Smalltalk with James Robertson

There's a trailer out for the next Fallout: New Vegas (See all Xbox 360 Games) DLC - Honest Hearts:

Technorati Tags: fnv, fallout new vegas

The Blogger outage at Google doesn't bring "the cloud into question" - what it highlights is the folly of relying on anything that leaves you with a single point of failure:

My question is, “What if this had happened to another Google service?” Say, Google Docs? What if every document you wrote and saved on Wednesday was suddenly taken offline on Thursday, and you no longer had your presentation or your notes or your research for a client meeting today?

What if I had all of my documents stored on a file server at corporate HQ, they weren't doing offsite backup, and some disaster occurred? The issue isn't "the cloud" - it's relying on a single point.

Technorati Tags: cloud

It's now long past time to take patents for software out back and shoot them. Heck, I might be convinced that patents in general aren't working any longer, but it's very clear in software. Consider the latest example of patent trolling:

A company called Lodsys claims to own four patents covering the in-app purchase mechanism found on iOS devices, and is seeking licensing fees from at least five individual developers, the Guardian reports. Some developers have received hand-delivered documents threatening patent infringement lawsuits if they don't pay up.

In what universe should that concept have been considered a patentable innovation?

Technorati Tags: patents, software, trolls

Welcome to episode 30 of Independent Misinterpretations - a Smalltalk and dynamic language oriented podcast with James Robertson, Michael Lucas-Smith, and David Buck. This week's podcast is a conversation Dave Buck and I had about teaching Smalltalk. When it was recorded, I was in the midst of the second week of a training class I just finished teaching, and we talked about that.

You can subscribe to the podcast in iTunes (or any other podcatching software) using this feed directly or in iTunes with this one.

To listen now, you can either download the mp3 edition, or the AAC edition. The AAC edition comes with chapter markers. You can subscribe to either edition of the podcast directly in iTunes; just search for Smalltalk and look in the Podcast results. You can subscribe to the mp3 edition directly using this feed, or the AAC edition using this feed using any podcatching software. You can also download the podcast in ogg format.

If you like the music we use, please visit Josh Woodward's site. We use the song Troublemaker for our intro/outro music. I'm sure he'd appreciate your support!

If you have feedback, send it to jarober@gmail.com - or visit us on Facebook - you can subscribe in iTunes using this iTunes enabled feed.. If you enjoy the podcast, pass the word - we would love to have more people hear about Smalltalk!

Technorati Tags: smalltalk, training

Welcome to episode 30 of Independent Misinterpretations - a Smalltalk and dynamic language oriented podcast with James Robertson, Michael Lucas-Smith, and David Buck. This week's podcast is a conversation Dave Buck and I had about teaching Smalltalk. When it was recorded, I was in the midst of the second week of a training class I just finished teaching, and we talked about that.

You can subscribe to the podcast in iTunes (or any other podcatching software) using this feed directly or in iTunes with this one.

To listen now, you can either download the mp3 edition, or the AAC edition. The AAC edition comes with chapter markers. You can subscribe to either edition of the podcast directly in iTunes; just search for Smalltalk and look in the Podcast results. You can subscribe to the mp3 edition directly using this feed, or the AAC edition using this feed using any podcatching software. You can also download the podcast in ogg format.

If you like the music we use, please visit Josh Woodward's site. We use the song Troublemaker for our intro/outro music. I'm sure he'd appreciate your support!

If you have feedback, send it to jarober@gmail.com - or visit us on Facebook - you can subscribe in iTunes using this iTunes enabled feed.. If you enjoy the podcast, pass the word - we would love to have more people hear about Smalltalk!

Technorati Tags: smalltalk, training

I wonder whether the growth of variant data privacy rules around the globe will impact the outsourcing push much. The author of this piece seems to think it will. If nothing else, it gives any firm that uses Inidan outsourcing a decent sized headache to deal with...

Technorati Tags: privacy

I'm supposed togive an overview of Store usage tomorrow, and I wanted to set up a personal repository (the main work one can be slow, as it's across the WAN, whether I'm in my home office or in Dallas). I was going to use PostgreSQL (I use that on my Mac), but the Windows machine is fully locked down - I don't even have local admin.

Fortunately, SQLlite doesn't require admin access - just the dropping of a dll into a working directory. Unfortunately, this is where I ran into a few interesting issues with version control. We are on VW 7.6 at work, so I wasn't sure whether "loading the latest" from the public repository would work (and it's a tiresome process, involving a load on my Mac, copying to a USB stick, shuffling the stick... rinse repeat until it works). Here's what I was looking at, just for the EXDI level access:

Note the lack of references to a specific VW version. What I ended up doing was firing up a base VW image for VW 7.6, looking at the timestamp in the transcript, and making guesses as to what would work in 7.6 based on that. Less than an exact science, that. I guess it's something that all of us who publish to the public store should keep in mind.

Today's Smalltalk 4 You shows you how to set up a personal Store Repository using SQLLite - even if you have a fairly locked down Windows machine to deal with. If you have trouble viewing it here in the browser, you can also navigate directly to YouTube. To watch now, click on the image below:

If you have trouble viewing that directly, you can click here to download the video directly. If you need the video in a Windows Media format, then download that here.

You can also watch it on YouTube:

Technorati Tags: smalltalk, visualworks, sqllite, store, repository

Didn't Sun try (multiple times) to sell useless bricks... err, "network computers"? Here's Google, trying the same thing for gosh knows what reason. This example of the baseline problem is pretty good:

But, there are some things you can't do strictly on the Web--like play Portal 2 or Minecraft, and living completely in the cloud takes a significant culture shift. There is also a huge trust factor with storing your entire life online, and the small issue of what happens when you can't get connected to the Internet and your Chromebook is a glorified paperweight.

Business travelers often need to work on planes, for instance - and it's a minority of flights out there with a network connection (and when they do exist, they are sloooooooow).

Technorati Tags: netbooks, chromebooks

Last year, I did a series of screencasts on the interactive "ProfStef" learning workspace in the "one click" Pharo download. Recently, I was asked whether I could make that available as one continuous video, so I did a bit of editing, and here it is. There are transition title screens between the major segments, and the entire thing is just under 30 minutes in lenth. If you have trouble viewing it here in the browser, you can also navigate directly to YouTube. To watch now, click on the image below:

If you have trouble viewing that directly, you can click here to download the video directly. If you need the video in a Windows Media format, then download that here.

You can also watch it on YouTube:

Technorati Tags: smalltalk, pharo, tutorial, profstef

Moose 4.4 is out:

We are happy to announce the Moose Suite version 4.4 (download)

What is new:

• New EyeSee engine for scripting visual charts
• New Kumpel importer for SVN repositories
• New Metanool engine for supporting dynamic annotations of models
• Simplified look and feel
• Improved VerveineJ compatibility for Java parsing
• Improved FAMIX support for Java systems
• Improved support for complex shapes in Mondrian
• Improved RPackage engine support for the Smalltalk importer

Technorati Tags: moose

Today's Javascript 4 You. Today we look at using JQuery to query specific page elements. If you have trouble viewing it here in the browser, you can also navigate directly to YouTube. Join the Facebook Group to discuss the tutorials. You can view the archives here.

To watch now, click on the image below:

If you have trouble viewing that directly, you can click here to download the video directly. If you need the video in a Windows Media format, then download that here.

You can also watch it on YouTube:

Technorati Tags: javascript, jquery, tutorial

My recording of the ProfStef content into screencast form is not only available here, but also on the Pharocasts site now.

Technorati Tags: pharo, pharocasts

Well, maybe less Fallout, if you get my drift. Due to the issues surrounding the PSN data breach, the latest Fallout: New Vegas (See all Xbox 360 Games) DLC will be delayed on PS3 - it's out today for XBox and PCs:

An update on the official Bethesda Blog explains that due to the recent troubles with PSN, the Honest Hearts add-on will be delayed for PS3 versions of New Vegas. No other information has been given, though Bethesda promises to keep folks informed in the meantime.

Technorati Tags: fnv, psn

Which set of clowns over at the US PTO didn't think that this was too obvious an idea to patent:

Patent number 7,945,653 is titled Tagging digital media. If you added “with someone’s identity,” this would be one of the rare cases where the title would reasonably describe what the patent covers.

Tagging followed by an automated email is now owned by Facebook. Can we just close down the patent office now, and declare everything they've done since, oh, about 1985, invaild?

Technorati Tags: stupidity, law

Build it in Smalltalk, or hook up to a standard service? As Travis discovers with respect to Regex, it depends on a number of things - there's no simple "yes/no" answer that covers all cases....

Technorati Tags: regex

Today's Smalltalk 4 You starts looking at how ENVY (the source code control system) for VA works. To do that, we'll go back to the example used in the debugger screencasts - an example that we didn't version of, or save an image for. Never fear though - ENVY keeps track of everything for you. If you prefer a written walkthrough to video, then skip down to it. If you have trouble viewing it here in the browser, you can also navigate directly to YouTube. To watch now, click on the image below:

If you have trouble viewing that directly, you can click here to download the video directly. If you need the video in a Windows Media format, then download that here.

You can also watch it on YouTube:

Today we'll start looking at how ENVY (the source code management system) works in VA Smalltalk. To do that, we'll go back to the simple Counter application that was used in the debugger screencasts. When we did that, you might recall that the code wasn't specifically published in the repository, nor was the image saved. Like other Smalltalk systems, all of that work was saved. Unlike the ones that use a change log type system, it's all integrated in VA with source code control. What you see below is a view of the Applications browser - you'll note that the CounterApp is not there. That's because we're only looking at what's in the image now:

What we need to do is look at all of the Application Editions in the source code repository. Pull down that menu item from the launcher:

Scrolling down, we find CounterApp. Notice the version is just a timestamp; try clicking on some of the other Applications, and you'll notice normal version strings. That's because those were specifically published (by Instantiations), while our application was simply checkpointed by ENVY. That checkpoint does let us recover, however.

Now select the edition, right click, and pick Load from the menu. This will load the checkpointed edition into the image:

To complete this, select the class(es) on the right, right click, and select Load again. In this example, there's only one class to load:

Now open up an Application Browser (on the image, not on the repository) to look at what you recovered:

There's your code - now ready to be moved forward (and published with an actual version string). Next time we'll take a look at how to publish an edition with complete version information

Need more help? There's a screencast for other topics like this which you may want to watch. Questions? Try the "Chat with James" Google gadget over in the sidebar.

Via Torsten comes some great news out of the ESUG community:

With the support of ESUG there is a new ESUG SummerTalk 2011 project called SmallHarbour. It wants to provide a simple platform to host smalltalk web applications (similar to seasidehosting.st but also for commercial projects.

Welcome to episode 18 of "That Podcast: An FNV Diary" - a podcast where Michael Lucas-Smith and I document our trials and tribulations in Fallout: New Vegas. On today's podcast, Michael returns to talk about "Honest Hearts" with James. We covered the first act of the DLC - i.e., not the endgame, where you have to go in one of two directions. We'll be back to talk about that after Michael finishes his playthrough.

You can subscribe in iTunes (or any podcatcher) using this feed, or this one for the AAC edition. You can get to the podcast directly in iTunes via this link. You can also go to the iTunes store and leave a comment, or join the Facebook Group and discuss the podcast.

If you want to download the podcast directly, I've provided it in three formats:

• MP3 Edition
• AAC Edition
• Ogg Vorbis Edition

Got feedback? Send it to James. We'd really appreciate it if you head on over to iTunes and leave a comment - enjoy the podcast, and we'll see you in the wastelands!

Technorati Tags: fnv, that podcast, fallout, fallout new vegas, honest hearts

Welcome to episode 18 of "That Podcast: An FNV Diary" - a podcast where Michael Lucas-Smith and I document our trials and tribulations in Fallout: New Vegas. On today's podcast, Michael returns to talk about "Honest Hearts" with James. We covered the first act of the DLC - i.e., not the endgame, where you have to go in one of two directions. We'll be back to talk about that after Michael finishes his playthrough.

You can subscribe in iTunes (or any podcatcher) using this feed, or this one for the AAC edition. You can get to the podcast directly in iTunes via this link. You can also go to the iTunes store and leave a comment, or join the Facebook Group and discuss the podcast.

If you want to download the podcast directly, I've provided it in three formats:

• MP3 Edition
• AAC Edition
• Ogg Vorbis Edition

Got feedback? Send it to James. We'd really appreciate it if you head on over to iTunes and leave a comment - enjoy the podcast, and we'll see you in the wastelands!

Technorati Tags: fallout, fallout new vegas, honest hearts, that podcast, fnv

The ESUG 2011 site - for the upcoming conference in Edinburgh - is live now. You can register there for the conference, the link for that is in the first paragraph. I wish I was going, but I'll be driving my daughter off to her freshman year of college right in the middle of the event - timing just didn't work for me.

Technorati Tags: esug, edinburgh, scotland

The Belgian Smalltalk Users Group is meeting on May 31:

The Belgian Smalltalk User Group (BSUG) is organising its next meeting on Tuesday May 31 at the VUB Software Languages Lab, 10th floor of building F, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Pleinlaan 2, 1050 Elsene.

We will start at 18:00 and have a program with 4 sessions each lasting about half an hour, leaving ample room for discussions.

Technorati Tags: belgium, bsug

Lots of websites go in for complex designs that make use of Ajax, CSS, and things like Flash to animate content, hide it behind expanding sections, and otherwise "prettify" things. Om Malik points out that there's still a place for simple and to the point - witness the Drudge Report, which drives more traffic to news sites than Facebook and Twitter combined:

He also set a paradigm for web design that still stands to this day. Critics who call his site ugly miss the point. It’s easy to navigate, doesn’t hide important information under sub-sections, and has a minimalist approach to layout. It’s also data-driven. Visit the Drudge Report several times in a day and you’ll see how he tweaks headlines and moves articles around to get the optimal configuration.

Another site that does something similar - Real Clear Politics (and their associated sites that cover other topics). Pretty is fine, but if people can't find your content, then you've made a very basic mistake. Food for thought...

Today's Javascript 4 You. Today we look at using the JQuery load() function to update content on a page. Note that to do this, we need to use a web server (here the example uses the built in Apache server on the Mac). This is due to the browser based security against cross-site scripting. If you have trouble viewing it here in the browser, you can also navigate directly to YouTube. Join the Facebook Group to discuss the tutorials. You can view the archives here.

To watch now, click on the image below:

If you have trouble viewing that directly, you can click here to download the video directly. If you need the video in a Windows Media format, then download that here.

You can also watch it on YouTube:

Technorati Tags: javascript, jquery, ajax, tutorial

Welcome to episode 19 of "That Podcast: An FNV Diary" - a podcast where Michael Lucas-Smith and I document our trials and tribulations in Fallout: New Vegas. On today's podcast, Michael and James cover the three possible endgames for "Honest Hearts":. Side with Joshua, kill the White Legs. This upsets Daniel Side with Daniel, lead the Sorrows out of Zion. Joshua helps Kill Joshua and Daniel, siding effectively with the White Legs That wraps up the podcast for the next little while - we'll be back when the next DLC is released!

You can subscribe in iTunes (or any podcatcher) using this feed, or this one for the AAC edition. You can get to the podcast directly in iTunes via this link. You can also go to the iTunes store and leave a comment, or join the Facebook Group and discuss the podcast.

If you want to download the podcast directly, I've provided it in three formats:

• MP3 Edition
• AAC Edition
• Ogg Vorbis Edition

Got feedback? Send it to James. We'd really appreciate it if you head on over to iTunes and leave a comment - enjoy the podcast, and we'll see you in the wastelands!

Technorati Tags: fallout, fallout new vegas, fnv, honest hearts

Welcome to episode 19 of "That Podcast: An FNV Diary" - a podcast where Michael Lucas-Smith and I document our trials and tribulations in Fallout: New Vegas. On today's podcast, Michael and James cover the three possible endgames for "Honest Hearts":. Side with Joshua, kill the White Legs. This upsets Daniel Side with Daniel, lead the Sorrows out of Zion. Joshua helps Kill Joshua and Daniel, siding effectively with the White Legs That wraps up the podcast for the next little while - we'll be back when the next DLC is released!

You can subscribe in iTunes (or any podcatcher) using this feed, or this one for the AAC edition. You can get to the podcast directly in iTunes via this link. You can also go to the iTunes store and leave a comment, or join the Facebook Group and discuss the podcast.

If you want to download the podcast directly, I've provided it in three formats:

• MP3 Edition
• AAC Edition
• Ogg Vorbis Edition

Got feedback? Send it to James. We'd really appreciate it if you head on over to iTunes and leave a comment - enjoy the podcast, and we'll see you in the wastelands!

Technorati Tags: fallout, fallout new vegas, honest hearts

Juan Vuletich's talk from Smalltalks 2009 is now available:

The guys from FAST (organizers of the Smalltalk conference in Argentina) uploaded the video of the last talk I gave there. The audio is in English, and the quality is quite good. Thanks, FAST!

Technorati Tags: cuis, argentina, morphic

Today's Smalltalk 4 You looks at the process of releasing an application version in ENVY. If you prefer a written walkthrough to video, then skip down to it. If you have trouble viewing it here in the browser, you can also navigate directly to YouTube. To watch now, click on the image below:

If you have trouble viewing that directly, you can click here to download the video directly. If you need the video in a Windows Media format, then download that here.

You can also watch it on YouTube:

Today we'll release an application into ENVY with a formal version. We'll be starting with the same CounterApp we worked with last time, so we are starting with the recovered code. The process is the same whether you've followed along, or have a new application that you want to release. First, open Tools>ManageApplications from the launcher:

Right click on the application in the middle pane. Scrolling down, you'll see Version/Release All and Version/Release Selected. We only have one application, so both will work the same way here:

This will pop up a releasing dialog. You can enter a version string (ENVY will provide a new one based on any release history this application has), and a comment:

After some brief activity - the code is already in ENVY, all you're really doing here is updating the version tagging for the loaded edition - the applications browser will update. If you look at the status bar at the bottom, you'll see your new version information:

To see what's changed, quit the image without saving, and launch it again. Now let's go back to the Tools menu in the launcher, and select Browse Application Editions:

Scroll down to CounterApp, and load the 1.0 edition that you just released:

There's your code - so you can now see how the entire process works:

Need more help? There's a screencast for other topics like this which you may want to watch. Questions? Try the "Chat with James" Google gadget over in the sidebar.

Technorati Tags: smalltalk, va smalltalk, envy

Looks like E-Books are headed in the same direction that MP3's did a long while ago - dominance over the dead tree format. Amazon just released this:

By July 2010, Kindle book sales had surpassed hardcover book sales, and six months later, Kindle books overtook paperback books to become the most popular format on Amazon.com. Today, less than four years after introducing Kindle books, Amazon.com customers are now purchasing more Kindle books than all print books - hardcover and paperback - combined.

The publishing houses are about to go all RIAA on us, I expect.

Technorati Tags: books, reading, e books

Torsten just spotted EyeSee - a Visualization system for Pharo:

Need some easy visualizations in your application written in Pharo? Then check out EyeSee

Follow the link for details on where to get it

Technorati Tags: eyesee, pharo, visualization

Speaking of ebooks (something I posted on earlier today) - Florida is jumping in with both feet in the schools:

The proposal (SB 2120) requires Florida public schools to adopt digital-only textbooks by the 2015-16 school year, and spend at least 50 percent of their textbook budget on digital materials by that time.

The first thing I thought of is the backpack full of books my daughter has been carrying for years. I guess kids will finally stop risking a back injury while taking their books back and forth :)

Technorati Tags: textbooks, ebooks

Bob Nemec is looking for some ideas to drum up new attendance at the local STUG meetings.

The UK Smalltalk Users Group is meeting on May 23rd - Got this on the ESUG mailing list:

The next meeting of the UK Smalltalk User Group will be on Monday, May 23rd.

Tim Mackinnon has recently started looking at JTalk - and how it translates Smalltalk to JavaScript as well as providing the familiar Smalltalk browsers in your web page. It's still a new project, but how does this approach compare to staying native? Come and join us for some interesting smalltalk on this topic.

In addition to this, Niall Ross will briefly update us on the upcoming ESUG conference 2011, in Edimburgh. Don't forget that the early registration is now open!

We'll meet in our usual venue - the Counting House, close to Bank Station, from 18:30 onwards.

Technorati Tags: london