C# programming interfaces

I've always believed that interfaces in C# were simply a waste of code. Coding a simple reference skeleton can't possibly help anything. This is true for smaller projects, but when you start writing larger projects, interfaces are a lifesaver. Interfaces provide the static point in a dynamic program. You will end up coding around them, but you will not break anything by adding to your impementations, or refactoring. There is a really good article for beginners over at c-sharpcorner.com

Twitter

I don't get it. You'll notice the twitter piece on the left. One thing about twitter is that if you don't update it it looks terrible. I haven't twittered in ages and when you see how long it's been you feel like you haven't done anything. Interestingly, twittering is what you do when you have nothing to do. So, if you twitter, you've obviously nothing to do, and if you don't it looks like you've nothing to do. Its impossible to win at twitter.

Fast faster, umm fastest computer yet.

I have always been interested in computer speed. IT seemed like since the 486 era, computer speeds have taken huge bounds, but it all seems to get eaten up by extra crap and the computer still runs slowly. I always figured that by 2.0 ghz, someone would figure out how to do fast. I own a macbook core duo and I've got to say that apple/intel is a good combintaion. Apple makes great operating system, and the core series are really great processors... just not fast enough.
I don't mean more ghz/instructions per second, I mean raw speed. Time to open any given program. This led me to search out new methodologies. I finally found some interesting things in the micro linux distros. I've always been a huge linux fan because it comes down to well written, modular code at the heart of it. Damn Small Linux (DSL) is the one I chose as of late because I prefer Debian based distro to others. I have a Celeron 2.4 ghz system with 1GB of DDR installed to play with. First I went with a software RAID of three IDE HDD's. Not bad, better than expected, but still lacking. Next I chose a dual 250 GB SATA RAID on a nice controller I picked up cheap (64MB of controller memory). Better, but still somehow lacking. THen a set of three 10,000 RPM Ultra 320 SCSI drives on a RAID 0 config (all of which were funny, cause I'm using next to NO space on these for DSL which requires onyl 200 MB of HDD space to install).
Finally I happened upon a device on ebay which allows you to plug a SD card directly into and IDE slot. I had wanted to try one of the new SSD drives next but $300 is a little bit steep for my taste. So I purchased this card for $14 on eBay and got a cheap 1GB SD card for testing. .

The results are the fastest load times yet. I had been using GIMP and Open Office for testing. Their load times usually go for at least 1 usually 2 or more seconds. The SCSI time was close to one seconds on both, but the single SD card was so low it was un measurable. It's the closest thing to an "Instant On" that i've found yet.
It's good to know that the real kicker in speed is the hard drive seek time. The lower the seek time, the faster your load times will be. You also notice an improve useabiltiy with this. All of the little lag times are virtually gone.

WCF 3.5

So with the Windows composition Framework (WCF) which basically is just xaml, you can finally builf forms in a "Web" way.

My biggest beef with form builders is the lack of intuitiveness in the form layout. HTML of course is one of the best methods of determining a dynamic layout that owkr s in multiple places. With windows forms unfortunately, most people don't look into the form design much. Generally programs (like WYSIWYG designed websites) are laid out to support 800x600 resolution which means on a 1440x900 screen they're tiny, and you can't make better use of the program by making it bigger. A well designed HTML page using CSS can really break down this screen size barrier, by making your content usable at almost any resolution.

The xaml in the WCF 3.5 finally brings this to windows. while I haven't had alot of time to play with it yet, my first impression was that it looks very user friendly. One thing microsoft has always done is provide good development tools.

Recently I had a discussion with a friend about xaml versus xul. My final word on it was, If Microsoft adds xaml into visual studio for editing, it will win. Unfortunately IE still has a high percentage of the browser market. The one thing I didn't expect was the advent of a Firefox plugin to handle the WCF web applications in firefox. That blew me away. This proves to any critics that say that Firefox isn't used much. When Microsoft figures firefox for a competitor, they really are.

Analyze

I finally got this blog setup in my Google analytics account. If your looking for good visitor statistics, analytics is by far the best and, of course it's free. Definitely check it out if your not tracking your users now. I used to use AWStats and it works ok, but it still lacks some key features that analytics provides, plus you can do it anywhere you can add Javascript (which is just about everywhere).

It's a webconference dumdum errr uhh dimdim maybe

So I found myself wandering why good webconference programs aren't more plentiful on the Open Source side of the ballgame. I then decided to see what I could find and was promptly impressed by a simple server solution, dimdim. DimDim provides for webconferencing in a single host with multiple listeners scenario. Very good for educational uses where a professor could have a class completely online, but still lecture. With a white board and power-point built in, it's a hands down easy solution for this area. However, for the web conference with multiple speakers and group audio needs, it soon falls short. Only a max of three speakers (six if you setup your own server) at a time. They claim it's bandwidth issues, but I think more could be done to rectify that. We'll just have to see. I may delve into this project and get my own hands dirty, if only for the added audio users.

Surprising results

So one month ago I set up a system for my daughter to use. I decided that linux had finally gotten user friendly enough for end users so I figured this would be a litmus test.

Six years old and she thinks she knows everything about computers. Truth is I haven't even shown her a command line yet. She plays a lot of educational games on Noggin, UpToTen, etc. which she truly enjoys.

A fresh install of Ubuntu +parental controls on an old P4 box and boom, one fresh linux workstation. At first she was hesitant. until I showed her that her Bookmarks had been copied from our other desktop (Quick note: Firefox w/ Google Sync is AWESOME.) she then warmed right up to it.

So one month later and she has found most of the stock games that come with Ubuntu and has even had me install a few more. It is a great success. She doesn't quite care for the Win Box anymore.

so this changes the count...

1 Windows XP Box
1 Ubuntu Server
1 New Ubuntu Workstation
1 Mac Quicksilver 733 running OS X 10.4.11
1 Powerbook Pismo 400mhz running Ubuntu PPC 6.06 (this one is a pet project. I've always been fascinated by the PPC processors and this one runs like a top)
1 Macbook running OS X 10.5 (with vm's of every flavor of windows and linux)
btw, if you haven't had the pleasure of using a macbook, goto your local apple store. There is not a better line of portable computers on the planet.