I haven't tried "The Daily" yet, but John Gruber's review isn't making me more interested:
Why wait for The Daily when you can open Mobile Safari and see the home page for any of your favorite news sites in 10 seconds? The point of native apps is to provide a better experience than websites can offer. Watching a splash screen rotate a “Loading…” spinner for 80 seconds isn’t it.
I'm frequently on very slow wifi at hotels now, so that 80 seconds might turn into gosh knows how long for me. He makes a great point bout how Flipboard gets something in front of you fast, and then continues loading in the background. That's what this sort of news app needs to do.
JNIPort is a Smalltalk library which allows Java code to be invoked from Smalltalk. It acts as a bridge between the world of Smalltalk objects and a Java Virtual Machine (JVM) where Java code is executing.
Welcome to episode 16 of Independent Misinterpretations - a Smalltalk and dynamic language oriented podcast with James Robertson, Michael Lucas-Smith, and David Buck. This week Dave Buck and I talk about an upcoming refactoring course he's giving over the web, and we touch on a number of topics related to refactoring. You can get registration information for Dave's course at simberon.com
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 16 of Independent Misinterpretations - a Smalltalk and dynamic language oriented podcast with James Robertson, Michael Lucas-Smith, and David Buck. This week Dave Buck and I talk about an upcoming refactoring course he's giving over the web, and we touch on a number of topics related to refactoring. You can get registration information for Dave's course at simberon.com
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!
I have friends who have done some very cool things in Minecraft, but I was pretty pleased with how this room came out. I mostly dug stuff up while my daughter made the interior look nice:
Today's Smalltalk 4 You takes a look at the file list tool (editor) in Squeak. If you have trouble viewing it here in the browser, you can also navigate directly to YouTube. To watch now, click on the image 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.
We'll be posting a new edition of "That Podcast" this week - Michael Fincher and I will be doing another round on "Dead Money" now that I've successfully gotten through it.
This presentation discusses some basic strategies for how Smalltalk can leverage multi-core computers, and the results of using a new simple framework that is now included with Cincom’s VisualWorks and ObjectStudio.
Today's Javascript 4 You. Today we take a look at creating your own Javascript objects. 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, click on the image 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 can't get the daily screencast posted - my MBP seems to be unable to connect to the wifi here (even though every other device I have can). This leads me to believe that I have a hardware issue of somekind. I have a call into Apple, but with the ice/snow storm in progress here in Dallas, I doubt I'll make it to the Apple store until I get back home. Sigh.
Update: The good news is, it's not the Mac - I walked a short distance to a McDonalds, and the wifi connects just fine. The bad news is, I now need to talk to (probably clueless) hotel staff. Bah.
Today's Smalltalk 4 You takes a look at the process model in Smalltalk. While the screencast uses Pharo, the same principles apply across at least Squeak, Pharo, Cuis, and VisualWorks. If you have trouble viewing it here in the browser, you can also navigate directly to YouTube. To watch now, click on the image 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.
Today's Javascript 4 You. Today we take a look at creating your own Javascript classes. 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, click on the image 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'd have more sympathy for Tim Bray's rant about ajax usage and weird url strings if twitter.com/timbray fell on the floor. But look gang - it actually goes to his twitter stream. Sure, along the way it redirects to the funky hashbang url and picks up the ajaxified stuff he goes on about, but still - the simple url actually works.
One of the things that's been a real revelation to me in this job is the whole "how the other half lives" thing. What do I mean by that?
Well, back when I worked at Cincom, it was pretty easy for me to push stuff out to the web,and to access whatever I wanted to see on the web. I worked from home, on a machine I had full access to. At this new job, I'm seeing how things are for software developers in big shops:
Locked down, developer level access only Windows clients
Firewalls that block everything - streaming media, tons of blog sites, anything related to video games, and so on
Now, the blockage makes sense to the IT department - after all, you don't want your proxy server taken down when everyone wants to watch the latest viral YouTube video. On the other hand, it makes it clear to me how some of what I was doing at Cincom didn't always reach the target audience. Tutorial videos on YouTube, Vimeo, and Facebook? Blocked. Public Store Repository? Blocked. Heck, the only reason that the audio and video I hosted on the Cincom servers is accessible is because that site isn't a "known" streaming service.
Fortunately, I still have my personal machine, and once I get to working at home more often I'll be back on the public net more continuously. For people working fulltime in a large organization's office though? The wider net really only exists before and after work, and that means in between family obligations.
That's why all of the social media outreach I'm so in favor of can't be the only thing you do. At this point in time, there are still a ton of people who won't ever see it - at least during working hours.
Today's Smalltalk 4 You takes a look at autocompletion in Pharo. If you have trouble viewing it here in the browser, you can also navigate directly to YouTube. To watch now, click on the image 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.
On the sunny side of the Alps we have a spring already, so let me bring a bit spring to you too with this new Aida release :) Fresh features from last month:
Welcome to episode 17 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, I'm joined by guest host Michael Fincher again. Now that I've finished "Dead Money" properly, we took another look at it, start to finish. I built a new character with this DLC in mind, and that's what we spoke about.
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 17 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, I'm joined by guest host Michael Fincher again. Now that I've finished "Dead Money" properly, we took another look at it, start to finish. I built a new character with this DLC in mind, and that's what we spoke about.
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!
In case anyone thinks that the music piracy argument is new - not so much. Before iPods and CDs, there was the mix tape:
I guarantee I am not the only one with a couple of tapes marked "Road Tunes" for playing while cruising the highway. For a while I was in the habit of buying an LP, listening to it a couple of times, and then putting the tracks onto a tape in an order I found pleasing. You may roll your eyes now, I don't care.
For me, it was less for road trips and more for college parties - how else could I ensure that a Blue Oyster Cut track or two made it into the soundtrack?
Michael pointed out to me that there was a two minute dead space in the podcast - during the call, skype dropped out and I left the recording running to keep things in synch. Later, I neglected to edit the dead space out. I reposted the audio files, and updated the original posts, so if you grab episode 17 now, everything should be cool.
I'd like to call Squeak 4.2 finally officially released now. I posted the first maintenance "fix" to the squeak42 repository the other day, so our process for applying maintenance updates has been tested, in case we should need any more. I'm still waiting for final web-site updates from Janko, but I see no reason to postpone announcing any longer.
. 
