November 2006 Archives

I run Windows on my Linux desktop using VMware Server. It works pretty well. However, one thing I hate about VMware is the fact that it has a direct key binding to reboot the system, without confirmation. The key binding is to one of my most oft-used keys: Ctrl-R. I hit Ctrl-R on a very regular basis because that's the hot key to reload a page in Internet Explorer and Firefox, which is something I do pretty frequently as a web developer. Anyway, since I mouse back and forth between VMware and my Firefox browser, about once in every 50 Ctrl-R's, focus is occasionally back on VMware, which causes an immediate reboot and also an immediate expletive from me.

This is stupid and, from reading the VMware forums, a problem that's existed since at least 2004 that still hasn't been addressed. So far the solutions are either to make it so that it's really hard to give VMware focus by accident or to turn on hints and enabled the hint on resets to add an additional confirmation when you make this action. Both are unsatisfactory.

However, in case you are also frustrated by this, I can keep you from going further to look for a solution. Close your VMware Console and edit the preferences file, which is ~/.vmware/preferences under Linux. In that file, add a line reading:

pref.vmui.reset = "TRUE"

Next, save the file and open VMware Console back up and go to Help > Hints > Show Enabled Hints. Make sure you do both or you will still be frustrated the next time you hit Ctrl-R.

Cheers.

As a fan of Perl, I'm very used to lists of items that are written with an extra comma. For example:

my %hash = (
     foo => 1,
     bar => 2,
     baz => 3,
);

Even though there's not a fourth item in the list above, it still works. This is commonly referred to as the "trailing comma." Switching languages, the trailing comma is supported by Mozilla's JavaScript 1.5 implementation
. It is not, however, supported by IE (not even IE 7).

Therefore, when I perform a very similar operation as above, I have a nasty habit of forgetting this and breaking my code in IE:

var hash = {
    foo: 1,
    bar: 2,
    baz: 3,
};

The above runs fine in Firefox, but will fail to run with an error in IE 7. When supporting IE, you (I) must remember to remove the trailing comma:

var hash = {
    foo: 1,
    bar: 2,
    baz: 3
};

Okay, so some newb is probably reading this wondering, why is the trailing comma valid at all? Simple. It makes it just a little easier to add another element to the list later and even to reorder with copy and paste line-by-line. It can save just a small bit of time coding. That is, I could paste "qux: 4," into the first JavaScript example above foo, below foo, below bar, or below baz without worrying about it if I am able to use a trailing comma. In the second example, I can insert it above foo, below foo, below bar, but not below baz. Furthermore, after adding the comma after "baz: 3," I still cannot put it after baz until I remove the comma from the end of the pasted "qux: 4." This might save me only 20 seconds in my coding of paste, click, comma, click, backspace, but a little thing like this goes a long way in helping my sanity.

Anyway, I just thought I'd post this real quick in the hopes that I'll remember next time.

Cheers.

This weekend I attended my first Circle
meeting. These meetings are attended by our work clients, which are partners in accounting firms and their IT leadership. If you are not familiar with accounting agencies, let me warn you that they are nearly 100% Microsoft shops. Being a Mac/Linux guy myself I chose to use this as an opportunity to introduce some of them to the concept of another operating system. These folks tend to be stuck in the "Ew! It's Apple!" crowd. Since accounting firms tend to be 4 to 6 years behind in technology (even our Circle members, who are way ahead of the curve tend to be a bit behind the main stream) these folks haven't yet seen how cool the Mac is. Anyway, here are the misconceptions I encountered most this weekend:

1. It's just a pretty box; you can't use it to work unless you're some kind of designer. Actually, I find that the Mac is a very nice platform to run from as a web developer. If you are in an enterprise environment using Microsoft Exchange, it's not so nice (Entourage is a PoS). However, if you do not run Exchange, I'd say that Windows has very little advantage over the Mac. Even if you run Exchange, you can run Windows on Mac now and get Outlook to run there anyway. I'll let you know when I get my new MacBook Pro how well that works out.
2. There aren't any good Anti-Virus solutions for it. Well, this is true, but it's also true that you don't hardly need Anti-Virus on a Mac. I got really skeptical looks from the IT folks across the table when I said it and said that there really aren't any major viruses for the Mac and I've never heard of anyone with a Mac getting a virus. Could it happen? Certainly. It's possible, but because of the built in limitations and security implementation, it's rarely a problem. I'm hoping that the UAC
   features of Microsoft Windows Vista might provide a similar security improvement for reducing the need for AV, but we'll see how well those security features really work over the next few months.
3. Finally, my favorite: Yeah, but it's only got a one button mouse. Simply not true. The Mighty Mouse
   from Apple now supports two buttons. Not only this, but two button mice have been supported for years. Even with just the one button mouse, you get essentially the same functionality (context menus) by holding Control while clicking the mouse button. After about 2 minutes of using it, I didn't notice the difference anymore. This one is especially insidious because even after I explained this to the folks present, they continued to believe this fallacy as if I hadn't spoken and this is the least true of all of them.

Before I go, I don't want anyone left with the feeling that I'm insinuating that these IT folks are backwards, blind, or stupid. They're good at what they do and the accounting profession, in general, simply doesn't have a need for anything but Windows. None of the specialized software they require will run on anything else, so why would they bother? Until CCH, CSI, Intuit, or another major vendor comes up with something on another platform, they will continue to ignore what they don't need to do their job and focus on getting better on what's actually applicable.

Of course, ASP
services are also on the rise and as that happens, it's going to matter less and less what OS you use. The OS will not be a lock-in for applications anymore. As that happens, I suspect that the existing accounting firms will continue to use Windows because that's what they've always done. However, new firms might consider alternatives based on merit. Yet, given the shortage of new blood in the accounting profession, I expect that more of accounting will be outsourced overseas rather than anything changing in the way of OS in the United States.

Cheers.