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Here is my situation: I am using three different Macs (Macbook Pro and two iMacs - one at home and occasionally second one at work) and need to keep the contacts and calendars synchronized at least between two of them (MBP and home iMac). I use iPhone which also has calendar and contacts. And in the cloud, there is Google calendar. Actually, more than one: my own calendar and company shared calendar of my colleagues from Thinknostic. Quite a challenge to keep it all in sync.

The 97 things that every software architect should know: http://97-things.near-time.net/wiki Actually, it's 87 but new are still coming. You may add your piece if it is not yet there ... Milos - thanks for the link.

Here is a snapshot I took during today's trip to Chapters @ Rideau. While walking out, the placement of some books caught my eye: Note the "headlines" in the background of the Vista books: "Ailments and diseases". Certainly unintended and a bit childish, but I found it hilariously funny :-)

Everybody seems to be crazy about Chrome, the new superfast Google browser. The odes on speed sounded quite exaggerated, so I had to try it. I opened up again my old battered Fujitsu Lifebook and after 3 reboots (it was not used for about 2 months and Windows update had to have its patching done) I downloaded and installed it. The rumors were not unsubstantiated ... it IS considerably speedier than anything else, including Opera. I have not seen any issues on the few sites I have tried - everything seems to work just fine.

One feature that I strongly miss from Objective C are namespaces. Inability to avoid name clash between your classes sometimes really stands in your way. I am reading S. Kochan's book "Programming in Objective C" and in one of the examples he creates the class Point. Unfortunately, there already is struct Point defined in mactypes.h. The solution is easy - rename the darn Point to something like TKPoint ... at least that is what Cocoa naming guide recommends. It is probably matter of getting used to it - but I still find the solution suggested by Kevin Hoffman much more elegant - too bad it is only theoretical. Much nicer than NSHack ;-)

I have started to seriously play with Objective C and XCode about week ago. So far it was very pleasant experience. I really like the language - feels like Ruby (or Smalltalk if you want) with rocket launcher: very powerful, blastingly fast and dangerous like hell. No array boundary checks as in Java :-). The XCode was not bad experience either. Here my very long Eclipse and Visual Studio history is going a bit in the way, as the things often works quite different. Not necessarily worse, but different. It would be too early to judge it - not before I get more proficient in both Objective-C and XCode and learn more Cocoa goodness.

A friend made me aware of this (thanks, Peter): The Inside Deets on iPhone 2.0.2 and Dropped Calls http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2008/08/28/the-inside-deets-on-iphone-202-and-dropped-calls/ Sounds like plausible explanation. It is not the network that is fault but the interaction of the bad power control algorithm in 2.0 and 2.0.1 software and the network that is at fault. The sooner everybody is running 2.0.2 software the better things will be. Having seen the graphs the 2.0.2 software has already started to make difference.

After everything-but-quiet summer, things got even busier and we need to add more great people to our teams. At the moment we're looking for * Junior Java developers * Intermediate Java developers * Intermediate .Net developers * Senior .Net developers * Junior Graphics/UI/Multimedia Designer Sorry - no teleworking, you must be local to apply. If you feel like fitting in - or know somebody in Ottawa that would fit, email Miro at thinknostic dot com ...

Here is the scoop: I need to provide access to multiple log files spread across multiple directories of multiple machines. For example - the JBoss log files and nohup.out, ATG log files, and so on - so that the testers can see what happened on server side when something looks fishy on front end. One option would be to write a document that contails IP’s of the machines, create user accounts, make sure that they have just enough access rights to see the files but not disturb anything else …

Finally - the new version of Things on iPhone can synchronize with Things on Mac desktop. It actually works - no strings attached. Assumed that: 1) the WiFi on iPhone is on 2) iPhone and Mac are on same network (so that Bonjour magic can work) 3) the Mac Things is running when you start Things on iPhone the synchronization happens automatically and is VERY fast (few seconds max). Finally a portable GTD application that works for me :-).