Classic Atari Arcade Games in HTML5

Atari has released HTML5 versions of a lot of their old classic video games. They don't look exactly like the original, but they play pretty close to the real thing. I really like the Centipede, it really looks, acts, and sounds like the original.

If you play using IE9, you can play ad free. Get the full story here:
The Next Web: Microsoft/Atari bring back the classics

CodeX Simple Text Editor for OS X

If you are looking for a nice lightweight code editor for OS X check out CodeX. I prefer to have a small OS native editor I can use to view files and make quick notes etc... After trying a few on OS X, this one seems to work the best.

Syncing GMail Contacts with Lion and Mountain Lion

Here are the details on how to sync your Gmail contact with the Mac Address Book. So in this scenario, you use your GMail contacts as your primary address book. Then you sync that address book to all your devices. This works great if you have to work on multiple systems (Windows, Mac, Linux) like I do.

The Mac OS X iCloud system works fine if you only use Apple computers and iOS devices. But it is a bit annoying that they don't provide any options for other platforms.

Mountain Lion Upgrades

With the release of Mountain Lion 10.8.1, it was time for me to upgrade my Macs this weekend. If you have more than one Mac, check out this 9to5 Mac story on how to make a boot thumbdrive. It looks like the new OS image is larger than a single DVD so you need at least an 8BG flash drive, (a 16gb for me).

So far so good. I've updgraded 3 machines with no issues. My old MacBook Pro 13inch took forever to update, but it eventually finished.

You can find the list of Mountain Lion features here. A lot more dessert than meat and potatoes if you ask me. I'm still trying to make iCloud do something useful without much luck.

Another Glowing Windows 8 Review

Tim Edwards at PCGamesN.com does not like Windows 8. He provides plenty of detail why.

Sounds like this is not gonna pass "can my parents use it" test. I'm definitely in the wait and see camp at this point in time.

Apocalypse Not: So just Suck it up People

This month's Wired magazine has a wonderful article on the coming Apocalypse or lack of one. The story debunks many of the Apocalypse myths and memes of the last 50 years. From oil shortages and running out of energy to the horrors of overpopulation. There must be a dozen examples of "experts" who's prediction of our demise has already come and gone.

Of course the author does miss the most likely end of the world... the Zombie Apocalypse. Which we all know from video games and TV shows, is inevitable. But I guess I will cut him slack on that one. :)

So I guess we will be around for a while, better suck it up and soldier on.

A Keyboard for Messy Folks

Do you like to eat and drink while you code? Well Logitech's fully washable keyboard is for you. Spilling soda is no longer quite the problem it was.

Make a Symbolic Link on Windows XP

I found out on Friday to make a symbolic link with Windows XP, you need to download a special utility.

Get Junction from Microsoft here.

To create a link use the following syntax:
junction <link> <path>
for example
junction c:\progs c:\Program Files

Mac and Windows Native App Packaging for Java and JavaFX

With the release of Java 7 u6, native packaging support for Windows and Mac Java FX applications is available to everyone. This is totally awesome and I plan to dive in, but haven't yet. But don't wait for me, here are the details so you can get started.

For Mac OS X packaging, here are the details:

• Java Mac Packaging Guide
• AppBundler Project

And for Windows, check out Igor's original post:
Igor's Packaging Blog Post

Java 7 u6 Released

Java 7 u6 is in the wild. Full Mac OS X support is the big calling card in this release, along with Java FX 2.2.

Java 7 u6

iOS vs Android Home Screens and the Nexus 7

Well with all the buzz around the Google Nexus 7 I decided to get one. So one thing that I though was really interesting is how the home screens are laid out. I found this a bit odd coming from the iPhone world.






When you compare the two, they sorta look like this.

The Apple devices always home to the left most page. So when you press the home button twice you end up on the left.

How Android is Different
With the Android device, the home page is always in the center. You can navigate two pages to the left or right. But pressing the home button twice always takes you to the center page. Once I figured this out, it made sense.

However, the thing that really threw me off at first was the Android widgets. With iOS, the only thing that shows up on a page are icons or folders. No deviations from that. With Android, you can put Widgets on a page. Widgets are little mini apps that can take anywhere from a row of space to the entire page. The home page on the Nexus 7 is filled with a Google Play widget. It took me quite a bit of playing around to figure this out.

I think Google would be better off to make the widget maybe half a page or smaller. That way, the new apps are installed on the home page and users can see as they are added. Without that sort of behavior it is less than obvious where new app icons get added.

First Impressions
The size and weight of the Nexus 7 are pretty cool. It is a great device for reading books. Although, I do think Google would be better off with their own ePub reader. Finding and installing one took much more work than it should have.

Anyway, I'll add more as I spend more time with it.

Java Logger Example

If you are interested in creating a simple single instance logger for an application, here is a simple logging example I created a few weeks back. The page includes a brief description and the code is commented.

I hope to be posting a lot more examples in the weeks to come. Often when writing about stuff, one does not get enough practice actually doing. So I am making a concerted effort to spend a lot more time practicing.

Screenium Screen Recorder

This weekend I was trying to figure out how to make a copy of a streamed Flash movie. There is stream recording software out there. However, the easy to use stuff is not free, nor does it work that well. But sometimes, the simplest solution is the best.

So I ended up buying Screenium which is an inexpensive screen recording tool for the Mac. And it did an excellent job of making a copy of the video. Of course it is not perfect as I had to capture the audio and video. But for my purposes, making a copy of an interview for future reference, it worked great.

Also, Screenium is on sale this week for 50% off. So if you want a copy I think you need to buy it today at the latest.

The Right way to Redirect a Page

Well it seems like every time I do something new with my website, there is always something to learn. I'm in the process of rewriting the CMS I use for the how to's and examples on http://blueskyworkshop.com/topics/. I know I needed to use an HTTP header to forward pages. But after some additional reading, I learned what I was doing was not enough.

To tell a search engine like Google a page has moved, you have to send it a 301 Moved Permanently header. Then, the next time Google's spider reads the site, it will move the statistics associated with the page from the old location to the new one. This is done in PHP as follows:

<?php
// Permanent redirection
header("HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently");
header("Location: http://www.somacon.com/");
exit();
?>

Get the details from Somacon here. The post includes a number of examples for several different languages.

I should be able to confirm the older pages are no longer being referenced using Google Analytics. Anyway, I guess we will see in a few weeks.

Google IO 2012 Sessions on the Net

This is totally awesome! Google has made all the Google IO 2012 sessions available on the Net. So if you were like me who would have loved to go and get those goodies, but couldn't, at least you can listen to the sessions.

Wired Writer gets Hacked Hard

If you haven't heard about this story, it worth a look. A Wired writer was hacked on Friday. His MacBook, iPhone, Twitter account, and GMail all taken over. The interesting part is that most of the hacks used social engineering to get enough information about his accounts to take them over. No password cracker or anything like that.

Apple Dropping Safari for Windows

It looks like Apple is discontinuing support for Safari on Windows. With the release of Mountain Lion last week, Safari was updated to version 6. However, there is no Windows version 6 of Safari. When you go to the Apple website for Safari there's no download option if you're using Windows. However, if you Google for Safari 5.1.7 you will see that there is a link to a support site that has the download.

Here are a couple stories detailing the change.
SitePoint: Dropping Windows Safari is a Mistake
MacWorld: Safari 6 Not for Windows

I have to agree with the SitePoint Writer, getting rid of Safari on Windows seems like a bad idea. Although it is not that popular it is very useful as a development tool. Maybe Apple should consider open sourcing the Windows version? It is important for there to be another WebKit browser on Windows other than Chrome.

Valve Running a Business like a Market

At the end of last week, I saw this longish story on the Valve blog discussing how valve manages their company like a market. To sum up, Valve the company has no management structure. Employees are given a desk with wheels and are told to go find projects they are interested in and start pitching in. Projects and teams are self organizing. Employees are free to work on whatever they want. Sounds cool. However, I have my doubts. Could you apply the same principles to Tech Support? Janitorial services? I wonder.... What do you think?

Ruby iOS Development Tool

Smashing Magazine has this story on the RubyMotion development tool. This is an iOS development tool which allows you to develops apps using the Ruby language instead of Objective C. The tool is Mac OS X only and costs $199.

There are more and more of these Objective C alternative tools coming out. I will try to mention the reasonably price options. Some that I have seen are ridiculously expensive.

Million Short Search Engine

Ran across some links to millionshort.com yesterday. The idea is to eliminate some of the top ranking sites before you do a search. An interesting idea. Seems more like a Google feature request, than any sort of search breakthrough. I seemed only find old sites that didn't have any new content. Anyway, definitely worth a look.

Changing the Mouse to a Link Pointer

While working on a collapsable vi cheat sheet over the weekend, I needed to figure out how to make the pointer look like a link when mousing over a header. Turns out it is pretty easy. Just create a style like this:

.Toggle { cursor: pointer; }

Add that to the header and it acts like a link even when it is not.