A world of git clients

In the world of git clients, I have found what I believe is the king of git client. Kraken. I'm sorry, there is just NO better UI.

Cortana Search Box - Frozen

Had an interesting situation where my Cortana Search box was frozen. Clicking it accomplished nothing short of frustration

I tried to "fix" it by re-registing my Cortana download by executing the powershell command:
 
Get-AppXPackage | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register C:\Windows\SystemApps\Microsoft.Windows.Cortana_cw5n1h2txyewy

Didn't work, received all sorts of invalid manifest errors in angry red. More research yielded a similar thing for the "reinstall" of a corrupted Windows Calendar. I modified the powershell script and executed:

Get-AppXPackage -Name Microsoft.Windows.Cortana | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register "$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml"}

  SUCCESS!

A few notes:

1. You push run powershell as administrator
2. You must have the windows firewall turned on
3. You must have the windows store bound to a valid account. 

 Why? who knows.

Inside Apple

So, at work lots of people have been reading this book that came out called Inside Apple. Normally I would skip books that I tend to see become prolific around the company but I thought from the title that it would be useful from my Org. Behavior 7000 level class. Inside Apple from the cover purports that it is "How America's Most Admired and Secretive -- Company Really works". Now, I've read this thing from cover-to-cover and it really just talks about "Jobs" and what he's done for the company. Now, it was VERY interesting from an organizational behavior perspective and I will indeed quote it for my final paper in the class; but I felt shorted. Most of it has been written before and felt like a rehashing of existing material. But there were parts that have been insightful. I was not aware that most folks in the executive level lacked understanding of general business matters. It almost makes me want to cry for the money I'm shelling out for my MBA. All in all a very good read; would I highly encourage it to folks: No. Would I say its good for a plane ride? yes.

So My in-house SAN was at it's limits; but considering I had built it before I had arrived at Ping it had served its purpose. It was time to go! I had a few reasons 1. I am considering going without a home PC. 2. It wouldn't work right with my MacBook. 3. I had no access to my files from my iPad / Android Phone I started reviewing the solutions out there as well as considering my online options. I ended up ruling out online options as I wanted to be able to stream / view from boxee box(s) as well. I was stuck with going back to a local SAN. I have long been a reader of TheRegister and ran across a article from the hardware side called 10 local storage solutions. I loved the reviewof the WD Live box. I personally don't care about the throughput as long as it is quick enough for my purposes. The single terabyte size isn't good enough and I was happy to see Fry's carried a 2 TB version. There are lots of plus's to this device. 1. It manages its own share's and its DLNA certified so I can attached from any device! 2. Its super tiny, and is a fraction of the size of my previous solution. 3. With the myCloud solution, I can access my files from anywhere. 4. Very economical for the size and purpose. Now i need to find a off-site backup solution...

E-Books

I've been a fan of e-books for quite some time. From epub, to pdf, to Kindle. I was actually an early adopter of the Kindle platform, first owning a 1st gen to the DX model where I happily stay. When it was announced that Ottawa would migrate to e-books I was absolutely thrilled! That is, until I had a class that used them. The company is called CourseLoad and it is more locked down than some IT departments PC's! No copy-paste, printing is throttled, and the resolution is horrible. My thinking is that this is some-kind of anti-theft model; however, the book is auto-charged at registration you don't have a choice. Given my warm-and-fuzzy personality, I have written the company and suggested they enroll in some reader program as their software sucks.

Camping

Just got back from camping, with 8 (yes 8) kids. Ages ranged from 18 to 5 and I think we hit our maximum. It was a mixture of ours and nieces and friends of the kids and we had a blast. We visited Jerome and the gold mine near it, something some of them had never done. Had ice cream at the artists park and talked and laughed and built some memories. Sadly I look around and not too many parents do that with their kids today, I know mine didn't do that.

The Hammer Approach

I ran across this interesting little tidbit today while waiting on my son:
"Decision makers engage in solution-focused problem identification because it provides comforting closure to the otherwise ambiguous and uncertain nature of problems"

The coarse is a masters level "Organization Behavior" which while interesting to me; is not in my core learning passion block (more later).  What stuck me to it is that we see this everywhere, even in IT.  People tend to grow comfortable with their daily approach to problem solving and  they tend to become rooted in their approach from motivation to implementation.  Most people characterize this in the phrase "When all you own is a hammer, everything is a nail".

If you apply this to software development, people tend to pull out the language they know, the toolkit their used to, the design pattern they know.  It is comforting to know that the problem is a human nature one, not a skill-rot problem that we see so often.

Shaker Cup

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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.

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!

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?

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???

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.