Month: December 2009

This is why you need to be careful about your contract developers.

D'Arque Bishop

One of the tech websites I visit on a regular basis is the Daily WTF. It’s a collection of stories regarding ineptitude, cluelessness, failures, and even sometimes malevolence in the IT world, especially when it comes to development. Two days ago they posted a story that I figured I should share…

One thing that people generally ask me is whether I’m afraid that my job would be outsourced to somewhere like India. The answer I give is most often “no”; over the years, it’s become plainly obvious that while it’s cheaper to send tech support and development to such countries, the cost savings are undone by the language barriers, quality of work, time zone differences, and even possible corruption. Plus, with them being overseas, there’s little chance of them being called on whatever they do.

Anyway, this story, called “Maybe I Needing Later”, should serve as a very precautionary tale about hiring a developer in this manner. While this is one of the worst examples I’ve ever seen, it also doesn’t surprise me one iota. I figure this guy is not the first to be burned in this way.

How bad is it? Well, I’ll just quote one line that says it all…

“If you don’t paying, then I delete files that I send you,” he responded, “I don’t want deleting your web, but it is not fair for me. I know you changing my password and I can’t logging on, but I don’t needing SQL or server password to delete.”

You can read the rest of the story here.

A new exercise regiment…

D'Arque Bishop

Well, this should hopefully be good.

Nearly two years ago, I started a new exercise regiment in order to get healthier and lose weight. What I started doing was exercise with small hand weights for five minutes when I get up every weekday morning, and doing 25 minutes of Dance Dance Revolution three times a week. While I enjoyed doing it, it got to the point where I wondered whether it was doing any more good for me or not. It didn’t help that I always felt it really wasn’t as much of a workout as I should be getting. So, with Jennifer’s support, I took the plunge this past Sunday.

I’ve officially joined a gym.

Jennifer’s been a member of 24 Hour Fitness for quite some time, and had been encouraging me to join. She and I went on Sunday (with me using a free week pass), and I was impressed enough to join as soon as we were done. My big hangup with gyms previously was that even with personal training, I’d never be able to keep up with how to do most of the exercises. (I speak from experience.) However, most of the machines have directions on them, which put me at ease right away. The staff was also very courteous and helpful.

So, now I’m going to the gym four times a week. I’ve settled into a good exercise routine that should do me pretty well, once my body adjusts to the extra level of exertion. Keeping to the routine shouldn’t be hard, either, as there are locations right outside my neighborhood, right by Jennifer’s neighborhood, and one or two by our offices. Here’s hoping it works out pretty well for me… no pun intended. :-)

And now, the Worldwide New Orleans/Lafayette Tour!

D'Arque Bishop

Jennifer and I in front of St. Louis Cathedral.A couple of weeks ago, I went on another road trip with Jennifer. She and her parents have a Thanksgiving tradition: instead of having a big turkey dinner, they go out of town for the weekend. This year, they decided to go to New Orleans and Lafayette, and asked if I wanted to tag along. I was up for it, so I went with them and had a great time. I’d been putting off posting about the actual trip, so I figured I’d spend some time doing a recap…
Read more “And now, the Worldwide New Orleans/Lafayette Tour!”

Yet another tale of REALLY bad customer service…

D'Arque Bishop2 Comments

I seem to have a habit of posting tales of bad customer service here.

I’m not really “up” on the whole con thing, really. I’ve been to one or two, but my experience has been mostly with trade shows like E3 and OTC. However, the one con I’ve known about for years due to friends attending and talking about it was Dragon*Con. I’d considered going for years, even when slightly annoyed when undergoing overload of D*C. However, there had always been a reason for me not to go, from not wanting to fight with hotel rooms, to not having a friend to go with me, and so on and so forth…

Well, yesterday, I found a VERY good reason not to go. Yesterday, Ryan Sohmer of Blind Ferret Entertainment (responsible for the popular webcomics Least I Could Do and Looking For Group) made a post on the LICD forums talking about their experience with Dragon*Con staff this year as a paying vendor, and why they will not be back next year. Lar deSouza (Ryan’s collaborator on LICD and LFG) asked that people retweet Ryan’s post and get the word out; while I’ve already tweeted about it, I figured I would go ahead and repost the story on here.
Read more “Yet another tale of REALLY bad customer service…”

The Palm Pre’s biggest liability appears to be Palm itself.

D'Arque Bishop2 Comments

I used to have a high amount of respect for Palm. These days… not so much.

Doubtless people have been seeing ads for the Palm Pre all over the place. The Pre is their biggest phone release since the Treo, really. It boasts a brand new OS (WebOS) and is supposed to be the most advanced of the Palm phones. Normally I would be interested from the get go, but there were two things standing in the Pre’s way from my standpoint. The first was that, of course, I’m kind of attached to my iPhone. The second is that the Pre is exclusive to Sprint.

Now, however, there’ve been two missteps on Palm’s end that completely destroyed any desire for me to use the Pre. The blatant dishonesty and… well, laziness, for lack of a better word shown by Palm has been mind-boggling.

The first misstep involves the Pre’s ability to sync with iTunes. Now, to go about it the right way, one either develops a third-party utility that references the iTunes library database file (like Blackberry does), or one does a deal with Apple. What Palm ended up doing was spoofing the USB identifier of the iPod, thus making iTunes think that the Pre was in fact an iPod. Apple worked to block the Pre, and Palm ended up reporting Apple to the USB Implementers Forum, the organization that maintains standards, compliance, and vendor IDs for USB. Palm claimed that Apple was using the USB identifier in such a way that it blocked interoperation of devices, something that was against the membership agreement for USB-IF. Unfortunately, not only did USB-IF say that Apple’s use of the USB identifier was completely fine, they stated that Palm was completely in the wrong for using Apple’s identifier. iTunes 9 finally broke syncing with the Pre.

Now, there’s word that another of Pre’s applications is a source of trouble. The Pre uses a piece of software called muPDF for its PDF reading functionality. The developers of muPDF, Artifex Software, released muPDF under the GPL (quick summary: you can distribute the software as you see fit, but any changes you make to the source code must be distributed as well). They also state that if someone were to include muPDF as part of an application, either the new software needs to be distributed as GPL, or a commercial license from Artifex is required. Well, Artifex has sued Palm, stating that while muPDF is included in the Pre, they neither purchased a commercial license nor have they released the modified program’s source code.

The Palm Pre might be a wonderful device. I personally haven’t tried it, as I don’t know anyone who has one. Still, considering these two blatant legal issues that Palm are embroiled in right now due to trying to take a shortcut, it makes me wonder how many other problems the device has, legal or otherwise. They’ve already been shown to cut corners in licensing and development. It’s a shame, really… my first PDAs were Palms and Handsprings. Now, though, given everything that’s happening… I’ll stick with Apple, HTC, or Nokia, thank you very much.

Portable Dragon’s Lair? Count me in.

D'Arque Bishop

http://kotaku.com/5419702/dragons-lair-heading-for-the-iphone

The 1983 laserdisc classic Dragon’s Lair will follow its cousin Space Ace to the iPhone; Electronic Arts is handling the port. Now you can enjoy Dirk the Daring’s inquisitive grunting and Princess Daphne’s coquettish cooing in a convenient portable format.

The game will feature an arcade mode, faithful to the content of the original cabinet game, and a home mode that includes extra scenes. Space Ace, the other Don Bluth animated game on the iPhone/iPod Touch, was $4.99. No word on price point here, and delivery is listed as just “December 2009.”

Oh, man. I used to play Dragon’s Lair frequently when it came out in arcades. I even got my hands on a book with all of the moves, and quickly learned to beat the game. The first time I did so was at Aladdin’s Castle in Willowbrook Mall; the game had one of those monitors on top of it so others could see you play. When I finally slew Singe (the dragon), I heard applause behind me. I turned to see about 15-20 people watching me beat the game. Let me tell you, that gave a little boost to the ego… heh.

Since then, I’d purchased other ports of the game, for the Coleco ADAM (rather good despite the hardware limitations of the time), NES (wow, that was hard and pretty unplayable), and even the PC. I’d never gotten my hands on an arcade-perfect version yet, even though they’d been available for a while. I’m looking forward to getting my hands on this… if only to add another little bit of nostalgia to my gaming catalog. :-)