Today's Smalltalk Daily looks at the Announcement framework - the replacement for both trigger events and change/update. To follow along with the code, download it here (zip archive of the parcel). If you can't see the embedded video directly, you can go directly to YouTube for it. To watch now, click on the viewer below:
You can follow the Smalltalk channel on YouTube for all the "Smalltalk Daily" videos. You can also check out the videos on Vimeo, where the quality is higher, or over on Facebook, if you are a member.
You can download the video directly here. If you need the video in a Windows Media format, then download that here. If you like this kind of video, why not subscribe to "Smalltalk Daily"?
This should be interesting - Twitter is going to introduce an "Event" feature - something you would use instead of the ubiquitous hashtag. The hashtag has gone into general use though; I wonder how much adoption of this there's going to be? Not from a "we don't need it" standpoint so much as from a sheer inertia of common practice standpoint. Anyway:
"I think we're finally going to have the Events feature," Stone said, in a brief interview. "It's something we've been talking about forever... and now that Ev's back on products, I think that's something that's going to be coming up soon.
IMHO, they'll have to make it pretty darn useful in order to override the very, very easy (and extremely widespread) hashtag usage.
Yeah, as if there wasn't any prior art. It's gotten to the point that patents are actively harmful; I'm not sure that even having them is useful any longer. Especially when trolls can set their settlement fees lower than the cost of litigation, and get away with free money leeched from the system. Follow the link for more details; here's a great summation though:
As Winston & Strawn attorneys Gene Schaerr and Jacob Loshin argued rather convincingly in a September 22 Washington Legal Foundation Web Seminar, the risk-benefit analysis on litigating vs. settling more often comes out on the side of fighting patent trolls. This should especially hold true in situations where a patent is as glaringly weak as the Sharing Sound patent.
Apple must be feeling that Android heat - they have been opening things up a bit for app developers, and now it looks like Google Voice is cleared. TechCrunch reports:
we’ve gotten word that the official Google Voice application is on its way to the iPhone in the next few weeks. In fact, we’ve heard from a source close to Google that it’s already been approved — Google just needs to revamp the application to work with the iPhone 4 and iOS’s multitasking capabilities.
I bailed on Google voice because it didn't really work with the iPhone; I'll have to take another look if this pans out.
John McIntosh's Wiki Server and WikiServer Pro are free (for a limited time, apparently) for the iPhone and iPad. These are Smalltalk (Squeak) apps running on IOS.
I helped beta test the Wiki Server app, and it's pretty cool.
Today's Smalltalk Daily looks at File and Directory dialogs in VisualWorks - both native and non-native. If you can't see the embedded video directly, you can go directly to YouTube for it. To watch now, click on the viewer below:
You can follow the Smalltalk channel on YouTube for all the "Smalltalk Daily" videos. You can also check out the videos on Vimeo, where the quality is higher, or over on Facebook, if you are a member.
You can download the video directly here. If you need the video in a Windows Media format, then download that here. If you like this kind of video, why not subscribe to "Smalltalk Daily"?
Interesting - Apple has done a distribution deal for the WiFi only version of the iPad with Verizon - a bundle with Verizon's MiFi device:
Verizon Wireless and Apple® today announced that iPad™ will be available at over 2,000 Verizon Wireless Stores nationwide beginning Thursday, October 28. Verizon Wireless will offer three bundles, all featuring an iPad Wi-Fi model and a Verizon MiFi 2200 Intelligent Mobile Hotspot, for a suggested retail price of $629.99 for iPad Wi-Fi 16GB + MiFi, $729.99 for iPad Wi-Fi 32GB + MiFi and $829.99 for iPad Wi-Fi 64GB + MiFi. Verizon Wireless is offering a monthly access plan to iPad customers of up to 1GB of data for just $20 a month. In addition, Verizon Wireless will also offer all three iPad Wi-Fi models on a stand-alone basis.
So Apple and Verizon are working together on a limited basis at least. The question is, do all the Apple/Verizon rumors point back to this deal, or is there something real coming with the iPhone? I'm still skeptical based on the whole branding and CDMA thing, but we'll see.
Update: Apple is also getting iPads to AT&T, under what can only be described as more consumer friendly terms:
AT&T* and Apple® today announced that all three iPad™ Wi-Fi + 3G models will be available at more than 2,200 AT&T stores starting Thursday, October 28. AT&T will offer customers 3G Apple iPad Data Plans, complete with Apple's easy, on-device activation and management. All iPad data plans are available without a term contract and include unlimited access to AT&T's 23,000+ domestic Wi-Fi Hot Spots.
Here's a video from ESUG 2010, which was held in Barcelona, Spain, the week of September 13, 2010. In this presentation, Cincom's Arden Thomas talks about the product roadmap going forward. You can watch using the embedded player below, or follow the download links at the bottom of the post.
You can download the video directly here. If you need the video in a Windows Media format, then download that here. If you like this kind of video, why not subscribe to "Smalltalk Videos"? If you would rather subscribe specifically to the ESUG videos, then use this Vimeo feed - which will work in iTunes.
Michael and I play many of the same video games, and we have spent a fair amount of time talking about them - so what the heck, we figured we'd take our bull sessions and make them into a podcast. Later this evening I'll be releasing episode 1 of "James and Michael on Games" - it'll be a periodic podcast, audio-only. I'll have details about the home page for the archives after I get the first episode posted :)
Michael Lucas-Smith and I are fans of a number of video games - we both like Fallout 3 quite a bit, for instance. Since we end up talking about the games we play so much, we thought it might be fun to do a podcast on the subject - so here it is, episode 1 of "James and Michael on Games". We aren't sure what kind of schedule we'll be keeping to yet, but we plan to release regularly.
We're looking forward to Fallout: New Vegas
enough that we might do a more frequent update on our impressions of the game. If that happens, it'll come out under a separate podcast feed. In this podcast, we talk about Fallout 3
and Dragon Age: Origins - the plot, game play, things we liked, things we didn't like. We have a lot more to talk about - there are plenty of other games we like!
To listen now, you can either download the mp3 edition, or the Ogg Vorbis edition. You can subscribe to the MP3 edition in iTunes using this feed. I'll be submitting the feed to Apple's iTunes store for a listing there, but in the meantime, just go ahead and subscribe manually.
Today's Smalltalk Daily looks at some of the other (non file/directory) convenience methods in class Dialog. If you can't see the embedded video directly, you can go directly to YouTube for it. To watch now, click on the viewer below:
You can follow the Smalltalk channel on YouTube for all the "Smalltalk Daily" videos. You can also check out the videos on Vimeo, where the quality is higher, or over on Facebook, if you are a member.
You can download the video directly here. If you need the video in a Windows Media format, then download that here. If you like this kind of video, why not subscribe to "Smalltalk Daily"?
As of this morning, I'm no longer working for Cincom - I'm not going to go into the reasons for that here. However, that does mean that I'm looking for work - if anyone needs a Smalltalker, I'm pretty familiar with VisualWorks and ObjectStudio (and could pick up any other dialect pretty quickly).
You can contact me via jarober@gmail.com - I'm open to either fulltime work or contract work. I think "Smalltalk Daily" will be on hiatus for now; the podcast is ended as well, but there's new work media work I'm doing in that area:
Since I'm no longer at Cincom, the "Industry Misinterpretations" podcast is at an end. There will be a podcast continuing on - hosted here, under the not terribly inventive name "Independent Misinterpretations".
The archives for the old work are still on the Cincom website; for your convenience, I have links to them on the archive page that's waiting for episode one here. Point your browsers and podcatchers this way on Sunday for episode 1!
I just downloaded the Gemstone installer I found here - while it seems pretty basic on first inspection (it's a shell script), it worked right out of the box for me. I'm grabbing the associated Pharo image (same place)as I write this, and I'll see how things go from there.
One thing I'm interested in doing is something I know how to do - a blog server - in Seaside using Gemstone as my back end. It should be a nice little project to start off with both GLASS and Pharo with - I clearly know the domain :)
While I look for work, I'll be busy with a few new things. The podcast and screencast series I was doing at Cincom are done; if you subscribe to those feeds, there won't be anything new coming (at least not from me; I can't speak to what Cincom may do with those properties).
However, I'll be continuing forward with Michael Lucas-Smith on a podcast - episode one of "Independent Misinterpretations" will be starting up later today. I've also created an index page for the ESUG 2010 videos; they will continue to be posted to the Vimeo site. Here are the links - the first two won't work until I get that first episode posted :):
On Monday, I'll be launching a new screencast series as well - you'll want to check back here for details then. I plan to continue posting the ESUG videos as well, but I don't think I want to pay to host them. Instead, I'll continue to push them up to Vimeo - follow the last link above for the index page for that
Welcome to episode 1 of Independent Misinterpretations - a new Smalltalk and dynamic language oriented podcast with James Robertson and Michael Lucas-Smith.
You can subscribe to the podcast in iTunes (or any other podcatching software) using this feed - I'll be submitting it to the iTunes store, and will let you know when the podcast is listed there.
This week's podcast is a coversation with Ernest Micklei about his new website, soek.goodies.st. - it's a library of open source code for Smalltalk, allowing you to explore code without having to load it in an image. It's an interesting application, built in Seaside.
To listen now, you can either download the mp3 edition, or the AAC edition. The AAC edition comes with chapter markers. You can subscribe to either edition of the podcast directly in iTunes; just search for Smalltalk and look in the Podcast results. You can subscribe to the mp3 edition directly using this feed, or the AAC edition using this feed using any podcatching software. You can also download the podcast in ogg format.
If you like the music we use, please visit Josh Woodward's site. We use the song Troublemaker for our intro/outro music. I'm sure he'd appreciate your support!
If you have feedback, send it to jarober@gmail.com - or visit us on Facebook - you can subscribe in iTunes using this iTunes enabled feed.. If you enjoy the podcast, pass the word - we would love to have more people hear about Smalltalk!
Welcome to episode 1 of Independent Misinterpretations - a new Smalltalk and dynamic language oriented podcast with James Robertson and Michael Lucas-Smith.
You can subscribe to the podcast in iTunes (or any other podcatching software) using this feed - I'll be submitting it to the iTunes store, and will let you know when the podcast is listed there.
This week's podcast is a coversation with Ernest Micklei about his new website, soek.goodies.st. - it's a library of open source code for Smalltalk, allowing you to explore code without having to load it in an image. It's an interesting application, built in Seaside.
To listen now, you can either download the mp3 edition, or the AAC edition. The AAC edition comes with chapter markers. You can subscribe to either edition of the podcast directly in iTunes; just search for Smalltalk and look in the Podcast results. You can subscribe to the mp3 edition directly using this feed, or the AAC edition using this feed using any podcatching software. You can also download the podcast in ogg format.
If you like the music we use, please visit Josh Woodward's site. We use the song Troublemaker for our intro/outro music. I'm sure he'd appreciate your support!
If you have feedback, send it to jarober@gmail.com - or visit us on Facebook - you can subscribe in iTunes using this iTunes enabled feed.. If you enjoy the podcast, pass the word - we would love to have more people hear about Smalltalk!
Today's Smalltalk 4You explains how to get Squeak installed on your system - from "where do I find it" to "how do I install and run it". To watch now, use the viewer below - if you have trouble viewing the embedded video, you can also go to the YouTube video directly
Click to Play
If you have trouble viewing that directly, you can click here to download the video directly. If you need the video in a Windows Media format, then download that here.
As you probably noticed this morning, I pushed out a new screencast series - I intend to cover various Smalltalk dialects the way I was covering Cincom Smalltalk. The links you'll want to keep track of:
One of the things I no longer need is a second phone line - my former employer was paying for a work line and a fax line. i don't really need either one; the fax number just brings up a steady stream of junk, and I rely on my mobile for everything anyway.
Sounds simple, right? Well, there was a voice message from the phone company notifying me that my service had been flipped back to me, and a phone number to call. That's when the awesome started - it's a non working number. The good news is, the message included an 800 number I could call. But the question is, why is the non-working line still in their system?
I'll do a screencast on this later this week, but I thought it might be useful to toss out some quick "how do I get it running?" instructions. I downloaded GLASS and a "one click" Pharo image from Gemstone's website, but then I ran into problems connecting to the database. James Foster was extremely helpful, and the steps I'm outlining here came from him.
That sets up the environment variables you'll need. Next, you'll want to get the server running, and for the "I'm just experimenting" case, you probably don't want all the security bells and whistles. So, do the following:
/opt/gemstone/product/bin/startnetldi -g -a YourUserNameHere
/opt/gemstone/product/bin/startstone seaside
It's probably simplest if you set up a script, something like this:
#! /bin/sh
source /opt/gemstone/product source /opt/gemstone/product/seaside/defSeaside
cd $GEMSTONE
./bin/startnetldi -g -a jarober
./bin/startstone seaside
Now, you should have GLASS running. You'll need to start your Pharo image. I used a command line from the same terminal I started GLASS from, but that's not essential - you can just double click on the app bundle. You'll get something like this:
Next, you'll want to edit the settings for the connection:
Now, hit the "Login" button, and you'll get prompted for your name:
After you enter that, here's what you should see:
From there, you can get started with your first GLASS/Pharo project!
Today's Smalltalk 4 You explains how to get Pharo installed on your system - from "where do I find it" to "how do I install and run it". If you have trouble viewing it here in the browser, you can also navigate directly to YouTube. To watch now, use the viewer below:
Click to Play
If you have trouble viewing that directly, you can click here to download the video directly. If you need the video in a Windows Media format, then download that here.
Sometime in the next few days I'm going to find out how well Mac to Mac transfer works - I need to return my MacBook Pro to Cincom, which means:
Getting a new Mac (I'm looking at the 13" model)
Transferring all of my apps and data to it
I've done the transfer before, back when we bought an iMac a few years ago - but that was from an old g4 based mini, and there weren't any apps on the mini that required registration. I've installed a whole bunch of things onto this Mac, so we'll have to see how it goes...
I'd like to thank everyone who has sent me an email, contacted me on Facebook, or commented here on the blog - I really appreciate all of the kind words.
You'll be able to follow my Smalltalk work here, no matter what I end up doing - and I've left the comments for my announcement open, so feel free to add yours.
I'll be receiving the game later today, and since I'll probably be cloning Macs, I'll have a chance to play it. I'm a bit worried about the early reviews....
Sean Denigris explains how to do brain surgery on a bunch of existing Smalltalk objects when you make a code change:
Now comes the problem… I had objects floating around that already contained a non-empty OrderedCollection. I didn’t want to add otherwise-not-needed accessors. Luckily, because of Smalltalk’s awesome reflection capabilities, it was a breeze to reach into these objects and surgically change them.
You might wonder why that's useful, but consider this situation (which I've actually had):
You make a code change for a running app server, such as the one you're reading this post on
There are existing objects that have the old object shape, and need the new object shape
Just use the same sort of strategy Sean outlines above. I've done that a fair number of times over the years, both to the servers I maintained at Cincom while I was there, and to this one. It's a really handy thing to be able to do, because it's much, much better than the more standard tack of:
“We’ve known this was coming for awhile now, but according to The New York Times it’s just become official: Peter Jackson will return to Middle Earth to direct The Hobbit. Honestly, it’s a move that makes the most sense. Let him finish what he started. Jackson’s deal is now finalized, as is the deal for Warner Bros., New Line and MGM to all help finance the two-part film, which some have suggested could cost upwards of $500 million for both.”
Today's Smalltalk 4 You explains how to get Pharo installed on your system - from "where do I find it" to "how do I install and run it". If you have trouble viewing it here in the browser, you can also navigate directly to YouTube. To watch now, use the viewer below:
Click to Play
If you have trouble viewing that directly, you can click here to download the video directly. If you need the video in a Windows Media format, then download that here.
Welcome to episode 1 of "FNV Diary" - a podcast where Michael Lucas-Smith and I document our trials and tribulations in Fallout: New Vegas. We both got the game yesterday - Michael via Steam on the PC, me via UPS truck for the XBox 360. We got started pretty much immediately :)
In this episode, we talk about the early game as we saw it. If you don't want spoilers, don't listen in - we are talking about what we saw, how we dealt with what we saw, and what the options looked like. This isn't a review cast so much as a diary case (thus the title).
The schedule for this podcast will depend on how much game time we get in, which of course depends on our jobs (or, in my case, my job search) and regular lives. We should be hitting the pod-waves regularly though - you can subscribe in iTunes (or any podcatcher) using this feed, or this one for the AAC edition.
If you want to download the podcast directly, I've provided it in three formats:
Welcome to episode 1 of "FNV Diary" - a podcast where Michael Lucas-Smith and I document our trials and tribulations in Fallout: New Vegas. We both got the game yesterday - Michael via Steam on the PC, me via UPS truck for the XBox 360. We got started pretty much immediately :)
In this episode, we talk about the early game as we saw it. If you don't want spoilers, don't listen in - we are talking about what we saw, how we dealt with what we saw, and what the options looked like. This isn't a review cast so much as a diary case (thus the title).
The schedule for this podcast will depend on how much game time we get in, which of course depends on our jobs (or, in my case, my job search) and regular lives. We should be hitting the pod-waves regularly though - you can subscribe in iTunes (or any podcatcher) using this feed, or this one for the AAC edition.
If you want to download the podcast directly, I've provided it in three formats:
Received official word today that Scratch.app Squeak.app [ed: Scratch.app had already been rejected for this reason] has been rejected. You can't download executable code from the internet, I've heard this before, no surprise. This makes it impossible to use the iPad to write software outside of typing into web browsers/text files. At this point I'll toss it back to the educational institutions to convince Apple that they should allow software engineers to be creative on iOS devices too
As John says above, not a surprise, but disappointing nevertheless....
Looks like OS X and IOS are converging to some extent. Gizmodo reports:
Mac OS X Lion is another step in the road to a new—or better said, renewed—computer interface paradigm: Modal computing. And along the way, Apple is taking some of the most successful parts of iOS, like the App Store—with automatic installation of applications—and the springboard—rechristened launchpad in Lion.
For most people, having an app store right on the desktop is going to make life simpler. For IT admins and a lot of software vendors, it's going to create a lot of heartburn, especially when Microsoft inevitably follows suit.
enough that we might do a more frequent update on our impressions of the game. If that happens, it'll come out under a separate podcast feed. In this podcast, we talk about 
and 
- the plot, game play, things we liked, things we didn't like. We have a lot more to talk about - there are plenty of other games we like!
