Gene Loves Jezebel

I just discovered Gene Loves Jezebel’s wickedly ugly site.  It’s ugliness is soon forgiven once you discover the fact that the have 4 full albums of songs available for free download.  They have even included a very rare LP called Glad To Be Alive (1986).

in related news: here’s a great live clip of the boys singing two songs.

Wolfgang Press > Geniuser

Michael Allen from the Wolfgang Press has now teamed up with a fellow named Giuseppe De Bellis to form Geniuser. see their site – and here hear them here on the ugliest web site in the world.

Nice stuff.

Oh – and I just noticed that the Wolfgang Press’ first album is being remastered!!

I’m still here – just too busy since x-mas and no time to write

I will get back to the routine soon though.  I miss writing here.  I’ve been reading some great books that I would like to review – and will as soon as I can.

test post from my new mobile phone

just got signed up with verizon and bought the (stupid name) xv6800.

hope to get xp pro set up today so that I can start learning more about windows mobile development.

((goal for today: dual boot xp so that I can still enjoy ubuntu. ))

note to wordpress:
you look bad in mobile! how about running a brush through your hair once in awhile.

Ubuntu: Gutsy Gibbon Dual Head Monitors Working!

After my last attempt being somewhat less than desirable, I decided to give Gutsy Gibbon another chance. This time, rather than installing from the downloadable live CD, I decided to try the update via Update Manager (from Feisty Fawn).

One other difference – and I’m guessing it’s a key difference – this time I unplugged the VGA cable to my external monitor before starting the update process. I did not reconnect my external monitor until after Gutsy Gibbon was fully booted and running.

I followed Mike O’Conner’s advice which he left in a comment here earlier. For convenience, here’s the link to Intel’s instruction – which Mike had reported on.

So:

While still on the laptop screen (and the external still unconnected) I typed:

xrandr -q

and got:

Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1280 x 800, maximum 1280 x 800
default connected 1280×800+0+0 0mm x 0mm
1280×800 60.0*
1280×768 60.0
1024×768 60.0
848×480 60.0
800×600 60.0
720×576 60.0
etc…

Notice – no information about any other moniter. xrandr thinks the only monitor is called “default”.

I then reconnected the second monitor and restarted X (ctrl+alt+backspace).

After the reboot, I immediately saw my second desktop – all correctly positioned with the correct resolution. But typing xrandr -q at the prompt on the laptop screen still gave me exactly the same information.

I then typed xrandr -q at a prompt on the external monitor’s instance of X and got a different set of data – this time, with no information about the first monitor’s configurations. The bad thing – xrandr is reporting that the external monitor is also known as “default”. This will keep me from following the intell instructions – since it seems that xrandr needs to distinguish the two (common sense) but the X Window’s way seems to be to have completly independent instances running simultaneously.

The only kink in that logic that I can see is that, even though X Windows doesn’t allow me to drag windows or applications from one monitor to the next – I can drag icons from one to the other. …interesting. that has to be a clue – - but I’m not sure to what.

the up side:

The up side is that I really don’t care right now. I’ve finally gotten to upgrade to Gutsy and my monitors are working.

dream config:

It’s silly that I should have to even suggest this to the Ubuntu team – but I want to be able to drag running application from one monitor to the other.

mouthing off:

This notion of having X Windows running multiple instances doesn’t seem to support that – and I’m wondering if that means that the errors and troubles that so many Ubuntu users have been having with setting up a dual head configuration could be due to a bad design that simply needs to be scrapped and redesigned.

thanks for all who’ve commented and offered suggestions, links, and assistance!

Best Mac Ad Ever!

The genius isn’t only in the comic timing, writing, and delivery – it’s also in the absolute re-imagining of the ad format specifically for the web. This wouldn’t be half as great on TV. I didn’t even see the sign at first – but soon caught on and watched the ad many more times.

The lighting also helps to solidify the appearance of a continuance between spaces, and is a tasty treat – though I can’t really see a difference between the amount of light on their faces – or a change in the light as the sign changes – but it’s brilliant all the same.

[update]

link to youtube page of clips

[/update]

Java: NetBeans and the GUI Builder

Since first being introduced to VB.NET I figured that Microsoft had the market just about wrapped up and all the Java proponents were just sadly clinging to the past. The troublesome and time consuming task of creating a UI in Java seemed (to me) the ultimate death blow for Sun. And I am still convinced that software developers should be spending their coding time solving more important issues for their companies – and that the UI should be easy and quick to build.

The Java alternative:

I’ve been working out options for getting mobile device to database connectivity. Throughout my reading and research, I have grown increasingly more frustrated with Microsoft’s insane over-complication of the whole process. This morning, I woke up and decided to investigate Java as an alternative.

As of yesterday, my only exposure with Java was an introductory Java 1 course which was (sadly) too light on programming and too heavy on time-wasting. I learned the basics. We did no UI programming and were forced to use Eclipse. I wanted to try out NetBeans and never got a chance until today.

NetBeans 5.5.1:

I downloaded NetBeans on Ubuntu via Synoptic Package Manager. NetBeans 6 apparently has trouble working on Ubuntu 7.10 and I know that the jdk-6u3-nb-6_0-linux.sh file from Sun didn’t work for installing the current IDE version on Feisty Fawn for me. For now, I’m using the NetBeans 5.5.1 IDE – which still blows away Eclipse.
Seeing Java again:

It’s been a while since I looked at Java code. Happily, the NetBeans site has a wealth of information for getting started again!

Interested in mobile development?

Want to speed up the process of building a smart UI?

GUI Builder:

As I said, the impediments towards building rich UIs in Java (my past experience was restricted to Eclipse) was, for me, a great selling point for Microsoft. But the GUI Builder (code named Matisse) in the NetBeans IDE actually kicks butt!

I’d even go on a limb here and say that (at least my first impression) is that GUI Builder in the NetBeans IDE is far richer than the GUI designer in Visual Studio 2005. (I haven’t seen the VS 2008 yet).

What makes it better?:

For starters, it’s smarter. Controls are aware of other controls and adjust themselves accordingly and smartly when they are dropped on the form – ensuring that you always have a pleasing layout.

Will NetBeans solve my Mobile woes?

I’m not sure yet — but I plan to continue looking into it. I may still try ASP.NET pages on the mobiles, but I am excited about learning Java again. This time, I’ll teach myself … the awesome resources on the NetBeans site will certainly help!!

Software development is like making a 100 pound glass planet.

I’m turning into a PBS junkie. Last night I saw a really good documentary on the making of a 100+ pound glass object – which glass artist Josh Simpson calls a mega planet.

The first portion of the documentary details much of the intense planning, research, and testing which occurred before the actual project began.

Then the artist takes his team through a detailed walk through of exactly what would happen at each stage – and each member rehearsed their part in concert with others multiple times just to be sure everyone knew what their role in the big picture was.

Going live:

Invariably, like any project of any considerable complexity, things start to go wrong.

The first live attempt to create a mega planet reveals some serious flaws in the team’s working and planning. In other areas, the team learn that despite great amounts of fore thought, planning, and tool construction, some things simply weren’t considered.

One of my favorite examples:

The team, knowing that the purpose of the entire project was to make a beautiful glass object that weighed > 100 pounds and would measure at least 13.5″ in diameter, had somehow neglected to acurately consider how to keep the massive weighted item ( remember – it’s 1500+degrees ) on their spit without actually having to hold the other end of the blow tube down.

A simple hook was devised after the near failure of the first run, which adequately held the back (light) end of the blow tube down on the spit – which meant that the team would be free to keep the glob of glass turning at a steady, consistant speed without worrying about trying to keep the thing from falling off at the same time.

The real analogy of this to software design:

The fix – that simple hook – which hadn’t been planned for or implemented in the planning stages – ended up being thrown together in a quick rig manner which was less than professional – and the hasty design ( which left two bar bell weights loosely dangling over the workers’ busy toes ) could have been made safer.

But by that time the project was in full swing. The team had been hired. The furnaces and kilns were on. The glass was hot. And worst of all, there were many other un-planned for problems which had to be fixed.

The team, almost from the beginning ( despite great pains and planning ) were suddenly in a mad scramble.

Lesson:

Eventually they work out enough of the kinks to manage success – but it makes for a great cautionary tale.

I’m not sure if it’s all that optimistic. Does this mean that, despite great planning, fore thought, and effort, projects might fail simply because too many unforeseen elements encourage confusion and mad scrambling down the line?

I know that for me, I’m always trying to get more planning time – but as the life cycle of a project ages, the amount of time alloted by management for proper planning decreases. As a result, the problems ( mostly bugs in our world ) quickly multiply. A project that seemed managed at first, can quickly feel boundless in the problems which need to be addressed before moving on.

On a small team, when the pressure to constantly develop new features without taking enough time to correct old problems (and worse) without having time to correctly implement the new features that are being added –

… well, –
… I suppose that the idea is to always keep the glass glob spinning at a steady rate.

Happy planning!

PBS: Spying On The Home Front

I just happened to record this show last week and finally watched it tonight.

One of the most understated absurdities in the interviews was the following line – which came after repeated admissions by FBI officials that nearly every single existing database record on every single transaction from every single person in Vegas at the time HAD been handed over to and data mined by the FBI – and yet – not a single lead or hint of suspicious activity by any one in Vegas at that time warranted any actual involvement by law enforcement. …and, it turned out that the initial “intelligence” was faulty to begin with – meaning that there never was a threat of terrorist attacks in Vegas on New Year’s Eve.

ELLEN KNOWLTON, FBI Chief, Las Vegas, 2002-06: I just tell people that we made every effort to safeguard the privacy of everyone whose records were accessed. There was no breach. The information was closely safeguarded.

Really?:

• The information was safeguarded by being turned over illegally?
• The privacy of those whose records were accessed was not violated?
• The fact that the FBI obtained nearly blanket data covering > 1/4 million innocent Americans in one city over one week doesn’t mean that a breach occurred?
• And just who was actually safeguarding the information?

Teaser:

“So many people in America think this does not affect them. They’ve been convinced that these programs are only targeted at suspected terrorists. … I think that’s wrong. … Our programs are not perfect, and it is inevitable that totally innocent Americans are going to be affected by these programs,” former CIA Assistant General Counsel Suzanne Spaulding tells FRONTLINE correspondent Hedrick Smith in Spying on the Home Front.

Watch the entire show online at pbs.org.

paypal dispute

I’m in a dispute with a seller on ebay over the very poor method he used for shipping an extremely delecate item.

The seller refused every effort I made to contact him and after more than a week of silence, I decided that I would have to escalate my claims with paypal.

These images were taken of the box exactly as it arrived. The item is a guitar effects pedal called the Line 6 dl4 Delay Modeler. It’s a sensitive piece of equipment — about 10″ in length (the box is about 12″) — fairly heavy, and full of electric circuits that would be easily damaged in shipping without proper packaging – padding, etc.

As you can see, the item was shipped to me in the same box that it would have been sold off the shelf in a store.

NO padding.

NO room for bumps.

It is obvious that the thought of shipping this item consumed about 5 seconds of the seller’s time.

The item also arrived dirty.

The item also shorted out while I was playing this weekend – leading me to believe that my suspicions were correct -that some damage very likely occurred in transit. I say that any likely damage is the seller’s fault for such poor, careless shipping.

Since it is a very delicate and expensive item, I don’t want to assume the responsibility for it – nor should I have to cross my fingers and hope that it continues to function reasonably well. (as I said, it has already shorted out once.)

EFF | blogging rights and laws

I’m glad that my recent run in over lifted content didn’t have to involve – as Jonathan Bailey at plagiarismtoday.com suggested might be necessary – a DMCA request to the site’s hosting ISP.

That’s gotten me thinking more about blogger’s rights and blogging law, which naturally pointed my mouse across the internets to the EFF to learn more.

While reading about rights for bloggers, I noticed that the EFF has its own blog. Looks like interesting reading from one organization who really is watching out for us.

Man — I really wish I had a job at the EFF!

copyrighted content deleted. client warned. sorry.

[ update: ]

the re-poster just emailed me ( shame he didn’t do that when I tried to contact him ).  I suppose it seems innocent enough. …doesn’t it? well, it certainly explains part of the array of languages (seen below).

his explanation:

> I take rss feed from here
> http://wordpress.com/tag/it/ in automatic mode.

[ end of update ]

[ original post: ]

I just heard back from the web host about the plagiarizing site who was stealing and deep linking my content.

they wrote:
> Copyrighted condent [sic] is deleted. Client warned. Sorry.

I checked – my content has been removed. But a quick look at the home page shows an amazing array of lingual skills for this fine gentleman blogger.

I count 6 (including English) different languages being used by the author on the front page alone. !!!

CSS WordPress Stylesheet Editor: excuse the mess

I just activated the stylesheet editor for my blog and plan to tinker with the styles as I find time.

being reasonably unskilled at CSS, I am beginning by trying to learn by example from a master: Beccary’s design for Thirteen which I was already using as the template for my blog.  But I’m obviously changing things dramatically <for the worse> by integrating some design ideas that I had worked on for school and blogged about earlier.

In the mean time, things could likely start to look really wonky here at hobbylobby.

I hope not to break too much in the process or cause any lasting harm to your eyes.

Colors will likely become nasty until I learn the hard way.

W.C. Fields | juggling in the Old Fashioned Way

I was going to post this vid myself if it wasn’t already there.

Fields was known as the greatest juggler in the world and his reputation was well earned.

not only could he juggle things – he could also drop them better than anyone alive!

if this don’t make you better, nothing will.

VB.NET, SQL Server 2005 CE, and a Path to Mobility

I’m on the path!

This software development thing is really a blast. I started out two weeks ago with a completely different idea about all the things I would be learning over the next month or so… and even now, the landscape is changing daily.

That’s not a bad thing though. After a near-full day of digesting chapter 7 of Microsoft Mobile Developers Handbook, I’m feeling much empowered and finally on the right track! It’s not the track I would have expected… but it’s the right track – which is really all that matters.

TODO:

It appears that most of the hassle with getting full connectivity between mobile and server-side data lies with some nasty-complex.(forMe) networking.

It’s unfortunate that my networking knowledge is lacking in the areas of IIS, Web Services, and VPNs (despite listening to the Hamachi episode of Steve Gibson’s awesome podcast “Security Now” — many times). It’s unfortunate because all of those things (somehow (I don’t know yet)) need to work together to make the mobile connectivity dream a reality.

So that’s where I am right now.

I just found a few good tutorials on MSDN showing two crucial aspects of the networking ground work. I haven’t gone through them yet – but they look promising.

Remote Data Access Synchronization with SQL Server 2005 Compact Edition and Visual Basic.NET

Summary: In this tutorial, you will learn how to create a Microsoft Windows Forms application using Microsoft Visual Basic.NET that synchronizes data between a Microsoft SQL Server 2005 database and a Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Compact Edition database using Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Compact Edition Remote Data Access (RDA). (48 printed pages)

AND

Configuring Internet Information Services for SQL Server 2005 Compact Edition Remote Data Access and Merge Replication

Summary: Learn how to configure Internet Information Services (IIS) for both remote data access (RDA) and merge replication, two technologies that you can use to synchronize data between a Microsoft SQL Server 2005 back-end database and a local Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Compact Edition database. This tutorial covers everything that you must do to configure a server for data synchronization using RDA. To perform data synchronization with merge replication, you must also configure SQL Server 2005. See the Books Online documentation, “Implementing Replication,” for information on how to configure SQL Server 2005 for merge replication with SQL Server Compact Edition. (24 printed pages)

Wanted: Visual Studio Software Developer who is proficient with clicking “OK” in Wizards

Has anyone seen a job posting even remotely resembling that description?

…probably not — but Microsoft sure seems hell bent on gearing the software development world on doing absolutely everything with wizards.

I blogged about the Microsoft Mobile Development Handbook yesterday – and got it today.

First impression:

I went straight to chapter 3: Using SQL Server 2005 Compact Edition and Other Data Stores.

The first thing I noticed was that the book’s examples focused on doing things with wizards rather than code. Tasks that were trivial with code consume page after page where the authors explain how to manage such a task with the wizards. Fine — show us the wizard way. But WHY don’t they also discuss doing things in code?

Is Microsoft doing this to make Visual Studio even more likable and easy-for-anyone in hopes of further driving Java out of the business world? If so, it’s a mistake. In trying to make things easy with wizards, Microsoft is complicating matters ridiculously for developers who are already even reasonably versed in the code language method of performing tasks.

Chapter 3 is dense enough and has a LOT of material to cover without forcing me to convert in my head how to do every process from the [demonstrated] wizard way to the [virtually ignored] code way.

Ultimately:

I don’t mind that the book is enamored with wizards. It bothers me philisophically – but I’m absolutely determined to figure this out and to take our project to the next level with more powerful mobile forms.

The only down side is that I’m going to be stuck mucking my way through translating wizards to coding practices (I wouldn’t mind translating C# to VB – that’s a much faster task). and all this makes my job take longer – which makes my boss less jovial.

Thanks a lot Microsoft!