Posted by jpluimers on 2012/02/17
Lovely comic for this Friday afternoon:
/* Sent by Muriel Godoi */
Programmer: I developed a new way to generate random strings…
A. P.: How? It’s based on processor’s clock?
Programmer? No… Just let the trainee using the “VI” and asked him to close it…
A. P.: Effective…
–jeroen
via: A Programmer’s Life | /* Code lines of a programmer’s life */
A Programmer's Life | /* Code lines of a programmer's life */
.
Posted in Comics | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2012/02/17
Karateka cover art
I remember playing Karateka for ages when I was at high school (yes, I’m 42 and counting <g>). Even with the bad eye-hand coordination I have, it was still fun to play (as was Lode Runner). Now it looks like there is going to be a remake of Karateka:
After a stint in film, [Wayback/Archive] Jordan Mechner, a legendary game developer who created The Prince of Persia blockbuster video game series, is coming back into video games to remake his 1980s hit Karateka.
…
Mechner created Karateka in 1984 on the Apple II computer. He made the game while attending Yale University and won kudos for the title’s realistic animations. The game sold more than 500,000 units, which is outstanding for the early days of video games.
“It is amazing to me how many people still remember Karateka and talk about it after all these years,” Mechner said in an email. “Somehow, the 1980s seem to be in the air again. People ask me about Karateka on my website all the time, and I keep seeing videos and retrospectives of the original game posted online. I was astonished when I was in Moscow at a press conference for the Prince of Persia movie opening in 2010, and Russian journalists asked questions about Karateka.”
--jeroen
via: [Wayback/Archive] Prince of Persia creator returns to games with remake of Karateka | VentureBeat.
Posted in About, Games, Personal, Power User, Prince of Persia | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2012/02/16
Lately I’m finding more and more false positives in my Google Mail Spam folder.
I’ve manually catched mails from these domains:
So: if you are awaiting mail from me, please send me an SMS or tweet me.
Note I am still glad with the Google Mail SPAM filtering, as it catched very authentic looking fake messages from ING Bank, ABN AMRO Bank, xs4all internet, and numerous others.
–jeroen
Posted in About, Personal, Power User | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2012/02/16
Somewhere the last couple of days, Google or Google Chrome has changed the default search URL.
I thought I had a webhp rootkit issue, possibly related to Avast, but it wasn’t (I posted at the Avast forums, and later replied the issue had solved itself, but I still wonder about the real cause).
What happened was that some page I had open in Google Chrome (all other web browsers were fine) forced the redirect.
I can only reproduce this on one system (that has both Avast! Antivirus installed, and Chrome open with the page http://www.eggheadcafe.com/searchform.aspx?search=Cross+Join+Excel) but not on other machines.
So far, it took me about a day of work (quarantining the machine, investigating if it was a virus, rootkit or otherwise, trying to verify this is a one off), and I still feel I don’t have the complete answer yet.
I still wonder if others have seen similar issues.
The defaults have a truckload of junk around them, but come down to the URLs below (lmgtfy is the search phrase)
It used to be of this form (which now again works, after I closed all Google Chrome pages)
The redirect made it into a longer webhp form:
The fun thing is, that if you enter the form
then you will end at the Google Search home page with the search phrase pre-filled in.
Now that is a pretty nifty “let me Google that for you” :)
–jeroen
via: Google.
Posted in Google, GoogleSearch, Power User | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2012/02/16
If you haven’t seen Jason announce this in the general Delphi 3rd party newsgroup or his announcement thread on the FaceBook Delphi Developer group yet, this is a definitive must read:
Jason Southwell (from arcana) just published DuckDuckDelphi: a unit to do Duck typing in Delphi XE2 (not XE):
Duck Duck Delphi
DuckDuckDelphi is an Open Source (MIT License) unit for Delphi XE2 which adds duck typing functionality to a normally strongly typed language.
Great stuff that makes a truckload of my code so much easier to maintain.
–jeroen
(Edit: 1400 UTC+1 Sorry, wrong boolean; wrote “and” but should be “not” XE).
Posted in Delphi, Delphi XE2, Development, Software Development | 8 Comments »
Posted by jpluimers on 2012/02/15
Recently the Android Design site was launched with great explanation on how to properly design UIs for Android Apps.
Like Apple’s iOS Human Interface Guidelines and Microsoft’s User Experience Design Guidelines for Windows Phone they are a must for any mobile developer.
Together with sites like Android UI Design Patterns, and mockup stencil tools, more Android UI mockup sketch tools and stencils allow you to give prospective users an impression on how an app might be looking like when developed.
What is lacking is a set of real Android GUI design tools. The kind of tools like the Xcode Interface Builder for iOS, or Expression Blend for Windows Phone that – together with iOS PSD templates or Windows Phone design templates (and more templates) – give you a killer start.
Also note Delphi XE2 that has a great UI designer which has consistently covered Windows UI design for 15+ years, including multi-touch and gesture support, and now covers Mac OS X and iOS for HD and 3D apps (but not yet with multi-touch or gesture support).
The only design tool for Android I could find is DroidDraw that emits the XML needed for Android UIs. It is painfully slow and lacks basic things like a property window to edit properties of UI elements.
Given the number of Android app developers, there is much room for improvement.
–jeroen
via: Android Design – UI Overview.
Posted in .NET, Android, Delphi, Development, iOS Development, Mobile Development, Software Development, Windows Phone Development | 6 Comments »
Posted by jpluimers on 2012/02/14
![What’s new in .NET Framework 4.5? [poster] (via Heikniemi Hardcoded)](https://i0.wp.com/www.heikniemi.net/hardcoded/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/WhatsNewNET45-en1.png "What’s new in .NET Framework 4.5? [poster] (via Heikniemi Hardcoded)")
I love the “Async ja Await equal to C#” in the picture and the copy-paste re-use in this blog entry from msguy.
Jouni Heikniemi originally posted “What’s new in .NET Framework 4.5 [poster]” on 20111029, then updated the poster on 20111116.
His original poster is Finnish, and his English poster contains a small translation glitch “Async ja Await equal to C#” (“ja” is Finnish for “and”).
Both posters are PNG filess, so msguy Anil made it into a textual document, including the translation glitch.
I love that, as it shows we are all humans :)
–jeroen
via: Bruno Leonardo Michels – Google+.
Posted in .NET, .NET 4.5, C# 2.0, C# 5.0, Software Development | 4 Comments »
Posted by jpluimers on 2012/02/13
From the English Philips HMP7001 User manual page 25:
Install Philips SimplyShare on the Android device
- Make sure that you have connected the Android device to the Internet. EN 25
[ Consult the user manual of your Android device for information.- On the Android device, install SimplyShare:
a Go to the Android Market;
b Search for, download, and install SimplyShare.Play media from the Android device
- Make sure that you have connected the player to the same Wi-Fi network as your Android device.
- On the Android device, go to SimplyShare from the Home screen:
SimplyShare, enter the activation code 74963893 as prompted.
–jeroen
via: Philips HMP7001 User manual
Posted in LifeHacker, Power User | 18 Comments »
Posted by jpluimers on 2012/02/11
The start of the thread comments:
Karsten Liljegren about 24 hours ago
I was one of the Boeing pilots on this record setting flight. 19 hours and 22 minutes block to block (and 10408 Nautical Miles)… The longest ETOPS endurance test flight ever!
Air Traffic Control was fantastic and very accommodating. – Thank you!
The airplane performed flawlessly. As a matter of fact – we didn’t even top off the fuel tanks.
Karsten
Boeing Test and Evaluation
A few days after it flew from KPAE to KBFI, it took a 19+ hour ETOPS test flight from KBFI to KBFI and adding a new drawing to the list of previous drawings by other aircrafts.
Some links:
–jeroen:
via: FlightAware > BOE236 787 drawing a Boeing logo on FlightAware.
BOE236 787 drawing a Boeing logo on FlightAware
Posted in Opinions, Pingback | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2012/02/10
Helaas is het computercollectief in de oude vorm failliet, maar ik heb wel warme herinneringen aan hun gloriedagen in de jaren ’80 en ’90 van vorige eeuw.
Opgericht in 1979, is er nu alleen nog een door Mensys gerunde webshop (op dit moment nog steeds in houde stijl, zou dat ooit gaan wijzigen)
Dit is een stukje van me uit hun nieuwsbrief van september 1997, toen het “internet” zoals we nu kennen net een paar jaar begonnen waren en de eerste zoekmachines nog in de kinderschoenen stonden.
Toen was ik al een power user en life hacker, en zaten er meer taalvauwdten in mijn teksten dan nu :)
Even een paar puntjes die ik bij mijn zoektochten op het internet gebruik:
- zoeken valt vaak tegen; het duurt meestal vrij lang en het is niet eenvoudig te vinden wat je zoekt
- de ‘traditionele’ zoek-engines (yahoo, alta-vista, etc) zijn goed voor het vinden van bedrijven en dergelijke, maar niet voor het vinden van personen, technische vraagstukken, etc
- www.dejanews.com is een zoek-engine op (bijna) alle newsgroups. Deze werkt vaak veel beter dan de traditionele zoek engines. Je zoekt hier een paar threads die over je onderwerp gaan. Vaak staan hier al genoeg verwijzingen naar sites/personen/informatie die je zoekt.
- hou een goede favourites list bij van sites waarvan je weet dat ze voor jou waardevolle informatie hebben. Loop de lijst af en toe door om te kijken of de sites niet verhuisd zijn en zo.
- neem een abonnement op een paar goede nieuwsbrieven en kijk eens rond op news-sites (ik heb zelf een abonnement op onder meer de nieuwsbrieven comcol, broekhuis update, web-wereld nieuws, dutchmedia, daily planet en news-sites www.webwereld.nl, www.news.com, www.techweb.com, www.pcweek.com).
- er zijn informatieleveranciers (bijvoorbeeld Encyclopedia Britannica) waar je een abonnement op kunt nemen. Kan erg handig zijn.
De praktijk leert dat het je zo een paar uur tijd kost om iets te vinden wat je zoekt. Vraag je van te voren af of het je die tijd wel waard is en alternatieven niet beter zijn (telefoontje naar iemand waarvan je weet dat ie het weet doet ook vaak wonderen).
Niet alle bovenstaande links bestaan meer, en ook niet alle bedrijven bestaan nog in hun oude vorm. Zo heet PC Week tegenwoordig eWeek, Deja news is tegenwoordig Google Groups, en Alta Vista is van Yahoo.
–jeroen
via: Tips en commentaar 290997.
Posted in About, Personal, Power User | Leave a Comment »
The Wiert Corner - irregular stream of stuff 