Okay I thought I could tolerate that twitterwhore bird in this WP theme (which is otherwise great), but it’s just too big, bright, shiny and all pretending-to-be-modest with its eyes closed as if it isn’t holding that big sign. I’ll come up with something else.
Really, it’s on my Things to-do list, so I’ll either get to it eventually or pick a different theme.
I’m sold on trying out Scala, after seeing James Strachan state:
I’m very impressed with it! I can honestly say if someone had shown me the Programming Scala book by by Martin Odersky, Lex Spoon & Bill Venners back in 2003 I’d probably have never created Groovy.
Strachan created the very cool Groovy and is one of the few big Java guys (along with Jerome Louvel) who has some good perspective on the language and has been doing cool stuff.
I even have a couple of small projects I’m fiddling with where I can try it out. For client work I will [...] Continue Reading…
I had been dreading a full laptop death and replacement, but I think this drive essentially extended the life of this machine by at least a year, if not two. It’s that much faster. And that’s why I’m slowly putting Intel SSDs into all my machines. [...] Continue Reading…
It struck me the other day that Mike Bloomberg is the last “real” Republican; i.e. in the sense that he runs a tight a fiscal ship, wants government to stay out of personal lives (libertarians would cite the smoking policies as a major exception), he sells out the poor, he fights the unions and he’s business friendly. Now, I’m not saying I’m a Bloombergy fan, but imagine if guys like him had control of the GOP for the last decade instead of the tag team of of the fundies and neocons.
I kind of went crazy with iPhone software after I got a 3GS. The speed increase of the GS is staggering compared to the original iPhone and visibly faster than the 3G. With the speed bump I found my phone much more useable and I went on an activation and app downloading craze, including activating my work Exchange account. Exchange support seems to work quite well. I basically just turned it on, set it to sync mail, calendar and contacts and, aside from now having 2 of every contact everything just worked.
Now I felt all set, I could finally [...] Continue Reading…
I was asked my opinion about luxury sites I do or do not think are well done, so I sat down for an hour and a half, Googled a bit, and then surfed and wrote down notes. As it turns out I only need talking points, so I decided to share my notes here, complete with snark.
Luxury sites have long been notorious for ignoring usability or often even utility. I hadn’t actually looked at any of these sites in quite some time, so this was actually a good check in. If this random sampling (basically gleaned from mentions in [...] Continue Reading…
Iranians, you are not alone. Uploaded these direct from the protest to Youtube…
Intro
If you are unaware, Iranian protesters are having to use proxies to avoid Internet and journalist censorship in Iran. Proxies are allowing them to post on sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Youtube and others. As many people don’t know how to do this, I threw together a guide. I apologize for its brevity, but I am at work and trying to get the post up quickly and follow events in Iran all at the same time.
Having said that:
Install Squid
If you’re on Windows, just follow these instructions:
http://blog.austinheap.com/2009/06/15/how-to-setup-a-proxy-for-iran-citizens-for-windows/
If you’re on a Mac, first install MacPorts (if you don’t already have [...] Continue Reading…
Assuming reasonably equal resources and knowledge: two parties attempting to knock each other off the internet can result in only two outcomes: either they both get knocked off or neither does. The possibility of either party “winning” is essentially impossible. The Internet’s combination of network redundancy and ability to communicate with, and garner assistance from, sympathetic parties from around makes it nearly impossible to for one party to squash another. The only thing they can do is cut themselves off completely. I think of this is RMAD “Recoverable Mutually Assured Destruction” since they can turn it back on afterwards [...] Continue Reading…
Floyd Norris’ has a great quip
New York has long been competitive with California, which replaced it as the most populated state. Now they are in a tight race to see which state has the least functional government. It is too soon to declare a winner.