It was at the recent Aussie (Clarion) DevCon that I got to see one of my big crutches.
In the first day of Capesoft Training, very early on, I was struggling to concentrate on doing work.
It was music.
You see, for a few years now, I’ve developed a pavlovian response/need to have headphones on and music going while developing.
It’s quite bizarre. Kind of crazy. And I might one day have to seriously consider breaking me of it.
The question for the moment is ..
What are your development crutches?
MS really did it right with the Express Editions of their Development tools. I like the idea very much
It would be interesting to get some stats on what products are being created (or started) with the Express editions. I’d like to know how MS is measuring the success of this strategy. Letting people have, for free, a chunk of a development tool.
Makes me wish that SV had an Express Edition of Clarion. I realise this is probably in the works for 7. I hope so.
Last night, we finally got around to watching some telly recorded on our (pvr?). It was an episode of Lost, two weeks past i think.
Anyway, all was well, until the signal starts artifacting all over the place. Artifacting. That’s right. Ha ha.
Anyway, it made at least 20 minutes of the show unwatchable. Which was a real pain. Because it was a good one. We missed Sawyer’s confrontation with the man who was his .. his catalyst i guess. Tom Sawyer. Locke’s dad.
Anyway, was annoyed, because what we thought was just set in stone (the recorder giving us the taped tv as it should be), wasn’t. This isn’t the first time it’s happened .. and probably won’t be the last. That’ll learn me.
I’m sure many people will have thought through this question before.
I believe that part of the future success of Clarion will come from establishing a presence within the schools and universities/colleges/tafes etc.
Again, there would be a lot of people who have thought this in the past, and may have tried to make it happen.
I have a simple idea to start the ball rolling.
Grab a video camera, and possibly a camera-man (or just use yourself and question asker and camera man), and travel to the institutions around. This only really works in unis and the like. Not sure of the privacy thing with schools.
You wander the grounds, probably locating yourself specifically near the computer science buildings, and start asking questions.
What questions are these?
Here’s one way I see it panning out.
Hi there. I’m conducting a software development survey.
We’re researching a particular product today.
It’s called Clarion.
Have you heard of Clarion?
And so on.
Of course, you’d have to do a choose your own adventure on the answers.
If Yes .. Pump fist with a Leyton "COME ON!!"
If No .. Ask the person to kindly put on a helmet that has "Indoctrinating Machine" sticky-taped to it’s front.
That kind of thing.
This will raise awareness of Clarion, especially if you do it with a little panache. Serious. But panache. Because we want people to ask the question ..
What Is The Clarion ..
Ahem.
I mean, "What Is Clarion?".
.. and we want them to find answers.
So while I’m sitting here, waiting for a huge app to compile .. thought I’d share some pain.
I have a thread variable that is being set with 180 before it’s used. I’ve done the usual searching (through the txas and using UltraEdit search in files) for anything using the thread variable. It’s all kosha.
So then .. I thinks to myself .. I’ll use another thread, but call the same procedure.
THREAD:Dummy is in place, calling the browse procedure .. and BAM .. what do you know, it works. And then, on closing, it clears the original thread variable, so when i call the procedure using the actual thread, it works.
But restart the program, and it’s back to 180. Very strange. If I figure it out, will try and remember to update this post.
Edit:
Turns out the problem was I had two (that’s right, read em), TWO global thread objects being declared. One was not created by me, one was. Anyway. My lack of understanding how programming works wins the day again.
Facebook is on the rise. It’s not too hard to see the same signs as with previous big deals. YouTube, Flickr, .. others .. i guess.
Anyway, even though they probably won’t sell .. the whole buzz that is firing up smells the same. Lots of people == lots of greed .. i mean money.
Jono asked me about it a while ago. So decided to take a look. And I have to say .. it’s cool. The "Wish I’d thought of that" cool. These applications are getting way beyond simple. Facebook allows you to construct pretty much whatever you want within it’s own framework. Kind of like Second Life without the graphics.
I guess we’ll see what happens in a few months. Christmas seems to bring about big news. Maybe they’ll knock back a billion dollar deal from Microsoft. Maybe not.
Was just reading this post, http://stuandrews.com/2007/02/id-cry-if-there-were-any-tears-left/. I had some big plans earlier in the year.
I guess they are still alive, just barely. I’d still like to create software and sell it myself.
You know the biggest problem i faced?
It was the selling part. The simple act of knowing that people can now buy my stuff.
Getting the shop together on the website wasn’t hard, it needs a bit of work, but that’s straight-forward. And deciding on prices .. same. These are just decisions. I’d gotten a PayPal account, which would take care of security.
But the idea that people could soon be paying for these products seemed ludicrous to me. I mean, i’d barely spent two months on the three (DeleteThem, SecretKeep and Rasp) from conception to where they are now. And of the three, Rasp is the only one really worth much.
I guess it will always be a problem. Worry that the site is lame, that the presence will be unprofessional, that the company name is waaay too long.
So, the future rarely and barely listens to me. That’s not bad. It’s just interesting to look back even 6 months and see how much has changed.
Man i forget a lot of stuff. The price of being a hype-monkey i suspect.
I need a little less hype, a little more action.
