http://www.polyweb.com/blog Technical things I think about Mon, 22 Feb 2010 03:07:58 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en In the 1970's I remember the first cable box sitting on top of our TV in San Francisco and I've basically had cable almost everywhere I've lived since then -- call it 35 years of cable TV. Almost four years ago I asked Do we watch TV anymore? Analyzing our ... http://www.polyweb.com/blog/index.php/archives/161 We needed a media PC to drive a 46" display in our living room. I saw an article in the May 2009 Maximum PC and basically followed their recipe when I built this system in August. The system has been solid and very quiet. It draws 55-65 watts up and running ... http://www.polyweb.com/blog/index.php/archives/148 I loaned a portable USB 1 TB drive to someone recently and they accidentally horked it up pretty well. They attempted some fix up on it but when I mounted it on my system it did not appear in the list of disks under My Computer but it was listed ... http://www.polyweb.com/blog/index.php/archives/142 I loved this post by Cameron Chapman at the Six Revisions blog. [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="ARPANET in 1977"][/caption] I'm reblogging 'cause I'm busy but I'll have my media PC build and description up soon. http://www.polyweb.com/blog/index.php/archives/138 Creating scripts to automate administrative or programming build tasks is GOOD. It centralizes details and reduces errors. I find I need to re-learn DOS (and *nix) command line stuff every few years and then I completely forget how to do it and have to learn again. Resources that I find useful: The Windows ... http://www.polyweb.com/blog/index.php/archives/136 This is a great PHP version of the classic Hunt the Wumpus game of the 1970's. This will make a great programming-class homework problem. http://www.polyweb.com/blog/index.php/archives/131 So I'm teaching a kid to program. "A kid" to me meaning anyone born after 1980 - 'cause I'm old. Here are the choices I made. Start with C++ If you want to be a professional programmer for the rest of your days, you should be an expert in C++. It's all there: ... http://www.polyweb.com/blog/index.php/archives/127 I am stunned by the weird things people think they need like a blender that is powered by a 43 cc gas engine with handlebars like a motorcycle. Amazon shows at least 3-4 different models and colors to choose from. http://www.polyweb.com/blog/index.php/archives/125 A young person asked me recently: "Could you teach me how to write programs?" Could I ever! I don't know. Could I?? I'm old. I'm not so sure I'm a good example. The generations of my programming learning: 1. 1970's -- Poking around using BASIC on pre-PC microcomputers. 2. 1980's -- Writing a fair ... http://www.polyweb.com/blog/index.php/archives/116 I needed an extra PC for a video editing class I was going to teach. I wanted it to be beefy enough but not too expensive. I started with a PC Gamer "medium" game system recommendations and tweaked it a bit. Oh: it had to be quiet! I ordered everything from Amazon ... http://www.polyweb.com/blog/index.php/archives/105