Looking Forward to Fallout New Vegas
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The list of perks for Fallout: New Vegas is out. Looks cool! This game looks like it will be a whole lot of fun.
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Getting Ready for Halloween
Life does go on - we are having a Halloween party soon, so it's time to get the decorations up. First one: Halloween Town:
Technorati Tags: halloween
Taking a Look at GLASS
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 :)
Old Podcast Closed Out, New One Begins
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!
Technorati Tags: independent+misinterpretations, smalltalk, dynamic+languages
Patent Trolls Gone Wild
Amazing - there's a patent troll that somehow managed to get a patent on - get this - rollover menus. Arstechnica is as unimpressed as I am:
Hello? Pardon our dropping jaws, but is Webvention suggesting that it owns rollover online pictures with embedded hyperlinks?
Every time I see stuff like this, it makes me think that patents themselves are no longer useful...
Technorati Tags: patent troll
Need a Smalltalker? I'm Looking
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:
- Independent Misinterpretations (audio podcast)
- Smalltalk 4 U (screencast series)
Wish me luck!
Technorati Tags: smalltalk
Smalltalk Daily 10/15/10: Convenient Dialog Methods
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"?
Technorati Tags: smalltalk, dialog box
James and Michael on Games - Fallout 3 and DAO
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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 |
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!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.
If you have feedback, send it to James Robertson.
Technorati Tags: games, fallout 3, dragon age, xbox
Enclosures:
[gamecast1.mp3 ( Size: 8426836 )]
Open Source Smalltalk Code for Book
Didier Bisset has released the code (the examples given) for his book, "Object Oriented Implementaton of Numerical Methods", under the MIT license.
Technorati Tags: books
Talking About Games
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 :)
Cincom Smalltalk Product Roadmap
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.
Cincom Smalltalk Produce Roadmap from James Robertson on Vimeo.
You can follow the ESUG channel on Vimeo for all the videos from the conference.
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.
Technorati Tags: roadmap, cincom, smalltalk, visualworks, objectstudio, webvelocity, barcelona, spain, esug2010
Baby Steps with Verizon
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.
Smalltalk Daily 10/14/10: Using File Dialogs
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"?
Technorati Tags: smalltalk, file dialog
Smalltalk on the iPhone
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.
Price Comparison Gets Smarter
Your local retailers are just going to love this - the Amazon mobile app now does barcode scanning:
So when you aren't sure whether you're getting a bargain or not - now you can ask your phone. Pretty cool.
Pier Import and Export
John McKeon has put together a SIXX based Pier facility to import and export entire Pier based sites. Follow the link for access to the code - it should be showing up in the PIer Monticello repository shortly. It addresses a known issue in Pier, apparently.
Google Voice to the iPhone
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.
Feeding the Troll
How dumb is the US PTO? Dumb enough that they issued a patent troll company, Sharing Sound, a patent on "web distribution of music" in 2001.
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.
Features Versus Practice
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.
Smalltalk Daily 10/13/10: Announcements
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"?
Technorati Tags: smalltalk, announcements, events
JQuery and Seaside
The jQuery section of the online Seaside book has been updated - here's the summary for that section:
jQuery and jQuery UI are both well integrated into Seaside 3.0. This allows you to access all aspects of the library from Smalltalk by writing Smalltalk code only. The Smalltalk side of the integration is automatically built from the excellent jQuery documentation, so you can be sure that the integration is up-to-date and feature-complete.
Oracle and IBM Shoot at Android
Looks to me like Google will have to do a lot more of the heavy lifting on the underlying Andrloid platform - it's based on Harmony, something that IBM had been supporting until now. InfoWorld reports:
The core of the IBM-Oracle deal is that those employees will now switch their attention to OpenJDK, Oracle's in-house open source Java implementation. The move completely sucks the wind out of Harmony's sails, with Tim Ellison, one of Harmony's senior developers, essentially conceding the project will probably fold in short order.
At the very least, Google will have to start throwing resources at the project - resources that they have been putting elsewhere. The Google/Oracle lawsuit will drag on for eons before anything happens - this, on the other hand, will have a pretty immediate impact.
Smalltalk Daily 10/12/10: Basic File I/O
Today's Smalltalk Daily looks at some file and stream i/o basics. 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"?
Standards or Chaos?
We're about to get a real world test of two very different approaches to phone OS use - Google's "throw it over the wall approach", and Microsoft's "create a standard" approach:
Each device must feature three standard hardware buttons, for example, and before they can ship with Windows Phone 7, they have to pass a series of tests directed by Microsoft. (As I mentioned in a feature story about Windows Phone 7, Microsoft has created new lab facilities containing robots and automated programs to test each handset to ensure that features work properly and consistently across multiple devices.)
The iPhone has had the consistency thing going for it all along; Microsoft is trying to create something similar across a broad range of hardware vendors. It might help them take the slot Google is in right now, or at least split it with them.
Technorati Tags: windows phone, android, iPhone
Galaxy Tab Priced Out
I don't think the Galaxy Tab is as primed for success as some people think it is - PC World notes an issue with the pricing model:
Users can get the Galaxy Tab without a contract, but with the price expected to be $650, it doesn't offer a very compelling challenge to the $499 16GB iPad, or even the contract-free 3G iPad at $629
It's cheaper with the contract, but unlike the 3g iPad, you have to sign a contract for 2 years. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think that will limit the appeal. Here's the real takeawy quote from the PC World piece:
People expect Apple products to cost a premium and it is just assumed that non-Apple products should be cheaper.
Technorati Tags: galaxy tab, iPad, tablet
Next Podcast
We just spoke to Ernest Micklei about his soek.goodies.st site - and it turned into a broader cloud and Smalltalk source code conversation. Tune in to the next Industry Misinterpretations podcast to listen in
Technorati Tags: smalltalk, cloud, source code
If It's Not One Thing Department...
It's been a bad few days in terms of irritating device failures. First, the handle broke off our over the stove microwave oven, rendering it mostly unusable. Then, my wife's old PC (the one with all her photos) stopped booting. The latter thing turns out to be a problem with the heat sink, so it's fixable - just annoying.
The joys of having old stuff :)
Smalltalk Daily 10/11/10: A Simple COM Example in VW
Today's Smalltalk Daily looks at interfacing to a simple COM api in Windows - specifically, the speech API. The code to get the dispatch driver is a little involved, so the #setupDriver method in the video is included below - to skip to the video, click here. If you can't see the embedded video directly, you can go directly to YouTube for it.
setupDriver "set up the COM driver" | ref descs ifc guid refs | refs := COMRegistryInterface extTypeLibraryIDMap select: [:each | each name notNil]. ref := refs detect: [:each | 'Microsoft Speech Object Library*' match: each name] ifNone: [nil]. ref ifNil: [^nil]. descs := ref containedTypeDescriptions. ifc := descs detect: [:each | 'SpVoice' match: each name] ifNone: [nil]. ifc ifNil: [^nil]. guid := ifc guid. driver := AdvancedDispatchDriver on: (IClassFactory createInstance: guid iid: External.COMConstants.IID_IDispatch context: External.COMConstants.CLSCTX_SERVER). ^driver
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"?
Industry Misinterpretations 209: Cincom Smalltalk Roadmap, 2010
This week's podcast is Arden Thomas presenting the Cincom Smalltalk road map at ESUG on September 15, 2010 in Barcelona, Spain. He spoke about ObjectStudio, VisualWorks, and WebVelocity, and took a few questions at the end of the talk. You can see the slides he used here.
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.
To listen immediately, use the player below:
If you like the music we use, please visit Josh Woodward's site. We use the song Effortless for our intro/outro music. I'm sure he'd appreciate your support!
If you have feedback, send it to smalltalkpodcasts@cincom.com - or visit us on Facebook - you can vote for the Podcast Alley, and subscribe on iTunes.. Interested in Cincom Smalltalk? Why not download it now and try it out yourself? If you enjoy the podcast, pass the word - we would love to have more people hear about Smalltalk!
Technorati Tags: smalltalk, cincom smalltalk, roadmap, esug2010, barcelona, spain
Seaside in the Cloud
Jan van de Sandt has pushed out a new Pharo/Seaside EC2 instance:
The update to the Ubuntu server makes it easier to run the AMI as a Micro (t1.micro) instance type. This is currently the smallest and cheapest EC2 image type. The image type is very well suited for running Seaside web applications. When your application becomes more popular you can scale by using a bigger instance type or by running multiple instances.
Follow the link to get the particulars, such as the AMI instance id.
Celebrating 10/10/10
How did I celebrate the date? By playing a game of Civilization Revolution
Sweep!
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The Yankees just took the Twins apart this year -tonight's final score was 6-1. If Giradi weren't obsessed with pitch count, it likely would have been a shutout. Hughes was mowing batters down, but when he hit that "magic number" - out he came, and the next guy loaded the bases. |
It's not that pitch count is irrelevant; it's just that it's only one factor, not the only one. If your pitcher is cruising, here's a hot tip: leave him in. If all you're going to do is go on auto-pilot with pitch count, you might as well put a laptop with a webcam in charge.
Xtreams becoming Portable
Looks like Martin's Xtreams talk at ESUG 2010 has inspired the Squeak Community: Nicholas Cellier has started a port over to Squeak. Having this library portable across multiple Smalltalk dialects will make it much more likely to see real world use.
