First day at the University

Monday I went to the university for the first time.

It was... Different. I was late. I got lost in a maze of buildings. When I got to my building, I didn't know where my class was (I forgot my schedule in the office).

Okay, so it wasn't different as I was late - I'm always late - But it was different in concept. I had to sit with another 150 people in an auditorium. The professor spoke. People listened. Since most of the class were women, I could notice that everyone Wrote Something. I couldn't find anything to write. Especially since they said the presentations they used would be available online and they didn't say much around what was shown in the presentations.

I mentioned the majority of women: It's surprising to me because I never considered Biology to be a subject studied by mostly women. It's not like it's Literature. But there I was, with a lot of women in the class - And I know some of the people reading this would say "Damn this is Kitch" and "Smootchie Moochies" (You, OMER), but all I was thinking was "How I wished Joah was here, to sit next to me". I kept SMSing her, too - I think Orange made a nice profit on me today.

Now, a step back: I started studying Biology this Sunday. I only came to the first class Monday, and met some people (even though I was late). I didn't use the laptop yet - Not much to write, and the auditorium wasn't very comfortable for laptop-use anyway. I did see 4 people out of the 150 using a laptop though so I guess it's possible.

Today we had two classes, two hours each: Ecology, in which we had a preview about the course which would explain to us about what is Biodiversity, and the Kingdom Animalia introduction course, which would talk about several groups of animals and how they live, inside and out.

They seemed to be interesting courses. The Ecology course is video taped so I can watch it online later, and not show up to classes. The KA intro is not, but there is a video recording of the course from two years ago, given by the same guy, viewable online. He suggested we view that one, as well. Since I can't appear on both classes almost at all, I need to really rely on these videos.

I was surprised at the university's order in everything. Everything was online - Schedules, tests, videos, even the course's books are online and available as PDFs. An amazing system, really. At first impression, TAU doesn't seem as bad as I thought it is. I know it's much better than other universities my friends go to, like Bar Ilan, in theri services, and that's a good thing. I just can't compare it to places like the Technion, and since I can't even study there if I wanted to, it's not relevant.

I hope the rest of the year would go smoothly. This is the first week and it should be quiet - Only Monday and the rest is off. I'll need to watch course videos on Wednesday, though.

tags:[ University ] [ Biology ]

WebObjects and Documentation

I've been working for a while with WebObjects and I must say I enjoy this well thought-of framework. I particulary enjoy the fact that almost everything I could ask for was already tried and done, so that most google searches get what I want to do without any code to implement.

So, when I wanted to send an automated email when a specific event occurs, I wasn't surpirsed to find WOMailDelivery. I was, however, surprised to find this in the documentation:

protected Object mailSession: Intentionally undocumented.

Now, it's not a first when implementations don't want to talk about their internals. But why put it in the docs as intentioanlly undocumented? They could have made it "private", but they probably wanted to use it in their own subclasses. So why not tag it as "undocumented" in javadoc?

Sometimes I just can't understand programmers. And I am one!

tags:[ WebObjects ] [ Development ]

Mac Development Center?

For a long time it has bothered me that Mac Developers seem unrightfully deprived of the Mac hype - Even though you could find a lot of information on the ADC, it's not the same as what Apple has in their stores alone, such as The Studio Series.

Giving a pack of services for starting developers might draw more people into the Apple development world. Cocoa, WebObjects, and just general Unix development could benefit greatly from an Apple or Apple-related service for people who choose to develop their applications on the Apple platform. The documentation is great, but docs are not enough: What about some added-value?

For example, there are Grpahics, Video-Editing and Music "clubs" all over the world offering people first-hand experience with different software. Xcode has its quirks but it's a good product; WebObjects however, you couldn't find anyone to give you hosting for developmnent purposes only for less than 30$/month. For ASP.NET you would find for 2.5$/month, for J2EE you could find at around 4$/month.

And what about CVS hosting? And not only for OpenSource, where SoureForge are doing a great job keeping it alive. Even for closed service, low-budget, start-up ocmpanies/groups. These starting developers can't be expected to buy a full Mac OS X Server and a hardware to go along with it just because they wanted to stress test their application on WebObjects, to benchmark it against Hibername with Tapestry, for example. Neither can they be expected to pay 30$/month for it. Also, an opportunity for developers deploying their application to stress test it on a Mac to see how powerful it is might and should draw deployers to purchase Mac hardware for their deployment and hosting needs.

I will try to see how I can implement this type of "Digital Times" for developers. A set of services given for developers to try out, to use and to benchmark, all Mac-style.

Wish me luck!

tags:[ Development ] [ Apple ]

Staying in Touch - With Captain Connected!

A few days ago my phone died, and since Joah couldn't reach me, she decided to teach me about the importance of being available on the phone, or as she called it, "Staying Connected".

For that, she used her favorite super-hero, "Captain Connected". This was a keynote presentation but since I can't really upload it here, we will have to make do with exported images.

tags:[ Cellphones

Geekim Store - First orders

In a really weird sequence of events, the store had two orders for the BSOD shirt. Now, the site is still in building progress - We just put on ads to test how it would go (and paid for them more than we thought we would) and got a lot of visitors, most of them weren't buying.

But, as said, we had two orders, one guy also joined the "members club" Dima had set up there (in it's temporary form) and evengot new shirt ideas.

Can't say I was expecting this, but I'm not displeased.

tags

[ Shirts

[ Israel

[ Geek

iTrip not so trippin'

A while ago I got an iTrip for my iPod. Placing it on my home radio worked, but moving it just an inch above it made it stopped working. Obviously in my car I couldn't place it directly on the radio, so in areas like Tel Aviv where there is a lot of pirate stations around I couldn't hear a thing.

It worked great, however, once you get far away from Herzelia towards the north.

Anyway, I just noticed this hack. I think I will try it - What have I got to lose? Practically speaking, I HAVE lost my money on the iTrip, as it works just barely.

(Hope I don't screw it up, though)

tags iTrip

Blank Links

I have sent a rant mail to the Apple Developer Connection's (the ADC, which is Apple's MSDN) support team, and received a weird letter in response:

Hello Aviad,

Thank you for contacting the Apple Developer Connection regarding Java and WebObjects.

Information regarding Java and WebObjects can be found at the following web page:









Alternatively, you can obtain further support for various Apple technologies via our Developer Mailing Lists:



You may wish to submit an Enhancement Request to Apple regarding any improvements you feel would be helpful by using the ADC Bug Reporter. This will ensure that your request is dealt with by the appropriate Apple team.

Information regarding submitting bug reports through the Bug Reporter can be found on our web site at:



The Bug Reporter allows ADC members to submit bug reports or enhancement requests directly into our bug database. The Bug Reporter also allows ADC members to check limited status on bug reports, originated by the member.

We hope that this information is of assistance to you. If you have any additional questions please feel free to contact us.

And I ask - WHY? Why bother having an automated response tool, if it doesn't even give me correct links? I can see two sad things coming out of this:

1. I could send them a mail saying I got no links - But then their automated response system would come up again saying that I should submit it to the Bug Reporter and Again not specify a link!
2. I could go to the Bug Reporter and report a bug - But I don't have the link!

Luckily, Google was on my side once again, and I have found the Bug Reporter.

And Joah thought I was weird.

When I was your age

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a game programmer. I didn't know it was programmer at the time, though, until I was 10 or something. But I knew I wanted to make games. To think about them, to work in companies like this or this was (and is, I guess, after Joah) my dream.

I know this job offer is not the same, but it's just as great - And maybe even much more fun. I just hope my friend would apply... I seriously think that he is the best man for the job.

[Blizzard]
[World of Warcraft]

New iMac around

The new iMac is out, featuring an upgrade of hardware alongside two significant improvement to the home user, I think: Built-in iSight, and the Front Row application. These two two, along with the hardware improvement (Memory speed increase to the DDR2 bus, for example).

Front Row is something similar to Windows Media Center. It joins iPhoto, iTunes and your Movies library, and since iMac comes with a remote, you flip between them from the comfort of your living room sofa.

I can just imagine me and Joah sitting on a sofa (or a sofa pillow on the floor, anyway... No sofa soon) flipping through our photo album or watching a Buffy episode. Sigh... Can't wiat for her to come and live here.

Even though I know she'd never let me get an iMac. *wink*

Fun is in the Air(Port)

I have recently purchased an AirPort Express to make my house wireless. I found it as a not-that-expensive solution that gives a lot for its price, but I am not here to talk about the AirPort itself.

Opening my house to wireless communication made a few changes, both in concept of connection and in the physical appearance of the house. See, since my cables modem had to be on one side of the house, I couldn't place the computer on the other side (It would require tedious job with wiring the house - I've done that sort of thing in my previous home and it's not pretty). Now that the house is wireless, both my PowerMac and iBook have internet access and they can connect to each other without being near one another, not to mention the tedious work of wires and hubs and the likes. I just hate wires.

But now for the "next project": I have a simpleton PC sitting at home. It's a Pentium 4 2GHz, which can't really compete with the macs so it won't even try to by suggesting to me that I should boot it up. I haven't done so in almost a year now, and I can't see a reason why I should. Or at least, couldn't until recently.

You see, it's a simple math thing: 1 Crap Computer + 1 Wireless card + 2 BFHDs (Something like BFG but for Hard drives), wrap it up with some simple operating system that requires nothing special (even Knopix would do) and you've got yourself a complete set of wireless storage device, just hook it up to a power cord and viola!

Now I only need to find the ingridients... The hard drive on the pentium at the moment is both 80GB And barely working. And if we want to talk about good, reliable PCI cards that do Wireless... Sigh... Not the ones that could be found on Zap, anyway.

Anyway, let's hope this thing works!