This and that

Review: Coffeescript Application Development

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Titus) — Mon, 25 Nov 2013 02:41:00 +0000

Introduction

After completing Coffeescript Application Development, I’d like to share my thoughts with you about the book. Let me start with a confession. I read the book but I didn’t do the homework. My reading was done during my bus commute on my kindle touch, which is not a full-sized screen and some technical titles aren’t a good fit for that medium. Long coding examples or charts/tables don’t render well on it in some cases. I’m happy to say I didn’t run into any issues with that. Granted, some longer lines of code did wrap, but at no point did I ever feel like it was too unwieldy to comprehend on the screen, and I find it rare now to find any technical book about programming that doesn’t include lines that need to wrap. Because I was on the bus traveling light, I didn’t break out my laptop and download the code to go through the exercises.

Here we go

I was anxious to dig into this book for a number of reasons. I don’t use Coffeescript on a regular basis for project work, and have seen some good introduction material, but I was curious about what more might be included. It had been a while since I had seen the material, so the first few chapters were a refresher. That said, they were pretty quick reading and did a very good job of explaining the syntax of the Coffeescript language.

In addition to the syntax of Coffeescript itself, the book included discussion of some tools and libraries that can be used with Coffeescript. While I’m sure the author wouldn’t expect to exhaustively identify all the tools and libraries worth mentioning, he did a good job of including enough to whet my appetite and make me feel like I should do some digging to find out more.

The writing of the book was well done too. The author did a good job of keeping things lively at the same time explained all the concepts thoroughly. The code examples were all a good combination of being simple without being contrived. Building from a simple app adding features as the book progressed helped introduce gradual more and more concepts within the language we..

Improvements

I would have liked to have seen unit testing addressed. There were never any tests for the exercises and never any discussion about which frameworks would integrate well with writing Coffeescript tests for Coffeescript code. I realize that could be the subject of a book itself, but some discussion of it would have been nice.

Conclusion

When I knew I was going to review the book, I had developed a question I was trying to answer that I kept considering as I went -- was Coffeescript worth the effort? If I were on a javascript project and considering a switch to Coffeescript what would I be gaining at the cost of a new language and additional complexity associated with that change? As I read the initial chapters I was still on the fence. It seemed to me the switch from javascript to Coffeescript was similar to the one from java to groovy. A lot of the same issues are solved by both languages and I have to admit I much prefer groovy over java. The more I read, the more I was convinced the change would be worth it.

Overall I would say the book was worth my time, and if you are considering the change to Coffeescript, you should check it out. You can find details here.

Disclosure: I was provided an electronic copy of this book for review by the publisher.

CoffeeScript Application Development

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Titus) — Tue, 29 Oct 2013 02:37:00 +0000

I was recently contacted by Packt Publishing and asked to review CoffeeScript Application Development

(available here). I'll be reading it over the next several weeks on my Kindle and providing some feedback on the material (disclaimer: I was provided a copy of the book for download by Packt). Stay tuned for more as I work my way through it.

CoolIris showing Flicrk photos

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Titus) — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 20:32:00 +0000

I just played around with CoolIris. Here's my flickr photostream running through it. This may not display correctly, so we'll see how blogger handles it. If you are reading this through a feed reader you will probably have to go to the full page to see it. What do you think?

AlphaMixr

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Titus) — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 22:54:00 +0000

Paid apps opened up on the android market today. My friend Dan has been working on an application called AlphaMixr for a while in preparation. I've been beta testing, and let me tell you it is addicting. It is a game of making 3 to 6 letter words out of a specific 6 letters.

Dan's effort polishing the game and companion website (http://alphamixr.net) really show. If you have an android device (T-Mobile G1) you should definitely check it out. I think you'll really like it too.

DOF Calculator for Android

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Titus) — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 19:05:00 +0000

I finally spent a few minutes playing with the Depth of Field Calculator application for my Android phone this morning. For some reason I couldn't find a full-frame camera in the options the first time I played with it, but when I tried today my 5D popped up right away. It looks like an application that I'll be using the next time I take some pictures. If nothing else it will make me think/realize more just how wide or narrow that depth is as I'm shooting. (I know, I'm sure you iPhone users had this app a long time ago.)

Initial reaction to the Andriod G1

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Titus) — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 12:15:00 +0000

Yesterday I picked up a G1. After playing with it for less than a day, I have enough experience to make some comments about it.

- I like the form factor. The keyboard works much better than the Treo I've been using for quite some time.

- I was easily to get most of my stuff set up to an acceptable level to say I haven't really lost any functionality that I had with my Treo (with the exception of all my contact in the Palm database -- thankfully I was already using GooSync to get my calendar in sync with Google Calendar).

- I like the browser and email reader way better on the G1 than the Treo. I haven't played enough with an iPhone to know how they compare, but I suspect they may be pretty similar.

- There are some minor improvements that could be made, as many have already noted. For example, the sensitivity of the screen isn't the greatest, nor is the precision (I have a heck of a time clicking on an href in the browser with my finger and usually use the wheel to do that because of it). You don't get automatic orientation changing when you rotate the phone like an iPod does (to me that isn't that big of a deal).

- There are some really critical issues that need to be resolved ASAP. First and foremost is the lack of flash support. See my previous post about Parleys.com to know why that is a priority for me.

- The other really goofy thing is the lack of a real headphone jack. Granted you can use bluetooth headsets with it, but what about listening to my flash presentations (did I mention that is a really vital item that is missing?) while I ride the bus. Or for those who don't feel like carrying an MP3 player and a phone, how the heck are you supposed to listen to those oh so conveniently downloaded MP3s from Amazon when you get to your desk at work? Don't tell me to use those headphones that connect to the USB port. Anyone who's invested in a pair or two of SHURE headphones is not going to just switch over to the ones that came with their cellphone (and if you haven't tried the SHURE products you should).

- Someone needs to round up the markets for software. So far I've used the built-in program to find new applications, but I also came across three other sites while I was googling last night:

* SlideME
* AndAppStore
* OnlyAndroid

The latter is the only one charging for the programs, so I haven't used them yet (most of the same apps can be found for free with the other options). The bummer is that lots of programs are posted on multiple sites so I see a lot of repeats digging through the lists -- whereas some are only on one of the sites so I have to dig through them all to find out if I missed out on something I'd like. Someone should consolidate the lists (maybe that is the application I can write ... in my copious amounts of free time ... right).

Hopefully Adobe will get the flash issue taken care of asap (they appear to be working on it), and the minor issues will be forgotten as I just suck it up and get a headphone converter.

Free Technical Presentations

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Titus) — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 12:33:00 +0000

You can find some great presentations online (and for free) at Parleys.com. You need flash to view the site, but the UI is pretty nice and the content is pretty good stuff (speakers like Rod Johnson, Joshua Bloch, Ted Neward, and Bruce Eckel just to name a few).

If you use iTunes, subscribe to "http://parleys.libsyn.com/rss".

Thanks to Paul Noennig for sharing this nugget with me after the OTUG presentation.

Stock links

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Titus) — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 02:27:00 +0000

In my previous I failed to mention this list of stock sites. It is the source I plan to use for doing more research into other options that work for me. There are other non-stock links there that might prove to be valuable as well.

Down the road, Stockmodels.com could come in useful for locating models. (NOTE: Be warned that some images on that site might be NSFW.)

Stock situation

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Titus) — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 01:46:00 +0000

Well by now everyone knows the Photo Shelter Collection news. It leaves lots of people like me wondering where to turn for selling stock images. I've been doing a bit of searching the net and found a few resources that can be helpful.

There's also some good advice on this post. While I agree with most of those sentiments, I'd like to avoid microstock altogether.

Personally I think the closing of PSC leaves a bit of a void for options. I'd love to join something like Digital Railroad but the cost of using their service wouldn't allow me to ever get out of the red. The Independent Photography Network not only has high costs, but qualifications I don't meet.

Almay seems to be the only real option for non-microstock with no subscription fees (although I'm looking for others and I suspect they are out there). Too bad, as they are not US based, which I feel can sometimes influence what will sell. It's nice to have as a compliment to a US based company, but don't think it should be my only avenue.

With a smaller collection like mine, one thing I really liked about PSC was their stock requests feed. Rather than try to put pictures into the cloud that is searched by stock buyers, it was nice to see exactly what stock buyers have for immediate needs. A service like that is specifically what I'm interested in finding now. I've found a few that were subscription based, but nothing else yet that is free.

More to come.... If you have information to share I'd love to hear it.

HDRI links

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Titus) — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 03:30:00 +0000

In the past I've taken a few sets of bracketed exposure images in the hopes of combining them into a High Dynamic Range Image. I finally started doing a little more research into what software would be best to use. It certainly sounds like Photomatix has been the de facto standard for a while. There are a few other alternatives, however, and I wanted to find out which was the best one for my needs.

In the process of searching for some comparisons, I ran across this DP Review post identifying some options, and this tutorial with some amazing images.

I downloaded and tried "Dynamic Photo HDR" and Photomatix to see what I could do with them using my images. The first thing I found out was that clouds can move faster than you think. :-) I took several shots of sunsets that clearly showed the clouds in different locations from one exposure to the next. Ignoring that fact (or we can say I was trying the programs to see how they would handle that situation), what I did find was that I liked the price and UI of Dynamic Photo HDR better than Photomatix. Unfortunately when I went to produce a JPG (tone map) of the previewed image in Dynamic Photo HDR, it came out looking nothing like I expected. It was much darker and lost all of the cool HDR details I was looking for. Photomatix did a much better job in that respect. Note, I let them both take in my Canon RAW files and didn't even have to produce JPGs to get started. I did like that, and it looks like Photomatix has some capabilities to produce a pseudo HDR image from a RAW file that I didn't see in Dynamic Photo HDR.

I haven't spent enough time to make a decision yet, as I think I must be doing something wrong to get such poor results with Dynamic Photo HDR. If I could get that to work it would be my choice.

Depth of field help

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Titus) — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 01:23:00 +0000

I was listening to a 7 photography questions podcast the other day -- number 13, with Jennifer Wu. She corrected a few of the misunderstandings I had regarding landscape photography. Specifically she addressed what aperture she uses to get a great landscape shot. I always assumed your lens never had a better excuse to stop all the way down and make the dust on your sensor nice and sharp than it does when you are shooting a landscape. Jennifer states that she typically uses f8, f11, and f16 because her Canon lenses produce sharper images that way even if the depth of field isn't as wide as f22.

That brought up another related topic... how to establish your hyperfocal distance. She recommends checking out the tools at DOF Master. They have programs to help you print charts for hyperfocal distances. I will certainly be trying out her suggestions, as I have found my landscapes are not quite as sharp as I'd like even when I'm using my tripod, mirror lock-up, and the whole works.

Ring flash

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Titus) — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 01:16:00 +0000

I like the looks of a ring flash picture. I'd love to have one, but I think they are a bit on the spendy side for me (I don't make enough money selling pictures). I know there are tons of people talking about how you can build your own, but I would rather be taking pictures then building gear. That is why I got really excited when the Strobist blog mentioned the Orbis ring flash. I keep going back and searching for the Strobist blog posts so I can visit the site, as I can never remember the name. I thought I'd just post it hear so I can find it more easily. Tonight when I when there, they actually had some content in addition to their "coming soon" page, too. We'll see what comes of it I guess, but in the mean time I'm anxious to learn more.

New Canon Camera

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Titus) — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 17:31:00 +0000

Those of you following the hype leading up to Photokina 2008 will hear me mention the hot new Canon camera to be announced and think "he must not be talking about the 50D, as that has been announced... it must be the 5D MkII!". This is way beyond that. Read for yourself.

JUDE UML modeling

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Titus) — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 02:07:00 +0000

If you are looking for a UML modeling tool, I'd recommend you check out JUDE. I've played around with their JUDE/Community edition and really liked it. I posted a few feature requests in their forums and they were very receptive and worked with me to make sure they understood what I was asking for.

My UML needs are almost always the same... I have an existing codebase that I want to document. Either I want a package diagram so I can get a feel for the overall system, or I have a set of classes (typically the domain model) that I want to model in a class diagram. JUDE was one of the few tools that was able to reverse-engineer my java source code and let me create the diagrams I wanted. Unfortunately they didn't automatically show me the package dependencies when I dropped them on a class diagram, and they didn't show me generics in the way I found useful. If/when they add these two features, I'll be using it all the time. As it is, it is a great modeling tool.

I see they released a new version in July. I haven't had a chance to try these two features in that version, but I did scan the release notes and don't see any mention of them.

OTUG office

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Titus) — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 01:49:00 +0000

Last week I was elected as the president-elect of OTUG. If you know of a topic that you'd like covered at a meeting, or would like to volunteer to present, please shoot me an email at [jasontitus at spamcop dot net].

UI Mock-up tool

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Titus) — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 14:37:00 +0000

Some time ago a friend showed me Balsamiq for creating UI mock-ups. I had to go Googling to find it when I needed it, so this is a reminder to myself. You might enjoy taking a look too.

Emily

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Titus) — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 01:35:00 +0000

A friend I work with showed me this clip today. Wow.

Another Olympics shot

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Titus) — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 03:21:00 +0000

I came across this today. It takes a while to load, but if you weren't able to attend the Olympics, this will let you know how it feels to be in the arena. Oh yeah, and there's lots of Canon glass in the section too.

Whoops, I missed one

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Titus) — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 02:25:00 +0000

I just realized I forgot to mention Joe McNally's Blog. If you haven't ready The Moment it Clicks, you need to get a copy asap. If you don't feel like dropping any change on a new book, try your local library. Just get it. It is a quick read and contains some awesome photography.

Blogs to follow

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Titus) — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 02:07:00 +0000

As I've said before, I like keeping and eye on the Chase Jarvis blog, and Strobist.com. Tonight while I was trying to do some research on PhotoShelter vs. Alamy I came across Cycle 61 Photography and the links associated with it. One that looks very interesting is Stock Photo Journey. I'll be adding them to my Google Reader asap... in fact, you can now just look at the blog links included in the blog.

More Stock Photography

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Titus) — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 03:40:00 +0000

I've recently heard of another stock photo site called Alamy. I'll try to upload some images there too, and those images will reside here.

Olympics in pictures blog

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Titus) — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 02:57:00 +0000

I find this blog very interesting... a fellow Canon shooter albeit with a little more and better gear.

Chase Jarvis

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Titus) — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 01:55:00 +0000

As a follow-up to my previous post... if you don't know who Chase Jarvis is, you need to watch this video. It was my first exposure to his work, and I was an instant fan. Simply incredible.

Stock Photography

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Titus) — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 00:39:00 +0000

I've been thinking of trying out stock photography for some time now. I started an account at iStockPhoto.com (because one of the guys from the LightSource podcast is an image editor and mentions them all the time), but haven't uploaded any images yet. While checking out a new podcast series by Chase Jarvis, I came across one of his presentations, which happens to be for the PhotoShelter group. I decided to give them a try.

Check out my stuff and buy some pictures!

Canons in Action

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Titus) — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 14:38:00 +0000

This thread is great if you are a Canon fan like me.