KBM's Web Log

2008/01/03

More on CouchDB

The SimpleDB comparison in this post seems very important

That's a great development. Good for IBM picking it up, too.

Not knowing CouchDB too deeply, but the basic gist of it, I wonder how well the approach would translate into a cloud-based system, not too unlike Simple DB?

Damien Katz of CouchDB Joins IBM

clipped from www.google.co.uk

Great news!

I've accepted a permanent, full-time job with IBM. My primary duties are (drumroll....) CouchDB! So all the stuff I've been doing up until now for free I'll be doing full time and be getting paid for it! Yee Haw!

2007/12/21

Open Source Conversation is back

I lost sight of this whilst moving computers several times recently - in fact I lost many podcasts.

So I am very pleased to see this one back.

clipped from www.radioopensource.org

The Open Source conversation is reborn at the Watson Institute at
Brown University.

2007/12/20

New CEO at Red Hat

COO who is an ex-programmer.....

clipped from www.news.com

In a surprise move, Red Hat said Thursday that Matthew Szulik will step down as president and chief executive on January 1, to be replaced by James Whitehurst, Delta Airlines' former chief operating officer.

On a conference call, Szulik said Whitehurst stood "head and shoulders" above other candidates interviewed in a recruiting process. He was a programmer earlier in his career and runs four versions of Linux at home, he said.

The surprise move was announced as the leading Linux seller announced results for its third quarter of fiscal 2008. Its revenue increased 28 percent to $135.4 million and net income went up 12 percent to $20.3 million, or 10 cents per share. The company also raised estimates for full-year results to revenue of $521 million to $523 million and earnings of about 70 cents per share.

Test post from Clipmarks 3

Testing, 1,2

clipped from www.linuxinsider.com

Open source software developers who were active in the late 1990s might find themselves yearning for those good old days, when venture capital flowed like wine at Napa Valley party.

Open source software's fall from grace was dramatic and sobering, but it wasn't alone and it doesn't mean open source is a dead industry. In fact, while investors are magnitudes more careful than they were back in the day, money is still being offered to open source companies that meet VC's often varying criteria.

2007/12/13

James Robertson nails advertising

You know he is right - probably less than 1000 people in the entire world don't:

Now, imagine a company with a clue: they would have bought advertising to apear with those clips, and the ads would have been something like "Like what you see here? Visit our site to buy the concert DVD or video download".

2007/11/07

Develop Lisp applications using the Cusp Eclipse plug-in

Lisp is an excellent programming language that allows you to expand your knowledge of programming languages due to its largely typeless nature. It can also help those seasoned in the Java™ programming language, PHP, or C/C++ think in new ways when developing applications. In addition, you can do some pretty cool things with Lisp. Find out how to develop Lisp applications using the Cusp Eclipse plug-in.

Bonus: Does your ADSF package files for you!!!

2007/10/18

Nokia have just announced a new model of their Internet Tablet (which is not a phone!)

I have been watching the N800 for a while and would have liked to find a store at which to give it a try. It looks cool but what can it really do?

Then the price of the N800 started to drop - so of course a new model was coming!

Here is a comparison of the N800 and the N810 to help me make up my mind as to go with a cheap N800 to try out or splash out for the latest and greatest N810.

Choices, choices!

2007/10/05

The rules of war

From Paul Krugman(Reg. reqd):

Anyway, it continues to amaze me how the 21st century is starting to look like the 17th century with fancier technology: tax farmers, mercenaries, and now rentier cities.

Given Paul's previous column on torture, it occurs to me that the end of the 17th century marked the beginning (in Europe) of a period marked by limited wars with conventions of behaviour which limited the impact on civilian populations. The 30 Years War had been the exact opposite with many , many civilan deaths.

Anyway, I wonder if revolution at present day methods will lead to a more restrained era - perhaps we could have some conventions signed at Geneva?

It's the economy stupid

A couple of quotes fro today's Guardian:

Despite opinion poll gains by the Conservatives, Gordon Brown will make a Commons statement on Iraq on Monday, and the chancellor, Alistair Darling, will deliver the comprehensive spending review and the pre-budget report to MPs on Tuesday.

......

But Mr Brown was today dealt a sobering blow by a Guardian ICM poll, which showed that the two parties were both on 38% in the wake of the Tory conference in Blackpool.

Means only one thing - if they push for an election now they must be very worried about the trend in the economy.

2007/09/21

RUP: Iteration Planning : Brian Lyons

Having found the NumberSix blogs for the wrong reason, I find this very intersting short piece on when to do Iteration Planning by Brian.

One thing that has RUP diverging from other methods is when you create the Iteration Plan. Personally, I think this causes problems.

Other iterative development methods from Scrum to Barry Boehm’s Spiral Model start each iteration with a planning session for how the team will carry out the objectives defined in the higher-level plan. RUP ends each iteration with a plan for the next one. Considering that this is a one or two day variance, does it matter? I think it does.

Intersting and subtle point.

So RUP is wrong! Whaddya gonna do about it? I’ll tell you what: fix it!

The Rational Unified Process is a set of process content that conforms to the framework of the Unified Process. With v7 of the process it is initially provided in two configurations – RUP for Large Projects and a stripped down RUP for Small Projects – and it is installed along with Rational Method Composer, a tool to modify the process. Does this sound like a process that someone is telling you that you are not allowed to modify?

And a pragmatic answer. Perhaps I'll do this work myself!!

Brian Lyons: RIP

I never met Brian Lyons face-to-face but we did have one interaction after my "CMMI Made Practical" presentation in March. It is very sad to see a relatively young person with a young family pass away, especially one who was also very highly thought of in the inustry.

By a strange quirk of fate I arrived in S. Africe on 3rd September to do another presentation on CMMI - I guess we won't be exchanging thoughts on that one :-(

Found via Grady's blog.

2007/09/20

Do You Love IT Conversations? Show It!

From Phil Windley:

I hate public radio pledge drives. Who doesn’t. Nevertheless, I recognize the need. I hope you’ll forgive this low-key request for support for IT Conversations.

Add the button!!

Common Lisp Tutorial

Peter Siebel makes a plea:

So imagine my dismay when someone pointed out to me today the Google results for “lisp tutorial”. The top hit is a page which apparently hasn’t been updated since around 1999 and isn’t really a tutorial anyway, so much as a large list of links including a link to the Hyperspec when it was hosted at harlequin.com.1 The next few “lisp tutorial” hits are — with all due respect — exactly the sort of dated, dry tutorials that inspired me to write Practical Common Lisp in the first place and to do a deal with Apress to allow me to keep it online even after the dead tree version was published.

With that in mind I did a small bit of search engine optimization today to make sure that the phrase “Common Lisp tutorial” appears on the main page of the Practical Common Lisp web site. If you also think Lisp might be better served if PCL was at least one of the results returned to a would-be Lisper searching for a Lisp tutorial you can help out: if you have a web page where it would be reasonable to do so, consider linking to the url http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/ with a link text of “lisp tutorial” or “common lisp tutorial”. Yes, I’m asking you to participate in a Google bombing. But it’s for a good cause. Think of the children.

You know that he is right - I remember that 1999 page from when I started with Lisp - it has had its day. And Peter's book is excellent, with the first chapters being a very good tutorial.

So if you want a good Lisp Tutorial or Common Lisp Tutorial, look no further than here:

http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/

The initial chapter of Successful Lisp is also a good place to start .

2007/09/14

Smalltalk by Example: PDF and on Lulu

Want to get started with Smalltalk? Look no further than: Squeak by Example.

Released under Creative Commons "sharealike" license an can be used with Squeak (obviously) which is free and free!!

I have just started on it, so can't give a full review, but from a quick scan it looks very promising.

2007/09/08

A test post from Google Docs!!

How does this go?

It works!!

I wonder how labels can be added?

Back from South Africa

Just back from a business trip; when I say S.Africa it was actually just Joburg, and apart from a few drives to customers it was entirely Sandton, a suburb.

Weather was very nice - hot but not too hot. I was there just as winter turned to summer; apparently spring no longer happens!

A nation of great contrasts - shopping malls with lots of wealth on display vs. the townships I saw going to and fro to the airport.

I attended a conference where the message was about the changes required to move SA to being a software powerhouse like India. Perhaps these efforts with the investment taking place for hosting the World Cup in 2010 will help.

Martin Fowler turns TV critic: Dr Who

Martin Fowler gives a great introduction to Doctor Who. He does a great job of pointing out the real highlights (and there are many!)

This made me chuckle:

You see Doctor Who is only secondarily about entertainment, it's primary purpose was always to scare the living daylights out of small children. I may be too old now to get behind the sofa, but I do remember how much I enjoyed it.

I remember hiding behind the sofa - I swear that a black and white TV that vibrates wit h the theme tune is ideal for Dr Who. That said my kids love the new stuff even without the hiding!

2007/08/25

Live from Ulaanbaatar

Rob is the son of a friend of mine and is doing a year with VSO in Mongolia:

Upon arrival we made our base camp in a gir (a large tent which nomadic Mongolians use as their home). From here we went for a walk, going past traditional herdsmen and their cattle. Almost everyone I past was on horseback. It was fascinating to see the traditional, nomadic style of life still being followed in this region. Completely different to anything back in the UK!

2007/08/23

inbox zero

Merlin Mann talks about GTD etc. at Google:

Feedburner

Well, I didn't know Google had bought Feedburner - time to get back under my rock!

Anyhow, I have added this blog to Feedburner so I can see what all the fuss is about.

2007/08/10

No Dolphin Smalltalk, No Open Source Dolphin Smalltalk

There will no doubt be a number of you who would suggest that we Open Source Dolphin. Of course, you are free harbour such opinions and to discuss the idea on the newsgroup but please do not expect us to be persuaded. It simply will not happen! Both Blair and I dislike the Open Source movement intensely and we would rather see Dolphin gradually disappear into the sands of time than instantly lose all commercial value in one fell swoop.

......

At this point, I cannot sign off without commenting on the enthusiasm and talent in the Dolphin community that has sustained us all these years. There are people on the Dolphin newsgroup who have been with us since the early days back in 1997. There are a number of you who have supported Dolphin far beyond the call of duty and I sincerely thank you for this. I don't want to name names for fear that I forget someone but you know who you are and I thank you again. Doubtless, many of you will be disappointed by this decision but I hope that you understand now why this has to be.

Hmmm. The author seems to rule out Open Source as a viable business decision under any circumstances. Might have built a larger community around Dolphin, maybe even more profitable (especially with on-going client work)

2007/07/30

Getting Things Done, in Emacs

From credmp (via Sacha Chua)

A wonderful concept that has intrigued me for quite some time is David Allen’s Getting Things Done. Wikipedia has a good short story on what the process is and how it should work. This article however is about how I implement it into my daily routine at work to try and get the most out of a day. Firstly, I will introduce the software I utilize to get everything done.

....

In order to get my system up and running, in regards to the
Muse/Planner/Remember trinity, I have found the information and code
snippets of Sacha Chua extremely useful.

2007/07/11

Organisations are systems: agile or not

More wisdom from Patrick Logan:

I taught and coached agile software development a lot over the last many years. A common question was "What about metrics? I need an agile that supports metrics. Our organization does metrics. Or will." Often the people asking the question had little if any understanding of "metrics". Often they thought that "metrics" (the kind in "quotes") must be really complicated, and so this agile thing where you cheat and cut corners certainly must not "do metrics".

A focus on concrete and to-the-point metrics is so important, yet so elusive.

Do smaller (growing) companies do well until politics means that the goals of the organsiations , its sub-unts and individuals cannot easily be aligned?

2007/06/19

Planning your future

It has been said before, but here is a great article by Erin Malone on thinking about your future:

The point is, in the big picture, no one is going to look after your career for you, but you.

Many good points and a nice outline. Also some great discussion in the comments. Read It All!(tm)

2007/05/27

Programmatic changing of documentation in CL

From yrk:

SETF can be used to modify documentation: (setf (documentation 'foo 'function) "Common Lisp documentation is malleable").

2007/05/21

Distributed Systems vs. SOA

Some interesting perspectives on SOA from Pat Helland (who seems to be getting lots of links since going back to MS):

So, the move from distributed systems (one transactional scope --> one notion of time) to SOA (independent transactional scopes --> time based on the perspective of the user) is like moving from Newton's Universe to Einstein's Universe

and

In SOA (again, how I think of it), we are acknowledging the existence of independent machines. This affects the transactional scope (we end up with different chunks of data which cannot be updated by the same transaction) and we end up with independently evolving schema and operations for the different systems. This is a seminally different concept than distributed systems (at least in the way I think of them).

So:

In the presence of imperfect availability of knowledge, a business is forced to choose between closing down service (reducing availability of the service), over-booking, or over-provisioning. Indeed, if multiple systems (or humans) are extending commitments independently, they must choose between over-booking, over-provisioning, or some unknown balance between them. If I have 10,000 widgets to sell and 100 salespeople, I could allocate 100 to each sales-person and know that I have not over-booked if they go out and independently sell the widgets. To do this, though, I am almost certain to need extra inventory for the sales-people that don't sell all 100 of their widgets. Indeed, for most businesses, this is a ridiculously expensive proposition. So, an analysis is done on the statistics, a cost of over-booking is calculated, and allocations are given based on the expectations of selling the 100,000 widgets.

That is my summary in 3 quotes! Read it all to a) check on my understanding, b) to get the full subtlety

Technorati Tags: SOA

DSL or API?

From chromatic on ONLamp:

Confusingly, every example of a DSL I saw looked like something I would have called an API before my sudden immersive enlightenment.
If I’m confused about what a DSL is, you must be too. I took copious notes through the sessions on Friday and have devised a simple, ten-question test to help you determine whether a wad of code represents a DSL or an API.

Fun! So what is a DSL?

2007/05/17

about schmedley - wow!!

rich internet applications

This is what schmedley is all about

Note the OS X style "Mexican applications wave" at the bottom

2007/05/15

My name is on a software patent.

Mark Pilgrim:

Even our most seasoned patent writers argued against it, and we did it anyway. And for what?

2007/05/08

More Ubuntu - now on mobile phones?

Looks like more Ubuntu momentum according to the BBC:

A version of the increasingly popular Linux operating system Ubuntu will be developed for use on net-enabled phones and devices.

The Ubuntu Mobile and Embedded project aims to create the open source platform for initial release in October 2007.

Good free(?) publicity.

No mention of apps that I can see - seems important in this space

2007/05/04

Common LISP: Code Coverage in SBCL

Juho reports:

SBCL 1.0.5.28 includes an experimental code coverage tool (sb-cover) as a new contrib module. Basically you just need to compile your code with a special optimize proclamation, load it, run some tests, and then run a reporting utility. The reporting utility will produce some html files.

Looks very cool.

2007/05/01

Dell to use Ubuntu on Linux PCs

Congratulation to Ubuntu

From the BBC article:

Michael Dell, the founder, chairman and chief executive of Dell, is himself an Ubuntu user. He has the operating system installed on a high-end Dell Precision M90 laptop he uses at home.

This refers to this link which refers to:

Software:

Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn
VMWare Workstation 6 Beta
OpenOffice.org 2.2
Automatix2
Firefox 2.0.0.3
Evolution Groupware 2.10

2007/04/17

Highlighting symbols in Emacs

M-x all-things-emacs

I ran across this package on gnu.emacs.sources recently. If you enable light-symbol-mode in a buffer and pause on a symbol, then Emacs will highlight all other occurrences of the symbol in the buffer. When you move point the highlighting goes away.

Neat

2007/03/31

Trying Clippings

Following my urge to try nearly all Web 2.0 applications, here is an entry from Clippings

clipped from clipmarks.com

keithmantell
Location: unknown

Member since: Today 1:26 PM
0 clips created
0 popped
0 total pops
If you want to start clipping but haven't installed yet, install now
Enter your blog info for Clip-to-Blog™
Set up auto-posting to del.icio.us

2007/03/29

gblogger

Stufff from new gblogger install

Ubuntu Feisty beta battling

I have had exciting day battling with Ubuntu.

First off, my root partition fille up so X11 wouldn't start.  All attempts to resize the partition (qtparted, DiskWorks) failed.  What the heck, I had a new disk rive to install, so I thought I would install the lovely new beta.

Hmm, kernel panic..... OEM install isk reveale more details - all around ACPI.  Turned that off in the BIOS, on we go.  Nice looking install using Ubiquity kept freezing at 88%.  Used the naff looking OEM version, but it worked!! Finally!!!

I am now up and running, having copied over /home, some apt configs etc.

The result is good - hopfully folks using the final install will have fewer problems ( though I suspect the ACPI will never be fixed - need new mother board!!)

2007/03/26

isearch Word Yank

A cool addition to incremenntal search; by issuing C-w whilst in incrmental search (C-s) you can add ther next word in the buffer being searched. The C-w searches for the new extended search string.

Technorati Tags: emacs

2007/03/19

More Lisp fandom

From Stephen Ramsay

My experience learning Lisp and coding a few serious programs in it was deeply profound. Afterward, most of the other languages I had been using regularly seemed silly and inane. I found myself saying things like, “I’ve spent an hour on this method, and I know I could knock it off in three lines of perfectly elegant Lisp!” And what I was lacking in those languages was a whole host of programming constructs I had either never heard of or only dimly understood before learning Lisp. Passing a function into a function? Why would you ever want to do that! You wouldn’t. Unless you got seriously into Lisp, in which case you find yourself (a) doing it all the time and (b) writing much more elegant, expressive code as a result. Same goes for closures, continuations, anonymous functions, and macros.

and

I’ve spent the last week or so writing in Ruby. It’s a wonderful language. It’s a joy to program in it, and I’m almost always trying to find ways to overcome the various reasons not to (”that’s not the language of the project,” “there aren’t enough libraries,” etc.). I know it like the back of my hand, and I teach the language every year. It even has a number of Lispy constructs (like closures, continuations, and anonymous functions). But it ain’t no Lisp.

BUT

But last week, I was writing proof-of-concept code. There was no one telling me what language to use, no “audience” for the code, and there were good, serviceable libraries available for Common Lisp, Ruby, Java, Python and Perl. I went with Ruby.

The question, of course, is why not write it in The Greatest Language Ever?

Well, that’s a separate rant, which I’ll save for another post.

Intriguing.... is Stephen in theatre or films? The suspense is building nicely, but timing is everything!

2007/03/17

Fridge efficiency

£25 fridge gadget that could slash greenhouse emissions:

It is made of wax, is barely three inches across and comes in any colour you like, as long as it's black. And it could save more greenhouse gas emissions than taxes on gas guzzling cars, low energy light bulbs and wind turbines on houses combined. It is the e-cube, and it is coming soon to a fridge near you.

2007/03/04

From Emacs via gblogger

Hi there

Hey, it worked !!

Not sure about the Post URL part, but ther is probably a way to set a default.....

Anyway, check it out....
Emacs Client for Google

Entry titles in Blogger

I discovered that, using Performancing, I could set the title of a Blog entry, which formatted very nicely (IMHO). However, if I posted from Blogger, I could not set the title ( and so used h2 headers instead), and if I editted a Performancing entry in Blogger I lsot the title!

However, just go to Bloggers Settings -> Formatting and show the title. Now I have no excuse not to make these 2 types of entry look the same.

Lack of posts

Well, I haven't posted much recently. Partly that is due to a new job, but also the fact that BlogThis! didn't work with the new version of Blogger. Well, now the Google Toolbar does the trick..... except that using Firefox on my Windows laptop, I can't login to Blogger. The login window goes into some sort of loop.

I have (somewhat reluctantly) got it all working in IE7, but it is not my environment of choice.....

I can use the Emacs client, mentioned earlier - but so far I have only installed that in Linux, where such things are very easy. The Ubuntu apt-get is just great!!

Google comes to Emacs

An Emacs Client For Blogger: "by T.V. Raman, Google Research Scientist" .

And you can do stuff with Calendar and Reader too - in fact I found the HTML provided for the list of current items is a really nice way to read outstanding items.

Note to self: Installs go better if you check you have the pre-reqs rather than (mis-)remembering.

2007/02/05

Models of running code

An interesting aricle on visualising running code, with imortant insights on models in general:

Validating Dynamic Systems - Enterprise Integration Patterns

One of the key messages we are trying to highlight during our talk is the importance of mapping the captured data to a model that is suited to answering the questions you are interested in. This model can be a graph, a process or any other abstract representation of your system.

Not getting too pedantic on the exact form of model seems like good advice - what type of model answers the questions that need to be asked?

2007/01/31

?National? Gorilla Suit Day

Today is National Gorilla Suit Day, inaugurated by Mad Magazine's Don Martin. "Every National Gorilla Suit Day, people of all shapes and colors around the world get their gorilla suits out of the closet, put them on and go door-to-door."

International Gorrilla Suit Day? Either way I missed it - maybe next year?

2007/01/26

Calling all UK Cyclists - fillththole.org.uk

Via the CTC:

Potholes and road defects are more than just a nuisance, they’re a danger to cyclists. They’re responsible for 12% of compensation claims by CTC members, and local Councils have a duty to fix them.

Councils can’t be everywhere, and if they don’t know about a pothole, they can’t fill it in. So if you want to get it repaired, you have to report it. Fillthathole.org.uk contacts the right people for you, to get the roads repaired quickly and easily. So you can spend your time riding, not dodging obstacles.

2007/01/18

Scrybe™ a groundbreaking online organizer

Scrybe™ a groundbreaking online organizer that caters to today´s lifestyle in a cohesive and intuitive way.

Looks interesting - flexible lists and diary, but the "thought-stream" idea looks ver y useful. I've signed up for a beta......

2007/01/16

Bye Don

Microsoft lures IBM Software architect Ferguson | News.blog | CNET News.com

Microsoft has hired Donald Ferguson away from IBM, where he was chief architect of IBM Software Group and a big thinker on Web services and service-oriented architectures.

One Emacs to rule them all!

Via minor emacs wizardry:

Knuth’s Tex for the Math-kings of sigma, and pi,

Unix vim for the Server-lords with their O’Reilly tomes,

Word for Mortal Men doomed to die,

Emacs from the Bearded One on his Gnu throne,

In the land of Stallman where free software lies.

One Emacs to rule them all. One Emacs to find them,

One Emacs to take commands and to the keystrokes bind them,

In the land of Stallman, where free software lies.

In fact, "minor emacs wizardry" is a little too modest - some amazing emacs stuff on that blog if you are that way inclined!

2007/01/04

Bibtex

From Phil Windley:

"If you use BibTeX for managing paper references (and after all, who doesn’t) and you use a Mac, then you should know about BibDesk, an open source tool for managing BibTeX bibliography files."

Well I don't have Mac OS X ( gasp!) so I went looking for Linux alternatives and came up with KBibtex. Debian and Ubuntu folks can get it via here. Looks good, but I will report back later after more use.

2007/01/03

23C3 - Lawrence Lessig - On Free, and the Differences between Culture and Code


An excellent Lessig talk

2006/12/20

Languages of the Gods or Languages of the Brave?

Great, fun, insightful stuff from Giles Bowkett:

If there's anything godlike about using Lisp or Smalltalk when the rest of the world is on Java and C#, it isn't the skill level required. It's the balls. Standing up to the rest of the world and telling them, "your technology decisions are bad and I'm going to use a language that doesn't suck" is a very unusual move. It requires a lot of courage. But if you think about that, that's kind of bad. I mean, if what I'm saying is true, then the average technology business is kind of pathetic.

Unfortunately, I've worked for a very large number of different technology businesses, and I can tell you with confidence, certainty, and no fear of inaccuracy that the average technology business is indeed kind of pathetic.

Right on.

It's worth pointing out, the poster children for Lisp and Smalltalk are Paul Graham and Avi Bryant. Neither one of these guys actually had to stand up to management and tell them they were wrong. They just went ahead and started companies using better technology. Paul Graham obviously won pretty big when he did that. It's too early to tell with Avi Bryant, but there's no doubt at all that Dabble puts every other Web app in the world to shame.

My emphasis added.

Via Smalltalk Tidbits, Industry Rants

2006/11/29

What if he has Down’s syndrome?

Times Online: I'm not a saint, just a parent

Right now I can't say much about this - my own memories come flooding back

2006/11/23

James Robertson's Smalltalk Daily - now with overview

I've organized the Smalltalk Daily screencasts by topic - there are now landing pages for the various areas I've covered.

Great stuff - that will help those of us who haven't been listening daily !

2006/11/07

This makes sense!

GoboLinux is a modular Linux distribution: it organizes the programs in your system in a new, logical way. Instead of having parts of a program thrown at /usr/bin, other parts at /etc and yet more parts thrown at /usr/share/something/or/another, each program gets its own directory tree, keeping them all neatly separated and allowing you to see everything that's installed in the system and which files belong to which programs in a simple and obvious way.

I have often felt the standard way was rather messy.

2006/11/06

Bluebell Woods

2006/10/31

Google buys JotSpot

Yet another on-line tool that I use ( or play with) has been absorbed into the new Borg!! Great news for JotSpot both financially (I assume) and in terms of broader adoption. Google will have to asimilate Wrtely, Blogger and Spreadsheets, but Writely can add some better glue to make the Google experience seem more cohesive, plus JotSpot as other applications.

Looking forward to using it - hope the integration goes faster than Writely's did!!

2006/10/15

Just upgraded to the Blogger beta! Labels finally!!

Cusp, An Eclipse Lisp Plugin: "Cusp, a Lisp plugin for Eclipse"

Hmmm

2006/09/22

La-la-la-la , I haven't got time for this, la-la-la-la

Stevey's Blog Rants: Shiny and New: Emacs 22:

"I finally upgraded to Emacs 22 a few weeks ago, and now I'm wishing I'd braved it sooner. Technically it's not released yet; I'm working from a build of a cvs snapshot from a month or so ago. But the Emacs dev team works pretty hard to make sure it has problem-free builds on a whole slew of platforms, so just following their instructions has a pretty good chance of working for you.

It's worth the effort. Truly. Reading through its NEWS file, there's just tons and tons of new functionality. It's going to take me some time, maybe a few weekends, just to absorb it all."

Steve, I really didn't want to know that Emacs 22 was stable and very useful - now I will have to intsall it......

2006/09/18

Welcome to ScheduleWorld: "Don't have a ScheduleWorld ID?
Signup is easy. "

No it isn't - I know tht autmated sign-up has to be discouraged but when a human can't read the special codes !!!!

BBC SPORT | Football | England omission angered Beckham: "Beckham added: 'It surprised me"

I wonder if it surprised many other people - seemed obvious to me after a lack lustre performance and the fact he probably will be too old for the next world cup.

2006/09/14

Wired News: Experimental AI Powers Robot Army:

"Perhaps the most impressive -- and spookiest -- aspect of the project is the swarming behavior of the robots. In computer simulations, they acted together to tackle obstacles and grouped together into defensive formations where needed, Thaler said. They also worked out how to deal with defenders, and spontaneously devised the most efficient strategy for mapping their environment, he added."

and

"I can relate the results of virtual-reality simulations, where swarms of Creativity Machine-based robots have deliberatively sacrificed one of their kind to distract a human guard, enabling the remainder to infiltrate a mock facility," he said.

Hang on ,wasn't that in Aliens !!!

The Universe of Discourse : Design patterns of 1972: "Patterns are signs of weakness in programming languages.

When we identify and document one, that should not be the end of the story. Rather, we should have the long-term goal of trying to understand how to improve the language so that the pattern becomes invisible or unnecessary."

2006/08/21

Lisp Starter Pack

Lisp Starter Pack - My personal Common Lisp "newbie" guide (for Windows): "This is an attempt to help Common Lisp newcomers getting started. The aim is to quickly set up a comfortable working environment which includes a couple of useful and/or popular open source libraries."

GMail meets Getting Things Done

GMail GTD = GTDGmail | 43 Folders:

"GTDGmail looks like a promising entry into the increasingly crowded gene pool of web-based productivity software.

The Firefox extension runs on top of your Gmail account, giving you an email-centric approach to implementing Getting Things Done that includes contexts, statuses, a very nifty search feature, and more. This could be just the thing for people who have to live in email, but who don’t want to live in an unprocessed inbox."

Note that this isn't available yet - hope their time management is good!!

2006/08/15

New blog

I have decided to have another Blog. I will keep this one going with an... hmm.. eclectic mix of fun and news comment. The new blog will be for more technical items - more of a @work@ blog.

It will also give me a chance to try Wordpress ( it has categories!!) See it at http://keithmantell.wordpress.com

2006/08/14

WebMink:

"The real issue is that today's software patents breach the social contract on which the concept of a patent is based."

I think that Simon really nails the important issues in this post - thank you Simon! I have terms like balance running round in my head, but I have to say that Social Contract really is a good term.

Also, the aim of language to confuse rather tha clarify.

Lastly, I agree that there is nothing inherently wrong with SOFTWARE patents - all bad patents should be stopped.

2006/08/11

The liquid world. By William Saletan:

"The new no-liquid rules make an exception for prescription medicine. Do you think I can't make a prescription label on the color printer at my office? Do you think I can't empty and refill capsules?"

Good point!

2006/08/10

Monitoring SOAP

If your module or mediation module invokes a web service (either via a web services bound import or custom code) then you may want, or need, to analyse the SOAP message(s) sent to/from your web service.

Performancing is go

A test post from Performancing 1.3

2006/08/09

Great Fun - revived VSF site

I am a sucker for this alternative Victorian SF stuff - too much Jules Vernes as a youngster?

DyeHard's VSF:

"I am hoping this site will act as inspiration and a resource for those fine folks who might want to model or wargame in the Victorian Science Fiction genre."

2006/08/03

common-lisp.biz - Common Lisp Web Development: "common-lisp.biz provides the services you need to get the most out of the 'Programmable Programming Language'"

2006/08/02

Seven Percent : Main: "I'm SICK TO DEATH of how screwed up Java has become by J2EE and I want it to stop. It's a great language and a great development environment. Stop screwing up something good."

Joel Discovers Blocks:

"Joel Spolsky has just discovered the beauty of anonymous functions"

"Yet again, I have to point out that Smalltalk had this back in the 80's."

2006/07/28

Obie Fernandez : Weblog : Ruby on Rails and More...: "Too much voodoo."

So what is meant by voodoo here? If it means magic then I guess we can all remember the Arthur C Clarke quote on sufficiently advanced technology being essentially magic. Does this mean Seaside is technologicaly advanced by comparison with Rails? A real question as I haven't used either! But now I have a bias.

2006/07/27

Scott Rosenberg's Wordyard ? Blog Archive ? Outliners then and now:

"I am addicted to outlining as a means of organizing my work and life. "

I am not addicted ( I can give up any time I want!), but they can be neat. I tend to use Mindmaps these days (like Freemind)

2006/07/24

The Common Lisp Directory reaches 800 entries - Lisp Propulsion Laboratory log: "I might conservatively say that the Directory is beginning to vaguely look like a possibly useful resource."

2006/07/11

Linux on the Desktop: Not Soon:

"I cannot see people that know how to turn on the computer, login, and double-click on the IE logo switching to an OS that's still geared toward complete gear heads. "

Man, anyone can start Ubuntu and start Firefox!

If the argument changes to "but Linux is too difficult to install", then they haven't had my experiences with installing Windows.

Try giving info relevant to 2006!

How not to kickass

If you aren't tracking SDN you're going to get blind-sided.

Hmm, not when you get when you try to access that:

iView is not compatible with your browser, operating system or device. Contact your system administrator.

2006/07/07

MF Bliki: Buildix: "I've talked many times about the virtues of Continuous Integration. To get such an environment working you need a continuous integration server, and a source code control system. To make a project run smoothly you could also do with an issue tracker for bug tracking and the like, and a wiki to help capture all sorts of project knowledge.

Getting a good environment with all of these things up and integrated together is a tougher job than you might think. Inevitably we found we would be messing around for a week or so on new projects to get the build server set up with all this stuff. I mentioned before that our London office has grown a really sharp deployment team, one of their side jobs has been to sort out putting together a build server.

It's been trialled on a few ThoughtWorks projects, and now it's available for everyone. Buildix is a complete development server, tested in the field by ThoughtWorkers (a very demanding lot), and available for free."

2006/07/03

Well done to France

Zope Dispatches:

"When the match ended with a French victory, the entire city went nuts. It just exploded. People yelling out their doors, cars honking, a huge roar from the crowd at the festival. We then were treated to a 15 minute, very expensive, fireworks show. It was a real thrill to see. (And a heck of a match to watch.)"

It was a great game which France deservedly won - Brazil weren't bad, but France ( and not just Zidane) were great. If they can do that twice more, they'll win.

We now know that the secret of getting England to play is t get someone sent off! They played their best stuff of the tournament when down to 10 men. Just not good enough, but ortugal couldn't finish them off , so I can't see them gong any further.

2006/06/29

Boing Boing: Mark Pilgrim's list of Ubuntu essentials for ex-Mac users:

"Mac guru and software developer Mark Pilgrim recently switched to Ubuntu Linux after becoming fed up with proprietary Mac file-formats and the increasing use of DRM technologies in the MacOS. I've been a Mac user since 1984, and have a Mac tattooed on my right bicep. I've probably personally owned 50 Macs, and I've purchased several hundred while working as an IT manager over the years. I'm about to make the same switch, for much the same reasons."

2006/06/27

Dabble dB - taking the poisoned chalice?

So Dabble are rumoured to be taking $2m in venture capital. I'm with James on this:

Smalltalk Tidbits, Industry Rants:

"Sounds to me like they are still in late binding mode though - they held off on venture capital until they needed it. I hope they don't run into any of the classic 'business optimization' scenarios that can come with funding."

Based on no experience, just observation, I wish they could just grow organically. Still, good luck anyway!

The Size Of Our World: "The Size Of Our World"

Wow - take a look at those pictures! Isn't our Earth small! Isn't our Sun a very small star! Very impressive but, as my wife said, the scale is a bit scary!

2006/06/26

Slashdot | Ruby on Rails for DB2 Developers:

"I just had to switch part of my current project from Ruby to Common Lisp for performance"

2006/06/23

The last days of the Empire

Software Wars:

"A graphic map depicting the epic struggle of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) against the Empire of Microsoft."

Via Slashdot.
Note the great SCO FUD stalled attack.....

2006/06/21

More Linux Desktop disinformation

James Robertson on Linux, a subject where I think he may be a little out-of-date:
Desktops and Hair patterns:

"That's about the size of it. I much prefer managing applications on a Linux server, but I just can't see myself fighting with Linux on the desktop."

So, MS is good at desktops but not applications:

The Suckage continues

MS Outlook - it's teh Sux0r.

"Fighting the Linux desktop" - since when? Welcome to 2006 - where the only things you have to fight with in Linux is where MS dominance has stopped software suppliers bothering to write some applications. But the truth is that everything I want to use works, and is nice aand configurable. Oh, and there is usually a choice of app (even if using MS Exchange, I am told)

Linux is easier to install and setup than Windows, and most apps can be updated automatically, at least in Ubuntu.

Oh, and I don't have a beard!!

ongoing ? 2006 World Cup:

"And I’d actually started liking England a little bit when Rooney brought some second-half life to the affair. The Gerrard goal was perfectly fine but I booed it, and unless they actually wake up and play like men I’ll be cheering for whichever team eventually knocks them out. ?"

I hate to admit it , but I agree with Tim - I won't be cheering whoever knocks England out, but I will be glad to be able to stop whincing and enjoy the game. They("we") have some great players - so why does it go so wrong when they get together as a team.

And I agree with another post of Tim's:

I am officially a major fan of Ghana’s “Black Stars”, as of now. Chances are they advance, and I will be rooting for them against whichever big-name side they play next.

Absolutely - fantastic stuff - I imagine some well organised side will clamp them down this time, but in 4 years? Still fun to watch. How about Ghana vs. the real Brazil ( they will turn up eventually!)

2006/06/20

Open Source Message Queuing

JPMorgan Chase leads open source messaging push:

"The formation of the Working Group follows a multi-year development effort at JPMorgan Chase aimed at creating an alternative to expensive proprietary messaging middleware such as IBM's MQSeries. "

2006/06/18

The drones are coming

BBC NEWS | Americas | High hopes for drone in LA skies: "

Commander Heal is quick to point out that it is not their intention to launch 'big brother' style surveillance operations.

'There's no place in an urban environment that you can go to right now that you're not being looked at with a video camera and you have nothing to fear from your own government - you are being watched by your fellow citizens,' he says."

(my emphasis added) That makes me feel so much better!

2006/06/17

New printer: Epson Stylus CX6600
My old HP 720C gave up the ghost - the head froze and the band was fraying dramatically. So I decided to buy a new one. What did I want?

To get rid of the old parallel cable ( yes, I really still had one of those massive things!)
Colour printing - reasonable quality and speed, nothing too fancy
Built-in scanner - to save space and replace an unreliable flat-bed scanner
All functions should work with Linux and Windows
Separate colour and blak cartridges and replacements should not be too expensive (cf. the HP ones!!! )

Not too much to ask? It quickly became apparent that Epson had a great reputation with Linux folks, and the CX 6400 was said to work with all functions.

Well, I am delighted with the CX6600 - all functions (print, scan, copy) work with both Linux and Windows. As a bonus it can also read a variety of memory sticks. All though its volume is quite large, its footprint is not worse that the 720C ( which had a long paper catching tray) and of course the huge A4 scanner is gone too. Print and scan quality seems very good to me, and the speed of prnting is good. It is nice and quiet.

Bottom-line - I'm very happy!

2006/06/16

EC MDA - Workshop: "From code centric to model centric software engineering: Practices, Implications and ROI": "MDD process in an SME: evolution, not revolution – Phase I"

2006/06/07

Ubuntu 6.06? Me too

Fun summary of the advantages of Ubuntu and a complaint about the industry's miopic focus on pre-installed Windows:The Blog Of Ryan Vennell ? Linux? Windows? Huh?:

"I have also recently installed the latest release of Ubuntu Linux and have found that its ease of use is second to no other OS I’ve used as of yet. "

I actually installed the previous version of Ubuntu ( dual boot with Windoes XP - Ubuntu respected this and gave both options at bootitme) and then as 6.06 grew closer I learnt how to update the Update Service to gradually adot new versions of each package. So when 6.06 was finished, a few packages were updated and I was already at 6.06 - fantastic. I'm sure one has to be careful not to do this too long before GA, but there were no problems with broken function for me. Great stuff!

2006/06/06

Enterprise Architecture: Thought Leadership: Thoughts on Industry Standards Bodies: "Ever heard of the Object Management Group? Ever look at their membership list? Did you notice that there isn't a single Fortune 100 enterprise (non-software) on the list? Do you think they may miss important customer requirements in their discussions if customers aren't participating in them? "

Leadership vs. Despotism

Ted discusses different styles of leading open source projects, and rightly points out that many such projects have an apparent despot:Ted Leung on the air : Open Source leadership:

"The term 'despot' (or to use the Python community's label, 'Benevolent Dictator For Life') inserts a lot of unhelpful color into this particular discussion. It is very rare to find a human endeavor in which no one displays that quality known as leadership."

Is Linus a despot? No, for 3 reasons 1) he seems to work with other people and only occasionally wields the big decision stick (and even then with justification) 2) as Ted points out people can leave as individuals and 3) the tam can effectively depose the despot if the act together.

The important point to me is how limited "positional" power is in corporate e situations too - sure employees are more locked-in but in a reasonably "liquid" job market managers should be leaders too.

2006/06/05

Eternal vigilance

Can't James just stick to technology? Why do I have to think ad worry and write to my MP:

James Governor's MonkChips: Quote of the day via Bruce Schneier: Solzhenitsyn on Data and Privacy:

"Could it be that the we are all so busy patting ourselves on the back for the 'end of Communism' that we have failed to see the rise of pervasive surveillance and potential authoritarianism in our own societies? Be aware of your invisible threads... its time to go back and learn from writers like Solzhenitsyn... any suggestions folks?"

2006/06/01

Quotes of the Day - The Quotations Page:

"The difference between a democracy and a dictatorship is that in a democracy you vote first and take orders later; in a dictatorship you don't have to waste your time voting."

Charles Bukowski (1920 - 1994)

Seems rather appropriate at this time .... perhaps if we added "wasted time with voting machines, missing votes...."

Uh-oh, it's cultural insensitivity time

FIFA World Cup™ Blog ? World Cup starts next week, but America doesn’t care:

No matter how hard the fans in this country may try, Americans as a whole just don’t care about the World Cup.

Actually, I think you will find a lot of Americans care about the World Cup: maybe "North Americans" don't care. But that'sjust fine with the rest of us!!