Power-coder.net

As programmers we are constantly  worrying about the ‘hows’ of things.

• How am I going to make this function faster?
• How can I write this query without joining 16 tables?

More often than not though, when writing code we forget to ask the really important question, WHY?  We take instructions from our clients and users and immediately get to figuring out ‘how’ we’re going to make it work.  We plan out how we are going to set the IDs for our DIVs and whether or not we want to use jQuery to make it work.  We get so excited to dig in and start writing code that we forget to ask that critical question to figure out why we need to write it in the first place.  Perhaps the reason that your client is asking to change the colour of a block of text is actually because the page layout doesn’t make sense for the situation.  Maybe they think a help button is needed next to your feedback form because your form labels aren’t making it clear what you’re asking for.

Sometimes the answer to ‘Why?’ will be an unjustified ‘Because that’s the way I want it to be.’ The thing is that is totally OK, at least you asked the question. There will be plenty of other times where the answer will reveal a deeper issue, and it’s sometimes even easier to fix those instead of making the change that was requested.  Which as a programmer, should appeal to your genetic desire to get more done by doing less.

So go ahead, the next time you get a change request, ask why, the answer may surprise you.

I don’t know what has been going on with the world lately, but being the only computer guy in my close group of friends with an IT support background definitely has it’s down sides.  Since August I have experienced 5 catastrophic hard drive failures.  I wish I could blame them all on one common factor, like bad firmware or something, but I simply cannot.  The drives were of different ages and from a variety of manufacturers and system builders.  Only one of these drives was mine, the rest belonged to friends and family.  Care to take a guess at how many of these drives were backed up?

Zero.

Luckily for me, my drive that failed was in an external enclosure and was only used for backup anyway.  The rest though, were the main system drives from my friend’s primary PCs.  I was able to get most of the data off of one of them, but the other 3 were completely toast.  Based on the look that shows up on people’s faces when I tell them that I can’t restore any of their pictures or home business files from a failed drive, I might as well be a surgeon informing family of an unfortunate surgical outcome for a family member.  It’s absolutely gut-wrenching.  I don’t wish it on anybody.

I’m a firm believer that if your data does not exist in at least 3 places, it doesn’t exist at all.  Burning DVDs of pictures or copying them to an external hard drive are great, but you need to have a copy OUTSIDE of your home as well.  The method that works for me is that I have an external hard drive that I leave in my desk at work, every other weekend I bring it home and copy my data onto it.  Monday morning I put it back in my desk at the office and I feel much more protected.  Some people like to ‘cloud’ option as well, however with Cogeco having a 60gig per month bandwidth cap, it’ not an option for me (my backup drive is almost 200gigs.)

Really though, I don’t care how you do it, just BACK UP YOUR STUFF!

After many long months of decision making and cash saving, I have finally decided to dive head first into the wonderfully complicated world of iPhone application development. It is something that I’ve had in the back of my mind since I first got my iPhone almost a year ago, but at the time with my wedding and everything I wasn’t in the market to get myself started.

The first step on this journey involved me purchasing my first Mac ever, the 13″ Aluminum MacBook. I was tempted to go with the Mac Mini instead, however for the money the MacBook just offered too many advantages.

I have to admit, after giving it an honest shot, I’m really starting to like how OS X does things. It definitely isn’t perfect but it is a refreshing change for somebody who has been looking at a Windows desktop for the last couple years. The mental workflow took some getting used to, though I’m now feeling nearly as comfortable on my Mac as I do on my Windows machine, with only a couple of exceptions that I don’t need to get into during this post. Maybe some other time.

So far I have really liked the Xcode development environment as well, like everything else on the Mac, it just takes some getting used to. Before you know it everything just makes sense. Even though I’m sure there’s a ton of stuff included in Xcode, it all sort of hides in the background instead of being right in my face and adding to the confusion. I was able to build and execute a simple iPhone simulator app very quickly without having to resort to a tutorial.  I’ll admit that was a pretty exciting moment for me!

I still have an absolute TON of things that I need to learn before I start releasing stuff on the iTunes App store, but I’m going to do my best to document what I learn as I go.  I’ll also try to point out any useful resources that I find along the way.  I’m sure there will be plenty of surprises, it’s all very exciting!

Wish me luck!  Hopefully I don’t suck at this…

UPDATE: As of this Sunday, March 15th, this monitor will be visiting a recycling centre.  If you are interested in taking it off my hands and can pick it up, it’s yours!  Just let me know!

I realize that I currently only receive about 5 hits a day to this page and that is my own damned fault since it has been nearly a year between this post and the one below it.  However I’m still going to go out on a limb and mention that I have a CRT monitor in my office that I am simply getting tired of looking at, does anybody want it?

Here’s the details:

I managed to find a link to a review over at PCWorld.  They mention that it is a great display for graphics work, which I can’t argue with, this is an awesome screen.

I’m looking to find a home for this screen since it is still in great working condition.  I’m asking for $100 but I’ll accept any reasonable offers.  I have recently seen this same screen listed for $130 on Ebay.  I don’t want to ship it so I’m looking for somebody that would be able to meet to pick it up in the Burlington – Oakville Ontario region.

If you’re interested please let me know at wally@power-coder.net.  If you have any questions please feel free to ask them in the comments, that way everybody can benefit from them.

As for the rest of the stuff on this site, I have plans, check back soon and you might be surprised.

Cheers,
Wally

Some say that you can’t call yourself a runner until you’ve actually run in a race. I’m happy to say that on March 8th, 2008 I accomplished that feat by running the Slainte Irish Pub St. Patrick’s Day Road Race.

This wasn’t your everyday run however, as you can see from the picture below, there was a bit of a snowstorm going on around us!

A look at the snow outside before the race

It definitely wasn’t the warmest I’ve been while out for a run, but as you can tell from our faces in the picture below, we were doing ok.

Joe, Dorothy and I ready to go

The route was pretty good, we started just off Concession Street, ran along the mountain brow and then made our way down the Jolly Cut. The whole time down I was telling Joe how nice it would be to have one of those x-games head mounted cameras, that way there would be some evidence for how much snow was coming down.

Considering the weather I was pretty happy with my results, my goal was to not be the last person to cross the line and I beat that by about 50, sweet!

Joe and I busting for the finish, notice the snow!

The best part about the whole day was the hot Irish stew and beer waiting for us at the pub just over the finish line. Definitely helped us get warmed up quick!

For those thinking about entering this race, go for it! It’s a lot of fun and from what I could tell everybody had a fantastic time. I’ll see you there again next year for sure!

The three of us at the finish line, we made it!