Tim Keller

It was August 2005 and I bunch of us had gathered on someone’s Relto in Until Uru. The topic of the night was how we should go about starting a podcast for the Myst/Uru Community. Back then, the idea of a podcast was a little more foreign than today, and plenty of time was spent arguing about what the hand-crafted RSS feed should contain.

Fast forward almost 5 years and The Cavern Today, spurred on by the return of Myst:Online Uru Live (again), has decided to “reboot” and start at Episode #1 again after months of non-production. Have a listen to our latest episode entitled, Something Old, Something New.

My role since the beginning has been to looking after the servers, forum software, and website. this February, I began a major redesign of the website using Wordpress.

Initially, I was sceptical of Wordpress’ applicability to podcasting, but I was soon proven wrong. With the addition of a couple of simple plugins and a good theme, Wordpress can be a podcasting powerhouse!

A couple of tips for using Wordpress to podcast:

• Create and use categories from the beginning. In this way you’ll be able to publish multiple feeds, and therefore, multiple shows.
• Choose/Build a simple theme which shows off your content, gives the visitor easy access to an MP3 download, and offers an iTunes Subscribe button.
• Get a plugin to take away the audio-file management headaches. We use Blubrry PowerPress.
• Choose one of the many Twitter plugins for Wordpress to auto-tweet when you publish a new episode.
• Allow comments! The whole point of podcasting is to build and serve a community. Allowing comments means instant two-way communication with your community.

Happy podcasting!

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Don’t sit on the bench, get to DevDays 2010 and score with us! Laduuuuuuma!!!!

It’s here! Microsoft DevDays is the premier developer event of the year and is all about learning, sharing and interacting with one another and having fun! DevDays 2010 brings you the best of current developer technologies, along with a preview of soon-to-be-released Microsoft tools and technologies.

I spoke at DevDays 2009 and had a blast. This year, I’ve been invited back to deliver two new talks:

• Getting started with Silverlight development
  Interested in Silverlight development but not sure how to get started? Learn the basics of Silverlight application development – the tools and fundamental concepts behind Silverlight. Find out how to re-use your existing .NET development skills to build exciting new applications. This session will focus on the fundamentals of Silverlight including layout, data binding, data access and styling.
• Open Source and Microsoft – Working Together
  Microsoft AND Open Source? What?! Come and learn how Microsoft platform works with open source platforms like PHP and Java form the server room and into the cloud. Come and learn how Microsoft is opening up and supporting open source development and technologies.

Find out more, and register at http://www.microsoft.com/southafrica/devdays/default.mspx

Most importantly, entrance is free! Please join us for a wonderful day of learning and networking.

• "Success only comes to those who are so busy that they do not have time to look for it." ~ Just emailed to me by one of my clients #
• Windows Mobile 7 leaked (sort of) Looks interesting at least. http://mashable.com/2010/02/15/windows-mobile-7-pics/ #
• Windows Phone 7 Series – great to see a new Windows Mobile, just hope they keep the number consistent with Windows (ie Windows 8 = Mobile #
• @MattGeri Please tell me ICT2622 (Comic Sans Edition) isn't a Computer Science/IT/InfoSys course? in reply to MattGeri #
• @artpreston @maggiev Fantastic – I'll check the calendar. Flying out to speak in JHB the next day so might not be possible. Let's see. in reply to artpreston #
• @MattGeri Wow, now that is a special kind of #UNISA fail. Nice… in reply to MattGeri #
• 3 out of the 4 Mac users at Umoya have now had significant hardware problems on their Macs. Me included #
• @constantlm Oh yikes that sucks. Mine is a May 2008 (juuust pre-unibody). Sigh. in reply to constantlm #
• @EricBurgess There are similar solutions which allow CPU sharing. This one is nicely integrated with the Windows experience. I'll b watching in reply to EricBurgess #
• MacBook Pro has died after 1 year, 10 months. Logic board replacement costs R22000+. New MBP costs 18000. #brandfail #apple #fail #
• @artpreston Mac laptops only have a 1 year warrenty. This is a know graphics failure which is covered without cost – but I don't qualify. in reply to artpreston #
• On my way to collect my new MacBookPro from digicape – cheaper to buy a new one than to replace part in old one #insanity #coregrp #sucks #
• Nice! OO 3.2? RT @d4v3g #OpenOffice just made some data manipulation easier than Excel for Mac… which also crashed on me. I am impressed. #
• So I got another Mac despite being very very cross with Apple. This should have been a deal breaker, Steve. #
• Pulled apart my old Mac today – grabbed the hard drive and are busy copying my /home to the new Mac. #
• Crash Reporter, has crashed. #Apple http://www.flickr.com/photos/merlin/3881497093/ #
• @artpreston Afraid not… We need to find one for Mac! See you there! in reply to artpreston #
• Wow… why new Mac's smell so good? I get a wiff of the Apple Store every few minutes… #koolaid #
• Woke up to to 30 new emails from Twitter – news obviously got around of my app that auto posts to @moulserver #
• Bill Gates TED2010 talk on Energy and Innovating to zero is excellent – http://www.ted.com/talks/bill_gates.html #
• jquery is just so great. What would we do without it!? #

In contrast to a week allegations of “internecine warfare among Microsoft’s established divisions and a dysfunctional corporate culture that squashes innovation” comes yet-another-innovative-Google-product, Google Buzz.  Google Buzz is Mountain View’s first convincing entry into Social Networking, that isn’t limited to merely an API.

Gina Trappani, posting on Smarterware, says it all: “This ain’t no Orkut.”. Google are very serious about taking down Twitter and Facebook.

Jason Calacanis, posting to his email list this morning, made it clear that he sees this as a major challenge to facebook:

1. Google Buzz 1.0 is better than Facebook after six or seven years.

2. Facebook’s history is one filled with stealing other people’s
innovations and doing them better (i.e. Zuckerberg has stolen every
idea Evan Williams and the Twitter team have released). How ironic now
that Google has out “Facebooked” Facebook. Google

3. Google has excellent privacy record and Facebook is a disaster.
Most folks do not trust Zuckerberg and Facebook any more because of
their privacy record (filled with lawsuits) and because they steal
every good idea they see (i.e. Twitter’s innovations and FourSquare’s
checking in).

4. Google Buzz auto generates your network–this is MUCH better
process than Facebook’s.

5. Google Buzz is way faster than the sluggish Facebook–this is a
HUGE advantage.

6. Google Buzz puts relies and updates into your GMAIL as
threads–this is BRILLIANT and a HUGE advantage.

Perhaps Jason is spot on. It certainly does seem that Google has almost everything in place to flip the switch, and take over the Social Networking space.

• Status
  Google: Buzz Status and GTalk Status
  Facebook: Status
• Photos
  Google: Picassa,
  Facebook: Photos
• Videos
  Google: YouTube,
  Facebook: Videos
• Email
  Google: Gmail since 2004
  Facebook: Project Titan (not yet released)
• Instant Messaging
  Google: GTalk with XMPP/Jabber
  Facebook: Facebook Chat (XMPP just released)
• Applications
  Google: Not yet.
  Facebook: Farmville, and a few others.
• Media Sharing
  Google: Google Reader, YouTube
  Facebook: A mix of rss importing tools, and (possibly) the recently purchased FriendFeed.

The only problem, in the words of the imitable Reinhardt Zündorf, is: “This is lame, now I can’t find out which dog I am (via a five bullet questionnaire) and share it with my facebook friends”.

Its no secret that I spend a fair amount of my time in World of Warcraft. My main character, a Human Paladin, is on the US-based realm of Stormscale.

In order to support the 12 million players, Blizzard operates a network of 500+ servers (called Realms) across the globe. From time to time, these realms are taken offline for maintenance or upgrades by the Blizzard Tech staff. This post is about how to track these periods of downtime so that players can easily monitor the status of their realm.

1. Start by visiting http://warcraftupdate.net/ – a directory of all the US-based realms.
2. Search for your realm, and click on the title once found.
3. This will link you to your Realm’s Twitter profile (such as the one for my realm, Stormscale).
4. Follow the profile in order to receive updates whenever your realm goes up or down.

For the alliance,
Tim

The Website Team at Umoya tend to interview one of the staff every couple of weeks, this week was my turn.

It is time we took up the mic again and interrogated some of the team here. Today, we decided to pick on: Tim Keller : Lead Developer and general software guru.

[Ed] Tim, you’ve been with a Umoya for a few years now, how did you get to be working here?

[Tim] I got to know Peter through Sunvalley school, he became aware I needed financial assistance to complete my university studies, took a risk and offered to fund me in return for me coming to work at Umoya.

[Ed] Are you Cape Town born and bred?

[Tim] I am indeed. I’ve lived in the same house all my life (until just recently).

[Ed] Ah yes, you’ve just given up bachelorhood I believe – congratulations!

[Ed] I gather your dad is head of Sunvalley Primary, is your mom also a teacher?

[Tim] My family: Teachers, Teachers and more Teachers

[Ed] I sympathise – my siblings were also all teachers.

[Ed] Have you always wanted to be a software developer?

[Tim] No, as a kid I wanted to be a …. wait for it – Teacher! Then of course an Astronaut, Computer Engineer, then Lawyer…. the list goes on.

[Ed] Where did you study?

[Tim] The great UCT!

[Ed] [what is it about UCT students?! Humble as anything.]

[Ed] So was it straight from school to varsity to Umoya?

[Tim] Not quite. I’ve worked as: a teacher, video editor, sound engineer, and web designer.

[Ed] What are some of the things you love

[Tim] My wife (hopeless romantic I know) [Ed: don't worry, you'll get over it], Apple Macs [Ed: terrible fanboy!], photography, formula1, gadgets and (good) music.

[Ed] What do you hate?

[Tim] Hating things.

[Ed] o…k… moving right along…

[Ed] Your role in Umoya?

[Tim] Lead Developer and Systems guy for staffroom. I created staffroom in response to my dad’s frustrations with school admin, and it is now looking like being something that could gain some substantial usage in South African schools. It helped immensely to have Umoya take staffroom under their wing.

[Ed] You’re known in Umoya as…?

[Tim] Pink shirt guy.

[Ed] If you were a wild animal, what would you be?

[Tim] Meerkat (pokes head up every now and then to see the bigger picture)

[Ed] A meerkat in a pink shirt? I’m going to let that one slide right by or the conversation might turn weird!

From time to time, I need to compare MySQL database tables and see what data has been added to the one in the time since I mysqldump’d the first one.

For example: Let’s say I have table_a as my snapshot’d table, and table_b as my newer table which has one or more new rows in it.The query below will return all records that are in table_b, and not in table_a.

SELECT table_b.* FROM table_b
LEFT JOIN table_a ON table_b.id = table_a.id
WHERE table_a.item_id IS NULL

This idea can be extrapolated to comparing the tables of two different databases:

SELECT database_b.sometable.* FROM database_b.sometable
LEFT JOIN database_a.sometable ON database_b.sometable.id = database_a.sometable.id
WHERE database_a.sometable.item_id IS NULL

The you can take those results and use them to INSERT the missing records, should you want to do this.

Calling budding programmers, developers and geeks!

Are you interested in learning computer programming? Want to find out what it is all about, without devoting too much time? Do you have a child or learner that might be interested? The University of Cape Town is holding a free course to give young learners an introduction to computer programming. They will teach the basic skills needed to start creating your very own fun and useful computer programs.

The course will be run from Friday 26 to Sunday 28 February 2010. It is targeted at learners in grades 7–10 with little or no knowledge of programming, but learners of other grades are also welcome. The course will teach Python: a real-world programming language used by many large companies such as Google, Yahoo and Industrial Light & Magic that is also easy to pick up.

The only prerequisite for the course is a fair level of computer literacy: using a web browser and text editor. The course will start from the very basics of what computer programming is about and end off with an introduction to programming concepts: flow control, lists and functions.

You can apply online at http://algorithm.cs.uct.ac.za/apply. Dead- line for applications is 21 February.