Smalltalk Tidbits, Industry Rants

On March 9th, Alan Knight, our engineering manager for Smalltalk, gave a talk at the Ottawa (Canada) Smalltalk User's Group. He presented the roadmap for the product suite from the engineering side of things. I released the video for the talk earlier; this is the audio-only version. I've cleaned up the audio quite a bit - it came out pretty well. You can listen to it here.

If you have feedback, send it to smalltalkpodcasts@cincom.com - or visit us on Facebook or Ning - you can vote for the Podcast Alley, and subscribe on iTunes. If you enjoy the podcast, pass the word - we would love to have more people hear about Smalltalk!

Technorati Tags: smalltalk, roadmap

Head on over and add your own answer, or vote mine up :)

That's the premise of this post from Eric Clemens - consider this:

The internet is the most liberating of all mass media developed to date. It is participatory, like swapping stories around a campfire or attending a renaissance fair. It is not meant solely to push content, in one direction, to a captive audience, the way movies or traditional network television did. It provides the greatest array of entertainment and information, on any subject, with any degree of formality, on demand. And it is the best and the most trusted source of commercial product information on cost, selection, availability, and suitability, using community content, professional reviews and peer reviews.

I thought about that in the context of what I do every day. I post screencasts on how to work with our products, I post podcasts with long form conversations about Smalltalk, I post videos from events, and I post a lot of other content about the products. We use AdWords, but that's not traditional advertising - it will present information about our site to people searching for related information. That's very different from the broadcast model used by TV, radio, and lots of websites.

Put another way - how often do you click on ads you see on websites? When a search using your favorite search engine can find specific information for you from sources you trust, why do ever need an ad to get your attention? This is the huge shift that's coming at the entire market: TV, radio, and net. I've said before that advertising has been a pleasant fiction that we've all chosen to believe in; what Clemens is saying is that more and more people are noticing how few clothes the emperor is wearing...

Technorati Tags: marketing

Interesting reporting from ComputerWorld:

A new survey says that a majority of respondents would avoid a hotel in the future if they had bad cell phone reception. And nearly half would make the same decision for office space, meeting facilities and even hospitals. Is bad cell phone reception driving away customers?

I haven't paid much attention to cell coverage, but I have paid attention to wired/wireless net access - and whether it's free or charged. When we last scouted for a "default" hotel near corporate HQ in Cincinnati, network access definitely came up, both in terms of quality and expense. Saving $10/night on the room is meaningless if you have to pay it back with a daily net access charge, for instance.

I pay attention when I travel for personal reasons as well - I'm far more likely to stay somewhere with reasonable internet access.

Today's Smalltalk Daily takes a look at the API for the XML Parser in Cincom Smalltalk - how to use it for basic document creation. To watch, click on the image below:

You can also watch on Vimeo:

Using the XML Parser from James Robertson on Vimeo.

Or on YouTube:

Spotted in SCI FI Wire

"They filmed my favorite scene in the whole script," Sawyer said in an exclusive telephone interview. "And I actually got misty-eyed when they were filming it, because it didn't matter if the character names were the same as the character names in my novel. They were saying things that were the heart and soul of the novel that I had written a decade ago. What they're doing is Flash Forward, and I to the core of my being feel that they are doing my book."

I'm glad Sawyer is happy with the filming - I really liked the book "Flash Forward" (as well as a lot of his other work). What I'm less sure of is whether the book works as a series. I can definitely see it as a movie, or a mini-series, but an ongoing set of shows?

Technorati Tags: tv, books

Aparrently, the Economist agrees with me:

Ultimately, though, every business needs revenues -- and advertising, it transpires, is not going to provide enough. Free content and services were a beguiling idea. But the lesson of two internet bubbles is that somebody somewhere is going to have to pick up the tab for lunch.

Two weeks ago, they were talking about this on "This Week in Tech", and one of the panelists (I forget who now) said that sooner or later, Twitter and Facebook were doomed without a real revenue model. Lots of eyeballs are one thing; actual dollars coming in to pay the bills is something else again.

Consider how I'm using Facebook - I throw the "Smalltalk Daily" videos up there every day. Now, they aren't huge, but they take up some amount of storage, and anyone who watches them (I'll be darned if I can find metrics from Facebook for that) consumes bandwidth. Who's paying for that? Right now, no one. You think the audience for the Smalltalk videos is interested in the ads that pop up on the page? Right now, I see an "Easter in Howard County" ad, and another one for Lasik. That kind of non-targeted ad simply doesn't work well, and - once the pleasant delusion on advertising passes, will simply disappear.

I really have no idea how either Facebook or Twitter are going to survive. They've gotten us used to the idea of free, and told us that we can upload virtually infinite amounts of content to them for nothing. Where's the revenue for that?

Update: Doc Searls ads some relevant points, and a few suggestions as to what the future might look like.

Technorati Tags: revenue

Advertising around "important" Twitter users? Quick, show of hands - how many Twitter users visit the website versus use a tool such a Twitterific? Follow up - why do you even care what the "executive" tweets are?

This isn't just laughable; I'd say it borders on desperation.

While I'm skeptical about Twitter's ability to make money, I'm not skeptical about the corporate adoption; as Wired points out, that's happening at an expanded pace. Cincom has a Twitter presence, as does our Smalltalk suite. It makes a lot of sense for companies to track Twitter mentions of their products and services, and to offer a feed with important announcements.

Technorati Tags: social media, marketing, twitter

PC World is reporting that Dell is looking to get into the smart phone space. That makes sense - they have to move into the growing end of the business if they want to stay relevant. They mention that Dell might buy Palm - that would certainly breath new life into that entity...

Technorati Tags: smart phone, netbook

Today's Smalltalk Daily looks at how Smalltalk processes run - i.e., in what order two processes will run based on their runnable state and their priority. To watch, click on the image below:

You can also watch it on Vimeo:

Or on YouTube:

Technorati Tags: smalltalk, processor scheduler

PC World reports that the recent surge in Twitter usage has brought back the Fail Whale:

Twitter appears to be experiencing more growing pains. Users and the service itself recently have reported a spate of problems

I find it fascinating that so many people use, enjoy, and even rely on Twitter - while at the same time, there's nothing that even vaguely resembles a revenue plan for the company. Eyeballs aren't enough, especially if - like me - you think that advertising is mostly a dead end...

Technorati Tags: twitter, social media

When optimists like Scoble start asking about the future of California (relative to other states), then you know there's a problem. I have a sister in Texas, and she's been pretty happy there since the late 80's....

Technorati Tags: brain drain, business

Arden did some coding in the product today, and has some observations about the experience.

Technorati Tags: tetris

I did a screencast this morning on Smalltalk processes, and it generated a few comments. Given that, I figured it was worth following up. The basics:

• Smalltalk Processes are lightweight - i.e., they are managed within the single OS process running the Smalltalk image
• You can create OS level threads by making external API calls - assuming that it's safe to call those APIs in a threaded fashion

I've gone into a lot more detail on this stuff - head on over to Smalltalk Daily, and start with this page of screencasts on the processes model. If you have questions on any of that, shoot them my way.

Technorati Tags: process model, threads

Gigaom notes that Skype is in the process of disintermediating international calling - and it looks like one result is that carrier revenues in that space are being driven down. I certainly understand why; when we do our weekly podcast, we use Skype. I have to believe that the various carriers aren't happy about this :)

Technorati Tags: phone, long distance

I'm not sure what to say about this proposal for primary education out of the UK:

Children to leave primary school familiar with blogging, podcasts, Wikipedia and Twitter as sources of information and forms of communication. They must gain "fluency" in handwriting and keyboard skills, and learn how to use a spellchecker alongside how to spell

For some reason, it makes me think of this video...

On today's Smalltalk Daily, we take a look at adding a window menu in ObjectStudio. To watch, click on the image below:

You can also watch it on Vimeo:

The ObjectStudio Menu Editor from James Robertson on Vimeo.

or on YouTube:

The news about TV watching is fascinating. Overall viewership is rising, even though I think the business model behind it all (ads) is falling apart. Why is viewing up? I'd say there are three reasons:

• DVRs - if you like a show, it's very, very easy to catch up now. You no longer have to bail on an episodic series because things came up
• The long tail - there's not a large audience for the sorts of things you find on Discovery, the History Channel (et. al.) - but that audience exists. There's simply a wider variety of possible content available now
• It's possible to watch stuff on computers and mobile devices now. Missed an episode? Off to iTunes or Hulu, and you're good to go

What I'm not at all sure about is how this is all going to be paid for in the future. maybe I'm wrong, and broadcast ads will hold up. Either way, it's clear that there's demand for the content itself.

Technorati Tags: advertising, ads

Film is now officially a niche area of photography:

Technorati Tags: film, photography

Tim Bray wrote about interfacing with Rack, and, early in the piece, this came out:

Since I need to get this done in a hurry, I wanted to write the code in Ruby.

Later he mentioned that it was easier to print information on objects to output than to find docs. Which got me thinking... Imagine if he had a system that had inspectors and a real debugger. You know; something like this.

Technorati Tags: smalltalk

Blind Trust:

As the world gathers 'round again to chuckle at an all-too-faithful GPS user in the UK, we're looking this time at a man who literally drove his BMW to the brink of disaster while following his sat nav down a skinny, steep lane on the way to imminent deathTodmorden. As the story goes, his navigation system apparently told him to drive directly into a fence just before the road fell off of a cliff

I'm starting to think that Skynet won't have to try very hard to win :)

I've read some nice reviews of the Zune - like Vista, it seems that Microsoft has mostly lost the PR battle with Apple on this front. Given that, I find it interesting that there's a Zune twitter feed, which is not affiliated with MS. Signs of a budding community around the device?

Technorati Tags: mp3 player, zune

Troy unearthed some valuable Time Machine info this morning - how to make backups happen less frequently. For many of us, every hour is overkill.

Technorati Tags: apple, mac, time machine, backup

Today's Smalltalk Daily gives a practical development build example: how to build a BottomFeeder development image. To watch, click on the image below. To get the script, click here, or scroll down to the bottom for the full script text.

You can also watch it on Vimeo:

Build a BottomFeeder Dev Image from James Robertson on Vimeo.

Or on YouTube:

Here's the script:

"build a dev image.  NOTE: If you aren't on Windows, do a global
search/replace of the backslash with the appropriate character - a / on
 anything but Mac 8/9, which should be a :  "

"To use this script, simply start your base image with this command line: 
visual visual.im -filein build-bf-dev.st"

| profile |
#(
       	 '$(VISUALWORKS)/database/OracleThapiEXDI.pcl'
       	 '$(VISUALWORKS)/contributed/PostgreSQL/StoreForPostgreSQL.pcl'
       	 '$(VISUALWORKS)/store/StoreForOracle.pcl'
       	 '$(VISUALWORKS)/contributed/LessProgress.pcl'
       	 '$(VISUALWORKS)/parcels/RBSUnitExtensions.pcl'
       	 '$(VISUALWORKS)/net/NetClients.pcl'
	  '$(VISUALWORKS)/contributed/Heeg/GHSpeedUpXMLParser.pcl'
	  '$(VISUALWORKS)/parcels/Model-Observables.pcl' 
	  '$(VISUALWORKS)/parcels/CE.pcl'
	  '$(VISUALWORKS)/preview/Unicode/AllEncodings.pcl'
	  '$(VISUALWORKS)/preview/Unicode/UnicodeCharacterInput.pcl' 
	  '$(VISUALWORKS)/dllcc/DLLCC.pcl'
	  '$(VISUALWORKS)/parcels/XSL.pcl'
	  '$(VISUALWORKS)/parcels/UIPainter.pcl'	
	  '$(VISUALWORKS)/opentalk/Opentalk-STST.pcl'
	  '$(VISUALWORKS)/webservices/UDDIInquire.pcl'
	  '$(VISUALWORKS)/parcels/MacExtra.pcl'
	  '$(VISUALWORKS)/packaging/RuntimePackager.pcl'
	  '$(VISUALWORKS)/contributed/VRGoodies/VRFileReading.pcl'
	  '$(VISUALWORKS)/contributed/CraftedMemoryPolicy/CraftedMemoryPolicy.pcl'
	  '$(VISUALWORKS)/waveserver/Wave-Server-Base.pcl'
	  '$(VISUALWORKS)/waveserver/Wave-Server.pcl'
          '$(VISUALWORKS)/obsolete/Tools-FlyByHelp.pcl'
) do: [:each |
        Parcel loadParcelFrom: each].

"set space sizes to a bigger client state"
ObjectMemory sizesAtStartup: #(5.0 5.0 10.0 5.0 2.0 10.0 3.0).


"read in VW Settings - the next two sections assume that you have saved your
 settings for Store, and that you have a connection named cincomsmalltalk"

Store.RepositoryManager importRepositoriesFromStream: 'repositories.xml' asFilename  readStream.



"load from Store - connect to public store first"
profile := Store.RepositoryManager repositories 
	detect: [:each | 'cincomsmalltalk' = each name] 
	ifNone: [nil].
profile ifNil: [^self].
Store.DbRegistry connectTo: profile.

"now load from store"
(Store.Bundle newestVersionWithName: 'SpellChecker') loadSrc.
versions := (Store.Package withName: 'ImageConfig' version: '7.10').
versions notEmpty
        ifTrue: [versions first loadSrc].
(Store.Package newestVersionWithName: 'WinGDIPlusInterface') loadSrc.
(Store.Bundle newestVersionWithName: 'EpiWin32Folder') loadSrc.
(Store.Package newestVersionWithName: 'GIFSupport') loadSrc.
(Store.Package newestVersionWithName: 'Weaklings') loadSrc.
(Store.Package newestVersionWithName: 'Emote-Support') loadSrc.
(Store.Package newestVersionWithName: 'ExtraEmphases') loadSrc.
(Store.Package newestVersionWithName: 'ExtraActivity') loadSrc.
(Store.Package newestVersionWithName: 'VRCommonDialogs') loadSrc.
(Store.Package newestVersionWithName: 'XmlRpcClient') loadSrc.
(Store.Package newestVersionWithName: 'SubForkPreload') loadSrc.
(Store.Package newestVersionWithName: 'SubFork') loadSrc.
(Store.Package newestVersionWithName: 'Http-Overrides') loadSrc.
(Store.Package newestVersionWithName: 'NetResources') loadSrc.
(Store.Package newestVersionWithName: 'NetResourcesHTTP') loadSrc.
(Store.Package newestVersionWithName: 'NetResourcesHTML') loadSrc.
(Store.Package newestVersionWithName: 'LibTidy') loadSrc.
(Store.Package newestVersionWithName: 'Browsing-Assist') loadSrc.
versions := (Store.Package withName: 'TimeSoZone' version: '8').
versions notEmpty
        ifTrue: [versions first loadSrc].
(Store.Package newestVersionWithName: 'XML Configuration Files') loadSrc.
(Store.Package newestVersionWithName: 'PatchFileDelivery') loadSrc.
(Store.Package newestVersionWithName: 'Twoflower') loadSrc.
(Store.Package newestVersionWithName: 'TwoflowerHTMLParser') loadSrc.
(Store.Package newestVersionWithName: 'Win32TaskbarSupport') loadSrc.
(Store.Package newestVersionWithName: 'Windows TrayIcons') loadSrc.
(Store.Package newestVersionWithName: 'SandboxedSmalltalk') loadSrc.
(Store.Package newestVersionWithName: 'RelativeURL') loadSrc.
(Store.Package newestVersionWithName: 'File Repository') loadSrc.
versions := (Store.Bundle withName: 'WSBundle' version: '2.41').
versions notEmpty
        ifTrue: [versions first loadSrc].
(Store.Package newestVersionWithName: 'CommonTypeMappings') loadSrc. 
(Store.Package newestVersionWithName: 'BtfNamespace') loadSrc. 


"now load BottomFeeder"
(Store.Package newestVersionWithName: 'BFSharedicons') loadSrc.
versions := (Store.Bundle withName: 'Blog-Tools' version: '7.16').
versions notEmpty
        ifTrue: [versions first loadSrc].
versions := (Store.Bundle withName: 'BottomFeeder' version: '18.29').
versions notEmpty
        ifTrue: [versions first loadSrc].


"disconnect"
Store.DbRegistry disconnect.

"set version and release date info"
RSSPersistence.SystemStartup version: '4.6'.
RSSPersistence.SystemStartup releaseDate: (Date today printString).
RSSPersistence.SystemStartup logo: 'watermark.bmp'.
RSSPersistence.SystemStartup helpLogo: 'watermark.bmp'.

"save image"
ObjectMemory saveAs: 'btf-dev1' thenQuit: false.

Sometimes I wonder whether the people who work in the patent office reside in the same century with the rest of us. iPods and iTunes came out in 2001; Apple is getting sued for for patents issued during or after 2007. Does the phrase "prior art" just never come up over at the PTO?

Technorati Tags: stupidity, iPod, iTunes

I have to just laugh at the "don't let your vehicle's warranty expire" robo-call I just got. Recorded message about how my car's warranty "just expired", but I can renew it now! Sure - I drive a 20 year old vehicle with over 150k miles on it. The warranty is very expired, but it's a bit of a stretch to say it "just" expired :)

Windows 7 has gotten to semi-open beta status: they have a beta release that anyone can register to download.

Technorati Tags: windows, windows 7

On today's Smalltalk Daily, we take a look at creating a toolbar for an ObjectStudio GUI. To watch, click on the image below:

You can also watch it on Vimeo:

Using Toolbars in ObjectStudio from James Robertson on Vimeo.

Or on YouTube:

I think MS must have fired their "edgy" ad agency and found one with a clue - their new ad highlights the strong points of Windows over Mac (price). I'm still happily a fanboy, but - unlike those useless Seinfeld ads - this one might leave a mark.

Update: On the other hand, people are chiming in with critiques. One thing is certain - if you have a well known brand, any promotion you do is going to get the 3rd or 4th degree applied to it.

Technorati Tags: windows, microsoft, apple

While I love my MBP, I must admit, this sounds interesting - Samsung's new Netbook entry:

The $577 price tag is a conversion of the published UK price of £399, so $577 is just an estimate. The N310 will apparently also feature the option of a 11hr battery.

Eleven hours. Wow, just wow. Apple really, really needs to get into this space. The iPhone is one end, and the MacBook/MacBook Pro is the other. If they don't find a middle piece to insert, I think they'll have a real problem. The Air is just too expensive to be the answer...

Technorati Tags: netbook

We had a conversation with a customer today, and this is some of what we heard:

• I'm still loving glorp
• The mapping tool has saved me a lot of time
• I'll never go back to working without a great debugger
• Whoever thought of browsers, they nailed it!

This is from a customer who's using both ObjectStudio 8 and VisualWorks.

Technorati Tags: objectstudio, visualworks

OnStar is going to start supporting car-bound Tweeting:

If you have OnStar in your car, you may soon be able to send and receive hands-free Tweets through OnStar's voice-activated calling system.

Pray you aren't ever a passenger in a car where someone is doing that...

Technorati Tags: twitter, social media

The MPAA is full of slow learners. It's taken the RIAA years to figure out that attacking your custoemrs isn't a good plan; with that evidence in front of them, the MPAA has decided to place the same bet:

Hollywood studios are negotiating with broadband providers to take action against customers caught downloading movies repeatedly. Penalties range from redirecting infringers' browsers to an anti-piracy message and disconnecting them entirely, a movie industry source familiar with the talks said Friday.

This worked so well for the music companies; what could go wrong?

Technorati Tags: movies, music

This is cool news:

All the functionality of Cloudfork-AWS is now also available for Cincom VisualWorks 7.6. With Cloudfork-AWS you can access the Amazon S3, SQS and SimpleDB services from a simple to use Smalltalk interface. The code is available on the Cincom Public Repository.

That's an announcement from Ernest Micklei - I know he did the work in Squeak first, and has also ported it to VA Smalltalk. That means Smalltalk now has portable access to the Amazon cloud. That's really cool - I'll have to start playing with it.

To load it, either load the package Cloudfork-AWS, or the bundle Cloudfork-All. Also, see here for more installation instructions.

Technorati Tags: cloudfork, cloud services, ec2, s3, simbleDB

Engadget catches Apple's lawyers with a jail broken iPhone. Or at least, with an artist's rendering of one. Oh, the irony :)

Technorati Tags: iPhone, jailbreak

This week we spoke to John McIntosh, who's been around Smalltalk in general and Squeak in particular, for quite awhile now. We talked about his VM work, but soent most of the show on his current project: a port of Squeak to the iPhone, in the context of Pier as an iPhone application. That application is in beta right now - listen for more details! To listen now, click here.

If you have feedback, send it to smalltalkpodcasts@cincom.com - or visit us on Facebook or Ning - you can vote for the Podcast Alley, and subscribe on iTunes. If you enjoy the podcast, pass the word - we would love to have more people hear about Smalltalk!

That seems to be the trend. While the headline grabbing information is that the iPhone is generating most of the mobile web traffic, it's fascinating that the leading smart phone for each US vendor is a touch screen device. The iPhone really was a game changer in that market, shaking up the reign of the tiny keyboard BlackBerry.

Technorati Tags: touch screen, iPhone, smart phone

Another awesome picture from Fail Blog

More evidence that the new MS "Lauren" ad works: the Apple aficionados are going absolutely bats. While I love my Macs, and think the premium I paid for them is well worth it, the premium exists. That's what Microsoft is exploiting with the new ad, and it's working.

Technorati Tags: apple, microsoft, windows

Dave Buck reports on the next Ottawa STUG meeting:

For the past few years, the Internet Raytracing Competition web site has been inactive. The original operators found it too difficult to run the bi-monthly contest and keep the web site updated. Now, this web site is being rebuilt using Seaside and VisualWorks. In this presentation, David Buck will show the problem, the solution and the challenges to getting the IRTC back online.

That's all about the next OCSTUG meeting in Ottawa, Ontario - sounds like a great meeting is lined up. Follow the link for details.

Technorati Tags: seaside, ottawa