Guide to pants off living
August 2006
Anti-terrorism is the new terrorism
Friday, 25 August 2006
Refuse to be terrorised is Bruce Schneier's clear and calm voice - we all should be listening.
Every twitch, every jump and every squeal gives us away; at a time in the world where the 'traditional' west is more emotional than ever. We really need to focus on good sense, strength and intelligence if we are to show resilience during these times.
Posted by travo at 8:55:08 AM
Only the lonely...
Wednesday, 16 August 2006
Nicholas Carr raises an interesting point. What is the point! Why am I writing? Who do I write for? What are my aspirations? Who is my audience?
Firstly, I'm not all that bitter, that I'm not a minor celebrity in the Melbourne blogging community. Christ, I just don't do it all that often. I do realise though that my audience is small - probably mostly made up of a few friends who frequent occasionally and some family members who hope I don't swear too much.
If there is any angst about readership, it's simply that the random blitherings I have here won't affect my employment. Really! "Fuck, if I say that will I get the sack?" or "If I don't post something about [insert random technology here], I won't be able to get that next job, cause they'll read my blog and see that I'm a fucking moron." or "Fuck, since I've posted about [random technology x] they can actually see that I don't know jack about it..."
That kind of stuff.
Yeah, it kills me that comment spam outnumbers genuie comments 100 to 1. Yeah, I don't really do all that much that I find compelling to write about. Yeah, I'm probably addicted to brain crack. But fuck it - this is my place and I'll do what I like.
Posted by travo at 1:29:58 PM | Comments (2)
How do you deal with this?
Wednesday, 16 August 2006
One of the most difficult things for me to deal with is young managers, usually inexperienced in having to deal with issues relating to computers or technology.
The thing that makes me the most frustrated and uncomfortable is the phrase that starts with, "Well, I thought because you work on computers, you might now why...".
Or, you just know the shit is going to hit the fan when a rebuttal comes with, "Well, I had assumed that because you were so smart, since you work on computers, you would have forseen [ this crappy outcome ]...".
Look, if this just happens to me (maybe because I'm a young developer) then I'll accept that there is something I'm doing wrong in the lead up to those kinds of interactions. But please, surely it's not just me.
The most unfortunate thing about this is that more often than not - it's women. Suggesting this is obviously problematic, but this mostly occurs with young female managers who have a responsibility to deliver an outcome or manage a process which might be related to technology in some way. Recently there was also a young male who was in a similar situation and the way he tried to negotiate a positive outcome was very similar; flattery, disbelief and then emotional dispair.
For me that's the key behind this, emotional or personal cues and language used for business related communication.
To put it mildly, I'm more 'emotionally aware' than most and as a result I'm pretty sensitive to this kind of communication - it frustrates me no end. I want the people I work with to like me but when communicating with them in this way, it's too personal - negative responses and outcomes are sometimes loaded with a whole 'nother level of expectation.
Obviously there are many smart ways to deal with this but for the most it's exposure, experience and personal awareness which makes this easier; it has for me, but it's still incredibly frustrating.
Posted by travo at 11:10:18 AM
Personal video : too small to see and expensive
Monday, 14 August 2006
Seems that current research has shown that video for small devices such as phones and pda's doesn't have any traction among the kids.
You can't pull one over the kids - bless 'em. They know what's good and what's crap.
They're not gonna wait. If they do have to wait - it better be good. It also better have been worth it.
Posted by travo at 1:26:01 PM
ASP.NET Done and dusted.
Tuesday, 08 August 2006
At the risk of being really smug - ASP.NET is now my bitch. While I'm certain that this will bite me on the arse in time, I'm very comfortable knowing that I can capture some stuff, validate some stuff, shove some stuff in a database, get some stuff from a data source and shove some stuff on a screen.
For the most part, this has taken me ages and I've probably been unfairly harsh on myself for not learning the language sooner. I'm confident though because the principles I've employed I've known for a lot longer; and they have proven much more valuable.
C# and ASP.NET can now happily reside on my CV.
Posted by travo at 3:43:44 PM
YouTube - sharing the load or bearing the costs?
Tuesday, 08 August 2006
For mine, this article about a fireman in a tumble dryer is not significant because of it's content. It's because it's the first artcile I've seen posted online at The Age website which has directly embedded YouTube content.
What I see is The Age forefeiting the need to employ their own streaming content server and all associated costs. If The Age can easily upload their content toYouTube for distribution they lower their direct cost of bandwidth.
I hope YouTube are hip with this - perhaps they should consider some kind of 'redistribution charge' for media agencies who upload content or embed content on their sites.
Unfortunately designing a charging model is an economic minefield and YouTube enjoys much of it's success as a result of the millions of amateur web designers and publishers shoving their clips online and either embedding them in their own website or linking to them directly.
Posted by travo at 1:35:12 PM
GeoTagging - you're it!
Tuesday, 08 August 2006
Obviously not a new idea, but Sony has a product which makes geo-tagging your photography a whole lot easier. How cool!
Clearly there are heaps of applications for this kind of meta-data, and devices like this will hopefully continue to get smaller and make recording our experiences ubiquitous.
Posted by travo at 11:49:02 AM
Wow - what a posse'
Monday, 07 August 2006
I'd love to be on this list one day. That is just an amazing roll-call of people who, while being incredibly talented, are equally good blokes. And good luck to Steve as he heads back out to tame the wilderness...
Posted by travo at 9:36:42 AM
ASP.NET httpHandlers - nice.
Friday, 04 August 2006
I have to admit, I do like the way you can add to your config some wildcard properties to your servlet - sorry handler - path.
For example add verb="*" path="*_app.aspx" allows me to prefix any files which are linked to my application with an appropriate name. message_app.aspx will be resolved as an application within my intranet and be pointed to my intranet handler. Within my intranet handler I can then determine which command I need to use to execute the right actions for that application.
I like this a little better than the method I've been using for the Java Servlets, in that the prefix to the "action" header, such as action=message_view_item tells me that the keyword "message" is what will inform my Servlet about which command it is mean to execute.
Posted by travo at 1:20:22 PM
ASP.NET Request and Response
Friday, 04 August 2006
There are obviously going to be some differences in the way ASP.NET handles the way you pass around objects as opposed to Java. One of the things I like about the servlet model is the way you call your useBeans from the presentation layer. The useBeans are attached to the Response object - this is obviously very nifty and a handy way to do things.
There doesn't appear to be a way for me to add things to the Response object in the same way using ASP.NET. The HttpContext.Session object allows you to add things. I'm just not sure how 'smart' this is... I mean, obviously you can do it whether or not it's 'smart' to solve the problem in this way... I don't know.
I also like that by adding things to the Response object in Java you know that they are designed to persist for the lifetime of that the response. In ASP.NET, if I'm shoving things in the Session object, they're gonna need a little bit of management since they'll persist for the entire lifetime of the session. That could be problematic... hence the concern about this not being a smart idea.
Posted by travo at 11:12:32 AM