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This Code is Your Code, This Code is my Code
Posted by Harold.DeArmas in Software at 14:58 | Friday, August 31. 2007
Comprehensive Protection from Identity Thieves
Posted by Chris Hill in Hot Topic at 06:59 | Thursday, August 30. 2007
Work here, Win a free Nintendo Wii!
Posted by kevin in Grab Bag at 13:11 | Wednesday, August 29. 2007
Staying Connected: Ford Sync.
Posted by Chris Hill in Grab Bag at 06:00 | Tuesday, August 28. 2007
[display_podcast]
Microsoft Auto + Ford Sync = Sweet Innovation OR Highway Blue Screens of Death?
According to Microsoft.com, Microsoft Windows Automotive 5.0 is an automotive-grade open software platform that provides OEMs, suppliers, and developers with the building blocks they need to quickly and reliably create a broad range of advanced in-vehicle solutions that meet the growing needs of automotive consumers.
Ford Sync is Ford's exclusive new fully integrated, voice-activated, in-car communications and entertainment system for mobile phones and digital music players. This system is said to be one of the most advanced systems available today. Ford's banking on the notion that others will feel the same as it will initially be available in 12 Ford, Lincoln, and Mercury vehicles this year. The great thing about the system is that it can be operated using voice alone, controlling cell phones, iPods, Zunes, USB storage devices, and more. Alternatively, devices can be controlled using the vehicle's steering wheel mounted controls.
The system is flash memory-based and provides two methods of connectivity, Bluetooth and USB 2.0. Supported media formats include MP3, WAV, AAC, WMA, and PCM. It's comprised of an ARM 11 processor, 64MB of DRAM and 256MB of flash memory. An informational display is provided on a small screen on the face of the stereo console or embedded in the instrument cluster.
Ford Sync will first be seen on these vehicles: 2008 Ford Focus, Fusion, Five Hundred, Edge, Freestyle, Explorer and Sport Trac; Mercury Milan, Montego and Mountaineer; and Lincoln MKX and MKZ. It will be included in all Ford vehicles in the near future.
Listed below are the initial features according to Ford's press release. Since the system is entirely software based, it's easily upgradeable via it's USB port -- Ford Sync Service Pack 1, Service Pack 2, Service Pack 3 -- you get the picture.
- Voice-activated, hands-free calling: Simply press the �Push to Talk� button on the steering wheel, and then say the name of the person you wish to call. Sync will automatically connect with the names in the mobile phone�s contact list.
- Uninterrupted connections: No need to hang up in the middle of a cell phone call as you enter your vehicle. Simply touch the Telephone button on the steering wheel, and Sync will instantly connect to a Bluetooth phone.
- Audible text messages: Sync will convert text messages from your phone to audio and read them out loud. The system is even smart enough to translate such commonly used text messaging expressions as �LOL� and J. You can choose to reply from any of 20 predefined responses.
- Advanced calling features: Sync includes the same features offered on mobile phones, including caller ID, call waiting, conference calling, a caller log, a list of contacts, a signal strength icon, and a phone battery charge icon � all conveniently located on the radio�s display screen.
- Voice-activated music: Browse the music collection on your digital media player, mobile phone or USB drive by genre, album, artist and song title using simple voice commands, such as �Play genre Rock,� �Play ,� or �Play Track .�
- Instant voice recognition: Sync�s advanced voice recognition technology means when you�re ready to use your phone or digital music player, just speak simple voice commands.
- Ring tone support: For supported phones, Sync will play personal ring tones. If you�ve configured unique ring tones to identify specific callers, Sync will automatically play those, too.
- Automatic phonebook transfer: Sync will automatically and wirelessly transfer all the names and numbers in a mobile phonebook.
- Multilingual intelligence: Sync is fluent in English, French and Spanish.
Wow! If this system performs as promised, Ford might have a winner on their hands. Sync, in conjunction with their new vehicle lineup, is exactly what Ford needs to stay on track with their restructuring plan. The voice recognition software, provide by Microsoft, is a similar system to those provided in numerous Honda and Acura vehicles, all of which received high marks for intelligence. Obviously within the next few years all vehicles will offer similar systems as drivers demand they stay connected with their expensive hand held devices. I also think this is great for those people (you know who you are) that like to dodge and weave through rush hour traffic, all while carrying on that important conversation on their cellphone. Now you can dodge and weave with two hands on the wheel instead of one!
I am surprised that Ford didn't offer a large hard drive for storage. Hopefully, Ford was smart enough to separate the vehicle systems. If Microsoft Auto decides to blue screen am I going to lose my entire entertainment/audio system? Will the stereo/CD player continue to work? More importantly, will the vehicle continue to operate? This may give a whole new meaning to the infamous Windows blue screen of death. We'll have to wait and see.
It might be a while for me, I'm looking at the new F-150 for my next vehicle and it most likely won't be available until 2009
.
Google Web Toolkit: First Impressions
Posted by fred.bertsch in Software at 08:36 | Monday, August 27. 2007
I've starting converting a complex web app from being purely JavaScript and browser plugin based to using the Google Web Toolkit for the JavaScript part of the project. See my previous blog post about this.
Unfortunately for me, this project is not high enough priority to play with it for long periods of time. However, I have managed to start work and get some basic functionality working. It was certainly interesting!
I'm going to comment on a few of my first impressions. I'll state a strong opinion now, but I reserve the right to change it completely as I get more experience with the library and tools.
Wow. This is really slick. You get to debug the Java code directly without looking at the JavaScript that it compiles to! Eclipse is a great editor for Java code, and GWT integrates nicely with it.
The debugger is nice, the compiled code looks good, and the warnings and errors that the development web server generates are extremely helpful. This is probably the strongest selling point for me with GWT.
This was a shock to me. The web browser's DOM is an extremely efficient place to store information about the document you're displaying. A heck of a lot of effort has gone into making this efficient and safe. CSS is an extremely powerful tool that is closely coupled to the document's DOM.
GWT's designers don't want you to touch the DOM, though.
GWT gives programmers only limited abilities to write to the DOM, and they work extremely hard to make it difficult to read the DOM. For example, the DOM.setAttribute call can be used to assign a id attribute to an HTML tag. That sounds like a really useful call, doesn't it? I could use that to make it easy for our graphic artist to design some CSS to describe the appearance of the application. It's deprecated, though. You're not supposed to use it.
I shouldn't be too harsh to GWT about the DOM, though. This might be obvious, but GWT is for complex, full featured applications that happen to reside in your web browser. It's not for displaying documents. There are some corners of the library that allow you to put HTML directly wherever you want to, and I suspect they work great. They should even work with an external CSS file.
An application is not a document, and I might be having trouble getting over that. I'll get back to you later when I form a stronger opinion.
If you want to do something that simply cannot be done through GWT, you're in luck. GWT has a JavaScript Native Interface that is analogous to Sun's JNI. It works great! I use it extensively to talk to my browser plugin, for example. It's easy to use, and it doesn't screw up the tools any more than they should be.
This, of course, allows you to create whatever back door you want to allow you to manipulate the DOM. However, until I get a better understanding of the GWT techniques, I'm going to try to do things the GWT way. I may have more to say on this subject later.
There are back doors to get there, but it's not a real GWT application if you rewrite their tools to do it your way. Instead, you do things the SWIG way.
Yes, that's right. GWT has more in common with a SWIG application than a JavaScript/DOM/CSS application. Is that bad? It's certainly a great thing if you like SWIG. I don't have much experience with it, so I don't yet have a strong opinion.
However, I do think it's a great idea to emulate a well used framework instead of writing a completely new one. There are a lot of SWIG developers and ex-SWIG developers out there, and I'd guess that they'll feel pretty comfortable in this framework.
The documentation is fine, and I shouldn't complain about it. However, I could have really used this blog post before I'd started. If you start out as a native JavaScript/Prototype/Ruby on Rails developer like I did, then what I've said here is not completely obvious.
The Google group is great, though. I've gotten responses to my queries immediately.
Unfortunately for me, this project is not high enough priority to play with it for long periods of time. However, I have managed to start work and get some basic functionality working. It was certainly interesting!
I'm going to comment on a few of my first impressions. I'll state a strong opinion now, but I reserve the right to change it completely as I get more experience with the library and tools.
Speaking of Tools...
Wow. This is really slick. You get to debug the Java code directly without looking at the JavaScript that it compiles to! Eclipse is a great editor for Java code, and GWT integrates nicely with it.
The debugger is nice, the compiled code looks good, and the warnings and errors that the development web server generates are extremely helpful. This is probably the strongest selling point for me with GWT.
Don't touch the DOM!
This was a shock to me. The web browser's DOM is an extremely efficient place to store information about the document you're displaying. A heck of a lot of effort has gone into making this efficient and safe. CSS is an extremely powerful tool that is closely coupled to the document's DOM.
GWT's designers don't want you to touch the DOM, though.
GWT gives programmers only limited abilities to write to the DOM, and they work extremely hard to make it difficult to read the DOM. For example, the DOM.setAttribute call can be used to assign a id attribute to an HTML tag. That sounds like a really useful call, doesn't it? I could use that to make it easy for our graphic artist to design some CSS to describe the appearance of the application. It's deprecated, though. You're not supposed to use it.
GWT is not for documents.
I shouldn't be too harsh to GWT about the DOM, though. This might be obvious, but GWT is for complex, full featured applications that happen to reside in your web browser. It's not for displaying documents. There are some corners of the library that allow you to put HTML directly wherever you want to, and I suspect they work great. They should even work with an external CSS file.
An application is not a document, and I might be having trouble getting over that. I'll get back to you later when I form a stronger opinion.
Writing JavaScript directly?
If you want to do something that simply cannot be done through GWT, you're in luck. GWT has a JavaScript Native Interface that is analogous to Sun's JNI. It works great! I use it extensively to talk to my browser plugin, for example. It's easy to use, and it doesn't screw up the tools any more than they should be.
This, of course, allows you to create whatever back door you want to allow you to manipulate the DOM. However, until I get a better understanding of the GWT techniques, I'm going to try to do things the GWT way. I may have more to say on this subject later.
There are back doors to get there, but it's not a real GWT application if you rewrite their tools to do it your way. Instead, you do things the SWIG way.
GWT == SWIG
Yes, that's right. GWT has more in common with a SWIG application than a JavaScript/DOM/CSS application. Is that bad? It's certainly a great thing if you like SWIG. I don't have much experience with it, so I don't yet have a strong opinion.
However, I do think it's a great idea to emulate a well used framework instead of writing a completely new one. There are a lot of SWIG developers and ex-SWIG developers out there, and I'd guess that they'll feel pretty comfortable in this framework.
Documentation?
The documentation is fine, and I shouldn't complain about it. However, I could have really used this blog post before I'd started. If you start out as a native JavaScript/Prototype/Ruby on Rails developer like I did, then what I've said here is not completely obvious.
The Google group is great, though. I've gotten responses to my queries immediately.
Another Way to Run Windows Applications on Linux
Posted by travis in Software at 09:50 | Friday, August 24. 2007
Microsoft Vista Satisfaction (Or Not), Part Deux
Posted by Doug V in Software at 09:58 | Wednesday, August 22. 2007
[display_podcast]
My experience with Microsoft Vista reminds me of a comment that I heard (and captured) by David Pogue, the tech columnist for the New York Times. In an on-camera interview with 60 Minutes about the growth in the PC service market, David said:
�Part of the problem [with PCs] is that there are so many cooks � Microsoft made the operating system, some company in Taiwan made the equipment, you�re running software from a company in California, and now you're installing the driver for a digital camera from a fourth company. You know, what are the odds that all of these are going to work flawlessly together for all 400 million people who have PCs? Zip."
This week, my system did some wacky things that have even boggled our very experienced IT guy.
First, I updated a video driver (see results in the jpg). Never in my 30 years have I ever seen a screen flip upside down. Pretty crazy stuff.
Next, I tried to install a new optical mouse (the old one had an annoying stutter step when you tried to move it too finely). It asked me if I wanted to find the driver, which is weird because it is a NEW MICROSOFT BASIC OPTICAL MOUSE!!! Then, I�d get an annoying message that it couldn�t install the required software.
These two odd things would likely be highly entertaining if it wasn�t for the time I�ve had to waste (and that of our IT expert) with these issues and others � another blue screen, continued application hangs (though less frequent) and a reboot on average of every second or third day. I have found that there seems to be a correlation of problems when I use my Sprint card, but nothing that I can duplicate to discover the final solution.
A pool has started now in the office: How long before Doug chucks
Vista and asks for a downgrade (upgrade?) to Windows XP. You�re all invited to play. The only prize is bragging rights.
Interns, Where are You?
Posted by ken in Grab Bag at 09:31 | Wednesday, August 22. 2007