The Shaved Gorilla Speaks ...

Sport

2011-06-12T10:19:00.000+09:30

I never quite know what I should be writing in this blog. I have other sites to capture my technological interests and that leaves little for me to write about here. One thing that has been a fairly major part of my life is sport. I've long since given up participation but I still maintain an interest in several sports including motorsport (Formula 1 and Nascar), baseball, cycling, soccer, and the Olympics/Commonwealth Games. I could probably add cricket to this list although it is something I have become less interested in as the cricketers I grew up watching have slowly retired.

I played Australian Rules Football, Rugby Union and Basketball in high school but, with the exception of basketball, had no enduring interest outside participation. I did have a fairly intense interest in basketball for a while but I think that has gone the way of my cricket interest.

So, (I hate starting sentences with 'So' but what ya going to do?) what's happening in those sports that interest me?

Nascar: my main interest in this sport is due to the presence of Australian Marcos Ambrose so that's what I'll talk about. Marcos is coming off an ordinary week in Kansas and will be looking for a good showing at the 2.5 mile triangular Pocono Raceway. He's has a top 10 at Pocono in the past and is a decent chance of doing that again or better after qualifying seventh.

Formula 1 is in Montreal this weekend and Vettel has qualified in pole with Webber fourth split by the two Ferraris one of which, I think, will win the race ... probably Alonso. The McLarens will be tough as will the similarly powered Mercedes team. I can't see Webber getting his first win at this track.

Cycling: the Criterium du Dauphine is entering the last stage with Bradley Wiggins in the GC lead thanks to a strong time trial on stage 3. Cadel Evans is 1m 26s back in second and didn't seem to have a great showing up the final mountain of Stage 6. But, his focus is the Tour de France in July in which he needs to peak in week 3 rather than week 1 or 2. Ivan Basso, another rider focussing on the TdF, is performing even worse in the Criterium and is probably using the current race as training and recovery after a crash a month ago.

I'll have more to say about baseball and soccer later.

Movies on my mind

2011-03-24T21:50:00.000+10:30

It's been a while since my last post so, something completely random, here are some movies that I feel drawn to just at this moment:

The Big Lebowski --- The Dude Abides.
Topsy Turvy --- Jim Broadbent is one of the best.
Hackers --- Ignore the technological faux pas the questionable acting and the voice overs added in post, this is a nice buddy film with some good art design and costuming.
Lost In Translation and Marie Antoinette --- two movies from Sophia Coppola; atmospheric, beautiful visuals and great soundtracks.
Blade Runner --- Visuals and the Vangelis soundtrack.
Tron Legacy --- In the same category as Hackers.

I like a lot of other movies and have hundreds of DVDs but the list above reflect my current mood just at the moment for some reason. All reasonably 'quiet' movies with great atmosphere, visuals and sound ... especially the sound.

Google sent me mail ... SNAIL mail

2010-02-05T21:33:00.000+10:30

Sitting in my mailbox --- my physical mailbox, you know, the one out by the road --- when I arrived home this afternoon was an attractive envelope emblazoned in the upper right corner with the Google logo in full colour. Within was a piece of paper, actual pressed moist fibres derived from cellulose pulp, upon which was black and coloured ink formed into shapes resembling the symbols of the Latin alphabet and grouped into white space separated chunks that would result in successful pattern matches in most English language dictionaries. A Letter. What and why was Google sending me?

JUNK MAIL.

I signed up for AdSense a while back and had added Google Ads to the sidebars of this site. As a result of signing up I've been receiving occasional emails telling me about AdWords and that I can buy these things to drive extra traffic to my site. Then I received an email telling me that I can have $75 of free AdWords. A little taster if you will. I ignored this. A little while later --- your chance for $75 free AdWords is coming to an end. Ignore.

Now I have a letter from Google telling me about my $75 worth of free AdWords.

This is a very physical reminder that Google is a business and advertising is their business and they want to sell. At the moment I don't mind the occasional attention as it is easy and low cost to ignore. But, if I start getting telephone calls to tell me about $75 worth of free AdWords just as I am sitting down to eat dinner, I might have to switch to Microsoft. Then again, maybe I have been receiving these phone calls. I have Caller ID enabled on my phone line and if it indicates overseas or private or a number I don't know then I don't pick up. Maybe they really, really, really want my business.

What photo gear would you buy for $10,000?

2010-02-03T22:18:00.001+10:30

OK, this is a pleasant distraction from actually doing something, but, let's go. I have some experience with Canon gear so my selections are made from their products. My choices are made based on what I shoot ... or more exactly ... what I don't shoot. I don't photograph people, or, more specifically, I don't photograph people who are conscious of my photographing them. It is a reflection of my introverted nature. 'Malu' is the word in Indonesian.

That leaves a lot that I do photograph: landscapes, events, people from a distance, street scapes, nature, low light. If I were out in the field I'd like to be able to go from wide to telephoto as quick as possible. I've not yet entered the world of video but with the current crop of prosumer cameras, that is an option as well.

Based on these two paragraphs, experienced photographers might know where I am heading with my selections. The prices quoted below are taken from www.camerasdirect.com.au.

Canon 5D Mark II - $2,947: full frame sensor for landscapes and good performance at high ISO settings for low light performance. $7,053 left.
Canon EOS 7D - $1997: Another body. This one for sporting events and nature. Eight frames per second shooting. An APS-C sensor gives a 1.6x throw to attached lenses getting a bit closer to the action. Having a second body removes the need to constantly swap lenses. $5,056 left.
Canon EF 24-70mm F2.8L - $1,689: With half the money gone the lenses will need to be zooms. The first is the 24-70 f2.8L for the 5D Mark II. On the 5D this lens gives the full 24mm at the wide end and the f2.8 should give good low light performance for nightscapes. The combination of this lens and the 5D Mk II also provides a nice combination for capturing 'atmosphere' at sporting events. $3,367 left.
Canon EF 70-200mm F2.8L IS - $2133: A lens for the 7D. F2.8 means fast, Image stabilised makes hand holding at the longer end is possible. On the 7D the effective length of this lens is 112-320mm. Perfect for sporting and nature closeups. $1,234 left.

What to do with that last $1,234. I'd probably get the 50f1.4 at $484 (the 50f1.2L is too expensive at $1,867), a flash, and other accessories.

Another option would be to swap the 5D Mk II and 7D for a single Canon 1D Mk IV at $6,250. I'd loose the full frame sensor of the 5D Mk II and the extra throw of the 7D for the in-between APS-H sensor. I'd also loose the benefit of two bodies instead adding the need to change lenses on the fly. But, 10fps for 120 shot bursts, to quote Homer, aarrghhhhhhh.

Review: History Speaks - The Four Princes of the Warring States

2010-02-01T21:46:00.000+10:30

This is my first review of one of Tsai Chih Chung's comics about Chinese history/philosophy. My last post mentioned that I have 15 of his books that I want to get through. The first book I have read is History Speaks. Before I get into the summary of the book's content, here is the description of Tsai Chih Chung from the back cover:

TSAI CHIH CHUNG - First came to prominence through his award winning animated movies and his immensely popular daily comic strips. When he turned his hand to the classics after a prolonged period of self-education, they were acclaimed by critics and shot to the top of the bestsellers lists.

History Speaks retells the major aspects of the lives of four princes from the Warring States period of Chinese history (475--221 BCE). The four princes covered are Lord Mengchang of Qi, Lord Pingyuan of Zhao, Lord Xinling of Wei, and Lord Chunshen of Chu. Before the princes are described, the life of historian Sima Qian is introduced. It was Sima Qian who documented 2000 years of Chinese history in his Historian's Records. This was completed a little more than 100 years after the Warring States period ended. It is, presumably, from Sima Qian's record that Tsai Chih Chung based his retelling.

The history described is, for me, of inherent interest. However, the telling of the story is also interspersed with snippets of wisdom on how to deal with people and situations that are seemingly relevant even today. These snippets are usually conveyed through the mechanism of a retainer advising a prince on how to act.

One such example occurs after Lord Xinling of Wei has ridden to the aid of Zhao to beat back the invading Qin. Xinling had to usurp power over the Wei army in order to support Zhao as the King of Wei feared subsequent reprisal from Qin. After successfully repelling the Qin, the King of Zhao offered Xinling a fiefdom of five cities within Zhao. Lord Xinling felt quite chuffed about this but was then advised by a retainer that some things shouldn't be forgotten and some things should be forgotten. Other people's kindness to one shouldn't be forgotten whereas one's kindness to others should be forgotten. The retainer reminded Xinling that he deceived Wei in order to save Zhao and his achievement should not be celebrated or rewarded.

It is said in the book that the four princes were constantly competing with each other to attract the best retainers. This attitude is somewhat evident today in the technology industry with various companies (eg, Google, FogCreek) going above and beyond to get the best talent. Joel Spolsky has even written a book on the topic: Smart and Gets Things Done: Joel Spolsky's Concise Guide to Finding the Best Technical Talent. Each of the four princes was said to have been their abilities to hire good and talented people and to engender loyalty within those that were hired. Lord Mengchang, for example, would immediately send a gift to the household of the interviewees that he deemed worthy. When the interviewee returned home, the gift was waiting. Lord Xinling would wait on anyone he deemed worthy of respect, regardless of their status or age.

The book is interesting historically and morally. The illustrations, which I haven't mentioned, are clean, clear, and uncluttered. I can't make any claims as to the correctness of the content or the translation and there are some spelling/typography errors, but these concerns don't detract from the overall pleasure derived from reading this book.

The History and Philosophy of China in Comics

2010-01-31T16:46:00.000+10:30

I am fortunate enough to have a Chinese friend who has sent me some wonderful books that narrate, in comic form, various histories and philosophies of China. The books have been created by the artist Tsai Chih Chung and are comical as well as informative. The English translations are good with some humourous colloquialisms that I can only hope are an accurate representation of the original Chinese text.

I have 15 of these books on my shelf and have read them in bits and pieces over the last year or two. I am going to make these my main source of recreational reading from now until I get through them all. I will provide reviews on this site as I complete each book. I will start with History Speaks. The complete list of books that I have by Tsai Chih Chung is:

My take on Apple's iPad

2010-01-30T11:37:00.000+10:30

The Apple iPad is not an iPhone and it is not a laptop or netbook. The Apple iPad is a media/content delivery device. Instead of comparing the iPad with other touch screen tablets, or with the iPhone, or with laptops/netbooks, I think it deserves comparison with the Sony Playstation, the Microsoft Xbox, and the Nintendo Wii. These devices are closed, the manufacturers make money from licensing companies to create content, and they all have tacked on online stores for purchasing content. It is the content where these companies make their money and to such an extent that they reportedly take a loss on the hardware in order to get these content delivery devices into the hands of consumers.

The iPad fits exactly in this game console mold as a content delivery device. Apple already has music/movie/tv content being delivered and the iPad is going to be able to access those streams. The iPhone added applications which the iPad will also be able to access. In addition, the iPad will bring two new content sources: applications built specifically for the iPad and the books/magazines/newspapers. Amazon has been doing a rollicking trade with e-books supplied to its Kindle and Apple will take a piece of this market. The Kindle probably provides a better reading experience and definitely provides a better battery life, but this is not going to matter. The aesthetics of the iPad are going to win over the general population and people who would never have thought of buying a Kindle are not going to think twice about buying an iPad.

Every media report I've seen on Apple's newly announced iPad has mentioned disappointment that this is just a "big iPod/iPhone". However, that's pretty much exactly what I want. I have two concrete use cases I can quote:

1. In an earlier post I mentioned that my wife spent more time using her iPhone than she spent using her newly obtained Sony P-Series netbook. At the end of that post I predicted that if an Apple Tablet were to appear, it would basically relegate the Sony to the nether world under the bed. Well, Apple delivered exactly the device that will cause my prediction to come to fruition. I will buy an iPad when it comes out and my new prediction is that I won't be able to pry it from my wife's hands. She will be using it to keep up with Facebook, chat with friends, and browse the web for recipes. I'll have to wait until she puts it down to grab a few minutes with it and then give it up again upon her return. I suspect this scenario will play out in a lot of households.

2. I have bought a bunch of e-books over the last few years. I read these on my 13" MacBook when I am on the road. They way I read (the pdf e-books) is to enter full screen and then rotate the view 90 degrees. I then hold my MacBook vertically so that the screen is in a portrait orientation. This provides an experience where I can have an entire page on screen and have the text readable, but it is uncomfortable. The iPad, out of the box, fits squarely in this use case, without the discomfort.

These two reasons are enough for me to shell out for Apple's newest shiny. At present I plan to buy the entry level version and pick up a beefier one at a future iteration.

My predictions for the Apple's success as a result of the iPad are:

1. The iPad won't sell close to the numbers we have seen for the iPod/iPhone,
2. There will be a fall in sales of Apple's entry level laptops as people purchase the iPad instead. However, iPad sales will outstrip the fall in laptop sales as there will be people not in the market for a laptop buying the iPad,
3. Overall, Apple's revenue will increase thanks to these extra iPad sales and also the content sales the iPad will provide.

Apple's stock was falling yesterday. If I had the money, I'd be buying.

I need a (good) zoom lens

2010-01-28T21:40:00.003+10:30

I've been loading my Flickr Photostream with images taken from the recent Tour Down Under held in Adelaide. Most of my shots were taken with Canon's thrifty fifty (50mm f1.8) strapped to my 400D. I did get what I consider to be some nice shots, such as the following of Chris Sutton, Greg Henderson, and Ben Swift of Team Sky on their warm down lap after Greg and Chris had finished 1-2 in the Cancer Council Helpline Classic.

However, my wife was using our Canon G10 and was able to capture more atmospheric photos thanks to its ability to shoot wider. For example, this photo of Lance Armstrong heading to the start line for Stage 4.

A zoom lens would have given me more flexibility shooting this event. I do have the kit 18-55mm lens, but I just haven't been bothering with this since I bought the 50f1.8. What I need is a decent zoom lens and I think the 24-70mm f2.8L would fit the bill nicely. On my 400D that would effectively give me a 40-110mm lens which might not be quite wide enough at the low end. Perhaps I need a full frame camera as well ... the 5D MkII perhaps?

My birthday is in three months, anyone want to buy me these shiny things?

Review of Year 2010 goals

2010-01-21T21:28:00.005+10:30

Three weeks into the new year and it is time for a quick review of the goals I have set myself to achieve this year:

2010.1 - Lose weight: No progress yet. I have been out for a few walks and have made some forays into dieting, but nothing consistent. I can blame a lot of things - the weather in Adelaide (we had a run of 4 days over 41C), a few parties, quality TV (!) - but it is down to me. I have to pick this up sooner rather than later as I have an intermediate slimming goal to reach by early April. I need to fit into some clothes I had made when I was thinner in time for my sister's wedding.
2010.2 - Belajar Bahasa Indonesia: I have made some progress with this goal. I pulled out some flash cards I bought more than a year ago and have been working through them. Of the 440 odd cards I can translate better than 420 on sight and without error. The remaining 20 I can sort of squint and probe my memory for the translations that don't match any of the other 420 cards and guess right most of the time. My wife has been helping my when we drive by quizzing me on the cards verbally. My listening skills still need a lot of work. But, I have been able to read more of the posts our Indonesian friends make on Facebook.
2010.3 - Search for my 'ikigai': The process of studying Indonesian has revealed to me that I really enjoy learning. I went through those flash cards for about four days and the information stuck. The reward of being able to read more Indonesian text felt great. However, I don't think I am going to make a great living just reading through Wikipedia and amazing people at parties with my tidbits of trivia (although, that's an interesting idea for a blog). I could step into academia now that I am a PhD graduate but it would be a step back financially and I'm not in a position where I am able to take that cut. Not that I am unhappy with my current job which has great scope and support for learning and development as well. I think this blog and my Know Thy Tools website provide a good avenue for turning my learning into output and perhaps I can earn some money from advertising and affiliate links.

A slow start to the year but there is promise. This post has been kicking around in my mind for a while and I am glad I have written it down. Goals are only meaningful if they are kept in sight and regularly reviewed. I'll have more posts like this in the future.

Goal 2010.3: Search for my `ikigai'.

2010-01-08T20:57:00.002+10:30

Ikigai is a Japanese word that translates to `what one gets up in the morning to do'. Basically it is one's purpose in life. Dan Buettner reports on Blue Zones at a TED conference. Blue Zones are regions in the world where the life expectancy is significantly higher than the norm. One region is in Okinawa and one of the reasons postulated for the long life of an Okinawan is that they can clearly and immediately express their `ikigai'.

I don't necessarily need to live to 100 and beyond but I would like to have an `ikigai' --- a concrete purpose and passion to my life. At the moment I get up on a weekday and go to work and my weekends are spent waiting to go to work again on Monday.

Expressed another way, I am looking for my job in life. What is the single thing I dedicate my life to doing. This is expressed in another TED talk, this time by Elizabeth Gilbert whose life's job is writing. She gets up in the morning and she knows her job is to write. Her talk is very interesting and I encourage anyone with a creative streak to watch.

How am I to go about searching for my ikigai? Introspection is going to have to be a big part of the process. I need to think back through my life and try and identify the times I was engaged in what I was doing.

Focussed exploration and practice within my current areas of interest will also occur. I am doing what I am doing now for some reason. My life has led me here and it is worth my time to really focus on where I am now to make sure my current feeling of a lack of purpose isn't just due to laziness.

A goal is fairly useless if progress can not be measured. I will track progress by creating sub-goals that capture specific tasks to accomplish as part of my search. If I complete around six to twelve sub-goals this year I will be happy that I made a concerted effort in my search. I may not have found my ikigai, but I'll know that I looked.

This blog will contain reports and notes as I search.

Goal 2010.2: Belajar Bahasa Indonesia

2010-01-01T23:42:00.003+10:30

Another resolution carry over from last year: Belajar Bahasa Indonesia.

At the end of the year I will be able to converse with my wife, her family and friends in Indonesian. I don't expect to be fluent, but I will be able to understand what is being said and understand when I don't understand and be able to ask for clarification. I expect to be a better listener/reader than talker as that is just who I am (and is evidenced by my `proficiency' with English).

I have a bunch of resources available to me. Google Translate is doing a pretty spiffy job of translating to/from Indonesian. I've been really impressed with the few times I have used it. I also have a books dedicated to teaching Indonesian. The free content from the Learning Indonesian podcast is really good and I may spring for the enhanced content, however, I haven't seen much activity from the hosts in a while. I have both the original English and Indonesian translation of three novels - Across the Nightingale Floor, Grass for His Pillow, and Brilliance of the Moon. I also have some flash cards. And finally I have this thing called the "Internet". It is supposed to be big at the moment.

I'll pick one of my Indonesian study guides as a first step to achieving this goal.

Goal 2010.1: Reduce my weight and waist to double digits.

2009-12-30T22:33:00.002+10:30

The perennial New Year's Resolution. But this time I mean it!

My weight at the moment is about 125kg which gives me a BMI of 36.5 and, because I am not a Californian Gubernator, that's not good. A 36.5 puts me in the `Obese' category with a `severe' risk of health consequences. The Australian government suggests that BMI isn't the best indicator for ill health and that waist size is a better measure. Well, my waist is in the 120cm range which is 20cm into the `substantially increased' risk range.

Hence, therefore, and in conclusion I have a goal in 2010 of reducing my weight (in kilograms) and waist (in centimetres) to double digits. A 99kg weight would give me a still overweight BMI of 28.9 but it drops to a merely `increased' risk of health consequences. A 99cm waist measurement is also an indicator of `increased' (instead of `substantially increased') risk.

To get into `healthy' ranges I'd need to drop to 85kg weight and 94cm waist. Of course, to be `healthy' is a long term goal (as is getting into more than half the clothes I own and having my wife not call me `gendut' anymore) but I'll shoot for the double digit targets as an initial goal.

How will I achieve my lofty ambitions? Well, I fall into the energy deficit camp of weight loss. One looses weight by expending more energy than one consumes. I've lost weight using this `method' at lease twice in the past. Once (when I was a younger and better looking Shaved Gorilla) I lost 20 kilograms over about two months during a summer break from University. I worked picking blueberries which basically involved six or seven hours per day of standing, bending, stretching, and walking. All very `low-impact' but repeat seven days per week for two months with no excessive eating and when I got back to University I was literally the focus of attention for a day or two.

According, once again, to the Australian government, a sedentary male, such as your humble, narrating Shaved Gorilla, requires 8,900 kJ energy intake per day to maintain a healthy weight. Thus, to reduce my weight I can consume less than this amount of energy and/or become less sedentary thus increasing the amount of energy required to `maintain' weight.

One gram of fat equates to 37kJ of energy. One kilogram of fat therefore equates to 37,000kJ. Making the (erroneous I am sure) assumption that an energy deficit is made up by burning fat stores, I need, over the course of 2010, to have a total energy deficit of at least 25kg X 37,000kJ = 925,000kJ ... almost a MEGA joule! Divide by 365 and I need an energy deficit of at least 2,534kJ per day to achieve my weight goal.

Maths is great and weight and waist measurements are nice ways to track progress but in reality I don't know enough about the physiology that makes my body tick and as a result I can only make an energy deficit target as a guide to weight loss. My body will lose weight as a side effect of the direct actions I take day to day. I can't directly control whether I'll loose weight but I can take actions to enhance the possibility of losing weight. Actions like pushing less food stuffs into my face hole and making sure the food stuffs that do enter that orifice are suitably nutritious. I can get off my fat arse and go for a walk on a regular basis. I can time how long it takes me to walk a certain distance and try to beat it on a subsequent walk. Walking the same distance faster expends more energy.

But, taking a deficit of 2,534kJ as a guide it means that if I want to maintain my sedentary lifestyle I need limit my energy intake to 8,900 - 2,534 = 6366kJ. I don't really want to remain sedentary and I don't think I can restrict my energy intake to 6,366kJ per day so I'm going to take regular exercise. weightloss.com.au reports that if I walk for 30 minutes at 5 km/hr I'll burn 7.37 kJ/kg * 125kg = 921.25kJ. Walk for an hour and I'll have expended 1850kJ. This coupled with a diet restricting my energy input to 8000kJ and I'll have achieved my daily energy deficit goal.

Easier typed than done however. My first task will be to examine what I eat and ascertain the amount of energy I am currently consuming.

I'll make a go of it and review and report weekly regarding whether I've been a good boy with my eating and exercise and provide a track of weight and waist measurement. If I'm really motivated I might take a photo per day and stitch it together at the end of the year.

Resolutions 2009 Evaluated

2009-12-26T22:09:00.000+10:30

Another calendar year is drawing to a close and it is time to see how I performed against the resolutions I made at the start of the year (documented at http://www.anthonycramp.name/2009/01/resolutions-2009.html). As usual I didn't spend the year with my resolutions constantly in my mind and the inevitable occurred ... a lot of fail.

Blog posts: fail. 22 this year (23 including this post). More than 30 last year. I guess I could get up on last year if I write a couple of posts per day from now until New Year, but they'd be trite and meaningless and I have other trite and meaningless things to do.

Photography: fail-ish. Nowhere near as much travel this year and, consequently, not as many photos. My Flickr site does have a few pages of photos from this year and my Aperture library has even more photos, but there doesn't appear to be any "photography for photography's sake" photos from this year.

Read, Read, Read: fail-ish. I have read a few books, both fiction and non-fiction, though I can't remember what books I have actually read.

Lose weight: fail. I am heavier now than I was at this time last year, and it is not (only) due to Christmas grazing.

Learn Indonesian: faily-passy. I know more than I did last year. I can construct simple sentences, but I am not even close to fluent.

Develop software applications: fail. I have a few ideas for software apps to write but have not committed the time to see them through.

Website development: fail. The most significant thing I did this year with regard to my websites was to sort out the A Record so that http://anthonycramp.name directs here instead of to my domain host.

PhD: WIN. I had my thesis submitted for examination by the end of March. The result of the examination was 'pass with modifications'. I made the mods and had the final thesis submitted by the end of October. I now have the status 'eligible to graduate' which should happen during April next year. However, I will have been officially conferred with the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the end of this year.

A lot of fail this year with a big win to conclude, and the win, for me, out-plays the fail. Getting the PhD off my books opens up a realm of possibilities. A partial exploration of this realm will be made with a new set of resolutions which I will document soon-ish.

Locking a Mac's screen

2009-10-25T10:15:00.003+10:30

Apparently my place of employment is full of nefarious people just waiting for me to walk away from my computer so that they can steal my codes or use my internets to access unsavoury parts of the web such as here, here, and here (follow these links at your peril).

Thus, it is required that every time I heave my juddering frame out of my chair to wander off on some aimless task I must ensure that the many computers (two) I commune with are locked in order for them to be in pristine condition when I return.

One of said computers is running that most unhappy of operating systems: Windows. Although, it is slightly happier that the version it is forced to consume is Windows XP as opposed to its younger sibling. The other computer, a vision of elegance (and not a little smugness as a result), executes Mac OS X during its daily power cycle.

Locking the Windows box is fairly simple. Most who have grown up with Windows 2000 and (I assume) Windows 98 will know that to lock such a computer is as simple as Ctrl-Alt-Del and then click the "Lock Computer" button. However, a process that includes the mouse is a process that can be improved (IMHO). Thus, I was happy to discover the shortcut of holding the Windows key, on keyboards that offer such a key, and pressing the L key will happily lock the machine. (I think I discovered this combination by accident as I was probably trying to hit Ctrl-L in a browser to get to the address bar. Slightly off track but Windows-E and Windows-R also do useful things).

For the longest time I have not been aware of similar keyboard simplicity for locking the screen of the Mac box. In fact, up until recently I just had to wait for the screen saver to kick in, with the appropriate System Preferences set to require a password when waking from sleep or screen saver. Slightly more recently, after a google search, I found the app that invokes the screen saver and dragged it to the dock so a click could invoke the process I had, until then, had to wait for 10 minutes to start. Slightly after that I bound the invocation of this app to the lower right hot corner so that a fling of the mouse in that direction starts the screen saver and I am free to wander off on the aforementioned aimless tasks.

However, and say it with me now, a process that includes the mouse is a process that can be improved.

Thus, it was with a squeak of glee that I came across this hint on OS X Daily. Hitting the key combination Ctrl-Shift-Eject will turn the display off and, if the System Preferences have been set to require password after sleep or screen saver begins (its on the General tab of the Security page), the machine is locked.

Happiness ensues.

AppleCare win X2 (and small fail)

2009-08-06T20:20:00.004+09:30

About a month ago the hard disk in my 13" MacBook made a dreadful squeal and stopped working. Fortunately I didn't really have anything on there that I couldn't part with and I was pretty sure my AppleCare was still current. I hunted around and found my AppleCare certificate and my heart sank when I read the expiry date of 12/4/2009. Three months expired :(.

"Wait a minute", I thought, "I bought my laptop at the end of the year". Back to searching and I found my receipt and sure enough the purchase date was Dec 2006. My mind was starting to warm up and I realised the date in the certificate is formatted the American way. Cue large sigh of relief.

Off to the local service centre and a week and a bit later I had my MacBook back with a new hard disk. Amusingly, the OS installed was 10.4.11, the last version of Tiger, which was the operating system installed when I bought the laptop. I had already updated to Leopard prior to the hard disk crash and had the CD for the newer OS. The next two or three hours of my life were spent re-installing Leopard and downloading Apple Software Updates.

Then, over the next week or two, I dragged my email logs and desktop hard disks for software licences I had purchased and set about re-establishing my work environment on the laptop. And then my keyboard stopped working.

Well, not completely, just a few keys, but important keys, especially for a programmer. Keys like '=', '~', and the arrows. Back to the service centre. Three days later I get an SMS telling me it is ready to pick up, which I do, and too my surprise the trackpad is new, as is the keyboard and the whole upper assembly of the body. I first noticed when I went to move the mouse cursor and noticed the track pad was much rougher than I remembered.

So, kudos to the AppleCare program. Two service requests and two fixes under warranty.

The fail? Apart from the unexpected date formatting in the AppleCare certificate, when I picked up my laptop today it hadn't been shutdown and the battery was at 25%. That, to me, is just unprofessional.

Now, I am off to find the AppleCare certificate for my iMac, which I think is either expired or, if not, very close to expired, and see if I can extend it.

Sony P-Series

2009-08-05T21:13:00.003+09:30

This is the laptop I bought for my wife for her birthday in June and since my 13" MacBook is in the service centre at the moment, it is the laptop I have writing this post with now. Quick review is that I would prefer to use my MacBook. This Sony is too small for me, both the screen and the general size.

A couple of other comments: I bought the version with the solid state drive and as a result this thing is Quiet (with a capital Q). This coupled with a relatively slow boot time often has me wondering if the computer is working at all. Patience is often required to just wait for the Windows login screen to come up.

The keyboard is minimised and has a pointing stick in the middle rather than a dedicated trackpad. This can be annoying as I will occasionally tap the pointing stick and the cursor entry point will change (as happened while I was typing this sentence). I am sure this action can be turned off though.

The big disadvantage of this laptop is the battery life ... 2--3 hours. Granted the battery is very small to fit with the form factor of the overall laptop, but it really isn't great.

Perhaps the most telling evidence of the usability of this laptop is that my wife has since obtained an iPhone and she uses that far more than she uses this laptop. Admittedly she will use this laptop if she needs to write a Word document or similar, but for general web browsing (like Facebook) or IM'ing (Yahoo), she will use the iPhone. For more extensive web browsing she will use the iMac on the desktop which is almost always on (or asleep). The instant on feature of these devices really seems the key usability feature.

Actually, I just remembered that this laptop also has an instant on feature that provides the crossbar familiar on the Sony PSP. This can be used to browse the web (Firefox) and listen to music or watch movies. But it feels like a tacked on feature rather than a primary use case.

Overall, it is an OK little laptop, good for web browsing and document creation. If it was faster to boot and had a better battery life it would almost be good. Perhaps Windows 7 will help with boot time. However, if the speculated Apple tablet is anywhere close to the performance of this thing and maintains the instant on function of the iPhone, I can't see the point of this laptop in the future.

The first photo in my Flickr photostream

2009-07-28T20:45:00.001+09:30

IMG_0128.jpg, originally uploaded by crampy_au.

This is the first photo I uploaded to Flickr, back in April 2007. The dog's name is Pippa and belonged to my sister Kellie.

Eric Sink said it better

2009-06-13T22:24:00.002+09:30

At the left of this page, near the photo of my head, is some text that says I am trying to transition from being a 'programmer' to being a 'developer'. Well, unsurprisingly, this sentiment has been expressed by others in the past. One such soul to express this was Eric Sink in his blog post No Programmers where he extols the virtues of a skill set broader than just 'pure coding'.

How to read a technical book

2009-05-24T12:30:00.003+09:30

If you're anything like me, you've gone to a bookstore, found a good book on programming or some other technical subject, taken it home all eager to read it, and fallen asleep three pages into the second chapter. The book then finds a place in your bookshelf where you pick it up from time to time with renewed energy to read it from start to finish, and you get two pages further than your previous attempt. Eventually the book just ends up on your bookshelf and any technical brilliance within remains undiscovered.

I have a few tips to take more from these books:

Open the book somewhere in the middle and start reading. The first few chapters usually contain filler material to pad out the number of pages. This filler involves justifying why the book exists and provides introductory information that you probably already know. If you open the book somewhere in the middle you will likely land right in the middle of the technical information you actually bought the book for. Read through one of these middle chapters and at the very least you will get a sense of what the book will eventually provide you if you restart reading from the beginning. Better yet, read that middle chapter in the bookstore before you buy it and you may save you some money.
If you do read from start to finish, don't rush it. Take your time. Paper is a relatively robust medium and won't expire before you can absorb the information printed thereon. Reading a technical book is usually a marathon, not a sprint. In The Pragmatic Programmer the recommendation is to read one technical book per quarter; not per week or per day. It takes time to really read a technical book. Once you have developed a habit for reading technical books you can increase the frequency to per month if you so desire.
Unless you are buying them for reference, don't buy books in bulk. Buy one at a time and read through it. Having more than one book to read can be a distraction.
Don't be afraid to give up reading a book if it is just not doing if for you. This is risky as you might miss something that is presented later in the book. But if the cost of reading is not being repaid through information you are obtaining, feel free to put it down. I'd recommend flicking through the unread chapters to see if there is something that is informative.
Actively read. Have a notebook and pen nearby and actively take notes of things you think are key in what you are reading.
Related to the previous, have whatever you need to get hands on with a technology at hand as you read about it. Most technical books will include examples you can follow along with and exercises for you to do. Follow along with the examples by actually manually recreating them on your own computer. And do the exercises, don't just download the solutions from the books website. Do download later to review how the author completed them, but make an effort first.

Following these tips I have read more technical books in the past six months than I have in the past six years. Perhaps that says more about my character, but I honestly think I was sitting at about the median when it comes to programmers. I now feel I am slowly moving to the right in the bell curve.

Entering Special Keyboard Symbols on a Mac

2009-05-16T08:02:00.005+09:30

Keyboard keys like Tab, Control and Shift are occasionally represented in text using symbols. For example, Tab is represented as an arrow pointing right with vertical bar at its head. Each of these symbols is represented by a Unicode code point. Therefore, if you know the code point, and how to enter code points into your editors, you can make use of these symbols.

The first way to enter these symbols relies on you creating a HTML document. Code points can be entered as HTML entities in the form &#x<code point>;. This assumes the <code point> in its hexadecimal representation. The code point for the Tab symbol described above is 21E5 and looks like ⇥. Of course, whether you see the symbol correctly depends on your viewer's ability to interpret the HTML entity and display the corresponding symbol.

If you are not writing a HTML document, you can still insert these symbols (if your editor supports doing so). On a Mac this can be done via the following process:

1. Open System Preferences
2. Select International
3. Select Input Menu
4. Scroll to the bottom and check "Unicode Hex Input"

You should now have a little "U+" icon in your menu bar at the top right. With this enabled you can now enter symbols by typing the code point while holding the Alt/Option key.

That is pretty much it. I think a similar process is used on Windows.

Here is a list of code points for some of the keys on a Mac OS X keyboard.

Key	Code Point	Symbol
Control	2303	⌃
Alt/Option	2325	⌥
Shift	21E7	⇧
Command	2318	⌘
Tab	21E5	⇥
Backtab	21E4	⇤
Return	21A9	↩
Enter	2305	⌅
Delete	2326	⌦
Backspace	232B	⌫
Escape	238B	⎋
Left Arrow	2190	←
Right Arrow	2192	→
Up Arrow	2191	↑
Down Arrow	2193	↓

TextMate's HTML bundle has tab triggered snippets for each of these symbols. To enter the Tab entity just type tab⇥.

TextMate Snippets for GPL3 Copying Statements

2009-05-15T20:02:00.003+09:30

I have, somewhat arbitrarily, chosen GPL3 as the licence for my (as yet unwritten) new code. Instead of writing that code I have been yak shaving in the form of learning how to write TextMate snippets to insert the GPL copying statements (available from the GPL Howto page). Turns out it is not too hard to get something working quickly.

New snippets can be created via the Bundle Editor. I created a new bundle (via the '+' button at the bottom left of the Bundle Editor) and named it MyAutomations (innovative, what?). I want two snippets: one to insert the program in a single file copying statement, and the other to insert the 'this file is part of program' statement.

A new snippet is created via the '+' button in the bottom left. I name my first snippet 'GPL' and replace the default helper text with the appropriate GPL copying statement. Select the Activation to be 'Tab Trigger' and set the text to be 'gpl'. Closing the Bundle Editor saves the changes and typing gpl and then hitting tab correctly inserts the copying statement.

The second snippet is slightly more complicated as it includes the name of a program, something that will change from file to file. This is easily accommodated using tab stops. I created another snippet, this one named 'GPL Program', and choose Tab Trigger activation with an activation string of 'Gpl'. For the text to be inserted I use:


This file is part of ${1:ProgramName}.

$1 is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.

$1 is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with $1.  If not, see .
$0

The ${1:ProgramName} is the first, and only, tab stop. After typing Gpl and hitting tab, the default string 'ProgramName' will be highlighted with the cursor sitting, waiting for me to enter a proper program name. The other occurrences of $1 in the text mirror what is written here.

The final $0 is where the cursor ends up when I tab out after writing the program name.

Simple.

There are some enhancements I'd like to make:

If I type the tab trigger after a character or some text (like a comment character), i'd like all lines of the copying statement to begin with that text.
If I am editing source code, I'd like the copying statement to be prefixed with the appropriate comment character.
I'd like a snippet that just inserted a copyright statement and the copying statement in one go.

I'll work on these.

A bit more SCons

2009-05-13T20:01:00.003+09:30

Today I tried creating a SConstruct file on a Windows box that was basically identical to the one I had running on my Mac, but it encountered problems with not finding compiler and linker tools. I spent a little while trying to debug the problem but decided I needed to get a broader understanding of how SCons works and what it provides. So, I printed out the User Guide and started reading.

However, I've just spent the last hour browsing the SCons Wiki and, in particular, the SCons Recipes. Had I consulted this page during my debugging I probably would have resolved my problem quickly. Having real world examples are always useful learning aids.

I am going to continue reading through the Users Guide as SCons is a technology I need to know well if I am going to use it effectively in my day-to-day activities.

SCons

2009-05-12T21:53:00.006+09:30

I spent some of today looking at SCons as a build tool for (initially) my C++ code. After trying things out on some toy code I moved over to my main codebase that contains 10,000+ lines of code spread across 50+ files.

To date my build system has consisted of calling, from the command line, the MSVC++ executables on pre-established workspace/solution files. This becomes a real nuisance when I need to add new code to the project as it involves GUI manipulation to add each file to the project (true, I could edit the project files directly, but I don't know the specifics of the formats well enough to be confident my changes would be correct). Plus, I have to do this for multiple versions of MSVC++ that I still need to support. I tend not to use the MSVC++ IDEs to create and edit my source files and I have, more than once, added files to the filesystem and forgotten to add them to the project. So, one thing I wanted of SCons was to not have to update the build script if I added a new set of code to the source tree.

I wasn't able to locate a SCons function to do this for me directly. It seems the only source aggregation routines available in SCons work in a single directory. However, since SCons' build scripts are written in Python it was simple enough to create what I wanted. Here is the function I created (with help from Programming Python, 3rd Ed) to get a list of all source files in a source tree:


import os
def getSourceFiles(root_dir, source_file_extensions):
   source_files = []
   for (dirname, dirshere, fileshere) in os.walk(root_dir):
       for filename in fileshere:
           if os.path.splitext(filename)[1] in source_file_extensions:
               source_files.append(os.path.join(dirname, filename)

   return source_files

With this routine I can now compile a library of C and C++ code spread throughout a directory tree using the following SCons build script:


source_files = getSourceFiles('src', ['.cpp', '.c'])
Library('libname', source_files)

Nary a hard coded filename in sight.

An added advantage of SCons over MSVC++ is related to source files with the same name but in different directories. MSVC++ by default will try to generate the same object file for all source files with the same name, regardless of where they appear in the source tree. Manual intervention is required to have different files generate different object files. In contrast, SCons' default operation is to reflect the source directory tree in the build output.

So, after half a day of use, SCons is impressing me. However, I have only tested my build script on one computer (a Mac). Tomorrow I need to test on a Windows box and configure the script to selectively use VC6 or VC8.

Beginning

2009-05-11T20:17:00.003+09:30

During the weekend I started work on my first programming project: an image viewer. My first task was to begin researching image codecs and file formats. Where do you think I looked first? Fifty points to those of you who said Wikipedia.

Specifically, I read through the article on the JPEG codec. I had researched this codec a little during a signal processing course at university and it was good to refresh the neurons. For example, I was aware that after the discrete cosine transform has occurred, a lossless compression algorithm is run over the coefficients. The article pointed me to the specific algorithms defined for use in the JPEG codec: Huffman coding and arithmetic coding. So, to implement the JPEG codec I first have to implement one of these algorithms. I will implement Huffman coding as I am not completely sure that arithmetic coding is free of patent issues. Huffman coding is also used in the bzip2 data compression algorithm which I plan to implement at some point.

However, before I get into the weeds of design and coding I want to take two sidetracks to explore some tool functionality. Specifically, I want to look at creating my own templates or snippets for TextMate that will insert appropriate licence comment blocks in my source code, and I want to read and experiment a little with Scons to be used as my build tool.

Programming Tasks

2009-05-09T21:33:00.003+09:30

Here is a list of programming tasks I will tackle to gain further experience in developing software:

Image viewer (JPG, BMP, PNG).
Compression utility (BZ2, GZ, ZIP (unless patent encumbered))
Movie player
Delicious Library for recipes
Tetris clone
A plugin for something
An HLA OMT editor

As part of writing these application I want to learn about the domains as well. This means that in writing these applications I will not use libraries that are directly applicable to the task. For example, I intend to write my own JPG encoding and decoding routines. The point here is to learn on the journey, not reach the end as quick as possible.

Along the way I will be thinking about diverse topics from using my programming tools to software development processes. I will write about my experiences, success, failures, and even tips on using tools as I go along.

If you have suggestions for additional programming tasks, please let me know in a comment.

For now, on with the image viewer.