Sunday, October 5, 2014

Deutsch - Das Problem mit dem Papierkram

Erinnern sie sich, dass sie das ein oder mal in der Schule gedacht haben, dass sie das im Leben doch nie wirklich gebrauchen werden? Leider gibt es auch den umgekehrten Fall. Während es als wichtig erachtet wird, dass sie das Periodensystem der Elemente auswendig kennen, selbst in der Grundschule schon mit Themen wie Mengenlehre konfrontiert werden und ihnen Goethes wunderbarer Faust so fundamental zerkaut wird, dass sie ihn garantiert nie einfallen würde, ihn zum Vergnügen zu lesen, gibt es ein Tabuthema. Ein Tabuthema, das wohl auch dafür sorgt, dass bei aller Faust-Fixierung nie ein Lehrplan auf die Idee käme, sich mit dem zweiten Teil zu befassen, von dem viele nicht einmal wissen dürften, dass er existiert. Denn dieser befasst sich mit dem Geldwesen. In unserer Kultur wird das Thema so schlecht behandelt, dass sich mangels echter Verständnisgrundlage ein regelrechter Mystizismus heraus gebildet hat, denken sie zum Beispiel an den Expertenrat, eine Lobbygruppe privater Wirtschaftsinteressen in Deutschland, der als „Wirtschaftswaisen“ bezeichnet wird.
Für sie persönlich hat das die Konsequenz, dass sie wahrscheinlich bis ins kleinste Details gelernt haben, wie der Staat funktioniert und wie sie ihre Wahlzettel korrekt ausfüllen, aber nicht, wie sie die Steuererklärung ausfüllen müssen. Oder einen Versicherungsantrag. Oder welche Versicherungen überhaupt sinnvoll sind und welche nicht, und warum. Und sie lernen vor allem nicht, wie sie das ganze Sinnvoll verwalten – am ehesten lernen sie das noch von Peter Zwegat auf Sat1. Seinen Klienten ist eigentlich stets eines gemein, sie sind alle an ihrem „Papierkram“ verzweifelt und selten durch ein einzelnes, furchtbares Ereignis in die Schuldenfalle geraten, sondern weil sie oft unmerklich, mehr ausgegeben haben, als sie es sich leisten konnten, oft unvorsichtig Kredite aufnahmen und jede Übersicht verloren. Deshalb ist stets das erste, was Zwegat tut, sich den ganzen, oft völlig unsortierten „Papierkram“ geben zu lassen und dann die Klienten erst einmal für ein- , zwei Monate mit der Aufgabe zurück lässt, sich über ihre Alltagsausgaben Gedanken zu machen. Wenn er dann nach dieser Zeit zurückkommt, hat er die Unterlagen sortiert, herausgefunden was sie eigentlich alles an Versicherungen, Sparverträgen, Krediten, Abonnements und anderen, auch unregelmässigen Verbindlichkeiten haben, bereitet er ihnen seine Erkenntnisse auf einem Whiteboard auf, Rechnet die geschätzten Alltagsausgaben dazu und zeigt Ihnen so, wie sie, oft unwissentlich und unnötig, über ihre Verhältnisse gelebt haben und wo sie nun tatsächlich stehen. Die schockierten Gesichter sind stets  Highlight für das Reality-TV-Publikum. Besonders freut es die Zuschauer, wenn gerade Leute mit einem, nach allgemeinem Verständnis, gutem Einkommen, so enden.
Umgekehrt gibt es die Alltagsmillionäre, und davon gerade in Deutschland nicht gerade wenige, die diese Rücklagen dadurch aufbauen konnten, dass sie stets mit ihrem Geld zu haushalten wussten. Was nicht bedeuten muss, dass sie extrem enthaltsam und geizig gelebt hätten, aber einen Ferrari werden sie im Normalfall auch nicht in ihrer Garage finden. Diese Menschen geniessen den Luxus der Sorgenfreiheit viel mehr. Ein Ferrari bringt eher das gegenteilige Lebensgefühl. Die meisten Ferraris stehen sich kaputt, weil die Besitzer es kaum wagen, mit dem teuren Gefährt am gefährlichen normalen Strassenverkehr Teil zu nehmen.  Ähnlich wie die meisten Menschen nicht durch ein einzelnes Ereignis in die Überschuldung geraten, so sind diese Menschen nicht durch einen einzelnen Glücksfall wie ein Erbe oder ein Lottogewinn wohlhabend geworden, sondern weil sie die Übersicht über ihre Finanzen behalten konnten, über genügend Wissen verfügten, um unnötige Ausgaben oder schlechte Sparformen zu vermeiden und über lange Zeit immer etwas weniger Ausgaben, als sie Einnahmen.

Im Gegenteil, gerade Menschen die kurzfristig zu viel Geld gekommen sind, sind die Käufer von Luxusgütern wie Ferraris, und viele enden schon nach kurzer Zeit ebenfalls in der Überschuldung, die entsprechenden Geschichten über Lottogewinner hört man des Öfteren – und wieder ist es die mangelnde Übersicht und das fehlende Wissen um den langfristigen Umgang mit Geld, der eigentlich gar nicht so kompliziert ist, wenn man ihn denn nur gelernt hätte.
Betrachtet man kleine- und mittelständische Unternehmen, so findet man ähnliche Fälle doch eher selten, doch das liegt mehr daran, dass schon wenige Fehler hier zum aus des Unternehmens führen, Personen dagegen müssen mit den Konsequenzen mindestens ihre eigene Lebenszeit leben, und oft wirkt es sich ja auch, im guten wie im schlechten, auf zukünftige Generationen aus. Unternehmern stehen heute vielfältige Lösungen zur Verfügung, damit ihr Unternehmen nicht ausgerechnet daran scheitert, eine davon raffinierte Softwarelösungen mit so imposanten Bezeichnungen wie Enterprise Ressource Management (ERP, Unternehmens-Ressourcen-Verwaltung), Customer Relationship Management (CRM, Kunden-Beziehungs-Verwaltung) oder Document Management Systems (Dokumenten-Verwaltungs-Systeme, oft auch CMS – Content Management System) und viele mehr. Für Privatanwender gibt es dagegen meist nur rudimentäre Insellösung zum Onlinebanking, der Verwaltung der Haushaltskasse (oft einfache Excel-Vorlagen) oder Online-Auktions-Rundum-Wohlfühlpakete (ERP). Bei der Verwaltung von Dokumenten (DMS) wird man mehr oder weniger sogar vollends im Stich gelassen und die Kontaktverwaltung findet im Mobiltelefon statt (CRM).
HomeS nun versucht das zu ändern, und nicht nur die Werkzeuge zu bieten, ihre Finanzen und ihren „Papierkram“ in Ordnung zu halten, sondern auch, wo immer sie es wünschen und brauchen, an die Hand zu nehmen, zu unterstützen und zu motivieren.


Sunday, August 4, 2013

I got a new addiction.

Roller Coaster Tycoon 3. Actually a 9 year old game it still has a very active community, and after playing all original and all Soaked! scenarios in a row, I decided it's about time to create my own:

Watzensee - A Summernights Dream

Watzensee is already a well know wintersports ressort, and the cusine of Watzenseeblick is legendary. But to make this park profitable in summertime, too, you have to give you're very best - and beware of the Swiss "Vereine" that have much influence and put it to use.

Watzensee Scenario Released Watzensee Scenario Released Watzensee Scenario Released I made this my #1GAM entry, as I see it as mod, and the actual process was pretty much the same as with any game, idea, realization, playtesting, bufixing and polishing and it took me three days of work before I found it to be ready for release.

Wednesday, July 17, 2013

The Security Confirmation Bubble

I know, I know, that sounds like the title of an episode of "The Big Bang Theory".

To better understand what I mean by this you first have to understand what a confirmation bubble is. When you have a certain view on a topic, you lean to only accept information that confirms this view. A logical fallacy that can be made worse with the selection of like minded social circles or even more so with Googles search algorithms that tailor search results to ones preferences.

So it's basically a problem securing that you develop blind spots to important information.

With my recent outreach to use more minority operating systems demonstrated to me a very dangerous one. The obliviousness of Apple and Linux users to threads to their systems security, usually combined with scapegoating Windows as the sole problem child. This arrogance pretty much leads to evangelists outright praising their respective systems for how it is not necessary to even think about security - and making their systems a feast for hacks.

You see, obviously people often think of security problems only as viruses and adware. Things that make their presence known pretty fast, and you won't find that many on either Mac OS X and Linux. But while those are pretty nasty for the desktop users, trojans that hijack your system to add part of their computing power to botnets, and part of that combined power is used to automatically hack the next system are IMHO worse.

Actually I lived pretty secure with my windows desktop, always being aware of security risks, but as soon as I had a Linux server directly connected to the internet, it was hacked. Two times actually. The first time a bot found a weakness in a badly configured Samba Server that was accidentally open to the internet, the second time a friendly hacker manipulated my system finding a security whole in a well known Open Source PHP solution. He only changed the starting page and left his contact. And these are the ones I knew about. Actually I stopped to use that machine to use it for anything other than using it as a firewall, and started using a Windows Server for any service I needed.

Sure, each time the problems were not directly related to the operating system, but it didn't automatically secure the system either. The Samba problem was so common that it was one of those selfhacking bots I mentioned, and we quickly found out about it, because it was so active that it used up the full bandwidth and I later learned that my machine hacked others by reviewing the protocols. That thing was badly constructed, while it nailed the hacking part it failed to keep its presence hidden.

Can you see why this Security Confirmation Bubble is so dangerous? It makes people of oblivious to the fact that, while the systems can be very secure, you always need to keep an eye on security, just using a certain operating system doesn't give you a "get out of that hell" card. Espacially Linux, while not so common on the desktop, runs most webservers. Rarely watched closely. Very yummie for hacks, like the Windows Desktop attracts spambots. If you get lazy because everyone tells you how secure your operating systems are and maybe even belittle windows users, in fact, you're not only contributing to your own insecurity, but to those of others as well, open up your system to criminal misuse.

Don't fall for it only because it is so uplifting and comforting. Just don't!

Networking

To be able to create iOS and OS X ports I needed a Mac, so I searched for the cheapest one that can still run a current OS X Version and ended up with the mini. Then Gamemaker integrated support for Linux and espacially for Ubuntus shop. And every try to install a virtual computing software on my Windows 8 system failed. My Core2 doesn't support Hyper V for witch windows abandoned the loved Virtual PC, VMWare somehow didn't run and Oracles Virtual Box even produced BSODs (nice touch, on Windows 8 the come with a sad smiley). So I had to create a physical Ubuntu System too. The thought of using it for all kind of servers for development purposes came pretty quick, but when my main system failed I found it to be even well suited for my social activities and office.

So when I planned my triple boot machine I not only did plan the infrastructure on that computer, but a new one involving the whole network. And the more I think of it, now that the triple boot system is ready, the more use I find for the two systems (Ubuntu AND the Mac Mini) that at first seemed so useless and only there for compiling and testing sofware.

The Ubuntu system will work as fileserver (SMB and GIT), Printerserver and Webserver, but the Mac Mini will also attend the party by providing the network access to all cloud-fileservers. Contrary to Linux there are clients available for all that I use (Dropbox, Google Drive, Microsoft Sky Drive, Ubuntu One) and it is really not neccessary to have each of the five operating systems replicate them on their own.

But the biggest change is not in the background, and for me personally, its kind of a revolution: I will seperate Work and social media and run the later on the Ubuntu system. That will help me to stay focused while sitting on the one workplace and using the Ubuntu desktop, that I so started to like for this tasks. So, beside games, I now prefer a Linux system for everything fun and see the Windows station only as workhorse. That's quite a change for me :-)

Having the windows system free of all that background workload does effect it immense, as I could see yesterday evening, when I logged in to Second Life, and experienced no frameratedrop under the magic 24 FPS, even when I had more than ten avatars in my view.

Wow.

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

I did it...

... I built a triple boot Hackintosh (, Windows 8 and Ubuntu 12.04) installation on my workhorse. Does it make sense? Yes, for frontend development, no for pretty much everything else. And so my pride that I managed it is mixed with mourning for a "wasted" workweek. This project was hellish and straining. First of all the Hackintosh installation was neigh impossible until I found out that with this special combination of board and gpu I had to active the onboard VGA graphics to be able to install it. I accidently found out about it when I was ready to give up. Up to that point I tried various bootmedia variants, including one that got me kicked from a very important forum when I mentioned it, and dis - and reassembled the GPU several times. At least, after I finally got it, I knew what two post installation tasks got the system stable and I could go on.

Next was the Windows installation. I bought the Update for about 40 USD last November, and while you could download a complete ISO, I was in for a bad surprise after making a clean install. A clean install didn't accept the update key, you had to install a Windows 7 before. Thankfully I found a small registry hack online the must be done directly after installation, and that came back to bite me, because I had to reinstall it so often. And I was pretty angry about the "Honest Customer paradoxon" here (meaning: As honest customer you get treated like a criminal with a lot of unneccessary, complicated copyprotection, while the pirate gets an easy to use version without all that hassle)

In that order, the final system is Ubuntu, and yes, that one isn't that complicated, but you have to be very carefull with some installation option, and I wasn't the first time, got it wrong the second time, and after reaching my third installation I had to reinstall the others several times, espacially Windows, as that registry hack only worked about half the time.

After the Linux installation you have to repair what seems to be an unholy mess of different partitioning types, but that did go surprisingly well. But there was the last step (or so I thought) of setting the OS X installation the active partition, because there would be a bootloader for all three systems. At first I tried it by the book with Windows. Didn't work, the options were grayed out, even after I activated the Administrator account to do it from there. So I tried Linux again, that system being the swiss army knife of OSes should easily do this task - but it didn't. Well it might be that there is the perfect commandline tool out there to do it, but fdisk warned my that it might mess up that aforemented unholy partitioning table thing. And I tried a desktop - discmanagement software, but that showed no information where it should, so I didn't trust it. Fdisk actually recommended one of the old GNU commandline tools, but its "man"-page was a reminder of the bad old days and did not tell how I could activate a partition, only that it could be done.

But I found a description on how I could make it from... no not the OS X installation, but its installation media, which boots to a configuration desktop that allows you to use a commandline, and there was an fdisk that could handle that complicated matter.

I needed two tries though, because OS-X has a small boot partition and my first try was to activate that, but its really the main partition that you have to activate.

I thought I was finished, but I didn't allow myself to feel too happy, because the whole process had tought me that it ain't over till its over...

... and I found out that I had no bootloader installed. So I installed one, but that one, like the OS-X installation itself, only worked with enabled onboardvga, which I had to decativate for the two other systems, so that too, needed another try (switching from Chameleon to Chimera was what worked out).

And than the final test. I booted to Mac OS X, Ubuntu, no problems, than to Windows 8 - and my PS/2 connected mouse and keyboard where missing (USB did work). Not my precious Windows installation! Again a few restarts to assure myself that I didn't just accidently deactivated something in the bios or destroyd it somehow with that shiny new bootloader but the others worked perfect, and there wasn't even an option in the BIOS that could affect the PS/2 connectors.

So I loaded the chipset drivers and installed them. And then, finally, everything seemed to work out.

But at least I have a very fine system now, and I do not only mean my machine, but the others too. I will configure the standalone Ubuntu as (partially versioning) fileserver, mediaserver and as my permanent access to all that social media. I won't install those on windows this time, hopefully helping me not to get distracted too easily.

Friday, July 12, 2013

Confusion

The fact that GameMaker wasn't running really put me off, I actually have pretty much used up my will to spent the time learning and administrating instead of being productive, none of which will earn me a living. I found out, that the installation was still on the file system and tried to start it directly, but Windows itself said the software is not for Windows 8 8o. It seemed like the problem was somehow related with the mild changes that lead to a needed reactivation and I thought about completely reinstalling the system. After all, I upgraded a Windows 7 installation which was older now, too, and my "c:" was always running full, because it initially was given only 100 GB and all the reinstallation of software on another drive didn't help there anymore. Doing some research I also found out that my Hardware was Max OS X compatible, so the idea of making a triple boot system (Max OS X Mountain Lion, Ubuntu 12.04 and Windows 8) came up and I actually prepared myself by backing up my data and tried to create a working installation medium. But it didn't work out till evening, when I was too exhausted to make another try, so my Installation was still intact and about 26 hours after my request, Steam finally answered. And their advice worked. I got my GameMaker back. So again I changed my plans, planning on using today to work on the game... only to find that a new feature was missing, and that was one I could use at the core of the game, yet I simply did not have an actual version of GameMaker. I start to hate the fact that I bought GameMaker on Steam. It's not that I cannot really work now, but I still feel challenged and the break in that reinstallation fest was somehow confusing - so I'm really tempted to go through with it first.

Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Some higher power doesn't want me to make games

Having back my Windows System and swallawing down the anger about the need to reactivate Windows 8 over the phone I thought I could finally go on with the development of a game I have in mind.


No. I cannot.