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FoxPro workBLOGS and MORE… . . .

Linus Torvalds’ Benevolent Dictatorship

I think, fundamentally, open source does tend to be more stable software. It’s the right way to do things. I compare it to science vs. witchcraft. In science, the whole system builds on people looking at other people’s results and building on top of them. In witchcraft, somebody had a small secret and guarded it — but never allowed others to really understand it and build on it.

West Wind Internet Protocols 4.55 (wwIPStuff) released. The class library supports the following:

• SMTP and POP3 Email support
• HTTP – Access Web content from VFP
• Advanced HTTP support
• FTP – Transfer files
• Low Level Socket Access
• Dial up Networking
• IP Address validation
• Fast C based Conversion Routines

Along with that release, is an insightful article: Why West Wind Html Help Builder is NOT a .NET Application.

I’m days behind linking this… Ken Levy posted the August 2004 Visual Foxpro Newsletter which contains a FAQ that answers some of VisualFoxpro-related issues.

Dan Appleman started his blog. His advice for future computer science majors and RAD is not productivity posts are an early favorite of mine… especially the RAD-related one.

So let’s get real. Bad programmers write bad code. Good programmers write good code. RAD lets bad programmers write bad code faster. RAD does NOT cause good programmers to suddenly start writing bad code.

If you can remember, a couple of months ago he enumerated why he refrains from blogging. How I wish those unmovable-arse humans I convinced to blog would also have a change of mind.

While reading Wesner Moise’s blog (.NET Undocumented, one of the first blogs I subscribed to), I found out that KurzweilAI.net now has an RSS feed. I ‘HTTrack-ed’ that site before when I found some very very interesting AI-related articles.

If you are using the HTML version of that site and can’t seem to find the syndication feed link, here’s a direct link to the rss feeds.

More and more programmers who are using VisualFoxpro are coming out in the blogosphere. Here are two links that I have discovered just recently: Craig Bailey and Andrew Coates (not entirely VFP but he mentions VFP once in awhile).

I wonder if it is just me still getting used to waking up around 4AM (I usually sleep around 3AM) or my FireFox browser, that makes the OZ 2004 Speaker section scramble the names and the pictures. It works fine on the IE6 browser though.

Visual Foxpro on GotDotNet.

Here are some alternative programming fonts. Nice… thanks Vernon Labayog for that link.

3AM and I’m done wrapping up paper plans for tomorrow’s client visit. Make that later this day.

ADTX SYSTEMS (formerly APTI) is in need of programmers. My former classmate works in that company and she told us that they need at least 50 ‘coders’ immediately (ASAP).

That’s a large number of borgs… quite scary if you’d ask me.

And considering she did used the words ‘immediately’ and ‘ASAP’ in one e-mail, it means something.

They’re looking for Java Programmers (AD 04-007), Microcode/Firmware Engineers (AD04-008) and Device Driver Engineers (AD04-009).

Interested applicants are invited to send their resume, transcript of records and recent 2×2 picture to the address below stating position code:

ADTX Systems, Inc.
c/o Human Resources Department
3/F Multinational Bancorporation Centre
6805 Ayala Avenue, Makati City

Tel Nos: +63 (2) 889-5070 | +63 (2) 845-3875-77
Fax No.: +63 (2) 889-1800
E-mail: jobs [at] adtxsystems [dot] com

Or you can e-mail my classmate: beng [at] adtxsystems [dot] com. Doing so will help her and her co-programmers regain the sleep they’re missing these days.

On a different frequency, Avatar posted some FireFox-related hacks.

I had a weird dream last night.

Ah… all dreams are weird so that’s data redundancy already.

Anyway… in my dream, Linus Torvalds and Bill Gates were playing chess in a park. The ambience was even in 3D… surreal 3D to be precise, sort of a distorted 3D-like environment quite close to Pixar‘s animated chess clip, Geri’s Game.

(Speaking of Pixar, check out this latest Incredibles trailer.)

But this dream’s more darker… and more violet-ish.

Probably Steve Jobs is behind all these ‘Microsoft versus Linux games’, eh? Sounds like an interesting conspiracy theory.

But no, this isn’t about conspiracy theories… this is about my dream.

Besides, Steve doesn’t give an iMice arse about this, he’s too busy on his ‘chameleonic computer‘, you know a Mac whose shell can change colors, or the second Japan Apple store opening or the rumored Apple TabletPC.

There… wandering again… back to the dream.

I can’t remember everything but there was a point in that dream when Linus was taunting Bill… ‘You can’t beat me, I’ve been playing this game since I was still a kid, when I was in beta version. My linux shell commands and libraries naming convention are even inspired by the way chess moves are recorded.’

Bill replied, ‘Are you familiar with the Windows BSOD? It has VxD written all over it.’

I can’t remember who won that game or how the dream ended. But I do remember it shifting places where the next ‘scene’ involves a half cyborg rabbit.

Speaking of chess, the 14th Abu Dhabi International Chess Festival is being held from August 14 to August 24, 2004. One of its main highlight is the ‘Clash of The Computer Titans’ which features the multi-champion Shredder against the Linux-powered Hydra.

Yes… I think humans grew tired of watching those human versus machine chess tournaments (or probably the human versus human battles) already that they’re firing up these machine versus machine tournaments.

Creating a program that do those chess-move-analysis computation I know is an ultimate milestone for humans, but if you’d ask me I still think it is the uber-most-geek-iest way of having an excuse not to play the game.

An excuse not to think which is ironic because humans need to think.

I know… I know… creating such program involves a lot of thinking. But there is a big difference when you think about chess, or think about algorithms prior to the game and during the actual game of chess.

It’s like ‘Uh-oh, the queen is out already, let Shredder (or Deep Blue or Hydra) do the next move for me.’

That’s why my bet is still on Kasparov (that is if he decides to play against a computer once again), or any of his human successor.

To wrap things up, here’s an article that explains why chess grandmasters are so successful in their field.

If you read that article, you’ll realize that chess and this field they call as software development are similar to each other, in ways more than all the possible chess moves combined.

I’ll presume you have already read Paul Graham’s Great Hackers. I posted a link to that essay days ago.

And 1,618,009 websites linked too that article as well.

Now hear Eric Sink’s Great Hacker != Great Hire. It’s always good to listen to two (or more) opposing sides on certain things. It helps balance the chi.

Speaking of Eric Sink, there are more SoftwareDevelopment/ISV-related articles on his site. Here’s a direct link to his feed in case you want to subscribe.

Going back to Paul Graham, the Great Hackers article has an audio version already which you can stream or download. He posted a recent article, Python Paradox, which again stirs up my interest to delve into that language.

I have already ‘httrack‘-ed Phyton.org last week.

11:42PM | Regular break from the normal midnight database operations.

My two year old is still watching Dinosaur in the background. Yup very much awake at this time of night… the making of a programmer right?

Dean Michael posted interesting blogs here and here. I’m still finishing some database migration related things for tomorrow’s client visit but I’ll post some thoughts later.

He also mentioned this site: TopCoder.com

I saw a dollar image in the front page. My interest dropped to sublevel 37.

On the pixel-side of things, I uploaded this Photoshop Shadow Tutorial I made 15 months ago. It is still unreleased from inside the Pixelcatalyst.Lair. Yes… one of those derivations from that ‘so-many-cool-things-to-do-so-limited-time’ dilemma.

PWA entry fee draws mixed reactions. What do you expect? I have always wanted to blog my thoughts about this since I found out that they’re now collecting P2,500 entry fees for that contest… err… awards to prevent ‘crappy sites’ from entering. Out of respect to some local web designers I’ve known for years, I’m refraining from posting some thoughts for now.

Let time and output tell if the move was appropriate and effective. I’m not using the words ‘good’ and ‘right’. Elusive words… these are.

In an indirect way, you can compare it to what the Philippine government is pushing these days… the thing about additional taxes. Should we focus more on how making tax collection efficient first before adding more burden to the people?

Should we solve things underneath first before implementing reckless series of patches over it?

Do check the statistics for uncollected revenues for the past 10 years and you’ll understand my sentiments, and the majority of the Filipino people’s sentiments as well.

Never mind my sentiments, I’m just hungry anyway.

Oh… we’re giving up already the idea that we can collect these things efficiently and we’ll just add another batch of ‘to-collect-things’ that highlight the inefficiency and feed Mr. Graft and Miss Corruption?

I’m not raising the white flag for RP’s situation though. Not now when I see my two year old watching Dinosaur at this time of the night.

But… I need to resume working.

Hopefully…

select 0

use RESOURCES shared

     if !file('RESOURCES.cdx')

          index on alltrim(GoodGovernance) tag CRESGOOD

          index on EfficientMeans tag CRESEFFI

          index on ATested(Integrity, Passed) tag CRESINTE

          index on Stress(DTOS(date())) tag CRESDATE

          index on Listen(People(.voice)) tag CRESVOIC

     else

          CheckIntegrity('RESOURCES', Strict)

     endif

… could be of help.

Make this thing defy gravity… make this float and I’ll acquire a dozen and practice my newly found newbie networking skills.

I would even mod it further… add some hairs perhaps.

If you’re using Windows XP, then its Service Pack 2 is a must have. Here’s a Bit Torrent for SP2 (SP2Torrent.com). I am also currently downloading this SP2 Network Installation Package at MajorGeeks.com.

Not satisfied?

Here’s a link to 30+ sites that mirrors the file: FileMirrors.com (Thanks cephei for the link)

Do the world some favor… move your lazy arse.

Every time a blackout occurs, I always realize how weak computers are.

Back when I was still working for my old employer, whenever one occurs we would do something ‘progressive-for-the-company’… something like playing basketball or table tennis perhaps.

The rest of the other offices prefer to nap.

Of course we could choose the nap way of doing progressive things, but since one of our senior database programmers snores like a wild boar who hasn’t slept for two decades after chasing Alicia-looking deers and such, our choices are limited.

But returning to the topic of supercomputers… even if we have seen much of these for the past few months, like the one NASA has, or the one IBM is going to build for the military, or the Earth Simulator Center supercomputer in Japan, and there’s this Open Supercomputer codenamed Beowulf… these are still far from my envisioned ‘supercomputer’.

For one, I think a supercomputer should not be dependent on electricity… or batteries.

A supercomputer should be able to sustain itself.

Which makes the brain a better supercomputer than those other so-called supercomputers. It is unplugged and it needs no batteries to function. We even lug it around everywhere we go without a thought, imagine attempting to carry those supercomputers around with us.

Of course it needs food, protein, porn and whatever but still… it works.

Humans really have to work on powering it up instead of being dependent on calculators, computers and phones. I’d still believe that if man hasn’t discovered the cellphone or even phones in general, we could have furthered our mental telephatic powers by now.

Having said that, I am looking forward for this book. As Boingboing.net calls it… ‘Brain Hack: Overclock your Amygdala’.

Mine needs a hibernation period for now.

Visited a client in Guagua, Pampanga today. Fixed a database corruption on one unit. Installed some ILS module updates. Meet W95.spaces.1445 (I’ve been cataloguing those kinds of meetings and it seems each company I visit cultivates their own ‘pets’).

cEntity = ‘pets’
cSimilarEntity = substr(cEntity, 1, 2) + ReverseString(substr(cEntity, 3, 2))

Introduced OpenOffice.org since they could afford to buy only one licensed copy of Microsoft Office 2003 this school year. Introduced MajorGeeks.com and explained OfficeXP’s save as old format capabilities.

Yes… one of the many advantages of ‘freelancing’ is having more room to educate people… the ‘normal users’ who need more enlightenment. Something you don’t have that much if you’re one of those ‘in-house-type-of-programmers’ here in this country.

Of course I’m not generalizing here. I’ve known some good in-house programmers who do not only excel in what they’re doing, but passionately ‘evangelize’ technological matters as well.

But recently I’ve seen too much work-related grumbling from them. Quite sad.

I am also an ‘in-house programmer’ in my regular job and I tell you there is a big difference.

Freelancers don’t have a boss… or at least we don’t call them ‘boss’ we call them ‘clients’, our time is flexible (or at least we think it is) and we can work in pajamas (not naked… contrary to popular belief, programmers don’t work naked).

You, my friend, are always welcome to the other side of the fence.

Later… 12:31AM and I still have to finish one report for tomorrow’s MILD.client visit.

···

Calvin Hsia shares an overview (and even some codes) on how to catalog and share digital pictures using Visual Foxpro, SQL and .NET. Very informative if you’d ask me. Makes you want to say Kenshin’s ‘There’s nothing I can’t do with this sword’ line.

Replace(LineAbove, ‘this sword’, ‘Foxpro’).

Fine-Tune Your Web Site for Windows XP Service Pack 2.

.NET linkwarp: Hyatt.lu

Ada Lovelace started her blogs. Keep it up, Leigh. Can we expect techblogs from Dennis and Exander too?

Gapingvoid.com is an insightful site. I added it in my aggregator a couple of days ago when I read the How to be Creative post. Number 13 is applicable in the field of software development:

Never compare your inside with somebody else’s outside.

Netcrucible: Sex and Cash

More Sex and Cash theories… probably I’ll post mine in the future.

Every time I see a new model of a TabletPC, electronic inks and its variations, I remember an old joke again. Of course I know these ‘advanced technologies’ are not a joke.

Argh. I tried looking in the archives for that joke but after a couple of hours searching, re-filtering and manually scanning things, I can’t seem to find it. It seems that I’ll be needing WinFS to even locate it, but since that would be released probably a year from now and moving of release dates often occur, let me just recreate it.

Fast forward to the future… a couple of scientists ‘out in the field’ re-discovers paper. And of course since they’ve been dependent on paper-less and advanced nano-quantum (or whatever they call it) computer technologies already, they don’t have any idea what it is.

Scientist_001: Station-1029 we discovered something.
HQStation-1029: Be careful spaceboy… can you describe it?
Scientist_002: It’s light… thin… white… lighter and thinner than those laptops issued by EarthGov-00290 last September.
S001: And it comes with a pen-like thing… let me read… it says ‘Pencil’ (‘pen-like’? I guess pens outlived papers)
HQS-1029: Be careful, these might be advanced mines planted by our galactic enemies.
S001: I don’t think so HQ. I haven’t seen something like this before. I’m a pessimist by nature but I feel something good on this.
S002: … and this could be a discovery of the millenniury! (OK… i made up that word)
S001: Wait look! Using this pen-like thing I can write on it!
S002: Where’s the CPU? This is so advanced the CPU is i think so thin and invisible to the eye.
S002: Hooo… I can even flush the things I wrote using the other edge of this pen-like thing. I don’t have to press DEL and click on OK a number of times.
S001: And I think it has an auto-purge feature. No need clean the trash… unless the trash of this thing is located on a different sector.
HQS-1029: Whoa… bring it once here.
S001: Look… look I can even fold it and it doesn’t break. You can’t do that with the computers.
S001: ARGH I dropped it. Hey wait… the data is still there. And it seems to be working fine. No damages so far… not even a scratch.
HQS-1029: WHOA! You can’t do that on these ultra-computers of mine. One crash and it’s goodbye slick baby.
S002: And it can fit the pocket perfectly! And it fits in the other pocket as well. I guess it adjusts to its container automatically. I bet I can even eat this thing!
HQS-1029: Return to base, spaceboys. An unidentified objects are entering the premises of your location. These are probably manned Quasi-borg SPE-OPlanes!
S001: Oh no! They probably have intercepted the communication frequencies.
S002: Something this thing don’t have. More reason to return this to base and replicate things… they’re probably after this thing!
HQS-1029: We’re sending backups… hold on to your sectors. Transmission interrupted.

OK… I did over-bloat some parts, but it holds the gist of it. If you know where and who the links and authors of the ‘original version’, please be kind enough to inform me.

Get well soon, Steve Jobs.

All this memory optimization stuff is but a hoax?

Official Guidelines for User Interface Developers and Designers.

Do you want an Official Doom III Hardware Guide to come along with that?

Patchin’ time.

Microsoft Security Bulletin MS04-025
Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer (867801)
Read full details here.

Oh please don’t give me that ‘shift-to-another-browser’ solution. I prefer the fix-first-then-shift-after approach… but wait, probably it is the _best_ solution. So here’s a hack to remove Internet Explorer from your system (This includes some registry works).

Now of course we can expect Microsoft to ‘un-hack’ it.

Now here… to satisfy your MP3 cravings: ONE MILLION free and legal music tracks.

From 1975 to well 2005 next year, looks like not much has change… movie piracy-wise.

Speaking of piracy… if ever you consider this piracy-related: Apple vs Real Networks – Round 01 – Round 02 – Round 03. Isn’t technology about improving lives not improving the lawyer’s standard of living?

It’s not about piracy really… but ‘hacking’ is not the appropriate word either. Can we just restore the old glory days of the word ‘hack’?

Today’s article: Un-Dynamics of Software Development, or, Don’t Bite the Flip Bozo. A little ‘warp’ but interesting and true. Here’s a snip:

The Perfect Software CompanyThere is a perfect software company. It is where I work. The coffee is excellent. The chairs are comfortable, the computers are wicked fast, and we take a lot of video game breaks. The humidor is well-stocked with Cohibas, there is a killer library, and naps are encouraged. The furnishings are handsome, and the décor is pleasant. There are no cubes. The Managers sign checks and buy whatever software, computers, books, gadgets, and video games are desired. Schedules are not set until requirements are defined, software release dates are only announced after the features are done and rock solid. There are no suits. No ties. No cubes, and no timesheets. The work hours are very flexible but long, but I show up because I have more fun there than anywhere else.

Hmm… imagine when hard disks were this huge? Here’s an overview of that picture.

As expected Microsoft expands it’s quest for innovation. Yes… we do have different thoughts what ‘innovation’ really is. Now it’s crawling into searching, anti-virus (once there was MSAV right), mobile phones, XBox consoles, Tablet PCs and more.

Nice… but how come this move? Is this part of that promise a couple of months ago to fight and stop spam in the future?

Technology Review has something about Holograms, tweezers and teleportation. Now that’s news… beam me up, cowboy.

On the pixel-side of things, MIGHTY DEPTHCORE released the Infinity Pack. I don’t have any submission in that pack though since I’ve been busy battling out with Miss TCP/IP this week. But with or without me… the pack rocks.

Early-bird feeds:

• The evolution of mascara in Windows UI (Raymond Chen)
• Mozilla 1.7.1 ActiveX Control Installer
• Dinner with Bill Gates (Jeff Maurone) and here’s the first post about this topic
• Particle Chains Make Quantum Wires
• Achieving Effective Beta Programs

Not much programming-related workblogs these days from me. I’ve been busy with hardware related stuff, installing LAN cables and other network-related tasks inside this regular job of mine.

After this, I’ll install the Registrar and Accounting deparment-related programs I have created for the past year.

On this day, July 27… one my favorite cartoon character, Bugs Bunny, mades his official appearance in the animated cartoon A Wild Hare, the discovery of insulin was announced and Atlantic Cable was completed which allowed the first transatlantic telegraph communication…

… and here I am at 3:33AM still undecided how to resolve this monitor dilemma of mine (More on this one later).

Here… splice up your life with some Bioengineered household stuff.

My wife, qs, is a PolSci major… I on the other hand, well… studied ComSci. Just a two letter difference but what a big difference it makes in the ‘real world’. ‘Real world’ here would mean beyond the boundaries of an academic classroom.

Two letter difference which I often used on jokes against her. Jokes such as if programmers are running this country of ours in its current state, things would be better. That programmers are problem solvers while some politicians I see often sees problems as a way to bring spotlights into them. They convert problems to votes… while programmers find solutions.

Programmers are often focused on solving the problem at hand while politicians have to consider a lot of factors, linkages, resources, influence before dealing on a certain problem.

While of course I’m well aware that not all PolSci majors are involved with the government and politics, but still having the word ‘Political’ (or Politics-related), the responsibility of government of a country rests on them. They’re supposed to be the future.

In a way or another the studies derived from her course, should’ve been used to improve certain situations… or at least minimized the things that’s pulling us down, such as corruption and other magic-related processes existing in the government/politics.

Compared to computer science, political science has been there since… what? Aristotle’s time..? Herod’s time..? I’m thinking it’s way back there even if the term ‘political science’ was first coined in 1880 by Herbert Baxter Adams, a Johns Hopkins University professor.

Anyway I remember these stuff when I read Jeff Davis’ A programmer’s society replaces a lawyer’s society post from Rick Klau’s What if lawyers became programmers? blog.

And here’s another take from Corante: Hackers, Lawyers, Society and the INDUCE Act (IICA).

Looks like I’m not the only one having those type of thinking.

Making the USB Gundam. Savvy, eh?