Ewan's Corner

Ewan McPhail's blog and soapbox – sporadically blogging since 2003

African Skeptics / Science Blogroll and Carnival

Jan 29

Posted by ewan in Local, Religion, sci-tech | No Comments

Skeptical-Hippo_500x500 From Ionian Enchantment – the latest version of the African science and skepticism blog-roll, or a list of “those dedicated to science and reason on the African continent”. I am proud to be included. Definitely something thought-provoking for everyone – and quite a few reasons to get vocal and involved, no matter what your viewpoint is on science, pseudo-science, skepticism, religion, homeopathy, maths, vaccines, general woo-woo etc.

The latest Carnival of Africans – the Phoenix Edition – is well worth a read.

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Kulula – flying 101. Brilliant.

Jan 22

Posted by ewan in Local | No Comments

Kulula’s paint work for their new Boeing 737-86N (January 2010).

Another image – a great closeup of the detail on the left tail section.

Not your average boring airline.

All images matching a search for Kulula on jetphotos.net.


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Annular Solar Eclipse underway – January 15th 2010

Jan 15

Posted by ewan in Local, out there | No Comments

solar-eclipse-jan-15-2010-path-animation The first solar eclipse of the year is happening today. Twitter is buzzing, you can see photos being added to Flickr, Google’s real-time search results are brilliant. Almost makes up for not being able to see it myself – we only saw a tiny 3.5% coverage here in Durban this morning (07h30 SAT) – or would have if it wasn’t cloudy!

Path details and animations for almost every city are available at the excellent UK Eclipses Online site (doubly useful since the NASA eclipse page seems to be down, probably buckling under the extra traffic – google cached version is available though). Wikipedia as usual has excellent info.

Update:

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The Size of Africa

Jan 11

Posted by ewan in Local | No Comments

Africa in perspective
Here’s a little perspective for you, updated for 2009:

Africa has a population of one billion, making up about 14.7% percent of the world’s human population.

Africa covers about 30.2 million km² – about 6% of the Earth’s surface and 20.4% of the total land area.

“(the continent of) Africa is larger than (the countries) China, the USA, Western Europe, India, Argentina, and the British Isles… combined!”

Image source: constantflux (via lots of others)

1000 Interest Free Days madness

Jan 5

Posted by ewan in misc | No Comments

A sign of the economic times and proof that (at least in Oz :-) we still have a long way to go towards fixing the consumer/retailer/lender attitudes which played a big part in the current economic crisis. See how many traps you can spot in the T&Cs.

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WordPress rocks. There, I said it.

Dec 31

Posted by ewan in weblog | 2 Comments

wordpress I’ve moved from MovableType to WordPress, and so far the experience has (with one notable exception) been great. I feel dirty without Perl running the show (reliance on all this PHP code seems so… messy :-)

I’ve been a happy MovableType user since January 2005 (Blogger/Pyra before that, and hand-rolled HTML before then) but methinks it’s time for a change.

Favourite WP features:

  1. Great admin console (especially when Google Gears integration is enabled – even better in Chrome – for blazing speed). Last time I looked at WP the admin console was terrible, but huge improvements have obviously been made and it is now generally faster/easier to navigate than MovableType’s equivalent.
  2. Plugins galore. This highlights the power of a large and active community for the platform – you can quickly and easily find a plugin for almost every need (and installation is trivial, no need for FTP etc). The fact that MovableType still doesn’t include (or have a _free_ plugin) to allow commenters to subscribe to replies via email blows my mind.
  3. Complete integration with Windows Live Writer, my favourite post writing tool for Windows (on a Linux box the admin console is perfectly acceptable). Live Writer could be used for MovableType, but support wasn’t complete (you couldn’t edit tags, upload images without configuring FTP, and a few other niggles)
  4. WordPress for BlackBerry. Happiness.
  5. Tons of themes. I’m don’t care too much about visuals, but they are important – and MT themes (at least free ones) are scarce.

My gripes:

  1. The release of WordPress 2.9 (my first impression) seems to have been rushed for Christmas, and includes 3 potentially nasty bugs (main one for me was curl transport being broken which breaks WP cron, future posting, pings, plugins like LifeStream etc). Easily fixed (again, thumbs up to an active and proactive community), but caused me some frustration tracking down why my LifeStream wouldn’t update automatically for example.
  2. Consistency is a pain at times – plugin writers can add menus in a variety of places, plugin quality varies, and even the admin console has some usability issues in places. I suppose I’ve been spoilt by MT’s attention to detail and consistency.
  3. I don’t like condescending installers :-)

WordPress was also slightly easier to install locally for experimentation via XAMPP.

I’ll wait for the (twice postponed) release of MovableType 5 on Jan 5th and compare them then.

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Upgrading your BlackBerry Operating System

Dec 5

Posted by ewan in Local, misc, sci-tech | No Comments

blackberry
I own a BlackBerry Curve 8310 – one of the nicest phones I have ever used for an extended period, and the best by far when it comes to corporate email / calendar sync.

In the BlackBerry world, your service provider (MTN South Africa in my case) approves the version of OS and default application software available for your phone model – MTN currently only approve package version 4.5.0.52 (Applications: 4.5.0.37, Software Platform: 2.7.0.55) which was released around June 2008 and is quite buggy.

My phone was stable as long as I didn’t install any 3rd party apps (BerryBuzz which is highly recommended, GMail, Google Maps, Garmap for Mobile which is great and *free* for MTN users – go MTN, UberTwitter, Opera Mini…) but as soon as I did, it became horribly unstable – locking up at least once every 2 days and requiring a battery pull. Having to restart / reboot the phone is a real pain since the phone can take over 5 minutes to boot up / get back to a usable state.

Having an otherwise great phone with an unlimited data plan meant I *really* wanted to be able to install 3rd party apps. A little searching found that other network operators (O2 UK in this case) have approved a much more recent OS / apps version (for my 8310 at least) : package version: 4.5.0.174 (Applications: 4.5.0.124, Software Platform: 2.7.0.92).

Working around MTN’s silly restriction and updating my phone turned out to be easy – these steps are for my reference, and worked for me, but use them at your own risk. This procedure isn’t officially supported by BlackBerry or MTN, caveat emptor. I found the initial guide at blackberryrocks.com, an invaluable resource for all BB owners – and added a few steps and warnings of my own:

  1. Download and install BlackBerry Desktop Manager if you don’t already have it (I recommend version 5 or later, especially for Windows 7)
  2. Save a complete backup of your phone and data using Desktop Manager
  3. Remove any media cards from your phone – failure to do so could mean the upgrade hanging (getting a solid red LED on “connecting to device firmware”).
  4. Download the installable version of the OS/applications update.
    Warning: Make sure you download the correct update *for your phone model*, e.g. don’t download an update for the 8350 if you have an 8310. In my case, I downloaded filename “8310M_PBr4.5.0_rel174_PL2.7.0.92_A4.5.0.124_O2_UK.exe” (89.92MB) from the BlackBerry O2 download page.
  5. Warning: If you sync with your office via BES, then you need to do the upgrade while connected to the BES via desktop manager – i.e. at work. If you don’t, auto-activation after the upgrade will likely not work, and your phone won’t sync until you manually activate it
  6. Run / install the downloaded update
  7. If you are installing an update from a different service provider (MTN vs O2 in my case), you need to delete “vendor.xml” in Program Files –> Common Files –> Research in Motion –> AppLoader
  8. Run “Loader.exe” in the same AppLoader folder
  9. Follow the prompts, set things as you choose, and I recommend allowing the Loader app to do its own backup before the upgrade.

Just be aware this is not a quick process… the upgrade and subsequent re-activation took several hours for me.
Worked for me. I now have a rock-solid crackberry.

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Martin Fowler on software development predictability – a real light-bulb moment

Dec 4

Posted by ewan in misc | No Comments

Is Predictability Impossible?

In general, no. There are some software developments where predictability is possible. Organizations such as NASA’s space shuttle software group are a prime example of where software development can be predictable. It requires a lot of ceremony, plenty of time, a large team, and stable requirements. There are projects out there that are space shuttles. However I don’t think much business software fits into that category. For this you need a different kind of process.

One of the big dangers is to pretend that you can follow a predictable process when you can’t. People who work on methodology are not very good at identifying boundary conditions: the places where the methodology passes from appropriate in inappropriate. Most methodologists want their methodologies to be usable by everyone, so they don’t understand nor publicize their boundary conditions. This leads to people using a methodology in the wrong circumstances, such as using a predictable methodology in a unpredictable situation.

There’s a strong temptation to do that. Predictability is a very desirable property. However if you believe you can be predictable when you can’t, it leads to situations where people build a plan early on, then don’t properly handle the situation where the plan falls apart. You see the plan and reality slowly drifting apart. For a long time you can pretend that the plan is still valid. But at some point the drift becomes too much and the plan falls apart. Usually the fall is painful.

So if you are in a situation that isn’t predictable you can’t use a predictive methodology. That’s a hard blow. It means that many of the models for controlling projects, many of the models for the whole customer relationship, just aren’t true anymore. The benefits of predictability are so great, it’s difficult to let them go. Like so many problems the hardest part is simply realizing that the problem exists.

However letting go of predictability doesn’t mean you have to revert to uncontrollable chaos. Instead you need a process that can give you control over an unpredictability. That’s what adaptivity is all about.

~~ Martin Fowler, The New Methodology – http://martinfowler.com/articles/newMethodology.html

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Awesome run this morning – Umhlanga Pier and back

Nov 25

Posted by ewan in me | 3 Comments

What a perfect morning. Got in to work early, cleared out my mailbox, went for a 9km run, and back at the office for a great breakfast at 7am!

The weather was perfect, felt like I could run forever, powered by Alanis.
I still don’t understand cyclists – I passed lots on the way out, all dressed in the lycra/spandex versions of bad golfing outfits, dark glasses and shiny many-thousand Rand bikes – stuck to the tar, unable to go cross country whenever they like, unable to run along the edge of the sea, missing the smaller details and the bikinis :-)

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SA Anthem – What are you doing Ras?

Nov 18

Posted by ewan in haha | No Comments


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