEP.
2. Cannot rename items in the places section without renaming the original. **
Now onto a comparison of the features I prefer in Mac OS X over Windows and some explanations of what I do not like in Mac OS X.
I am a fan of older and alternative operating systems. There have been many that SHOULD still be alive today but are not because of competition with Microsoft and Apple. One of those is the grandparent of Mac OS X: NEXTSTEP. Mac OS X is an amalgam of Mac OS and NEXTSTEP - mostly NEXTSTEP under the hood, but with the UI of Mac OS fused into the front end.
Whenever two separate paradigms are fused into one there are going to be problems. One of the problems is the Dock. The Dock in NEXTSTEP made complete sense in the context of the NEXTSTEP UI. It was almost genius. But fusing the Dock into the Mac OS UI makes little sense, they come from different parents, they have differing pedigrees and really are not meant to be together. That being said, the Dock is STILL useful and I appreciate having it as an application switcher.
Another problem is that it took many releases to make the NEXTSTEP equivalent of Finder work [spatially] like the Mac OS Finder. It still does not behave 100% like the old Finder, but Apple has improved it over the years.
The other thing that bothers me about the Finder is that if you rename an item in the "Places" section, it renames the original. OUCH. This should be a "soft link" and you should be able to call it whatever you want. If you have an application or folder with a LONG name and want to abbreviate it, you should be able to do that in Places.
But what I DO like like about Finder is that it incorporates 2 features of the NEXTSTEP equivalent [the WorkSpace Manager] that I cannot live without: Column Mode and breadcrumbs. Column mode is simply (for me) the BEST way to browse files if you no longer have the true Finder spatial mode. Open a windows and zip back and forth through level after level of folders... it is great. And with that, you can have a breadcrumb trail telling you where you are and enabling you to jump back along the path at any position. In fairness, the breadcrumb of Finder is also crippled. It was a MAJOR part of the NEXTSTEP interface and had prominence, you could not miss it. Now it is relegated to a small strip of real estate at the bottom of the window.
Another inherited aspect of NEXTSTEP is the command line interface. Yes, OS X is more or less POSIX compliant and has a SH or BASH interface. This is far different from Mac OS. Mac OS was 100% UI. NEXTSTEP and Mac OS X are UIs layered on top of an entire, functional operating system that has a command line interface. And I love it. I love getting down into the nitty gritty, modifying things at the Terminal level. Brings me back to the "good old days" of VMS and other mainframe operating systems (time shares to some).
Finally, for whatever reason, OS X just feels like everything works well together. Windows can have a disjointed feel to it, flipping from application to application... in OS X (while not perfect) applications feel like they are implemented from a parent class of objects and they all bear familial resemblances.
Oops! One last nitpick. Games STILL stink on OS X. The latest trend for game producers is to create Mac OS X versions as well as PC versions... but this is a lie. In reality the developers are simply wrapping their games in CIDER... a WINE derivative that enables Windows applications to run on Mac OS X (or Linux). This is really not cool in my book, on the other hand you take what you can get, right? But performance is always worse on OS X than playing the game in Windows because of this layer that tricks the games into thinking they are running on Windows and the libraries that must map Windows functionality to Mac OS X functionality, etc.
Oh wait, still not done...
When my copy of Windows Ultimate arrives, it is possible I will shift back to Windows 7 at some point, but I might have to wait for improved calendar and email functionality, which is crippled in Windows and "just works GREAT" in OS X.
We shall see. There is always Linux!
Thursday, October 8, 2009
The world is passing me by...
I feel old. I've been away for a little over a week and it seems as though my kids have grown up and the world has moved on without me.
Not true, of course. But I swear Anabelle literally grew older by a year just on her birthday. Isaac has always enjoyed gobbling information, but now he is taking it a step farther by taking French and Japanese (culture and language) after school. Voluntarily. He also still loves the Boy Scouts.
My wife has become an information junkie of sorts herself. She totes her iPhone around and seems to be "plugged into" the universe around her now. Strange.
Work has been fine for me. More or less completed the tasks allocated to me for a project at work and am now waiting for more to do.
Per my last blog: I am back to Windows 7 full time. It just makes more sense for work, but I miss the more posix-like environment provided by Mac OS X. I guess I am always searching for that OS that will replace BeOS.
It was nice to visit my mother in Malden, and to see my co-workers once again, but it is also nice to be home with my family.
Not true, of course. But I swear Anabelle literally grew older by a year just on her birthday. Isaac has always enjoyed gobbling information, but now he is taking it a step farther by taking French and Japanese (culture and language) after school. Voluntarily. He also still loves the Boy Scouts.
My wife has become an information junkie of sorts herself. She totes her iPhone around and seems to be "plugged into" the universe around her now. Strange.
Work has been fine for me. More or less completed the tasks allocated to me for a project at work and am now waiting for more to do.
Per my last blog: I am back to Windows 7 full time. It just makes more sense for work, but I miss the more posix-like environment provided by Mac OS X. I guess I am always searching for that OS that will replace BeOS.
It was nice to visit my mother in Malden, and to see my co-workers once again, but it is also nice to be home with my family.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Ubuntu To Windows 7 to Mac OS X and back again.
For about a year now, I've gone on an excursion of operating systems. For awhile I ran Ubuntu (which I really like - and it keeps getting better) until the first public beta of Windows 7 was released. Windows 7 was so nice I ran it for 6 months on two different systems before I installed Mac OS X on my "Hackintosh."
I ran OS X for about two months before the network issues drove me insane, and I switched back to Windows 7 (our LAN at work is all Microsoft driven).
When Snow Leopard arrived, I instantly purchased a family pack and installed it on our Macs but continued to run Win 7 until it seemed like there was an easy way of getting Snow Leopard to run on my PC like I had Leopard running.
Enter LifeHacker. http://lifehacker.com/5360150/install-snow-leopard-on-your-hackintosh-pc-no-hacking-required
Preparing and installing Snow Leopard on my PC was INSANELY EASY! Not only was it easy, but now without a dongle or boot device of any kind my PC boots right into Mac OS X 10.6.1 without so much as a hiccup, from a cold start. It's an awesome sight. You might wonder whether or not the network issues remain: they might. Not sure yet. I've installed a new Cisco client which has so far performed well. Now if only SMB could somehow be replaced.
I do have Windows 7 Ultimate on order. If Snow Leopard suffers from the same malaise as Leopard did, I'll simply install Windows 7 (well, actually I will anyway) on my spare Terabyte drive and have the option of dual booting. I might even simply wipe Mac OS X and go with Ubuntu 9.10. Who knows what the future holds!
Go Cards!
I ran OS X for about two months before the network issues drove me insane, and I switched back to Windows 7 (our LAN at work is all Microsoft driven).
When Snow Leopard arrived, I instantly purchased a family pack and installed it on our Macs but continued to run Win 7 until it seemed like there was an easy way of getting Snow Leopard to run on my PC like I had Leopard running.
Enter LifeHacker. http://lifehacker.com/5360150/install-snow-leopard-on-your-hackintosh-pc-no-hacking-required
Preparing and installing Snow Leopard on my PC was INSANELY EASY! Not only was it easy, but now without a dongle or boot device of any kind my PC boots right into Mac OS X 10.6.1 without so much as a hiccup, from a cold start. It's an awesome sight. You might wonder whether or not the network issues remain: they might. Not sure yet. I've installed a new Cisco client which has so far performed well. Now if only SMB could somehow be replaced.
I do have Windows 7 Ultimate on order. If Snow Leopard suffers from the same malaise as Leopard did, I'll simply install Windows 7 (well, actually I will anyway) on my spare Terabyte drive and have the option of dual booting. I might even simply wipe Mac OS X and go with Ubuntu 9.10. Who knows what the future holds!
Go Cards!
Monday, August 31, 2009
Back to the Future
Sometimes I just want to go back to the "good old days" when I coded in languages like assembly language, cobol, pascal and fortran. Things seemed simpler then. Everyone lived by the Software Development Life-cycle and analysts were real people who did real analysis before a project began. People wrote libraries of reusable code that were PLANNED to be reused - and were, for years on end.
Now every year some new and improved technology comes out and we HAVE to incorporate it into our code, at the cost of rewriting that library we wrote last year that was meant to be stable and reusable for ages... More importantly, I didn't have to listen to people constantly championing things like agile programming and exhorting everyone to work on their story boards.
It amazes me that someone took the process of development that occurs when one is under pressure to get something done in far less time than was proposed, formalized it (with phrases like "less documentation, more code that works") and presented it as the latest way to get things done. Even better, it is being widely adopted.
Don't mind me.
Now every year some new and improved technology comes out and we HAVE to incorporate it into our code, at the cost of rewriting that library we wrote last year that was meant to be stable and reusable for ages... More importantly, I didn't have to listen to people constantly championing things like agile programming and exhorting everyone to work on their story boards.
It amazes me that someone took the process of development that occurs when one is under pressure to get something done in far less time than was proposed, formalized it (with phrases like "less documentation, more code that works") and presented it as the latest way to get things done. Even better, it is being widely adopted.
Don't mind me.
Friday, August 21, 2009
Flopped
I keep flip-flopping regarding the Operating System I run on my PC.
I have OS preferences, but I am not necessarily loyal to any one. I am a bit of an OS enthusiast having used and worked on a variety of operating systems ranging from VMS on a mainframe to the BeOS, OS/2, Mac OS X and of course Windows. I can generally find something to like about any operating system. I do actually have a favorite, but my favorite is obsolete and does not work well with modern hardware (altho' there is an effort underway to faithfully reproduce this operating system as an open source clone. It will enter an alpha state in 2 weeks or so if all goes well).
For the past six years my primary operating system has been OS X, on a mac. I like the hardware Apple creates. It is a form of art. The operating system is gorgeous as well and while Microsoft stood still with XP and then rushed Vista out the door before it was ready, OS X improved in many ways. There is, however, one way that Windows out performs OS X.
The company I work for loads MS products onto every desktop. They are still actually running XP, but even the networking components (VPN, domains, etc.) are all Microsoft Windows-related. The problem this poses is that for some reason there is NO RELIABLE way to tunnel into our network from OS X. Oh there are ways, OS X has built-in VPN capability, and there are products one can purchase as well. I find that no matter how I connect to our company's network from OS X, it falters, sputters, and disconnects at random. Not surprisingly, Windows, in particular Windows 7 which I am now using, does not suffer this problem.
I can happily tunnel into our company's network from Windows 7 and leave the connection active for days at a time. I also get better download times, and file shares are more responsive in general. I've asked our network people to look into it but they just say "OS X is not supported. You are on your own." Ah well.
I refuse to call this a failure on the part of OS X, more a prejudice toward to how Windows manages its network connections when tunneling into a Microsoft Windows network.
One other benefit to running Windows 7 again: games. :)
I have OS preferences, but I am not necessarily loyal to any one. I am a bit of an OS enthusiast having used and worked on a variety of operating systems ranging from VMS on a mainframe to the BeOS, OS/2, Mac OS X and of course Windows. I can generally find something to like about any operating system. I do actually have a favorite, but my favorite is obsolete and does not work well with modern hardware (altho' there is an effort underway to faithfully reproduce this operating system as an open source clone. It will enter an alpha state in 2 weeks or so if all goes well).
For the past six years my primary operating system has been OS X, on a mac. I like the hardware Apple creates. It is a form of art. The operating system is gorgeous as well and while Microsoft stood still with XP and then rushed Vista out the door before it was ready, OS X improved in many ways. There is, however, one way that Windows out performs OS X.
The company I work for loads MS products onto every desktop. They are still actually running XP, but even the networking components (VPN, domains, etc.) are all Microsoft Windows-related. The problem this poses is that for some reason there is NO RELIABLE way to tunnel into our network from OS X. Oh there are ways, OS X has built-in VPN capability, and there are products one can purchase as well. I find that no matter how I connect to our company's network from OS X, it falters, sputters, and disconnects at random. Not surprisingly, Windows, in particular Windows 7 which I am now using, does not suffer this problem.
I can happily tunnel into our company's network from Windows 7 and leave the connection active for days at a time. I also get better download times, and file shares are more responsive in general. I've asked our network people to look into it but they just say "OS X is not supported. You are on your own." Ah well.
I refuse to call this a failure on the part of OS X, more a prejudice toward to how Windows manages its network connections when tunneling into a Microsoft Windows network.
One other benefit to running Windows 7 again: games. :)
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
We scratch the surface
Sometimes we react to what we see and hear people around us doing, and often we don't like what we see and hear, so the reaction isn't always pleasant. We often rush to judgement (hey, we've lived a long time, seen a lot of things, we can interpolate the scarce, sensory data we receive quite effectively, yes?)
Sometimes it really isn't that simple. Sometimes we are seeing the result of a long process. Eruptions from pent up steam. The point is, we are interpreting another person's actions from scant minutes or even seconds of observation of behavior that could be the end result of a lot of misery, pain, or even joy.
Walk in someone else's shoes before feeling the need to comment on their behavior, demeanor or beliefs, or better yet, just don't comment at all - at least not without reflection (and prayer in my case) and contemplation.
If you are able, find something positive to say, if you are not able to find anything positive to say, swallow it. Keep the black where it belongs: in your heart. (And work like hell to get it out some other way).
Sometimes it really isn't that simple. Sometimes we are seeing the result of a long process. Eruptions from pent up steam. The point is, we are interpreting another person's actions from scant minutes or even seconds of observation of behavior that could be the end result of a lot of misery, pain, or even joy.
Walk in someone else's shoes before feeling the need to comment on their behavior, demeanor or beliefs, or better yet, just don't comment at all - at least not without reflection (and prayer in my case) and contemplation.
If you are able, find something positive to say, if you are not able to find anything positive to say, swallow it. Keep the black where it belongs: in your heart. (And work like hell to get it out some other way).
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Why does God let us suffer?
This was the topic in our Bible class before worship today.
This is a great question, so many people ask "why would God let such [horrible] things happen?" One example given was a real-life facebook conversation where someone praised God that no one was injured in an accident, and a fellow-facebooker (if that is a word at all) posted "where was he for the other xxxxxx traffic fatalities this year?" (I paraphrase).
Another example given from a book being read by our class leader cited a story about two churches who prayed for two different men. The first church prayed for the recovery of their deacon who had some serious illness, the other church prayed for the safe return of a soldier. The prayers were answered for the first church, but not the second. Does that mean the people in the first church were true believers and those in the second were not?
No, of course not. I'll just sum up some points regarding this topic and let you think about it.
1. The universe is God's creation, not yours or mine;
It's not about only you or me but about everyone and our relationships with God and one another.
2. God has a different perspective; he sees the "big picture;"
Whereas we cannot even fully take in everything going on around us at any given moment.
3. God answers prayers, but the answer may not be what you expect;
What is bad for you might be good for the spirituality of 10 other people - or yourself.
God is not unfair. God does not do us harm - he doesn't have to, we do a good enough job of that on our own. We are a unique creation. God has given us some of his own attributes; knowledge of good and evil, free will, emotion, etc. Because of this we are allowed to live our lives as we see fit, or as others see fit, or don't see at all. God does not allow anything, he allows everything. It's our world. He offers a future, a way into something else through his son... we just have to take him up on his offer.
This is a great question, so many people ask "why would God let such [horrible] things happen?" One example given was a real-life facebook conversation where someone praised God that no one was injured in an accident, and a fellow-facebooker (if that is a word at all) posted "where was he for the other xxxxxx traffic fatalities this year?" (I paraphrase).
Another example given from a book being read by our class leader cited a story about two churches who prayed for two different men. The first church prayed for the recovery of their deacon who had some serious illness, the other church prayed for the safe return of a soldier. The prayers were answered for the first church, but not the second. Does that mean the people in the first church were true believers and those in the second were not?
No, of course not. I'll just sum up some points regarding this topic and let you think about it.
1. The universe is God's creation, not yours or mine;
It's not about only you or me but about everyone and our relationships with God and one another.
2. God has a different perspective; he sees the "big picture;"
Whereas we cannot even fully take in everything going on around us at any given moment.
3. God answers prayers, but the answer may not be what you expect;
What is bad for you might be good for the spirituality of 10 other people - or yourself.
God is not unfair. God does not do us harm - he doesn't have to, we do a good enough job of that on our own. We are a unique creation. God has given us some of his own attributes; knowledge of good and evil, free will, emotion, etc. Because of this we are allowed to live our lives as we see fit, or as others see fit, or don't see at all. God does not allow anything, he allows everything. It's our world. He offers a future, a way into something else through his son... we just have to take him up on his offer.
Monday, August 3, 2009
Fear and Loathing
People seem reluctant to want to believe in anything but themselves, reluctant to raise the people around them yet worship a pop star, willing to hate unseen but not to love.
Humanity is special. We have been given the gift of intelligence and free will. I am a somewhat spiritual person and one of my own goals is to reconcile that which is of man with that which is of God. Perhaps reconcile is the wrong word. One cannot reconcile imperfection with perfection as far as I know. I split my understanding of the universe in two ways: spiritual, scientific. While I take some pride in the capabilities of my fellow man to study, observe and reason out why things are as they are, I also believe there are things man can never fully understand, problems that he can never solve. These are things of God.
Mostly these "things" do not overlap, but people try to FORCE them to overlap. This causes a rift in those who believe science should be everyone's religion versus those who believe science cannot explain everything - and should not TRY to explain everything. People want to believe in themselves, their own capabilities to master the universe around them.
Idol worship. There are people all around us who deserve to be praised and lifted up before their fellow man and God for the work they do day-in-day-out. People who work hard to provided for their families, who stay home to teach their children what they need to know to survive, who bake for a neighbor who is ill... these people are REAL. Their strengths and weaknesses can be experienced and appreciated in real time. I find it appalling that people will ignore the magnificent epics unraveling all around them in favor of someone they have never met in life and weep for in death.
Finally I am not sure what to make of the fact that many people are willing to hate entire populations on the other side of the world, yet not love. Two sides of the same coin. I understand that it is human nature to focus ONLY on those who are immediately important to them, and to neatly pack away the thoughts of starving children in Africa or some other place (even here in our own country). Out of sight, out of mind. Yet it seems easy enough for people to climb onto the bandwagon of hate when a country bad mouths our ways or religions.
Is there no hope for us as a race?
Humanity is special. We have been given the gift of intelligence and free will. I am a somewhat spiritual person and one of my own goals is to reconcile that which is of man with that which is of God. Perhaps reconcile is the wrong word. One cannot reconcile imperfection with perfection as far as I know. I split my understanding of the universe in two ways: spiritual, scientific. While I take some pride in the capabilities of my fellow man to study, observe and reason out why things are as they are, I also believe there are things man can never fully understand, problems that he can never solve. These are things of God.
Mostly these "things" do not overlap, but people try to FORCE them to overlap. This causes a rift in those who believe science should be everyone's religion versus those who believe science cannot explain everything - and should not TRY to explain everything. People want to believe in themselves, their own capabilities to master the universe around them.
Idol worship. There are people all around us who deserve to be praised and lifted up before their fellow man and God for the work they do day-in-day-out. People who work hard to provided for their families, who stay home to teach their children what they need to know to survive, who bake for a neighbor who is ill... these people are REAL. Their strengths and weaknesses can be experienced and appreciated in real time. I find it appalling that people will ignore the magnificent epics unraveling all around them in favor of someone they have never met in life and weep for in death.
Finally I am not sure what to make of the fact that many people are willing to hate entire populations on the other side of the world, yet not love. Two sides of the same coin. I understand that it is human nature to focus ONLY on those who are immediately important to them, and to neatly pack away the thoughts of starving children in Africa or some other place (even here in our own country). Out of sight, out of mind. Yet it seems easy enough for people to climb onto the bandwagon of hate when a country bad mouths our ways or religions.
Is there no hope for us as a race?
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Snap, Crackle, Pop
The creation of the universe is often debated in scientific and religious circles.
It is a difficult subject to wrap one's mind around so this post is a but larger than my last.
If a religious person, such as myself, were to suggest before a person of science that an almighty being simply spoke it into existence I would surely be scoffed and mocked. But what do "they" say?
There are several theories about the universe. There is the old "steady state" theory, that the universe always was and always will be. But this theory did not seem to explain the apparent expanding motion of the galaxies and galactic clusters.
Steady state was replaced by the "Big Bang" theory (which I'd like to note was actually posited by a Catholic Priest who was also a scientist - it was not accepted by much of the scientific community at the time simply because it WAS the brainchild of religious person). The big bang theory has the advantage of being "heard" by radio telescopes around the globe. It would seem to indicate a high energy event that occurred sometime in the past that runs in conjunction with the expansion of our universe.
The big bang is not the creation of the universe but the result of the creation of the universe. The big bang is the sudden and vast expansion** of all energy and, eventually, matter (as the universe cooled and force could split and energy could "condense" into matter - so to speak).
What CAUSED this big bang is the moment of creation (if it is even believable or not) and it ties back to my third paragraph about it being spoken into existence.
Scientists do not know. They have no clue. They will admit they don't know but quickly move to "but we know it had to have happened because we are now all evidence of this event!"
There are some theories of course. One is that the universe was compacted into the size of a pinhead and something happened to destabilize it and *BOOM*! Another theory is that there are many parallel dimensional planes and that if two of them where to somehow bump into each other, at that point a universe would be created. Whoa. I am sure there are many more "fringe" scientific explanations.
It's a heck of a lot easier (and to me more believable) to say "God made it." Why is it so hard to believe in God? Why is it harder to believe in the divine and easier to believe in mortal theories that can never be proven?
I know I cannot prove that God exists... but neither can you prove that the universe was created by some sort of complex mathematical accident.
==
** Scientists have found that the universe has expanded far more than it should have based on their estimate of its age. Some scientists explain it by a suspension or absence of the laws of physics during the initial "explosion" because all the known forces were unified, therefore allowing the universe to expand at a rate far greater than the speed of light.
It is a difficult subject to wrap one's mind around so this post is a but larger than my last.
If a religious person, such as myself, were to suggest before a person of science that an almighty being simply spoke it into existence I would surely be scoffed and mocked. But what do "they" say?
There are several theories about the universe. There is the old "steady state" theory, that the universe always was and always will be. But this theory did not seem to explain the apparent expanding motion of the galaxies and galactic clusters.
Steady state was replaced by the "Big Bang" theory (which I'd like to note was actually posited by a Catholic Priest who was also a scientist - it was not accepted by much of the scientific community at the time simply because it WAS the brainchild of religious person). The big bang theory has the advantage of being "heard" by radio telescopes around the globe. It would seem to indicate a high energy event that occurred sometime in the past that runs in conjunction with the expansion of our universe.
The big bang is not the creation of the universe but the result of the creation of the universe. The big bang is the sudden and vast expansion** of all energy and, eventually, matter (as the universe cooled and force could split and energy could "condense" into matter - so to speak).
What CAUSED this big bang is the moment of creation (if it is even believable or not) and it ties back to my third paragraph about it being spoken into existence.
Scientists do not know. They have no clue. They will admit they don't know but quickly move to "but we know it had to have happened because we are now all evidence of this event!"
There are some theories of course. One is that the universe was compacted into the size of a pinhead and something happened to destabilize it and *BOOM*! Another theory is that there are many parallel dimensional planes and that if two of them where to somehow bump into each other, at that point a universe would be created. Whoa. I am sure there are many more "fringe" scientific explanations.
It's a heck of a lot easier (and to me more believable) to say "God made it." Why is it so hard to believe in God? Why is it harder to believe in the divine and easier to believe in mortal theories that can never be proven?
I know I cannot prove that God exists... but neither can you prove that the universe was created by some sort of complex mathematical accident.
==
** Scientists have found that the universe has expanded far more than it should have based on their estimate of its age. Some scientists explain it by a suspension or absence of the laws of physics during the initial "explosion" because all the known forces were unified, therefore allowing the universe to expand at a rate far greater than the speed of light.
We are alone
We are alone in this universe, unimaginably vast as it is.
Life is a gift. It is creation. This universe was created by an all-powerful being I refer to as "God." Evolution is accepted as fact in most scientific circles, taught in school, etc. But it has never been proven and there is only circumstantial evidence that supports this theory. Scientists will tell you "we have created the essential building blocks for life in our laboratory!" But what they don't mention is that none of those blocks have ever mutated and begun forming complex, self-replicating, molecular chains. And it won't happen. If you ask how they might have formed, under what conditions, the answer will be a cop-out: the conditions of the ancient Earth and over a billion years of chance molecular billiards. In other words it cannot be proven.
Scientists enjoy their own leap of faith when it comes to evolution, allow me mine.
Life is a gift. It is creation. This universe was created by an all-powerful being I refer to as "God." Evolution is accepted as fact in most scientific circles, taught in school, etc. But it has never been proven and there is only circumstantial evidence that supports this theory. Scientists will tell you "we have created the essential building blocks for life in our laboratory!" But what they don't mention is that none of those blocks have ever mutated and begun forming complex, self-replicating, molecular chains. And it won't happen. If you ask how they might have formed, under what conditions, the answer will be a cop-out: the conditions of the ancient Earth and over a billion years of chance molecular billiards. In other words it cannot be proven.
Scientists enjoy their own leap of faith when it comes to evolution, allow me mine.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Camping
Summer has officially arrived here. Today is the last day of school for the kids, tomorrow we go camping.
It should be fun, we are meeting up with some friends from Cub Scouts and Sandi's parents plan on showing up as well. We will be bringing one of our dogs with us, the other creatures are staying home this time.
I've lined up a buyer for my current system and most of the components for my new system have arrived. When all are here I will document putting the system together and installing/running Mac OS X on it. I will post this information on my website, http://www.mikesjunkyard.com. (The site will be up and down a little during the installation process).
Work has been very busy which is very nice. I like to have things to do, and not have to sit and wait for more. I think I might thrive in the "we have 2 minutes to implement a complex new feature!" scenario.
That's it for now!
It should be fun, we are meeting up with some friends from Cub Scouts and Sandi's parents plan on showing up as well. We will be bringing one of our dogs with us, the other creatures are staying home this time.
I've lined up a buyer for my current system and most of the components for my new system have arrived. When all are here I will document putting the system together and installing/running Mac OS X on it. I will post this information on my website, http://www.mikesjunkyard.com. (The site will be up and down a little during the installation process).
Work has been very busy which is very nice. I like to have things to do, and not have to sit and wait for more. I think I might thrive in the "we have 2 minutes to implement a complex new feature!" scenario.
That's it for now!
Saturday, April 25, 2009
My OTHER blog
Just an FYI...
I do have another blog, indeed, another website. www.mikesjunkyard.com. It's my experimental site. I use it to experiment with software. The current site is written in Euphoria and runs as CGI via Apache 2. It is up and down (whenever I need to connect to our company network, all other traffic is blocked), but mostly up. If you would like to see some of the source code check out the links page there.
Anyway, I reserve that site to do more with computers and programming, sometimes other things. I also post my own product reviews there.
That's all! Have a nice day!
I do have another blog, indeed, another website. www.mikesjunkyard.com. It's my experimental site. I use it to experiment with software. The current site is written in Euphoria and runs as CGI via Apache 2. It is up and down (whenever I need to connect to our company network, all other traffic is blocked), but mostly up. If you would like to see some of the source code check out the links page there.
Anyway, I reserve that site to do more with computers and programming, sometimes other things. I also post my own product reviews there.
That's all! Have a nice day!
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Boots molted!
Wow. It seems like forever since her last molt.
FINALLY (yesterday WHILE I WAS WORKING, just 4 feet from her) she molted. And I missed it. Arg! Anyway, she is so drop dead gorgeous!
I am letting her harden up a bit then I think I will take her out and get some nice photographs of her. She is such a pretty spider.
OH! Boots is my Brachypelma emilia. A Mexican Red Leg tarantula. Her abdomen has been the size of a golf ball for half a year. Took a long time, probably has to do with the seasons? I don't know. She is a Northern Hemisphere spider, and it has been Winter...
Anyway, I will post the pics when I take them in my tarantula gallery (on my .mac account).
FINALLY (yesterday WHILE I WAS WORKING, just 4 feet from her) she molted. And I missed it. Arg! Anyway, she is so drop dead gorgeous!
I am letting her harden up a bit then I think I will take her out and get some nice photographs of her. She is such a pretty spider.
OH! Boots is my Brachypelma emilia. A Mexican Red Leg tarantula. Her abdomen has been the size of a golf ball for half a year. Took a long time, probably has to do with the seasons? I don't know. She is a Northern Hemisphere spider, and it has been Winter...
Anyway, I will post the pics when I take them in my tarantula gallery (on my .mac account).
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Almost forgot: Euphoria 4.0-A3
The alpha 3 release of Euphoria 4.0 is supposed to happen today. It will probably be the last alpha release before they declare it beta.
It is already 100% usable with few issues.
I might jump in on this version... need to be careful because mikesjunkyard.com is written in Euphoria (3.x).
So that is exciting.
It is already 100% usable with few issues.
I might jump in on this version... need to be careful because mikesjunkyard.com is written in Euphoria (3.x).
So that is exciting.
Long time, no post.
I've been a bit reclusive and not overt the past few weeks.
I have mostly been working, playing games, doing some geocaching with my wife and family. Quiet, less social stuff. Well I guess geocaching with the entire family is sort of social. :)
I am traveling to Boston the week of the 22nd for work. Next week kids have off for Spring break.
That's about it! I have a few Tarantulas that had better molt soon or they will explode. My GBB molted and is getting too big for her current cage.
Sorry to be so boring!
I did attend a seminar which was basically about how we got our [modern/English] Bible. That was interesting. Some of the speakers were good (a couple of archeologists were excellent), some of them were not so good - their presentations turned into sermons. I was disappointed that they did not include a section on the separation of church and state in America, but all in all it was worth the price of admission (free - accommodations paid for by a large donation).
I have mostly been working, playing games, doing some geocaching with my wife and family. Quiet, less social stuff. Well I guess geocaching with the entire family is sort of social. :)
I am traveling to Boston the week of the 22nd for work. Next week kids have off for Spring break.
That's about it! I have a few Tarantulas that had better molt soon or they will explode. My GBB molted and is getting too big for her current cage.
Sorry to be so boring!
I did attend a seminar which was basically about how we got our [modern/English] Bible. That was interesting. Some of the speakers were good (a couple of archeologists were excellent), some of them were not so good - their presentations turned into sermons. I was disappointed that they did not include a section on the separation of church and state in America, but all in all it was worth the price of admission (free - accommodations paid for by a large donation).
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Here we go again...
Per my usual rant: popular science (not the magazine) running rampant.
See this article: http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/02/10/oldest-human-hair.html
Human hair found in fossilized hyena dung. Let me pull some quotes from the article.
So what can we derive from this?
Please note that there ARE other animals whose hair/fur does resemble human hair (google for images, compare). Second note that the hair was not in the best state.
Somehow this all adds up to "ancient human eaten by hyena!"
People, please... if you want to toss out theories that is fine, let's not make them out to be fact. ARGH! This really bugs me.
Enough. I'm done until the next sensationalist article is posted.
See this article: http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/02/10/oldest-human-hair.html
Human hair found in fossilized hyena dung. Let me pull some quotes from the article.
The researchers then extracted 40 hairs from a single coprolite using fine tweezers. Although amino acid analysis detected no protein, and DNA sampling was not possible, very high magnification revealed that the size and shape of the hairs, along with their distinct cuticular scale patterns, best matched those of human hair.
...
Since the hair's chemistry was transformed by the animal's digestive process, its natural pigmentation, and whether or not it was originally wavy or straight, cannot be determined at present.
So what can we derive from this?
'First of all, the hair casts left in coprolites not only represent a very early occurrence of human hair, but they also document the fact that hominins were being consumed by hyenas,' explained Susman.
Please note that there ARE other animals whose hair/fur does resemble human hair (google for images, compare). Second note that the hair was not in the best state.
Somehow this all adds up to "ancient human eaten by hyena!"
People, please... if you want to toss out theories that is fine, let's not make them out to be fact. ARGH! This really bugs me.
Enough. I'm done until the next sensationalist article is posted.
Fire and more Fire
Australia is having a time of it right now. It reminds me that here in Arizona we have had a ton of rain. Rain is good, gives us water to drink. Rain is bad, it causes lush growth which, in the heat of the summer, becomes tinder. The prediction for this summer: Lot's of wildfires.
Another kind of fire that I generally want more of is a fire in my soul. Faith is one of those things that, while I always have it, it waxes and wanes in a disconcerting manner.
There are times when the fire in my heart is so hot that I burn through life, and times when it is a grey lump of coal and I sort of sit there, feeling the ashes of my faith float away in the breeze.
I need to go read the Bible.
Another kind of fire that I generally want more of is a fire in my soul. Faith is one of those things that, while I always have it, it waxes and wanes in a disconcerting manner.
There are times when the fire in my heart is so hot that I burn through life, and times when it is a grey lump of coal and I sort of sit there, feeling the ashes of my faith float away in the breeze.
I need to go read the Bible.
Monday, February 2, 2009
Congratulations Pittsburgh...
...But even more kudos go to the Cardinals who were part of one of the most exciting Superbowl finishes in the history of football.
The Cardinals showed heart. A lot of heart. And credit Pittsburgh who showed enough heart to win the game with that 2:00 minute drive.
NEXT YEAR! :)
The Cardinals showed heart. A lot of heart. And credit Pittsburgh who showed enough heart to win the game with that 2:00 minute drive.
NEXT YEAR! :)
Monday, January 26, 2009
My Final Windows 7 Post
If you don't feel like reading this whole post, just know that Windows 7 is shaping up to be a very good, very usable operating system. Also know that I am NOT presenting any hard evidence to support my opinion, no numbers. It's all subjective.
I am an OS enthusiast. I've run all kinds of operating systems on different hardware for extended periods of time. My experience with windows extends all the way back to the 1980's when everything was monochrome. I used a VAXmate running Windows to use Pagemaker to write educational material for DEC.
Soon after we switched to Macs, and from that point on my personal computers ran either OS/2, Mac OS or BeOS (for the most part). Most of my development tool place on VAX/VMS or OpenVMS.
In the mid-90's I came back to Windows with Windows NT. The company I worked for wrote VB applications on NT, and Windows 95 (for the most part). From that point on most of my development shifted off mainframes onto PCs or Servers running Microsoft Operating systems of one flavor or another. We STILL use Windows XP at work, along with RedHat Linux.
When Mac OS X came out, we became a Mac household and we still are. The descendant of NEXTSTEP is a wonderful operating system, and there are a ton of wonderful applications that run on it. I even ran Windows XP on it when I needed it for work, and for games.
Recently I decided my life might be easier if I matched one of the operating systems at work and I picked up this nifty PC and installed Ubuntu on it. Ubuntu rocks. Seriously. Open source software is fantastic and the UI for linux has come a LONG way in a decade or so of development.
But back to Windows.
Over the past few years we have seen what must be termed as hype for the "next generation of Windows" (post XP). Microsoft leaked too many of their IDEAS to the public, who grabbed onto it with great hope. It sounded like the perfect operating system, better than OS X, was about to erupt. What users got instead was Vista.
There is nothing WRONG with Vista (at least based on specifications and technical information that I have read; I have never actually USED Vista); Vista simply did not live up to the hype that was spun in the media for 2 years prior to its release.
People felt Vista was a memory hog, it was slow, required better hardware to run on, the security was obnoxious, etc. Anything a person could praise about Vista, 100 people could find something wrong with it.
Microsoft came back with... Windows 7. No major promises with this release, it seems they are taking an under the radar approach (for Microsoft) and working on "cleaning up" Vista. I began reading reviews of pre-beta W7 (Windows 7), some bad, some good, many hopeful, and decided to check it out for myself. So here I am writing this blog entry to convey my feelings about an early beta version of Microsoft's next stab at Windows.
First, let me describe my hardware. I built a Shuttle Glamor model, based on Intel chipsets. It has a Core 2 Quad CPU @ 2.4 GHz, 4 GB of RAM, an NVidia 8400 GS graphics card with 512 MB of RAM, 2 250 GB SATA II hard drives, a DVD/CD burner and a 1920 by 1080, 24" LCD monitor. Let me mention one other thing about the hardware: the LED power light on the front of the computer could be used to generate absolute zero temperatures in a science lab. I can light the whole bedroom with it at night, and if I point the light outside, the coyotes gather in the wash and howl at my house.
Let's move on.
I ran Ubuntu on this same machine for a couple of months before putting Windows 7 on it. I chose Ubuntu because it is easy to configure, attractive and is Linux, and our servers all run linux. Ubuntu ran well with all the compiz settings pegged, and I was able to build my own kernel that supported the full 4 GB of RAM. Noting this is important because I am using Ubuntu as a basis for comparison with Windows 7 regarding speed and memory usage on THIS computer.
I am going to start my assessment with the negatives, and there are not many. The first issue is of my own doing. Since I hate having memory sit there unused, I opted to install the 64 bit version of Windows 7. I automatically enter into shakier ground doing so as (for example) driver support is limited, and the performance of 32 but applications are not optimal. Most applications are 32 bit. The second issue was that my network chip was not recognized, and I had to burn a driver CD for it from my Mac. I should be thankful a driver was available (NOTE: I had to install the 64 bit driver for Vista). The third issue is that my MICROSOFT ARC MOUSE did not function properly! That one irks me. The forth and final issue could be anyone's fault. I upgraded my Nvidia driver from the one that came with Windows 7 to the latest and greatest available on the NVidia site. Since I've done that, the screen has frozen several times for about 10 or 20 seconds, then it went blank, and then came back and Windows reported an error with the driver. It is not a frequent occurrence, and probably avoidable if I just left the original driver alone.
Onto the good.
Windows does not come with a large amount of software. Just some basics. With Windows 7 you can also download additional applications (that do not install from the disc), such as their Windows Live suite of applications. I really like the Windows Live Mail application. This, however, is not a bad thing. There is a ton of software on the internet available to complete most people's needs. I immediately went out and snagged a couple of necessary applications: Notepad++, OpenOffice.org, Firefox (a 64 bit experimental version too) and Google Chrome. I was then able to install the other applications I need to do my work, such as Java, OC4J and Apache/MySQL/PHP. I have also installed a bunch of other do-dads as well. I have been able to get up and working in a short amount of time with all the applications I want or need.
Then there is gaming. My hardware is really not suited for gaming, and I am not a big gamer but I do have a few games I play. Spore, Black & White 2, Bioshock, and some others like that. They all install and run fine on Windows 7, altho' they still have their own bugs and I have hardware limitations, but they do run. This is good news I am sure for gamers (altho' the best video drivers might not yet be available, I cannot speak to that).
The look and feel is much improved over XP. Probably not much different from Vista, except perhaps for the start bar. I actually like the Explorer. The breadcrumb trails are a welcome addition, the side bar and preview work well and the file indexing and searching is great. The actual appearance of the widgets and also font rendering is beautiful. The appearance is very much like KDE4 on linux, and that is most obvious in the start bar.
The special effects do not seem to slow it down; windows open, close and resize well. The special effects are clean and simple, not overdone as I expected them to be. I also like, but have to get used to, the hot spot window manipulation, where if you move a window to a specific part of the screen it will resize it and place it for you. That's a little weird but it is configurable.
The start bar shows previews of windows as you hover over the icons and if you hover over one preview, it makes all the other windows invisible (with an outline still visible) so you can see the window over whose icon you are hovering. Right-clicking on the icons will pull up application menus which can vary from program to program. Since there is no definition of what a right-click will give you, some people have complained about this feature, I think it should be up to the application to give you any options it wants you to be able to access from the icon. The message center/icon tray is also cleaner looking.
While I have no experience with UAC on Vista, I have read the myriads of complaints about how intrusive it is to workflow. Since I have not used Vista I cannot offer a valid comparison between Vista and Windows 7, but I CAN offer this: It is no different from security messages served up by by Mac OS X. I do not find UAC on Windows 7 intrusive, on the contrary I find them sensible.
Finally, I want to note that memory usage on Windows 7 is no different than Ubuntu or Mac OS X. While it will cache as much memory as it can, at any given time there is no more than between 1 and two gigabytes of memory in use. Most of that memory is sucked up by running applications, not operating system services. I will note that the Explorer itself seems to gobble up a hefty chunk, but I assume it is caching all the folders you visit in a session. I have not, however, seen hard faulting.
To summarize (personal scale of 1 to 10 based on my usage of them, albeit mac os x on different hardware) with out of box performance, functionality, looks and resource gobbling, 1 being awful, 10 being fantastic:
I think all three of the aforementioned operating systems are great, but I think that in comparison to Windows XP, Windows 7 Beta 1 is light years better. It is easy on the eyes, quick, not overly hoggish with memory, and has more useful features than its ancestor. It is pleasant to use, even when I don't HAVE to use it. Is it polished like Mac OS X? No, not yet anyway. Is it feature full like Ubuntu? No, but then again what is? But it is competent, applications are available for it, and I think it will be adopted readily when it finally arrives for public consumption. (NOTE: This assumes Microsoft does nothing to ruin it from now to September).
And with this blog, I am done talking about Windows for awhile. :)
* custom kernel with support for latest CPUs and extended memory, with compiz on and active.
I am an OS enthusiast. I've run all kinds of operating systems on different hardware for extended periods of time. My experience with windows extends all the way back to the 1980's when everything was monochrome. I used a VAXmate running Windows to use Pagemaker to write educational material for DEC.
Soon after we switched to Macs, and from that point on my personal computers ran either OS/2, Mac OS or BeOS (for the most part). Most of my development tool place on VAX/VMS or OpenVMS.
In the mid-90's I came back to Windows with Windows NT. The company I worked for wrote VB applications on NT, and Windows 95 (for the most part). From that point on most of my development shifted off mainframes onto PCs or Servers running Microsoft Operating systems of one flavor or another. We STILL use Windows XP at work, along with RedHat Linux.
When Mac OS X came out, we became a Mac household and we still are. The descendant of NEXTSTEP is a wonderful operating system, and there are a ton of wonderful applications that run on it. I even ran Windows XP on it when I needed it for work, and for games.
Recently I decided my life might be easier if I matched one of the operating systems at work and I picked up this nifty PC and installed Ubuntu on it. Ubuntu rocks. Seriously. Open source software is fantastic and the UI for linux has come a LONG way in a decade or so of development.
But back to Windows.
Over the past few years we have seen what must be termed as hype for the "next generation of Windows" (post XP). Microsoft leaked too many of their IDEAS to the public, who grabbed onto it with great hope. It sounded like the perfect operating system, better than OS X, was about to erupt. What users got instead was Vista.
There is nothing WRONG with Vista (at least based on specifications and technical information that I have read; I have never actually USED Vista); Vista simply did not live up to the hype that was spun in the media for 2 years prior to its release.
People felt Vista was a memory hog, it was slow, required better hardware to run on, the security was obnoxious, etc. Anything a person could praise about Vista, 100 people could find something wrong with it.
Microsoft came back with... Windows 7. No major promises with this release, it seems they are taking an under the radar approach (for Microsoft) and working on "cleaning up" Vista. I began reading reviews of pre-beta W7 (Windows 7), some bad, some good, many hopeful, and decided to check it out for myself. So here I am writing this blog entry to convey my feelings about an early beta version of Microsoft's next stab at Windows.
First, let me describe my hardware. I built a Shuttle Glamor model, based on Intel chipsets. It has a Core 2 Quad CPU @ 2.4 GHz, 4 GB of RAM, an NVidia 8400 GS graphics card with 512 MB of RAM, 2 250 GB SATA II hard drives, a DVD/CD burner and a 1920 by 1080, 24" LCD monitor. Let me mention one other thing about the hardware: the LED power light on the front of the computer could be used to generate absolute zero temperatures in a science lab. I can light the whole bedroom with it at night, and if I point the light outside, the coyotes gather in the wash and howl at my house.
Let's move on.
I ran Ubuntu on this same machine for a couple of months before putting Windows 7 on it. I chose Ubuntu because it is easy to configure, attractive and is Linux, and our servers all run linux. Ubuntu ran well with all the compiz settings pegged, and I was able to build my own kernel that supported the full 4 GB of RAM. Noting this is important because I am using Ubuntu as a basis for comparison with Windows 7 regarding speed and memory usage on THIS computer.
I am going to start my assessment with the negatives, and there are not many. The first issue is of my own doing. Since I hate having memory sit there unused, I opted to install the 64 bit version of Windows 7. I automatically enter into shakier ground doing so as (for example) driver support is limited, and the performance of 32 but applications are not optimal. Most applications are 32 bit. The second issue was that my network chip was not recognized, and I had to burn a driver CD for it from my Mac. I should be thankful a driver was available (NOTE: I had to install the 64 bit driver for Vista). The third issue is that my MICROSOFT ARC MOUSE did not function properly! That one irks me. The forth and final issue could be anyone's fault. I upgraded my Nvidia driver from the one that came with Windows 7 to the latest and greatest available on the NVidia site. Since I've done that, the screen has frozen several times for about 10 or 20 seconds, then it went blank, and then came back and Windows reported an error with the driver. It is not a frequent occurrence, and probably avoidable if I just left the original driver alone.
Onto the good.
Windows does not come with a large amount of software. Just some basics. With Windows 7 you can also download additional applications (that do not install from the disc), such as their Windows Live suite of applications. I really like the Windows Live Mail application. This, however, is not a bad thing. There is a ton of software on the internet available to complete most people's needs. I immediately went out and snagged a couple of necessary applications: Notepad++, OpenOffice.org, Firefox (a 64 bit experimental version too) and Google Chrome. I was then able to install the other applications I need to do my work, such as Java, OC4J and Apache/MySQL/PHP. I have also installed a bunch of other do-dads as well. I have been able to get up and working in a short amount of time with all the applications I want or need.
Then there is gaming. My hardware is really not suited for gaming, and I am not a big gamer but I do have a few games I play. Spore, Black & White 2, Bioshock, and some others like that. They all install and run fine on Windows 7, altho' they still have their own bugs and I have hardware limitations, but they do run. This is good news I am sure for gamers (altho' the best video drivers might not yet be available, I cannot speak to that).
The look and feel is much improved over XP. Probably not much different from Vista, except perhaps for the start bar. I actually like the Explorer. The breadcrumb trails are a welcome addition, the side bar and preview work well and the file indexing and searching is great. The actual appearance of the widgets and also font rendering is beautiful. The appearance is very much like KDE4 on linux, and that is most obvious in the start bar.
The special effects do not seem to slow it down; windows open, close and resize well. The special effects are clean and simple, not overdone as I expected them to be. I also like, but have to get used to, the hot spot window manipulation, where if you move a window to a specific part of the screen it will resize it and place it for you. That's a little weird but it is configurable.
The start bar shows previews of windows as you hover over the icons and if you hover over one preview, it makes all the other windows invisible (with an outline still visible) so you can see the window over whose icon you are hovering. Right-clicking on the icons will pull up application menus which can vary from program to program. Since there is no definition of what a right-click will give you, some people have complained about this feature, I think it should be up to the application to give you any options it wants you to be able to access from the icon. The message center/icon tray is also cleaner looking.
While I have no experience with UAC on Vista, I have read the myriads of complaints about how intrusive it is to workflow. Since I have not used Vista I cannot offer a valid comparison between Vista and Windows 7, but I CAN offer this: It is no different from security messages served up by by Mac OS X. I do not find UAC on Windows 7 intrusive, on the contrary I find them sensible.
Finally, I want to note that memory usage on Windows 7 is no different than Ubuntu or Mac OS X. While it will cache as much memory as it can, at any given time there is no more than between 1 and two gigabytes of memory in use. Most of that memory is sucked up by running applications, not operating system services. I will note that the Explorer itself seems to gobble up a hefty chunk, but I assume it is caching all the folders you visit in a session. I have not, however, seen hard faulting.
To summarize (personal scale of 1 to 10 based on my usage of them, albeit mac os x on different hardware) with out of box performance, functionality, looks and resource gobbling, 1 being awful, 10 being fantastic:
| OS | performance | functionality | looks | resource usage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| OS X 10.5 | 8 | 7 | 9 | 8 |
| Windows 7 (BETA 1) | 8 | 6 | 9 | 7 |
| Ubuntu 8.10* | 7 | 8 | 8 | 8 |
I think all three of the aforementioned operating systems are great, but I think that in comparison to Windows XP, Windows 7 Beta 1 is light years better. It is easy on the eyes, quick, not overly hoggish with memory, and has more useful features than its ancestor. It is pleasant to use, even when I don't HAVE to use it. Is it polished like Mac OS X? No, not yet anyway. Is it feature full like Ubuntu? No, but then again what is? But it is competent, applications are available for it, and I think it will be adopted readily when it finally arrives for public consumption. (NOTE: This assumes Microsoft does nothing to ruin it from now to September).
And with this blog, I am done talking about Windows for awhile. :)
* custom kernel with support for latest CPUs and extended memory, with compiz on and active.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
More on Windows 7
I am still using it, and it is going well so far.
I am still quite pleased with the performance, the appearance, and compatibility. The last version of Windows I ran at home (and run dual boot with OS X, or in Parallels) and the version we use at work is XP SP2.
All my games and applications, whether they are 32 bit or not, are working fine. And the look and feel is just great. Very pretty, very clean.
I also have my work applications running well. Apache, MySQL, PHP, OC4J, etc.
It's not all a bed of roses. On rare occasions, usually associated with a game, my NVIDIA graphics driver stops responding for a moment, and then restarts. Nothing is lost, the screen just freezes, goes black, comes back and Windows tells me there was a problem with the driver. That is a rare occurrence, but it is probably my own fault for updating the driver to the latest available from NVIDIA, overriding the one that Windows 7 installed. I chalk that up to a cutting edge, 64 bit driver on a beta 1 operating system.
I have been able to find 64 bit versions of firefox, apache, mysql, etc. I am, however, using Google Chrome as my primary browser.
So far the experience has been very good.
I am still quite pleased with the performance, the appearance, and compatibility. The last version of Windows I ran at home (and run dual boot with OS X, or in Parallels) and the version we use at work is XP SP2.
All my games and applications, whether they are 32 bit or not, are working fine. And the look and feel is just great. Very pretty, very clean.
I also have my work applications running well. Apache, MySQL, PHP, OC4J, etc.
It's not all a bed of roses. On rare occasions, usually associated with a game, my NVIDIA graphics driver stops responding for a moment, and then restarts. Nothing is lost, the screen just freezes, goes black, comes back and Windows tells me there was a problem with the driver. That is a rare occurrence, but it is probably my own fault for updating the driver to the latest available from NVIDIA, overriding the one that Windows 7 installed. I chalk that up to a cutting edge, 64 bit driver on a beta 1 operating system.
I have been able to find 64 bit versions of firefox, apache, mysql, etc. I am, however, using Google Chrome as my primary browser.
So far the experience has been very good.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
So I've gone and done the unthinkable.
I decided I should install Windows on my PC.
But not just any Windows, Windows 7, Beta 1. I had never used Vista, and had heard not very pleasant things about it. W7 is very much like Vista, from what I understand, just a little more refined. So far I am actually enjoying it. No crashes, no real problems. One driver issue post-install, but I resolved that quickly enough by downloading the latest driver for my network chip.
Not overly memory hungry. No more so than Ubuntu was at this point. That could change, of course. All the applications I have wanted to use install and work fine. I should add that I am running Windows 7, 64 bit... so there is a higher likelihood of running into problems.
Anyway, no complaints. It works. I should add that it also works much more seamlessly with my work servers/network, which are Microsoft driven. If I had to give it a "rating," I'd say at this point it is a solid 7 out of 10.
But not just any Windows, Windows 7, Beta 1. I had never used Vista, and had heard not very pleasant things about it. W7 is very much like Vista, from what I understand, just a little more refined. So far I am actually enjoying it. No crashes, no real problems. One driver issue post-install, but I resolved that quickly enough by downloading the latest driver for my network chip.
Not overly memory hungry. No more so than Ubuntu was at this point. That could change, of course. All the applications I have wanted to use install and work fine. I should add that I am running Windows 7, 64 bit... so there is a higher likelihood of running into problems.
Anyway, no complaints. It works. I should add that it also works much more seamlessly with my work servers/network, which are Microsoft driven. If I had to give it a "rating," I'd say at this point it is a solid 7 out of 10.
Monday, January 19, 2009
Faith vs. Science
Yeah I know. "NOT AGAIN!"
I have to come back to this every once in awhile because I see people all around me get so upset with all the "creation vs. evolution" type debates and arguments.
I've stated this before I am sure, but to me (and not JUST me) but science and "religion" approach the world from different angles. I quoted religion because it defines not only faith in God, but includes social behavior, dogma and other aspects that sometimes cloud the simple purity of "belief in a supreme being." And what is "faith?" Faith is really just "trust." It is too general. Faith is trusting in God, in what He asks you to do, that he exists.
Where was I? Sorry - Different angles.
Science asks the question "how?" Religion asks the more philosophical question "why?" Science depends on observation and measurement, Religion depends on Faith.
Unfortunately, all too often people seek to use the Bible as a tool of science, and science as a tool of religion. The reason this is somewhat easy to do is because the Bible refers to locations and periods of time, concepts which appear to exist in the realm of science (measurements, right?)
The conflict begins in the very first book of the Bible: Genesis. Genesis states that God created everything, and that he did it in seven days. People of faith KNOW the Bible is THE TRUTH, people of science point to the periods of time and call foul.
The problem is this: The Bible was not written to describe scientific truths, it was written to describe the truth about our relationship with God, and with other people. The Bible focuses on how we interact with God, and how we interact with one another and measurements of time are irrelevant, except to help get across a mood, or sense of urgency or some other literary license to help us understand what is going on in a given book or passage.
I really do not understand why there are so many people who get so defensive or feel so threatened on both sides, the faithful and the non-faithful. Ah! That's the REAL problem, isn't it?
This arguing, it isn't science vs. faith at all, it is those who believe in God, versus those who believe there is no such thing as God, or that God cannot be proven so don't bother me with your beliefs. The problem is the fear of imposition: both sides trying to impose their belief system upon the other, and arguing why theirs is more relevant than the others'.
It's about fear?
I have to come back to this every once in awhile because I see people all around me get so upset with all the "creation vs. evolution" type debates and arguments.
I've stated this before I am sure, but to me (and not JUST me) but science and "religion" approach the world from different angles. I quoted religion because it defines not only faith in God, but includes social behavior, dogma and other aspects that sometimes cloud the simple purity of "belief in a supreme being." And what is "faith?" Faith is really just "trust." It is too general. Faith is trusting in God, in what He asks you to do, that he exists.
Where was I? Sorry - Different angles.
Science asks the question "how?" Religion asks the more philosophical question "why?" Science depends on observation and measurement, Religion depends on Faith.
Unfortunately, all too often people seek to use the Bible as a tool of science, and science as a tool of religion. The reason this is somewhat easy to do is because the Bible refers to locations and periods of time, concepts which appear to exist in the realm of science (measurements, right?)
The conflict begins in the very first book of the Bible: Genesis. Genesis states that God created everything, and that he did it in seven days. People of faith KNOW the Bible is THE TRUTH, people of science point to the periods of time and call foul.
The problem is this: The Bible was not written to describe scientific truths, it was written to describe the truth about our relationship with God, and with other people. The Bible focuses on how we interact with God, and how we interact with one another and measurements of time are irrelevant, except to help get across a mood, or sense of urgency or some other literary license to help us understand what is going on in a given book or passage.
I really do not understand why there are so many people who get so defensive or feel so threatened on both sides, the faithful and the non-faithful. Ah! That's the REAL problem, isn't it?
This arguing, it isn't science vs. faith at all, it is those who believe in God, versus those who believe there is no such thing as God, or that God cannot be proven so don't bother me with your beliefs. The problem is the fear of imposition: both sides trying to impose their belief system upon the other, and arguing why theirs is more relevant than the others'.
It's about fear?
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Getting my groove on and Euphoria.
One of my websites I use simply for mucking around. It is currently driven by Euphoria, but I am contemplating toying around with Grails again.
First, what is Euphoria? Euphoria is a very simple language in the ALGOL/Basic family. It is simple and clean, yet it is also very powerful and very quick. The power comes in three ways. 1) It has a useful subset of libraries; 2) It has great list processing; and 3) it has access to low-level functions, usually reserved for assembly language. It is a language that very much reminds me of the DEC BLISS language (and I wonder if that is not what the creator was getting at? Euphoria <--> Bliss?) BLISS was like BASIC on steroids.
Anyway, I really enjoy Euphoria and have created a small "WWW" library to use with it, and am considering tying it into SQLite or MySQL in the near future, for database driven pages. Learn more at the Euphoria website.
Grails. What can be said? Rails implemented using the Groovy language. It rocks.
What is Groovy you ask? Groovy is a Java derivative. It takes Java and turns it into something much much more fun to use. There is nothing WRONG with Java, but Groovy is just more fun, and it turns Java into something more akin to Ruby or Python.
So here I am, wondering if I should not do some more of my planned work with Euphoria, or go back to playing with Grails, either would do nicely. What do you think?
Thursday, January 8, 2009
I am an OS Enthusiast
I am an OS enthusiast.
I play with computers, add and change hardware, but more often than that, I play with the operating systems themselves, modifying them until I have them just the way I like them.
I recently moved my very nice Aluminum iMac running the very nice Mac OS X 10.5 into my son's room, and bought myself a Shuttle Glamor, a new monitor and some peripherals. Instead of running Windows on my PC I wanted to move to a distribution of linux because we use linux at work for our development and production application servers.
I know, I have blogged about this stuff before. But I cannot help myself.
I tried several likely distributions (including PC-BSD, which is NOT linux, but more closely related to Mac OS X). I ended up choosing Ubuntu.
Ubuntu is probably the most user-friendly version of linux out there. The installation process is seamless, it supports most hardware, is fairly well optimized and it really "just works." There are a couple of shortcomings but they are solved very easily (and are well documented). One of the shortfalls is the fact that Canonical will not install proprietary drivers by default. So, if you have a fancy ATI or NVIDIA graphics card, a generic, open source (but working) driver will be installed. The proprietary, binary drivers ARE available by simply checking a checkbox in the Synaptic (the operating system's software update program) settings that tells it to allow the installation of proprietary code. Once that is done, you can run the Hardware Drivers program in the Administration application menu and it will ask you if you want it to install the proprietary drivers... you say yes, done.
I have made many tweaks since I first built this system, and it is very personalized. I have changed the UI to a theme called "WoodenLooks", rebuilt my kernel to support more memory, built a more recent version of the NVIDIA drivers, tweaked the networking so I could tunnel into work and installed loads of freeware that I use for both work and play.
I would say the only thing missing from linux are modern games. The usual suite of card and board games are present, but the major game manufacturers who produce games for Windows and Mac OS X do not bother with linux. There was once a company (Loki) who ported the great games to linux, but they went under (chapter 7) years ago. I believe that is because most of the people who use linux use it because it is FREE. Possibly because they cannot afford Windows or Mac OS X software. This would carry over to games, which are not cheap. So the market simply was not there. Recently there HAS been talk that maybe in the near future game companies would begin developing for linux, as the popularity of Ubuntu (a Debian-based distribution of linux) has sky rocketed in recent years.
Anyway, if you are experimental or have older hardware that Windows Vista or Mac OS X 10.5 will not run on, consider linux. It has come a LONG way and is seriously on par with the major proprietary operating systems. It is fast, attractive, very reliable, and with free software suites like OpenOffice.org, Firefox, Evolution and others, it provides all the functionality most people would ever need.
I play with computers, add and change hardware, but more often than that, I play with the operating systems themselves, modifying them until I have them just the way I like them.
I recently moved my very nice Aluminum iMac running the very nice Mac OS X 10.5 into my son's room, and bought myself a Shuttle Glamor, a new monitor and some peripherals. Instead of running Windows on my PC I wanted to move to a distribution of linux because we use linux at work for our development and production application servers.
I know, I have blogged about this stuff before. But I cannot help myself.
I tried several likely distributions (including PC-BSD, which is NOT linux, but more closely related to Mac OS X). I ended up choosing Ubuntu.
Ubuntu is probably the most user-friendly version of linux out there. The installation process is seamless, it supports most hardware, is fairly well optimized and it really "just works." There are a couple of shortcomings but they are solved very easily (and are well documented). One of the shortfalls is the fact that Canonical will not install proprietary drivers by default. So, if you have a fancy ATI or NVIDIA graphics card, a generic, open source (but working) driver will be installed. The proprietary, binary drivers ARE available by simply checking a checkbox in the Synaptic (the operating system's software update program) settings that tells it to allow the installation of proprietary code. Once that is done, you can run the Hardware Drivers program in the Administration application menu and it will ask you if you want it to install the proprietary drivers... you say yes, done.
I have made many tweaks since I first built this system, and it is very personalized. I have changed the UI to a theme called "WoodenLooks", rebuilt my kernel to support more memory, built a more recent version of the NVIDIA drivers, tweaked the networking so I could tunnel into work and installed loads of freeware that I use for both work and play.
I would say the only thing missing from linux are modern games. The usual suite of card and board games are present, but the major game manufacturers who produce games for Windows and Mac OS X do not bother with linux. There was once a company (Loki) who ported the great games to linux, but they went under (chapter 7) years ago. I believe that is because most of the people who use linux use it because it is FREE. Possibly because they cannot afford Windows or Mac OS X software. This would carry over to games, which are not cheap. So the market simply was not there. Recently there HAS been talk that maybe in the near future game companies would begin developing for linux, as the popularity of Ubuntu (a Debian-based distribution of linux) has sky rocketed in recent years.
Anyway, if you are experimental or have older hardware that Windows Vista or Mac OS X 10.5 will not run on, consider linux. It has come a LONG way and is seriously on par with the major proprietary operating systems. It is fast, attractive, very reliable, and with free software suites like OpenOffice.org, Firefox, Evolution and others, it provides all the functionality most people would ever need.
Monday, January 5, 2009
Struts 2 and Java 5
Struts 2.0 and Java 5 make a good combination.
I've been working on a project using Struts 2.0 and I have to say it is a major improvement over Struts 1.x. The ability to get things working quickly makes it a pleasure (so far) to use. In my project, I am using FreeMarker templates. I prefer the syntax over standard JSP tag libraries/syntax.
Working remotely is great, but I do run into problems. At the end of last week I spent time trying to figure out what changes I had recently made broke my application. I got a frustrated and left it for today. I fired up my server and my changes worked. Turned out that all my problems stemmed from some sort of network issue where I stopped being able to effectively communicate with either our LDAP server or our Oracle server, despite still having a valid connection, able to perform other networked operations.
Anyway, back to work.
I've been working on a project using Struts 2.0 and I have to say it is a major improvement over Struts 1.x. The ability to get things working quickly makes it a pleasure (so far) to use. In my project, I am using FreeMarker templates. I prefer the syntax over standard JSP tag libraries/syntax.
Working remotely is great, but I do run into problems. At the end of last week I spent time trying to figure out what changes I had recently made broke my application. I got a frustrated and left it for today. I fired up my server and my changes worked. Turned out that all my problems stemmed from some sort of network issue where I stopped being able to effectively communicate with either our LDAP server or our Oracle server, despite still having a valid connection, able to perform other networked operations.
Anyway, back to work.
Sunday, January 4, 2009
More mucking about
I've been fiddling around a bit with my Ubuntu 8.10 installation.
I tried, again, to install the latest NVIDIA driver without success, but then went back to an older version (yet newer than what Ubuntu will provide in its non-free apt sources) and that worked! So I am now in a 180.x version of the NVIDIA driver which is SUPPOSED to have much improved 2D and 3D support.
I also have been fiddling around with various display engines and ended up going back to the standard Ubuntu Desktop, and tweaking it from there.
Fun fun fun!
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