Entrepreneurs can change the world.
dream it, believe it, achieve it
From quarks to galaxies
Fantastic and simple flash visualization that takes you from the ultra small (Einstein foam, strings) to the ultra large (IC 1101, Milky Way).
Does a great job making you feel small and large at the same time.
Stand up and be remarkable
I went custom
Sometimes deciding to pick up your socks and do something you have always wanted to do pays off. Don’t settle for things that aren’t right for you. But don’t fight with them or struggle for change. That will put you more behind.
Accept the lack of a good solution to your problem.
Go to sleep.
Do nothing.
Then do everything.
Remember what’s important and why you are doing it.
Love every moment.
When to go custom?
When do you stop compromising for someone else’s software and when do you decide to make it yourself?
This applies to plugins, libraries and even whole systems. Obviously, we aren’t going to re-write Gmail everytime a feature crops up that we want, but when do you say
Gmail is great… but it’s not suiting our needs. We need something different that doesn’t really exist.
Having the courage and the tenacity to admit that is not easy. Obviously Google did it, so did Microsoft and others however the bigger the project, typically the bigger the company you need to execute it.
What about when your software is small. What about when the needs that it must fulfill are small and constrained. Why try and fit a square peg into a round hole. Why not make a square hole?
Lose your self to find you.
After a short vacation…
After a close NDE, I have decided to breath some life back into this tumble log.
I will continue to blog mainly about programming and geek stuff at Ewakened Thinking.
That’s it for now.
Honda and Vimeo take Flash Video to a new level.
PS You have to watch it on Vimeo for the full effect.
Fly Porter… seriously… whenever you can
Recently got home from a nice weekend vaction in Quebec City and had a fantastic time. This was mainly due to the great company, but partially because of how easy it was to get there. We decided to fly instead of drive and we made the best choice by choosing Porter.
Porter’s tagline is “Flying Refinded” and they are right. You actually feel like a VIP when you fly Porter. Here is a brief rundown of our trip.
Our flight left at 12:00pm. We arrived at the Toronto City Centre Airport at 11:10am. Yes that’s right. Only 50 minutes before the flight. We were not panicked or running, we casually rode the escallator up to the second floor, showed our drivers licenences and received our tickets.
Now here comes the most annyoing part… you have to take a ferry across the bay to get to the actualy airport. Yes it kina sucks and is a little annyoing, but for 5 minutes who really cares.
11:25am. We check our bags hassel free and enter security. Instead of pulling a Pearson airport and trying to shove 50 people into two lines while 10 lines remain closed. Porter services 15 people with 4 lines! Security is just as strict and tight as Pearson but took a fraction of the time.
11:30am. We enter the Porter Lounge and I start to cry a little. The couches, the chairs, the floors and walls are all beautifuly designed and scream comfort! They have a bank of iMacs just asking to be used and a free Cafe where you can have pop, juice, coffee, espresso, cookies, biscotti, water, magazines… anything you want. You can also get free wireless internet without a stupid WEP or WPA key. It’s really amazing.
11:45am. Our flight is called for boarding.
11:50am. We enter the very spacious and luxurious plane. It’s a smaller plane equipped with two propeller engines, but don’t let that fool you. These are quality machines and have the most leg room and comfortable seats I have ever sat in.
11:58am. The propellers start spinning and we get ready for takeoff. 2 minutes ahead of schedule.
12:20pm. The flight attendents come around with free food and drinks. The food was great except for the fact that I don’t eat mayo, but, the free Stella more than made up for that.
1:20pm. We land in Quebec City 10 minutes early.
There is nothing like starting a vacation off with a trip like this. If you get the chance Fly Porter.
They fly to Quebec City, Ottawa, Chicago, New York and more … So if you can, do it. You won’t regret it.
PS. Oh did I mention the flight was $100 less than Air Canada?
Reading a Book in Progress
Just posted some thoughts about reading the Real World Haskell. It’s a really cool concept and something I have wanted to read for a long time. I learned Haskell in R.D Tennant’s class at Queen’s back in 2004 and really liked it, but never fully understood it. Now that I know more about functional programming and programming in general its a much easier read. I think Queen’s should put this class in third year and make it more applied rather than theoretical. Students would get more out of it.
It’s amazing how all of these older languages and paradigms are making such a comeback. Must be crazy for all of the people who have been around a lot longer than me. To see the ebb and flow, the rise and fall of these languages. Let’s hope the good ones stay good and are around for a long time. My top three are still.
1. Ruby
2. C#
3. Javascript
However, I think that Haskell is closely rounding third.
Anyway, take a look at the book and the review and tell me what you think.
Kent
Happy and Confused with Mozilla’s Bespin
I am sure that clairity will come. Needless to say I am very eager to learn more and experiemnt with Bespin.
A Really Simple SDK
So I have finally gotten past all of the hurdles of making an iPhone version of my thesis software called Friend Forecaster. Well, let me be honest, I didn’t write an iPhone app in fact I wrote a lot of Ruby and HTML to make this happen. I used the most basic API and I think the powerful one… I used the web.
It’s not a new idea to think of the web as a platform or as an SDK… just look at where Chrome is going and you will see that the browser and the web are the future platforms. The great thing about this is that for people like me who love making websites, I have intemate knoweldge of the basic API languages, HTML, CSS, JavaScript. Knowing a backend language is essential in today’s dynamic world so I have learned a handful of those too. However, there is the little problem of the interface.
The interface is not something to be overlooked since it is the gateway and gatekeeper to your app. The last time I checked there were a lot of browers. Of these browsers, here are the ones I care about: Firefox, Safari, Chrome, Opera and IE7+. This is what scares people away from the web. The fact that you have no guarentee that what you make will look the same or behave the same for all of your users.
This will have to change… and it already has. IE has a lot of catching up to do and webmasters are punishing them for not being standards compliant. Should this punishment continue, they will have no choice to make a better browser.
So what’s my point… learn how to make websites! learn the old fashion way and the modern way. Get to know the web and get to know it’s limitations. With frameworks like Rails, JavaFx, Django and the dark horse Cappuccino there is lots to learn and lots to explore.
Here’s to a web based API!
K
