. .

esug2010

Another ESUG Retrospective

September 27, 2010 8:07:38.142

Raimon Grau has some post-ESUG thoughts.

Technorati Tags: ,

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

smalltalk

Smalltalk in London

September 27, 2010 8:27:12.623

The UK Smalltalk user group is meeting this evening, in London:

The September UK STUG meeting will be this Monday, September 27th. We'll meet at our usual venue - the Counting House, close to Bank station - from 18:30 onwards.

Technorati Tags: ,

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

smalltalkDaily

Smalltalk Daily 09/27/10: Customizing Debugger Hotkeys

September 27, 2010 9:26:28.421

Today's Smalltalk Daily looks at customizing the hotkeys for the debugger. If you can't see the embedded video directly, you can go directly to YouTube for it. To watch now, click on the viewer below:

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: , ,

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

books

Book Sharing and E-Books

September 27, 2010 11:55:50.000

Tim Bray makes some excellent points about book sharing and electronic readers:

Those in the business of books are unlikely to be losing sleep because I’m whining about sharing, but they’d better be careful. We saw what happened in the music space, and I think authors are way more vulnerable than musicians. First off, no matter how much piracy is going on, a musician can always fall back on live performance. Second, your average novel, compared to music or video, is remarkably small; trivially easy to share once the digital locks are broken, as broken they will be.

The thing about authors and musicans is key - authors really don't have anything else to fall back on. Too much greed on the part of publishers could create real problems. Right now there's limited sharing; with the Kindle app, you can share across 5 devices - so I can share one account with my wife.

However, I can't feasibly pass a book to my mom or sister (I've done this with physical books). The issues of space (they live in other states) and credit card sharing get in the way. THis is going to end up being a problem, and if the publishers don't create a reasonable response, the response that arises will be one they won't like.

Technorati Tags: ,

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

tutorial

Using the Amazon Cloud with Smalltalk

September 27, 2010 15:06:13.021

One of the cooler packages in the public store repository is Cloudfork - to get it, just load "Cloudfork-all" into VisualWorks or ObjectStudio. from there, and then you can access whatever cloud services you use on Amazon. You'll need key info (you get that from Amazon), and you'll need something actually stored there. From there:


"get access"
credentials := CFAWSCredentials newWith: key andSecret: secret.
s3 := CFSimpleStorageService newWith: credentials.

Now that you have your credentials lined up, you can query the buckets you have on S3:


"get buckets"
buckets := (s3 allBuckets) result.
Transcript clear.
buckets do: [:each |
	Transcript show: 'Bucket: <', each name, '>'.
	Transcript cr].

Now open up a bucket and see what's inside it:


"open a bucket"
bucket := s3 openBucketNamed: 'jar-images'.
all := bucket getList result.

Finally, now get an item and have a look at it. In my case, it's a JPEG:


"now extract first item"
key := all first key.
byteArray  := (bucket getObject: key) result.

"save to a file"
file := 'imgFroms3.jpg' asFilename writeStream.
file binary.
file nextPutAll: byteArray.
file close.

"now open it"
img := (ImageReader fromFile: 'imgFroms3.jpg') image.

And that's it. I did a screencast on this awhile back as well:

Technorati Tags: , , ,

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

web

Not as Reasonable as it Sounds

September 27, 2010 15:44:33.000

On the surface, this sounds like a reasonable thing:

What I needed in searching for these flash drives was not the words: “256MB USB flash drive.” Those words failed me. What I needed was a Dewey Decimal code for a 256MB USB flash drive, or even a Dewey Decimal number for the concept: “Flash drive that is small in storage capability and that is very inexpensive.” Vendors selling such flash drives could easily add that numerical code to their product metadata, quickly connecting them with people looking to buy those products.

There are a few problems with this idea. First, imagine the spam possibilities - meta-keywords died trying to solve exactly this problem years ago. Second, how would I, as an end user, find the numeric code I want to punch in? Does the author foresee some huge index site somewhere with codes? If so, then I have to.... search it. Using keywords. Congratulations - you've taken the same problem and added a degree of separation to it :)

Now Listening to: Hey Lady by Thriving Ivory from: Thriving Ivory

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

law

How is this Patentable?

September 27, 2010 18:24:26.000

I'm not sure how or why this should be something that can get a patent:

Bank of America was just awarded a patent for a process that lets it make sure any teller at any branch will know not to give you a refund on a disputed overdraft fee.

What would you call a working model? A person standing behind a teller window saying "no"?

Now Listening to: Twilight by Thriving Ivory from: Thriving Ivory

Technorati Tags: ,

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

smalltalk

Smalltalk in Argentina

September 27, 2010 21:23:42.688

Spotted in Ten is a good number

The Smalltalks 2010 conference in Argentina has been declared of interest by the Science, Technology and Innovation Agency of Entre Ríos (ACTIER)

Follow the link to Andres' blog for more details

Technorati Tags: ,

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

games

More on Red Dead Redemption

September 27, 2010 23:21:03.160

I finally feel like I've got the hang of the combat system in the game - the "dead eye" thing is pretty useful - although it is easy to take way more shots than you want to. The biggest problem I've had has been shooting bystanders in running gin battles (on horseback). That leads to bounties, which leads to everyone and his brother hunting you down until you can clear the bounty - and as you shoot the people chasing you, it gets worse. I've restored to save points over that :)

I do like the game though. The world is expansive, and it's pretty easy to find interesting things to do instead of the main plot. Not that the plot is bad - the combats/actions during the plot drivers have been pretty good. I'll have to finish the plot out, load some of the DLC, and try multi-player out.

Now Listening to: Twisted by Katie Melua from: The House

Technorati Tags: ,

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

smalltalk

Pharo and Moose in Bern

September 28, 2010 6:18:00.862

There's a joint Pharo and Moose sprint planned for October 23-24 in Bern, Switzerland:

We will organize a joint Pharo sprint / Moose dojo during October 23-24, in Bern (at the Software Composition Group, University of Bern). Some action points are mentioned on the dedicated page (of course, other ideas and interests are welcome as well)

Technorati Tags: , ,

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

smalltalkDaily

Smalltalk Daily 09/28/10: Using a RESTful Web API

September 28, 2010 8:04:33.951

Today's Smalltalk Daily looks at using a simple, RESTful web api from a Smalltalk client. If you can't see the embedded video directly, you can go directly to YouTube for it. To watch now, click on the viewer below:

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: , , ,

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

esug2010

ESUG 2010 Slides

September 28, 2010 10:36:42.271

The slides for ESUG 2010 presentations (at least, the ones the organizers have) are available here. As I post videos, I'll link to the presentation slides when I can.

Technorati Tags: , ,

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

weather

What My Parents are Looking At

September 28, 2010 16:17:29.655

My parents live not far from the space coast region of Florida - here's what's headed their way:

Fortunately, it looks like it'll be fairly tame when it gets there.

Technorati Tags:

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

smalltalk

Controllerless Keyboarding

September 28, 2010 22:37:30.803

Travis talks about how he's doing widgets in VisualWorks these days, focusing on the keyboard aspect:

As I've wandered far and wide through other widget frameworks, I've learned that a) "MVC" is very popular and b) for every different framework there is a new and unique interpretation of "controller." One of the "different" ways I've been building widgets is without controllers. There are two aspects to deal with in this "controllerless" new world. One is how we deal with mouse interaction, the other keyboard interaction.

Follow the link for Travis' full explanation.

Technorati Tags: ,

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

sports

The Yankees are Going to the Show

September 28, 2010 22:52:46.043

The Yankees are in the playoffs again:

The New York Yankees clinched their 15th postseason berth in the last 16 years and CC Sabathia got his 21st win of the season, beating the Toronto Blue Jays 6-1 on Tuesday night.

As I like to say about this subject, it's the way things are supposed to be :) It's a nice bonus that the Red Sox are out :)

Technorati Tags: ,

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

history

The Past is Still With Us

September 29, 2010 6:15:59.651

I hadn't realized that Germany was still paying off the Versailles conference reparations, but this Sunday, the final payment goes in:

"On Sunday the last bill is due and the First World War finally, financially at least, terminates for Germany," said Bild, the country's biggest selling newspaper. Most of the money goes to private individuals, pension funds and corporations holding debenture bonds as agreed under the Treaty of Versailles, where Germany was made to sign the 'war guilt' clause, accepting blame for the war.

I've read a lot of books about WWI - the run up to it, the war itself, and the post war conference - but I had no idea that the reparations payments had extended into the 21st century. Wow.

Technorati Tags: , ,

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

smalltalk

Smalltalk Without Loading

September 29, 2010 6:21:58.651

Spotted in self halt:

The site soek.goodies.st gives access to the sources of open-source Smalltalk libraries and frameworks. A big advantage to developers is that they can explore Smalltalk classes without having to successfully load them into one of the Smalltalk dialect platforms. Recently, I have changed much of the Smalltalk generator and HTML/Javascript generated code.

This is a cool app, because it makes it so much easier to explore Smalltalk code if you're not yet committed to loading a particular library - like many newcomers who aren't sure what they can or should do next. It's also a nice look at how using cloud resources facilitates this kind of thing:

Because the Soek project is implemented in VisualWorks, the first projects were exports of loaded bundles and packages from the Public Store. With the help of the Monticello VW package, it is now possible to add projects from any Monticello repository out there. The process of adding a new library is almost completely automated and uses Cloudfork for storing metadata in Amazon SimpleDB and uploading the site contributions to Amazon S3.

Technorati Tags: ,

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

smalltalkDaily

Smalltalk Daily 09/29/10: Using Google Client Auth

September 29, 2010 9:19:59.051

Today's Smalltalk Daily looks at implementing a client interface to Google services. That required implementing the client login scheme google uses (for desktop clients). Today's screencast covers that client auth scheme. The code I'm demonstrating is in the public store repository under the name GoogleClientAuth - the usage in the screencast is below. To skip to the video, click here..


"get the request token - cl is the calendar service"
gAuth := AuthRequest 
	requestTokenFor: 'cl' 
	user: username
	password: password
	clientName: 'Cincom-VisualWorks-771'.

"now we can start making requests - this makes a 
simple request to the 'own' feed for google calendar"
serviceResponse := ServiceRequest
					makeRequestWith: gAuth 
					requestPrepObject: ExampleRequestPrep new.
feed := serviceResponse contents

If you can't see the embedded video directly, you can go directly to YouTube for it. To watch now, click on the viewer below:

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: , , , ,

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

itNews

ISP Disconnects

September 29, 2010 17:46:30.000

Engadget notes that ClearWire is throttling aggressively:

As the story goes, it seems as if the company is pulling back on upload and download speeds (from 10Mbps to around 0.25Mbps) for users who have consumed between 7GB and 10GB in a month, which is comically low even compared to Comcast's hated 250GB / month usage cap

The thing is, that's a trivial amount of bandwidth. Download a few movies from Netflix, iTunes, or shows from Hulu, and you could be done. In other words, use your connection as a normal person might, and you're done. There's a complete disconnect between how ISPs think you ought to use your connection, and how people are actually using them.

Technorati Tags: , ,

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

smalltalk

Object Arts Updates

September 30, 2010 6:19:39.013

The guys behind Dolphin Smalltalk have a new website, and a new pricing model:

In addition to the revamped site, we have also reduced the price of Dolphin Professional to $225 for a new license and $125 for upgrades.

You can follow them on Twitter now as well.

Technorati Tags: ,

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

smalltalkDaily

Smalltalk Daily 09/30/10: Using the Google Calendar API

September 30, 2010 8:35:01.747

Today's Smalltalk Daily looks at using the client authentication to Google we built yesterday. Today's screencast builds a small example of interfacing to Google to get your calendar settings. The code I'm demonstrating is in the public store repository under the name GCal-Example - the usage in the screencast is below. To skip to the video, click here..


"get the request token - cl is the calendar service"
gAuth := AuthRequest 
	requestTokenFor: 'cl' 
	user: username
	password: password
	clientName: 'Cincom-VisualWorks-771'.

"get settings the hard way"
settingsRequest := SettingsRequest new user: username.
settingsResponse := ServiceRequest
					makeRequestWith: gAuth
					requestPrepObject: settingsRequest.
CalendarSettings from: ((JsonReader 
		readFrom: settingsResponse contents readStream)
	 at: 'data').

"make it simpler"
SettingsRequester getSettingsFor: username using: gAuth


If you can't see the embedded video directly, you can go directly to YouTube for it. To watch now, click on the viewer below:

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: , , ,

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

smalltalk

EToys 4.1 is Out

September 30, 2010 14:19:15.330

Spotted in Planet Squeak

Bert Freudenberg announced on the squeak-dev mailing list that Etoys 4.1 is now available. Etoys is a media-rich authoring environment and visual programming system with a simple, powerful scripted object model, ideal for teaching children powerful ideas in compelling ways. Based on Squeak, Etoys is available for free, with an open-source licence. You can run it on Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux

Technorati Tags: ,

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

gadgets

iPad Tethering?

September 30, 2010 17:25:24.000

PCWorld reports that tethering may be on the way for the iPad:

Well that sure didn't take long. iOS 4.2 Beta 2 is barely a day old and folks are already finding some interesting nuggets. As you can tell from the screenshot below, the new beta includes an option for Internet tethering, a feature that will allow iPad 3G owners to share their Internet connection with any ole' laptops they have lying around.

That could be useful for lots of reasons. When I was on vacation last summer, I broadcast a wifi signal from my laptop for both my iPad and my wife's iPad to use - but what if we had been in a wifi only hotel, where you pay for each device that gets on? Have a 3g iPad get on, and share a wifi signal. You would have to be careful about the b/w usage, given the charge models, but it would work.

Technorati Tags: ,

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

esug2010

Squeak Update at ESUG 2010

September 30, 2010 18:24:34.919

Here's a video from ESUG 2010, which was held in Barcelona, Spain, the week of September 13, 2010. In this presentation, Bert Freudenberg talks about the progress Squeak has made since ESUG 2009. You can watch using the embedded player below, or follow the download links at the bottom of the post.

Squeak Update from James Robertson on Vimeo.

You can follow the ESUG channel on Vimeo for all the videos from the conference.

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 Videos"? If you would rather subscribe specifically to the ESUG videos, then use this Vimeo feed - which will work in iTunes.

Technorati Tags: , , , ,

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

gadgets

Microsoft Tries to Get Back Into Mobile

September 30, 2010 19:14:58.235

Microsoft is ready to get back into the mobile game, and it looks like they'll get there before HP does anything new with Palm:

Microsoft Corp. will unveil a lineup of smartphones using the revamped version of its mobile operating system on Oct. 11, and AT&T Inc. plans to begin selling them in early November, according to people familiar with the launch plans.

Some of the reviews have been positive, so maybe MS isn't completely out of this game after all.

Technorati Tags: ,

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

tv

Understanding the Value

October 1, 2010 6:41:29.611

Some TV Execs don't like Apple's new rental model:

"How can you justify renting your first-run TV shows individually for 99 cents an episode and thereby jeopardize the sale of the same shows as a series to branded networks that pay hundreds of millions of dollars and make those shows available to loyal viewers for free?" Bewkes recently asked, joining the now growing chorus of executives to decry the new scheme. Jeff Zucker recently said he thought Apple's 99-cent rentals "devalue" the content, while Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman said the rental model was "not good."

You have to consider how people use media though. Consider music, where 99 cents is now the agreed upon standard for purchasing. How many times will I listen to a song I like? Who knows, but it's a lot. People will go back to the same song over and over again over time.

TV shows aren't like that. With rare exceptions, individual episodes are a "one and done" thing. Which means this: to the end consumer of media, the typical tv episode has a lower value than most songs. Since songs have arrived at an agreed upon value of 99 cents, that's providing a ceiling on the value of tv shows.

Now, you can argue about production costs and such, but that doesn't really matter to the end buyer. It matters a lot to the producers, of course - which argues for fewer people in the value extraction chain, I think. Over time, I expect online sales to start whittling away the plethora of middle men who add cost - but no real value - to the creation of tv (and movies). I wouldn't be surprised to see tv shows go the way of video games: you buy a few episodes, and then subscribe to a "feed" for DLC. The entire model for show distribution and production would have to change for that to happen, and I think that's what the execs quoted above fear most. In that world, they have no place at the feeding trough.

Technorati Tags:

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

smalltalk

Smalltalk Posts Archive

October 1, 2010 7:23:08.337

I set up a month by month link archive for the Smalltalk oriented posts I've made here - you can trawl through that here.

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

smalltalkDaily

Smalltalk Daily 10/01/10: Using Google Calendar Feeds

October 1, 2010 8:40:50.025

Today's Smalltalk Daily looks at using the client authentication to Google we built to retrieve an Atom feed of calendar events. The code I'm demonstrating is in the public store repository under the name GCal-Example - the usage in the screencast is below. To skip to the video, click here.


"get the request token - cl is the calendar service"
gAuth := AuthRequest 
	requestTokenFor: 'cl' 
	user: username
	password: password
	clientName: 'Cincom-VisualWorks-771'.

"get the response as XML"
request := EventRangeRequest
					from: (Timestamp readFrom: '09/01/10 0:00:00' readStream)
					to: (Timestamp readFrom: '10/01/10 0:00:00' readStream).
response := ServiceRequest
					makeRequestWith: gAuth
					requestPrepObject: request.
xml := response contents.

"save the results as a file for addition to any RSS/Atom aware tool"
file := 'calFeed.xml' asFilename writeStream.
file nextPutAll: xml.
file close.

If you can't see the embedded video directly, you can go directly to YouTube for it. To watch now, click on the viewer below:

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: , , ,

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

cincom

Cincom Smalltalk Server Outage

October 1, 2010 11:42:25.135

The cincomsmalltalk server seems to be having a problem right now - our IT guys are looking into it. When I have more information, I'll update this post. Sorry for the inconvenience!

Update, 12:30 PM: The server is back online.

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

smalltalk

Smalltalk Solutions 2011 Venue Announced

October 1, 2010 13:15:28.959

Smalltalk Solutions

The conference venue has been announced - visit the official STIC page for all the details!

Technorati Tags: , ,

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

web

New Image Format?

October 2, 2010 12:43:09.206

Google is trying to push a new image format - WebP:

Images on the web in this format — which CNET reports will be officially announced later today — will have smaller file sizes, load faster and relieve a lot of overclocked networks. They won’t necessarily look better — WebP images are as “glossy” as JPEGs — but the files might be around 40% smaller than JPEG files.

I see inertia as the sticking point here. All of the tools people use to save images (I use Preview on the Mac for most of that, because it's "good enough" for the stuff I post) - will have to support the new format. Before they do that, the various developers of these tools will have to see a compelling need. Then, the various users of those tools will have to upgrade or update.

Given all that, I see inertia being a real problem.

Technorati Tags:

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

smalltalk

A Mentoring Course on Smalltalk - Reviewed

October 2, 2010 12:45:45.916

Sean DeNegris likes Andres' Smalltalk mentoring book:

This is the best programming book I’ve ever read and I’ve read them all in C, C++, Ruby, and Smalltalk.

Follow the link for the rest of his review.

Technorati Tags:

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

smalltalk

Twitter via xAuth: Working

October 2, 2010 13:35:09.003

I still need to integrate the work I've done with my blog tools, but I have Twitter access working from Smalltalk again. To do that, I had to build an xAuth interface. That wasn't hard, although it took a bit of research on my part to properly construct the authentication header. In any event, I posted the package OAuth to the public store repository. The OAuth implementation is not complete, but the simpler xAuth one is. To use it, you have to get keys from the service (like Twitter) that you want to integrate with. Then, you get your token:


auth := XAuthenticator fromSettings: (OAuth.Settings fromFile: 'twitterOAuth.ini').
tokenObject := auth executeXAuthAccessTokenRequest.

With the token retrieved, you should be able to do the following to update Twitter:


postCollection add: 'status' -> 'Testing xAuth to Twitter from Smalltalk'.
auth 
	executeXAuthCallFor: postCollection 
	with: tokenObject 
	to: 'http://api.twitter.com/1/statuses/update.json'

Now, Twitter doesn't want you to fetch a new token for each session; they want to get one, save it, and then use that (pretty much forever). So, I created a simple package - MiniXAuthTwit - that makes this simple. When it makes a token request, it'll store that token in a binary file (xAuthTokens.bos), and look for it before attempting to do a tweet. To use that package, all you do is:


MiniTwitPoster tweet: 'This is my tweet'

I started plugging this into my blog posting tools a bit ago, but never got around to finishing that. Looks like that's my next project :)

Technorati Tags: ,

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

smalltalk

Smalltalk in Stockholm

October 2, 2010 16:52:17.000

A lively evening of Smalltalk and other dynamic languages is coming to Stockholm, Sweden on October 19th:

Cincom (Julian Fitzell, Tim Matthews), DevoTeam Quaint (Björn Eiderbäck) and TPG Objektfabriken (Göran Krampe) joined forces and invite you to an evening full of presentations and informal exchange around dynamic languages.
Topics will comprise “Dynamic languages on mobile platforms” (Mikael Kindborg, MoSync), “Web development with Seaside” (Julian Fitzell, Cincom) as well as a series of mini presentations highlighting cool aspects of each language the entire agenda will be published shortly. To ensure your seat at this free-of-charge event, please sign up here:

Technorati Tags: ,

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

books

Whither Books?

October 3, 2010 6:46:59.000

I think Seth Godin is on to something. He's written a dozen books, but he's quoted in an interview saying this:

“I’ve decided not to publish any more books in the traditional way. 12 for 12 and I’m done. I like the people, but I can’t abide the long wait, the filters, the big push at launch, the nudging to get people to go to a store they don’t usually visit to buy something they don’t usually buy, to get them to pay for an idea in a form that’s hard to spread … I really don’t think the process is worth the effort that it now takes to make it work. I can reach 10 or 50 times as many people electronically. No, it’s not ‘better’, but it’s different. So while I’m not sure what format my writing will take, I’m not planning on it being the 1907 version of hardcover publishing any longer.”

That sounds about right to me. iTunes (and the various streaming models like Pandora) have completely disintermediated music. It's possible for an artist to sell music without the huge number of middle men now; I think the same thing is about to happen with books. That's terrifying to the publishers of course, but the RIAA wasn't (and still isn't, for that matter) happy either. Technology is going to drive more people in the direction that Godin is taking.

Technorati Tags:

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

smalltalk

Smalltalk in France

October 3, 2010 11:02:11.130

There are four Smalltalk presentations at the Open Source Developers's Conference in Paris , October 9-10. Check out the schedule listing those talks - one of them will be Julian Fitzell talking about Seaside.

Technorati Tags: ,

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

news

Gadgets to the Rescue

October 3, 2010 12:08:11.847

This story from Chile - about how the miners trapped there are getting physical and moral support via a lifeline of small gadgets and other items - is really fascinating.

Technorati Tags: ,

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

audio

Industry Misinterpretations 208: Smalltalk TV

October 3, 2010 12:22:12.997

This week's podcast is a coversation with Chris Cunnington, the guy behind Smalltalk TV. Chris has been doing a (mostly weekly) screencast series on Squeak for awhile now; this is of interest to me because of my work on Smalltalk Daily. We talked some about tools and techniques, and about what our goals have been for doing the screencasts. You can get to Chris' YouTube page for The Smalltalk Medicine Show here.

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 - you can vote for the Podcast Alley, and subscribe on iTunes.. Interested in Cincom Smalltalk? Why not download it now and try it out yourself? 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

smalltalk

Glamour on Seaside

October 3, 2010 17:10:19.000

Tudor Girba has announced Glamour on Seaside:

We are happy to announce the first version of Glamour on Seaside. This work was carried out by Andrei Vasile Chis and was sponsored by ESUG. The project offers a Seaside-based rendering of Glamour browsers. In other words, once you have a browser in Glamour, you can now simply display it on the web.

If you want to know more about Glamour, it was one of the 2009 Innovation apps at ESUG - I shot video of the 2009 ESUG talk, and we did a podcast with Tudor about the project earlier this year.

Technorati Tags: , ,

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

smalltalk

Seaside on Twitter

October 4, 2010 6:08:55.935

There's a Seaside Twitter feed I just noticed - looks like an aggregation feed of Seaside related items.

Update: Fixed the link

Technorati Tags:

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

smalltalk

Silicon Squeak

October 4, 2010 6:34:41.045

Torsten reports on Morphie - a new startup providing an interesting form of Seaside hosting using Squeak and "virtual hardware".

Technorati Tags: ,

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

smalltalkDaily

Smalltalk Daily 10/04/10: Using xAuth

October 4, 2010 6:57:20.585

Today's Smalltalk Daily looks at using xAuth to connect to a public web service - in this case, Twitter. The code I used in the screencast is below - to load that code, get the packages OAuth and MinXAuthTwit from the public store repository. To skip to the video, click here..


"the entire conversation with Twitter"
auth := XAuthenticator fromSettings: (OAuth.Settings fromFile: 'twitterOAuth.ini').
accessData := auth executeXAuthAccessTokenRequest.
postCollection := OrderedCollection new.
postCollection add: 'status' -> 'Testing xAuth to Twitter from Smalltalk'.
auth 
	executeXAuthCallFor: postCollection 
	with: accessData 
	to: 'http://api.twitter.com/1/statuses/update.json'

"save the results as a file for addition to any RSS/Atom aware tool"
file := 'calFeed.xml' asFilename writeStream.
file nextPutAll: xml.
file close.

"Using the simpler package I published"
MiniTwitPoster tweet: 'Test Tweet from simple interface object'

If you can't see the embedded video directly, you can go directly to YouTube for it. To watch now, click on the viewer below:

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: , , ,

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

gadgets

Microsoft Gets Back into the Mobile Game

October 4, 2010 9:31:29.665

A lot of people - myself included - thought MS had lost the mobile space, but they are getting their latest entry out ahead of HP (Palm) - so maybe they can challenge for the third space behind Apple and Google:

Steve Ballmer will be the keynote speaker at Microsoft's New York launch event for Windows Phone 7. He'll be joined on stage by AT&T's Ralph de la Vega and when the pep rally is over, we're promised opportunities to finally handle the official incarnations of retail Windows Phones for ourselves.

I've read generally positive reviews for the Windows Phone, so we'll see.

Technorati Tags: ,

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

sports

Streaming the Playoffs

October 4, 2010 10:36:54.542

With all the time I spend at the gym, this kind of thing sounds pretty cool:

The Postseason.TV package, available for $10, provides access to live video (synced with live broadcast audio) from multiple camera angles for every postseason game.

iPad in hand, I can use the exercise bike at the gym and follow along. Yes, they have TVs, but who knows what channels those will be tuned to - mostly,. it's news, and for the first round, a lot of the games overlap.

Technorati Tags: , , ,

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This

movies

Direct to NetFlix?

October 4, 2010 17:39:31.000

It looks like the "direct to DVD" space died, which is what has stopped the planned Stargate movies from happening:

The only thing that is blocking the SG-1 movie or the Atlantis movie, the only thing, is the fact that the direct-to-DVD market has gone away. We were very fortunate with Ark of Truth and Continuum to be among the last very successful direct-to-DVD releases before it all stopped happening. The market has changed, and it's still changing, and it's not what it was. And, of course, there have been very big changes at MGM that kind of added to that.

Well, what about "direct to NetFlix and iTunes" as an idea then? It's basically the same space, just updated to modern delivery methods.

Technorati Tags: , ,

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This