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Google buys AdMob for $750M

Noam Wolf — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 09:59:45 GMT

Google tries to deliver on Eric Shmidt's one acquisition per month promise. This "small" acquisition for mobile ad platform AdMob is reported to have cost the Goog $750 million dollars. Amazing.

Google to buy admob

Mountain View, Nov 9 (THAINDIAN NEWS) Search Engine major Google today announced that it has signed a substantial agreement to buy AdMob, which is a mobile display advertisement technology provider. The deal is set to be worth around $750 million in stock. This phenomenal acquisition will increase Google’s existing expertise by leaps and bounds. With this significant acquisition Google is set to set a trend in mobile advertising as well.

“Mobile advertising has enormous potential as a marketing medium and while this industry is still in the early stages of development, AdMob has already made exceptional progress in a very short time,” said Susan Wojcicki, Vice President of Product Management at Google. “AdMob is the quintessential Silicon Valley startup – generating impressive year on year revenue growth – and we’re excited to welcome this talented team to Google.”

“I think people underestimate how important ads have been to funding the development of innovative content on the Internet. Our goal all along at AdMob has been to make it possible for developers and publishers to bring their products and ideas to mobile with the same business model,” said Omar Hamoui, Founder and CEO of AdMob. “We’re proud of the progress we’ve made towards accomplishing this goal, and joining Google will only accelerate this process, ultimately leading to very real benefits for end users around the world. As publishers and developers generate more revenue from their mobile products, they will invest more, and their mobile offerings will become richer, more creative and more robust.”

p.s. Makes me want to build something just so I can sell it to Google for a shit load of money.

Turn by Turn Navigation on Your Droid

Noam Wolf — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 17:16:19 GMT

Google's Android 2.0 mobile phone OS now has free turn-by-turn navigation included. That's right, F-R-E-E free, and you will get it on your new Verizon Droid phone which hit the stores today (i think). Read more here.

Well it's about time, seriously. I finally decided I needed to buy a GPS device because Avis charged me about $20 for a single day... and now I don't have to shell out the $200 to buy a TomTom or a Nuvi, and I definitely don't need to pay Avis... sweeet.

p.s. I really hope this will be in the next OTA release for my G1... I really don't feel like switching providers to Verizon.

Netflix on your PS3

Noam Wolf — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 11:14:49 GMT

It's about time! Can't wait for this, I just hope that when I do a software update on the PS3 it won't freeze on me like last time... The official PS3 blog reports that Netflix will be coming to PS3 soon. Other sites also mentions this here, here, and here.

Netflix coming to playstation 3

We’re excited to announce today that Netflix and Sony have partnered to bring you thousands of movies and TV episodes streamed instantly from Netflix to your TV via your PS3 system at no extra charge. When the application launches next month, you’ll be able to access and watch thousands of Netflix choices directly through the XMB. We think that the nearly nine million PS3 enthusiasts and 11.1 million Netflix members in the U.S. will make quite a match.

The press release is here.

p.s. My mac mini has not been working for a few months and I'm too lazy to take it to the store to have it examined (mainly since it's not under warranty) and I hate connecting my laptop to the TV... I know, I know, I'm lazy...

Das Boot

Noam Wolf — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 09:02:11 GMT

Last week I went and I got my Beer on at a nice little place called the Lederhosen with a bunch of buddies. This place served the boot (see images below) and I gotta say those things are wicked huge... 2 litters per boot (or 4 pints per boot!!). You too can own a boot if you go to Amazon. Additionally, if you have not yet seen the movie Beerfest you should check it out.

Thus began the journey

Almost done

Who took this picture?

p.s. I really have no idea how I got home that night...

Like a Boss

Noam Wolf — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 08:44:23 GMT

Not super new, but super great. Samberg doing a great little SNL Digital Short... check it...

p.s.I'm the bow-ss motha-fuka!

Google Music

Noam Wolf — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 09:56:31 GMT

There are some rumors circulating the interwebs regarding Google's new music service.

I believe that Google offers a music service in China to compete with Baidu's MP3 service, of course it's a known fact that Baidu uses pirated data so it's kind of hard to fight that.

Google to partner with iLike and lala for new music service

Google will partner with iLike and LaLa for their new music service, we’ve learned. And the announcement date is Wednesday, October 28, 2009.
Press, including us, received an invitation this morning (see ticket image above) inviting them to a Hollywood event next week hosted by music services LaLa and iLike. The invitation, titled “Discover Music!” says announcements will be followed by performances, and that LaLa, iLike “& Others” are hosting. The “& Others” includes Google, we’ve heard from multiple sources, and the new service will be unveiled. All four major music services are backing the service.
iLike was recently acquired by MySpace, so the new service may involve them as well.
From information we’ve gathered from sources, the new service will be integrated into Google search. Users will be able to stream songs directly from Google via partners iLike and LaLa. Additional information around the music query will be provided to users as well (presumably any relevant results from YouTube as well as information already available in Google’s existing music search – example). One source said that Google will organize music searches in a way very similar to the way they do public company stock searches today.
Users will also be offered the opportunity to purchase songs for download, we’ve confirmed.

p.s. News, Books, and now music... put them all on my Android device and I'll be one happy camper.

Droid Does, iDoes not

Noam Wolf — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 09:13:57 GMT

Nice promotion for the new Verizon Android phone I mentioned a few days ago. Check out the original at droiddoes.com

p.s. Looks like Verizon is really going after apple, personally I think that's great, competition only drives prices down and increases innovation... can't wait for the G3 whatever/whenever that may be.

The Pulp Fiction Wave

Noam Wolf — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 16:50:38 GMT

Yes, this has been all over the web, but it's so good that I had to post it. If you, like me, have a hard time explaining what google wave is feel free to use this as a tutorial.

p.s. Speaking of all things google wave check this crazy shit out.

Wave is going to create a horrifying dystopian future

Google has revealed that all of these pieces of user-entered data will be fed into Google's Beachcomber service, which sorts through, tossing organized and compiled data sets over to Blue Whale for analysis.
Blue Whale is Google's new AI engine, and it'll use Wave data to become autonomous and all-knowing. Blue Whale will eventually lead your discussions by recalling past information used in Wave groups. It will keep you honest by comparing new statements with your past statements. Think of it as an autonomous, administrator-level additional member of any group included in your Waves.
Blue Whale works hand-in-hand with Google's Bottomfeeder targeted advertising bot, which will serve ads based not only on the content of your Waves, Wavelets and Blips, but also the personality scores that Blue Whale automatically compiles. If you're more aggressive with your Wave postings, for example, you may be shown ads for Ultimate Fighting or roller coasters. If you're more apt to demure to authority, you may be shown spots for feminine hygiene products or CuteOverload.com.
Users will of course have the option to turn off Bottomfeeder's ads, but if they want to keep using Google Wave, they'll need to agree to have Stingrays installed in their homes and offices. These are Google's new audio and video surveillance cameras, which are controlled by Blue Whale. They aren't monitored by people, so Google says there are fewer privacy concerns. Stingrays recognize brands and products and how you use them, focusing in on user interaction with everything from electronics to food. This will create excellent market research, which Google will then anonymize and sell to corporations.

Well ain't that a load of bullshit...

I should Fly Southwest Airlines

Noam Wolf — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 07:15:57 GMT

Caught this little gem on facebook and felt compelled to share it.

p.s. Talk about doing it up, if some of these "other" airline companies started shaking things up we would have some healthy competition... seems like the airline market is turning to shit.

How to startup

Noam Wolf — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 08:32:08 GMT

I've been using mint.com for the last couple of months and it's absolutely awesome. If you want a handle on your monthly spend, and you like pie charts, this is the application you've been waiting for. I wonder when they'll have an Android version.

Everything you wanted to know about startup building but were afraid to ask

Mint CEO Aaron Patzer at a startup competition event called Juice Pitcher on the Microsoft campus. The event, which is put on by TheFunded and Vator.tv, put a handful of new startups on stage to show their stuff and compete for a top prize. Between pitches, Patzer took the stage and told the story of Mint, in detail. His company just sold for $170 million to Intuit.

Mint CEO Aaron Patzer on Startups from Techcrunch on Vimeo.

Verizon announces new Android Phone

Noam Wolf — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 10:43:16 GMT

Verizon Announces Tuesday Morning Press Conference With Google

While the advisory doesn’t provides details, Verizon has been expected to announce a Google Android phone for some time. Presumably, its unveiling would occur before the busy holiday season, where cellphone sales pick up. The announcement is significant for the No. 1 U.S. carrier because its smartphone line-up until now has mainly been focused on RIM’s BlackBerry. Therefore, in order for Verizon to have a more complete portfolio and to continue to compete effectively against AT&T (NYSE: T), which has an exclusive with Apple (NSDQ: AAPL), it’s expected to add not only Android devices, but phones from Palm (NSDQ: PALM), too.

Verizon and Google's Android: Together at last

First of all, the back story. Up until a year ago, Verizon and Google weren't the best of friends. There was that little issue over the 700MHz spectrum that brought nasty letters to the FCC from Google and some legal wrangling by Verizon.

What a difference a year makes. The two giants have apparently found some middle ground - plenty of it, in fact. Today, they had a press conference where they've announced that in the coming weeks there will be two new Verizon Android handsets. "Game changers" is the term that Eric Schmidt actually used.

This partnership has "iPhone" written all over it. Google wants to differentiate the Android handsets from the iPhone and, to a lesser extent, Blackberry and Pre. They aren't going to make much headway on Tmobile or Sprint which have smaller networks and fewer 3G towers than even AT&T, even if their services is much better. With Verizon, there is a clear (har) difference.

p.s. Looks pretty hot... can't wait to get a new device ;)

Google opt-out

Noam Wolf — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 03:13:18 GMT

This is really really funny.

Google Opt Out Feature Lets Users Protect Privacy By Moving To Remote Village

p.s. If only I could opt out of spam mail

T-Mobile myTouch

Noam Wolf — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 02:15:37 GMT

I'm not sure how I missed this but it looks like you can now be the proud owner of a G2 or a myTouch phone right here in the US.... who knew?

The price looks a little high but this phone looks really bad ass, and I have personally used it before. I wonder how many people will go for a the slicker phone without the keyboard.

p.s.I can get one for $149, I wonder if I should though...

Bar Refaeli -- NUDE

Noam Wolf — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 08:16:44 GMT

OK so this isn't the video, but apparently there is a video out there that shows Bar completely nude... hmmm... this is close though, so enjoy

p.s. In other Bar Rafaeli news, she's now dating Teddy Sagi (38), some rich Israeli douche bag... haha

The HTC Hero and Flash

Noam Wolf — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 12:50:08 GMT

It's happening, Flash on a mobile device! The first mobile device being demoed is the HTC Hero device as you can see here, it's quite impressive and I love the multi-touch (what they're referring to as "HTC Sense" technology.

The HTC Hero will be available in Europe starting in July and in Asia later this summer, while a "distinct" North American version will ship later in 2009 (aka as the Google Ion). However, pricing was not announced at this time.

Like the T-Mobile G1 and Google Ion/HTC Magic, the HTC Hero has the signature curve at the bottom, but it's a bit more svelte at 4.4 inches tall by 2.2 inches wide and 0.5 inch thick. In addition, it features a 3.2-inch HVGA touch screen with an antifingerprint screen coating.

This is really exciting, looks like the iPhone and Palm mobile devices really have their work cut out for them.

Amazing amazing

Noam Wolf — Tue, 05 May 2009 07:42:35 GMT

Looks like this is one of those viral videos that everyone is sharing on facebook.

Sergey, Larry and Eric make 1 Dollar each

Noam Wolf — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 12:50:13 GMT

It's good to be on top. Google's top execs decline to get paid!?! Well that's nice of them isn't it? Compared to the assholes from Wall street Sergey, Larry, and Eric seem to be saints. I keep reading about how AIG, and other bailout-ee's spend my taxes and it pisses me off. If these companies ran at 50% the efficiency the Google runs maybe we didn't have to bail their stupid asses out???

Top Google execs: $1 salary, no bonus, no options

Wall Street executives feeling harassed by taxpayers outraged at their pay might take note of how Google's ruling triumvirate fared in 2008: $1 in salary each, no bonus, no stock grants, and no stock options.

Google has offered co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin and Chief Executive Eric Schmidt "market-competitive" salaries every year since 2005, but once again in 2008, the three turned it down, according to a company regulatory filing Tuesday. "Due to their own preferences not to receive salary compensation, Eric, Larry, and Sergey each rejected these offers and continue to receive base salaries of $1," the company said.

Also in 2008, the company decided that the stock-based compensation it had awarded to top executives in 2007 was "sufficient to help us meet our retention and business objectives through 2008," so no new stock compensation was awarded to them except in the case of new Chief Financial Officer Patrick Pichette, who was set to receive compensation worth more than $2 million along with thousands of shares and stock options in his first year.

Schmidt received perks totaling $508,764 in 2008, up from $480,561 the year before. That covered $402,562 in personal security costs and $106,201 Google paid to fly his family members and friends on paid chartered flights.

Of course, Page, Brin, and Schmidt are certainly not paupers. The 29,148,614 shares of Google's Class B common stock Page held at the end of 2008 are worth $10.1 billion at Tuesday's closing price of $347.17; Brin's 28,611,862 shares are worth $9.9 billion, and Schmidt's 9,372,740 shares are worth $3.3 billion.

p.s. I feel like that's what I make too, of course I wasn't given the option to decline my pay.

I Can Has Cats

Noam Wolf — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 09:05:41 GMT

I'm a huge cat person. I truly believe the world is divided into 2 kinds of people, those who love cats, and those who suck. So if you're of the good type, you'll enjoy this.

p.s. I have a cat, his name is Louis.

The G2, no really

Noam Wolf — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 13:06:08 GMT

HTC is reffering to it as the Magic, this slim and sexy new phone looks like it will be the official next Android phone. Unfortunately it seems this phone will only be available in Europe and even if you buy it and try to use in the US you will not be able to enjoy 3G speeds.

You can actually order it online here, no this phone doesn't have a full keyboard, so you're going to have to wait for the official Android Cupcake release.

Shame On You Content Providers Let Hulu and Boxee Coexist

Noam Wolf — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 13:26:00 GMT

It's not secret that I'm a TV addict. I love my shows and I'll see them how, and when, I want to see them. Since I'm bound to Comcast (the crappiest company to ever provide cable television btw) my DVR isn't very reliable, yes even after replacing it with a newer model. So due to that fact I have to rely on other sources for my TV shows. I discovered boxee at a friends house a while back and immediately set up an old box I had with boxee and connected it to my TV. I had been streaming Hulu from boxee and all seemed well until Hulu announced they are taking themselves off of boxee at the request of their "content providers" which apparently remain nameless. You can read all about it on the Hulu blog HERE.

Personally I don't understand what the difference is if I watch Hulu via boxee or via FireFox. I don't see any ads on Hulu.com, the ads are only in the videos, so what gives? As the comments in the Hulu blog mention, people will now be forced to download content illegally and no one will win, the content providers won't get their ad money, their advertisers will stop supporting this free stream of content, and soon Hulu will go away too... so what can we do? If we abandon Hulu we will have lost the best free content provider out there, but if we don't these "content providers" will continue to tell us how to view content that is free... weird dilemma.

Since the box I have boxee installed on is a computer, I just watch Hulu via FireFox, but I can't use my nifty remote control so it's quite annoying. I hope boxee and Hulu reach some sort of arrangement with the content providers soon, it's really a shame how this has turned out.

Make Money Writing Android Applications

Noam Wolf — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 10:17:30 GMT

It's official! You can now charge for your Android application.

Android Market update

I'm pleased to announce that Android Market is now accepting priced applications from US and UK developers. Developers from these countries can go to the publisher website at http://market.android.com/publish to upload their application(s) along with end user pricing for the apps. Initially, priced applications will be available to end users in the US starting mid next week. We will add end user support for additional countries in the coming months.

Sweet! Only thing is I tried to set up my merchant account and something seems to be wrong with the "I accept the terms and conditions" button... everytime I click on it it takes me to a different page with no "approve/ok" button, then when I go back to the settings page for my merchant account that annoying "I accept the terms and conditions" button is still there... wtf??

Joaquin Phoenix Loves David Letterman

Noam Wolf — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 07:50:05 GMT

If you missed last nights David Letterman then you missed out on one crazy Joaquin Phoenix. It gets uncomfortable to watch and one point. Check it out... also Bar Refaeli goes on after and it seems like David wasn't in the mood after Joaquin's behavior.

p.s. "I'll come to your house and chew gum" was probably the funniest thing...

Crazy New York Weather

Noam Wolf — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 10:57:23 GMT

WTF? 10 degree shifts day after day? New York weather is crazy man.

Free Money, no really

Noam Wolf — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 12:30:49 GMT

Need some cash? Feel like you deserve a bailout as well? Don't mind standing on line for hours? Well you'll love this...

Man hands out cash in New York

The mystery man, who calls himself 'Bailout Bill', says in the middle of an economic crisis ordinary Americans who are struggling to make ends meet deserve a bailout.

In order to get the money people have to go the 'Bailout Booth' in the heart of Manhattan's Times Square.

It's a small cubicle, a couple of blocks away from the massive Virgin Megastore.

The minimum anyone can get is $50 (£35). The maximum is $5,000 (£3,513).

No matter who you are or what you do Bailout Bill guarantees that you'll get something if you just show up and tell your story.

Hundreds have already braved the freezing temperatures to get their free dosh. Some have stood in line for hours before getting to the front.

p.s. If only I wasn't so lazy... anyone want to stand online for me? Or even just give me money?

Do NOT get Comcast

Noam Wolf — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 14:24:08 GMT

If you have a choice, or if you're even considering Comcast allow me to save you some time, money, and a lot of frustration. Do NOT, I repeat, do NOT get Comcast. Allow me to elaborate (this is the abridged version of what happened, it was way longer, and much more painful than this post can ever represent).

Roughly a month ago I started a journey with this awful company to replace my current DVR which has been a pain (noisy, unreliable, you name it). I was mailed a new DVR only to find out it didn't work. The only reason I ordered it was to get a new one, that worked, and that I didn't have to treck out to Comcast's HQ to pick it up, I thought that would save me some time. When the box didn't work I had to call a technician over, which meant taking 1/2 a day off. The technician came, with the wrong equipment, and ended up leaving me the same way he found me... with a 2 defective boxes.

I got my bill last week. Only to find out that Comcast had the nerve to charge me for renting 2 boxes, and service on 2 boxes!!!! I immediately called 1-800-Comcastsucks only to wait for 45 minutes!!! until someone picked up. Comcastic service?? really?? The "kind" lady on the phone explained that if I returned the DVR I would get credited for whatever they charged me for, the only problem was that they charged me for service and rental but she kept saying (literally repeated 3-4 times) that they would refund the rental charges.

So I ended up returning the 2 DVR's today and getting a new one, the line was long, the service was horrible but I was able to get a brand new working DVR, and according to the lady who helped me she refunded my account. When I got home I rushed to check if she had actually refunded me, now that I know what to expect from Comcrap, it wasn't a surprise to find out she credited the wrong amount. No, she didn't credit too much... that's not how these guy's operate! Have you not learned anything?

The best way to get a straight answer, and a relatively fast one, from Comcast is to go online and chat to a representative. Here is an excerpt of my conversation, please notice how much this company sucks.

Me: I was told today at the Comcast location that my account had been credited but I do not see the credit online or when I call 1800Comcast.

analyst J: Mr. Wolf, as I can see on your account the credit adjustment has been applied and this will be reflected on your next statement.

Me: May I ask how my current balance is over 10$ more than my previous balance? and also, when I went online to comcast.com my next bill shows a balance of 170$ how come? analyst J: Your current balance on your online account is $175.89. Since the adjustment has been posted in the account your balance will be $154.24.

Me: i understand that part but I still don't understand how my bill is over 10$ more expensive than last months bill which was 142.70.

analyst J: Mr. Wolf, as I checked the bill the reason why the rate increase is because of the Pay Per View order which is added on the account for $4.99 dated December 21, 2008.

Me: so there's a tax on PPV movies now? of about 5$? 142.70 + 4.99 = 147.69 not 154.24. so there are still about 8$ unaccounted for. That's what i have trouble understanding.

analyst J: You have a Pay Per View order also last January 22, 2009 for the amount of $4.99.

Me: so even more to worry, you're saying that my last bill *included* a ppv movie and so does the current one so how is there over 10$ difference?

analyst J: I understand that you are confused with the bill statement. Let me help you clarify the issue. Our statement is in a month advance, Mr. Wolf. And you billing cycle starts every 2nd day of the month to the 1st day of the following month. So as of the order last December 21, 2008 pay per view will be included on the January statement. What you are seeing today in the online statement is for the bill cycle of February 2 to March 1, 2009.

Me: i have my january and feb bills infront of me the only difference is the extra charges that i was supposedly credited for today so if I understand my bills correctly the charges should be identical or in other words 142.70 moreover, when I look at next months charges, online, I see a balance of 170.90$ which makes absolutely no sense.

analyst J: What I can do for that since, I believed that this has been an error on the system. Please give me a minute to adjust your bill for the amount of $4.99. Your balance now is $149.25.

Me: I would like to argue that 149.25 does NOT equal 142.70 but I am a little tired by all of this... i'm sure you are too.

analyst J: I can process you the difference of $6.55 which will total the blance on your account to $142.70. Is there anything else that I can help you today?

UN-Fucking-Believable. You've been warned.

p.s. Turns out a lot of people on the web feel the same... just search for "comcast sucks" on google. This is probably my favorite: Comcast Blows

English as a second language

Noam Wolf — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 07:04:25 GMT

Got this in an email today and thought it was pretty funny...

When English is the second language. I particularly like the doctor's office in Rome!

IT IS FORBIDDEN TO ENTER A WOMAN, EVEN A FOREIGNER, IF DRESSED AS A MAN. Bejing, China

Cocktail lounge, Norway: LADIES ARE REQUESTED NOT TO HAVE CHILDREN IN THE BAR.

Doctor's office, Rome: SPECIALIST IN WOMEN AND OTHER DISEASES.

Dry cleaners, Bangkok: DROP YOUR TROUSERS HERE FOR THE BEST RESULTS.

In a Nairobi restaurant: CUSTOMERS WHO FIND OUR WAITRESSES RUDE OUGHT TO SEE THE MANAGER.

On the main road to Mombassa, leaving Nairobi: TAKE NOTICE: WHEN THIS SIGN IS UNDER WATER, THIS ROAD IS IMPASSABLE.

On a poster at Kencom: ARE YOU AN ADULT THAT CANNOT READ? IF SO WE CAN HELP.

In a City restaurant: OPEN SEVEN DAYS A WEEK AND WEEKENDS.

In a cemetery: PERSONS ARE PROHIBITED FROM PICKING FLOWERS FROM ANY BUT THEIR OWN GRAVES.

Tokyo hotel's rules and regulations: GUESTS ARE REQUESTED NOT TO SMOKE OR DO OTHER DISGUSTING BEHAVIOURS IN BED.

On the menu of a Swiss restaurant: OUR WINES LEAVE YOU NOTHING TO HOPE FOR.

In a Tokyo bar: SPECIAL COCKTAILS FOR THE LADIES WITH NUTS.

Hotel, Yugoslavia: THE FLATTENING OF UNDERWEAR WITH PLEASURE IS THE JOB OF THE CHAMBERMAID.

Hotel, Japan: YOU ARE INVITED TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THEÂ CHAMBERMAID.

In the lobby of a Moscow hotel across from a Russian Orthodox monastery: YOU ARE WELCOME TO VISIT THE CEMETERY WHERE FAMOUS RUSSIAN AND SOVIET COMPOSERS, ARTISTS AND WRITERS ARE BURIED DAILY EXCEPT THURSDAY.

A sign posted in Germany's Black Forest: IT IS STRICTLY FORBIDDEN ON OUR BLACK FOREST CAMPING SITE THAT PEOPLE OF DIFFERENT SEX, FOR INSTANCE, MEN AND WOMEN, LIVE TOGETHER IN ONE TENT UNLESS THEY ARE MARRIED WITH EACH OTHER FOR THIS PURPOSE.

Hotel, Zurich: BECAUSE OF THE IMPROPRIETY OF ENTERTAINING GUESTS OF THE OPPOSITE SEX IN THE BEDROOM, IT IS SUGGESTED THAT THE LOBBY BE USED FOR THIS PURPOSE.

Advertisement for donkey rides, Thailand: WOULD YOU LIKE TO RIDE ON YOUR OWN ASS?

Airline ticket office, Copenhagen: WE TAKE YOUR BAGS AND SEND THEM IN ALL DIRECTIONS.

A laundry in Rome: LADIES, LEAVE YOUR CLOTHES HERE AND SPEND THE AFTERNOON HAVING A GOOD TIME.

p.s. Now try to translate using the little flags at the top and see what happens...

The Top 10 PS3 Games of 2008

Noam Wolf — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 07:22:17 GMT

Got this email from Amazon and thought it was pretty cool. My PS3 broke down a couple of weeks ago and I don't have it right now... believe it or not it broke down one day AFTER my warranty expired. After calling Sony a few times (probably like 5) I managed to get them to give me a "good will" gesture and fix the machine up for me. That's kind of lame don't you think? Well at least they fixed it and it's on it's way back now and I didn't have to pay a single dollar for all of this (again lame, why should I even be happy that I didn't have to pay? shouldn't a PS3 last for more than 12 months?). Anyway if you ever run into this problem you now know that the Sony guy has the authority to grant you a "one time" good will gesture.... so demand it. Oh and I was also able to call GameStop and have them fax the proof of purchase over to Sony since I lost the receipt. The only problem now is that I am no longer covered... I should probably get some coverage ;)

The Top 10 PS3 Games of 2008

"Little Big Planet"
	Learn more

"Fallout 3"
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"Prince of Persia"
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"Resistance 2"
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"Valkyria Chronicles"
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"Call of Duty: World at War"
	Learn more

"Mirror's Edge"
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"Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe"
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"Motorstorm Pacific Rift"
	Learn more

"Shaun White Snowboarding"
	Learn more

p.s. Looks like I only have one game out of the top 10 (call of duty 4)... I'm surprised GTA didn't make it in.

Paid Apps in Q1

Noam Wolf — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 20:12:00 GMT

Just received an official email from the Android team telling us developers what's on the horizon.

Additionally, I would like to confirm that Android Market will support priced applications starting early Q1 2009, as we'd originally stated last fall. Given the country-by-country work required to set up payment support for developers in different countries, we will enable priced app support in Q1 for developers operating in these countries in the following order: (1) United States and UK; (2) Germany, Austria and Netherlands; (3) France, Italy and Spain. By the end of Q1 2009, we will announce support for developers operating in additional countries. Developers operating in the above listed countries should begin finalizing their priced applications, including determining the appropriate pricing strategy.

OK, wtf does "determining the appropriate pricing strategy" mean? If I understand correctly, and from what I've seen on the Market website you can state a price for your application. Where is the strategy part?

In other news, Google employees receive Android phone as xmas bonus which to me means many more awesome applications. Which lead me to think about how many applications are already available on the Android Market. I searched around and could not find an exact number. This lead to another question, which application should count as an application, have you seen the fart applications? Speaking of fart applications (oh btw if you have now idea what a fart application is, you basically click on a button and your phone farts... great...) it turns out that the two fart applications on the iPhone are on the top 10 best sellers... are you fucking kidding me? people pay for that garbage?

So while I didn't find answers to my questions I did run into a very nice website, taptaptap, which seems to be some kind of iPhone app company that have a very nice blog which taught me some interesting shortcuts on my ~~iPhone~~ iPod touch and also the fact that the iPhone app store has surpassed 10K applications. I think that's awesome, again not sure which apps should actually be considered but still great. Now that I see a lot of apps being ported over to Android I look forward to seeing the Android Market grow fast!

p.s. My next, and third, application for Android is on its way. Hopefully I'll be able to release by second week of January.

Jennifer Aniston GQ Pictures

Noam Wolf — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 09:54:49 GMT

I'm a huge Jennifer Aniston fan and when I heard that she was taking some "tasty" pictures for GQ I had to find those images... well here you go...

p.s. You're welcome. Call me Jenny.

Corporate Android Interest and Dan Hasse the Douchebag

Noam Wolf — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 10:47:16 GMT

In an interesting article on the Motley Fool Anders Bylund reports that "Sprint's CEO Dan Hesse confirmed that the company plans to sell and support the platform someday soon" which was also reported by the Android Community. This comes as a surprise to me after about 2 months ago Dan Hasse was quoted saying that Android was ”not good enough to put the Sprint brand on it.” So in my book that makes CEO Hasse a corporate douche bag, especially in light of his latest TV campaign where he makes it quite obvious that he is a douche bag.

Google Is Raising an Android Army

There's heavy speculation that Motorola (NYSE: MOT) is working on an Android handset, and Sprint Nextel (NYSE: S) CEO Dan Hesse confirmed that the company plans to sell and support the platform someday soon. Further signs of reinforcement come from Austrualia, where there are rumblings about an Android phone from maverick electronics retailer Kogan Technologies, which looks more like a BlackBerry than an iPhone and ships worldwide in January -- unlocked and ready to work on pretty much any mobile network.

And here comes the heavy cavalry. Fourteen more technology leaders have joined the Open Handset Alliance, which is the gang that keeps Android development organized. Among the heaviest of the new hitters, you'll find phone designers like Toshiba and Sony Ericsson, general mobile gadget expert Garmin (Nasdaq: GRMN), and multinational service providers Softbank and Vodafone (NYSE: VOD). And that doesn't even cover the fresh semiconductor and software blood. Or is that fresh hydraulic oil?

p.s. AndroidFound (or now, Phone Found) is doing well... should hit 5000 downloads tomorrow.

HTC Presents the G2

Noam Wolf — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 09:06:17 GMT

To all the skeptics out there, if these images are of an actual phone and not some UX designers attempt and mocking an iPhone in HTC speak then I think the G2 will be MUCH better than the G1 and it may also have some iPhone users jumping ship. (Obviously this is a joke, in case you didn't realize it).

In other alleyinsider.com is reporting a new android device from an Australian manufacturer, namely the Agora, that is said to ship by the end of January in two versions: a simple and a pro. From the pics (see blow) it's not looking too promising, why would I want less screen real estate?

p.s. AndroidFound is approaching the 2000 download mark, not bad for less than 24 hours.

My Android Apps

Noam Wolf — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 17:13:59 GMT

I figured that it's time to create an Android category on my blog since I've been working on my 2 (more to come) android applications for so long. Anyway I will probably post code and interesting findings here in the near future. To kick off this category I just wanted to share how well my new application has taken in the market. It's Saturday and I uploaded the first version of the AndroidFound (phonefound's brother) and it's going pretty well.

For screen shots of AndroidFound you can go here. Help and release notes here.

For screen shots of ClockApps you can go here. Help and release notes here.

Netflix Streaming

Noam Wolf — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 13:38:35 GMT

I've been looking for a little b'day gift for myself and I saw the Netflix Player by Roku and got kind of excited about it. For 99$ you get a nice little box that connects via HDMI to your LCD, with built in wireless internet connectivity I thought it was a done deal. So I asked around and got a really long thread going on about what to buy. Here is a summary of the main points in said thread:

If you have an xbox you already have built in support for Netflix streaming so you don't need to buy anything.
If you have a spare PC* you can just hook it up to your TV, if you're cheap and you don't mind having a PC* in your living room.
If you have and xbox you can still get the Roku for a different room. Not a bad idea IMHO.
Wait for Tivo, ps3, mac* support.
You can use your PS3 plus networked PC for only $30 with playon.
If you have PlayOn you can also watch Hulu shows.
Get on of the new Bluray devices with build in Netflix streaming.
Even if you have xbox you need Xbox Gold LIVE membership.
Roku does not stream HD, this is a huge point, but is said to have an firmware upgrade sometime in the future for this.

A lot of good points to consider, and I will, but then I ran into this article which discuss exactly the same points!! Here are the key points from the article:

I've spent the past couple of weeks comparing the Netflix experience on Microsoft's Xbox 360 game console, on LG Electronics' BD300 Blu-ray disc player and on a set-top box from Roku called the Netflix Player.

The devices suffer from a relatively skimpy selection of videos on the Netflix Internet service. Netflix has more than 100,000 titles for rent on disc, but about 12,000 titles for viewing through its Internet service at the moment, and there's often a months-long delay after a movie's release before it shows up online. Television shows generally turn up more quickly, with a handful, like NBC's "Heroes," watchable the day after they air.
Wi-Fi
with the Roku device, the only one of three products that comes with built-in Wi-Fi (it worked well in this mode). People who want to use the Xbox 360 with a wireless network will have to spend $70 or so on an external Wi-Fi adapter. LG recommends people use only a wired home network to connect to Netflix from its player, including adapter kits that cost about $100 for transmitting data over home power lines.
Interface
All the devices require you to create a list of movies you want to watch from a computer, just like Netflix subscribers set up "queues" of DVDs to be delivered by mail. The Xbox 360 offered by far the most elegant-looking interface for browsing through videos in my Netflix queue... In contrast, the Netflix menu on the LG Blu-ray player and Roku device were more static, making it more awkward to navigate the expanse of titles.
Quality
The quality of most of the videos on Netflix is, to my eyes, about DVD quality... HD titles were available for viewing only through the Xbox 360 when I was testing the service. Roku and LG say they will make software updates available online this month that add HD support to their devices.
LG Sucks
I experienced the most serious glitches with the LG Blu-ray player, which occasionally dropped the video signal to my television set as I was watching a movie. The LG Blu-ray player also took the longest of all the devices to install software upgrades from the Internet.
Conclusion
But if what you're after is primarily Netflix movies, and you've got room near your TV for another box, the $99.99 Roku product is the best value.

Interesting. So the * next to the PC and MAC are there because Netflix just released a beta version of it's streaming player for mac users... check it out here.

54 Mind-blowing Digital Paintings

Noam Wolf — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 08:21:43 GMT

These are just amazing, there really isn't much to add.

54 mind-blowing digital paintings

p.s. Just released my first android application, check it out here if you have a G1.

How Much Would You Pay For Air Jordans 3

Noam Wolf — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 16:12:44 GMT

I went out to get some new basketball kicks today. I figured I'd go to the mall and pickup something at Foot Locker, "shouldn't take a long time" I thought to myself. Anyway, I walk in and I see one of my past favorites. The original (but newly made) Nike Air Jordan's 3, as made famous by this poster staring his Airness and Spike Lee. Well those are the shoes I want, I thought to myself, how much could they possible cost? 120$? 140$? 160$? I would gladly pay that amount for a piece of my childhood...

How much would you pay? Well, it turns out Mr. Jordan, aka "his Airness", is actually the one behind the recreation of the most famous shoe line in basketball history. The only problem is that he has a different idea about how to sell them. If you want to buy the newly created Jordan 3's you NEED to buy 2 pairs of shoes at a nifty price tag of 310 dollars. Say what? Why can't I just buy one pair of shoes? Hey, you know what, how about I get to pick which two pairs of Jordan's I want? No. Jordan will make that decision for you. What is up with this marketing strategy? I for one think it's ridiculous, are they actually making more sales this way or are they loosing possible sales because of this stupid gimmick?

The beauty and the beast

p.s. I got some other pair of sneaks so I'm probably not going to get these after all. I hope I will be able to dunk without my jordans.

Guitar Hero World Tour

Noam Wolf — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 12:57:15 GMT

So Guitar Hero is now rock bandish in that they have added the microphone and drums, I think I should order it. Now if that's not enough to get you all excited about a video game then check out how they took the PR campaign to the next level bringing in the likes of none other than Kobe Bryant!

Hat tip Kurt.

Oliver Stone Does Politics

Noam Wolf — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 06:48:13 GMT

Ran into this funny little promo the other day, man Palin has a hot bod as a cartoon...

p.s. I guess comedians around the world are hoping Obama looses, that will just dry up the political scene for them won't it...

Phillies Advance to World Series

Noam Wolf — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 13:29:55 GMT

Since some people complained that I didn't post about sports (except for my Lakers...) here is a little hat tip for you baseball fanatics, especially you Philly Phans...

Phillies advance to World Series

Philadelphia Phillies fans can still dream of their team winning its first World Series since 1980, but Los Angeles Dodgers fans can officially stop believing for 2008.
The Phillies are returning to the World Series for the first time since 1993 after riding ace Cole Hamels to a 5-1 win over L. A. to take the best-of-seven NLCS 4-1.
L. A.'s surprise playoff run, sparked by the late summer arrival of Manny Ramirez, crashed to a halt amidst the wreckage created by another poor NLCS start from Chad Billingsley and three fifth-inning errors by Dodgers shortstop Rafael Furcal.
Furcal had made only four errors in 36 games this year.
But with runners on first and second and his team behind 3-0, the 31-year-old could not handle Pat Burrell's ground ball.

p.s. I really wanted to see an all out brawl but that didn't happen... I wonder if Manny will get signed by a New York team next season. Oh, and you're welcome Kurt.

Pixelated Google Overlords

Noam Wolf — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 08:12:26 GMT

Came across this pixelated portrait of Google's top dawgs. You can actually see an enlarged version of each one of the overlords here (Sergery), here (Larry), and here (Eric). I wonder why they're tagged under the Jerk tag?

p.s. I wonder what it would take for me to get a pixelated portrait... I guess I'd have to actually do it myself.

What was that URL again

Noam Wolf — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 20:34:53 GMT

Saw this live on TV the other night and got a good laugh too, it just amazes me how you can find pretty much anything on YouTube these days.

p.s. I'm guessing Ernie had something else on his mind...

Palins Debate Strategy

Noam Wolf — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 10:48:23 GMT

I thought this was really funny, especially after watching the debate.

p.s. Comedians might have material post Bush after all.

Reach out

Noam Wolf — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 06:24:30 GMT

Red Band is a new Israeli comedy that is REALLY funny. Since most of you (my devoted readers) don't speak hebrew this might actually be a show you could enjoy since the main character, Red Aurbach (not really sure who he's supposed to be but would be happy if any of you could enlighten me), speaks in English... the entire show. Anyway the concept is that Red was the head of a very famous rock band in the 60s (?) and now they're in Israel after a few years of failure in the US trying to jam with local rock stars. They usually host at least one Israel rock star and make a cover "on the fly." Here is a little taste....

p.s. Gotta love the ending...

Help A Bald Brother Out

Noam Wolf — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 07:01:01 GMT

It's been way too long since I last saw a new episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, actually now that I think of it it's been way too long since I've seen a new episode of anything... Well to fill that void, the Larry David void that is, I had to turn to other sources.

p.s. When is the new season starting anyway?

Where is Nebraska

Noam Wolf — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 17:50:10 GMT

If you enjoyed TripAdvisorts IQ Game you're bound to enjoy this game... sure it's not as slick as the Trip Advisor one but it's actually quite fun. My best score is 88%... Can you beat me?
USA Geography Quiz

p.s. I just noticed some links breaking on my site... any ideas what the hell is up?

JavaScript Inheritance

Noam Wolf — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 15:17:09 GMT

I've been writing some heavy lifting JavaScript lately and found something interesting I thought I might share with you. There are a couple of ways to implement inheritance in JavaScript but since that is outside the scope of this post I'll stick to the prototype chaining paradigm (which, according to Nicholas Zakas is the form of inheritance actually intended use in ECMAScript).

Consider the following code:

function Disposable() { alert("Disposable constructor"); }; Disposable.prototype.dispose = function () { alert("In base clase dispose"); }; function MemoryHog() { alert("MemoryHog constructor"); // Call super class' constructor Disposable.call(this); }; // Inherit Disposable MemoryHog.prototype = new Disposable(); // override MemoryHog.prototype.dispose = function () { alert("Deleting MemoryHog resources...."); }; var recursiveClass = new MemoryHog(); recursiveClass.dispose();

What do you expect the output to be?

The output is, well a little different than what you would expect from a very similar Java or C# exercise:

Disposable constructor MemoryHog constructor Disposable constructor Deleting MemoryHog resources....

What I found interesting is that the Disposable constructor gets called when the page loads. The second time the Disposable constructor gets called is not when an instance of MemoryHog is instantiated (not in the automatic/OOP way it would happen) but when MemoryHog's constructor calls it's super classes constructor.

In any event while developing JavaScript classes I highly recommend you use some sort of JavaScript linter. The best (public) one out there is probably JSLint.com brought to you by non other than Yahoo! JavaScript chief, Douglas Crockford. Additionally I found it very useful to use JSUnit to write unit tests for my JavaScript... yeah, you heard me, unit tests for your JavaScript. It helped me refactor easily knowing that I could always run my tests (I use the built in Test Suite Runner) and know that I didn't break anything.

My New Hobby

Noam Wolf — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 14:38:20 GMT

I recently caved in and bought a "real" camera. I own a Nikon SD850IS compact that's served it's purpose ever since my SD500 got stolen in St. Petersburg last year. After seeing my buddy Jacob graduate from a Nikon D80 to D300 I figured it's time to upgrade... and so I did. I am now the proud owner of my first DSLR the Nikon D60.

Now, I can't just post about my new camera and hobby and not show some photos I took... these are originals for the very first time on blog.a.lish, hope you enjoy them.

My other new hobby, drinking Orangina's

Weird woman in SoHo

p.s. If you want a copy, which is probably not likely I'd be more than happy to shoot you over the full scale image.

Lego Snacks

Noam Wolf — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 12:31:44 GMT

This came up in a thread at work and I had to mention it cause it's absolutely great... You can get yours from Amazon, I had no idea they sold food.

Would this be a good gift for a child? Wouldn't it confuse them a little?

Capo-Soccer Skillz

Noam Wolf — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 12:11:02 GMT

Saw this on Facebook and was just amazed. I'm not sure how authentic the entire thing is but it's hot... very very hot.

Capoeira + Soccer @Rio = HOT.

The Google-Yahoo Deal

Noam Wolf — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 09:08:51 GMT

Sure there have been a lot of posts about this deal, and now that I have time I read most of them. It doesn't surprise me that Google looks at this deal as "good for competition" and it doesn't surprise me much that Yahoo! top exec's rushed to agree on this deal due to the implications of giving up their "baby" (search). That said, out of all the articles I've read about this deal this following post has my favorite take on things:
Hey Microsoft, How 'bout We Do That First Deal You Offered?

Here's what I think of this deal - it stinks. Microsoft isn't marrying Yahoo, they're just getting her pregnant, setting her up in a nice apartment and telling her not to talk to any other guys.

Forget the flowerly language about how this deal "strengthens Yahoo's competitive position" (Yahoo press release) or "is good for competition" (Google blog post). Both are flat out lies. The deal crushes any notion of a competitive search advertising market and turns Yahoo's search and search marketing efforts into the undead.

Bottom Line

Yahoo has pissed off shareholders and a looming meeting - they can't ignore reality much longer. And reality says Yahoo's future is bleak. They continue to lose market share, they have serious brain drain and morale has never been lower.

I can't help but wonder what the digital advertising playing field would have looked like had Yahoo! taken the (first offered - they had the opportunity to buy DoubleClick before Google or Microsoft were even involved) DoubleClick Deal. Would that have given them the boost they needed? Would that have forced Google to compete against Microsoft in a bidding war to acquire Yahoo! ? Or, perhaps most realistically, would that have created a more even digital advertising war between the, then 3 now 2, major players in the industry.

Reasons or Excuses

Noam Wolf — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 11:06:57 GMT

You've probably noticed that I haven't blogged in quite a while. The reasons I have are, of course, excuses. In any event I think I will be back soon... very soon... like next week soon. So going back to these ~~excuses~~ reasons, I have been studying hard for an certification exam in... wait for it.... Java 5... yup, went over to the dark side, the VERY dark side. Studying took up most of my free time and I'm glad to announce that I am officially Sun Certified (or in other words... nailed it).

I realize this post is kind of boring but I studied my ass off learning this vile language... just kidding it's ok. I actually work in the Java-sphere now and as such I assume I might have some Java tips and tricks to share with you .NET people... So to just leave you with a taste for more I figured I'd post something "interesting", enjoy.

Lakers Go To NBA Finals

Noam Wolf — Thu, 29 May 2008 21:00:01 GMT

I couldn't be happier to see my team back in the finals after a hiatus of 4 years (that year was harsh as they lost to Detroit in 5). The Lakers made a couple of great decisions this year in trading for Pau Gasol and getting veteran point guard Derek Fisher (D-Fish). With Kobe receiving his first MVP award he has a chance to do what only Michael Jordan did... win MVP, win the NBA Championship, and win a gold medal at the 2008 Olympic games. I'll be happy with the first two...

A very senior exec at my office mentioned he might take me to a Celtics vs. Lakers game if it happened... let's keep our fingers crossed... and Michael, if you're reading this, start making some phone calls!

The Link Between Facial Hair and Programming Languages

Noam Wolf — Sat, 24 May 2008 14:49:27 GMT

Ran into an interesting article which I thought I should share... The premise of this article is a programming language is as popular as the length of it's authors facial hair... crazy right? (excuse the pretty bad english)
Why Microsoft can Blow-Off with C#?

One sight at [Bjorn] Stroustrup's face is enough to understand, that C++ much more successful then other languages.
Not the law is clear? There is a beard - there is a success. There is no beard - you are guilty.
Eifell, Scheme, Cecil, Haskell, Erlang - great languages, but no one except profs are working with them

The "catch" is in moustaches. Perl is the one more language widespread almost as the BASIC and having almost same bad glory. It has written Larri Wall. Look what moustaches he has.

The authors of others script languages have no moustaches. Ruby and the Python is better, than Perl, but meet where less often than Perl. There is, however, a hope for Van Rossum, suddenly will grow a beard. It is not necessary to count on Mr. Matsumoto - at Japanese the beard grows badly.

Could it be that the actual connection is between personal hygiene and nerdiness?

p.s. The follow up article can be found here

Miri Levi

Noam Wolf — Sun, 18 May 2008 19:52:52 GMT

Watch out Bar, Miri is right behind you... The 25 year old model from Tel Aviv is one of many up and coming Israeli models. She finds men who cook very sexy... good luck.

A little something for JK.

VLC media player

Noam Wolf — Sun, 18 May 2008 17:36:39 GMT

Quicktime just not cutting it? Feel like you have to download a gazillion codecs? You don't. I'd like to introduce VideoLAN's FREE open source VLC media player (download it here). Turns out this bad ass media player does it all, just download, unpack, and you're ready to enjoy video and audio in a sweet wrapper.

Some key product points:
It is a free cross-platform media player

It supports a large number of multimedia formats, without the need for additional codecs

It can also be used as a streaming server, with extended features (video on demand, on the fly transcoding, ...)

For you computer programming ~~geeks~~ wizards out there

Being an open source application has its benefits, Google's "Summer of Code 2008" picked up some projects and have many capable engineers working on new stuff.
The VideoLAN project was assigned 14 slots by Google. 10 of those went to VLC related projects and 4 to x264 projects. Official results are available on Google's website.

VideoLAN's main site http://www.videolan.org/ is a good source for more information such as product feeds and other interesting projects.

CSS Performance

Noam Wolf — Wed, 14 May 2008 16:32:25 GMT

This article is more of a reference article but do read on if you're interested in Child Selector performance. I read this article and it pointed out some interesting things that I thought should be up on the blog... so here goes.
CSS child selector performance

The skinny is that child selectors are a major performance issue.
This seemed to make sense, but to me I needed some sort of proof rather than just being told it’s that way by someone, so over the last two days I’ve tried two approaches to see if I can replicate the issue.
The first one was rather a half-assed idea that afterwards seems fundamentally flawed as a benchmark.
So I took a new approach which does seem to return some valid and rather interesting findings, particularly regarding Safari and Firefox 3 and how they react to child selectors and performance.
The tests show that there is slow down using child selectors over direct class name declarations in IE6, IE7 and Safari 3. Safari 3 being the most impacted by child selectors. Firefox 2 has some impact, and Firefox 3 doesn’t seem to be impacted at all.
That said, this is a very extreme test, it is not often you’d have 20,000 class definitions in a single page or that all of them would use 4 levels of child selector.

This article has been published under the influence (of beer-pong and beer-tap at work!)

The Fundamental Relationship Operator

Noam Wolf — Sat, 10 May 2008 09:07:26 GMT

This is kind of a javascript puzzler that I can't take personal credit for but I thought it was quite interesting.

What do the following evaluate to in Javascript:
null < 0 null == 0 null <= 0

Think about it for a second before scrolling down to the answers. No really, try to solve it first.

while you wait for it... (Sia - The Girl You Lost To Cocaine)

Solution

null < 0 --> false null == 0 --> false null <= 0 --> true

Solution Explained

If you got the correct answers and you know why they are correct you can stop reading now and give yourself a pat on the shoulder. I didn't get the last one correct and I wasn't sure why...

It turns out that "<" is the fundamental relationship operator in javascript. That basically means that hybrid relationship operators are translated by the interpreter to a "<" operation with the addition of other fundamental operators like !. So how does this make null <= 0 you ask? x <=y is calculated as !(y < x) and since 0 < null still evaluates to false negating that result returns true.

Type Racer

Noam Wolf — Fri, 09 May 2008 21:52:29 GMT

Ever had a boss or peer who types with two fingers? Has that ever bothered you a little? Do you have a boss or peer that thinks they're all that because they can type a gazilion words per second? Do you think you're faster than them?

Now you can solve all of your problems with one site. Give your annoying single-finger-typer the gift of speed typing, prove to your peers that you are the fastest typer west of the Nile. Take the challenge, I did.

Looks like type racer is based on open social which means you're going to see this on almost every social network you can imagine (think Facebook, orkut, igoogle, etc.)

I'm loving this game, and it's a healthy workout. The should have a "calories burnt" next to the wpm counter... that would be awesome.

Happy Birthday Israel

Noam Wolf — Wed, 07 May 2008 21:21:24 GMT

Israel is officially 60 years old today. The last couple of years have been tough but Independence day is always a day of optimism, a day where the Israeli people remember what they went through to become an independent state and what challenges await.

Sunset over The tower of David in Jerusalem

A tiny country with endless talent, constant turmoil, and a full history celebrates today. Happy birthday!

Google Israel

Kobe Bryant MVP

Noam Wolf — Wed, 07 May 2008 21:06:01 GMT

It has finally happened. Mr. Bryant has been recognized as the most valuable player in the NBA after 12 long years. Kobe holds 3 titles as a Laker has been elected to every All-NBA Team from 1999 till last year, has been featured in the last ten NBA All-Star games, 7-time All-Defensive Selection, 2-time NBA All-Star MVP, 2-time NBA Scoring Champion, 1997 NBA Slam Dunk Champion and 1996 Naismith Prep Player of the Year. This guy is a basketball god and he now holds the most prestigious individual award the NBA can award (playoff MVP is a close second) and he is leading his team to the Western conference finals.

I have been a die hard Laker fan since the early days of Kareem and Magic. The Lakers dominated the Western Conference this year and are dominating in the post season. I think Kobe deserves this title and I hope he will lead the Lakers to another championship!!

I love playoff time, 40 games in 40 nights!! Kobe is killing Utah right now in game 2 and the crowd has not stopped cheering loudly since the end of the regular season.... "M.V.P. M.V.P." they got what they wanted... now it's Kobe's turn to deliver.

Local vs. Global variables and defer

Noam Wolf — Sat, 03 May 2008 15:55:09 GMT

There was an interesting discussion in one of the mailing lists here at work regarding the use of local vs. global variables and how fast they were in comparison. **It turns out that accessing variables in a more local scope is indeed faster based on some easy measuring (local vs. global access). The discussion started when something like this was introduced:

Consider Class "MyClass" that has two member variables:

function MyClass() { this.foo_ = 'joe'; this.elem_ = document.getElementById('bar'); ... };

Now consider the usage of such a class, which would be more efficient (for multiple accesses of the same member), this:

MyClass.prototype.updateSomething = function() { if (this.foo_) { this.elem_.innerHTML = this.foo_; } else { this.elem_.innerHTML = 'somethingElse'; } };

OR

MyClass.prototype.updateSomething = function() { var foo = this.foo_; var elem = this.elem_; if (foo) { elem.innerHTML = foo; } else { elem.innerHTML = 'somethingElse'; } };

OK, so accessing variables in a more local scope is faster than accessing variables using this, but it gets interesting when you introduce a large number of properties (imagine MyClass has 1000 properties appended to it), the local access stays almost identical in speed compared to the case where MyClass only had 2 properties where the this based access grows relative to the number of properties it has to search through. The speed differs in single digit seconds but a difference of 4-9 seconds per access could accumulate in cases where you have many references to such properties.

JavaScript: Defer Execution

While looking at the tests people set up I noticed an attribute on the <script> tag that I had never noticed before, the attribute defer="defer" defers execution of your JavaScripts to speed initial content display.. That's pretty cool, first time I ever ran into this. The "history" of this attribute, as mentioned here:

First introduced by Internet Explorer 4, the defer attribute of the script element is now part of the HTML 4 and XHTML specifications. The defer attribute gives a hint to the browser that the script does not create any content so the browser can optionally defer interpreting the script. This can improve performance by delaying execution of scripts until after the body content is parsed and rendered.

Here's the brief paragraph describing the defer attribute from the HTML 4.01 specification:
When set, this boolean attribute provides a hint to the user agent that the script is not going to generate any document content (e.g., no "document.write" in javascript) and thus, the user agent can continue parsing and rendering.

I'm about to make a big switch in my technical career. As of Monday (I think) I'm diving deep into the Linux - Java - GWT world and leaving my old pall .net behind... it's going to be challenging but rewarding.

Hancock the movie

Noam Wolf — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 17:37:47 GMT

Hancock is Will Smith's new movie scheduled to be release July 2nd, 2008. The official site is here. I am a big Will Smith fan and I think this movie has some potential.

Can't wait for LOST tonight!!!

IAF Does it Again

Noam Wolf — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 10:17:09 GMT

After some speculation that Israel's air force (IAF) had bombed Syria in September of last year (2007) the New York Times post some more concrete evidence that IAF did, in fact, bomb Syria and that the target was a partly constructed nuclear reactor. This comes 26 years after Operation Opera which was a surprise Israeli air strike against the Iraqi Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981.
Syria Rebuilds on Site Destroyed by Israeli Bombs

Israel’s air attack was directed against what Israeli and American intelligence analysts had judged to be a partly constructed nuclear reactor. The Syrians vigorously denied the atomic claim.

Before the attack, satellite imagery showed a tall, square building there measuring about 150 feet long per side.

After the attack, the Syrians wiped the area clean, with some analysis calling the speed of the cleanup a tacit admission of guilt. The barren site is on the eastern bank of the Euphrates, 90 miles north of the Iraqi border.

... As a signer to an agreement with the atomic agency, Syria is obligated to report the construction of a nuclear reactor to international inspectors. Nuclear reactors can make plutonium for the core of atom bombs, and therefore secretive work on reactors is usually interpreted as military in nature.

Senior Syrian officials continue to deny that a nuclear reactor was under construction, insisting that what Israel destroyed was a largely empty military warehouse. ...

There are so many articles talking about this now that's it's hard to understand what really happened there. IMO if Syria was bombed by IAF and they didn't retaliate immediately then they are kind of pleading guilty... but that's just me.

No Pants Day

Noam Wolf — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 12:56:55 GMT

I just ran into this today, for the first time... No Pants Day. I have never actually seen this "implemented" in New York, I wonder if this year it will be more visible. I think that if we are allowed to I might actually "go-for-it" which should be great fun. So... you might be asking yourself what the hell no pants day is, the following is quoted from the Official No Pants Day FAQ page:

What in the world is No Pants Day?

No Pants Day is a day where everyone, be they students, respectable businessmen, or cherished community leaders, leave their pants behind. Usually this means wearing thick, appropriately modest boxer shorts, but bloomers, slips, briefs, and boxer-briefs all work as well.

When is it?

No Pants Day is always on the first Friday of May, the next being May the 2nd, 2008.

I realize this was a great opportunity to post a hot chick in a seductive thong... but I didn't go for it. foo did.

Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova at Pastis

Noam Wolf — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 21:48:55 GMT

We went out to dinner tonight at a fancy restaurant in the meat packing district of New York. As we were waiting for our food I noticed a very familiar face, I wasn't sure if it was who I thought it was but then I was assured it was in fact Glen Hansard (yeah I was a little surprised he had a wiki page too). I felt compelled to walk over and talk to Glen, turns out he's quite a nice guy. Anyway, I walked back to my table and my brother said "wouldn't it be funny if his girlfriend (wife?), Marketa, showed up too and they were seated next to us?" well... turns out that's exactly what happened. I am still a little shocked that Oscar winners actually sat next to us and that absolutely no one recognized them.

Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova in Once

I am a very big fan of the Academy award wining movie Once and of the soundtrack which I highly recommend.

I Am a Guitar Hero Legend

Noam Wolf — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 20:57:04 GMT

Somewhere inside my hectic schedule I have managed to find the time to defeat Guitar Hero III (in medium mode). It took a while, and I had to defeat Slash and the Devil... but I did it!!! Hooray for me. If you aren't hooked on GH3 yet, get it immediately (click on the image below to go to Amazon).

I guess I should move up to hard now, I mean it's about time... don't you think?

Chmox - chm on a Mac

Noam Wolf — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 11:42:52 GMT

Your eyes are not deceiving you. This post is in a new category that I believe I will post about a lot in the near future. I recently received my new Macbook Pro and I'm really enjoying the experience thus far. I think the whole "it just works" notion is a little misleading, as a Windowz user for over 15 years now (wow...) I have learned how to deal with problems (that occur quit often) by going to task manager and other little tricks I've picked up along the years. On a Mac when something doesn't work, or an application is "stuck" I still have no idea what to do... I mean I could go to the terminal and try to figure out which process to kill but that seems like a lot of work to me.

Anyway, this post is actually dedicated to Chmox the free chm reader for OS X. A buddy at work suggested I take a look at O'Reilly's Ajax Design Patterns by Michael Mahemoff (ISBN 0-596-10180-5) and he casually gave me his USB key to download... in return, I casually downloaded the chm file to Mac only to find out that I don't have the right software to open it... Chmox to the rescue. 2 second after pushing "download" on sourceforge and I've already begun reading.

In other Mac related news, my favorite shortcuts are:

apple-space - spotlight

apple-left/right-arrow - goto end/beginning of line

option-left/right-arrow - goto previous/next word

Google Going for Skype

Noam Wolf — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 18:08:11 GMT

I thought I heard about this last week but I was truly surprised when, of all people, my mom told me she read about Google wanting to buy Skype (the VOIP specialists). Skype, which was bought by eBay for $4.1 Billion back in 2005 wasn't able to provide that financial push that eBay was looking for, I guess Google has bigger plans. The article on The Motley Fool also talks about a rumor that Google is looking at Expedia as well.
Google's Going to Do What?!

It doesn't take a genius to figure out why Wall Street hearsay has turned to Google's acquisitive pursuits. The company's move to bow out of the spectrum bidding war frees up billions in greenbacks that would otherwise have been spoken for. The potential Microhoo pairing is fodder for gossipers to dream up retaliatory responses on Google's behalf.

I'll concede that Google pairing up with Skype makes perfect sense. Google has more to gain from a Skype deal than eBay ever did. Google has taken baby steps into the voice chat space, and taking the fast-growing yet poorly monetized Skype off eBay's hands would probably result in cheers from the Google and eBay shareholder camps.

I guess we won't be the new guys for much longer ;)

Hillary is Fucking Obama

Noam Wolf — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 09:19:01 GMT

Another video in the I'm Fucking template. I thought it was funny. Obviously not as great as this one or this one, but still worth the watch. Which one did you like the most?

In other news, I went for it. I got the MacBook Pro... we'll see how this pans out in the future.

Search blog.a.lish

Noam Wolf — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 14:39:25 GMT

As of today you can search blog.a.lish! You can click the magnifying glass on the main navigation (i guess it would be awkward if I changed design and I no longer used a magnifying glass... oh well...) and start searching the content of this blog!

This was an exciting project for me because of many reasons. Technically speaking I did the following:

Set up full-text indexing on my database (Sql Server 2005).

Create a store procedure that searched the columns I'm willing to let people search on.

Writing the service that makes the backend call and gets the response (JSON).

Write the Javascript that deals with the response and formats it into HTML objects. (kind of a TODO)

Style the html.

Step 1: Full Text Indexing

You should watch this video if you have no idea what I'm even talking about. Then after you've watched it you need to enable full text indexing on your database:
exec sp_fulltext_database 'enable'

Then you need to enable indexing on a per-table base:
exec sp_fulltext_table 'table_name', 'create', 'catalog_name', 'unique_key_name'

Then you need to specify which columns you want to "full-text" index:
exec sp_fulltext_column 'table_name', 'column_name', 'add'

Then you need to activate the full-text index:
exec sp_fulltext_table 'table_name', 'activate'

Then you probably want to fill the index when a change occurs to the table:
exec sp_fulltext_table 'table_name', 'start_change_tracking'
exec sp_fulltext_table 'table_name','start_background_updateindex'

NOTE: if you're using Sql Server 2005 Express you have to install the advanced services edition with SP1.

Step 2: Writing your SQL

Now that you have set and activated full-text indexing you can start using the new sql predicates to search on these columns. The new predicates include FREETEXT, CONTAINS and other very powerful key words you can use to refine your searches. These predicates are more powerful than the LIKE predicate and the index is optimized for large amounts of textual data so by default it will be faster. Another cool thing you can do is tweak the noice terms like "the", "and", etc. You can read more about it at MSFT's Full-Text Search Developer InfoCenter.

Step 3: Writing your WebService

There really isn't much to this step. I created a webmethod that accepted the search phrase and the output (XML or JSON), if it's XML you can simply use the FOR XML AUTO in your stored procedure, if it's JSON then it becomes a little trickier. I wrote a simple XMLtoJSON converter that just works (disclaimer: it works great for my needs).

Step 4: Javascript and JSON

If you want to write a JSON parser in Javascript feel free to. I didn't feel like it so I used YUI's JSON parser and I was ready to spit out HTML. YUI has a data table structure that can make XHR calls for you but there is a lot of wiring to get it going so I just decided to work with a for loop....

That's pretty much it. I'm working in parallel on a silverlight search widget. Both "widgets" work off of the same back end (database, stored procedure, and webservice) the only difference is that the Javascript one parses JSON and the silverlight one uses LINQ to objectify the XML. I'm having some debugging issues with the silverlight version but I hope to release it soon. So now that I have Ubuntu installed I have to ~~try to~~ respect my potential Linux readers that won't have silverlight available to them.... hmmm... silverlight for mono... 20% time???

Ubuntu on Vista

Noam Wolf — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 16:15:17 GMT

I'm posting this from my newly installed Ubuntu instance. I've got to say it's pretty slick. I remember the days (mostly in college) where I used to install different versions of Linux (RedHat, Suze and others) and just hated every minute of trying to recompile the kernel to get my wireless card to work... it was a mess. Well, with very little effort (mainly due to help from You've been Haacked and Arcane Code) I am now able to play with Ubuntu 7.10 on my Vista box! The only issue I had was that the 64 bit iso didn't want to work on VPC 2007... which sucks... but I'll take what I got for now.

I've been playing with the curl command which is pretty powerful and I guess I should try to install the XGL + Compiz 3D Desktop and really work this bad boy. On a more .NET/C# note I'm going to install Mono and play around with it a little to get a feel for what they have and what they don't have... maybe this is a great 20% candidate.

p.s. On a completely separate note I just recently learned that the 3rd mouse button really comes in handy when using a tabbed browser, I don't understand how I missed this... read all about it here.

3G iPhone Rumors

Noam Wolf — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 07:45:27 GMT

I can not wait for this... I'll be first in line, also I would be happy to get rid of my shitty provider...
3G iPhone already ordered by apple

Gartner analyst Ken Dulaney claims to have heard "from sources in Asia" that Apple has placed a 10 million unit order for 3G iPhones, according to an interview by the iPod Observer. This order for 10 million 3G iPhones would reportedly be above and beyond the original 10 million Apple had planned to sell of the initial version of the iPhone in 2008.

This timeframe could be consistent with recent Page 2 rumors that the 3G iPhone would be coming "in a few months." Multiple reports have claimed that the 3G iPhone would be released in 2008. '3G' is the next generation mobile data technology that allows for much faster internet access on mobile phones. The iPhone currently uses EDGE (2.5G) technology.

Do you iPhone yet??

Googlers Show Love for Nooglers

Noam Wolf — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 14:19:05 GMT

Someone I know at DoubleClick got this ad on Facebook yesterday. There have been some web-speculations about who triggered such an ad... some say it was a googler... either way I think it's fucked up.

The text of the ad reads: "Hi DoubleClick! Please stop gorging yourselves on all our food. Maybe we won't fire you. Thanks!" The image contains a pig sitting on a pile of questionable content. What was interesting was the click through url, which pointed to www.gwar.net which is kind of nasty... I wonder if there is any association by a googler to this site.

If you see anything similar please post a link to it in the comments. I wonder if the person(s) in charge will take responsibility or be found... on the other hand this is a pretty good way to get people to click on your ad... right?

PicLens Wow

Noam Wolf — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 20:55:21 GMT

OK, so this isn't Silverlight's Zoom in feature and this isn't PhotoSynth (if you don't know what PhotoSynth is you have to click here) but PicLens is pretty cool.

PicLens instantly transforms your browser into a full-screen, 3D experience for viewing images on the web. Photos will come to life via a cinematic presentation that goes well beyond the confines of the traditional browser window. With PicLens, browsing and viewing images on the web will never be the same again.

I was basically told to download the software and search for Jessica Alba on Google... of course I kicked it up a notch and searched for Bar Refaeli... this really deserves a wow....

Google AJAX API Implemented

Noam Wolf — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 23:04:55 GMT

You may have noticed the 4 flags next to the date on the top right. Go ahead, click on one of them I'll wait.

Google just released this new AJAX API for translating and detecting languages on the fly, something I like to call GLoco-lize. I think this is a great tool and I think Google really did it up. They are currently in version 1 of the API and I'm sure that with the communities help most issues will be resolved, and new innovative features should be present by version 2.

So I thought this was a really cool feature to add to the blog, and decided to implement it. Overall I think it took me about 2 hours to plug everything in, style and tailor it to blog.a.lish standards. It's relatively easy to use but I did run into a couple of bugs and a few expected limitations while implementing this:

There is a limit on the size of request you can make. I didn't find anything on GLoco-lize so I'm currently limiting the translated string to 1000 characters so you really only get a partial translation.

The support for Portuguese, which is kind of important to me, does not work! Even though they did say it works and the sample page includes it, it didn't work for me.

HTML support is not great, URL's are sometimes translated... ughh. So for now, I'm stripping out the HTML tags.

So I now officially support Spanish (es), French (fr), Italian (it), and German (de) but only for Jacobooie. Should I add Japanese support just for the hell of it? It's only a flag away.

FAIL

Noam Wolf — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 18:20:32 GMT

A site for sharing all things that FAIL with the world. It's actualy quite funny and I can't wait to see what else gets posted there.

a whole new meaning to "doggy style"

Ouch.

iPhone firmware 2.0 Sneak Peek

Noam Wolf — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 21:22:00 GMT

I unsubscribed from the engadget feed a long time ago. The reason was mainly that they just spam my reader and, just like on my DVR, I hate long queues of unread/unwatched "stuff" that could potentially be of interest. Other than that the content and writing are pretty shitty... not that I'm a Pulitzer prize winner or anything. Anyway, I'm excited that the 2.0 firmware is on the horizon simply because I hope this upgrade will unleash the 3G iPhone that I'm waiting to get. I really think the iPhone is the perfect gadget and I can't wait to get it. The rumors are that it will be officially released in June.

iPhone firmware 2.0 hands on

Exchange is so on! Changes are pushed over the network, but over WiFi it does check-ins, so it's not as instantaneous.

There's a new button in the calendar, but we don't know what it is and can't make it do anything.

The App Store is there, of course, but doesn't do anything yet (except error out that it can't connect).

Wondering when Apple will make good on its agreement to license Cisco technology? Well, the branded Cisco VPN screen has definitely been added to the VPN settings. We couldn't really test this one, but assume it works as advertised. We don't yet know if it supports SecurID or other hardware token authenticators.

You can now order your preferred WiFi networks.

In addition to having a new sideways scientific mode(!), the basic calculator now does commas and has new, useful functions for the math nerds;

By far our favorite new feature is multi-select in mail, though. Now when you hit edit you can select as many messages as you want and delete or move them as a group. Friggin' finally. Now where's that two-pane client?

Check out the image gallery here.

p.s. Yeah the scientific calculator is nice ;)

Something you should already know

Noam Wolf — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 19:36:05 GMT

Israeli women are hot. You should really visit Israel to actually understand what I'm talking about. Here are two videos that make my point for me....

No wonder they call it the holly land

Can you handle this?

Gmail, we have a problem

Noam Wolf — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 19:22:22 GMT

Just thought this was funny and disturbing. GTalk is saying I have 4 emails and I would really like to read them... then again Gmail is in beta right? Nice addition to my growing collection of major services that take short breaks every once in a while... I wonder if the Gmail team is scrambling as much as my team and I were this week due to a damn jvm heap issue. Gotta love the Java.

It's still down... I have it down for over 10 minutes now... awkward.

The Most Common Programming Language

Noam Wolf — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 22:00:46 GMT

Ever wonder what the most common programming language is? Obviously this has changed quite a bit over the years, and that's easy to prove: new languages emerged, old languages proven inadequate etc. I was wondering what the most common languages are and hoped there was some resource online that could help me with this question. I found two interesting resources, both of which I'm not sure are completely accurate. Nevertheless I found that Java and C are almost always identified as the most common programming languages which surprised me a little.

Sources:

http://www.tiobe.com/tpci.htm
http://www.dedasys.com/articles/language_popularity.html

Search - The Competition

Noam Wolf — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 15:13:35 GMT

Sergey and Larry were definitely on to something when they realized that the world needed a fast way to search for... well stuff... online (and by on to something I mean 18.7 Billion dollars worth of OTS). Microsoft, of course, realized the monetization potential when they launched Live Search and so did Yahoo!. As with any successful market there always seems to be room for improvement. My first glimpse into a suped up search tool was Snap. I met the Snap guys at a TechCrunch event back in early 2007 and I liked what they came up with. After that (I believe) we started to see the Ask.com commercials online, combining quick preview, keyboard support and other cool stuff. The problem I have with Ask.com is that their service is slow, the pages are slow... do NOT make me wait!!!

I'm sure there are millions of other players in the search-o-sphere, but none that seem as nice as Search Me. The new Visual Search paradigm seems like the way to go now that people have better internet connections. I have to admit I have my doubts about how fast and effective this tool will actually work (they're in private beta right now, still waiting for an email from them...) but I'm excited to see smaller players get up in MSFT, Yahoo!, and Goog's faces and basically force them to innovate this field.

I realize this is a press release, but the voice over is quite annoying... IMHO.

10,000 Sheep

Noam Wolf — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 18:43:09 GMT

This designer guy, Aaron Koblin, asked people (workers) to draw sheep a sheep facing left on Amazon Mechanical Turk, he paid the $0.02 per sheep... this is what he got.

baaah baaah

Imagine what he could get for $0.03... it blows my mind.

Redundant Pointers to Functions and the Prototype Paradigm

Noam Wolf — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 20:26:12 GMT

The other day a coworker asked me if I knew what the difference between the following two Car objects is:

function Car(make, model, price) { this.make = make; this.model = model; this.price = price; this.showMake = function() { alert(this.make); }; }

And

function Car(make, model, price) { this.make = make; this.model = model; this.price = price; } Car.prototype.showMake = function() { alert(this.make); };

Initially I jumped to the conclusion that there really doesn't seem to be much of a difference. The first constructor simply creates a pointer to the showMake function using this and the second does the same thing using the prototype paradigm. As far as I knew the end result was identical. Furthermore I was quite sure that the prototype property was "meant" to be used for existing objects in Javascript to enable developers to extend/tailor them. For example, if you wanted to create a Queue in Javascript you could extend the Array object by adding two new methods:

Array.prototype.enqueue = function(o) { this.push(o); } Array.prototype.dequeue = function() { return this.shift(); }

Turns out I was partially correct. The outcome, from the consumers point of view, of the two Car constructors would be identical. You basically defined the same object. Additionally the prototype property is used to extend/modify objects. The only thing I didn't know was that by creating a pointer from this to the showMake function in the first example Javascript would create an instance of the showMake function with every call to new Car(..) and essentially "waste" memory. The second way (aka the "prototype paradigm") creates a pointer to the same instance of the showMake function belonging to the Car object. Semantically, everything looks like it belongs to Car but you are using up less memory.

Headcount Reductions for DoubleClick

Noam Wolf — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 10:28:12 GMT

What a great way to start off the path of integration and forming one massive internet giant... Mr. Schmidt announces, on the official Google blog, that there may be reductions in headcount... ouch... I wonder if DoubleClick .NET devs are getting antsy...
We've officially acquired DoubleClick

I'm pleased to share the news that we completed our acquisition of DoubleClick today. Although it's been nearly a year since we announced our intention to acquire DoubleClick last April, we are no less excited today about the benefits that the combination of our two companies will bring to the online advertising market. .....

... As with most mergers, there may be reductions in headcount. We expect these to take place in the U.S. and possibly in other regions as well. We know that DoubleClick is built on the strength of its people. For this reason we’ll strive to minimize the impact of this process on all of our clients and employees.

I'm sure Mr. Gu and the boys have taken notice... a chance to recruit talent.

The Time has Come - Google gets EU approval

Noam Wolf — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 06:52:17 GMT

It's final. DoubleClick is officially a part of Google. The terms are unconditional and I'm ready for my stock options.
EU approves Google's buy of DoubleClick

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Google (GOOG.O: Quote, Profile, Research) won unconditional approval from the European Commission on Tuesday to buy rival Web advertiser DoubleClick for $3.1 billion, despite objections from rivals and privacy advocates.

"The Commission's in-depth market investigation found that Google and DoubleClick were not exerting major competitive constraints on each other's activities and could, therefore, not be considered as competitors at the moment," the Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, said in a statement.

Let the bistro flood gates open...

UPDATE here are a couple more links that are covering the hottest news in internet history:

Google buy of DoubleClick Cleared by EU - CNNMoney.com

EU approves Google's DoubleClick acquisition - ZDNet
EU Clears Google Bid for DoubleClick - The Associated Press

EU backs Google advertising buy - RTE.ie

MIX 08 - Reviewed

Noam Wolf — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 07:52:26 GMT

MIX 08 was my first MIX conference but not my first Microsoft (MSFT) event. So my expectations were not that high. My experience with MSFT type events over the past years has given a whole new meaning to the phrase "nothing is free." I'm used to getting excited over product releases and tech talks hoping to get a glimpse of what matters most to me... code. SHOW ME THE CODE, while that might be lame at best and geeky at worst that's how I roll so deal with it. MSFT events are usually (almost always) a sales and marketing driven show that very seldom produces real value to me as a developer. MIX is not. I was very happy to find demo driven sessions, great speakers (in Scott Guthrie, Scott Hanselman, and Guy Kawasaki), and most importantly a LOT of CODE. I am definitely happy I got to go to this event and I hope I will be as fortunate next year! Here are some of my observations and gripes divided into highs and lows of MIX 2008.

Highs

V-E-G-A-S
That says it all, this city is great, non stop action 24-7, and the casinos aren't bad either. I enjoyed my 3rd visit to Vegas as an adult and I must say it just seems to get better. You would really have to go out of your way to have a bad time there. I stayed at the very fancy and colossal Venetian at a humongous suite and I gotta say... life is good. This is truly a temptation packed city that keeps you on the edge of your toes all day and all night.

Silverlight 2.0
I must admit that I didn't like Silverlight 1.0 and actually pretty much thought it was a MSFT version of a crappy product known as Flash. At the risk of sounding snobbish I think actionscript and flash are counter intuitive and in a large part greatly separated from classical OO languages like Java and C# and therefore I find it really annoying to use them. That said, I do see the merit of such a browser plugin in today's Web 2.0 world of "give me data now" and up until MIX 08 I didn't realize the potential of Silverlight. With the power of C#, WCF webservices, and a little design skillz you can really do some damage (in the best sense of that word) with Silverlight. I have some gripes with Silverlight 2.0 which I will present in the Lows section later. Look for a blog search tool utilizing Silverlight on blog.a.lish at stores near you very soon.

Keynote #2
The second keynote was absolutely great. I was prepared to hear Steve Ballmer talk about MSFT from a birds eye view and basically cover everything in 2 hours of a boring marketing speech... to my surprise the keynote was actually an interview conducted by Guy Kawasaki (formerly of Apple). Guy came out swinging and really didn't hold anything back... "what's the deal with Yahoo!?" he asks of the bat... followed by "what's the deal with Vista?" The part I enjoyed the most was when he pulled out the now famous inter-office envelope with a macbook book air and handed it to Steve who proceeded to place it on the floor and almost stomp on it. Good times. What Impressed me most about Mr. Ballmer was that no questions caught him off guard. You can read more about this on Jason's blog and you can watch the actual interview here.

Is it just me or does Ballmer remind you of Terry Bradshaw?

In a cramped room filled with overweight, balding, goat t sporting, terribly dressed, coughing, sniffling, worst humor t-shirt wearing software engineers I was eagerly waiting to hear a session titled "Building Great AJAX Applications from Scratch Using ASP.NET 3.5 and Visual Studio 2008" (link) by Brad Abrams from big ol' MSFT. The big screen in front of the room read "no slides, demo only", my kind of session! Turns out 90% of the session was a review of .net 2.0, Brad even mentioned the "new" placeHolder control in 3.5 (really? are you kidding me?)... it was quite a waste of time IMO.

Lows

Silverlight 2.0 (beta)
Sure it's beta but really? There are a couple of issues that I just can't ignore even though I realize Silverlight 2.0 is in beta.

Debugging - none, well you can put breakpoints but if you miss spell anything, forget to close a tag your entire Silverlight app will not load.

Brevity - nope, you have to style and animate every control seperately, there is no concept of skinning or really of style sheets (I know silverlight doesn't render to html but still...)

WinForms on the web - WTF, MSFT is bringing winForms to the web... there's a reason it's reserved for the desktop. When will MSFT learn from it's mistakes?

Keynote #1
Ray Ozzie is probably one of the smartest people at MSFT but he can really put a crowd to sleep. His keynote address was just boring and it felt like he went on forever.

Geeka-paloozza
MSFT really took geek to a whole new level at MIX... while they had free massage sessions (which were sweet) they basically tailored the other "free time" events for the geek in you. A rock band stage equipt with top of the line plazma TV's, lights and a really cool mic stand invited people to show off their rock band skills (Jason captured it here). Halo 3 campaigns for groups of 12 people around 3 huge flat screens were also a setting for showing off xbox skills. The sandbox area was actually a little cool, then again I am kind of a geek... they had partitioned a couple of zones for different .net labs, I didn't spend much time there but it looked cool.

My Favorite C# Features - Part 1: Generics

Noam Wolf — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 17:28:01 GMT

I've been working on this article for what seems to be forever now, so instead of just listing all the things I like and/or dislike I decided to take it piecemeal. So without further ado I give you part 1 (of an undecided total) of my favorite c# features.

Introduction

C# is the language of choice for me when it comes to writing software. I spend most of my time writing code in C# and ASP.NET with a lot of JavaScript, I also write in Java (when I absolutely have to), php (if the client is cheap), and I've even had to resort to C++ lately (pointers are stars in my mind). I find each language to have it's set of great features and, of course, it's problems. Since I am hardly an expert on Java, php, or C++, I would like to attempt to point out some of my favorite C# and ASP.NET features.

Side Note

I like to ask interviewees to point out their favorite C# and/or ASP.NET feature simply to get the interview going and to see what excites that person about a language they are and will be coding with a LOT. To my surprise I quite frequently hear that the gridview control is a favorite feature of an entire framework put together to write software and not just display lists of tabular data. Even though the gridview is miles ahead of it's 1.1 predecessor I don't really think it's great and I don't really think it should be considered in the top 10 best features in ASP.NET, let alone C# (or VB.NET for this matter).

Favorite #1 - Generics

Without a doubt, and years ahead of any other feature in C# (2.0 and above...), my favorite feature is Generics. For those of you who are not familiar with Generics (known as generics in Java 1.5+ and very similar to templates in C++) click on the link above to get the basics... this article will not cover those.

Type parameters that defer type specification until runtime. That's pretty much what Generics provide. The first example I read, and tested out, was of a generic collection (of course). Using generic collections (like List) over untyped or regular collections gives you a "hat trick" advantage:

Design time type checking, instead of an argument that accepts an ArrayList (a list of type Object) you now restrict the type to be a list of integers or List. You no longer have to worry about bad arguments (to an extent...)

No more casting! Casting is great, but it's also expensive. If you add a "Car" object to a collection you shouldn't need to cast it to a Car when you retrieve it.

No more boxing and unboxing! Boxing is also expensive and a waste of precious CPU cycles...

While all of those things are really really great the world of generics does not stop at collections. Do NOT be fooled into thinking generics are only good for collections!

What impressed me most about C#’s implementation of Generics (as opposed to Java’s implementation) was the fact that in the IL code (intermediate language) at runtime a “specialized” version of the generic type is created and then reused. So under the covers you are getting IL typed collections (for collections) that are reused (instead of adding more code for each subsequent duplicate type declaration). This is a huge advantage on Java’s generic implementation. In Java Generics is [almost] completely a design time feature. There still exists boxing/unboxing and casting, only Java handles it for you, so basically you’re still paying for it. To summarize the last paragraph, the C# implementation of generics greatly reduces the amount of code by reducing to one the number of specialized classes created by the compiler for generic classes of reference types.

Moreover, when a generic C# class is instantiated by using a value type or reference type parameter, reflection can query it at runtime and both its actual type and its type parameter can be ascertained.

Generics can be used on a very wide variety of CLR elements: Collections, Classes, Interfaces, Methods, Delegates and more! This gives you the power to strongly type elements of your design that weren't "bullet proof" in the past. A Class, Interface, or Delegate can define a type parameter that is limited to the scope of that object. So if you want to create a super collection (or a Google collection) you can implement it by passing in type parameters to your object.

A key feature of Generics are constraints. You can apply restrictions to the type argument (or generic type… either way works for me) making your code even more “bullet proof.” You can restrict each type argument separately with the where keyword. For code examples and to read more about this click here.

Another “cute” feature, and I use the word “cute” because it’s nothing more than that but still worth mentioning is the default keyword. Sometimes when you write a generic class you really don’t know if the type parameter will be a reference type or a value type, and if it’s a value type whether it’s numeric or a struct. So how do you instantiate “it”? You use the default keyword.
/// A node class to be used with many different /// types of collections Public class Node { private T data; public Data { get { T tmp = default(T); if ( null != data ) tmp = data; return tmp; } } }

Short Comings

Like a lot of things that we love there are some short comings. Here are few that I've run into:

No support of "jokers" or "wild cards", in Java 1.5+ you can use the or "question mark" to tell the compiler that you can take any generic subtype that you don't even know exists at design time. I've run into situations where this could have been a sweet option to have but instead had to come up with workarounds.

Polymorphism does not apply to the Generic type! You heard me. If you don't believe me consider the following, a Garage class that internally stores it's cars in a generic List of Car collection (makes sense, why would the Garage class care which subtype the car is). Now imagine you could park a collection of cars, defined by a ParkCars method on the Garage class which takes a List of Car as a parameter. Doesn't it make sense to pass in a List of a subtype of Car? public class Car {} public class SportsCar : Car {} public class Garage { private List<Car> cars; public void ParkCars(List<Car> cars) { cars.AddRange(cars); } } List sportsCars = new List(); sportsCars.Add(new SportsCar()); Garage g = new Garage(); g.ParkCars(sportsCars); <--- design time ERROR!!!!

Anyway, this article is getting really long and I've only covered one favorite... I'll try to keep it short so that it's still enjoyable and not too short so that it's worth keeping around as a reference. What's next? The next topic/feature I intend to cover are anonymous types, Predicates and Delegates.... what a wonderful duo.

Put the Douche in Douchebag

Noam Wolf — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 21:14:52 GMT

Mr. David Heinemeier Hansson, aka "the douche" voiced his opinion about "programmers that willfully pick Windows as their platform of choice" on his blog way back in March of 2005. He used that post to point out that:

[He] would have a hard time imagining hiring a programmer who was still on Windows for 37signals [his company]. If you don't care enough about your tools to get the best, your burden of proof just got a lot heavier.

So if you haven't switched already, stop procrastinating. Get it over with. If you have any desire working for the rising rank of companies building their business on open source technologies, you don't want to carry a liability like that around on you resume. Being labeled a 2005 Switcher is bad enough.

Jeff Atwood, at one of my favorite blogs, Coding Horror pointed out what a douche Heinemeier was for writing what he thought was a reasonably valid point in a very distasteful way. He also points out words from a 2007 technology prediction piece by "the douche" where he is quoted saying:
Apple will continue to trounce everyone else for the preferred geek platform. The stigma of being a Web programmer still using Windows will increase.

His article is a great read simply because he actually took the time to think out what he wanted to say and worded it in a way that made his point come across.

Douchebaggery

Here's what I don't understand about statements like this. They have exactly the opposite effect that the speaker probably intends. There are two possible reactions:

Wow, David's right. I made the wrong choice in my career. It's high time I looked into OS X and Rails programming. They sound great!
F****************k you.

Guess which reaction is more common? Actually, there's no need to guess, as I can guarantee every Windows programmer reading this is thinking #2 right now. As an evangelist looking to increase adoption of your platform, this is a remarkably poor strategy. When has abusing people into agreeing with you ever worked?

Of course, as David has said many, many times, he doesn't care whether we agree with him or not. Well, not in so many words, but you get the idea:

I actually admire this sentiment, as I've seen too many people get so wrapped up in what other people think of them that they can't bear to have an original opinion about anything. But if you accept the premise that this kind of statement won't change anyone's mind, and is ultimately ineffective-- even counterproductive-- what are we left with? What purpose does the statement "stigma of being a Windows developer" serve? I can only think of one: David gets off on putting other people down.

And that makes him kind of a douchebag.

Which also means when you're using Rails and OS X, you're using the platform of choice for douchebags.

Well I'm obviously a .NET developer, and while I am all for open source software, did it occur to "the douche" that Windowz is still the leading platform out there? Did it occur to him the MOST of his users are probably using his software on a windows box? The point Jeff makes about "there's nothing more satisfying than kicking someone's ass with the worst character in the game." is a little harsh (if my understanding of his comparison of Earthquake in Samurai Showdown II to Windows...) but I kind of understand what he's saying... fuck the tools you have, if you're a great developer you can write C# in any language.

Kimmel is Fucking Ben Affleck

Noam Wolf — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 06:09:48 GMT

You got to give it to Jimmy Kimmel, he took the fact that his girlfriend Sarah Silverman is fucking Matt Damon as showcased on his birthday show (1/31/08) and came right back with a pretty awesome song/video himself. It was really funny that he chose Ben Affleck... and it was just amazing to see all the celebrities he got to participate in this (not as good as Sarah's) video... enjoy!

Affleck and Kimmel proceeded to grab each others asses right after the premier of this video on the Kimmel show last night (Sunday). The entire interview was full with sexual hints and was a little too much IMO.

Stuff White People Like

Noam Wolf — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 20:32:32 GMT

Do you love asian girls (#11), Coffee (#1), and Barack Obama (#8)?

Do you love reading the Sunday New York Times (#46), Grocery Shopping at Whole Foods (#48), and Apple (#40)?

Then you're probably white.

My buddy YK told me to check out stuff white people like a new(ish) blog dedicated to "a scientific approach to highlight and explain stuff white people like." According to the authors of "stuff white people like", white people are pretty predictable.

I haven't decided if I like this blog yet, but I did find some observations to be funny. One of those observations are good old #39: White People Love Netflix

We all know white people love film festivals, but what about movies that don’t make it to a film festival, or weren’t in the local film festival? How do you get accesss? Thankfully white people have Netflix.

If you see a group of white people and you need to break into the conversation, a good thing to say “hey, is anyone else thinking that Netflix shipping is getting slower? I’m doing this PT Anderson thing, and I’m only up to Magnolia! What’s that all about?” They will relate, and talk about their own Netflix queues and how they are trying to get caught up on French New Wave.

Naturally I was curious to see if there was a site that was dedicated to stuff black people love... and sure enough I found it... Stuff Black People Love. This blog wasn't pointing out obvious/predictable trends in black people, they simply "Review Black Popular Culture."

Among the things you can find on SBPL (the blog came up with the acronym...):

Pictures of Barack Obama when he was young.

"Yo Mama" jokes.

Is there something wrong with loving Fried Chicken?

I kind of enjoyed browsing both sites, some really funny comments... I wonder if there are more stuff ???? people like sites out there... I guess most of the stuff I read is stuff programmers/geeks like... right?

Gmail by Saatchi and Saatchi

Noam Wolf — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 08:18:02 GMT

This video might be in Russian, but I still think it's awesome. The level of detail is just amazing... the cursor blinking, the milliseconds changing, the stars becoming yellow... well enough chatter... watch it!

I found this over on Google Operating System they also have a link to Jack Black's new "internet" Be Kind Rewind which I thought was kind of swede too.

Lunar Eclipse 2008 Edish

Noam Wolf — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 21:12:02 GMT

If you didn't know and missed the last total lunar eclipse until 2010... I ain't mad at you. Just don't let it happen again. Yesterday (Wednesday) a full lunar eclipse occurred and it was actually quite cool. If you're wondering what exactly a lunar eclipse is, it's a celestial event during which the Moon passes through the shadow of the Earth, temporarily darkening its surface.

Total Lunar Eclipse - 2/20/2008

What's even cooler is that yesterday we got a red eclipse. You may be asking "What makes the eclipsed moon turn red?" well Nasa explains that the answer lies inside Earth's shadow:

Our planet casts a long shadow. It starts on the ground--Step outside at night. You're in Earth's shadow. Think about it!--and it stretches almost a million miles into space, far enough to reach the moon.
Suppose you had a personal spaceship. Here's your mission: Tonight, at midnight, blast off and fly down the middle of Earth's shadow. Keep going until you're about 200,000 miles above Earth, almost to the moon. Now turn around and look down. The view from your cockpit window is Earth's nightside, the dark half of our planet opposite the sun. But it's not completely dark! All around Earth's limb, the atmosphere glows red.
What you're seeing is every sunrise and sunset on Earth--all at once. This ring of light shines into Earth's shadow, breaking the utter darkness you might expect to find there. Turn off the cockpit lights. There's a lovely red glow.

Pretty hot if you ask me... every sunrise and sunset on Earth wow.

p.s. I was "lucky" enough to play a little Capoeira last night under the eclipse... it was freeeeeeezing.

Earthquake - Gays Fault

Noam Wolf — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 20:49:46 GMT

If you didn't think that Israel is a 3rd world country, this might just change your mind... Yesterday (Wednesday) while addressing the Israel Parliament, called the Knesset, Mr. Shlomo Benizri the skilled speaker and representative for the orthodox party called Shas quoted the Gemara on gay sex (the Gemara only mentions male to male) and stated that it can even be the cause of shock to the Syrian African fault-line (north of the dead sea in Israel) that hit Israel last week.
Israeli MP blames quakes on gays

Mr Benizri made his comments while addressing a committee of the Israeli parliament, or Knesset, about the country's readiness for earthquakes.

He called on lawmakers to stop "passing legislation on how to encourage homosexual activity in the state of Israel, which anyway brings about earthquakes".

Israeli court rulings in recent years have granted inheritance rights to gay couples and recognised same-sex marriages performed abroad.

There really isn't much to add or interpret. This guy is an idiot and it's just unbelievable that he is allowed to even talk in parliament.

Lohan does New York Mag

Noam Wolf — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 19:16:07 GMT

Lindsay Lohan goes nude on New York Magazine in an effort to reproduce the now famous 1962 "last sitting" shoot of Marilyn Monroe by photographer Bert Stern. Seems like a lot of people have been talking about this shoot. I just wonder if this is an effort on the part of Lohan to get back into the spotlight after a couple of visits to rehab. It really is comforting to know that Dina Lohan (Lindsay's mom) is OK with nude photo shoot.

Stern recalls how easy it was to shoot Marilyn, “Not more than fifteen minutes had passed since she’d arrived, and already she had agreed to take her clothes off!”, I bet Lindsay was naked in under ten.

Seamless Web on Marketing

Noam Wolf — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 08:10:43 GMT

I'm not marketing expert but this seemed a little weird to me. I received this email from Seamless Web (to put things in context, I live in New York City and it's pouring right now).

Personally I think this is hilarious... I wonder what you marketing people out there think of this campaign...

Russia Proposes Treaty to Ban Arms in Space

Noam Wolf — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 20:21:36 GMT

Geneva 2/12/2008 - Russia submitted an official request to assemble an international treaty to ban distribution of weapons in space. Moscow warned that denying such a treaty would possible give way to a new cold war. The request, that has already been supported by China, will disallow arming any space shuttles and ban any attacks on satellites from earth.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that "Without preventing an arms race in space, international security will be wanting," and added that "the task of preventing an arms race in space is on the conference's agenda. It's time... to start serious practical work in this field." Lavrov continued to mention that the last arms race, for nuclear weapons, lead to the cold war "that lasted four decades and lead to huge wastes of resources" and concluded by asking the crowd "is it really worth it to repeat history?"

The Outer Space Treaty of 1967 bans the build up or stockage of military weapons -- including nuclear arms or weapons of mass destruction -- in orbit and their installation on the moon, but not the shooting down of satellites.

I had to reread this article a couple of times to make sure it wasn't a hoax. This is a really interesting initiative by Russia and China. You can read all about it here. My source for this article can be found here.

Bar Refaeli on SI - From Israel With Love

Noam Wolf — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 20:00:01 GMT

Israeli super model Bar Refaeli makes here debut in the latest installment of the prestigious Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition. A picture is worth a million words... try not to drool..

Isn't it time you visited Israel??

Live Search Innovates

Noam Wolf — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 21:35:54 GMT

I believe it's a first for Live Search, innovation. While Google has had it's OneBox for a while now (referred to it here). So it's true they didn't invent the way to point out that they're making your searching easier (they also gave it a very Microsofty name: Instant Answers) but they did come up with a new thing to get, well, instant answers for. This thing is something I can definitely use and I'm sure if you're into skiing you can too.

Microsoft Introduces Snow Reports Instant Answers

Type in your favorite resort or mountain (ex: "Whistler", "Tremblant", but not "hunter mountain" that's too sophisticated) and you get the following:

Even though Ask.com does provide some sort of help for snowboarders I'm glad to see that Micrsoft seems to be trying to innovate, it's been a while (excluding their attempt at natural language processing in the new sync, don't get me started on that...) since they have given the consumer something really innovative. What happened to the days when they would lead the industry in innovation? When we couldn't wait for the next version of Windowz or Office to come out? Oh right... Google happened.
Live Search: There For Skiiers And Snowboarders Everywhere

The blog post acknowledges that content boxes like this above the web results can be a balancing act. (Google recently expanded its local Onebox to 10 listings, to mixed reviews.) They'll show a maximum of four resorts. For example, the query "washington snowboarding" brings up the top four open resorts by recent snowfall.

Google has no corresponding Onebox. The official ski area websites tend to have sitelinks and an expandable map to quickly get you to the information you need (although that requires a click), and a current search for "snoqualmie" has a news result about the pass closing as the fourth result. Yahoo! apparently isn't a big skiier or snowboarder.

p.s. I'm going to MIX 08 in Vegas! I'm excited about it and I can't wait for some down time to get back to daily blogging.. it's been wildly busy lately... but it's all good.

Abada Capoeira NYC - Batizado 2008

Noam Wolf — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 20:37:27 GMT

Those of you who know me know that I practice Capoeira. This week is probably the pinnacle of my Capoeira training for the past year. It all started on Tuesday with the Mestre Bimba Cup followed by 4 days of training with Brazil's top Mestre, Mestre Camisa and topped off with this years Batizado which will be held at Riverbank State Park Cultural Theater (679 Riverside Drive NYC 10031) this Sunday, February 10th from 1:30-4:30pm. You can purchase tickets here. If you want to see what Capoeira is all about, or if you are simply a fan of martial arts, come out to support us and check it out!

To quote Wikipedia on what a Batizado is:

A Batizado (literally baptized in Portuguese, and borrowed from the religious tradition) is normally an annual event for a Capoeira group in a region or country. The practice of Capoeira Batizados originates from Capoeira Regional, but has been extended to other styles.

Batizados are large events and are very important for the group organizing it. It is the point in the year where the new members will be baptized officially into the group and receive their first cords and where the other members depending on their progress will get a new one. A typical batizado will take several days and consist of workshops, the actual Batizado itself and a Troca das Cordas. Often many groups from more than one region will attend a Batizado for other groups. This allows for development of the game by contact with other players, teachers and styles.

Yossi Vardi - Local Warming on TED

Noam Wolf — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 17:13:23 GMT
Local Warming

Yuval sent me this video which had me rolling. Dr. Vardi has helped more than 40 startups see the light of day, among them Mirabilis (makers of ICQ) and the video companies Scopus and BrightCove. He's a strategic advisor to Amazon and AOL, and a venture partner of Pitango, one of Israel's largest VC funds. You can read all about Yossi on his Wiki Page.

Dr. Vardi is also one of the chairpersons of Digital Life Design Conference which is Europe's conference for the 21st century, covering digital innovation, science and culture and bringing together thought leaders from Europe, the Middle-East, America and Asia. This year (DLD 08) there were a couple of interesting subjects covered like Web 2.0 startups and of course Advertising Exchanges (with special guest David Rosenblatt).

Javascript Cookies

Noam Wolf — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 11:55:53 GMT

My good buddy Jon (aka JonK) suggested I cookie the comment data... which makes sense and has been on my backlog for a while now. Since I've been in "coding mode" since I finally got tests (that I've been working on all week) to pass yesterday I figured I should. So I did.

The article is simply to show off the cookie functions I ~~stole~~ borrowed from PPK

// Create a cookie with the a name, value and optional expiry // param @name - the name of the cookie // param @value - the value to store in it // param @days (optional) - how many days to store this cookie function createCookie(name,value,days) { if (days) { var date = new Date(); date.setTime(date.getTime()+(days*24*60*60*1000)); var expires = "; expires="+date.toGMTString(); } else var expires = ""; document.cookie = name+"="+value+expires+"; path=/"; } // Read a cookie by name // param @name - the name of the cookie to search for function readCookie(name) { var nameEQ = name + "="; var ca = document.cookie.split(';'); for(var i=0;i < ca.length;i++) { var c = ca[i]; while (c.charAt(0)==' ') c = c.substring(1,c.length); if (c.indexOf(nameEQ) == 0) return c.substring(nameEQ.length,c.length); } return null; } // Erase/remove cookie by name // param @name - the name of the cookie to remove function eraseCookie(name) { createCookie(name,"",-1); }

I found this very easy to use, I hope you do to.

Your Favorite Design Pattern Is Your Best Friend

Noam Wolf — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 09:15:20 GMT

I just completed a design pattern course given by Industrial Logic and I must say it was pretty good. The goal of the course was to learn and implement design patterns, as many as Josh (the instructor and founder of Industrial Logic) could fit in over 4 days. What I found refreshing was that we didn't just study the Gang of Four (GOF) book's implementations or simply applied patterns to known problems, we actually spent most of our time refactoring to the patterns of the GOF. The labs were given in three languages (C#, C++, and Java) and I got to play with Eclipse's refactoring kong fu and learned how to use ReSharper in a much more efficient way.

The last question Josh asked us was "what is your favorite design pattern?" While I have been a big fan of the Strategy Pattern this course, and it's hands on examples, led me to find my true favorite... the Template Method.

I believe that the knowledge of when to use patterns and when not to use them is the true skill to be honed by a professional software engineer. Knowing how to leverage each patterns strengths in an elegant solution is quite a pleasure for me and I think that TDD'ing to patterns should be a requirement on all agile practicing teams.

A GREAT reference (or poster) for design patterns can be found here.

The two books we used for the course, that are very highly recommended are:

Microsoft wants Yahoo, Spares no Time

Noam Wolf — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 07:20:15 GMT

Microsoft is going all out... they have no choice but to buy Yahoo! to seriously compete with Google. I was shocked to find out that they offered $44.6 Billion which is 62% above Yahoo's closing share price on Thursday. If this offer is real, and by real I mean not some marketing stunt, then Microsoft is going after Right Media's solutions as well which includes their advertising exchange (RMX) which is a direct competitor to DoubleClick's Advertising Exchange (AdX) along with Right Media's suite of advertising solutions for advertisers and publishers.
Microsoft Proposes To Buy Yahoo For $31 Share, In $44.6-Billion Deal

Microsoft Corp. today announced that it has made a proposal to the Yahoo! Inc. Board of Directors to acquire all the outstanding shares of Yahoo! common stock for per share consideration of $31 representing a total equity value of approximately $44.6 billion. Microsoft's proposal would allow the Yahoo! shareholders to elect to receive cash or a fixed number of shares of Microsoft common stock, with the total consideration payable to Yahoo! shareholders consisting of one-half cash and one-half Microsoft common stock. The offer represents a 62 percent premium above the closing price of Yahoo! common stock on Jan. 31, 2008.

"We have great respect for Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO)!, and together we can offer an increasingly exciting set of solutions for consumers, publishers and advertisers while becoming better positioned to compete in the online services market," said Steve Ballmer, chief executive officer of Microsoft. "We believe our combination will deliver superior value to our respective shareholders and better choice and innovation to our customers and industry partners."

The New York Times covered this story too... Microsoft Bids $44.6 Billion for Yahoo.

Silverman is Fucking Matt Damon

Noam Wolf — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 06:46:03 GMT

I thought this was kind of funny... the first video is from 2006 where Kimmel plays a joke on Damon... the second video is from yesterday's Jimmy Kimmel show where Kimmels girlfriend Sarah Silverman sings him a song... had me laughing.

Matt Damon Flips Out on Jimmy Kimmel

Stifel Covering Their Asses

Noam Wolf — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 22:14:51 GMT

Today (January 31, 2008) at 10:24 AM PST Cnet's news.com reported that EC expected to approve Google-DoubleClick deal in February. According to "a research note released Thursday by Stifel Nicolaus (which is not a person... just a financial analysis corp.) "European regulators are expected to approve Google's proposed acquisition of online ad firm DoubleClick in February despite circulation of a threat assessment report."

At 3:46 p.m. EST Jan. 31, 2008 (roughly 2 hours after news.com's report) The Wall Street Journal's Market Watch.com reported that Stifel says EU drafts objections to Google-DoubleClick deal. According to "Stifel analysts Blair Levin and Rebecca Arbogast said they continued to believe the commission would approve the deal, first announced in April 2007, but noted the statement raises the prospect that the agency would impose conditions that would make it more difficult for Google to conduct business in Europe."

From my personal analysis of these two articles Stifel isn't exactly contradicting itself in the second article but it does seem like they are kind of betting on both sides. If the deal goes through in February, like the first article suggests, then Stifel is golden. If the deal goes through but the commission imposes impossible conditions (like "Google must break off it's AdSense division" or "Google must sell DoubleClick's Advertising Exchange) then Google might be inclined to take some interesting measures. Of course Stifel would still be golden because their analysts had "predicted" thusly. Now, if the deal doesn't go through I think Stifel is still OK because they attribute the commissions approval to their beliefs.

What I also find interesting is how, if you skim both articles, they seem to contradict each other. While I am no journalism ninja it looks like these two sites, which are fairly big hitters on the internet, are taking sides. As I mentioned before, I think the two articles do not necessarily contradict I feel like the titles do. It might even be that both sites are quoting the same analysts but news.com choose to view the approval while marketwatch.com chose to stress the probability of some sort of imposed conditions that might blow the deal in Europe.

Anyway this all seemed like one big ass covering by Stifel... don't you agree?

TDD Anti-Patterns

Noam Wolf — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 20:22:08 GMT

Over the past couple of months I have been exposed to quite a few talks about the greatness of TDD. In the Better Software Agile Development Practices conference in Orlando I heard a couple of great talks from people like Roy Osherove who showed how to use dependency injections for unit tests. Roughly a month prior to that Uncle Bob gave us a very nice demo of TDD, and this week I'm attending a Refactoring to Design Patterns course given by none other than Joshua Kerievsky. Even Microsofts newest employee Phil Haacked has been promoting TDD lately on his blog.

While I find myself to be pretty TDD happy lately I can't help but wonder... if so many people are pushing TDD isn't there a slight risk we will all become too TDD happy? I am, of course, referring to the famous phrase: "when all you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail". If you start mocking every object in your system and refactor your code until pigs fly how do you know when you've gone too far?

Luckily, we have design patterns to show us the correct way of going about solving a problem. Now, thanks to James Carr we have TDD Anti-Patterns. A catalog of bad TDD habits.
TDD Anti-Patterns

The Mockery
Sometimes mocking can be good, and handy. But sometimes developers can lose themselves and in their effort to mock out what isn’t being tested. In this case, a unit test contains so many mocks, stubs, and/or fakes that the system under test isn’t even being tested at all, instead data returned from mocks is what is being tested.
Success Against All Odds
A test that was written pass first rather than fail first. As an unfortunate side effect, the test case happens to always pass even though the test should fail.
The Stranger
A test case that doesn’t even belong in the unit test it is part of. it’s really testing a separate object, most likely an object that is used by the object under test, but the test case has gone and tested that object directly without relying on the output from the object under test making use of that object for its own behavior. Also known as TheDistantRelative.

In other agile news I've recently started using ReSharper and while it's kind of slowing down my IDE I can already see improvement in my code, especially since I don't have to rely on NUnit's crappy UI to run my tests... a small step for man, a huge step for me.

Space Tourism for you and me

Noam Wolf — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 09:40:20 GMT

Ran into this interesting article over on Newsweek.com about how Richard Branson (the guy from Virgin) and Burt Rutan (spacecraft designer) are even closer now to the world's first tourist spaceship which they plan to put on trial later this year!!! How crazy is that?

Space Odyssey

How safe is this thing?
It should be very safe. There really isn't much in the way of unproven technology about it with the exception of the composite materials used for its construction. No one knows how these materials will hold up over many flights, but computer models look good.
What will travelers see and feel?
One good thing about SpaceShipTwo is it will only have a single trajectory, and weightlessness will be brief. That means space sickness won't have time to set in. Upset stomachs in zero-gravity are the bane of astronauts. Given the short time of the flight, the decision every passenger is going to have to make is whether to enjoy flying around or looking out the window. The view should be marvelous as long as there aren't too many clouds. Me? I would look out the window. I can get weightless by going scuba diving.
The space shuttle was developed by NASA's finest, but they still lost two of them. Does the private sector really have the know-how and the resources for a venture like this?
The private sector, run by innovative entrepreneurs, definitely has the know-how for a ballistic lob like this, given enough financing. I should point out, however, that carrying passengers to Earth orbit--as the shuttle does--is many magnitudes harder than what SpaceShipTwo is attempting. I look forward to the day when private enterprise takes on the orbital challenge. That's when I think big money is going to be made in terms of space tourism.

p.s Check out this related video titled: British Entrepreneur Unveils Tourist Spacecraft.

Best Buy to Discontinue 80GB PS3

Noam Wolf — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 09:31:04 GMT

Well this came as a surprise to me, turns out an internal Best Buy memo was "leaked" out to the press. The memo basically states that "the 80GB version of the PS3 is going closeout and won't be replaced at this time." This basically means that backwards compatibility for PS2 games will no longer be available. According to this article on pcworld.com both Japan and the U.K. have dropped former models to support a single, and cheaper 40GB model that lacks backward compatibility.

Since there is no mention on Sony's website and according to the pcworld article "Sony was not immediately available for comment" I am left to question the reliability of pcworld's sources. You can still find the 80GB PS3 in Gamestops, Amazon, and of course eBay. So why would Best Buy move to a closeout? If there are still 80GB consoles with backward compatibility out there wouldn't Sony have to continue supporting those anyway? I simply don't get it.

In other PS3 news I ordered NBA Live 08, I've been playing it a lot at work lately and figured this would be a nice addition to my slowly growing game collection.

MacHeads, Apple Stock, and Yael Naim

Noam Wolf — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 21:02:34 GMT

While it seems to be the year of the big Apple, and I don't mean New York City, Apple (AAPL) stock has been plummeting. After peaking at almost $203 Apple hit $127 yesterday during trading. I guess this is a sign that a burst maybe closer than we think.

At the 2008 MacWorld expo, Mr. Jobs announced that Microsoft (M$FT) is now shipping Office Mac 2008, a "companion" to Time Machine called Time Capsule, 4 Million iPhone's sold (I think my friend Shawn got the 4 millionth) and the new SDK and v1.1.3 of the iPhone firmware, and some great new apps for the iPod touch (hoooray!). Finally Jobs opens a brown envelope and pulls out the new MacBook Air "the worlds thinnest notebook". Past 3 expo's considered I think this one was a little bit of a disappointment. I wonder if people were expecting more, perhaps more advances in the iPhone, maybe an iPhone nano, the iPhone 3G... who knows. Apple also announced a very successful quarter, and even though I don't know much about the stock market it seems like that didn't help their stock.

In other Mac Head news a buddy film maker of mine set out, I believe it was November of 2006, to create a documentary about Mac Heads. I remember seeing the teaser around December of 06' and knowing he had something there. Apparently I was right (that sounds a little cocky. Disclaimer: I take no credit for his success but completely endorse it and wish him only the best... go Kobe!!!) the blogosphere has been buzzing about his (Kobe) documentary. You too can watch the teaser on the official site: www.macheadsthemovie.com and read about it here, here, and here. (or just search Goog for it).

The last item for this post is Yael Naim. Most of you are probably asking who she/he is, how is she/he related to Apple, and why do I care?

Well... I while ago (Jan 1st 2008) I introduced the lovely Yael Naim (made in Israel) in a blog post thinking this is one great singer that should be recognized. Today, as I watched the new episodes of Chuck, I saw the new Mac Book Air ad and I heard Yael Naim's voice. Turns out they used the song I so happily tried to promote. Well then... I would like to take credit for that, with your blessings of course.

Inflight Wi-fi a Reality. Again.

Noam Wolf — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 21:09:46 GMT

I don't travel that much but when I do I like to take my company laptop with me. It might be a geeky thing to do but aside from checking email, which we all know we do on vacation, having a laptop is very useful for a couple of things like:

Charging your camera or iPod

Uploading pics to your picasa albums and making room on your SD card (this is especially important on ski trips where video is taken)

Checking flight status

Checking weather status

A while ago (I think May of 07) I flew to St. Petersburg, Russia. This was a business trip and I was excited our travel agent had booked a Lufthansa flight because of all the ads they (Lufthansa) had on the subway about free wi-fi to all passengers. Little did I know the whole free wi-fi thing was canceled and Lufthansa, along with other major airlines (like EL AL) found it was just not paying off to provide this service, free or even for $$.

I used to work in shipping, a long long time ago, and I visited a FedEx facility once where they showed us how pallets (those things you load cargo into a plane on) had these barcodes on the top and how they got scanned as they boarded the plane and you (the shipper) could track the package in real time. That was really nice but didn't seem like the invention of the decade. I couldn't figure out why airlines had not introduced wi-fi a long time ago. Apparently it didn't make sense financially but it looks like there is some change on the horizon.
Southwest and American Test In-Flight Wi-Fi
Southwest announced Wednesday that it will test satellite-delivered broadband Internet access on four aircraft this summer, the airline said in a statement.

Southwest passengers with Wi-Fi-enabled devices would have Internet access for e-mail and Web browsing after the tests and subject to approval by the Federal Aviation Administration.

But "Southwest has not embraced voice calling" because of passengers' concerns about cell phone calls made during flights, spokeswoman Brandy King said in an interview. "Voice is not a direction we're taking."

I'm excited, I'm not sure exactly how they will cancel VOIP with voice over http but I wouldn't want to endure the headaches you get on Manhattan buses on a trans-Atlantic flight.

p.s.I understand Jetblue is offering free wifi already.
Check if your next flight has wifi enabled at the definitive guide to airline wifi

Why Interviewing is so Painful

Noam Wolf — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 11:03:15 GMT

It seems that lately I have been getting more frustrated with interviewees. I think mainly because I can't believe how people, who call themselves Software Engineers, with experience and CS degrees can't answer simple questions about the art they are supposed to be living every day.

I think I've mentioned this before but it never ceases to amaze me how engineers can't mention more than 2 collection classes in the System.Collections or System.Collections.Generic libraries. I really don't think that's a hard question. If you think it is, and you're a software engineer with a degree in computer science I recommend you start thinking of your next career.

Anyway... I read this interesting article at Codinghorror.com about how computer science should be taught. I have read these types of arguments many times, how CS curriculum's are too abstract or too disconnected from reality and I must agree. While I didn't go to an ivy league school I did get two degrees in CS and aside from maybe 3 courses (which I'm about to talk about) we really didn't cover anything that I have used since (I've been a professional Engineer for over 5 years now...).

The article addresses how deployment and source control are simply ignored by academia. Why do you think that is? I also know that many of the schools that consider themselves the "best" schools focus software courses on C and Assembly while only a fraction of it's graduates actually end up using these archaic languages.

I think the lack of realistic software engineering classes are the main cause of my frustration as an interviewer. I'm sure some of my questions may be hard but I don't expect an interviewee to answer every single question perfectly, I'm more interested in their thought process and ask them to "think out loud" when possible.

The three courses I mentioned before that I wanted to discuss briefly are:

Software Practicum - this was my Graduate capstone course (which means I need this course to get my Masters so it was pretty important). In this course the professor basically proposed a project (in my case it was Microscopic Image Analysis Software) and we had to go off and create this product. We met weekly to discuss our problems and show our progress. To me, this was my first taste at agile programming. Sure it wasn't agile per se but it was close enough. What I liked most about this course was that we got to pick the language we wanted to code it in. We also were responsible for the documentation (only it wasn't all designed up front - agile...) and we had to present a usable user interface. There was a similar undergraduate course title "Software Engineering" where students had to come up with a game, design it, document it, and implement it. I think that due to the water fall nature of that course I was lucky I didn't take it.

Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) - this was actually a pilot course given by the graduate center at CUNY. This was by far one of the most influential courses I took. The course spanned 2 semesters, the students were actually forced to go through an interview process to get accepted to this course and internships were promised at the end of this course. Naturally this seemed like a great idea to me, so I sent my resume and luckily got picked to become apart of this pilot. To avoid boring you to death I just want to point out the main things I learned during this class:

I got my first taste of Subversion, I had used Source Safe before.

We got picked by one of three major financial institutions to write a product and present to their board

I got my first taste of corporate America and saw how even the biggest financial institutions had terrible engineers

All together this course was an amazing experience, and while I didn't score an internship I did get to present to the board of one of the top 5 investment banking companies. I think CUNY is still giving this course, so if you're a CUNY student I highly recommend it.

Operating Systems - this course was terrible in general because the professor had not experience and she didn't know a for loop from an if statement... BUT the TA was amazing. He had us write a file system in Java. This was a course I took as an undergrad and it made me actually write code that I had to be able to deploy on the TA's box once I completed it. So that was my first taste of the deployment hell of our industry.

I'd like to see schools take more consideration when they build the curriculum's and make sure they have some real life courses that make you follow some sort of agile software development process in which you are expected to create a product that is ready to ship.

Free Sex at Prague Brothel

Noam Wolf — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 10:29:26 GMT

This article talks about a brothel in Prague where you are welcome to have sex for free with the hooker of your choice and the only catch is that people can watch you online... now I'm no VC or anything but this sounds like a great startup. Now imagine mashing this up with a social network and you have PrivatePartsBook... no? You be the judge
Free Sex at Prague Brothel Tests Taboo as Reality Romps Hit Web

Big Sister is marrying 21st-century technology with the world's oldest profession to profit from the public's appetite for ever-more graphic reality TV. Since 2005, more than 15,000 men have taken up the offer of free sex in return for 15 minutes, or less, of fame, according to the brothel. Big Sister is now expanding into the U.S. with a local version of its Web site.

After donning a burgundy terry-cloth robe and slippers in a carpeted locker room, each client heads downstairs where the action takes place. Every move is recorded by more than 50 video cameras mounted everywhere from the toilets to the bed posts.

He comes for the free sex, good beer and women who are ``polite and very friendly,'' Nick says, at a table with a view of a glass swimming pool where one guest bobs naked. A pole- dancer in a white thong and bra gyrates with a grinning Slovak man holding a wine bottle in one hand and a glass in the other.

``It's a different concept,'' Nick says later, as he leaves his details so the brothel can mail him complimentary DVDs of his performance. ``It's what the people want, to see normal people.''

Louis Playing Scrabble

Noam Wolf — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 18:19:04 GMT

I'm ready for this.

a little scratchin' and we're off.

Catnip, that's right.

I'm bored with you.

Flickr Is Getting a Massage

Noam Wolf — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 18:08:21 GMT

I'm not sure I've seen this before, I am sure some of you have, nevertheless I feel the need to have it here for future reference.

related: funny error messages.

Boxing, Shadowing, Overriding and Overloading

Noam Wolf — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 11:56:13 GMT

This is more of a reference post. I really like to ask object oriented programming questions when I do technical interviews mainly because I believe that the most basic, and probably the most important, concept of computer science is object oriented design and programming. I frequently like to ask the interviewee to model a league of their favorite sport (as a side note the most popular sports that have been modeled during this interview question are Cricket, Soccer, and Basketball...) and then take the model and refer to it (classes, interfaces, delegates etc.) in following questions.

You can easily take this question and expand it to fit almost anything you want to focus on. I like to work it into an exercise where the interviewee is building a game for EA Sports where they have to consume an EA webservice for online gaming. From there I go into serialization, soap, WSE and other fun stuff.

What I've found from doing this exercise for a couple of months now is that many engineers with over 2 years of experience have problems with collections (more specifically the System.Collections and System.Collections.Generic libraries). Most interviewees will choose an ArrayList to model a list of Players in a Team (this obviously applies to most sports, yes even tennis, think Davis Cup). The natural question that follows a design choice of an ArrayList is what happens when a consumer of your class decides to add a Referee or a Coach into your list of Players? How can you protect access to and from this collection? These questions either lead to an interesting discussion or to the following question: What is the underlying type of an ArrayList anyway? You'd be surprised how many 2+ year engineers have said String... yeah, sad.

Boxing

When you use an ArrayList (that is a collection of Object types, if you didn't already know that) you are using an Object (or reference type). So when you add a primitive (or value type) to your ArrayList like:

ArrayList players = new ArrayList(); int p1 = 12; players.add(p1);

What actually happens behind the scenes? Since p1 is a primitive how is it stored on the heap? boxing, which means the primitive gets converted to an object. That's all it is. The opposite of boxing would be unboxing or the process of taking an object and converting it into a primitive (reference type to value type conversion).

Shadowing

Shadowing is an interesting concept in .NET because, unlike Java, C# methods aren't implicitly virtual. So if you create a base class (which isn't abstract) and you want to override methods in sub classes (child classes) you need to use the virtual keyword, but what happens when you don't have access to the base/super class? what happens when you MUST override a method that's not marked virtual? You can use the new keyword and use shadowing.
Override redefines an inherited method which is marked as virtual or abstract, and its access level must be the same as the method it overrides. New allows you to completely hide an inherited member and create a different implementation of it with whatever attributes you chooses. Shadowing is another name for disabling an inherited method and redefining it.

public class A { public virtual string doStuff() { return "doing stuff in A"; } public string doSomeOtherStuff() { return "doing some other stuff in A"; } } public class B : A { // overriding public override string doStuff() { return "doing stuff in B"; } // shadowing new public string doSomeOtherStuff() { return "doing some other stuff in B"; } } public class test { public static void Main(string[] args) { A myA = new A(); Console.WriteLine(myA.doStuff()); // will output "doing stuff in A" Console.WriteLine(myA.doSomeOtherStuff()); // will output "doing some other stuff in A" B myB = new B(); Console.WriteLine(myB.doStuff()); // will output "doing stuff in B" Console.WriteLine(myB.doSomeOtherStuff()); // will output "doing some other stuff in B" A myAB = new B(); Console.WriteLine(myAB.doSomeOtherStuff()); // will output "doing some other stuff in A" } }

Overriding vs. Overloading

Overridng vs. Overloading seems to be a little problematic for some people, and it can get a little confusing when you're not in front of your IDE. So in general:

Overriding

Any time you have a class that inherits a method from a superclass, you have the opportunity to override the method (unless the method is marked sealed). The key benefit of overriding is the ability to define behavior that's specific to a particular subclass type.

Overloading

Overloaded methods let you reuse the same method name in a class, but with different arguments (and optionally, a different return type). Overloading a method often means you're being a little nicer to those who call your methods, because your code takes on the burden of coping with different argument types rather than forcing the caller to do conversions prior to invoking your method.

Since Java is virtual be default overloading vs. overriding can play tricks on you if you don't notice what's going on, but in C# it's a little simpler because you can easily tell overloading from overriding because of the virtual and override keywords:

public class Test { public static void Main(string[] args){ Human h = new Noam(); h.eat(); //this will print Noam class enjoying breakfast at cafe Hillel. h.eat("lunch"); //this is a call to an overload and is NOT legal //you get a compile error: //Test.cs(9,5): error CS1501: No overload for method 'eat' //takes '1' arguments } } class Human{ public virtual void eat(){ Console.WriteLine("Generic human eating"); } } class Noam : Human{ public override void eat(){ //notice the signature is identical to the super class Console.WriteLine("Noam class enjoying breakfast at cafe Hillel."); } //overload no keyword needed public void eat(string meal){ Console.WriteLine("Noam class enjoying " + meal + " at cafe Hillel."); } }

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