Thursday, July 31, 2008
The "Mojave Experiment"
a.k.a "Let's make fools of the general public."
Check out this guy.... video clip .... since when is it a good idea to trick and make fools of your potential customers?
Microsoft, what are you thinking?
Friday, July 18, 2008
The new MobileMe service being offered by Apple sounds great, but without the ability to support custom domain names (via MX records) I cannot use it and that's a shame.
Google Apps/Mail supports custom domain names (multiple domains, even) for free! So why can't Apple!
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Parent and Child Database Relationships
Easy if you keep it simple.
an excerpt from http://evolt.org/article/RI_to_the_Rescue/18/13276/index.html
"Every database relation is a one-to-many relation involving just two tables, a parent table and a child table. Yes, you may hear other terms like one-to-one, many-to-many, and so on, but these are all just special cases of the one-to-many relation. Don't let them fool you. Understanding databases is easy if you keep it simple.
So each relation is one-to-many, involving a parent table and a child table. This terminology is not standard, merely convenient, if somewhat unfortunate. Some people say master and detail; sometimes, I'll say owner and member, a flashback from pre-relational CODASYL databases as out of date as bell-bottom pants (except that unlike pre-relational databases, bell-bottoms may one day be back in style).
As you might guess, the parent is the "one" and the child is the "many." Each parent can have many children. The reverse, I am afraid, is not true, not in a relational database. A child can have only one parent. Please don't dwell too long on the obvious fact that in real life a child has two parents -- you will only get confused. In a relational database, in a one-to-many relation, each child has at most one parent. This is important. This is also why the parent-child terminology is unfortunate."
Friday, May 30, 2008
I just discovered this cool site called Songza.com
Very cool, you can listen to music for free and even embed songs on a website....
Songza: The music search engine & internet jukebox. Listen. Now.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
I needed an HDMI cable to connect my Xbox 360 to a new HDTV that I had recently bought, so I went to my local Fry's and was shocked by the prices. They had HDMI cables priced as high as $300! The cheapest I could find was about $50. That is absolutely crazy, we are talking about a cable here, nothing complicated, just a simple cable. They all do the same thing!
I stood in the aisle for a good 20 minutes searching over and over for the cheapest one (they had a huge selection), unable to come to grips with the fact that I was going to have to spend so much for a stupid cable. Eventually I came to my senses and decided to walk away without a cable, I refused to pay that much! So instead, I decided to go look in the computer accessory section (on the other side of the store, I had been looking the in the TV section).
Guess what I found in the computer-accessory & various-cables section?
$15 HDMI cables.
Moral of this story? Don't pay an Idiot Tax for HDMI cables.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
I have been listening to too many podcasts for too long now.
I'm cutting down to just a couple podcasts per week and going to begin listening to music again!
Some great sounds to code to:
The Dave Matthews Band
The String Cheese Incident
Soul Coughing
Pink Floyd
Led Zeppelin
Postal Service
The Shins
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Exciting at first.
But I learn.
Everything is nothing to me now.
I wonder how it ever was.
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
He woke up this morning a little earlier than normal because today is the first year anniversary of his escape. He wants to relish every moment of the day and to not take his liberation for granted.
He escaped the rat race exactly one year ago today. He likes to think of his liberation from that 9-to-5 dredgery as a "Neo's-Awakening". His life is fundamentally changed and he sees everything in a new light. Sometimes he seriously wonders if he has died (maybe without knowing it, like while he was sleeping) and is now living in some kind of afterlife that he has mentally constructed for himself... it really is that wonderful.
....
Friday, April 25, 2008
What is a Libertarian?
The libertarian, or 'classical liberal' perspective is that individual well-being, prosperity, and social harmony are fostered by 'as much liberty as possible' and 'as little government as necessary.'
Ask yourself these questions...
How much liberty is good for the individual?
How much government do we need?
For more information...
Read Wikipedia
and I recommend reading Henry David Thoreau's book Walden.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Here is a good article about C# 3.0 and LINQ
C# 3.0 introduced a number of new features for LINQ. In this article we'll examine the new features like extension methods, lambda expressions, anonymous types, and more."
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Worth checking out if you are at all interested in developing an Adobe Flex based web application....
Intuit’s Radical New Flex + QuickBase Cloud Platform
Friday, February 29, 2008
I'm so excited! I submitted Zen of Clover to Apple yesterday and today it is the featured download!
Zen of Clover is an OS X widget. Its a small freeware game; where you float over a clover patch looking for 4 leaf clovers. Its just meant to be a relaxing little break in your day... theres no pressure, no scoring.
Monday, February 25, 2008
Jonathan Coulton performs "Still Alive" in Rock Band. Still Alive is that catchy song from that awesome game Portal (one of the Orange Box games). If you don't know who Jonathan Coulton is, or you don't know what Portal is, then where have you been!?! Google them now!!
Friday, February 22, 2008
The Source Code Is The Design: "The Source Code Is The Design" is a cool wiki page dedicated to Jack W. Reeves' idea that coding is designing.
A few quotes from the page...
"It seems like a common error in software project management is in treating all the stuff that developers do as a manufacturing activity. This seems to be a driver behind a lot of poor management decision making, and unrealistic goal setting."
"Since programming is a design activity, not a manufacturing activity, you shouldn't automatically think you can treat programmers like assembly line workers. The Source Code Is The Design might help explain why throwing more programmers at a project that is behind schedule will hurt it, not help it."
"A software developer is more akin to an artist than an assembly line worker, since they are designing in writing source code. It takes time, consideration, and in some cases, a bit of skill. Creation can not be rushed."
Thursday, February 14, 2008
If I were a greater man I would have an actual list of "rules and virtues to live by". However I am not that organized or disciplined, but I do like the idea of it. Benjamin Franklin, a the age of 20, create a list of 13 virtues that he religiously (attempted) to follow for his entire life. He carried them with him and even kept a log of how he well he was adhering to them. I'm not even close to being that Great, but I would like to be. So I thought this blog would be a good place for me to start listing and organizing my own set of life-rules.
#1. Honesty
The older I get, the more I realize that the old saying, "honesty is the best policy", is true. If nothing else it is simpler. Lies can quickly become complicated; it is a burden to have to remember them as to not get caught in the lie some point later in life. It's simpler to always tell the truth. When in doubt tell the truth. The only exception to this rule is when telling a lie would spare someone else's feeling; and in this case it would be preferable to say nothing than to lie.
"Honesty is the best policy." ~Benjamin Franklin
"No man has a good enough memory to make a successful liar." ~Abraham Lincoln
"If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything." ~Mark Twain
"Honesty is the first chapter of the book of wisdom." ~Thomas Jefferson
"People who are brutally honest get more satisfaction out of the brutality than out of the honesty." ~Richard J. Needham
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
YouTube - Yes We Can - Barack Obama Music Video
Here is the actual speech (go to minute 9:30 for the Yes We Can part)....
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
The Apple TV upgrade is good. I like that I can rent movies from iTunes. Although I would like a longer 'watch-time', 24 hours isn't long enough. Come up give us at least 48 hours or, preferably, 5 days. I would like to be able to rent a movie, put it on an iPod and take it on a weekend trip and let my kids watch it multiple times anytime during the trip. Blockbuster is better because no matter what the allowed rental time is (1 day or 5), I could choose to keep it longer and pay a small late fee... its my choice.
The iPhone software upgrade it good. Nothing to write home about.
The Macbook Air.. being an Apple fan, I want to like it... but I don't. When I heard rumors about a thin Macbook, I pictured it being a replacement (ie. next version) of the Macbook. I have a Macbook, I looked at mine and imagined it about as thin as an iPhone with the 3/4" bezel around the 13" LCD shrunk down to maybe 1/4". Now that would be a nice upgrade.
But instead Apple kept the Macbook unchanged deciding instead to add a new model to the lineup, the Macbook Air. And they decided to price it between the Macbook and the Pro. Not good. If they wanted to make a new (third) model, they should have named it Macbook Nano and priced it below the Macbook. Something around $600 would sell great, i think. No one cares about the lame multitouch pad and the 'full sized' keyboard. People like small things, like the Asus Eeee PC. The tiny Asus linux-based laptops are selling like hot cakes. I was hoping for an Applefied version of it.... take a look at this picture (the Asus Eee PC compared to the Macbook) and try to imagine how cool it would have been if Apple had announced something like it today!
By the way... The Asus Eeee PC sells for only $399. Apple could have added $200 more worth of hardware coolness to it and sold it for $599 ... that would have made for an awesome keynote.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
I'm interested in Flex. I really like the idea of being able to quickly create a very rich web application that is cross platform & browser compatible. Beats the hell out of HTML. Adobe is kicking ass lately. Watch out Microsoft... I bet there are a lot of developers out there thinking the same thing. I've been a loyal MS developer for years, but as of late I'm losing the love.
Hello Microsoft, we need to talk... The excitement is gone. Maybe we should start seeing others. ... Hey, geez don't cry. ... No, no it's not you, its me. ... Really ... No, really. ... OK ok ... I got to go, we'll talk later. ...
... Hello Adobe, what are you doing tonight? ;)
I'm interesting in understanding REST better than I currently do. I think using RubyonRails and Flex in the way described in the following article is a good example of a RESTful api. Because the middle-tier calls are simply calls to a URL and that URL simply provides data in an XML format. Rails is an excellent choice for this type of api/data exchange. This is really worth the read....
Read the Article...
Liverail - RubyOnRails (1.1) and Flex (2.0): Pt 1
If you have SSH access to your hosting account and want to use a GUI to view your MySQL databases on that remote server, you can set up an SSH tunnel and use a program like CocoaMySQL to manage your remote database. When it works, it can be really userful and is a nice break from a web-based solution like phpMyAdmin.
First, make sure you can login to your host through SSH. After you are certain it works, you can open up a tunnel like this:
ssh -L 3307:[ip address of host]:3306 [username]@[ip address of host] [-p ssh portnumber]
This opens up a tunnel from your local port 3307 to port 3306 on the remote host. Here is the example again with dummy data, using a non-standard ssh port 8022:
ssh -L 3307:192.168.2.1:3306 user@192.168.2.1 -p8022
Once that connection is set up, fire up your MySQL GUI and connect to your local IP address (127.0.0.1) and specify the new port you set up in your tunnel (3307). Here is how it looks in CocoaMySQL.
Read more here...
Stereo Interactive & Design » How to set up an SSH tunnel to a remote MySQL server
Friday, November 09, 2007
Adobe is quickly becoming an awesome company for software development. Thermo (a code name) will usher in a new paradigm of web development. Much like VB made it easier to create Windows programs, Thermo and Flex (and AIR) is going to the same thing for the web. Can you say Web 3.0?
Video: Thermo Sneak Peek at Adobe MAX Day 2 Keynote at Aral Balkan
Monday, October 29, 2007
Douglas Crockford's famous article about javascript. "Despite its popularity, few know that JavaScript is a very nice dynamic object-oriented general-purpose programming language. How can this be a secret? Why is this language so misunderstood? ..."
Friday, October 12, 2007
This is a video of Lee Brimelow giving a session from AIR Camp Denver titled "Transitioning to the Desktop with Adobe AIR". In his session Lee talks about some of the things he has learned while working with Adobe AIR, demos some apps he has been working on, and shows how to use Flash Authoring to create AIR applications.
watch video
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Aptana: The Web IDE : A free, open-source, cross-platform, JavaScript-focused editor and development environment for building Ajax applications. It features code assist on JavaScript, HTML, and CSS languages, FTP/SFTP support and a JavaScript debugger to troubleshoot your code.
Thursday, September 06, 2007
I've heard about Google Book Search for a long time, but it wasn't until today that I actually 'discovered' it. It is very cool. It's amazing to think something this complex exists and is free.
Inside Google Book Search
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
Scratch | Home | imagine, program, share
Scratch is a new programming language that makes it easy to create your own interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art -- and share your creations on the web.
Scratch is designed to help young people (ages 8 and up) develop 21st century learning skills. As they create Scratch projects, young people learn important mathematical and computational ideas, while also gaining a deeper understanding of the process of design.
Every new model (g3,g4,g5) of the iMac has been completely different than the one before it. So I expect that todays announcement will be as equally radical.
Personally I liked the looks of the g4 (the one that looked like a desk lamp, who else but Apple could make something like that a cool thing?). The first Mac I ever owned was the G5 iMac, I still use it daily and love it. It is very good at looking good without getting in the way (either physically, because is has a small footprint, or aesthetically because of its minimalistic design).
One of the best things about being an apple-fan are these hyped-up new product Events that Jobs gives. Its remenisant of the excitement christmas or birthdays used to bring when I was a child. Obviously, I'm eagerly awaiting for today's Media Event to start to see what cool new "toys" Apple has in store for us.
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Thursday, June 07, 2007
I read this in a MacRumors forum today...
"I doubt it. Vista never even had 50% of the buzz surrounding the iPhone.
Even my Grandma wants one. More than can be said for Vista."
It liked that quote so much it prompted me to create this ad....
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=3722476&posted=1#post3722476
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
I think tomorrow will be a big day. Supposable Palm is going to show off some new type of mobile computing device and Microsoft is going to be showing off a new revolutionary device (the playtable?). Plus, Gates and Jobs are taking stage to answer questions and have a debate or something.... that sounds intriguing.
I believe Apple is stirring up some real innovations.
Bet that the new Palm device is a competitor to the iPhone. Although I think it will be something different than a smartphone. My money is on a small and sleek, almost all screen, mobile touch monitor device designed to run widgets. A very customizable and networked device.
The rumored MS Playtable sounds cool. Quite awhile ago I watch a MS Labs demo on a big multitouch device, Looked like a drafting table, but all screen. If that is what they announce tomorrow, I will be drooling for one.
Apple is way passed due on refreshing their iMac desktops and laptops. I bet they are holding off for the WWDC conference coming up soon (or maybe waiting for Leopard). I think they are going to be coming out with some type of new big multitouchscreen iMac. Maybe something that can lay flat and be 'typed on' or stood upright to be used like a regular monitor. I think Leopard's new Core Animation feature is designed to support the cool multi-touch / dragging around windows that this new type of display will allow.
June 2007 is going to be a very interesting month.
» Microsoft to take the wraps off ‘PlayTable’ | All about Microsoft | ZDNet.com
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Awesome.
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
Friday, April 13, 2007
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Flow is the mental state of operation in which the person is fully immersed in what he or she is doing...
Flow (psychology) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Smart cars are coming to the US and they are going to be sold for about $15k. I could see people buying one of these as an extra car to use for running errands around town. And at only 8.5' long, they don't take much room in the garage.
Read more about smart...smart (automobile) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
I just read an interesting article on CNNMoney talking about how virtualization is blurring the line between the Mac and PCs. CNNMoney: Windows is coming to the Mac - and Mac to PCs - Jan. 22, 2007 It got me thinking about how Apple could choose to allow licensing of Mac OS X to third parties like Dell. I know, people say "NOT GOING TO HAPPEN". However, I think it might and here is why...
Apple Computer changed their name to Apple Inc. They will continue focusing and growing the iPod marketshare. They will begin focusing on the iPhone market... sales will grow to the predicted 10 million units sold by 2008. At this point, the iPhone sales and income will eclipse the Mac computer revenue.
So, by the end of 2008 the iPhone revenue will have more than replaced the income from Mac sales. Apple's bread and butter becomes the iPod and iPhone (and whatever cool gadgets they release by then), the Mac becomes much less important to their bottom line.
This puts Apple in position to license Mac OS X (to Dell, HP, whoever) without the worry of cannibalizing their own Mac computer sales. Its a gamble on Apple's part, but it will pay off and within 2 years (by 2010) they will have a 50% marketshare on all new PC sales; not that OS X will completely replace Vista, but it will seamlessly extend it through advanced virtualization features... the average consumer doesn't really understand (or care) that they are running two OS's, they think of it more as an add-on... its "Windows Vista Plus Mac". They like the cool eye candy it offers and the iPod/iPhone enhancements it enables.
It is estimated that by 2010 the total world sales of PCs will be more than 1.5 billion (600 million in the US); Apple will be making more from the licensing of OS X than they ever did by selling the Mac.
All this occurs because the iPod and iPhone 'play well' with Windows Vista, but they work best with Mac OS X. The Mac becomes the ultimate accessory... funny eh?
Monday, January 22, 2007
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Carl Howe's article on SeekingAlpha.com (Steve Jobs' Reality Distortion Field: As Powerful As Ever - SeekingAlpha) tries to distill Job's persuasive speaking style down to eight bullet points; Uses visuals, Focuses on the problem, Says it three times, Stories, Dramatic pauses, Uses Comparisons. Its a good article, worth the read, maybe someday Job's business presentation style will be taught in college, you know... something that can anyone could duplicate, some kind of charismatic formula that a person could learn... but I doubt it. Now on the other side of the coin, John Dvorak's article on MarketWatch.com (Balmer, iPhone and Reality Distortion Fields)
proposes that Jobs' "reality distortion field" to be some type of eastern mystical transcendental trickery learned while traveling throughout India in his youth. Interesting thought, but a bit on the wacko-side... another one of Dvorak's attempts for publicity, I'm sure. But it is a good read.
My opinion. Steve Jobs is simply a charismatic person. There are actually a lot of people like him out there, but he is (as far as I know) the only one in a position to get attention in the Big Business world. He has a 'hippie' attitude, disregards the status quo and is highly narcissistic. Also, I think he did enough LSD during the 70's to make him crazy, in a good way. The dude is just plain cool. I'm absolutely positive he will go down in history as one of the greatest businessmen, to be included with the likes of Ford, Franklin, Morgan.
I predict that Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) will sport a drastically new and improved interface. It will be using Core Animation to do all sorts of new and cool effects. It's overall theme will go toward a darker look; black and shiny. They will have a push towards full screen apps; all new iLife apps will be fullscreenable... kind of like the existing iPhoto full screen mode. The full screen modes will be enhanced by the Spaces feature.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
OK let's go out on a limb here and state that Apple has invented something new with the iPhone.
I say, that with the iPhone, Apple has just created a totally new class of computing device. The iPhone isn't a cell phone that connects to the internet and does some PDA tasks (aka smartphone). Nope... Apple has invented a new type of computer, its truly an appliance-computer. Easy to use and made for the masses.
I think we would all agree that the first Macintosh was a revolution in the computing world; I think the iPhone will be remembered in the same way. The Macintosh was revolutionary, mainly, due to the fact that it made using computers easier to use. Every new version after it has just basically been an evolution... the iPhone "takes it up a notch". History will tell, but I think it is enough of a change to be considered a milestone in computing. The switch to appliance computers.
I think that the personal computer (as we now know it) is closer to its end now that Apple has announced the iPhone. The iPhone (or something very much like it) will eventually replace the desktop/personal computer (for the average joe) and I say good riddance.
Some say the iPhone won't prevail because a multi-function device pales compared to single purpose devices. True, the iPod might pale compared to a good stereo system or a a big HDTV, but thats what the AppleTV is for. Right? To play music and videos where they sound/look the best? Right now you have to have a Mac/PC to use the AppleTV, but in the future it could as easily stream from the iPhone-applicance-type-of-device.The personal computer is dead.
"Skate to where the puck is going"... The iPhone is as revolutionary as the first Macintosh, if not more so.
Here is what I think: Computers are generally too hard for people to use, or better phrased, computers have too steep of a learning curve that out weighs the benefits people want from a computer.
I know this is hard to believe, but most people don't like computers. Computers generally "get in the way" and cost too much. Most people get home computers for only a few reasons:
1. Email.
2. Surfing the internet.
3. Games.
4. Digital pictures.
5. Digital music.
The iPhone has the potential to make the desktop computer a thing of the past... or at least not necessary for the general population. The iPhone is an appliance, its simple to use and could do all 5 things I listed above, albeit number 3 is somewhat limited but that is what the Wii or Playstation3 is for.
In general, I believe the iPhone will raise the "standard of living" when it comes to information access and computing for the mass of the world's population. Revolutionary.
Interesting that the iPhone is with Cingular. I'm not real happy about that. My experience with Cingular's GSM is that it offers spotty, generally low reception that is limited to populated areas; get into any rural areas (which isn't hard to do in Indiana) and you you lose signal. So I am very hesitant to switch to Cingular even though I very much want to use the iPhone. But i have hope...
iPhone is just the beginning. By 2010 WiMax will most likely be ubiquitous, and then things really begin to change.
I bet Apple is getting into the game early with the iPhone. Relying on EDGE as a stop gap solution until WiMax becomes a reality in the USA (and throughout the World). Sprint Nextel has recently announced that they will be pushing out WiMax 4G service in 2008. That is the same year Apple expects to get the iPhone really rolling; predicting 10 millions units sold. I think WiMax is going to be a huge boom to the mobile market and Apple is positioning themselves to dominate it. I think this is what Jobs meant when he quoted Gretzky: "Skate to where the puck is going, not where it's been."
Sprint Nextel Announces 4G Wireless Broadband Initiative with Intel, Motorola and Samsung
Monday, January 08, 2007
Tomorrow is the Macworld 07 keynote. As usual there have been a lot of rumors going around. This year, the big rumor is the iPhone. Many say its a 'sure' thing.
My prediction: The iPhone will be able to run widgets. Wouldn't that be cool! I'm not a big fan of widgets right now... but running on a portable device, I think they could be very useful. It would basically make it a universal gizmo, whatever you want it to be... a gps device, weather station, email reader, web browser, mp3 player, video player, game player, news reader, very customizable. I'll even take a stab at the name; how about the iPod (yeah thats right, iPod).... or maybe brand it under the Mac name... the Mac Nano.
We'll see....
Updated 1/10/07: Hey I was right! Kinda. Its yet to be known how open the iPhone will be when is comes to 3rd party widgets.
Friday, January 05, 2007
After reading an article on Slashdot regarding a potential cure for cancer and how it involved a natural chemical named Butyrate, I started googling butyrate and that lead me to esters which (somehow) lead me to digestive tract bacteria. Anyway, I just learned something new: Prebiotics are foods that contains nutrients that nourish the bacteria throughout your digestive system, they generally do not digest easily, so they "survive" past the stomach and can enter the intestinal tract in a state and be "consumed" by the good bacteria. .... So I guess we should all be mindful of our 'good' bacteria and feed them well.
UM Univeristy of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center: News Archive - Progress Newsletter Spring 2002 Online: "Prebiotics and Probiotics: What Are They and Why Should I Eat Them"
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
XFrog.com sells a 3D modeling application that allows you to create 'organic' models (aka plants).
I'm going to download their 30 day demo and try creating some models for the game I am designing.
Here are a few of my favorites from their Gallery....
Monday, December 18, 2006
Watch out, OS X is invading Windows Bliss!
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
Poem: "Things You Didn't Put On Your Resume" by Joyce Sutphen.
Things You Didn't Put On Your Resume
How often you got up in the middle of the night when one of your children had a bad dream,
and sometimes you woke because you thought you heard a cry but they were all sleeping,
so you stood in the moonlight just listening to their breathing, and you didn't mention
that you were an expert at putting toothpaste on tiny toothbrushes and bending down to wiggle
the toothbrush ten times on each tooth while you sang the words to songs from Annie, and
who would suspect that you know the fingerings to the songs in the first four books of the Suzuki
Violin Method and that you can do the voices of Pooh and Piglet especially well, though
your absolute favorite thing to read out loud is Bedtime for Frances and that you picked
up your way of reading it from Glynnis Johns, and it is, now that you think of it, rather impressive
that you read all of Narnia and all of the Ring Trilogy (and others too many to mention here) to them
before they went to bed and on the way out to Yellowstone, which is another thing you don't put on the resume:
how you took them to the ocean and the mountains and brought them safely home.
Successfully
installed gnome on my VPSLink server!It was surprisingly simple to do. Just a couple commands...
apt-get update
apt-get install gnome
Thursday, November 30, 2006
Finding a good a VPS provider.
I've been researching VPS providers for the last couple weeks. There are a lot to choose from - everybody wants my money! Makes for a difficult choice.
I finally chose VPSLink. Why? Well honestly I liked their website, its looks good... sort of web 2.0-ish... also I liked that they offer VPS setups based
on development environments (LAMP or Rails), but the main thing I liked was the price.... $75 per month gets you a 40GB hard drive & dedicated 1GB RAM & 1000GB bandwidth.... sounds a bit too good to be true... we'll see.I have a few different goals.
#1. To learn Linux (without having to actually install it on my laptop).
#2. Setup FreeNX (NoMachine.com). This will allow me to access the VPS server (using gnome or kde) from anywhere.
#2a. Eventually my plan is to run it on a Macbook, using the new Spaces (virtual desktop) feature in Leopard; one screen will be Mac OS X, the other will be Linux.
#2b. Having a remote gnome session that I can use to surf the net from work (bypass corporate firewall and blocked sites) ;-)
#3. Have complete control of my webserver. Rails, Mono, PHP, Cron jobs, anything I want!
#4. A development machine that I can access from anywhere.
And by the way... Here is an interesting blog post I found that talks about setting up Rails on VPSLink. Rails on vpslink
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
This would be a nice place to be for Christmas.Running Buffalo Log Cabin a Brown County vacation home with Hot Tub & Pond near Nashville Indiana
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
When we first got our dog we signed up for training classes at the local Petsmart. The trainer talked a lot about feeding your dog a quality dog food; which I do. I like to feed Grover either Pro Plan or Sensible Choice dog food (they don't contain corn and meat is the #1 ingredient). But the trainer went all ga-ga over the all barf diet. Yeah that's right, he suggested only feeding your dog barf! ..... But that doesn't mean what you are probably thinking. Barf stands for Bones And Raw Food. In others words, only feed you dog real food - not store bought dog food. Instead, feed them raw meaty bones and and other unprocessed foods, the type of food dogs would eat in nature. There is supposed to be many benefits to dong this; including much less poop to clean up. Apparently dogs have a hard time digesting store bought dog food, because of the high content of corn and other fillers. Also, of course, it is just healthier for your dog.
Anyway I stumbled across this page today and and thought, wow, thats cool! ... BARF Raw Diet Veggie Mix
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Friday, November 10, 2006
The people over at Lifehacker.com share a little information on what tools they use to run their 'placeless' office. I especially like that they tell us what site meteric tools they are using...
Lifehacker: "We're also fans and users of Sitemeter for up-to-the-minute site traffic stats, Google Analytics for in-depth traffic analysis and MyBlogLog for click stats."
Nintendo and Apple, my two favorite brands. This ad was created by a fan... it isn't an official Nintendo ad, but I tell you what... it is, hands-down, the best ad I've seen for the Wii. Nintendo should seriously be paying the guy who made this ad. .... This ad is a great example of fan-created advertisement, which you find a lot of in the Apple and Nintendo worlds.... especially Apple. You know you have a good thing going when your customers are willing to make ads for your products. The the popularity and Youtube and podcasts, I am sure this type of advertising will become more and more prevalent. ... One more thought, it is possible that Nintendo is actually behind the making of this ad, if they are... kudos to them for being that smart.
New Apple/Nintendo Wii Ad - Google Video
Thursday, November 09, 2006
Friday, November 03, 2006
Flexible Rails is a PDF book ($20) that will teach you how to use Rail and Flex to create very impressive web apps, very quickly. I looked through the Book Preview and it seems to be very well done; lots of color pictures and interesting to read.
Have you heard of Adone Flex? I just learned about it today and so far I think it is great! I'll keep researching it a bit more, but I really think this is the way to go for web developement. Fuck ASP.Net, Flex rocks!
Monday, October 16, 2006
Why Good Programmers Are Lazy and Dumb: "Why Good Programmers Are Lazy and Dumb
I realized that, paradoxically enough, good programmers need to be both lazy and dumb."
Thursday, October 05, 2006
The Butterfly WebSite
I just noticed that the Butterfly website is selling banner ads for CPC of .25 cents. For that you get a 115x115 banner ad displayed on their website. They claim to get 16,000 unique visitors each day. I am going to try advertising my screensavers (www.naturescreensaver.com)... its worth a shot.
I think this is really a good example of the Long Tail in action.
Monday, October 02, 2006
Introducing JSON: "JSON (JavaScript Object Notation)" is a lightweight data-interchange format. It is easy for humans to read and write. It is easy for machines to parse and generate. It is based on a subset of the JavaScript Programming Language.
I recently learned about JSON while attempting to intergrate Del.icio.us tags into a blog I was creating.
Friday, September 29, 2006
Socrates was said to hold knowledge in high esteem.
One day an acquaintance met the great philosopher and said, "Socrates, do
you know what I just heard about your friend?"
"Pause a moment," Socrates replied. "Before telling me anything I'd like you
to pass a little test. It's called the Triple Filter Test."
"Triple filter?"
"That's right," Socrates continued. "Before you talk to me about my friend,
it might be a good idea to take a moment and filter what you're going to
say.
The first filter is Truth. Have you made absolutely sure that what you are
about to tell me is true?"
"No," the man said, "actually just heard about it and..."
"All right," said Socrates. "So you don't really know if it's true or not.
Now let's try the second filter, the filter of Goodness. Is what you are
about to tell me about my friend something good?"
"No, on the contrary..."
"So," Socrates continued, "you want to tell me something bad about him, but
you're not certain it's true. You may still pass the test though, because
there's one filter left: the filter of Usefulness. Is what you want to tell
me about my friend going to be useful to me?"
"No, not really."
"Well," concluded Socrates, "if what you want to tell me is neither true nor
good nor even useful, why tell it to me at all?"
This is why Socrates was a great philosopher and held in such high esteem.
It also explains why he never found out his best friend was banging his
wife...
Why email is so addictive - Lifehacker: "variable interval reinforcement"
In additional to describing why people get addicted to check their email, Variable Internal Reinforcement makes sense and explains a lot. Once I started thinking about it I could see it popping up in many places; slot-machines, scratch-off lottery tickets, podcasts, rss feeds, etc.
Note to self: consider Variable Internal Reinforcement when designing video games, as a way to deliberately make the game addicting.
Monday, September 25, 2006
This is very interesting and looks like a lot of fun. I've used the VR goggles that are seen in this video; they were called IO Glasses (or something close to that). They've been around for years, back in the mid nineties they cost about $700, not sure how much they would cost now.
Golf club Royal Bromont - Google Video
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Best Buy's bold experiment... Results Oriented Work Environment (ROWE).
I'll be watching this one. It sounds like a good idea, I;m sure the employees love it. But will it actually work? We'll see.
This "Results Justify the Means Work Environment" could produce some very interesting situations. For instance, employess at best buy could outsource their own jobs? You know, forward all thier work to some guy in India or where ever and then pay him a percentage of your income. Or maybe even outsource your job to 3 other workers and get a shit load of work done, impress your manager and get promoted. I don't know... lots of potential there...
ABC News: Working When and Where You Want
Thursday, June 29, 2006
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way - lifehack.org
Describe the goal, not the step
If you are trying to find out how to do something (as opposed to reporting a bug), begin by describing the goal. Only then describe the particular step towards it that you are blocked on.
Often, people who need technical help have a high-level goal in mind and get stuck on what they think is one particular path towards the goal. They come for help with the step, but don’t realize that the path is wrong. It can take substantial effort to get past this.
Stupid:
How do I get the color-picker on the FooDraw program to take a hexadecimal RGB value?
Smart:
I’m trying to replace the color table on an image with values of my choosing. Right now the only way I can see to do this is by editing each table slot, but I can’t get FooDraw’s color picker to take a hexadecimal RGB value.
The second version of the question is smart. It allows an answer that suggests a tool better suited to the task.
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
Friday, June 09, 2006
Picasa for Linux. Google! Way to go!
This is very cool. Google has released a linux version of Picasa. I used to use (and love) Picasa when my primary home computer was a Windows pc. Now that I use a Mac I'm using iPhoto, but honestly if I could use Picasa on the Mac, I would. Its just that good.
So now that Google has released Picasa for linux, lets take a quick look at 10 things Google's doing that should make M$ worried...
#1. Gmail. (Outlook killer)
#2. Google Calandar. (Outlook killer)
#3. Writely (Word killer)
#4. Google Spreadsheets (Excel killer)
#5. Picasa for Linux (better than anything M$ offers)
#6. Diva Video Editing for Linux (one of Google's Summer of Code projects )
#7. Google's Firefox Toolbar 2.0 (makes Firefox even cooler)
#8. Google's Browser Sync (makes Firefox even cooler)
#9. Google Notebook (makes the OS/harddrive less important)
#10. Google Maps
Its almost to the point where your choice of OS is moot.
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
Saturday, May 20, 2006
Thursday, May 04, 2006
Time-lapse video of the removal of a post-it note mosaic mural of elvis presley, and the installation of a new one featuring Albert Einstein.
Post It notes as a wallpaper is such an awesome idea. Even if you don't go to the trouble of making a photo-realistic mural, simply covering an entire wall with yellow post its would be visually appealing.
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
Being a product of the 80's, I find this movie of particular interest. If nothing else it's just interesting to see how much fashion and trends have changed between 1984 and 2006... looks like Sonny went from wearing a white jacket and pastel tshirts to a grey jacket and black tshirts - sounds good to me.
YouTube - Miami Vice movie teaser
Tuesday, May 02, 2006
I just listened to a very interesting episode of the Gillmore Gang (podcast). They had a very interesting guest, Hugh MacLeod. From what I could gather he is an artist and owner of vineyard (Stormhoek wine). I went to his website GapingVoid.com and was a bit surprised at the cartoons (his art) he creates; they are basically just scribbles on the back of a business card. Wierd and dark and generally tech-based, they are compelling to say the least.
