foxpro.catalyst «

FoxPro workBLOGS and MORE… . . .

If this 3D monitor remains true to what the article talks about, then it is about to break barriers and revolutionize a lot of things. A concept before which can only be seen in movies (see Paycheck) is now here… well, at least that’s how that news article projects it. I prefer though seeing, touching and smelling it before I’ll start doing that tribal-jump-for-happiness dance routine.

But still, once that barrier is breached, expect Room.Improvements(22*17 meters, lLimit=.T.) becomes a Field.Improvements(nInfinite, lLimit = .F.). The technology behind this, like on any other field, will just keep on improving and improving.

And of course patents will still be there to hinder some parts and clog some tunnels of innovation every now and then.

Even Bill Gates ‘indirectly’ supports blogging. Are we expecting an MS-powered blogging tool in the near future?

Finally, Avatar is starting his tech/work/life blogs. Once he finalizes everything I’ll post a link to it for you all to see why this was the first person I tried convincing to start a blog of his own.

There are a few others in this ‘make-them-blog’ list of mine and probably stating their full names in here could push them even more. Besides Google can make these names pop into their search results.

First would be Nepthaly Talavera, a college classmate of mine who is now the Dean of the Computer Science department of the university I worked before. I expect to hear some education/institution related views from him for I believe this country has to concentrate more on the blooming (in size but not in brain-optimization) computer science student population. So dude, turn off that Anime-infested TV of yours and start doing the ‘dirt-ier binary-related things’.

Second would be Ceazar Ryan Sealana who’s ‘leet-coding-skill-style’ and love for mischief far exceeds my Foxpro-powered skills and love for a peaceful digital life.

Third would be Hazel Juanico whose expertise involves SQL, VisualBasic and Javascripts and punk/grunge rock. I have known Hazel since the old elementary days up until we finished that back-breakin’-neuron-abusive Computer Science degree.

Fourth in the list would be Mark Anthony Panizales, a former student of mine who was also a founding member of that wormz team we organized years ago. This is one dude who really understands what real programming/software development is, has a great vision and persistence to back it up. If he says it, he’ll do it.

There are a lot of blogging-related tools in the ‘net. I use the GreyMatter scripts but there’s Blogger.com which was acquired by Google (Yep that’s how serious blogging is these days) and has recently upgraded.

Hosting-wise there’s Marvinsweb.net that offers as low as P34.50 a month web-hosting services.

Let’s all change the IT-related-aspects of our country through blogging.

I didn’t post a link to that article questioning if it was really Linus Torvalds who wrote Linux a couple of days ago since I was probably too tired to even sit infront of this computer, but I’m doing it now along with an article that defends Torvald’s side. It even includes a link to Andrew Tanenbaum’s notes.

Looks like even Star Wars is geared to be outsourced.

Oh-la-la! Something to look forward to. People close to me know that I don’t play computer games that much, but I always look forward to the artworks, the cinematics and the technology behind these things.

One of the ways I measure how busy I was for the past few days is by the number of unread rss feeds this reader of mine is getting. And with 128 feeds to monitor the pile is indeed that huge sometimes. Good thing I’m already over with that ‘I-have-to-read-them-all’ syndrome and with this rss reader, I can set them to remain there forever organized on folders so I can just return and scan things if time permits. That’s a big IF these days but hopefully hopefully hopefully… in the future, I’ll find some time.

It has been a really busy two weeks (nCount(‘busy’, line) = nCount(‘busy’, line) + 1), spanning to four visits on three different clients. The latest was yesterday (since it’s already 2AM… again) where I have to install the Integrated Library System I’m working on for the past eight months to its third client. The school and the ambience of the place was nice which reminds me of my high school campus back in Davao, but it is the travel that was a little hard compared to the other client visits.

We have to wait for almost two hours for the FX Taxi to fill up before it decided to move its arse. That was quite a long two hours spent hoping that the humans passing that part of the place would have a same destination as mine or some family of ten would show up which would automatically fill that FX. It even come to a point where I was exercising mind control on some humans hoping I could make them ride the FX and fill the vehicle up so we can start moving. And another point where I was hoping Godzilla would appear out of nowhere.

Sometimes I wonder how some humans can tolerate systems that makes you wait doing nothing except exercise mind control and call on the gods of thunder and speed. How I wish in the future there will be a networked system that can make you monitor the departure and arrival of these vehicles even if you’re at home so you can choose to watch a lame show in TV instead of doing nothing. For now the only thing I can do in line with that is to store in my photo-mem the frequency they use in their radio communication systems.

The travel back home was even harder, especially for qs who always come with me during client visits. Unlike me who can ride virtually any vehicle available in this country, qs can’t ride some of them without having to protect her contact lens, her pearly white skin, her hair, her pair of levi’s, shoes… to a name a few. These are the days we wished the old driver was still here and could accompany us on our client visits just like he used to.

Tomorrow’s client visit was re-scheduled which means I can have more time to relax and do some blogs.

… and exercise this dormant mind control powers of mine hoping it would work the next time around.

[initialize.random.links]
� The rise of interface elegance in open source software
� Canon PowerShot S60
� Archaelogists claim discovery of the library of Alexandria
[terminate.random]

And a late random quickie blobs.

• Kid Robot and the World of Tomorrow
• Component Rules 101
• What exactly again do we get unearthing Martian rocks and T-Rex skeletons?
• I want something like this: a Desktop Personal Air Conditioner
• Sasser Worm Suspect Confesses
• Mystery of MS’s missing AV software
• Xul Challenge : XAML Calculator Sample
• HoloStorage, anyone?
• Humanoids for the Home
• Up close with Longhorn
• Which OS are you..?

This CD rot thing is scary. So at three in the morning after compiling some database programs I spent some time randomly picking old CDRs and raising them up against the light looking for any signs of constellations and alien life forms.

So far this home-made Hubble hasn’t found one. I can now sleep well.

I have had bad experiences with generic CDRs before and I have learned my lessons.

Importance(Data.Security + Media.Reliability) > CD.Price

This, my friend, is applicable in any constellation this universe holds.

From the Editor: The Birth of a New Generation by David Stevenson. .NET Rocks! interviews DonXML.

Beware of sasser. Rumors claim that it can cause baldness and irritation of the skin. More info and helpful links here.

Random quickie-mind blobs.

• If you can’t afford to buy your dream house, create them in photoshop. Better… make them look edible.
• PixelPalooza winners from Icon Factory. I have this ‘thing’ for desktop icons. I strongly believed they are ewoks or some other cuddly character from Star Wars before they were reborn in this era.
• Who needs Albert Einstein and education when you can measure the speed of light using marshmallows..? Oh you can even eat the marshmallows after the experiment.
• With Google Inc.’s S1 filing comes a lot of things. I won’t even include a hyperlink this time. The news is everywhere in the ‘net for the past few days. From news to analysis to estimates on how many machines Google is running to their quirks that makes you love Google even more.

Geek humor: If you take a close look at the form Google filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the exact value of its planned offering is $2,718,281,828 dollars, which some would immediately recognize as the mathematical constant e.

E, for those not blessed with a Ph.D. and a job at Google, is Euler’s number, which is used as the base for natural logarithms.

• Fibonacci is everywhere. It’s even in the pattern of Elmo’s underwear.
• The latest from mind control technology, eh? MY relationship with my pet pterodactyl uses a technology two steps ahead of this one. But I don’t have any plans of sharing it for now. Besides I’m not sure if it is error-proof already. I haven’t seen my pterodactyl for three months already. If you see one with a barcode in it’s neck that reads ‘0987253251129‘ please be kind enough to inform me. Just be careful not to touch the mouth part… the pterodactyl’s saliva is equivalent to superglue.
• May 2004 issue of MSDN is out. It even has a downloadable .chm version.
• Ever wondered why Microsoft settled with Sun? Well that at least is according to Tom Yager.

Hmmm… seriously, anyone have any ideas how to track that pterodactyl of mine?

It’s about time someone wrote about the ‘Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics‘. But we can’t deny these ‘inconsistencies’ are worth watching.

I think I need a pause button too.

In a different note, I was thinking about matters related to competition this afternoon. Something that deals about not being afraid of one, but instead using it as a means to improve yourself and your craft. I’ll elaborate later. Right now I’m amazed at what coffee can do these days. There’s even a can that could ‘self chill‘.

I’m looking forward to a drink that would teach my imaginary pet tiger to code in between meals.

I’ve been following the updates and articles inside West Wind Technologies for months now, but it was only recently that I have discovered that Rick Strahl, the main brain behind that site, maintains a blog. West Wind is a good resource if you’re into developing Visual Foxpro applications for the web. Rick Strahl discusses programming issues on his blog and there are helpful whitepapers, articles and downloadable stuff in that site as well.

One of his recent blog discusses Open source and making money.

Speaking of ‘insightful blogs’ here’s Lenn Pryor’s take on Evangelism, dogma, rhetoric, and believing and Joel Spolsky’s views on Perfectionism.

Note to self: Refrain from lambasting VB when evangelizing VisualFoxpro.

While the next article link is not a blog, it is a good read too. Besides anything Google-related is interesting. Google and Akamai: Cult of Secrecy versus Kingdom of Openness

WHOA… while this might be a ten day old news already, still… this gives a new level to the word ‘upgrade’.

The new software, beamed across 188 million miles of space, should permit Spirit to travel longer distances across the rocky terrain by allowing it to independently negotiate obstacles that previously stumped its navigation software. Opportunity’s landing site on the far side of the planet is relatively obstacle-free.

A second part of the software package should allow the rovers to recover from computer memory problems like the one that struck Spirit less than three weeks into its mission.

The third portion should allow Opportunity to enter into “deep sleep” mode at night. That will cut off electricity to a stuck heater that had been coming on unnecessarily.

Link

How about giving ‘interception’ and ‘cracking’ a new meaning too? Something like a bored 25 year old ‘hacker’ decides to patch the twin rovers with an algorithm that makes them dance the rumba for a couple of minutes every 12 earth hours.

Ah… even Yoda will rejoice.

Before proceeding to the ‘main thoughts’ of this post, I’ll give a link to this time traveller that probably needs your help. Note that it is a link to Museum of Hoaxes but who knows if it is indeed true.

Sunday once again… marathon bloggin’ day. As you can see one of the little problems that I have with this site is I often have ideas which I’m a having a hard time following up.

Sometimes I end up giving hints of what I’ll post next but they’re left there… just hints. And I do have a lot of things I want to post but until now they’re still buffered in the chambers of my mind well protected from porn-related neurons.

For example last week… make that two week ago (see I’m that lagging that far behind), I was reading Rory Blyth’s post about wanting to hire U2’s The Edge to ‘code’. Ah yes I’ve posted something about giving up being a programmer to become a ‘rocker’ a couple of months ago but that is not the point here. It is stressing the importance of having ‘simple appearances of code’ with elegant and efficient approaches over complexity-infused ones which are oftentimes slower. One of the many reasons why I’m using VisualFoxpro over Visual Basic when it comes to database-related development is it’s simplicity and the clarity of its syntax and semantics.

Anyway Rory Blythe is one of the funniest bloggers you’ll see on the ‘net. I’ve been reading his blogs since that Goodbye Keiko post. He also co-hosts DotNetRocks! together with Carl Franklin.

And of course there’s Dave Barry too (and his affinitity towards pi�ata)… on and off the ‘net in periodicals and other types of syndication. But if you’d ask me where I first read things from Dave, I would point you to a doddering old Linux-powered machine we had in our former office which has this feature that generates random Dave Barry and Murphy’s Law related snips.

The previous three paragraphs alone shows how I easily get lost. One cool thing leads to another. And just as I have organized my thoughts on what I have to blog, an info-flood of related and un-related stuff comes along. This is probably one of the reasons why Scoble separated his blogs related to his personal experiences with another set of posts from the things he receives from his feeds daily. There are tons of cool stuff that can be found in the ‘net if one takes more time to read instead of Ragnarokin’ and gearing into porn-overdrive.

And those influx of ‘cool’ articles often leads your reading-to-blogging process astray. You find self reading about guns being prevented from firing if it’s not the owner who’s handling it but requires embedding chips in the owner’ hand… and Signal Discovery… and studies about brains and beauty… and infotech related articles but as you’re about to blog about it, you find an article about an ex-porn star and her house, or rather, palace and then you again find yourself thinking… ‘probably I am really in the wrong business.’ If i’d be blogging about libido-inducing links I’d probably be cruising on a slick HAMBURGER-GHini instead of buying burgers which come with free Mike Wachowski cars in it.

And then you find out about an instruction on how to create a USB turd and view a PC case for hamsters and then you realized once again… oh wait I think am in the right field… forget porn.

And when you talk about porn, you can’t help yourself but remember how the ‘old internet’ looks like, which for heavenly reasons is slowly being brought back these days. Yes… through RSS. No porns… no pop-ups, no worms, ad-less and spyware-less (28 spywares for each computer is the average these days).

And then I’m reminded to post that collection of information about RSS. I kept on ‘evangelizing’ them to my friends and former classmates but then I’m often faced with that ‘What the fuck is RSS?’ question. (Yes some of them are that rude [“,]) And then you find yourself explaining things for the Nth time and wishing that you have finished that blog about RSS and can just link to that blog and make things easier for yourself.

Ah yes I should finish that ‘What the fsck is RSS’ section and I should end this very blog as well.

I’ll post this link: How to Think Like a Computer Scientist… and I’ll post some thoughts later.

Move your arse here: Windows Security Updates for April 2004.

As I’ve posted earlier, Microsoft is indeed serious with security these days. It’s their ‘new religion’.

Ah yes… I remember why it took me three years before I installed a copy of WindowsXP on one of my machines. Well aside from what Steve Gibson of GRC.com wrote three years ago (which was also connected to that strange tale of the denial of service on his site), I cannot make Norton Commander for Windows run on WindowsXP Professional. And I can’t live without NC since my college days. I was even using it to cloak certain batch files that annoyingly send and bounce messages in the network.

Norton Commander is the ultimate organizer, file manager and everything else combined. I can even fry eggs on it. Windows Explorer no matter how it is skinned will still be far behind what Norton Commander’s ease can give. NC even hums a sweet lullaby if you fall asleep while it’s transferring your files.

If only the CDR that holds the NC101 for Windows 95 installer was not damaged, I probably have installed WindowsXP years ago. That serves a lesson to me and a reminder to you too not to use cheap CDRs if you’re serious about archiving your installers and porn collection.

Manually REGSVR32-ing the MFCO30.dll hasn’t solved the problem. Nor the tribal rain dance that I usually do. I’ll probably look for a copy of that DLL that works well with WindowsXP and NC101.

Anyway I was able to find some alternatives. Among the list of commanders, WinNC looks promising even if their website does not work well with FireFox.

Cool… I even stumbled up this Ten Commandments of the OFM Religion. OFM stands for Orthodox File Managers or another way of calling Norton Commander derivatives. I never knew that ‘commanders’ are this phenomenal.