Joey’s Blog

Behold The Geeks!

So, I went to the Desert Code Camp hosted by DeVry university today. It was awesome. 8 Hours with 60+ classes composed of the distilled knowledge of some of the best developers in the area.

A Special Thanks DeVry and all the organizer and presenters that made it possible! – It rocked! (The Free Food and T-Shirt were nice too btw…)

See the Geeks?

Continuous Integration With Continuum

by: Wendy Smoak – An Apache Continuum Comitter

• USE Continuous Integration
• It saves time.
• Ensure some motivation (preferably public humiliation by the team) is in place when someone “breaks the build”
• Continuum is EASY to setup (download the tarball, run bin/continuum.sh (or .bat) start (if on windows, continuum.bat install first) Then add your project
• It’s best to do an automated build for every commit (either have Continuum poll the svn server, or setup an svn post commit hook to fire it off)
• Continuum is very tightly integrated with Maven2
• If you send out build failure notifications, put the addresses in continuum instead of the pom, because if they are in the pom, and other people download your code and build it witn continuum and don’t change the POM you get their build failure notifications.
• There are many other CI choices other then Continuum, use something!

Domain Driven Design

by: Don Weinmann

Very cool session with lots of cool ideas. The whole idea of Aggregates was new to me. I wish I could sum it up here… But it was very in depth, view below links if your interested in learning more.

• Aggregate Boundaries
• Aggregate Roots
  • All other objects must go THROUGH the Aggregate Root to get an object.
• Repository’s – A RUD service that you use to get objects.
• Spawners – Like a factory, but a method that’s a member of an Aggregate Root

Understanding functional programming

by: Chris Chandler

No, Jeremy’s not disillusioned… Functional Programming is really cool and has very practical applications. Namely reliability and concurrency… YAWS (a websever written in erlang) can handle 80,000 concurrent connections. Whereas apache chokes at about 4,000. Rumered to be the webserver that powers facebook. The telecom industry makes extensive use of functional programming as well.

This was also the first I had heard of Scala, a functional language built on the Java JVM.

Getting started with Arduino

by: Brian Shaler

• Like PIC but open source.
• Integrates with almost anything.
  • Ultrasonic range finders.
  • Light Sensors
  • etc…

USB Control with JAL and C#

by: Aaron Cure
You can get an 18F2455 Microchip (made by Microchip) and with five extra components connect it to a USB port and interact with it from C# (this means controlling all 16 of the I/O pins as well as accessing an analog input.) You do have to burn an initial image to the chip, BUT! Once you burn the initial image, you can reload the code on the device via the usb port without needing a sperate flasher. Code for the chip, and code to get you started on LOTS of PIC projects can be found in the JALlib.

• Totally Awesome!
• Use a TRIac to control AC current with it.
• Use it for anything.
• Build a red light green light broken build indicator to work with you CI server.

How to lie with Statistics

This has been one of my favorite reads of all time. At first I bought it solely as a book to get a laugh from people with, but as I began to read it I discovered there were lots of ways to lie with statistics that I hadn’t thought of myself yet. As always, I am not a proponent of activities such as this, but I feel it is very valuable to be aware…

Use images instead of graphs.

Lets say you want to illustrate that salleries have doubled in 10 years. But you want it to make an impact… So you prepare an image that has a dollar sign over a label that says “Then” and then you have a dollar sign that you have scaled by 2x with the label “Now”. This is very misleading, because when you scaled the money bag by 2x, you didn’t just make it 2x as tall, you made it 2x as wide… Effectively making it 4x it’s original size! This makes for a MUCH better impact than just a simple bar graph.

When presenting a graph make the scale very small or don’t include one at all.

Never play when the odds are fair.

One of my favorite Star Wars characters once said something along the lines of “Never play if the odds are fair.” (He said this prior to fixing an election on a small planet.) The same is true with marketing. You never ever want to commission a survey with the intent of publishing the results without first doing something to ensure your own success.

There are lots of ways of commissioning this study with the odds in your favor.

1. First, send salesmen to 100 dentists and give them hundreds of samples of your toothpaste. Explain to them all the benefits of your tooth patse, and then ask them if they would recommend your toothpaste to clients.
2. Ask your sales dept for a list of all the dentists that have ordered your toothpaste and send them surveys asking them what toothpaste they recomment.
3. Hire four dentists on your staff, and after 3 months ask them which toothpaste they would recommend.
4. Send lots of your toothpaste to a small third world country. Then, send surveys (with promises of more toothpaste for each returned survey) to each of the dentists that received the paste.

Pick the average that suites you best

What most of us (unless your a marketer) have forgotten from high school math is that there are 3 different ways to get an average… (Watch the video.)

What does this mean for me?

Dig behind the numbers. Never take a statement from an untrusted source at face value. (and never trust an advertisement) If it’s true, there will be evidence to support it. In the words of a very very very smart person… “By their fruits, ye shall know them.”

Did you know that you can write your gmail address in hundreds of different ways? Sign up for free stuff again and again with the same address…

So… There are three different tricks to registering your gmail address over and over at the same site without it being rejected as “Already Registered”

Use @googlemail.com instead of @gmail.com

Both domains will send email to your email address. So, my email address: joey.novak@gmail.com is also joey.novak@googlemail.com

Put dots in your username whereever you want

No lie, Google just strips out all the dots before it delivers email to you. So, jo.eynovak@gmail.com is the same as joey.novak@gmail.com. I use this at work to test things ALL the time. You can even use LOTS of dots. So, j………………..oeynovak@gmail.com will get to me too.

Put a + at the end of your username and put whatever you want after it.

joey.novak+test123@gmail.com is the same as joey.novak@gmail.com This one isn’t as good as the other two, because some sites (facebook cough cough…) say “This isn’t a valid email address” even though it works at other places fine.

Conclusion

So that’s it! Now go sign up for free trials again and again at: https://www.copilot.com/, or https://secure.logmeinrescue.com/HelpDesk/Home.aspx?home=2&lang=en

Enjoy!!

Make your favorite website (facebook, pandora, etc…) faster using Mozilla Prism

You know how you get too many tabs open in Firefox and things start to slow down, reaching the point of cold molasses after a while. Well Mozilla Prism is the answer. It is a stripped down, lean and mean version of Firefox that is designed to make that one web app lightning fast. Unlike Firefox, it isn’t designed for web browsing, rather it is designed to view a sinlge website at a time. Dedicating resources on your computer to that site, and that site only. Making it run significantly faster.

It is super super easy to use. Just install it, and now when you are visiting the website you want to make FAST just click “Tools -> Convert Website to Application” It creates a shortcut on your desktop that launches that website in Prism at lightning speeds. It takes almost no space on your computer, if firefox crashes your web app inside prism keeps running. And it solves world hunger… Well not really but it’s cool.

I use it for Pandora and my task manager. But you can use it for ANYTHING.

True Doctrine

One of my favorite teachers recently published an article on the effects of teaching true doctrine that I greatly enjoyed.

I love true doctrine.  Something about the absolute truths contained in true doctrine get me excited.  Teachings such as:

“All men will be resurected.”

 And

“All children that die before the age of accountability will inherit the celestial kingdom.”

Are just a few of my favorites.  Others, such as

“I suffered these things for all, that they might not suffer if they repent.”

and the truth of a life after death also bring great comfort.   The absolute clarity these truths bring as well as the comfort and harmony that accompanies living in accordance with them brings amazing peace and happiness.  

While many such truths can be found in the scriptures.  The truths of the restored gospel as revealed by modern day apostles and prophets are at times the clearest.  What I find particularly interesting, and what slightly unsettled me when I was younger, and drove me to investigate further, is the degree to which all of the varried apostles and prophets of the LDS church throughout time were able to reach a concensus on such varying matters.  You would believe that hundreds of men all writing and conjecturing in gret detail on the same topic would frequently be at conflict one with another.  But that is not the case.  They reflect a unity in doctrine and purpose that you would only expect to find if they were in fact revealing truths about something that does in fact exist and they have an intimate knowedge of, rather then usual writings by men attmepting to discover something yet unknown, or trying to convince others of the existence of something they are only vaguely framiliar with.  This was one of many things I observed that led me to obtain a strong belief in and even faith in what is taught.

Unwise Microwave Experiments

This is freakin’ awesome.

Melting Glass in your microwave.

And while we are talking about microwaves…

Making Plasma -- Looks really cool!

Mafia Wars Loot / List of Where To Get

Vault Collection Items

It doesn’t matter what job you do as long as it’s a looting job. The odds of getting a collection item are the same. See: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090213190953AAUEsbX

Other Special Items (Some Required For Jobs)

Here is a list of all the special items you can receive by doing jobs.

Lego Animated Attack of the 2nd Amendment Attack

Dallan at work showed me this.

The Bill of Non-Rights

Um… This sentence absolutely reeks of lack of an accurate citation, but this post definitely has been attributed to Rep. Kaye, if no where else but in itself.

The following has been attributed to State Representative Mitchell Kaye from GA. This guy should run for President one day…

“We the sensible people of the United States, in an attempt to help everyone get along, restore some semblance of justice, avoid more riots, keep our nation safe, promote positive behavior, and secure the blessings of debt-free liberty to ourselves and our great-great-great-grandchildren, hereby try one more time to ordain and establish some common sense guidelines for the terminally whiny, guilt ridden, delusional, and other liberal bed-wetters. We hold these truths to be self evident: that a whole lot of people are confused by the Bill of Rights and are so dim they require a Bill of NON-Rights.”

Article I

You do not have the right to a new car, big screen TV, or any other form of wealth. More power to you if you can legally acquire them, but no one is guaranteeing anything.

Article II

You do not have the right to never be offended. This country is based on freedom, and that means freedom for everyone — not just you! You may leave the room, turn the channel, express a different opinion, etc.; but the world is full of idiots, and probably always will be.

Article III

You do not have the right to be free from harm. If you stick a screwdriver in your eye, learn to be more careful; do not expect the tool manufacturer to make you and all your relatives independently wealthy.

Article IV

You do not have the right to free food and housing. Americans are the most charitable people to be found, and will gladly help anyone in need, but we are quickly growing weary of subsidizing generation after generation of professional couch potatoes who achieve nothing more than the creation of another generation of professional couch potatoes.

Article V

You do not have the right to free health care. That would be nice, but from the looks of public housing, we’re just not interested in public health care. (Amen!)

Article VI

You do not have the right to physically harm other people. If you kidnap, rape, intentionally maim, or kill someone, don’t be surprised if the rest of us want to see you fry in the electric chair..

Article VII

You do not have the right to the possessions of others.. If you rob, cheat, or coerce away the goods or services of other citizens, don’t be surprised if the rest of us get together and lock you away in a place where you still won’t have the right to a big screen color TV or a life of leisure.

Article VIII

You do not have the right to a job. All of us sure want you to have a job, and will gladly help you along in hard times, but we expect you to take advantage of the opportunities of education and vocational training laid before you to make yourself useful.

Article IX

You do not have the right to happiness. Being an American means that you have the right to PURSUE happiness, which by the way, is a lot easier if you are unencumbered by an over abundance of idiotic laws created by those of you who were confused by the Bill of Rights.

Article X

This is an English speaking country. English is our language. Learn it or don’t complain.

Article XI

You do not have the right to change our country’s history or heritage. This country was founded on the belief in one true God. And yet, you are given the freedom to believe in any religion, any faith, or no faith at all; with no fear of persecution The phrase IN GOD WE TRUST is part of our heritage and history, and if you are uncomfortable with it, there are lots of other countries that will welcome you with open arms.

Why your next car should be a Toyota…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lrk6vsb77xk

Just how much can a Toyota PU take?  Being submerged?  Fire?  Dropped?