Smalltalk Tidbits, Industry Rants

If you have a slow net connection, and have been deterred from trying out Cincom Smalltalk because of that - keep German Arduino in mind:

Some days ago, when I downloaded the NC version of VisualWorks, I found also this page, with the possibility of request a CD of VWNC to Cincom. Then, I completed the form and forgot the question.

Today, very very few days after such request, I received on my home, on Sunchales, Argentina a box containing a software box, coming from Cincinnati!.

All you need to do is head on over here, fill out the form, and check the box requesting a CD. We'll do the rest.

Technorati Tags: cincom smalltalk

The best form of advertising today? Make it easy to get access to what you offer, and people will buy it if you make that possible. The two are related - you not only have to make your product accessible, you really have to make it buyable, too. Witness the Monty Python experience:

And you know what? Despite the entertainment industry's constant cries about how bad they're doing, it works. As we wrote yesterday, Monty Python's DVDs climbed to No. 2 on Amazon's Movies & TV bestsellers list, with increased sales of 23,000 percent.

Your product is the advertising. "Clever" writing, social media - those are all things you use to make people aware of your product. In the end, either it can sell itself or it can't.

On today's Smalltalk Daily, we look at the command line arguments that are understood by the Smalltalk Image. To watch, click on the image below:

You can also watch it on Vimeo:

Image Level Command Line Arguments from James Robertson on Vimeo.

Or on YouTube:

Technorati Tags: command line, smalltalk

I've just made it easier to get your question answered. Over on the left sidebar there's a "Chat" widget, which is linked to my GoogleTalk account - it shows my live status, and - if I'm here at my Mac, I'll answer when you ping. You don't need a Google account yourself; it will run a client out of your browser for you.

I've brought up the iTunes links for the three shows we syndicate recently, but I forgot to make a simple request: please add a review on iTunes. It helps raise the visibility of the shows, and that visibility is good for Smalltalk in general. Here are the links again - thanks!

• Industry Misinterpretations - the weekly Smalltalk podcast (audio)
• Smalltalk Daily - the daily Smalltalk screencast
• Smalltalk on the Tubes - Smalltalk videos, primarily from conferences and events

Now Listening to: After The Gold Rush by Natalie Merchant from: Live In Concert

Spotted in Engadget:

Microsoft's newly-announced layoffs and declining profits aren't the only bad news in Redmond -- according to the company's quarterly statements, Zune platform revenue decreased $100 million, or 54 percent compared to the same quarter last year, due to falling device sales.

It's too early for this to be due to the year end lockup issue; I guess it's just not picking up any traction at all. Not a huge surprise; the iPod continues to be a great combo with iTunes, and the iPhone and Touch have sucked all the oxygen out of the space. I'm sure they'll stick with the device, but it looks like they have their work cut out for them.

Technorati Tags: ipod, zune, mp3 player

I'm no fan of network throttling behavior by an ISP, but I have to chuckle at this FCC request to Comcast. They've implemented a new bandwidth throttling scheme that simply limits the pull by anyone on their network who sustains a 70% level of usage for "too long". Letting such usage pass will impact other users on that network segment - you don't really want to see your streaming Netflix video come to a halt because Bob next door is sucking down all the bandwidth, for instance. Here's where it gets tricky - the FCC is interested in VOIP calls:

If Comcast is affecting the performance of Internet-based VoIP providers, why isn''t its own service -- Comcast Digital Voice -- being affected as well? Specifically, the FCC asked Comcast to "provide a detailed justification for Comcast's treatment of its own VoIP service as compared to that offered by other VoIP providers on its network, [including] whether, and if so, how, Comcast Digital Voice affects network congestion in a different manner than other VoIP services."

That suddenly stops being simple. The net effect of that could be for Comcast (or any ISP) to treat their own VOIP service (which customers pay for) equally with, say, Skype (which is free). If this were like the old telephone system, and it was simply a matter of treating all vendors equally, it would be one thing - subscribers were paying for each service. On the net though? I can see why Comcast would favor their own VOIP, given that most of the competing VOIP systems are free. I don't know what the answer to this is, but it's sure not simple.

I just bought (and finished) two books from Amazon: "Crusade" by Stuart Slade, and "Britannia's Fist", by Peter Tsouras. I only just noticed that the latter is a trilogy (the final two books not being written yet) - the former is part of an ongoing alternate history series.

"Crusade" is set in a world where Britain yielded in 1941 (under Halifax instead of Churchill). It's the 60's now, and the entire world is very different - Europe is a backwater, India is a world power, China and Japan are a merged empire, and Russia is an American ally. WWII ended with the nuclear annihilation of Germany in 1947; the middle east is a growing Caliphate (thus the book's name). Like Slade's earlier books, it's an interesting idea, but needs polish (and spell checking). It was clear from the way it ended that Slade intends to write more about this world.

The Tsouras book makes one major shift - an 1863 diplomatic crisis between the US and UK goes hot instead of being ended quietly, and the UK goes to war. Most of this book is setup; the action begins as the book is ending, leaving me waiting for the next book.

While I'm not sure I'll look for Slade's next book with that much enthusiasm, I will be keeping my eyes peeled for Tsouras' followup.

Technorati Tags: alternate history

Some things just amaze me:

Rumor is Twitter hit up more than a few venture firms to pitch the $250 million valuation, and got more than one "no". But someone's bit, perhaps encouraged by Twitter's breakneck growth and the interest from Facebook. That means Twitter gets a new cash injection and time to figure out its business model at an even more leisurely pace.

I know everyone gushes over the number of people using Twitter, but that still doesn't add up to a revenue model. How many of the people using Twitter visit the website itself regularly? Even if they start tossing ads in the update stream, will that matter? I have yet to click on any of the ads Twitterific tosses at me.

The IPO market for startups is just about dead, between the high costs added by Sarbanes/Oxley and the general bad market we're in right now, and the bad market we're in has made a buyout from an existing firm less likely. I'd love to know what the people who tossed this money at Twitter think they'll get in return...

Technorati Tags: twitter, social media

Dare Obasanjo gives some personal insight into how the economic news affects individuals:

As each week passes I've been less sure of our plans to "help the local economy" and last week's announcement by my employer to eliminate 5,000 jobs within the next 18 months began to make the plans seem downright irresponsible. At this point we've decided to hold off on the purchases and are debating the safest way to hold on the money and still retain value.

This is pretty widespread, based on what I'm seeing and reading. Cincom has been doing pretty well, and the Smalltalk business in particular has been doing well - but Cincom isn't magically immune from the economy, so I get the same kinds of nervous jitters that Dare does. I've been putting off things like new TVs, even though there are pretty good deals available on flat screens. I've been putting off a new car, even though mine is 20 years old and burns oil - and worse, my wife's knees can't really take the layout of that car anymore.

Broadcast this kind of "hmmmm..." thinking across enough people, and you start to see sustained levels of "wait and see".

Now Listening to: Go Your Own Way by Wilson Phillips from: California

Technorati Tags: economy

Down at the bottom of this speculative pieceabout the future of the Zune is this:

The thing about the global financial crisis is that it’s forcing companies to undergo reality checks. Microsoft, by now, should be realizing that it's never going to be as "coo'" as Apple, so why waste its time with the Zune where it has no competitive advantage?

Let's put the Zune aside though, and consider the larger point: reality checks. Lots of companies have "sacred cow" projects - things that "everyone" knows are failures, but that the politically well connected at the company manage to keep alive - usually it's self delusion, not ill will, that is the driving force.

Now enter the financial problems, with the difficulties in getting loans at reasonable rates - suddenly, these sacred cow projects are going to be way, way more noticeable. I suspect one of two things will happen in places that have dangerous (meaning expensive) projects of this sort:

• The delusion will be maintained, and it will drag the entire company down
• The veil will be lifted, and the sacred cow will be led to the abattoir

Lest you think this is some kind of general animus on my part towards MS, it's not - the Zune is just an example. The only thing holding us back from buying an XBox 360 is the economic uncertainty I mentioned earlier today. Everyone I know who has an XBox loves it, and the streaming HD from NetFlix seems to work very well.

Now Listening to: Long Long Journeyby Enyafrom: Amarantine

Technorati Tags: economy

I'm just full of good news this morning - my wife sent me this link about a new strain of drug resistant staph that's been spotted in the US for the first time:

A strain of drug-resistant staph identified in pigs in the Netherlands five years ago, which accounts for nearly one third of all staph in humans there, has been found in the U.S. for the first time, according to a new study.

This brought to mind a truly terrifying thing I read about hospital scrubs (and doctor's lab coats) recently - it made the point that many of the nasty bacteria that hang around hospitals get on scrubs - which doctors and other staff are increasingly wearing outside of work. It also pointed out that fewer hospitals were laundering these things for the staff (as part of cost savings measures - and this was true both in the US and elsewhere), and you set up some really ugly possibilities.

The good news is that there's a fairly simple fix: have hospitals launder the uniforms and lab coats, and make it policy that staff can't wear them outside of the hospital. That simple policy seems to yield very good results:

Until about 20 years ago, nearly all hospitals laundered scrubs for their staff. A few hospitals are returning to that policy. St. Mary's Health Center in St. Louis, Mo., reduced infections after cesarean births by more than 50% by giving all caregivers hospital-laundered scrubs, as well as requiring them to wear two layers of gloves. Monroe Hospital in Bloomington, Ind., which has a near-zero rate of hospital-acquired infections, provides laundered scrubs for all staff and prohibits them from wearing scrubs outside the building. Stamford Hospital in Connecticut recently banned wearing scrubs outside the hospital.

This makes me wonder whether the decision to stop laundering was done by a accountants - I'm sure it looked brilliant on a spreadsheet.

Technorati Tags: hospitals, sickness

It seems that John Wilkes Booth wasn't the only one in the family with Presidential murder on his mind:

Dismissed for 175 years as a fake, a letter threatening the assassination of President Andrew Jackson has been found to be authentic. And, says the director of the Andrew Jackson Papers Project at the University of Tennessee, the writer was none other than Junius Brutus Booth, father of Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth.

The Wilkes household must have been a fairly toxic place to grow up...

This week we talked to Steve Kelly about Domain Specific Modeling and Languages - which he's an expert on, given his work at MetaCase on the MetaEdit+ tool. You can give their free evaluation a try yourself - Steve also sent me a bunch of resource links:

• Examples of Domain Specific Languages
• A Webcast on DSM and Visual Debugging
• Steve's book (with J.P. Tolnanen) on DSM
• Steve's blog and various articles
• The MetaPHOR University project, which is the origin of MetaEdit

Here's an example model, which is explained in context here:

It was a great podcast, we hope you enjoy it - click here to download it.

Seems I'm not the only one who has questions about Twitter's business - Ashkan Karbasfrooshan also wonders where the revenues will come from...

Technorati Tags: social media, twitter

On today's Smalltalk Daily, we wrap up command line arguments - with a look at how you can define your own. To watch, click on the image below:

You can also watch on Vimeo:

Defining your own command line arguments from James Robertson on Vimeo.

Or on YouTube:

Some videos scare me....

At some point in the Parallels update process (I think when I moved to the latest major release), I stopped seeing the Windows file system on the Mac. I could still see the Mac file system under Windows, but on the Mac, the VM stopped showing up in Finder.

I had forgotten that MacFUSE needed an update as well. I just ran that update, and now the VM is cheerfully mounted again.

Technorati Tags: macfuse, user file system

Buried in the cheesiness of the 70's "Galactica" was a decent concept - which has been nicely re-imagined with today's BSG. However, I see little chance that the truly bogus "V" will give us anything good. The base concept was pretty stupid - unless they reuse the name and pitch everything else, what is there to hope for?

Thus, the title of this post:

ABC has given a pilot order to V, a reimagining of the 1980s miniseries about an alien invasion, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Technorati Tags: stupdity

Dare Obasanjo notes that worries about the security of the cloud are kind of misplaced, given the more prosaic security problems that abound:

Secondly, people are often notoriously bad at assessing riskand often fail to consider that it is more likely that data loss will occur when their personal hardware fails given that the average computer user doesn't have a data backup strategy than it is likely to occur if their information is stored on some Web company's servers. For example, I still have emails from the last decade available to me in my Hotmailand Yahoo! Mailaccounts. On the other hand, my personal archive of mail from the early 2000s which had survived being moved across three different desktop PCs was finally lost when the hard drive failed on my home computer a few months ago.

I never really had a backup strategy before Leopard and Time Machine - I'd do manual backups to CD every so often (and I had one fairly major data loss as a result). On the other hand, every email I've sent or received via gmail is archived for me, and I haven't had to so much as think about it.

It's not that cloud computing poses no risks at all; it's that we already ignore far more likely ones in our day to day computing.

Technorati Tags: backups, risk

We have a bathroom being remodeled, so of course today is when the job started:

It's not terrible weather, but not an auspicious start to a remodeling project, IMHO

Update: The snow is picking up steam:

And the walls are coming down for the bathroom...

Now Listening to: Born To Run by Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band from: Live 1975-85 [Disc 3]

Today's Smalltalk Daily starts with some basics on ObjectStudio - where to find example code. To watch, click on the image below:

You can also watch it on Vimeo:

Learning ObjectStudio from James Robertson on Vimeo.

Or on YouTube:

Patents long ago stopped being about innovation, and started being about legal rent seeking. Take Apple's latest patent on multi-touch:

The US Patent Office has signed, sealed, and delivered a late Christmas present to Apple. On January 20th, the powers that be awarded patent #7,479,949, titled Touch screen device, method, and graphical user interface for determining commands by applying heuristics, to Apple. Essentially, Apple wins the war on their multi-touch technology and other copycats should be shaking in their boots.

Microsoft demonstrated "Surface" awhile ago, and I doubt that Palm's new interface is anything more than inspired by the Apple work. And yet - the way the system works, Apple will have (if this holds) an effective monopoly on this. How this helps an end customer like me is unclear at best.

Now Listening to: Drive by The Cars from: The Cars Greatest Hits

Technorati Tags: patents

Looks like Ambrai Smalltalk is back - Dave Buck reports in comp.lang.smalltalk:

I spoke to Dorin from Ambrai. He said that they have picked up development of Ambrai Smalltalk after a hiatus and are planning a future release. He's agreed to give a presentation on Ambrai Smalltalk in the spring at the Ottawa Carleton Smalltalk Users Group. I'll record a video of that presentation and post it on the web for everyone to see.

I'll have to see about getting Dorin on the podcast.

Technorati Tags: mac, ambrai

One thing I should point out - the videos that go to YouTube end up fuzzy. This seems to be an inescapable artifact of their conversion process. However, there is something you can do about that. On the lower right hand side of the view window is a "play quality" link. If you select "watch in high quality", it looks better. You can change your personal YouTube viewing preferences to always watch things that way as well in your account settings (assuming you have one).

I understand why RIM wanted the Storm out before Christmas, but it clearly wasn't ready - and now it's going to hold onto the bad impressions for awhile:

Only half million Blackberry Storm devices were sold in the U.S. since November, according to the Wall Street Journal . During the same holiday period, Apple sold more than two million iPhones, totaling over a quarter of the North American smartphone market. RIM's shares have also dropped more than 5 percent since news broke that Storm users are still unhappy with their experience on the device.

I think they would have been better off had they held it until it could really wow people. The clear lesson? Don't trade time to market for quality. The old adage still holds: You only get one chance to make a first impression.

Technorati Tags: storm, iPhone, smart phone

Janko has updated the Aida/Web site - it now includes an aggregator (for Smalltalk news), and lots of other cool stuff.

Technorati Tags: aidaweb, aida

This should be interesting: Amazon is set to release their second generation Kindle next month. I wonder what they'll have changed/improved. There are rumors about better buttons and improved page updates - my wife has said she would like to see backlighting so she could use it in bed without a book light. Sounds like that's not in the cards though.

If I traveled more, I'd take a serious look at this device - carrying physical books on a long trip (Europe, Asia) is a pain. As it is, it's not (yet) high on my list.

Technorati Tags: kindle, ebook

Check out Michael's latest video.

Technorati Tags: seaside, web velocity

Ken Treis puts Cairo to work, and ends up with some very nice lookng buttons. Check it out - he includes the code.

Speaking of Cairo, take a look at Travis' demo - but be sure to read his disclaimer as well.

Technorati Tags: cairo, graphics

Nothing makes for a more enjoyable driveway clearing experience than an ice storm:

The last shot shows the layer of ice that was over everything. Clearing that is a real workout: chip a segment with the shovel, toss the shards, rinse, repeat. Not sure I need another workout today now :)

Technorati Tags: ice storm

On today's Smalltalk Daily, we take a look at how an ObjectStudio UI is put together, and how to modify it in code. To watch, click on the image below:

You can also watch it on Vimeo:

ObjectStudio UI Basics from James Robertson on Vimeo.

or on YouTube:

I had that question come by this morning, and I wasn't sure what the answer was. I asked Randal, and he got me pointed in the direction of #updateRoot:. Just to show a stupidly simple example, fire up a Seaside image, and add this method to WACounter - then launch that from examples:

updateRoot: anHtmlRoot
	super updateRoot: anHtmlRoot.
	anHtmlRoot title: 'Counter Demo'

After you launch the app, you should see this in the browser:

You have to love this:

Transportation officials in Texas are scrambling to prevent hackers from changing messages on digital road signs after one sign in Austin was altered to read, "Zombies Ahead."

The Feb 17th date is looking likely again:

The Digital TV transition delay bill has failed to pass the United States House of Representatives. By a vote 258 to 168 in favor of changing the date, the bill has failed as two-thirds of the votes are required for it to pass

Meanwhile, Doc Searls and Phillip Greenspun are cynical about the whole thing. At this point, it's pretty much got to happen though - the Feds auctioned off the spectrum already, and the new owners would probably like to use what they paid for...

Technorati Tags: dtv, digital tv

The plumber was not available today, because of the ice storm. The guy busting out the walls and putting up framing came though, and made some good progress:

Now the plumber has to redo piping, since we're switching the room orientation. Then it's electric, drywall, and paint...

If you follow PR types on Twitter, you start to see an interesting pattern emerge - there's a whole lot of talk about "web 2.0", and how to get noticed in social media. There's also a lot of verbiage about how important it is to "tell a story".

Lost in the haze of PR self promotion? Something very, very simple: PR and Marketing exist to promote your company's products and services - they aren't some kind of isolated service that exists to create some kind of "aura" around the company. Stories are great - so long as they are related to your products and/or services.

I don't claim to be a PR guru, but I do know this: it's crucial to let people know what your products are, how they work, and what problems they solve. That's why we do things like the weekly podcast - to highlight how Smalltalk gets used. That's why we do "Smalltalk Daily" - short screencasts that explain various aspects of the products we offer. That's why the audio and video are syndicated out through iTunes - it makes it all easier to find and easier to subscribe to.

It's really not that complicated - regardless of what a lot of the "pros" will try to tell you.

Technorati Tags: marketing

Mashable has some interesting thoughts on how to deal with a community when the community has a problem of some kind with you. The answer isn't hard: it involves more communication, quickly. It's just like Jeff Jarvis' "Dell Hell" thing from a few years ago - if you don't respond early, you let other people define the way the problem will be seen. That's ultimately how Microsoft dropped the ball on Vista promotion - they allowed Apple to set the terms under which people would view Vista.

The speed at which these things move reminds me of a movie title: "The Quick and the Dead". You get to pick which one you want to be if you get a social media storm headed your way.

Technorati Tags: marketing

Whether we're talking about cloud storage (like S3), or local storage - the main thing is that it's getting very, very cheap. Western Digital is now listing a 2 TB drive at $299:

Western Digital has started shipping a 2 TB hard drive (that's two terabytes), with a list price of $299.

It's getting to the point where it's harder to remember where I stored something - other than archiving to external drives, I rarely have to delete anything anymore...

Technorati Tags: storage

On today's Smalltalk Daily, we look at how checkbox widgets work in ObjectSTudio. To watch, click on the image below:

You can also watch on Vimeo:

Using ObjectStudio Checkboxes from James Robertson on Vimeo.

Or on YouTube:

I've said before that I like Pandora - and the buying experience couldn't be easier. I was listening to a song that I liked, so I hit the menu option under the playlist, and was presented with options for iTunes and Amazon. I hit Amazon, used the "1 click" thing, and boom - the downloader started bringing the album down and tossed it all into iTunes.

The people who think Pandora costs them money - and insist on a per song played fee - are just nuts. It's a marketing and promotional channel, and - like the Monty Python YouTube channel - leads to increased sales. I've run across bands I'd never heard of, and would never have thought to buy music from.

This is why school was delayed this morning:

That's melting now, but at 5:30 AM I'm sure the local roads had ice patches. The net impact on me? The plumbers arrived and I had to jump out of bed to get the door. The work made some progress; now we await electricians...

What do you get when you run existing pop music (vocals only) through Microsoft's Songsmith? General hilarity :)

Make sure you follow a few of the related video links; this one is, well, special.

Todor Girba gave a talk about Pier at ESUG 2008 - it was very well received. You can view the slides (PDF) here. To watch, click on the image below:

You can also watch it on Vimeo:

Hands on with Pier from James Robertson on Vimeo.

Phillippe Marschall and Julian Fitzall will be at Google's "Open Source Jam" on February 19th in Zurich, Switzerland. Always good to have a Smalltalk contingent at such things :)

Technorati Tags: smalltalk, open source

Periodically I've made the point that basic civility is a good thing: don't swear in public, and dress professionally at work. People who know me well are probably chuckling right now; Four letter words come way too easily to me, and - until recently - I "dressed for failure" whenever I went to an office (in this sense, working at home has been a godsend for me).

I've been cleaning up my act on the clothing front, and I make a real effort to avoid nasty language - especially on this blog. The reason? There's just no upside to it.

Ultimately, swearing's purpose is shock - you pull out a curse word in order to put a huge exclamation point on something. If you do that all the time, it's like WRITING WITH CAPLOCKS ON - it gets tiresome very quickly, and people start to see you as the sort of person who yells continually. If you can't express yourself - especially in writing - without resorting to cursing - then you have a serious communication problem. Whether you want to believe it or not, a large proportion of your potential audience is tuning you out.

This came to mind because of this article by Antonio Cangiano - he said:

I hate how being harsh has become fashionable. Whatever happened to manners?

This spontaneous reaction was in response to a blog that attempted to be humorous by using the word "f******" multiple times in reference to Adobe's UIs which were perceived as lacking a native look and feel.

The basic point comes next:

I stand behind those words. Acting bitter on the Internet seems to be increasingly gathering the popularity amongst an audience that's used to being amused and entertained by cheap attacks. Concepts like respect, courtesy, or civility - let alone class - appear to be all but forgotten.

Read the whole thing - Antonio gives a number of good examples. Bottom line - if you want to be respected, it's better to be respectful.

On today's Smalltalk Daily, we look at defining accelerator keys at the form level for an ObjectStudio GUI app. To watch, click on the image below:

You can also watch on Vimeo:

ObjectStudio Form Level Accelerator Keys from James Robertson on Vimeo.

Or on YouTube:

From dafyddrees on Twitter:

Now I come to think of it, Smalltalkers sent back from the future to kill off "Java Enterprise Architects" would be a good idea.

Heh

Here's the audio only for Todor Girba's Pier talk at ESUG 2008 - go here for the video, and over here for the slides.

Michael posted a Process Monitor demo in Web Velocity earlier this week - I just dropped it to the Web Velocity group on Vimeo, and embedded it below:

Building a Process Monitor in Web Velocity from James Robertson on Vimeo.

Technorati Tags: web+velocity

The remodel continues - today's workers just arrived, so I shot this before they got started:

This article about the limitations of RAID (with large enough amounts of storage) sounds like a real call to start backing up. It's dated from 2007 - I'd love to know if there's any reason to think RAID isn't reaching the limits Robin Harris talks about.

In a vaguely related vein, Google's GDrive is getting closer. Time Machine makes Mac backups easier, but it sounds like Google wants to take what Amazon has with S3 one step further and make a bunch of use cases easier. Off site backup is coming within the reach of mere mortals...

Technorati Tags: RAID, storage

We did a podcast with David awhile back - he's just published an article on dynamic languages. here's what it's about:

Recent years have seen a gradual shift toward more dynamic languages. Although many of these languages are over 20 years old, they have begun to experience a rebirth, in terms of both use and development. This article takes a look at why this change is happening.

Go read the whole thing

Technorati Tags: smalltalk, dynamic languages