. .

humor

Privacy at Facebook

May 14, 2010 6:41:40.590

Joy of Tech gets a good jab in :)

Technorati Tags: ,

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

tutorial

Open a Window Where You Want It

May 14, 2010 7:10:42.876

Ever wanted to set a window's opening location programmatically in VisualWorks? It looks harder than it is. As you wend your way through the opening code, it's easy to just throw your hands in the air.

Here's a simple solution (thanks to Travis for this one)

  • Create the window using the UI tools
  • Copy the #windowSpec method (class side) to something else, like #baseWindowSpec
  • Now, create a new #windowSpec method like this:


windowSpec
	"make it open where I want it"

	| spec |
	spec := self baseWindowSpec decodeAsLiteralArray.
	spec window bounds: (100 @ 100 extent: 400 @ 500).
	^spec literalArrayEncoding

Replacing the dimensions, of course, with what you actually want. What does that do? It grabs the spec and manipulates the object directly - which, insofar as the framework allows, is the right thing to do. Anyway, it's a simple way of getting a Window to open where you want it to - enjoy.

Technorati Tags: , ,

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

smalltalk

Seaside Tutorial (3) - Video

May 14, 2010 8:39:34.300

Today's Smalltalk Daily is part 2 of our updated Seaside tutorial, for VW 7.7/OS 8.2 and Seaside 3.0. The tutorial home page is here. Today we look at rendering some content in Seaside. If you're picking things up here, grab the work in progress to this point, and the download the domain model being used. Click on the viewer below to watch it now:

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

Technorati Tags: , ,

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

books

The Design of Design

May 14, 2010 9:16:56.864

I haven't finished reading Fred Brooks' latest: "The Design of Design: Essays from a Computer Scientist" yet, but I really like what I've read. It's easy to read and quite pleasant; Brooks lets you know what he's thinking without a ton of jargon, and uses examples (the design of a beach house he was involved in) that are easy to grasp and make sense.

This bit, from a section on "telecollaboration" really struck true for me, based on the geographically dispersed team I work with at Cincom:

The most successful telecollaborations I have known have been built on extensive face-time histories, and even those have required some face time during ongoing telecollaboration. Absent such histories, travel is worth what it costs in money and time

A lot of people discount that, but I think it's very, very true. The less well people know each other, the easier it is to misconstrue an email, or the tone of voice in a skype chat. Face time isn't a cure all; you'll still have personality conflicts to deal with - but it will get people to know each other's quirks, and make allowances for them.

Anyway, there's a lot more in that book - it's just that what I posted above really hit home for me. Once I finish the book, I'll post more thoughts on it.

Technorati Tags: ,

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

tv

Good News, Bad News

May 14, 2010 13:14:01.000

I won't lament "Flash Forward" being cancelled - the book was way, way better, and didn't veer off into ridiculous conspiracies. However, it's a travesty that "Better off Ted" is being whacked - that's a great show.

Meanwhile, the eminently unwatchable "V" got renewed. Meh. SciFiWire has the story.

Technorati Tags:

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

gadgets

So Retro it's Scary

May 14, 2010 19:17:41.165

What do you do if you have the audio for a cassette used to load code onto an Apple IIe? Why, you use your iPad to push it across, that's what. The video is pretty cool :)

Technorati Tags: , ,

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

gadgets

Apple Taking Gaming Share

May 15, 2010 1:21:46.020

With video game revenues down, Nintendo has to shift focus:

Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata is understood to have told his senior executives recently to regard the battle with Sony as a victory already won and to treat Apple, and its iPhone and iPad devices, as the 'enemy of the future.

Apple has also driven margins down. DS games tend to run in the tens of dollars; games for the iPhone and Touch are usually in the 99 cent range. If Nintendo wants to compete, they'll have to create their own ecosystem, as Apple has...

Technorati Tags: , ,

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

gadgets

Thoughts on the iPad

May 15, 2010 13:12:38.647

This is second hand - my wife uses the iPad, not me. Having siad that, she really likes it. One of the problems she's had with books of late has to do with her eyes, and the presbyopia thing. The iPad deals with that two ways:

  • The backlit screen helps, as low light conditions are especially troublesome
  • The ability to easily change the text size

An ancillary benefit is that the growing pile of books on the shelf behind the bed has stopped growing; we were starting to worry about an avalanche :)

We just ordered a cable from Apple to drive output from the iPad to the TV - given the various video options available, it would be nice to toss the output across the room. We'll have those cables in a day or two; I'll post once we see how well that works.

Technorati Tags: , ,

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

news

Stay Away from my Ketchup

May 15, 2010 22:37:14.809

This will probably annoy me as much as New Coke did:

The Pittsburgh-based condiment maker has started making batches of ketchup using a recipe with less salt. The new version will hit store shelves this summer.

And why, you ask? Mostly because complete morons like the mayor of NYC have taken it upon themselves to define how much salt I'm allowed to have. Meh.

Technorati Tags: ,

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

gadgets

Will it Come Down to Developers?

May 16, 2010 10:18:00.453

A lot of people think that the Apple vs. Adobe thing (Flash) will end up costing Apple the platform battle for the mobile space - Mark Cooper sums it up with the most common argument:

And since developers — as a general rule, and matter of history — don’t like to be told how to do things, my guess is that more open platforms will win

That sounds reasonable, but... then there are the usage stats for Flash over the last year or so. The numbers don't look good for Adobe; I'd say they look bad enough that Apple has won this particular battle already, regardless of what else happens. Why? Those kinds of usage numbers feed on each other.

Back in the late 90's, after the ParcPlace-Digitalk merger had reached a real point of badness, PPD announced the VSE was being obsoleted. The last forward looking work on that product was done sometime around 1996/1997. With that announcement, the number of paying customers halved in about 12 months.

Now, this isn't a straight analogy; Adobe isn't cancelling Flash. However, with the fact that it doesn't work on one of the main mobile platforms, it's cancelling itself, and the numbers linked above demonstrate that. With Flash dropping so fast, I see the same dynamic in action. Unless the Android platform compteley swamps Apple (and absent a tablet for a few months, I don't see that happening) - Flash is just doomed to second tier status.

Now, long term, Apple could still lose this, the same way they lost the desktop space to Microsoft years ago. However, it sure doesn't look like that to me now, and - in the meantime - they are reshaping a lot of what happens on the web.

Technorati Tags: ,

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

smalltalk

WebVelocity 1.1: Podcast

May 16, 2010 19:31:35.521

This week's podcast is just Michael and I talking about WebVelocity 1.1 - which is currently in an internal alpha state, soon to be beta. If you're interested in taking a look at the beta when it's ready, send me an email. What's coming in 1.1?

  • Better Editing using the HTML5 canvas
  • Seaside 3.0
  • Instant Cloud deployment capabilities - meaning, support for a lot of the Amazon cloud platform

There's more than that - listen to the podcast to catch up!

It was a fun talk, and things sound somewhat hopeful with respect to the app store - listen to the podcast to find out what I mean by that! To get Scratch now, visit the website and become one of the millions who've created an uploaded a project.

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. You can also download the podcast in ogg format.

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!

Technorati Tags: , ,

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

advertising

Gadgets and Plugins

May 17, 2010 6:51:47.792

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

smalltalk

Seaside Tutorial (4) - Video

May 17, 2010 8:55:23.789

Today's Smalltalk Daily is part 4 of our updated Seaside tutorial, for VW 7.7/OS 8.2 and Seaside 3.0. The tutorial home page is here. Today we look at rendering some content in Seaside. If you're picking things up here, grab the work in progress to this point, and the download the domain model being used. Today we add a menu to our UI. Click on the viewer below to watch it now:

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

Technorati Tags: , ,

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

stupidity

Focusing on the Trivial

May 17, 2010 9:27:46.042

You have to love the deep minds at the MPAA. While other people discuss the actual issues behind US troops being in a war, the MPAA is worried about.... piracy:

Less known are the movie industry’s efforts to clamp down on copyright infringers who are defending their country’s interests on foreign soil. Because the availability of legal movies and TV-shows is limited in countries such as Iraq, soldiers sometimes use BitTorrent to get their fix, or buy pirated DVDs from local sellers. The MPAA is not happy with these defiant soldiers. A declassified document from the United States Central Command shows that, a few years ago, the MPAA asked the military what they do to prevent soldiers from accessing pirated DVDs in Iraq.

Because that's clearly the most relevant issue there - whether some soldier managed to get an illicit copy of "Iron Man".

Every time I think the MPAA can't get stupider, I end up having to expand the definition of "stupider"...

Technorati Tags: , ,

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

social media

Non-Shocker - Facebook's Problems Limited to A-Listers

May 17, 2010 13:30:42.332

This doesn't surprise me a bit - Facebook is still growing, and the "backlash" over privacy is limited to a handful of overly self important A-Listers:

Facebook has had a net gain of 10 million active users since it announced a series of new features at f8, the company's April 21st developer conference. A few high profile tech bloggers may have quit the site, but not many other people have. The number of deactivations, according to a Facebook spokesperson, is about the same as it's been all along.

Outside of the upper reaches of the blogosphere, I haven't heard anyone talking about Facebook having a problem. Here's the bottom line: no else one cares. People seem to have a pretty good grasp of what Facebook is useful for, and they use it for those things. Here's a question: if you aren't a celebrity, how the heck else are you going to regain contact with people you went to school with for a reunion? Back when people tended to live where they grew up, this was a non-issue. Now?

Technorati Tags: ,

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

general

Annals of Printing

May 17, 2010 14:41:36.178

Ok, this is from an ancient Windows XP box, but still: a windows update rolled by last week, and didn't auto-reboot the machine. It did leave it unable to print to anything though. So I rebooted it, brought up Excel, and tried to print an expense report. Here's what came out on take one:

4 pages of that later, the top part of the spreadsheet came out. Things worked fine when I printed again, but what the heck was that???

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

BottomFeeder

New BottomFeeder Development Build

May 17, 2010 19:07:25.356

I've posted a new development build of BottomFeeder - check it out, and let me know if you hit any roadblocks. I'm hoping to do a release of 4.7 shortly.

Technorati Tags: , , ,

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

gadgets

No More Plug Hunting?

May 18, 2010 6:45:45.138

While I haven't been paying much attention, battery life for notebooks and netbooks has been creeping up:

The 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo refresh with NVIDIA GeForce 320M graphics and longer 10-hour battery life (up from 7 hours) is sitting up, nice and pretty on Apple's very own store in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Germany, and a few other sites.

Whenever I go to a conference, I hunt for the seat with power access - my 2007 era MBP chews through battery like nobody's business. It looks like things have been improving on that front...

Technorati Tags: ,

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

smalltalk

Seaside Tutorial (5) - Video

May 18, 2010 8:52:07.966

Today's Smalltalk Daily is part 5 of our updated Seaside tutorial, for VW 7.7/OS 8.2 and Seaside 3.0. The tutorial home page is here. Today we look at creating and using a custom session. If you're picking things up here, grab the work in progress to this point, and the download the domain model being used. Today we add a menu to our UI. Click on the viewer below to watch it now:

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

Technorati Tags: , ,

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

copyright

The Copyright Wars

May 18, 2010 9:10:55.000

Pirating is a lot more complex than the folks at the RIAA and MPAA would have you believe. Sometimes, it's about getting around the idiotic region restrictions. Sometimes it's about getting convenient access to something you already own in a somewhat inaccessible form. Heck, sometimes it's about getting your own stuff. Read what Peter Serafinowicz has to say on the subject - it's pretty interesting, and makes it clear that these issues are anything but simple.

Technorati Tags:

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

games

Darkspawn Chronicles

May 18, 2010 17:25:59.842

I downloaded the latest DLC for DAO this morning, and then took a crack at it while I exercised. It's short; I finished it during my stint on the exercise bike.

It's the final battle for Denerim, but with two changes:

  • You play a Darkspawn Vanguard - the archdemon sends you messages for your goals, and you take other darkspawn as thralls (killing them to replace as needed)
  • It's an alternate reality where "your" gray warden never existed.

It's fun, but it's short. I haven't tried another Origins or Awakening run to see the new weapon that gets unlocked yet, but I'll plow into that after I finish Fallout 3 :)

Technorati Tags: , ,

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

copyright

Copyright Suits Drop

May 18, 2010 20:59:03.095

Seems that after the RIAA decided to stop shooting itself in the face repeatedly, suits dropped back down to more normal levels:

New federal copyright infringement lawsuits plummeted to a six-year low in 2009, the year after the Recording Industry Association of America abandoned its litigation campaign against file sharers, court records show

With luck, the RIAA will just shrivel up and die...

Technorati Tags: ,

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

development

Wish I was at SPA 2010

May 18, 2010 23:02:41.000

This event sounds fascinating, and is exactly the kind of session I love at SPA conferences.

Technorati Tags: ,

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

gadgets

iPhone Tethering at Last?

May 19, 2010 6:45:38.000

Gizmodo reports that the latest iPhone OS 4 beta has... tethering!

That will be nice. Now if only ATT would have enabled that a year ago...

Technorati Tags: ,

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

law

Patents Gone Wild

May 19, 2010 7:00:58.451

I see that Microsoft is suing Salesforce - get a load out of two of the supposed infringements:

The patents cover a variety of back-end and user interface features, ranging from one covering a "system and method for providing and displaying a Web page having an embedded menu" to another that covers a "method and system for stacking toolbars in a computer display."

The real question in cases like this is simple: what complete idiot at the US PTO granted those patents? I think it's high time that the entire concept of software patents just went away. Their only use seems to be as weapons.

Technorati Tags: ,

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

smalltalk

Seaside Tutorial (6) - Video

May 19, 2010 10:47:54.324

Today's Smalltalk Daily is part 6 of our updated Seaside tutorial, for VW 7.7/OS 8.2 and Seaside 3.0. The tutorial home page is here. Today we look at creating and using a custom session. If you're picking things up here, grab the work in progress to this point, and the download the domain model being used. Today we hook up a posting UI to the menu we added yesterday. Click on the viewer below to watch it now:

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

Technorati Tags: , ,

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

spam

EC2 and Spam

May 19, 2010 11:11:56.000

Here's a problem I didn't know existed - apparently, the various blacklisters have decided that domains residing in the EC2 IP range are spam (mail) pools, and have marked them accordingly. Reddit just ran into this problem:

We've also discovered that a lot of the verification emails we've been sending out haven't been going through. It seems that the mail server admins at some popular domains (e.g., comcast.net, rr.com, adelphia.net, and me.com) have their servers configured to consider all mail from reddit to be spam. This is because Trend Micro has marked Amazon's entire EC2 network as a "dial-up pool", and the aforementioned domains subscribe to Trend Micro's list and block all mail from anyone on said list. We've written to Trend Micro explaining that we're actually neither a spammer nor an individual end user, but rather an honest website that's kind of a big deal, and they sent us a form letter explaining how to configure Outlook Express and encouraging us to ask our ISP for further information. We'll try to figure something out as soon as time allows.

Note the truly useful form mail they got back, too :) I guess if you host on Amazon, you have to make arrangements to do something else for mail - maybe work with Google? This sort of blacklisting is a pretty broadbrush way to attack the problem, it seems to me...

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

smalltalk

Smalltalk FTW

May 19, 2010 13:45:30.969

Here's an interesting experiment from SPA 2010, where we find out just how fast Smalltalk lets you get started.

Technorati Tags: ,

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

development

The Search for Simplicity

May 19, 2010 14:44:41.000

Dave Winer hits on something interesting here - in a post about the ongoing move past XML:

This is why I find the arguments of the JSON-only proponents either lazy or dishonest. I don't know which it is. They say that XML is too complicated, but that's wrong. Just ignore everything but elements, attributes and namespaces.

You need to read the whole thing to get the context, but - to summarize - Dave laments the way XML has been deemed as "too complex", and uses XMPP as an example of that. I thought about doing something with XMPP once, but after looking at it, decided against. I wanted to leave some time in my life for other pursuits, like eating and sleeping :)

Here's the thing though - over time, the architecture astronauts grab all emergent technologies. They got their hands on XML, and ended up getting lost in the weeds (I still subscribe to the Atom mailing list - you should see what level of minutiae gets discussed there these days).

Fear not though - JSON may be simple now, but once the astronauts are done with it, someone will have to invent yet another simple text transport scheme. It seems to be the way things happen in this industry.

Technorati Tags: , ,

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

humor

What if Star Wars was a 50's Flick?

May 19, 2010 16:19:21.544

SCI FI Wire asks "what if "The Empire Strikes Back" had been made during the 50's?

Technorati Tags: ,

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

itNews

Torrent-Like Flash?

May 19, 2010 16:31:17.000

Looks like Adobe is adding a cool feature to Flash Player 10.1 - torrent like P2P capability in order to take load off central services:

For broadcasters and video services, Stratus has the capacity to eliminate a significant amount of bandwidth costs. Instead of serving the media from a central server, users will provide the necessary bandwidth. Adobe’s Stratus system serves as an intermediary in this process, managing the communications between Flash players much like a BitTorrent tracker does for BitTorrent transfers

That's a pretty compelling feature (for high bandwidth sites), and one that I'm sure will cause a bit of heartburn for Apple in their war against Adobe. HTML5 can be as standards compliant as it likes, but most people care about cost a whole lot more. If this works and catches on, Apple will have an issue.

Technorati Tags: , , ,

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

marketing

Must Olympic Mascots Look Awful?

May 19, 2010 19:43:48.876

Did every marketing person in the UK leave the country, or go on strike? Were they forced to hire someone who once saw the Teletubbies through the bottom of a full glass of water?

Technorati Tags:

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

gadgets

Green Screens for the Rest of Us

May 20, 2010 6:39:34.893

Ed Driscoll explains how easy it is to get decent green screen effects with inexpensive equipment.

Technorati Tags:

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

smalltalk

Seaside Tutorial (7) - Video

May 20, 2010 8:41:31.892

Today's Smalltalk Daily is part 7 of our updated Seaside tutorial, for VW 7.7/OS 8.2 and Seaside 3.0. The tutorial home page is here. Today we reuse the editor for new posts to allow for editing of existing posts. If you're picking things up here, grab the work in progress to this point, and the download the domain model being used. Click on the viewer below to watch it now:

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

Technorati Tags: , , ,

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

books

Smalltalk by Example

May 20, 2010 8:59:45.000

The online "Pharo by Example" book continues to grow - a new draft chapter was just added. Hat tip Torsten Bergmann

Technorati Tags: ,

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

tv

Overstaying Your Welcome

May 20, 2010 12:04:19.000

I thought in retrospect that "Buffy" should have ended with season 5 - Buffy defeated the god "Glory" and sacrificed herself to save the world. When season 6 (and later, 7) came along, it was all anti-climactic. Sure, there were fun bits (the "bored now" sequence with Willow, for instance) - but overall, the show was done, and just hung on.

Now, "Supernatural" seems poised to do the same thing. This season's battle was with Lucifer. I'd ask where the heck you can go after that, and sure enough, it sounds a lot like Buffy season 6:

Heaven and Hell have been left in complete disarray since the apocalyptic events of season five. And now, monsters, angels and demons roam across a lawless and chaotic landscape. And so Dean Winchester, who has retired from hunting and sworn never to return, finds himself being pulled back into his old life - pulled back by none other than Sam Winchester, who has escaped from Hell.

And it's on after "Smallville", which is still on the air for reasons no one understands. By this time, Clark should be Superman, but no - based on how far from canon they've strayed, he'd never be called that - instead, he'd be "The Blur".

These are stories - that should have a beginning, a middle, and - most importantly - an end.

Technorati Tags: , ,

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

stupidity

Living in 1975

May 20, 2010 14:11:55.380

How can a modern person be able to say this?

Said [Senator] Nelson: "I've never used an ATM, so I don't know what the fees are. It's true, I don't know how to use one."

That was in the context of a debate about ATM fees. Never mind the issue itself; I'm just gobsmacked by the idea that we have a person in the Senate who's never used an ATM. Sadly, I doubt he's alone in that regard....

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

gadgets

Consumer Devices Will Sell More

May 20, 2010 15:05:01.000

This news about iPad sales doesn't surprise me:

Apple is selling more than 200,000 iPads per week. Which means, according to RBC Capital Markets analyst Mike Abramsky, that sales of the company’s new device have outpaced those of the Mac in the United States and are closing in on those of the iPhone 3GS.

While PCs (which includes Macs) are common household devices now, they aren't really consumer gadgets - they take work. The iPad moves away from that space, and into the general "easy to use" gadget space - like a TV, you turn it on and you're ready to go. Any such device, if successful, will outsell a tech gadget like a PC or Mac.

Technorati Tags: , ,

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

music

Google Jumping Ahead in Music?

May 20, 2010 16:17:55.989

Google is making music acquisition easier than Apple is - not only are they doing device based music downloads (Apple does that) - they also synch your computer and device over the net (Apple still requires tethering). If Android gets a bit easier to use, Apple will have to start playing catch up fast...

Technorati Tags: , ,

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

smalltalk

The Road Ahead

May 20, 2010 16:22:42.709

Tune in next Friday (May 28) at 2 PM EDT to hear us talk with Cincom Smalltalk Product Manager (Arden Thomas) about the soon to be released VW 7.7.1 and OS 8.2. We'll also talk about the roadmap going forward.

Technorati Tags: , , ,

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

gadgets

Ask and Ye Shall Receive

May 20, 2010 19:42:28.000

My wife asked me to get the A/V output cables for her iPad - and it looks like this was timed to coincide :)

If you've used the Netflix iPad app, you've probably thought how cool it would be if you could connect your iPad to a TV to watch what's streaming to the app. Someone at Netflix must have read your mind, because the company on Wednesday updated its iPad app to support video output via Apple's optional VGA, component, or composite dock connector cables.

When she has to rest her knees, this will be nice thing for her to have.

Technorati Tags: , ,

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

social media

Things You Already Knew

May 21, 2010 6:52:12.446

I might get worked up over something like this - but it's pretty much how I assumed things worked anyway:

Bear in mind that we’re not talking 5 years ago. We’re talking last week, and even still today. Right now, as you click on advertising within a number of social network sites, the code behind them is sending your personal information (including your name and/or user ID) to the advertiser.

Cue the all too typical outrage. I just have a hard time caring anymore. Seriously - what's an advertiser going to do? My inbox is already overflowing.

Update: Ok, it's even dumber than that. The "personal data" being sent is... wait for it... the referring url. Oh, the horror.....

Technorati Tags:

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

science

No Cambrian Mass Extinction?

May 21, 2010 11:07:31.525

This is an interesting story - a new fossil find in Morocco has turned up specimens descended from what science calls the "Cambrian Explosion". It's entirely possible that the lack of life found after that era is a gap in the fossil record, not an extinction event:

The international team of scientists who discovered the 1,500 fossils said their find shows that the dark stretch in the fossil record more probably reflects an absence of preservation of fossils over the previous 25 million years.

It's not that big a surprise that there are data gaps in stuff this old - nothing on the planet stays static.

Technorati Tags:

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

smalltalk

Seaside Tutorial (8) - Video

May 21, 2010 11:20:10.445

Today's Smalltalk Daily is part 8 of our updated Seaside tutorial, for VW 7.7/OS 8.2 and Seaside 3.0. The tutorial home page is here. Today we ajaxify the filtering of posts - we're using Scriptaculous, but you should be aware that Seaside 3.0 also has JQuery support. If you're picking things up here, grab the work in progress to this point, and the download the domain model being used. Also, a tip of the hat to Julian Fitzell, who got me over a small hurdle I was having with the Scriptaculous updater code. Click on the viewer below to watch it now:

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

Technorati Tags: , , ,

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

development

Amazon Gets More Cloud Competition

May 21, 2010 13:44:09.000

Google has added a cloud storage service that is plug compatible with Amazon's S3:

Google Storage is interoperable with a large number of cloud storage tools and libraries that work with services such as Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) and Eucalyptus Systems, Inc. To use these tools and libraries, all you have to do is change the request endpoint (URI) that the tool or library uses so it points to the Google Storage URI, and configure the tool or library to use your Google Storage developer keys.

That's pretty cool; it means that developers can flip back and forth pretty easily based on price and performance. The pricing looks competitive as well.

Technorati Tags: , ,

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

social media

Mourning a Long Gone Thing

May 21, 2010 17:47:12.000

Sometimes I think Nick Carr is unaware of what year it is:

Imagine, Lanier said, a young Zimmerman trying to turn himself into Dylan today. Forget it. He would be trailing his online identity - his "one identity" - all the way from Hibbing to Manhattan. "There's that goofy Zimmerman kid from Minnesota," would be the recurring word on the street in Greenwich Village. The caterpillar Zimmerman, locked into his early identity by myriad indelible photos, messages, profiles, friends, and "likes" plastered across the Web, would remain the caterpillar Zimmerman. Forever.

This is in the context of Facebook (and social media in general) having a persistent impact on your identity. What Carr fails to notice is this: it's been less and less possible to "shed your identity" for eons now. Facebook is the least of it - there's your whole credit history, something that Dyland didn't have to worry that much about "back in the day".

It's not just Facebook, either. If you're the least bit prominent online, you have Google footprints. Good luck getting rid of those :)

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This