Category: Revelation

Should I or Shouldn’t I?

The new version of this blog software, WordPress 2.3, is out. And evidently it breaks some plugins. Many of the plugins I use haven’t been updated in years, and aren’t listed on the list of “known broken” or “known working” plugins. One I like a lot is listed as broken, and hasn’t been updated in a while, which makes me think that if I upgrade I’m going to have to do without it. Also, my theme is heavily customized, so I’m not sure if it will work.

So do I wait, or do I upgrade now and accept that lots of things are going to be broken?

Gwit? W00t!

On the revelation that my boss had a skunk works project going to prototype a new client/server version of the user interface in Flash, I was appalled. So I suggested that he investigate Google Web Toolkit (GWT). I hadn’t actually done all that much reading about GWT, but it seemed like a really cool idea – you write both client and server side of your app in Java, test it in an Google Hosted Browser and debug it using your favourite Java debugger, and then when it’s ready, compile the client side to AJAXy Javascript.

My boss came back with a counter proposal – why don’t I investigate GWT, produce a small prototype, and he’ll evaluate it side by side with the Flash project. Of course, the person doing the Flash project has a 3 month lead on me, but hey, I’m up to a challenge.
Continue reading “Gwit? W00t!”

Everything goes better with RAM

I discovered that I had just barely enough money in my Paypal account to afford to replace the two 512Mb RAM sticks on my Powerbook with two 1Gb RAM sticks. It sucks when you’re on the downside of the technology curve where memory is getting more expensive over time instead of less expensive.

Thanks to the new RAM, I can now have Firefox open AND other apps at the same time. So far I’ve only noticed two improvements – videos play better in iTunes, and I can actually open Eclipse without bogging the whole system down to unusability. I’m looking forward to firing up Photoshop some time and seeing what happens.

Anybody want a couple of PC2700 DDR333 CL2.5 512MB SO-DIMMs? One is Kingston brand, and the other, which came with the machine, is Micron branded.