. .

itNews

Single Points of Failure are Bad

May 14, 2011 10:55:57.543

The Blogger outage at Google doesn't bring "the cloud into question" - what it highlights is the folly of relying on anything that leaves you with a single point of failure:

My question is, “What if this had happened to another Google service?” Say, Google Docs? What if every document you wrote and saved on Wednesday was suddenly taken offline on Thursday, and you no longer had your presentation or your notes or your research for a client meeting today?

What if I had all of my documents stored on a file server at corporate HQ, they weren't doing offsite backup, and some disaster occurred? The issue isn't "the cloud" - it's relying on a single point.

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posted by James Robertson

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games

Honest Hearts Trailer

May 14, 2011 2:20:39.953

There's a trailer out for the next Fallout: New VegasXbox 360 Games) DLC - Honest Hearts:

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Smalltalk Training Redux

May 13, 2011 18:51:58.705

The two weeks of Smalltalk training are done - there's a group splitting off from the place I work, and they are taking a copy of the application with them. So, I've been getting them up to speed on Smalltalk (VisualWorks, specifically) for the last few weeks (2 weeks of training with an off week in the middle). I'm on my way home now, and I feel pretty good about how it went.

It's very different from when I was doing this full time back in the early and mid 90's. Back then, I mostly saw C and Cobol developers, and just getting them past the basic OO hurdle was a problem. This group had some Java developers and some database guys; the db guys had a tougher time of it, but they seemed to be ok by the end of the second week. The Java guy in the class was fine - he had issues with some of the VW specific stuff that always gives newbies difficulty (hello, AspectAdaptors), but otherwise latched on pretty fast.

It's been fun - I had forgotten how much I enjoy teaching :)

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posted by James Robertson

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st4u

ST 4U 82: Loading GlorpDBX into Pharo

May 13, 2011 7:25:31.789

Today's Smalltalk 4 You shows you how to get GlorpDBX for Pharo loaded into your image using Metacello configurations. 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:

GlorpDBX

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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social media

Fighting Social the Old Fashioned Way

May 12, 2011 13:38:29.000

There's some irony in the fact that Facebook hired an old line PR firm to plant negative stories about Google in "old media":

For the past few days, a mystery has been unfolding in Silicon Valley. Somebody, it seems, hired Burson-Marsteller, a top public-relations firm, to pitch anti-Google stories to newspapers, urging them to investigate claims that Google was invading people’s privacy. Burson even offered to help an influential blogger write a Google-bashing op-ed, which it promised it could place in outlets like The Washington Post, Politico, and The Huffington Post.

Looks like it's time to grab some popcorn and watch the clueless people from both firms have at it like a pair of jealous high school stereotypes...

Update: Oh look - the PR firm Facebook hired is "apologizing". Let me translate their statement: "We're really, really sorry that the public found out about this. It would be awesome if you all just forgot about it, ok?"

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posted by James Robertson

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js4u

JS 4U 55: JQuery Each Function

May 12, 2011 7:28:36.955

Javascript 4 U

Today's Javascript 4 You. Today we look at using the JQuery each() function. 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:

JQuery each function

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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news

Irony is Not Dead

May 11, 2011 22:39:06.837

Go and make your own one liners for this headline:

WikiLeaks Threatens Its Own Leakers With $20 Million Penalty

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posted by James Robertson

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st4u

ST 4U 81: Using Breakpoints in VA

May 11, 2011 7:30:49.617

Today's Smalltalk 4 You takes an overview look at the debugger in VA Smalltalk. If you prefer a written walkthrough to video, then skip down to it. 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:

VA Debugger

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:


Today we'll take a little deeper look at the VA Smalltalk debugger. This tool has a lot of functionality, so it'll take more than this tutorial to cover the entire tool. To start with, we've created a simple Counter class. This gives us a jumping off place beyond the workspace to work with the debugger. The class is pretty simple - it has one instance variable, and two api methods to either increment or decrement the counter:

Counter Class

Next we'll script some simple interactions with the object in a workspace. To simulate a more complex bug, we've implemented a simple bug in the subtraction method:

Execute the Code

Having discovered that the decrement functionality doesn't work right, we'll go to the browser and put a breakpoint in. Again, this example is very simple; the idea is to show you how to use breakpoints. Put the cursor down in the method where you want the breakpoint, right click, and select Break:

Insert a Breakpoint

It turns out that you can configure your breakpoint -

Configure a Breakpoint

  • Select a specific process for which this breakpoint applies (ignoring it in all others)
  • If this code is in a loop, break on a specific iteration
  • Specify a boolean condition for which the break applies

If you let all of those default, then the breakpoint will halt your code anytime it is reached - yielding a debugger. Once you have inserted the breakpoint, you'll see a little red indicator appear in the browser:

Breakpoint Added

Now let's return to the workspace, and exercise the code that should hit the breakpoint:

Execute the Code

Now we've landed in the debugger. The top pane contains the context stack - all of the methods that were in the process of executing when we hit the break. To the right you'll see an inspector for all variables - temps, instance, and method arguments. At the bottom, you have the code pane. Since this is Smalltalk, you can change the code. Note that recompiling the code will remove the breakpoint.

In the Debugger

Now, if you hit the Break option in the debugger or browser while you have the cursor at the right place (where you inserted it), the options differ a bit:

Break Options

If you deactivate the break, the marker will change to yellow:

Break Deactivated

Finally, if you select Clear, the breakpoint will be removed.

Need more help? There's a screencast for other topics like this which you may want to watch. Questions? Try the "Chat with James" Google gadget over in the sidebar.

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copyright

Copyright Trolling

May 10, 2011 19:58:50.620

More stupid from the trolls, and the judges who don't understand technology well enough to smack them down:

On March 17, a federal judge in the District of Columbia gave the USCG permission to demand from Internet Service Providers the name, current and permanent addresses, telephone numbers, e-mail, and device Media Access Control (MAC) addresses of those accused of copy infringement. Subpoenas are expected to go out this week, according to Wired.

I'd guess that a decent sized minority of those addresses were used by people leaching internet service off of someone else's wifi. It's not as if that's particularly hard to do.

posted by James Robertson

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js4u

JS 4U 54: JQuery Get Function

May 10, 2011 7:39:53.846

Javascript 4 U

Today's Javascript 4 You. Today we look at using the JQuery get() function. 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:

JQuery get function

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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itNews

So Much for Skype

May 10, 2011 7:28:09.826

If this is true, then I don't hold out a lot of hope for the future of Skype:

The Wall Street Journal reported earlier tonight that Microsoft in what would be its most aggressive acquisition in the digital space was zeroing in on buying Skype for $8.5 billion all in with an assumption of the Luxembourg-based company’s debt.

Why do I say that? Microsoft's track record with this sort of thing. First, they tend to push all staff to come to Redmond - that will cut down on the core development team right there. Second, Microsoft pushes an "eat your own dogfood" philosophy. While I think that's a great idea in general, it's not so great for mature products. If MS does that, and decides to spend an eternity rewriting the core of Skype to be a Windows specific service, then it's just death. Not because Windows is terrible, but because that's an awful lot of wasted motion for an existing application.

That's not all though - consider the revenue picture:

With Skype, which has been aggressively expanding, Microsoft will continue to lose money in its Internet efforts. Skype lost $7 million on revenue of $860 million. Operating profits, which Skype preferred to highlight, were $264 million.

The last thing that Microsoft needs is bigger losses from their online division.

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posted by James Robertson

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music

Cloud Player Music on your iPod

May 9, 2011 17:55:52.351

I haven't looked into Cloud Player much (between my iTunes collection and Pandora, I feel like my bases are covered) - but adding IOS support is cool. Or would be, if they put even a smidgen of effort into it:

Unfortunately, Cloud Player's interface isn't terribly friendly towards mobile devices; it uses the same layout that you get on your Mac or PC, which ends up requiring a lot of panning around on the iPhone. Amazon even tacitly acknowledges that the experience may be sub-par, saying it recommends accessing Cloud Player via the latest version of Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, or Safari "from your computer."

Makes me wonder. How hard would a mobile version of the website be, really?

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posted by James Robertson

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st4u

ST 4U 80: VA Smalltalk Debugger Overview

May 9, 2011 7:26:42.271

Today's Smalltalk 4 You takes an overview look at the debugger in VA Smalltalk. If you prefer a written walkthrough to video, then skip down to it. 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:

VA Debugger

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:


Today we'll take an overview look at the debugger in VA Smalltalk. It's a tool with a lot of functionality, so expect more on this topic soon. For today, we'll take a simple Smalltalk expression in the debugger and explore it via the debugger. Unlike the inspector, you'll need to highlight the expression in order to jump into the debugger:

Debug it

To execute the currently highlighted expression, use the Through button. That'll execute the expression, keeping the view in the current method. Over would skip past the expression, staying in this view:

Debugging

What if you want to jump into a highlighted method? Use the Into button - you'll jump into that code, and be able to step through the execution at that level. Note the change in the debugger view:

Through

There are a lot of other things you can do from here - on the menu, note the Break option:

Menu Options

We'll get to the more advanced functionality in other tutorials. For now, you should know enough to start exploring the system, and see how various things work. Try it yourself!

Need more help? There's a screencast for other topics like this which you may want to watch. Questions? Try the "Chat with James" Google gadget over in the sidebar.

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

JQuery WidgetBox Ported to Seaside in VA Smalltalk

May 9, 2011 7:22:22.000

Via Joachim:

Sebastian just uploaded a port of the JQueryWidgetBox for VA Smalltalk to VASTGoodies.com.

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posted by James Robertson

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general

Conversations You Never Want to Have

May 9, 2011 0:21:59.549

All I can say is - Doh!

posted by James Robertson

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jobs

How to Get Hired in Software

May 8, 2011 18:18:04.000

This Slashdot post makes a ton of sense to me:

Evans takes a stab at explaining why the new guy can't code when his interviewers and HR swear that they only hire above-average/A-level/top-1% people. Evans fingers the technical interview as the culprit, saying the skills required to pass today's industry-standard software interview are not those required to be a good software developer. Instead, Evans suggests: 'Don't interview anyone who hasn't accomplished anything. Ever. Certificates and degrees are not accomplishments; I mean real-world projects with real-world users. There is no excuse for software developers who don't have a site, app, or service they can point to and say, 'I did this, all by myself!'

I think all of that helped me a lot. When I was asked about prior work, I was able to point to this blog - powered by software I wrote. I was able to point to BottomFeeder - which is largely my code (I did get a lot of help from a lot of people on that one, but it's still largely my code). I could point to my Facebook interface code (and so on, and so on). Having your own site - especially one powered by code you created - is a very easy way of saying "At least once, I did something that works". As opposed to "I received this snazzy certificate that hangs on my wall".

posted by James Robertson

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podcastAAC

IM 28: Xtreams Part 2 (AAC)

May 8, 2011 12:05:25.092

Welcome to episode 28 of Independent Misinterpretations - a Smalltalk and dynamic language oriented podcast with James Robertson, Michael Lucas-Smith, and David Buck. This week's podcast was recorded at Smalltalk Solutions 2011 - it's Michael Lucas-Smith and Martin Kobetic talking about Xtreams. This is part 2 of this presentation - part 1 was released last week.

Xtreams is a generalized stream/iterator framework providing simple, unified API for reading from different kinds of sources and writing into different kinds of destinations (Collections, Sockets, Files, Pipes, etc). Streams themselves can be sources or destinations as well. This allows to stack streams on top of each other. At the bottom of such stack is some kind of non-stream (e.g. a collection), we will call it a terminal. Directly above that is a specialized stream providing a streaming facade over the terminal. The rest of the streams in the stack we'll call transforms. Their primary purpose is to perform some kind of transformation on the elements that are passing through. Application code interacts with the top stream of the stack the same way it would with any other stream (or stream stack) producing/consuming the same elements. The goal of the framework is to provide consistent behavior between different stacks so that the application can treat them the same way regardless of what exactly is the ultimate source or destination. For example if the application code analyzes binary data, it should be able to treat the source stream the same way if it is a simple stream over a ByteArray or if it is a stack that provides contents of a specific binary part of a mulitpart, gziped, chunked HTTP response from a socket. Xtreams is an attempt to achieve this goal in a scalable and efficient manner.

If you would prefer to watch the video, scroll down to the embed. The talk was over 90 minutes long, so I've split the audio podcast in half - part two will be out next week..

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!

Xtreams, by Michael Lucas-Smith and Martin Kobetic from Smalltalk Industry Council on Vimeo.

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posted by James Robertson

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podcast

IM 28: Xtreams Part 2

May 8, 2011 12:04:32.812

Welcome to episode 28 of Independent Misinterpretations - a Smalltalk and dynamic language oriented podcast with James Robertson, Michael Lucas-Smith, and David Buck. This week's podcast was recorded at Smalltalk Solutions 2011 - it's Michael Lucas-Smith and Martin Kobetic talking about Xtreams. This is part 2 of this presentation - part 1 was released last week.

Xtreams is a generalized stream/iterator framework providing simple, unified API for reading from different kinds of sources and writing into different kinds of destinations (Collections, Sockets, Files, Pipes, etc). Streams themselves can be sources or destinations as well. This allows to stack streams on top of each other. At the bottom of such stack is some kind of non-stream (e.g. a collection), we will call it a terminal. Directly above that is a specialized stream providing a streaming facade over the terminal. The rest of the streams in the stack we'll call transforms. Their primary purpose is to perform some kind of transformation on the elements that are passing through. Application code interacts with the top stream of the stack the same way it would with any other stream (or stream stack) producing/consuming the same elements. The goal of the framework is to provide consistent behavior between different stacks so that the application can treat them the same way regardless of what exactly is the ultimate source or destination. For example if the application code analyzes binary data, it should be able to treat the source stream the same way if it is a simple stream over a ByteArray or if it is a stack that provides contents of a specific binary part of a mulitpart, gziped, chunked HTTP response from a socket. Xtreams is an attempt to achieve this goal in a scalable and efficient manner.

If you would prefer to watch the video, scroll down to the embed. The talk was over 90 minutes long, so I've split the audio podcast in half - part two will be out next week..

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!

Xtreams, by Michael Lucas-Smith and Martin Kobetic from Smalltalk Industry Council on Vimeo.

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posted by James Robertson

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holiday

Mother's Day

May 8, 2011 6:53:17.000

My daughter made this using Marzipan and food coloring - by hand:

posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Smalltalk in New Mexico

May 7, 2011 17:05:41.000

Looking for a short Smalltalk gig? If you know Pharo or Squeak - and Seaside - this might be for you:

My apologies for the short lead time, but I need a person that is very conversant with Squeak-Seaside-Pharo-Pier-GLASS plus an interest and ability to quickly learn and mentor others in web-mobile languages and tools. Will be working with English speakers, so facility in that language is essential. The person must be able to be in New Mexico, US, from May 23 to July 29.

If that interests you, contact David West.

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posted by James Robertson

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tv

How Do They Write Out of This?

May 7, 2011 10:53:14.269

I had Peter's location in "Fringe" nailed - the future of the main reality (i.e., not Walternate's). What I didn't see coming was the last minute or two - when Peter disappeared and the Observers note that "of course they don't remember him, he never existed".

So.... if Peter never existed, how did the two realities interesect in the first place? Walter only crossed over to save Peter. No Peter, no cross over. No cross over, no reality collision. Next season has a lot of gap filling to do, I think :)

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posted by James Robertson

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