Apple OS-X on an intel box?

I have become an Apple fan simply because the stuff they produce is great. I like the iPhone and iPad hardware and I am willing to pay for it. I have however been kind-of blackmailed into buying a Mac Mini box because I wanted to do development work on their platforms. Don't get me wrong. I love the Mac Mini too but despite the fact that it's neat and pretty its really just a well thought out but expensive PC clone with a security chip in it. I could throw away the OS and install Windows on it if I wanted. As I could Linux or even Google Chrome.

So, here's the thing. Apple are still trailing market share behind Microsoft. Why? Not becuse OS-X is bad. It's really quite good. They trail Microsoft because the Apple Mac is a western world toy for rich folks who can afford do drop a couple of hundred bucks or even a couple of thousand bucks extra for a sexy white box, cool design and a pretty white logo that is as technologically useful as the "swoosh" on Nike shoes.

Apple just made a big deal about the low cost of upgrade of their OS to Lion. 29 bucks gets you all the cloud enabled goodness but in spite of the fact that OS-X really is competittion for Microsoft Windows, Especially for the non-professional user, they will never break out of the niche market unless Steve Jobs announces that OS-X Lion or whatever the upcoming iterations will be called can be installed on a cheap box that a family in Bangladesh can afford.

We have an OS-X that can run on Intel hardware. Go the last step Steve. Kill the Trusted Platform Module and see how real compettition will drive an industry that doesn't need to innovate much at the moment.

Pour rend mes ex collegues jalous...

Je me réveille à 9 heures (environ).
Un de mes chers enfants me donne une tasse du thé.
Je prends mon iPad pour lire mes e-mails reçu pendant la nuit, je réponds à quelques une des mails, surtout celle qui m'apporte du business.
Je me levé à 10:30 (environ) et je prends ma douche, un p'tit toast et de la marmelade pour p'tit dej.
Je bosse un petit peut sur mon appli Android just pour me familiariser avec le mode d'utilisation.
Un p’tit facebook pour voir les délires de mon frère ce weekend.

Cette semaine déjà j'ai:

Réparer mon gros onduleur qui est capable d'alimenter mon ordi pendant une heure si nécessaire.
Reconfigurer mon environnement de dev PC et MAC avec un seul clavier, souris et écran
Ecris un appli Android en utilisant VS 2010

Aujourd’hui je vais m’installer avec tous mes matériaux dans mon abri de jardin tout climatisée ou je vais bosser et qui est tout près de la piscine si jamais j’ai besoin cet été.

Le seul bruit est le vent ou la pluie ou de temps en temps un coq qui chante (je vais peut-être le manger plus tard si il m'embête plus)

Paris, La Défense, le train, le bruit, les abrutis dans leurs voitures et dans le bus, le "bur" me manque tellement PAS que je ne sache pas comment je peux supporter tout cette calme.

Ha ha ha, bonne journée a tous!

The best environment for mobile phone development?

I am currently working on an appplication for iPhone and iPad. An application for Android phones and an application for Windows Phone 7.

One might imagine that changing between Objective C to Java to C# and Silverlight languages would be a mental challenge for an old chap like me. One could also assume that having a handle on the various API's that each system requires such that the aforementioned old chap could develop a well architected application on all three platforms would be a bit of a challenge too. The reality however is a bit different.

For all three platforms I use the same development kit, the same programming language and the same familiar set, or subset, of the API's I have been very comfortable with for the last ten years. You see, I use Visual Studio 2010, C# and .Net for everything.

I am able to create between 80 and 90 percent of the code using nonspecialised C# and the rest of the system, intractions with specialised APIs or the various graphics systems required by the different platforms. can be done using the Mono versions, MonoTouch or MonoDroid.

So, the conclusion for me at least is that Visual Studio 2010 is by far the most useful development system no matter what platform I am developing for.

Monodroid splash screen

If you're interested in such things I just answered this over on Stack Overflow...

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6560675/monodroid-splash-screen/6588089#6588089

One screen or two?

It seems that the norm for development systems has been a multiple screen approach for a few years. I have currently come to challenge that view thinking that one screen can suffice if the resolution is good and the aspect ratio is wide, say, 16 by 9.

I have a particularly interesting development setup requirement which implies that I use both a PC and a Mac simultaneously. Until a few days ago this implied rolling my chair from one end of the desk to the other and physically switching machines.

I tried a remote desktop approach which was ok but not as responsive as I had hoped due partly to the wireless network. Finally, I found a TrendNet keyboard, mouse and video switcher that seems to have done the trick.

So, my setup which I have begun to develop for Windows Phone 7, android and iPhone / iPad has a wide ratio LG screen, a Mac Mini, a quad core PC, a single keyboard and mouse and removes the need to scoot up and down the office on my wheelie chair to get to the other keyboard. It has the other advantage that my Mac Mini detected the fact that that stylishly White yet, to me, esoteric Apple keyboard, which is unwell since I poured tea into it anyway, has been replaced by a single ergonomic Microsoft 104 key keyboard that I am more used to working on and hence more productive.

My only problem was the fact that the LG screen only has a single audio input so my solution to that was to connect the Mac to the screen and the PC to the line-in of the Mac and to use this free LineIn program to retransmit the PC sound to the screen speakers.

So now, a simple click of the button on the KVM unit switches from Mac to PC and back all on the same keyboard and mouse. An added bonus is that I am now saving the cost of running two other screens which is going to be a bonus when my 100% off-grid power generation system comes on line in the fullness of time.

FREE AT LAST!

Well, the corporate lifestyle is OK. I admit it's well paid, but for someone who has spent so many years working on my own exiting projects and not worrying about office politics or how further up the ladder one should climb, the strain of working full time in heirarchical companies has taken a toll.

Yesterday was my last day with my last client in Paris. I've had offers of work but I've decided to go back to my roots and begin to create innovative software for many diverse platforms. Working in a more disconnected mode will give me opportunities to be with my family for longer too.

So, even though I will be taking on short consulting contracts and serving the needs of customers when no-one else will do, my role as CTO at Daraize Technologies is taking a more visionary turn and I will be responsible for broadening the scope of their offering by creating some new and useful stuff.

Right now I'm working on ideas with Peter Gabriel blasting out of the stereo!

Bob is back!!

IPad 2

I am currently ramping up my mobile device development capabilities with accounts in the Apple, Microsoft and Google app stores as well as development kit and new hardware to test on.

Yesterday I finally took the plunge and bought an iPad 2 with which I hope to do a tablet version of the first application I have in mind.

I find it difficult to express the perfection of the experience that Apple provides when one opens the box and the thing you just Paid a small fortune for works perfectly, smoothly and integrates with your life as if you had always had one. Am I gushing? Well, maybe I am. Congratulations to the Apple team and thanks for a joyous experience!

I am mortified to say that my Windows Phone 7 experience has not been so wonderful. If things don't start going right a certain MVP not far from me might be tempted to write unkind things about the company he has supported for so many years.

DropBox

I don't often do recommendations but I just started using DropBox for online storage. I am really impressed with it and usage is free!
Basically, DropBox gives you an online storage space that synchronises automatically to a folder on any machine you use.
I am currently using it to synchronise files between my Mac and my PC for when I do iPhone and Windows Phone 7 development. I am using Monotouch for the iPhone part and so all the common .Net code gets synchronised via my DropBox.

Check it out here for a free no-strings-attached account !!

3D and Quantum Physics

It is said that Albert Einstien had an advanced spacial awareness and a sense of three dimensions that enabled him to imagine the structure of the universe. He also had the mathematical chops to prove this thought experiments afterwards which certainly helped his credibility.

Extending that idea a bit, and supposing that both matter and antimatter were created in equal measure in the first billionths of a second of the early universe, one could also imagine that the properties of the antimatter were all diametrically opposed to the properties of ordinary matter. The theroretical gravitational carrier particle, the Higgs Boson, would have it's antimatter counterpart and, theoretically, its effects would be reversed.

A common line of thought in physics is that gravity is attractive over short distances and repulsive over large ones. Correspondingly, anti-gravity would be repulsive over short distances and attractive over large ones.

Going back to the idea of three dimensional space then, we could imagine that at the moment of the big bang and for some time after, as the matter and antimatter were near to one another the antimatter would form a sort of shell around the matter. This would repulse to continue to maintain a sort of container around the early universe and the antimatter would all remain on the outside and expand space in front of it as it went.

As the universe aged and the distances became large enough, the antimatter began to attract and so is even now pulling the universe apart in all directions. This would explain both the lack of antimatter and the expanding state of the universe.

Technically, that expansion should continue to acellerate and spread the universe thinly. This accounts for entropic heat death.

As to the rest of the missing universe. the dark matter, it is inside the black holes which are more numerous and larger than was once thought,

Now, if only I could do the math. I might get a Nobel!

I wonder if Stephen Hawking reads my blog?

Windows Phone 7 keyboard

My experience with Windows Phone 7 continues with some thoughts on the quality of The on-screen keyboard.

Maybe my thumbs have taken on some motor programming thanks to the iPhone keyboard but I find the Microsoft OSK layout to be very hard to use. Fatfingering the wrong character is too easy and the cash register feedback that pops up like whack-a-rat is too lrge and unsubtle enough to make me want to position my finger lower on the key which seems to exascerbate the situation.

Arduino and android, a match made in heaven?

As an electronics designer from aincient times and having been playing with arduino systems for some time I find myself hugely inspired by the news of Google's open hardware accessory initiative based on arduino designs .
I am currently working on two arduino projects. A power control system for an autonomous house and a cruise control for my Land Rover. Sadly project 2 is on hold as the Landis needs a new clutch. The ease of programming and simplicity of the ATMega microcontroller design makes this an almost perfect match for a smart accessory choice.
I was looking for a way to return to my hardware roots and this seems to be an ideal opportunity .

Ceres and Vesta better than Mars for a first try.

While the technical achievement of a mission to Mars would be phenomenal, the danger involved in such a mission would be huge in comparison to those that didn't require descent into a deep and unforgiving gravity well.

Mars is also known to be arid and has a poisonous atmosphere so there would be a need to take every ounce of air and water required for the whole trip even if recycling was good..
Furthermore, the explorers of old didn't launch themselves on a journey into the unknown with a high probability of no return without first trying things out in more familiar and friendly local waters.
It's relatively easy to get a spacecraft down onto a planet. You can fall mos of the way. You just have to be travelling slowly enough that the last few feet are not a problem. Getting up off the planet later is however an enormous challenge.

A mission to Ceres in the asteroid belt would pose far fewer problems however. Ceres has water in the form of ice and so air, fuel and drinking water would be far less of an issue. Even rocket fuel can be manufactured by electrolysis using sunlight so a mission to Ceres would require far less material to be taken with the mission and the duration of stay could be longer and simpler.

We may not discover quite so much on such a mission but it would be far more useful from the point of view of learning how to do an interplanetary voyage.

Finally, getting off Ceres at the end of the mission would be a walk in the park in comparison to trying to loft a spacecraft from the surface of Mars back to orbit safely.
I strongly recommend manned asteroid missions before manned missions to Mars or anywhere with a significantly steep climb out.

Seeking Julie

On Saturday March 5th 2011 My family and I went to Mont St Michel in France. It was a beautiful day and a lot of other people had dcided to take the trip also. I had remarked to my wife that there were a lot of japanese tourists around that day, stylish girls and thin young men, all having fun.

We picnicked in a walled garden near the top of the mount and my children played hide and seek in the bushes and rocks of the garden.

They were befreinded by a little Japanese girl of two or three years who came and picknicked with us, much to the amusement of her parents. The couple were a young man of European and Japanese extraction who spoke good French and a young woman in her twenties. He told me that the little girl's name was Julie, a coincidence because my own daughter's name is Julia.

They were obviously on holiday so one supposes that they returned home sometime during the last week or so. Now, I am haunted by the vision of that beautiful child and her young strong parents and I wonder what may have become of them given the awful circumstances of the recent days. I just hope that they extended their holiday or live in the south west away from tsunamis and radiation.

I would dearly love to know that they were well.

Design tutorials

I have absolutely no artistic talent but I fervently wish that I did have.

I see the web sites and applications that are created by those designers that instinctively know how to assemble colours, images and layout into something that is intrinsically pleasing to the eye and I become purple with jealousy.

Well, like me, you may have the artistic talent of a gnat and all the creative abilities of a turtle but you'll have no excuse whatsoever for saying that you don't understand how to create a UI experience with Blend because now you can use this great site to learn step by step how to utterly fail to be talented and stylish in your UI design.

http://www.microsoft.com/design/toolbox

Do not track considered harmful

Despite ones desire to remain anonymous these days it is important to keep sight of the fact that participation in any civilised society must come at the price of some loss of anonymity. In years gone by, a postal address was new and scary to some yet America's mail system was more influential than any other single factor in the stabilization of the frontier into a country. 
Having a telephone number requires a loss of anonymity that we accept even though some of us don't publish our number in a directory. We might still be reached by officials and the agents of the phone company as well as by robot random diallers. 
The Internet makes the hackles of the privacy advocate rise even more quickly, especially when the subject of tracking cookies and targeted advertising is broached.
I believe we are walking a fine line today between a vibrant, open an competittive internet and one that is far darker, closed and oppressive. Strangely, the thing that may stand in the way of vibrancy and unbounded freedom is privacy. 
Today, the internet is interesting because it makes a whole heap of money for loosely regulated businesses. Businesses that enable new technologies and new freedom of access to almost unlimited and ubiquitous information and all you have to do in return is put up with a few adverts. I don't suggest that unbridled advert targetting is a good thing but i certainly do think that if privacy stopped the advertisers fron spending then companies like Google would cease to enable free and instant access to everything possible. Without a little loss of privacy, maybe, the only people willing to share information would be our governments and we all know how much we can trust those guys to give us free and instant access to all the information we want. 
Opt in to freedom. Allow the advertsers to track your netwok usage a bit. Sure, become net savvy, limit what they know if you think its important but don't demand strict regulation or tight control from your government. Privacy is important but freedom is more-so. 

Odd thought about PI

I was just looking at an article that suggests replacing PI with Tau which is not shocking in any way. The relationship to the circle is just a multiple of what we're used to. However, in thinking about this I thought that the reason PI and indeed Tau is such an odd number is because they are based on a single dimension rather than a geometric relation between two two-dimensional values. A radius is always the same radius whether it is thought of in two dimensions making a circle or three dimensions making a sphere. It occurs to me that the complex nature of PI is so because it has to do with the relationships of a particular value expressed in different dimensions.

Extra unwanted empty namespace when adding XElement

I've been scratching my head over a problem today. While writing a program to modify an XML document I discovered that adding an XElement and then writing the document out to file results in an extra and unwanted xmlns="" being output. For example:

Original XML=

<root>
 <doodaa>value</doodaa>
</root>

When we add an element to the root we get:

<root>
 <doodaa>value</doodaa>
 <wimwam xmlns="">value</wimwam>
</root>

This often upsets things which is a pain and happens when the XML document has a namespace specified somewhere.

To overcome this problem we need to ensure that the namespace of the added element is the same as that of its parent so we can interrogate the parent element and set the namespace accordingly.

In my example I just looked at the document root element but you may have a more complex scheme to cope with. The actual code I used was as follows:

XDocument doc = XDocument.Load("somestuff.xml");
string docNS=((XElement)doc.FirstNode).Name.NamespaceName;
XElement ne = new XElement(XName.Get("wimwam", docNS), false);

Now, writing out the document I get the desired effect of:

<root>
 <doodaa>value</doodaa>
 <wimwam>value</wimwam>
</root>

Guns don't kill people

The American archetype of today is a tall blonde man shouldering his way through a doorway with an automatic pistol clenched in his doubled fist. This image seen on popular television programs, films and movie publicity posters all over the world shows an American who is impotent without his 9mm weapon in his hand.

The more this image diffuses into the consciousness of the world, the more violence we see, not only from the youth of America whose "right to bear arms" affords them easy access to the tools of death but from the other young people of the world who are too so inured to death and violence through Hollywood anaesthesia that it becomes an option to solutions that no unpolluted person might consider.

Teenage school rampages and the gunning down of persons who lead lives that place them in the public gaze is so commonplace that we are almost immune to the shock of it now. I remember the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy. I was too young to understand but shocked all the same when my mother told me about what had happened and the world was shocked too because the rarity of the events made them exceptional.

The more we see of men peering from behind guns, the more it becomes an accepted part of
our field of view. 

Will we ever rise from the barbaric throwing of stones and stabbing with sharp sticks to solve problems and become truly civilized enough to forever leave our brutal ape heritage behind? I often admit that we are nothing more than sophisticated monkeys. Perhaps it's time to become people instead.

Visual Studio 2008 dies without error when editing XAML

I only post this because working on a client's machine recently I had a new install of Visual Studio 2008 that just disappeared whenever I tried to edit XAML files or even XSD files. This was due to a known problem with the Visual Studio editor system and some time back a hotfix was issued for the problem (KB968760).
It happens that this hotfix has been superceded several times now and in order to fix the problem Mark Wilson-Thomas from Microsoft kindly provided be with the link to the hotfix that worked. I now have my VS 2008 up and running again. If you need the fix it can be obtained from here

WOO HOO!!!!

Been talking about this and looking forward to it for more than a decade!


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12124887