@runtime

Perfect Schmerfect!

by PyroFly X on Feb.17, 2010, under Thoughts and Ponderings

I have become more aware of particle accelerators, and the research that corresponds with them, due to all the news coverage of the LHC (and the conspiracy theories surrounding it). The goals and results of these experiments fascinates me. Creating conditions that last occurred mere microseconds after the Big Bang, that’s hot news; 7.2 trillion degrees (Fahrenheit) hot to be exact. Under these conditions particles behave differently than they do today, which allowed scientists to observe “symmetry-breaking” behavior of particles and an understanding of why there is a higher proportion of matter to anti-matter.

Technically, there should have been equal amounts of matter and anti-mater. Wikipedia states “mixing matter and antimatter would lead to the annihilation of both in the same way that mixing antiparticles and particles does.” Thankfully, there was not an equal amount of anti-matter and matter made, and the universe as we know it was created due to surplus of matter.

The thought of imperfection got me to think: how many technological innovations occurred because of imperfections? Because the scientific process did not go perfectly, and the unforeseen outcome spurred a creative thought?

I believe Brian Malow (http://www.sciencecomedian.com) stated innovation occurs with the line: “Huh, that’s funny…”

Now, in software development, the imperfect results that are detrimental to the outcome are bugs; however the imperfect results that do not influence the outcome are features, or at least soon will be for those who do not immediately dismiss them. Time constraints and budgets are what run most software development and constrain most avenues of creative thought. Not to say that innovation does not occur, quite the contrary! But there would be much more if computer science was treated as a science, and allowed to stop, ponder and create; rather than spec->design->program->test->debug->repeat.

No discussion about perfection can be complete without poking fun at the America’s obsession with perfection: weight, height, hair, mate, teeth, wedding, etc. Some will find perfection, and some will not; and it’s nothing to worry about! So, step back if you are focused on being “perfect” and take a tip from the universe; because if the universe was perfect, we might not exist.

Inspirational Source: USA Today (http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2010-02-16-RHIC16_ST_N.htm)

What the Buzz?

by PyroFly X on Feb.17, 2010, under Technology, Thoughts and Ponderings

Google Buzz went live from out of nowhere. Usually there is a large testing phase for any new Google product, including a public beta, not with Buzz. I had logged into GMail and noticed a new tab to the left. When I clicked on Buzz I felt several emotions: annoyance, wonder, indifference, and doom. However, it has been a few days since my initial reaction, I now see a few benefits to Buzz.

But first, lets have a brief recap of my reaction to Buzz:

Annoyance

This was the first thing I thought of when I discovered what Buzz was. “A Twitter clone? Great…” I am not the world’s most frequent tweeter, but I do use it. The situation reminded me of another “social communication service” division, that occurred (at least where I was) in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s: The Great Messenger War.

The Great Messenger War happened when every company with a stake in the internet decided users wanted to use THEIR messaging service. Companies ranging from Microsoft, to various ISPs and individual developers each had their own messenger. There were so many choices but none could operate with any of the others. It seemed like every other person had a different messenger client preference. This oversaturation of the messenger market forced me to use up to four messenger clients on at once just to talk to friends… It sucked.

It wasn’t until my friends and I were fed up with this ridiculousness that we all decided to migrate to AIM (where the majority of us were). But today we have clients that connect nearly every messenger service to a simple, streamlined application (Pidgin, Meebo, etc).

Wonder

Google has enough resources to do anything that they felt like, and since most of their products are free, they can’t be considered anti-competitive in most regards. So what does Google decide to do? Acquire everything they can, and recreate everything they can’t acquire! I enjoy a lot of the services that Google offers, but this is the same argument that people damn Microsoft over. The only real difference is Microsoft sells products to people, Google serves up Ads. Two different philosophies, but they are both selling you something.

Indifference

As I said, I don’t tweet all that often, so Buzz really doesn’t affect me much. I mean, it’s there when I go to GMail; I’ll look at it, but beyond that… meh. To those of us who aren’t addicted to the social networking, Buzz is just another feature that will rarely be used.

Doom

This is the Obligatory section that states Google is taking over the internet/world/universe. It’s in every Google post that I read, so it has to go here too.

Acceptance

Now that I have looked Buzz over some I can see some use to it. It eliminates the need for an app for Twitter, I can see updates when I go to GMail. It links all of the Google Services into a single news feed, so it eliminates the need to visit those sites… It’s about convenience of information, which is what Google excels at. I hope to see it develop more, even if I’m not on the posting end of it.

Help & Manual Topic ID to Internal Help File Name Discrepancy

by PyroFly X on Jan.27, 2010, under Documentation

Just found a small quirk in Help & Manual 5.3 dealing with internal help file names and Topic IDs. It seems H&M takes liberties with renaming files when compiling the help document; the internal file name should remain consistent, or at the very least replace spaces with underscores. Hyphens (dashes, ‘-’, what-have-you) are valid in URLs, but are converted along with spaces to underscores.

This is the property window from within H&M, where the topic ID is set, with a hyphen.

And here we have the property page from within the help file:

So, when making context sensitive help, and using the topic ID as I had been doing, nothing worked. After a few moments of “abuh?” I realized the difference (hyphens and underscores look pretty much the same at the wee early hours of the morning). So if you want to be able to do context sensitive by topic ID and H&M, use underscores in your file names.

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WampServer – PHP Development Environment

by PyroFly X on Jan.20, 2010, under Web Development

I have spent a long time tracking down a “best use” environment in which to test PHP pages that I develop. Many IDEs claim to have “PHP Support” and some of them work fine, however there is always work that has to be done after a page is developed to ensure that it works properly with the myriad of browsers in use today. Annoyed with this fact, and wishing to find a simple environment I stumbled upon WampServer.
I have been using Wamp for a few weeks and my development time has been cut in half. I work on the copies in the WampServer’s “www” folder, rather than a live server. The same results could have been achieved by manually installing Apache, PHP, mySQL and phpMyAdmin on my local machine; but WampServer installs and configures all four software packages to work properly with one another. Wamp does this all without changing the default install options. That’s right, the default options produce a working product (which seems to be rare these days).

Working out of the box is not the only benefit; WampServer can be configured to replicate any server, with any version of the software Wamp is running. Need to replicate your server with version 3.0.x of mySQL? You can install it in Wamp and test using outdated software. Wamp will even alert you when a version of software will not work with the rest (I have never come across this, but it is listed as a feature).

Developing software in my choice of editing software also made me happy. I did not have to learn the intricacies of new editing software to use Wamp. I used UltraEdit to write my pages and tested with any browser I had installed (IE, Chrome, Safari, Firefox). I simply navigated to http://localhost/ and I was able to test any pages I had placed in the WampServer.

So if you are looking for an easy to set up PHP Development Environment, with little-to-no learning curve, you would do well to give WampServer a try.