4 for 34
since Feb 26th, 2007
March 9: Free Coffee
April 8: Free Coffee
April 11: Free Doughnut
April 19: Free Coffee
The final result for 2007 is 4 for 34, which turns out is better then the average posted in their official rules (1 for 11 is their average). Stay tuned for next year’s results!
-Matt
Now it’s not one of those shit chain letter type deals, where you give one word answers to questions like “Favourite Ice cream“, this one is more of a challenge brought on by fellow developers. The basic goal is to better yourself as a programmer, by challenging you spend the time to learn new philosophy’s, new techniques, languages, or API’s. It’s something we need to constantly do, but don’t as life (or in most cases laziness) gets in the way.
Well Shane, I accept your challenge. Here’s my starting list:
OK, I’ll admit it, I’m a little behind the times when it comes to the whole AJAX - Web 2.0 thing. Ever since Dr Dueck’s Web Technology Class, I have enjoyed building scripted webpages. So I figure it’s time to get moving in that direction. I’ve heard nothing but praises for Microsoft’s AJAX libraries.
MNP (work) has over 200 Blackberries in use across Canada. Our firm has turned into a mobile environment where users are constantly requesting to have data at their fingertips at all times, no matter where they are.
To start with I programmed the Blackberry using their Mobile Data Services. It is basically a thin programming environment where it uses web services to push data down to itself. They could not make it simpler. In a matter of hours I had a working example, connecting to our Lotus Notes 7 web service (created using Lotusscript). My hat is off to them. The only downside using it, is you are limited to what you can do. Hence the JDE. Blackberry has it’s own library that will allow you to do anything using their libraries. It uses Java (or a lite version of it). This ones is going to be a challenge for me as I haven’t dabbled in Java since the days of George McMaster Brandon University Days *shiver*.
We use Lotus Notes at work for email, calendar, etc. Some people hate it and some people love it. Personally, I absolutely love it. My only gripe with it, they have not changed their basic UI in 10 years. They still use the same look and feel as they did when they first came out with R4 (back in 1999).
But things are about to change with Version 8.
The next version of Lotus Notes FINALLY has a new User Interface. Based upon the Eclipse open source framework, IBM is moving in a whole new direction. I won’t go into too much detail, but by moving to an Eclipse Framework, they are now allowing you to create your own Eclipse applications, which can just plug right into the Lotus Notes application. Again this is based on Java, so the challenge is a little tougher with this one.
Sorry to disappoint, but I’m not a reader. I’d rather get my hands dirty in code then to read about it in a book. Plus that’s what the magic of Google is for!
I think that’s a good list for now. I may add on it to it later if a new technology grabs my attention.
How much SPAM do you get in your email in one month? Think about it, over the course of one month, how much SPAM do you delete from your inbox?
Personally, I deleted maybe one SPAM message a month - if that.
As you can see from the screenshot to the right, I currently have 1,000 SPAM emails in my gmail account. Now that’s just not 1,000 messages over all time, that is 1,000 SPAM emails over a one month period. Gmail automatically deletes the SPAM after 30 days. My ratio for SPAM hitting my inbox is approx 1:1,000. Well done Google. Now mattkiazyk@gmail.com is everywhere - I use it constantly whenever I sign up for anything, so I’m sure that email is on a few lists.
For those of you who get constant SPAM emails in your inbox, stop now and sign up for a free gmail account. Remember the days when you had to have a separate hotmail account just for sign-ups as you didn’t want to get all that spam in your main email account? I don’t know how hotmail is now, but I’m sure they are better then what they were 5+ years ago.
Anybody have the 1,000 mark beat?
Disclaimer: I’m not affiliated nor work for Google (I wish I did), I just like their products
-Kaiser Buns
There’s been alot of talk around the internet about Joost and how it could possibly be the future of television. With the addition of Turner Broadcasting and CBS on board when the site launches, it is becoming more and more mainstream and not just a place where people can post their home videos (see YouTube).
Joost works by using P2P technology when the application is running. As you are watching a show, you are also sharing the data you have download with thousands of other people at the same time. Using the same technology as BitTorrent is significant as it allows you to quickly download shows. The more people watching the show, the faster it will download. Think of watching Survivor instantaneously without having to wait the hour to download it. Just be careful though as leaving the program running, allows people to download from you. Some ISP’s might get a little ornery if you use too much of their precious bandwidth!
After getting a beta invite a couple of days ago and playing around with it, I’m pretty impressed. It’s super easy to navigate around and shows start playing in a matter of seconds without skipping a beat as your watching it. The downside is that currently there aren’t too many decent networks and shows on. Although I watched a show called the Conventioneers and it was damn funny…Canadian too. Once major networks get on and people can watch mainstream shows, Joost is going to take off.
I’ve got some Beta invites if anybody is interested.
That’s right folks. After a month of some solid “manscaping” of the neard, it was time to show off the masterpiece at the annual tax party. There was some solid competition, but as I took the extra step of creating what I call El Infinito! I (well actually Shaun) cut the front of my face to be the exact as my back of the head. It was enough to take the top prize.
And what did I get for top prize? Just a wrestling belt (which is proudly displayed in my office), but more importantly, I gained the respect of my fellow peers.
Would I do it again? Sure. I actually don’t look half bad in a beard. The rock star look my make an appearance once in a while!
There’s some more pictures of the Tax Party in the Gallery on Flickr (something is wrong with the gallery).
Your MNP Mustache Champion
-Matt Kiazyk
Hello and welcome to the mattkiazyk.com. I currently live in Calgary, Alberta, Canada where I'm a software developer. Boring! I know! But hey it's my life and I'm enjoying every minute of it.
I recently read an article in the NY Daily Times, which stated that nerds make better lovers.The article kind of states is that Tiger Woods is a nerd, and his supermodel wife married him because he was a “golf” nerd. Um…no.
I just thought I’d post this…just for future reference!
Hump day already!Shot a 92 today in golf league. I’m happy with it. Putting could use an improvement though, although a did make a nice long putt on 16 for birdie.
So since the first time in…we’ll lets just say I can’t really remember…I actually finished a book. Now not just a small little childrens book. This was actually a 600 page novel. I highly recommend Angels and Demons by Dan Brown. He’s the guy who wrote The Da Vinci Code.
As I was reading it, you start thinking that this could really happen. It was neat how it goes into the whole steps involved in electing a new pope. It brought a little science fiction into it with the whole anti-matter technology. I think I’ll actually pick up some more of his books. Probably The Da Vinci Code next as I see it’s going to be a movie. Tom Hanks though…come on Ron Howard, you can do better then that.
-Kiazyk Out
