Happy Anniversary

Programs.

Looking through my logs this month, I've noticed a few things.

Releasing the exe versions of my ruby programs has caused more people to download them (which isn't really surprising since a lot of people don't have Ruby).

Zipper seems to be the most popular of those with Prepend in second place. I've found them all to be handy programs because I deal with a lot of files with different naming conventions (otherwise I wouldn't have made them), so I think it's interesting to see what other people think is the most useful.

People are grabbing the new FunLibs version a decent amount (which I also expected).

They're also grabbing copies of the FunLibs *source* (which is just plain weird, in my opinion, because it's so mind numbingly simple. It's just forms, data passing, and string manipulation really. I didn't dynamically create the forms or anything because I really wasn't in the mood, so every story has it's own word gathering form for the sake of playing with forms)

It also seems weird to me that more people download the toys rather than the tools. Maybe they'll send me some of the stories they get. I like to see those on occasion. =]


On an unrelated note, I probably won't be available tomorrow. If you call or email, expect a response on Thursday.

Current mood: contemplative
Current music: Sneaker Pimps - Curl

This Is Why I Hate Software Cults.

I’ve said it before, and I’m saying it again. Software and licenses for same are not a religion and SHOULD NOT BE.

Today, when news that Sun has Dual-Licensed Netbeans 6 in their own OSI-approved CDDL license and GLPv2 (not 3) hit Slashdot, there were a few people who slammed them for not being really “committed to Free Software.”

I wanted to strangle people. I know it sounds stupid, but after so long of dealing with people slamming you and people you actually know because you don’t open source *everything* that you write, you’d understand.

First off, no kidding Sun isn’t committed to “Free” software (“Free” software is a subset of Open Source software and it galls Stallman that Open Source has more support than "Free" does because the rest of the world isn't into the moral crusade). They don’t buy into the moral crusade. The fact that both of the licenses are OSI approved, but one of them is not “Free” should tell you that.

Secondly, how dare a company or a person decide to use a license only when it makes sense to do so? The shock and horror. (Pardon me while I roll my eyes).

Not all people who use or advocate Open Source are zealots. I’m not.

Some of us actually realize that tools are meant to be tools and not religions. Sometimes you use a screwdriver, sometimes a hacksaw, sometimes a hammer…

The zealots, on the other hand, view everything as a nail. The great irony is that most of the zealots that I’ve met don’t release *anything* into the community. Heck, probably 90% of them I’ve met don’t even *code*. The other 10% is generally idealistic high school and college students who haven’t been into the world yet.

Most of them just want to bash Microsoft because they can’t get a copy of Visual Studio for free. (Ironically, I only paid about $11 for mine. Legally, from Microsoft. You have to love promotions)

The heck of it is that I’ve known a lot of developers that have stopped releasing *anything* as open source because they were tired of the backlash because, no matter what they did, no matter what they released, they were still evil because they didn’t release *everything* as open.

As a result, the zealots now get nothing from those people and neither does anyone else. How’s that for helping the cause you claim to espouse?

The zealots are a bunch of ingrates, and I would love to add a clause to my license to prevent them from using my software, but that would be childish. Instead, I just grit my teeth and release things under whatever license I bloody well want.

Some of it’s open. Some of it isn’t.

Use it or don’t. That’s your choice. What I do with it is mine unless someone else owns the rights to it after it’s made.

Current mood: annoyed
Current music: Matthew Sweet – Silent City

Apparently I’m Blind.

I got a response the other day from the creator of rubyscript2exe about why my sorter program wouldn’t produce a useable exe file (for which he has my thanks. It’s always nice to get a helpful response).

It seems as though I missed that section in his documentation and had to add a few lines of code to my app. Strangely, the other ones didn’t need it. Go figure.

The upside is that I am now slightly less confused (by one thing, at least) and sorter now has a working exe posted in addition to the source code.

Current mood: tired
Current music: Fall Out Boy – Bang the Doldrums

Ever had one of those nights where it seems like, no matter what you do, you just can't seem to decompress? The ones where there just seems like there's something you're forgetting, but you have no idea what it is?

Yeah, this is one of those. We're not talking shove your fists in your mouth depression, beat your neighbors to death with Lego blocks manic behavior, or stuff rabid badgers down your co-workers trousers style psychosis (now isn't *that* a fun mental image?). I just feel restless for some reason, and I really dislike that feeling. *shrugs*

Current mood: blah
Current music: Veruca Salt - Sound of the Bell

Fun new stuff

Over the last couple of days, I’ve posted several new programs on my site and updated a couple of existing ones.

Since I’ve been working with C# now instead of Java, I decided to redo my old FunLibs program and add a few new stories to it while I was at it.

In my personal opinion, it looks a heck of a lot better than the java version, and I added the capability to save the story to a text file (not a huge deal since you could just copy and paste the story into a file, but I thought it was a nice touch).

In addition, I added error checking to Sorter and Zipper. I don’t know about you, but I thought it was kind of important that my programs die gracefully if they encounter an error while mucking about with files (especially if I’m not the only one using it).

The new programs that I’ve posted are things I’ve been using myself for about 6 months or so now. I just took a little time to polish them a bit more and decided that I might as well share them since someone else might get some use out of them as well.

Prepend adds a string to the beginning of all of the filenames in the directory that it’s called in.

Renamer replaces one string in all of the filenames in the directory that it’s called in with another string.

Spacer replaces all of the underscores in the filenames with spaces.

Underscore is the opposite of Spacer, replacing all spaces in filenames with underscores.

They’re written in the Unix tradition of simple programs that do one thing and do it well. They get used quite a bit by me, so I thought that there might be others who would appreciate them as well.

Prepend, Renamer, Spacer, Underscore, and Zipper all have both .rb versions and windows exe versions thanks to a handy little program called rubyscript2exe. Unfortunately, for some reason, it won’t work properly with Sorter, so it only has a .rb version available at the moment.

Feel free to use them. They're all on the Programs section of my website, and are all distributed under the GPL (version 2 only).

As always, if you have any suggestions, questions, comments, bug reports, or just want to drop me a line to say “hi”, my email address is on the website.

Current mood: tired
Current music: Metallica – Unforgiven II

Happy Birthday

Where Do They Find These People??

I realize that I post on here about the local area far too often. However, sometimes something happens that you just have to share.

In a letter to the editor, someone asks when will the levies ever stop because they say they pay $300 more a year in taxes than when they first moved here (no word on how long they’ve been here, which is rather important).

Of course, we get the people going “no no no no no more levies!!!” and a few reasonable people saying that the public infrastructure (schools, libraries, fire, etc) needs to be funded and that’s done through taxes, because apparently some of these people think that there’s a magical money tree somewhere that the government gets operating funds from.

And then you have the guy who wrote that I’m going to paste here in just a minute. I wish I could say that he’s some weird lampoon, but there's a really good chance that the boy's for real because there are a lot of other people just like this who comment on the paper...

Finally, let me say that this is a direct cut and paste. I didn’t clean up anything, and I certainly didn’t make it worse than it was written.

“NONONONONONNOONONONNO!!!!!!!
These taxis are way to much! Seniors can hace a center but make it with a factory where the users make carvings and quilts that support it. They can wokr there till the center supports istelf.
As for fire and rescue, why don't they just charge people that use it? Don't want to pay? Don't set yourself on fire! Duh!
And the library. What do I want with a library? I already have several books and my kids dont red them anyway. Only in school cause court makes them go. People that want library are intellectil snobs.
Keep ballets free!!!”

And, in a later comment from him:

“DONT MAKE HONEST WOKERS PAY FOR FANCY LIBRARY!!!!
I dont want anbd dont pay for grocery store at library. Whos fancy idea is that anyways. Im tired of being taxed out the ears for that snob place”

My head hurts. The library is a place for intellectual (actually “intellectil”) snobs? What ever happened to bettering yourself?

Oh, I forgot. We don’t do that kind of thing here. That might mean that you were acting better than you were.

*slams head against desk, deepening the forehead shaped indentation just a little bit more*

Current mood: Sad
Current music: AFI – The Missing Frame

Merchandising!

Today, while wondering through a store, I saw something that made me do a double take. You could say that it was a case of merchandising gone much too far.

“What?” you ask?

Jeff Foxworthy Teriyaki Style Beef Jerky.

I kid you not.

I think he must have a new addition to his list –

You might be a redneck if…. You eat Jeff Foxworthy Teriyaki Style Beef Jerky.

Current mood: amused
Current music: Cyndi Lauper – The Goonies R Good Enough (hey, one bout of cheese deserves another)

Groktober Fest

It has been my experience that a lot of people need to expand their horizons more often, and many of them don’t really understand what they claim to know.

To that end, I propose a new holiday that I think most geeks and technical people would agree is kind of overdue. I present to you Groktober Fest.

The point of Groktober Fest is simple. Learn something in more than just a cursory manner. It doesn’t matter horribly much what it is, though I give you kudos if it’s useful to you or those around you.

It could be something entirely new or it could be something you already have a little understanding of, but pick something (or more than one thing) and learn it well.

If you want, post here what it is you are going to try to grok. I’d love to hear it.

After all, we should all try to better ourselves on occasion.

Current mood: contemplative
Current music: Rise Against – Give it All

W…T…F…..???

Reading a friend’s blog, I discovered that apparently, if an agreement hadn’t been reached by October 1^st, the state of Michigan was basically just going to shut down.

Much like the pool, the state would be closed. Everyone pack up your beach towels and go home.

Being a bit doubtful, I decided to do some checking. She wasn’t kidding. That’s straight from Michigan.gov.

My head hurts. I mean, really, how do you just close a state? I can understand that schools might get disrupted if teachers go on strike or some other group decides to walk, but an almost complete shutdown of an entire *state*?

Think that I’m exaggerating? Read the article I linked in this post. The plan was to cut everything down to a barely functional skeleton crew of absolutely essential services (basically just state police, prisons, courts, and mental health – all at drastically reduced manpower capable of only dealing with “emergencies”).

Current mood: o.O
Current music: Rob D – Furious Angels

I just realized something freaky while I was doing my (usually) nightly workout. (hey, when you spend most of the day behind a keyboard, it's actually needed)

If you factor in the weight and number of reps I do, I'm generally lifting around 2,000 lbs a night.

It's no wonder I'm built like a wall...

Current mood: tired
Current Music: AFI - Love Like Winter

Fraud and Loathing in Ohio

Part of this week has been an adventure. Somehow, someone got my debit card number and promptly started to drain my account. My guess is that some company I’ve ordered from has gotten hacked.

Thankfully my bank is very good about this sort of thing and I had the money back in my account the next day, and the resulting overdraft fees dropped the day after that.

As a result, I am now over my heart attack (figurative, not literal). All I can say is that it’s not a happy thing to look at your account balance and see $20 there when there should have been significantly more than that, and I’m glad it’s all cleared up now.

However, the day that it took to clear everything up was special (not in the happy way), and it really took most of the whole day between calling my bank and the merchants who authorized the transactions, filling out the fraud paperwork, getting it notarized, fax it to my bank, etc.

On the upside, I found out that one of the local banks only charges $1 to notarize things for non-members, so that’s good to know for future reference.

To close, I would like to say the following things:

I love my bank. They are absolutely wonderful to work with and get things resolved insanely quickly.

Yahoo Voice was actually good about the whole thing and refunded the charge of their own volition without having to have papers filed.

Sony Online Entertainment, however, was absolutely horrible to work with. First off, their support line is long distance. You’d think that, with a company that size, they would have an 800 number. Then I had to spend almost half an hour trying to convince the rather inflexible person on the other end of the line that I did not, in fact, authorize the purchases, that I didn’t let anyone in the house do so, and that I don’t even *play* MMORPGs. She was actually trying to get me to say that I had done it myself after I told her that most certainly was not the case. Repeatedly.

Just how many times can you say “I am the sole cardholder and I didn’t authorize the bloody charge” anyway? After that, I was told that the only thing I could do is file fraud papers. This was after they determined it really *was* fraudulent because, looking at the account in question, the same person had used a number of different cards to pay for his purchases.

If that was all they were going to do, they could have told me that up front and saved me half an hour off of my plan.

Current mood: tired
Current music: Cowboy Bebop – Call Me Call Me

Randomness

As a lot of people who know me in person can tell you, I’m a music junky. My CD collection is somewhere on the order of 400 discs plus the vinyl and cassettes that I have sitting in storage. I’ve turned a lot of people on to a lot of different kinds of music over the years and I’ve even DJ’ed on occasion.

It’s occasionally been half-joked that I should start a club if I ever have the means to do so. Personally, I think that could be an interesting trip.

My latest musical meandering has led me to Fall Out Boy’s Infinity On High album. I have to say that I really like most of it. There are a couple of tracks that I don’t care too much for, but on the whole, it’s a solid CD.

After listening to it for a while again today, I finally realized part of the reason that I enjoy it so much. A few of their songs remind me of a band on campus when I was an undergrad – Red Wanting Blue; especially their live shows. It’s just the general vibe, and I have to say that I enjoy it.

Current mood: I’m here
Current music: Fall Out Boy - Thriller

Sometimes... Laughter Hurts

You know, when you think of Robin Williams, you generally think of kids movies. Granted, he’s done some other, darker, movies, but mostly you think of things like Mrs. Doubtfire or Aladdin.

Today, I got his Broadway CD.

Let’s say it’s a bit of a departure from kid-friendly stuff. The man pulls no punches and doesn’t bother with censoring language.

It’s absolutely hilarious. I’ve literally spent half the time I listened to it doubled over from laughter (and I have to say that I really needed it today).

There is no way I could drive and listen to this at the same time.

If you love smart assed political and social commentary, this is right up your alley. However, if profanity offends you or you have little kids around, I’d advise you skip it.

Current mood: better
Current music: Robin Williams

YARG!!!!!

I appologize to anyone who tries to email me this weekend, and anyone who gets spam from my domain. I've been getting hammered today by "bounced" emails that have addresses that don't exist on my domain. We're talking over 1000 in the last half hour, and it shows no signs of slowing.

Apparently, some spambot thought my domain sounded like a great one to use.

*sighs*

Current mood: p****d off
Current music: Our Lady Peace - Tomorrow Never Knows

(EDIT: Well, that was fun. 24 hours and more than 2 thousand "bounced" messages later it seems that things have calmed down again. I really hate when that happens. Now, I wonder how many spam blacklists that's landed me on...)

Background Checks

Sometimes I wonder just how in-depth the background checks that some companies do on potential employees really are. I mean, it’s fairly a given anymore that they’ll look for a criminal record, check your credit history (which, in my opinion is rather stupid. I understand why they do it, even if they don’t understand it themselves, and I don’t agree with it), and the like.

However, you frequently hear these horror stories of companies going google happy and trying to find any little piece of negative information on potential candidates that they can. The thing that they don’t seem to realize is that, if you look hard enough, you’ll find *something* to dislike about a person’s past online (whether it’s true or not is a completely different matter).

I’ve always kind of wondered just when I was going to be confronted with something from my past in an interview that I really don’t want to discuss. I even have a feeling that I know what the something would be, and I know with a fair amount of certainty how I would react to it - the interview would be over right there.

(The people who know me pretty well could make a good guess at what it is, and know that it’s a touchy subject)

To be perfectly honest, I really am a fairly private person. There are a lot of things in my past that I don’t talk about with most people – partially because I don’t often want to think about them (or deal with the dreams even though I have to sometimes anyway) and partly because it’s none of their bloody business. My personal life is just that – mine and personal.

That’s not to say that I’m closed off or frigid. It’s just that there are a lot of things in my life that aren’t up for public scrutiny. This is largely because I don’t feel like purposely ripping open old wounds. I do that enough inadvertently as it is.

Now, before you start wondering what skeletons are in my closet, don’t bother. There are no convictions, trials, etc in my past (other than a couple of traffic tickets because I was going to be late for tests and those were just “pay the fine, and have a nice day” affairs) nor do I do drugs (other than caffeine or the occasional over the counter pain killer), have carnal relations with farm animals, or anything else of that sort.

Granted, some people might think the martial training and sword collection are causes for alarm, but that’s their problem.

A lot of the private things in my life are a result of actually having lived and having been involved with a lot of other people who have also lived their lives. Some of the memories are nice, and some aren’t, but they’re mine, and I kind of chafe at the thought of someone with whom I am only supposed to have a business relationship digging into my personal past (which has nothing to do with the work that I do).

I’ve even done a fair job of keeping my profile online pretty low key. If you google me, you’ll find my site, my blog, things about the magazine, Slashdot posts and a few random things that other people have posted. Thankfully, trying to figure out which ones are me is a little more difficult because there are two other fairly prominent people with the same name (though I seem to be more popular).

Heck, I even get email meant for one of them on occasion.

Even if you started digging into paper records, most of what you would find are mentions of me in my old hometown paper from when I was in school there. (I was involved in a lot of things while I was in grade school and high school, and ended up in the paper on occasion).

I just think this obsession a lot of companies seem to have with regard to the lives of their employees is unhealthy for everyone. The company is not your family, and you shouldn’t let them treat you like they are. Nor should you let them treat you like they own you, because the only person that owns you is you.

Current mood: contemplative
Current music: Angie Aparo - Cry

Yeah Right

I got the new issue of ACM’s Queue magazine the other day. The interview this time was with Joel of Joel on Software fame.

There are some things that I agree with Joel on (by and large, I think he’s a self-important blowhard, but he does occasionally have some good ideas). I think that developers (programmers, software engineers, whatever-the-heck-you-want-to-call-us) should have offices with doors that close so we can get things done.

My friend and I agree that our ideal setup if we ever started a company would be private offices along with a lab environment so you could have quiet if you needed it, but if you felt disconnected and wanted to work around people for a while, you could just go to the lab. What can I say? We had a lot of fond memories of the Sun labs on campus (especially when it was just the few of us in the room that really knew what we were doing).

However, there was one thing in Joel’s interview that just makes me want to ask him what the heck he’s smoking. It’s not the first time he’s said the thing that makes me question his connections with reality either.

What is this thing, you ask?

That nobody is developing GUI desktop applications anymore and they are, effectively, dead.

That’s right. You heard me, Netcraft hasn’t confirmed it yet, but according to Joel, desktop software is dead.

Please allow me to call bullshit.

I realize that Joel thinks he’s the end all and be all of software company owners, but on this, the man doesn’t have a bloody clue. His main application, Fog Bugz, is browser based, so of course, he sees the software world as browser-centric.

However, the rest of us, minus some intranet applications that we may use at work (or the poor schmoes that use Google’s apps) are using stuff that is well and truly on our desktop.

For example, here is a quick rundown of the apps I’ve used today – Windows, Winamp, Firefox, Thunderbird, Word, Exact Audio Copy (I finally finished ripping my CD collection to the new drive), Visual Studio, File Zilla, and a few other things.

Want to know how many web apps that I’ve used in the last several months? The shopping carts for a couple of web stores, my bank (it sort of counts) and Blogger (if you want to count that since they have sort of tied it to their apps).

Hey Joel, want to know a secret? Web 2.0 is NOT going to take over application development. I remember when things were console based. What we have now is a VAST improvement.

Web 2.0 style stuff has its place. However, that place is pretty bloody narrow in scope.

Want to know something else that kills your prediction? Just what do you think your precious non-desktop-GUI apps run on? That’s right. They run on an operating system (which generally has a GUI desktop) and generally a web browser.

What are those two things? Could they be desktop GUI applications? I think so!

Want to know something else? Most of us (and most businesses) want to have control of our own freaking data. There are a number of reasons for that – among them, being able to control who has access to it and the fact that we don’t have to worry about not being able to get our data if our net access goes down.

Desktop apps aren’t going anywhere for a long long time, and, despite what you think, there are a LOT of people out there making them.

Current mood: amused
Current music: Rihanna – Shut up and Drive

Save Me...Please

I have to say that I apologize to anyone who’s contacted me if I have seemed a little batty this week. I feel like I’m going stir crazy(er).

My ability to read people well has been shot this week.

It’s been one of those where you feel like laughing and screaming at the same time. The sheer lack of things to do here is getting to me, I think.

I really need a change of scenery. Working on getting a job elsewhere, so I can make that happen. Preferably someplace with museums and cultural centers, various things to do, and more people that are somewhere in the neighborhood of my own age and who just might have similar interests.

There is a lack of all of the above here. Hence my going crazy =]

Well, that and the fact that I’m feeling homesick for certain places, but there’s not a lot I can do about that at the moment. *sigh*

If you know a company in the Columbus, Ohio area (since that’s where I want to end up) that’s looking for a decent software dev (C#, please as I have kicked Java to the curb), let me know.

Current mood: frustrated
Current music: Moby & Gwen Stefani – South Side

/dev/random

There are a lot of things that I could write about at the moment, but I really don’t feel like ranting right now. Most of them involve local issues, so I doubt many people who read this will really care about them anyway, and to be quite honest, I’m to the point of beating my head against the desk over it, so I really don’t want to think about it.

Instead, I think I’ll just cover randomness that’s going on or running through my head. (No, you don’t have to run away in fear)

* It seems that Google has been lobbying Congress to get the H1-B cap raised because they’re “having trouble finding qualified people” while saying that their drop in earnings is because they’ve been on a hiring binge. I’m sorry, but that sounds like a steaming pile of something unpleasantly fragrant to me.

We can’t find qualified people, but we’re hiring right and left? Yeah right. Admit it, boys. You broke your “do no evil” motto a long time ago. I didn’t want to work for you before and I certainly don’t now.

* The editor of the local paper doesn’t seem to care for me anymore. It just might have something to do with calling him on his attempted bullying (and got him to back peddle like mad) of the message board when people started speaking out against a partnership between the city government and the chamber of commerce to expedite building permits.

The thing that really galled him, I think, is the fact that I didn’t fall for him trying to change his arguments (and twist mine) into something that he had a snowball’s chance of winning. (I would love for him to try to pull a “I am the editor of a newspaper” showboating contest because there are things that he doesn’t know about me =])

Sorry, folks, but the Chamber in this town treats non-member businesses like dirt. I wouldn’t trust them with this as far as I could comfortably spit a large rat, because what it would amount to is the member businesses getting a fast track on permits.

* I seem to be getting frighteningly handy with a seam ripper.

* And on a completely random note, I would love to see someone who can pull off the Witch Hunter Robin look. No, it’s not because of any weird fetish. I just think that it would be a really cool look on someone that could pull it off (and it wouldn’t be that easy to pull it off).

Current music: none
Current mood: tired