DevLife

Due to an abundance of over-excitement about the movie Avatar, I find myself looking at the different offerings that tie into the movie. I’ve downloaded the script, found the book on learning the Na’vi language ( that might make me just a touch geeky!). The one piece that really interests me is the Avatar: A Confidential Report on the Biological and Social History of Pandora.

And there is where the trouble starts. And the fury at being absolutely hosed by Amazon as a Canadian. The screen shots below show the difference between Amazon.com’s pricing

and the Canadian price at Amazon.ca

There are two pieces of data on the images that really show the differences between the USA and Canada. The first, obviously, is the price. The US price is $10.97. The Canadian price? A whopping $25.02. More than double that of the US price. I completely fail to see how Amazon can justify that difference. The Canadian dollar is hovering around the $.95 USD mark, so I could see a price of about $12, maybe $13 to account for the exchange rate. But $25? That’s outrageous! And then to have it not ship for 2-5 weeks? The Amazon.com version ships in 24 hours.

How can Amazon justify this? Its a total rip-off combined with a total failure of service. I would really like to have someone from Amazon give me a valid and reasonable explanation of why this occurs?

Posted in: movie reviews by Bastien / Tags: avatar james cameron movies, movies

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So Apple has announced the new iPad. I thought I’d add my comments and views to the general fray.

I think it’s gonna be an interesting device. One that is very geared to the general public that doesn’t get or want to be bothered with all the normal hassles of computing life. The system updates, virus warnings and the installation of apps. The iPhone metaphor is one that translates so well to a larger device with the extra screen real estate. This is the device for people who are in the main consumers of content. Email, video, Twitter are all mainly consumption apps where the user is mainly limited to text inputs. The ipad will be perfect for those users.

It’s not the right device for people who create content. It’s not meant to edit images, create docs ( though with iwork it’s possible ) and build applications. Those folks will still need a laptop or desktop machine for that.

Posted in: gear by Bastien / Tags: apple ipad software usability

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Ok, I admit it. I can’t get enough of the film Avatar. It’s just so damn good, something in it just makes me want to keep seeing it. 4 times so far, and looking to see it in IMAX.

[edit mar 7, 2010] so I saw avatar in IMAX. It was incredible. The large screen and huge sounds made the 3D better than ever. The movie becomes even more immersive and I found places where I could feel touches of vertigo and others where I wanted to push the plants out of the way.

It makes me sad that it’s been pushed out in favor of ‘Alice in Wonderland’. I hope Avatar comes back after Alice bails on the IMAX shows.

Posted in: movie reviews by Bastien / Tags: avatar james cameron movies

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I recently replaced my six year old machine at work with a new Dell. Due to certain requirements, I’ve decided not to upgrade to windows 7, but I have been playing with some of the MS dev tools like the web platform installer and ms web developer express. Work is deciding on a new tech direction as classic asp is, well, old and useless.

Although my personal preference is to move to php for a variety of reasons, there is a focus on moving to .Net. Php runs well under dot net and ms has made significant investments into making php run really well. However, there has been some argument surrounding the use of C# as the language of choice.

In either case, I am pushing to use an MVC pattern codebase to provide better code standards. So I went and found asp mvc which plugs nicely into web express. So I download and install it with MS web platform software. This is where it gets good… The web installer starts up and while installing the mvc module, it offers to install:

1. Webcache for php
2. Php 5
3. Moodle
4 joomla

Among a few other bits. These packages are solid php offering dealing with CMS and Learning Management System. So MS is offering php as part of the who MS development experience! Doesn’t that seem a bit…odd?

To me, it seems like this is a bit of an admission that the path they chose is perhaps not the right one. This says to me that MS is offering the better language because there is some lack of interest in their tools and offerings.

This also tells me that PHP is the right language to develop in. Now if I can just make the required people see the light!

For some more laughs, the web platform also installed mysql, even though the original install of the web express package came with MS SQL Server.

Posted in: on the job by Bastien / Tags: MS PHP

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Like most of you, I have been enjoying my holidays, and this I have received, or rather not received an endless tide of spam. Sure my email has been hit, but blog spam has been down dramatically over the past few days. I have not had to spend any time at all managing the blog for it’s spam content as I have received none.

It’s a pleasant change from the normal 10-15 pieces daily I normally get. Granted it’s not much given that maybe three people have ever read this blog, and that I am not a prolific poster by any stretch. There just isn’t much to interest a spanner, though when some of my plans come to fruitition then maybe this could be a destination blog on some level.

In any case, spammers, thanks for not spamming me during the holidays.

Posted in: Uncategorized by Bastien / Tags: spam blogging junk

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An excellent article on why APIs should be open. This was recently echoed by a blog post from Jonathan Rosenberg of Google on much the same topic.

Openness of standards and APIs will drive a lot of innovation. Twitter is one of the best examples of this. Their open APIs have allow a number of companies to build various clients for the site. Those clients also drive innovation within Twitter itself to provide and adapt to new functionality.

Then there are the apps that analyze the datastream and extract trends and other valuable data that can be sold to other parties again. An entire ecosystem built on being open, and it’s a very disruptive one at that, but also offers resounding opportunity to those with vision and ability to move quickly.

I am trying to build the things that I am working on to incorporate those ideals. It will be a challenge to get there and one that I relish. The end result will be better code and simpler growth patterns.

It will be a fun journey!

Posted in: on the job by Bastien / Tags: coding technology google

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I really enjoyed the new Star Trek movie. JJ Abrams did a fantastic re-invigoration of the franchise. It was a thoroughly entertaining flick ( all right, it was an on demand choice, but still a great movie despite me seeing it 3-4 months after the fact).

With a cast of relative unknowns and a great cameo by Leonard Nimoy, it took a fresh approach to the early days of Capt James T Kirk and the crew on the Enterprise. I am looking forward to the sequel, which I am sure are already in the works.

Posted in: movie reviews by Bastien / Tags: movies

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Well, foolishly, I bought another pair of Skechers today. Granted they were on clearance at Winners ( thanks TJX folks, see ya next year ) and a total steal at $23.

The big difference is that these are leather without the runner-like cushioned foam/fabric insole that so love to trap the odors from my stinky feet. The newer style insole, hopefully done to address those similarly afflicted by the lethal stench, should not hold odors but I guess I will need to test that theory.

Of course, they are a Christmas present, thoughtfully ‘chosen’ by the dog, so I will have to wait a few more days to excitedly tear into the box and try them on, again.

Damn, that dog makes good choices in gifts.

Happy holidays to all!

Posted in: gear by Bastien / Tags: shoes sketchers

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If you’ve not seen Terminal with Tom Hanks, it a movie about a guy trapped in an airport terminal due to circumstances beyond his control. I forget how long he was trapped for, but I am starting to know what he felt like.

I finished up the work for the clients and got to Boston’s Logan Airport around 2:30, could have been earlier, might have been somewhat later. It’s now 12:30am and I am still here trapped in the shoddy Air Canada lounge waiting for the plane to be fixed. Maybe them it will take off, but at this point I am not holding out much hope.

The days adventures started when I got to the airport to find that Delta had changed my reservation, offering to fly me direct to Toronto. This sounded good, I prefer direct flights and why spend more time in the air during bad weather than I have to? And right now the weather is bad almost across the continent. From the Midwest to the east coast, rain, wind and snow have played havoc with all forms of transportation.

So this flight change was to change from leaving at 5:00pm for JFK to 8:30 direct. Since the arrival time was only a half hour later, it seemed like a good deal.

So why am I still in purgatory, also known as the AC lounge? Well, the plane was delayed coming from Toronto due to weather. OK, I can accept that, it happens. The plane finally arrives and we all board like the good little sheeple we are, the plane taxis from the gate towards the runway at which point the pilot declared a mechanical issue with the brakes. Those need to be checked, which seems prudent as I sure don’t want to fly in a busted plane. Don’t think any one else does either.

The small brake issue has turned into an hour and half repair job which means the plane can’t leave until 1:00 AM at the earliest, if they get it fixed.

As cynical as I am, I don’t see the plane leaving tonight. Toronto is getting hammered with high winds. But Air Canada isn’t telling us that. What I see is that around 2AM they will pull the plug for the night and leave us all hanging. That means it’s not worth getting a hotel room for the next 2-3 hours ( that would be an expensive nap! ) and getting back here for 4 or 5AM to line up for the next flight out.

Well, there is no food other than some tiny airline packages of pretzels and only a water fountain for something to drink. I suppose I could drink the duty-free vodka, but I would have to drive home in the event the plane actually takes off, so I can’t do that.

Well and truly f@&ked at this point. I love air travel!!!!

[update]A little late (like a week) but the plane did finally leave around 2:00AM, landed in Toronto around 4:30AM and I made it in the door at 6:00AM on the nose. Definitely the most fun I’ve had in a while. On the other hand, I did get to watch District 9 again. What a great flick![/update]

Posted in: on the job, travel by Bastien / Tags: movies traveling work

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So I’m on the road again. Back to Boston to sort out some application issues. Always good to get some face time with the clients and re-establish those relationships.

For me, the joys of travel have been far outweighed by the inconveniences and annoyances of going. As the flights are often early, it means I have to get up, earlier. Novel notion but it does mean getting up around 330 am and dragging my ass to the airport. This doesn’t sound all that bad but I’ve never been a sound sleeper before a trip. Always in the back of my mind is missing the shrillness of the alarm so I toss an turn fitfully until the damn things sounds off.

At the airport it’s become an endless series of line ups and security checks. The stripping down, almost to the boxers, of the belt, shoes, coat, sweater. Take the electronics out, put it all inthe tray and 30 seconds later the rush to put it all on, pack it all up and try not to cause a jam up.

So what mad this trip so damn memorable? Well, as I got off the small regional jet that brought me on the first leg of my journey, I left my damn rolly carry on case at the gate, then I walked out of the terminal. Of course it wasn’t until I was standing in the cold waiting for the shuttle to the next terminal that I realized that I had forgotten the damn thing. So, I have to clear security again to get back to the gate only to have the agents tell me the bag was sent to the baggage claim area. I high tail it back to the claims area, root around for the bag, which was the lost luggage office, grab it and head back to the shuttle bus to grab the next flight. So I got to go thru security, again, though I took the road less travelled and chose the furthest checkpoint from the maddening crowd for a slightly speedier traversal of the security zone.

As I write this it’s about 1230 am, I’ve been up for almost 22 hours and I am tired. It’s been a hell of a travel day.

Posted in: on the job, travel by Bastien / Tags: travel work ckients

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