(Miscellaneous)
February 22nd, 2010
It’s a quarter past 9 in the evening. I’ve just arrived from my office, which I departed from at not too bad a time: 6 PM. My commute on the TTC subway and bus from work to home, which typically takes an hour and a half, has taken me three hours. For that amount of transit time, I probably could’ve paid my good friend maplealmond a visit in Kitchener. But I don’t live in Kitchener. I live near Finch and Islington.
My subway ride was smooth as usual. Having left the office later, the subway cars were not as crowded and almost halfway through the trip I managed to snag a seat and sit comfortably for the rest of the stops leading up to the north end of the Yonge line, Finch station.
This is where the fun begins.
Read the rest of this entry »
(Miscellaneous, Programming)
January 11th, 2010
One of the reasons this blog is called “Live & Code” is because Computer Science (and by extension programming) is one of the lenses through which I view the world. There are often parallels between the way we think and the way computers work. I don’t think that this is an accident; the term “computer” used to refer to a human being whose profession was computing values. These people would sit and work through algorithms to calculate values that would be used in scientific research.
One of these parallels between humans and computers is the way that we multitask. Computers only seem to multitask by switching between tasks rapidly, with the exception of new multi-core and multi-processor systems, which can run as many tasks in parallel as there are cores or processors. So it was interesting to read recently that the prevailing theory is that humans multitask in precisely the same way!
Read the rest of this entry »
(Miscellaneous)
December 31st, 2009
2009 has been a year of turbulent change for me.
Near the beginning of the year, I decided that I needed to switch gears in my career. I made a very dedicated push towards becoming a full-time Ruby developer, leaving my comfortable position as a J2EE web content management and identity management specialist. My leisure time was consumed with sharpening my Ruby skills and learning new technologies. I made Rails Pub Nite a monthly ritual and networked like crazy on just about every networking site I could. I followed a number of job site feeds and sent out many cover letters and resumes.
Finally, my break came from a very unlikely source: Facebook. I posted to a Ruby on Rails group on Facebook to advertise my skills and experience and offer my services. This was seen by the Systems Manager at the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants, who asked me to send her my resume. I did so gladly and not too long after that I was asked in for an interview.
Read the rest of this entry »
(Miscellaneous)
November 24th, 2009
Years ago, I was torn between two passions. I had loved tinkering with computers and other electronic gadgets since I was as young as 10 (possibly younger!). But I also played the piano, taking lessons with my sisters and playing around with melodies and chords on the keys when I wasn’t practicing my lesson pieces.
That love of music carried into high school. I had stopped playing piano but in music class I picked up the clarinet quite quickly. I transferred to another school after grade 9 because the school I was in was planning to cut their music program entirely and I could not imagine being without it. At my new school, I was blown away when I heard the excellent performances of the senior jazz band and ensembles. I was fiercely determined to play with them but not many modern jazz arrangements called for a clarinet. So I learned to play saxophones.
At the same time, I continued tinkering with computers, teaching myself how to program because I wanted to program video games one day. An exhibit at the Ontario Science Centre featuring the “new” graphical web browsers, Netscape and Mosaic, inspired me to try my own hand at web publishing as soon as we were able to get connected to the Internet. In high school programming classes, I was well ahead of the curve, frequently finishing assignments meant to take hours in a matter of minutes.
And so, when I graduated from high school and decided I wanted to go to university, I had a difficult choice to make: which of these two things would I choose to focus on?
Read the rest of this entry »
(Miscellaneous)
October 30th, 2009
Below is a screenshot of an error I received from my day job Rails app while I was testing it yesterday. I think it might be trying to tell me something…
Could not find workitem with ID=666
I got this when I was following a link to open a work item that no longer existed in the database. I caught it in time to make a screenshot and circulate to everyone in the office before moving on with my work.
Happy Halloween, everyone! =D
In other news, I’m being asked to look over the Japanese translation of Radiant again, which I will find some time to do in the next week or so. I think I’ve found a new place to record my podcast so I’m looking forward to producing episodes of The Japanese Learner again early in November.
(Miscellaneous)
October 3rd, 2009
You might all be wondering where the heck I’ve been the last couple of weeks and why there isn’t yet a blog post on how to do LDAP groups-based RBAC with declarative_authorization and ActiveLdap. There is a branch in my authlogic_example fork for that, but I haven’t had time to write new content for the blog because…
I’m moving. Moving day is tomorrow and I’m still scrambling to get everything ready. The logistics look like they’re going have very little room for error but I think we’ll be fine; we’ve got lots of help!
Read the rest of this entry »
(Miscellaneous)
June 11th, 2009
Here’s a short list of things I’d really like to see for Android that I haven’t found yet. Maybe some of these exist, but I’m experimenting with the SDK to see if I can’t fill some of these holes myself.
- Facebook Contact Sync: There’s an application for downloading Facebook profile pictures and associating them with Google/phone contacts but I wouldn’t mind being able to synchronize contact data too. There are so many people whose phone numbers and e-mail addresses I can only retrieve via Facebook that this kind of application would save me a lot of time.
- Facebook Application: As I wrote in my previous post, there’s no decent Facebook application for the Android. I’d be happy with a fairly lightweight interface that just allows me to follow my friends updates, access my inbox, and browse profiles and photos.
- Freshbooks Time Tracker: Freshbooks created one for the iPhone, but there doesn’t seem to be one for Android. Just the basic functionality of being able to select a project and task, start/pause/stop a timer, and submit the hours to Freshbooks would be plenty for me.
- Package Tracker that works with Canada Post: I’ve seen package trackers for other carriers but none for Canada Post. Android has only just been released in Canada, so maybe it’s just a matter of time.
- Things (Cultured Code) Sync: Cultured Code has a Things for iPhone, but there is no Things for Android. I’ve sent in a feature request but have received no answer as of yet. I imagine that they probably don’t care, seeing as it’s a Mac-only app. =(
- A Real Japanese IME: There are a number of applications that serve as an IME for Japanese but none are integrated into the Android Input Method Framework. Instead, I must open the application via an ongoing notification, enter my text, and then copy and paste it into the text box that I was intending to type into. I’ve also recently noticed that this interferes with the software keyboard that I recently downloaded. I can’t use “Touch Input” and one of these programs at the same time because Touch Input helpfully corrects my romaji into English words. >_<
(Miscellaneous)
June 10th, 2009
On June 2nd, I joined the Revolution. Rogers released the first Android phones in Canada, the HTC Dream and Magic. I purchased the Dream and I’ve been using it quite heavily for the past week and a half, so I’ve decided to write my informal review of the HTC Dream from Rogers.
(Miscellaneous)
June 9th, 2009
In short, Ruby Job Fair was awesome!
The turnout from the Toronto Ruby community was excellent and I made and strengthened a lot of professional connections. I even got some compliments on my display and print-outs! Just in case you missed them, I’ll be posting them here soon.
It did feel like there were more developers than people looking to hire developers, but this was just the first of what I’m sure will be many such events. In any case, I did hand out a lot of my brand new business cards and a few of my resumes.
I can’t wait for FutureRuby!
(Miscellaneous)
May 12th, 2009
Wow. I registered liveandcode.com at the beginning of this year and started working on a new theme for it. I didn’t imagine it would take me 5 months to finish. Along the way, some crazy personal stuff happened, but I finally got my new blog theme all done and uploaded.
Now that I’ve themed this blog to my liking, it’s time to start writing in it! But I’ve got “First Post” syndrome all over again. What do I say first? It’s probably best I sleep for now and let the ideas flow.
