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smalltalk

Smalltalk Solutions 2011: Vegas

September 2, 2010 22:34:18.543

Smalltalk Solutions is back in 2011 - March 13-16 in Las Vegas, Nevada. A call for participation will be going out soon - you can look for updates here, and on the STIC site.

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posted by James Robertson

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Ping and Facebook

September 2, 2010 21:47:21.976

I wasn't imagining things - Ping is connected to Facebook, it's just that Apple has pulled the iTunes-side UI out. I just went to my Facebook account and saw this:

Which is exactly what TechCrunch is reporting:

When I first loaded iTunes 10 yesterday and started up Ping, connecting with Facebook was the first thing I did to find friends. At first, I will say that it didn’t work. I hit the Connect button, entered my credentials, and nothing happened. But I tried again and it worked perfectly. I found a handful of Facebook friends who had just started using Ping as well and connected with them.

So I guess Apple and Facebook are still talking about stuff...

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posted by James Robertson

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gadgets

Mobile Data Plans

September 2, 2010 12:47:57.000

I turned on a month of mobile data for my iPad, and - much to my surprise - I find I'm using it beyond my vacation last week. Now I'm pondering what to do about it going forward - and this story in PC World popped up:

To be clear, jumping on the portable hotspot bandwagon won't relieve you of the obligation to have a data plan for smartphones with the major wireless providers. However, rather than paying $25 for 2Gb of data on the iPhone, plus $20 for the privilege of tethering a laptop to that connection, and an additional $25 for 2Gb of data on the iPad, AT&T subscribers can opt for the minimal $15 data plan for 200Mb on the iPhone, and instead spend $40 per month with Virgin Mobile for unlimited data on a portable hotspot that can be shared among all three platforms--and then some.

Portable hotspots have been around for awhile, but I've never really felt the need for one. Now that I'm considering how I use the iPad, I have to start thinking about it. IT would be another thing to carry, but honestly - when I travel, I carry a lot of stuff anyway. Far from liberating me from my laptop, the iPad has simply become another thing I bring. It's not a laptop replacement - in device terms, it's kind of analogous to a "third place".

Anyway, I'm going to have to consider the whole data plan thing.

posted by James Robertson

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Network Simulation in Smalltalk

September 2, 2010 11:45:41.409

Bernard Pottier sent me an update on the network simulation stuff I saw last year at ESUG:

a simulation for a bus encountering networks of wireless sensors that could be installed on bus stop, and computing on the fly on these networks (bounding box)
a similar simulation for a virtual boat reproducing the Azenor navigation in a distribution of sensors along the shore.

It's a pretty cool project, with the CUDA integration done by one of Bernard's students, Thibault Failler. Cool stuff!

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posted by James Robertson

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Smalltalk Daily 09/02/10: Loading Network Client Support

September 2, 2010 9:40:55.314

Today's Smalltalk Daily looks at loading the network clients support (http, ftp, etc) into Cincom Smalltalk - VW 7.7.1 and OS 8.2.1. If you can't see the embedded video directly, you can go directly to YouTube for it. To watch now, click on the viewer below:

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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Ping and Facebook?

September 2, 2010 8:57:52.767

Now I'm confused. Kara Swisher reports that Apple's new Ping service has no interface to Facebook:

And Facebook is nowhere on Ping too. Currently, there is no linking, sharing or participation of any kind with Facebook or Twitter or MySpace either on Ping, which will work only on the iTunes software on computers, iPhones and iPods.

Except... when I signed up yesterday, I immediately got a Facebook Connect prompt, asking me whether I wanted to share with my existing Facebook friends. Today, I can't find any trace of that in Ping. I know I entered my Facebook credentials in and ok'd sharing; did Apple build the support and then turn it off, due to the "onerous terms" that Swisher says Jobs brought up?

It's just weird. I'm not the only one wondering about this. A sharp eyed reporter at SFGate noticed a facebook reference during yesterday's demo.

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posted by James Robertson

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The Empire Might Have Won

September 2, 2010 8:34:59.437

posted by James Robertson

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Tablets Heat Up

September 2, 2010 6:40:06.586

The iPad is no longer the only tablet in town - Samsung has launched the Galaxy. I have to admit, the ad (the link takes you to an auto-play video) looks pretty compelling. Tim Bray has some thoughts on the device as well. It looks like the entire mobile space is going to be pretty well defined without Microsoft - they aren't just playing catch up here, they're not even in the game...

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posted by James Robertson

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itNews

iTunes 10 Looks Different

September 1, 2010 22:16:26.429

Ok, the new iTunes has an odd UI element - look at the window buttons at the top left:

I don't really have an opinion on it, but it sure is different.

posted by James Robertson

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gadgets

Target: DS and PSP

September 1, 2010 16:55:13.782

Watching Apple's event today, and seeing the game demo on the iPhone (and then imagining how it would look on my iPad), it dawned on me that the DS (Nintendo) and PSP (Sony) are straight in the crosshairs of this new gaming platform. Serious gamers will stay with consoles or PCs, but the entire "I'm bored, I need to fill a half hour of dead time" market is where the DS and PSP live.

Except that Apple is moving in, with devices that you're more likely to carry around....

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posted by James Robertson

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Flash on Mobile

September 1, 2010 12:40:04.000

Amidst all of the uproar about whether Apple should support Flash on the iPhone and iPod, I came across Kevin Tofel trying Flash out on his Nexus One. Keeping in mind that he tried it on a fast WiFi connection, the results were less than exciting. If this is what Flash looks like on mobile devices, Steve Jobs has a point.

Looks to me like Adobe has their work cut out for them if they want to have something that approaches usable on small devices.

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posted by James Robertson

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itNews

Back to the Future

September 1, 2010 9:42:34.000

The Amiga rides again:

Barry's back, kids! The CEO of Commodore USA just informed us that, in addition to slapping Commodore stickers on various all-in-one PCs, he has acquired the rights to the Amiga name (we only hope that the process went a little smoother this time around). The plan is to sell machines that fully support AROS -- an open source variant of AmigaOS 3.1 that the kids seem to go crazy for.

There's a lot more at Engadget.

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posted by James Robertson

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Smalltalk Daily 09/01/10: WebVelocity 1.1 Debugging

September 1, 2010 8:18:30.441

Today's Smalltalk Daily looks at how debugging works in WebVelocity 1.1 It's a bit different than it was in WebVelocity 1.0. If you can't see the embedded video directly, you can go directly to YouTube for it. To watch now, click on the viewer below:

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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tv

Rental TV

September 1, 2010 6:37:33.000

We'll know for sure later today, but this sounds pretty cool - 99 cent TV show rentals through iTunes:

As part of the Apple event Wednesday, News Corp.’s Fox and Walt Disney’s ABC networks are slated to be announced as offering 99-cent rentals of television shows through the iTunes store, according to people familiar with the matter.

TV isn't like music. With songs, I want to listen to stuff I like again. With TV, it's rare that I want to see the same episode again. Once I've seen it, I'm done - so buying an episode, or even a boxed DVD set, just doesn't make that much sense to me. Renting, on the other hand? Sure, especially for an episode I've missed, or for a show I'm wondering about.

Add in an inexpensive set top box, which is also supposed to be part of the plan - and it looks pretty good. Especially with Netflix coming to the AppleTV.

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posted by James Robertson

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copyright

Speaking of Overreaction

August 31, 2010 19:10:36.609

The Commerce Secretary sees danger from.... file sharing:

“This isn’t just an issue of right and wrong,” Locke said in a speech at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, one of the nation’s musical focal points. “This is a fundamental issue of America’s economic competitiveness.”

In a (very small) sense, he's correct about it being an issue of competitiveness. Sadly for him, he's on the wrong side. Adding another layer of rules and bringing back DRM won't stop the large scale pirates, but it will make life miserable for the rest of us.

posted by James Robertson

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itNews

Gmail Jumps Ahead

August 31, 2010 13:26:20.000

Now I really wish my corporate email ran through Google, instead of Exchange - their new priority email thing sounds pretty cool:

Important and Unread emails will include correspondence with people you always respond to right away, as well as emails that include keywords that usually grab your attention. Email sent specifically to you, and not to others as well, will receive preferential placement.

Right now, I manage that same chore via an (ever growing) set of mail rules - mail gets tossed into various folders based on who sent it, or what mailing list it's from, and so on. I'd love to just let someone else do that for me :)

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posted by James Robertson

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news

E-Reader Price War Continues

August 31, 2010 11:39:12.222

At the rate prices are dropping, I'm pretty sure we'll see "free, with mandatory ads" fairly soon:

As competition in the e-books device market heats up, Borders is cutting the prices of its leading eReading devices, the Kobo and Aluratek to $129 and $99.99 respectively. The Kobo was previously priced at $149.99 and the Aluratek was priced at $119.99.

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Browsing a Store Repository

August 31, 2010 10:59:50.000

There have been some updates to the internals of Store in VW 7.1.1 and OS 8.2.1 - the database layer is all Glorp now. Aditionally, the UI has gotten a facelift. When you browsed code in a repository in past releases, you got the ugly (and very outdated) 5i browser. Now you get the RB, although it's in read-only mode. When you start a browse operaton, you'll see this:

Once the package or bundle loads (in this case, a bundle), you'll see this - I've expanded the tree:

Finally, after selecting a class and a method:

The whole experience matches browsing in-image code a lot better now.

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posted by James Robertson

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Smalltalk Daily 08/31/10: Using File Libraries in WebVelocity 1.1

August 31, 2010 7:51:14.895

Today's Smalltalk Daily looks at using File Libraries in WebVelocity 1.1. To jump straight to the video, click here. If you can't see the embedded video directly, you can go directly to YouTube for it. To jump straight to the video, click here.

NoteListUI class


renderPageHeaderOn: html
	" Render page header on html. Subclasses may override to render nothing. "
	self renderPageImageOn: html.
	html space.
	self renderPageTitleOn: html

renderPageImageOn: html
	html image url: NotesFileLibrary / #notesPng

renderPageTitleOn: html
	html heading
		level: 3;
		with: self title

To watch now, click on the viewer below:

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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smalltalk

Smalltalk in India

August 31, 2010 6:43:29.000

There's a Smalltalk User's Group in India now

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posted by James Robertson

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news

This Could be Bad

August 31, 2010 6:39:10.928

A volcano in Indonesia is erupting:

Towering clouds of ash are being spewed out of Mount Sinabung in North Sumatra and thousands of villagers living on its slopes have been forced to head to emergency shelters, mosques and churches.

This one hasn't gone up since 1600, so right now, no one knows what to expect. If we got an event like the 1815 Tambora explosion, it could be a real problem. That one gave North America "the year without a summer".

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posted by James Robertson

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social media

Twitter Stuff

August 30, 2010 21:30:44.539

Tomorrow Twitter is turning off Basic Auth, and going with OAuth only. For the life of me, I haven't been able to get OAuth to work with Twitter; every time I make a request for a token, I get a 401. As best as I can tell, I'm setting things up right, but clearly I'm doing something wrong. In the meantime, the auto-tweets will be coming to an end.

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Cross Dialect Parser

August 30, 2010 19:41:35.000

The PetitParser is availabel for Cincom Smalltalk, Pharo, and GNU Smalltalk - and there are loading instructions for all of those dialects at the link above. As well, there's a post explaining how to get started with the tool here.

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posted by James Robertson

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esug10

ESUG 2010 Schedule

August 30, 2010 15:48:41.000

The schedule for ESUG 2010 is online in a non-PDF form - as per usual, it looks like they have a nice selection of topics. Cincom is pretty well represented this year - I won't be there, but there will be a bunch of Cincomers on hand to chat up about product direction and so on. There's a summary of the Cincom talks here - which I've listed out below:

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posted by James Robertson

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tv

Cable TV Disintermediation

August 30, 2010 14:29:41.000

TechCrunch thinks that the disintermediation of cable TV is about to hit the masses - because so many companies are now nibbling at the edges of that space, and looking to make a break: Google, Apple, Microsoft, NetFlix, Hulu - all hold a piece of the puzzle, and if they start to put those pieces together, the days of $100 + cable bills could go the way of record stores:

For most people, buying each television show you want to watch doesn’t make a lot of sense. But renting them for a cheaper price does. As a person who only is interested in a handful of shows, I expect such a solution to be a fraction of a fraction of the cost of my cable bill. I can’t wait.

That certainly describes me, and I think the current teenage/young adult cohort as well. The big things missing:

  • Channel Surfing - admit it, lots of us spend a lot of time aimlessly looking for "something" to watch, before settling on something from the 500 channel plate
  • Live sports

A large enough selection of items for quick and easy rental might deal with the former, but the latter will be a tougher nut to crack. Take college football and the NFL, for instance - huge followings, but the viewing is all live. Time shifting just isn't an option when it comes to sports. If and when internet based TV starts getting access to sports events, we'll know that cable tv has reached the downhill side of the mountain.

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posted by James Robertson

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weather

Wet Friday?

August 30, 2010 12:38:36.530

Well, this could be exciting:

The surf was pretty heavy in Melbourne Beach Saturday around noon, from the other storm that's heading out to sea. If this one holds the track closest to land, then Maryland will have some big winds and rain on Friday.

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Smalltalk in NYC

August 30, 2010 11:47:57.374

The NYC Smalltalk User's Group has their next meeting set for September 22 - follow the link for time and location details:

Sean DeNigris is the President and Lead Scientist of Clipper Adams, a NYC-based consulting firm. His mission is to support people in fulfilling on what matters to them. Therefore, most of his current work is on realizing Doug Engelbart’s vision of making a difference in the world by using computers to enhance human intellect. For ten years, he has gotten into the minds of users and created the business software they would have created (if they knew how to program). He is also a regular contributor to Squeak and Pharo, and participates in the Smalltalk community and its conferences world-wide.

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Memory Policy Changes

August 30, 2010 10:39:25.000

There have been some pretty major changes to the way memory is handled in VisualWorks in the 7.7.1 release - and that means that there have been changes for ObjectStudio 8.2.1 as well, since it's built on top of VisualWorks. You should really have a look at the release notes for 7.7.1, and the class comments for AbstractMemoryPolicy. This visual of the new hierarchy makes it clear what's changed:

Class MemoryPolicy is mostly a "legacy" class now, and is not the default one in use. The default is LargeGrainMemoryPolicy, as internal testing in Cincom engineering indicated that it performed best in the widest variety of situations.

Your mileage may vary, of course - so again, have a look at the docs.

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posted by James Robertson

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Smalltalk Daily 08/30/10: Adding Cookies in WebVelocity 1.1

August 30, 2010 7:55:30.756

Today's Smalltalk Daily looks at how to add cookies to a WebVelocity 1.1 web component. Since WebVelocity 1.1 is built on Seaside 3.0, this is a whole lot easier than it used to be. If you're using WebVelocity 1.0 (or Seaside 2.8 outside of WebVelocity), then have a look at this screencast in order to see how it used to work. You can go directly to YouTube if you can't see the embedded video below. The code to add a cookie is really simple - here's the trivial example from the screencast:


renderContentOn: html
	| response cookie |
	response := self requestContext response.
	cookie := self requestContext newCookie.
	cookie key: 'helloCookie'.
	cookie value: '2'.
	cookie comment: 'Example Only'.
	response addCookie: cookie.
	html text: 'Hello There'.

To watch now, click on the viewer below:

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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Podcast with John O'Keefe

August 30, 2010 7:07:35.000

There have been some big changes at Instantiations recently - Google bought their Java business, and now the company is focused only on Smalltalk. With that in mind, we have John O'Keefe - long time Smalltalker and the principal Smalltalk architect at Instantiations - coming on "Industry Misinterpretations" this Tuesday at 1 PM EDT. You can wait for the podcast to be released next Sunday, or listen live at justin.tv.

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posted by James Robertson

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law

At Least the Lawyers are Happy

August 30, 2010 6:16:36.959

The more you read about the TechCrunch/JooJoo thing, the more you have to shake your head and be amazed. From what I can see, the only winners in this mess - regardless of the eventual outcome - will be the lawyers, who get paid by the hour.

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Seaside in the Cloud

August 29, 2010 16:33:53.000

There's a new Ubuntui AMI (Amazon ec2 instance) set up with a Pharo based Seaside image installed. There's also an Amazon instance out there for the Cincom Smalltalk WebVelocity eval - the image id for the latter is ami-871ef5ee

Update: Jan van de Sandt has a post up explaining how to get started with the instance

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posted by James Robertson

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Build Tools for Smalltalk

August 29, 2010 15:24:05.000

Looks like Build tools for Smalltalk are finally starting to catch up. The Squeak/Pharo world has Gofer, the engineering team at Cincom has just released a project tool as part of the summer release (with more work in that direction to come), and Ernest Micklei pushed out a build tool for VA Smalltalk earlier this summer:

Melissa is a simple tool that can help in building development and runtime images in a continous integration environment. It is being used extensively to create daily builds for Smalltalk images. This post describes the steps to use Melissa for VA Smalltalk 8+

A lot of people yawn at these kinds of tools, but they are essential in order to reliably build applications. It's good to see activity here.

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posted by James Robertson

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Smalltalks 2010 Submissions Date Change

August 29, 2010 11:39:03.000

The deadline for submitting a paper/talk for Smalltalks 2010 has been extended to September 25th. The conference takes place in Buenos Aires (Argentina) November 11-13.

If you're submitting a paper, they want you to use EasyChair.

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posted by James Robertson

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audio

Industry Misinterpretations 203: ObjectStudio at ESUG 2009

August 29, 2010 10:04:44.350

This week's podcast is from ESUG 2009: Dirk Verleysen talking about the past, present, and future of ObjectStudio. With the recent release of ObjectStudio 8.2.1 (along with VW 7.7.1 and WV 1.1), this talk about what was coming up in the product is timely.

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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news

Paging Roland Emmerich

August 29, 2010 9:53:05.293

Looks like we'll need some 'splosions' in 2012:

Astronomers are predicting that a massive solar storm, much bigger in potential than the one that caused spectacular light shows on Earth earlier this month, is to strike our planet in 2012 with a force of 100 million hydrogen bombs

Now all we need is a few people with "The End is Nigh" signs :)

posted by James Robertson

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Pharo Documentation Grows

August 29, 2010 8:26:00.766

The online book, "Pharo By Example" continues to grow - a new draft chapter on the OmniBrowser (PDF) has been added.

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posted by James Robertson

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tutorial

A Look at the Comparison Tool

August 28, 2010 14:16:11.000

The Comparison tool - used to compare versions of code in Cincom Smalltalk - is new in VisualWorks 7.7.1, and there's been a bunch of talk about it on the mailing lists lately. I thought it might be useful to take a look at one of the common use paths you might take through it. To start, I connected to the public store repository, and selected part of my Silt blog server package:

What I was doing above was selecting the package I wanted (Blog), and then, using the menu, comparing it with another version. That prompted a selection dialog - so I could select which version to compare to:

After selecting the package, the following window comes up - and this is where you start to see the new UI:

On the left side is the version I selected to compare against - on the right is what's loaded in the image. Notice the expansion symbol in the lower part of the UI; you click that to expand out and see the differences:

Notice how the green line runs from the left to the right, showing the changed/added/removed (in this case, added) text? That's how you can spot the changes quickly. When there are multiple changes, you can expand/collapse them individually. Now, if you do what I do, and patch a running system with diffs, you'll want the next option - right click at the top to summon an action menu:

And there's a menu on the left hand side at the top as well:

That wraps up the brief tour of the new Comparison tool - I'll be doing a screencast on it soon.

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posted by James Robertson

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Smalltalk MPEG Player

August 28, 2010 9:49:46.000

This is pretty cool - Chris Cunnington (the guy behind Smalltalk TV) has pulled the MPEG player out of Sophie and made it a standalone Squeak project.

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posted by James Robertson

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itNews

Java Lawsuit Fallout

August 28, 2010 9:04:41.597

Oracle's suit against Google has had one huge side effect: Google is pulling out of Java One:

Citing concerns about Oracle's lawsuit against it, Google said Friday it cannot participate in the upcoming JavaOne conference. The Oracle-sponsored JavaOne conference, formerly a Sun Microsystems event, is being held in San Francisco the week of September 19.

This whole think could lead to exactly the sort of fragmentation in Java that Oracle claims it doesn't want to see. It should be interesting to watch from the outside.

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posted by James Robertson

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Smalltalk and the Tiobe Rankings

August 28, 2010 7:41:25.000

I noticed that Smalltalk fell out of the top 50 in the Tiobe rankings; I think it's not just the niche status of Smalltalk at work here, but also the nature of Smalltalk code. What do I mean by that?

Well, consider what happens when you search for the more mainstream (file based) languages - you get code listings. When you search for Smalltalk, on the other hand, you'll get links to things like the "One Click Image" for Seaside. The image based nature of Smalltalk, and the fact that Smalltalk developers don't work in flat text files, impacts your ability to find Smalltalk code references.

Before the rise of search engines this was not terribly relevant, but now - it makes the community look much, much smaller than it really is. I don't have an answer to this problem - the Smalltalk image is unlikely to disappear (and personally, I'm a fan of it). It's just something we have to factor into these kinds of discussions.

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law

Trolls

August 27, 2010 22:24:37.000

Looks like Paul Allen has gone to the dark side - he's decided to sue companies that - unlike the ones he was involved with - actually brought useful technology to market. And no, I don't mean Microsoft - I give Gates most of the credit for that.

Billionaire Paul Allen has made major forays into cable television and sports teams since leaving Microsoft Corp. more than two decades ago. Now he's adding another pursuit: patent litigation.

Patent litigation is the last refuge of the incompetent, IMHO. Along with copyright, I think patents have become more of a hindrance than a help.

posted by James Robertson

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jobs

Need a Smalltalker?

August 27, 2010 20:19:54.227

Craig Latta is looking for work - check out his resume.

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posted by James Robertson

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social media

The World Yawns

August 27, 2010 18:43:17.000

The main reasons that I don't think that Diaspora will impact Facebook much?

  • Outside the technorati, privacy issues just don't seem to get much traction
  • The sheer inertial weight of Facebook - the fact that "everyone" is there already - is a huge barrier to entry

posted by James Robertson

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music

Have They Heard of Pandora?

August 27, 2010 15:26:13.000

The way music execs blame everything on file sharing, you would think that they had never heard of legal streaming services like Pandora. I think sites like that explain the chart (follow the link) that shows a huge decline in album sales much, much better than file sharing:

Music industry execs blame the dropping sales numbers on illegal downloads. Exactly what percent of music downloads are illegal is difficult to calculate, but estimates range as high as 20 illegal downloads for every legal download. As for the total cost of illegal downloads, it depends on who you ask.

I was driving from Orlando to my parent's house yesterday, and I had Pandora on the whole time. Not iTunes; not FM radio; not talk radio. That's what's killing sales. You can create a playlist that keys off a song (or band, or genre...) you like, and then just have the music play. No need to save anything, or buy anything, or worry about anything.

As I've said before on this blog - No one is entitled to a business model....

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

New Cincom Smalltalk Digest Posted

August 27, 2010 13:03:32.944

The latest Cincom Smalltalk Digest is up!

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posted by James Robertson

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holiday

Golf Outing in Melbourne Beach

August 27, 2010 12:48:36.777

I hit the links with my dad this morning - drove the ball pretty well, and had a decent enough outing. Lousy putting, but some nice drives and chip shots. Beautiful day though:

posted by James Robertson

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management

Disruption

August 27, 2010 11:58:22.000

Spotted in Engadget:

It's not official, but rumor that Blockbuster is preparing to file for bankruptcy in September is certainly believable. Expected even. According to several sources speaking to the Los Angeles Times, Blockbuster chief executive Jim Keyes along with representation from Blockbuster's senior debt holders met last week with the six major movie studios to announce the company's intention to enter a mid-September bankruptcy.

Blockbuster should have pursued its own streaming deals with the studios years ago - instead, they got clobbered vy Netflix, iTunes, Hulu (et. al.). There's a lesson there for any business that is dependent on an older business model, and is being challenged by upstarts....

posted by James Robertson

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itNews

H.264 Opens Up

August 27, 2010 8:56:54.000

Spotted in Engadget:

The H.264 codec that makes a good deal of digital video possible has actually been free to use (under certain conditions) for many years, but following recent controversies over the future of web video, rightholders have agreed to extend that freedom in perpetuity. Whereas originally standards organization MPEG-LA had said it wouldn't collect royalties from those freely distributing AVC/H.264 video until 2016, the limitless new timeframe may mean that content providers banking on WebM and HTML5 video won't have an expensive surprise in the years to come.

That's great news - it means that anyone (like me!) who uploads H.264 video that they (or the company they work for) owns, there's no problem. There's a huge monkey off the back of HTML5.

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posted by James Robertson

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itNews

GMail and Voice

August 26, 2010 22:44:12.126

Looks like the launch of Google Voice into GMail has worked out well:

It looks like Gmail users are already taking advantage of the cheap calling that Google launched yesterday. The company announced via Twitter that there were 1 million calls placed from Gmail in 24 hours.

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posted by James Robertson

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games

End of the DAO Story Line DLC

August 26, 2010 11:43:26.000

Looks like BioWare is ready to wrap up the story line from DAO, and start getting ready for DAO 2 - September 7 will bring us Witch Hunt, a reunion with Morrigan:

Dubbed Witch Hunt, the content takes place nearly a year since the fall of Archdemon. Players will finally confront the sorceress Morrigan and find out her true motives. You can import your character from Origins and Awakening or create a whole new one if you so please.

I guess we'll find out what kind of entity the "ritual" with Morrigan created - assuming your character took her loophole, that is :)

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Seaside at Ruby|Web

August 26, 2010 8:26:00.000

Pat Maddox is talking up Seaside at Ruby|Web:

Okay as for what's so interesting to me about Seaside... it's 50% the framework and 50% the Pharo environment. Seaside itself represents a step forward in web development similar to how Rails did. Rails takes care of a lot of the plumbing for you - you don't have to parse query params, set up response headers, manage the session (unless you want to of course). Seaside does all that of course but also manages application state for you. So you don't have to worry about putting stuff into a database, then pulling it back out and operating on it. I can't do it justice in a few sentences, but that's why I'll be showing lots of examples at the conference! :) At any rate, that same feeling you get when you code Rails for the first time and see how much easier things are, you get that same feeling with Seaside.

The other thing to keep in mind is that Seaside works across all the Smalltalk dialects - so you can move your application to another Smalltalk if you want/need to - for instance, you might want to consider Cincom Smalltalk if you want full commercial support :)

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posted by James Robertson

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