Wednesday, 5 December 2007
Excel Macro weirdness
Excel is pretty good most of the time, but this is just weird. Apparently having pagebreaks in a print preview can seriously mess with macro performance. See Slow Response, Memory Problems, and Speeding up Excel for details.
Green Gadget of the Day
On the "gotta get me some of that" list...
Mains Power Meter ($39.95)
http://www.jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=MS6115
This intelligent power meter simply plugs into a normal power point (GPO) and turns it into a real-time power monitoring outlet. You can enter the local price of your electricity and the meter will tell you exactly how much the appliance is costing to run. In addition, the power meter tracks the power used and can display the instantaneous voltage or current being drawn as well as the peak levels that have been drawn. The meter has backup batteries so it will not lose the stored data during a blackout or moving from point to point. Simple to install and a valuable tool for monitoring you power consumption.
Mains Power Meter ($39.95)
http://www.jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=MS6115
This intelligent power meter simply plugs into a normal power point (GPO) and turns it into a real-time power monitoring outlet. You can enter the local price of your electricity and the meter will tell you exactly how much the appliance is costing to run. In addition, the power meter tracks the power used and can display the instantaneous voltage or current being drawn as well as the peak levels that have been drawn. The meter has backup batteries so it will not lose the stored data during a blackout or moving from point to point. Simple to install and a valuable tool for monitoring you power consumption.
More On "The Future of Software Development"
Alex Iskold wrote an interesting article on The Future of Software Development. My former colleague Michael Davies observes that it doesn't mention Open Source, and makes some good points regarding the higher abstraction level.
From my time using C# and .NET, java, etc., I think the libraries themselves present us with a major challenge - how the heck to easily find what you need, so you don't end up re-inventing the wheel? The libraries are now so large, there is a very good chance that there is something that will help make your current coding task easier - finding it is another matter altogether.
Ideally, a constantly active search, using the current method being written as context, could provide the developer with a ongoing list of possible library code to call upon. The results could be broken down into logical categories, to help the developer interpret how the results might be applicable.
Think of your garage - there's lots of tools in there (since I moved house I can't even find many of hem now!!), and lots of different ways to use the tools you probably haven't even thought of.
From my time using C# and .NET, java, etc., I think the libraries themselves present us with a major challenge - how the heck to easily find what you need, so you don't end up re-inventing the wheel? The libraries are now so large, there is a very good chance that there is something that will help make your current coding task easier - finding it is another matter altogether.
Ideally, a constantly active search, using the current method being written as context, could provide the developer with a ongoing list of possible library code to call upon. The results could be broken down into logical categories, to help the developer interpret how the results might be applicable.
Think of your garage - there's lots of tools in there (since I moved house I can't even find many of hem now!!), and lots of different ways to use the tools you probably haven't even thought of.
Thursday, 16 August 2007
StarOffice now available via Google
According to this Australian IT article, Google are now making StarOffice freely available.
StarOffice is Sun's commercial version of the freely distributed OpenOffice suite. It has more features than OpenOffice and typically includes technical support from Sun, though the free Google version won't.
There are various articles to compare the OpenOffice, StarOffice and MS Office suites - such as this one from opensourceacademy
I'll have to give it a go sometime.
StarOffice is Sun's commercial version of the freely distributed OpenOffice suite. It has more features than OpenOffice and typically includes technical support from Sun, though the free Google version won't.
There are various articles to compare the OpenOffice, StarOffice and MS Office suites - such as this one from opensourceacademy
I'll have to give it a go sometime.
Tuesday, 31 July 2007
As one door closes, another opens
Today was our last day with Mother MOTO. I still find it hard to believe that I was there for 11+ years. I learnt lots of new things, but most of all got to work with a great group of people - and that's what I will miss the most.
On the plus side, I'm writing this on a crusty 'old' notebook that work decided to auction off - which I picked up for $51. (Yes, that's fifty one bucks.) Dell Latitude, 500MHz, 256 Meg RAM, 20 Gig HDD, 802.11b wireless. OK, so it's no rocket, but good enough to set up as a games machine for the kiddies. Also good enough to surf the web from the comfort of the lounge room in front of the TV and remain semi-sociable with the family.
So it's now time for the next great adventure - I should be able to say within the next week or so to where...
On the plus side, I'm writing this on a crusty 'old' notebook that work decided to auction off - which I picked up for $51. (Yes, that's fifty one bucks.) Dell Latitude, 500MHz, 256 Meg RAM, 20 Gig HDD, 802.11b wireless. OK, so it's no rocket, but good enough to set up as a games machine for the kiddies. Also good enough to surf the web from the comfort of the lounge room in front of the TV and remain semi-sociable with the family.
So it's now time for the next great adventure - I should be able to say within the next week or so to where...
Thursday, 14 June 2007
MOTO-RAZR'd
Well, at long last it's finally happened. After 11 years and 3 months with Motorola, they have announced Adelaide Software Centre to Close. Or the same thing from a different new site.
Oh well, on to the next great adventure...
Oh well, on to the next great adventure...
Friday, 25 May 2007
Believe it or not...
So, after 11 years working for Motorola, I have at long last been on a project that has resulted in a real product that I can say to my friends "this is what I helped make". Woohoo! There's even a nice brochure.
So what the heck is it you ask? Well, think of it as a kind of "email over a 2-way radio network". We wrote the 'email' application.
[edit: forgot about the 'previous' project from which MOTOTRBO evolved - the Hong Kong Police's CC3 system]
[edit: also forgot about the ill-fated FLEXgateTM smartcard product. Damn shame, probably one of the most technically challenging and stimulating things I've worked on. Great team of engineers too!]
So what the heck is it you ask? Well, think of it as a kind of "email over a 2-way radio network". We wrote the 'email' application.
[edit: forgot about the 'previous' project from which MOTOTRBO evolved - the Hong Kong Police's CC3 system]
[edit: also forgot about the ill-fated FLEXgateTM smartcard product. Damn shame, probably one of the most technically challenging and stimulating things I've worked on. Great team of engineers too!]
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