Emmanuel's Blog

The Web goes on Strike!

2012-01-17T22:04:00.002-05:00

While it may appear that this blog author is already on strike (it's been a very long while since I posted anything). This blog will go on strike tomorrow to protest against SOPA/PIPA.

iPass

2010-01-27T20:26:00.001-05:00

So Apple just launched the iPad. A stretched iPod Touch. I guess this will be the best eBook reader around... But will it replace the Netbook? I don't think so. Apple is still pursuing their closed application development model. This mean that you will not be able to load anything on it that has not been approved by Apple.The PC industry was born on openness. I very much doubt that Apple will get

Keeping an Open Mind

2009-11-27T14:45:00.001-05:00

Reading my blog, most will find that I'm a Ruby and Java dude... While I often speak about having an open mind in my blog, for certain things, I have to say that my mind is not always open.I've always kept my distances from Microsoft .Net. The main reason behind this is that I never felt that I would learn something from .Net. This framework has play catchup with Java for a long time. Now both

Mocking me up!

2009-11-06T14:40:00.001-05:00

I came by a nice little screen mocking tool. It's called Balsamiq Mockups.The greatest thing about this tool is that your screen mockups will actually look like mockups. Making mockups with Visio or other tools will give the user a false impression of completeness. But with Balsamiq Mockups, it's clear that it does not represent the real thing... That there are still work to do.While the result

_why programming is not so thankless

2009-08-24T09:44:00.001-04:00

The Ruby world got shaken quite a bit last week. _why the lucky stiff, one of the most famous and productive member of the Ruby community, online persona vanished. Days later, little is know about the reason he's gone.Many people are angry about this but most miss him.The weird thing in all of this, is that _why is not his real identity. It's just the identity someone use to publish his work.

Google Chrome OS vs Android => Coopetition

2009-07-08T08:40:00.001-04:00

Google announced today that they are working on Google Chrome OS. A new operating system for the web. While I'm a bit underwhelmed by the lack of details in their announcement (Linux Kernel + Chrome + new security paradigm), its hard not to be exited by this. Some people say that Google will now have two competing operating system (Android and Chrome OS) and that this is not a good thing. I tend

Oracle buys Sun!

2009-04-20T10:26:00.001-04:00

So it looks like Sun got a few billion more from Oracle than what they rejected from IBM. What could be said about IBM acquiring Sun could be also said about Oracle... At least, regarding software.Is it a better thing having Oracle buy Sun instead of IBM... On the hardware side, it certainly is. On the Oracle announcement page, they clearly said that they will integrate Sun Hardware with their

Sony Playstation 3 (PS3) Blu-Ray failed

2009-04-06T11:47:00.007-04:00

Last Friday, I had the unpleasant surprise of noticing the death of my PS3 blu-ray drive. The last time I saw it alive, was the day before, when my 21 month old daughter played PS1 Dora The Explorer game on it (it does look better on the PS3 than on the PS1 or PS2 ;-) ). The same evening, I launched a software update to update the firmware to the latest 2.70 version. I let the firmware install

Looks like IBM may acquire Sun... Is it bad for Java and Solaris?

2009-03-18T13:49:00.004-04:00

It looks like IBM is in talk to acquire Sun. While I'm not very fond of Sun being swallowed by IBM, I have to say that I don't see that is a big deal now that it would have been few years ago. The reason is not in hardware, but in software... In the past years, Sun open-sourced most of the software I care about (Java, Solaris, Glashfish, ...). So if IBM could have killed some of these if it

Is JSF Fixable?

2008-10-30T08:57:00.001-04:00

Subbu says that JSF is Not Fixable. His he right or his he wrong? That is the question!I've been wanting to write about JSF for a while now. I was an early adopter and big proponent of JSF when it first appear at the surface of Java land. Since then, I've worked on many projects that used this framework and slowly but surely, my opinion changed about this framework.In Subbu opinion, JSF is not

Making Mr Bones work with jRuby

2008-10-20T16:48:00.002-04:00

UPDATE : The fixes outlined bellow where incorporated by Tim in the main Mr Bones distribution. If you update to the latest gem, it will work out of the box with jRuby. Want to make some GEM, Mr Bones (github) is going to help you setup your directory structure and comes with Rake tasks to package your application into a nice little Gem. The great thing about Mr Bones is that it does not

2008-09-09T08:59:00.000-04:00

Google Chrome... One week after.I've now been using Google Chrome for one week. And here is an update on my first impression.Chrome is still my default browser, this is good :-) The browser did not crash once in that week. And it is almost always open. I use a laptop and shutdown/log off rarely (standby/hibernate most of the time). So I guess I can say that Google Chrome is very stable (better

2008-09-03T08:03:00.000-04:00

Google Chrome First Impression Yesterday, Google released their own browser. This release was like a little surprise. While it has been rumoured to be in work for a while, it was announced only the day before.I don't know how many people downloaded it yesterday, but I'm one of them. I saw the little comic book explaining how the browser work and wanted to put my hand on

2008-08-01T12:40:00.002-04:00

Don't say you've not be warned I took this grainy video (sorry, my phone is not really good at taking videos) at my local Best Buy. It looks like Best Buy want you to know exactly what will happen to your Xbox 360. Funny... Best Buy has never been known for their truthful advertising!

iPhone 3G in Canada - Do complain to Fido and/or Rogers

2008-07-08T16:19:00.001-04:00

It looks like complaining to Fido (Fido is a subsidiary of Rogers) or Rogers about the iPhone 3G rate plan may lead to some changes... I'm a current Fido subscriber, after a two week vacation, away from Canadian news, I saw the announced rate plan for the soon to be release iPhone 3G in Canada. While I was not expecting prices lower that AT&T's in the US, I was in complete disbelief when I saw

JNA love NXT

2008-02-27T13:11:00.001-05:00

I started working on something to bring some Ruby love to my Lego Mindstorm NXT. I know, there is already one or two projects that aims to do that, but the first one is dormant and the other one is at a fairly early stage. The first thing that needs to be done before accomplishing anything useful on the NXT, is to connect to it via USB or (preferably) Bluetooth. This can be done in two ways :

Making IRB work properly under Windows when using an international keyboard

2008-02-12T12:25:00.001-05:00

Until today, I've been looking for a way to solve a problem I have running irb under Windows. The problem is that I'm using an international keyboard layout and keys like [, ], { and } (which are really useful in Ruby) could not be inputted in irb when readline is enabled. I did some research on the web, but the solution did not worked for me (and it looks like I'm not the only one). A few weeks

Chased by the statically typed ghosts

2008-02-04T14:50:00.001-05:00

It looks like statically typed ghosts are out there again. They like to chase the Poor little dynAmiCally typed Man. Most of the time, the ghosts run faster than the little Pac-Man but their bloat makes them crawl when they turn corners or go in tunnels. Little Pac-Man goal is to clear the level in the most efficient way. Little Pac-Man has some special features to help him mind his business. For

Another take on a jQuery.equalizeCols plugin

2008-01-29T11:18:00.001-05:00

Using CSS, it is very difficult to create multiple columns with the same height. One must use Javascript to modify

height so multiple div share the same height. This blog post offer a jQuery plugin to do that. However, this particular script cannot be applied many time to the same elements. I had to adjust the height of multiple column that have their content updated with some Ajax

2008-01-22T14:27:00.000-05:00

iwouldntsteal.netI wouldn't steal either!

2008-01-18T11:12:00.000-05:00

Fixing attachment_fu on WindowsLike many others, I've encountered issue when developing Rails applications using attachment_fu on Windows. After doing some research, I've come up with the following solution to the problem.The problem has two parts :Size is not included in the list error message,Timeout error when uploading to S3.Fixing "Size is not included in

2007-11-15T11:15:00.000-05:00

Loading ActionMailer SMTP settings from the database Here is a simple way to load your SMTP settings from the database instead of having to call ActionMailer::Base.smtp_settings= in environment.rb, development.rb or production.rb. Using the database to store these setting, while a bit slower, allow one to easily allow an administration to change the configuration without having to restart the

2007-11-15T10:55:00.000-05:00

Storing System Preferences in the DatabaseHere is a simple way to store system preferences in the database for a Ruby on Rails application. This simple solution offers no caching, so accessing the same preference many times will result in many database request. Suggestions for per request caching are welcomed.Using the code bellow, one can access preferences like this : admin_email= Preference[

2007-09-27T14:35:00.000-04:00

More on the continuous taxCedric post on the continuous tax triggered what it seems as another debate between dynamically types language versus statically typed language. This funny thing that even if Java and Ruby are not always mentioned, it seems as this debate is more about who prefers to code in Java or who prefer to code in Ruby.Eric Burke took my comment (calling it bullshit) on Cedric

2007-06-11T15:06:00.000-04:00

No dev kit for Apple iPhoneIt looks like Apple choose the only way they know to squash software developer complains about the iPhone... Marketing spin!When the iPhone was first announced, Steve Jobs told everyone that the platform was closed to software development because he does not want 3rd party to crash your (or soon to be) shiny iPhone. Rightfully, software developer complained about this