The author of this blog, James Robertson, passed away in April 2014. This blog is being maintained by David Buck (david@simberon.com).
Yes, I'm sure this would get me to listen to radio more:
In a bid to revive the FM Radio, broadcasters and music labels have appealed to the US Congress to force manufacturers to build FM receivers into all smartphones and portable devices.
My iPhone is always using one radio (3G), and often a second (WiFi). When I'm driving I listen to Pandora or iTunes. Mandating an FM radio just isn't going to get me to return to it.
Technorati Tags: smart phone, radio
Today's Smalltalk Daily creates a new WebVelocity application, and has that application generate the database tables it needs. If you can't see the embedded video directly, you can go directly to YouTube for it. Click on the viewer below to watch it 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.
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Technorati Tags: smalltalk, seaside, database, webvelocity
Google and Verizon are about to jump into the Tablet game:
Launch is pegged for Black Friday on November 26, and apparently the plan is to offer the device for extremely cheap or free on subsidy, which makes sense -- it is just a browser, after all, and "free" sounds mighty nice compared to the iPad's $499 entry point. (Of course, you'll undoubtedly be tied to a Verizon contract, but we'll just let that slide for now.)
The subsidized PC model didn't work, but it's worked well for phones - I think Apple is about to get some competition...
It seems that the media search application on the Cincom Smalltalk website had some bad data in it. Or possibly bad handling of data depending on how you want to look at it. When I first created the application, I did a batch run over a bunch of blog posts to create the records in the PostgreSQL database the app uses. The problem? Some of the video and screencast posts use relative links for the show notes.
That's fine when the relative links are sitting on my Cincom blog; a link of blog?.... gets looked up just fine there. However, the media search app has a different root, so the show notes links for a decent number of the items were bad (225, to be exact). So... I created a small WebVelocity component, loaded it into the server, ran it, and had it search for and fix those links. Boom, done. You shouldn't see bad links for that stuff anymore.
Hat tip to James Savidge, who pointed the problem out to me.
Technorati Tags: smalltalk, webvelocity
Looks like Torchwood is coming back, even after they whacked most of the cast - the two survivors, Captain Jack and Gwen, are returning, but the rest is all new. Not a ton of details at Blastr, but it sounds cool.
Technorati Tags: scifi
Andreas Raab notes that Teleplace is using Squeak 4.1 in their (commercial) product:
We just finalized the release of the Teleplace Enterprise Server 3.5 which is our first product release based on Squeak 4.1.
Today's Smalltalk Daily looks at how you can customize a query for one of the standard scaffolding UIs in WebVelocity. The code added is all in class NoteListUI. To jump to the video, Click here If you can't see the embedded video directly, you can go directly to YouTube for it.
First, add a variable, searchText
renderActionsOn: html super renderActionsOn: html. html text: 'Search'. html space. html textInput on: #searchText of: self. html button callback: [self applySearch]; value: 'Search'. html button callback: [self returnToAll]; value: 'All' applySearch "do the search" | query newSearchText | query := Glorp.ActiveRecords.Query read: Note. newSearchText := '%', self searchText asLowercase, '%'. query where: [:each | each title asLowercase like: newSearchText]. paginator query: query. returnToAll | query | query := Glorp.ActiveRecords.Query read: Note. paginator query: query.
Click on the viewer below to watch it 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 need the video in a Windows Media format, then download that here. If you like this kind of video, why not subscribe to "Smalltalk Daily"?
Technorati Tags: smalltalk, seaside, webvelocity, database
Phillip Greenspun has a depressing piece up about the inability of people to tell which direction is which. My favorite test along these lines is to pull bills out of my wallet, and ask kids (high school age, since that's my daughter's cohort at present) who is on them. The quizzical looks are either amusing or disturbing, depending on my mood that day....
Technorati Tags: education
If you're a member of the ACM, then you now have access to the 2009 Proceedings of the International Workshop on Smalltalk Technologies.
Technorati Tags: acm
If it comes from the regulators, rest assured that the regulators will get captured:
In a letter sent today to Google CEO Eric Schmidt, the RIAA and other music trade groups expressed their concern that the riddled-with-gaping-loopholes policy framework nevertheless might put a damper on ISP attempts to find and filter piratical material flowing through the Internet's tubes. Failure to allow for this sort of behavior would lead to an Internet of "chaos."
Better to have nothing, and depend on bad PR events than to have full on regulatory capture - because in the latter scenario, arguing over an FCC decision will be like arguing with the local zoning board - only more so.
Technorati Tags: net neutrality, riaa
The chips will allow city workers to monitor how often residents roll carts to the curb for collection. If a chip show a recyclable cart hasn't been brought to the curb in weeks, a trash supervisor will sort through the trash for recyclables.
If you haven't brought the cart out "enough", they'll start sorting through your trash and fining you if you throw out "too many" recyclables. This is right up there with the Greek government - scanning Google Maps for pools that haven't been taxed.
Update: The irony of this post is that after I posted this, I charged outside to put my recycling bin at the curb. I had forgotten what day it was, and the truck was coming.
Today's Smalltalk Daily looks some of the simple scaffolding customizations you can make in WebVelocity 1.1 - and shows you how to find out more. To jump straight to the video, click here. If you can't see the embedded video directly, you can go directly to YouTube for it.
Note class
variableNames
^#('title' 'created' 'description')
NoteListUI
shouldRenderDescription ^false renderObjectCreated: anObject on: html html text: anObject asDate printString
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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 need the video in a Windows Media format, then download that here. If you like this kind of video, why not subscribe to "Smalltalk Daily"?
Technorati Tags: smalltalk, seaside, webvelocity, scaffolding
It's another episode of "no one is entitled to a business model". The NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) wants to mandate FM receivers in all smartphones, probably due to the audience drop they're seeing. This is all part of the RIAA and NAB fighting over the remaining crumbs in the broadcast music business:
NAB, in an effort to expand radio audiences, has been seeking an FM receiver mandate for digital devices for several years. But the proposal doesn't make sense, with many smartphones able to stream music and other content from the Internet, including streams from commercial radio stations, said Jot Carpenter, CTIA's vice president for government affairs. Several mobile devices available in the U.S. have FM receivers, but they are not among the top-selling devices, he said.
When I'm listening to music, I tend to do one of three things:
I haven't turned on the radio more than a handful of times in the last year, and those times happened because I forgot my phone. The sales numbers for devices that include radios show how much demand there is for that (virtually none).
Add to that another reality - many (most?) radio stations now stream live on the net. So I can already get radio stations over wifi or 3g if I want to. I don't want, or need, another radio draining battery in my iPhone, thanks.
The release of Steam for Mac has done something interesting - it's gotten Apple to sit up and take notice of their lagging graphics performance in the gaming arena. I just loaded the update last night, and while I can't say much about what it does yet (I haven't fired up DAO or SC2 since I grabbed the update), it's certainly making Steam users happy.
In the "programming self esteem" list, that's where the Smalltalk crowd belongs :)
Usually, we just think of malware being an annoyance - costing us time, or perhaps money. Seems it can be much, much worse:
Authorities investigating the 2008 crash of Spanair flight 5022 have discovered a central computer system used to monitor technical problems in the aircraft was infected with malware. An internal report issued by the airline revealed the infected computer failed to detect three technical problems with the aircraft, which if detected, may have prevented the plane from taking off, according to reports in the Spanish newspaper, El Pais. Flight 5022 crashed just after takeoff from Madrid-Barajas International Airport two years ago today, killing 154 and leaving only 18 survivors.
That's a whole lot more serious than a spam spewing PC bot. Wow. Just... wow.
Technorati Tags: malware
Well, the latest Mac update does improve graphics performance in games - I've been enjoying the way Dragon Age: Origins
All the joys of Windows :)
While I like NetFlix and Hulu, setting them up on the TV is still something of a chore - you have to hook up a Mac or PC, and then navigate the "not built for a TV screen" interface. So if Apple ships the next generation Apple TV based on what they've learned from the iPhone and iPad?
Expect to see an iPhone/Pad like marketplace for television applications. Video sharing/streaming/recording apps, interactive news apps, and of course games.
That's Kevin Rose speculating on what it could mean. If Apple makes that move, they'll get a real foothold, I think - people hate their cable boxes. The DVR features are sub-optimal, the controls for streaming from on demand are terrible - and there's a monthly charge for each of the crappy boxes.
Give people the ability to easily synch everything they have on their iPads and their TVs, along with casual gaming ad streaming - and an interface that doesn't get in the way - and I think you'll have a hit. I'll be looking at this with interest...
I'll be on vacation next week, so there won't be any new Smalltalk Daily screencasts until a week from Monday. In the meantime, just check the archives, and feel free to send me suggestions for things you would like to see covered!
This is why I have my blog auto-post ton Twitter (and from there, on to Facebook) - otherwise, all that content is owned by someone else, and - if the service(s) in question die off, you're left with nothing. As Leo Laporte just realized:
It makes me feel like everything I’ve posted over the past four years on Twitter, Jaiku, Friendfeed, Plurk, Pownce, and, yes, Google Buzz, has been an immense waste of time. I was shouting into a vast echo chamber where no one could hear me because they were too busy shouting themselves. All this time I’ve been pumping content into the void like some chatterbox Onan. How humiliating. How demoralizing.
I use (or used, when they still existed) many of those - but I've always kept my blog (first the corporate one, and now, this one) front and center. That way, I have control over my own web history.
This week's podcast was recorded on the last day of ESUG 2009, last summer. With all the news from Instantiations recently, I thought John O'Keefe's presentation would still be timely - and I realized that I had not posted it yet..
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: smalltalk, esug09, instantiations
I had to laugh - first, there was Leo Laporte's "social media sucks" thing. Then Joy of Tech pretty much nailed that subject. Finally, I saw this float by in an IRC channel I hang out on:
"[user] predicts he'll be all over the next new shiny within a month at the outside"
heh.
This is pretty ridiculous, although with the budget issues that so many cities and counties are facing, I guess it's the sort of desperation play one should expect:
She’s not alone. After dutifully reporting even the smallest profits on their tax filings this year, a number — though no one knows exactly what that number is — of Philadelphia bloggers were dispatched letters informing them that they owe $300 for a privilege license, plus taxes on any profits they made.
So, what the heck is a "privilege license", and why the heck would a blogger making pennies from AdSense need one?
Ever since I started reading on my iPad, I've been tearing through books like a knife through warm butter - and I've fallen way, way behind on the reviews I normally post here. Sometime in the next week or two, I intend to catch up, but here's a list of what I've been reading:
I guess I've been in the mood for "things stink, and they will get worse" lately :)
There's some research into how Germany advanced so quickly - especially compared to the rest of Europe - in the 19th century. One possibility: lack of strong copyright law:
In Germany during the same period, publishers had plagiarizers -- who could reprint each new publication and sell it cheaply without fear of punishment -- breathing down their necks. Successful publishers were the ones who took a sophisticated approach in reaction to these copycats and devised a form of publication still common today, issuing fancy editions for their wealthy customers and low-priced paperbacks for the masses.
I'm pretty well convinced that copyrights, as we apply them in the US at least, are a net negative. They tie material up for ridiculous amounts of time, and they benefit big businesses (Disney comes to mind) far more than they benefit individual authors. I think it's well past time for a change.
The next Smalltalk User Group in Frankfurt, Germany takes place on September 21, with Alan Knight and Arden Thomas:
We are happy to invite you to our next meeting on Tuesday September 21st.
Alan Knight, Engineering Manager Cincom Smalltalk and lead developer of GLORP, will talk about the internals and optimization of GLORP. GLORP (Generic Lightweight Object-Relational Persistence) is an open-source cross-dialect OO-R mapping framework available for VisualWorks, ObjectStudio, VASmalltalk, Dolphin Smalltalk, Smalltalk/X, Pharo and Squeak.
Arden Thomas, Cincom Smalltalk Product Manager, will be attending too. He will certainly be open to answer your questions and listen to your suggestions about the further development of Cincom Smalltalk.
We welcome you at 18:30 on Tuesday September 21st in the offices of ITS-People GmbH, Frankfurt/Main, Lyoner Str. 44-48.
This doesn't surprise me: no Steam for Linux, despite rumors:
Question: Final question, and one I’m sure you’re not super-keen to answer, but I promised one of our tech guys I’d ask it. What truth is there to rumours that you’re also working on a Linux version of Steam?
Doug Lombardi: There’s no Linux version that we’re working on right now.
In terms of client gaming, Windows is the 800 pound gorilla, and I think the only reason that the Mac got Steam is the dominance of Mac notebooks at the high end of the market. Desktop Linux is just a much, much smaller market, full of people who are far less likely to buy a gaming subscription.
Keeping track of time in software sounds simle until you actually start looking into it - to take a trivial example, does a Timestamp include a TimeZone? Then there are the harder issues:
Sparking a fresh round of debate over an ongoing issue in time-keeping circles, the International Telecommunications Union is considering eliminating leap seconds from the time scale used by most computer systems, Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). Since their introduction in 1971, leap seconds have proved problematic for at least a few software programs. The leap second added on to the end of 2008, for instance, caused Oracle cluster software to reboot unexpectedly in some cases.
I've been in nasty traffic jams, but nothing like one near Beijing:
As the jam on the highway, also known as National Highway 110, passed the 10-day mark Tuesday, local authorities dispatched hundreds of police to keep order and to reroute cars and trucks carrying essential supplies, such as food or flammables, around the main bottleneck. There, vehicles were inching along little more than a third of a mile a day. Zhang Minghai, director of Zhangjiakou city's Traffic Management Bureau general office, said in a telephone interview he didn't expect the situation to return to normal until around Sept. 17 when road construction is scheduled to be finished and traffic lanes will open up.
I guess China doesn't do anything small...
How did I miss the new trailer for Dragon Age 2? March 8th can't come soon enough :)
The draconian DMCA and absurdly long copyright periods aren't enough - the RIAA wants more:
"The DMCA isn't working for content people at all," he said at the Technology Policy Institute's Aspen Forum here. "You cannot monitor all the infringements on the Internet. It's simply not possible. We don't have the ability to search all the places infringing content appears, such as cyberlockers like [file-hosting firm] RapidShare."
What they want to see is safe harbor removed - which would make the birth of anything akin to YouTube impossible. The RIAA needs to die, yesterday.
Andreas Raab talks about how Squeak, Pharo, Cuis, and EToys are helping grow the Smalltalk community - and moving towards cooperation on the core stuff.
There's been (or still is) a bubble in everything else - housing, education, US treasuries - why not game development costs? Over the last few years, there's been something akin to an arms race between vendors in order to create the most impressive graphics for games. Now EA thinks things are cooling off:
"I think budgets for games have actually peaked and are starting to move in the reverse direction again," said David DeMartini in an interview with GamesIndustry.biz [registration required]. He's VP and group general manager of EA Partners, the publisher's third-party distribution arm.
Personally, I'm not so sure. Movie costs have never really dropped, and the closest parallel in entertainment I can think of to games is movies. I guess we'll see over the next year or two.
Technorati Tags: games
