Still Snowing!
The Snowpocalypse continues into the night:
Technorati Tags: snow, blizzard, son+of+snowmageddon
. .
The author of this blog, James Robertson, passed away in April 2014. This blog is being maintained by David Buck (david@simberon.com).
The Snowpocalypse continues into the night:
Technorati Tags: snow, blizzard, son+of+snowmageddon
Jason Calacanis believes that Google Buzz is the next big thing, and has cut the value of Facebook in half. Umm, right - just like Wave. Here's his theory:
Google Buzz is way faster than the sluggish Facebook -- this is a HUGE advantage.
Google Buzz puts relies and updates into your GMAIL as threads -- this is BRILLIANT and a HUGE advantage.
Right, because what most of us want is more stuff in our inbox. Sure Jason. You and the other three people who actually want more email can jump on the Buzz bandwagon - the rest of us will give it all the attention we gave Wave.
As to the whole "people don't trust Facebook because of privacy concerns" thing - the sad reality is that this is one of the few things that Scott McNealy got right - no one cares
His next theory is even crazier:
This really is game over for Facebook because you know Microsoft and Aol are going to copy Google Buzz as quick as they can. In fact, Aol would have a HUGE renaissance if they simply knocked off Google Buzz's exact feature set. You would than have a reason to keep your @aol email address.
Umm, yeah - because Microsoft has shown such an awesome ability to execute, and AOL has been the nimblest business around. And Google has shown such amazing staying power with any of their new things - Wave, anyone (crickets)?
Technorati Tags: google buzz, facebook
This is why I was never all that worried about Microsoft as a "dangerous monoploy":
Getting back to Dick Brass's criticism of Microsoft, I find it fascinating that top Microsoft executives were aware almost immediately of the threat the iTunes Music Store posed to the whole Windows Media ecosystem, but Microsoft was still unable to stop it. This matches what I've seen time and time again in my last 10 years following the company.
The problem is simple: companies as big and diverse as Microsoft tend to generate self destructive internal politics - and that eventually brings them to a near standstill. It happened to IBM back in the 80's, and now MS has hit the same wall. I expect that MS will be healthier and nimbler in a few years - but it'll be painful for them to get from here to there.
I just got back in from (hopefully) my last snow clearing of the day - it should be someone else's turn at the snow blower next. It's been a heck of a day, between snowfall and wind - I took four more photos before I came in:
Car, Reburied | Walkway at dusk |
Our road at dusk | Our road at dusk |
Technorati Tags: snow, blizzard, son of snowmageddon
Conditions are not improving - heck, since I got back to the house, the wind has picked up - there are points where we can barely see the houses across the street. I shot some video a little over an hour ago, about a mile from my house at the intersection with Maryland 32 - which is a major state artery:
While I was walking up to that intersection, I took a bunch of photos as well:
Down my street | Heading out of the neighborhood |
Looking back into the neighborhood | Uncleared road |
Intersection leaving the neighborhood | Looking past the light |
Off ramp from MD 32 | MD 32 |
Technorati Tags: blizzard, son+of+snowmageddon, snow
Here's a short video I just shot out my back door - the wind is angling such that the front door is out, unless I want snow drifts in my foyer.
Here's a video I took a little after noon:
Technorati Tags: son of snowmageddon, blizzard, snow
Most of the local areas aren't even plowing right now - it's cold, the snow is coming down hard, and the low pressure system off the coast is bringing winds at near hurricane intensity to the area. How much snow are we getting? Well:
I live in that 15 inches + band :) bear in mind, the county hadn't cleared al of the roads from last weekend's storm yet. The back way out of the neighborhood was only notionally clear, and up by the local hospital there were still piles in the center of the road, over the double yellow. This part of Maryland simply isn't equipped for this level of snow (and based on averages, why would it be?).
Lots more to come before this is over - who knows when we'll be dug out...
Technorati Tags: son of snowmageddon, snow, blizzard
This storm is adding high winds to the piles of snow, for extra awesome - along with that layer of ice from last night. My car is buried again:
And here are a couple of "road? What road?" shots:
Technorati Tags: snow, son of snowmageddon, blizzard
As if the snow hasn't been enough fun, we're getting ice now - and probably more snow on top. Awesome. The first photo is of the snowbanks around my front walk; the second is of the road out front.
Technorati Tags: snow, son+of+snowmageddon
It's coming down pretty hard now - our street is covered over. Tomorrow morning should be interesting:
Technorati Tags: snow, son of snowmageddon
You can grab the podcast for the Zune directly on Microsoft's Zune marketplace now.
While I really like the Xbox, I just got an object lesson in why the Zune is going nowhere fast. I submitted "Industry Misinterpretations" to the Zune marketplace to be listed with their podcasts sometime last summer. I just received this in email:
Did you know that your podcast is now featured on Zune.net, available to hundreds of thousands of visitors? We are pleased to include your content in our catalog.
Every time I've submitted a feed to Apple, it's taken 2 days or so to get an approval. For all the complaints about Apple's approval process, for a podcast publisher, it seems to be way, way better than Microsoft's....
Son of Snowmageddon has arrived:
Technorati Tags: snow, son of snowmageddon
Today's screencast takes a look at how you can detect stack overflows in your Smalltalk code.
You can download the video directly here. If you like this kind of video, why not subscribe to "Smalltalk Daily"?
Technorati Tags: stack overflow
Just what we need: Snowmageddon, the sequel:
Technorati Tags: snow
There's a new research oriented Smalltalk mailing list (also linked over to Nabble) - http://groups.google.com/group/smalltalk-research. Check it out.
I think the dominance of the iPhone in terms of developer mindshare - as opposed to actual deployment statistics - tells me that having a well known and well understood deployment environment drives things quite a bit. Dare Obasanjo links to these smartphone sales stats:
- Nokia: 39%
- RIM: 20% (Blackberry)
- Apple 15%
- HTC: 5%
- Other: 21% (Samsung is expected to make a major jump this year)
The more interesting piece of information is this:
According to these stats, the iPhone OS is actually the major source of traffic for the mobile web in most continents except for Africa and Asia.
Which tells you why there's so much focus on the iPhone - for good or ill, that's where the eyeballs are...
Technorati Tags: iPhone, mobile web
Here's another video from ESUG 2009 - Tim Mackinnon talking about project planning.
You can download the video directly here. If you like this kind of video, why not subscribe to "Smalltalk Videos"?
Technorati Tags: smalltalk, brest, france, esug09, project planning
I took a short trip to get a couple thing I forgot at the store, and snapped a few more photos while I was out. Here's an on ramp into the shopping plaza being cleared:
The next three shots show the sheer brilliance behind "random shapes in the road traffic calming" in an area that gets snow:
I rather suspect that if my county executive lived on this street (see above), those idiotic shapes would be gone soon. Yes, I'm talking about you, Ken Ulman. I dare you to come stand at this corner and justify this nonsense.
Technorati Tags: snow, digging out
Well, we can get out, but parking is an adventure. At all the store plazas, there are still (pretty large) remnants of the December storm, never mind the mountains we added over the weekend. Here are a few examples - first, I had to hit the gas station, because one of my wiper blades snapped off when I turned it on:
This is an example of the sort of mounds there are in the parking lots - this is from the local grocery store lot:
And another view - see these towering over the cars:
Finally, the swell stuff storms leave behind with the helpful traffic calming devices:
Technorati Tags: snow, digging out
Oh boy - We got 23 inches in December, over 30 this last weekend - and now round three is coming on Tuesday/Wednesday:
ACCUMULATIONS...10 TO 20 INCHES
And the forecast shows cold temps all week, with more snow Saturday. Exciting!
Technorati Tags: snow
There are lots of side streets that still aren't plowed - but there's progress near me - that's a sidewalk that was partly cleared yesterday:
... with a gap for sledding:
Finally, one of the streets that was unplowed yesterday has finally seen a plow. No salt or other treatment yet, but at least the people living there can get out now:
Meanwhile, my wife was trying to get ahead of the next storm with a grocery order - but Peapod called this morning, cancelling. Their trucks can't get here :/
Technorati Tags: snow
Today's screencast looks at some extensions to the FileBrowser tool:
You can download the video directly here. If you like this kind of video, why not subscribe to "Smalltalk Daily"?
Technorati Tags: filebrowser, tools
NBC seems to wish that the last 7 months with Conan doing the Tonight Show was all just a bad dream - and they'd be really happy if you drew the same conclusion :)
I thought the lamp post looked interesting in the snow :)
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The scaling issues aren't all solved yet:
Technorati Tags: twitter
Well, this should be interesting:
A WINTER STORM WATCH REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM TUESDAY AFTERNOON THROUGH WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON. * PRECIPITATION TYPE... SNOW. * ACCUMULATIONS... POTENTIAL FOR 5 OR MORE INCHES OF SNOW. * TIMING... MID TO LATE TUESDAY AFTERNOON THROUGH WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON.
Just what we need :)
Update: Oh boy, the latest forecast is telling me that this has the potential to be a serious storm, and all they're saying right now is "several inches". Hope that blower holds together :)
Technorati Tags: snow
Here's a proposed regulation of nearly boundless stupidity - start treating portable batteries (for phones, laptops, etc) as hazardous materials for the purposes of air travel:
For instance, the battery inside an already-padded box for a new notebook PC might need to be packaged in an additional fiberboard box along with extra shipping documents, he said. I
t could also mean untold numbers of workers overseas and in the U.S. will have to get "fully-regulated hazmat" training to simply handle a box with an iPod or HP laptop inside, Kerchner said.
That would be just about the stupidest outcome I can imagine. Just how stupid are the people who dream this stuff up, anyway?
Technorati Tags: security
Well, it was a lot of work - but the car is finally free. Here's where things stood after we got the bottom of the driveway clear - my neighbor's blower was back online after some small repairs:
There's just no way I could get that "attachment" cleared, so I climbed in via the passenger door, and moved the car down the newly cleared driveway. Oh, and this picture shows the huge mound that I had to chip down some before we could even use the snowblower :) Anyway - the car:
Then I got the rest of the snow off, shoveled up the mess where the car had been, and pulled it back:
Good thing I lost weight a few years ago - there's very little space to squeeze into there :) At least I can get out in either car if I need to, and the streets are clear up to the exit from the neighborhood - unlike the poor folks who live on side streets here - their streets look like my patio:
More video from the Pharocast folks - they're on a roll. The real fun starts a year or so in, when you start noticing that the older screencasts need to be updated :)
Technorati Tags: pharo, screencast
This week's podcast is the audio for a presentation I gave to the Toronto Smalltalk User's Group last month, on January 26th - it's an overview of the products we released in 2009:
You can grab the slides 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.
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: audio, visualworks, objectstudio, webvelocity, product release
If you live on a side street, you're still waiting. My friend Mike posted this picture, with the caption - "Our driveway leads nowhere! Howard County, where are the plows? "
I chipped some more snow off my driveway - I could actually get my car out now if I had to. Of course, I'd have to climb in the passenger side, angle it around, and then shovel the mess up - but that's progress :)
My Car | My Driveway |
Mailbox | Buried Footpath |
Unplowed Street | Unplowed Street |
My Walkway | Ramp Off MD 32 |
Most of the sidestreets in the neighborhood haven't been plowed at all, not even once - which means that no one living down there is getting out at all...
Oh boy, the weatherman just told us that the Tues/Wed storm will be "several more inches"
I seriously have no idea where we'll put it :)
Technorati Tags: snow
The snowstorm finally ended - I think we got about 30 inches. I have a few more photos - I'm now exhausted, after helping clear four driveways. The blower was only able to help once we cut the snow down, and then it ran into a problem after the third driveway. Tiring!
Update: The official measurement for my area just came in - 33.8 inches. No wonder I'm so tired :)
When I headed up to bed at 1:30 AM last night, I measured 15 inches of snow on my back step. About 30 minutes ago, I measured 25 - and the snow hasn't slacked off. Here's a short video and a few photos, showing how huge an event this is:
Fortunately, we still have power - probably because the lines are underground here. Here's a shot I just took of my grill:
And here's my patio furniture:
This is probably too deep for the smallish snow blower a bunch of us in the neighborhood went in on. Tomorrow is going to be a heck of a day, especially since it's supposed to just keep snowing...
I don't think I've ever seen numbers like this for anywhere I've lived:
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I'll have to think up some new scare terms for snow :)
It's really coming down now - this shot was taken 20 minutes after the one above:
Technorati Tags: snow
James Foster has put up a convenient set of links to the video series he's put out - including a link to a downloadable archive.
Next week I'll be redoing some of the Cairo screencasts - they are all outdated, simply due to the fact that you can load cairo much more easily now:
On Windows and OS X, you'll have the shared libraries installed as well (assuming you picked those when you ran the installer. If you didn't, re-run the installer and do so). For Linux or Unix platforms, you'll have to get Cairo installed yourself.
Once you have it loaded, try this as a simple "Is Cairo Working" test:
| win component | win := ApplicationWindow new. win component: (VisualBlock block: [:gc :box | gc newCairoContextWhile: [:cr | cr source: ColorValue red; rectangle: (box insetBy: 20); fillPreserve; source: ColorValue blue; strokeWidth: 20; stroke]]). win open.
If it worked, you should get this (make the window bigger to see it:
Here it comes - supposedly, 2 feet of the white stuff is on the way:
Technorati Tags: snow, snowmageddon
I find it interesting that Oracle feels it's necessary to put out a "Java isn't dying" video. What I find disturbing is the color scheme on that page. Seriously, I felt like I was back in the Deep Roads in Dragon Age Origins...
Today's Smalltalk Daily looks at how you can use WriteBarriers to track object changes. You can download the code example here.
You can download the video directly here. If you like this kind of video, why not subscribe to "Smalltalk Daily"?
Technorati Tags: change tracking, smalltalk, write barriers
With this huge storm on the way, thank goodness I'm not traveling this weekend:
Now the forecast is calling for 18-25 inches of snow - should be a wild ride over the next couple of days. The local school system has already decided to let school out 3 hours early...
Everything I read about Microsoft lately sounds like a replay of IBM back in the 80s: years of coasting on a profitable business (Mainframes then, Office/Windows now) have led to a very inward looking company. The NY Times has an article from Dick Brass that makes an interesting point about Tablets and Office:
When we were building the tablet PC in 2001, the vice president in charge of Office at the time decided he didn't like the concept. The tablet required a stylus, and he much preferred keyboards to pens and thought our efforts doomed. To guarantee they were, he refused to modify the popular Office applications to work properly with the tablet. So if you wanted to enter a number into a spreadsheet or correct a word in an e-mail message, you had to write it in a special pop-up box, which then transferred the information to Office. Annoying, clumsy and slow.
Rob Fahrni points out that the VP who pushed that POV was Steve Siofsky, who's now even more influential at MS. I think the next few years at Microsoft are going to play out a lot like the 80's did for IBM: a large decline (not death), with the possibility of a second (less influential) act - if they get a management team that can adapt to the new reality fast enough.
I lived in East Fishkill, NY when IBM started to run into trouble, and it really left a mark on that area - most jobs were either directly with IBM, or in businesses that served them or their staff. It took a long time before that area was able to diversify off being such a "company town" - I suspect Redmond is in for a lot of the same.
First, after Apple's iPad announcement with no Flash, Adobe's Evangelist pulled out the pr0n card:
My friend Matt Drance, Apple's former iPhone evangelist, summed up what this means on Twitter:"Adobe has resorted to playing the porn card. It's over."
Following a link from there, John Gruber noted:
Flash evangelist Lee Brimelow made his little poster showing what a bunch of Flash-using web sites look like without Flash without actually looking to see how they render on MobileSafari. Ends up a bunch of them, including the porno site, already have iPhone-optimized versions with no blue boxes, and video that plays just fine as straight-up H.264. iPhone visitors to these sites have no idea theyâre missing anything because, well, theyâre not missing anything. For a few other of the sites Brimelow cited, like Disney and Spongebob Squarepants, there are dedicated native iPhone apps.
Finally, I came across this thoughtful piece on the problem, which explains that Adobe is actually stuck in C++ legacy-land, while Apple wants developers to work in Objective-C:
Can Adobe just port what they have into Objective-C or use Carbon. Unfortunately no, the Flash Player is written in C++ and going from C++ to Objective-C is not very practical. Objective-C is just another superset of C. It simply adds some OOP logic and a messaging and some of the syntax is similar to Smalltalk. You can compile any C program into Objective-C but that's not currently possible to do with a C++ program
Based on all of this, I've rethought my theory - I don't think Apple will need to reconsider Flash at all. I think Adobe is going to have to reconsider where they stand. Mind you, I've had it pointed out (via Rob Fahrni) that you can, in fact, compile C++ in an Objective-C environment. Based on his post, it still sounds like Adobe has a rather large mountain in front of it...
The future of video is streaming - even ATT has caught up with that fact:
But all that is about to change. AT&T announced Thursday morning that it will now allow the SlingPlayer iPhone app to stream live over its 3G network.
What we really need now is for Apple to release streaming support for iTunes and the iPhone. Then add over the air updates instead of requiring the synch cable. Google has done that for their Android phones, and Apple needs to catch up.
Today's screencast demonstrates how to create a Document object and print it using the native print dialog on Windows (rather than the default printer, which is what will normally happen). ,You can download the code used in this screencast here.
You can download the video directly here. If you like this kind of video, why not subscribe to "Smalltalk Daily"?
Amazon recently bought a small company that builds innovative touchscreen devices, leading to the thought that they might well have a next generation device on the way that would leapfrog the iPad:
Unlike traditional capacitive sensors, our patent-pending system can detect any object -- not just a finger -- and can determine how much pressure is being applied to every point on a sensor simultaneously. IFSR sensors are natively multitouch, use less power than capacitive sensors, and are much less expensive to produce, making them a highly disruptive technology with widespread market applications.
Now if they were able to add design sensibility to that tech...
In addition to the screencasts I've been doing, the Pharocast guys have been doing a bunch of screencasts, and the Gemstone folks have been on a tear releasing video, too. Great time to start learning Smalltalk!
Technorati Tags: video, screencast
Dave Buck relays news of Cincom customer Igor Dmytryk talking about the trading system at EDC at the next Ottawa STUG, on Feb 10:
The core trading platform used by the Treasury group at Export Development Canada is written in Smalltalk. The system has been under constant development for over 10 years. The talk will demo the system and cover aspects of our development methodology, testing and future plans.
Send email to Dave to RSVP; the talk starts at 6PM, here:
Main Lobby of EDC
151 O'Connor
Ottawa
This is interesting:
According to the National Federation of the Blind, only 10 percent of blind children learn braille today, down from 50 percent in the 1950s, and only 10 percent of blind people in America read braille.
I'm not sure I have any opinion on whether it's good, bad, or indifferent - I'm not blind, and I don't know anyone who is. I do know that listening (podcasts) is different than reading - that's why I'm far more interested in e-readers (like the coming iPad) than I am in audiobooks. Is it the same for blind people? It seems they're "voting with their fingers".
Unless Macheist has Gruber's permission (which sounds doubtful, but who knows) - how is this not a copyright violation:
The team behind MacHeist has just launched "DaringFireballWithComments.net" a website that mirrors Gruber's site with, you guessed it, comments.
There's also the possible branding infringement, although that would imply that Gruber applied for a trademark. Either way, it smells wrong to me. This is the same tactic that spammers use to build link farms. They could have accomplished the same thing with SideWiki...
Technorati Tags: sleaze
If you've registered for one of the Smalltalk events we have coming up (in Paris and London), you may well have gotten inaccurate information in the confirmation email. It looks like the times are off by 5 hours (London) and 6 hours (Paris). The events run from 9 AM - 1 PM local time in both locations.
The addresses you received are fine; just be careful about the times :)
Today's screencast looks at the JSON support that ships as part of WebVelocity 1.0.
You can download the video directly here. If you like this kind of video, why not subscribe to "Smalltalk Daily"?
Technorati Tags: seaside, json, webvelocity