12 March 2006 in Code | Comments (3)

Last week Andrew gave a few of us a run down on how he was using Ruby on Rails (RoR) for a few small projects. I already knew that RoR was a reasonably efficient way of developing database driven websites but I didn’t realise just how good it was.

So this weekend I decided to throw away my InstantRails package and install it all properly. InstantRails is a cool all-in-one package you can download that sets up MySQL, Apache and RoR when you run it up (and then closes them when you close it – no messy resources being taken up, nice). However now I wanted to do things properly.

So I downloaded Gems (the Rails package manager), MySQL (my host uses that, but I could have used my existing SQL Server instance), Ruby. Everything went swimmingly – almost.

I ran into a small problem with a couple of errors when doing some things that seemed to relate to ssleay32.dll. After some reading I found it also included the file libeay32.dll. From what I read they need to be manually put into your System32 directory on Windows 2003 although it could affect other operating systems versions.

I thought I’d post this entry mainly for myself when in the future I go to setup RoR again and need those dlls I can just download them here. Download libeay32.dll and ssleay32.dll.

So now I’m just tinkering with some code – perhaps more RoR posts will follow

- JD

6 March 2006 in Code | Comments (1)

A sorting algorithm that beats QuickSort (for those collections that don’t have maximum entropy) has just come out of the woodwork. The fact that a betteralgorithm was found is interesting in itself but what is far more interesting is how it came about.

A group have developed a tool called “Critticall”. In their own words it’s “A programming tool, which enables you to apply the Darwinian force to algorithms”. So basically it applies a generticalgorithm to develop better solutions for fundamental computer science algorithms. It’s quite cool that people are starting to apply genetic programming in ways that provide real solutions* (as opposed to the million and one examples where they’re used to find the shortest path between two points).

Source: Critticall homepage

- JD

* I realise they are used in other industries a bit but I don’t know too much about that, it’s nice that it’s being applied in my field of work

28 February 2006 in Code & Tools | Comments (0)

A while back I posted some information about some cool things happening with UI on Linux. As it turns out that was all just prototyping for something much bigger.

XGL is the final result of that prototyping and I have to say – it looks wicked. I don’t know about functional but it certainly adds the much needed gloss that the linux desktop has lacked.

Some of the cool features:

• Rotating cube “desktop” to change between virtual desktops
• Applications can “wrap” around the “corners” of the virtual desktops
• Windows wobble seamlessly and naturally
• Windows “stick” to each other and stretch as you pull them away
• Transparency works amazingly (Quake running at varying level of opacity, videos on videos).
• A lot of extra cool stuff

Sure, you could argue that a lot of this is just eye candy and doesn’t add anything to the usability but, then again, maybe it does. I haven’t used it but sure would like to try.

Here is a video demonstrating XGL in action. A word of warning, it’s 54MB but well worth it.

- JD

1 September 2005 in .Net & Code & Microsoft & Windows | Comments (0)

As promised, a post on my experiences at TechEd 2005.

This was my first time attending TechEd and I was really impressed.

I was stunned at how well Sky City catered for the ~2500 people attending this year. I used to work in catering while at University and was always embarrassed by how amazingly poor the food quality was (I had no control over it so nobody should blame me! I’m a lover of food!). It was great – I don’t think I’ve eaten that well in my entire life.

All the speakers also were really good to listen to.

I really enjoyed the security related talks (I think we can all agree that Steve Riley and Jesper Johansson are kick ass speakers!) – if you ever get a chance to listen to either of these guys talk I would strongly suggest you take it up. I think Nic said it best by saying “basically the presenter I’d want to be”. He was speaking of just Steve, but they’re both awesome.

There were so many topics that I enjoyed – Darryls discussion about the compact framework was great – right at my level. Really did well at inspiring me to have more of a play around with my phone to do some cool things. I’m not sure what yet but that’s half the fun

Other Intergenites did a great job as well – I attended talks by Derek, Andrew Tokely and Jeremy Boyd. All excellent.

I must add that at the start of the week I wished TechEd was a week long. This quickly changed. I don’t think I’ve been so worn out in all my life! Once you include the drinks, the partying etc, it takes it out of you. I don’t know exactly how JB manages it – but he went up their early, then headed over to the Australian TechEd. All up he must be doing 6 or more talks! This excludes mention of the huge amount of work he did before Tech Ed – not just with preparing his topics, but in organising the Hands On Labs which Intergen ran this year. Well worth a mention.

Also a hi to Darryl Burling and Chandima who mentioned that they have read my blog – always good to hear

- JD

8 February 2005 in Code | Comments (0)

Saw a discussion on the .net user group today about which font people like to use in their IDEs. A great little site got mentioned and I tried changing my default Visual Studio font to one of the “clean” fonts. I’m impressed – at first it just seemed wrong (which is to be expected since it’s a change from what I’ve seen in Visual studio since I first started playing with Visual Basic 3.0).

Check them out here: Click Here

– JD

3 January 2005 in Code & Tools | Comments (0)

I’ve just been reading an interesting article about BitTorrent. Personally I’ve only every used it once – when it was first came out – and I wasn’t overly impressed. While I cast doubt over the suggested figure that BitTorrect accounts of a third of all Internet traffic it does seem to be gaining a lot of popularity.

The article involves an interview with the creator of BitTorrent but discusses more how P2P and the availability of more and more bandwidth will turn current media distribution on its head.

• Article: Click Here

Well worth the read.

- JD