ends and rants

been meaning to mention it for a while now: Hellsing is over. bit of a letdown, that ending. ah well. guess one can't have everything. no, i'm not telling you! go read it yourself. also, watched the last episode of Ga-Rei Zero last night. awesome ending. hope we get to see an anime series released soon. yes, i know i wondered what trashy anime was released when i watched the first two episodes. if it wasn't for someone else, i'd not have bothered watching anymore. boy, am i glad i did complete it.

on a not-so-light note, Chromium lacks print preview - and i'm not the only one missing it. what are the developers thinking? what good is a browser with no print preview (quite a bit, but i'm trying to stress a point here)?

i was thinking recently of the fact that Opera 10 alpha passes the Acid 3 test. great news for web developers and designers, but does that mean Opera will get a larger market share? and how does that translate into cash for Opera? passing the Acid 3 test does not mean that more users — a demographic much larger than the demographic of web designers or developers — will use Opera 10. yet, the fact that Opera 10 passes a test that the more popular browsers fail is a good thing - if you ask me

Kindergarten

Thanks, Dayo for sending this to me

A mom was concerned about her kindergarten son walking to school. He didn't want his mother to walk with him. She wanted to give him the feeling that he had some independence but yet know that he was safe. So she had an idea of how to handle it. She asked a neighbor if she would please follow him to school in the mornings, staying at a distance, so he probably wouldn't notice her.

She said that since she was up early with her toddler anyway, it would be a good way for them to get some exercise as well, so she agreed. The next school day, the neighbor and her little girl set out following behind Timmy as he walked to school with another neighbor girl he knew. She did this for the whole week. As the two walked and chatted, kicking stones and twigs, Timmy's little friend noticed the same lady was following them as she seemed to do every day all week. Finally she said to Timmy, 'Have you noticed that lady following us to school all week? Do you know her?'

Timmy nonchalantly replied, 'Yeah, I know who she is.' The little girl said, 'Well, who is she?' 'That's just Shirley Goodnest,' Timmy replied, 'and her daughter Marcy.' 'Shirley Goodnest? Who the heck is she and why is she following us?' 'Well,' Timmy explained, 'every night my Mom makes me say the 23rd Psalm with my prayers, 'cuz she worries about me so much. And in the Psalm, it says, 'Shirley Goodnest and Marcy shall follow me all the days of my life', so I guess I'll just have to get used to it!'

The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make His face to shine upon you, and be gracious unto you; the Lord lift His countenance upon you, and give you peace.

May Shirley Goodnest and Marcy be with you today and always. I'm sure you smiled! I sure did.

You know your internet sucks…

…when it isn't worth it logging in to Megaupload to download a file for free to cut the waiting time from 45 to 25 seconds. condiments of the seasoning to all.

Updates, updates...

i'm supposed to have moved my focus from the SMS part of my employer's business to IVR. i've had to deal with a flowchart-based development environment i find very annoying. plus, since i had no prior experience with telephony systems, quite a bit is lost on me. i've mostly been fumbling around in the dark.

this morning, my boss called me and asked me if i could develop a voice broadcast application using that environment. since i'd been having problems with it, i said i'd try. since then, i have failed in trying to get the application to make outbound calls. the alternative was to call in a consultant who's very good with Asterisk. i called him, but not after i discovered Asterisk.NET. before long, i had learned a little about the Asterisk Manager Interface and AGI, both of which i never knew existed before today, even though i've played around with Asterisk as part of my job. i also found the Sipek VoIP projects site. hopefully, i'll be able to build the application needed either by using Asterisk.NET or the Sipek SDK. either way, things should work out now.

Python 3.0 is out (i'm a couple days late on this one), and it isn't backward compatible with the 2.X series. looks like they really gave some thought as to where Python should go. i guess that means development of the 2.X series will basically be mostly bugfixes from now on. still, there seems to be a lot to like about the new Python, even though it's slower than 2.6 on the pystone benchmark (i cannot believe they actually took a line from Basic and added the <> operator in Python. thank goodness it's been removed in 3.0!). let's see how things go, especially with open-source projects that use Python. i'm personally wondering where IronPython goes (yes, they did it - got me sold on .NET. doesn't mean i now despise C++ though. i still plan on using it from time to time).

and thanks to Segun who gave me a ride yesterday when i forgot my wallet at home. you're the best, bro!

Looking for a .NET SMPP implementation - Part 2

seems my previous post was somewhat more popular than usual, judging from the two comments i got on it. so, i'm writing this more or less in response to those comments.

my answer is: it depends on a number of factors. what do you want to do? create a client or server? is working with unmanaged code a requirement? what kind of timeline do you have? is reading through code and class diagrams your way of learning, or is it one step above swallowing broken glass? must you absolutely have commercial support? what about licensing? when you look at all these, your mileage will definitely vary. at any rate, below i give some of the things i've picked up about these components. hope it helps!

IP*Works

• You have to pay for it beyond the trial period.
• You get commercial support.
• Since it's a sold product in it's 8th major version, it should have been well-tested in production environments and suited for handling large volumes of SMPP traffic (note the emphasis. it may not have).
• You get other components (well, check out the website yourself).
• You probably don't get licensing issues (note the emphasis again).
• There's an SSL version if you need it.
• They have more than .NET if you need it (but those - except for Java - seem to have stopped in version 6).
• i haven't used it, so i can't tell that you can use the component to develop a server.
• website

RoaminSMPP

• it's licensed under the GNU Library General Public License. as far as i know, that allows you use it in commercial, closed-source applications, but i may be wrong. also, you may not want to use LGPL components. then again, using opensource software may make you feel warm and fuzzy inside.
• the developer says he's stopped development. any bug fixes may have to come from you.
• documentation is in the source code. literally. there's no other source of documentation short of looking up the binary in a tool such as Red Gate .NET Reflector.
• it's free.
• having access to the source may just be the thing for you to tweak it.
• SourceForge project page

Devshock

• it's free.
• it comes with example code. in VB.NET, no less :(
• one of the sample projects seems to be an SMPP server.
• the site was supposed to come up two months ago (in other words, unless someone mirrors the component, you're out of luck! as it stands, i've uploaded a copy here. someone please tell me if it's illegal with proof, and i'll remove the files).
• since the site is down, i cannot state the license (it's not in the downloaded file). you may have licensing issues here too.
• the assembly is not obfuscated in any way, so you can look it up in Reflector and figure out how it was built.
• website (under construction)

ALT.SMS.SmppClient

• it's free. you can purchase the source code, and get commercial support, free updates, and whatnot.
• quite a bit of the assembly is obfuscated (i guess they should really add something in it like, "buy the source, you cheapskate!"). good luck poking around with Reflector.
• there's a forum, so you and everyone else who uses it can decide to discuss it. don't compare that to paid support, though.
• no visible license. that may be a problem.
• website

SMPPLIB

• written in unmanaged code. has a COM library too, so it can easily be used from .NET.
• another item with no explicit license. sigh.
• it's written in C++ and is MFC dependent.
• you only get the source.
• frozen since 2003.
• website

EasySMPP

• no explict license.
• frozen since 2006.
• looks simple enough to use, but i couldn't get it to work :(
• example program included. there's a gateway using it (and as far as i know, it's the only gateway/simulator that seems to work with it).
• free. opensource.
• in case you missed it, it can be used for servers
• SourceForge project page

BasheerG asked if i tested for performance & high load. no i didn't - i didn't have the space to, since i was (mostly) moved from the SMS arm of my employer's concerns. to answer your other question, if i could afford it, i'd go for the IP*Works first, then RoaminSMPP, then Devshock. i've no idea where i'd place the ALT.SMS.SmppClient. maybe lurking around the forum might help me decide. i'd hate to use the SMPPLIB component because of COM issues. and since EasySmpp didn't work effectively for me, i'd not use it. i hope this helps you and Sandip.