Theo Moore

Something interesting and pretty darn cool/funny has happened recently.

I drive to work early every day. I like to get in and get my day started before the madness begins. It's a calm moment to get my mind right before it starts. This also allows me to avoid some of the crazy traffic that can happen between home and the office. In order to get fired up for the day, I tend to have my windows down and music blasting. I have rather broad music tastes, so there's no telling what I might be listening to on any given morning.

I noticed recently that when I go to work, there's this kid on a corner at which I am usually stopped waiting on a green light. He's wearing his school uniform and backpack. Prolly only 10 years old or so. One day, as I sat at the light, I noticed his head was bobbin'. He could hear the music and he liked it. I thought that was pretty cool. Once the light turned green, I drove past and gave him the "Dio hand" (you metal heads know what I mean). He laughed at this and waved. The next day, I drove past and played something very heavy (early Metallica, I think) and he gave me the same gesture and bobbed his head. Apparently, he liked what heard. Nice.

Next day, I tried something a little more obscure...some Concrete Blonde...Joe Rocker (as I began to think of him) was unimpressed. No reaction. Ok, I thought the other days were a fluke. Next day, however, I tried something different (forget what it was) and I got a head bob, but no Dio hand.

So, the natural analyst in me starting working on this and I deduced that: no reaction == no like, headbob==ok and headbob+Dio hand==rockin!.

So, now I try to think of music to try each day. I am like the Pandora of the corner as I am starting to dial in on his taste and can almost predict what he'll like and what he won't. Interesting experiment, I think. I am learning this kid's music taste and most likely exposing him to stuff he's never heard...but I've never met him nor will I ever.

I intend to post some updates as Joe Rocker and I explore this. :-)

FWIW: here's some reactions I remember from the last few weeks:

Stone Sour - Pieces: Head Bob

Fleetwood Mac - I'm so afraid: Dio Hand (surprise for me)

Johnny Cash - Ring of Fire: No reaction

Metallica - Master of Puppets: Dio Hand

Nina Simore - Feelin' Good: Head Bob

Concrete Blonde - Joey: No reaction

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A few (6?) weeks ago, I started a project that I've always wanted to do. I am doing a re-write of the old VB6 game DopeWars with a partner in crime. I loved that game and spent many, many hours wasting time playing it years ago. I liked it so much, I even registered it (it was $5...even then, that wasn't much to spend). The VB6 version itself was a port of the old DOS game DrugWars (never go to play that).

I needed a game project to work on as it's been far too long since I've done any game work. There is surprising amount of logic built into the game (there is the way I'm writing it, anyway) with what is really a minimal interface. My design goal was to have an object model that could be easily adapted to any interface and so far, I've managed to do that. I am even considering a web-based version that could run via Facebook (no clue how to do that...yet).

I've enlisted the help of one of my DBA buddies to work on the interface while I am working on the object model. So far, this arrangement has gone well. The logical separation of concerns allows for us to collaborate easily. Once we get to the Facebook step, it will be great to have a DBA "on staff" to help that part off of the ground.

The object model is probably about 60% complete with quite a bit of testing to go. More on this as we go....

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Wow, just realized it's my 5 year anniverary on GeeksWithBlogs. Hard to believe so much time has passed.

I paged back through some of my early posts, curious what sort of things about which I used to post. It's also interesting to see how my focus has changed and what really hasn't. I was also reminded that Chris Williams and I have been friends for that long.

I don't blog nearly as often now as I used to do, but I still really like the GWB community, and I am honoured to be allowed to continue to be a part of it. Another 5 years ahead (or more), I hope. :-)

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I've been trying many distros of Linux lately, trying to find something I like for my netbook. I started out with Ubuntu, and I can tell you I am a big fan. Ubuntu is now fast to install, much simpler to administer, and pretty light resource-wise. My original install was the standard 32 bit version of 9.04. I tried the netbook remix version of this release, but it was very, very slow. Even the full-blown version used only about 200mb. Much better than the almost 800 that the recommended Windows y version took.

Once the newest release of Ubuntu was released, I decided to try the netbook remx of 10.04. It used even less RAM; only about 150mb. I thought I'd found my OS. I certainly settled in and prepared to use it forever.

Then, someone I know suggested I try cunchbang. It is the most minimalistic UI I've ever seen, using Openbox rather than Gnome or KDE. Very slick, simple and clean. Since I am using the alpha of the most recent version (using Debian Squeeze), the apps provided for you are few...although more will be provided soon. You do have a word processor, etc., although not the OpenOffice you would normally get in Ubuntu.

But the best part? 48MB. That's it. 48mb fully loaded, supporting what I can "hotel services". It's fast, boots quick, and believe it or not, I can even do Java-based development....on my netbook! Pretty slick.

More on it as I use it.

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I checked on the status of voting on the Codestock (www.codestock.org) site this week. I was surpised to see that none of the Powershell sessions were among leaders in voting. Now, I confess that I am somewhat biased (my session is on Powershell), but that said, I thought it odd. I was under the impression that Powershell had a strong following and that many people were using it. I suppose the voting reflects a stronger developer community that might not make use of Powershell to degree some others might.

I am a huge fan of Powershell and I am constantly impressed with the things it can do. In my case, I use it as lightweight functional testing harness for web pages. I use it in this capacity at work and for work I do for the Carbonated Comics (www.carbonatedcomics.com) site as well.

If anyone still hasn't registered, do us a favor and vote for a Powershell session, K?

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We went to see Alice In Wonderland today. We both like Tim Burton a lot (the stranger the better) and like Johnny Depp very well also. After seeing all the previews and such, we were fired up to see this film.

Honestly, I thought it was good but not great. I was prepared to be wow-ed, but I wasn't. Perhaps I expected too much. I did like it, but I'll not own it nor would I expect to see it again...unless someone I know decides they want to see it.

I was about to say something to reassure you that I wasn't going to provide any spoilers but two things occurred to me: one, I never give spoilers and two, why worry about spoilers for a film that so closely follows a book?

My comments about the film are hard to describe, but the basic gist is that it doesn't really feel like it..."works" to me. I can't get any more specific than that, much as I'd like to do so. Something about it seems sort of disjointed and not in that Alice way you'd expect.

My only specific comment is that I didn't like the actor who plays Alice very well. She was very flat and just didn't sell he character to me. She seemed a bit, well, plastic.

Depp was as good as you'd expect him to be, I am happy to say. Obviously Lewis Carroll couldn't have imagined this made into film, but I can't help thinking that he'd see this and say that Depp was the perfect Mad Hatter.

So, I'd definitely recommend seeing it (we saw it in 3D which was cool, but not really necessary) at least once, but don't be surprised if you're kinda meh afterwards.

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On recommendation from a buddy, I have submitted a session for Codestock. I've never been to it, but I've heard great things about it. I sure hope mine gets selected.

I am thinking I'd like to do a session on using Windows Powershell as a testing platform for web-based applications. It's a much overlooked part of your Windows 7 install. I have built a few very lightweight test harnesses out of it, and I like it a lot. If you structure it right, it becomes far more manageable than you'd think, encourages resuability, and best of all...it's free!!

I recently built a test harness for a small company with which I am associated (www.carbonatedcomics.com) to do some testing with the same, basic structure I use. My intent is to adapt this structure further and make it even more simple to use but at present, all you have to do is install PS, unzip the files and run them. It is one of the most portable testing platforms I've ever used.

At Codestock, should my session be accepted, I intend to show up with a fully-functional test harness that can be adapted with ease to just about any web-based testing. This harness will be available for anyone who is interested for free and with a request that if someone creates something "really cool" for it or comes up and a great idea how to improve it, they share it with me. :-)

I may attend anyway if the session is not approved, although I prefer to speak. I like to try and get in a couple of speaking engaqements a year so I don't get too rusty.

So, cross yer fingers for me. :-)

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I checked back at the blog written by the poor guy being sued and he's removed many of the detail surrounding being sued. It is a rather to the point, bland and not confrontational post at this point. No way of knowing, of course, but I suspect he was threatend and edited his post to make him clam up.

That's a damn shame. :-(

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I am a powershell user. I use it in testing apps, mostly to either actually work with IE (automated testing) or to configure environments for testing (this can save tons of time and is very repeatable). Powershell is incredibly handy.

I was nodding my head very excitedly when I heard Windows 7 would ship with it standard on some versions. “Perfect!” thought I.

I got my Windows 7 and installed it at work (I actually paid for this) b/c it seems to me that XP 64 isn't supported very well and Windows 7 should add lots of features while using fewer resources than Vista (I had Vista installed on one of my boxes, but really didn't like it). I fired it up after install and was very excited to see Powershell installed. I started up PS and wrote my first script for grins. Powershell informed me that it couldn't run scripts as the Execution Policy was set to restricted.

First off, it's a small thing, but if the software is installed, I think it should be able to run out of the box. Again, a small thing since it is so easily fixed...or so I thought.

I was logged in as th Admin on the box (as an aside, I've learned that Admin doesn't mean much on a Windows 7 box) and attempted:

Set-ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted

However, I am told I don't have access to change the Execution Policy. WTF??

So, I fired up RegEdit to check the registry key and guess what? It wasn't there!

I thought this was a little strange. Why would the key be missing? I added the key and figured I'd be good for running the Set-ExecutionPolicy cmdlet. However, it didn't work! Still didn't have access. I could edit the registry by hand, but couldn't change the setting in Powershell.

I've since read that in order to make this go in Powershell in Windows 7, you have use Run As Administrator when starting PS so that can edit the registry.

I realize that the idea is to secure Windows and make it “safer” but good grief, it seems like I have to fight it everyday to make it do my job.

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My boss pointed me to a blogpost relating how an independent developer is being sued by Cequint:

http://www.threadabort.com/archive/2010/02/20/city-caller-id-has-been-sued-by-cequint.aspx

He had the audacity to write an appplication for free that Cequint wants to charge a monthly fee to provide. I pretend to be a master of (or novice for that matter) Patent law, but this seems to be a little ridonkulous. He's trying to find support to contact a lawyer to prevent him from being sued into oblivion. It appears that Cequnit didn't even give him the option of pulling his app.

I'll be watching this closely.

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We had something odd happen in our office the other day. We finally installed Office 2007. Most of us had no issues at all. However, one of our co-workers installed it on her machine and then applied the patches/service packs as recommended.

Initially, her Outlook would crash every time she tried to use it, so she fully installed and then reinstalled….which took care of the crashing but....

Every time she got a text email, it was blank. She could highlight the text in the email, then copy/paste it in another app (notepad), and it would appear, so the text was there but not visible. Why could this be??

We checked all kinds of settings, including some thought from my boss that since she installed it from a different location on the network that there was some odd group policy in action or something.

We found the solution eventually: under the Fonts in the Mail Format section of the Settings, we found the combobox which showed the selected color for plain text was empty. The default setting is Automatic, of course, so not sure why the combobox would have, in effect, set the colour choice to null, but it sure did. We selected automatic, and it was fixed right up.

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I love the Bioshock series (guess it's a series now that there are two of them), I really do. I've completed them both, and am tempted to start the first one over and do through them to get the other ending (won't tell you which one I got the first time).

After I'd completed the second one, I began to analyze why I like them so much. Is it the first-person shooter? Nah, I like FPS but that's not really a big deal. They made some updates to the game play for Bioshock 2 (some pretty cool ones, too), but nothing that is a real game changer to the degrees I'd like or dislike it.

No, there's something else.

It's the story. I LOVE the story. I know there's been tons of things written about how the games we play today are all about the story and blah blah, but here's my post on it. I figure I'm entitled.

As I thought about how much I liked the story, how it is told, how it progresses without actually interrupting gameplay (few cutscenes), I realized that all through this great, compelling, interesting game was a rich, detailed story revealed to us as we moved along. The game is less like a pure game and more like a movie with interesting activities associated with it. More than ever, it seems to me that a video game is more than just a game and is an alternative form of cinema.

I began to think of some of the other games that have impressed me lately (COD: MW4 or Gears of War, for example), and realized again, it's the story that moves me to play and keep me interested. Even L4D2 has an interesting premise, although it's remarkably light on story. But, then again, I realized I was never as deeply entrenched in the L4D2 story as I play it mostly online while talking with my team. Brutal Legend is an odd game, but it's the story there that kept me playing.

I began to think back to all of the games I've played in my life and realized that it has always been the story that drives me play…for example, I liked the Ultima series much more than the old D&D gold box games. The gold box games were great for their time, but there was little story, really. The Legend of Zelda series had great stories for their time, too.

I think it's excellent that over all this time, as the technology has advanced it is still the story that drives me to play.

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Figured what the heck, I'd share my two cents. I know someone is prolly interested in yet another view of the new device by Apple. I've read tons of views and being the lemming I am (as my boss calls me for owning an iPhone and using Ubuntu alongside my MS products), I figured a post was in order. After all, why not?

For the record, I am a “fanboi” of no one's technology. I both love and hate their technology equally and often for the same reasons. The only thing I fanboi about is The Batman, as many who know me can attest....and maybe Left 4 Dead 2 for the Xbox (it rocks...keep meaning to blog that). I did watch the live blog/twitter feeds on the announcement day, but more out of an overall interest in technology rather than to cheer Jobs and Apple.

Anyway, here are some thoughts we've discussed at work, many of which were mine or refined through discussion. They are in no particular order.

1. Jobs was wrong when he said the netbook wasn't great anything. I disagree. I am sitting here in a Starbucks at a table the size of postage stamp, running a Twitter client, OpenOffice, and a couple of other “hotel” services on my netbook. I can switch between the apps fast and efficiently. I have a real keyboard, complete with number key row and full-size keys (one of the main reasons I selected my netbook). It has capability to connect to USB devices, I can add temporary storage (I have 2GB SD card in the slot as I type this), and I don't need another machine to get at media (via some service like iTunes) . I can save files directly to my drive; the file system is completely open. And so on.... The point here is this: iPad does NOT replace a netbook and a netbook does not suck, no matter what Jobs says.

2. Why, oh why would they couple the iPad, a device intended to replace the netbook, to a phone operating system? Especially one that doesn't multi-task! All that screen real estate, and I can't have more than one app open on the “desktop” at the same time?? I understand they get the instant market of iPhone apps, (which is why I think Apple is selling the iPad so cheaply, btw) but this makes no sense if really want to market this thing as a productivity device. My co-worker and I think the iPhone OS 4 will be announced just before shipping and will be available for iPad only initially. This will give the independent developers time to test their iPhone OS 3 apps against it and make any necessary changes w/o breaking their revenue streams.

3. There is no camera. WTF? This thing has what appear to be great photo editing tools, yet it doesn't have a camera? There aren't external ports other than the connection for the USB cable, so we can prolly assume there won't be an external camera. My cheap netbook has a camera. I can livechat with no problem. Interestingly, the iPad SDK emulator seems to think there is a camera (if you add a pic to a contact, it prompts you to either use an existing picture or take a new one) although the hardware doesn't support one.

4. It priced to try and defeat the Kindle (and its ilk) and it just might do it....except the Kindle has one seriously superior feature: free 3G for getting books. I don't know how big a deal this is, given that I don't own an e-reader, but it does seem like it would be handy. In order to complete with the Kindle in this respect, the device price goes up $130...and suddenly the price isn't so good. This all said, however, I know several people personally who will likely wait on the iPad for their reader rather than get the Kindle or the Nook.

5. Jobs made a big deal about how the keyboard works well on-screen, yet one of the periperals already shown is a cradle/keyboard arrangement. I am thinking this suggests that if you really want to do any real work on it, the on-screen keyboard will not do it for you. Again, the price doesn't now seem so reasonable.

6. I am excited about the games it might support. We might seem some pretty cool stuff on it. Sounds as if Gameloft is on-board already to do iPad specific game development (I personally love Gameloft products for the iPhone...Dungeon Hunter rocks!!). The iPad device could be a siginificant player in the gaming space.

7. The battery life sounds great. Ye gods, 10 hrs?? My netbook only lasts for a couple of hours.

So, I hear you asking: Are you, Theo, getting one? My answer is I dunno. I really can't see a place for it in my arsenal of devices. I tend to like to get the right device for me in any particular sphere, regardless of who makes it. I have an iPhone cause I like it better than WinMobile these days, yet I use PC for most of my work and play, etc. For me, my netbook does everything the iPad doesn't that I would want it to do.

Now, I confess I am a hardware junkie, a gadget guy. So, there's some possibility I might get one, but I can't see it replacing anything.

Of course, one can't discount the effectiveness of Apple's marketing. When the original iPod came out, I was using an MP3 player made by iRiver. It was superior in every way to the iPod, yet the iPod became the dominant player in the space. As such, it is entirely possible that the iPad will replace the netbook simply because Apple made it. Sometimes, the inferior device wins 'cause it's flashly, trendy, and well-marketed.

Update: Was reading around and remembered the other thing that sort of annoys me about the iPad: lack of Flash support. Given that Flash is almost everywhere, it seems to me that claiming that iPad is the "ultimate browsing experience" might be a little bit of an exaggeration. Perhaps "pretty darn good browing experience" might be more appropriate.

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I have a Acer AspireOne 751h that was originally shipped with Windows XP Home. It worked fine, and the price was good (got it at CostCo). For what it is, it worked beautifully. It does what a netbook does very well. However, it troubled me that with the "hotel loads" (what we called the minimum systems required to keep the ship operating in the Navy), almost 80% of the system resources were used. Sort of makes it hard to do much with that.

When Windows 7 came out, I installed Home Premium per MS recommendations. I confess that I am shocked MS has not released a Netbook specific version of the OS...but I digress...perhaps a topic for another post. My Win7 install was painless, and it runs great. It does use less than the XP Home did, 75% on average rather than 80%. However, this is a lot. BTW, I actually like WIn7...except for the UAC and the Virtual PC changes...more on that in another post... I also have WindowBlinds (WindowBling?) by Stardock installed and I have my machine looking remarkably like M's computer from Casino Royale...another post/review...seems perhaps I have to get busy with some posts.

I used ReadyBoost (very cool tech, btw) via the SD card slot on my machine (I have a 2GB card in the slot dedicated to RB). This improves the "visible performance" (another post I am overdue in making) of Win7 drastically, although it doesn't actually improve performance. Honestly, it actually costs you a *little* performance overall as the processor has to manage the RB.

For grins, I d/l the netbook remix of Ubuntu. I'd read about it and was curious how my machine would run it. It's a pretty slick netbook specific version of Ubuntu that gives you a terribly minimalistic interface with which to work, but in a good way. However, on my specific hardware, it performed horribly. I checked on the Ubuntu community site and found that this is pretty standard for my machine and the full install is recommended.

So....

I installed the full version of Ubuntu 9.10 on yet another partition...and I LOVE it!! It runs incredibly fast and uses a *quarter* of the RAM that Win7 uses. Yes, you read that right: less than a quarter *and* it has the increased security of Linux. That's just crazy!! Now, I am not doing incredibly detailed work on it, but it's a Netbook...I want to browse the web and maybe...*maybe* edit a document. Why in the world should this take almost 80% or 75% of the system? It uses decent video settings, had drivers for my network card, etc....right out of the box. Painless setup..even to the point of moving my Windows partition so it could continue to exist. Super, just super.

Don't get me wrong; I am not ready to leave Windows. Windows rocks in its way. I am just now as much a fan of Ubuntu and will prolly consider using alongside Windows from now on.

My buddy at work is trying to get me to checkout Jolicloud, too, but I think maybe that's too much too soon....three partitions on my poor netbook is prolly enough. :-)

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