Technology

Learning to Program

/ hsoi / 3 Comments

I learned to program on my Apple //e a long long ago.

But I did take a class in undergrad that was a sort of introduction to programming for non-programmers (now that I think about it, I don’t know why I took the class as it was well below my knowledge level). It used a neat book called Karel The Robot. You can Google on “Karel the Robot” and all sorts of stuff comes up, including a lot of love and praise for it. It’s really a good way to learn how to program because it’s simple and friendly. It doesn’t focus upon a particular language, which is part of the simplicity and appeal. It allows people to learn about general programming concepts and constructs, and how to use them as building blocks to solve problems. After you grok the concepts, then you can get yourself caught up in the semantics of a particular language… trying to do both at once is just too much to focus on.

So I’m writing this blog entry as a bookmark to myself. I’ve been wanting to teach my kids how to program and wanting to use Karel to do it. So I found Karel on SourceForge. I also found RUR-PLE (history of it here) which is a Karel-like approach that uses Python. There’s also Guido van Robot. I really like Python as a language (tho I don’t get to use it often enough), and feel it’d be a great first language for my kids.

Anyway there you go. Karel.

WordPress 2 for iPhone

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

Seems that the WordPress for iPhone application has been updated.

Apparently they rewrote things, so it doesn’t come off as an update to the original WordPress app but as a totally separate app. Thus you have to manually go looking for it and manually download it, instead of just triggering an update.

Initial reviews aren’t that good either, with lots of problems out of the box.

I’ll upgrade, eventually. At least wait for 2.0.1 to come out, I guess.

Updated: WP’s official announcement.

Good Apple Store Experience

/ hsoi

So the “T” key on my MacBook Pro’s keyboard died. I just got it back and I wanted to recount the positive experience I had.

First, the MacBook is still covered by AppleCare, so all of this is covered under warranty.

I did my own troubleshooting, I called AppleCare, they suggested a few things that I already tried and so an appointment was scheduled for the Genius Bar at the local Apple Store.

I must admit. I don’t like the Genius Bar. I’ve had some irritating experiences in the past, mostly with young kids working there that think they know more than me. Look, I write software for a living, I know a little something about computers. If you’re talking down to me like this, then you talk down like that to all your customers. That’s not right nor good. But I must admit that experience was in the early days of the store. They seem to have really improved, and this experience is witness to that.

When I first took it in they did an examination and agreed the T was dead and keyboard replacement was necessary. They didn’t have one in stock and it would have to be ordered. Fair enough, as I could plug in an external keyboard and get by. I really can’t be without this machine — there’s money to be made and I can’t make it without the machine. They said so long as I was willing to work with them on scheduling the repair, they’d do what they could. Fair enough. I got the call over the weekend the keyboard came in. I called to schedule and they said the best they could do would be to bring it in as early as possible to maximize chances of a same-day turnaround.

So early today I went in and dropped it off. And I waited. While using my iPhone got me by on a lot of things today I must say that it eventually drove me nuts. Too small a screen, too small a keyboard, and without question the lack of tactile feedback does make typing difficult. Sure you get used to it and you can still type pretty well, but tactile feedback is so important. Anyway….

I later called them because the phone number I left them wasn’t going to work so I wanted to update the callback number. Whomever answered the phone was courteous, took my info down, and said he’d hand it to the right people and have them call me with status. I expected that if I got a call it would have been sometime later, but instead within a couple minutes my phone rang and it was the actual repair tech with an update. They gave me the skinny, answered my questions, and were very kind and understanding about the urgency of it all. Sure enough withing an hour after that callback I received THE call that the MacBook was ready for pickup. Pickup was a breeze.

All in all, I was very happy with how everything went. Sure it’s a bummer the key broke, but these things happen. The whole process went pretty smoothly all things considered. Everyone was cheerful, polite, and desired to help as much as possible. You know they get all sorts of stories and of course to everyone their situation is urgent. They did a great job at making the turnaround as fast as possible. I’m very pleased with the customer service that I received.

To boot, they cleaned the machine too. It was all shiny and slick. A little touch, certainly wasn’t necessary to do, but it was done and was a little cherry on top.

 

Off she goes for repair

/ hsoi

The local Apple Store has obtained a replacement keyboard. I take my MacBook Pro in this morning to get it repaired.  When will I get it back? I don’t know, but the hope is by bringing it in this morning I’ll get it back later today.

I shall be living off my iPhone today. That should be… interesting.

A “T”, a “T”, my kingdom for a keyboard wiht a working “”.

/ hsoi

You don’t realize how often you type the letter “T” until the key stops working.

The “T” key on my laptop is acting strange. There is a noticeable delay between when you press the key and when the “t” actually is processed. I can type over 100 wpm, so this is really irritating. To type this, I have to either slow down or press the delete key a lot because the “T” came through at the wrong time. It even sometimes comes through multiple times.

Now, allow me to retype the above at normal speed with no corrections.

The “T” key on my laptop is acting srange. there is a noticeable delay between when you press he key and when hte “t” actually is processed. I can type over 100 wpm, so this is really irritating. o ypte his, I have to eiher slow down or press he delee key a lo because he “” came hrough a he wrong imte. I teven someimes comes hrough muliple imes.

*sigh*

Going o disassemble he machine and see if i migh jus be a diryt contact or some such. If not, a leas i’s sill under AppleCare (tho only a few more monhts lef in i).

Updaetd: the disassembly guides at iFixIt were helpful, but it didn’ tpan out. Did all he usual hings oo, like PRAM zapping and so on. Blew air under he keys, nohting. Se tup a call wiht AppleCare, went htrough a few phone htings, and now I have a Genius Bar appoinmen se tup. We shall see wha comes of i.

Amazing ho how you can sill read and undersatnd all of htis… a leas, so I hope. 😉

Updated 2: Took the computer to the Genius Bar at the local  Apple Store. Confirmed keyboard problem. They don’t have one in stock so it has to be ordered and they’ll call me when it comes in. Meantime, I have an external keyboard hooked up and will get by with that for now.

Snow Leopard mini-gripes

/ hsoi

OK…. I did finally upgrade to Snow Leopard and mostly I’m happy with things. But, some small gripes so far.

My biggest gripe? The loss of the ability to control how desktop pictures are handled. That is, it’s now “just a picture”. There’s no more ability to tile. Long ago I collected a bunch of small tilable images (a distribution called Propaganda) and I love using those as my desktop pictures but they do require being able to tile. I can’t do that any more. *sigh*

I do not like how Activity Monitor always launches with its window visible. It did not do this in prior OS versions. I like to have the Activity Monitor always running and showing the CPU history in the Dock icon, so the app is set to launch upon login. To have it always launch and the window display is not sound. I reported this as a bug to Apple (RADAR 7158817) but they came back and said this is not a bug but is consistent with the interface guidelines (I’m curious just which guideline this is). To cope with the window? Apple says to set the app to be hidden upon launch. Of course, that then makes the Dock tile dimmed, which isn’t ideal either.

I do like that finally, after all these years, you can show the date in the menubar next to the clock. Finally.

I need to get my contextual menu plugins updated to function in Snow Leopard. Apple changed the architecture so they have to be fully rewritten. I don’t blame them for changing things, just until I get the time to rewrite them I will miss them.

Finally Upgraded to Snow Leopard

/ hsoi / 3 Comments

Finally was able to upgrade all of my Macs to Snow Leopard (Mac OS X 10.6).

You see, as a software developer I can’t always jump on the latest bandwagon. Sure I might have new OS versions running on partitions of other machines, maybe even pre-release versions. But I can’t primarily change things around because we might be in the middle of something. If I’m working on a release, to change things like the OS or the toolset could bring about big delays or other troubles. The rule is to settle on the toolset and environment, make the release, then you can upgrade stuff. And so finally I can upgrade, tho I have been using Snow Leopard in various capacities for some time.

I am enjoying the little refinements in the OS. I’m glad Apple took the approach they did with this OS and working on refining what they already have instead of having to cram a gazillion new features in. Make what you have really good.

One thing I got the most kick out of was seeing a lot of disk space reappear. My MacBook Pro was down to only a couple GB free and I was starting to look at buying a bigger replacement hard drive. After installing Snow Leopard, I regained almost 20 GB of disk space. Of course, I know exactly why this change came about, but that doesn’t make it any less wonderful. 🙂

Now you see me

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

I’ve never been one to hide my identity. I’m John C. Daub, millionaire; I own a mansion and a yacht.

I admit in my early online days I was a bit more reluctant about sharing my identity because hey… there are crazies out there. But while I may not have been as forthright with my identity, I didn’t lie or hide or refuse. If someone wanted to know who was behind the moniker, it wasn’t hard to find out either by searching or just asking me.

The advantage of “Hsoi”? Well, plug it into Google and apart from some acronyms and foreign words, Hsoi equals me. It’s nice to have a globally unique identifier, because there are other John Daub’s out there.. There are disadvantages to being unique, a discussion for another time.

The one thing I have still been reluctant to do is post my picture online. Oh sure, there are some pictures of me online, but usually my face wasn’t directly visible. I’ve had some bad experiences in the past with posting pictures online, mostly because there are assholes in this world and I have better ways to spend my time and energy.

Nevertheless, a friend of mine who is really into social media made a good point. Your avatar is who you are online. It makes a big impact and impression. I recall meeting lots of people in real life that didn’t ring a bell until I was able to put their email address with their name and face. That was kinda weird to know them more by their email address than anything else, but yes it’s a unique identifier. I’d rather know people by their faces. Call me old school that way, but it’s far more personal to be able to associate a name/blog/email address/twitter account/username/etc. with a face.

So, I finally hooked into Gravatar and put my face back online. We’ll see how it goes.

Questions from the search stats

/ hsoi

It’s always interesting to see what the search stats turn up.

Ruger SR-22

This has been an amazingly popular search term. I haven’t seen anything like it in my blog stats before. People are really curious about this firearm. It’s interesting for sure, and to me the real interesting factor is the possible side-effects of producing such a firearm. I still have no compelling reason to buy one tho.

Hornady Critical Defense

This is another very popular term. My initial posting is here, but if you search my blog for it you’ll find other postings on it as well. The ammo is certainly interesting and I applaud Hornady for continuing to find ways to serve the civilian self-defense market. I also applaud their efforts to focus on “small calibers” popular for concealed carry and trying to find ways to improve upon the terminal effectiveness of cartridges in those calibers. That all said, I’m not yet sold on this ammo being something for me to trust my life on. It’s too new to the market and there just hasn’t been enough testing beyond some simple ballistics gel and newspaper wetpack testing. I’d like to see more data. Meantime, I’ll stick with Gold Dots for my 9mm and the LSWCHP’s for my .38 snub.

is a 9mm gun good self defense

Nope. It’s a good tool that can help you physically defend yourself, but really the best self-defense is using your gray matter. Get training, get skills, gain awareness, and conduct your daily life in a manner that works to keep you safe. That’s really better for self-defense. But if it comes to that point, I feel my 9mm handgun is a useful tool to have.

how to expand compress in snow leopard

StuffIt

(but I’m biased)

can you shoot a 45 bullet with a 9mm

Sure, if you’ve got really good aim and a steady hand… amazing what those sharpshooters and trick shooters can do. 🙂

But if you mean can you chamber a .45 ACP cartridge in a gun chambered for 9mm Luger? Nope. A .45 bullet has a larger diameter, just won’t work.

kimber with dawson precision sights

Envy. A 1911 is in my future… someday.

what does chl exam looks like

If you are curious about the Texas Concealed Handgun License course of fire, here it is.

“fear of girls”

Funny stuff.

9mm +p+ in any pistol

No. Only in pistols specifically rated as being able to handle +P+ (means that the round has about 15% greater pressure than a standard round). Using +P+ in a gun not rated as being able to handle it could have catastrophic results. If you’re not 100% sure the gun can handle it, don’t do it. If you’re not 100% sure, contact the manufacturer and ask (or check their website, they may have manuals online).

martial arts canes

Damned if I can find sources other than Cane Masters and Goju-Shorei for good fighting canes. I myself am looking for others. Not that I have a problem with what these guys are doing (I hear only good things about the quality of the CM canes) but I just want to see more selection.

If you know of any other cane makers, especially small guys that do good hand-crafting, please let me know.

selecting a gun for kids

Depends what you want to do with them (and I’ll avoid the obvious jokes and snark on this one), plus it depends upon the kid. But IMHO the best way to start out is with a .22. This is because for most kids, the power of recoil may be more than they can handle. Plus larger calibers are going to be louder, which can affect a lot of kids in negative ways. Ease them into things. Make it fun, make it easy (e.g. put the target at 5 yards not 50). If they can do something like shoot at some cans or gallon water jugs… i.e. make the target do something, that helps to make it fun.

But even tho they’re kids, don’t overlook getting them good training and ingraining proper safety habits. Safety is paramount.

AppleScript is not dead (yet)

/ hsoi / 5 Comments

Jason Snell @ Macworld has an article reacting to Jonathan “Wolf” Rentzsch‘s declaration that AppleScript is dead.

Hrm… get this. That previous link to AppleScript takes you to the developer web pages for AppleScript. I originally wanted to link to Apple’s user/commercial page for AppleScript: www.apple.com/applescript. But if you click on that, notice what it takes you to: Automator. That tells you what Apple thinks about AppleScript as a technology.

It’s scripting for the rest of us.

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