I dislike wearing suits.

It used to be that I could code in my favorite Phish t-shirt wearing sandals. I had a key instead of a badge, and lunch usually meant a few greasy pizzas or clam cakes. In those days, my attire only meant something if there was an off-site or if clients were coming to visit “the shop” (which was a tiny building several miles from the heart of the big city). I could easily bounce back and forth between long and short hair and between full beard and cleaned-shaved. Ahh… those were the days.

Now I work in a major international city for a rather large bank. I code in a suit when I’m not in meetings, wear nice shoes, carry a badge, and eat salads and yogurt for lunch. *sigh*

To be fair, I enjoy the new challenges and the big city. And if wearing a suit on occasion is a consequence, I can live with it. So while a suit is not fully mandatory, I still wear one at times. Here’s why:

1. It easily puts me in line with the dress code
2. Dressing is simpler in the morning (although sometimes it takes a couple of tries to get the perfect knot in my tie)
3. My wife tells me I look great
4. Dressing down on Friday never felt so good
5. I look more important than I am
6. I feel more important than I am
7. My jacket flaps behind me in the wind when I ride my bike to the train station, which makes me feel like a super hero with a cape

Other than those fantastic reasons, wearing a suit is a real drag.

(I do admit, there is something rather Monty Pythonish about wearing a suit on a bike. I bet I look pretty silly to the folks driving past me. But riding my bike gives me more than 30 minutes a day of much-needed exercise, and on top of that, the price of gas here in Europe would blow your mind!)

 In very recent times the Israelis claimed that one of their soldiers had been kidnapped across the border into Lebanon. They used that as an excuse to devastate the civilian infrastructure of the whole nation of Lebanon.For a whole month the Jews bombed from the air and flattened by bulldozers apartment blocks, bridges, sewerage works, water reservoirs, buses and fleeing refugees, etc, etc.

It was a repeat of the devastation the Jews had wreaked on Lebanon in the 1980’s when they destroyed civilian infrastructure and murdered thousands of Lebanese. They even attacked and slew thousands of miserable refugees as they huddled in refuge camps.

By contrast, the Russian military has come to Georgia to protect Russian people, 2,000 of whom had been murdered by the Georgians using military weapons supplied by the Jews.

The Russian army is now destroying only military equipment, not the civilian infrastructure as is so often practiced by Israel.

Is it really possible that the war criminal George Bush,  his poodle, Condo Rice, along with the whole western press, have not thought to compare the mild actions of the Russians, with the brutality meted out by the Israelis, not only in Lebanon, but in Palestine since 1948?

David Duke.

As you may know, last weekend I bought my first Mac. In a week, I’ve made a ton of progress and am starting to feel rather comfortable with the new OS. My first impression remains strong: The Mac is awesome. It takes fewer clicks to get things done, it is faster than PCs of equivalent power, and it is much more intuitive. There are still a few things to do, like check with Adobe about cross-platform upgrades of Dreamweaver, Photoshop, and Acrobat.

I have, however, managed to place one very important piece of the migration puzzle: Getting FoxPro up and running.

Virtualization

To get Windows running on the Mac, you basically have two options: Dual boot via Boot Camp or use Virtualization. Boot Camp was not a great option for me because I want to work in the Mac and share items between the Windows install and OSX. For virtualization, I seemed to have three choices: VirtualBox by Sun, VMware Fusion, or Parallels Desktop for Mac.

Reviews for Parallels were slightly better overall, and I got a recommendation from a colleague, so I went with it. For less than 100 Euro, this software is simply incredible. Installation was as simple as downloading and running the installer. These were the steps I took:

1. Downloaded the latest version from parallels.com
2. Double-clicked “Install Parallels Desktop”
3. Went through the Wizard, clicking Continue through each step
4. Accepted the terms of the license
5. Selected my Mac’s HD for the install destination
6. After the install finished, I moved the icon to the Dock
7. Started the software and from the Help menu clicked “Activate Product”
8. Entered the activation code that Parallels sent me via email
9. Clicked ‘New’ from the File menu to create a new VM via the OS Installation Assistant
10. Selected “Windows Express Installation”, Next
11. Selected “Windows XP”, Next
12. Entered the XP product key, set some basic settings, and gave the VM a name
13. Chose to allocate more resourced to the VM than to Mac OSX
14. Clicked Finish

Next, I installed Windows XP Professional using the new VM window created by Parallels. This was the fastest XP install I’ve ever done. Not only that, but the entire process was the same as if I had been on a PC (just in a window — which is a bit ironic). When Windows booted for the first time, and I heard the familiar Windows theme, I felt a sense of cool calm overcome me. This was going to work.

Ejecting the CD

During install, I had to insert my Windows 2000 disk (I have an Upgrade copy of XP Pro). I think it took me about 30 minutes to figure out how to eject the XP Pro CD from the Mac! Here’s how I did it:

1. Right-click on the CD icon in the footer of the Parallels Desktop window
2. Choose ‘Disconnect’
3. The CD drive will re-appear in OSX’s Disk Utility application, where it can be ejected.
4. Right-click on the CD icon in the footer of the Parallels Desktop window to reconnect when ready

When the VM is running, it ‘owns’ the CD drive. Because I was installing XP Pro, I didn’t have any obvious way to eject the disk. There’s no button on the Mac and I wasn’t yet ready to straighten out a paper clip! The above steps are a bit of a hassle, but certainly doable.

Two-times the Charm

Of course, I had to do it all twice (my fault). I have an XP Pro version 2002 CD without any Service Packs. After Windows installed, I went straight for Windows update and let it install SP2. It failed with some read errors and then Windows would no longer boot. So, I deleted the VM and started over. No biggie. This was easy. This time, I installed SP1 and then went straight for SP3. That worked and now I’m golden. After getting all the other updates, I was ready for the Fox.

Installing Visual FoxPro v9

Ok, so there was nothing to installing FoxPro. I literally put the CD in, installed the prerequisites, and then VFP. No surprises, no issues, no problems. I ran some basic checks and so far everything seems to run fine. I’ve yet to do any development but if I have any issues, I’ll be sure to report them.

I recall at FoxForward 2007 seeing a few Macs. If you’re using VFP on your Mac — let me know about it. I’d like to know how you’ve done it (Boot Camp? VM Ware?) and if you’ve encountered any issues.

Lord Voldemort

Lastly, I’ve named my XP Pro Virtual Machine “Lord Voldemort” of Harry Potter fame. My entire home network is named after various Harry Potter characters. I named my iMac Dumbledore.

This seems totally appropriate.

Totally disgusting. Who do you think took a bath in a Burger King sink?

Just a 25-year-old aspiring musician who thought fans would get a kick out of watching him take a bath in the restaurant’s kitchen sink.

“This is August 7, this is my birthday and I’m taking a bath in the sink at Burger King,” the bathing employee, identified as Mr.UNST@BL3, aka Timothy Tackett, says in video footage that was posted online

I’m not sure what to make of this exactly. Ehud Olmert’s latest “peace” plan is seen as insufficient and does not provide for a Palestinian state that is both contiguous and governed from Jerusalem. Up until now, I didn’t think Abbas really cared about these things.

Actually, Olmert (and his plan) is a joke. In it, he is proposes that he keeps some Palestinian lands in exchange for some inhabitable desert land. I suppose Olmert never learned to play fair as a kid. Abbas is clear: “The Palestinian side will only accept a Palestinian state with territorial continuity, with holy Jerusalem as its capital, without settlements, and on the June 4, 1967 boundaries.” And his demand is a just one.

When did Abbas get a spine?

Yikes. These things happen in threes. 

Isaac Hayes — a legendary soul singer, songwriter, musician and producer whose career spanned four decades and who achieved unexpected fame later in life as the voice of “South Park” character Chef — died Sunday afternoon (August 10), a spokesperson for the Shelby County, Tennesee, sheriff’s department told WMC-TV in Memphis.

I have officially crawled out from under the rock and joined the land of the living. As a proud owner of a new iMac I feel both unshackled and invigorated.

For the past 10 years I have been convincing myself that I needed a PC and Windows (before that, I didn’t really take the Mac seriously). For one, all of my desktop development was in Visual FoxPro and .NET. Secondly, since my desktop applications were designed for PC users, I felt that it was important for me to have and use PCs (and Windows) like my clients. I would be developing in and using the environment that my users did, giving me more comfort and confidence when helping them use the software. But now that I’m involved strictly in Internet development and data warehousing, I no longer can justify the need for a PC; I simply do not have as much contact with my end-users as I used to.

My first order of business: I’ve got to set up a virtual machine on my iMac so I can install VFP9, .NET, and SQL Server. I may explore some other options, including Remote Desktop (or maybe VNC) into my PC, but I believe VM will be the best route. I’m dead set against having two computers on my desk at this point. The iMac just looks cool and I don’t want to cramp its style with my ugly PC box.

It is likely going to take me a while to get fully set up. I need to repurchase some of my key software (I need upgrades in all of them anyway): Dreamweaver & Photoshop CS3, Office 2008, and something to replace my old version of Cakewalk Pro Audio. And now that SQL Server 2008 is released, I’ll likely get that installed as well.

Some sad news. Bernie Mac died today at the age of 50.

Read about it here.

As reported by VOA News:

Georgian military forces have fought their way into the capital of the breakaway region of South Ossetia.

Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili said Friday he had ordered an all-out offensive to regain control of the breakaway area.

Georgian tanks and troops, backed by artillery, have moved into the region and surrounded the capital Tskhinvali, where they are battling Russian-backed separatists for control of the city’s center. South Ossetian officials say 15 people were killed in the fighting.

I have to ask: Why has The White House, NATO and the EU not stepped in to help the people of South Ossetian? All they want is liberty and freedom, right?

Well sure there is a link between the Republican party and foreign oil deals. While McCain wants to continue to drill and buy, Obama seems more intent on conservation and alternatives. It seems option two is smart and in everyone’s best interests. But the Republicans and McCain have a different take.

The New York Times has this to say, after McCain was caught with oil donations:

Senator John McCain’s presidential campaign said Thursday that it would return all the contributions solicited for it by the Jordanian business partner of a prominent Florida fund-raiser for Mr. McCain.

For the McCain camp, the decision caps a queasy two days in which news accounts scrutinized a cluster of more than $50,000 in unusual contributions from a single extended family of Californians, the Abdullahs, and several of their friends.

Of course he’ll give it back. But that won’t change anything. McCain’s energy policy will continue the failed policy currently in place.

As Obama stated, and ridiculed by the Republicans, conservation methods would yield better results than offshore drilling would. From Political Punch:

proper tire inflation will save millions of barrels of oil per year, but that it will save more energy than new off shore drilling would yield.
…
But the salient point is that such measures are serious. Why the Republicans are mocking them at a time of energy crisis seems bizarre.

And don’t forget to check out the article from 1990. Seems bizarre to me in general how the Republicans have handled this issue historically and more importantly, how Americans in general have simply ignored the good, sound advice.