PIcking Your Javascript Mobile Framework: Part 2 - The Field

2014-11-16 4 min read Comparisons Marco

Right on the heels of the first instalment, here the second, where we will consider the options we have in mobile frameworks.

First of all,** the number of frameworks out there is simply staggering**. There are literally hundreds of them, from industry behemoths like jQueryMobile to one-man projects already abandoned by the creator.

Variety is the spice of life, but too many options make for big headache. Unfortunately, the web has zeroed in on the predicament of mobile developers and offers even more click-bait articles about the “Best Mobile Frameworks 2014” than you can possibly read. Most of them, sadly, consider it a “comparison” when you simply put up the name and the first paragraph of the web site description.

Picking Your Javascript Mobile Framework: Part 1 - Preliminaries

2014-11-16 5 min read Comparisons Marco

Mobile development is costly because it targets two completely different operating systems, each with their own idea of how to solve problems, down to the language used. For a small development shop, the only economically viable solution is to create a mobile-optimized web site that breathes Javascript on the front end. But for that, you need a good Javascript framework that understands mobile. Continue reading

Why You Should Wait to Buy a New Laptop

2013-11-23 1 min read Comparisons Marco

This will be an incredibly short post:

If you look up the best selling laptops on Amazon, you’ll notice striking pricing. The best seller is the Samsung Chromebook, 11.6″. The best selling “real” laptop is a Toshiba Satellite, at 15.6″ quite enormous.

The downside: here in two images.

screencap8 screencap9

The price on both is fluctuating, currently $250 for the Chromebook and $300 for the Satellite. I guess on an 11.6″ Chromebook that resolution is acceptable, but I imagine you can see the pixels on the 15.6″ as little ponds on the screen.

Non-Linear Video Editors in Linux

2013-07-23 11 min read Comparisons Marco

Imagine you collected a bunch of home videos (in my case, with a surfcam) and you want to make them into a coherent stream. Imagine you want the finished product to look cool, or at least watchable. Imagine you want to do this on Linux. What are your options, and how do they work out?

I took the time to test the five major Linux contenders in the space, and published the results below. Here the list of software tested:

Creating DVDs in Linux 2. The Shootout

2013-07-19 10 min read Comparisons Marco

[Note: this is the second of two articles on DVD Authoring in Linux. The first one introduced the concepts that are going to be used in this shootout, so if there is anything here you do not understand, please read the other article here first.]

Now that we understand the setup and process, let’s look at the software available for DVD creation and compare our options. If you just want the process I am following after all the shooting out, look at the far end of this post.

Creating DVDs in Linux 1. Basics

2013-07-05 11 min read Comparisons Marco

I bought a Contour, to record some videos of myself struggling to surf, and now I decided it would be fun to splice the good parts (all three seconds) into a DVD I can give people I don’t like for Christmas. But how do I go about it? Are there any good DVD authoring tools in Linux that take the video formats I have and easily burn them onto a DVD? This article is a survey of the apps I found, and of my experience using them.

Comparison Shopping: Tcl, Perl, PHP, Python

2008-06-18 7 min read Comparisons Marco

I have always been fascinated by programming languages, and scripting languages have always had a particular place in my heart. After all, they allow you to develop without much encumbrance, starting from nothing to program in no time. There are no lengthy build and compilation cycles, and sometimes you can even use dynamic language features to make your changes to a running application – neat!

For me, it all started with Forth, which cannot really be called a scripting language at all. It compiles functions into bytecode as soon as they are defined, and the only feature that reminds one of scripting languages is just how easy it is to write and rewrite. Since Forth reacts dynamically to changes and is interpreted,

Personal Finance Software under Linux

2005-08-25 5 min read Comparisons Marco

Amazing how many people (= geeks) say the only reason they still use Windows is because of Quicken. The ease of use and the power of that little application that could defy even the Grand Master of software powerhouses ends up being a good paragon of things to strive for.

Linux enthusiasts have been resorting to using Quicken on their favorite OS by virtue of emulation software like Wine. Indeed, the Wine site lists 21 different versions of Quicken and their users’ ability to run the software or not.

NetBeans or Eclipse?

2002-12-29 2 min read Comparisons Marco

There is your expert nerd again! This time the question is: should I use the IBM IDE or Sun’s?

The question is tricky, since the philosophy of the two engines is different. Sun’s NetBeans is a pure Java IDE with support for everything under the sun (pardon the pun). Eclipse is a common IDE for any language, and support for Java and C/C++ is currently under way.

I use my IDE only for Java. C and C++ happen in separate IDEs that are more suited for the environment. This means, currently, that all development on Windows happens in Visual C++ and all development on UNIX on KDevel 2.0.

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