Just a quick random update on a couple of things that are on my mind:
Brian asked me why I’m even getting physical books, and why I’m not using O’Reilly’s Safari. I still get physical books because I just love having something to hold in my hand. Also, with every online service, there’s always an off-chance the net is down - and Murphy’s Law predicts that that’s exactly the moment where you need that info. And I’m using Amazon’s online book program because - at least in my field, game programming - Amazon has a better choice than O’Reilly. Looking at their catalog, they seem to be excellent in the IT department, though.
Lots of people have been asking about iCalFix, and what happened to it. For quite a while, I was too busy to even work on it. Then, I was considering making it pay software (hey - I need money like everybody else). However, two things conspired to make me abandon that idea. First, I’ve given it away for free before - it feels unfair to suddenly charge for it. And two, quite a few people liked iCalFix and chose to give me a PayPal donation. That definitely works for me. So expect news on that front soon.
And finally, I’m going to make a request to the big cloud that is the Internet: I need a tool that watches for changed/newly created files in a given directory and creates an RSS feed of those changes. Preferrably with source, in Python or Ruby, but I’m really willing to take anything. My google-fu is too weak to find anything RSS related on the web without getting lost in the forest.
I’ve been on Safari for years because it’s extremely convenient for looking up stuff both at work and at home, and it feels cheaper than buying a bunch of books.
But I really do miss physical books. Reading from them is much more pleasant, and easier on the eyes, than reading from a screen. And I feel my recall of information I’ve read is much better if it’s from a physical book (I suspect some research will support this too).
Safari is great for general reference. It’s definitely lacking in game programming and other specific programming areas. I can’t think of any apps for the RSS feed you’re looking for, but it should be trivial to whip up a cron in Python to generate the RSS.
Thanks for the feedback, guys. I’ll give Safari another spin soon - it’s always good to have more resources available.
But I agree with Paul - reading books is just more pleasant than on-screen reading. That’s why I’d never by a novel for online consumption - but reference books are almost made for the Internet.
As for my RSS feed - looks like I need to do it myself - the Intarweb remained silent on my request
You could probably hook into FAM for file changes… http://oss.sgi.com/projects/fam/
Here’s a python interface to the daemon http://python-fam.sourceforge.net/
and a ruby interface http://pablotron.org/software/fam-ruby/
Smush it together with http://www.rubyrss.com/ and you’ve got yourself a product
Awesome - thanks for the leads. Now I just need to get FAM working on Windows
(Yeah, I forgot to mention that. Sorry!)
If you google ‘file access monitor windows’ you find a lot of little 2-bit apps that provide some ugly gui into what you’re describing–monitoring files and directories for changes. Something tells me there’s a WinAPI call or some COM object that lets you hook into these events.