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audio

Industry Misinterpretations 200: Lesser Smalltalk

August 8, 2010 19:48:19.590

This week's podcast was recorded at the recent Camp Smalltalk event in London - I spent a few minutes with Alejandro Reimondo and Frank Lesser, talking about their Lesser Smalltalk project. It's been on the Smalltalk world's radar for awhile, since they started building a VM that could run VSE images and Dolphin images; they are now concentrating on VSE.

I have a longer video presentation from the event that I'll release in a week or two; the audio for this podcast is a bit rough, since there was a fair bit of background noise.

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 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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general

Nostalgia at 30 Years Out

August 7, 2010 18:12:13.944

The 30th reunion for John Jay High School (Hopewell Junction, NY) is in less than an hour - I've had a pretty full day already. I went out to play golf with Arden this morning - then we took a bike ride near his home, and swam in his pool (which is really nice). Then Mark and I drove around a bit - I took some photos of the old school and a few other things - I added alts and titles to the photos if you float the mouse over them:

Barbara and Paul Begosh My childhood home
Arden and me John Jay Track
John Jay cafeteria entrance John Jay main entrance

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posted by James Robertson

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travel

On the Road

August 6, 2010 20:56:01.385

I'm on the road, blogging from my iPad. I decided to give the 3G a shot, and so far it's worked pretty well. I was able to look up traffic reports earlier, and it's all been cool. We got a late start though - we'll be arriving around 11. The reunion should be interesting.

posted by James Robertson

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sports

High Tech Footballs

August 6, 2010 15:55:29.546

If this limits some of the long replay delays in football, I'm all for it:

Cairos Technologies, a German outfit that's been trying to sell its goal line technology to football (as in soccer) bigwigs for a while, has told Reuters that it's in discussions with the NFL about bringing its magnetic field hocus pocus to the gridiron. The idea would be for the ref to be alerted, via a message to his watch, any time the ball does something notable like crossing the goal line or first down marker.

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posted by James Robertson

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Smalltalk Daily 08/06/10: WebVelocity 1.1 TimeTracker

August 6, 2010 11:08:49.275

Today's Smalltalk Daily walks through a simple TimeTracker application in WebVelocity 1.1. There are three methods I needed to create to get the basic behavior I wanted; Click here to jump to the video:

ProjectViewUI


renderActionsOn: html
	| record |
	super renderActionsOn: html.
	html button
		class: #record;
		callback: (record := Record new.
				(self call: (RecordEditUI on: record))
					ifTrue: [record bePersistent.
						object records add: record.
						object commitUnitOfWork]);
		with: 'Add Record'

Project


printOn: stream
	stream nextPutAll: self name

Record
printOn: stream stream nextPutAll: self activity

Click on the viewer below to watch it now, or go directly to the YouTube page:

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"?

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posted by James Robertson

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travel

Heading to New York

August 6, 2010 1:08:49.853

I'm on a little road trip tomorrow - heading to my 30th high school reunion in East Fishkill, NY. Since my parents moved to Florida, there hasn't been a reason for me to head there in a long time - it should be interesting to see what's changed. I'm heading up with an old friend - we went to junior high and high school together, so it should be a fun road trip.

posted by James Robertson

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webVelocity

What's New in WebVelocity 1.1

August 5, 2010 17:43:44.307

WebVelocity 1.1 is shipping now to our commercial customers; the non-commercial version will be available for download shortly. What's new? A whole lot of cloud support for your web apps:

  • Supports Firefox 3, Safari and Chrome for development. IE can be used for deployed apps.
  • Integrates with industry standard databases, such as MySQL, SQLlite, Oracle, SQLServer, and MS Access
  • Integrates with industry standard Javascript libraries, such as JQuery and Scriptaculous
  • Develop and deploy on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux
  • Full support for Amazon's EC2 and RDS. We have an Amazon instance prepared to get you started fast
  • Vastly improved code editing
  • Collaborative editing features, making it easy for multiple developers to see and share the same code

I'm in the process of updating the screencasts for WebVelocity right now; subscribe to Smalltalk Daily, or keep checking back on the main WebVelocity video page for updates.

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posted by James Robertson

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games

Civilization V First Look

August 5, 2010 11:49:37.065

ExtremeTech has a few details - there have been some changes (hexes instead of squares on the map, for instance) - but it sounds generally iterative to me. The biggest change seems to be technical - the game will require Steam, according to ExtremeTech. No Mac version yet either, we'll have to see how that shakes out...

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posted by James Robertson

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jobs

RMOD is Looking for a Smalltalker

August 5, 2010 10:56:53.038

Interested in moving Moose forward? RMOD is looking for a developer with a Masters degree:

RMoD is looking for an engineer to support the development of a demonstrator for Moose. The constraints linked with the position are that the person should have got his master in 2009 or 2010.

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalkDaily

Smalltalk Daily 08/05/10: Hello World in WebVelocity 1.1

August 5, 2010 8:48:33.082

Today's Smalltalk Daily is a simple "Hello World" demo using WebVelocity 1.1. If you can't see the embedded video directly, you can go directly to YouTube for it. Click on the viewer below to watch it now:

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"?

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posted by James Robertson

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culture

It's the New McNealy

August 5, 2010 8:07:08.352

Remember back when Sun's Scott McNealy said that "privacy is dead"? Well, Here's Google's Schmidt, saying the same thing:

"The only way to manage this is true transparency and no anonymity. In a world of asynchronous threats, it is too dangerous for there not to be some way to identify you. We need a [verified] name service for people. Governments will demand it."

Right, because expressing a particular opinion is always safe in all places. There's just no chance that you'll be targeted if you happen to be the lone (insert political persuasion here) surrounded by a sea of (insert opposing persuasion here).

Nope, in the fantasy land that Schmidt lives in, everyone is perfectly safe having all of their thoughts hanging out for all to see all the time. No reason to ever create an anonymous blog, or comment anonymously on someone else's post.

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posted by James Robertson

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web

You Get What You Pay For

August 5, 2010 7:56:54.076

The network neutrality crowd is up in arms over a proposed business deal between Google and Verizon:

Google and Verizon, two leading players in Internet service and content, are nearing an agreement that could allow Verizon to speed some online content to Internet users more quickly if the content’s creators are willing to pay for the privilege.

End users already get the same choice with their ISP - I could be paying more money for a faster connection than I have, but the symmetric 20/20 seems good enough for me for now. Additionally, Verizon and Comcast are already doing this - if you don't think that an on demand movie being streamed to your tv is getting priority over YouTube (et. al.), then you haven't really thought things through. If anything, this kind of deal at least allows content providers to approach parity with the content being pushed by the two big players here in the US.

You wouldn't know that from the coverage though; here's the NY Times, nearly fainting over this:

Such an agreement could overthrow a once-sacred tenet of Internet policy known as net neutrality, in which no form of content is favored over another.

Wake me when any of this actually matters. For all the yelling and screaming, we crossed the rubicon on this one the instant that on demand services popped up at vendors like Comcast and Verizon.

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Instantiations Changes

August 4, 2010 21:20:25.452

Huge Smalltalk business news: Google acquired the Java/Eclipse business from Instantiations, and Instantiations is now a Smalltalk focused company. Quote from the site:

The new Instantiations will focus entirely on Smalltalk and remains fully committed to supporting and evolving the products we all know and love!

Big changes in the Smalltalk world...

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posted by James Robertson

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webVelocity

iPhone Style Apps with WebVelocity

August 4, 2010 20:53:03.056

Michael has built a web demo using WebVelocity - database and scaffolding - that looks like an iPhone app:

Recently I was asked to make a demo application that makes a standard WebVelocity application using scaffolding with active record look and work on the iPhone. There are three tricks to making a web page look like a native iPhone app: 1) colours, 2) orientation detection, 3) animations. In this demo I show off #1 and #2 and leave #3 for any adventurous jQuery users out there.

Follow the link for the video - it's pretty cool.

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posted by James Robertson

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web

Wave Sets Beneath the Sea

August 4, 2010 18:50:16.552

I never thought Google Wave was useful - and according to TechCrunch, I'm not alone:

Maybe it was just ahead of its time. Or maybe there were just too many features to ever allow it to be defined properly, but Google is saying today that they are going to stop any further development of Google Wave.

That's death for a web service. The problem was always simple: Things like Skype worked just as well or better, and already existed. Wave was a solution in search of a problem.

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posted by James Robertson

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gadgets

Approaching Hard Drive Limits?

August 4, 2010 16:30:20.506

Samsung has announced a new drive that's pretty close to what the current limits of magnetic drive tech can do:

Samsung announced new hard drives today that feature an aereal density that was questioned just four years ago and we are now approaching densities that are believed to be the limit for the current recording technology. Is it finally time to ditch traditional magnetic recording methods and transition to heat assisted recording?

From the consumer end, these don't look new - they are shipping 1.5 tb and 2.0 tb drives. But:

However, the 2.0 TB model now includes only 3 disks instead of four, which means that the storage capacity has been increased by 33% to 667 GB.

I wonder whether SSD drives will ramp up to the point where these physical limitations don't really matter, or whether there's still life in the classic spinning disk...

posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Not Heading to ESUG

August 4, 2010 11:25:14.195

Sadly, I won't be going to ESUG this year - so the videos I normally shot at the conference won't be appearing, either here or over at my Cincom blog. I'll be following the action remotely via Twitter, Facebook, and whatever other links I turn up, of course. Hope everyone there has a good time, and I'll miss catching up with you.

If anyone has raw video after the conference they would like to have me host, let me know - I have a DropBox account, and that would be a simple way to get stuff to me.

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posted by James Robertson

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Macintosh

The Joys of iMovie

August 4, 2010 11:19:13.405

I love the way Apple updates things. I have iMovie '09, and I was getting ready to put together a montage video from Camp Smalltalk London. I have a bunch of stuff that was processed by QuickTime and.... iMovie has no idea what it is. A quick check of Google shows me that lots of people have hit this - and one solution is to export into the .dv format.

What I want to know is, what kind of idiot at Apple decided that standard export formats from QuickTime ("Export For Web") aren't recognized by iMovie?

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalkDaily

Smalltalk Daily 08/04/10: WebVelocity 1.1 Overview

August 4, 2010 10:07:24.378

Today's Smalltalk Daily continues the UI overview of the WebVelocity startup interface - to see the first part, go here. If you can't see the embedded video directly, you can go directly to YouTube for it. Click on the viewer below to watch it now:

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"?

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posted by James Robertson

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webVelocity

WebVelocity 1.1 Code Layout

August 3, 2010 21:15:56.328

I'll be doing screencasts of the new 1.1 release of WebVelocity over the next couple of weeks - here's a screenshot of the new UI, showing the way code is laid out:

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posted by James Robertson

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gadgets

Verizon Spins Reality

August 3, 2010 20:59:29.642

Look Mom, no tethering for Droid users:

Motorola Droid users better not get too excited by Android 2.2, also known as “Froyo.” While Verizon Wireless is set to push out the latest version of the Android operating system to Droid users starting this week, two key features will be missing: tethering and Wi-Fi hot spot capability. Verizon says the Droid won’t get these two features, which are built into the Android 2.2 OS, because the device’s hardware isn’t capable of supporting it.

AT&T sed to spin similar stories about the iPhone; now they just throw bandwidth limits at us. Verizon will probably go through the same BS progression.

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Comparing Versions

August 3, 2010 16:37:24.038

One of the cool new things in VW 7.7.1 is the comparison tool. In a BottomFeeder development image, here's the result of comparing the most recent version of a package to an older one:

Here's one of the changes opened up, with the changed segement highlighted:

Now, if the various things on the screen for this tool don't seem clear, just hit the help button on the top at the right:

posted by James Robertson

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gadgets

Another Reason a 2GB Limit is Absurd

August 3, 2010 12:08:46.371

Take a look at how much data gets used by FaceTime over 3G:

As you will see, if you do the math, a 5 minute FaceTime call with lots of movement used 14.7 MB of data. -- That's about 3 MB per minute

Add in some streaming video on the go, and you'll blow through your 2 GB cap pretty fast. Gosh forbid you try that overseas, where the charges can really add up :)

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posted by James Robertson

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web

Looking for Non-Existant Problems to Solve

August 3, 2010 10:30:32.096

Sometimes, the network neutrality advocates baffle me. Take today's post from David Weinberger, where he says (in part - follow the link for his entire post):

It’s time for Genachowski to stand firm and act at the FCC. He has a vision for the Internet as a place where small voices speak and where new ideas get a fair chance. He understands the Internet as a potentially transformative force in culture, business, education, and democracy.

I just don't see the supposed problem. Anyone can get a free or cheap site - blog or otherwise. People with some technical skills can get inexpensive hosting (like the one I use here) and run whatever kind of server they feel like. This one runs on Smalltalk, because that's what I like.

How about Video and Audio? Well, there are more solutions in that direction than I can count. YouTube, Vimeo, Mevio all come to mind immediately, as does Facebook. Photos? Flickr and a ton of other services.

Given all that, what the heck is the problem that requires some kind of forceful response from a government agency? A "small voice" can be heard much more easily now than at any time in history. The main impediement isn't scarcity; it's actually finding a niche where you can stand out from the huge crowd.

I just can't figure out what Weinberger wants the FCC to do, because I can't see the problem he's clearly agitated about.

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posted by James Robertson

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general

Wages of an Older Car

August 3, 2010 10:14:45.346

While I generally like having a car that's fully paid off, there are downsides to a 21 year old car: periodically, things break. I took my daughter out for a driving lesson on Sunday, and two exciting things happened: someone else driving out of the parking lot hit a light pole, so we had to run up and call 911. Just about simultaneously, the car started making a lot more noise. Driving yesterday, I noticed that there was also some kind of clunking sound coming from underneath, so I suspected that part of the exhaust system is loose.

So, this morning I drove the car down to the local gas station and walked home. I appreciated the cloudiness, because that made it possible for me to read a book on my iPad as I walked the 2 miles home. Now I just have to wait to find out what the damage comes to :/

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalkDaily

Smalltalk Daily 08/03/10: Introducing WebVelocity 1.1

August 3, 2010 8:07:39.560

Today's Smalltalk Daily does a brief overview of WebVelocity 1.1. If you can't see the embedded video directly, you can go directly to YouTube for it. Click on the viewer below to watch it now:

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"?

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posted by James Robertson

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games

Finished ME2 on Insanity

August 2, 2010 23:00:26.932

I finished Mass Effect 2 on "Insanity" this evening - the funny part is that the final boss battle was not the hardest part. I used the Cain to knock the Reaper larva down 25 percent, and finished it off with a combination of warp, incinerate, and the sub machine gun.

Heck, even the collectors and Harbinger weren't that tough. The two missions that gave me the most trouble were Grunt's loyalty mission and the Reaper IFF mission.

Why were they the hardest ones? On the IFF mission, the stupid Husks. On Insanity, they have armor. That makes shockwave nearly useless, because you first have to pound the armor down. The only way I got through the IFF mission was by using the particle beam and warp to knock armor down, and then having Jack bounce them. Even using that tactic, it took me a few tries to really get it down.

Why Grunt's mission, you ask? A similar problem - Verrens with armor. Like Husks, they swarm, and if you can't just toss Shockwave at them, they surround you fast if you don't hit them early.

Anyway, it was cool to get the Insanity achievement at the end of that. There's a downside though; now I need a new game to occupy me :)

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Seafox for Seaside

August 2, 2010 22:15:14.626

Joachim wrote about Seafox again - it's an interesting idea: a Firefox plugin (look in the lower right corner of the browser for the icon) that examines the page you're on and drops Seaside code into the browser window for it.

It's a neat idea, but I have two caveats after having given it a brief try:

  • The methods it generates are huge - if you use this, be prepared for some serious refactoring :)
  • Given the wide range of pages out there, YMMV with the results. In my initial attempts, I ran into results that didn't work out

Now, before I end up sounding too negative, it's an 0.1 release, and it's absurd to expect such a thing to handle every web page out there. It's a cool idea, and could give you a nice start from a designer's proposed page layout.

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalkDaily

Smalltalk Daily 08/02/10: SUnit to SUnitToo

August 2, 2010 11:06:43.851

Today's Smalltalk Daily shows you how to move to the SUnitToo tools without having to migrate all of your existing SUnit tests. If you can't see the embedded video directly, you can go directly to YouTube for it. Click on the viewer below to watch it now:

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"?

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posted by James Robertson

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news

More Wasted Money

August 2, 2010 8:28:21.679

Spotted in Engadget:

On Friday, during a visit from President Obama to its Detroit-Hamtramck plant, GM announced some good news for all the Volt fans out there. Production from 2011 to 2012 for the electric vehicle -- originally slated at around 30,000 units -- has been boosted to a projected 45,000 units, a 50 percent increase.

This is insane. The Volt seats four people (the back seat isn't a bucket, as the battery takes up too much space). The cost for one of these is going to be around $41k. So - who in their right mind would buy a car for that kind of money, when a comparable gas powered vehicle runs $15k or less?

I say this as someone who drives so little (under 5000 miles per year) that - in theory - a limited range vehicle might make some sense. However, I don't have an extra $30k to throw at a car for self esteem purposes, and I really doubt that there's a huge number of people who do...

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posted by James Robertson

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gadgets

Pay With Your Phone

August 2, 2010 8:22:14.489

Engadget reports that the future of cardless payments might be coming soon - the major mobile players are getting together on it:

Bloomberg reports that AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile are about to test the NFC payment waters with pilot schemes in Atlanta and three other cities, potentially aided by partnerships with Discover Financial Services and British bankers Barclays Plc. This would require all-new readers for merchants and embedded NFC chips in phones, but we reckon plenty of people might be happy to pay a small premium to streamline their lives that little bit more and leave the plastic behind.

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posted by James Robertson

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audio

Industry Misinterpretations 199: A Cog in the Machine (2)

August 1, 2010 20:02:14.367

This week's podcast is part 2 of our interview with Eliot Miranda, about his Cog VM for Squeak. If you haven't heard part 1, you can go get that 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 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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smalltalk

HTML to Seaside

August 1, 2010 17:12:05.212

Spotted in Planet Squeak

Nick released Seafox.xpi - a small plugin for Firefox that translates a websites HTML into the appopropriate seaside methods.

I'd have to look before I judged the effort, but it sounds interesting.

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posted by James Robertson

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security

Nasty Security Bug in Windows

August 1, 2010 14:19:41.871

Microsoft is rushing out a patch for a really nasty bug - one that targets link files and desktop shortcuts. It can be triggered via documents, file browsing, and apparently, web browsing. So: Microsoft is rushing out a patch:

The company said it is satisfied with the quality of the "out-of-band" update -- Microsoft's term for a patch that falls outside the usual monthly delivery schedule -- but also acknowledged that it has tracked an upswing in attacks.

I could feel smug on my mac, but I think I'm with Steve Gibson on this one - he said on the last "Security Now" podcast that Mac OS and Linux likely have equally bad flaws lying around, it's just that the installed base isn't big enough to warrant a search by the bad actors. Security by obscurity, I guess :)

posted by James Robertson

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marketing

Is Your Detergeant Stalking You?

August 1, 2010 13:34:37.642

In Brazil, it might be :)

posted by James Robertson

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