Apache modules

Modules are either compiled in (static) or dynamically loaded (shared).

List static with httpd -l

List all with httpd -t -D DUMP_MODULES

Shared modules are stored in /etc/httpd/modules/

Shared modules are either loaded directly in httpd.conf or by looking in conf.d/*.conf

E.g. conf.d/perl.conf

...

LoadModule perl_module modules/mod_perl.so

...

Here are some paths that are good to know (Apache on CentOS):

Executables /usr/sbin

Config /etc/httpd

Logs /etc/httpd/log

Web Root /var/www/html

CSS resources

SohTanaka

Kuler by Adobe

Kuler is an excellent app from Adobe for color exploration.

Try Create->From an Image...

Saturation is a free iPhone app for exploring existing themes.

HTML::FormFu select

When using a FormFu select for a simple relation it is easy to display other item names than the default:

The element looks like:

{

label => 'collection',
type => 'Select',
name => 'collection_id',
options => [ map { [ $_->id, $_->collection . ' - ' . $_->product->product ] }
$c->model('PB::Collections')->search( {}, {order_by => 'product.product, collection', prefetch => 'product'} )->all() ],
constraints => [ 'Required' ],
},

But when using a many to many relation in the listbox it becomes trickier, you have to add an accessor to the result class:

The element looks like:

{

label => 'items',
type => 'Select',
name => 'items',
db => {
model => 'PB::Items',
label_column => 'description',
m_to_m_column => 'item_id',
attributes => { prefetch => [ {book => 'title' }, {book => 'collection' }, {book => 'format' } ] , order_by => 'title.title, collection.collection, format.format ' },

},
multiple => 1,
size => 20,
},

And the following sub has to be added to the items resultset:
sub description {
$_[0]->book->title->title . ' - ' . $_[0]->book->collection->collection . ' - ' . $_[0]->book->format->format . ' - ' . $_[0]->isbn;
}

Thanks to Wolfgang for explaining this.

DBIx:Class debugging

If you use DBIx::Class and you want to see what the SQL generated looks

like, you can set the environment variable DBIC_TRACE.

% DBIC_TRACE=1 my_programme.pl

And all the SQL will be printed on STDERR.

If you give a filename to the variable, like this

DBIC_TRACE="1=/tmp/sql.debug"

all the statements will be printed in this file.

I got this info from i'm a lumberjaph which is a great blog about web programming in general and also have quite a few posts about perl and catalyst.

HTML::FormFu resources

HTML::FormFu (CPAN)

HTML-FormFu

html-formfu (listserv)

Integrate HTML::FormFu with DBIx::Class :

DBIx::Class::HTML::FormFu (CPAN, depracated, the one we are using)

Catalyst::Controller::HTML::FormFu (CPAN)

HTML::FormFu::Model::DBIC (CPAN)

COALESCE

Since I've got back to SQL recently it's nice to learn new tricks. COALESCE is great for defaulting to a value after for example a left join.

SQL

SELECT bindings.*, COALESCE( ft.binding, bindings.binding ) AS sortable_binding
FROM bindings
LEFT OUTER JOIN ( SELECT binding, binding_id FROM bindings_translated WHERE language = ? ) AS ft ON ( ft.binding_id = bindings.id )

DBIx:Class

$c->stash->{collections} = [ $product->collections(

{

language => $c->stash->{language}

},

{

'+select' => \'COALESCE(translations.collection, me.collection) AS translated_collection',

join => [ 'translations' ],

order_by => [ 'translated_collection' ],

}

)->all() ];

perl I18N

If you are using .po files for I18N don't forget to make sure the header has the correct content-type.

I didn't get my Japanese translations encoded in utf-8 to work until I corrected the copy/pasted header.

"Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8"

Perl resources

The Perl programming language

Perl is alive

i'm a lumberjaph (blog)

Catalyst resources

Catalyst-Manual (CPAN)

catalyst

catalyst community

catalyst (listserv)

i'm a lumberjaph (blog)

DBIx::Class resources

DBIx::Class (CPAN)

Catalyst::Model::DBIC::Schema (CPAN)

dbix-class (listserv)

Basecamp

We have started using Basecamp at work.

Here are some formatting tips:

Textile

How to format Basecamp messages and comments

Basecamp tips & tricks

Toolbars:

Basecamp formatter (Google Chrome)

Basecode (Firefox)

Configure Apache for multiple instances of catalyst module in fastcgi

FastCgiServer /home/andreas/MyModule/script/pbweb_fastcgi.pl -processes 3

FastCgiServer /home/andreas/MyModule2/script/pbweb_fastcgi.pl -processes 3

NameVirtualHost *:80

<VirtualHost *:80>

ServerName a.xyz.com

Alias / /home/andreas/mymodulea/script/mymodule_fastcgi.pl/

</virtualhost>

<VirtualHost *:80>

ServerName b.xyz.com

Alias / /home/andreas/mymoduleb/script/mymodule_fastcgi.pl/

</virtualhost>

The end / after mymodule_fastcgi.pl is really important.

Configure Apache for multiple instances of catalyst module in mod_perl

The trick was to:

use virtual hosts

PerlOptions +Parent to create a new interpreter

PerlModule instead of PerlLoadModule which caused apache to crash

NameVirtualHost *:80

<VirtualHost *:80 />

ServerName a.xyz.com

PerlOptions +Parent

PerlSwitches -IC:/mymodulea/lib -IC:/morestuff/lib

PerlModule MyModule

<Location />

SetHandler modperl

PerlResponseHandler MyModule

</Location>

</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost *:80 />

ServerName b.xyz.com

PerlOptions +Parent

PerlSwitches -IC:/mymoduleb/lib -IC:/morestuff/lib

PerlModule MyModule

<Location />

SetHandler modperl

PerlResponseHandler MyModule

</Location>

</VirtualHost>

Update

Sorry to say I only got this working on Windows since DBD:Pg caused error on CentOS.

Books you need to buy 3

It's time to update my original list of essential books you need as a (windows) programmer. I'll add some titles the coming weeks.

Web

Learning Perl, 5th Edition, Randal Schwartz, Tom Phoenix 2008 (the very basics)

Intermediate Perl, Randal L. Schwartz, 2006 (references, structures, objects)

Mastering Perl, Brian D. Foy, 2007 (debugging, profiling, config, pod)

Programming Perl, 3rd Edition, Larry Wall, 2000 (more like a reference, includes a bit of everything from the above three)

Advanced Perl Programming, Simon Cozens, 2005 (available modules like DBI and Template Toolkit)

Perl Cookbook, Tom Christiansen, 2003

Perl Best Practices, Damian Conway, 2005

Effective Perl Programming, 2nd Edition, Joseph N. Hall, 2010

The Definitive Guide to Catalyst, Kieren Diment, 2009

Perl Template Toolkit, Darren Chamberlain, 2003

PostgreSQL, Korry Douglas, 2010

General
Software Fundamentals: Collected Papers, David L. Parnas
Code Complete, Steve McConnell 2004
The Pragmatic Programmer, Andrew Hunt, David Thomas, 1999

Development Processes
Applying UML and Patterns, 3d edition, Craig Larman 2004
Agile and Iterative Developmen: A Manager's Guide, Craig Larman 2003
Agile Software Development, Principles, Patterns, and Practices, Robert C. Martin
The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master, Andrew Hunt, David Thomas
Practices of an Agile Developer: Working in the real world, Venkat Subramaniam, Andy Hunt

Design Patterns
Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software, Erich Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson, John Vlissides
Designing Interfaces: Patterns for Effective Interaction Design, Jenifer Tidwell, 2005

Refactoring
Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code, Martin Fowler, Kent Beck, John Brant, William Opdyke, Don Roberts
Working Effectively with Legacy Code, Michael Feathers

C++
The C++ Programming Language, Bjarne Stroustrup

COM
Essential COM, Don Box 1997
Inside Com (Microsoft Programming Series), Dale Rogerson 1997
ATL Internals (The Addison-Wesley Object Technology Series), Brent E. Rector, Chris Sells 1999
Programming Distributed Applications With Com & Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0, Ted Pattison

Windows
Programming Windows, Charles Petzold 1998
Programming Windows With MFC, Jeff Prosise 1999

MFC
MFC Internals: Inside the Microsoft(c) Foundation Class Architecture, George Shepherd 1996

Computer Security
Applied Cryptography: Protocols, Algorithms, and Source Code in C, Bruce Schneier 1995
Building Secure Software, Gary McGraw 2001
Exploiting Software, Gary McGraw 2004
Software Security: Building Security In (Paperback), Gary McGraw 2006
Writing Secure Code, Michael Howard 2002
Secure Programming Cookbook for C and C++, Matt Messier, John Viega 2003

OpenSSL, SSL, TLS
Network Security with OpenSSL, Pravir Chandra, Matt Messier, John Viega 2002
SSL and TLS, Eric Rescorla 2000

WPF
Programming WPF, Chris Sells, Ian Griffiths, 2nd Ed, 2007

Windows debugging
Advanced Windows Debugging, Mario Hewardt, Daniel Pravat, 2007

Scrum and Kanban

Henrik Kniberg writes good about both Scrum and Kanban

Scrum and XP from the trenches

Kanban vs Scrum

SVN on Windows

SVN Server

Download windows installer

Choose an installation path without white space in it to make things easier (or remember to escape spaces in the path)

Go for svnserve for an easy setup

Run install with the above choices

Open firewall poer 3690

Verify that the user the service is running as has write access to the repository folder

Create repository (command line)

Edit ./conf/svnserve.conf and ./conf/passwd

Tortoise SVN Client

Download tortoise svn client (explorer shell extension)

Install

Exclude folders not used for workspaces (ie Exclude paths: , Include paths: C:\svnwc\)

Tweaks

Started with a repository under N:\Development\SVN_Rep and in that the folder structure like pbweb/trunk/.... I.e. the repository was supposed to store several projects.

Since trac wants to match it’s projects with a specific svn repository I changed the repository layout to only one project in each repository. So now the repository is in N:\Development\SVN_Rep\projectname. And the folder structure starts with trunk/....

The server serves all repositories under N:\Development\SVN_Rep.

Some CentOS basics

First try
Some basic app admin

chkconfig, activate/deactivate services,

service, start and stop services

system-config-securitylevel

Get VNC up and running

Follow the instructions.

If you get an error that says bad display name when starting the vgcnserver at the end make sure that the machine recognizes it’s name. If not add it to /etc/hosts.

Open up the firewall for 5901 (and perhaps more) by running system-config-securitylevel

Apache

service httpd start

chkconfig httpd on

Works to connect from my windows machine after this

PostgreSQL

Followed the instructions approximately.

Got an error at the Starting postgresql service: prompt.

Read something about SELinux causing problems so I shut it down and rebooted and the server seems to be running. Don’t know if it was related with SELinux though.

Second try

During installation
For tasks, choose “Desktop – Gnome” and Server
Disable firewall and SELinux

Installed software
Perl 5.8.8
mod_perl 2.0.4
httpd 2.2.3
PostgreSQL not installed
Check installed version:

# rpm -q

VNC
As above.

PostgreSQL
8.3.6 install
# rpm -Uvh http://yum.pgsqlrpms.org/reporpms/8.3/pgdg-centos-8.3-6.noarch.rpm
# yum install postgresql-server
Followed the book then a bit for initdb:

# su - postgres
-bash-3.2$ initdb
...
-bash-3.2$ exit
Start service and autostart at reboot:

# service postgresql start
# chkconfig postgresql on

Ended up with 8.3.9 but that should be ok.

Createuser and db:

# su - postgres
-bash-3.2$ createuser XYZ
-bash-3.2$ createdb -O XYZ XYZ

ftp
service vsftpd start
chkconfig vsftpd on

Add data to db
# psql -U XYZ < XYZ.sql

Apache
As above.

Perl stuff

Started with:

# yum install postgresql-devel.x86_64
# yum install gcc
since pg_config and gcc is needed when running:

# cpan install Bundle::DBD::Pg
When checking things out with get_datasources.pl (from the book) make sure to use a user that can read db and script. I added XYZ as a unix user and copied the script to ~ before getting it to work. Don’t know why though.

# cpan install Catalyst::Devel
Results in a million dependencies, just said yes to everything. Something was installed.

Readability and Instapaper

Great tools for reading articles:

Readability

Instapaper

Open stuff for web development

CentOS

Apache web server

PostgreSQL

SQLite

Catalyst

Template Toolkit

Perl

Augmented reality

Finally an augmented reality app finding its way to the public! That is if you have an Android phone...
Check out Layar, an augmented browser from SPRXMobile.

Obama Headlines

Check out Obama Headlines by Vertigo. A great Deep Zoom demo.

Photosynth update

Photosynth viewer in Silverlight
Explore Synths in Silverlight

Photosynth on the iPhone

Read about all the other interesting updates regarding Photosynth on their blog!

Seadragon AJAX

There are plenty of times when you want to see something closer, to get a good look at the texture of a sculpture, or find out if that's a reflection or a scratch on that used car you're looking at.

Seadragon, implemented as the Deep Zoom feature of Silverlight, allows you to do that. But what if you're not using the Silverlight platform? That's what Seadragon Ajax is for.

PS
Seadragon Mobile is available for the iPhone as well!

Better Place update

Electric cars for all! David Pogue writes about Better Place in NY Times.

Livescribe Pulse on Wired Video

OpenSSL Command-Line HOWTO

Excellent OpenSSL Command-Line HOWTO by Paul Heinlein

reCAPTCHA

Read about how CAPTCHAs are used to help digitize books for the Internet Archives.

http://recaptcha.net/learnmore.html

Corpus Clock

Bill and TED

New York Magazine and the Pulse

Best Bets - Supplies for Barack Obama to bring to the Oval Office

Ifrån mig själv, Dundertåget

Paradigms lost: The Windows 7 Taskbar versus the OS X Dock

Paradigms lost: The Windows 7 Taskbar versus the OS X Dock is a very interesting article in Ars Technica.

Paradigms lost: The Windows 7 Taskbar versus the OS X Dock

asdasd

Stronger Than Jesus, A Camp

Livescribe && OS X = true, HWR && PC == true

Finally!

Livescribe Pulse supports Mac OS X!

The Business Wire article also breaks the news that hand writing recognition will finally be available through Vision Objects MyScript for Livescribe!

Is that based on MyScript Notes? Only PC?

I wonder how the MyScript integration with the Livescribe desktop is done? Will the MyScript app read the .afd files or is it more tightly integrated using the forthcoming "Desktop SDK"? It will be really interesting to see!

Engadget blog post

Business Wire

Update

Livescribe's press release

Livescribe shipping to Sweden

Livescribe has started to ship the Pulse outside the US.

To accommodate other international requests, Amazon US is currently shipping overseas to the following countries: Austria, Canada, Chile, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, United Arab Emirate.

Congratulations Livescribe

The Pulse is number 4 on Popular Mechanics Top 10 Most Brilliant Gadgets of the Year!

Great work eveyone at Livescribe! Let's hope that 2009 brings even more success!

Livescribe Pulse reviewed in swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter

There is a short review of the Livescribe Pulse in the swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter today:

Anteckna snabbare med vassa pennan (Take notes faster with a sharp pen)

They seem to be quite impressed with the pen and the paper replay functionality. The only negative being that you have to wear the earplugs for the best sound recording. They would have preferred a solution with a external microphone that could be placed on a table.

They also note that the Pulse isn't available in Europe (yet) and cites that Livescribe refers to Amazon for buying and importing the pen. I guess they (Livescribe and Dagens Nyheter) missed the following info on Amazon:

Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.

Ubiquity

Ubiquity from Mozilla Labs was released in an alpha the other day.


Ubiquity for Firefox from Aza Raskin on Vimeo.

Photosynth

Microsoft have released the first online version of Photosynth!

Read David Pogue's review in NYTimes.

Read my previous entries about Photosynth.

Standing Next To Me, The Last Shadow Puppets

Better Place

I've just read a great article about Better Place in Wired. Fascinating how such a simple idea have been ignored until now. And then suddenly someone thinks outside the box. And boom!

Better Place (website)
Better Place (Wikipedia)

Your Song, Elton John

Burn Your Burndown Charts

Burn Your Burndown Charts is an interesting post by Jurgen Appelo at the excellent site Agile Software Development. It describes some alternatives to the traditional burndown chart in Scrum.

He runs another interesting blog as well at NOOP.NL.

WPF tutorial

Scott Hanselman has written a fun little WPF tutorial by implementing a kids game called BabySmash.

Books you need to buy 2

It's time to update my original list of essential books you need as a (windows) programmer. I'll add some titles the coming weeks.

General
Software Fundamentals: Collected Papers, David L. Parnas
Code Complete, Steve McConnell 2004
The Pragmatic Programmer, Andrew Hunt, David Thomas, 1999

Development Processes
Applying UML and Patterns, 3d edition, Craig Larman 2004
Agile and Iterative Developmen: A Manager's Guide, Craig Larman 2003
Agile Software Development, Principles, Patterns, and Practices, Robert C. Martin
The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master, Andrew Hunt, David Thomas
Practices of an Agile Developer: Working in the real world, Venkat Subramaniam, Andy Hunt

Design Patterns
Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software, Erich Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson, John Vlissides
Designing Interfaces: Patterns for Effective Interaction Design, Jenifer Tidwell, 2005

Refactoring
Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code, Martin Fowler, Kent Beck, John Brant, William Opdyke, Don Roberts
Working Effectively with Legacy Code, Michael Feathers

C++
The C++ Programming Language, Bjarne Stroustrup

COM
Essential COM, Don Box 1997
Inside Com (Microsoft Programming Series), Dale Rogerson 1997
ATL Internals (The Addison-Wesley Object Technology Series), Brent E. Rector, Chris Sells 1999
Programming Distributed Applications With Com & Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0, Ted Pattison

Windows
Programming Windows, Charles Petzold 1998
Programming Windows With MFC, Jeff Prosise 1999

MFC
MFC Internals: Inside the Microsoft(c) Foundation Class Architecture, George Shepherd 1996

Computer Security
Applied Cryptography: Protocols, Algorithms, and Source Code in C, Bruce Schneier 1995
Building Secure Software, Gary McGraw 2001
Exploiting Software, Gary McGraw 2004
Software Security: Building Security In (Paperback), Gary McGraw 2006
Writing Secure Code, Michael Howard 2002
Secure Programming Cookbook for C and C++, Matt Messier, John Viega 2003

OpenSSL, SSL, TLS
Network Security with OpenSSL, Pravir Chandra, Matt Messier, John Viega 2002
SSL and TLS, Eric Rescorla 2000

WPF
Programming WPF, Chris Sells, Ian Griffiths, 2nd Ed, 2007

Windows debugging
Advanced Windows Debugging, Mario Hewardt, Daniel Pravat, 2007

Pork and Beans, Weezer

Weezer's latest single is quite good. And fun. Sorry to say the Red Album isn't as good as the exceptional Pinkerton and Blue Album. But Weezer always rocks!

CUDA

Here are some interesting articles about CUDA (Compute Unified Device Architecture):

Are you interested in getting orders-of-magnitude performance increases over standard multi-core processors, while programming with a high-level language such as C? And would you like that capability to scale across many devices as well?

Rob Farber, Dr. Dobb´s

CUDA, Supercomputing for the Masses: Part 1

Nvidia's CUDA: The End of the CPU?

Home, Lene Lovich

Fade to Grey, Visage

Ubuntu update

I had a good laugh yesterday reading LinuxHater's Blog. After my installation of Ubuntu the other week I thought that Linux really isn't that bad. But yesterday evening my wife was watching streaming TV on our laptop, ie Windows, and it kept freezing up. So I thought that now was the time to check out Ubuntu and see how good it was! But during boot the laptop got stuck and promted BusyBox and initramfs. So I gave up and uninstalled Ubuntu immediately. I mean, WTF!

Shoreline, Broder Daniel

Not Forever, Popsicle

Patterns in Practice

Patterns in Practice is a new article series in MSDN Magazine. It starts off with the Open Closed Principle. Read my previous post about programming principles.

Google goes Photosynth

Google has implemented Look Around in Panoramio and it is a photo technology very reminiscent of Microsoft Photosynth. Read my previous post as well.

Hitta 3D

This is extremely cool map technology rivaling what is done both at Microsoft and Google.

Hitta 3D

You can currently find lots and lots of ugly graphics in the view but I am anyway surprised at how good the rendering is based only on automatic data prcessing.

Ubuntu

It's is more than 10 years since I regularly used a Unix system. I have of course followed the Unix/Linux development in general over the years but have never seen a reason to head back. I work with Windows and I use Windows at home. By parents have got a Mac and I really like Mac OS X and have thought about switching to this platform in the future.

Anyway the other day I read about Ubuntu 8.04 and Wubi and decided to give it a try.

First I installed it on my old Shuttle SB81P configured with one IDE disk, one SATA and a Powercolor 800XL. Everything went extremely well and I had my Ubuntu up and running after approx. 30 minutes. The default installation works fine and I haven't bothered to check what packages actually got installed.

Secondly I installed it on my even older laptop Acer Travelmate 632LC. This machine has some integrated Geforce2 graphics and an old disk that regularly gives me trouble. The first install got disk problems half way through. I cancelled the installation and got the choice to save the downloaded data in a backup. I tried once more and now the install went fine. But when booting up the first time the machine hung when formatting swap disk. I found an advice to rename the swap disk (C:\ubuntu\disks\swap.disk -> C:\ubuntu\disks\noswap.disk ) and restart so I tried that and now it booted up nicely! (Afterwards I found this error description that sounds like my error, I haven't verified the fix though.) Everything seemed to work fine and I got the option to upgrade the video drivers by the system since the Geforce2 obviously was detected. I accepted this and rebooted. Now the 2D performance became totally unacceptable. I was a lot worse than the default drivers. The fix for this was to uninstall the nvidia-glx drivers and install the nvidia-glx-legacy drivers. This was simple using the Synaptic Package manager.

Most impressive was that Ubuntu/Wubi detected my Netgear WG511 wireless adapter on my laptop and got it running without a problem!

So now I got Ubuntu on two machines at home. I have tried some basic functions like using the Firefox browser, the Open Office package and the default media player. Everything works fine but I can't see one reason to stop using Windows! It was a fun excercise though!

Update
Perhaps I'll try using MonoDevelop for some .NET (Mono) development on this platform in the future to see how it compares with the express versions of Visual Studio.

Suicide is Painless, Manic Street Preachers

Livescribe Pulse review roundup

PC Magazine

..., the Smartpen is easily the best implementation of microdot and audio/image capture technology to date. It's easy to use and small enough not to look or feel ridiculous in your hands. If Livescribe updates the desktop software with some intelligent indexing features and perhaps adds a clip to the pen, so it stops rolling off my desk, I think the Pulse Smartpen could become an essential investment for any student, businessperson, or journalist.

Gearlog

The Pulse Smartpen does its main job extremely well, bringing traditional note taking and voice recording together while making both immensely more useful. There's no reason that any student or note-taker shouldn't go out and buy one of these right now.

USA Today

Pulse isn't perfect or for everyone. But in producing this sharp gadget, Livescribe is mostly flaunting the write stuff.

MSNBC

I'm sold.

WorldWide Telescope

Microsoft Research has done it again! Check out WorldWide Telescope. Some more info.

Gizmodo reviews the Pulse Smartpen

Gizmodo reviews the Pulse Smartpen.

The Livescribe Pulse is an amazing piece of tech, and I enjoy using it, but has an admittedly limited appeal. I'd love to see more creative and functional uses implemented with future "apps," and a touch of refinement in the current interface. But this is recommended for anyone who takes a lot of notes.

David Pogue reviews the Pulse Smartpen

David Pogue reviews the Pulse Smartpen.

Now, you may wonder how paper computing will take off when its principal weapon exhibits so many 1.0 start-up stumbles. And if you’re like most people, you might regard the Pulse pen as a technology in search of a purpose — or a purchase that will wind up, forgotten, in the back of your gadget drawer.

But if you’re in the Pulse’s target audience — people who regularly take handwritten notes during lectures, classes, meetings, presentations or even concerts — you have a lot to look forward to. Even if the Pulse never becomes more than a one-trick pony, it’s a heckuva good trick. And for society’s long-suffering subset of note takers, at least, it may be the first convincing evidence that the pen has finally gone digital.

Baby Hates Me, Danko Jones

Volta

I seem to have forgotten to mention Volta from Microsoft Live Labs.

The Volta technology preview is a developer toolset that enables you to build multi-tier web applications by applying familiar techniques and patterns. First, design and build your application as a .NET client application, then assign the portions of the application to run on the server and the client tiers late in the development process. The compiler creates cross-browser JavaScript for the client tier, web services for the server tier, and communication, serialization, synchronization, security, and other boilerplate code to tie the tiers together.

Cool!

Here is an interesting article comparing Volta with Googles GWT.

Live Mesh

Check out Live Mesh from Microsoft. And especially the developer information. This seems to be another real cool technology from Microsoft!

Update
Here is an interesting blog post by Mike Zintel at the Live Mesh team.

Don't blow it

Get a head start at your next job interview:

Get that job at Google, a great article by Steve Yegge on his blog.

Technical Interview Questions (use the sitemap for best overview)

Update

Also read Joel's articles about conducting interviews:

The Guerilla Guide to Interviewing (version 3.0)

The Guerilla Guide to Interviewing (original)

and Steve's comment to them.

Amazon Web Services

There is a interesting article in the May issue of Wired about Amazon and the history of its Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Zelda Movie Trailer

Zelda Movie Trailer

Hahahahahaha!

Livescribe is shipping!

Finally!

http://www.livescribe.com/blog/

Congratulations to the Livescribe team! I had my doubts about that shipping date due to the lack of updates from Livescribe but they seem to have made it. Even though it is in "limited volume".

So now I just want to ask the selected ones that get a Pulse in the next week(?) or so, post a review! And unboxing on youtube of course!

Thanks! And once more, congratulations to the Livescribe team!

PhotoZoom

What can I say except PhotoZoom!

And, well, Microsoft rules. If you didn't know already.

Goodbye Little Boy, The Triffids

Livescribe customer relations

Livescribe seems to be betting hard on viral campaigns by using the web, fun videos, a blog and a presence on Facebook. Sorry to say the Facebook forums as well as the comments section on the Livescribe blog are strangely absent of Livescribe representatives. Hundreds (maybe thousands) of people are offering their thoughts about the product and are asking for more information but they are all ignored by Livescribe.

I understand that if you are working 100+ hours you don't have too much time to spend on tasks that don't are immediately related to the upcoming release. But I think there is a very big risk here that you are alienating your biggest fans even before you have released your product. So please let someone help Karen Lee too answer some of the comments on your forums and blog! We are dying to get some relevant information from developers as well as customer relations people.

Here is a sad example from your blogs comment section:

Mike says:
...
Anyway, I (kinda) can understand the delays, but what I don’t understand is why there is such a poor (potential) customer support here in the blog?
...

klee (Karen Lee from Livescribe) says:
We read all your blog comments and want to thank you for your patience and support. We also understand your frustration and hear your concerns about the shipping date for Pulse.

We are still planning to start shipping by March 31st. Anyone who has preordered the Pulse smartpen will be sent an email with instructions to complete your purchase in the coming weeks.

Thanks again for your comments, suggestions and ideas.

what?! says:
Klee…You’ve served to do nothing except state the equivalent of “let them eat cake”

We read your blog comments….but we don’t care
We hear your concerns….but are doing nothing about them
We are still planning to start shipping by March 31st….but won’t offer any details on progress
Thanks again for your comments…but we’ve ignored them and not replied to a single suggestion

Goodbye LiveScribe…maybe when you mature

Update! Update! Update!
If you (ie. Livescribe) need a person for professional and sincere Livescribe evangelism I hope you know who to contact?! ;)

Livescribe on NBC

Ok there is a Fly Fusion in the image above but the video is mainly about the Pulse!

Deep Zoom

Seadragon changes name to Deep Zoom and is available to the public through Silverlight 2.

Download the Deep Zoom Composer now. If only I had the time to play with this...

Microsoft rules.

Google Web Toolkit Tutorial

The January 2008 issue of Dr. Dobb's has an excellent GWT tutorial in it by Adam Houghton and Ed Burnette!

Braindump++

From wikipedia:

Generally, the transfer of a large quantity of information from one person to another or to a piece of paper can be referred to as a 'brain dump'.

So do you recognize having important information from co-workers saved like this? On a piece of paper that once told you all the secrets about some product or project but now, when you look at it 2 years later, it is just some boxes with random lines between them and unrecognizable text items written here and there??

So come the revolution, Braindump++ !

Imagine what it would be to once more see these boxes and lines being drawn and actually listen to the explanations that were given at the time! That is what doing brain dumps with the Livescribe smart pen will be like!


I created a really really crappy demo of the future using the Facebook app Livescribe Wall. I drew the image using my mouse. But please, don't think about how crappy it is, just compare the static image below with the one given to you when you follow the link.

Interesting article about the Livescribe smartpen

An electronic pen that listens and talks back is an interesting article about the Livescribe smartpen. Published in the January issue of IEEE Spectrum.

It will be great to see what the student/consumer response is when it is finally launched later this month!

Logitech to Transition Digital Writing Business to Destiny Wireless

Well I can't say that I'm very surprised by this press release. Logitech hasn't done anything to improve neither the technology nor the consumer experience since they launched the IO pen way back in 2002.

I must say that I feel a bit sad though since I remember thinking that Logitech really could give the technology the consumer focus it always lacked. Now we hope that Livescribe has what it takes!

Looking back to the 2002 IO launch I found this snippet...

"Logitech is taking a very different approach to digital writing for the PC," said David Henry, senior vice president and general manager of Logitech'sControl Devices Business Unit. "While other attempts at pen input have started with the PC, with the goal of making the PC more friendly, our point of departure is pen and paper, with the goal of making these elements more effective in the digital world.
"With the Logitech io, there's no need to change the way you work, or to lug your PC to meetings," Mr. Henry continued. "We believe this product will be well received by today's mobile workforce, as well as consumers who are looking to be more effective and creative with their note taking."

NTFS Streams

FlexHex has a nice article about NTFS Alternate Streams. And some tools as well!

WPF Interoperability

An interesting article in Dr. Dobb's about WPF Interoperability!

WOW!

Crayon Physics Deluxe by Klooni Games.

Livescribe desktop application update

Here are the latest pictures of the desktop application as it appears in the commercial!

Never miss a word

Livescribe launched a site as well for the commercial, never miss a word. Quite funny and it might be the right way to catch the student market!

Livescribe Youtube commercial!

A kindle revolution

I think Amazon and Jeff Bezos got it right. Of course I haven't been able to play with one and probably won't get the chance for a long time since I live in Sweden. But the significant features all seems to be there. No syncing with a computer that can cause problems. No data plans. Always access to a bookstore, and a good one that is. Previews of both books and newspapers. Reasonable prices. And of course access to Wikipedia. Just imagine reading some stuff in a book or newspaper and being able to immediately look it up in Wikipedia. Even when you're on the road! Awesome! I would love to have one! Check out the Kindle from Amazon!

Someone put it nicely when they said that the Kindle isn't a e-book reader but an e-library!

Microsoft technology rules!

Photosynth technology from Microsoft Live Labs are now being used to view bird's eye images in Virtual Earth 3D. It's a really cool feature, check it out now! (First select 3D and the fly to eg. San Fransisco and enable Bird's eye!) And they are using Microsoft Research technology from HD View to let you create panoramas automatically in Windows Live Photo Gallery!

Livescribe pen images!

Check out the new images of the pen! It looks beautiful! And it has a screen!

Livescribe blog!

Check out the Livescribe blog that just went online! Hopefully they'll update it once in a while!

Closure

Here is a nice and short article by Martin Fowler explaining what closure is in programming.

A Layman's Guide to a Subset of ASN.1, BER, and DER

A Layman's Guide to a Subset of ASN.1, BER, and DER is an excellent tutorial by Burton S. Kaliski Jr at RSA labs.

Another Fly Fusion review!

Check it out on Oh Gizmo!

The review is very thorough and overall positive. The conclusion in short is that it is a fun tool primarily aimed at children and probably not suited for professional notetaking.

Livescribe updated their website

Check it out here! It seems to mostly be some small graphical enhancements and a better Press Center section with coverage in the media! No more information about device or applications though... :(

Always On My Mind, Elvis Presley

Teenage Kicks, The Undertones

Another girl, another planet, The Only Ones

Another Fly Fusion review

Leapfrog FLY Fusion review in The Globe and Mail, it gets 4.5/5!

Network Technology

If you need information about routers, bridges, internet, iso, X.25, ethernet, isdn or any other network technology check out Ciscos excellent Internetworking Technology Handbook.

Livescribe news!

Hey finally! Some news about Livescribe! They are doing the right thing and are postponing the release until everything works perfect! Way to go guys!

Livescribe's pen computer delayed to '08 (news.com)

And news.com even has another article about the existing digital pens! It mentions Anoto, Livescribe, Logitech and Leapfrog! (And iogear that uses a sensor clip so I wont talk any more about that pen since that technology really sucks.)

Is the digital pen mightier? (news.com)

It also gives some information about how well the technology are doing in the consumer market currently:

"It's a small part of our business," said Logitech spokeswoman Nancy Morrison.

Free (as in beer) and legal music!

Check out Deezer now!

Google mail on w810i

Do you want to access your gmail account from your Sony Ericsson w810i mobile phone integrated mail software? (Which has the advantage over the gmail java app and web app that you can add attachments and use your gmail account for picture blogging and uploading videos via email! Sorry to say the gmail java app is a lot faster though and has a better interface in general...)

Do you get a certificate error message?

What you need to do is install some missing CA certificates. Export them from Internet Explorer and then send them to the w810i over bluetooth (that's what I did, it is uspposed to work by usb as well).

The certificates are the:
equifax cert (valid to 22/8/2018 fingerprint: d232...)
thawte premium cert from zip (fingerprint 627f...)

They can be found in InternetExplorer-> InternetOptions-> Properties-> Content-> Certificates-> Trusted Root Certificates. Just select them and export them as a DER binary.

Then you should browse to your phone in your bluetooth explorer and select the obex file transfer service for your phone. Just drop the files on the obex file transfer icon for the phone and it should transfer them and place them in the correct place automatically. If you see the Memory Stick you have browsed a level to low on the phone.

For email configuration check out the gmail instructions! (I noticed that for the email address I use the @gmail.com extension but not for the username. For encryption I have selected SSL and not TLS for both incoming and outgoing server.)

All information retrieved from the following post! Thanks Andy!
http://www.esato.com/board/viewtopic.php?topic=101012&start=45

Gigapixel images

Google have released Google Earth 4.2 and supports Gigapxl images now! Check them out at once because it's a really cool feature!

Microsoft released Beta2 of the HDView project a couple of weeks ago. It's is a similar technology to the Gigapxl support in Google Earth. Read about it on the HDView blog. The technology is also related to the Microsoft projects Seadragon and Photosynth that I've blogged about earlier. Excellent demos are the Berlin Wall East Side (HDView), read more on the website Berlin Wall East Side and the totally awesome Harlem-13-gigapixels (HDView), read more on the website Harlem-13-gigapixels.

HTTP Made Really Easy by James marshall

HTTP Made Really Easy by James Marshall is an excellent HTTP primer for newbies.

Relationship between HTTP and MIME

The relationship between HTTP and MIME is defined in the HTTP/1.1 rfc 2616 section 19.4.

HTTP/1.1 uses many of the constructs defined for Internet
Mail (RFC 822 [9]) and the Multipurpose Internet Mail
Extensions (MIME [7]) to allow entities to be transmitted
in an open variety of representations and with extensible
mechanisms. However, RFC 2045 discusses mail, and HTTP has
a few features that are different from those described in
RFC 2045. These differences were carefully chosen to
optimize performance over binary connections, to allow
greater freedom in the use of new media types, to make
date comparisons easier, and to acknowledge the practice
of some early HTTP servers and clients.

This appendix describes specific areas where HTTP differs
from RFC 2045. Proxies and gateways to strict MIME
environments SHOULD be aware of these differences and
provide the appropriate conversions where necessary.
Proxies and gateways from MIME environments to HTTP also
need to be aware of the differences because some
conversions might be required.

MIME sample from Mike Grand

MIME (Mark Grand)

From: Nathaniel Borenstein 
To: Ned Freed 
Subject: Sample message
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-type: multipart/mixed;            
              boundary="simple boundary"

This is the preamble.  It is to be ignored, though it is
a handy place for mail composers to include an
explanatory note to non-MIME compliant readers.
--simple boundary

This is implicitly typed plain ASCII text.
--simple boundary
Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

This is explicitly typed plain ASCII text. It DOES end
with a line break.
--simple boundary--
This is the epilogue.  It is also to be ignored.

MIME sample from Wikipedia

MIME (Wikipedia)

MIME-version: 1.0
Content-type: multipart/mixed; boundary="frontier"

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
--frontier
Content-type: text/plain

This is the body of the message.
--frontier
Content-type: application/octet-stream
Content-transfer-encoding: base64

PGh0bWw+CiAgPGhlYWQ+CiAgPC9oZWFkPgogIDxib2R5PgogICAgPHA+VGhpcyBpcyB0aGUg
Ym9keSBvZiB0aGUgbWVzc2FnZS48L3A+CiAgPC9ib2R5Pgo8L2h0bWw+Cg==
--frontier--

Fly Fusion Review in PC Magazine

The first Fly Fusion review has appeared and it's in PC Magazine. 4 out of 5!

Bottom Line
The Fly Fusion Pentop Computer is a convenient and affordable alternative to a laptop or tablet PC for anyone who takes notes on a regular basis.

Pros
Lighter than a laptop. Easy to install and set up. Comes with fun games and applications.

Cons
Doesn't recognize messy handwriting. Pen shuts off easily if you hold it too high. No Mac support.


I think people will realize soon that messy handwriting does not matter since you won't use that feature anyway with your notes. Other than experimenting with it for a while in the beginning. Mac support on the other side is something I hope they are thinking about. Specially nowadays with Apple and Mac riding the big wave.

Stupid AI

The number one spot on the Top Ten for most stupid movie AI is now officially taken by Icarus in Sunshine. An ok SF movie where I don't think the change to slasher mode spoiled the film, but rather the inexcusable stupid AI on the ship. They would have been better of with only manual control...

Wikiscanner

This is brilliant!

Virgil Griffith at Caltech has downloaded the Wikipedia DB and matched the IP-logs with the registered companies/organizations!

Check it out at Wikiscanner!

Read more in Wired, See Who's Editing Wikipedia - Diebold, the CIA, a Campaign.

And you must check out the first entry for the Republican Party! Can you be more evil than replacing the entry for Harry Potter with a one line spoiler of the plot from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince! Hahahaha.

Aerodynamic, Daft Punk

Livescribe marketing

And here I was complaining about the Livescribe marketing department...

http://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/mar/393378097.html

That's the way to do it!

Mail me when you need a scribe in Sweden. I'll quit my job and go back to college :)