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smalltalk

GLASS 1.0-beta.8.6 released

March 3, 2011 21:48:26.471

Dale Henreichs has announced the availability of the latest GLASS beta - to get started, go here.

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posted by James Robertson

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books

A Dance with Dragons is Coming

March 3, 2011 21:37:32.721

Finally, A Dance with Dragons has a publish date! It's coming out this summer:

A Dance With Dragons will be published by Bantam on July 12, 2011. The manuscript is huge 14 the publisher estimates the hardcover edition will run more than 900 pages, putting it about the same length as the longest book in the series, A Storm of Swords. Schedule your summer vacation accordingly.

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posted by James Robertson

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itNews

Eliminating Email?

March 3, 2011 16:46:45.000

Ok, this is just silly. A French consulting firm wants to get rid of internal emails and "use social platforms" instead:

Another French consulting and services company, Atos Origin, has similar designs for a social media transformation: Chairman and CEO Thierry Breton wants to eliminate internal e-mail from the company within three years, replacing it with social platforms, he announced in February. "E-mail is on the way out as the best way to run a company and do business," he said.

Why? I understand that email can be overwhelming (I get well over a hundred emails to my gmail box per day, and that doesn't count the ones I get from work), but: email does serve a purpose, and it's slightly different than the way social media works. If nothing else, you can track emails centrally, which is necessary in some legal contexts.

An old phrase comes to mind: it's a poor workman who blames his tools....

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posted by James Robertson

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js4u

JS 4U 37: Replacing HTML Elements 2

March 3, 2011 16:09:58.983

Javascript 4 U

Today's Javascript 4 You. Today we take a further look at replacing DOM objects in Javascript. If you have trouble viewing it here in the browser, you can also navigate directly to YouTube.

Join the Facebook Group to discuss the tutorials. You can view the archives here.

To watch now, click on the image below:

DOM Update 2

If you have trouble viewing that directly, you can click here to download the video directly. If you need the video in a Windows Media format, then download that here.

You can also watch it on YouTube:

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[js4u37-iPhone.m4v ( Size: 1810045 )]

posted by James Robertson

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windows

Upgrading Windows - 25 Years in 10 Minutes

March 3, 2011 14:12:32.000

This is oddly fascinating - a 10 minute video that upgrades (progressively) from Windows 1.0 to Windows 7. Virtualization makes it all possible :)

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posted by James Robertson

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general

JS 4U Delay

March 3, 2011 8:05:12.574

Looks like the iTunes enabled post for the day will be delayed; the service I use to host the files seems to be having a problem. I can't really complain a whole lot; it's free after all :)

In the meantime, the daily screencast is up on YouTube

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Seaside Google Charts Updated for VA Smalltalk

March 2, 2011 21:33:58.335

Looks like Google Charts for Seaside has been updated for VA Smalltalk:

Yuri Vrancken ported the SeasideGoogle Chart library to VASmalltalk and published it at vastgoodies this port worked with 8.0 Beta, but has never been updated since that time. I took the code and make it work for me under 8.03 remove some system changes (to make the loading process easier and therefore broke the original code and made it perhaps not compatible with the original Squeak version).

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posted by James Robertson

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st4u

ST 4U 54: Squeak UI Builder Example

March 2, 2011 7:04:29.327

Today's Smalltalk 4 You uses the morphic UI designer for Squeak to build a simple UI. If you have trouble viewing it here in the browser, you can also navigate directly to YouTube. To watch now, click on the image below:

Pharo by Example

If you have trouble viewing that directly, you can click here to download the video directly. If you need the video in a Windows Media format, then download that here.

You can also watch it on YouTube:

Enclosures:
[st4u54-iPhone.m4v ( Size: 6074034 )]

posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

JIT: How and Why

March 2, 2011 6:30:43.859

Eliot Miranda explains the hows and whys of writing a JIT for a language like Smalltalk.

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posted by James Robertson

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general

A Sniper for the Ages

March 1, 2011 21:40:41.394

This is just amazing - an 84 year old WWII vet, Ted Gundy, takes a modern weapon and shoots at a target 1000 yards down range. The results are just amazing:

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

ESUG 2011 Call for Contributions

March 1, 2011 19:07:52.334

I expect that ESUG 2011 will be beyond my personal budget, but boy - I'd love to visit Edinburgh. The important thing is this: it's time to get those speaking proposals in:

This call includes:

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posted by James Robertson

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js4u

JS 4U 36: Replacing HTML Elements

March 1, 2011 7:57:39.908

Javascript 4 U

Today's Javascript 4 You. Today we take a look at replacing DOM elements at runtime using Javascript. If you have trouble viewing it here in the browser, you can also navigate directly to YouTube.

Join the Facebook Group to discuss the tutorials. You can view the archives here.

To watch now, click on the image below:

Replacing Elements

If you have trouble viewing that directly, you can click here to download the video directly. If you need the video in a Windows Media format, then download that here.

You can also watch it on YouTube:

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posted by James Robertson

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history

An Era Passes

February 28, 2011 16:09:34.167

Our last living WWI veteran has passed on:

Frank Buckles, the last surviving American veteran of the First World War, has died just weeks after his 110th birthday. Born 1 February 1901, Buckles had lied about his age to join the Ambulance Corps, where he served on the Western Front. He was one of nearly 5 million Americans who would serve in that war, a war in which 118,000 US servicemen would be killed in action in a little over seven months of combat.

One of my grandfathers fought in that war; my daughter is named after him. I've read a lot about that war, and the tragic impact that it continues to have on the modern era (highly recommended: A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East ). As Lincoln said, the silent artillery of time has done its work.

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posted by James Robertson

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st4u

ST 4U 53: Introducing the Morphic UI Designer

February 28, 2011 8:16:36.000

Today's Smalltalk 4 You takes a look at the new UI designer for Squeak (Morphic) from the Uni Potsdam guys. If you have trouble viewing it here in the browser, you can also navigate directly to YouTube. To watch now, click on the image below:

Pharo by Example

If you have trouble viewing that directly, you can click here to download the video directly. If you need the video in a Windows Media format, then download that here.

In the video, this is the code I used to load the designer:


(Installer mc http: 'http://www.hpi.uni-potsdam.de/hirschfeld/squeaksource/')
   project: 'MetacelloRepository';
   install: 'ConfigurationOfDesigner'.
ConfigurationOfDesigner load.

You can also watch it on YouTube:

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posted by James Robertson

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web

The Randomness of the Web

February 28, 2011 7:54:24.321

Last night I was filling in a financial aid form - my daughter is going to college next year, and it's part of the whole process - mostly because education costs have risen to absurd levels, far outstripping the received value (but that's another rant).

The funny thing is this - I went to the Fafsa site, which integrates applications for aid across whatever schools you are applying to. So far, so good. I use Chrome as my default browser, and I should have realized there might be an issue when I saw the "use IE 6 or better" sign on the page. Sure enough, it barfed on Chrome. The odd part is that it was happy with Safari, and Safari and Chrome use the same underlying engine. Are they specifically saying "No" to Chrome, or is there something else going on? Weird :)

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posted by James Robertson

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podcastAAC

Independent Misinterpretations 19: Hard Problems, Interesting Solutions Part 2 (AAC)

February 27, 2011 11:13:25.458

Welcome to episode 19 of Independent Misinterpretations - a Smalltalk and dynamic language oriented podcast with James Robertson, Michael Lucas-Smith, and David Buck. This week Dave and I continued our conversation about some of the hard problems we've been confronted with over the years, and what the solutions - and often more importantly, the search for the solutions - looked like. This is part 2 of this podcast, you can get part 1 here.

You can subscribe to the podcast in iTunes (or any other podcatching software) using this feed directly or in iTunes with this one.

To listen now, you can either download the mp3 edition, or the AAC edition. The AAC edition comes with chapter markers. You can subscribe to either edition of the podcast directly in iTunes; just search for Smalltalk and look in the Podcast results. You can subscribe to the mp3 edition directly using this feed, or the AAC edition using this feed using any podcatching software. You can also download the podcast in ogg format.

If you like the music we use, please visit Josh Woodward's site. We use the song Troublemaker for our intro/outro music. I'm sure he'd appreciate your support!

If you have feedback, send it to jarober@gmail.com - or visit us on Facebook - you can subscribe in iTunes using this iTunes enabled feed.. If you enjoy the podcast, pass the word - we would love to have more people hear about Smalltalk!

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[im19.m4a ( Size: 12907794 )]

posted by James Robertson

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podcast

Independent Misinterpretations 19: Hard Problems, Interesting Solutions Part 2

February 27, 2011 11:12:51.138

Welcome to episode 19 of Independent Misinterpretations - a Smalltalk and dynamic language oriented podcast with James Robertson, Michael Lucas-Smith, and David Buck. This week Dave and I continued our conversation about some of the hard problems we've been confronted with over the years, and what the solutions - and often more importantly, the search for the solutions - looked like. This is part 2 of this podcast, you can get part 1 here.

You can subscribe to the podcast in iTunes (or any other podcatching software) using this feed directly or in iTunes with this one.

To listen now, you can either download the mp3 edition, or the AAC edition. The AAC edition comes with chapter markers. You can subscribe to either edition of the podcast directly in iTunes; just search for Smalltalk and look in the Podcast results. You can subscribe to the mp3 edition directly using this feed, or the AAC edition using this feed using any podcatching software. You can also download the podcast in ogg format.

If you like the music we use, please visit Josh Woodward's site. We use the song Troublemaker for our intro/outro music. I'm sure he'd appreciate your support!

If you have feedback, send it to jarober@gmail.com - or visit us on Facebook - you can subscribe in iTunes using this iTunes enabled feed.. If you enjoy the podcast, pass the word - we would love to have more people hear about Smalltalk!

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[im19.mp3 ( Size: 9138245 )]

posted by James Robertson

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games

Oh, the Humanity

February 26, 2011 11:11:53.289

I just realized that I'll be in Texas when Dragon Age 2 ships. Looks like my daughter gets the first crack at it around here :)

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Silver Smalltalk Progresses

February 25, 2011 22:14:24.000

posted by James Robertson

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games

Dragon Age 2

February 25, 2011 21:34:32.537

I just played through the Dragon Age 2 demo, and wow - it looks pretty cool. The combat system looks a lot like the one BioWare used in Mass Effect 2, which is great - that game was really good. I can't wait until March 8th!

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posted by James Robertson

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itNews

The View From Smallville

February 25, 2011 19:07:08.000

While I sympathize with this post by DHH, it suffers from an interesting case of myopia. Take this:

You no longer need a tech person at the office to man “the server room.” Responsibility for keeping the servers running has shifted away from the centralized IT department. Today you can get just about all the services that previously required local expertise from a web site somewhere.

If you assume that tmost of IT is email and shared folders, maybe. In truly large enterprises - like the one I work in now - it's more about large production databases with mission critical (sometimes classified as well, depending on the customer) data. You can't run that kind of thing on Amazon's RDS, or on BigTable.

DHH may be correct about small firms - it makes perfect sense for them to outsource nearly everything to the cliud in order to lower cost. For big enterprises though? DHH simply has no idea, probably through lack of experience in the subject.

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posted by James Robertson

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general

Fragility

February 25, 2011 16:53:50.935

I encountered something today that demonstrated to me just how fragile the environment we've set up is. I went down to a Walgreens to buy some cold medicine. Just before I got there, the power blinked and came back - which forced all of their registers to reboot.

That brought sales to a screeching halt. I was thinking "why don't they just accept cash and keep paper records in the interim, and settle it all up later", but on the way home I realized the issue with that: I bet the registers were locked while they rebooted. So with the power out, they really were dead in the water.

Now, for a few minutes worth of downtime, that's nothing but a hassle. What if power went out for an extended period though? I wonder whether retail outfits have any kind of contingency plan for that kind of thing, or whether the plan is basically "pray that it doesn't happen"?

posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

IWST Call for Participation

February 25, 2011 13:51:21.000

Spotted in Planet Squeak:

Alain Plaintec has published the call for papers for the International Workshop on Smalltalk Technologies which will be held on 23rd August during the ESUG 2011 conference in Edinburgh. The goal of the workshop is to “create a forum around advances or experience in Smalltalk and to trigger discussions and exchanges of ideas”.

Looks like you need to submit your proposals by June 17th, so you have plenty of time.

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posted by James Robertson

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search

SEO as Spy vs. Spy

February 25, 2011 11:53:53.233

The war between Google and various SEO outfits continues:

Many of the changes we make are so subtle that very few people notice them. But in the last day or so we launched a pretty big algorithmic improvement to our ranking—a change that noticeably impacts 11.8% of our queries—and we wanted to let people know what’s going on. This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites—sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful. At the same time, it will provide better rankings for high-quality sites—sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on.

I predict another post very much like this one a few months or so from now, after the vast army of SEO zombies has taken another bite at the apple, and tweaked their gaming of the ranking system. The real problem isn't the SEO outfits; it's the places that hire them and use their strategies. At some point, they'll have to sit down and actually do the hard work of creating organic content that brings in links.

I know, crazy talk...

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posted by James Robertson

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st4u

ST 4U 52: Learn Gemstone Smalltalk

February 25, 2011 6:42:30.561

Today's Smalltalk 4 You takes a look at some of the online tutorial materials that Gemstone has created. If you have trouble viewing it here in the browser, you can also navigate directly to YouTube. To watch now, click on the image below:

Learn Gemstone

If you have trouble viewing that directly, you can click here to download the video directly. If you need the video in a Windows Media format, then download that here.

You can also watch it on YouTube:

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posted by James Robertson

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travel

The Downside of Metro

February 24, 2011 21:37:30.681

Today I'm getting the downside of using metro to get to DCA. I use it because parking at Greenbelt is much, much cheaper than parking in long term parking at DCA itself, but - metro closes before midnight on weeknights. Why does that matter? Well, I arranged a 6:30 pm flight tonight, and it was delayed for over an hour. So... I'll be arriving right around the time the system closes. Which means I have to cab it to the metro stop in order to fetch my car.

This is one of the many small annoyances surrounding transit solutions that transit advocates never really get around to noticing. Given the built environment we actually have, it's just not an ideal solution all of the time - and tonight seems to be one of those times. I gambled on the savings, and lost :)

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posted by James Robertson

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js4u

JS 4U 35: Querying DOM Elements 2

February 24, 2011 7:37:59.067

Javascript 4 U

Today's Javascript 4 You. Today we take a further look at querying DOM objects in Javascript. If you have trouble viewing it here in the browser, you can also navigate directly to YouTube.

Join the Facebook Group to discuss the tutorials. You can view the archives here.

To watch now, click on the image below:

DOM Query 2

If you have trouble viewing that directly, you can click here to download the video directly. If you need the video in a Windows Media format, then download that here.

You can also watch it on YouTube:

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posted by James Robertson

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