Messages

76

General Software Discussion / Re: Ubuntu 9.04: Thoughts and experiences

« on: April 25, 2009, 05:29 AM »

I *really* like the new version - nothing much new, but it just feels slicker and looks better.  I've got no idea what they've done to the latest version of Gnome, but it's come on a way.  I haven't used it for any reasonable length of time since 7.10, but everything seems that bit easier - setting-up wireless works (I found it simpler to set-up than wireless on Vista), folder sharing is now accessed from the right-click menu (rather than having to manually edit Samba config files) and booting with the ext4 filesystem is now *really* fast (my 4-year old Athlon 64 gets to the logon screen in 25 seconds).

This seems like a solid release, but there's still Linux's old issue - if the application isn't in Synaptic, it's complicated to install as you have to go into the terminal and type...

77

DC Gamer Club / Re: $10 Orange Box on Steam

« on: April 25, 2009, 05:20 AM »

Good spot 

Is it me though, or are the Steam servers painfully slow?  I'm just downloading Portal at the moment in my local region (UK) and it's stuck at around 100-150KB/s (I can normally get 500KB/s on downloads).  Considering how big the games are, downloading them all could take a while 

78

Living Room / Re: Best programming books ?

« on: April 24, 2009, 02:38 AM »

From an analysis point-of-view:

Applying UML and Patterns - Larman

Writing effective use-cases - Cockburn

And a disucssion of programming books wouldn't be (code) complete without mention of:

Code complete - McConnell

This is an interesting introduction to how computers work:

Code - Petzold

I'm with you too - took up development in Python years after leaving school, where I learnt in Turbo Pascal 

79

Developer's Corner / Re: Unit Testing - Do you do it? If so, how?

« on: April 12, 2009, 04:05 PM »

Fantastic, thanks Tinjaw.  I'll start to work through the links.

I've also found the following general introduction to unit testing, which I'm currently working through:

Testing 101

80

Developer's Corner / Unit Testing - Do you do it? If so, how?

« on: April 11, 2009, 11:03 AM »

I'm a "gradually improving" newbie developer and currently have a fairly blasé and ad-hoc approach to testing.  Having done a bit of reading, it seems that the next thing to learn is unit testing.  However, although I get the principle (ensuring that code changes don't break the overall code), I don't really understand how unit testing is done - especially around unit testing frameworks.

If you're writing your own applications at home, do you use unit testing?  If so, how do you do it?  Is this just a list of tests and values to use in those tests, or do you employ a more automated method?  (Any references to how to do this in python will be given extra points).

Thanks.

81

Developer's Corner / Re: Python performance boosting project launched by Google

« on: March 27, 2009, 03:29 AM »

I agree with you on the whole "competition grounds", but I've always found Python to be a bit of a pain to install, especially as each new point-release installs itself in it's own top-level directory.  I've had to reinstall everything on more than one occasion when environmental variables have got screwed up.

Then there's the whole issue with having to download libraries (e.g. wxPython for GUIs) and making sure you have the right version and it doesn't install itself in the incorrect high-level python directory.

As much as I  Python, I guess that's the real problem with interpreted language take-up, rather than just the performance.

I guess that Google's purpose here is for building web-applications, just like the way they've built their own custom Javascript engine for Chrome?

82

Developer's Corner / Re: Python performance boosting project launched by Google

« on: March 27, 2009, 03:09 AM »

That sounds interesting, but isn't one of Python's biggest problems that it doesn't come as part of the standard Windows build (definitely does in most Linux distros, not sure about Mac)?  With a performance boost and this pre-installation, Python could have an extremely exciting future.

83

Developer's Corner / Re: Deisgn of applications at home

« on: March 24, 2009, 02:03 AM »

Not only dodgy spelling in the title, but I also mixed classes and objects up all over the place 

Do you create UML diagrams (class, sequence and activity?) or is it just a "whatever works"?

84

Developer's Corner / Deisgn of applications at home

« on: March 23, 2009, 01:53 PM »

At work, we design Java applications using "UML as a blueprint", having separate people designing and coding the applications.  Although this is a tedious and long-winded process (mainly due to the synchronisation of the UML classes and the developed classes), generally the objects designed reflect the developed classes that go-live.

During coding at home, I've always tended to jump straight into coding applications - almost always meaning a complete overhaul of the objects halfway through the development process due to them becoming "just a load of barely-related subroutines".

Does anyone do any up-front design on their applications when working on an application where they are the sole developer?  Or, does the whole "re-architect half-way through development" always happen and it just gets better with experience?

85

Developer's Corner / Re: What's the Best Programming Language For...

« on: January 27, 2009, 04:16 PM »

Not completely on-topic, but here's an interesting article from an extremely interesting blog:

A scripter at heart

It explains the difference between what Jeff Atwood sees as "programming" languages (e.g. C) and "scripting" languages (e.g. Python).

Personally, I started with C++ (after 15 years away from development after learning Pascal at school) and really struggled with it.  It was only when I started using python that I learnt how fun programming could be.  Python is a good language for keeping you away from the low-level details (although I'm sure that a lot of programmers would say that this is a bad thing).  If you're just starting out, Python is a good choice (although I'll admit a bias).

I learnt mostly through this free ebook, but really started learning via mouser's fantastic programming school and an always-on connection to Google .

In terms of web development, Google use a lot of python in the back-end (a lot of Youtube is written in python - as quoted by the creator of python) and there are a number of web frameworks (e.g. Django).

86

Living Room / Re: Going Into Frugality Mode -- What are your Tricks and Tips

« on: January 26, 2009, 03:22 PM »

Use distilled vinegar for cleaning.

• Mix it 1:1 with water and keep it in a spray bottle for cleaning kitchen surfaces.
• Use it instead of fabric softener (the smell evaporates away whilst drying - make sure you don't use malt vinegar though...).
• Put bicarbonate of soda down the sink plughole and pour in vinegar to keep it from blocking up.

Loads of tips here.

If you feel so inclined, knit your own computer peripherals - just bonkers.

87

General Software Discussion / Re: calendar software - free

« on: January 11, 2009, 04:39 AM »

How about running Google calendar inside a Chrome application shortcut.  The advantage of this is that you could make the calendar public and allow members of the congregation to download it.

It also allows printing.

I've never tried it, but I'm sure that this would also support offline working.

88

Developer's Corner / Re: Where do I find py2exe documentation/tutorials?

« on: January 07, 2009, 01:56 PM »

Yep, the py2exe documentation is pretty poor.

There's also pyInstaller, which seems to have better documentation.

Can't say I've ever tried to use it though...

89

Developer's Corner / Re: Where do I find py2exe documentation/tutorials?

« on: January 05, 2009, 03:40 PM »

Here are a couple of useful links from stackoverflow:

Deploying python applications
Creating py2exe executables

Here's a link to a message relating to why python applications aren't great for distributing non-open source desktop applications:

Protecting python code

90

Python / Re: Link to a series of python challenges

« on: December 22, 2008, 02:36 PM »

Yes, they're a little cryptic 

For instance, on the first one you need to solve the problem and then alter the URL with your answer.  The point of the site is that you should be able to solve each one with a little python script (even if it's just something in IDLE).

I'm still on the second one, so I can't help you any further!

91

Python / Link to a series of python challenges

« on: December 22, 2008, 01:08 PM »

Here is a fun little site, full of challenges that can be solved using python:

Python challenge

92

Python / wxPython tutorial link

« on: December 11, 2008, 02:20 PM »

Here's a really good wxPython tutorial:

Zetcode wxPython tutorial

There's also a whole host of other tutorials (including one on Python):

Other Zetcode tutorials

93

Living Room / Re: Recommendations for good sources of astronomy photographs, please?

« on: December 10, 2008, 01:00 PM »

There's also APOD - might need a little cropping though.

94

General Software Discussion / Re: Is it time to start a new AntiVirus/Internet Security Suite review thread?

« on: November 26, 2008, 05:03 PM »

Couple this with the newly released PrevX Edge and I agree with Carol:

http://www.wildersse...wthread.php?t=225190

-Paul Keith (November 26, 2008, 03:33 PM)

Thanks Paul, that looks very useful - will have to read-up on it properly.

I have to stay away from Wilders these days as everytime I read anything there it makes me want to don my little tinfoil hat and wave a baby monitor around 

95

General Software Discussion / Re: Is it time to start a new AntiVirus/Internet Security Suite review thread?

« on: November 26, 2008, 02:36 PM »

Another vote for AntiVir here - I'm using the freebie version though.  Gets the occasional false-positive and the update is death-defyingly slow, but I've not had a virus infection in years.

I used to have a computer full of security software, bouncing from KIS to a whole host of security software (NOD32, online armour, along with various anti-spyware and HIPS solution) after being a bit of a wilderssecurity lurker.  Then, after getting sick-to-death of the constant pop-ups and interruptions, I swapped over to running nothing but AnitiVir free, no software firewall (sat behind a hardware router) and a weekly run of the free version of superantispyware.  Not had a single infection since.  Seems to be that the best form of stopping viruses is to be careful about what you download - if in doubt, you can always use sandboxie.

Admittedly, I don't have any outbound protection, but I haven't had a problem yet.

96

General Software Discussion / Re: Google Chrome -- a new browser coming (in beta) in a few hours

« on: September 02, 2008, 02:35 PM »

I fear the lack of auto-scrolling (middle-click to scroll) will drive me nuts sooner rather than later

-Dirhael (September 02, 2008, 02:26 PM)

I think there's something broken here.  Using the "scrolly-thing" on the side of my laptop's trackpad allows me to scroll down, but not up...

97

General Software Discussion / Re: Google Chrome -- a new browser coming (in beta) in a few hours

« on: September 02, 2008, 02:25 PM »

First impressions:

• It's *very* quick and loads in under a second (Vista on a 2.20GHz Dual Core).
• Page loads are very quick too
• Creating an application shortcut for GMail in my start menu is working very well - far better than in Prism
• Nice, clean interface

Looking pretty good so far 

98

General Software Discussion / Re: Document shortcut organiser - Does such a thing exist?

« on: September 02, 2008, 12:22 PM »

Thanks for the replies all, much appreciated 

I've tried ToDoList for this and it seems to do the best job out of the lot - never got on with it as a todo list manager (I'm a committed todo.txt man now), but it works well for the document management purpose.  I'll give it a go and see if it stands the test of time - as with all these things, they're great until you get to the point where you don't have time to maintain it for a few days and at that point you lose trust in it...

tranglos, I'm a Directory Opus user at home, but I wanted something for work where the use of personally licensed software is a bit of a grey area.  What you've proposed for your "vapourware" sounds like a great solution though!

99

General Software Discussion / Document shortcut organiser - Does such a thing exist?

« on: September 01, 2008, 01:29 PM »

I'm looking for a simple little program that allows for the organisation of document shortcuts from disparate folders into projects.

As a quick mock-up, it might look a bit like this:



In the perfect world, it would have the following features:

• Drag and drop a document into the window and a new row is created
• Ability to quickly and simply move the rows up and down or assign projects (or have a simple text interface like Todopaper)
• Ability to rename the files inside the organiser without renaming the target file
• Be free or relatively cheap
• Be small and portable

Does anything like this exist?

Thanks,

David

100

Living Room / Re: Royal Bank of Scotland Sells 1 Million Customer Details on eBay

« on: August 28, 2008, 01:00 PM »

I'm surprised that this can still happen when pretty much all companies have a policy of full-disk encrypting every laptop that leaves their buildings these days.

Still, this is meat-and-drink to the UK press.  For instance, I saw very few headlines about this one.

http://www.computera...nce-service-999-data

I guess that "security policy saves the personal data of hundreds of thousands" is far less sexy than "people's surnames lost in definitely world-ending, total IT incompetence muck-up by complete idiots".