Smalltalk Tidbits, Industry Rants

If you're looking for a "one stop shop" for all the videos about Web Velocity, then here it is: the new Vimeo Web Velocity group. Come on by and join in!

Technorati Tags: smalltalk, web velocity, video

I've got more video from Smalltalk Solutions - this one is a bit different though. When Arden and I gave the presentation and demo of Web Velocity, I had IShowU record the screen during the session - and that's what I've got here. You can grab the video here:

I've also uploaded it to Google Video:

Technorati Tags: smalltalk, smalltalk solutions, web velocity, seaside

Rob Fahrni:

Open source has its place and if you want it to become the dominant force in the software world here's a tip, write better software. Write it for folks like my grandmother, not for me. That means paying attention to all the little things, just like Apple does. Remember guys, the user interface IS the application to the end user, they could care less about the cool algorithm you implemented under the hood. Seriously.

He's exactly right. A large part of the success of Windows is that every device you can think of works with it (and that lack is part of Vista's uptake problem). Apple combines that with great workflow and integration to give an even better experience. It's not that open source can't be good; there's plenty of good OSS stuff around. It's that getting tight integration (as with MS Office or Apple applications) is nearly impossible.

I guess this online audio/video thing is here to stay :) So far this month, we have had:

That works out to a pretty nice daily average - almost 1000/day for the podcast. Looks like there's some interest in Smalltalk out there :)

On today's Smalltalk Daily, we'll look at two ways to view package history graphically

Technorati Tags: smalltalk, version+control

Andres Valloud's post on some issues he's found with Windows networking when you remove the ethernet cable took me back to the 90's. Back in 1995/1996, right after we released VisualWave, I traveled a lot giving demos of it. This was back when my laptop was running Windows for WorkGroups (before I went to Win95). The machine didn't have an ethernet port, and having access to a wired network was uncommon anyway. However, the network stack in Windows didn't have socket support unless you were on a network (which for me meant dialup).

So, before I would get to a customer site, I'd have to do this:

• Use dialup to get a connection
• Remove the phone line without informing WIndows - it would still think it was connected
• Close the notebook, and hope I had enough battery power to last until I got to the demo

Good times, those :)

Looks like people enjoy technology that works properly:

Apple is moving up the charts, toppling Acer to become the third largest PC vendor in the U.S., according to a survey from Gartner.

Apple defied a weakening economy to record a 38.1 percent growth rate in U.S. PC shipments, according to Gartner. Overall PC shipments in the U.S. grew just 4.2 percent to 16.5 million units during the quarter.

Right now, Apple is firing on all cylinders. The Mac, the iPod, the iPhone - and they all work together well. Now ponder the equivalents for Windows. Individually, there are some nice products, but collectively, they just don't "fit" as well as all of the Apple stuff.

I didn't realize that there was a GNU Smalltalk blog - it's authored by Paolo Bonzini and the other contributers to GNU ST. You can get the RSS feed here.

The game is definitely on for the living room TV - Apple, MS (XBox), and Sony (PS3) are all going long here. The good thing here is that we have a number of good options!

Technorati Tags: movies, ps3, xbox, apple

I love hearing this: American Airlines (amongst others) will be adding WiFi to their cabins on long haul flights:

American Airlines will have one of the largest deployments, with a formal test expected to start "in the coming weeks," a spokeswoman said. The test will be performed on 15 jets and will run for as long as six months. Southwest Airlines, Alaska Airlines, Virgin America and Jet Blue also have limited tests or projects underway.

I fly American a fair amount, and it would be very cool to have that on long flights. I look forward to this

Technorati Tags: wifi, networking

If your Smalltalk image is showing all decompiled code and you don't know why, then today's Smalltalk Daily is for you.

I'm in Cincinnati today and tomorrow, in meetings - which is why posting will be fairly light. Things should get back to normal on Friday.

Jeff Jarvis doesn't think much of the new ad campaign by the World Association of Newspapers - and I don't blame him. Really - how arrogant is this: "We've done the search. You only have to turn the pages".

"Sit back and consume, darn you! Stop all that two way responding stuff!"

Technorati Tags: newspapers

This is a valid point:

Geeks and enthusiasts wearing Wordpress t-shirts, using laptops covered in Data Portability, Microformats and RSS stickers lined up enthusiastically on Friday to purchase a device that is completely proprietary, controlled and wrapped in DRM. The irony was lost on some as they ran home, docked their new devices into a proprietary media player and downloaded closed source applications wrapped in DRM.

Nik goes on to talk about the controls on the SDK (I was amused listening to "The Stack Trace", as Norm and Sam tried to work around the Apple NDAs, which are apparently fairly fanatical. So yeah, I have some sympathy for the POV that developers should be more wary of Apple, and that they would be yelling at the top of their lungs if MS were doing the same things.

Which takes me to the post's title - usability matters. Apple gets away with this for a very simple reason: their stuff works, and it works well. In general, you don't end up fighting with your Mac, or your iPod (unless your kid leaves the setting on "repeat one" and you don't know that :) ) to get them to do what you want. We are willing to forgive an awful lot of sins in exchange for devices that do a job, and do it well.

That's something an awful lot of outfits would do well to remember.

Technorati Tags: Apple, iPhone, open source, drm

On today's Smalltalk Daily, wetake a brief look at the online help system in VisualWorks.

Technorati Tags: smalltalk, visualworks