elblogg

The chumby device is an interesting device, being one of the few open source electronic gadgets and all. But sadly, its the hardware that’s open source. And for me that is really a bummer, since I’m a software hacker. I’m not that confident with the soldering iron. That means that the fact that the hardware in this device is open source doesn’t matter that much to me, especially since I’ve found only one producer and reseller of the Chumby, namely the chumby store. And they don’t even ship to Norway!

And, the stuff that I find interesting with such a device is the ability to make my own software for it, displaying the stuff I want it to, and controlling the other stuff in my home from it. (Like the HTPC system etc.). And thats where the chumby really disappoints me. First off, I’d need to program the user interface in Adobe Flash, which is a thing I don’t know how to do, and I don’t have the tools. The open source support for creating flash applications are appalling too, so to make good applications I would have to buy the commercial non-open software from Adobe. Which don’t even run on Linux. So then I’d have to install Windows on my machine to run it etc. etc. I don’t hate my freedom that much.

On the other hand, I could get an Nokia N810 device, the hardware there is closed source, but the software is completely open. I could program my applications using Python and GTK. Even more, the N810 is more powerful, it has a bigger display, and the device is smaller. Okay. It’s not smaller than the actual electronics inside the chumby, but its a lot smaller, or at least thinner than a unmodified chumby. It even can run from batteries. And, there’s nothing that prevents me from doing the same type of hacks that people does with the chumby. Very few people actually modifies their chumby, they mostly modify the casing of the chumby. Like this guy:

(Chumby hack published in MAKE Vol. 16)

Okay, this post turned out to be a rant, but live with it.

So, we bought a new apartment. Before we bought it I checked that CanalDigital could offer both TV and Internet to the new apartment. And, according to them, then, they could.

Today however, after making three attempts to get through to them I was told that they now could only offer TV. That means I have to go back to the stoneage-performing ADSL technology. Sigh!

To top this, CanalDigital requires a two month notice on terminating a broadband subscription, and three months to terminate a TV subscription. And, even further, if you move your tv subscription they are counting that as a new subscription, which mean you’ll have to pay for two tv subscriptions for three months.

And, moving to another ISP has some costs in itself. Since there are no operational telephone in the apartment, Nextgentel charges NOK 499,- to enable the telephone line, and additionaly NOK 60,- each month to keep it open. Nextgentel is cheaper on the monthly subscription charge, so the monthly NOK 60,- doesn’t matter that much. But the reduction of 2Mbits of outbound speed matters. And, ADSL has generally a lower quality of service than cable…

Did I mention that CanalDigital probably charges for enabling TV in the new apartment as well? Sigh!

Okay. It’s kind of stupid to put static typing up against Unit tests. Even so, lots of people does so a lot of times in the discussion between dynamic and static programming languages.

Static typing provides you with a security net when it comes to typos. Alhough, it doesn’t give you any security against logical errors.

(more…)

MySQL query browser and MySQL Administrator for Mac OS X are pieces of crap software! They crashes all the time. I should probably rather use the time required to get completely confortable with altering tables in MySQL  CLI than wasting my time trying to do it through this piece of crap.

I just lost 30 minutes of work beacause of this. -And no, I couldn’t have saved my work to avoid this.

GAH!

As you can see from my last post, I’m a little frustrated with printers today. Here’s the story why.

I had a paper on XML to deliver today. One digital copy via mail, and one that should be delivered on paper. The digital copy was no problem at all, just pack the files and send them to the right person. The paper copy on the other hand was not that easy to deliver. One thing is that I actually have to go to campus to deliver it, I cant understand why we have to deliver a paper copy, but I can live with that. The problem is; I have no printer. I have to rely on the Océ monster where I volunteerly work as an IT-admin.

Today this gray box from hell had broken down again. Last time it happened it took Océ over 10 days to reassemble the box to fix it. So I asked one of the people i share a flat with if I could borrow her printer. No problem. She borrowed me the printer. Then I had to install the printer. I have never installed a printer on Linux before and tried various approaches. This took time. Too much time. The paper had to be delivered at 13:00 and at 12:38 I was still home. I ran to the bus, I ran like hell…. I dont think I have ever ran that fast. I reached the bus, and got down to campus.

I started looking for a printer. I found one in the back corner of the HumInf lab on hf-bygget. I thought phew. The printer was out of paper, but there was a lot of copying paper in the room so I thought that wasnt a problem. I was wrong. Someone had assumed point 2 in Common mistakes about printers, If its out of paper, it will magically refill itself if you send enough copies of your docoment to it. It started spitting out dozens of papers, and would not stop. So I rebooted it, knowing that that would make a paper-jam, but I assumed it would be faster to fix than wait for all these copies. The paper-jam was severe, the paper was really stuck, but at last I got it out, and got my paper printed, and delivered it at 12:59:40

There are one thing worse than printers, and that is printers in a public place

I really have to work on my english…

1. It has chips and silicon, techies must like them.
   NO! Techies hate them too! Noone likes printers (except those people at Xerox of course)
2. If its out of paper, it will magically refill itself if you send enough copies of your docoment to it
   NO! But its a very efficient way to make the IT-staff angry
3. When the printer display (or driver) says Paper jam it means you should jam more printjobs into it
   NO! As with point 2 it is a very efficient way to get the IT-staff angry
4. When the box says plug and play, it means that the printer works under 20 minutes after installing it
   Partly correct. Some printers actually does this. In most cases it means Plug it in, and play around to see if you can get it working

Have a tip for more Common mistakes about printers? please comment

Where does webdesigners get the idea that light grey text, with 9px size on white background is a good idea. OK. It looks nice, but isnt readable at all.

Hello! my fellow webdesigners! Wake up! It is not a good idea!

All men I know says they hate shopping. That isnt all true, beacause they love to look for gadgets at radioshack (or similar stores), and some even likes to shop groceries

What do they mean then?
They are talking about shopping for clothes

Men are often embarrassed when they walk into a shop that appears to be for women only. Most clothing-stores does so. If they have an appartment for men, its a 8×8m area far into the store. That is beacause they doesnt earn money on men unless they are in desperate need for a new pair of jeans, and then they’ll come into the shop anyway. These stores are made for selling womens clothes, there is absolutely no doubt about that.

Today I went to the shopping-centre not far from here to get some new boxer-shorts, after walking through two women-only shops (how could I know they were just for women? they all look the same), tree appearantly women-only shops and one men-only shop I came out empty handed. None of the shops had boxer-shorts in my size, most of the shops stopped on large (which was named medium a few years ago) and one of the shops had Small, Medium and XXXXL (which is way too big)

Once I had this dream of beeing a professional developer. I do not dream of that anymore, if I dream of it, it would be a nightmare. This summer i have had a few programming projects and my income this summer is based on them. I want developing to be fun, not a job. It would be better if I had an office where I could get peace to the work, and a limited part of the day where I would have to worry about getting the project done.

The way it have been this summer really makes me think that I dont even want to work with computers. But thats not really the problem. The problem is that acacemic work always take a part of your mind, even when you dont work. Or especially when you dont work. And you need good inspiration to get the work done. If you dont have just the perfect working enviroment you’ll really have to twist your mind to get those good ideas. Not too hot, not to cold, not too much noise, and no relaitves or other people expecting you to be social. There is a reason why people have the occupation that geeks are not capable of beeing social. Some geeks may even try to make this impression on their enviroment, beacause then noone will bother him while he is working.

And people are bothering us when we are working. I believe this is beacause they think that youngsters are just playing games on their computers, and are never doing anything important. When we explain that its important to get this work done they dont understand it. My explaination is just technobabble for them.

<rantmode>
I’m tired, I’m sick and it’s the temperature in the room is unbearable. I am in Bodø, where my girlfriend are from. I’m here mostly beacause I was going to meet her family, but partially beacause we needed to live on their food for a while. She have always complained of how hot the weather is in Bergen in the summer, now we’re here and I’m melting.
I have some work to do while I’m here (I’m making a publishing system for non-geeks). I have’nt actually got done anything, last time i saw the source-code was when we where on the train from Mo i Rana to Bodø. Its too hot during the day to do anything, and when the night comes I’m to tired. Additionally I have to socialize with my girlfriends family during the day. They are quite nice to me, I’d just wish they where just as nice with her. And I really want to spend some quality time with my girlfriend too… there is just not enough hours in a day

The bed is to short and narrow for me, so the quality of my sleep sucks. I wish I could sleep during the hot part of the day, and get some work done in the night, but I can sleep all I want during the day, and wake up just as tired (and ten times more dehydrated) as I was when I went to sleep.
</rantmode>

I dont know if this made any sense at all…. I’m tired, sick and its hot in here, I’m not thinking clearly.