Not only apple the fruit, but also Apple the company. How does it work ?
Step 1: Buy an iPod. Any model will do, I have got Nano 2Gen, 4 GB
Step 2: Subscribe to some good podcasts
Step 3: Listen to a podcasts while taking long walks - outdoors (preferred) or in a fittness studio.
That's it. It works great for me. During last four weeks I have digested lots of podcasts, inclusive TWIT (This Week In Tech) netcasts from August 2006 almost up to today. It is a great way how to stay informed and get more interesting news while spending less time in front of the computer. And on top of that, you can have fun along the way. Leo Laporte is great host and personalities like John C Dvorak add lot's of flavor to the discussion. Few items from latest edition:
Got a new gadget. Actually, not quite "got" - just borrowed from Mike. It the digital pen - amazing piece of machinery, that remembers all you write (up to 40 pages) and allows you to transfer written text to computer. The catch is that you *must* write on special paper, with microscopic marks that help to note the position of the pen.
I was surprise how successful was the CRC software of making some sense from my cat scratches :-).
If you do not know and use on-line social bookmarking site Del.icio.us, take a break now and go there. Currently owned by Yahoo, is Del.icio.us is a one of many social bookmarking tools out. Probably not the one with most features, not the one with coolest user interface - but pretty good one and certainly winner for me.
I have been struggling with the problem of how to keep my collections of URL's under control for several years. Yes - every browser has bookmarks or favorites, but if you use multiple computers daily basis (multiple means > 5), with actively accessing Web with more than single browser on each of them (usually with some subset of IE/Firefox/Mozilla/Safari/Opera), you can pretty much forget about browser's bookmarks/favorites - you will never have your bookmarks where you need them.
It's been awfully quiet here in last two weeks. Mostly because it was awfully busy pretty much everywhere else. Being a single parent, even for a short and definite period of time is pretty demanding task. Now when my wife is back from the trip overseas, I do not spend my mornings and evening in various skating rinks, I am slowly catching up on everything that got backlogged, delayd and so on. Starting with my project and progressing slowly through my reading list, lot's of downloaded podcasts and LBNL (last but not least) the blog.
It's official. The Browser version 2 final is out. I mean Firefox, of course - it should be quite obvious what is "the browser" these days. Yes, I know - IE still holds majority of the browser share and yes, Safari is really really nice, fast and good looking application - but let's face it: browser is not just another application - it is a *platform* these days. Platform means extensibility and extensibility means being a good foundation for add-ons, extensions and plugins. And from the platform perspective, the Firefox is the king.
I have been back since Monday October 2nd late night, but until today, the backlog of things in both projects did not leave enough time to do any blogging. Not even any project-unrelated thinking - which is a prerequisite. Thanks to long weekend, I almost caught up with my backlog in both projects, so I can get back to the fun part of business such as Internet and blogs ...
In few hours I am taking off for a quick trip overseas, which very likely means that I will be quiet - at least as far as blogging goes. Not that the place I am heading to is not wired enough - actually, the broadband penetration is surprisingly high. The real reason is that I will be moving around a lot and meeting lot of people, so the blog must wait (yes, I am taking the Mac with me - what have you expected ...).
I have been pretty quiet in last few days. The reason why was hinted here - we have finally a space. The project started on Monday and we were running around like crazy since Sunday. Started with moving in looots of boxes - 9 workstations, each with two 19" LCD monitors plus three servers, network gears, cables etc - three full cars. Then came the unpacking and setting up, which took much longer time that I would ever have expected. But it went well - modulo few glitches - like missing DVI cables and only one disk in server that should have been RAID-ed ...
Testing by itself does not improve software quality. Test results are an indicator of quality, but in and of themselves, they don't improve it. Trying to improve software quality by increasing the amount of testing is like trying to lose weight by weighing yourself more often.
What you eat before you step onto the scale determines how much you will weigh, and the software development techniques you use determine how many errors testing will find. If you want to lose weight, don't buy a new scale; change your diet. If you want to improve your software, don't test more; develop better.
We will be moving into new office space soon. It is exciting time, stepping from working (mostly) at customer's locations to own project office. Location is of course Kanata Business Park North, with nice view to a golf course. This location brings several changes against the office in downtown - some of them are great - such as 1) we have lot's of space and 2) parking is not an issue - arrive any time, park as long as you wish. Some of them are not so great - selection of possible choices for lunch shrunk considerably (with very few in walking distance) and to get to closest Tim Hortons you have to drive (unless you are ready for 25 minute walk one way). In case you are wondering - we are keeping the office at Albert Street - it is managed by same company as the new place, so we are just scaling up.