Complicated is bad, Simple is good

Time to Talk (a song)

Sun, 25 Mar 2012 20:31:25 -0400

Since were not speaking
I will say this
A little effort is as good as none
and now that were strangers
there’s nothing to miss
the prize I waited for I won

Going back to school
and I find you sitting
miles in front of me
Driving on the road
the cars streak by me gladly
in time with the melody

Since were not speaking
I will say this
A little effort is as good as none
and now that were strangers
there’s nothing to miss
the prize I waited for I won

Back to my roots
and there your growing
at the highest point of the tree
Rising up, I’m near,
and now you’re flying
dressed the color of that sun you seek

Since were not speaking
I will say this
A little effort is as good as none
and now that were strangers
there’s nothing to miss
the prize I waited for I won

Cars & Life

Sun, 25 Mar 2012 20:23:55 -0400

Car projects that I have undertaken, simple ones mostly, are often fraught with difficulty. The perils of car maintenance parallel the perils of living life:

You can buy a manual to guide you.
What looks easy at first ends up complicated and progress can come slowly.
There are inevitably setbacks…the stripped screw needs to be drilled out of the cracked fixture to replace.
The steps in the manual work on a pristine rust free car…to repair the beater you are going to need to invent a plan B that may or may not involve a sledgehammer.
Apply force where necessary and have perseverance is required. Trust the manual
Carelessness often ends in disaster.

Rijndael (AES) algorithm

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 14:52:00 -0400

http://www.obviex.com/samples/Encryption.aspx

Salt

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 15:58:58 -0400

Salt

Nonce

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 15:54:21 -0400

Nonce

Securing REST API

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 14:32:13 -0400

Securing REST API

propnc.snippet

Sat, 11 Feb 2012 17:42:01 -0500

<?xml version=”1.0” encoding=”utf-8” ?>

<Title>NotifyPropertyChanged Code Snippet</Title>

<Shortcut>propnc</Shortcut>

<Author>David Salt</Author>

<SnippetType>Expansion</SnippetType>

</SnippetTypes>

</Header>

<!— Add additional Snippet information here —>

<ID>propertytype</ID>

<ToolTip>Replace the property type</ToolTip>

<Default>string</Default>

</Literal>

<ID>propertyname</ID>

<ToolTip>Replace with a name of the property.</ToolTip>

<Default>PropertyName</Default>

</Literal>

</Declarations>

<![CDATA[

private $propertytype$ _$propertyname$;

public $propertytype$ $propertyname$

{

get

{

return _$propertyname$;

}

set

{

if(_$propertyname$ != value)

{

_$propertyname$ = value;

OnNotifyPropertyChanged(“$propertyname$”);

}

$end$]]>

</Code>

</Snippet>

</CodeSnippet>

</CodeSnippets>

The nook needs a touchup

Mon, 02 Jan 2012 16:04:00 -0500

I had a particularly bad user experience with my nook eReader. Where to begin…

I like the idea of having my library digitally available with notes and highlights in a searchable format that is highly available. eReaders are not there yet, at least not the nook touch. The technology isn’t mindblowing, and the most interesting thing about the device is the display technology. I expect to be able to do a few things well.

Purchase books
Read books
Markup text with highlights and notes

I like going to a bookstore and browsing the titles. The limited space and availability of the physical shelf means the most popular books will be there. There are many books in a small space. You can pick it up and get a feel for it. Having browsed some pages and decided to make a purchase, I turn to my eReader for the purchase and to read the book. And this was my experience yesterday.

Strike 1: I was frustrated when searching for the book returned the wrong results. Similar titles and authors were returned, but not the book I was looking for. Do I need to type the full title? Did I make a mispelling? Click click click tap tap tap. Argh. A search by ISBN yields the book in question. Terriffic

Strike 2: I click the prominently displayed “Buy It” button.

Unable To Purchase

We are unable to process your order. Please verify your payment information is correct or check out Wi-Fi connectivity and try again later.

You can’t tell if the problem is with WIFI or my account information? You are the device…could you submit the request? Did you receive a response that indicated failure?

Strike 3: Oh, my credit card must be expired. Terriffic, I will update it. Tap tap tap…um, that isn’t the expiration date I entered. Tap tap tap….I know I entered it in correctly this time….what gives? Search the internet and learn that you really should use the website to update your billing information. Great, but why set me up for failure…don’t give me the option to screw up my settings.

Strike 4: Still getting the same error message. Huh, time to call tech support, proceed through the basic steps that I already tried (cycling the power, reentering billing information from the website). Next step…”Do you mind resetting your device sir?”. Um, of course I do. Won’t that reset my bookmarks? Aren’t you going to inform me of that instead getting consent from an uninformed person who of course is going to be upset when my settings are all gone and my problem hasn’t been fixed. I bought this device to use it. Its a personal digital library meant to store craploads of books and notes and highlights and bookmarks. Should we reset my device because you don’t seem to have a handle on the issue and would rather that it go away then figure out what is wrong? Should I lose my data because its a nice shortcut to try for you? What are you thinking?

Strike 5: I spend more time on the problem, purchase another book to determine that there is no billing issue, get support to remove the book and the charge, and inquire about how someone with my needs should operate a nook. How can I tell if the digital copy is available on my device? I get an answer that doesn’t fit my needs: “go to the website”. My eReader doesn’t have a web browser. I don’t want to have to whip out a 2nd piece of technology to see if I can use the first piece of technology. I figure that if there is no preview button and no download size then theres no eBook available. A simple message on the screen in place of the purchase button would do.

There are so many design issues and B&N must be aware of. Why did they let them out the door? Why havn’t they addressed them in the first update? Most of this was rookie design issues and not even bugs.

Should I invest in a digital library for this device? Would I do better to switch to a Kindle? Maybe the best thing is paper for now…

Pondering the Economic Vortex

Mon, 02 Jan 2012 11:46:00 -0500

Unbelievably, I didn’t realize that today was a day off until I rolled into the office. With the day free it gave me some time to take a look at the xkcd poster that is newly hanging on the wall.

At the dollar level it shows the relative cost of goods and services for different kinds of technology, pets, and food. There is a side-by-side comparison between average worker hourly compensation and average CEO wages.

The thousands level perspective contains bigger ticket items like cars and vacations as well as the cost of bigger personal projects such as college and raising children. Household income and investments are relevant here.

The millions turns more political. It contains campaign fundraising for individuals. it outlines the Net Worth of famous politicians, artists, and common rich folk.

The billions gets into the super rich classes of wealthy such as the Waltons and the Tech leaders like Eric Schmidt and Bill Gates, and also investors like Warren Buffet. This area is the largest and breaks down where the money is…and is aptly named the economic vortex. Corporate revenues, federal spending, household income, US GDP, huge projects, wars…its all here. Smack in the middle is the breakdown of people as income earners into classes: the bottom 50%, the Upper middle incomes, the Upper incomes, the high incomes, and the 1%. The amount of tax on each class that feeds into the federal and state budget is set apart. The effect on each classes “money pit” of hypothetical redistributions aimed at raising every family’s income to various levels of wealth…showing just how much money the most wealthy have left over.

The trillions level provides a view of countries on a global level and across time. It has the US contribution to global GDP over time. The interesting items here are the size of the derivatives market and value of resources that exist on the planet.

I do love infographics. There’s a lot to explore, plenty of information to overload my brain with.

The poster image is available here: http://xkcd.com/980/huge/

Stranded on Git without a branch

Thu, 22 Dec 2011 16:16:27 -0500

Stranded on Git without a branch:

Flying by the seat of your pants on Git, I find myself without a branch for my just-committed changes. Getting back on was basically this:

git commit -a -m “commit merge with svn to head”
git checkout -b merged_with_svn
git checkout original_branch
git merge merged_with_svn

Using ObservableVector (For Now)

Thu, 22 Dec 2011 16:14:47 -0500

Using ObservableVector (For Now):

Without a reliable collection class that implements INotifyCollectionChanged, using ObservableVector is a a stopgap measure until (hopefully) the Beta bits are released.

Like Learning

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 01:58:28 -0500

Like Learning

Challenge Accepted

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 22:11:08 -0500

//Given a list of numbers and a target number X, find the pairs of numbers in the list that add to yield X

//FIRST ATTEMPT: "THE LOOP"

public class Pair
 {
    int First{get;set;}
    int Second{get;set;}

    public Equals(Pair x, Pair y)
    {
        if(x.First == y.First && x.Second == y.Second || x.Second == y.Second && x.Second == y.First) return true;
        else {return false;}
    }
 }
 
 public class Calculate
 {
 
     public List<Pair> FindPairs(List<int> list, int target)
     {

         List<Pair> found = new List<Pair>();
         
         for(int i=0;i<list.Count;i++)
         {
             int current = list[i];
             for(int j=i+1;j<list.Count;j++)
             {
                 if(list[j] == list[i] - target)
                 {
                    Pair newItem = new Pair(){ First = current, Second = list[j] };
                    bool exists = false;
                    foreach(var item in found)
                    {

                        if(item.Equals(newItem))
                        {
                        exists = true;
                        }
                        }
                        if(!exists)
                        {
                            found.Add(newItem);
                        }
                    }
                 }
             }
         }
         
         return found;
     }
 }

//SECOND ATTEMPT: LOOK IN THE DICTIONARY AND TAKE THE HINT
//Inspired by: http://www.kirupa.com/forum/showthread.php?237560-Find-Two-Numbers-in-an-Array-that-Sum-to-a-Particular-Value

public class Pair
{
    int First{get;set;}
    int Second{get;set;}

    public Equals(Pair x, Pair y)
    {
    if(x.First == y.First && x.Second == y.Second || x.Second == y.Second && x.Second == y.First) return true;
    else {return false;}
    }
}

public class Calculate
{

    public List<Pair> FindPairs(List<int> list, int target)
    {
        List<Pair> found = new List<Pair>();
        Dictionary<int,int> find = new Dictionary<in,int>();

        for(int i=0;i<list.Count;i++)
        {
            if(find.Key(list[i])
            {
                Pair newItem = new Pair(){ 
                    First = list[i], 
                    Second = find.Value(list[i]) 
                };
                bool exists = false;
                foreach(item in found)
                {
                    if(item.Equals(newItem))
                    {
                        exists = true;
                    }
                }
                
                if(!exists)
                {
                    found.Add(newItem);
                }
            }
            else
            {
                find.Add(target - list[i], list[i]);
            }
        }
        
        return found;
    }
}

Broccoli Salad

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 21:51:56 -0500

Ingredients

2 heads fresh broccoli
1 red onion
1/2 pound bacon
3/4 cup raisins
3/4 cup sliced almonds
1 cup mayonnaise
1/2 cup white sugar
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar

Directions

Place bacon in a deep skillet and cook over medium high heat until evenly brown. Cool and crumble.
Cut the broccoli into bite-size pieces and cut the onion into thin bite-size slices. Combine with the bacon, raisins, your favorite nuts and mix well.
To prepare the dressing, mix the mayonnaise, sugar and vinegar together until smooth. Stir into the salad, let chill and serve.

Source: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/fresh-broccoli-salad/

If looking for pairs, a hash is there

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 21:50:24 -0500

If looking for pairs, a hash is there

HTML5 Beginners Resources

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 02:14:57 -0500

Here are a few useful HTML5 resources to get you started:

Source: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/html5/articles/html5-basics.html

Windows 8 Tips & Tricks

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 11:38:30 -0500

Windows 8 Tips & Tricks:

Debugging, Settings, OAuth, Async

Shows how to create a simple settings panel with a user control and settings panel

Spreadable TED Talks

Wed, 12 Oct 2011 22:51:00 -0400

http://www.ted.com/talks/matthieu_ricard_on_the_habits_of_happiness.html

http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_gilbert_researches_happiness.html

Calories are a garbage system

Sun, 23 Jan 2011 22:32:03 -0500

Thats just one bit of wisdom shared at the nutritional clinic I attended at The Fitness Circuit. They wisely provided notepads which is the reason why I still have something to record here. Most of what I heard was already familiar, but a great reminder of changes that I have yet to implement. So here were the major points

Calories: A good ratio for sources of calories to keep is the zone diet’s 40 carb : 30 protein : 30 fat. Bodybuilders preach a 50 protein : 30 carb : 20 fat, which is not necessarily bad.

Composition: Its a good idea to vary food at mealtime to try to eat complete proteins. Combining an apple with almonds is an example. Rice and beans is another.

Timing: Its best to let digestion finish, between meals (3-4 hours). That way, enzymes are ready to be reused.

Toxicity: Toxins can be stored in fat as a way of elimination. The body will fight to keep the fat there until the source of the toxins is eliminated.

Exercise: Varied exercise is good. When time is limited, circuit training is ideal.

Calories: If planning to lose fat and counting calories, aim for a 500 calorie/day reduction. 500 calories * 7 days = 3500 calories = 1lb fat. A healthy diet could be about 1800 calories of good food. Its been offered that if you eat 35 grams of fiber at a sitting, you can eat what you want and maintain your weight because you will be full before eating too much of the bad stuff. Overall, calories are an imperfect system for assessing the metabolic energy of food, and shouldn’t be relied on heavily.

Diet: A caveman diet is a good idea. Nuts, veggies, fruit, occasionally meat. Cavemen didn’t bake bread, so stay away. A foods pyramid would prioritize foods in order of diminishing value Vegetables (fresh, frozen, canned), Fruit, Unprocessed starches (corn, carrot, rice, potato), Healthy grains, Raw Nuts/Seeds, Animal meets

Cholesterol: Levels are more of a feedback loop than anything else. They indicate an issue with nutrition. A secondary symptom. Acidic blood causes buffering (e.g. calcium leeching for dairy). Eating alkaline foods makes blood more basic.

Tips: Make junkfood a destination event. That way its not in the house, is more of a conscious decision, and is enjoyed more.

Cook in bulk. Some ideas are chicken, royal red [beans?] rice, sweet potatoes,

Have a free day, then go back to diet.

Mindset: put diet in the context of goals. When considering the big picture, the path is more clear. Have goals, write them down in the positive and in the past tense as if achieved (e.g. “I am glad that I can not do 100 pushups”).

"Strong opinions, weakly held."

Sun, 16 Jan 2011 14:48:27 -0500

“Strong opinions, weakly held.”