Month: November 2005

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Distributed Computing

I read [Eric Sink’s](http://software.ericsink.com/index.html) blog, cause I find what he writes to be slightly humourous and technically interesting (a good combination in my mind). I do actually use the [SourceGear Vault](http://www.sourcegear.com/vault/index.html) client, for the [Flickr.Net API Library](http://www.wackylabs.net/flickr/flickr-api/) for which we got it free (as its an open source application). I don’t consider I’ve used it ‘in anger’ enough to compare it to Visual Source Safe, although pretty much anything must be better than source safe :)

But then I see his latest post, about hiring a guy from Northern Ireland called [Martin Woodward](http://software.ericsink.com/entries/Welcome_Martin_Woodward.html). Well, turns out I know [Martin](http://www.woodwardweb.com/), cause he used to work here in Newcastle, and he left to move to Northern Ireland, where my wife is also from. He’s going to be telecommuting, all the way to Illinois in the states!

And to quote one of my collegues on hearing the news “We can’t even coordinate a project between two rooms, never mind between NI and Illinois!”, but I wish them the best luck and will keep an eye on their progress.

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FlickrNation Podcast

I’d just like to thank [Thomas Hawk](http://www.thomashawk.com/) who has recently started a new podcast called [FlickrNation](http://www.flickrnation.com). Its up to its 3rd episode so far and I just got some serious pimpage. I must say I really get a huge ego boost out of this kinda thing (I must be slightly shallow I guess :) ).

He mentions my new [Delete Me Resurrection](http://undeleteme.blogspot.com) blog, plus the wonderful (but sometimes hard going) [Entrance To Hell](http://www.flickr.com/groups/entrancetohell/) group.

He’s also got other stuff about things that are happening in the Flickr community, such as the debate that seems to be going on about none photos uploaded to Flickr and their place in the community. Personally I think the lines drawn between ‘art’ and ‘photography’ can be so grey an area I don’t see how you can enforce the distinction.

I also spotted a great Wikipedia article that was article of the day yesterday, about the [Canon T90](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canon_T90), the last manual focus that Canon produced before they moved on to the EOS range (disclaimer: I have 3 Canon cameras, an Powershot A70 P&S, the EOS 350D digital SLR, and my newest toy, a EOS 300V film camera for messing about old stylee with).

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Sea of Chairs

Sea of Chairs


Sea of Chairs, originally uploaded by aqui-ali.

I’ve started up a new blog, which I call Delete Me Resurrection. I’m going to be using it to highlight some of the photos which have failed to be ‘saved’ by the various voting groups on Flickr which I actually like.

So why you ask have I selected the above photo of some green chairs to show you here. Well, firstly it was deleted out of the original Delete Me group. But thats not why I’m showing it you, no.

I decided I didn’t like it enough to resurrect it.

Thats still not why I’m showing it you.

Its because it used to appear on the ‘interesting’ page along side my own ‘most intersting’ photo for March 4th 2005. Infact there used to be two photos on the same theme above my own photo.

And I came across it while I was researching for the blog using the ‘interestingness’ of the ‘deleteme10’ tag.

I thought that was interesting :)

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How well do you know your contacts

Following a link from [the FlickrBlog](http://blog.flickr.com/flickrblog/2005/11/how_well_do_you.html) lead me to the most excellent flickr game I have ever played. Basically it shows you a photo from one of your Flickr contacts and presents you with 3 choices – you pick who’s photo you think it is. I seem to be doing quite well at the moment – it seems most of my contacts have quite distinctive styles.

Congratulations once again to FD for some awesome uses of the Flickr API.

[FD’s Name That Contact Game](http://flagrantdisregard.com/flickr/namethatcontact.php)

[Discuss here](http://flickr.com/groups/flickrtoys/discuss/126308/)

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Flickr.Net Source Release 1.4.3

The next version of the source code for the Flickr.Net API Library has been released.

[Download Latest Source](/flickr/flickr-api).

See the above page for changelog – there are some good ones in there.

There are also two new ‘examples’ pages.

* [Examples – Part 1](/flickr/flickr-api/examples-part-1)
* [Examples – Part 2](/flickr/flickr-api/examples-part-2)

Feel free to add comments as you want.

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Free Databases

A couple of database related news items.

Firstly:

>VistaDB 2.1 database for .NET has been released
>This 2.1 update includes over 60 improvements, including new support for .NET 2.0 and Visual Studio .NET 2005.
>VistaDB is a small-footprint, embedded SQL database alternative to Jet/Access, MSDE and SQL Server Express 2005 that enables developers to build .NET 1.1 and .NET 2.0 applications.
>Features SQL-92 support, small 500KB embedded footprint, free 2-User VistaDB Server for remote TCP/IP data access, royalty free distribution for both embedded and server, Copy ‘n Go! deployment, managed ADO.NET Provider, data management and data migration tools.
>Free trial is available for download.
> – [Learn more about VistaDB](http://www.vistadb.net/overview.asp?ref=blogger)
> – [Repost this to your blog and receive a FREE copy of VistaDB 2.1!](http://www.vistadb.net/blogoffer.asp?ref=blogger)

Secondly:

[Oracle are soon to be releasing a free ‘xpress’ edition of Oracle 10g](http://news.com.com/Oracle+to+offer+free+database/2100-1012_3-5920796.html).

[Its currently available as a beta](http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/database/xe/index.html).

We use Oracle a lot more recently here at work (previously been all SQL Server) so this is good for me as I can probably get an oracle database up at home and start fiddlying properly. This still looks like a reaction to [SQL Server 2005 Express](http://www.microsoft.com/sql/express/default.mspx) edition. Its not really going to compete in the Linux hosted arena against [MySql](http://www.mysql.org) as it can only cope with 4GB of user data, 1GB of RAM, only uses a single processor and only one instance can run on a box. Most mulithosting environments are probably going to break at least 1, if not all 4 of these requirements (a standard multi-hosting box is at least Dual processor with in excess of 1GB of memory).