. .

BottomFeeder

New BottomFeeder Development Build

April 19, 2010 14:29:14.673

BottomFeeder

I've pushed up another VW 7.7 build of BottomFeeder - I've been running it myself for a couple of weeks now, so I feel pretty good about it. Give it a try, and let me know about any issues.

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posted by James Robertson

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general

It's the Little Things

April 19, 2010 12:34:58.512

I've been slightly irked at my Mac for weeks now, and I finally realized what's been bothering me - the mouse. Awhile ago, I spilled coffee on the mouse. While it recovered, it didn't recover completely - it was missing clicks from time to time, and that just led to ongoing annoyance that I couldn't quite put my finger on.

It came to me last night playing Dragon Age (which I downloaded for the Mac over the weekend). While missing a mouse click while writing code or blogging is annoying, in game play, it just smacks you in the face. So this morning I ran out and bought a new mouse, and wow - I'm not annoyed at the machine anymore.

It's amazing how your state of mind can be affected by small stuff that you don't even consciously register.

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posted by James Robertson

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gadgets

Gizmodo Finds the Next Gen iPhone?

April 19, 2010 11:34:48.217

Looks like Gizmodo got lucky:

It was found lost in a bar in Redwood City, camouflaged to look like an iPhone 3GS. We got it. We disassembled it. It's the real thing, and here are all the details.

Later they quote John Gruber (Daring Fireball):

So I called around, and I now believe this is an actual unit from Apple — a unit Apple is very interested in getting back.

It's always a good idea to be wary of Apple rumors, but this one looks more solid.

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posted by James Robertson

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humor

Where's Joe?

April 19, 2010 8:17:57.698

Where's Joe when we finally need him?

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Attaching Files to a Store Bundle: Video

April 19, 2010 8:08:29.838

Today's screencast looks at attaching files to a store bundle. If you're looking for a particular topic, you can find it with the Media Search application on our site.

You can download the video directly here. If you like this kind of video, why not subscribe to "Smalltalk Daily"?

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posted by James Robertson

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DRM

How Not to Do DRM

April 19, 2010 6:53:07.551

I'm not a big fan of DRM period, but it really seems like Ubisoft brought the stupid to their implementation:

More than three weeks after the release of The Settlers 7, with the controversial 'always on-line' DRM, a lot of people still can't connect to Ubisoft's DRM servers. The forum threads where people can post if they are unable to connect keep growing daily. One reason for the lack of fixes or responses from support seems to be that the people responsible were on vacation during the Easter holiday, despite the promise of 24/7 monitoring of the servers

If your plan is to require a "phone home" by the software, then you have to make sure that someone is there to, you know, answer the phone :)

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Across Smalltalks: Industry Misinterpretations 184

April 18, 2010 22:56:22.206

This week we spoke to Julian Fitzell about cross dialect Smalltalk work - focusing largely on Grease and Slime, but wandering afield from there as well. It's another two part podcast - come back next week for the conclusion.

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!

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posted by James Robertson

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science

Video Conferences and Ships?

April 18, 2010 14:58:37.304

If this speculation holds up, travel to and from northern Europe could be disrupted regularly for awhile:

"Volcanic activity on Iceland appears to follow a periodicity of around 50 to 80 years. The increase in activity over the past 10 years suggests we might be entering a more active phase with more eruptions," says Thorvaldur Thordarson, an expert on Icelandic volcanoes at the University of Edinburgh, UK. By contrast, the latter half of the 20th century was unusually quiet.

Video conferencing will pick up some of that slack, but face to face meetings will still be required for some things, never mind tourism. "May you live in interesting times", indeed...

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posted by James Robertson

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news

When it Rains it Pours, Volcano Edition

April 18, 2010 10:04:18.464

What Next in Iceland? If past trends repeat themselves, we could be in for a real whopper:

The eruptions of the comparatively small Eyjafjallajökull glacier volcano in Iceland have historically preceded massive eruptions by the more feared Mount Katla. Experts are concerned that the present volcanic eruption could trigger activity at Mount Katla, which is potentially much more dangerous. Its last major eruption was in 1918. Icelandic volcanologists consider it plausible that Katla may erupt, and that is why they are monitoring Katla very closely right now. There are eruption channels between Eyjafjallajökull and Katla and magma could shoot into the Katla volcano. Katla might only need a nudge. Effects of Katla's eruption would put the present air travel chaos in the shade, inflicting much greater economic losses upon Europe.

Say what you will about man's impact on the environment; when Mother Nature gets going, she can really put us in our place...

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posted by James Robertson

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games

Ok, I am Obsessed

April 18, 2010 0:48:05.090

I'm downloading DragonAge for Mac (the deluxe pack). Yes, I think it's fair to call this an obsession now :)

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smalltalk

Squeak 4.1 is out

April 18, 2010 0:33:55.620

Spotted in Planet Squeak

Squeak 4.1 combines the license change occurring in the 4.0 release with the development work that has been going on while the relicensing process took place. Much of the work in this release has been focused on fundamental improvements. Major achievements are the integration of Cog's closure implementation, the improved UI look and feel, the new anti-aliased fonts, the core library improvements, and the modularity advances.

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Progress on Xtreams

April 17, 2010 0:48:50.015

Michael Lucas-Smith has an update on what's going on with the Xtreams code.

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Simplest Way to Start with Store

April 16, 2010 15:48:36.188

I had a question come in this afternoon, about how to get going with Store>. Originally, it required you to use a fairly "heavy" rdbms, like Oracle or SQLServer. later, Bruce Badger provided support for using PostgreSQL, which eliminated the need for client libraries. However, that still required a relatively difficult setup. There are easier options:

Mind you, those solutions are only suitable for personal use; for team use, you still want one of the bigger databases. However, this should get you started :)

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posted by James Robertson

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culture

The New Puritanism

April 16, 2010 9:15:13.067

The puritan ethic never really died; it just migrated away from its religious moorings and morphed into a more free floating idea of punishing the notion that "somewhere, someone is having a good time". Consider Apple's app store policies in that light:

According to a Dec. 21 e-mail reprinted by Neiman, Apple rejected his app because it “contains content that ridicules public figures and is in violation of Section 3.3.14 from the iPhone Developer Program License Agreement which states: Applications may be rejected if they contain content or materials of any kind (text, graphics, images, photographs, sounds, etc.) that in Apple’s reasonable judgment may be found objectionable, for example, materials that may be considered obscene, pornographic, or defamatory

The ban in question is a cartoonist who ran afoul of the policy with satiracal content; a few European publications have run afoul of the nudity bans. It makes me wonder whether Apple will start considering "the great firewall of Cupertino", to protect us while we use Safari on these devices...

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

A Time Tracker in WebVelocity: Video

April 16, 2010 8:54:23.191

Today's Smalltalk Daily looks at a simple Time Tracker application in WebVelocity - 4 methods, with 2 additional "prettifying" ones. This was inspired after I watched the video here, comparing various web app development frameworks. No Smalltalk comparison, so I thought I'd add one. You can see the simpler "Hello World" example as well. If you're looking for a particular topic, you can find it with the Media Search application on our site.

You can download the video directly here. If you like this kind of video, why not subscribe to "Smalltalk Daily"?

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posted by James Robertson

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social media

One Less Social Network

April 15, 2010 22:49:15.349

Looks like I won't be using Ning much longer:

Just a month after Gina Bianchini, co-founder of build-a-social-network service Ning, departed the company, it's cutting 40 percent of its staff and axing its free, ad-supported service.

I don't object, and I'm ok with the idea that they need to focus on a working business model - it's just that for my needs, facebook and YouTube work just fine :)

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posted by James Robertson

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development

Apple's New Policy has Consequences

April 15, 2010 22:24:13.839

Apple's new policy hit Scratch (a Squeak based instructional tool for teaching kids about programming. I saw an email from John McIntosh about it this morning, and now Lambda the Ultimate has noticed:

If the general idea wasn't enough to make you mad, or if you wrote it off as being purely an Apple/Adobe spat, this ought to cut a bit closer to LtU's heart... Apple removes Scratch from iPad/iPhone/iTouch. My wife has taught a couple of classes using Scratch with young kids, and to see the pride they feel at their creations is a marvelous thing. I think restricting their ability to share that feeling is really reprehensible. And the damage done to the programmers of tomorrow? Hard to say

Make chimes in on a similar note.

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Pharo Hits 1.0 MIlestone

April 15, 2010 21:09:28.584

The Pharo project has reached 1.0 - congratulations to them!

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posted by James Robertson

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humor

Overheard

April 15, 2010 20:53:31.489

I liked this - I saw it float by in the Smalltalk IRC Channel:

"I have changed the terms of the deal.... pray I do not change it further" -- Darth Jobs

Heh

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posted by James Robertson

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podcasting

Live at Noon Today

April 15, 2010 8:19:18.313

We'll be doing the podcast at noon eastern today, with Julian Fitzell. The topic? The ins and outs of cross dialect Smalltalk development - what to do, what not to do. Join us on justin.tv!

Update: We are running late, due to some timezone confusion...

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smalltalk

Hello World in WebVelocity: Video

April 15, 2010 8:03:29.343

Today's screencast looks at a simple "Hello World" app in WebVelocity. If you're looking for a particular topic, you can find it with the Media Search application on our site.

You can download the video directly here. If you like this kind of video, why not subscribe to "Smalltalk Daily"?

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posted by James Robertson

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development

Java Slide?

April 15, 2010 7:07:07.388

Interesting comments about Java from Josh Bloch, Google's Java architect - he says that there's no real direction, and licensing issues are starting to cause problems:

The problems around Java that Bloch mentioned largely predate Oracle's acquisition of Sun Microsystems, which oversaw the Java development process, and Bloch called on Oracle to step up as the prime steward of the language and associated platform software."Oracle should take the lead of Java once again," he said.

Over the last few years, Sun had been busy trying to find some way to make money - it doesn't surprise me that a money pit like Java development took a back seat. What will be interesting is Oracle's take. Oracle is profitable, and can afford to do whatever they want with Java - but just how much money do they want to shovel in that direction?

Oracle isn't without challenges of their own, with the rise of acceptable OSS databases - including MySQL, which they own (insofar as anyone can "own" a fully GPL product). I wouldn't be at all surprised to see continued drift, because I just don't know that Java's direction is all that crucial to Oracle's immediate future.

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posted by James Robertson

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gadgets

Not a Good Point

April 15, 2010 6:57:21.124

I have to part with Andres on this one:

Sigh. Just because things look cool, it doesn't make them good. For example, somehow it's a good thing to carry 1000 books in our pockets. What's the point, since we cannot meaningfully deal with even 5 serious books at a time? Moreover, 25% of Americans don't read books at all, and the rest reads about 1 book a month. Are Kindles or iPads worth so much just to read 1 book a month?

This all depends on where you sit. For instance, if you sit on a plane a lot, being able to carryv a lot of books on one small device is a huge win. Years ago, on a trip to Australia, I weighed myself down terribly with a bunch of books for the long flight. On another trip there, I bought a large book in Australia, and then had to figure out how to fit it in my bag for the flight home.

Now, does everyone travel regularly? No, but that's certainly one target for whom such devices make a lot of sense. We bought one recently, because my wife wanted to be able to read the same book upstairs and downstairs. Simple, you think - just cart the book, right? Except, with her knees, she doesn't like to carry stuff up and down. The iPad is small enough for her to handle more easily - and the Kindle app for the iPad and Mac synchs her reading position between the two devices quite nicely.

Ultimately, what makes or breaks any gadget is whether it makes the users happy. It's early days for the iPad, so we don't have a solid idea. Give it a few months, and I think we'll know a lot more - like whether the new restrictions on development irritate enough developers that the irritation flows down to users.

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posted by James Robertson

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development

Just Say No to Waterfall Languages

April 14, 2010 21:41:57.185

I love this from Anders Janmyr:

Anyone, who has worked seriously with a modern dynamically typed language like Ruby or Smalltalk, know that they are more productive. Working with waterfall languages after working with agile languages is just painful. (Thanks to Andreas Ronge for coining the term Waterfall Language.)

Just give Smalltalk a try - make up your own mind :)

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posted by James Robertson

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web

Very Enterprisey

April 14, 2010 14:05:56.814

Maybe Oracle needs to get fewer experts building out their website. I've tried to download their database (I've got valid OTN credentials) with the following results:

  • Chrome (Mac) - general failure to progress past login
  • Firefox (Mac) - initiated a download, saved 0 bytes
  • IE (Windows) - failed to login
  • Safari (Mac) failed to login

And people wonder why alternatives are so popular - at least you can try them out without first sacrificing a few goats...

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posted by James Robertson

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marketing

Bring the Crazy

April 14, 2010 13:01:05.219

Adam Singer notes that some social media marketing is based on utter insanity. Consider this, which he quotes in his post:

Vitrue analyzed Facebook data from its clients — with a combined 41 million fans — and found that most fans yielded an extra impression. That means a marketer posting twice a day can expect about 60 million impressions per month through the news feed.

They use that to value each "fan" at $3.60. You can read Adam's post to get the details - he does a good job of deconstructing the stupid, and there's no real need for me to do more than say "what he said".

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posted by James Robertson

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development

Web Development Questions

April 14, 2010 12:56:07.993

I ran across this screencast (long, but worth watching) comparing and contrasting various web development tools - starting from the premise that UI (including front end web development) really, really needs to be interactive and iterative.

I thought it might be useful to take his two test cases - "Hello World" and "Time Tracker" and do them in WebVelocity - a tool that's pretty much right up the alley this guy is looking at. So, tomorrow's screencast will be the "Hello World" app, and I'll have the time tracker example up on Friday or Monday.

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posted by James Robertson

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gadgets

iPad Shortage?

April 14, 2010 10:18:02.743

So is this an actual shortage of iPads, or the kind of clever rationing that Nintendo did with the Wii to make sure that demand was always kept on edge?

Although we have delivered more than 500,000 iPads during its first week, demand is far higher than we predicted and will likely continue to exceed our supply over the next several weeks as more people see and touch an iPad(TM). We have also taken a large number of pre-orders for iPad 3G models for delivery by the end of April.

Apple runs a pretty tight ship, as does Nintendo. I'm guessing that this is a carefully orchestrated marketing plan in action.

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posted by James Robertson

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itNews

Flash End Run

April 14, 2010 9:08:00.638

Looks like there may be an end-run solution to the "no flash for you" problem that doesn't involve a client level (iPhone or iPad) solution - RipCode has a cloud based transcoder:

RipCode, Inc., the leader in transactional transcoding, announced today its newest product, the TransAct Transcoder V6 can intercept Adobe Flash-based file or live video requests and convert them to a container, video codec, and audio codec accepted by Apple Inc.’s new iPad all transparently to the end user device and without the need for any pre-transcoding or device-based client.

For that to work on the client, either back end services (like, say, hulu) would have to cooperate, or RipCode would have to build a client that did the redirection through their servers. Since the client would be fully native, it might be hard for Apple to reject it with a straight face (not that they've been stopped by that before). If sites that use flash did the work though, it would all come transparently through the browser.

I wonder whether Adobe will be talking to these guys?

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Twitter from Smalltalk: Video

April 14, 2010 8:30:12.293

Today's screencast looks at using Twitter from Smalltalk. If you're looking for a particular topic, you can find it with the Media Search application on our site.

Here's the script I used in the screencast after loading the Twitter


"create settings file"
settings := TwitterClient.Settings new.
settings username: 'TwitterScreenNameHere'.
settings password: 'TwitterPasswordHere'.
settings saveTo: 'twitter_settings.ini'.

"get an interface"
model := TwitterModel new.

"get friend updates"
latestUpdates := model getFriendsUpdates.

"get Follower updates"
latestFollowers := model getFollowersUpdates.

"get the current trends"
trends := model getCurrentTrends.
daily := model getDailyTrends.
weekly := model getWeeklyTrends.

"user query"
args := UserQueryArgs new.
args screen_name: 'jarober'.
model showUser: args.

"get direct messages"
args := StatusListArgs new.
args per_page: 100.
model getDirectMessagesFor: args.

"set status"
model setStatusTo: 'From VisualWorks during today''s screencast'.

You can download the video directly here. If you like this kind of video, why not subscribe to "Smalltalk Daily"?

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posted by James Robertson

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itNews

Business Via Lawsuit

April 14, 2010 6:48:50.254

IT World thinks that the next step in the "no iFlash for you" saga is a lawsuit. I wonder what ground they'll try to stand on?

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posted by James Robertson

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itNews

I'd like a Pony, Too

April 13, 2010 21:35:39.321

Steve Rubel asks for a Digital Pony from Apple:

Edelman Digital calls on Apple and all companies to support consumer choice to allow consumers to have the same experience they are accustomed to on the desktop. Where once mobile devices were not powerful enough to run rich media technologies, that’s no longer the case. Why ban Flash and WMVs yet support Quicktime and PDF two other standards. It makes no sense.

For good or ill, Apple has decided how they're going to play the game, and it's hardball. I just don't see a hand holding, kumbaya moment coming on between the various internet players.

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posted by James Robertson

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itNews

Where Storage is Headed

April 13, 2010 10:34:54.713

The price is high ($4k), but wow - a 1 TB solid state drive. As prices drop, this should really help laptop and portable device battery life out.

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Using a SAX Driver: Video

April 13, 2010 10:05:35.263

Today's screencast looks at creating an RSS feed with a Smalltalk SAX driver. If you're looking for a particular topic, you can find it with the Media Search application on our site.

Here's the script I used to create the RSS Feed - it's using the package FeedWriter from the public store), as per the screencast:


"Using a SAX Driver"
stream := ('rss1.xml' asFilename withEncoding: #'UTF-8') writeStream.
writer := RSS20_SAXWriter new output: stream.

"start the document"
writer prolog.
writer startRSS.
writer startChannel.
writer title: 'My RSS Feed'.
writer link: 'http://www.somesite.com'.
writer description: 'My RSS Feed'.

"Now write an item"
writer startItem.
writer title: 'Test Item'.
writer link: 'http://www.somesite.com/item1'.
writer description: 'test item1'.
writer pubDate: Timestamp now.
writer endItem.

"end the document"
writer endChannel.
writer endRSS.
stream close.


You can download the video directly here. If you like this kind of video, why not subscribe to "Smalltalk Daily"?

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posted by James Robertson

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Macintosh

Fanboys Unbound

April 13, 2010 7:43:27.568

I have to wonder whether John Gruber has even heard of Firefox, much less ever run it. After all, it's a cross platform tool for multiple operating systems; it must suck, and I'm sure that no one uses it.

And yes, I did note the issue of 3rd party dependence yesterday, but I really don't think Apple had to pull out the nuke to swat this fly.

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posted by James Robertson

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PR

Even More Apple and Adobe

April 13, 2010 7:25:22.057

Simon Owens notes that Apple has been happy to let the PR war over the new TOS for the iPhone/iPad play out in the blogosphere - fed by direct email responses from Steve Jobs. Why would they do that?

Well, because the general public doesn't care that much, and the traditional tech media isn't paying that much attention, either. This keeps the battle where Apple would rather see it - in the tech blogosphere, amongst advocates. Unless the issue boils to the point that developers start leaving the platform (for, say, Android), any damage stays very, very limited this way.

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posted by James Robertson

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development

Objectivity 10 Released

April 13, 2010 5:59:44.078

The choices for database back ends to Smalltalk are pretty open - Objectivity just pushed a new release, and it's had Smalltalk bindings for years.

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posted by James Robertson

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management

This Plan Took Two Years?

April 13, 2010 5:53:39.928

I'm trying to figure out how this revenue plan for Twitter took two years to come up with:

The advertising program, which Twitter calls Promoted Tweets, will show up when Twitter users search for keywords that the advertisers have bought to link to their ads. Later, Twitter plans to show promoted posts in the stream of Twitter posts, based on how relevant they might be to a particular user.

That's "AdWords for Twitter". I hope they didn't stay up late figuring it out.

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Smalltalk from Argentina

April 12, 2010 22:16:39.000

Videos from the Smalltalks 2009 conference in Argentina are online now at the FAST website.

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Smalltalk in Cologne

April 12, 2010 22:14:29.170

A GLASS workshop is planned for May 6th:

Norbert Hartl is putting on a GLASS workshop in Cologne on May 6th. Norbert talked about GLASS at the March 19th Smalltalk meeting in Cologne and there was enough interest in GLASS that he decided to put on a workshop dedicated to covering GLASS and GemStone/S in more detail.

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posted by James Robertson

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gadgets

Another Take on the Apple/Adobe Thing

April 12, 2010 8:45:04.380

I like the dispassionate take that Jean-Louis Gassee has on the Apple/Adobe thing, and - when I sat back and thought about it - this made a ton of sense to me:

Who, in his right mind, expects Steve Jobs to let Adobe (and other) cross-platform application development tools control his (I mean the iPhone OS) future? Cross-platform tools dangle the old “write once, run everywhere” promise. But, by being cross-platform, they don’t use, they erase “uncommon” features. To Apple, this is anathema as it wants apps developers to use, to promote its differentiation.

He goes on to say that allowing cross platform tools leads to other people winning the platform battle and low margins. While I'm not so sure of that (it depends on how much value those tools bring to the party), I do get the baseline worry about having outside tools effectively control progression.

Years ago, back in the VW 2.x and VW 3.x era, the source control tool of choice for Smalltalk (across multiple dialects for a time) was Envy. It was available for VW, for Visual Smalltalk, and for IBM Smalltalk. What both Digitalk and ParcPlace noticed was that customers were mostly oblivious to vendor upgrades; they waited until a new version of Envy was available. The process of "Envy-izing" VW or VS was involved and invasive, and both vendors let OTI do it. Eventually, Digitalk decided that was a problem, and they shipped their product with a built in version control tool. After some initial angst from customers, the upgrade lag stopped. ParcPlace=Digitalk did the same thing (later) with Store, and again - after some initial angst - the customer base stopped lagging upgrades so much.

That's what Apple is worried about - say they allowed the new Flash cross compiler, and Flash ended up staying as the standard video system. Skip forward a bit, and Apple wants to ship OS 5 for the iPhone - but for reasons of their own (maybe they have a crush of other projects), Adobe can't get to updating the Flash project for, say, 6-9 months. The new release falls into dead air, and "everyone" stays on the old release. Apple gets pressure to keep supporting the old release, and things are generally slower.

So I understand where they are coming from. That doesn't mean I have to like it; but heck, it also doesn't mean that I (or anyone else, for that matter) has to write apps for the iPhone/iPad ecosystem. I said yesterday that this policy might be "a bridge too far" for Apple, but today? I'm not so sure.

There's a flip side danger for Apple though; it depends on how things play out. Consider:

Adobe has readily courted most other mobile OS designs and has ported Flash to Android, webOS and eventually Symbian and Windows Phone.

Right now, Apple is the clear leader in the mobile space, and they are helped (ironically) by Google's desire to get HTML5 (which, in part, will obviate Flash) as the standard for web content. But... what if these other devices end up, in the aggregate, winning? At that point, Apple ends up lagging, as too much content simply wouldn't work on the iPhone (but would on the other devices). If Google weren't pushing so hard on HTML5, I suspect Apple's chances in this battle would be a lot lower. As I write this, it looks like they'll win this battle.

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Building a VisualWorks Menu: Video

April 12, 2010 8:06:44.870

Today's screencast looks at adding a menu to a VisualWorks UI, using the Menu builder tool. There's also a way to create a menu programmatically; that's a separate topic, covered in this screencast. If you're looking for a particular topic, you can find it the same way I just looked that up - try the Media Search application on our site.

You can download the video directly here. If you like this kind of video, why not subscribe to "Smalltalk Daily"?

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posted by James Robertson

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