Dingfelder.org

Day 23 – Post a review of an application that you use.

I am not sure if/when I will get around to doing this.  Maybe one day.

Until then how about checking out my next next post or my twitter account ?

Day 22 – Release some software under an open source license that you haven’t released before.

While I love lots of open source software packages, and support the licensing model, I am going to have to take a mulligan here.

(I work with software all day, and am blogging in the evenings, so I do not have the time at the moment to do more work.  I am doing this set of blogs for fun after all, not just to take up time.)

Does this sounds like an excuse?   Yes, it is.  But it is my blog so I can do what I want 🙂

Day 21 – Favourite thing & worst things about working in IT?

I really like communicating with people, sharing what I know, and helping others solve problems.  Thats what I like to do.

When a user has a problem, and I can help show them an easier way, or if I can fix something that is not working right so they can get on and do their job, it makes both of us happy, and that is cool.

I don’t like debugging hardware and device drivers.  That is a pain, and a waste of everyone’s time.  That is what hardware leases are for.  If it is not easy to solve, trade it in for one that works.

Day 20 – Where do you stand on Internet Censorship?

I am not a big fan of the government trying to censor the population.  I think Australia for instance is going too far.

And as a US citizen (dual US/NZ citizen actually) I find the US’s actions (trying to censor wikileaks etc) quite embarrassing to say the least.

Individual companies can obviously censor their employees if they choose, that is their right because it it their system.  But I don’t like countries (like China for example) censoring their population.

I believe the government should worry about bigger issues than what an individual should morally be allowed to see.  Besides, if a person wants to get around the system, they will find a way, much like the criminals will find guns even if you pass laws against them.  The laws just keep honest people honest.

Day 19 –Most hated computing environment

I have to say I don’t really HATE any computing environment, but I like some better than others.

I find strengths and weaknesses in all of the main operating systems, I like Mac, Linux and Windows, each for their own reasons.

Most of the development I have recently done has been in an IDE such as Eclipse (for C++, Java, PHP and Python) or Netbeans for Java.

But I have used Delphi, C++ Builder, Visual Studio, and others as well, and I find that all of those IDEs have their strengths.  I even liked the old borland turbo pascal and turbo c compilers back in the day, they were a big improvement over doing it by hand.   Much better than writing make files.

Going back a while, I learned HTML using notepad (on PC) and vi on unix before there were IDEs, and I am comfortable falling back to the command line (bash is my preferred shell).

I guess if I really had to answer, my least favorite was a VAX mainframe for COBOL, followed by DOS batch shell development.

Day 18 – Most cringe-worthy geek moment

I’m going to have to go a bit geek here and quote the urban Dictionary:

So, while I do have my geek moments, I do not usually make myself cringe by my geek-i-ness.  Now if you ask my wife and daughters, I’m sure they may disagree.

Day 17 – Post a useful HOWTO to solve a challenge you’ve come across recently.

How to get a bunch of twitter followers – for free !
I have read a LOT of twitter posts that basically say: “click here for 10,000 followers”.  Then when you do, they try and sell you some scam about paying for followers, who we all know will be robot followers anyway.

How do you really do it?
Just follow these easy steps, I did the same thing this month and am about to hit 1500 followers, without paying anything.

1. Create a twitter account if you have not already done so.
2. Add a picture, and a bio to your twitter account.    Mine for example is: http://www.twitter.com/dingfelder
3. Look at interesting twitter accounts, in a topic you will be tweeting about, and find one with lots of followers.  thousands.
4. Open up their list of followers, and add a LOT of them.  Note:  Don’t add a thousand in the first day or twitter may ban your acccount.   Do it over a few days.
5. If you hit a limit aand twitter won’t let you add more followers, it is because you do not have enough followers.  For example, you cannot add more than 2000 followers unless you have at least 1500 following you.
6. Wait several days, and see how many follow you.  It won’t be thousands.
7. While you are waiting, follow anyone who is following you.  This is important because if you don’t, they may stop following you.
8. Go to  this site and connect it to your twitter account, it is free.  http://who.unfollowed.me/
9. Once you are logged in, click the link to see “who is not following me back”.  Un-follow all those people.
10. Go back to number 3 and repeat.  After a few times, your numbers will start growing faster, and people will add you even if you don’t add them first.
11. When adding users, the best kind are the ones who follow thousands of users, especially those who follow more people than are following them  those people are more likely to follow you.
12. Finally, I should note that as I am getting more followers, I have started deleting the ones that have never tweeted, and I delete all the ones that are linked to naughty URLs.  I don’t want to help them advertise for adult services.  I have deleted a number of questionable followers, so I would be over 2000 if I had blindly accesped all followers.

Now, go and follow me, and I will follow you back.

http://www.twitter.com/dingfelder

Day 16 of 30 (in 30 days of Geek)…

– First computer you’ve ever owned & your favourite ever.

My First computer was a 286 PC, 12  mhz speed.  With a TURBO BUTTON !

(Don’t ask me why it had a turbo button.)

This amazing piece of technology had a 40 meg hard drive, a 5″ floppy (or was it 5 1/4 ?) and a whopping 2 megs of ram.

If I remember properly, it had a 14″ CRT monitor, and a VGA video card.

I have to note that I got in big trouble though with this PC after a few months, because I bought an additional 2 megs of ram (for 70$) without asking permission from (my newly married wife) Linda, when we were tight on money.  But I HAD to have the upgrade, because it would not run Word Perfect and Pagemaker at the same time on 2 megs of ram.

Not sure about my favorite PC, that old one sure was cool and I have some fond memories.  But I also really like my current wide screen dell laptop and my macbook.  I may have to come back to that question another day.

Day 15 of 30 (in 30 days of Geek)…

– Earliest geek experience?

This one goes back quite a while.

I would say this is a close call between 2 events:

1. Writing my first software program (on a TRS-80)
2. Winning my 9th grade science fair.

My first “program” was a hack to make the screen appear to be locked up for the next person who came along.  As soon as they pushed any key, it popped up a prompt that said:

>> Error.  Press any key to format drive.

Then, no matter what they did, it accessed the cassette drive and made a chugging sound like it was doing something… and scared them.

Was it mature? No.  But I was in 8th grade, and thought it was cute.

My science fair project was a bit of fun, I spent a lot of time working on the effects of various gasses and environments on the germination rates or alfalfa seeds.

I tried growing in pure oxygyn, pure nitrogen, normal air, concentrated CO2, a vacuum, and pressurised normal air.

My hypothesis was that CO2 would be best.  That was before I learned that plants use respiration prior to photosynthesis, so in actual fact, the heavy O2 works best.  I wonder now how O3 would have worked 🙂

The interesting part was that I won for the school, and went on to the district finals with high hopes, and then bombed out without any awards at all.  Some bozo with an exhibit showing optical illusions (that took no research or design at all) won 1st prize.  My teacher and advisors all said they were pretty stunned.  I still am irritated by the injustice of the grading.

Day 14 of 30 (in 30 days of Geek)…

– Favourite computer conference?

First of all, I have to note that it has been a long while since I blogged here, but I am back, and I will try and be a bit more regular.

Regarding conferences, I do think they offer some good networking opportunities and I see their value, but I have to admit I have never been to a computer conference.  I do read the notes afterwards and try and learn what I can, but I have not paid up and taken the time off to go to one.  If I did, I think it would be JavaOne.

I have been to non computer conferencesthough.  For example, I went to a great wildlife conference in Miami a couple years ago (2008?) when I was the Prodiuct Development Manager at Sirtrack Ltd. 

I gained a really good overview of the competition and their product offering, which helped in my efforts to guide the Research and Development department.  It was great meeting customers, answering questions, and talking to others in the industry.  I definately gained insight into what our customers wanted in upcoming products.