foxpro.catalyst «

FoxPro workBLOGS and MORE… . . .

The Microsoft Memo From the office of Linus Torvalds. (Thanks Beakman for the link.)

Database legend tries again.

OldVersion.com: ‘Because newer is not always better.’

… and because not everyone has spanking warp speed PCs, that some irresponsible programmers/companies presume and wish their clients/users have or acquire.

I remembered the site when the current version of WinAmp crashed the newly installed server of mine. WinAmp 2.77 works fine… so far.

Paul Graham: Why Nerds Are Unpopular. (via Ted Roche)

Ha hah!

This… I find interesting: Mother of the Matrix victorious – Mother of the Matrix – and another related link.

The articles are months old already. But it is only recently that it is having some media/blogosphere attention.

Once you’ll read, you’ll find out why.

One woman behind brains of the Matrix and Terminator trilogies.

You’ll find links that defends the other side of the fence in the above articles too.

I was reading the articles inside the NoSoftwarePatents.com site a week ago and I was looking for views from the ‘other side of the fence’.

But when I read about a post that says Microsoft applies for patent on reading email as plain text a couple of days ago, I think I don’t want to go further anymore.

Tell me this is a joke.

Software companies should be run by noble, innovative and visionary developers and not by greedy marketeers nor abusive-make-money-out-of-patents-lovin’ lawyers.

Stress on the adjectives… not the person/entities.

(To be fair, I’ll post this link and this link too.)

I know I shouldn’t be laughing at this… but hey… it is funny.

Unless of course you’re the owner of that car.

MSDN Magazine December 2004. Check the archives for more.

Robert Scoble:

“Ken Levy gave me a demo of this last week. It’s a very impressive tool. Has visual inheritance down to the button level where Visual Studio only has inheritance down to the form level. Among other things.”

Link

OK… that would be more than enough to wash out the effects of viewing this.

Do It Now by Steve Pavlina. (via Sacha Chua)

Spent a great part of the afternoon reading about the disadvantages of Software Patents.

More thoughts on this one later…

Just call me Studboy.com (Dave Barry | Registration required but trust me it’s worth it.)

I’ve been wanting to link on this blog for days but kept on forgetting it. Here’s one creative way to describe migraines.

Can People Really Program 80+ Hours a Week..?

Slashdot already has tons of insightful, funny and drug-infused comments so I won’t delve into the logic, statistics, effects and mechanics of working 80+ hours a week.

Hmm… 80 hours a week is 80/7, that would be 11.42857 hours a day if we include the day of rest (Sunday). It would be 13.33333 if it’s 80/6 though.

To be exact my TimeCalcAdvanced algorithm shows it’s 11:25:43 hours in 7 days and 13:20:00 hours in 6 days.

Let’s assume that half of the programmer population has a life and half doesn’t, so let’s average these two results. With that we’ll get an average of 12:22:52 hours.

12:22:52 hours in a day in program mode.

Which makes me think if we should include the time when the programmer is ‘programming’ himself waiting for the mood to swing in? For the chi to re-align or something..?

Should we also include the times when he/she is pretending to be doing programs?

OK… enough of this already.

When I saw this feed on my RSSBandit last night, I wanted to go into a quest… to try if I could code for 12-13 hours for 7 days. I even started doing it from 12:01AM to 2AM but after three simultaneous calls from clients this afternoon, each separated by 2 hour bus rides, which are scheduled for next week, I don’t think I could complete that quest.

Besides as I am writing this part of the blog (I multitask, browse and watch Shrek 2 on DVD) it is 11:49PM already and I’ve done only 8.5 hours coding for this day.

I have this Excel file where I scribble down the accomplishments of the day… per hour, starting April of this year so I have some ‘stats’. Also from the same file I found out that it’s either I code straight for the day and am too tired to code at night… or bum around all day and work at night until the wee hours of the morning to make up for it.

The most I’ve done is 11 hours in five days last June but that was only good for 5 out of 30 days in that month.

I cannot remember too clearly if I have done that much lengthy coding during my previous work.

But then again… like anything in this world, it’s the quality that counts… and not the quantity.

Even my pterodactyl pet knows that.

… and breathes that principle.

Sleeping with the enemy..?

No not really. Things (and competitions) like these are healthy.

It is quite sad though that sometimes technology (in this case software technology) is sometimes clobbered by a situation like this.

But that’s the reality existing…

Studios sue Pixar, Demand Bad Movie. “Stop making the rest of us look bad”… demand Hollywood executives.

Hmm… 400GB PC hard drive, anyone?

Nullsoft 1997-2004 (via slate.msn.com)

I’m quite late on this but this one’s worth reading. Besides, Justin Frankel… one way or another did revolutionize a lot of things.

WinAmp… MP3s… Gnutella… ShoutCast… you name it.

Visionaries… back to the drawing board.

Happy birthday, Kim.

For the past two days I’ve been viewing cinematics and trailers that involves a great deal of hardcore visual effects and render power.

It started when Takz (a Filipino friend of mine in Netherlands), gave me that World of Warcraft cinematic trailer. Released last November 05, 2004… this one’s different from the previous World of Warcraft teaser cinematic I saw years ago.

(Awrk… as of 1:43AM WorldofWarcraft.com is currently down.)

Blizzard is consistenly pumping these uber cinematics since the third installment of Warcraft.

Starcraft trailers were good during their era but quite far from the quality of Warcraft III cinematics.

I would love to elaborate and paint this blog with words but my supply of coca cola in cans ran out and when that happens I’m usually not in the mood to do things.

I’ll give you one observation though, why their cinematics rock.

It’s not just the attention to the most intricate details (and damn the attention to details would wipe out both Pixar’s Finding Nemo and the Final Fantasy movie out of this world and beyond).

Aside from the technical aspects, Warcraft cinematics are truly moving.

It moves you.

Before I start getting mushy in here let me give you the other 3D clips that were also given to me… a Double A (or is AA) bond paper commercial. That’s the 15 second clip, here’s a different 30 second clip of the same theme.

Star Wars III: Revenge of The Sith teaser also popped out sometime last weekend.

And then of course there’s The Incredibles trailers and one teaser (if you haven’t watched the movie yet), Robots (this time from the makers of Ice Age) and Cars (also from Pixar).

I am not quite impressed with the renders Polar Express is showing so no links for now.

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Now that you’re done buffering those cinematics in your download queue… I’d like you to meet Jenny.