Personal on A+ programming moments

App Builders 2019

Fri, 10 May 2019 18:44:37 +0000

This is the second time I have attended App Builders conference. In 2018, fell in love with Lugano and Ticino; the entire experience had me aching to go back again. Thus late last year, when team published the dates of Apr 29/30, I could not believe my luck: it was in the middle of school Spring break in Serbia. Which meant my wife Ana, the other half of Radiant Tap, would agree to go since we could take our kids with us as well. We had a great time last year at UIKonf in Berlin; it was no-brainer to take this chance and visit one of the nicest area in Europe.

Plans were hatched, road trip through Croatia, Slovenia, Italy and Ticino was eagerly awaited all Winter and Spring. That my talk (Onion-like iOS app architecture) was later accepted through community voting was a bonus.

At the conference itself, we followed the iOS track (while kids were patiently waiting for us in the hallway). I believe that variety of topics was diverse enough that anyone attending could find at least 2-4 inspiring ones. It depends on the person, what one finds appealing and/or challenging. My favorite talks that I will revisit (or have already put to good use) are:

From Problem to Solution – Soroush Khanlou
Apps in the Background — Alex Aubry
Protocol Witnesses — Brandon Williams

The intro and outro keynotes by Scott Chacon and Adrian Kosmaczewski were interesting and fun in their own way. Do go through the schedule and then look up the talks on YouTube to listen. Conference progressed really well, John did a great job keeping everything on track and on time.

My talk went rather well until the last bit; despite numerous practicing runs, I still managed to derail my pace just enough (when speaking about data storage and middleware) that I did not have 5 mins at the end to properly explain coordinatingResponder methods. I had to finish up rather abruptly, which left quite a few people wondering how Coordinators weave their magic around other layers. Thus I spent good few hours in the later part of the day explaining that to various groups of people. Even though I should have delivered a much tighter presentation on stage, it was interesting enough that attendees chased me up for extra info. Which is heartwarming, really — thanks to all that followed up.

One particular feedback is worth pointing up: several people commented that my architecture approach does not really offer anything new, it’s just a re-hash of the MVC with some additional extensions. Which is great to hear because that’s exactly what I’m promoting. :) Core tenet of Keep It Layered & Simple architecture is that in iOS and UIKit there is no need for any grand and novel architecture solution. Few simple extensions are enough to build any kind of app, of any complexity.

If you agree with me or are simply intrigued, keep watching Spotifier repo on GitHub, as I’ll continue expanding it in the future.

I wish I had more time to attend conferences. I love the vibe I get, each visit re-kindles my love for the iOS app development. There are quite a few I would love to visit again; even more where I would love to go for the first time.

Fingers crossed, little things in life will align properly more often.

aleck.smugmug.com

Mon, 22 Sep 2008 17:45:19 +0000

I have signed up for SmugMug account as well. I will test both them and Zenfolio for a year, in order to see which one will fair better, on various aspects. Ease of use, features, responsiveness of the parent company and the amount of sales made.

SmugMug uses EZ Prints which I believe do ship internationally so this is the place to go if you’re not from US or Canada.

aleck.zenfolio.com

Sun, 21 Sep 2008 00:59:48 +0000

At this address I have started an experiment of selling my photos. Zenfolio works with MPix as printing partner which is sadly limited to US and Canada only.

Take a look, comments welcome.

Photographs

Fri, 03 Aug 2007 21:54:59 +0000

I have added a new link under About section in the navigation - ‘My photographs’. I have used Flickr in the past (and still visit frequently) but never could get myself to pay for a Pro account. I’m just not into this social networking stuff.

I prefer to keep the photos on my own server. I will be slowly adding more and more photos there. Currently Aleksa rules that space and probably always will :)

Aside from his shots, I uploaded 233 images from our Paris trip in April - hope you like them.

941

Tue, 10 Jul 2007 17:01:12 +0000

Since July 5th, I mostly lost contact with planet Earth. Just when I was picking up the beacon signal back, Ana brought this little boy home. And everything stops when he moves just one of his little fingers. Or yawns. Or eats.

Both Ana and him are great. It’s a wonderful time.

Mobilized

Fri, 03 Nov 2006 13:38:16 +0000

I started writing this post few months ago, when I switched from desktop computer to notebook/laptop (whatever you wish to call it). I used notebooks from time to time, but this time I’m going full…monty would that be applicable in this case? My old desktop - AthlonXP 2500+, 1GB RAM, SATA RAID0 7200rpm disks, Radeon9800 - is packed and awaits new owner.

This was far from easy decision to make and I thought about it for a very long time. Eventually, I decided that much higher cost of buying powerful laptop vs powerful desktop will be justified with increased versatility and freedom of movement. The laptop was bought in UK and it proved to be a real eye-opener regarding business practice of some of the IT shops in London. A fishy practice.

Why

I live in Belgrade, Serbia’s capitol city. I was not born here though and my mom lives 300km south, in the small town of Pirot. Chances to go there are rare, due to high volume of work. It would be much easier if I could bring my work with me.

Until recently, I used shitty modem connection (ADSL finally arrived) and in Pirot I also only have modem connection. Some of the stuff I do would be done much quicker if I could get my computer somewhere where I have faster Internet connection (not viable with full tower case).

What

Using laptop as my main and only computer means that it should be blazing fast, durable and stable. I do web design / development work, but that does not mean just web server, editor and Photoshop. It’s IIS/ASP, Apache/PHP, Photoshop, MS SQL Server, MySQL, TopStylePro, virtual machines (through VMWare Player) and all kinds of auxiliary utilities. It also means DVD/CD read and write, movie play with 5.1 surround audio and music listening on external 5.1 speakers. It means bluetooth connections for my phone. And all the other things one could think of doing on the computer.

Important details was that I did not want to drag some large brick around. I toyed with idea of 17" laptop (since I would mostly be using it at home) but few company trips during which I either used 14" iBook G4 or 15" Dell Latitude D600 was enough to convince me against it. First it’s heavy. Second, bulky enough to not be able to open them in bus or plane seat.

Hence, 12-13" range. Which means small screen, possible lack of all required ports and high price. As designer, I need lots of desktop space. As movie fan, I need large screen to properly enjoy epic spectacles I’m into. Which naturally leads to external display, where I settled in on 23inchers which I still have not bought, which is another story.

Oh, the choice…

Here in Serbia, market offer for both high-class laptops and large monitors is close to non-existing. One can get HP, Dell, Asus and Fujitsu Siemens with hit and miss chance to buy some other brands. 90% of the models are the cheapest ones. There was no Sony, no Samsung, stronger Asus models in traces, few LGs which became obsolete by the time they finally appeared here. There are Apples too, for something like 30% higher price than in UK.

It’s really depressing, hence I waited for a chance to go abroad and buy there. It eventually happened in the first half of May when I went to UK on business, for 10 days. More than enough to lurk around, try out models and decide.

For months before, I scoured notebookreview.com and all other hardware sites looking for possible candidates. I can’t even remember for how much models I said “this is the one!” :), only to change my mind two days after. Eventually, I settled with Samsung X11, Asus W3J, LG T1, Sony SZ and…Apple MacBookPro. Oh, Apple…somewhere in the back of my mind, a dark force was calling me to switch. Reasonable part of me told me that Windows on Apple hardware is not ready for prime time yet, but the possibility to use both OSX and Win at the same time was really, really tempting. Even if it was above my screen size target.

So, naturally, I went to Apple Store on Regent Street and anchored at the MBPs. I first wanted to check the much publicized heat issue. Oh boy, was it easy to check - place your palm on top left corner of the keyboard and if you can keep them there for more than 15s, I salute you. Reviews was chock full about the high working temperatures of MBP, but this was just too much. I don’t really care if Apple thinks it to be normal or does they call MBP notebook computer and never a laptop - that thing is scorching.

So scratch Apple. After much checks and tries, I settled on Sony SZ1XP/C, a wonderful beast with some nasty tentacles, of which I already wrote.

Where

Tottenham Court Road in London contains 40 or so IT shops and it’s a natural place to go when you want to buy or simply check the notebooks in person. I think I made at least 3-5 visits to each store, checking and re-checking my target notebooks. Although I initially wanted Samsung X11, somehow it did not lure into buying after hands-on tests. I don’t know exactly what, but I think that the fact it had worse spec than Sony SZ1 and plus being larger drove me off.

Thus I bought SZ1, with free 3-year business next-day warranty being thrown in by the salesman at MBA store. MBA…or Microworld 2000…or I have no idea. While the salesman was very helpful and the entire shopping was a pleasant experience, the stuff that happened later on added a really bad smell to it all.

Since I’m from outside EC, I’m eligible for VAT refund. In UK, that’s 17.5%, which is added to original price. In case of this purchase, that amount was something like £230. Salesman told me that there is an administrative charge of £10 - I got used to the fact that most shops in UK do this and which I classify as screwing the customer. I have already shopped in several UK stores, and I know for a fact that this admin charge is nothing but a way for them to retain some of that money - since few shops do return you entire amount.

VAT refund in UK is similar to any other country - you get a form where seller fills up details about the shopping + shop details. Then, when you go to the airport or leave UK any other way, you pay a short visit to HM Customs which stamps the form and you send it back to the shop by post, along with your details filled in. Sometimes the Customs officer keep the form and send it himself/herself. When it gets to the shop, they pay you back to your card.

I believe you noticed the subtle fact that you will receive the money based on business honesty of the shop. And that is where MBA shopping went fishy. Because money did not show up on my card account for the next 3 months.

As it happens, I made copies of the form before sending it and in August, when I went for another business trip, I brought the papers with me and visited the shop. I asked for the manager, showed the form and ask them what happened - did the form not arrived or there were other problems. The guy went to some other shop, returned after 10 minutes and told me to comeback in the morning, they will sort it out. Sounded fine.

In the morning, he walked me to nearby shop which I thought is the administrative office. Actually, it turned out to be a place where 5 different companies are located, one desk and few drawers. Here is where I started to think something unusual is happening. I thought that the form was lost in post (I sent it form Serbia) - but they actually pulled a very large register and located my original form. It did arrive but they simply filed it and forgot about it.

Second thing is that instead of mentioned £10 charge, they charged me 3.5% of the entire price (with VAT included) which turned to be £50! I complained about it, but the guy told me the salesman got it wrong in the first place. I thought about pushing that issue but realized I have no time to spend for it. He gave me the cheque and told me I can cash it in nearby Lloyds bank office. I went there and the clerk told me that it is personal cheque and that I can only put the money in my accont in the same bank, but I can’t receive cash. The MBA person knew very well that I could not use the cheque (as I can’t possibly open an account in the UK) but still gave me that.

After this, really pissed off, I went back to the shop and demanded to be payed in cash and not be walked around anymore. You should see the charade happening then. A new guy showed up, then he called another one, all three of them talked quietly and in a dialect (or language) I did not understood a single word of (it reminded me about Snatch scene when Brad Pitt’s gypsy character is speaking very fast and Turkish asks the other guy did you understand anything he said). After 6-7 minutes of this show, the first guy finally picked up an envelope and payed me in cash.

They actually counted on the fact that with enough fooling around I would give up.

After all this, I strongly recommend to stay out of MBA shops (although the receipt and the bag said Microworld 2000 - could be the same company). The way these people operate is very, very fishy. I wonder is there’s an office one could report such practices, because they are basically stealing the money. They should have payed the VAT to the state, but with my form properly filled and stamped they could keep the money and still say to the tax office (I don’t know its name in UK) look, we did pay it back through this.

The way VAT refund scheme works in UK really opens up such possibilities. It would be better if VAT refunds would always be given back at the airports, and the shops always pay the tax. Sadly, it is not the case.

Kicking

Tue, 07 Mar 2006 09:00:04 +0000

Almost fully recovered from the worst case of flu I had in a decade. Horrible stuff.

I will need lots of time to pick all the loose ends from last 2.5 weeks.

Off

Fri, 17 Feb 2006 16:17:37 +0000

Skiing. For the first time, should be lots of fun.

Numenorean

Tue, 15 Nov 2005 18:43:09 +0000

To which race of Middle Earth do you belong?
brought to you by Quizilla

No, you know I can't do that

Wed, 02 Nov 2005 17:25:29 +0000

She smiles. The loveliest view for tired mind, the promise of joys to come. It’s so easy to immerse in it..

Yet, in the back of my mind, an uncertainty is getting its due attention. The invisible wall is erected ever so swiftly after being totally shattered hours ago.

You should just let it go…

… Sorry, it’s one thread I can’t willingly snap.

A week in the life of...

Sun, 14 Aug 2005 08:25:52 +0000

Man, this has been a crazy week in the office.

There were three (or was it four?) _go-live_s for different clients, two of them with the parts of the system that directly concerns me (read web site). A series of 8am-20am working days is not something I wish to continue. Especially when it extends to Saturday as well (10am-5pm). Start of the football (US: read soccer) season is the crazy time in bookie business and I can’t wait for things to get back in normal and get quiet a bit.

Kids, get your math in order

One new thing was added this year, to the usual frenzy of new clients and white labeling deals for the old clients. Bookie web sites are often a target of DDoS attacks, with various groups trying to milk some easy money from the bookies. The previous two weeks, we had several testing events of them trying out various ways of overloading the servers and bandwidth.

Blackmailers usually ask 50k/month for “protection” (how cheesy) or they will shutdown the web sites when bookie need them most. Like season start, cup finals, world cups and events like that.

I really can’t believe these people. Do they really think that any bookie would pay them? There are dozens of proven ways to protect yourself from such attacks. Hence most they can do is to disrupt the service for an hour or two at most (that being generous). The potential loss for the bookies at that time could be below or above 50k but in any case that’s a drop in the sea in their entire revenue model. With publicly available reports of bookie revenues going over half a billion per year, no bookie in their right mind would pay such a thing. They would and could always endure the loss on web, as most have telebetting and shops business as well, both having higher profit margin then web.

Lay off kids. All you do is get your self few days of curses from web developers and network admins. But no juice.

Off

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 12:06:06 +0000

Off for a short while…I took one week vacation and this second part of it I will be out of Belgrade, meaning away from computer. Read you soon.

If you leave a comment on any article and that happens to be your first comment here, it may take several days to show up - due to comment moderation - until I get to the comp again.

Spammers, do not even bother - you shit will never see the light on this web site. You deserve eternal damnation and I hope you rot to hell.

Others, stay well.

Blog in serbian

Thu, 02 Jun 2005 19:25:30 +0000

I started a blog in Serbian. Pretty much unfinished, but it gives you a sneak peek into the new WP theme I’m preparing. Once it’s done, you’ll be able to download it from here.

Away interupt

Thu, 24 Mar 2005 08:47:53 +0000

I’m going away for three days, to conclude certain family matters.

I don’t like going away when I have many unfinished things here, but this one can’t be postponed. I have another WP theme almost completed, but not enough to be posted. I have few CSS related articles I’m writing for like over a month (but effectively only few hours). I have horrible amount of office work to clear up and this day off will really hurt me when I get back.

There are good sides too: I’ll see my mom and sis again after few months. I’ll get to play more with my new phone - Sony Ericsson T630 (black).

Shuffle

Thu, 03 Mar 2005 12:38:42 +0000

After unsuccessful try to buy it in USA (it was sold-out in Florida’s Millenia Apple Store), a friend bought it for me in Apple’s Regent Store in London UK. £99 for the 1GB version. Why so much trouble? Because it’s €180 in Belgrade. :s

I have it for as little over one day and so far impressions are excellent - exactly what I expected. I have left 764MB for disc use which left me with space for about 50-60 songs. Just enough for me; I’ll listen them for 2-3 days, then switch to another playlist. Then repeat. Then shuffle. And that disc size is perfect - I can backup entire CD on it plus it’s excellent for moving files from office to home and vice-versa.

Shuffle is “only” almost perfect, though. The slider-switch, for off/order play/shuffle play, should have two or three lines on it, for better grip when switching. As glide as it is, I need to really press on it to move the slider. And tiny as it is I fear I’m gonna break it that way.

The sound is good and can be loud enough to subvert the noise of Belgrade traffic. Friend who few days ago received Creative MuVo says that Shuffle’s sound quality is good, but slightly inferior to MuVo’s. Can’t really tell - I was never an audiophile that can tell such differences. It’s just right for me.

More photos at my Flickr page.

Canon PowerShot S1 IS

Thu, 03 Mar 2005 11:35:47 +0000

During recent visit to UK, I bought myself Canon PowerShot S1 IS. I wanted it ever since I read the review on dpreview.com. They have said everything you need to know, much better than I could possibly say or test. It looks nice, like a “real” SLR camera, has 3Mpx which is just enough for an amateur like me, with two gems: 10x optical zoom and IS - Image Stabilizer.

However, the price in Serbia at that time was astronomical. The review says that you can find over the web in US for as low as $340, but here it was €600+, way above my limit for the first digital camera I’m going to buy.

When I left for the UK, I intentionally did not bring my Nikon compact SLR,to force myself to buy something. I first thought to buy it from one of the high-street sellers, like Jessops. Their price was £345 - still pretty much high, but somewhere in the league of current price in Serbia, which is around €420.

Luckily, a colleague from Finsoft UK told me to look on the Internet for much better deals. And there were really good deals: PriceRunner reveals online shops that sells it for around £250 - fabulous 1/3 off of the high-street price. I read the reviews for the several first listed shops and finally chose Digital First.

Being from Serbia, I first called to make sure they accept credit cards issued here. They said that it is fine, as long as I send them few scanned documents, like passport and driver’s license. No problem there.

I placed my order on Wednesday around noon and left my hotel as delivery address. DigitalFirst representative called me 15mins later, asking for the hotel’s phone number - probably wanted to check is it possible to make the delivery there.

Hotel confirmed and around 1pm I got email saying that everything is in order and that they only wait on me to send them the documents. I sent them and 2h later got the confirmation email that they have sent it out.

I payed extra £4 for AM delivery, since I planned to leave the hotel next morning. I was a bit worried will it arrive at proper time, but there was no need for it. Camera arrived at 10am, and I was happily trying it out.

Perfect timing indeed, as I went to Manchester that day. :) I’m now shooting everything I can, and you can expect that my Flickr page will have regular updates.

I’m very pleased how efficient DigitalFirst was - my warm recommendations for camera deals in UK.

Visit Old Trafford

Fri, 11 Feb 2005 15:25:49 +0000

February 10th, 2005.

Altec Lansing arrives and takes the throne

Mon, 03 Jan 2005 14:14:04 +0000

For some time now, I’m collecting old computer parts to bundle computer system for my sister. I have practically everything apart from motherboard, memory and speakers. I planned long time ago to replace the memory with something more akin to overclocking, so the memory is somewhat solved. I’ll fetch some used nForce2 board, which left me with speakers.

I’ve had Jazz J-7907 for several years (four or more, can’t remember) and they were working acceptably. My wallet would start screaming every time I went to visit a friend with hardware 5.1 decoder and set of Jamo speakers, but I thought that nothing like that is possible on PC speakers, hence I never bothered to look for new speakers.

Now, I needed to buy something. I could’ve gone cheap with used speakers for €20 or something. After a bit of thought, I figured that it’s about time to update my sound system, as it turned out to be the oldest component in my home setup. Quick surf through hardware sites yielded Altec Lansing 5100 - often mentioned as “look-upon” set in the middle class. I read several reviews from the web and decided to get them; little below €150, here in Belgrade.

Reviews are one thing, but the actual sound experience can be so different from person to person. Sound experts can rate them as promising or not bad, while general users would rave (difference similar to what good web site means when you ask me and average Joe). So, I employed the one and only way to test 5.1 speakers: The Lobby shooting spree scene from The Matrix.

Man, how good this beauty sounds.

I can bet my neighbors thought that the war started in my room. Then another test with Minas Morgul scene from the Return of the King to see how it handles the deep-high changes. The surround effect is fantastic, once I figured out how to connect the cables. The colours for rear and center were inverted on my Abit NF7-S motherboard to those on the speakers, thus on the first try it sounded crazy (Frodo and Sam were constantly talking behind me :)).

Nice abilities include independent setting of the volume levels of Bass and Treble, as well as center and rear satellites.

Further, as the HardCoreWare reviewer said: there is also a 2 channel auxiliary input, which can be used with devices like MP3 players, CD players, video game consoles etc. You are not limited to mini-stereo plugs either, because Altec Lansing thoughtfully included a stereo RCA > mini plug adapter. I REALLY appreciate it when manufacturers do this. Now I just need to get me one of those iPods everyone are talking about, and the bliss will be complete.

From the usability point, the remote controller is a great tool and comes in very handy - no need to duck under the table to adjust volume, change modes (stereo, 4.1, 5.1) etc. The satellites are compact and beautiful, slick design that perfectly fits with my silver-claded TFT. The center speaker is horizontal, with the little hinge used to stabilize it on the upper part of the monitor.

If, when it comes to PC sound, you are like me - mostly movies with music on rare occasions, then this is a good buy, no doubt about it. Even if you are not like me, consider these and try them out if you can. They give so much out of so tiny satellites. Admittedly not very powerful, but with excellent sound quality.

As a side note: I realized that NVMixer fails to install, when I install latest nForce chipset drivers (5.10). No errors, all goes well during install, but it is non-existent on the system afterwards. If anyone knows why, please let me know.

A big...

Mon, 20 Dec 2004 16:18:47 +0000

…thank you to everyone who sent condolences, regards and best wishes. Each of them means a lot to me and I’m sorry that I can’t answer every single one. You have my deepest gratitude.

St. Nicholas, our slava

Sun, 19 Dec 2004 17:46:59 +0000

Today is St. Nicholas, slava of our family.

Among Serbs, slava is the day when you honor your family’ saint. If a family don’t have a saint, they they can chose one, call the priest and then the host receives the slava through the simple ceremony. From that day forward, you celebrate it as the protector of your family.

This is a very old custom, dating centuries back. The communists did a pretty good job of eradicating this custom, but in the last decade it’s starting to get back its ground. I was never too much of a believer, but I was baptised as a child and always respected the Ortodox church as well as customs that go with it.

We always had huge celebration. Usually, you call friends and relatives, some to lunch, some to dinner. On the day after (slava is celebrated for 2 days) you call other important people, like your wedding best man (unless he was a guest on the first day) and friends who celebrate the same day as you are. However, as far as I can remember, when my father took the honors over from the grandpa (who died some 15 years ago), we never called guests for dinner. We have a circle of very close family friends for lunch, that always stayed way beyond the dinner time. It has always been one of the greatest days of the year. Even when I moved to Belgrade, I never missed to come home and celebrate with my family.

In the morning, we cut the bread, sip some wine on it, taste the wheat with sugar and nuts and the celebration starts.

The slava passed to me now. Today, we did all the same, but instead went to dad’s grave. No guests, no celebration. Just a simple honoring of the saint and a lot of memories of the past slavas. Some of our friends celebrate St. Michael the Archangel (Nov 21st) and they were fortunate to celebrate it before my dad’s accident. Most of our friends celebrate the same day as we are or the St. John (Jan 20th). All said that it will never be the same without Časlav. My dad always knew how to live up the talks around the table, knew how to talk with anyone, even people he barely knew, talk like they are life long friends.

Instead of laughs and cheers, I now listen to silence. Such is life. Next year, I will hopefully host the celebration.