Ramblings of a Chaotic Mind

Shaker Cup

2009-12-09T06:36:00.001-07:00

So I get geeked out on the weirdest stuff, I recognize that and embrace it. Yesterday, I found a new shaker cup for my protein drinks that I have to share with the world because it is so simple but effective. Its called the Blender Bottle. You can find it here:
http://www.blenderbottle.com/

This thing is pure awesome goodness.

The hypocrisy of our School System

2009-09-08T07:10:00.003-07:00

Last night one of my sons brought me a letter from his high school which was a permission slip that we needed to sign in order for him to hear the presidential speech. Now, of course we signed it; but I am outraged that this had to be done.
Regardless of 'who' is in the presidential office; what sort of message does it send to our youth when they have to have a signature to hear our leader speak?
It is appalling to think that the right-wing extremists of our country have scared the system of our leader so much that the presidential speeches are now lumped in the same category as pornography, racism, and other taboo topics. I encourage everybody to write their local and state representatives to have this practice removed.

So much new stuff

2009-06-23T18:40:00.002-07:00

So, I think I have finally hit a wall in my learning process; I survived Delphi, Java, D, and numerous other languages but the .NET development team has finally beaten me. How in the world does a fresh new .net recruit keep up with the Jones's (so to speak).
Just currently, a 'good' (not great) .NET developer needs to have a handle on C# 3.0 (and all its goodness), WCF, WPF,Winform,MSMQ direct bindings,ASP.NET, HTML, CSS (in all 400 of its possible variations) and the list goes on and on. Now, you don't need to be a master of all you can pick your specialty if you want; but to be a truly useful 'pluggable' developer you should be decent. Now, I'm not whining to whine, as I would rather have all the activity going on than to be a dead language or have the 'bolt-ons' that Java has but geez.. maybe slow the pace a tad? Or rather finish up documenting things .net team?

Construction of Black Freight

2009-05-18T20:20:00.002-07:00

I'm spent my career developing both proprietary software for companies and contributed to *many* open-source projects on an unofficial basis (never obtained the fabled labeled developer status)... :(

One of the projects I took the most pride in is the overhaul to the TS 2000 plus project at Trans-soft. I had started migrating the application to a Java infrastructure before the source line was closed when they merged with our compeitor CargoWise. The Transportation Logistics market is an interesting market in that companies come and go quite rapidly and there are so few companies that service the space.
The companies that do service the space are either extremely expensive; or they are developed with dead (read Visual Basic) or dying (read Delphi) programming environments. The reason to be concerned is that these companies will have a hard-time staying at the top of their game by taking advantage of the changes that come with the evolving architecture.
There are many that use hackish solutions by emulating web clients by using products like Citrix Metaframe and using their aging server architecture to 'serve' their dying applications and passing the costs to their customers.
After I had heard that my former employer agreed to no longer sell and develop the TS 2000 Plus application, I started on a design for an open Transportation Logistics application I have labeled Black Freight to be distributed by Coding Rage. I plan to blog about the design and development of many of the aspects of the application as we gear up for our first public release of the application.

My goal is to release the public alpha as "Free"; however, importing of data from customers of Magaya, CargoWise, former Trans-soft customers will be billed out on an hourly basis.

Stay tuned!

Can I play Ball 2?

2009-05-15T06:05:00.002-07:00

It doesn't really matter the industry or the profession of the individual, but I always seem to run into 'protectionism' of the job. And it almost always results into damaging the company in some way or form.
Can't we all just work together to fix neat problems and make the world a geekier place to live in?

Microsoft Web Hosting

2009-02-11T06:56:00.002-07:00

You can definately tell its a down economy when the biggest of the big gets into a lowly market like basic web page hosting to scrape a few extra dollars. Microsoft has formally entered into the web page hosting business with its Office Live product. They even offer a year free if you sign up today?
Microsoft has already entered this market on the side with their Azure Windows product line that we learned about during the 2008 PDC Conference.

Price Gouging By Sirius

2009-02-04T06:45:00.002-07:00

Yesterday, I received a email from Sirius Satellite Radio with the subject line of:
"Immediate Action Required Regarding Your SIRIUS Service"

The email was notifying me that my satellite radio was going to cut me off of the internet streaming for my Sirius Stiletto unless I pay an extra 3 dollars a month or an extra 36 dollars a year. I am already paying 12.95 a month and don't feel I am getting the value for an additional increase.

I am very upset about this because I no longer have a competitor to switch to. The foundation of the arguement for the merger was that there would be no price increases and greater content available for the average consumer. Less than one month after the merger, I started to lose channels and now I am loosing the single greatest feature for the average office worker "to listen to sirius when I'm not in the car".

Sadly, I will be selling my radio and dropping my subscription after march 11th. Sirius defrauded me and now I am paying the price. What is on regular radio nowadays?

The 'what' is not as important as the how

2009-01-19T07:17:00.003-07:00

As we are nearing the close of January, I have had some time to reflect not only on my New Years resolutions; but other folks that surround me. A common thing that people do is they set a generalized goal rather than a specific. Such as: Lose weight, Drive Less, Be More Green, Smell Better.

I find that more often than not I fail at generalizations and others fail because they are just a goal, there is nothing specific to them that gives you a reachable target. For example, if my only goal is to 'lose weight'; there are dozens of ways to accomplish this and you lose target. If your goal was to smell better, this could be accomplished by bathing, using soap, changing your sheets, etc..etc...

Do we generalize for the secret wish to not achieve our goals?

To Fat To Fish

2009-01-14T21:04:00.002-07:00

So, I just finished reading Artie Lange's new book "Too Fat To Fish". The book was an interesting read into the mindset of a self destructive person that had every reason to celebrate his success but consistently chooses to destroy himself. It's worth the read.

Meta-blog: Programming: love it or leave it.

2008-12-31T20:56:00.000-07:00

Yes, I know Orin doesn't believe in meta-blogging, but this is a topic that is close to heart. I'm referring to Jeff Atwood's recent comments regarding programming as a career and specifically Joel Spolsky's remarks. I have to say I am in total agreement. While programming wasn't my first (or second) career choice growing up I have fallen totally in love over the last 15 years with software craftsmanship. Software programming is an 'excellent career' that will feed you daily challenges and mind puzzles to work over. How many job's out that evolve on a daily basis? I do totally commend the original authors aspirations to obtain a new degree. Personally, I think everybody should be updating their personal skill sets and knowledge core over the course of their life. I don't believe education is ever completed; regardless of life's course.

I have worked for large ISV's, micro ISV's and in house IT honing my craft and have never been bored. I have met many fellow developers that grumbled and griped and it never failed to amaze me that they don't share the same passion I do.

I agree totally Jeff: Programming: love it or leave it.

But then like Jeff, I am spending New Years Eve working on Black Freight and updating my blog.

Another Meta-Blog, No Repect!

2008-08-18T05:43:00.000-07:00

While reading some blog aggregation this morning (during a compilation session), I ran across this blog posting this morning.

I had an experience very similar to this one just a few short years ago (no names of course). This sort of thing seems to happen more often in small companies whenever you have developers working for non-developers that believe they are tech-savy.
The approach I took was to educate the non-developers in what I do and how I go about doing it. Sometimes it worked, and sometimes it didn't work at all because, like anything you have to give and take.
The experience I most remember was discussing a new database design for some inventory tables. I believed in a normalized transactional design and they believed in a highly non-normalized design to support Access reports. At first I got angry because they were spoiling my 'pure' design, and the DBA was angry because he was trying desperately to create a normalized design for the database. Everybody walked away from the table angry, the developers, the dba, and the project owners because nobody budged.
After the meeting, I was reflecting on every bodies positions on the matter; and there seemed to be no way to move forward. I decided to suck up my pride and accept a badly designed database model in order to move the project forward; it's called "Compromise". The project was canceled in the end anyways, the stakeholders decided the cost was too much for their simple project.

Grieve for what you have?

2008-08-08T11:34:00.000-07:00

I can't remember where, but I once read that people should experience grief for what they have. My thought at the time was 'That is just plain nonsensical' and moved on with my life & studies.

However, events have occurred in my life that have forced me to evaluate what is important to me and where I want to be in 3,6,9,12 months from now. So I ask this question gentle readers: Have you ever grieved for what you have?

Drill Baby Drill???

2008-08-05T08:53:00.002-07:00

So, a recent campaign speech from McCain called off-shore drilling as our solution for oil independence from the middle east. You have to be kidding me; this can't be our solution. While I am now a supporter of Obama for president (I was a Clinton booster); I do think McCain has done a great job for Arizona. He was and is a good senator; but his energy solution for the country is horrible. In a speech recently he spoke a line that scares me to the core: "Drill baby Drill".

All it takes to see the failure of this solution is to use common-sense. How much does humanity currently depend on the ocean? Now why in the world would want to dump oil into the ocean?

The discovery for oil requires a 'lot' of test-drilling; and during this test-drilling thousands to millions of gallons of oil could be released before the proper facilities are put in place to harness this oil.

Consider the public outrage that occurred during the Exxon oil-spill not to long ago, this is *nothing* compared to the damage we will be doing should be start doing off-shore drilling. Its all about common sense people.

Off-Shore Drilling?

2008-08-05T08:53:00.001-07:00

Off-Shore Drilling? You have to be kidding me; this can't be our solution. While I am now a supporter of Obama for president (I was a Clinton booster); I think McCain has done a great job for Arizona. He was and is a good senator; but his energy solution for the country is horrible. In a speech recently he spoke a line that scares me to the core: "Drill baby Drill".

Now, people use common-sense. How much does humanity currently depend on the ocean? Now why in the world would want to dump oil into the ocean?

The discovery for oil requires a 'lot' of test-drilling; and during this test-drilling thousands to millions of gallons of oil could be released before the proper facilities are put in place to harness this oil.

Consider the public outrage that occurred during the Exxon oil-spill not to long ago, this is *nothing* compared to the damage we will be doing should be start doing off-shore drilling. Its all about common sense people.

To Region or Not To Region, that is the question

2008-08-05T08:53:00.000-07:00

In the .net blogging world, it seems that many folks are debating over Jeff Atwoods post on his disdain of regions (see here). My initial reaction was that I agree with Jeff Atwood on many of his points, but I don't agree with his conclusion. I personally use regions for one simple point: To allow me to focus on my current problem at hand.

Jeff has outlined 4 of his problems with regions:
1. Folding directives are glorified comments.
2. Folding is used to sweep code under the rug.
3. Folding is used to mask excessive length.
4. Folding can hide deficiencies in your editor.

I have seen these abuses in both close and open code. This sort of abuse needs to be corrected on a team level, but either the senior or lead developers of said team. If you have renegade programmers using regions as comment fields, you either need to instruct them in the proper fashion of comments, or "get them off the bus".

Personally, I tend to enjoy the region feature of Visual Studio as it allows me to almost work in Visual Studio as productive as I was with Visual Age for Java. One of the nice features of the old version of visual studio is that it forced you to work on a class on a 'method by method' approach. Granted, this can be destroyed if you have a renegate team-member(s) that use them for comments; but this can be corrected behavior. BTW, a wonderful free add-on to Visual Studio to allow you to standardize on the deployment approach to regions is Regionate.

Old Friends, New Ideas

2008-07-17T19:35:00.001-07:00

Through the magic of LinkedIn; I've been in touch with an old friend of mine from Cyclone Commerce TJ. For the record, he is on the market looking for a C# Developer job; and I would give him 2 thumbs up to anybody hiring him.
Anyways, I noticed he posted a video resume and while a tad rough around the ideas I have to say kudo's to the novel idea. It shows innovation and the ability to think outside the box which is critical for our field.

Been away awhile, whats new?

2008-07-17T19:27:00.000-07:00

Busy Busy!
It was mentioned to me that I haven't blogged in awhile and yes that is very much true. At my new digs at Ping Golf, we have been busy with a very large project of deploying our Business Automation software at our Japan facility. While a large project that involved tons of coordination and rework was actually a lot of fun; in some aspects it reminded me of my early days at ISV's.

I'd like to comment on something that is interesting. Way back in the early 2000's; we undertook a localization effort at SalesLogix. While the language was different (Delphi); the effort to localize in C# was very similar. One might have expected that over the last 8 years our industry would have learned something and made the process easier. Granted, we didn't have to worry about things such as AnsiString or the such; but the effort was *not* easier by any stretch.

When open soure dies

2008-01-09T21:13:00.000-07:00

As a true geeky software developer (non mort) I am always chasing shiny things; and passionately devouring new technology as quickly as I can. However, every now and then something really reaches out and grabs you; and sometimes it is not something that you truly expect.
For example, a sampling of my favorite open source projects:

iBatis - A lightweight ORM for various languages
Paint.NET - Think early PaintShopPro before it became bloated
Notepad++ - A swiss army knife of a text editor

Unlike many open source zealots I didn't select these because I wanted to support a particular license or programming language. I selected them because they solved a problem I had in the lightest way possible. During my stint(s) at Trans-soft I encountered and adopted a new framework in a language that I detested but it solved my problems and I fell in love with it: HealthMonitor. HealthMonitor solved a need that man people ignore or build themselves, the monitoring of applications and services with altering based on rules and severity. Unfortunately the application simply 'worked' and once installed didn't really need tinkering with and thus becomes forgotten until something fails. Recently i went to pull a new version to experiment with for my new employer and was dismayed to see that the company has abandoned its opensource line in favor of a closed source solution for pay. As a developer that lives in both worlds I can understand their reasoning to make a buck; but I can also be dismayed to lose a product that 'worked'. After googling for awhile, I can not find a replacement for this truly great function. Has anybody else found one? I have considered porting the application to a language I write in (C#, F#, or Boo) but don't want to go through this effort if somebody else is actively pursuing the same goal.

Netflix's Click To Play

2008-01-03T06:02:00.000-07:00

Way back in the day, when Netflix just came out they revolutionized the way you rented DVD's. Instead of paying 'per hit'; you paid your monthly fee and watched what you could when you could. Their success was evident as they dragged the monolith (at the time) Blockbuster with them into the exact same market. I was slow to jump on the Netflix bandwagon; however, due to pure pressure of my coworkers back at SalesLogix I climbed on board and was hooked.

Along the way I have switched back and forth between web-based DVD suppliers for my movie addiction and there is really no perceivable difference between Blockbuster and Netflix to myself. The other day, I was tinkering with my Media PC in my living room and just happened to use a new feature Netflix added that allows me to watch a DVD without the DVD called Watch Instantly. Clicking their Play button opens a modified Windows Media Player instance (so reported), although you must click Play about 3 times to get to the actual movie on different play buttons. While the quality of the movie isn't pure DVD quality or that of HD television, the usability and 'on demand' nature more than compensates for those minor issues.

I would hope Blockbuster is watching netflix again. Netflix wasn't the first to offer video on demand with a large archive; however, they were the first to do it right.

Collection of Thoughts

2007-11-28T06:24:00.000-07:00

So I've been pretty negligent on my self imposed therapy of posting my thoughts to my blog. My negligence hasn't been for lack of interest; more for a lack of time!

So I am finally 'out' of puppies for the moment, seven of the nine little guys & gals have been placed in what I hope to be their permanent home. I was slightly worried that it would be hard to part them out, but it was surprisingly easy as there was just so many!

I have also been playing with the new version of Visual Studio; version 2008. There are lots of things to like about it, one of the most being 'consistency'. I was able to install the application and being instantly productive because the user interface is almost exactly the same as 2005 and keystrokes performed exactly how I wanted them to. The new whiz-bang things were added in an unobtrusive fashion as possible. A non-issue is the lack of third-party support which I am sure will be coming along as quickly as they can ramp-up. It was surprising to see the lack of starter-projects available though as they are sponsered by the same group. The performance inside of virtual machines is odd though. Version 2005 performs like a champ inside of my vmware image, but 2008 is a dog which has me worried.

Internet Addiction

2007-11-06T20:04:00.001-07:00

The brief times when I'm not listening to Sirius satellite radio; I am an avid NPR fan/listener. On the way home from the gym today I happened to catch a segment that was discussing internet addiction.
Just the brief mention of the word addition in a subject topic is usually enough to catch my attention. Usually I scoff at the idea of a person being addicted to something as mundane as Food, Beverage, or Video games. Most often, I agree with any experts and term some of these items to be nothing more than a compulsive behavior. I do understand that there is a psychological draw to these items and people can and usually focus their energies on a non-threatening item as a way of escape. however, this particular topic hit very close to home.
Due to my career and hobby of choice, I am what many can consider a prime candidate for internet addiction even though I do not possess an addictive personality. However, for fun I took an online test to determine if I am an addict; turns out I am.
The individual that was being interviewed on NPR was undertaking a test to see if he could 'survive' 3 consecutive days being disconnected to the outside world. This got me to reflecting if I could survive; which is a short answer of yes I could. Now, my life would be radically changed as a significant portion of my income is a derivative of internet access; however, I do not define my self-being around my perusals. This minor detail for me drags the whole discussion of "is it an addiction or not" back on the table. If a person is merely 'dependent' on an item to facilitate their work or life is addicted, then we can apply the same label to individuals that use a hammer, screwdriver, or an other tool.
Thoughts?

Fixing the home network

2007-10-26T06:07:00.000-07:00

Years ago just before I had left my cushy development job (post IPO) a few of my co-workers and I were all in the market to purchase a new home. Most chose based off of 'location', some chose for value, while I chose for the school district. At this time, Wireless A/B was the rage and most wired networks were based off of cat 5 and if you had the $$$ you deployed on 100mb.

Instead of wiring my home with cat 5 I foolishly jumped on the band-wagon for Wireless. Why is Wireless foolish? Well, if you have occasional laptop's its fantastic, I can even work outside if I need to. However, if you have a media server, a HTPC, multiple children's PCS, laptops, it gets to be too much. I have switched brands, bumped up to N from mimo-G and I am still getting bogged down at peak times (post school hours). So, I am now going to 'retro-wire' my existing home for Cat 5e complete with closet which I'll blog about quite extensively.

And Another Thing

2007-10-22T18:30:00.001-07:00

Happy birthday mom, I love you.

15 Years

2007-10-16T06:30:00.000-07:00

Not even a week from now, I'll have been married to my young bride for 15 years. Anytime we mention this to people, they always ask our age; which of course makes us laugh and blush.
On the serious side, I spent a long time looking at gifts from practical to emotional; because after all, it is not a trivial matter to surprise somebody you have known for so long.

Buying gifts for people is supposed to be fun, not a chore. However, the commercialization and the pressure that society has imposed on 'events' has relegated the simple act of expressing your love and thanks into a public display. What happened to the days of singing a song or reciting poetry to your loved ones? I am definitely not a renaissance man, but even I can see that the charm and emotion put into gifts is often shunted aside to find the 'greatest gift ever'.
What is out there that can express 15 years of love?

I am holding out the 'big' event gift for 20 years, as that would mark a huge number in our lives. Although I am constantly amazed that we have been married this long and together for far longer. While I never doubted that I had found my life mate, that person that is opposite me in the right ways and challenges me in others. Many people in my personal life and outside did their absolute best to attempt to separate us. Whether they were jealous or filled with hate I can not decide, as I leave that up to God to sort through. Twenty years to me is special because it would complete a promise I made to a special person in my life about 13.5 years ago (The details of that promise I'll keep to myself though so please don't ask).

scalability or performance

2007-10-08T06:11:00.000-07:00

If there is one concept that appears to cross many fields, its performance. Think about it: automotive, sports, medicine, or software development. In each field, we are always trying to squeeze that one last drop.

One thing that is interesting, is that in other fields it is easy to measure performance. In the software development field, it seems as if many developers don't know the different between performance or scalability. Oftentimes they'll punt to the hardware folks to deliver faster machines to achieve greater 'performance' if you will.

I would like to challenge my fellow peers to tackle a minor concept: predictive performance. Predictive performance is the concept of measurable performance under guided environmental conditions. Achieving predictive performance allows you to set a baseline under which to develop under.

More Football & Programming

2007-09-25T08:04:00.000-07:00

So I noted in a previous post I can lassoed in to Coach a little leage football team, and just two days after I found that out we had our first practice. By trade I am a software engineer and at night I am a bumbling handyman. So how does one rapidly pickup a new skillset and 'wing it'. I decided to apply the problem solving and planning skills I learned from my years in engineering to coaching.

When I need to learn a new programming language or complex application I purchase dead trees (aka books) that are education or reference manuals. So I did the diligent thing and purchased books on football coaching from the local Borders. I was very surprised to find an actual Dummies book on coaching little league football.

Then next thing I usually do is find somebody smarter than me. I've been foolish enough in the past to think I can learn something without advisors by just reading and maybe applying. Don't get me wrong, you *can* do this and get something to work but you can never do it as efficiently as somebody that has been doing it for years. Yes, its fun to make mistakes while learing by doing but it is neither expedient nor effiencient. Why waste time? On my personal list of things to do to become a better programmer is learn Erlang. When I get to it, I'll find a local user group or some sort of mentor to help me along. Failing that, I'll join an online forum to field questions to the world. I was fortunate enough to find that talent among the parent pool of the kids of the team.

So I have my knowledge base, and my experts panel to guide me and the first practice went through without too many hick ups.
Next step is to build my 'team' and to separate the team into their relevant skill set positions.

From programming to Football Coach?

2007-09-24T06:11:00.000-07:00

There never seems to be an end to somebody who likes to complicate their own lives.

I took my middle son down to the parents meeting for his football league over the weekend. To great confusion; at the meeting we learned that we had just paid $75.00 to participate in the league, the parents had to come up with coaches, equipment, etc.. At the moment I am not sure what the $75.00 covered other than game setup? One note to all league organizers out there, "organization" is key, as the parents meeting was not setup well at all.

I've also been wrangled in as being a team coach, and I will tell you I am petrified! I enjoy all sporting activies (as a spectator) and occasionally don't mind playing some sporting games at all. However, unlike my siblings my parents never engaged me in sports as a youth which pushed me down a very different channel in life. I'm done the diligent thing and have read up on the expectations; there is always that nagging doubt when you pursue something new and different in life.

Dad of all bombs

2007-09-13T07:22:00.000-07:00

In this post, it is reported that the Russians have successfully tested the 'dad of all bombs', which is a parody of the American MOAB nuclear device (mother of all bombs). Given the nuclear treaty inked awhile back, it is not surprising that other countries have gone this route to build bigger and more deadly bombs.

On a humorous note, it is funny to see this bomb declared as "environmentally friendly". Wikipedia defines "Environmentally friendly" as a term used to refer to goods and services considered to inflict minimal harm on the environment. Now, solar powered water heaters can be defined as environmentally friendly; however, a 7.8 ton explosive can not. I am sure that the animals caught within the 990 foot blast radius will not feel comfortable or that it had a minimal impact on their lives.

Programmer or Developer?

2007-09-05T07:07:00.000-07:00

Meta Blog Warning!

I recently read a post from Hans-Eric Grönlund about the difference between a Programmer or a Developer. I have been declaring for years that there is a difference; and while I don't necessarily agree with Hans-Eric's exact definition of the differences I applaud his insight.
I am particularly curious about why he believes a developer should start with an gui interface, as that is usually not the best practice; although this is often a religious choice to make.
One particular comment I agree on:

If you think the implementation is unimportant as long as it does what you want, and is reasonably maintainable, then you’re probably a Software Developer

I recently worked for a company that rubber-stamped this in-and-out. The main 'guy' cared more about what the Gui did and looked like than what the 'stability' of the code. It is hard to succeed as a developer when the mantra from top-down is "just make it pretty". My take has always been, don't sweat the small stuff. Get it to work, make sure it meets the business needs, then make it pretty, then optimize the performance. It's not rocket-science, its not engineering, its poetry.

What do you do?

2007-08-28T06:19:00.000-07:00

Have you ever been asked, "What do you do?". My beautiful wife and I have the luxury of meeting new people quite often and we receive that question a lot. I've never really reflected on my answer and I always respond with "I'm a software developer". Maybe its the Cold & Flue medicine or maybe it is my ADD afflicting me again but I am curious: Why are we compelled to answer with your chosen (or not) profession. Is it just conditioning because of the original Feudalism system and/or the apprenticeship methodologies.
Back when I was slinging meet at Burger King I had never answered with "I am a fast food customer service agent". Now, I am not saying I don't identify myself as a "Software Developer" as I am definitely a geek ed out coder; but I am curious about mans auto response system.

Twitter is the new thing?

2007-08-23T06:39:00.000-07:00

Seems like just yesterday that all the digerati were chasing cpu and fsb clock speeds to publish to the world that you were elite or not. However, today it seems to be the next instant messaging application as if mankind wasn't connected to society enough. I blogged earlier about my all-time favorite IM client Meebo. It is still my favorite for the following:

NO INSTALL!
NO Logs on your machine.
Connects to all 3 of my instant message services I use.

Today I read a post from Jeff Atwood who is one of my favorite daily blog reads regarding 'the new thing' called Twitter. I read the guide, downloaded a client called MadTwitter and here I am.
While I am a firm believer as Jeff in "making it public"; I'm not sure how twitter is neat or convenient but I'm willing to give it a few days to see if it clicks with me. As I explore the world of twitter and public noise I'm post back

To Be Human, or the cost of your convictions

2007-08-20T06:31:00.000-07:00

Last night I found myself watching the Green Mile again with my beautiful wife of 15 years. For those that haven't seen this work of art; I highly recommend it. The part that is interesting to me is the sub-plot of the prison guard and the choices he must make. One of these sub-plots is the prison guard dealing with the cost of his convictions and carrying them out.
In a radical case of coincidence, I ran across this blog posting that is discussing a liberal movement in Texas that is discussing this very same topic except in modern day occurences.
disclaimer: I am not a liberal by any stretch of the imagination; I am an outspoken Progressive.

Languages that aren't used?

2007-08-09T07:35:00.000-07:00

I saw this article a few weeks ago but I hadn't had a chance to *really* read it until this morning (we'll talk about what really reading in yet another post later). Two of the languages in the article strike way to close to home: Haskell & Delphi.

While my Delphi development today is relegated to a small portion of my active crafting; I still actively develop in current versions of the program. While I agree with the author that the language went from popular to obscurity in a relatively short period; I hesitate to say that it means the language did not 'take off'. The author compares the article to being a VB alternative and that with VB there is not reason for it; I guess the author missed the note that VB is dead.

Haskell is a different story. A language being complex doesn't "kill" a software language. Functional programming in general is just beginning to take off as a whole; and dragging modern OO languages with it. Apparently Google doesn't think Haskell is dead either as they have assigned 9 developers to the language.

Comparing the database protocol?

2007-08-01T06:37:00.000-07:00

I started out my professional programming career with a lessor loved language at the time called Delphi. One of the wonderful things about Delphi was that there was plenty of options to choose from to connect to databases: ADO, BDE, midas,DBX and a plethora of others. Each offered their own upsides and downsides but were usually chosen by developer religion or need. However, if the application developer properly abstracted and layered their application it was a simple matter to switch between connectivity options as everything extended from a few base classes such as TDataset.
When I moved to Java, I expected to have to give up this freedom since all database connectivity in Java was done through JDBC; however, I was pleasantly surprised. JDBC was simply a set of a few base classes and standards that were enforced by the vendor. To go one step higher than my beloved Delphi IDE most IDE vendors programmed tools wrapped around the base classes so that one plugin would work with most JDBC protocol vendors.
As time moved on, I sorely missed doing desktop development so I moved to a set of .net/mono development languages. One would expect that ADO.NET would follow along the same methodology of JDBC in providing a few base classes and standards that would be enforced; and at first glance it is. However, it seems almost all tool vendors program to concrete classes/implementations. For example, attempt to use an Informix or Ingress .net provider in the server explorer in the IDE or with the SmartCode code generator; sadly it will not happen. Everything you can possibly need can be pulled from the base classes so it leaves me scratching my head.

Visual Studio Orcas & Coding Rage

2007-07-27T06:18:00.000-07:00

While Coding Rage is under development I'll post my small snippets here still.

Visual Studio 2008 (Orcas) Beta2 is out and about, and it has a GO-LIVE LICENSE!! Now we only need shared hosting providers that support .net 3.5 Start your DOWNLOADS!

Was Windows Vista a dud?

2007-07-25T06:24:00.001-07:00

I just finished reading an article in Australian IT magazine covering statements made by Gianfranco Lanci who is currently the head of Acer.

The article can be summed up with this one liner: "The entire industry is disappointed by Windows Vista," proclaims Lanci. While I am not the head of a multi billion dollar organization I am part of the software/pc industry and I can say I am not disappointed by Vista. Given the choice of a Vista pc or a XP pc I would easily choose the Vista pc. I upgraded my primary home personal computer to the 64 bit of Windows Vista quite awhile ago using my MSDN account version. While I have been challenged to locate native 64 bit software (native 64 bit FireFox anyone?) I have been more than pleased with both performance and stability. I can definitely not say the same for a little known release of Windows called ME or Neptune which never was.

The interesting thing with Vista is there is plenty of neat things in there, but they are buried under candy coated interfaces so folks don't talk much about them. So why would a personal computer manufacturer be yelling to the world that Vista was a failure? I can only surmise that the global community wasn't inspired enough to buy new Acer pc's just to try it out when they can purchase it for their existing pc. I think the underlying unspoken comment is that PC sales didn't skyrocket and rather than blame their own lack of innovation Acer is blaming Windows Vista for not selling their hardware. What I see, but apparently Australian journalists don't see is that its not Microsoft's job to product software to sell Acer brand computers; its Acer's job to product a PC attractive enough to entice us to purchase one.

Hello Useless!

2007-07-20T06:35:00.000-07:00

In an exercise of doing pointless things with our lives; it seems that the W3C are considering moving to HTML 5 again. Progress for the sake of progress is not a bad thing; but progress down a dead-end path is not a good thing. Never-mind that the good folks at the W3C already have a progress path for HTML that has a really cool x in front of it (XHTML). Never-mind that we already have a easy solution to making menu's and pop up windows. The sad state of affairs for anybody that has done serious weblication development is that 'current' browsers still don't conform to any of these standards. HTML 4.01 isn't even fully implemented by 'modern' browsers and it was introduced in 1999 ( that is pre-millennial folks).

Things are moving along

2007-07-12T07:16:00.001-07:00

Somebody very special to me will often call me 'mildly ADD', whether she is right or not isn't important its the chaotic movements and wild shifts in focus that is. Sometimes it's a blessing and sometimes its a curse as it takes a massive effort to finish things that aren't extremely interesting.

Well, keeping with that momentum; I've decided to split my current blog in two (yes I know this one is new already). I have 2 large open-source projects currently in the works and I have held off on discussing them with people until I can determine their readiness for the public.
dHibernate (Hibernate for Delphi)
Commons.NET (A Commons repository for .net)

I'll discuss each of these in depth on my new development portal Coding Rage.

The death of Customer Service

2007-07-11T14:43:00.000-07:00

Has anybody else noticed the overall death of common courtesy and with it customer service? From the simple act of not saying "thank you" to somebody that holds the door open for you, or takes the time to hold an elevator to the act of greeting a new customer.

I recently had the luxury of driving to south Phoenix to pick-up a part for one of my vehicle's after work rather frantically to get through before closing hours. When I called, I was looking for a specific part in a specific color in a specific condition. I was rather ecstatic that they not only had what I was looking for, they had it in stock. To preserve time because of where I work and where they were, I asked to have the part waiting for me.
Not only was the part not waiting they didn't even have it in stock. It wouldn't have taken the clerk more than the 15 minutes that I waited there than to have told me up front they didn't have it; and as such they would have preserved a customer. Going forward, I don't think I could trust the company simply because they don't both to confirm they have items in stock; even when asked. What was lacking hear wasn't a mistake, or a misplacement of inventory, it's simply the misplacement of customer service.

Favorite IM Client?

2007-07-06T14:19:00.000-07:00

Are you still using IM to chat with your friends, pals, loved ones? One word: Meebo

Voice To Email

2007-07-06T13:58:00.000-07:00

I was turned on to Jott a few weeks ago and finally go around to trying it myself today. Jott is basically a service that will email voice-recordings for you to contacts in your account. How it works is pretty simple.
1. Sign up for a free account.
2. You bind your account to a phone # and an email address.

After going through their sign-up process and performing 2 different types of authorization your ready to roll. The whole processes was pretty simple and took less than 15 minutes to get rolling which isn't bad for a free service.

Now to use it is pretty neat; as the service attempts to transcribe your voice recordings to emails for you. So far I've found the transcription to be pretty unreliable; however, it does email you each audio recording so all in all its pretty neat. While the service is bound around you emailing your own notes (or jotts if you will) you can also send them to others contacts that you setup in the online service.

Problems of the future

2007-07-02T07:16:00.001-07:00

I recently was able to attend a .net developer meeting here in Phoenix just last week. The meeting was to here Scott Guthrie and Stefan Schackow showcase some of the newer .net technologies that will be gracing our door stops; including Silverlight. While all the new technology was great and awe-inspiring; unintentionally a singular phrase hit home with me: "Fix the problem".

One thing I have seen in my relatively short career was a whole lot of code being written and rewritten and I wonder if this was what he was getting at. At first glance, you might think that the phrase means to not start coding until you know what problem you are trying to solve; however, I am torn on this concept. I am one of those individuals that needs to experiment and tinker to properly absorb something and without coding for pleasure I am not sure I would code at one.

I think I need some perspective on this one.

Where is the C# Jakarta?

2007-06-28T15:36:00.001-07:00

I've been tinkering around with C# for the last few years as well as with a few other programming languages. One of the things I have noticed is that while the open-source movement in the .net world is fairly strong, there is no equivalent for the Apache foundations Jakarta project.

A quick perusal of the CSharp-Source.net website shows dozens of different projects out there; however, very few of them utilize a core-set of well documented and well maintained projects. Those that know me know that I am not a GPL flag waiver as I believe that there needs to be a balance of open-source and commercial software; I firmly believe that that Apache/BSD/MIT model promotes freedom for the developer. Freedom for the developer is what is going to build the open-source libraries that we as developers need to succeed.

First Post!

2007-06-15T13:25:00.000-07:00