ben robison

Why I Don’t Like Outlook

Or, one reason that I don’t like Outlook.

So you know already, that when your computer boots up, there are lots of processes that have to start, programs that have to run etc. This process consumes a lot of processing power, so after typing in my password on my work computer, I usually find something else to do for the next couple minutes until my computer is actually useable (this is only a slight exxageration, the process takes well over 60 seconds).

Then since email has become a major form of communication where I work, I wait for all the processes to run and die down and then I open Outlook and log onto the Exchange server. Starting where the first spike hits halfway up, this picture shows what Outlook was doing to my computer while it checked my mail. Outlook was unresponsive the entire time (except that brief drop in the middle).

What on earth is going on? Is there any reason that Outlook should be maxing my CPU for that amount of time? A spike or two sure, but 100% for over a minute? “I must have a lot of work to do,” I thought to myself, “if there’s that much mail coming in.”

No. There wasn’t. Only 3.

And people wonder why I prefer Apple Mail.

Save The Internet - Preserve Net Neutrality

I’ve added a new link in the Links section and thought it was important enough to explain why.

Up until now, the internet has been a neutral playground.  Anyone could post content of any type, but your internet service provider probably does not want this to continue.  Most ISPs are now trying to prioritize content into different categories and make you pay  more if you want to access certain kinds.

Are you a YouTube fan?  Well, they could throttle back the bandwidth on streaming video unless you’re willing to pay extra.  Same goes for music, or anything else you might be looking at.

This is a bad thing for all those web loving people in the world.  The web is the great leveler of today’s society.  Everyone competes in a common arena, with no one being more special than another.  The smallest blogger in the smallest corner of the web is free to publish ideas and make his voice heard.

I’m not the expert, but I know where I stand.  Google has explained it better than I can.  Google supports net neutrality.  RockTheNet is a coalition of bands and musical artists that support net neutrality.  As always you can find out more on Wikipedia.

There is a vote coming this May in congress that will decide the future of the web as we know it.  Will it remain neutral?  Visit http://SaveTheInternet.com or Google’s Net Neutrality page to find out what you can do to make your voice heard and help save the internet.

Ubuntu Feisty Beta

So being a student I don’t have a lot of access to extra hardware to test out certain things, so I’ll freely admit that my testing of Feisty is patchy at best, because I’m limited to VMWare Fusion, but I’ll tell you what I’ve seen and beyond that, I’ve heard some good things.

I saw in the news a month or so ago that Ubuntu was not going to make proprietary drivers available in Feisty. This is what drove my whole gentoo experiment in the first place. The whole reason that I loved Ubuntu was the steady release and that everything worked.

You’ve all seen the tutorials floating around for getting XGL, AIGLX, Beryl, Compiz, etc. running on your favorite distro, but this is too much for me. I consider myself a geek, but I don’t like wasting my time. I’m pretty familiar with an apache.conf file, but beyond that, if it involves opening conf files or shell text editors, I’m done. I’ll find something else. I digress.

Ubuntu’s latest Feisty beta then came as a surprise. Inside System > Administration > Restricted Drivers Manager you control what restricted drivers your system uses. This is an auto-install of the proprietary drivers with an auto-detect included. You can also control Desktop Effects grom the gui (I forget where). If you use restricted drivers, Ubuntu will warn you that they do not support them, but they are available if you want to use them.

You can see my VMWare drivers in the Restricted Drivers Manager here.

What do you have that might need proprietary drivers? Graphics cards and wireless cards are at the top of my list, and apparently, Ubuntu is good at getting the right ones.

Then as I began posting this, I heard another bit of news that makes this even better. ATI has released their Catalyst Control Center for Linux. If you like hating on Microsoft and can’t afford Apple Computers, Linux is starting to shape up as a decent (and still free) option.

This is good news for Linux.

Model Driven Architecture [part 3]

This will be a short post, but I thought it would be interesting to look at one specific offering of an MDA product to see what they can do.  OptimalJ is made by Compuware and provides MDA programming for those of use that live in a J2EE world.

To start things off, this PDF file is one of their marketing releases, but as we look through it, we can see the foundations of what makes an MDA product.

OptimalJ consists of three basic components.  (1) Metamodels create separation between application design, infrastructure, and code.  (2) Technology patterns make model-to-model transformation possible. (3) Finally, implementation patterns allow for the model-to-code transformation.

Metamodels: At the high level, you need to separate the different aspects of your applications so that you can address the concerns of each individual piece before you bring it all together to work out those issues.  Since we’ve started breaking things down into threes (3 MDA posts and 3 OptimalJ components) we’ll do one final three-part breakdown.  There are three kinds of metamodels.  The domain model, the application model, and the code model.

Proper usage of these metamodels formally defines the kinds of data needed by the application,  what technology the application will be using, and specific code pieces that will be used in certain situations.  This last part is a bit confusing, but the OptimalJ product allows for editing of templates (of a sort) that will later be used during the translation of model-to-code.

Technology Patterns: above we mentioned that this provides model-to-model transformation.  Specifically, this provides for the transformation of the domain model into the application model.  So starting from the kind of data that we want, we now translate that into the architecture of our application.  What kind of application is this?  Web-based, client-server, etc.

Implementation Patterns:   this transforms the application model into the code model.  This is where actual code is produced.

OptimalJ provides graphical editors for all these different pieces, but breaking it down this way, we can begin to see what OptimalJ can do.  We start up front with the need for an application.  After defining what data we need in the data model, we can generate an application model that provides an overview of the application itself.  Further transformation into the code model gives an application that can be compiled and run.

If we change the way the data should be stored, we can regenerate the application model and the code model and cut out all the in-betweens of recoding to match our new data structure.  All this auto-generation even includes SQL scripts for datbase creation if you’re willing to spring for the higher-end versions.  Eclipse support and Netbeans support virtually guarantees that you’ll be in a familiar environment.  Is there anyone in the world that still writes Java outside of those IDEs?

HDTV Explained in English

This is HDTV as simple as I can explain it. I recently came to the realization that I live in a fantasy world. This fantasy is that after I finally finish Grad School and become employed full-time earning a real salary that I’ll suddenly have loads of extra money to spend on expensive toys. Don’t bring me back to reality. I like where I am.

With that in mind, I’ve begun researching HDTVs. So many different signal types, so many options. Nowadays, TVs are starting to double for computer monitors and monitors are capable of doubling as TVs, so I thought I’d share the findings of my little research projects and tell you what I’ve learned about HDTV and the various ways that you can hook it up to your computer or HDTV provider.

Resolutions
There are different resolutions for HDTVs which are expressed in terms of the vertical resolution and whether the picture is interlaced or progressive. Progressive is better (smoother) and this is noticeable when things are moving quickly. Things like sports, action movies, etc. look better on a progressive screen.

As far as I can tell, the only good reason for HDTV to make up their own kinds of resolution is to try to keep it a secret that computers have been doing much higher resolutions for years. When you’re trying to translate between the two however, we need some important information.

480i and 480p: These are associated with the old-fashioned standard-def TVs (don’t be offended, that’s all I’ve got at my house too) and the never-took-off enhanced-def TVs.

720p and 1080i: Nearly every HDTV source broadcasts in one of these two resolutions. It’s a tossup as to which of these formats is better, but what was important to me was the resolution. Your TV must have a 1280×720 to display the whole picture. 1366×768 is better. If you’re TV is only capable of 1024×768 (very common in HDTVs) it will still show you the content, you’ll just be missing out on the full glory of the experience. TV sets down-convert from the higher format into the TV’s max (or native) resolution and many people never figure out that they’re missing something.

1080p: The only sources of this kind of content are Blu-Ray, HD-DVD, and computers. It’s even better than most computers are capable of handling. To display the full content of a 1080p source, you’ll have to have a screen resolution of 1920×1080.  Building TV sets that can display this resolution takes longer than the lower resolution sets, which explains why you’ll usually pay so much more for the 1080p.

Plugging In
Resolution is only one piece of the puzzle. Once you’ve got the TV, you’ve still got to plug you’re source into the TV.

HDMI: The High-Definition Multimedia Interface probably tops off the list as the simplest option. It packages your digital video and digital audio into one easy cable. The current HDMI in use (type A) is fully capable of carrying the full 1080p signal, but won’t go any higher. Future HDMI (type B) can go higher, but currently it’s not important or in use.

DVI: The Digital Visual Interface is standard on today’s computers. Single-link DVI can handle resolutions of 1920×1200 (slightly higher than the 1080p) and dual-link DVI can go as high as 3840×2400. I doubt you’ll find a TV or computer screen in existence that can handle that though. The Apple cinema displays go as high as 2560×1600, but that’s the highest I’ve ever heard.

Component Video: Like everything else in the world of computers, color is produced by mixing red, green, and blue. In order to produce a sharper picture, sometimes the video signal is split into these three colors and each color is sent over a separate cable. Component video can do all HDTV resolutions from 480i all the way up to 1080p. Historically the signal carried has been an analog signal, though digital is becoming much more popular in computers and home theaters.

Wrapping Up
If your TV doesn’t have a DVI input (many do) then you’ll have to convert your computer signal in some way in order to display it on your TV. Converting from DVI to HDMI or component video is quite simple. A cheap adapter you can pick up at any electronics store will do the job.

If you end up converting from DVI to HDMI you should realize that your audio will be lost along the way. Unless you’re plugging your computer audio into your home theater sound system, you might want to consider the component video route. Component inputs on a TV have more room for audio, so if you go that route you can still get sound and video from your computer to your TV.

This brings us to the subject of home theater audio, which I’ve also been researching, but I’ll leave that topic for another day. For more information on today’s topic, you can look below.

http://www.lcdtvbuyingguide.com/hdtv/hdtv-resolutions.shtml
http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-6449_7-6361600-1.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hdmi
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dvi
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Component_video

At the conclusion of writing this post, I just found this article as well, which may provide some additional insight: http://forum.ecoustics.com/bbs/messages/34579/122868.html