In the enterprise space, things like Sandra and Baltimore and some of the NoSQL database. I’ve never got it when it comes to SQL databases. It’s like, why? Just give me a hash table and a shitload of RAM, and I’m happy. And then you do something to deal with failures. And you look at the way things like the NoSQL movement is. It’s various flavors of large scale distributed hash tables and trying to deal with massive scale and massive replication, and you can’t back up the database because no tape farm is big enough. And you find scale and reliability can fit together at the same time. So a bunch of those things are really cool.
Until you work on a real project, that is. I used to have pretty dismissive take on relational databases. Then I noticed (late in the game, sure, but sooner than Gosling, apparently) that people want reports.
Here's the thing: a non-relational database works if you have an isolated project, or don't have data that other people need reports on. If the data you have is of interest to anyone else in your organization, and you don't use a relational database? You just bought a world of report writing along with your oSQL database.
I noticed this morning that the feed for our Fallout podcast only contained episodes 3-22 - when I set up support for the feed (a long time ago now), I defaulted it to 20 items. I just popped that limit up, so when iTunes updates, the full list of episodes should show up there. Of course, you can always visit the archive pages :)
Today's Smalltalk 4 You finishes off the update to installing Cincom's NC product by looking at the actual installation process. 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:
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.
Welcome to episode 22 of "That Podcast: An FNV Diary" - a podcast where Michael Lucas-Smith and I document our trials and tribulations in Fallout: New Vegas.
On today's podcast, Michael and James talk about the various locations and special weapons in the Big Empty, as well as some of the funnier stuff - especially when you have "Wacky Wasteland" turned on. This our last podcast about "Old World Blues", but we'll be back again next month when the last DLC comes out.
Got feedback? Send it to James. We'd really appreciate it if you head on over to iTunes and leave a comment - enjoy the podcast, and we'll see you in the wastelands!
Welcome to episode 22 of "That Podcast: An FNV Diary" - a podcast where Michael Lucas-Smith and I document our trials and tribulations in Fallout: New Vegas.
On today's podcast, Michael and James talk about the various locations and special weapons in the Big Empty, as well as some of the funnier stuff - especially when you have "Wacky Wasteland" turned on. This our last podcast about "Old World Blues", but we'll be back again next month when the last DLC comes out.
Got feedback? Send it to James. We'd really appreciate it if you head on over to iTunes and leave a comment - enjoy the podcast, and we'll see you in the wastelands!
This we have another session from Smaltalk Solutions 2011 - Cincom's James Savidge talking about debugging techniques that might help you out when you run into difficult problems.
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!
This we have another session from Smaltalk Solutions 2011 - Cincom's James Savidge talking about debugging techniques that might help you out when you run into difficult problems.
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!
The SmalltalkHub project continues to move forward. It would be a really good thing if the various vendors and OSS projects coalesced around something like this. Having all the disparate environments living in their own silos really holds Smalltalk back. A lot.
I have this old (first generation Nano) iPod that I use for exercise - it's convenient to clip on my shorts and go, whether I'm jogging or lifting weights. This afternoon, before heading to the gym, I sat down to get the thing synched with the latest podcasts I listen to. Imagine my surprise when I found I was out of room (I've only added something like 5 songs recently, so music should not have been the hangup). iTunes informed me that music was taking up something like 7 GB, and "other" was nearly 1 GB- leaving nothing for podcasts.
So... I reset it, and lo and behold - music is back to 4 gb. Fragmentation? Bit Rot?
TechDirt notes that the AP has finally figured out that - make sure you're sitting now - links are useful things. It'll be another decade or three before they learn how to use them though...
Well, look at that. The Associated Press has reached 1993 or so, and realized that they can (and probably should) link to other sites when reporting on a story that those other sites reported first. Of course, they're still learning some of HTML's features, such as the idea that you can link to actual words in a story. Instead, they'll be putting the links (via Bitly) in parentheses right after they cite the source.
Today's Smalltalk 4 You looks at the download process for Cincom Smalltalk - the NC products just went back online, and we take a look at it today. Next time, we'll finish that up by running the installer post-download. 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:
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.
To receive your free evaluation copy of Cincom Smalltalk, simply fill in the form below and the link will be emailed to you. If you would like to have media shipped to you, click here. *All fields but “Comments” are required.
Looks like you fill in a form, and then receive an email download link. I'll see how well that works, and update the post. In the meantime, go get it :)
Update: Looks like it's VW 7.8 NC, without the cryptography code included.
Second Update: So what do you do if you want to work on something that requires that crypto code (like, say, any modern network API?). Well, it's easier than you think if you have 7.7.1 lying around (or a recent version of ObjectStudio, for that matter). Simply copy the entire Security folder from that distro into the 7.8 directory structure, and use those libraries. Problem worked around :)
Welcome to episode 20 of "That Podcast: An FNV Diary" - a podcast where Michael Lucas-Smith and I document our trials and tribulations in Fallout: New Vegas.
On today's podcast, Michael and James talk about the final quest in "Old World Blues" - and touch on some of the side quests. We'll be doing one more podcast on this DLC, in order to talk about some of the side quests in more depth. If you don't want to know how OWB ends, fair warning - don't listen to this episode yet :)
Got feedback? Send it to James. We'd really appreciate it if you head on over to iTunes and leave a comment - enjoy the podcast, and we'll see you in the wastelands!
Welcome to episode 20 of "That Podcast: An FNV Diary" - a podcast where Michael Lucas-Smith and I document our trials and tribulations in Fallout: New Vegas.
On today's podcast, Michael and James talk about the final quest in "Old World Blues" - and touch on some of the side quests. We'll be doing one more podcast on this DLC, in order to talk about some of the side quests in more depth. If you don't want to know how OWB ends, fair warning - don't listen to this episode yet :)
Got feedback? Send it to James. We'd really appreciate it if you head on over to iTunes and leave a comment - enjoy the podcast, and we'll see you in the wastelands!
Say you want to load a Metacello configuration, but your network limits which apps have network access? That's the issue Joachim had to deal with recently:
I needed to get Seaside and some other stuff into a Pharo image on a machine at a place where there is very limited offline access. The network there is configured in a way that not every application can download stuff from the web. Pharo, of course, is not on that list.
Today's Javascript 4 You. Today we continue looking at how JQuery can select elements based on their parent/child relationships on a page. 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:
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.
Fast Company notes that the Google+ notion of adding people to various circles might not be working out - and is instead leading to "circle fatigue":
Gigaom's Mathew Ingram chalks it up to what psychologist Barry Schwartz has called the "Paradox of Choice," meaning that "too much choice actually makes it less likely [users] will take advantage of a feature." He adds, "The process of filtering hundreds or even thousands of people into groups is time-consuming and somewhat frustrating," and could cause Circles fatigue. AllThingsD strikes a similar tone, highlighting just how complicated friending is on Google Plus compared to other networks.
I'm not following that many people on Google+ yet (or even paying much attention to it, honestly), but - I hit that fatigue point on day one. I've only used two circles thus far: friend and following. I'm not sure what value having two circles even gives me. Facebook still seems more useful, and honestly, having the back end prioritize the messages based on traffic patterns would probably be a whole lot more useful still.
I suspect that Google simply won't make much of wave here (pun somewhat intended). To get traction, they have to compel people to stop using facebook and move over; the sheer force of inertia argues against that. When "everyone you know" is already on Facebook, why do you even care about another system?
I've had the song "Now we are Free" in my iTunes collection for awhile - after I saw a Celtic Women concert on TV, I went ahead and bought a bunch of their stuff, and that song was part of the mix. I liked it a lot at the time, but recently we rented "Galdiator" - and it was like having the rest of the puzzle pieces suddenly snap into place. The song is so incredibly perfect for the end of that movie...
Today's Smalltalk 4 You starts a Seaside tutorial in VA Smalltalk. Today we'll get Seaide support loaded, and start a local server. 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:
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 start looking at Seaside in VA Smalltalk - this is a multiple part tutorial. In today's segment, we'll start at the beginning, by loading support into our image, and making sure it all works. To start, open the Load/Unload Features tool:
Scroll down and select Seaside Core. Move it to the right side of the tool with the arrow button, and then click Ok:
With Seaside loaded, we need a local server to test against. Go back to the Tools menu in the launcher, and select Open Seaside Control Panel:
Select the Manage menu, and then select Add Adaptor. In that tool, just go with the default:
Now go to your web browser, and browse localhost:8080. You should see the default Seaside UI
By following the links from Examples, you should be able to test out the stock Counter example application:
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.
Welcome to episode 20 of "That Podcast: An FNV Diary" - a podcast where Michael Lucas-Smith and I document our trials and tribulations in Fallout: New Vegas.
On today's podcast, Michael and James give their first impressions of "Old World Blues" - the latest DLC for Fallout: New Vegas. So far - it's a big thumbs up!.
This just covers our first take on the DLC - we'll be back with more soon. Also on the podcast this week - audio feedback from a listener, and some feedback we took from our iTunes reviews. Speaking of which, we really appreciate all of the reviews - keep them coming!
Got feedback? Send it to James. We'd really appreciate it if you head on over to iTunes and leave a comment - enjoy the podcast, and we'll see you in the wastelands!
Welcome to episode 20 of "That Podcast: An FNV Diary" - a podcast where Michael Lucas-Smith and I document our trials and tribulations in Fallout: New Vegas.
On today's podcast, Michael and James give their first impressions of "Old World Blues" - the latest DLC for Fallout: New Vegas. So far - it's a big thumbs up!.
This just covers our first take on the DLC - we'll be back with more soon. Also on the podcast this week - audio feedback from a listener, and some feedback we took from our iTunes reviews. Speaking of which, we really appreciate all of the reviews - keep them coming!
Got feedback? Send it to James. We'd really appreciate it if you head on over to iTunes and leave a comment - enjoy the podcast, and we'll see you in the wastelands!
To rehearse, I had done the exercise earlier in the day, so I had a sense of where the code was going, although the actual solution from the group effort was a bit different. We finished in about 45 minutes, and with the remaining time, we tackled the second stage (decimal values containing a 3 digit, not just numbers that are multiples of 3). After completing that, I showed that we could put the logic for #isFizz and #isBuzz over in the Integer class, which was pretty amazing unless you've seen it before, and even got the protocol category right so that the MCZ package contained the monkeypatches. Finally, I loaded the MCZ into a new image, and ran the tests. All green. It was a fun experience, and they later told me that they'd never even started the second stage question before with other languages, let alone getting it to a place where a file could easily be handed around with the solution (including tests).
He also visited the LA Smalltalk User's group - follow the link for that report.
Borders is liquidating - all I can say is wow. I spent many a happy hour browsing there, but Amazon has replaced them for me. It's not about e-books (although that accelerated the trend) - it's really about two things:
Amazon's "shelf" is infinitely bigger, and includes things (independent publishers) that Borders never had
Amazon's recommendation engine is far, far better than scanning shelves or asking an employee
That latter point is what tipped me. At the store, I really only saw what they had in stock. At Amazon, I see things I never would have thought of, based on other books I've read or am looking at. Add in the instant gratification of an ebook download, and it's the deathknell of physical bookstores for me.
Today's Javascript 4 You. Today we start looking at how you can use JQuery to walk the parent/child relationships in the DOM tree of a page. 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:
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.
Today's Smalltalk 4 You continues the brief tutorial on WindowBuilder Pro, by hooking up a domain object to the UI we painted last time. 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:
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 continue our introduction to WindowBuilder pro in VA Smalltalk. Last time we painted the UI - today, we'll hook the UI we painted up to the simple Counter application we built awhile ago.
To refresh a bit, here's the simple UI we built - an input field for the current value, and a button to increment the value:
One thing we didn't do is hook the button up to any behavior. To do that, we need to define a callback - a SMalltalk method that will be invoked when the button is pressed:
You can doa number of things in the callback definition UI, but we're going to take the simplest tack: hook up a callback for when the button is pressed:
Go back to the browser and look at the code that got generated again - you should notice a new section for the callback:
Now we'll getinto hooking the UI up to a domain object. We'll define an instance variable in the UI to hold the domain object, and instantiate it in the initialize method:
Next, we'll set up the callback method to use the domain object when the button is pressed. To update the input field, we need to grab it by name using #widgetNamed:, and then use the #value: message to set the value into it:
Finally, we can test the UI. Open it up and you should see the input field incrementing when you press the button:
That's it - we've created a simple UI that hooks up to a domain object, and updates the state of the domain based on UI actions. With that, you should be able to get started building more useful things with WindowBuilder Pro!
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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