Tools of the trade, on the go of course

There are a couple of things that programmers cling to like rabid dogs when it comes to the way they work (no I'm not going to talk about coffee brands). One of these is their choice of text editor. I don't mean the full blown IDE they work in (though some do choose to just edit random bits of text in those as well), I mean the lightweight application they use to edit the odd script or batch file, as a secondary clipboard and for other such necessities. There are many contenders out there, and for many years my product of choice was TextPad, largely due to it's excellent macro support, command result capturing and pre-bundled integration with Java (which I was using extensively at the time).

However last year I was slowly won over by a friend's editor of choice, Scite. It's command support trumped TextPad's, and while TextPad stubbornly refused to give in to our attempts to make it properly portable, Scite handles such mangling quite admirably. Admittedly TextPad still wins out on bulk processing of text files due to it's macro support, but that is hardly an everyday occurrence.

Sometime between then and now, PortableApps rolled their own version of Scite, so when I went looking to update my aging version of the editor I was saved the minimal pain of portabalizing it myself. Some nice little features have been added to the editor as well, such as code folding. What's more is that Scite now easily supports Lua scripting within the editor (though a minor tweak to the lua properties file for the portable version is required). Since we use lua extensively in my current project this is a huge bonus. The entire portable 'installation' of Scite, including the required lua executables, is under 2.5MB, so it's suitable for pretty much any portable device in use today.

If your text editor of choice is starting to get a bit bulky, and outliving it's usefulness, give this awesome little editor a try.

Technorati Tags: software,portableapps

Keeping busy when the lights go out

With the power situation in SA worsening, the news is full of enquiries into who's fault it is and how they should be punished. In this trying time I thought I would follow Leo from Zen Habits' example and find something positive in it. For me this upside is that one really has to come up with other ways to keep entertained in the evening than staring at the idiot box-which Natz and I were doing anyway. So without much ado, here's a short list of things to keep you busy when you're load shedded, possibly by candle light:

1. *Censored* someone

This is a family friendly blog, I'm not going to spell it out-but there's a reason there is a spike in the localized birthrate nine months after any major blackout ;)

2. Talk to someone

If #1 is inappropriate, there's always good old fashioned conversation. Not instant messaging or SMSing or small talk on your cellphone-start up a serious conversation on something. Argue it out, pick the topic apart, practice the fine art of conversation. Sit down and really talk to your kids about their day, to your partner about their ambitions, your mom about her worries, anything.

2. Play something

No, not video games (unless you have a charged DS or PSP), I mean the good old fashioned  board games. Remember playing monopoly and scrabble as a kid? They're just as much fun today, and if you really need an incentive you can add alcohol to the rules.

3. Make something

Mechano, Lego, puzzles, or some kind of home craft. Again these were all fun and challenging when we were kids. They are still fun, haul them out, dust them off and get stuck in-you'll be amazed how time flies.

4. Read (or write) something

Remember books, those things with words on them that didn't use pixels? People read for hundreds of years by candlelight-and despite what your granny told you they didn't all end up squint. Pull one of those dusty old volumes off the shelf and start re-training your brain what it's like to imagine what a fantasy world might look like.

Alternatively, how about writing? When last did you write a letter to a loved one? That novel you've always wanted to write? Microsoft would have you believe otherwise but you don't actually need a word processor to do this stuff.

5. Grow something

If you have a garden, great. Go spend some time in it-yes even in the dark. If you don't, bonsai are fascinating and time consuming-and they don't need to be plugged in. Cash strapped? You'll have something in your kitchen that will sprout given some soil, water and fertilizer.

6. Go somewhere

If it's still early enough to be light out, take a walk, get some air. If it's a weekend and the blackout 'spoiled' your afternoon of sport watching, go find a park nearby and make your own damned sports! :)

Any other suggestions that could be added to the list?

On a related note, Zen Habits is running a guest article on combating boredom, go check it out. Also, a new gaming blog has just been started by a buddy of mine called Gaming in the Dark, get over there and pass some of these tips on to him ;)

T.I.A

Funny how I have lived in Africa all my life, and yet I had no clue what Leonardo DiCaprio was talking about when he used this supposedly well known phrase in Blood Diamond. Ironically enough, I see it is now gaining some popularity in local online forums. Trust the Americans to give us a new phrase to describe ourselves.

SL Africa

Anyway, Africa is actually the theme of this post. A recent initiative by a social development company based in Cape Town called Uthango was recently brought to my attention by one of my newsfeeds. They aim to use Second Life as one of many modern tools to effect change in Africa. One of the parts of this initiative is a sim in Second Life called SL Africa that will be (duh) African themed and provide real information and a real insight into life in Africa in a new and interesting way. I had an interesting chat to Uthango's Dorette Steenkamp (Alanagh Recreant in SL) about the project yesterday, and she started to show me around but I had to cut the visit short due to other commitments. I have been wondering about how I can get involved in something altruistic, and when I first read about SL Africa last week I thought I had to at least investigate. We'll see if there's some way I can constructively contribute. I was actually saying my goodbyes when Eskom rudely interrupted with a power cut in our area, which brings me to another TIA item..

Power spin

If you search for "load shedding" in Wikipedia, you are redirected to a topic on "Rolling blackout". That is an indication of Eskom's fundamental approach to the current power supply crisis in the country: deceit, and yes I said crisis. When there are parts of Gauteng that are seeing three 'load shedding' sessions of at least two hours in a single day, there are problems (sorry, no links, this is pure hearsay from Radio 702).

The thing is, we get it. Most reasonable South Africans understand there is a problem and that they need to modify their use of electricity.  We understand that it's unavoidable that they will be affected at some stage, and while it's inconvenient we understand that we have to deal with it. Of course it would be a hell of a lot easier to help Eskom if they could help us just a teeny bit.

They have a load shedding schedule on their website, but it is entirely useless as actual blackouts often have nothing to do with the projected timetable. How many South Africans have access to the internet anyway? How many businesses can be reasonably expected to make use of a system like that-even if it was accurate? Eskom needs to do two things here. First and foremost, plan and get an accurate and honest schedule sorted out. Second, make it publicly available in media that are accessible to most people, and here are just a few off the top of my head:

• Newspapers, provide them with a daily schedule which their readers can reference.
• Radio, with the same schedule radio stations could provide timeous warnings 15-30 minutes before blackouts are scheduled to occur.
• Cellphones, recent estimates put our cellphone using population at more than half our overall population! Give users a tollfree number to call or an SMS notification service to subscribe to that will send them advance warning of power cuts in their area.
• Television, we already have a power supply status indicator on public TV, why not extend that to include notification of areas that can expect powercuts in the next half hour or so.

None of these are complex systems, many are already in use for commercial purposes-so why not for something this essential to keeping homes and businesses prepared to deal with this situation?

Blu:yes Back:no

I'm certainly in no position to buy another console right now, and if I did it would probably be the Wii, but let's imagine for a moment I was deciding whether to drop a couple of grand on a PS3. Two developments this week would have a serious effect on my decision-making.

Bye-Bye backcompat
One thing Sony definitely can't claim over Microsoft on their new gen (no, it's not next gen anymore, the machines are all at least a year old!) console is a larger game library. One would think they would jump on anything that would at least make the game selection on the PS3 seem larger. Backwards compatibility is one such opportunity, yet Sony is apparently giving up on it completely. Sony have announced they they will be dropping the 20GB and 60GB (backwards compatible) PS3 models in favour of the 40GB (non backwards compatible) model in Japan. I very much doubt they will be following different paths in other regions, so I'm sure it's only a matter of time before an equivalent decision is made for the US and Europe. Some argue that backcompat is no big deal, and I'm sure for a lot of people it isn't.. I'm not one of those people. There is nothing game wise that I particularly want to play in the PS3 library, absolutely nothing at all. My main interest in the system is for it's media capabilities and it's ability to play all the great PS2 games I missed out on. I very much doubt I'm the only one for whom this would be a deciding factor.

But at least it does Blu
In the PS3's favour, Warner Brothers this week announced that it will be dropping Toshiba's HD-DVD format and instead focus on Blu-Ray as it's high definition disk of choice. This just ads to the growing list of Blu-Ray only studios and is quite possibly the final nail in HD-DVD's coffin. As far as console sales go, this can only be good for the PS3, though with MS having stated previously that they would support Blu-ray on the '360 if it turns out to have a clear lead, the possibility of a blu-ray addon drive for the Xbox 360 or even a 360 SKU with an integrated Blu-ray drive is not too remote.