Stomping on technology

Skynet much

Fri, 13 May 2011 12:01:51 -0400

Free Tabs for IO attendees

Tue, 10 May 2011 12:59:12 -0400

Of course that got a huge applause from the crowd. Almost Oprah-esque, but other than that the crowd wasn’t that into it. Apple’s events are better, but either way it irks me when the speaker stops and waits for an applause which leads into a mercy clap…

So far Google IO a dud

Tue, 10 May 2011 12:34:47 -0400

The crowd is barely into it, lots of smattering of applause.

Watch Google's continued quest for world dominance

Tue, 10 May 2011 12:05:49 -0400

Watch Google's continued quest for world dominance

Wow humming birds have an alien tongue...

Tue, 03 May 2011 10:36:52 -0400

Wow humming birds have an alien tongue...

SQL Tuning

Tue, 03 May 2011 10:33:30 -0400

SQL Tuning

New Atrix Software

Tue, 03 May 2011 10:18:00 -0400

Enjoy, doesn’t seem to be anything spectacular, except for increased “potential” data speed. Can you say hedging your bet…

The Register's unfair bashing of MS

Fri, 15 Apr 2011 12:14:18 -0400

Read

tl;dr

Basically, The Register and some guy from Opera are blasting MS because they stated during MIX 11 that IE 9 and IE 10 have native support for HTML 5, claiming that it “contradicts” HTML 5’s opened standard?

So what, HTML 5 is browser and OS/platform agnostic, but the browser is not, unless that browser is in Java and in that case it will probably be slower. IE 9/10 is optimized to run on windows (well that is the only place it runs) just like Chrome’s Windows version is optimized to run on Windows especially when you look at the graphics acceleration it uses.

So the article is just link bait and a continue hatred of MS.

Java and Clean Code

Wed, 13 Apr 2011 14:19:19 -0400

As a developer a suggested book to read is “Clean Code” by Martin Fowler. One thing it suggests is that you method names are obvious and readable. So after I did a quick read of this article I wanted a new name for Arrays.asList. asList returns a fixed sized List, so why don’t they call it Arrays.asFixedList, that way you don’t really need to read the documentation to know that you can add/remove to the list you just created.

IE 10

Wed, 13 Apr 2011 11:10:44 -0400

Read some stuff about it here. I had just started to like IE 9. 12 week cycle on code refreshes is not short enough MS, Chrome is updated like 2 to 3 times a month. Is that because of bug fixes only though? I wonder.

Weird Oracle practice

Wed, 13 Apr 2011 11:07:03 -0400

I was reading DZone as I often do and I found a link to a new “Java Magazine” from Oracle. Sounds like good bathroom reading, so I said let me sign up. I read the hype page and I saw that it is mobile format only. Darn! If I am on my phone or a tablet in the bathroom (which I don’t have) I would probably be playing Angry Birds or Gun Bros, so a digital mag is probably a waste, but lets give it a shot. I go to the sign up page and it wants you street address??? If it is digital why do you need it. *close page*

ComicRack malware?

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 16:05:00 -0400

Well, well, well. I have been using ComicRack for a while, thought it was a decent tool for reading strips, but it seems to be trying to do dialup in the background.

I was having trouble connecting to my vpn at work, so I did a diagnostic and look at what I found in the logs (time to uninstall, some info snipped and shortened):

Tracing Logs

ComicRack_RASAPI32.LOG
ComicRack_RASMANCS.LOG
…

ComicRack_RASAPI32.LOG [ Table Of Contents ]

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
C:\Windows\tracing\ComicRack_RASAPI32.LOG
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[484] 11-13 23:18:29:819: RasEnumConnectionsW
[484] 11-13 23:18:29:819: IsRasmanServiceRunning=1
[484] 11-13 23:18:29:819: LoadRasmanDll
[3492] 11-13 23:18:43:838: RasEnumEntriesW
[3492] 11-13 23:18:43:838: ReadPhonebookFileEx: called for pbk C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Network\Connections\Pbk\rasphone.pbk, flags 1032
[3492] 11-13 23:18:43:838: IsPublicPhonebook=1
[3492] 11-13 23:18:43:838: path=C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Network\Connections\Pbk\rasphone.pbk
[3492] 11-13 23:18:43:838: full path=C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Network\Connections\Pbk\rasphone.pbk
[3492] 11-13 23:18:43:838:  IsVirtualizationNeeded: return value = 1

[3492] 11-13 23:18:43:839: GetLUAPhonebookPath: Return value 0 hiddenpbk path C:\Users\faciletech\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Network\Connections\Pbk\_hiddenPbk\rasphone.pbk

[3492] 11-13 23:18:43:839: ReadRasFile: ReadEntryList returned 0
[3492] 11-13 23:18:43:839: SyncMasterPhonebookFile:++
[3492] 11-13 23:18:43:839: IsPublicPhonebook=1
[3492] 11-13 23:18:43:839: path=C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Network\Connections\Pbk\rasphone.pbk
[3492] 11-13 23:18:43:839: full path=C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Network\Connections\Pbk\rasphone.pbk
[3492] 11-13 23:18:43:839: FindFirstFile failed with 0x3
[3492] 11-13 23:18:43:839: ReadRasFile: File C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Network\Connections\Pbk\rasphone.pbk does not exist
[3492] 11-13 23:18:43:839: DeleteEntriesOnlyInHiddenPhonebookFile ++
[3492] 11-13 23:18:43:839: WritePhonebookFile
[3492] 11-13 23:18:43:839: ModifyEntryList: Number of connections written 0
[3492] 11-13 23:18:43:839: RASSQM: In WritePhonebookFile Number of alluser profiles set 0
[3492] 11-13 23:18:43:839: DeleteEntriesOnlyInHiddenPhonebookFile : WritePhonebookFile failed with 0
[3492] 11-13 23:18:43:839: RASSQM: In ReadPhonebookFile Number of alluser profiles set 0
[3492] 11-13 23:18:43:839: ReadPhonebookFile returns 0
[3492] 11-13 23:18:43:840: ReadPhonebookFileEx: called for pbk C:\Users\faciletech\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Network\Connections\Pbk\rasphone.pbk, flags 1032
[3492] 11-13 23:18:43:840: IsPublicPhonebook=0
[3492] 11-13 23:18:43:840: path=C:\Users\faciletech\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Network\Connections\Pbk\rasphone.pbk
[3492] 11-13 23:18:43:840: full path=C:\Users\faciletech\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Network\Connections\Pbk\rasphone.pbk
[3492] 11-13 23:18:43:840:  IsVirtualizationNeeded: return value = 0

[3492] 11-13 23:18:43:840: ENTRY: Reading "Dial-up Connection"
[3492] 11-13 23:18:43:840: Reading media group "serial"
[3492] 11-13 23:18:43:840: New link format
[3492] 11-13 23:18:43:840: 
DUPTEST:Port in this media

Sideloading on a crippled Android

Wed, 23 Mar 2011 13:39:00 -0400

If you are on a family plan with someone that refuses to give up their iPhone and you really want an Android but are hesitant because of how AT&T demands the Android be crippled, read this.

Angry Birds Rio came out yesterday and for some reason I wanted it, it is pretty fun not as redundant as Angry Bird Seasons. Being I have an unrooted Atrix 4G (I will root soon as HDMI mirroring is up) I couldn’t even install Amazon’s AppStore! *Side note* why doesn’t Amazon put the AppStore on the Android Marketplace? After doing some bing-ing (doesn’t roll off the tongue like googling), I found an application on androidcentral called “Sideload Wonder Machine for Windows”, I then proceeded to follow these steps:

Get Sideload 1.1 for windows preferably from here (but you have to register) or here (this will never be updated to the latest).
Unzip Sideload (c:\ -> c:\sideload).
Put the directory where you unzipped Sideload in you Window’s PATH.
Go to Amazon’s Mobile site and have them send you the Android app link to your email (the form is on the right under Get Started). When you get the email, download the apk file and place it somewhere you will remember (I put mine in the same directory with Sideload).
Connect your phone via usb to your computer (Make sure you have downloaded the appropriate drivers)
You can double click Sideload (AndroidCentral-SWM.exe), but that never worked for me. I had to run it from the command prompt, making sure that I went into the Sideload directory to start it.
Select the Amazon apk and install.
Now on your phone log into the Amazon AppStore it is just called AppStore (no wonder Apple is suing)
Register or use an existing account.
Download the app that you want
The install will fail because AT&T are idiots
Now you will need to browse you phone as a mass storage device (mine was MB860 (E:) ).
Go to E:\Android\data\com.amazon.venezia\cache (Again E: depends on how Windows recognizes your device).
The apk you just downloaded but failed to install should be there with a weird name like vnz15091.apk.
Copy that file to the Sideload directory and install it just like you did the Amazon AppStore.

Enjoy and look out for the deals!!!

Amazon AppStore

Tue, 22 Mar 2011 23:22:39 -0400

With the fairly recent debacle that was Google having to pull malicious apps, how is Amazon going to handle the same inevitable situation?