Mikkel's Blog

Physics Applied: Rotational Motion of a Hard Drive

Sun, 19 May 2013 06:31:00 -0400

If the harddrive of your computer rotates with 7200 rpm (revolution / minute) and the reading head of the drive is located 3.00 cm from the rotation axis and, finally, one single bit requires 0.50µm of length, how many bits / second can the writing head write?

First of all we need to find the frequency

f = (7200 rev / min) / (60s / min) =120 rev / s = 120 Hz

ω = 2πf = 754 rad / s

After finding the angular velocity, we need to find the linear speed of a point 3.00 cm out from the axis.

v = rω = (3.00 x 10^-2)(754 rad/s) = 22.6 m/s

After this we know that each bit requires 0.50 * 10^-6m, therefore at speed 22.6 m/s, the number of bits read per second is given by:

(22.6 m/s) / (0.50 x 10^-6 m/bit) = 45 x 10^6 bits / second.

Coding: It is for everyone.

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 09:38:48 -0400

Whenever I encounter someone who tells me that they can’t figure out how to code, you didn’t grow up driving, you figured that out! Moreover, obviously not everyone should learn how to code, you should look yourself in the mirror and ask yourself, what do I want to do everyday for the rest of your life? Do that.

According to the Coding Textbook by David Evans, there are two reasons why everyone should study computing:

“Nearly all of the most exciting and important technologies, arts, and sciences of today and tomorrow are driven by computing.”
“Understanding computing illuminates deep insights and questions into the nature of our minds, our culture, and our universe.”

Additionally the founder of Codecademy believes learning how to program is the best job security you have, and knowledge of code is the best way to improve the economy and the planet.

Being able to program or at least interpret code is going to be a much desired skill in the future and in the following 5-10 years it is going to be a very much under-supplied skillset.

Creating Culture In Your Business – Employees First

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 15:52:32 -0400

I feel inspired by the culture firms possess today, most of the firms in the technology-industry, whether it is a start-up or a big corporation, seem to have a culture which puts its emphasis on creative talent and the people working at these firms seem to be working with something that is emotionally rewarding and something they can be proud of.

More importantly what they are doing. The amount of innovation and collaboration is just mind-blowing.

Just watching the Facebook Home “Funny Launch Day” commercial, how Mark clearly is not only promoting the Facebook Home, but also Facebook as an ideal workplace - where there is room for humour and the likes.

A Thought To Begin With

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 04:37:00 -0400

Marketing is being shifted, however we continue to do things like it is 2007. Banner ads, e-mail marketing, traditional media. For the last decades the marketing strategy has always been push, push, push. This has changed with the social media game. You need to connect, engage, create context, because that emotional bond you have with your customer is going to mean everything to you. An instance could be if you love a brand enough to follow it on Twitter and a competitive brand gives you a coupon offer, this competitive brand might get the initial purchase, but as your emotions lie with the first brand, this relationship will translate into far greater revenue in the long run.

TWITTER & THE SOCIAL MEDIA GAME
To begin with we all thought that Twitter was one of the dumbest things on Earth (from a marketing perspective), who is going to care that I am eating a pizza, going for a walk, and so on and so forth? No one, because that is not a part of the social media game, it is not about talking, all you need to do, in order to succeed in the social media game, is to wire your mouth shut and start using your big ears. Because that’s the game in play.

FUTURE
You need to know where your (potential) customers are, but more importantly where they are going. For instance why are you so obsessed about the ROI of social media, when the ROI of traditional media (such as a magazine) can’t guarantee that they are looking at that specific page where your ad is on. It is so easy to monitor social media and in the long run, you can build a relationship with your customers which, again, will translate in to far greater revenue in the long run. So essentially the ROI of social media more the ROI of emotions as the emotional attachment and relationship you create with your customers is what is going to mean something in the long run.

REVERSE ENGINEER
When I have a big project, goal or idea - not only in a business sense also as a person - I know what I want to achieve and then reverse-engineer from the end of the project and that is how I am wired, I think in the big picture and I believe that this is the root to success, that is what you need to do in your business.

As Gary Vaynerchuk says we live in The Thank You Economy, you need to think about what the customer is worth to you forever, instead of at the moment.

Sometimes I enjoy laying in the bed and listen to records. It...

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 16:52:00 -0400

Sometimes I enjoy laying in the bed and listen to records. It gets the mind going.

Be Who You Would Like To Be

Sun, 17 Mar 2013 12:19:00 -0400

I don’t know if you have seen some of my latest tweets, or if you even are following me on Twitter, but recently they have been hugely influenced by a bunch of very meaningful people to me. Some of them are more prevalent than others.

I would like to mention Gary Vaynerchuk.

First of all as the author of Crush It and The Thank You Economy I can’t emphasise enough how much he has changed me as a person and as a business. Gary has helped me on so many different scales, thus mentioning it all at once would be impossible and overwhelming. Having just finished the audiobook of his most recent book The Thank You Economy (he is actually the only person I like listening to in an audiobook, this is at least the only audiobook I actually have finished), he taught me two very important life-lessons. They are two phenomenons that only consist of one word each: care and hustle.

Not only did he talk about care and hustle, he talked about innovation, creativity and talent. I want to stop quick right there, this is something that is very near to me. I want to emphasise that this is how I think and how I believe the world is going to be shaped and what individuals as well as businesses needs in order to survive in the long run. We need innovation, creativity and talent and I try to advocate that in the public and as a person.

Over all he has taught me a lot, too much to mention in this brief post, I really appreciate that, so Gary Vaynerchuk if you read this, I want to thank you - a lot.

I would like to mention Steve Jobs.

This brings me to Steve Jobs, I own and I have read his biography - I bought it the day it was published. To put it clear: he is a true inspiration and motivation for me. Reading his biography, listening to interviews of his and general keynotes he has led me to believe that everything is possible; as long as you believe in yourself and your creativity and talent. You can do whatever you set yourself up to do. He wasn’t only innovative, creative and talented he had people skills and seemed to motivate people just as much as they were ready to be motivated.

He is a daily inspiration for me. He is inspiring me to do what I want to do and combined with Gary Vaynerchuk’s hustle and care I try to be the best, most talented, creative and innovative person I can be - at this stage of my life.

For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: ‘If today were the last day in my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?’ And whenever the answer has been ‘No’ for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

He founded Apple, one of the most innovative, creative and talented companies (in my opinion) in the world. That speaks for itself.

I would like to mention Bill Gates.

I think that this man, Bill Gates, deserves a lot more recognition than he actually get. He founded Microsoft and created Windows, yes they might have come a bit off track lately, but they are constantly improving with the release of the Surface tablet and Windows 8 was a giant leap forward - they of course still have some major steps to take to become as dominant as they once was.

I Would Like to Mention Mark Zuckerberg

Mark Zuckerberg founder of Facebook. He saw where the train of Web 2.0 was going, he saw how the world was going to change and he is capable of changing his concepts and thus innovating the industry. We would probably all still be on some bad form of MySpace if it wasn’t for Mark Zuckerberg.

He is just an incredible inspiring person and he is constantly advocating change. He is an interesting character and at the age of 26 became the Time’s Person of The Year in 2010.

I know there’s a vast variety in how I chose the persons behind it, but first of all these people they all inspire me hugely. Steve Jobs who was the person who sought enlightenment through ascetic experience, deprivation and simplicity (something which I will pursue to some extend when allowed to). Gary Vaynerchuk who is hustling and caring as we speak - he has made me think a lot about how to approach life from a personal and a business perspective. Mark Zuckerberg has from a very early age created a sort of studio culture which puts an emphasis on creative freedom and talent, which I admired deeply. And finally Bill Gates who is a very generous person and I admire him for his creativity and for him trying, - successfully, I would say - to get Microsoft back on track. Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates especially for their initiatives with cooperating with CODE.ORG and initiative which I completely agree on.

How You Should Launch an iPhone App

Sat, 09 Mar 2013 11:27:00 -0500

Is it worth it to launch with PPC or PPV advertisements? The answer is a clear no, if the name of your app is Angry Birds (which I by the way downloaded for free the other day) - or any other name. Normally you’d have to pay to download and shoot birds in a parabolic motion, however the other day it was finally given away for free, which was heavily covered on various tech-sites, Twitter accounts, Facebook pages. Smart move from Rovio Entertainment, why?

Well first of all, I think, I was one of the only person left in this world who actually hadn’t bought the game (to be honest, I played only about 10 minutes – the only game which I actually actively played, might I add my “toilet game of the year” in 2011 was Game Dev Story – it is therefore safe to say that I am not the big fan of games on the iPhone), so I think they barely lost any profit from it. Secondly, where Rovio Entertainment really gets their money from is by getting the grip around their customer’s balls by encouraging the well-known in-app-purchase where you can buy various items to enhance your game experience (or just beat your friend’s score) and who wouldn’t want that? Consequently, as I have talked about, this was heavily brought up in the different social medias; giving them public recognition – which when you get right down to it must have been what they actively were looking for. Therefore a lot of new people downloaded the famous game to their phone and they might have been caught up with it, playing it for 24 hours straight and then realizing they could amplify their scores and game experience if they made one of the in-app purchases for $2 or even more. What does this result in? From a Rovio Entertainment perspective they might, instead of facing a one-time purchase (as they might feel that if they purchased the app, they wouldn’t want to spend any more money on it, no matter what), giving the app away for free might leave more incentive for in-app purchases. This is why they, even though they released it for free, don’t have ads in their game. The customers can easily ignore the in-app purchase (as it is, not as other apps do it, very quietly hidden, thus only if you want to find it: you will find it and click the button), whereas they can’t ignore the ads, which could have come after you fail or succeed a map in order to continue. It is more annoying for the user and they make less money on it, considering that for every person who buys the cheapest in-app-purchase they make about $1.5 or so and they make next to nothing if they have a PPV and a little more if they have PPC, of course, as it is Angry Birds, they’d still make plenty of money off of PPV or PPC, but judging in-app purchase works better for this type of app.

This leads me to the next point, if you have an app that isn’t as successful as Angry Birds and you want to make money off of it PPC or PPV wouldn’t do the trick for you. You probably wouldn’t have enough viewers to consider PPV and you wouldn’t be capable of getting the necessary click through rate, which would make you money. Then what would? Well in-app purchases might make you money, but this requires that you offer a product in the in-app-purchase that they can’t live without. Finally, might I add that if you are - as an indie-development studio, forget that: everyone can use this - developing a game or have a game you want to release I see three approaches.

The first approach will be that of releasing your game for free for a week (consciously writing that on the app-page), which, if you hustle and care for your social media appearance, would make your product/game go viral (unless your product is listed under reason number two here - sorry to be so blatant – if it is the first one consider what you could do to make your social media appearance better and improve it. I can give you two words to start with: hustle and caring) a week after you would have, hopefully at least 1000, avid iPhone/Android gamers who just loves your game and through your caring and hustling they will recommend it through their Twitter feed, Facebook feed and directly word of mouth to their closest friends. Then you have been established and if you have approached everything the right way, with the right amount of hustle and caring sales will continue in an exponential curve.
The second approach would also involve you hustling and caring about your customers and fellow gamers and first and foremost a social media appearance (I don’t know if you noticed, but this is the way forward in the year 2013 and has been since 2010), however instead of giving away your product for free you could release coupons on you social media feeds (give away 1000 coupons), they don’t even have to follow you – but trust me, they will. This is pretty much the same as the first approach and you can follow it the same way.
The third approach would be that of releasing a free version, which isn’t as good, and maybe just a “demo” version and then sell the pro-version for a few bucks. This could work, but your demo needs to be pretty damn outstanding, even though it is restrictive, and still make an incentive for the customers to buy the full version.

What there should be remembered from all this is that your social media appearance isn’t a one-night-stand; it is putting the ring on the finger -Rihanna style - on your customers. It is a long process of hustling and caring. It is exactly what you have to do, in order to maintain a personal relationship, just from a professional point of view. You really have to hustle and care for your customers. Finally it should be added, this is all about having the talent, passion, caring, hustling and creativity to pull such things off. But it is by all means not impossible.

Keep in mind this is not at all a recipe for how to launch an app successfully. First of all, the logo plays an important role (if it is a game, add the HD to the logo if it is in HD), the name obviously matters as well. I am only talking about the marketing process right at the beginning of the launch of your app (or the relaunch) and your presence in social media should be there, both before and after the launch.

Your reputation as a software engineer matters. It is something you should seek to develop...

Wed, 06 Mar 2013 13:42:00 -0500

Your reputation as a software engineer matters. It is something you should seek to develop throughout your entire career, because that is what sets you apart from everyone else. The more experience you get, the more your reputation matters and it can be the reason that you either get or miss out on new opportunities.

Mikkel is fun to work with.
I trust Mikkel to work on important projects.
If Mikkel is working one something, I know that it will get done correctly.
Mikkel is capable of learning new things quickly.

I have more hustle in this finger, than Skittles has candy

“If you live for weekends and vacation, your shit is broken” - Gary Vaynerchuk

StormFly - A Computer on Your Wrist

Sat, 23 Feb 2013 20:07:00 -0500

A few days ago I backed a project I found on Kickstarter. You can pretty much say I already have fallen in love with it, without having received my product yet. It has only been pledged to $65,162, at the time of writing with the goal of $100,000. The goal has to be reached by Sunday the 3rd of March, otherwise NowComputing will not be funded through Kickstarter. So if you like this project, I think you should become a backer and pledge.

The idea behind StormFly is, at least as I see it, that you have a development environment (or just about any other computer set-up - it is aimed to be for the non-technicians with barely no working knowledge - you can see some children playing MineCraft on their StormFly here - which also is one of the ideas Now Computing advertise: let your children mess up with StormFly so nothing on your computer gets lost) set up on a USB-pen (which can be mounted beautifully and geeky on your wrist) and then you boot up on it on any given computer, it could be your MacBook, your Lenovo ThinkPad or your old HP Pavilion.

This clearly differs from a Ubuntu Live-CD and other types of that pseudo-on-the-go computing in the sense that everything is saved onto the 32 GB (at most, at the time of writing) USB-wristband. You are, in a sense, carrying your computer on your hand, every application, file and configuration file is on the USB-wristband.

I pledged to get the 32GB StormFly edition, in blazing orange, customised with my name and one year of backup service, which leads me to my next point. What if the wonderful pc-wristband gets stolen, no where to be found or flushed down the toilet? Well, it comes with a back-up plan. It backs up everything on the Stormfly and if you were to lose your StormFly a StormFly replacement will be made from the last backup and they will charge you $49 for that StormFly. So no matter what you are secured - even if you tried to study your StormFly so closely that you had to take it off your hand and look at it, when you took a piss; you are all covered.

It is “lightning” (I should be careful, could be that Apple has copyright on that word now) fast with USB 3.0 and of course also compatible (as USB 3.0 is backwards compatible) with USB 2.0. NowComputing have spent lots of time finding just the right hardware for The StormFly. Normally when one are to test a USB drive one tests how fast it can write and read something and how many times - the situation is all different here, because you are effectively running your computer from the USB-drive we are reading from the USB-drive constantly and files are changing all the time. I could, if I would, create the exact same solution using an old or new USB-drive and boot up on it, the only problem is the durability, it would die in a matter of months (maybe, even days). Now Computing seem to have figured it out, though.

The only downside of StormFly at this time seem to be the fact that you can’t format your StormFly, only the shared folder (which acts like a normal USB - put it in an already running Mac, Windows or Linux computer and it will show the files), so formatting your StormFly will make it lose all its magic. I suspect, however, that this function will come a some point, otherwise they are shooting themselves in their foot.

But if we disregard the fact that you can’t reformat your wristband-computer, this is a pretty fucking cool project.

My last week in one picture. 6 days with 4 amazing people.

Thu, 14 Feb 2013 10:09:59 -0500

My last week in one picture. 6 days with 4 amazing people.

The Crazy Ones

Sun, 03 Feb 2013 17:37:23 -0500

Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes.

The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them.

About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They invent. They imagine. They heal. They explore. They create. They inspire. They push the human race forward.

Maybe they have to be crazy.

How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art? Or sit in silence and hear a song that’s never been written? Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels?

We make tools for these kinds of people.

While some see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.

I am so Grateful EU

Fri, 18 Jan 2013 13:25:00 -0500

It has come to my attention that one can’t browse the web without facing annoying “cookie policy” pop-ups. The websites have created these pop-up warnings in order to comply with the “new” EU cookie law. This has led to epidemic tendencies for European-based websites.

I can’t remember how we used to browse the web without have to close a pop-up warning about cookies on every website we visit.

Learning C

Fri, 11 Jan 2013 19:50:22 -0500

My process of learning C has been somewhat like this, summed up in 6 bulletpoints.

Type in all of the code from examples. No copy-paste.
Type the code in exactly, even the comments - later tweak it, to play around with it.
Get it to run and make sure it prints the same output.
If there are bugs fix them.
Do the “extra credit / exercises, but it’s alright to skip ones you can’t figure out.
Always try to figure it out first before trying to get help.

I know that C isn’t for everyone, but if you try hard and still can’t code C, then the act of trying will make you a better programmer, at least that’s my belief and having been coding C or trying C out for quite some time I have started to fall in love with it - it has, indeed, learned me a lot of qualities of programming, even making my CSS better.

High-level programming languages (such as Python and Ruby) are great for just hacking out ideas, but hack until it works will eventually led to nothing works? C will be harder on you because it requires you to plan out what you’ll create first. Sure, you can hack for a bit, but you have to get serious much earlier in C than other languages.

C, being a low-level programming language leaves little abstraction from a computer’s instruction set architecture, whereas I feel that C# (for me) has a too strong abstraction from the details of the computer as I would like to actually feel and know what I am doing.

Its portability is also a factor. I can run my source files from my Ubuntu development computer (saving all the source files on Dropbox) and then compile them on my Macbook Pro on the go. I haven’t tried compiling C on Windows as I have seen no need for that, I might do that later on.

This article, The Unreasonable Effectiveness of C, gives us a lot of insight in to how much better C is for certain things, esp. portability. And the notion that C is a high-level language (is right), but just not as high-level as C# and as Damien Katz say “certainly no where near as high level as Erlang, Python, or Javascript” and it is completely right.

It might take significantly longer time to produce code in C than compared to C#.Net but in the long run C is much more effective because you can much more easily control everything and if somethings goes wrong, you can see it.

The Tedious Task of Web Development

Thu, 27 Dec 2012 08:26:58 -0500

As I have emerged as a C programmer I began to realise how tedious and boring the task of web development actually is (this is what really made me want to learn C, to get less abstraction from the machine itself). There is virtually nothing new to web development, the same goes to C#.Net where you kind of just need to add 3 components and you have a fully working business program. This can be a good thing one many levels.

This is not to underestimate the power of C#.Net as I have discovered how powerful it really is, it is like VB.Net, but more powerful. You can get so much done in so short time. This led me to think of how to approach my coding evolution. I want to keep learning things, but it shouldn’t be a waste of time (it rarely is learning a new language). I consider myself an engineer (or a forthcoming engineer) - therefore I will not stick with one language I want to learn multiple languages in order to make me pick languages up in no time in the future. In these times it would be a waste of time to learn an Assembly language as it is too narrow. C is a good, fast, reliable (if you manage it correctly) language, therefore it is the key to all the backend work of application and then you would create a front-end application using C#.Net where the speed ideally doesn’t matter that much and you can get things done with just the use of three components.

I hope you enjoy the festive season!

1999

Thu, 06 Dec 2012 15:00:49 -0500

“Monkey stands for honesty, giraffes are insincere”

A lot of stuff is going on around me. While I found C#.Net easy to pick up and learn a year or two back, I am experiencing an increasing amount of frustration with regards to C. I am avidly trying to comprehend all the incomprehensible concepts of C, to your surprise frustration is the key here. It makes me want to understand this even more. I am starting to get the hang of it. One of the factors of why I haven’t been blogging much lately is because of the increasing workload with regards to researching and learning C. Not only do I spend time on coding and reading books (namely: C Programming Language (2nd Edition) doing every possible exercise) about it, I am also looking up every possible library, function in order to increase my understanding of the language and its uses.

Having dealt with only high-level-programming languages and garbage collecting fuckers before, I find the idea of heap and stack allocation surprisingly easy to grasp. Pointers aren’t strangers to me either so everything is running perfectly. I have yet to find the goal with me learning C however, it stems from the notion of Daniel P. Friedman: “thinking about computing is one of the most exciting things the human mind can do.” To this day I can’t agree more.

I am also growing and increased fondness of the Ubuntu operating system as this is the only OS I am using, apart from MacOSX on my MacBook Pro, even though I have Windows 7 installed. I am feeling comfortable with Linux and also as this is the perfect environment for developing C applications, whereas checking e-mail is reserved to the Mail.app application on my MacBook - everything else can be done with my 27” screen and hard working desktop computer.

Next Exit

Tue, 06 Nov 2012 09:08:00 -0500

My developing with regards to my Raspberry Pi has reached a plateau people might want to call it. It is not so much for the lack of ideas, more lack of time - it has been a busy week. I however intend to do something relatively cool with my Pi and with C.

On a further note I “accomplished” to port my Ping application to my Raspberry Pi it was easy, it literally only took 10 minutes, one could call this my first mulit-platform application. Isn’t that nice?

I mentioned my dilemma of what case to my Raspberry Pi I should buy, I decided on this sexy black-stealth case (which turned out very expensive (unforeseen postage and shipping costs), but I’ve got more money than sense) in addition I bought a USB hub (I thought I had one somewhere but I could find it, so I bought this neat little thing) I will get this within 8 days, so before the 14th.

I just noticed that the Microsoft Surface RT is merely a flipped laptop, meaning that the fat side is the screen and not the keyboard.

Productivity Strikes Once Again

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 05:41:00 -0400

I have 35 minutes until I will be unproductive again, I have just finished a history assignment which seemed rather like a big task, but ended up with having it done within the timespan - which left me 35 minutes, now that’s a good thing. Undisturbed in 35 minutes. I would have fished that I had taken my Raspberry Pi with me to school (unfortunately I haven’t bought a case yet nor do I have a battery pack which I am eager to buy - it would be Pi on the run).

The thing is however I have set up (port-forwarding and such) ssh accessibility with my Raspberry Pi, there’s just a problem with this, my school does not allow me to establish ssh connections, more precisely using port 22. This means when I am establishing a ssh connection to my Raspberry Pi I will have to use the personal hotspot on my iPhone 5. Because of this I am looking for an alternative which would be a VPN server situated at my home address (as it would make no sense for me to use a virtual private server located in Germany, as that’s the only one I have got, would be too slow) I had hoped that I could have used my Time Capsule but I have no intention of jailbreaking it or rooting it as Android fanboys would call it. This means that I probably would use an old Linux computer for this (as I will not do it with my Pi or my regular desktop computer). I need a solution to this problem. The easiest thing would be to use my 3G hotspot of course, but what’s the fun in that?

Another thing I need to do with my port-forwarding is to make VNC available for remote connectivity as when I am coding on my Raspberry Pi nano doesn’t do the trick for me I may have to do something about that, but that shouldn’t be a biggie to be honest.

The biggest problem is of course what color my Raspberry Pi case should be?

Raspberry Pi: Arrived

Wed, 24 Oct 2012 06:16:09 -0400

So yesterday I unpacked my Raspberry Pi and today I wrote and compiled the first C program for it, and I did it over ssh - so currently I am doing all the work from my Macbook Pro as I need a hdmi to vga cable (as I do not want to use my 27” screen for it). Here’s a neat picture of the console over ssh:

It was quite a delayed the arrival so I got an email when they dispatched it which said

If you ordered a Raspberry Pi board as part of your order we are pleased to inform you that we have sent you the upgraded 512MB Revision 2 board to thank you for your continued patience.

So instead of 256MB of memory I have now got, free of charge, 512MB of memory.

When I said that I compiled my first C program, you probably wondered why it wasn’t C# when I have been preaching that for a while, the reason is that I have decided it was too high-level-programming too much abstraction from what’s actually going on in the computer.

Learning C

I know that C isn’t for everyone, but if you try hard and still can’t code C, then the act of trying will make you a better programmer.

High-level programming languages are great for just hacking out ideas, but have you noticed that if you keep doing “hack until it works” eventually nothing works? C will be harder on you because it requires you to plan out what you’ll create first. Sure, you can hack for a bit, but you have to get serious much earlier in C than other languages.

Learning C makes you a better programmer because you are forced to deal with these issues earlier and more frequently. You can’t be sloppy and half-assed about what you write or nothing will work. The advantage of C is it’s a simple language you can figure out on your own, which makes it a great language for learning about the machine and getting stronger in these core programmer skills. C, being a low-level programming language leaves little abstraction from a computer’s instruction set architecture, whereas I feel that C# (for me) has a too strong abstraction from the details of the computer as I would like to actually feel what I am doing in more detail.

I am currently compiling from the Terminal as I think that one is improving ones skills by not using and IDE (other than a text-editor, which is nano when I am on the Raspberry Pi and TextMate (as I have been using that since forever for web-programming). I think this is quite permanent at least for now - you have to have put more detail and attention into your programming and I am adjusting to using valgrind and make which seems to be getting easier and easier to read and to deal with as the time moves on.

"Whatever I have up till now accepted as most true and assured I have gotten either from the senses..."

Sun, 21 Oct 2012 14:13:39 -0400

“Whatever I have up till now accepted as most true and assured I have gotten either from the senses or through the senses. But from time to time I have found that the senses deceive, and it is prudent never to trust completely those who have deceived us even once.”

- Rene Descartes, Meditations On First Philosophy

Getting Ready: Raspberry Pi Arrival

Wed, 17 Oct 2012 14:40:25 -0400

I am on a spring break at the moment, so I have plenty of time to do some …. research work (now that I can’t do any experimental work, due to lack of equipment) also I need something to take my mind away, so it’s good.

OS Considerations

I haven’t decided solely on one operating system, but my current conviction is with Arch Linux ARM, at first I was moving towards Raspbian, but I am this optimization freak - I want it to be as fast as possible. I would rather have full control over it, rather than have loads of pre-compiled programs ready to install on to it. I am not a snob, I just want it to work the way that I want it.

What to do with it?

XBMC

This will probably be what I will be using my first Raspberry Pi to. A media center, instead of using my MacBook Pro to watch movies on my television screen. On a further note I can tell you that I will be purchasing one of those new sexy 512MB RAM Raspberry Pis, which I will use for development purposes.

Yes of course, no matter what. That’s gonna happen, this will obviously allow me to do something with it on the run.

Yes. This would a cornerstone for me in order for me to transfer movies, series and such - it would allow the Raspberry Pi to be a complete seperate unit which I would need no access to or whatsoever (I think I have a storage problem, but I will talk about that later in this blog post.

Web server

Would be stupid, waste of time. Unless I could make some web-management (or download something, maybe code it haven’t tried anything like that before, it would be cool - maybe a list of all the movies/series that I have got and then when you click it, it would play it on the Raspberry Pi (but that’s what I have XBMC for, isn’t it? I could use an API from them (maybe create an add-on, if they allow that or whatchamacallit) and then use the library’s setup. I will have to look into that - I have no knowledge of XBMC, so I am just throwing ideas out in the blue - ramblings one might be tempted to call it)

Problem: Storage

At the moment I have around 170GB of movies on my MacBook Pro and with a 4GB sd card I face a problem. I could use an external device, such as portable USB storage, but I think that solution is a bit dodgy, abandoning the principle of a credit-card-area-media-center. I don’t want to stream my movies, even though I could use my, currently unused other than hotspot, TimeCapsule. I will have to look further into this issue.