Quite a few features on the Mac OS X UI are directly lifted from Enlightenment and similar projects. Enlightenment was the first UI emphasizing beauty and, for instance, had first spikes into OpenGL support about 10 years ago. They also were the the first to introduce the 'brushed metal' look throughout an entire UI. That all was back in the day when Mac OS 9 still looked like a souped up Windows 3.1 in a few places.
The new system settings tray introduced in Windows XP is a direct copy of the KDE settings layout of the time - which at the time also was a first. As where the Frog Design UI element designs.
All this is quite natural though, and can be taken for granted.
To be honest, I wouldn't take a professional UI designer serious, if he *weren't* intimately familiar with the various alternatives outside of mainstream OSes and UIs.
I've been deving fulltime ever since 2000 and the only proprietary technology I dealt with was Flash/ActionScript. Now that that universal platform is slowly going the way of the dodo, thanks to a new era of plattform fragmentation and the rise of serious rich client webapps in HTML5/Ajax I'm slowly moving away from it. I didn't join my former employers team of Unity developers, simply because I didn't want to learn another proprietary technology. Instead I left the team, eventually the company (for reasons unrelated - i was doing PHP at the time) and now picked up C++/Qt for a small, out of the norm Freelance deal building a desktop app. My bread and butter still is web stuff, but I enjoy filling the Flash/AS gap with another compiled language that does solid OOP.
Yes, I would do Mac OS X / iOS developing for a living, I would even do MS, SAP or Oracle (even though the last time I've done MS deving was back in 1999) but only if they'd pay me big time. 80 000 Euros/year or more in a good shop with resonable working times. Don't think that's going to happen, especially since I'm not actively looking for it. Yes, I can be bought by the dark side, but it has a price.
Aside from that, I'd rather sit in a room in a shared flat with little money and spend my time doing FOSS technology based development than earning a mediocre wage in a full time MS shop, learning skills that will become obsolete by design and strategy in 5 years from now the latest. I'd rather spent my time learning Emacs and Lisp, even that would have more future. And I could very well imagine that there are many FOSS type people who actually do put their money where there mouth is and do the same.
Anybody with more than 2 braincells who understands computers knows that with all the proprietary lock-in and patent-ridden bullshit in our field somebody eventually will pay the price if we don't keep the banner flying and give in to the dark side. RMS may be a crazy person with appalling table manners but he is right and dead-on with this freedom thing. Our jobs wouldn't be as good as they are today without his pioneer work - it is important to uphold the spirit and the values of the FOSS community - for our childrens sake.
No, turning down a MS job or even a Java/SAP job like I did last autum feels really good, and no money in the world can by me that feeling.
Maybe that's different with you, but never the less, I'd still be careful calling others a douche when it comes to this.
"I can hardly imagine two places more unsuitable for meeting potential love interests and founding long-term relationships than the internet and the disco club. Yet, curiously, these are the exact places in which courtship nowadays is most likely to be practiced." - Phillip Richdale
1.) No kidding. I just started using C++/Qt a week ago, you remember?
2.) I was exaggerating little for the fun and effect. But I think you understand.:-)
Still, thanks for the heads-up. I'm a lot on Google and stackoverflow these days anyway, as you can imagine.
Got a fresh copy of this 1000 page beast sitting on my night-table and OReillys C++ Cookbook should be arriving today, and I'll have a lot of refactoring to do before I can call my little first C++ app finished and not totally embarrassing to show to a Qt/C++ expert.... I'm currently trying to wrap my head around Signals and Slots, after years of only knowing Events and Listeners. I still don't get it, but people tell me once you do it's awesome and you don't want to go back. Sort of like using Git instead of Subversion. Ergo: Lots of work to do.... *promises to stop doing/. for the day*
I'm just going the other way. Building my first app in C++ using Qt. Which basically goes like this: OMG you piped a literal string without it being a genuine QString into my label... KERNEL PANIC! CRASH! 10 bazillion compiler errors.... WTF? Of course this sucks. However I'm well seasoned enough to know that when building a non-trivial application, it's exactly this sort of thing that will save my sanity in the long run.
With dynamically typed languages it's the exact opposite. Try building an IDE in JS. It has been done, but it need a solid amount of thorough planning and the one or other hack/stunt. However, writing a little script in JS is like having awesome sex compared to doing the same 'three-liner' in C++ which is like masturbating with a cheese grater in comparison. And still uses 30 lines.
All I can say is go with the flow. Wrap your head around dyn typing if you are not used to thinking in it and eventually you'll see the beauty in JS which blows C++ out of the water in the areas it is meant for.
Keep up with the spirit and good luck.... And now excuse me, I have to set up my little QWidget 20-something lines of code with 20 typecasts strewn about just to get the bloody label to show a simple literal when I click a menu entry.
Remember when OS X and thus Apple started to gain in users? Why was that?
It was because OS X was catering to the right people: The opinion leaders. To us. We were the ones who said to their friends: 'Windows crap. Linux to difficult. Mac OS X is best of both worlds. iPhoto is easy, on OS level it's just jpegs in folders. Mail.app uses mbox, readable with any Editor. And iTunes needs 3 clicks for it to convert to mp3 rather aac. No larger problems in avoiding lockin. Get an iMac or a Mac Mini.' Even today with Lion and their ongoing move to vertical lockin it's still a better option than Windows and Linux, hardware wise anyway.
The very same thing goes for mobile phones. It doesn't suprise me the least that N9 sales are better. It runs Symbian which has an IDE that is free, runs on all 3 major Desktops (and yes, Linux *is* a major desktop with developers) and is, AFAICT, better than Apples XCode. They should offer two variants of the Lumina line, Windows and Symbian, and take it from there, just to be sure. However, I'd already bet money that with ongoing development and maintainance for the Qt Creator IDE Symbian would win. It's such a wonderful OS and has solid potential of kicking Androids ass and rivaling iOS.... Nokia has screwed around to much and fragmented to much of their software base... for the markets sake, I hope they can turn this around before going the way of the dodo. If they'd manage that we'd finally have a valid competitor to Apple sans the fragmented platform that Android is becoming.
My first hand experience is that German magazines are way better in quality, quantity and content. Even the paper and print quality is better. What passes for a magazine in the US (hefty price and all) you couln't hand out as a freebee here. For instance, the Time magazine feels like those cheap flimsy pamphlets the Jehovas Witnesses hand out - and is costs more than 'Der Spiegel' or simular magazines. Computer Mags are all way better. I think it's safe to say that the 'CT' is the best computer related magazine on the planet and even US specialist publications such as PHP Architect don't come anywhere near the german 'PHP Magazin'.
So, to answer your question in a nutshell: Yes, at least german magazines are way better than US magazines.
1st -> Find the free open source web content management system used most in your area/country in the professional field. In Germany that'd be Typo3, in your case (I'm guessing you're a US resident) that would probably be EZ Publish, Drupal or something like that.
2nd -> Learn that system and learn it well. Do this in the following order (timeframes mentioned are basic estimates based on my experience in 13 years of web development):
a) 6 months: Editing and Management, understanding the systems structure principles, Backend/Admin Interface Navigation, core system functions and features. (Coverd with User Maunals and User Books on your CMS) --> take on first jobs as an editor for installations and websites using said system.
b) 4 months: Markup stuff. Templating, HTML, CSS, minor changes and adjustments at that level, look into mobile templates aswell, everything is going mobile, you want to be on top of that when doing markup stuff (covered with HTML and CSS books)
c) After about a year: Installing and maintaining, DB structure, MySQL DB Management (I'm presuming it uses a MySQL DB, since they all do), low-level maintainance, basic admining and maintainance at shell access level (Unix/Linux/OS X type stuff), DB and media directory backup, versioning... Here is where 3rd party tools come into play and will become an important asset. FTP GUI tool, Versioning GUIs, DB Tools, editors, etc. As for versioning my hint: Go with Git right away, the tools awailable now are foolproof and if you start versioning with the distributed paradigm right away you won't have problems understanding it later on. (covered with DB adming, Shell navigation, Linux, Apache and Books on Versioning... you're entering solid OReilly territory here)
d)1,5 - 2 years into your new field: Programming, internal framework structure, maybe some PL basics before hand (more specialist tools, perhaps an IDE of some sort, maybe your own remote system) (covered with books on the programming language the system is implemented in... most of them are built with PHP, Ajax / JavaScript would be the other end)
If you really want to make this your job, *do* focus on one system and one system/framework only! Pick the one most people are using or the one with which you get your first big-time paying customer. And don't be fooled, even then getting good money won't be easy at first. Proper editor level maintainace of a non-trivial web CMS requires experience, as does handling whiny customers and keeping your cool when the system goes offline for some odd reason you'll be researching for the next 30 hours:-) . You'll gain experience on the way, but also some grey hairs, so I expect anyway.
Start with maintaining your own test system and your own site running said system. Offer yourself up for editorial and maintainance work. Take it from there going into low-level maintainance and programming This will become interessting after 12-18 months into your new job.
Bottom line: Popular system, start of as an editor, take it from there. Good luck.
If I need a computer built, then electronic skills are required. If I need a good and memorable wedding held, good event-organisation skills are required.
Both are two entirely different things - keep that in mind.
Here's a suggestion from the top of my head:
1) Print your invitation and thank-you cards with a professional printer (online printing service) and have a professional avantgarde designer to the layout and print production. Take the best quality paper + UV laquer + maybe even embossing and/or special colors. It will be a tad more expensive - two printruns of 250 items each come at roughly 200$ just for the cards, add photography and layout + print-production and you'll come out at about 600$ total - *BUT* you *will* leave a lasting impession with everybody invited.... Ask the media-designer to make invitation and thank-you cards that people will like to keep and frame. Give him a chance to go creative as he whishes. he'll be cheaper and will put in some extra effort just for the fun of it.
2) More is less. Don't go into a huge debt over the wedding. And think if a lavishly dress and an expensive 'will never wear it again' tuxedo really is a must. Personally, I were to hold a wedding, I'd go for 'unusual, not to expesive, selected but very good (take your time finding the specials)' over 'generic but more expensive'.
For instance: I didn't cook until about 4 years ago and today I only know about 3 dishes, but I know them very well and given that I don't pinch when buying the ingredients, each of these dished taste very delicious if I put my mind to it and take my time. I couldn't afford a wedding organizer, but I'd make a point of cooking these dishes myself for my own wedding and add their part to a memorable experience. Sure, the ingredients would come 300€ or so and I'd probably have to borrow some cooking gear, but it would be a very special thing for all the guests - that I would be sure of.
3) Another example: Stainless Steel makes for very good wedding rings (geek factor aside). There are tons of quality steel rings out there nowadays, and they cost a fraction of the platinum/gold ones. Use the money you save on a top-notch honeymoon trip - you'll both have much more from it.
I think it's quite likely this entire thing is a staged PR stunt by the SOPA/PIPA cartell to generate a little counter-press. Call me paranoid, but It apprears to me all to convenient that something like this happens just now. At least it's a theory worth entertaining, imho.
In fact, ANY barriers of entry into FOSS development - devskills aside - are *very* low when it comes to 'types of people', be they male, female, handycapped, black, asian, white, stutterers, deaf, blind or whatnot.
The truth is, you can work for years on end without people even knowing that you're a woman, 95% spastic, tied to a wheelchair with no means what so ever to articulate yourselves without a keyboard. A friend of mine worked on a non-trivial FOSS project for a few years, and only after quite some time came to find out that one of the devs had a serious stutter.... Of course, stuttering doesn't show in E-Mails and IRC.
The very same thing goes for being a woman. For all I know, entire subsystems of the Linux kernel could be developed by women and we wouldn't even know... or really care for that matter. After all, in the end, it's the results that matter.
No, I call bullshit on this whole 'barriers of entry' non-sense. Any women who is interested in FOSS dev'ing is two clicks away from joining a projects mailing list, and if she makes no big deal of her gender until her first 100 commits as a core-team member there isn't even a chance that gender could cause an issue. And even if that should come up, I doubt that in any serious project it would be much of a big deal.
I suspect stronger evolutionary or society forces at work here. Diving into the minute details of the millionth PHP CMS project or yet another PL for the Java VM is a thing for the sexually frustrated / unchallenged male looking for yet another avantgarde frontier where he can prove himself and grow the self-esteem to eventually, if he is lucky, be able to interact in more generic social situations - i.e. those with sexual subtexts involved - at eye-level with more 'dumb' but handsome men, in places where also the ladies are at.
Doing what most of us do requires a sort of hunter/ADHD/ausbergers type of brain and those are know to be found more in men than with women.... But that's just one theory from the top of my head. Maybe in 20 years from now we'll have women dev'ing just like they are playing video-games today.... Or reading comics/mangas. Also something unthinkable 20 years ago.... No, the new and avantgarde always has been interesting for excess men who weren't in some womens hands already. Jazz came from black males and not white women, despite black males being way more at a disadvantage 150 years ago, *especially* in terms of basic human rights, spare time and musical education. Goes to show that evolution does still have a little say in things, doesn't it?
I'm on a A380 Flight right now - one of those with the experimental inflight WiFi (I'm sitting on the upper floor, in first class). The plane is awesome, and I feel as safe as can b... [NO CARRIER]
The Micro Four Thirds format for lenses appears to be ruling the mirror-less market by now. I'd recommend looking into the Olympus E-PL3 or a 'bigger' model. Micro Four Thirds lenses are interchangeable between manufacturers, so you'll be able to use Panasonic lenses with Olympus and vice versa.
But most important, get a book on photography, preferably before buying a camera. I'm currently reading "Understanding Exposure" by Brian Petersen. My first book on photography. It's very good and I recommend it highly.
Whenever I read about DRM, TCP, software patents, SOPA and such, the below quote comes into my mind Disclaimer: From the top of my head, not neccesarly a precise quote!
"Es wird sein, nicht lange nach dem man das Jahr 2000 geschrieben haben wird, da wird die Welt seltsames zu beobachten haben. [...] Da wird nicht ein direktes aber doch eine Art von Verbot für alles Denken von Amerika ausgehen, ein Gesetz, das das Ziel hat, alles individuelle Denken zu unterdrücken."
Rough translation:
"It will be, not long after the year 2000 has been, that the world will have a strange thing to observe. [...] There will not be a direct, but still a sort of prohibition of any thinking spreading out from Amerika, a law which purpose it is to supress any individual free thinking."
This is a quote from a transscibed lecture given by Rudolf Steiner in 1918(!). He was what one today would probably describe as an avid mysticists and esotheric teacher and lecturer, albeit one of the lesser crackpottier ones.... He insisted that there is a spiritual world, and it's basically 'more real' than the world todays humanity percieves with their bodyly senses. Basically, one of his main claims was that Platos Cave Metaphor or the hindu concept of maya is a true thing.... Anyway, never mind.... What does get to me however, that throughout his lectures he did, not often but at times, give prognoses of the future, sometimes close to the prophetic and, as far as I can tell, until now has allways turned out right. The above quote being somewhat of a point in case.
Some of his stuff is really way out there, yet his advice on mental and spiritual excercises is very down-to-earth and effective, as, for instance, his advice on education... And whenever stuff like this comes up, I always wonder if he was on to more than one might expect.
For anybody interested, here's an english translation of the lecture. Be prepared, some of this is deep mystic/esotheric stuff. You have been warned.:-) I do recomment his written books on spiritual training though, well worthwhile, even for the casual reader.... The closest you'll get to becoming a Jedi in real life.:-)
If your library is small and you have no tracking what-so-ever installed, or only trust-based tracking, Delicious Library might be the right thing. It's a personal solution focussing on private collections, but it is very fun and easy to use, supports barcode scanning with simple webcams and retrieves its item/katalog data via the web by scraping amazon and other sources when adding items, so you'll save yourself the hassle of data entry.
Even if you use a different solution in the end, the data retrieval system might be worth looking at, to save yourself data-entry headaches.
Languages: PHP The only widespread domain-specific language in existance. It's a strange combination of domain-specific and 'basic-anchestor' for the simple fact that it grew paralell to the web and was the first to be 'not Perl but on Apache, as in mod_php' and easy to pick up for n00bs. It started as a Perl templating engine - which shows to this very day - and has since turned into the prime got-to language for serverside web development. And for good reasons too. In recent years it has started to bit measurable chunks out of the Java space aswell, and ever since virtualisation, cheap hardware, PHP 5.3 and Facebook growing past 0.5 billion active users the last of the 'PHP doesn't scale' crowd have shut up aswell.
It has by far the largest set of mature and seasoned web development and WCMS toolkits available, and the largest set of projects based on it that are still in high activity development and maintainance. If in doubt, chose PHP. The syntax is a weedy mix of Perl, C++ and other middle-ages semicolon languages, it has some very strange and bizar purpose-built integrated functions for web-stuff, but it gets the job done, and does that well. It has a community that doesn't have its head up its ass, like the Ruby guys (see below). Very n00b friendly and modest. Thus its popularity.
Python My favourite language, although I do my webstuff in PHP (see above for the reasons about that). Clean, modern syntax, all the goodies of Perl and PHP minus the syntax suckage. Only a handfull of webkits and appservers in active development, but all of those are top-of-the-line. All in all, it's a better choice than PHP, popularity aside. Which is a bit of a shame. If you like Pythons syntax, use it for your webstuff and join one of the larger Python webkit projekts to spread the love. You'll be making the world a better place and the community will thank you for it.
Ruby This is a tricky one. Neat language, with the one or other issue still to nitpick at, due to the fact that Rubys runtime coreteam isn't nearly as big as Pythons or PHPs. If you like it, you maybe want to look into it. The biggest problem with Ruby is its community, as the Ruby fans think they inventent web frameworks when they came up with Ruby on Rails and showed it to the Java guys. My encounters showed lots of un-sympathetic academic dick-waving here and tons of raving of how awesome web-dev has become with RubyOnRails, the Ruby persons go-to webkit. You have to hand it to the rails guys / 37signals though, they pratically invented show-case/off screencasts and FOSS websites that don't look like shit. Ever since Rails appeared, no toolkit or community can afford to have crappy websites anymore. An effect for which I personally am grateful. They also made webkits and easy script based webdev know beyond the PHP and Python community. If you like the Ruby syntax and are into PragProg Books about any subject on Rails, this might be your thing. Ruby and RubyOnRails go together though, that's basically what you buy into. Just don't mention Mojave or Zope around those guys or show them any of the countless mature PHP projects they'll either start crying or snap in to a tantrum, foaming at the mouth, raving on about how unbelievably awesome Rails and how professional and PHP is insecure by design and doesn't scale so on. Just *shhh*, mums the word. Or mention Facebook when the 'doesn't scale' thing comes up, but step back a little before doing that.:-)
Java The FOSS Java community has since seen the light and has come up with its own small and neat set of usable webkits. If you chose Java, look into the wicket web framework. Appears to be the least scary of Java toolkits. I don't like Java and I don't like Oracle, but that's just me. You may have other priorities.
Perl Neat old-school language, but I wouldn't bother. PHP came out of Perl to take care of the web domain. Which is precisely what happend. If you know Perl and like it, look for Perl webki
One more thing: I find extra training to be a nice way of getting value out of employers without them feeling bad about it. A job-related training and certification can be neat thing for both sides.
If your App is so good, you ought to have more than enough opportunity to make yourself indispensable. Our put yourself in a good bargaining position when it comes to upping your salary or getting a different position.
All in all, this is a situation with lot's of parameters. It's all about common sense. You obviously feel taken advantage of, yet you did build said app on worktime and had the time to do so. Sounds like fun to me. If your in a flaky enviroment and nobody is around to appreciate your work and you expect bad vibes either way, it's basically your own luxury. I did lots of extra work and goodwill throughout the years, often with my adjacent not delivering his part. Nowadays, if a dealbreak is brewing, I have a private discussion with the person in charge, state my position and my observation and name my conditions and the time by wich I want answers, actions or written guarantees. If someone continuously wants to take advantage of me, or keeps putting me off with vague promises, I walk.
Can't you just talk to your superiour, and tell him how you feel? Say you need a raise for this sort of stuff, a bonus for the app and you want a budget for hardware. Be creative. Maybe they are willing to give you some extra vacation or something.
If they get pissy, start brushing up your resumee and looking for another job. Leave, and if they come back to you for maintainance of the app, ask for solid rates.
1) WindowMaker - Very fast, very clean, very neat. Like the WM Dockapps a lot, look very neat. Let's not forget, its anchestor 'NextStep' was designed under the ruling 'Iron Fist of Design and Usability' (TM) Steve Jobs. Even in the well-aged FOSS rippoff it shows.
2) Fluxbox - The hip and hype Linux Pro WM of the last decade. Had it's hype-highpoint around about 2005 and has since joined the grand hall of eternal Linux WMs. Very nice. The fist simple-style WM I saw with anti-aliased Fonts. Think 'modern WindowMaker' with some neat toolbar stuff, tabbed windows that can be stacked by easy drag and drop, nice shortcut defaults, easy to configure and very fast.
3) Enlightenment. If you're going to take your time configging and setup up your homebuilt Desktop setup, you should definitely take a good look at E. Tons of very neat stuff, very powerfull and very fast. E17 has been in development for a decade, the codebase is rock solid and is the avantgarde of desktop stuff to this very day. Fun fact: Quite a few things in Mac OS X are inspired by E - E is the darling child of any professional desktop developer.
4) 'Big' desktop environments: Since you want to build your setup 'from scratch' I see no point in getting a comparatively bloated preconfectioned package like KDE or Gnome. Since you'll be spending time checking out config files and such and will build the system to your specific needs, might aswell stick to systems that were built to be configured with textfiles, like the above mentioned. However, if you want the full package, I strongly suggest KDE. Gnome, in my opinion, only makes sense/is bearable when it comes with the work done for you, such as in the default Ubuntu distribution.... Ubuntu is the only system where I bother using Gnome, simply because it's good enough, preconfigured and the nautilus file manager finally stopped sucking like a vacuum around about Ubuntu 8 or so.
But since that's not what you asked for, I suggest you look into the first three WM, Fluxbox and E and chose the one you like the best. And good luck going back into manual xorg.configging. One of the things I really don't miss about Linux desktops - especially since I'm using Ubuntu and Mac OS X.:-)
I like the fact that they have established a way of dealing with their charity faliures, which makes them a respectable charity in my book.... And adds some credibility to the profession of engineering, imho.
You could argue a poor country has other more important preoccupations, but people in countries such as Spain or Italy aren't all that poor, yet they don't seem to be adding a lot of articles to Wikipedia either.
I'd say the weather has a part in that. I'd rather enjoy the countryside in the Toscana or a stroll and hangout outside in the town of Florence then go outside where it's raining constantly. Or at least way more often as it does in Italy and Spain. My time spent on the web would be less in those countries, I presume. Especially if they have a tradition of socializing outside. Which both countries do.
I don't get it. Isn't this super easy in linux? Or am I missing something?
Aside from Kiosk solutions in various FOSS Desktop and Windowing systems, why don't you just set up a runlevel that has some super-simple Xorg setup that launches with a minimalist window manager (all options disabled, hideously reconfigured or - if all else fails - overridden in the sourcecode and recompiled) and your desired app.
Switch to that runlevel, log off, and your set. It's that simple.... Disable eth devices in said runlevel and such if you're super paranoid and want to be extra sure. This all works in Ubuntu just as in any other distro.
Am I - 13 year long Linux user - missing something here, or isn't it that simple?... I'm kinda weary, since no one else yet offered that sort of answer. Please enlighten me if I'm mistaken.
While this has been normal practice for shady rippoff sites like the ones mentioned for almost a decade, I do wonder if appropriate extensions to FOSS licences such as the GPL could actually prevent this. Or at least make the culprits liable for damages, copyright infringement and/or fraud.
If I were to work on a large FOSS project I would like to know that the software im contributing to doesn't legally end up on one of these fraudulent DL sites.
Slashdot Mirror
... and vice versa.
Quite a few features on the Mac OS X UI are directly lifted from Enlightenment and similar projects. Enlightenment was the first UI emphasizing beauty and, for instance, had first spikes into OpenGL support about 10 years ago. They also were the the first to introduce the 'brushed metal' look throughout an entire UI. That all was back in the day when Mac OS 9 still looked like a souped up Windows 3.1 in a few places.
The new system settings tray introduced in Windows XP is a direct copy of the KDE settings layout of the time - which at the time also was a first. As where the Frog Design UI element designs.
All this is quite natural though, and can be taken for granted.
To be honest, I wouldn't take a professional UI designer serious, if he *weren't* intimately familiar with the various alternatives outside of mainstream OSes and UIs.
My 2 cents.
Just saying.
I've been deving fulltime ever since 2000 and the only proprietary technology I dealt with was Flash/ActionScript. Now that that universal platform is slowly going the way of the dodo, thanks to a new era of plattform fragmentation and the rise of serious rich client webapps in HTML5/Ajax I'm slowly moving away from it. I didn't join my former employers team of Unity developers, simply because I didn't want to learn another proprietary technology. Instead I left the team, eventually the company (for reasons unrelated - i was doing PHP at the time) and now picked up C++/Qt for a small, out of the norm Freelance deal building a desktop app. My bread and butter still is web stuff, but I enjoy filling the Flash/AS gap with another compiled language that does solid OOP.
Yes, I would do Mac OS X / iOS developing for a living, I would even do MS, SAP or Oracle (even though the last time I've done MS deving was back in 1999) but only if they'd pay me big time. 80 000 Euros/year or more in a good shop with resonable working times. Don't think that's going to happen, especially since I'm not actively looking for it. Yes, I can be bought by the dark side, but it has a price.
Aside from that, I'd rather sit in a room in a shared flat with little money and spend my time doing FOSS technology based development than earning a mediocre wage in a full time MS shop, learning skills that will become obsolete by design and strategy in 5 years from now the latest. I'd rather spent my time learning Emacs and Lisp, even that would have more future. And I could very well imagine that there are many FOSS type people who actually do put their money where there mouth is and do the same.
Anybody with more than 2 braincells who understands computers knows that with all the proprietary lock-in and patent-ridden bullshit in our field somebody eventually will pay the price if we don't keep the banner flying and give in to the dark side. RMS may be a crazy person with appalling table manners but he is right and dead-on with this freedom thing. Our jobs wouldn't be as good as they are today without his pioneer work - it is important to uphold the spirit and the values of the FOSS community - for our childrens sake.
No, turning down a MS job or even a Java/SAP job like I did last autum feels really good, and no money in the world can by me that feeling.
Maybe that's different with you, but never the less, I'd still be careful calling others a douche when it comes to this.
My 2 cents.
"I can hardly imagine two places more unsuitable for meeting potential love interests and founding long-term relationships than the internet and the disco club. Yet, curiously, these are the exact places in which courtship nowadays is most likely to be practiced." - Phillip Richdale
You're doing it wrong
1.) No kidding. I just started using C++/Qt a week ago, you remember?
2.) I was exaggerating little for the fun and effect. But I think you understand. :-)
Still, thanks for the heads-up.
I'm a lot on Google and stackoverflow these days anyway, as you can imagine.
Got a fresh copy of this 1000 page beast sitting on my night-table and OReillys C++ Cookbook should be arriving today, and I'll have a lot of refactoring to do before I can call my little first C++ app finished and not totally embarrassing to show to a Qt/C++ expert. ... I'm currently trying to wrap my head around Signals and Slots, after years of only knowing Events and Listeners. I still don't get it, but people tell me once you do it's awesome and you don't want to go back. Sort of like using Git instead of Subversion. Ergo: Lots of work to do. ... *promises to stop doing /. for the day*
I'm just going the other way. Building my first app in C++ using Qt. Which basically goes like this: OMG you piped a literal string without it being a genuine QString into my label ... KERNEL PANIC! CRASH! 10 bazillion compiler errors. ... WTF?
Of course this sucks. However I'm well seasoned enough to know that when building a non-trivial application, it's exactly this sort of thing that will save my sanity in the long run.
With dynamically typed languages it's the exact opposite. Try building an IDE in JS. It has been done, but it need a solid amount of thorough planning and the one or other hack/stunt. However, writing a little script in JS is like having awesome sex compared to doing the same 'three-liner' in C++ which is like masturbating with a cheese grater in comparison. And still uses 30 lines.
All I can say is go with the flow. Wrap your head around dyn typing if you are not used to thinking in it and eventually you'll see the beauty in JS which blows C++ out of the water in the areas it is meant for.
Keep up with the spirit and good luck. ... And now excuse me, I have to set up my little QWidget 20-something lines of code with 20 typecasts strewn about just to get the bloody label to show a simple literal when I click a menu entry.
My 2 cents.
... some real progress in the improvement of the usual IT HR.
Remember when OS X and thus Apple started to gain in users? Why was that?
It was because OS X was catering to the right people: The opinion leaders. To us.
We were the ones who said to their friends: 'Windows crap. Linux to difficult. Mac OS X is best of both worlds. iPhoto is easy, on OS level it's just jpegs in folders. Mail.app uses mbox, readable with any Editor. And iTunes needs 3 clicks for it to convert to mp3 rather aac. No larger problems in avoiding lockin. Get an iMac or a Mac Mini.' Even today with Lion and their ongoing move to vertical lockin it's still a better option than Windows and Linux, hardware wise anyway.
The very same thing goes for mobile phones. It doesn't suprise me the least that N9 sales are better. It runs Symbian which has an IDE that is free, runs on all 3 major Desktops (and yes, Linux *is* a major desktop with developers) and is, AFAICT, better than Apples XCode. They should offer two variants of the Lumina line, Windows and Symbian, and take it from there, just to be sure. However, I'd already bet money that with ongoing development and maintainance for the Qt Creator IDE Symbian would win. It's such a wonderful OS and has solid potential of kicking Androids ass and rivaling iOS. ... ... for the markets sake, I hope they can turn this around before going the way of the dodo. If they'd manage that we'd finally have a valid competitor to Apple sans the fragmented platform that Android is becoming.
Nokia has screwed around to much and fragmented to much of their software base
My 2 cents.
My first hand experience is that German magazines are way better in quality, quantity and content. Even the paper and print quality is better. What passes for a magazine in the US (hefty price and all) you couln't hand out as a freebee here. For instance, the Time magazine feels like those cheap flimsy pamphlets the Jehovas Witnesses hand out - and is costs more than 'Der Spiegel' or simular magazines.
Computer Mags are all way better. I think it's safe to say that the 'CT' is the best computer related magazine on the planet and even US specialist publications such as PHP Architect don't come anywhere near the german 'PHP Magazin'.
So, to answer your question in a nutshell: Yes, at least german magazines are way better than US magazines.
1st -> Find the free open source web content management system used most in your area/country in the professional field. In Germany that'd be Typo3, in your case (I'm guessing you're a US resident) that would probably be EZ Publish, Drupal or something like that.
2nd -> Learn that system and learn it well. Do this in the following order (timeframes mentioned are basic estimates based on my experience in 13 years of web development):
a) 6 months: Editing and Management, understanding the systems structure principles, Backend/Admin Interface Navigation, core system functions and features. (Coverd with User Maunals and User Books on your CMS) --> take on first jobs as an editor for installations and websites using said system.
b) 4 months: Markup stuff. Templating, HTML, CSS, minor changes and adjustments at that level, look into mobile templates aswell, everything is going mobile, you want to be on top of that when doing markup stuff (covered with HTML and CSS books)
c) After about a year: Installing and maintaining, DB structure, MySQL DB Management (I'm presuming it uses a MySQL DB, since they all do), low-level maintainance, basic admining and maintainance at shell access level (Unix/Linux/OS X type stuff), DB and media directory backup, versioning ... Here is where 3rd party tools come into play and will become an important asset. FTP GUI tool, Versioning GUIs, DB Tools, editors, etc. As for versioning my hint: Go with Git right away, the tools awailable now are foolproof and if you start versioning with the distributed paradigm right away you won't have problems understanding it later on. (covered with DB adming, Shell navigation, Linux, Apache and Books on Versioning ... you're entering solid OReilly territory here)
d)1,5 - 2 years into your new field: Programming, internal framework structure, maybe some PL basics before hand (more specialist tools, perhaps an IDE of some sort, maybe your own remote system) (covered with books on the programming language the system is implemented in ... most of them are built with PHP, Ajax / JavaScript would be the other end)
If you really want to make this your job, *do* focus on one system and one system/framework only! Pick the one most people are using or the one with which you get your first big-time paying customer. And don't be fooled, even then getting good money won't be easy at first. Proper editor level maintainace of a non-trivial web CMS requires experience, as does handling whiny customers and keeping your cool when the system goes offline for some odd reason you'll be researching for the next 30 hours :-) . You'll gain experience on the way, but also some grey hairs, so I expect anyway.
Start with maintaining your own test system and your own site running said system. Offer yourself up for editorial and maintainance work. Take it from there going into low-level maintainance and programming This will become interessting after 12-18 months into your new job.
Bottom line:
Popular system, start of as an editor, take it from there.
Good luck.
My 2 cents.
Cut the dorky gadgetry, would be my advice.
If I need a computer built, then electronic skills are required.
If I need a good and memorable wedding held, good event-organisation skills are required.
Both are two entirely different things - keep that in mind.
Here's a suggestion from the top of my head:
1) Print your invitation and thank-you cards with a professional printer (online printing service) and have a professional avantgarde designer to the layout and print production. Take the best quality paper + UV laquer + maybe even embossing and/or special colors. It will be a tad more expensive - two printruns of 250 items each come at roughly 200$ just for the cards, add photography and layout + print-production and you'll come out at about 600$ total - *BUT* you *will* leave a lasting impession with everybody invited. ... Ask the media-designer to make invitation and thank-you cards that people will like to keep and frame. Give him a chance to go creative as he whishes. he'll be cheaper and will put in some extra effort just for the fun of it.
2) More is less. Don't go into a huge debt over the wedding. And think if a lavishly dress and an expensive 'will never wear it again' tuxedo really is a must. Personally, I were to hold a wedding, I'd go for 'unusual, not to expesive, selected but very good (take your time finding the specials)' over 'generic but more expensive'.
For instance: I didn't cook until about 4 years ago and today I only know about 3 dishes, but I know them very well and given that I don't pinch when buying the ingredients, each of these dished taste very delicious if I put my mind to it and take my time. I couldn't afford a wedding organizer, but I'd make a point of cooking these dishes myself for my own wedding and add their part to a memorable experience. Sure, the ingredients would come 300€ or so and I'd probably have to borrow some cooking gear, but it would be a very special thing for all the guests - that I would be sure of.
3) Another example: Stainless Steel makes for very good wedding rings (geek factor aside). There are tons of quality steel rings out there nowadays, and they cost a fraction of the platinum/gold ones. Use the money you save on a top-notch honeymoon trip - you'll both have much more from it.
Oh, and congratulations and all the best wishes!
My 2 cents.
I think it's quite likely this entire thing is a staged PR stunt by the SOPA/PIPA cartell to generate a little counter-press. Call me paranoid, but It apprears to me all to convenient that something like this happens just now. At least it's a theory worth entertaining, imho.
There, I said it.
In fact, ANY barriers of entry into FOSS development - devskills aside - are *very* low when it comes to 'types of people', be they male, female, handycapped, black, asian, white, stutterers, deaf, blind or whatnot.
The truth is, you can work for years on end without people even knowing that you're a woman, 95% spastic, tied to a wheelchair with no means what so ever to articulate yourselves without a keyboard. A friend of mine worked on a non-trivial FOSS project for a few years, and only after quite some time came to find out that one of the devs had a serious stutter. ... Of course, stuttering doesn't show in E-Mails and IRC.
The very same thing goes for being a woman. For all I know, entire subsystems of the Linux kernel could be developed by women and we wouldn't even know ... or really care for that matter. After all, in the end, it's the results that matter.
No, I call bullshit on this whole 'barriers of entry' non-sense. Any women who is interested in FOSS dev'ing is two clicks away from joining a projects mailing list, and if she makes no big deal of her gender until her first 100 commits as a core-team member there isn't even a chance that gender could cause an issue. And even if that should come up, I doubt that in any serious project it would be much of a big deal.
I suspect stronger evolutionary or society forces at work here. Diving into the minute details of the millionth PHP CMS project or yet another PL for the Java VM is a thing for the sexually frustrated / unchallenged male looking for yet another avantgarde frontier where he can prove himself and grow the self-esteem to eventually, if he is lucky, be able to interact in more generic social situations - i.e. those with sexual subtexts involved - at eye-level with more 'dumb' but handsome men, in places where also the ladies are at.
Doing what most of us do requires a sort of hunter/ADHD/ausbergers type of brain and those are know to be found more in men than with women. ... But that's just one theory from the top of my head. Maybe in 20 years from now we'll have women dev'ing just like they are playing video-games today. ... Or reading comics/mangas. Also something unthinkable 20 years ago. ... No, the new and avantgarde always has been interesting for excess men who weren't in some womens hands already. Jazz came from black males and not white women, despite black males being way more at a disadvantage 150 years ago, *especially* in terms of basic human rights, spare time and musical education. Goes to show that evolution does still have a little say in things, doesn't it?
My 2 cents.
I'm on a A380 Flight right now - one of those with the experimental inflight WiFi (I'm sitting on the upper floor, in first class). The plane is awesome, and I feel as safe as can b ... [NO CARRIER]
The Micro Four Thirds format for lenses appears to be ruling the mirror-less market by now. I'd recommend looking into the Olympus E-PL3 or a 'bigger' model. Micro Four Thirds lenses are interchangeable between manufacturers, so you'll be able to use Panasonic lenses with Olympus and vice versa.
But most important, get a book on photography, preferably before buying a camera.
I'm currently reading "Understanding Exposure" by Brian Petersen.
My first book on photography. It's very good and I recommend it highly.
My 2 cents.
Whenever I read about DRM, TCP, software patents, SOPA and such, the below quote comes into my mind
Disclaimer: From the top of my head, not neccesarly a precise quote!
"Es wird sein, nicht lange nach dem man das Jahr 2000 geschrieben haben wird, da wird die Welt seltsames zu beobachten haben. [...] Da wird nicht ein direktes aber doch eine Art von Verbot für alles Denken von Amerika ausgehen, ein Gesetz, das das Ziel hat, alles individuelle Denken zu unterdrücken."
Rough translation:
"It will be, not long after the year 2000 has been, that the world will have a strange thing to observe. [...] There will not be a direct, but still a sort of prohibition of any thinking spreading out from Amerika, a law which purpose it is to supress any individual free thinking."
This is a quote from a transscibed lecture given by Rudolf Steiner in 1918(!). He was what one today would probably describe as an avid mysticists and esotheric teacher and lecturer, albeit one of the lesser crackpottier ones. ... He insisted that there is a spiritual world, and it's basically 'more real' than the world todays humanity percieves with their bodyly senses. Basically, one of his main claims was that Platos Cave Metaphor or the hindu concept of maya is a true thing. ... Anyway, never mind. ... What does get to me however, that throughout his lectures he did, not often but at times, give prognoses of the future, sometimes close to the prophetic and, as far as I can tell, until now has allways turned out right. The above quote being somewhat of a point in case.
Some of his stuff is really way out there, yet his advice on mental and spiritual excercises is very down-to-earth and effective, as, for instance, his advice on education. .. And whenever stuff like this comes up, I always wonder if he was on to more than one might expect.
For anybody interested, here's an english translation of the lecture. :-) ... The closest you'll get to becoming a Jedi in real life. :-)
Be prepared, some of this is deep mystic/esotheric stuff.
You have been warned.
I do recomment his written books on spiritual training though, well worthwhile, even for the casual reader.
My 2 cents.
If your library is small and you have no tracking what-so-ever installed, or only trust-based tracking, Delicious Library might be the right thing. It's a personal solution focussing on private collections, but it is very fun and easy to use, supports barcode scanning with simple webcams and retrieves its item/katalog data via the web by scraping amazon and other sources when adding items, so you'll save yourself the hassle of data entry.
Even if you use a different solution in the end, the data retrieval system might be worth looking at, to save yourself data-entry headaches.
My 2 cents.
Languages:
PHP
The only widespread domain-specific language in existance. It's a strange combination of domain-specific and 'basic-anchestor' for the simple fact that it grew paralell to the web and was the first to be 'not Perl but on Apache, as in mod_php' and easy to pick up for n00bs. It started as a Perl templating engine - which shows to this very day - and has since turned into the prime got-to language for serverside web development. And for good reasons too. In recent years it has started to bit measurable chunks out of the Java space aswell, and ever since virtualisation, cheap hardware, PHP 5.3 and Facebook growing past 0.5 billion active users the last of the 'PHP doesn't scale' crowd have shut up aswell.
It has by far the largest set of mature and seasoned web development and WCMS toolkits available, and the largest set of projects based on it that are still in high activity development and maintainance. If in doubt, chose PHP. The syntax is a weedy mix of Perl, C++ and other middle-ages semicolon languages, it has some very strange and bizar purpose-built integrated functions for web-stuff, but it gets the job done, and does that well. It has a community that doesn't have its head up its ass, like the Ruby guys (see below). Very n00b friendly and modest. Thus its popularity.
Python
My favourite language, although I do my webstuff in PHP (see above for the reasons about that). Clean, modern syntax, all the goodies of Perl and PHP minus the syntax suckage. Only a handfull of webkits and appservers in active development, but all of those are top-of-the-line. All in all, it's a better choice than PHP, popularity aside. Which is a bit of a shame. If you like Pythons syntax, use it for your webstuff and join one of the larger Python webkit projekts to spread the love. You'll be making the world a better place and the community will thank you for it.
Ruby :-)
This is a tricky one. Neat language, with the one or other issue still to nitpick at, due to the fact that Rubys runtime coreteam isn't nearly as big as Pythons or PHPs. If you like it, you maybe want to look into it. The biggest problem with Ruby is its community, as the Ruby fans think they inventent web frameworks when they came up with Ruby on Rails and showed it to the Java guys. My encounters showed lots of un-sympathetic academic dick-waving here and tons of raving of how awesome web-dev has become with RubyOnRails, the Ruby persons go-to webkit. You have to hand it to the rails guys / 37signals though, they pratically invented show-case/off screencasts and FOSS websites that don't look like shit. Ever since Rails appeared, no toolkit or community can afford to have crappy websites anymore. An effect for which I personally am grateful. They also made webkits and easy script based webdev know beyond the PHP and Python community. If you like the Ruby syntax and are into PragProg Books about any subject on Rails, this might be your thing. Ruby and RubyOnRails go together though, that's basically what you buy into. Just don't mention Mojave or Zope around those guys or show them any of the countless mature PHP projects they'll either start crying or snap in to a tantrum, foaming at the mouth, raving on about how unbelievably awesome Rails and how professional and PHP is insecure by design and doesn't scale so on. Just *shhh*, mums the word. Or mention Facebook when the 'doesn't scale' thing comes up, but step back a little before doing that.
Java
The FOSS Java community has since seen the light and has come up with its own small and neat set of usable webkits. If you chose Java, look into the wicket web framework. Appears to be the least scary of Java toolkits. I don't like Java and I don't like Oracle, but that's just me. You may have other priorities.
Perl
Neat old-school language, but I wouldn't bother. PHP came out of Perl to take care of the web domain. Which is precisely what happend. If you know Perl and like it, look for Perl webki
He was knighted with a sword made of translucent acryl.
*Tadum* *Crash* *Thud*
Thank you, thank you, I'm here all week.
Tip your waiter and try the fish.
One more thing:
I find extra training to be a nice way of getting value out of employers without them feeling bad about it. A job-related training and certification can be neat thing for both sides.
If your App is so good, you ought to have more than enough opportunity to make yourself indispensable. Our put yourself in a good bargaining position when it comes to upping your salary or getting a different position.
All in all, this is a situation with lot's of parameters.
It's all about common sense. You obviously feel taken advantage of, yet you did build said app on worktime and had the time to do so. Sounds like fun to me. If your in a flaky enviroment and nobody is around to appreciate your work and you expect bad vibes either way, it's basically your own luxury. I did lots of extra work and goodwill throughout the years, often with my adjacent not delivering his part. Nowadays, if a dealbreak is brewing, I have a private discussion with the person in charge, state my position and my observation and name my conditions and the time by wich I want answers, actions or written guarantees. If someone continuously wants to take advantage of me, or keeps putting me off with vague promises, I walk.
Can't you just talk to your superiour, and tell him how you feel? Say you need a raise for this sort of stuff, a bonus for the app and you want a budget for hardware. Be creative. Maybe they are willing to give you some extra vacation or something.
If they get pissy, start brushing up your resumee and looking for another job. Leave, and if they come back to you for maintainance of the app, ask for solid rates.
My 2 cents.
1) WindowMaker - Very fast, very clean, very neat. Like the WM Dockapps a lot, look very neat. Let's not forget, its anchestor 'NextStep' was designed under the ruling 'Iron Fist of Design and Usability' (TM) Steve Jobs. Even in the well-aged FOSS rippoff it shows.
2) Fluxbox - The hip and hype Linux Pro WM of the last decade. Had it's hype-highpoint around about 2005 and has since joined the grand hall of eternal Linux WMs. Very nice. The fist simple-style WM I saw with anti-aliased Fonts. Think 'modern WindowMaker' with some neat toolbar stuff, tabbed windows that can be stacked by easy drag and drop, nice shortcut defaults, easy to configure and very fast.
3) Enlightenment. If you're going to take your time configging and setup up your homebuilt Desktop setup, you should definitely take a good look at E. Tons of very neat stuff, very powerfull and very fast. E17 has been in development for a decade, the codebase is rock solid and is the avantgarde of desktop stuff to this very day. Fun fact: Quite a few things in Mac OS X are inspired by E - E is the darling child of any professional desktop developer.
4) 'Big' desktop environments: Since you want to build your setup 'from scratch' I see no point in getting a comparatively bloated preconfectioned package like KDE or Gnome. Since you'll be spending time checking out config files and such and will build the system to your specific needs, might aswell stick to systems that were built to be configured with textfiles, like the above mentioned. However, if you want the full package, I strongly suggest KDE. Gnome, in my opinion, only makes sense/is bearable when it comes with the work done for you, such as in the default Ubuntu distribution. ... Ubuntu is the only system where I bother using Gnome, simply because it's good enough, preconfigured and the nautilus file manager finally stopped sucking like a vacuum around about Ubuntu 8 or so.
But since that's not what you asked for, I suggest you look into the first three WM, Fluxbox and E and chose the one you like the best. :-)
And good luck going back into manual xorg.configging. One of the things I really don't miss about Linux desktops - especially since I'm using Ubuntu and Mac OS X.
My 2 cents.
Engineers without borders might be interesting:
http://www.ewb-usa.org/
I like the fact that they have established a way of dealing with their charity faliures , which makes them a respectable charity in my book. ... And adds some credibility to the profession of engineering, imho.
My 2 cents.
You could argue a poor country has other more important preoccupations, but people in countries such as Spain or Italy aren't all that poor, yet they don't seem to be adding a lot of articles to Wikipedia either.
I'd say the weather has a part in that. I'd rather enjoy the countryside in the Toscana or a stroll and hangout outside in the town of Florence then go outside where it's raining constantly. Or at least way more often as it does in Italy and Spain. My time spent on the web would be less in those countries, I presume. Especially if they have a tradition of socializing outside. Which both countries do.
I don't get it. Isn't this super easy in linux? Or am I missing something?
Aside from Kiosk solutions in various FOSS Desktop and Windowing systems, why don't you just set up a runlevel that has some super-simple Xorg setup that launches with a minimalist window manager (all options disabled, hideously reconfigured or - if all else fails - overridden in the sourcecode and recompiled) and your desired app.
Switch to that runlevel, log off, and your set. It's that simple. ... Disable eth devices in said runlevel and such if you're super paranoid and want to be extra sure.
This all works in Ubuntu just as in any other distro.
Am I - 13 year long Linux user - missing something here, or isn't it that simple? ... I'm kinda weary, since no one else yet offered that sort of answer.
Please enlighten me if I'm mistaken.
My 2 cents.
While this has been normal practice for shady rippoff sites like the ones mentioned for almost a decade, I do wonder if appropriate extensions to FOSS licences such as the GPL could actually prevent this. Or at least make the culprits liable for damages, copyright infringement and/or fraud.
If I were to work on a large FOSS project I would like to know that the software im contributing to doesn't legally end up on one of these fraudulent DL sites.
My 2 cents.