Noam Chomsky's resources in Toronto & Mississauga

If you are interested about what is going-on in this messed up world, how power systems operate; chances are you know who Noam Chomsky is. If not, there is never too late to expand your horizons and peak outside parameters of allowed opinion. Have a look at what Noam Chomsky has been writing for past 40 years. Many of his works past and current can be found in local Library in Toronto [DVD and Audio CD] or Mississauga [DVD, Audio CD].

"... I believe it is, that a fundamental element of human nature is the need for creative work or creative inquiry, for free creation without the arbitrary limiting effects of coercive institutions, then of course it will follow that a decent society should maximize the possibilities for this fundamental human characteristic to be realized."

Supper alternative Pay-As-You-Go pre paid wireless

There have been a small burst of Virtual Wireless Service Providers in Canada, especially with telephone number portability; your current wireless service provider does not hold you cell phone number hostage. I have ditched my Fido account for 7-Eleven SpeakOut Wireless pre-paid service. With only 20 cents per minute, and 5 cents per text message is the best deal in town. Porting existing telephone number is free. Takes up to three business days, but some have reported that the porting took only as little as half of a day. 7-Eleven offers number of Nokia phones: 1112, 1600, 2610 and 6061. From May to June 2007, 1112 and 1600 are given for free with $100 air time purchase; to get 2610 one only needs to add $25 on top of the $100 airtime to get the phone. The service comes with Called ID and Voice Mail. Read more at SpeakoutWireless and Howard Forums

Rogers is discontinuing its Usenet service

Every-so-often I get email from my ISP, Rogers, trying to push more crap ever since they have merged with Yahoo.  But on December 1st 2005 I get this in my mailbox...

THAT!?!? Simply that the UseNet is "one of the earliest forms..." they are shout it down had pushing Yahoo services, nice try -- what a load of self-serving interests.

I strongly oppose Rogers self-serving decision to no longer provide Usenet service.

Notwithstanding such short notice, and false pretences that somehow Usenet newsgroups have been eradicated by blogs and personal web pages. By the extension of this logic for terminating technology/service simply because it is "one of the earliest forms...", would imply that Rogers may discontinue email (SMTP) service because is outdated and replaced by instant messaging. Such blatant excuses are shameful.

Furthermore, Rogers decision does not reflect views of its customers who use the Usenet service. This decision to no longer provide a service, and hence reducing the value of Rogers Internet service (cost-benefit analysis) may aggravate its customer base. Moreover, if Rogers has chosen willingly to reduce the Internet offering by removing Usenet service many customers, including myself demand that we should not pay as much as we have thus far, since we will be no longer benefiting as much from internet services offered by Rogers after December 15th as we used to till this period.

Code is poetry

How come one developer will write hundreds or even thousands lines of code, when another developer will writer solution to the same problem in half the time and less code. How come some developers just "code" without design? It brings a saying to my mind: "Measure twice, cut once," or "think before you speak." Sometimes it gets to a point that the person that wrote the code no longer wants to touch it. Even in age of modern programming languages, some developers have only rudimentary understanding and appreciation of Object Orientated programming techniques. The code is the reflection of ones way of thinking about solution to a particular problem. The code is the realization of the "thinking process" and if the outcome of the "thinking process" is code that looks like spaghetti or overall solution is "kludgy" that reflects poorly on the way ones thinks - their thoughts must be very random, disconnected and chaotic. The root reasons for such bad code that some developers write, and ultimately the code and the product that business gets (has) as the result of poorly constructed solution is of great interest. Maybe it is for better that only developers in an organization look at the code, if people higher in the organization chart would shine a little light in the dark corners where the code lives, they would be surprised how bad and poorly constructed their products really are. It should not be this way, because for the people that are put in charge to write and maintain the products, the code should be poetry.

Do we have your attention?

Apparently so. WinInsider.com has been deemed resourceful by no other but microsoft.com and asp.net websites. Furthermore, many great technology journalists, such as Mary Jo Foley's Microsoft-Watch.com, Todd Bishop, and many more have linked to WinInsider.com, which comes as great honour. Down my memory lane, it takes me back to early 2002; WinInsider.com?s humble beginning when it was so hard to make a spot on radar for anyone to notice the newly created website. In those days Windows XP was upon us and many established root (community) bases news sites such as NeoWin.net were kind enough to exchange an affiliate link. It brings me great deal of comfort that today WinInsider.com is visited and recognized by many more people then when I started the website.

New job

After number of years, I have finally switched to new job. I will be working at IMS (Inquiry Management System) maintaining and creating front end ASP.NET web application. It is refreshing change after many years working on Windows Client applications, going back to MFC (Microsoft Foundation Classes), and more recently WinForms.

Speech in Windows CE, or the lack there of

Recently I have been looking forward writing speech enable application for Windows CE. Microsoft has announced support for Speech API 5.0 since Windows CE .NET 4.1. But it turns out that it is just that, a support for an API. Windows CE has no speech or recognition engine. Thus one can write Speech enable applications, but without speech capabilities at runtime. There are third party speech engines for Windows CE, but who wants to deal with third parties. There is a lot of rhetoric about Microsoft trying to "do it all" and how bad it is, but when it comes to it, it is so convenient not to be forced to deal (and pay) with third parties for solutions, but rather to have the technology build into the system by one vendor. In the case of speech for Windows CE, many of the third parties are not fully compliant with SAPI 5.0 which Windows CE supports, but rather each speech vendor has different speech API, rendering the Speech API 5.0 for Windows CE just a spec.

Need help with development?

If your organization needs help meeting upcoming deadline, or you have an idea for project but do not know hot to get the technical design and implementation going, than send me an email, and I be happy to offer my services in Greater Toronto Area.

Windows XP SP 2 Performance

I am bit concern how well will SP2 perform on older computers that lay on the borderline of system requirements? (E.g. 300MHz, 128MB)

I would like to here from those have have installed XPSP2 on older computers. How has SP2 effected the following...?

- Faster boot time
- Better CPU utilization
- Smaller memory footprint

I hope that SP2 will not slowdown already slow and low on resources computer.

Comeback to Freelancer game

After withdrawing my outer dependency from being Halo addiction, I have switched to Freelancer. I have not played Freelancer for more then a year, and it was a blast to comeback to it, as I even forgot much of the story line.

I have found two great web sites that are a must have for any Freelancer fan. First is by Douglas Melvin, which is an essential asset for any Freelancer trader.  You can find there prices and locations for best roust for every base in every system.  Another great resource is more known Lancers Reactor, where too one can find info about bases and prices for all goods.

I have enjoyed my comeback to Freelancer, that I decided to create my own C# application that I can use to search for bases, ships, goods, and jump gates/holes. Maybe at some latter time I will port it to ASP.NET and make it available to all.

I hope that Microsoft has plans to make a squeal to Freelancer.