Ok, just a few comments from using Vista so far. There's something wrong with Vista's built-in unzip capability. It is slower than dog doo dripping down an even sidewalk on a cold day. I downloaded and installed 7-zip, which is free and open-source (and licensed under LGPL!!! for you programmer/license geeks out there). 7-Zip works much faster than Vista's builtin unzip, so it's worth the extra right-click-menu instead of the simple drag-and-drop out of the archive file.
Other than that problem, Vista works fine for me, and I haven't run into any problems that a simple 'Run as Administrator' doesn't fix. I actually prefer the UAC turned on in Vista as it lets me know when the computer is going to do something potentially destructive.
One of my favorite oldies games is Thief:Dark Project. It requires to be set as Administrator to run because it changes files in the program's installed directory as it runs videos and does save-game files. Thief also is older than multi-processor machines, and freezes up when run on a dual core machine. To fix this, you can either edit the process affinity after you kick it off, or patch the executable (I found the instructions here). Of course, if you run as administrator, you can't simply change the process affinity (as its permissions are higher than yours). I opted to patch my executable.
I also decided I wanted to have Linux around with this laptop, but I didn't want to repartition it and re-install Vista and Linux. So I downloaded Wubi which lets you install Linux into a software partition created by the Wubi product. It also installs Grub and boots into the software partition when you turn on the machine, so it's not running Linux [Ubuntu] in a virtual machine. Linux can be uninstalled quickly from within Windows as well. I'd suggest it for anyone wanting to give Linux a try with minimal pain.
April 27, 2008
April 11, 2008
WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS IDIOCY?
Why the fuck are power grid control computers attached to the Internet?
There should be a physical, brick, steel, admantium, whatever, wall between the computer equipment that controls the power stations controls and the rest of the world. These people hacked into this equipment by taking over people's Internet-browser-capable workstations.
HOW? What idiot designed the security at that power plant?
Let's just say that remote control capability is necessary to perform the duties of the controllers at this plant. That remote control should only be possible from an authenticated, otherwise unattached terminal from an equally secure location. The remote control terminal does not need to be able to access YouTube.Com.
The state of computer security in this country is horrendous. I don't know how the hell the person responsible for this idiocy still has a job. It's just completely unbelievable.
There should be a physical, brick, steel, admantium, whatever, wall between the computer equipment that controls the power stations controls and the rest of the world. These people hacked into this equipment by taking over people's Internet-browser-capable workstations.
HOW? What idiot designed the security at that power plant?
Let's just say that remote control capability is necessary to perform the duties of the controllers at this plant. That remote control should only be possible from an authenticated, otherwise unattached terminal from an equally secure location. The remote control terminal does not need to be able to access YouTube.Com.
The state of computer security in this country is horrendous. I don't know how the hell the person responsible for this idiocy still has a job. It's just completely unbelievable.
Mobility Modder to the Rescue
Ok, ATI puts out reference drivers for their laptop chips. However, Acer doesn't subscribe to their (whatever) and is not a supported manufacturer under their program to provide drivers. That means when ATI puts out good, working drivers (for example, version 8.3 Catalyst drivers) for my laptop card (Mobility Radeon X1400), they won't install on my laptop, since my hardware is not officially supported.
Thankfully, SOMEONE OUT THERE SOLVED THIS PROBLEM! The good folks at Driver Heaven have a tool that makes changes to the install script(s) for the drivers that allows it to install the drivers on my laptop. I just downloaded and installed the newest drivers using their little modding tool, and everything works! Aero/Glass, Second Life, Phun... I am once again happy with my laptop. Now to take a reference backup/snapshot and move on to installing more stuff. Thank heaven for Driver Heaven! Look for a Paypal contribution from me today!
Thankfully, SOMEONE OUT THERE SOLVED THIS PROBLEM! The good folks at Driver Heaven have a tool that makes changes to the install script(s) for the drivers that allows it to install the drivers on my laptop. I just downloaded and installed the newest drivers using their little modding tool, and everything works! Aero/Glass, Second Life, Phun... I am once again happy with my laptop. Now to take a reference backup/snapshot and move on to installing more stuff. Thank heaven for Driver Heaven! Look for a Paypal contribution from me today!
Vista and the video driver - Day 4
It looks like I have a choice. I can have a Vista installation that works for everything except OpenGL games, or I can have OpenGL drivers that work for everything but Aero/Glass, and crash Vista when I shut down my machine.
Vista came with drivers that work for my video card, but OpenGL performance is approximately 1 frame per second (possibly lower - no I'm not exaggerating!) I've tried my laptop vendor (Acer) and video card vendor (ATI). While newer drivers are out for the video card, Acer hasn't bothered to update them (the laptop's about a year and half old, so why should Acer care) and will likely not be doing so at all.
I downloaded third-party drivers from Guru 3d (OmegaDrivers still hasn't put out a set of 32-bit ATI drivers - :cry: :cry:). They work (as far as making my programs work), but the ATI control center crashes, and when I shut down my machine, it blue-screens.
I've tried even a fresh install of Vista at this point. I think I'm out of Vista options. It looks like I'll have to switch back to XP until OmegaDrivers comes out with a set of drivers that work. Perhaps I'll drop him a note asking nicely.
Vista came with drivers that work for my video card, but OpenGL performance is approximately 1 frame per second (possibly lower - no I'm not exaggerating!) I've tried my laptop vendor (Acer) and video card vendor (ATI). While newer drivers are out for the video card, Acer hasn't bothered to update them (the laptop's about a year and half old, so why should Acer care) and will likely not be doing so at all.
I downloaded third-party drivers from Guru 3d (OmegaDrivers still hasn't put out a set of 32-bit ATI drivers - :cry: :cry:). They work (as far as making my programs work), but the ATI control center crashes, and when I shut down my machine, it blue-screens.
I've tried even a fresh install of Vista at this point. I think I'm out of Vista options. It looks like I'll have to switch back to XP until OmegaDrivers comes out with a set of drivers that work. Perhaps I'll drop him a note asking nicely.
April 10, 2008
Vista - Day 3 &!@(*^%@*&%$!@
Of course, it was too good to last. One good thing - I did get the printer to work. It wasn't a simple matter. I have my printer on my XP Media PC downstairs, shared out on the network. Vista doesn't even see that PC when you browse the network, although you can see the shares by running \\machinename - you just can't use the shared printer by clicking on it (like you could in XP) and installing it.
Step 1. Install Vista drivers for printer, telling printer driver it's ok that it doesn't see the printer, but to install ANYWAY. This gets driver onto the machine.
Step 2. Choose properties (run as administrator) and choose the Port tab. Add a new port, type: Local Port, name: \\machinename\printersharename .
Step 3. Delete printer.
Step 4. Re-add printer, choosing the port that was set up in Step 2.
It took about an hour to find that solution and figure out the correct steps in the correct order. Any deviation from that order of doing it, and it wouldn't work. I'd get access denied errors and other various and sundry bullshit.
So then I shut my machine down. Vista decided that it knew better than I did about what video driver I should have installed, and 'updated' my ATI video driver during the shutdown/install patches process. I know this because I had previously told it NOT to install that patch, every time I had gone to the update/patch screen. It was the only one left.
Well, fuck Vista.
Now my machine is back to running slow as shit in graphics-intensive applications, and now it crashes/blue screens on shutdown (which causes it to memdump and start right back up). I'm going to have to spend another couple of HOURS cleaning up the mess it created forcing me to patch in this piece of shit graphics driver.
Step 1. Install Vista drivers for printer, telling printer driver it's ok that it doesn't see the printer, but to install ANYWAY. This gets driver onto the machine.
Step 2. Choose properties (run as administrator) and choose the Port tab. Add a new port, type: Local Port, name: \\machinename\printersharename .
Step 3. Delete printer.
Step 4. Re-add printer, choosing the port that was set up in Step 2.
It took about an hour to find that solution and figure out the correct steps in the correct order. Any deviation from that order of doing it, and it wouldn't work. I'd get access denied errors and other various and sundry bullshit.
So then I shut my machine down. Vista decided that it knew better than I did about what video driver I should have installed, and 'updated' my ATI video driver during the shutdown/install patches process. I know this because I had previously told it NOT to install that patch, every time I had gone to the update/patch screen. It was the only one left.
Well, fuck Vista.
Now my machine is back to running slow as shit in graphics-intensive applications, and now it crashes/blue screens on shutdown (which causes it to memdump and start right back up). I'm going to have to spend another couple of HOURS cleaning up the mess it created forcing me to patch in this piece of shit graphics driver.
April 08, 2008
Vista - Day 2
Video Drivers are the soul of the computer. I have an Acer Aspire 5672 with an ATI X1400 Mobility card. Updating the drivers with the 1.7.3 NGO Optimized drivers from Guru 3d did the trick for programs that weren't working, including Second Life. Yesterday Phun (a crayon/physics type game) wasn't working except at a crawl, but this definitely fixed that problem. Everything seems to be working pretty good so far...
I also installed new Acer Orbicam and Realtek Audio drivers for Vista from Acer. Next stop - my stupid printer...which I expect to be an issue.
I also installed new Acer Orbicam and Realtek Audio drivers for Vista from Acer. Next stop - my stupid printer...which I expect to be an issue.
I bit the Vista Bullet
Microsoft lured me into upgrading my laptop to Vista Ultimate with a free copy of the OS I got at a Launch (2008) event. So, last night I bit the bullet. I'll try to make notes here of things as I run into them.
1. The upgrade took hours. I hear clean installs are much faster, but I wanted to keep a lot of software I already had installed.
2. Desktop Icons were BIG - solution: click on desktop, hold Ctrl, and use mousewheel to resize them.
3. Windows Search wants to index my whole hard drive - serious disk usage - solution: disable Windows Search service
4. Aero works great - but if you want the diagonal window task switcher, you have to learn to use the Windows-Tab instead of Alt-Tab
5. AVG Anti-virus had to be reinstalled. I have the free version, but the license data didn't carry over in the migration.
Will post other stuff as it happens/I remember.
1. The upgrade took hours. I hear clean installs are much faster, but I wanted to keep a lot of software I already had installed.
2. Desktop Icons were BIG - solution: click on desktop, hold Ctrl, and use mousewheel to resize them.
3. Windows Search wants to index my whole hard drive - serious disk usage - solution: disable Windows Search service
4. Aero works great - but if you want the diagonal window task switcher, you have to learn to use the Windows-Tab instead of Alt-Tab
5. AVG Anti-virus had to be reinstalled. I have the free version, but the license data didn't carry over in the migration.
Will post other stuff as it happens/I remember.
April 07, 2008
Springfield Mall - WTF?
What the hell is going on at Springfield Mall? I was at the mall on Sunday afternoon, and it appeared that large swaths of the mall were closed off. Stores and eateries were walled off with drywall, and even the movie theater was closed. I checked their website this morning, and there was no information at all. If you live in Northern Virginia, you may be wondering whether it's a sign of the economic times, or just a case of suburban blight. In fact, with some of the goings-on in the past year at the mall, I could easily imagine vendors jumping ship. When gun-play comes to your local shopping center, it's easy to figure that stores may wish to relocate.
But a little birdie told me something big is cooking at the mall. A major renovation is planned for Springfield Mall, with upscale stores planned for the renovations, although I didn't get any specifics from my singing friend. Perhaps the 'upscale' target is to fight off the image that Springfield Mall may be getting after the shooting incident. I was told that some stores are being forced out of the mall, while others are being given the opportunity to relocate. In fact, my favorite barber shop was relocated upstairs next to J.C. Penney's.
A quick call to the Springfield Mall contact number got a little bit more information. Planning meetings are apparently being held with local community groups, most likely the Springfield Chamber of Commerce at a minimum. The renovations will begin after some more stores are relocated to one side of the mall, and this should be happening in the next few months. They have also told me that a new website will be launched with information about the renovations soon. While the person I spoke to was unsure about whether it'd be linked to their main site, I suspect it will.
If you're a shopper, or you just live in the area and were curious as to what is going on, now you know.
But a little birdie told me something big is cooking at the mall. A major renovation is planned for Springfield Mall, with upscale stores planned for the renovations, although I didn't get any specifics from my singing friend. Perhaps the 'upscale' target is to fight off the image that Springfield Mall may be getting after the shooting incident. I was told that some stores are being forced out of the mall, while others are being given the opportunity to relocate. In fact, my favorite barber shop was relocated upstairs next to J.C. Penney's.
A quick call to the Springfield Mall contact number got a little bit more information. Planning meetings are apparently being held with local community groups, most likely the Springfield Chamber of Commerce at a minimum. The renovations will begin after some more stores are relocated to one side of the mall, and this should be happening in the next few months. They have also told me that a new website will be launched with information about the renovations soon. While the person I spoke to was unsure about whether it'd be linked to their main site, I suspect it will.
If you're a shopper, or you just live in the area and were curious as to what is going on, now you know.
March 25, 2008
Notes from Microsoft 2008 Heroes Happen {here} Launch Event
I went to the Launch event today in Washington, DC for Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008 and Visual Studio 2008. I took notes, so I'm going to jot them all down here.
First off, the freebies - Vista Ultimate and Visual Studio 2008 Standard Edition. The other freebies are one-year evaluation versions of Server 2008 Enterprise and SQL Server 2008 Standard (via voucher as it's still in beta - but you also get the CTP disk). Free is free - I would have liked a copy of Server 2008 outright instead of the Vista Ultimate (which I neither needed nor really wanted). It would be much more fun to have Server 2008 on my machine which I use as my home server than the copy of XP Media Edition that is on it right now. Seeing as how I run MS Virtual PC to run other OS's on that machine, it's already acting as a server.
On to the notes:
Registration/etc.
Got badges, etc, picked up breakfast which came in a cooler [w/lunch] that has been labeled Microsoft [freebie soft cooler! yay!] Got a coupon for the free software which we won't get until lunchtime.
Visit this link to look at current Business Intelligence products from Microsoft including Performance Point Server and Proclarity (and its Sharepoint plugin?!?). I spoke with a BI guy at a Microsoft BI booth in the hall during breakfast, and I had not seen Performance Point Server yet. It looks like it may have some very cool stuff that's easy to take advantage of, including KPI metrics and Balanced Scorecard presentation stuff out of the box. This could be useful in some work I'm currently doing.
Keynote Address:
Bob Muglia
-- Sorry Bob, I think you lost your audience from the get-go. There didn't seem to be enough dynamic information in your presentation - it was geared for business managers, not techies. The slides were frequently boring with no real message for us, and it felt like a lecture - we'd rather have WOW upfront. Leave the slides for the boardroom.
-- Unfortunately, Bob also has a bit of squeaky voice. When he stresses a point, his voice-box would collapse on him, very noticeable when amplified. Made it harder still to hear his message.
-- He also started to talk about how management structure needs to support new technology. Great, Bob, would love some tips on how to change that.....but you didn't give us any.
-- There was a few minutes of blatant pushing of Vista SP1 (wrong launch event, no?)
Have a note in here to look at the Workflow Designer in VS 2008.
Finally, Bob got to the meat of things and brought up Partners and showed us a real product implementation at Vanderbuilt University Medical Center [I think I know someone there - note to myself to ask them about their experiences with 2008 product line].
Finally we get to some of the new product stuff:
Server 2008 - Deployable images, Geo-clustering
SQL Server 2008 - SQL Server security over Oracle (0 CVE's in last 4 years?!? need to verify that!)
UniSys Partner came up and talked about their product the Infrastructure Management Suite. The whole time Bob Muglia seemed to stand there with a perma-frown. My notes say he looked kind of like Fred Thompson's twin brother, but I was sitting toward the back, even with the Jumbo-screens.....
SSIS experiences were discussed and the guest speaker (forgot which) mentions he imported 1TB of data in 30 minutes...testament to SQL Server 2008 performance.
Virtualization was discussed - HyperV - and something I didn't know about - SoftGrid Application Virtualization - my notes have a 'definitely go look up' next to that. Virtualization for applications is a great move, I think, and as the day wore on, I saw that virtualizing applications is a nice new feature. Why serve up a whole desktop (RDP) when you only need to serve up one app at a time.
System Center has a new addition - Virtual Machine Manager - to integrate into Operations Manager. They pointed out that in VM Manager, you could put prebuilt images into the library for easy deployment of new VMs on a pre-built configuration - nice feature. They also mentioned the VM Manager would eventually support managing VMWare ESX servers....
New in IIS - Shared Configuration - from a Configuration Server, you can save the configuration of a website and redeploy the configuration to a new IIS Server.
SQL 2008 -
Resource Governor, application pools by which CPU/memory could be managed for multiple user groups to give more power to those who need it.
Policies - Set up policies for compliance and configurations - apply them to multiple servers.
Full Database Encryption - invisible to the user, use asymmetric keys or server certificates
Server 2008 again - Terminal Server Remote Application Manager - more on virtualization, and Presentation Virtualization .
G. Andrew Duthie shows us Visual Studio 2008 stuff, including:
Team Foundation Server integration
Split Views
CSS View to track where CSS is being applied
Linq
JavaScript debugging
He also shows us Expression Blend and VS 2008 sharing a project, mentions that project files are compatible between the two.
A J Mee shows us SQL Server 2008 stuff, but from user perspectives:
Outlook's integration with Dynamic CRM
KPI/Balanced Scorecard presentation of data, support for Geo-spatial data, integration with Virtual Earth...
Shows us that SQL Server 2008 exposes underlying analysis tools through Excel 2007 - looks like something to definitely look into (in my notes and big STAR next to it)
Free copy of Vista is mentioned, and the keynote is over. While the first part of the keynote offered to bore me to tears, I am now fully awake and anxious to hear about some of the stuff I've heard about...I decide to change tracks to the Database track from the IT Pro track (but I still want to see the Application Virtualization!). I managed to catch all the stuff I wanted to. I'll throw up some more of my notes from the breakout sessions later this week.
First off, the freebies - Vista Ultimate and Visual Studio 2008 Standard Edition. The other freebies are one-year evaluation versions of Server 2008 Enterprise and SQL Server 2008 Standard (via voucher as it's still in beta - but you also get the CTP disk). Free is free - I would have liked a copy of Server 2008 outright instead of the Vista Ultimate (which I neither needed nor really wanted). It would be much more fun to have Server 2008 on my machine which I use as my home server than the copy of XP Media Edition that is on it right now. Seeing as how I run MS Virtual PC to run other OS's on that machine, it's already acting as a server.
On to the notes:
Registration/etc.
Got badges, etc, picked up breakfast which came in a cooler [w/lunch] that has been labeled Microsoft [freebie soft cooler! yay!] Got a coupon for the free software which we won't get until lunchtime.
Visit this link to look at current Business Intelligence products from Microsoft including Performance Point Server and Proclarity (and its Sharepoint plugin?!?). I spoke with a BI guy at a Microsoft BI booth in the hall during breakfast, and I had not seen Performance Point Server yet. It looks like it may have some very cool stuff that's easy to take advantage of, including KPI metrics and Balanced Scorecard presentation stuff out of the box. This could be useful in some work I'm currently doing.
Keynote Address:
Bob Muglia
-- Sorry Bob, I think you lost your audience from the get-go. There didn't seem to be enough dynamic information in your presentation - it was geared for business managers, not techies. The slides were frequently boring with no real message for us, and it felt like a lecture - we'd rather have WOW upfront. Leave the slides for the boardroom.
-- Unfortunately, Bob also has a bit of squeaky voice. When he stresses a point, his voice-box would collapse on him, very noticeable when amplified. Made it harder still to hear his message.
-- He also started to talk about how management structure needs to support new technology. Great, Bob, would love some tips on how to change that.....but you didn't give us any.
-- There was a few minutes of blatant pushing of Vista SP1 (wrong launch event, no?)
Have a note in here to look at the Workflow Designer in VS 2008.
Finally, Bob got to the meat of things and brought up Partners and showed us a real product implementation at Vanderbuilt University Medical Center [I think I know someone there - note to myself to ask them about their experiences with 2008 product line].
Finally we get to some of the new product stuff:
Server 2008 - Deployable images, Geo-clustering
SQL Server 2008 - SQL Server security over Oracle (0 CVE's in last 4 years?!? need to verify that!)
UniSys Partner came up and talked about their product the Infrastructure Management Suite. The whole time Bob Muglia seemed to stand there with a perma-frown. My notes say he looked kind of like Fred Thompson's twin brother, but I was sitting toward the back, even with the Jumbo-screens.....
SSIS experiences were discussed and the guest speaker (forgot which) mentions he imported 1TB of data in 30 minutes...testament to SQL Server 2008 performance.
Virtualization was discussed - HyperV - and something I didn't know about - SoftGrid Application Virtualization - my notes have a 'definitely go look up' next to that. Virtualization for applications is a great move, I think, and as the day wore on, I saw that virtualizing applications is a nice new feature. Why serve up a whole desktop (RDP) when you only need to serve up one app at a time.
System Center has a new addition - Virtual Machine Manager - to integrate into Operations Manager. They pointed out that in VM Manager, you could put prebuilt images into the library for easy deployment of new VMs on a pre-built configuration - nice feature. They also mentioned the VM Manager would eventually support managing VMWare ESX servers....
New in IIS - Shared Configuration - from a Configuration Server, you can save the configuration of a website and redeploy the configuration to a new IIS Server.
SQL 2008 -
Resource Governor, application pools by which CPU/memory could be managed for multiple user groups to give more power to those who need it.
Policies - Set up policies for compliance and configurations - apply them to multiple servers.
Full Database Encryption - invisible to the user, use asymmetric keys or server certificates
Server 2008 again - Terminal Server Remote Application Manager - more on virtualization, and Presentation Virtualization .
G. Andrew Duthie shows us Visual Studio 2008 stuff, including:
Team Foundation Server integration
Split Views
CSS View to track where CSS is being applied
Linq
JavaScript debugging
He also shows us Expression Blend and VS 2008 sharing a project, mentions that project files are compatible between the two.
A J Mee shows us SQL Server 2008 stuff, but from user perspectives:
Outlook's integration with Dynamic CRM
KPI/Balanced Scorecard presentation of data, support for Geo-spatial data, integration with Virtual Earth...
Shows us that SQL Server 2008 exposes underlying analysis tools through Excel 2007 - looks like something to definitely look into (in my notes and big STAR next to it)
Free copy of Vista is mentioned, and the keynote is over. While the first part of the keynote offered to bore me to tears, I am now fully awake and anxious to hear about some of the stuff I've heard about...I decide to change tracks to the Database track from the IT Pro track (but I still want to see the Application Virtualization!). I managed to catch all the stuff I wanted to. I'll throw up some more of my notes from the breakout sessions later this week.
March 12, 2008
Is Computer Science actually Linguistics?
Thought for the day:
Computer programming is considered alternately a 'science' subject and a 'mathematics' subject. Yet, science and math are two different approaches to problems. The scientific method involves identifying questions, formulating hypothesis based on knowledge, designing experiments to prove the hypothesis, experimenting and recording the results. Science may also involve using these results to solve problems that drove the initial questions. Some people think of programming this way. Programs to these people are trial and error constructs by which former knowledge is researched to find solutions to newly posed problems. Requirements, then, become the initial problem, and logical questions are posed, solutions hypothesized, and some code is thrown at it to see if it works. When it does, it's documented and perhaps utilized in the overall solution.
Alternately, programming is a mathematical discipline. Mathematics is the linguistics of science. It is the constrained language by which concepts are discussed. Study of mathematics, like any language, is the study of pre-defined concepts and how these concepts can be put together to express ideas. Again, some people think of programming in this fashion. Programs to them are sentences and paragraphs to be put together to express the ideas posed to them in one language (e.g. English) in another language (e.g. COBOL). Conversion of software requirements to computer code means the literal translation of instructions such that the machine acts in such a way as defined by the original authors.
Cool thing of the day: (thanks to Digg users for the link). Bio-engineers are attempting to create an organism (by programming DNA) that will eat CO2 and sunlight to create oil fuels. I could go on, but the video at the site includes explanations that speak for themselves. If you have 15 minutes, go watch this link at Ecogeeks. The work they are doing at Synthetic Genomics is VERY cool.
Computer programming is considered alternately a 'science' subject and a 'mathematics' subject. Yet, science and math are two different approaches to problems. The scientific method involves identifying questions, formulating hypothesis based on knowledge, designing experiments to prove the hypothesis, experimenting and recording the results. Science may also involve using these results to solve problems that drove the initial questions. Some people think of programming this way. Programs to these people are trial and error constructs by which former knowledge is researched to find solutions to newly posed problems. Requirements, then, become the initial problem, and logical questions are posed, solutions hypothesized, and some code is thrown at it to see if it works. When it does, it's documented and perhaps utilized in the overall solution.
Alternately, programming is a mathematical discipline. Mathematics is the linguistics of science. It is the constrained language by which concepts are discussed. Study of mathematics, like any language, is the study of pre-defined concepts and how these concepts can be put together to express ideas. Again, some people think of programming in this fashion. Programs to them are sentences and paragraphs to be put together to express the ideas posed to them in one language (e.g. English) in another language (e.g. COBOL). Conversion of software requirements to computer code means the literal translation of instructions such that the machine acts in such a way as defined by the original authors.
Cool thing of the day: (thanks to Digg users for the link). Bio-engineers are attempting to create an organism (by programming DNA) that will eat CO2 and sunlight to create oil fuels. I could go on, but the video at the site includes explanations that speak for themselves. If you have 15 minutes, go watch this link at Ecogeeks. The work they are doing at Synthetic Genomics is VERY cool.
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