Author Archives: Conrad Halling
Drinking from a Fire Hose
This morning I collected stacks of unread issues of Science and Nature and put them in a recycling bin. I have subscribed to Science since the early 1980s and to Nature since the early 1990s. I still enjoy reading both … Continue reading
Relearning PHP
The time has come for me to relearn PHP. When I last used PHP, in 2005, I was using PHP 4.4, which had pretty poor support for classes and objects. Compared to Perl, I found PHP pretty awkward. PHP 5 … Continue reading
Trek Valencia: A Quick Review
Here is a quick review on my new Trek Valencia,which I bought over two months ago. The Valencia is the first modern bike I’ve owned. (I also own a 1984 Raleigh Marathon, and I owned some road bikes in the … Continue reading
Random Shuffle Algorithms
A recent slashdot.org thread discussed how a programmer at Microsoft incorrectly implemented a random shuffle algorithm. The discussion was prompted by an article Rob Weir wrote in which he presented a comprehensive analysis of the problem and provided a correct … Continue reading
Anticipating My New Bicycle
Although I love bicycling, I have not done any serious bicycling for several years. In the 1970′s, I was a bicycle commuting pioneer in Portland, Oregon, riding in the morning from my home in SE Portland to classes downtown at … Continue reading
Apple’s Tablet Computer
Yesterday Apple Inc. introduced its new tablet computer, the iPad. The best summary of the iPad that I have read is, not surprisingly, written by Adam Engst at tidbits.com. I provide here notes about the features that interest me. The … Continue reading
That Expensive Microsoft Experience
Yesterday I finished reinstalling Vista Business on my MacBook Pro. I say finished, because the reinstallation required two days. I needed to reinstall Vista after I had updated Mac OS X to Snow Leopard (10.6), at which time I had … Continue reading
