Older blog entries for idcmp (starting at number 55)

Seven Reasons I Didn't Pick Your Open Source Project

After a really relaxing summer, I've picked up a job as a Systems Architect at local company suffering from growing pains. After almost a decade, I've put down my debugger and picked up a budget..for now. I've found myself looking at many different options of products some open source some not. I want to apologize to those open source projects I've rejected and wanted to let you know why: 1.

Syndicated 2008-11-09 18:36:00 (Updated 2008-11-09 23:26:32) from Idcmp

Wave Tracing: Ray Tracing for Sound

Here's the pitch: With regular ray tracing, rays of light are traced backward from a pixel of the camera, to an object and eventually to a light source (or lack thereof). If you can do that with light, why can't it be done with sound? Over ten years ago I was having breakfast with a friend and I sketched out the idea on a napkin. This kind of math is definitely not my strong point. But instead

Syndicated 2008-10-11 19:35:00 (Updated 2008-10-11 19:40:52) from Idcmp

GWT: Generators HowTo (BuildStamp)

If you're curious what generators are, or have never used them with GWT, this simple generator will give you a quick introduction to get your hamster wheels turning. I do a lot of prototyping in GWT before I build the backend and I've recently had the need to generate a "build version" for my GWT interface. While there are about fiftybazillionmillion different ways to do this, I've chosen a GWT

Syndicated 2008-09-26 21:08:00 (Updated 2008-09-26 21:08:15) from Idcmp

Spore on Linux

If you're a Linux user wondering if Spore works, the answer is: Sorta. I bought the download version from the EA Store. Nothing mentioned until after my purchase was complete that I needed a Windows-only downloader. I didn't test this under Wine. Aside: The EA Store website allows + in email addresses, but the Spore online login does not. I'm using Ubuntu 8.04 with a custom build of Wine

Syndicated 2008-09-15 07:16:00 (Updated 2008-09-15 07:40:19) from Idcmp

Chromium and Bees

Watching what Google does feels like watching X-Files. I want to believe there's some grand master plan, but I'm pretty sure they're just making things up as they go. Hank Williams over at Why Does Everything Suck pretty much covers my thoughts on Google's new web browser in his Huh? and Huh! posts.

Syndicated 2008-09-03 19:28:00 (Updated 2008-09-03 20:06:53) from Idcmp

Nine Handy Tips for Taking the Summer Off

Six weeks ago I quit my job; six weeks later I've never been happier. I had grown jaded about technology and worn down about my work. This post isn't about how to quit your job, how to budget for the summer or how to get your next job; it's what I've learned in the brief oasis between those points in my life. The Beginning 1. Do Not Look For Your Next Job: You know internally if you're at the

Syndicated 2008-07-15 18:10:00 (Updated 2008-07-15 19:24:20) from Idcmp

Google's Conference on Scalability

This is the second year I've attended Google's conference on scalability, the talks were more academic this time around. One organizer indicated that this was indeed the goal of this year's conference. I enjoyed last year how much of the information was really hands on, but there's some value in seeing what's coming down the research pipe. The conference is an example of what googlers do with

Syndicated 2008-06-17 03:02:00 (Updated 2008-06-17 03:02:05) from Idcmp

Four Days of Spring: Spring Core Training

The other week I was fortunate enough to grab an extra freebie spot on Spring Source's "Spring Core" course. It's a marathon. Four days jam-packed with just about everything you could imagine Spring-related. I thought I'd post a bit about my impressions... First the good side; the course material is exhaustive and the instructor knew his stuff cold. While I was the only one in the course with

Syndicated 2008-05-03 21:02:00 (Updated 2008-05-06 03:22:34) from Idcmp

Six PDFs You May Find Interesting

1. Failure Trends in a Large Disk Drive Population [ PDF ] A popular Google paper from 14 months ago, but a good read if it's something you may have to deal with. Fairly readable language too. Summary: Really burn your drives in for the first few months. Few metrics are good indicators of failure. 2. Pinpoint: Problem Determination in Large, Dynamic Internet Services [ PDF ] Tracing requests

Syndicated 2008-04-04 01:35:00 (Updated 2008-04-17 21:09:16) from Idcmp

Logging Performance Exceptions (Part 1)

You've probably wished you could find out why a certain block of code was occasionally slow in production. Wouldn't it be nice to turn on extra logging only when things were acting up? You can! With a bit of logging in your code, you can get an output like this: [135ms] request share purchase [5ms] validate purchase request [40ms] check account balances [39ms] synchronous balance

Syndicated 2008-03-16 00:22:00 (Updated 2008-03-16 00:37:54) from Idcmp