DARPA has given the word bug a whole new meaning: http://www.physorg.com/news174812133.html
This bug is alive and flies, but it can be remotely controlled with a computer due to microchips stuffed into the brain of the beetle.
Damn bugs...
Friday, 16 October 2009
Friday, 9 October 2009
PortableApps
Yesterday i got a fresh install of new Win7 64bit. Of course my disk got wiped first with all the programs i use for developing stuff. So i decided to become independent of the machine i use.
I use a WD 160Gb USB harddrive and installed PortableApps (http://portableapps.com/). Almost all my tools are installed now on the drive and it works like a charm. This stuff really rocks. I'm only waiting for PHPEclipse to be released as a stable app and then i'm truly independent and a true flex worker.
I use a WD 160Gb USB harddrive and installed PortableApps (http://portableapps.com/). Almost all my tools are installed now on the drive and it works like a charm. This stuff really rocks. I'm only waiting for PHPEclipse to be released as a stable app and then i'm truly independent and a true flex worker.
Thursday, 3 September 2009
Architecture pitfalls
Gartner has compiled a list of ten common pitfalls in which a lot of projects tumble into. No more says, just a linkdump: http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1159617
Thursday, 13 August 2009
About Open Source
"Show yourself and others will improve you"
Some people still don't see the advantages of making Open Source products. They are fond of themselves about what they accomplished and don't want to share their ideas. But they forget that there are probably a lot of mistakes in what they made, after all, they are only human (except for some ofcourse).
When you release your software (for instance) other people just might want to use it and improve it, finding your faults and fixing them. It is not just evil geniuses who look at the source and try to break in on every system that use it. The majority of adopters and users will try to make it better, more useable and more secure. Any caveats in your thinking process are unveiled and that is not a bad thing. Don't bend your head and feel bad about it, they just helped you realise that your not perfect and there is still room for improvement; there always is.
Albert Einstein said: "The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources". Albert was a genius but he took a wrong turn there. I don't think he realised that a lot of individuals are smarter than one genius. Creativity is the ability to do something with sources, be it raw materials or code. What is better: one individual sitting in the corner satisfied about the fact that he just created something and people can only enjoy the result. Or a group celebrating the creation of something and sharing it with others to create even more?
I know some people are scared to step out in the light, to show what they did and to accept the fact that they are not perfect, that they are not the best, but a comforting thought might be: no one is!
Some people still don't see the advantages of making Open Source products. They are fond of themselves about what they accomplished and don't want to share their ideas. But they forget that there are probably a lot of mistakes in what they made, after all, they are only human (except for some ofcourse).
When you release your software (for instance) other people just might want to use it and improve it, finding your faults and fixing them. It is not just evil geniuses who look at the source and try to break in on every system that use it. The majority of adopters and users will try to make it better, more useable and more secure. Any caveats in your thinking process are unveiled and that is not a bad thing. Don't bend your head and feel bad about it, they just helped you realise that your not perfect and there is still room for improvement; there always is.
Albert Einstein said: "The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources". Albert was a genius but he took a wrong turn there. I don't think he realised that a lot of individuals are smarter than one genius. Creativity is the ability to do something with sources, be it raw materials or code. What is better: one individual sitting in the corner satisfied about the fact that he just created something and people can only enjoy the result. Or a group celebrating the creation of something and sharing it with others to create even more?
I know some people are scared to step out in the light, to show what they did and to accept the fact that they are not perfect, that they are not the best, but a comforting thought might be: no one is!
Wednesday, 24 June 2009
Internet Tax
The Dutch government wants to save the newspapers and their little projects by adding tax to internet connections. It is going downhill for newspapers for quite a few years now, free newspapers and online news sites are far more populair than the paper versions. Lower advertising income is another cause to the deminishing of paper popularity.
As far as i'm concerned this is one of the biggest bullshit and time consuming discussions in the Dutch parliament. The people in The Hague are often busy with minor discussions about things they shouldn't be discussing about so it is not a surprise that they are talking about this. I'm opposed as you might have mentioned to internet tax for the benefit of a complete other business branche just for the purpose of saving that branche. We have a lot of news papers here and if a few go extinct, no one realy cares, it's not the protection of animal or plant life we are talking about, it's just a fucking news paper.
The news papers themselves have invested millions in internet, but every project is failing because they stick to their old conservative way of doing things. Internet is a whole new world, a new generation of users, of individuals. So the news paper companies should adapt or go extinct, don't try to get more money for doing the wrong business and clutter out internet, just for the purpose of journalism. I realy hate the arrogancy of those big companies, they are crying like babies with our government and are themselves not flexible enough to change their way of working.
Or should we introduce more tax on other product to save traditional companies? Should we raise taxes on cars to save the bicycle industry? Should we raise taxes on getting money from the ATM to save the banks? No, this is just another time waisting discussion for which the tax payers pay and which will only cost them more money in favor of a rotten industry.
As far as i'm concerned this is one of the biggest bullshit and time consuming discussions in the Dutch parliament. The people in The Hague are often busy with minor discussions about things they shouldn't be discussing about so it is not a surprise that they are talking about this. I'm opposed as you might have mentioned to internet tax for the benefit of a complete other business branche just for the purpose of saving that branche. We have a lot of news papers here and if a few go extinct, no one realy cares, it's not the protection of animal or plant life we are talking about, it's just a fucking news paper.
The news papers themselves have invested millions in internet, but every project is failing because they stick to their old conservative way of doing things. Internet is a whole new world, a new generation of users, of individuals. So the news paper companies should adapt or go extinct, don't try to get more money for doing the wrong business and clutter out internet, just for the purpose of journalism. I realy hate the arrogancy of those big companies, they are crying like babies with our government and are themselves not flexible enough to change their way of working.
Or should we introduce more tax on other product to save traditional companies? Should we raise taxes on cars to save the bicycle industry? Should we raise taxes on getting money from the ATM to save the banks? No, this is just another time waisting discussion for which the tax payers pay and which will only cost them more money in favor of a rotten industry.
Thursday, 4 June 2009
IE6 on Vista
MS has decided to get rid of one of the most awefull browsers ever. IE6 does not run on MS Vista. And that is a bummer. Why? Because i'm a website developer and some companies still use this archaic stuff. Therefore i need to test my creations on IE6.
So there are some options:
1. don't use Vista
2. find some evil genius who ran IE6 on Vista
The first option is non negotiable, my company decided to install Vista on all workplaces and there is no rolling back.
So that leaves the second option, my friends at Tredosoft haven't found a solution yet (these are the guys that produce Multiple IE's; a package with IE3 and up). But via the comments on that site i found: http://www.my-debugbar.com/wiki/IETester/HomePage
It is not a real IE, but it does the trick, i can now succesfully test IE6 on Vista!
So there are some options:
1. don't use Vista
2. find some evil genius who ran IE6 on Vista
The first option is non negotiable, my company decided to install Vista on all workplaces and there is no rolling back.
So that leaves the second option, my friends at Tredosoft haven't found a solution yet (these are the guys that produce Multiple IE's; a package with IE3 and up). But via the comments on that site i found: http://www.my-debugbar.com/wiki/IETester/HomePage
It is not a real IE, but it does the trick, i can now succesfully test IE6 on Vista!
Tuesday, 2 June 2009
The Absolute Minimum Every Software Developer Absolutely, Positively Must Know About Unicode and Character Sets (No Excuses!)
A must for every programmer to read this interesting and entertaining article by Joel Spolsky.
Quote:
"So I have an announcement to make: if you are a programmer working in 2003 and you don't know the basics of characters, character sets, encodings, and Unicode, and I catch you, I'm going to punish you by making you peel onions for 6 months in a submarine. I swear I will."
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/Unicode.html
Quote:
"So I have an announcement to make: if you are a programmer working in 2003 and you don't know the basics of characters, character sets, encodings, and Unicode, and I catch you, I'm going to punish you by making you peel onions for 6 months in a submarine. I swear I will."
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/Unicode.html
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