Don’t Panic – When Bad Things Happen

Don’t Panic Although the situation I am about to describe was successfully resolved, I felt compelled to share this event with you. Times like this expose our vulnerabilities and reinforce the adage to “expect the unexpected”. The Situation Imagine the shock and surprise followed by the deep, sinking feeling that set in when an unexpected notice suddenly appeared on my […]

GUI’s, wxPack, and wxWidgets

wxWidgets and GUI’s In our post “Where’s the Graphics? Learning from our Roots (Tcl / Tk)” we focused on Tcl/Tk as a primary GUI development language.  We also mentioned QT as a viable alternative.  QT provides a more powerful GUI development API when compared to Tcl/Tk, however, the licensing schema for QT is also more complex. To paraphrase the description from […]

ActiveState Tcl 8.6.2.0

It’s hard to believe that one day after we published “Where’s the Graphics?” ActiveState released Tcl 8.6.2.0.  Though the link to the download page remains the same, we updated the context of our post to reflect the latest version number. Visit the ActiveState Tcl 8.6 page for more detailed information.  ActiveState’s ActiveTcl Community Edition is a free, ready-to-install distribution for Windows, Linux, and Max […]

Where’s the Graphics? Learning from our Roots (Tcl / Tk)

One of our “side bar” challenges is developing software solutions (applications) for our clients.  Simple or complex, they all have one element in common, a Graphical User Interface or GUI. Imagine the surprise and disappointment on the faces of many beginning programmers and developers when they discover that powerful languages like Assembler, C, C++, and even Python start by teaching you how […]

Flawed Execution: Performance Matters – Surface Pro 3

Softpedia recently published an article titled, “New Intel Drivers Boost Surface Pro 3 Performance by 30 Percent“.  According to the article: Intel says that the new drivers released for the HD 4400/5000 graphics used on the Core M processor range can improve performance by up to 30 percent, which means that the Surface Pro 3 can now reduce loading times and […]

Its not what you know …

It’s not what you know but what you understand that matters most.  ~ Redge Discerning  perceived knowledge from understanding is a challenge for many leaders. For example, it is possible for anyone to memorize facts and figures and to correctly answer related questions simply by recalling this same information from memory. Similarly, many of us “perform” simple multiplication from recall – without even thinking […]

Executable Python on Windows

We provide solutions to our clients in a variety of forms.  Customized software solutions is just one of them and knowing more than one programming language makes it possible to choose an effective and efficient platform accordingly. Python is a relatively simple yet powerful language. I was concerned that anyone wanting to use programs written in Python would also have to install Python on […]

Teaching with Analogies

Over the past few weeks we’ve been taking on the challenge of learning C++. We’ve made our way through the first of 7 books in the C++ All-In-One For Dummies 2nd Edition, by John Paul Mueller and Jeff Cogswell, and we’re working our way through chapter 6 of Sams Teach Yourself C++ in One Hour a Day Seventh Edition by Siddhartha […]