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podcasting

There Will be a Podcast Release This Weekend

July 4, 2010 2:25:12.964

The podcast is actually edited and ready to go - I'll be pushing it out tomorrow (either pretty early or pretty late, depending on how my day goes). We're having a 4th of July barbecue in the afternoon, so if you don't see it by then, look for it late Sunday night or early Monday morning.

Happy 4th of July!

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posted by James Robertson

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audio

Industry Misinterpretations 195: Who Put Those Comments in My Code?

July 4, 2010 10:31:07.623

This week's podcast is part 1 of 2 - Michael and I reviewed a number of packages from the public repository, and this batch - unlike the last one - had comments and usage documentation. We'll have part 2 out next week.

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!

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posted by James Robertson

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holiday

4th of July

July 4, 2010 10:50:36.853

Looks like a great day to be outside:

And here's a link to what started this fine day - The Declaration of Independence

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posted by James Robertson

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holiday

Fireworks on the Fourth

July 4, 2010 23:17:10.521

I've had some pretty cool looking fireworks lying around for awhile - a friend bought them a few years ago, and thought that there were too many trees in his yard. Tonight, we decided to try them out - my daughter caught some of it using my iPhone. Boy, were they a lot of fun - we had 12 of these rockets to fire out of a small mortar tube:

I also uploaded the two videos to YouTube:

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posted by James Robertson

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weather

They Ran Out of Digits

July 5, 2010 0:25:51.565

Ok, it's going to be hot this week:

posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Seaside 3.0 RC Out

July 5, 2010 6:04:41.000

Julian has announced the Seaside 3.0 RC - unless someone finds a show stopper, this is th elong awaited 3.0 shipment:

This release runs leaner, on at least six Smalltalk platforms and is, I think, easier to learn, easier to use, and easier to extend. Seaside 3.0 is the best platform out there for developing complex, server-side web applications.

There's a lot more at the link.

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posted by James Robertson

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gadgets

Pick A Platform

July 5, 2010 18:47:37.894

Well, the mobile space fight between Apple and Google demonstrates why it's so hard for anyone else to get in there: Engadget shows this chart of the extant space of developers:

That overlap - the people developing for the two main platforms - is small. It's likely to stay that way in the short term at least, given Apple's "no cross platform tools" policy. Now imagine you are a third player trying to nose in - Microsoft, HP, whoever - you have to somehow convince people to target a smaller space than the two big players, or offer a way for those people in the middle to add your gadget - all without setting off a reaction from Apple that blows you out of the water (see: Adobe).

Fun Times :)

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posted by James Robertson

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books

S**t My Dad Says

July 5, 2010 23:27:24.522

The title - Sh*t My Dad Says - is more crude than things I usually put on my blog, but it's a hilarious book. Justin Halpern spent a lot of time with his family going back over things his dad had said and done over the years. The result is absolutely hysterical - I read it, my wife read it, and my daughter read it - we all laughed out loud a lot.

Apparently, it all started with a Twitter feed, and grew into a book from that and some of the articles Halpern wrote. There's a lot of vulgarity in the book, so if that offends you, just avoid it. If that's not a problem, go get the book. It's a real hoot, and you'll laugh until it hurts.

On a side note, this is the first book I read on my iPad, and it's hooked me on the device for that purpose. I just grabbed a history book for the device while I sat in the living room. Cheaper than hardback or paperback, and nothing to pile up in my house :)

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Smalltalk in Vancouver

July 6, 2010 6:36:40.000

Deepcove in Vancouver (BC) is looking for a Smalltalker:

We are pleased to announce that DeepCove Labs are looking for another full-time developer to join our agile team of long time Smalltalk fans. Our primary focus is evolving and maintaining mature industry leading international payment processing platform that we have built from the ground up over the past 10 years as well as developing new and exciting products for financial services industry.

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posted by James Robertson

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open source

No One Understands Licensing

July 6, 2010 7:44:31.431

That's the only conclusion I can draw from this:

OpenLogic's survey found that more than 65 percent of respondents who believed they were not distributing OSS actually were to customers, partners or others. And though 84 percent of all respondents were using OSS in the workplace, only 22 percent were using some sort of tool to determine whether the software they were distributing contained any of that code.

I suspect that the numbers are about the same for all licensing - including code under proprietary licenses. It's just very easy to make copies of anything digital, and the requisite license restrictions are easily lost. That sounds like an argument in favor of DRM, unless you've pondered how useful that's been over time :)

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalkDaily

Smalltalk Daily 07/06/10: Classes

July 6, 2010 8:32:49.145

Today's Smalltalk Daily looks at classes - specifically, at how instances are created. If you can't watch the YouTube embed below, click here to go to the video now:

You can follow the Smalltalk channel on YouTube for all the "Smalltalk Daily" videos. You can also check out the videos on Vimeo, where the quality is higher, or over on Facebook, if you are a member.

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

posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Smalltalk In Toronto

July 6, 2010 10:23:56.873

The Toronto STUG knows that it's summer, and has planned their next meeting accordingly:

The next meeting of the Toronto Smalltalk User Group will be Monday, July 12 at 6:30, on the street level outdoor patio of Pauper's Pub, 539 Bloor St. W, at Bathurst.

Sounds like it'll be a fun meeting; wish I could get to it :)

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posted by James Robertson

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blog

Now With More Social Media

July 6, 2010 11:24:59.047

I was on a conference call for almost 90 minutes this morning, so while I was listening, I wrote some more social media link stuff for the blog. Check out the bottom of each post - in addition to the Facebook "Like" button, I've added a Facebook "Share" button, and a Twitter "Tweet This" button.

Of course, those only work if you're on those systems; if you're not, just ignore them :)

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posted by James Robertson

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music

Prince Tells Kids to Get Off His Lawn

July 6, 2010 11:58:30.767

Prince has crossed over from being a hip musician to being that crotchety old guy who tells those damn kids to stay off his lawn:

He went on to say: “The internet’s like MTV. At one time MTV was hip and suddenly it became outdated.
Prince also criticised the advent of gadgets and computers: “All these computers and digital gadgets are no good.

I'll be sure to unearth my quadrophonic stereo and unused CD player to listen to his newest stuff.... not.

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posted by James Robertson

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science

Something to Worry About

July 7, 2010 0:09:05.660

Wheat Rust:

stem rust has spread from a corner of Africa’s Great Lakes to countries as distant as Iran and, recently, South Africa. Scientists now fear that the fungus cannot be kept out of Punjab, one of the world’s great bread baskets.

This is the sort of thing that could get very bad while most people are looking elsewhere. Fortunately, the article makes it sound like there are solutions available - so long as irrational fears of GM food don't stop them.

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posted by James Robertson

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culture

Pushy Rules

July 7, 2010 8:03:05.021

San Francisco is starting to sound like an unpleasant place to visit:

The San Francisco policy, the result of an executive order from Mayor Gavin Newsom, dictates vending machines on city property can no longer dispense Coke, Pepsi and other calorically sweetened beverages. Sports drinks and artificially sweetened water also are included in the ban.

The problem is this - as these sorts of well intentioned rules multiply, you slowly slide into a pit of soft despotism. Combined with the mania for policy over judgment, it's a recipe for an utterly non-functional society.

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Bootable Smalltalk

July 7, 2010 8:09:55.981

Michael van der Gulik has an interesting Smalltalk project involving a tiny Linux system:

Tiny Core Linux is a mini Linux distribution that is, before boot, only two files. One is the Linux kernel. The other is the entire filesystem which is loaded into RAM.
...
Now, the micro version can be used to run Squeak

Follow the link for the details - it sounds like a fun project.

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalkDaily

Smalltalk Daily 07/07/10: Inheritance

July 7, 2010 10:42:54.529

Today's Smalltalk Daily looks at inheritance in Smalltalk. If you can't watch the YouTube embed below, click here to go to the video now:

You can follow the Smalltalk channel on YouTube for all the "Smalltalk Daily" videos. You can also check out the videos on Vimeo, where the quality is higher, or over on Facebook, if you are a member.

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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web

Let's Make Everyone a Criminal

July 7, 2010 11:19:29.183

TechDirt points out the absurdity of making it a criminal offence to not read a site's terms of service - this is in regard to ticket scalping/reselling:

This isn't to say that ticket scalpers and resellers who buy up all the tickets aren't necessarily a problem, but should they be criminally liable because they violate a website's terms of service?

While the following example is absurd, it's a good example of just how bad this is:

I could just quickly put up a terms of service that says something as ridiculous as "you must be 8 feet tall to read this website." And, if you're not, you've then violated the terms, and are guilty of criminal hacking under the CFAA -- which could potentially result in jail time.

That's just awesome. It also means that just about every person in the US who has ever visited a website that has TOS is an unindicted criminal...

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posted by James Robertson

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copyright

Gaming the System

July 7, 2010 16:14:41.738

I just had to laugh when I saw this:

In a new editorial published in Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet (English translation), the party says that it hopes to host the Bay from servers located within the Swedish Parliament to take advantage of parliamentary immunity. The plan relies on 1) The Pirate Bay agreeing to it and 2) Piratpartiet's performance in the upcoming September elections.

While it sounds clever, it also puts the servers at the mercy of electoral results. You have to admit though - it's a fascinating work around :)

posted by James Robertson

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general

A Vacation You Don't Want

July 7, 2010 21:08:03.794

Huh?

A French company is offering people the chance to get away from it all and be bound and gagged for a day. The company will abduct you without warning, and hold you prisoner for up to 10 hours.

And..... you pay for this?

posted by James Robertson

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books

More E-Books

July 8, 2010 6:28:30.000

Borders has jumped into the e-book store and reader game - with most of the action on the store side, I'm sure:

Since Borders' store has more than one million titles, there's no shortage of content, even for readers with eclectic tastes. The big question, however, is how Borders will distinguish itself in the e-bookstore war. With three fierce competitors--Amazon, Apple, and Barnes & Noble--already open for business, Borders will need to stir up trouble to lure visitors to its site.

I downloaded the app immediately, but then ran into an all too familiar problem - I registered with Borders eons ago, using my personal email address - but I have no clue what username or password I used. At least they have a retrieval option :)

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalkDaily

Smalltalk Daily 07/08/10: Abstract Classes

July 8, 2010 8:58:50.837

Today's Smalltalk Daily looks at abstract classes in Smalltalk - in particular, at #shouldNotImplement and #subclassResponsibility. These two methods signal two different things: either a subclass should not implement (or use) some inherited behavior, or a subclass mustimplement a behavior for an inherited method. If you can't watch the YouTube embed below, click here to go to the video now:

You can follow the Smalltalk channel on YouTube for all the "Smalltalk Daily" videos. You can also check out the videos on Vimeo, where the quality is higher, or over on Facebook, if you are a member.

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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smalltalk

Thirty Years of Smalltalk

July 8, 2010 18:20:04.860

ComputerWorld has an interview with Alan Kay - part of their "Programming Languages A-Z" series. Good stuff:

This week, we take a look at the pre-cursor to Objective-C and the foundation of much of modern programming today: Smalltalk-80. One of the men behind the language, Alan Kay, is credited not only with helping to develop the language, but also the invention of object-oriented programming as a concept, and even inventing a personal computer concept that has eerie similarities to the iPad.

Follow the link for the actual interview.

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Smalltalk in Japan

July 8, 2010 21:44:10.560

The Cincom Smalltalk team in Japan is working with Apple on a software in healthcare oriented event - follow the link for details,

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

WebVelocity on Amazon

July 9, 2010 0:07:14.381

Jerry Kott, one of our WebVelocity developers, has put together a demonstration of the product running on Amazon services. You can watch the video (down converted) below, or grab the high quality version here.

WebVelocity on Amazon from James Robertson on Vimeo.

You can also watch this video directly over on the WebVelocity Vimeo Group.

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

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Open Source Smalltalk Gets Faster

July 9, 2010 6:47:42.000

Eliot Miranda's Cog VM is out - Squeak News has the story:

The VM selectively re-compiles code to native (Intel) machine-code, based on the size and complexity of the methods, and how often they’re called. This means that the benefits of the new VM vary from task to task, but Andreas Raab estimates that you should expect a 2-3x performance improvement generally, “more towards 2x when running primitive and I/O-bound stuff; more towards 3x when running ‘pure’ Smalltalk code”.

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

ESUG is on Twitter

July 9, 2010 8:26:03.425

Follow all the ESUG related news on Twitter now.

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalkDaily

Smalltalk Daily 07/09/10: Installing a VW UI

July 9, 2010 9:08:45.579

Today's Smalltalk Daily looks at installing a UI in VisualWorks - things have changed a bit in VW 7.7.1. If you can't watch the YouTube embed below, click here to go to the video now:

You can follow the Smalltalk channel on YouTube for all the "Smalltalk Daily" videos. You can also check out the videos on Vimeo, where the quality is higher, or over on Facebook, if you are a member.

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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gadgets

Why You Won't See a Verizon iPhone Soon

July 9, 2010 20:14:01.880

Deadzones has the top ten reasons. Now, they could be wrong, and my skepticism of this rumor could be wrong... but I doubt it :)

hat tip Rob Fahrni

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posted by James Robertson

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copyright

The Absurdity of Copyright Law

July 9, 2010 20:41:49.630

Who is actually served by today's copyright laws? Witness this example, where author Tony Woodlief explains why he didn't use a song lyric to head a chapter of his book:

When I asked to use a single line by songwriter Joe Henry, for example, his record label's parent company demanded $150 for every 7,500 copies of my book. Assuming I sell enough books to earn back my modest advance, this amounts to roughly 1.5% of my earnings, all for quoting eight words from one of Mr. Henry's songs.
I love Joe Henry, but the price was too high. I replaced him with Shakespeare, whose work (depending on which edition you use) is in the public domain. Mr. Henry's record label may differ, but it's not clear that his interests —or theirs—are being served here. Were they concerned that readers might have their thirst for Mr. Henry's music sated by that single lyric? Isn't it more likely that his lyric would have enticed customers who otherwise wouldn't have heard of him?

The main problem is that the copyright mavens don't think that far ahead. They think they'll always get the license fee; it doesn't occur to them that the more likely result (as seen above) is that they'll get nothing at all.

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Smalltalk History

July 9, 2010 21:18:27.443

I had an interesting morning - my boss, Suzanne Fortman, and Adele Goldberg - who needs no introduction - were here. Adele happened to be in Maryland, and needed a VisualWorks demo as part of a retrospective DVD she's putting together. So, we did a short screencast, burned a DVD for her to carry off, and had a nice time doing it. Fun times!

posted by James Robertson

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general

Timing is Everything

July 10, 2010 2:25:11.079

I'm heading to London on the 14th - late flight, so I might get my iPad case before then:

posted by James Robertson

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itNews

Why my Twitter Client Keeps Showing Errors

July 10, 2010 10:48:28.547

I'd been wondering why my Twitter client has been showing an increasing number of errors lately (both on my Mac and on my iPhone). Now I know:

Twitter is helping to combat outages by restricting the number of times third-party apps such as TweetDeck and Echofon can access the service. The microblogging service reduced the maximum number of API calls to 175 an hour, compared to the 350 per hour it had been previously. This means many third-party apps are unable to update tweets as often as usual.

That makes perfect sense for Twitter, but it does mean problems for the existing deployed set of applications which had a different set of expectations.

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posted by James Robertson

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games

How to Piss Off a Community

July 10, 2010 11:11:58.730

Blizzard learned what it's like to take a set of loyal customers and turn them into an angry mob, after they decided to require real names (instead of aliases) in their online game system:

Blizzard became the target of its own flame war after deeming that its forums would soon require the use of real life names. The Battle.net community backlash forced Blizzard to backpedal, removing the Real ID requirement in forums for World of Warcraft and Starcraft II.

They had to back off, and it's not a huge surprise. Not every user of anonymity is a troll, and some people just feel safer being anonymous. The same dynamic works all over, from political commentary to games. PC World had a good suggestion though - like Amazon, offer some sort of reward system for people willing to use their real names. In fact, it's worth reading the entire post.

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Interested in ObjectStudio 8.2.1?

July 10, 2010 23:39:55.778

The Cincom Smalltalk engineering team has just about wrapped up the 8.2.1 release of ObjectStudio:

Cincom is pleased to announce the availability of a new EVOL pre-release version of ObjectStudio 8.2.1. This build does not have the final documentation or readme, but the ObjectStudio code is expected to be identical to or extremely close to the final 8.2.1 release

Interested in taking a look? Let the Cincom Smalltalk Star Team know and we'll get you the download information.

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posted by James Robertson

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search

Microsoft Plugs Away in Search

July 11, 2010 10:13:58.316

I've give Microsoft a lot of crap for what I see as a lack of focus, so it's only fair that I point out an area where their tenacity seems to be working for them: search. According to eweek:

Microsoft’s Bing continued its pattern of incremental gains, according to research firm Experian Hitwise, which reported the search engine grew to occupy 9.85 percent of the U.S. search engine market in June.

Anecdotally, I have friends who tell me that they've switched to Bing due to better results. INertia has kept me on Google, but I may have to take another look.

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posted by James Robertson

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books

Armenian Golgotha

July 11, 2010 10:41:36.846

I picked up Armenian Golgotha for my iPad (via the Kindle app - as a side note, the way it synchs between my iPad and iPhone is awesome). It's a highly disturbing book, and perhaps the most disturbing part about it is reading it now, after the 20th century and the much more well known Holocaust.

Why do I say that? Well, reading Balakian's first person account is looking at "version 1", if you want to run the risk of trivializing it with a bad analogy. Roving death squads? Check. Using cover of war to hide what you're doing? Check. Run at the highest levels of govenment? Check. The only real difference between what happened in Anatolia and what happened 30 years later in central and eastern europe is how blame was assigned (or not).

The Ittihad government was the end of the Ottomans, and a revolution and successor state took over. I'm not going to get into the continuing attempts to deny reality; a few Google searches should tell you everything you need to know about that. No, the thing that realy strikes me while reading this book (I'm only partway through) is how prototypical the Turkish effort was for later genocides, whether you're looking at what the Nazis did in Europe, or at what the Pol Pot regime did in Cambodia. It seems pretty clear to me that an educated elite studied this earlier attempt, and took notes.

posted by James Robertson

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audio

Industry Misinterpretations 196: Who Put Those Comments in My Code?

July 11, 2010 11:25:16.450

This week's podcast is part 2 of 2 - Michael and I reviewed a number of packages from the public repository, and this batch - unlike the last one - had comments and usage documentation. You can get part 1 of the podcast here, if you would like to hear that first.

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!

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posted by James Robertson

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blog

Stupid Commenting Issues Addressed

July 11, 2010 12:15:47.204

Well, I ran into the commenting bug that a few people have reported over the last few weeks. It turns out that there were two of them:

  • If you changed the title of a comment, the comment failed. That was due to my sending a spam check to a class instead of the sole instance of the class. Doh
  • Depending on how you entered a comment, the first character of a new paragraph would get chopped off. That was just a dumb mistake in the code.

I'm pretty sure I got both of those dealt with, but if not - I'm sure someone will let me know :)

posted by James Robertson

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gadgets

Pros and Cons of Android Phones

July 11, 2010 17:48:08.013

Chad Fowler recently switched from the iPhone to a Nexus One (Android) - and he's got a list of things that he likes and dislikes up. Seems like he's mostly happy about the switch, but based on what he says, I'm not sure I'd like it much :)

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posted by James Robertson

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games

Dead Space Tenseness

July 11, 2010 18:47:20.886

I've pretty much exhausted DragonAge and Mass Effect 2 - there's nothing I don't know anymore about either game. So - on to unplayed games. I started Dead Space awhile ago, put it down, and pretty much forgot about it. This morning I pisked it up again, and it's intense - it's an interactive "Alien" (the movie). The creatures are nasty, and you don't really start with much in the way of weapons - I just reached chapter 3, and was finally able to afford a pulse rifle.

It's also a game with specific save checkpoints - you either reach them or you don't. I like the game, but I doubt I'll do more than one run through. Like shooters, it's a very linear progression game. Fun, but not the kind of game I'll go back to (like ME2 and DragonAge).

Funny side story about this game - my daughter tried it, and decided it was too intense. So her plan for the game was to have a sleepover party and play the game at 1 AM. That'll lead to a solid night's sleep :)

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posted by James Robertson

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