Articles

Fifo Introductions

Fri, 12/29/2006 - 23:50 — sgrover

Here we are, the first post to FIFO. So, perhaps some introductions, and explanations are in order...

My name is Shawn. I'm a wandering coder.

What do you mean by "wandering coder" you may ask. I'm not talking about doing code in different geographic locations, though that does happen to some degree. No, I'm talking more about the types of code I deal with. A typical day will see me wander from proprietary to open source projects. From shell scripting, to web development. From database scripting, to desktop development. I do a bit of everything, or so it seems sometimes.

Some people just don't get it

Tue, 10/17/2006 - 01:11 — sgrover

I was reading the SlashDot comments on the posting about Gimp's new engine being demonstrated. I'm amazed at how many people just don't understand open source.

You see, the Gimp is an open source image manipulation program - much the same as Photoshop. There has always been a love/hate relationship between Photoshop users and Gimp Users. They are constantly arguing about which is better. This is expected, and in some ways is very healthy.

Let's take Vista for a spin...

Sat, 10/07/2006 - 01:14 — sgrover

Update:
MS has released Vista Release Candidate 2 (beta). You can access it here.

The comments below were based on RC1.

Microsoft will release Vista, aka Longhorn, in the near future. Or at least they have been saying this for nigh on 3 years. Recently I discovered they were allowing a free download of the Release Candidate, so I did so and decided to try it out. However, I have no desire to get rid of my trusty Linux installation, so I opted to run Vista in a virtual environment.

Shaw DNS Sucks

Tue, 09/26/2006 - 00:09 — sgrover

Late last week I got a message from Doug with the Avro Museum project (who I'm on the board of directors for). He was telling me that the Avro Museum website was down, and he could not receive any emails from our server. Seeing as I'm the guy responsible for that server, I promptly took a look and could confirm the server seemed to be working just fine.

Web Developers Road Map

Tue, 08/22/2006 - 22:03 — sgrover

If you are reading this article, then chances are you have an interest in web development, or have decided to pursue a career as a web developer. This article will provide you with the steps to take you from building basic web pages to building robust web applications. However, this guide is not a tutorial - you will need to learn each of the sections yourself, but we do provide some useful links on the resource page.

System Analysis and Design

Thu, 08/17/2006 - 22:29 — sgrover

Software developers face many challenges when creating a new program. Some programs are very simple, while others are very complex. Regardless of the programs size, a proper analysis and design of the system can head off many problems and minimize development time. This document will identify some methods for implementing analysis and design.

Recovered Articles

Thu, 08/17/2006 - 19:45 — sgrover

I just received an indirect reminder that what goes up on the Internet becomes public knowledge and can be recovered long after the details are removed.

A contact of mine at CLUG reminded me of archive.org, where they take periodic snapshots of websites, and store them for historical purposes. So of course, I had to look up my own domain (www.open2space.com).

So long Digg!

Sun, 07/02/2006 - 01:17 — sgrover

I've been using Digg on my Tech News page for about a year now. But, they have recently changed their format, and after getting irritated with this one too many times, I've opted to remove their news feed.

Why? Well I guess it boils down to three points:

Poor browser support - I like Konqueror. Digg doesn't. Digg's CSS worked, but not cleanly on Konqueror. This wasn't a deal breaker though, but rather an irritation.

Server heat stroke

Fri, 06/30/2006 - 02:31 — sgrover

(NOTE: This post has been updated. See the note at the bottom.)

Calgary has been experiencing warm weather these past few days - it got to 32 degrees Celcius (approx 90 degrees Farenheit). This makes for a very warm and stuffy environment, so needless to say the productivity has died off during this period. But even worse, one of my development servers has suffered a heat stroke.

Internet Down

Fri, 06/16/2006 - 00:56 — sgrover

Sighs... It had to happen sooner or later.

My ISP suffered an outage today that took out all of southern Alberta (so I'm told by their tech support). I'm on cable, and the first hint of a problem was when the Television cable went. We'll never know what Peg Bundy spent the grocery money on now... Redundant ISPs would have been handy tonight, but my servers just don't do enough (yet) to justify the costs.