While reading a Google+ post by Robert Scoble, I came to the realization that pre-trained, voice controlled, wearable, smart devices have more than just social implications of people wearing these devices. Voice recognition has drastically improved over the years and no longer requires training to the voice of the owner. This has the potential for fun and spam. How long until voice training becomes mandatory to prevent anyone other than the wearer from triggering a command?

I’m going to coin the phrases “Accidental Glass” and “Mass Glassing”.

An Accidental Glass would be when the voices of one or more people is recognized by a Google Glass as a command, when it was not intended to be one. This could easily happen in a public space because “ok. glass [question]” is the shortest command (see Google Glass Voice Commands).

A Mass Glassing would be a more intentional triggering of many devices. Imagine if someone at Google IO yelled out “ok, glass. google rick roll”. The more nefarious prank would be “ok, glass. google photos of [offensive content]”. Will these devices become so ubiquitous that advertisers would take advantage of them at sporting events or with radio/tv announcements?

It’ll be interesting to see how these types of devices are integrated in to society and what sort of advancements in voice recognition happen. BTW, does anyone know if there is a voice command to end a video recording? ;)

After the recent integration of Google+ comments added to blogger, I have been hoping for an easy integration with Textpattern. I currently use Disqus and have been quite happy, but the overall engagement has been almost non-existantly low. Most of my social interactions take place on Google+, so having the clean integration with Google+ for comments is an ideal choice.

It turns out that an experimental integration is possible and is rather easy. I read the article Can I Haz Google+ Comments On LTG Articles? I can!, pointed out to me by Derek Ross which gives a straight forward way of integrating with Wordpress. The change to get this hack to work with Textpattern is as simple as replacing the permalink with the appropriate Textpattern tag. Did I mention that this is experimental? To give it a shot, disable the built in commenting and add the below code to your article template and it should just work.

<script src="https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js">
</script>
<div class="g-comments"
data-href="<txp:permlink />"
data-width="1040"
data-first_party_property="BLOGGER"
data-view_type="FILTERED_POSTMOD">
</div>

…Couchbase 2.0 Only Supports .NET 4.0

I started a project that would use NoSql to add more metrics to my company’s existing c# business application. I evaluated MongoDB and Couchbase to serve as the NoSql document store. The combination of memcached support in Couchbase and the seemingly friendlier experience admin for a Windows shop put it in the lead. I’m the only person in house capable of managing linux systems, so the product evaluation is weighted heavily toward allowing others in the IT department to manage it while I’m on vacation.

Yesterday I hit a road block while starting to evaluate client drivers. The Couchbase c# client drivers do not work with .NET 3.5. The documentation does not mention which .NET version are supported and I had to find out from their support after facing reference errors. They opened a bug to at least get the documentation fixed.

We’re stuck at .NET 3.5 due to VS 2008. There was a planned upgrade to VS 2010, which never happened due to lack of time to upgrade all of the various interconnected projects. I figured that there is no point to go to VS 2010 now since it means we’d need to upgrade to VS 2012 at a later date. It would be a better use of our limited time to go straight to VS 2012. To simplify management and ensure all the various interconnected projects work, we need to ensure all the developers are on the same VS version; including the SSIS/SSRS folks.

I discovered something “fun” with VS 2012 today. It cannot communicate with TFS 2008, but VS 2008 can communicate with TFS 2012. Can you guess how I know this? I found a TFS compatibility matrix).aspx#compat that shows which versions VS work with each version of TFS. To make this project even more fun, TFS 2012 only supports 64-bit versions of Windows and not the 32-bit OS that is our current TFS server.

For me to be able to add a reference to a DLL in a client application, I’ll need to spin up a new VM with a 64-bit Windows, migrate & upgrade TFS over to it, upgrade VS to 2012, and upgrade our CI build system to VS 2012. I’m really hoping BIDS (SSDT in VS 2012) will work with SQL 2008r2, otherwise that means the project scope could balloon even more.

I realize that I could do the baby step of going to the 2010 version of the products, which seem to have better inter-version compatibility, but that would be an undertaking that would still leave us behind. On the bright side, all of this stuff needs to happen anyway, but it’s nicer not having it as a blocker.

I have five hens laying fresh eggs for me. Every week I end up with over two dozen eggs that need to used to keep pace with their production. There are only so many ways to cook an egg; fried, baked, or boiled. My son and I eat about a dozen eggs for breakfast throughout the week. My wife bakes delicious things using more, but baking takes time and I’m only willing to eat fried eggs for a single meal per day.

That leaves us with hard boiled eggs to make egg salad and deviled eggs. Peeling eggs is not always easy. Over the years I’ve developed a technique to quickly peel eggs without destroying them. This sadly doesn’t work well for the fresh eggs from my hens. The eggs from my Rhode Island Red are particularly difficult to peel without destroying the egg because the shell is thicker than store bought eggs. My wife found a recipe for steaming eggs instead of boiling them. It takes longer to steam the eggs, but it was claimed that they are easier to peel.

After trying it out today, I don’t ever plan on boiling eggs again. Steaming is the way to go. The shell came off easily and in large pieces. Any extra time spent steaming is gained back by not having to pick thousands of little egg remnants from off of boiled eggs.

Another useful trick when making deviled eggs is to flip the eggs 30-60 minutes before you steam them. This will help ensure the yolk is more centered.

Hard Cooked Eggs – Steaming Method
by What’s Cooking with Kids
You’ll need:
1.5 quarts of water
1 dozen eggs
1 steamer basket, ideally one that nests into the top portion of a pot
Put the eggs into the steamer tray.
Fill the pot with 1.5 quarts of water (if your steamer tray nests into the top portion of your pot). If you are using a small tray that sits on the bottom of your pan, you may not be able to use enough water to steam the eggs for the desired length of time.
Set the steamer into the pot and turn on the heat. Cover the pan.
Bring the water to a boil, and then turn down the heat to a simmer for 20 minutes.
Allow the eggs to cool enough for you to handle – you can peel them immediately or whenever you are ready to eat them.
Store them in the refrigerator.

Things are progressing nicely for using Django with Windows. It’s hard to gauge true usage, but it appears to me as if the minuscule minority of Django-Windows users is greatly expanding. At my day job, I started to use Django on Windows five years ago and the site has been in production for almost three.

A few years ago, the most common response to support questions was along the lines of “don’t use Windows”. It’s been a while since I’ve gotten that response. There are a few reasons why I think I no longer get that response. The problems I need help with require an understanding of the Django internals and sometimes are asked in the form of a pull request. Microsoft is a DSF member, PyTools adding Python support to Visual Studio, and Azure providing an easy way of hosting a Django app on a Windows server. All of which contribute to a larger base of developers using and deploying to Windows.

I also like to think that my vocal usage of Windows on production has helped to encourage others to follow suit. At DjangoCon 2012, I gave a lightning talk about running Django on Windows (slides and video). To me, that was the point when I started to notice more people developing Django apps on or for a Windows environment. I’m not sure if I noticed them because I started to look more or if the minority felt a lot less isolated and gained a voice.

A few months after DjangoCon came PyCarolinas. I expanded the lightning talk in to a full presentation (slides and unfortunately no video). In the months between PyCarolinas and today, I know of one other production site that is using Windows and there are an increasing number of downloads of each version of django-mssql I push out. I predict that things will continue to improve!

Each ornament has a 4 inch diameter and made of 1/8” baltic birch plywood. The ornament includes the cut out. These can be painted, stained, or displayed as-is with their natural wood color. Each ornament is $3.

Each ornament has a 4 inch diameter and made of 1/8” baltic birch plywood. The ornament includes the cut out. These can be painted, stained, or displayed as-is with their natural wood color. Each ornament is $3.

To help diversify my business with an income that allows me a bit more creative interaction with the physical world, I purchased a laser cutter. Writing custom software and consulting for clients is fun, but its very much confined to the digital realm.

I’m a fan of Kickstarter and when the opportunity for an affordable, professional quality laser cutter presented itself, I jumped at the opportunity. I backed “Full Spectrum’s Affortable 20"x12" Laser cutter” Kickstarter project. My sister has owned the previous version of their hobby laser and has overall been happy with it, so I felt like this was a safe bet.

I have two main ideas on how to integrate the laser cutter in to my business. The first involves acting as a printer for others. For a small set up fee and a fixed per minute rate of laser time, I will cut and engrave a customers design. As an example, my first customer was a local woodworker that needed to make forms for steam bending wood. From a CAD export, I created a plywood template that he can use on his router table to make all the necessary pieces for the bending form.

The other plan for the business is for me to create items for sale. Unlike my bottle stoppers, these items will not be one of a kind. Using my own abilities and working with graphic designers, I will create a collection of decorative things that will be available for purchase online and at local craft fairs. Most of the designs can be personalized.

The first in what will be a collection of holiday decorations is the HAPPY KHAN-UKAH Ornament available for $8. This 4” circular ornament is made of 1/8” baltic birch plywood with the design engraved on one side. The back can be personalized with a name, year, or short message. This is a great gift for any Star Trek fan, regardless of religious believes.

All order processing is handled by Google Checkout, so you can be confident that your credit card information is safe and never seen by me.

I’ve written a Scriptish script that makes a few UI improvements to the NC Woodworker Forum. The script is tested with the Firefox extension, but may also work with other browsers that have a Scriptish or GreaseMonkey plugin/extension.

Features

• Convert location text to a Google Maps link. It will detect links in user profiles, classified listings, classified posts, and the thread poster’s location.
• Auto-collapse maps embedded in a post and provide a link to the map and the ability to expand the embedded map.
• Remove the “Place Holder” navigation item.

If you’d like the map links to include directions, you can configure the script so that it knows the starting location to use. This location can be any location that Google Maps recognizes; long/lat, intersection, address, city, etc. See the below image on how to find the settings. The green icon at the bottom right of the FireFox window belongs to Scriptish. Clicking it will popup the menu.

How To Install

1. Install the Scriptish Firefox Extension
2. Install the NCWW Forum Helper Script
3. Optionally configure a starting location.
4. Enjoy the improved UI

GitHub Repo: https://github.com/manfre/scriptish-ncww-forum/

Screenshots

This first image showcases the auto-collapsing of embedded maps and the location text converted to a map link. The screenshot below was taken from the thread New Feature: Insert Google Maps in Posts.

Disclaimer

This script is not supported by NCWW. Please don’t contact the NCWW admins or mods with support questions.

Bright and early Saturday morning, I joined a packed room at the NCDA for a hop growing lecture. They are still in the first few years of research, but had a wealth of knowledge to share about growing hops in the piedmont. The most important tidbit is that many things are different from growing in the Northwest and the information floating about for that region doesn’t necessarily apply.

Another motivator for attending the hop field day was to promote BrewedByUs.com. I placed a stack of business cards next to the sign in sheets on the way in. On the way out, there were only a couple left on the table. Later that night, our server was stumbling from the extra load. Some quick patching to reduce database queries and add a bit more caching have resulted in a snappy site. I’m hoping the initial slow impression hasn’t turned away any potential users.