Are microsoft tablet pc developers braindead?

I've found trying to write a URL on this tablet pc very frustrating. I write microsoft-com, and you see what comes out. Next, if I try to use the numeric pad, this is what happens:. Com And then to top it off, the numeric pad I bring up disappears when I start writing. I'll get used to it 'but I think they could have done better. Thanks for listening to my rants. : )

Note to web developers

Please check that if you put the user through a series of steps, to make sure the following pages are working! I just tried to download Microsoft OneNote 2007 Beta and after 4 pages and one email verification, I get "The site is temporarily unavailable. Please try it again later.". Very professional.

Syncing laptop with Firefox and Thunderbird

I just got a new laptop, a Gateway 285-E Tablet convertible to be exact, and I love it. I really wanted to keep my bookmarks, mail, blogs and newsgroups in sync, so I found a pretty good solution using Firefox and Thunderbird's "-profilemanager" option and Windows XP file synchronization. This allows you to keep everything in sync: bookmarks, mail, history, cookies, blogs, etc. To make it work:

Share your "[DRIVE]\Documents and Settings\[ACCOUNT]" for in Windows (I won't got into details here, sorry). Now on your laptop, navigate to \\[COMPUTER]\[SHARE]\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\[profile]" and enable "Make available offline"
Now run "thunderbird -profilemanager", create a new profile, then set the path to "\\[COMPUTER]\\[SHARE]\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\[profile]".

Be sure to close Firefox and Thunderbird when you do a synchronization (Explorer -> Tools -> Synchronize...). I'd make a backup copy of your profile folder of course, just in case.

Ruby's "select"

> (1..10).select { |n| n * n if n % 2 == 0 }
[2, 4, 6, 8, 10]

In Smalltalk, "select" expects True or False. But since Ruby has "false" and everything else is "true", this allows you to return a value instead.

Nice remote control design

...if it was just a bit shorter.

Keyboard idea...

What if you place a metal contact strip along the length of the keyboard at the bottom, which when touched with the thumb would act as holding down the control key. Viola! Now you can access any control-key combination without awkward left hand positions. Now, what about the alt key?

Vongo movie selection growing

I've been subscribing to Vongo.com's movie download service for a few months now, and for the most part I like it. You can download a full movie in about an hour. There isn't a huge selection of movies but it's getting better. I'm downloading The Life Aquatic, Project X and River's Edge. Currently I have Hellraiser, Easy Money, Dune, Brewster's Millions, Silent Running and So I Married an Axe Murderer that I can watch any time.

Exploding batteries

Can't wait for nuclear powered devices!

Roger Waters kicks ass

I went to the Roger Waters Dark Side of the Moon concert at Shorline on Tuesday. Every note on every instrument and voice was perfect. They started with some classics from different albums and played a new song, then after the break it was Dark side of the Moon. Awesome. Just wish I had seat tickets, as the grass area is kind of far away.

Tablet convertibles

I've been looking around for a tablet/laptop convertible, and this is what I've compiled so far. The Toshiba Tecra M7 looks like the most powerful tablet pc around.

	Processor	Screen Size	Resolution	Graphics	Weight
Fujitsu LifeBook P1500	1.2 Ghz Pentium M	8.9 inches	1024x600	Intel GMA 900 shared memory	2.2 pounds
Panasonic Toughbook 18	1.2 Ghz Pentium M	10.4 inches	1024x768	Intel GMA 915 shared memory	4.5 pounds
Acer TravelMate C310	2.0 Ghz Pentium M	14.1 inches	1024x768	NVIDIA GeForce Go 6200 graphics	6.4 pounds
Acer TravelMate C200	2.0 Ghz Pentium M	12.1 inches	1024x768	NVIDIA GeForce Go 6200 graphics	5.7 pounds
Fujitsu LifeBook 4210	2.0 Ghz Core 2 Duo	12.1 inches	1024x768	Intel GMA 950 shared memory	4.3 pounds	Gets pretty hot
Toshiba Portege M400	2.0 Ghz Core 2 Duo	12.1 inches	1024x768	Intel GMA 950 shared memory	4.4 pounds
HP Compaq TC4400	2.0 Ghz Core 2 Duo	12.1 inches	1024x768	Intel GMA 950 shared memory	4.6 pounds
Gateway M285-E	2.0 Ghz Core 2 Duo	14 inches	1280x768	ATI Mobility Radeon X1400 64 MB	6.8 pounds	Plenty heavy
Toshiba Satellite R25	2.0 Ghz Core 2 Duo	14.1 inches	1400x900	Intel GMA 950 shared memory	5.9 pounds
Toshiba Tecra M7	2.0 Ghz Core 2 Duo	14.1 inches	1440x900	Nvideo Quadro NVS 110M 128 MB	6.0 pounds	Viewing angle

Ruby-Inertia source

A few people have been asking if there is source code available for Inertia-Ruby. I haven't worked on it in a while, but it is functional. Here's the source: ruby-inertia-0.6.zip

Poor man's operator precedence

#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>

int main( int argc, char* argv[] ) {
  printf( "((((" );
  for( int i = 1; i != argc; i++ ){
    if(      strcmp(argv[i], "^") == 0 ) printf( ")^(" );
    else if( strcmp(argv[i], "*") == 0 ) printf( "))*((" );
    else if( strcmp(argv[i], "/") == 0 ) printf( "))/((" );
    else if( strcmp(argv[i], "+") == 0 ) printf( ")))+(((" );
    else if( strcmp(argv[i], "-") == 0 ) printf( ")))-(((" );
    else                                 printf( "%s", argv[i] );
  }
  printf( "))))\n" );
  return 0;
}

$ ./parenthesise a \* b + c ^ d / e
((((a))*((b)))+(((c)^(d))/((e))))

from wikipedia.org

Back in business

I had some trouble with my blog so I gave up on it for a while. I think I got it squared away now :)

"The langauge all programmers know best is profanity."

Author unknown.