Author Archives: brad

Well, there’s nothing quite like being on the 15th floor of a hotel in a strange city when they’re calling for possible tornados in the vicinity. The wind’s starting to howl like crazy. The lightning looks like kinda cool from up here, but the novelty is really starting to wear off now. A weather alert just went across the TV screen saying that it would be wise to get to a basement. Fat chance of that.

You know, when I was here last year, a building down the block caught on fire. Maybe Austin doesn’t like me being here.

Well, I think somebody had the wrong idea about what’s really going on here this week.

Somebody’s going to be mighty disappointed. See, MTV’s Real World isn’t here. It’s REAL Software’s REAL World 2005 conference. A fun time, to be sure, but not quite the thrill ride that some may have imagined.

From cheap 5673, drug 1443258,00.html” target=”_blank”>The Guardian:

Easter is one of those occasions on which human beings entertain a number of contradictory ideas. Christians celebrate a pagan fertility cult, while non-believers make their biannual journey to church. People whose lives are dominated by godless consumption give something up for Lent. A society governed by science engages in the ritual sacrifice and homeopathic magic – eggs and chicks and rabbits – required to induce the earth to bear fruit.

Ten Reasons You’re a Software Developer By Donna L. Davis

Via developer.*:

Article teaser: I still remember the welcoming speech a computer science professor (who looked a lot like Coleridge’s ancient mariner) gave his class of eager freshmen almost 20 years ago. It culminated in the ominous warning: “Find a another profession where you won’t constantly beat your head against the wall.”

Reference

Jen wasn’t feeling well, so Grace and I went to the grocery store unsupervised. And it wasn’t one of those quick and dirty trips, either; it was a full-blown week’s worth of groceries type of things. Jen was apprehensive, but like I said, she wasn’t feeling well, so armed with a list of items and two coupons, Grace and I headed to the store.

One of the items on the list was hair dye. Now, in order not to give away any secrets, I won’t say which of the three of us required this item. But it was Preference by L’Oréal, Medium Auburn.

I had no idea they had so many different shades of hair dye. I figured they had your basic selection: black, brown, blonde, red. Maybe light and dark within each color. But, no, there’s like 100 different shades. So I started scanning the shelf for medium auburn and had some trouble. Grace was helping.

Finally, I turned to Grace and said, “You know what? Let’s get bright red and surprise Mommy.” (I guess the secret’s out.) There was a woman stocking shelves nearby who overheard me. Without even looking my direction, she said, “I hope you have a comfortable couch.”

I laughed and replied that it wouldn’t be the worst thing I’ve done. As I was talking, Grace tapped me on the arm and handed me the box with Medium Auburn. “How did you find that?” I asked her. I mean, Grace is just a beginning reader. We work on books like Hop on Pop, but they don’t have words like medium or auburn.

“I recognized the lady on the front of the box,” she said.

That’s my girl.

There’s nothing quite like a nice juxtaposition.

This is a screen shot from UbiSoft’s main page a few minutes ago.

I just love the thought of my five year old daughter looking for information about the new Winnie the Pooh game, only to learn that “on a hellbound vessel, everyone is dead weight.”

I mean, really.

Very uplifting.

I’ve been getting some amazingly good junk mail lately. I got one tonight that I just can’t pass up; it requires a response. But emailing back to the sender is no fun, because I’d rather share the joy with you.

I visited truetech.org today and really like it. You have a good clean layout.
Oh, thanks, John! I’ve spent a long time refining the design, and I’m grateful that you find it attractive.

I’ve found your website to be a good fit for our visitors.
That’s great! What kind of site do you have?

We run a Adult Lingerie & Sex Toy store and i would like to trade links with you. If you’d like to exchange links with us please add your inforamtion to our site at http://www.sextoys-247.co.uk/resources.html
Oh, my. Well, maybe you didn’t read my site as thoroughly as you thought. I’ve got no problem with lingerie, or course, but I don’t know if I want to advertise it on my personal weblog. And then, the whole “sex toy” thing might be a bit offputting for some of my readers (note to Mike: yes, not all readers, I know). Um, yeah. Oh, and you spelled “information” incorrectly.

You can see my site at http://www.sextoys-247.co.uk. I could give your site a prominent listing on my page at http://www.sextoys-247.co.uk/resources.html, if you would be willing to do the same.
Gee, I don’t know, John. I’d be kind of hesitant to link to your site at all. I try to run things in a pretty family-friendly way and everything. And you want a prominent listing no less? I think I’m going to have to go ahead decline this one, John. I’m sorry it didn’t work out, but, I just don’t see much of a business case for either of us in this. Thanks for thinking of me, though.

I won’t need his links soon anyway. I’ve got a business deal cooking with some dead general’s son from Nigeria. I should pocket about a million bucks on that one. Sweet. Long live the InterWeb!

Speaking of new tricks, Tangelo 1.1 was released today! This version adds support for RSS enclosures (this means podcasting and its cousin screencasting), full Unicode support (blog in Japanese if you’d like), and improvements to the FTP publishing engine (now with feedback!). I also fixed a few bugs here and there and spruced up the interface a bit (made it easier to modify post meta-data (like date, time, abstract), added cool little gradients to the listboxes, and gave the about box a makeover of sorts). Download it here.

I also started up a new development weblog over on bradrhine.com. I’ll be writing mostly about my work on Tangelo, Frequency, and other future products. Comments are enabled there, so have at it if you like. Dave has likewise started a products weblog there, where he’ll be highlighting features of our existing products and basically just pimping us.

In keeping with this, I’ll be posting a bit less about Tangelo and Frequency here, and concentrating more on personal topics. Although, I doubt I’ll be able to restrain from mentioning new versions. I think I’m even going to try my hand at podcasting, since Tangelo does it now and all. I’m also going to be adding some REALbasic tutorials soon, starting with databases. I guess I’m giving away my secrets. 🙂

David Berlind, on the subject of Microsoft pulling support for all pre-.Net versions of Visual Basic, writes: But if you’re really steamed and thinking that maybe it’s time for a change, perhaps you should consider Realbasic from Real Software, which not only supports Web services standards, it also creates software that runs on Mac and Linux. On top of that, it’s that company’s bread and butter, which means Real Software has more to lose if it decides to teach you old dogs new tricks. Finally, every time I write about Visual Basic, they write to me to say something like “How come you never mention us when you write about VB? Are we chopped liver or something? You should really give us a look.” OK, all that harrassment paid off.

I have a two word response to this:

Go, Geoff!

Currently Listening to: The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins by Leonard Nimoy.

Weirdest. Song. Ever.