Simeon Says

Every so often I get to a point where my inbox has about 4-6 emails that are out of date but dont fit in my current filing scheme. In the past I would have a misc folder and stash them in there for a bit. but then I tend to forget about them, and end up with a big list of emails that have no apperant use. Most often this happens because in chatting with someone they mention something cool, and I say “Hey shoot me that link” and then I dont get time to look at it, so it sits in my in box.

This is the reason for todays link dump.

Mark Drew sent me a link to a collaboration plugin for eclipse. We are hoping in the future to make use of it in developing for CFE.

http://composent.com/plugins/e3.html

As a technology zealot, i often find myself pushing the limits of some hardware. In the case of a friends xbox, I needed some software that is not always easy to find. This tutorial is a reminder of where to find such files.

http://www.xbox-scene.com/articles/xbins.php

I know that not everyone celebrates christmas or any other holiday in particular, but I do. So I want to take this chance to wish everyone the best.

I hope that everyone has a chance to spend a little extra time with those who they love. I know that I am looking forward to seeing my brother and dad, and all my extended family.

And while I am here, I think I will take this chance to wish everyone a happy new year. I am looking forward to a great year, and I hope all of you are as well.

I am sure that users convert everyday, however another blogger, Roger Benningfield, has started his use and wrote some of his thoughts about the product. A little while later he posted another entry talking about the things he likes and doesnt like about CFE.

I have been a user of CFE for longer than I remember, and so I have adapted all my workflow around what it does. So its nice to hear how someone new to it feels. It allows the team to know what they have done well and what may still need to tackle down the road.

So going on his comments I would like to add that #2 of his dislikes “A homesite/CF Studio File Navigation” was high on the list or requests made by users. That problem was solved by the team in a recent build by adding the “File Explorer” view. this view allows you to select your drive and then lists your folders in a pane, above your files giving you homesite-ish file navigation. This view solved 2 other problems that users have had. The first being that Eciplse is project/site based development. What that means is that you define a site and the root level for the documents, and that is all you can edit. if you have not defined a site, you can not edit files. The file explorer gives you full reign over your drive and allows you to edit files outside existing sites. The other feature added by this view is remote site editing. An ftp browser has been integrated into this view allowing you to set up a remote ftp account and edit the files of that account without having a local copy. Probably not a best practice, but as a previous CFStudio user, I can say it happens.

Ok, so take a look at CFE. It has many new features that allow the CF developer to get things done. New features are being added daily based on the reports and requests at http://cfeclipse.tigris.org so make your voice heard. Also make sure that you follow the advances because currently under development are features specific to framework development such as Mach-ii and Fusebox 3 and 4!

So stay tuned.

I had every intention of writing a howto on getting subversion running on windows. However in the comments on my previous post Erki mentioned that Aaron Johnson had recently written on the topic.

Well i am usually a stickler for such things and was sure that I would need to comment on some part of the process, because I am just like that!

However, that was not the case. Aaron wrote an excellent how-to and I could not possibly add to his notes other than to say, I think the subversion files should be installed in “Program Files” just for organizations sake.

So if you are interested in using subversion on windows, check out his article

Before I became a full time Mac user, I really coveted the cool windowing feature of Os X 10.3 called Expose.

After installing several versions of software that purported to be the solution, I gave up looking. And just switched

However a co-worker of mine also had the lust and has continued his search. Today he showed me Entbloess and I have to say that if I were a windows user still, this would have been the end of the search for me.

I have seen this product in action. the animations are smooth, the previews are active and it is a very close approximation of the full features of Apples Expose.

If you have been looking for something like this. Please check this out.

I am a big proponent of Subversion for version control of my software products.

I have only come to use version control for my development in the last year, so I am still pretty passionate about it, and I push it on people when ever the disscusion allows.

I have a client who just got a new laptop and wanted to be able to keep his files in sync between his desktop computer, the old laptop, and the new laptop. Now I am sure that there is some software product that he could have purchased to make this happen on his windows pc’s but I took this opportunity to make one more subversion user in the world.

Being a linux and mac user, I have already done subversion installations on both of those platforms. I even have developers on windows who use TortoisSVN to integrate the client portion of SVN into the windows explorer. However i had never tried to do an install where the repositories will be stored on windows.

Unlike most of my experiences with windows, this went very well and I was happy with the results. i will be posting instructions on installing in a bit, so check back if you are interested.

In this article over at slashdot we find out that in a course at University of Illinois at Chicago this term, students found 44 security holes in *nix Software packages.

The students where assigned homework, that included finding 10 previously undiscovered security holes in currenly deployed *nix software. Many frequently used packages are listed under those found to have problems.

In a class of 25 students, with an assignment of 10 flaws each, you can see that they came up very short with only 44.

One person mentions “After spending 300 hours of work and an A average on the exams, I expect to fail the course.”

So I say again…. I dont miss college

In doing some review tonight I found a couple articles I wanted to post for future reference.

Penn State warns students off of Internet Explorer

Nintendo DS selling even stronger, Sony bashing begins

New set of Linux security flaws discovered

Sprint, Nextel consider merger

Ok, I saw this the other day, and if I was a better blogger I would have been all over it the way I was when I found that palmOne was bulding a treo phone with microsoft mobile os for dell.

In this article at the register we find out that palmSource may be looking to build its new OS ontop of linux. There are several devices out on the market already running linux under the hood. I see this as a great opportunity for linux to spread its absortion. One of the key points that limit linux’s adoption in mainstream, is its lack of support for everday things. Yes linux can sync most palms, but that would allow much tighter integration.

Maybe people will say, well it works on my handheld. It was a little differnt but I adjusted. Maybe its worth a shot on my desktop too.

A man can dream can’t he?

Although you might never guess utilizing OO in cf, actually requires no knowlege of Design Patterns what so ever.

Now you have to understand that my saying that goes entirely against everything I have practiced in the last 6 months. I have been sucking up every bit of written knowlege i can get my eyes on, and working very hard at implementing these OO concepts in CF.

Scott over at Mossy Blog posted an excellent list of resources for those looking to learn more about patterns. I would also add to his list Martin Fowlers “Patterns of Enterprise Application Archetecture” which Sean Corfield recomended to me.

I am always playing the devil’s advocate, so although I am currently working hard at learning the concepts that Design Patterns present, I feel its important to understand the other side of the argument. Design Patterns are just as they describe. They are descriptions of patterns that have been seen in application design. Which means that the concepts they portray actually existed before the term “Design Pattern”. And although the trend is to go out and read and learn everyting you can about a subject, it is not a requirement for the course.

It is entirly possible to create an application that utilizes cfcs as objects without knowing or (potentially) using design patterns at all.

So if you are just coming to cf and you see Scott, and Joe, and myself ranting about Design Patterns, please dont take this as something requiring study. Because in truth, until you have used one of the patterns yourself (without knowing it) its very difficult to see how they will apply to your development.

Ok, that being said I also want to note that if you do want to see examples of OO design in CF stay tuned here, because I will be releasing the code for my blog soon, but also check out Joe’s Pretty Practical Pattern Post