January 18, 2012

Screw Entitlement

Not going dark. Duh.

Here's one. Maybe, just maybe, if in the last oh, almost two decades, people had decided that the following:

"I wasn't going to pay for it anyway"

"If you put it on the Internet, it's public domain."

"If you put it on the Internet, you expect it to get stolen, get over it."

"You can't expect me to pay for something without seeing if I actually want it first."

"If I like it, then I'll pay for it."

"If it bothers you, you should protect it better."

"I'm HELPING YOU! I have LOTS of friends, SOME of them MAY buy your OTHER work."

...were the shallow bullshit justifications for stealing other people's work they are, then the justifications for idiocy like SOPA/PIPA/et al would be far, far smaller. Maybe if the internet community that is so, so, very up in arms had viewed things like piracy as the fault of the pirate more than the victim, the need for such things would be smaller.

But no. We have facebook game stealing artwork, lying about licensing it, and when the artists are so rude as to have a problem with this, the players of the game blame the artists for being unreasonable.

We have Google wanting noted designers to do themes for Chrome for free, and telling them, (including people who have work on Target Gift Cards) that the "exposure" should be more than sufficient "payment".

We have people taking someone's art, Photoshopping the original copyright off of it, putting their own on, and then posting it with a comment about don't steal art, and are so very offended when they get the DMCA takedown.

So do I think SOPA/PIPA are good? No, don't be stupid, they're horrid bills. But do I think that it is solely the fault of RIAA/MPAA/et al? No. The people using the above excuses and justifications share just as much blame. If nothing else, they created reams of justification for lobbyists to use when pushing these bills in Congress.

The Internet's relentless victim-blaming and support of piracy handed "the enemy" a fully-loaded gun, aimed at their own skulls, all the while screaming "I DARE YOU TO PULL THE TRIGGER". Spare me the outrage until you're willing to change your behavior.

January 17, 2012

Static Blog Publishing Done Easy

So from Stephen Hargrove's "Site Rewrite Complete" on his Spirit of Nine site, he goes into the steps that he went through to create a "static" html site. That is, one where the pages are static HTML, and none of Wordpress's problems and workarounds.

It's a system only a programmer could love or use.

I was referred to the article by Brent Simmons' "Stephen Hargrove’s Blog Workflow" post talking about it. Hargrove was himself inspired by Simmons' own version of it, detailed in "New publishing system / tour of my head".

Brent's system is also a system only a programmer could love or use.

Note, all of this is to get a site where the data exists as plain HTML so a database crash doesn't kill your site, or your database server being overloaded doesn't make your site unusable.

Here's what I did:

1) Got a web provider that gave me a decent amount of space, with reasonably easy FTP access to said space. (digital.forest)
2) Installed Movable Type

Okay, done. Over the years, I made one major modification to that, which was using Disqus to manage comments. With that, what little work I did for commenting dropped by 90% or so.

Now, it's not as PURE a system as theirs, and the install is something only an IT person could "love". (Seriously, Movable Type's install is just crap, but tedious though it is, if you do what the directions say, it works.) There is a database, but I could take it down now, and the only problem the site would have is me adding new content. I can live with that, and it makes backups simpler.

When I add a post via MarsEdit, it's entered into the database, then the required static HTML pages are generated. The database is used as a SOURCE for the publishing system, not as the primary engine. Best of all, I don't really have to fuck with it, unless I want to update the page templates. That's done in Coda, and then I manually regen the site in Movable Type. That takes some time, but I don't care, I'm not staring at it happen.

For image resizing, by and large I don't. I use PNG for the format, and enough CSS to make sure the images fit the page correctly. Other than that, I don't resize shit. If it takes a little longer to load, meh, this ain't CNN, you're not learning anything world-shaking here.

But it is amusing to me to see the differences in approach. A programmer instantly thinks of creating their own system and maintaining it so it perfectly reflects their needs. A sysadmin wants something that will meet their major requirements and if it's not exactly perfect, as long as the mismatches can be handled reasonably, and it works, who cares who coded it.

January 12, 2012

Good deed du jour

A couple of my friends, who are AWESOME authors, Diane Duane and Peter Morwood found out today that some cocksucker skimmers emptied out their bank account. It looks like their bank will do the right thing, (yay), but that takes time, (boo!)

However, there's a way, if you're so inclined, to help. They sell all almost all their non-Star Trek books, (yeah, I know, I'd love to buy THOSE direct from them as well, but not in their control) directly from their site. Go there, take a look, buy something. Seriously, the only thing over six bucks on the site is a copy of the International Edition of the Young Wizards, volumes 1-9. Everything else is six bucks or less, and it's all pretty damned awesome. My latest fave is Peter's "Tales of Old Russia", a great sword and sorcery collection, set in, duh, Old Russia. If that's too much, Diane even has a code in her tumblr post that gives you %20 off. But seriously folks, it's SIX DOLLARS for some good folks in a jam. Spend the extra Buck-Twenty, you'll have better karma. DRM-free .epub and .mobi.

(Seriously, if you have kids who are Harry Potter fans, or you are yourself, and you haven't read the Young Wizards series, I cannot, can not say enough good things about it. Magic + Science + New York = awesome.)

January 10, 2012

Oh here we go

So Matt Gemmell has some issues with my post about comments in "Comments Commentary". He seems to have more of an issue with me, and how I write here, than anything else, but what the hell, let's play. Let's play:

John’s article (strongly in favour of comments, and openly derisive of switching them off) is another response to MG Siegler - and an angry one. Having browsed his blog archive, anger seems to be John’s default emotional state.

Actually, if Matt had read the comments, he'd have seen that I don't have a problem with no comments per se, just twee, pretentious reasoning that seems to require regular justification. But clearly, he's not only against comments on his site, he's against comments everywhere, since he doesn't bother to read them. Here, one of my own comments on it:

(no) comments in and of itself is no big deal. It's the pretense from Gruber, Siegler et al that somehow doing this is creating a smarter internet. *That* part is complete bullshit. If you (dis)allow comments, it doesn't make you smarter or better than anyone else.

That, by the way, is my main point: If you want comments, have comments. If you don't want comments, don't have them. But spare me the pretense that you're better/worse for either decision, and for fuck's sake, stop telling the world why. I have bad impulse control as it is, and I'm a 20-year sysadmin. Anger is not in fact my default state, (sleeping is, if you must know), but it's easily accessible. It's like telling the world why you're no longer using <platform> and moving to <platform>. Really, no one fucking cares what computer you use. I don't know what computer Woz or the fucking president uses, and I don't care. I have enough reasons to care about what computer someone's using, unless I'm maintaining yours, I don't care. At. All. Same thing with comments.

In any case, he writes a considered, long-form response on his own blog saying that it’s a fallacy to think that switching off comments will make people write considered, long-form responses on their own blogs. Hmm.

If that's what Matt considers "long form", he needs to stop relying on Twitter. That's not long form. THIS is long form. However, let's look at the gist of that. He's trying to get in a subtle dig about "Ooh, looks like they were right based on your response." No, they weren't, and the way I learned about Matt's article shows that. No one in the comments on my article, (as of writing this) talked about Matt's article. One person I follow on Twitter happened to, but he did so after I was deep into Skyrim, and by the time I saw twitter this morning, it was way out of view. If I hadn't used the @comment view in Twitter to see if anyone HAD talked about Matt's article (after I found out about it), then I'd have not known from there. It wasn't done in a way that showed up on my site, so I didn't know from there. (Tweets I get feedback on. Random websites from people I've never heard of, not so much.) So how did I even know Matt wrote this? I happen to read Daring Fireball. That's the only reason. And even then, I only hit the link because I was mildly curious if he was going to mention my rant, and if so, how? (Yes, and rather badly.)

If it wasn't for me reading DF this morning, or I'd waited too long and it wasn't on the main page, I'd have not seen Matt's article. It's possible, I could have gone for weeks and not seen it or never seen it. So much for the mechanics of the "other people will see this and respond" theory being all that reliable. It works if you happen to follow the people who write the response, or someone you follow tweets about it (and you see it), or someone actually tells you about it. There's a word for that: chance. Chance is how you win lotteries, not how you have a conversation. Also, if I somewhat tired and grumpy this morning, and written something on commenting, (DAMN YOU SKYRIM), I doubt I would have read Matt's article. So no, relying on some magical Intarweb telepathy doesn't work.

Now, ego searches DO work, but I dislike those, so I don't do them. That, by the way, seems to be the only reliable way for the method Gemmell et all espouse to work: you have to pretty much have a few saved ego searches and check them regularly. Fuck that.

(I’m actually being a bit unfair here; what he says is that comments-off won’t create more intelligent discourse. John’s response is intelligent as far as it goes, but I do take issue with its confrontational tone, implied ad hominems and nigh-constant needless profanity. I’d also say that this article that you’re reading now, with its many links to just such intelligent discourse, ably disproves his assertion.)

Oh christ, another one whining about profanity. Here, I'll let Stephen Fry answer that for me:

Swearing is a really important part of one's life. It would be impossible to imagine going through life without swearing and without enjoying swearing... There used to be mad, silly, prissy people who used to say swearing was a sign of a poor vocabulary -such utter nonsense. The people I know who swear the most tend to have the widest vocabularies and the kind of person who says swearing is a sign of a poor vocabulary usually have a pretty poor vocabulary themselves... The sort of twee person who thinks swearing is in any way a sign of a lack of education or a lack of verbal interest or -is just a fucking lunatic... I haven't met anybody who's truly shocked at swearing, really, they're only shocked on behalf of other people. Well, you know, that's preposterous... or they say 'it's not necessary'. As if that should stop one doing it! It's not necessary to have coloured socks, it's not necessary for this cushion to be here, but is anyone going to write in and say 'I was shocked to see that cushion there, it really wasn't necessary'? No, things not being necessary is what makes life interesting -the little extras in life.

Also, Matt clearly has forgotten what "Ad Hominem" means. Me calling the anticommentarian arguments, by and large, pretentious bullshit is not Ad Hominem. Me calling MG Siegler, Matt Gemmell, and Gruber pretentious idiots, vapid hipsters, or <pick your pejorative, it really doesn't matter> is not Ad Hominem. Calling people you disagree with names is not "Ad Hominem". It is not nice, and is probably being an Asshole, but it's not Ad Hominem. For it to be Ad Hominem, I'd have to say something like "MG Siegler is a hipster, therefore, he's wrong". THAT is Ad Hominem. Stop using that fucking concept to cover people being foulmouthed rantmavens.

The main topic covered (and it’s the first time I’ve seen it in this debate) is that responses on external blogs which link to your article will confer search-engine relevance and rank to you. From my understanding of search engines, that’s true enough (with greater rank being conferred by links from pages perceived to be high-quality themselves). John is outraged at this, and implies - but never quite states - that that’s the actual, evil hidden purpose of ‘comments off’. Accordingly, he spitefully refuses to even link to the article which prompted his response.

Matt's right: it is in fact spiteful. Petty as well. Too fucking bad, I guess if I were more smarter because I disallowed comments, I'd know better. Note that my only crime here is not linking. If you search for "MG Siegler Comments", you find the article in question pretty quick. Hell, this article attributes like hell to Matt. I just don't link to him. But again, that's the new stupidity: it's not enough to attribute, you have to link. Well, fuck you, no I don't, and it's not some kind of crime. Also, if SEO isn't important, why is linking so fucking critical? If the attribution tells you who wrote the bits I didn't, and/or the title, the link is a convenience, and a nice gesture. It is not in fact, required, and not linking is not wrong. But, in for a penny, in for a pound I suppose.

And I do think that anyone making money from their websites, or as web writers is aware of the search engine advantages conferred by requiring other sites to link to you to "comment" on your "conversation". I will allow that it isn't always a primary motivation, but don't tell me no one's aware of it. I evidently have the bad form to say it out loud. Oh well.

The real argument here, once again, is that those who switch off comments lack due humility. We’re not humble enough for John, and that angers him.

BAAAAHAAHAHAHAA....this from a guy accusing me of ad hominem. No you prat, it's not a matter of humility, it's a matter of NMDs and hipsters needing to make fucking sure we know a) they're smarter than us and b) why, every fucking second. If they change beers, fuck, EVERYONE has to know. If they saw a good movie, everyone not only has to know, but they have to know WHY it's good and the history of everything the director's ever done, and if you don't agree, well, "I just can't talk to you". Fuck that shit. Everyone does it, I do it here on occasion. But I don't expect it to be anything but annoying, and I don't think the fact I like something makes me smarter than anyone else. Probably makes me dumber, my taste in movies is pretty bad. (Yes, I liked Transformers 2, fuck you.)

It’s a very common argument against disabling comments (even moreso since I believe it’s the real motivation behind several other arguments), and it’s worthy of a serious discussion - which John’s article, in my allegedly not-so-humble opinion, isn’t.

If I could ban one thing from human discourse, it would be the false humilty we require of people when it comes to opinions. "In my humble opinion". Oh bullshit. If you're offering an opinion, it's not humble. You're taking a fucking stand on an issue. Could be a minor issue, could be a major issue, but an opinion is inherently not humble. If you want to have a humble opinion, shut the fuck up and stop blathering about it. People can be humble. Opinions cannot be humble. Who the fuck cares about an opinion if the person giving it is being a vacillating wussy about it?

But I'm glad he thinks that my only issue here is that I have a "right" to comments. Based on that vapid, lazy response, Matt has another right. It involves his lips upon my ass. Why do I grant him that right? Because for someone so willing to support people's "right" to have their blog run in the way they seem fit, he seems to have a big problem with how I run mine. Funny how that happens when someone won't let you determine how they think or respond to things. He's not the first one to pull that schtick, the "you can run your site however you want, but...". Whatever. (Also, given that he doesn't allow comments, I'm unsure as to why he had to come all the way over here to read my horrid little rant or how he even knew about it. (Maybe he follows me on twitter? Fuck if I know.) It's not like I get that much traffic, I don't have that many readers. I don't even have ads. This site isn't designed to be a moneymaker. Hell, the main pull to my site in terms of traffic/google is a three year old article on SNMP. This is NOT that popular a site, really. Yet, over and over, people come here, and act like somehow, I made them. That's like walking in my yard and bitching you stepped in dog shit, and I should clean it up better for strangers. Really?)

Like I said, you can have comments or not, but for fuck's sake, stop acting like (not) having them does anything for anyone but you.

Teaching is actually kind of hard

Have you ever seen something that you wanted to be really good, but realized, no, it wasn't? Like, you were thinking this could be awesome, but then when you get into it, you realize it's just kind of...bad. Yes John, we know, Star Wars Episodes 1-3, let it GO.

HAH! Stupid voices inside my head, that wasn't what I was talking about.

No, but you were thinking it.

Shut up, go back to building the harp trap.

W00t! I'm outta here!

Okay, now that's done. So here's the thing: there are a lot of people a lot who have an interest in learning how to program, and would like to teach themselves. The problem is, pretty much every self-paced course makes the same mistake: it leads you through a bunch of rote lessons, that you fundamentally don't care about, and you lose interest because you can't stay interested enough to remember what you did ten minutes ago.

Those are the good ones. The bad ones leave out info that a n00b would care about, are inconsistent in their presentation, etc. Which brings me to the subject of this post...CodeYear. When I first heard about this, I did enough research to realize that it was a cool idea, and was in a language I've wanted to get better at for years: Javascript. I don't do real well with dot languages, but JS actually has some value in my personal and professional life, so I've some motivation. I'm also not new to programming, I've done it in a few different environments over the years, including some visual 4GLs, and of course, my latest fun toy, AppleScriptObjC.

So I'm new to JS, but not programming in general. Hell, almost finished that CompSci degree once.

But I get into CodeYear, and well...damnit. The first day, the day when you want to hook people...and it's just rote monkeywork, boring exercises, and inconsistent presentation. For example, semicolons. Now, some languages require them. Some don't. In JS, they're optional. However, if you're going to use semicolons, then explain why they matter, why you're using them in the lesson, and enforce their use. Even if it's just for "if you ever want to learn a different language, this is a good habit to get into". But be consistent. Don't say "you should use a semicolon after each statement", then, when I leave one off accidentally, not even mention it.

Really, here are my thoughts on it as I'm going through day one:

it's monkeywork. For example, i messed up because I forgot a semicolon. Instead of taking that as a chance to teach me why that's a bug, it just tells me I screwed up and moves on. In another example, I deliberately left off the semicolon, and now I don't get an error. So do I need that or not? If I'm new, I don't know.

Why isn't there a semicolon in the substring() lesson

I did it right, but I used a different word. you don't care that I still don't know why I don't need a semicolon all the time, but you're fussing about me doing it RIGHT, just with a different word?

If it seems picayune, maybe it is, but again, I am actually new to JS. I couldn't code my way out of a paper bag in that language, and I actually want to learn, but it keeps throwing up reasons why I don't care. For example, that last one:

I did it right, but I used a different word. you don't care that I still don't know why I don't need a semicolon all the time, but you're fussing about me doing it RIGHT, just with a different word?

WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU DO THAT? It was in the word substitution lesson, wherein I learned that if I use the wrong word, even though the code is valid, CodeAcademy tells me I did it wrong. I didn't do it WRONG, I used a DIFFERENT WORD. Christ, when a student wants to explore, you don't slap their hand, you encourage that. This is teaching 101: encourage students to dig into the material.

Yes, I know, a lot of this is a function of that robotic console shit they use, but that brings me to another point: If I were to ever use JS, I'm using it in a browser not the CodeAcademy console. So why are you teaching me a bad habit, and not even telling me that "Hey, this isn't really how you're going to use JS, but for our first baby steps, it will help us focus on JS, not reloading pages in a browser." If you really wanted to get uppity, and you were a bit clever, one of the first things you'd teach someone is how to set up the browser to do what the console does. Even if it's an overly simplistic thing like a button on the screen that says "Test code" and just reloads the page, that would be something of immediate use to the student. Nope. Nothing. "Do what I say, exactly how I say it. All independent thought will be in error."

Also, "oops, try again"? Not a really helpful criticism of a mistake. Keep in mind, this is just part of the first day. Some other comments in my brain dump document:

Now I'm using methods, and I don't know why. what the fuck is this for? Do I memorize this and hope?

I'm on lesson 4 of day/week one, you are jamming methods down my throat, and that's a LATER?

There is a lot of this in CodeYear. "Just do this, we'll explain it later". Fuck, do you really not want me to ever learn anything but how to type what I'm told, where I'm told, when I'm told? This isn't even GOOD rote learning at this point. I'm not even through day one, you've dumped methods and functions in my face, but I don't know why, or what the fuck they are, so I hope that by the time you get around to explaining shit, I'll still be here. (well, fortunately, I do, but if I really didn't know anything about programming? Ye Gods. Also, I won't be here, so I guess it never mattered.)

you hit me with a series of things that require function parameters, then you hit me with one that doesn't, and you don't TELL ME WHAT'S UP?

Again, thank Cthulu I know about void returns and functions that don't need parameters. But if you teach people a bunch of functions with parameters, like substring, and then you hit them with one that doesn't, (hell if I remember which one, I only remember substring because it's in my notes), this is a great time, an AWESOME time to say "So, you may have noticed we didn't put anything in the parentheses. Don't worry, that's normal too, and here's why....<short, but friendly talk about functions/methods, maybe with a diagram.>

And then...

oh holy fuck, I'm on arrays now, and I don't know what the fuck is going on.

Literally, out of nowhere, arrays. I would hope they have a reason for flooding you with this, but I don't know. Shit, they never explain what the period is for, or the general order of things with regard to periods. Or that it's called a "dot" not a "period" in this context. It's like starting at zero:

why do I start at 0? Is this a computer thing, a javascript thing, or another "shut up and do this" thing.

Well, with CodeYear, it's clearly "shut up and do this". Look, sometimes you don't need to give the complete explanation of the history of starting at zero. For beginners, it's cool to say "We start counting at zero in Javascript because a lot of earlier languages did that, and so this way, we're consistent with them. It's more of a tradition and a convenience than any technical need, so as long as you remember that in Javascript, we always start counting at zero, you'll do fine."

That's the level of explanation that works for n00bs. It's like what my mom said when I asked her in public, at the age of six, "Mommy, where did I come from?" Her answer? "Chicago". It was a correct answer, (I was in fact, born in Chicago), I knew that people are from Chicago because most of my family is from there, and so cool, I'm from there too. Note how it was a correct, concise answer that would later be filled out with supplemental data, but at the time, given that I was a n00b at life, it was probably the best answer. It must have worked, I'm told I was happy with it, and didn't need any followups.

The problem with CodeYear is that it's not teaching me anything. It's trying to jam Javascript down my throat, but it's not teaching me programming. What's the goal? Well, the goal is, I'll know Javascript. But that's like learning German to learn German, without ever planning to go to Germany, or having some abiding interest in German culture or society. There are people who learn like that and for that reason, but they don't need stuff like CodeYear. They'll learn it on their own.

CodeYear should be for people who want to learn Javascript, and even have some things they'd like to do. It's for people who see a lot of cool things in Javascript, but would like to be able to do more than copy/paste code. I'm doubtful CodeYear will help many of them, because if you can't get someone excited about what you're doing in the first lesson, when you haven't had time to bore them or piss them off or whatever, if you can't hold their interest for that long...yeah.

The real issue here is what's the point? What can I do with this? Not some abstract bullshit like "Well scripting is the lingua franca of the modern Internet." Way to go PretentiousMan. Again, for the people who get that, and can be motivated by that, they don't need CodeYear, they just need a decent book or two.

Here's what I would do: Build Pong. Make the idea behind CodeYear that we're going to build a simple video game. Pretty much everyone with a computer has either played, knows about, or at least heard about Pong, and most people like games, even if they aren't gamers. It has the attraction that a game has, and in its own simple way, deals with some pretty complex things, like animation, momentum, etc. So it's a definite, easily recognized goal that is fun, and as Cos said, "If you aren't careful, you just might learn something."

Start by analyzing pong. What do you need to do to create Pong? Well, you need to create a place to play Pong, an area in a window. You need to draw the pong playing field. You need to move the paddles. You need to keep score. You need to know when someone has scored. You need to be able to tell when the ball and the paddles intersect. You need to move the ball. You need to not allow the paddles to move out of the playing area.

That's incomplete, we're leaving out the interesting things you can do by hitting the ball with a moving paddle, and what about corner hits, or hits with the top of the paddle. There's also figuring out the order in which to create the various parts of Pong, and how to test them out. Debugging. Design. The important stuff of programming that you need regardless of language. If you teach people that, even if they never use Javascript again, you'll have helped a lot of people know a lot more about what's happening on their computers and why.

Pong is a great chance to teach people programming, and then use Javascript as a way to implement Pong. You can start simple, and them help them find their way into the game, and all the stuff we care about. While you're doing that, you can start a gentle introduction to things like functions, methods, branching, proper coding design, etc.

Most importantly, you're teaching people how to use programming and Javascript to create things. You can give them hints as to ways to change the color of the game. You can teach them how to experiment in code while always leaving themselves a way out of any rabbit holes they wander into. (Pro Tip: teach that comments are not only a way to explain the code, but a valuable safety net when you want to play.)

You're teaching, not just lecturing, or worse, drilling.

I really wanted CodeYear to be awesome. I want to learn Javascript, I have things I'd like to do with it, but the syntax is just hard for me to learn and retain. Rote will not work for me, and judging by the comments from a lot of other people who gave up faster than I did, it's not working for them either. CodeYear is just another group of geeks the same mistake everyone makes with teaching programming: they think teaching, as a thing, is easy.

It's not folks. Teaching, as "soft" as skill as it may be, is really hard to do well. You have to manage, lead, inspire, guide, correct, encourage, praise....all of it. The only people who think that's easy are the ones that suck at it. I've taught before, I know how hard it is to do well. I like CodeYear's enthusiasm, I think their hearts are in the right places, but heart and enthusiasm are only inspiration. You still have to do more than dump information on people and assume they'll get it.

January 5, 2012

Inspired by Kanye

...and his comments about math.

I think he's wrong, but not for the reason most people might think. I think he's wrong, because if you become a fan of math as I am, at some point, you realize something: Math is how you can describe the universe.

I think you either get why that's amazing, or not. If not, I hope one day you do.

January 4, 2012

One minor point on the comment bullshit

I'm going to pick on MG Siegler here, because well, he's the current poster child.

He writes:

I welcome feedback. Just do it on your own site or on Twitter, Facebook, etc. That small barrier alone removes most of the idiots.

Let’s be totally honest here: anyone worthwhile leaving a comment should do so on their own blog. Very few read blog comments anyway. I’m sorry, but it’s true. Commenting is a facade. It makes you think you have a voice. You don’t. Get your own blog and write how you really feel on your own site.

While we're being totally honest, let's understand something that Siegler's philosophy creates: Juice, specifically Google/search engine juice. The idea that somehow, "forcing" people to comment on a story on their own site(s) will magically create more intelligent discourse is bullshit, and it's stupid bullshit. It will do no such thing. So...what will it do?

Well, if I play by his and Gruber's rules, it will create links back to their articles. It will create SEO gold, and alllll kinds of search juice. When you make your money from such things, and Gruber and Siegler do, well, comments kind of suck. They don't juice you as well. So fine, I can play, but I'm doing it on my terms. If I comment on an article by someone espousing this stupid bullshit about comments, I'm not linking to shit. Why should I give them juice and ad money for free? What the fuck will they do for me in return? Give me a cut of the ad money/other income from the increased search juice it generates?

BAAAAAAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAA!

<inhale>

AAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAH!

At best, they will maybe, maybe say "Thank You", but I'm not holding my breath, because well, the sense of entitlement with regard to links & SEO juice is not small. SEO juice is money, I don't give money away to random entitled elitist hipsters.

I'll reference the article(s) in question in a reasonably clear way. I may even use the title, (In this case, it's "Comments Still Off" on Siegler's parislemon tumblr blog.) That way, I'm still attributing "correctly", (for at least smallish values of "correctly".) But even the minimal SEO value I generate, I'm not giving that away just because someone's too fucking snotty to allow their precious genius to be "tainted" by comments. You want me to link to you? You want me to help boost your SEO? For Free?

Fuck You. Pay Me, as Mike Montiero is fond of saying. I make no small amount of money because of this site, albeit indirectly. You don't get to siphon that for free, not even minimally, and damned sure not when you're being a total snot about it.

Siegler says:

Earn your voice.

Earn your SEO boost motherfucker. My time has value, so does my bandwidth. You want me to give you both, cross my fucking palm with silver.

(my son's comment: "Thirty pieces and you'll betray Jesus". Every year, that kid gets more awesome.)

December 22, 2011

Toolsets

What the hell, why not. So, here's my version of Justin Williams' "Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List for Mac OS X (2011 Edition)". Prepare to be disappointed.

Computer & Related Hardware

A 17" MacBook Pro, with 8GB of RAM and a third-party 1TB hard drive, that has a 200GB Windows 7 partition. (99.999% of Windows use being for DDO. I play a Monk.)

At "work" I have a 24" Apple Display, (the older DVI model), and that's it. When I use an external pointing device, (mostly for DDO) I use a Razer Naga Epic. 'Tis Awesome. That's it. I try to keep my hardware setup simple, it makes working mobile much easier, and to be honest, I've gotten so used to the built-in trackpad, I don't like using other stuff. Gets in the way.

But a 17" is just too big

That's what she said

In all seriousness, I really like the 17". I don't find it bulky, even on planes, the battery life is amazing, and the extra screen space and better expansion is well-suited to my needs as an IT Director, Podcasting, Writing, and Gaming. I think you're either a 17" person or you are not, and I definitely am. Even the 15" is just cramped to me. As far as bags go, I have a Brenthaven backpack I got in 2003 that is still in amazingly good condition. The computer sleeve velcro is a little wore out on one side, but that's it. The bag is a tank, a big taank, (really. I can fit the 17", an iPad, a bunch of cables, laser pointers, pens, a bottle of water, and a Mini in it, and not overstuff it. My shoulder will wear out before I fill that thing up), and I feel bad, because every time I think about replacing it, even with another Brenthaven, I can't justify it, it's still in too good of shape to justify it. But if I ever replace it, it'll be with another Brenthaven. Harvey, I love you.

OS is "whatever's current", maybe a beta version ahead.

"General" Software

• Outlook 2011. Yeah yeah, all the cool kids don't use it. First, screw the cool kids, second, I like Outlook. I like it a lot. I like the fact that unlike Mail, it has an AppleScript dictionary with more function than bugs, (or ANY function compared to iCal and Address Book.) I like how it handles multiple accounts FAR better. I like that everything's integrated. I like that its rules are the best, especially the mailing list manager functionality I wish it supported CalDAV & CardDAV, and dragging attachments into windows wasn't quite so damned twitchy, but other than that, it's my favorite email/calendar/contact client.
• iChat. I live with that application, it does what I need it to do, and other than being a bit of a pain in the ass for multipoint audio, it handles my needs perfectly. Well, I can't script account creation. So that's a pain.
• Browsers. Yes, I use them. I like Safari, it has integrated RSS. Second choice is Firefox, although of late, they're becoming almost too douchey for me. Chrome only when forced. (Have I mentioned I don't particularly like Google or its products? Yeah.)
• Apple Remote Desktop. I'm a sysadmin at heart, and while it is getting weird of late, Apple Remote Desktop is still a heck of a management tool for a primarily Mac network. Nicely scriptable too!
• Preview. It's what Adobe Reader should be, and it has a plethora of hidden/not so well known features that make it more than a little useful to me on a daily basis. The perfect application when I'm doing lots of screenshots.
• Coda. For the small amount of web site design and administration I have to do, Coda's the bomb. Small, tight, and doesn't get in the way. Also, have you seen Macromedia's UI lately? Guys, Aqua is dead. Let it go.
• iWork and Office. Yeah, yeah I know, Office is bloated. Well, one person's bloat is another person's handy feature. I mostly use iWork, but there are times when only Office will do. For example, Word's finer controls over change-tracking is really handy for me, and Numbers is just kind of stupid at importing delimited text files, whereas Excel is just pretty awesome at it. I don't use PowerPoint though, haven't in years, Keynote is just much better. I like working in Pages much better than Word, esp. when it comes to styles. Word still can't make styles easy.
• MarsEdit. It's the only blogging tool I'll use, and I find myself using it anytime I have to write something in HTML. I have rather a lot of custom format shortcuts I use, so not using ME is just kind of painful.
• Snapz Pro X. Yeah, yeah, I know, all the cool kids use Screenflow. Whatever, I like Snapz a lot. It does what I need it to do, it has awesome keyboard controls and the control it gives me over screenshots is unmatched in my experience. It's the best out there at any price, and it's pretty damned cheap.
• Twitteriffic. Since the death of Tweetie, this is the only twitter client worth using on Mac OS, and definitely the only one I'll use on iOS. I pay for it, and I still show the ads, Craig's done a great job of making them not suck.
• Sequel Pro. If you have to manage MySQL databases from Mac OS X, and you aren't using Sequel Pro, you're an idiot.

Programming Tools

I'm not a programmer/developer per se, most of what I do is for internal utilities. Having said that:

• BBEdit. If you're one of those BBEdit haters, I can't even talk to you. Seriously awesome, and they have one of the best GREP references ever built into their online help. I find most complaints about what BBEdit "can't" do to be rather incorrect.
• Script Debugger. I write a lot of AppleScripts. A lot. I could not, nor would I even try to do so without Script Debugger. If you're trying to do anything beyond EXTREMELY simple scripting, without this tool, you're a fool. The grownup debugging, and the ability to see what is happening in the dictionary live with the running application? Oh hell yeah. What, you think I figured out that Acrobat 10 had dictionary entries for the menu separators WITHOUT Script Debugger? Ha. Ha. Ha. It's not free, and I so don't care. This is an amazing tool, and it gets better all the time.
• Xcode. I'll come out and say it, I dig Xcode 4. But then, I never cared about Xcode much before, because up until Mac OS X 10.6, the only thing Xcode had for me was ASS, AppleScript Studio, and um. No. But with Mac OS X 10.6, I got AppleScriptObjC, and so now Xcode is much more useful, and I didn't have any bad Xcode 3 and earlier habits to unlearn. I like it, although the AppleScriptObjC debugging sucks.
• AppleScriptObjC Explored. Technically, it's an ebook, but I use it so much when coding that I can't imagine working without it. Amazing book, worth every penny.

Audio Tools

What I use for Angry Mac Bastards.

• WireTap Studio. Yes, they're an AMB sponsor, but I've been using WTS since before AMB. It's classic Ambrosia: does what it's supposed to do, and doesn't get in your way.
• GarageBand. Honestly, there's a lot UI-wise that I don't like, and parts of it are just obtuse, but it's really good for my AMB needs, and I know how to make it do what I need it to do.
• Levelator. I know, I know, it's not magic, but it's close enough. I drop an audio file with wildly different levels on it, and it spits out an audio file with nicely matched levels. Drag, drop, done. Awesome Sauce.
• Transmit. Gotta get those files up on S3 somehow. Really, Transmit is a great application, and I don't care that it's not free. Don't be cheap, buy it, you'll be happy you did.

Other stuff

• PDFpen Pro. Use this instead of Acrobat any chance you get. It's great software, has a MUCH better UI, the dev team actually implements customer suggestions from people who DON'T have 30,000 users, and unlike Acrobat, the Smile people love the platform. Besides, just saying the name is infinitely more Smile than you'll EVER get from Acrobat.
• Adobe CS Suite. Acrobat sucks, but the rest of the suite is okay, and honestly, I know how they work. I don't think any of them are particularly bloated any more than any other application with that large an audience would be. Also, the CS installer team has made installing it suck SO much less over the years, so really, my primary annoyance with it is gone.
• Dropbox. Meh, it's handy. Getting files to people's Dropboxes when you don't have an account sucks, the sharing UI is quite craptacular, and the product is way too impressed with its own cuteness. Using the fat application when you have multiple accounts is just agony, I end up using the web interface most of the time.

If you're surprised I don't have a lot of OS/UI utilities I use, you clearly don't know me very well. Also, I don't care if you don't use/don't like my applications, but seriously, no advocacy wars. Those suck. And yeah, I know most of you don't care what I use, as you shouldn't. But if you were curious, well there it is.

December 20, 2011

No, they don't "have to" build a 7-inch tablet

This was a reply to Dave hamilton's comment on this story, but TMO's comment system is weird, and wouldn't deal with it.

This is one of those times where I agree with Martellaro’s premise, and frankly I think a lot of the commenters here are being extremely short-sighted and just listening to what another pundit out there claims instead of thinking for themselves.

The premise that Apple could make money off a 7" tablet, or the premise that Apple now has to make a 7" tablet? The former is obvious, the latter is rather ridiculous, and it is the latter that forms the basis for this article. As others have pointed out, people have said the same thing about netbooks, bigger iPhones, a mini tower, a maxi mini, a "netbook" version of the Macbook Air, on and on. These are things apple *has* to make or they risk...what? In the end it comes down to "not making money they could be making".

Even here, John doesn't really have a reason other than that, and he even explains WHY Apple wouldn't based on the fact that they regularly walk away from gobs of cash in another market: low-end computers.

Reading it, there are three reasons John has for this:

1. Perceived weakness:

   When a company comes to dominate a specific market, it’s seen as a failure if another company steps in and finds a weakness. That’s exactly what Amazon has done with the Kindle Fire

   Yet at no point does John explain how that's actually a weakness when Apple has stated it has no interest in the low end tablet market. Even if we allow for a 7", there's no guarantee it'll be cheaper than the Fire, or that the people buying the Fire would have instead bought the 7" Unicorn.

2. Money they "could have made":

   What can’t be denied is that Amazon has found a chink in Apple’s armor. Apple execs might be feeling that if only they’d done a better job of understanding their own market, Apple would be earning all these Christmas revenues instead of Amazon. A million Kindles sold per week is evidence of Apple asleep at the wheel. How can Apple prevent this from happening again?

   Again, he uses a specious figure, (the million a week is not kindle Fires, which is the "chink" in Apple's market John is talking about, but rather a million units carrying the name "Kindle". The Kindle has always sold well, oddly, so has the iPad. Funny that) to show the money Apple could have made. However, one of the strengths of the Fire is that it is tightly coupled with Amazon's infrastructure, something a lot of people like.

   It is rather silly to assume that the kindle Fire would not sell "well", (since we don't actually know how many are selling) if Apple released the 7" unicorn. John's engaging in the kind of zero-sum game that everyone hated in the 90s: For Apple to succeed, all others must fail, and vice-versa. Yet, he has nothing but the opinion that somehow, if Apple released the 7" Unicorn, it would have destroyed the Fire. It is entirely possible for two similar products with different enough target uses and markets to succeed.

   The Fire offers features that Apple as a company cannot offer, and it is designed primarily to be a portal into Amazon's infrastructure. It does this very well, and there's no guarantee that a 7" iPad, even at the same price, would somehow kill Fire sales. Yet that's the implication of this point, and there's little support for it.

3. Ego driven by internet pundits and stock analysts, two sources of stupid that Apple ignores rather well:

   My experience is that Apple execs will become a little touchy about the loss of tablet market share and the unflattering conclusions analysts will draw after the holidays. How and why Apple responds will tell us a lot about how the executive team is feeling about how to compete in the tablet market. My money is on a smart, agressive response instead of no response at all. The fire must be put out soon.

   Um...really?

I’m also curious how many of the naysayers have actually touched and used a Kindle Fire? I have, and no, it’s not as good as an iPad, and no, it won’t compete with the iPad on many levels. But the concept of having a tablet that one can comfortably hold in one hand is huge, and is something this particular Apple fan would LOVE to see in an iOS device. Once the screen technology is available to support the required resolution at this 7”-ish size, I think Apple will be seriously considering something like this to stay in this market.

I have actually used a Fire, and while it is a really nice device, it's not a competitor for the iPad. It's designed in every way to keep you in Amazon's world, and when you try to venture out, the Fire becomes somewhat less than awesome. The iPad, while firmly rooted in Apple's ecosystem, functions rather well outside of it, i.e. the web browser actually works correctly. That's a critical difference. And again, this all assumes that Apple is particularly interested in a low-margin market, something no one has demonstrated particularly well.

Remember, this ain’t Steve at the helm anymore. Apple’s leaders are people that are working for their money and likely not able to ignore the market as much as Apple used to. In THIS case, I think that’s going to be a good thing.

Were someone to come up with better reasoning for this move other than "money they could be making", "ego", and "Steve Jobs is dead", I'd be happy to take it more seriously.

Might Apple do this? sure, who the hell knows with that company, but I highly doubt it will be because of the Fire, and I further doubt it will somehow kill the Fire even if they do. There's room for multiple products here, stop pushing zero-sum games.

November 28, 2011

Another book update

So the book evidently went off to the place where dead trees are turned into books. I'm guessing that means any updates to the ebook version will happen really soon as well. (As far as pricing policy, that's PeachPit. I know I've pushed for them to be cool, but ultimately, that decision is out of my hands.) I am also informed that this may be the first book from PeachPit containing the words:

"picayune"
"bon mot"
"scut" (as in scut work)

So I seem to have made some history there. Again, to quote Jay Sherman:

BUY MY BOOK

BUY MY BOOK

BUY MY BOOK

:-D