I first heard this today while listening to Hansleminutes, so had to go find it on the web. Found it here: Raganwald: Programming Language Stories

Just inside the gates of heaven, St. Peter sits at a desk checking people in.

Peter: “Welcome to heaven. Programming language?”

The man at the front of the line says, “Smalltalk.”

Glancing at his clipboard, Peter says, “Room 33. Be very quiet as you pass Room Six.”

The process repeats itself with the next person in line:

Peter: “Welcome to heaven. Programming language?”

Person #2: “Common Lisp.”

Peter: “Room 17. Be very quiet as you pass Room Six.”

The next person moves to the front of the line with a look of curiosity on her face.

Peter: “Welcome to heaven. Programming language?”

Person #3: “Python.”

Peter: “Room 54. Be very quiet as you pass Room Six.”

Person #3: “Why do you keep telling us to be quiet as we pass Room Six?”

Peter: “Because the Ruby on Rails People are in Room Six, and they think they’re the only ones here.”

My buddy Intern Joe will love this one, since he's a big RoR guy...

Posted 3:15 PM    |    0 comments    |    Permalink   

I'm not afraid to admit I'm color challenged. Not that I can't distinguish colors correctly, it's more that I have no idea what colors go with what. It's funny, my wife always bums out when I refer to the RGB color space, which means nothing to her coming from the "real world" of color.

One of my coworkers, JohnB, pointed out the Kuler site the other day. It's a great way to come up with coordinated color pallettes (be it for a web site, painting a room, etc). Killer UI on their color picker to go along with it.

Thanks to nonstatic.com for pointing out the following article about Color Theory. I'll give that a read to see if I can learn at least the bare minimum...

Color Theory Tutorial by Worqx

keywords: color theory Kuler picker rgb cmyk

Posted 10:02 PM    |    0 comments    |    Permalink   

I know WiRNS (Windows Replay Network Server) has been out for a while, but I just discovered it. Until now, I've been using Personal ReplayGuide - a set of perl scripts that offer a channel guide and recording options for the ReplayTVs on the local network.

WiRNS offers that and a whole lot more. It's written in .NET (a plus!), so no need for perl to be installed (still need to verify this - I think some of the helper modules might still be perl scripts, and maybe they're magically working since I already have ActivePerl installed).

Update: Add IVSmagic to the mix. Apparently they both can sit between your ReplayTVs and the internet and manage guide data, watch/log traffic, etc. Based on some forum posts (see below), IVSmagic has the advantage that it can receive shows, not just send.

A couple places I've poked around for help on WiRNS:

• Series of "setting up" questions and lots of answers here
  
• WiRNS PlanetReplay forums here
  
• WiRNS screenshots with explanations here
  
• More help on avsforum in the ReplayTV forums

Some notes on getting things up and running:

• Install was pretty painless, just install and use the system tray icon to open the configuration.
  
• Added password for WiRNS config
• Have to use port 80 so that other Replays can stream to the PC (moved local IIS to another port)
• Not obvious: to get PC running WiRNS to show up as a legit IVS device:
• set "secondary web port" on the main config page. This is the (typically) 29000 range port used for IVS communication
• go to Replays page, delete the entry representing the PC WiRNS (wait few mins until it is gone from the page), then rescan.
  
• IVS number should be filled in automagically
  
• Still trying to confirm whether WiRNS PC can receive shows, or only send
• Answer: WiRNS can only SEND shows. Apparently "IVS Magic" can receive shows (and even auto accept!)
  

TO DO List:

• Force Net Connect - this is supported in WiRNS. I'd like to see if I can do that from my hosted site, in the case where my PC is off.
  
• Run WiRNS from a remote site, with remote IP addresses to the Replays? Doubtful, this is an EXE running.
• Look at IVS Magic for accepting IVS transfers.
• Create multiple IP addresses for PC for competing apps on port 80

Posted 10:30 AM    |    0 comments    |    Permalink