Currently we are developing a new interesting feature for seaBreeze: Internationalization and Localization. Today we had the great break-through: The first multi-lingual seaBreeze application was up and running on my machine today. We are working together with a master course in software localization at Anhalt University. So please be patient to see progress in the not too far future.
If you're interested in becoming a beta user, follow the link for details.
TechDirt spotted an entertaining attempt at revenue gathering via an implicit paywall - an upstate New York newspaper website posted the following:
A subscription is required at North Country Gazette. We allow only one free read per visitor. We are currently gathering IPs and computer info on persistent intruders who refuse to buy subscription and are engaging in a theft of services. We have engaged an attorney who will be doing a bulk subpoena demand on each ISP involved, particularly Verizon Droids, Frontier and Road Runner, and will then pursue individual legal actions.
I anxiously await the response from that famed ISP, Verizon Droid.
Today's Smalltalk 4 You looks at the process of downloading and installing VisualWorks (from Cincom). While I installed it on OS X, the process is the same across all the platforms supported by VisualWorks. If you have trouble viewing it here in the browser, you can also navigate directly to YouTube. To watch now, use the viewer below:
If you have trouble viewing that directly, you can click here to download the video directly. If you need the video in a Windows Media format, then download that here.
Here's episode 3 of "James and Michael on Games" - in this podcast, we spend a fair amount of time on UNCHARTED 2: Among Thieves, a game Michael has played, but James hasn't.
Here's another video from ESUG 2010, which was held in Barcelona, Spain, the week of September 13, 2010. In this presentation, G. Zabala talks about Physical Etoys. You can watch using the embedded player below, or follow this link to Vimeo.
Why, you ask? Because I was trying to read a cartoon, and a Bing ad insisted on rolling over the page and playing video that could not be interrupted. Yes Microsoft, you got my attention - just not in the way you wanted.
Today's Smalltalk 4 You looks at the process of installing ObjectStudio on Windows 7. If you have trouble viewing it here in the browser, you can also navigate directly to YouTube. To watch now, use the viewer below:
If you have trouble viewing that directly, you can click here to download the video directly. If you need the video in a Windows Media format, then download that here.
Attendees will be able to read and write Smalltalk code and will be able to use the Smalltalk environment to continue to enhance their knowledge. Attendees will be able to lay out windows and write the Smalltalk code needed to manage the windows.
You can register at the link - the cost is $1250 per person.
Sony's gaming business is moving towards profitability this year -- something that's eluded the company each year since the PlayStation 3 was launched in 2006.
Just think about that - four years of pretty harsh losses before things turn around - and then the console maker has to deal with two realities:
The need to milk profits out of the now (no longer bleeding) system
Getting ready to launch a next generation system
That sure explains why the improvements to the PS3, XBox, and Wii have all been incremental. Even though Nintendo was profitable out of the gate, they now have Apple on their turf, cutting into what they probably thought of as milk money (the entire DS line).
Way back when XP was released, and IE6 was new and shiny, I doubt that Microsoft foresaw this problem:
The latest statistics from Web metrics company Net Applications pegged IE6's usage share at 15.6%, which means it's the world's third-most-used browser edition. Many of the holdouts are enterprises locked into IE6 because the commercial software or home-grown applications they use work only in that browser.
Apparently, many of those outfits won't update because their IT applications are dependent on IE 6, and in the current economic environmnet, rewriting them just isn't in the budget. It's a nasty problem for everyone - IT shops are stuck on a now very old OS and very out of date browser, and Microsoft is left with a fairly ugly decision - should they stick with the 2014 death date for XP (and with it, IE 6), or should they provide some kind of virtualization bridge?
Things are looking pretty good - I'm looking at two offers right now. Given the huge tide of long term joblessness in the US right now, I have to say that this is a huge relief for me :)
Welcome to episode 3 of Independent Misinterpretations - a new Smalltalk and dynamic language oriented podcast with James Robertson, Michael Lucas-Smith, and David Buck. This week Michael and I discuss Javascript - the good, the bad, and the indifferent. We also touch on integrating Javascript with Smalltalk web technologies such as Seaside.
You can subscribe to the podcast in iTunes (or any other podcatching software) using this feed directly or in iTunes with this one.
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.
If you like the music we use, please visit Josh Woodward's site. We use the song Troublemaker for our intro/outro music. I'm sure he'd appreciate your support!
If you have feedback, send it to jarober@gmail.com - or visit us on Facebook - you can subscribe in iTunes using this iTunes enabled feed.. If you enjoy the podcast, pass the word - we would love to have more people hear about Smalltalk!
Welcome to episode 3 of Independent Misinterpretations - a new Smalltalk and dynamic language oriented podcast with James Robertson, Michael Lucas-Smith, and David Buck. This week Michael and I discuss Javascript - the good, the bad, and the indifferent. We also touch on integrating Javascript with Smalltalk web technologies such as Seaside.
You can subscribe to the podcast in iTunes (or any other podcatching software) using this feed directly or in iTunes with this one.
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.
If you like the music we use, please visit Josh Woodward's site. We use the song Troublemaker for our intro/outro music. I'm sure he'd appreciate your support!
If you have feedback, send it to jarober@gmail.com - or visit us on Facebook - you can subscribe in iTunes using this iTunes enabled feed.. If you enjoy the podcast, pass the word - we would love to have more people hear about Smalltalk!
Welcome to episode 6 of "That Podcast: An FNV Diary" - a podcast where Michael Lucas-Smith, Makahlua, and I document our trials and tribulations in Fallout: New Vegas.
On today's podcast, we talk about the DeathClaws at the Quarry, the Ultra Luxe (and how Michael and Maki dealt with it more rationally than James did). Meanwhile, James got back onto the plot, siding with the NCR.
Got feedback? Send it to James. We'd really appreciate it if you head on over to iTunes and leave a comment - enjoy the podcast, and we'll see you in the wastelands!
Welcome to episode 6 of "That Podcast: An FNV Diary" - a podcast where Michael Lucas-Smith, Makahlua, and I document our trials and tribulations in Fallout: New Vegas.
On today's podcast, we talk about the DeathClaws at the Quarry, the Ultra Luxe (and how Michael and Maki dealt with it more rationally than James did). Meanwhile, James got back onto the plot, siding with the NCR.
Got feedback? Send it to James. We'd really appreciate it if you head on over to iTunes and leave a comment - enjoy the podcast, and we'll see you in the wastelands!
Welcome to Javascript 4 You - a new screencast series devoted to Javascript tutorials. We are starting with the basics - what is Javascript, and how can you get started learning it? Today's screencast introduces some basic concepts, which will be built upon as we go forward. If you have trouble viewing it here in the browser, you can also navigate directly to YouTube.
Join the Facebook Group to discuss the tutorials. You can view the archives here.
To watch now, use the viewer below:
If you have trouble viewing that directly, you can click here to download the video directly. If you need the video in a Windows Media format, then download that here.
I've just launched a new screencast series on Javascript - you can keep up with it on the archive page. I'll be continuing with the Smalltalk series as well. My plan at present is to alternate by day. So you'll see a screencast a day, on either Smalltalk or Javascript. Enjoy!
This makes me wonder - it's in a long screed about how Facebook is missing some level of privacy controls:
maybe I only want to tell a few close buddies about that episode with the VERY BAD bean burrito. maybe your girlfriend only wants a FEW honest opinions from her CLOSE friends on whether that new dress makes her ass look fat. and maybe your frat brother only wants to tell a few buddies about the AWESOME house party he's throwing next weekend, when he's planning to invite the smoking hot new freshman sensation over with 3 of her equally sizzling BFFs. and finally, maybe I only want to share that airfare deal on a Final Four Vegas roadtrip (& the pictures!) with my set of close friends. what happens in Vegas stays in a very tight and private social graph... you hope, anyway.
Maybe, just maybe, Dave McClure could figure out that sending an email, or picking up the phone works just fine for that class of problem. Expecting a social media service to solve every problem for you is.... silly.
I just don’t understand why media pundits think that people are going to want to turn those BRAND SPANKING NEW HDTVs into PC monitors watching internet quality video. It’s a hassle. There is nothing that works out of the box. You have to be your own personal systems integrator and get the right box, figure out how to get content to that box over your in home internet, and then eat up your internet bandwidth in order to watch video that is dumbed down because it takes so much bandwidth. Why ?
Back to the Netflix using 20pct of bandwidth. Now that they have gotten there, it is going to be easier for Netflix than anyone else to grow their bandwidth usage. They can add streaming subscribers at a controlled level and it could work. Growing their usage as a percentage of total bandwidth consumption quickly becomes a trojan horse in the streaming wars. They are consuming so much bandwidth, they literally are blocking out the ability of anyone to compete with them.
Well, he's evolving. Before it was "it can't work, ever". Now it's "it can only work for Netflix". Apparently, 2 months ago when I downloaded a 17gb digital edition of DragonAge: Origins for my Mac (in under an hour) while my wife and daughter watched NetFlix, I was doing something unpossible.
The next meeting of the Toronto Smalltalk User Group in Monday, November 8. We have a request to go over some Seaside basics, so we'll build some simple Seaside applications and demo some code.
Today's Smalltalk 4 You looks at the process of installing WebVelocity. If you have trouble viewing it here in the browser, you can also navigate directly to YouTube. To watch now, use the viewer below:
If you have trouble viewing that directly, you can click here to download the video directly. If you need the video in a Windows Media format, then download that here.
I was over on Facebook this morning getting the daily screencast online, when I noticed the big "go Vote" banner they are running. As it happens, I'm something of a contrarian on the whole "make sure you vote" thing. In fact, I'd prefer fewer people voted based on one small thing: if you can't name your current:
Local representative (state and town/county)
House of Representatives Congressman
2 Senators in the US Senate
Then please, do the rest of us a favor: stay home. An uninformed vote is worse than no vote at all. Pick whatever set of ideas you think represents you best; that's not the part that bothers me. Just make sure you have a a clue as to who is running, and what they all stand for :)
Pavel continues with his work on a small Pharo Kernel. The latest release not only contains a headless 2.2 MB image but also a small 3MB image with KomHttpServer.
That's pretty cool - I know that a lot of commercial customers of VA and VW would like to see something like that.
If you're running one of the higher volume websites - and today (election day in the US), many of the political blogs are in that category - you don't want to see this:
Error establishing a database connection
I really wonder how many people don't know that they need a caching solution until they get hammered?
"RoarVM, formerly known as the Renaissance Virtual Machine (RVM) is developed as part of a IBM Research project to investigate programming paradigms and languages for manycore systems of the future. Specifically, this VM is meant to support manycore systems with more than 1000 cores in the future.
It's compatible with Squeak 4.1 and Pharo 1.2 - follow the link for details. This is the fun part:
It is compatible with Squeak 4.1 and Pharo 1.2, has full closure support and was tested with 8 cores, 16 hyperthreads on Intel systems/tested with 56 cores on Tilera TILE64/TILEPro64 processors
Welcome to Javascript 4 You - a new screencast series devoted to Javascript tutorials. We are starting with the basics - what is Javascript, and how can you get started learning it? Today's screencast follows from the first, with some more introductory material. If you have trouble viewing it here in the browser, you can also navigate directly to YouTube.
Join the Facebook Group to discuss the tutorials. You can view the archives here.
To watch now, use the viewer below:
If you have trouble viewing that directly, you can click here to download the video directly. If you need the video in a Windows Media format, then download that here.
"Were copyright law followed to the letter, little audio preservation would be undertaken. Were the law strictly enforced, it would brand virtually all audio preservation as illegal," the study concludes, "Copyright laws related to preservation are neither strictly followed nor strictly enforced. Consequently, some audio preservation is conducted."
That sounds like hyperbole, but keep going:
The consequence is that all sounds recordings made before 1972 will have their copyright expire in 2067 - 95 years after the placement of these recordings under federal protection in 1972. This means that the oldest sound recordings in the US dating from 1890, will only enter the public domain after 177 years.
So something that gets recorded now is locked up for - literally - generations. It's beyond stupid and straight into the absurd. Truth really is stranger than fiction....
Welcome to episode 7 of "That Podcast: An FNV Diary" - a podcast where Michael Lucas-Smith and I document our trials and tribulations in Fallout: New Vegas.
On today's podcast, we talk about the huge number of side quests available in the game, and James goes into some detail about solving Cassidy's (one of the companions) problems.
Got feedback? Send it to James. We'd really appreciate it if you head on over to iTunes and leave a comment - enjoy the podcast, and we'll see you in the wastelands!
Welcome to episode 7 of "That Podcast: An FNV Diary" - a podcast where Michael Lucas-Smith and I document our trials and tribulations in Fallout: New Vegas.
On today's podcast, we talk about the huge number of side quests available in the game, and James goes into some detail about solving Cassidy's (one of the companions) problems.
Got feedback? Send it to James. We'd really appreciate it if you head on over to iTunes and leave a comment - enjoy the podcast, and we'll see you in the wastelands!
Today's Smalltalk 4 You looks at the process of installing F-Script on the Mac. F-Script is a scripting language (like AppleScript) for the Mac, with Smalltalk syntax. If you have trouble viewing it here in the browser, you can also navigate directly to YouTube. To watch now, use the viewer below:
If you have trouble viewing that directly, you can click here to download the video directly. If you need the video in a Windows Media format, then download that here.
There was a point a few years ago when many developers thought that the "language wars" were over: Java (or at least the JVM) was the new standard, and everything going forward would revove around that. Oh sure, things like Smalltalk would still exist around the periphery, but the thinking was that "everything" would end up on the JVM.
Things didn't quite end up that way, and Apple's dominance in the mobile space has a lot to do with that. While they are no longer forcing their favored languages on IOS developers, it's clear that most IOS work will be in Objective-C. That left Apple free to deprecate Java for the Mac, which makes a rather large dent in the Java "write once, run everywhere" story".
Not that Java is hurting - it's the preferred language for Android development, and Android is surging. There are a few issues, notably Oracle's lawsuit - but Java will remain one of the main development tools.
Another consensus changer over the last few years has been Ruby - it didn't all end up on the JVM. Meanwhile, Microsoft has had bigger problems with .NET than they thought they would. The upshot? It's still a diverse landscape for software developers.
Torsten points to some work on the Omni-Browser running via Seaside:
since browsing Smalltalk directly in the webbrowser is easy to do Lukas today updated the packages for "OB-Web" to use OmniBrowser (the Smalltalk browser used in Pharo) to be accessible from a webbrowser too. Just download Pharo 1.1. and follow the simple instructions to run it and see yourself. Browsing the code you will find out that it is a nice example how to use the Comanche webserver (KomHttpServer) to write own web based services. It's also a nice example for AJAX communication between client side JavaScript and server side Smalltalk code using JSON.
Skyfire for iPhone promises to transcode Web-based Flash video on the fly to an iPhone-friendly format.
I suspect that the demand made Steve Jobs a bit unhappy:
Skyfire Labs was caught off guard by the demand for its services, and the company was forced to stop selling the Skyfire browser on iTunes just hours after the app debuted.
While I'm no fan of Flash, here's the thing - the iPad is a great device for watching streaming video, and all of the major TV sites - the network sites and Hulu being the ones I'm thinking of - use Flash. I'm somewhat surprised that the app got approved in the first place :)
Michael Lucas-Smith and I are fans of a number of video games - we both like the Fallout series quite a bit, for instance. Since we end up talking about the games we play so much, we thought it might be fun to do a podcast on the subject. Here's episode 4.
In this podcast, we talk about Civ IV
and Civ V
- we've both played Civ IV quite a bit, and appeared on Polycast to talk about it. Michael carries the chat about Civ V; I don't have it yet, since I'm on the Mac.