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news

Finally a Good Answer

March 17, 2010 6:15:30.617

Vint Cerf gave a good, thoughtful answer to the question "do smart phones make us dumb" - which is more than I can say for the glibness that people like Nick Carr usually have for this kind of question. It all goes back to critical thinking, as Cerf said.

posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Excel from ObjectStudio: Video

March 17, 2010 7:38:28.121

Today's screencast looks at using Excel from ObjectStudio via COM.

You can download the video directly here. If you like this kind of video, why not subscribe to "Smalltalk Daily"?

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posted by James Robertson

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tutorial

Using Excel from ObjectStudio

March 17, 2010 8:10:13.306

Yesterday, I pushed up a short walkthrough on using Excel from VisualWorks; this morning I did a screencast on using Excel from ObjectStudio. Here's the walkthrough for that piece.

First, you'll need to load the required support. Using File>>Load Application in the launcher menu, select "OLE" and load:

Once you have that loaded, open a workspace (from the Tools menu) and add the following script - you can start exploring the COM APIs from here and tweak the script as needed:


| ole excel wb range value |
"get the dispatcher for Excel"
ole := OLEObject newProgId: 'Excel.Application'.
excel := ole dispatcher.

"open Excel and get a worksheet"
excel call: 'Visible' params: (Array with: true).
wb := excel call: 'Workbooks' params: #().
wb call: 'Add' params: #().

"Now add some data"
range := excel call: 'Range' params: (Array with: 'A1').
range at: 'Value' put: 'Fred'.
range := excel call: 'Range' params: (Array with: 'A2').
range at: 'Value' put: 'Flintstone'.

"make the range bold"
range := excel call: 'Range' params: (Array with: 'A1:A2').
(range at: 'Font') at: 'Bold' put: (Array with: true).

"Now read a cell back"
range := excel call: 'Range' params: (Array with: 'A1').
value := range at: 'Value'.
^value

Unlike VisualWorks, you don't need to highlight that code - simply pull down the Smalltalk menu in the workspace and try "Insert" (which will print the results into the workspace) - you should end up with Excel opened up, with "Fred" in A1 and "Flintstone" in A2, and "Fred" in your workspace at the bottom - like this:

That's pretty much it - you can explore the available COM APIs and work from there - but this should get you started.

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posted by James Robertson

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podcasting

Podcast with Bruce Badger

March 17, 2010 14:04:08.779

We'll be doing a podcast with Bruce Badger tomorrow at 2 PM EDT - we had been planning for today, but Michael's internet connection went down. So - tomorrow it is!

To listen lice, just head on over to our justin.tv page at 2.

posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Stephanne Ducasse Talks Smalltalk

March 17, 2010 22:50:49.035

ESUG luminary Stephanne Ducasse was just interviewed - good stuff, and this is perhaps the most interesting tidbit:

"30% of the worldwide market of shipping containers is controlled by Smalltalk systems"

That would be VisualWorks, btw :)

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posted by James Robertson

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news

The E-Book Battle

March 18, 2010 6:36:26.332

The scuffling for position in the e-book space continues, with Apple's entry (the iPad) making Amazon nervous:

Amazon appears to be responding to the Apple threat by waging a publisher-by-publisher battle, trying to keep as many books as possible out of Apple's hands, while preserving as much flexibility as it can to set its own prices.

The competition should make things better for all of us, but in the short term, it will likely mean more stunts like Amazon's brief removal of Macmillan from the store.

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posted by James Robertson

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DRM

DRM, Illustrated

March 18, 2010 7:00:27.737

This comic is great - the complexity added by DRM adds so many possible points of failure that it's just not funny.

posted by James Robertson

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news

Amazon Pushes More Kindle

March 18, 2010 7:50:25.487

If Amazon is smart, they'll push out a Kindle for iPad app (one would think that the iPhone app should work, given Apple's staements about apps). The app for the Mac is a nice "complete the stack" thing, but not the end game. Amazon needs to remember that their core business is not, in fact, selling hardware - the Kindle is a means to an end, not an end in and of itself.

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Using stdin and stdout: Video

March 18, 2010 9:03:21.258

Today's screencast looks at using stdin and stdout from Smalltalk.

You can download the video directly here. If you like this kind of video, why not subscribe to "Smalltalk Daily"?

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posted by James Robertson

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humor

A Disturbing Truth

March 18, 2010 9:37:12.728

posted by James Robertson

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web

Flash Losing its Luster

March 18, 2010 12:41:23.856

This can't be good news for Adobe's desire to keep Flash as the "default" web video standard:

The Open Video Alliance, which includes Mozilla, Kaltura, Miro, and Yale Law School, are joining forces to bring video to Wikipedia -- Flash-free.

So consider - Google (and YouTube) are going with non-Flash solutions, Apple has already ditched Flash (and because they won't support it on the iPhone/iTouch/iPad, they are forcing change). Now Wikipedia is planning to move off Flash. I think I'm glad I went with H.264 for the daily screencasts awhile back :)

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posted by James Robertson

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yankees

Opening Day Approaches

March 18, 2010 21:36:48.709

Spring training is coming to a close soon, and real baseball is back - just 16 days. The march to number 28 begins!

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posted by James Robertson

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games

Preparing for the non-Disc Gaming Future?

March 19, 2010 6:20:45.598

Spotted in Engadget

Are we gazing onto the cusp of a new horizon, one where our Xbox 360 storage needs aren't shackled to overpriced proprietary hard drives? Probably not quite. Our best friends at Joystiq have managed to obtain documents (corroborated with multiple sources) showing that the folks in Redmond are mulling over an option to enable USB mass storage support for its game machine.

We already know that game vendors would like to move to downloadable content, if only to stop outlets like Gamestop from selling used games. That tells me that this report is probably true

posted by James Robertson

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copyright

Google vs. Viacom

March 19, 2010 6:31:41.768

You have to love the copyright suit between Viacom and Google - especially now that this response from Google has been made public:

"Viacom alone has uploaded thousands of videos to YouTube to market hundreds of its programs and movies, including many that are works in suit," Google wrote. "Given the broad scope of marketing, YouTube could not be charged with knowledge of infringement (.pdf) merely because it came across a video that was clearly from a professionally produced television show or movie."

Peronally, I thought the whole safe harbor thing was enough of a defense, but lawyers do like to add layers and layers of complexity to an otherwise simple situation - otherwise, how would they collect enormous hourly fees?

Meanwhile, I find it highly amusing that Viacom's marketing department was busy undermining the coporate case because they actually understood something about promotion :)

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

ESUG in the Summer of Code

March 19, 2010 7:01:08.591

SESUG is now an official Google Summer of Code mentor organization:

We are incredibly proud to announce that ESUG was selected for the GSoC 2010. We have a long list of wonderful projects, mentors and a cool website

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Updating the Store Browsers: Video

March 19, 2010 8:35:14.096

Today's screencast looks at the updated Store broewsers coming in the next release cycle - out with the 5i era browsers, in with the RB.

You can download the video directly here. If you like this kind of video, why not subscribe to "Smalltalk Daily"?

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posted by James Robertson

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DRM

The Convoluted World of DRM

March 19, 2010 13:31:37.582

You have to love this: Valve hasn't added the latest Ubisoft games to their UK store (although they have arrived on the US side) - supposedly due to the "always connected" requirement of Ubisoft's latest games. The amusing part of that is that Steam requires either a constant connection or unsafe credentials handling in order to play - makes me wonder whether the combined DRM schemes are somehow causing grief.

In any event, this is the perfect example of where DRM gets you - problems for customers, service issues for the vendor, and unforseen complications due to unplanned software interactions. Awesome, isn't it?

posted by James Robertson

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science

Real Threats

March 19, 2010 13:59:07.302

For those of us who grew up in a world where famines were political events, this story about wheat rust is truly frightening:

Indeed, 90 percent of the world's wheat has little or no protection against the Ug99 race of P. graminis. If nothing is done to slow the pathogen, famines could soon become the norm — from the Red Sea to the Mongolian steppe — as Ug99 annihilates a crop that provides a third of our calories. China and India, the world's biggest wheat consumers, will once again face the threat of mass starvation, especially among their rural poor. The situation will be particularly grim in Pakistan and Afghanistan, two nations that rely heavily on wheat for sustenance and are in no position to bear added woe.

posted by James Robertson

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humor

Back to the Future!

March 19, 2010 21:15:06.531

posted by James Robertson

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podcasting

Licenses and Open Source Projects

March 20, 2010 12:16:28.767

This week's podcast was a lot of fun, and I want to thank Bruce Badger for coming on. We spoke about his (many) Smalltalk projects, including th ePostgreSQL driver, a PDF library, and some work he's started on an LDAP adaptor. We also talked about licenses - which ones he uses and why. It was a lot of fun - check the Industry Misinterpretations site tomorrow to download it.

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posted by James Robertson

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tv

This Can't be Good

March 20, 2010 23:33:25.264

Spotted in SCI FI Wire

The episode, set to air during a Glee-themed week of musical programming in May, will have the regular cast—including, no doubt, Anna Torv and Joshua Jackson—breaking into song and dance.

I just can't see this idea fitting in with the show - it has the earmarks of the animated episode of "Farscape", after which it was all downhill....

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Smalltalk as a DLL?

March 21, 2010 10:32:14.662

I look at solutions for deployment of Smalltalk Services over there.

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posted by James Robertson

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Macintosh

Not Such a Small Niche Anymore

March 21, 2010 10:37:02.002

Is the Mac poised to become mainstream?

Apple could account for 25 percent of the 2010 desktop market, researchers suggest.

posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

A Talk with Bruce Badger: Podcast

March 21, 2010 12:00:05.045

This week Michael and I spoke to Bruce Badger - long time open source contributor to the Smalltalk community. He's the author of the widely used PostgreSQL database driver and of the PDF document library. If you listen to the podcast, you'll also learn what other projects Bruce has up his sleeve.

We spoke a bit about the OpenSkills project, and about open source licensing - what license Bruce uses for his code and why. We also covered Sport - Bruce's cross dialect portability library, and what Bruce would like to see happen in that direction. It was a fun talk, and we'd love to get Bruce back on the podcast again.

To listen now, you can either download the mp3 edition, or the AAC edition. The AAC edition comes with chapter markers. You can subscribe to either edition of the podcast directly in iTunes; just search for Smalltalk and look in the Podcast results. You can subscribe to the mp3 edition directly using this feed, or the AAC edition using this feed using any podcatching software.

To listen immediately, use the player below:

If you like the music we use, please visit Josh Woodward's site. We use the song Effortless for our intro/outro music. I'm sure he'd appreciate your support!

If you have feedback, send it to smalltalkpodcasts@cincom.com - or visit us on Facebook or Ning - you can vote for the Podcast Alley, and subscribe on iTunes. If you enjoy the podcast, pass the word - we would love to have more people hear about Smalltalk!

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posted by James Robertson

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humor

Ouch

March 21, 2010 21:18:01.280

Joy Of Tech calls it for Palm

posted by James Robertson

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books

Web 3.0 User Generated Business: Review

March 22, 2010 6:31:35.110

Last week I read a short book by Johannes Bhakdi - "Web 3.0 - User Generated Business". I was skeptical of the book when I first opened it - it's short, and lots of the book is done in Powerpoint stick-man style presentation graphics. However, I was pleasantly surprised by it. While it is a "campaign book" for Johannes' business, it also makes some good points about how you should establish your brand (corporate or personal).

While services like YouTube, Facebook (et. al.) can be critical, you should always point those back to a central "home" for your content. A decade ago that was harder to do - now, with services like Slicehost (the place I host this blog), it's far easier and more affordable. That's related to one of the key points Johannes makes in the book - he believes (and I agree with him) that it's still too hard for the average web user to set up shop and start pushing out content - on two levels:

  • Setting up your own site - one that can manage audio, video, and text, is not only hard, but, in the case of "heavier" content, still expensive
  • Getting paid for content production is next to impossible

The latter topic is one that Johannes spends a fair amount of time on. He's certainly following his own advice; the book is self published, and his outfit (klatcher.com) is in the business of providing the sorts of tools he's advocating. I have no idea how well those tools work; obviously, I'm living in the "roll your own" reality here :) )

There are a few downsides - self publishing doesn't obviate the need for an editor, and this book needs a once over. There are some distracting spelling issues (personally, I hate seeing "loose" when "lose" is called for). I was way more distracted by the construction "The Web 3.0" than I should have been, but I just don't like how that flows.

Those are nits, but they were distracting. It's not a book you'll spen a lot of time reading, but I think it ties some useful ideas about how to proceed with a web-based business together. If Johannes has the book re-edited, I'd recommend it.

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Controlling Store File Downloads: Video

March 22, 2010 8:47:01.271

Today's screencast looks at how you can control the downloading of files attached to Store bundles.

You can download the video directly here. If you like this kind of video, why not subscribe to "Smalltalk Daily"?

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posted by James Robertson

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management

Amazon Focuses on the Important Stuff

March 22, 2010 12:03:07.654

Wired reports on a smart move by Amazon:

Amazon announces Kindle Apps for Tablet Computers (including Kindle for iPad), a rather polished e-reader application that both makes the Kindle itself look rather old-fashioned and explains why last week’s Mac version was so unfinished: The Amazon developers have clearly been spending all their time on this instead.

I'd say that the Kindle's rationale worked - it helped create the e-reader market. Now, Amazon can focus on selling into it, without regard to the device. To many businesses get focused on the small stuff, or points of pride. Thus far, it looks like Amazon hasn't fallen into that trap.

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posted by James Robertson

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advertising

That's the New Sony Controller?

March 22, 2010 15:51:37.863

I think the ad promoting the upcoming Sony Move is pretty good, but the controller? Who dreamed up that shape?

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Smalltalk Gets Rich: ESUG Video

March 22, 2010 18:14:50.991

This week's ESUG video is Jorge Silva's "How to be Rich with Smalltalk" (ppt) presentation - a talk on some work to integrate Smalltalk and Adobe Air (separate from the Glare code) that Jorge had been working on. To watch, click on the viewer below:

If you have trouble viewing that directly, you can click here to download the video directly. If you like this video, why not subscribe to Smalltalk Videos?

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Why No Iron Smalltalk?

March 22, 2010 21:36:17.043

This question about an "Iron Smalltalk" (no momentum in a few years) made me consider the oft stated (and never really fulfilled) desire for "Smalltalk on the JVM", or "Smalltalk on .NET" - I came up with the following:

The reason these "Smalltalk for .NET" and "Smalltalk for the JVM" projects never seem to come off is simple - Smalltalk isn't just flat text in an editor. Smalltalk is the entire interactive environment. It would be fairly simple to get a syntax parser, but it wouldn't be Smalltalk. It would be Ruby or Python with Smalltalk syntax. Somewhat useful perhaps, but not really Smalltalk.

If you really built Smalltalk in one of these other systems, you would have to invest a pretty large effort - and then end up with a system that ran slower than any of the currently extant commercial Smalltalk systems. Given that, it's kind of hard to see the point.

posted by James Robertson

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browsers

Browser Ennui

March 23, 2010 7:10:16.993

Look, another stern warning about browser problems - the only shock being that it's Germany complaining about Firefox, not IE:

The German government has issued a stern warning to web surfers telling them not to use Firefox because the browser contains a critical security vulnerability.

I simply can't see most people caring anymore. I switch between Firefox and Chrome (as both annoy me slightly differently). If I stick with one "too long", all my saved logins time out, and it's a royal pain in the neck to switch back. Yes, there are plugins (for Firefox) to manage that, but again, I can't be bothered. I think I understand why so many people have stuck with IE 6. While it certainly stinks, sticking to one tool likely makes their lives simpler.

posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Simpler Transcript Reporting: Video

March 23, 2010 8:07:21.470

Today's screencast looks at a small convenience package that simplifies Transcript and stdout reporting.

You can download the video directly here. If you like this kind of video, why not subscribe to "Smalltalk Daily"?

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posted by James Robertson

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books

Towards e-book Portability

March 23, 2010 13:05:31.505

It would be better to simply have no DRM, but if Kindle apps become ubiquitous, then it's at least a step in the right direction.

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posted by James Robertson

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general

One of those days

March 23, 2010 15:42:06.477

It's been one of those days. Slate gray skies, "urgent" emails, and then the nearly forgotten orthodontist appointment my daughter had. Blech.

On the amusing side of things, I was looking up the orthodontist's phone number to make a follow up appointment - we forgot to do that while we were there - and ran across this. Yes, we use that same orthodontist :)

posted by James Robertson

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marketing

Differential Marketing?

March 23, 2010 21:13:23.115

I'm not sure what to make of this, but the trailers for the new Dr. Who season are quite different for the US and UK - check out SciFi wire, where they have both.

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posted by James Robertson

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tv

We Know What Lost is Now

March 23, 2010 22:19:48.142

If you ever saw the movie "The Sentinel", you saw a (much) shorter form version of "Lost". I guess my question is, did the writers have this in mind all along? I really don't think so. Remember how crucial the numbers and the energy source were for the first few seasons? I think they changed their mind and re-centered.

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posted by James Robertson

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humor

A Funny Take on the New Sony Move

March 24, 2010 8:18:33.312

Penny Arcade pretty much nails it :)

posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

What to Know When Performance Testing: Video

March 24, 2010 8:43:20.432

Today's screencast looks at a performance testing - when you test Smalltalk code for performance, you need to be aware of how the compiler operates - otherwise, your performance tests might give you results you'll misinterpret.

You can download the video directly here. If you like this kind of video, why not subscribe to "Smalltalk Daily"?

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posted by James Robertson

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general

Blue SmokeMobile Passes Emissions

March 24, 2010 11:00:03.191

I waited right up to the due date for my latest run at Maryland's emissions check for the Mirage (now 21 years old). When I got there, there was a line, so to prevent any blue smoke from having them wave me off, I just turned the car off while I waited. When I got the car up there, I discovered that the treadmill test was gone - new cars just have their onboard computers read (lots of chances for gaming the system there) - my car, being old, had to idle with a reader stuffed in the tailpipe. It doesn't smoke when I give it gas, so that went fine - and then two awesome things happened:

  • Their system was confused, so they didn't charge me for the visit
  • The car passed

Which is cool, because now I don't have to pay the "$450 try to get it fixed" workaround :)

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posted by James Robertson

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tutorial

Using ActiveX Controls with VisualWorks

March 24, 2010 12:08:41.973

I thought a small walkthrough on using the new ActiveX control capabilities of VisualWorks 7.7 might be useful, so here goes - you can download the code I built in the screencaptures below here.

With that out of the way, here's how to build it yourself. First, load the ActiveX support - to do that, you need to open the parcel manager, and switch to the directories tab - then select "com":

Once that's in, open the GUI builder, and you should notice a new widget: the ActiveX widget. This functions (from a Smalltalk perspective) a lot like the subcanvas:

Once that's selected, add it to the canvas. In the properties tool, give it an aspect, and then pick (from the collection of items in the lower menu) the control you want. Your list will vary, based on what happens to be installed on Windows:

Now, add an input field (for the url you'll be loading) and a button (to do the load). It should look like this:

Install that to a class, and then use the "define" menu option to set up the method stubs. Now, go to a browser, and change the #load method (the one being used by the button) to look like this:

That's it for the hard stuff - now open the UI, and enter an URL for something that Quicktime can play:

You may have to wait a bit for it to buffer, depending on how fast your internet connection is (use a file url if you have a very slow one). If you use the link above, a short video from ESUG, of Gabriel Honore demonstrating his RetrObjects project, will play. That's it!

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posted by James Robertson

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gadgets

iPad e-Books Match Kindle Pricing

March 24, 2010 16:20:36.985

This isn't a huge surprise; with the kindle app on the iPhone and iPad, how could they not? It would be pretty simple to just use the Amazon store instead of iTunes. Anyway, the scoop comes from AppAdvice:

This deal, despite Steve Jobs clearly stating the opposite, is believed to result with iPad eBooks being more expensive than their Kindle equivalent; well folks, we found out that’s not the case. I had the chance this week to be presented a not-so-NDA-complying preview of it and it looks like Steve is not to be doubted.

Follow the link for a screen shot of the pricing.

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Summer of Smalltalk

March 24, 2010 16:32:45.335

The Smalltalk piece of Google's Summer of Code is starting to warm up, with some notable mentors and some interesting looking projects.

posted by James Robertson

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