Posts Tagged software
Apple’s humour regarding Windows Network Icon on OS X
Posted by Craig_Strong in Miscellaneous, Technology / Hardware on February 15th, 2010
Unlike most of my posts this one is aimed to provide some pretty light hearted fun. I have been using OS X for a few years now and am pretty much on a network all the time. Well for all these years I have noticed that in the network panel, windows machines are represented by CRT’s and other *nix/Mac’s are represented by a pretty swish high definition Apple TFT’s. I have always chuckled at this slightly, but today this little observation sure did make myself and a colleague laugh.
I tend to keep my icons pretty small and standard. With a slight slip/ accidental pinch on a macbook pro whilst setting up a VPN connection I enlarged the icon used by OS X to represent the windows machines. It became so large, I was able to read the information on the CRT icon used to represent Windows machines. On reading this we sure did laugh! Low and behold Apple use a Windows system failure/crash notice to represent such machines on a network by default. Who said Apple don’t have a sense of humour.
I apologise to those who probably discovered this years ago, I just thought I would share this as it’s new to me.
Typical example of networked machines
Typical display of networked machines
The enlarged Mac machine icon (Default OS X Icon)
An enlarged Apple machine on the network
An enlarged Windows machine on the network (Default Windows Icon)
An enlarge Windows machine on the network
Why buy an iPad and where does it fit in to the market place ?
Posted by Craig_Strong in Product Reviews, Tech Headlines, Technology / Hardware on January 30th, 2010
Finally the long awaited iPad has has been released. For quite some time people had speculated what the device was going to be and what it would be capable of. This has been followed by some passionate underlying debates for what it should and needs to be for consumers. Well the device has been released, which has been met predictably by a mixed reception with continued debate. Following such debates, the key point of confusion standing out is people are unsure where an iPad fit’s into their lifestyle. This is the question I am trying answer from my own perspective and lifestyle, suggesting where an iPad would mainly suit me.
iPad doesn't replace PC's or smart phones
Being a Software Developer/IT Manager by profession I have pretty much access to a computer/device of some description most places I visit on a day to day basis. I currently use a ‘G1 Android phone’, have a ‘macbook’ for working on the move, iMac at home, and have a Vista machine at work, not to mention access to several remote linux servers holding my information. I also have an xbox360 which is linked to my media linked to the TV. With all these devices around me where would an iPad fit in and why would I want one?
To understand where an iPad would fit into my lifestyle, I have to look at my daily patterns and highlight where I waste time with a little ‘lean’ thinking. Pretty much most of the day I’m in front of a computer and I clearly don’t see and iPad as a suitable replacement/substitute for what I use these devices for. When relaxing in front of the TV, listening to music via the xbox360 and iMac, I don’t see and iPad offering anything against these devices. I certainly don’t want a 10 inch device to replace my mobile phone unless I was aiming to block out the sun. So what gap is leftwithin my daily lifestyle pattern?
Well looking at my daily patterns I quickly identified somewhere where I am wasting time which could be improved. As part of my day, I regular attend Scrum meetings, meetings with 3rd parties, and am often called for quick consultation from various parts of the business. Most of the time these can be quick meetings lasting no longer than 10-20 minutes. When called for any of these tasks, I find myself picking up my A4 notepad, rushing into a room and writing notes. Most of the time I then type up key points of the meeting on my PC. Sometimes however with interruptions I miss the odd one or two and end up being chased up by others where I have to then play catch up. For me, this is where I see an iPad fitting into my lifestyle.
If I could turn to the iPad rather than an A4 notepad this would mean I could take more information everywhere, makes notes once and most importantly of all for me is to free up my time. An iPad offers 10 hours of battery life and can stay on standby for a month! It is small, lightweight and quick to turn on and off which makes it a perfect fit to replace my A4 notepad replacement. I can make notes and pass it around the room with others to share information such as diagrams, images or notes, as easily as passing around sheets of paper. I have a macbook, but there is no way I could get it to fill this gap like an iPad could, otherwise believe me I would be already doing it. It’s overkill, less mobile, slower to turn on and involves launching full blown software packages. This is enough to say no and the A4 notepad has won every time. On the same note where I would use my macbook and smartphone, an iPad wouldn’t be a replacement for these. My macbook is good at being a macbook and provides me with the ability to have a mobile computer for developing code, running VM’s etc. My smartphone is too much of a compromise with such a small screen. Therefore I’m very glad Apple decided to make the iPad exactly what it is without a full OS trying to compete with the notebook/laptop devices. A purposeful and simple solution to fill an obvious gap in the market.
There are other obvious uses where the iPad would be a benefit and that is on the commute. I used to travel to work by train carrying at least one magazine, a book and a macbook every day. An iPad would have meant I could just carry a macbook with it, reducing the weight and giving me the ability to carry much more reading material. I don’t see the point spending on an ebook reader now when and iPad is just a bit more money for a lot more value in return. I could just pull out at any time to fill the short, but sometimes very long gaps between train journeys. If the train is 10-15 minutes late, I’m not going to boot up a macbook and find a place to sit on a very over crowded platform.
iPad replaces notebooks and ebook readers
Obviously my viewpoint above is selfish to my lifestyle. Who else could use an iPad ? Well looking at my circle of friends and family, unlike me most of them are not tech people. However, they all have computers and laptops and I know this as usually I’m contacted at some point if they run into problems. Looking at their use it tends to be mostly shopping online, social networking, emails and sharing photos. Most of them also seem to be intimidated and frustrated with their computers to various degrees. They look boring and a computer probably reminds them of the office they just left in the day. For these users an iPad could be a good option as it’s cheap ‘ish’, simple, secure and most of all friendly. It’s a device that can sit on the coffee table and be picked up and used anytime just like a magazine. For less tech savvy users this is far more inviting to use and therefore likely to get more use. This is why I’m glad they made it more like an iPhone than a notebook. It makes much more sense for this device to be app based and would be much more attractive to already proficient iPhone users.
I’m sure it won’t be long before we see Google responding with a slate device offering Android, not ChromeOS.
Common Misconceptions of PHP
Posted by Craig_Strong in Design Structure, Development, Frameworks, Security, Software Reviews, Zend Framework on January 2nd, 2010
As we have just rolled over to 2010 I thought I would compile a list of 4 common questions often raised against PHP from people within the IT industry (no particular user groups). Each of these 4 statements were mentioned to me within 2009, but stem back many years in some cases. Some of these questions demonstrate plain ignorance in some cases, others just a little confusion as a result of lack of understanding or exposure. Therefore I hope this contributes to clearing up some obvious misconceptions by my provision of some brief answers.
- PHP is not a secure language
- PHP doesn’t have good support for OOP
- PHP is slow
- PHP is an amateur language
Believe it or not this was stated to me by a highly ranked person within the development community. I was very surprised that such a statement was put forward considering PHP is a scripting language and security is not a definitive answer, but an on going process in which every facet of IT must undergo constantly to remain secure. To clarify this is a case of blaming poor workmanship on the tools. Although some tools are better than others, in no way do I believe this statement to be true. PHP can be as strong as the best of them in terms of security and some of the worlds most secure systems including many systems of the financial services industry as an example which hold vast amount of sensitive information can be found to be written using PHP. When using a tool to build something, the end result is that of the craftsman effort, ability, knowledge and experience. Keeping the argument of operating system security out of this which would be hosting PHP, to obtain security you need good, experienced and security aware developers. I personally believe this misconception often raises it’s head because of other languages restrict development to the framework or coding environment and developers within these environments don’t have to confront some areas of security as a result of this. I don’t think it’s good for developers to rely upon security being dealt with away from their application by making it someone or something else’s responsibility. A good craftsman will make it their job to be aware of system security and test their application before release as well as include continuous monitoring and alerting tools to support the application. Obviously there are those which specialise in such areas and their knowledge should be referred to in times of doubt or curiosity via supporting texts and communities. PHP is as secure as the developer’s knowledge and testing/release procedure involved with it as with most other languages.
I’m surprised that some people still think this. Before the release of PHP5 including the Zend 2 Engine, which was 13/07/2004 this would have been true. However please keep up people, we are in 2010 now and OOP support for PHP has been in place for over 5 years! I haven’t written procedural code for years with the exception of the odd testing script and procedure. There are great libraries available as well for those looking to extend OOP ability including such libraries as SPL, PECL, PEAR to name but a few. There are also some very fast moving and powerful frameworks available fully supporting OOP including such Frameworks as Zend Framework, Symfony, CakePHP, Codeigniter. These are also become very popular and demand for such frameworks from the workplace is rapidly increasing (see my other post).
Yes believe it or not I have heard people claim this. PHP is pretty damn fast as a scripting language written in C. If people say PHP is slow, I don’t believe the have looked at the problem or debugged their code well enough. There are so many factors that influence speed such as the OS, memory, debug code, logging scripts, the implemented code, other applications on the server etc. If your PHP code is running slow, debug it and find the problem. It’s likely that the problem could sit with any of the above or it could be badly written code. There are good debug tools out there such as Xdebug which could save you some time finding the problem. Remember PHP is so versatile you can even extend it in C. If you are doing something very complex in PHP and by taking it down a layer might reduce some of the functions taking some time, you have the option to write an extension if needed. I personally have never had to do this, but have seen it done for a workplace specific extension and it worked perfectly and very quickly.
With full OOP support and factoring in that it’s one of if not the most widespread scripting language and as mentioned briefly in point 1 above, you can find PHP in almost all industries. Now I am not one to suggest the best technology is the most widespread (no names mentioned). However if PHP was a amateur language why is it so popular in so many professional industries which demand professional results. You can write pretty much anything you want using PHP and it can be as simple and complex as you want it to be. I have used Java quite a bit in the past and often find myself using the same code design texts to reference my PHP objects as my Java objects. I even apply the same design pattern sources for both languages. An example is the built in observer pattern interface in Java, (java.util.Observer) PHP also has this (SplObserver). Again I feel that stating that PHP is amateur is missing the point that PHP it’s a tool for the job. If amateurs use PHP you might get amateur results by the same token if professionals use it you get professional results, which is obviously the same as any other language.
Overall I think some of the questions or statements raised above are raised as a result of lack of understanding. As with most things in life some people scratch the surface of an area of interest and call themselves experts. The same experts make such judgements which create barriers for others. This could reading a text titled ‘Learn PHP in 24 hrs’ then calling oneself an experienced programmer or taking your driving test after a couple of lessons in a controlled environment and calling oneself an experienced driver confident enough to race with the likes of ‘Jenson Button’ and expect to win. Personally I have been using PHP for over a decade now and I am still learning new things everyday, particularly through exposure of different implementations. The language is moving fast with PHP6 arriving soon as well as many new and exciting related projects becoming available such as the array of frameworks which provide common interfaces to integrate with many different technologies. I would encourage anyone to look under the bonnet and get to know PHP in more depth and hopefully you will see the true power and capabilities of it.
PHP and the demand for frameworks from businesses
Posted by Craig_Strong in Frameworks on November 10th, 2009
Over the past few years PHP has matured somewhat. Object support continues to grow and more demands for advanced web based applications/software have began putting PHP into a light of it’s own. The once simple scripting language has matured into a powerful OO web scripting arsenal which when combined with the right environments can run with the best of them. Those who push pass the beginners boundary and delve beyond the simple tutorials and basic functionality, use the versatile properties of PHP with good design and OO knowledge who progress, achieve and develop great things and have fun in the process also.
With PHP being applied in new ways and object support it was only a matter of time before there would be an explosion of frameworks on the scene. Not least with such popularity and community support, the Frameworks that are out there are diverse and offer different development facets which can present developers and businesses many advantages in order to build complete professional solutions. With more and more enterprises demanding more from the web, frameworks are becoming more in demand and as such are snowballing in their release cycles to offer a toolkit that many developers and few workplaces can ignore. Many including myself having used frameworks find it difficult to develop without them due to the benefits on offer such as reduced development time and reusable code libraries
As a result of this PHP developers are presented with many frameworks to choose from, which can be a mine field. Although most frameworks are similar offering MVC based designs, some are quite different and vary in depths, versatility and complexity. These aspects should be considered by the developer when choosing the right framework for the job. I would personally recommend trying a few out to see what similarities there are, what suits your needs and what you feel you can mature with. I have tried CakePHP, Symfony and Zend Framework resulting in predominantly the later choice as I feel it suits my requirements as a developer better.
When choosing a framework in my opinion you should not only consider the current state of the framework, but also the support, community and demand for the frameworks you are considering from the business world. If your going to invest time learning, implementing and possibly contributing to a framework, knowing the demand from businesses should be an important factor as this could enhance your career prospects. This demand in turn can help secure a frameworks future as it influences support, training, functionality through corporate recognition.
To help recognise which frameworks are in demand from the job market, I have called in a few graphs of the more popular frameworks to see the differences of demand side by side. I found it interesting and I hope you do to:
Obviously these graphs don’t represent quality in any way, but they should provide a general overview of demands by employment. This can indicate relevance as in most cases (Not All), demand should reflect some the benefits on offer from the framework.
