I saw quite a few cool things today at the eBIG FutureTech and Gadget Show. My friend Ed from TeleVoce was there showing off a prototype of the TeleVoce Duetto. The Duetto is a special cordless phone that can take both VoIP calls through a connected computer and regular PSTN calls. One cool feature of… Read More »
Tomorrow is the East Bay IT Group’s (eBIG) FutureTech and Gadget Show from noon to 7 pm at the Carr America Conference Center in Pleasanton. I joined eBIG about a month ago and I definitely plan to be at the show. A friend of mine (and fellow San Jose Earthquakes fan) will be there from… Read More »
Yahoo! News – CA Charges Into Open Source Computer Associates has always struck me as being the least interesting of all the really large software factories. They build (though more often, deliver through an acquisition) boring software for running core software at other behemoths. The only interesting thing about CA over the last few years… Read More »
I’ve been meaning to write about SourceBeat for awhile. My friend Michael told me about this company a couple weeks ago. SourceBeat has a very interesting business model for publishing technical books. The basic idea is that you pay about $30 a year to subscribe to a book. That may seem like a lot for… Read More »
I attended the EBIG Java SIG tonight, which featured a presentation by Bruce Eckel on threading in JDK 1.5. Though I’ve not done much multi-threaded programming myself, I’m very wary of it because I’ve seen enough damage at work by other developer’s failed attempts. Bruce confirmed my feelings; don’t make your program multi-threaded unless you… Read More »
In a previous post, I described how I found xinf to be a better music player and library for Linux than Rhythmbox, a.k.a., Music Player. Rhythmbox was included on my Fedora install CDs, so I thought I would give it another chance. The short summary is that it is now my primary music player and… Read More »
Mozilla FireFox (note the new name) 0.8 is the best web browser ever. The new release has been massively blogged everywhere, but I have to mention it in case anyone reading my blog is still using that sad little tragic, archaic, full-of-security-holes web browser – Internet Explorer. Unfortunately, my website reports suggest that many people… Read More »
I spent entirely too many hours this weekend installing and writing up installation notes for setting up a MoinMoin wiki on a DreamHost-hosted website. But, as in all these exercises (Movable Type, Gallery), I learned a lot. I still have a couple tweaks I would like to make to my install, but at least everything… Read More »
Matz’s presentation at OSCon 2003 on The Power and Philosophy of Ruby lists three basic principles of programming language design. Choose good names Understanding humanity Embedding hidden messages Some of his points that really hit home relate to succinctness, fewer bad surprises, reduction of stress, consistency, and offering more than one way to accomplish a… Read More »
If you need to install Movable Type on a DreamHost shared server, you might find my installation notes to be of use. They might even be helpful if you don’t use DreamHost, but no promises. The web page for my notes currently comes up fifth when you google on “install movable type”. It’s a mystery… Read More »