smart computer use?

I always like it when I’m using software and I see a little humor mixed in with honesty. A great example of this would be a small line of text I just saw in the new 2.5 version of Wordpress regarding having to manually update your site for daylight savings time.

I like this type of approach from developers of software. It shows that they recognize this issue, they explain what to expect from the current version of the software, and they humble themselves in the eyes of the users all in one shot. It even got me to chuckle a bit.

Good stuff.

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I just finished reloading the main desktop machine in my home studio. My main machine is an old-school 2.5 gig Pentium 4 with about 768mb of RAM.

It’s not a fast machine, really, but it’s not a slow machine either. It was built about 5 years ago, and it’s been used as a web development machine ever since.

I reloaded this machine with Windows XP Professional. It’s a good operating system. Windows XP seems to be at it’s peak, so it’s a confident system to run on a machine. Windows XP is also lighter on system resources than Windows Vista, so I am opting to use XP on my older machines to ensure that they still can run at a nice clip.

The reload of Windows XP went too smooth. All I needed to install after the reload was:

• UltraEdit
• FileZilla
• Winamp
• AVP, erm, I mean AVG anti-virus
• Mozilla Firefox

And now I’m pretty much set.

This machine hadn’t been reloaded for a couple years. It was running all kinds of crazy software and had been put through the ringer resources-consumption-wise. I am glad to now take this old machine and put it in my home office/studio. The machine won’t be asked to do much other than ftp some files and serve as a code editor. It might also get some minor Flash work thrown at it. There may also be some blogging. But, there isn’t anything that I’ll demand of this machine beyond what it can handle.

I might also try to run Unreal Tournament GOTY Edition on this one. This machine was pretty much built to spec to handle UT GOTY Edition. Nothing new though, gotta stay with the old-school games on this machine.

I had the feeling that this might be the last time I load Windows XP onto a machine. Anything new I buy or use will more than likely have Windows Vista or some form of Linux on it. All my Windows XP machines seem to be at their final stage right now.

We’ll see, I guess. What will become of Windows XP?

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Seth Godin makes a great a great point in his post about Data vs Software, claiming that we’re finally on the cusp of seeing web-aware software and applications that live on the web.

I’d love to see that. It’s gonna happen sooner or later. Now is as good of a time as ever. I would love to have applications that reference the vast amounts of data available on the web to make use of the application much easier.

Just think of all the times you’ve been using an application and you’ve had to hop onto the web to download and manually retrieve information or add-ons to the app. Most apps could benefit from a little bit of data retrieval from the web, making use of the app easier. ThinkGeneology.com has a great related article about the convergence of web software and desktop software, touching on the topic of Rich Internet Applications. Good stuff.

Back to Seth’s post, if you’re looking for a good source for seeing what’s available for Firefox add-ons, he’s got a great link in that post as well. Check it out.

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If you like to use WinAmp for your music or other media on your computer, you may have tried to use it’s shuffle functionality. For some reason, Winamp likes to do something that doesn’t actually seem completely random, but is still random.

In short Winamp’s shuffle mode kinda sucks. At least I don’t like it. And a short search around the internet made me realize a lot of people feel this way.

The quickest fix is to use the randomize function of Winamp. It’s really easy to do:

1. Turn off shuffle mode.
2. On the Winamp interface, select:
   > The “Misc” Button >
   > The “Sort List” Button >
   > and then choose “Randomize list”

Now you’ll have a completely random list compiled. And each track will only play once until the list is completed.

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There is more to developing software than just programming. There is equally just as much planning, modeling, and testing that goes on during the development of computer software.

A Humorous View

Here’s an interesting link about the software development cycle. This link is meant to be humor. Even though it is meant to be humorous, it still rings a little bit of truth about what goes on behind the scenes during the development of software that you use every day.

A Somewhat Technical Description

The web browser you use to read this, for example, it the result of huge amounts of effort from many people. This QuickStudy over at Computer World is a nice, easy to understand view of some different methods that are used to the development cycle.

In Depth, Technical Descriptions of Software Development Cycles

Wikipedia, of course, has some in-depth information about the processes used in the development of software. This is a good read for anybody who is interested in digging a little deeper than the QuickStudy in the previous paragraph. Also equally interesting to read through is this article about the Software Development Life Cycle.

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