Posted by choonkeat Mon, 03 Apr 2006 05:52:00 GMT
Blogger Wuming_Gong reports that RssFwd is inaccessible from within the Great Firewall of China. Its the equivalence of finding your proprietary software cracked on Astalavista - a good problem indicating your software has arrived.
Posted by choonkeat Thu, 23 Mar 2006 11:50:00 GMT
Web Developer's Quiz: Your website needs to somehow know what are the other websites a user had already visited. How do you do it? How do you get the information from a browser history?
Kevin Burton pulled it off with a neat trick. When the new features of his Tailrank were released. I must've been sleeping or busy, anyways, didn't check out the improvements in Tailrank till now.
Under "import", a user usually uploads his OPML file (which I'd previously talked about), input some URLs, etc. In his attempt to make Tailrank's import applicable to more layman users, Kevin has a new "Auto Configure" button. Click on it, and a list of popular sites (that you have visited) are found and is ready for import. Damn, how did it know!
I did some view-source hunting and found document.defaultView.getComputedStyle and element.currentStyle. Explain: Given that your browser will style visited links differently from link not yet visited, Kevin merely printed a bunch of hidden links and used a javascript to pick out those you have visited! Woot! I can sure find some use for that... hmm.. can't think of any now, but I'm sure there're uses!
That said, I would've preferred if Tailrank actually gave me the option to uncheck some of them from my list (especially since removal of feeds isn't implemented yet)
Posted by choonkeat Tue, 21 Mar 2006 02:35:00 GMT
I'm still not going to respond to the complete (longish) article.Ruby is going down a path of creating their own Virtual Machine. It seems to me, that they should simply put Ruby on the Java VM and not waste efforts in reinventing the wheelVM. Sure. Whatever good stuff that comes. What's for keeps is the Ruby language. Avi Bryant had even contemplated [mp3] that its highly possible having Smalltalk VM (more mature) running Ruby code. Heck, why not?
Ruby needs to address multilingualization quicklyi18n. Definitely. Don't be so sure it ain't coming or nearing. Anyways my 2 cents is, I haven't seen any i18n done right (read: development phase). Runtime support for i18n is mature, and that's the easy part.
Ruby seems to be missing something that is otherwise fundamental in other languages which is support for Regular ExpressionsHoly cow! Missing regular expressions in Ruby? That's funny. Firstly, its a common complain that Ruby inherited lots of stuff (good and bad) from Perl, guess what's included? My other 2 cents says that Java happens to have the worst regex support. Of cos, I'm talking about syntax.
I also couldn't find the equivalent of instance variables. Wouldn't that make reuse at an enterprise-level somewhat problematic?
Shouldn't the notion of methods being public, private and protected also be a part of every modern language?Missing instance variable? Notion of public, private and protected methods? Boy, this guy needs to sit down with Bruce Eckel (Nothing against Bruce, just thought its a funny de ja vu) Or more accurately, sit down with Ryan Davis.
Posted by choonkeat Mon, 20 Mar 2006 05:19:00 GMT
I'll leave the point-by-point rebuttal to other people... but do have an issue with James McGovern's claim over #9.
The [agile] community needs to get their priorities straight. People, then process then tools in that order.
Now that's quite the priority that you'd want to be seen as believing in, ain't it? He's championing for Enterprise Architecture, so I must guess he means to say that's the priority enterprises practise.
Interesting.
From the planet that I live in, outsourcing trends is on the rise and expensive software are sold to (and bought by) enterprises. Enterprise software projects are usually built with a few good men as leads, and a farm of programmers. Why outsource your first priority? If something is of last priority, why buy the most expensive? Hence, say it like it is, the following priority may reflect what's out there: Tools and Process, then People.
And maybe, if one day... "people" does get prioritized higher... they'd be allowed to pick their own tools.
Posted by choonkeat Sun, 19 Mar 2006 05:20:00 GMT
Its funny how things are business-as-usual, then suddenly I'm 17GB over my 50GB monthly quota and its just half a month! Wierd. So I've migrated to an unmetered hosting plan.
If anything breaks on RssFwd, lemme know - my email is choonkeat at gmail.
For those interested in the source codes, coincidentally, RssFwd source code has migrated to use Rubyforge's "new" SVN hosting yesterday as well. No Trac yet though.
Posted by choonkeat Thu, 16 Mar 2006 15:21:00 GMT
Here is the notes and patch (urgh!) to the Ruby on Rails Bootcamp I'd presented on Tuesday. But generally, it was more about flowing with the code, so the notes themselves may not make sense as stand-alone.
A better arrangement should've been 2 sessions - easier on the brain, especially from the culture shock for most Java developers - of 2.5 hours each. That should be enough to cover topics plus have enough hands-on.
Posted by choonkeat Sun, 12 Mar 2006 16:44:00 GMT
Looks like it'll most probably happen. Coming to a university near you ;-)
If I don't trip over my presentations & demos, there could be some real fun happening...
Update: see next entry.
Posted by choonkeat Fri, 10 Mar 2006 03:25:00 GMT
Great. Now I feel more safe putting my docs in Writely, knowing that they won't be going away anytime soon.
I'm hoping they don't get too stuck on the whole social / collaboration / web2.0 thingy... Just give me 1 URL to create a new "Untitled" document. I can bookmark that URL and hence, with 1-click I can create a new 'Word' document.
Briefly tried to do it just now, but there's too much javascript hoops to jump as a 3rd party to implement the simple feature.
I don't know about you, but I always have my browser running. So this will be a big deal. And maybe one day, I really won't need to use notepad.exe for scribbling anymore... 1-click.
(assuming I can sign on persistently, gmail style)
So,... Yahoo's gonna buy JotLive?
Posted by choonkeat Wed, 08 Mar 2006 02:27:00 GMT
Well, this announcement just screwed up my morning’s todo-list… Microsoft is proposing a standard copy-paste mechanism for the web, dubbing it Live Clipboard.
Show-dont-tell,
And in case any of you missed it… though the technique works in IE.. Microsoft used Firefox to demo the video.. sea change!
Note: Web apps putting content into the clipboard isn't earth shatteringly new.. Tryanslator does in its bookmarklets, Del.icio.us too. This is more about a call to action, proposing a standard to work with.
Update: This clip will be more important to getting podcast (pod catching). Unfortunately the subscription schema isn't OPML. Oh well.
(whispers: drag and drop! drag and drop! drag and drop!... )
Posted by choonkeat Sun, 05 Mar 2006 07:32:00 GMT
Found sometime to upgrade the blog-ware, now running Typo (edge) on Rails (edge). One of the main reason is that the newer Typo version has prettier templates, of which I'm using iamrice theme (modified width). At last I am no longer using everyone's default theme.
Do let me know if anything on this site breaks :-P
Also, RssFwd has been running with some new, previously-unannounced features:
108 days to RailsConf...
Posted by choonkeat Wed, 01 Mar 2006 05:50:00 GMT
Right now, all the elevators that I know, including the smart lift at the MOE, only indicates whether the lift is going up, down and which floor it is at currently (unfortunately, all are optional... as some lifts has the philosophy of it'll come when it comes!). None has ever indicated its destination, e.g. its at 4th floor, going to the 17th.
There has been various efforts in making lifts faster, including behavioural tricks like installing mirrors as distraction... but why hasn't there been a lift that tells me where its going? How is that helpful? As helpful as a progress bar when you're downloading 5%... 65%... 95%...
I've tried this question with a few people I know, and the common replies are:
Ha? Who will need it? If I know its going to the top floor, most (all) people will still wait for it! How many would actually take the stairs?
Totally missing the point. Its not about what actions is expected to be taken, its about giving people a chance to even make a decision. The next time you look at the count down timer at the pedestrian crossing, ask yourself if its truely useless, why didn't you just look at the flashing green man?
Imagine years ago, with no cellphone, no pager, you're waiting for a friend who is apparently late. You know he's on-the-way, but how long more? If you know he'll reach in 5 minutes, 30 minutes, an hour later - what you decide to do during that period is totally up to you - I'm not sure about you, but I would definitely appreciate that piece of information.
For security reasons? You don't want to risk revealing which floor you stay
This only gives you a false (and lame) sense of security.
Btw, the MOE lift is the one where you indicate your destination floor outside the lift, at the waiting area, and the indicator will tell you which lift number you should wait at... supposed clustering effect optimise resource usage. And btw, the stupidest lift I've experienced is at International Plaza. Try going down from the offices during the evening rush hour - due to its "a.i.", you'll be like a lab rat chasing lights from door to door!
Rant over. But if anyone has clues, please fill me in on this.
Posted by choonkeat Wed, 22 Feb 2006 02:41:00 GMT
Ok ok... maybe there are others with the same needs as well. Here are my unofficial, hand-rolled feeds: Channelnewsasia RSS, HDB RSS.
The links goes back to the respective sites for full content. I find it more useful when used together with Gmail Web Clips, rather than with RssFwd or Firefox Livebookmarks..
Settings > Web Clips > Search by topic or URL
Enter "feeds.feedburner.com/MyChannelNewsAsia-Headlines"
Click "Add"
Hmm.. I think I need one for Esplanade as well.
Update: Unofficial feed for Esplanade
Posted by choonkeat Tue, 21 Feb 2006 05:34:00 GMT
Tailrank is a memetracker, like memeorandum, and it groups related items together in a thread, like Google News. And naturally, threads with more buzz ranks on top.
If it had just stopped there, it would've just been yet-another. However, Kevin had the smarts to introduce personalisation. What does meme + personalisation give me?
Though I like the implicitness of importing OPML to "set" my preferences, the fact that an OPML file has to be used might probably leave out a larger population - if RSS adoption is 4%... OPML is probably...
I wonder if there're more straightforward sources could be used to infer... and hence making the service more inclusive? My del.ici.ous bookmarks? My flickr photos? My homepage? My browser bookmarks? My browser history (oh.. too private)?
"we have... more conveniences, but less time" - paradox of our age.
Posted by choonkeat Fri, 17 Feb 2006 13:31:00 GMT
Wow. Krugle looks like something that'll be super useful to me, considering I've been swimming in the sea of Eclipse plugin development today... very unproductive. Nice demo... enlightened me of what the vertical search market is about.
Wonder if it can do searches like,
get:org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Shell
using:org.eclipse.ui.IActionDelegate
I tell ya, if something can help me chain up the list of "potential methods" from 1 class (that I have) to another class (that I'm trying to get at)... that'll really flatten out the learning curve of any new platform/library/watever...
Posted by choonkeat Tue, 14 Feb 2006 17:11:00 GMT
TechCrunch has taken to discuss syndication of RSS content with e-mail, in response to Fred Wilson's RSS vs Email series. And I'm very grateful for the good words on RssFwd.com in the comments. Thanks folks!!
Michael goes on to write his wishlist for an ideal feed to email service, one of it is "I am in control of the email list; no spamming by the service provider". Hmm, I have a different take, but that's another story.
As for templates,... actually, instead of paying for customisation, how about feeds returning "templated and email-ready" content when the user-agent is a known email-aggregator? Just a thought.
Update: Customized footers are now available. Just let me know if you need customisations.
