Frequently Rare

Arthur Christmas

2012-01-05T21:52:00.002Z

We decided to take our soon-to-be three year old son to the cinema yesterday, to see the animated film Arthur Christmas.

It was his first trip to the cinema, and we went to the Empire Cinema in Sutton. It's an okay little cinema, and, as it's the wrong side of Christmas, it was fairly quiet.

He was entranced. He loved the film (so did I, it was unexpectedly fantastic, although if you haven't seen it then there isn't much time left for it on the screen) and it made me think about whether or not I could remember my first trip to the cinema. I decided I probably couldn't remember, but it may have been ET or Superman. I certainly remember Superman, when there was a mass invasion by some children at the front who then proceeded to pretend to fly up and down the stage in front of the screen!

It would be fantastic to know what he was thinking though. Was he impressed by the sound? The sheer size of the screen? The animation? The plot?

I wonder if he'll remember when he grows up :-)

I always wanted to visit Boston...

2010-03-24T00:13:00.000Z

I was sitting in a restaurant in Boston, looking out through the windows, at the square beyond, staring past the reflections of the patrons.

My wife had suggested this place was good. She'd read about it in some guide. I'd read about it in some detective novel. So there we were.

Colonial. I was never quite sure what that meant, being a few hundred years late (and happily uninvited) to that party, but it seemed to fit the place.

At the table just across from us there was an older guy, big across the shoulders, a stern, but expressive face, with a nose that looked like it had been broken. Some scar tissue around the eyes. A boxer, or at least, one who was once a boxer, but maybe also one who was still a boxer when the situation demanded it. Age hadn't made him any weaker; he still looked like he could bench press 250. More than twice.

His companion was animated in her study of him. Deep, expressive eyes in a face that still held a numinous beauty that age had not diminished.

They'd often pause, and when they did, the room seemed to pause with them. Palpable. I'd heard that about them.

My wife distracted me from my covert study by passing me the menu. We perused. Debated. Ordered. Enjoyed.

Towards the end of our meal, the couple at the next table finished their meal and left, she on his arm, but neither led nor leading. Together.

I looked at my wife, and said, "You know what, I think that was..."

The waiter, passing by, said, in that wonderful, drawn out Bostonian accent.

"Robert B. Parker"

Robert B Parker, September 17, 1932 – January 18, 2010

Christmas Eve and Other Stories

2009-11-29T00:18:00.003Z

Unexpectedly excellent - really enjoyed this. The instrumental Christmas Eve/Sarajevo 12/24 is fantastic.

The Meaning of Christmas

2009-11-21T11:23:00.002Z

What does Christmas mean? The celebration of the birth of Jesus, versus the commercialisation of today? Father Christmas? Christmas Fact and the accepted fiction?

Explaining Christmas to a baby is simple; you don't have to. However, as a child grows up, there is a lot about the world that needs to be explained; Christmas is a good example of this, as it's a fusion of tradition, religion, commerce, status, location and more. A proper mix.

Read Dawkins and you'll be wary of indoctrination; but, in a way, that's missing the point; Christmas only exists in a widely accepted fashion due to it's religious roots.

And then there's Father Christmas; how do you explain him? If you accept his existence as a necessity for children, then how do you explain his inevitable unveiling?

It was easier when you were a kid.

10 Million Years Behind The Times...

2009-11-14T22:32:00.003Z

...is how I feel, sometimes. I don't tweet, I barely use facebook, I don't have a friend feed, and I don't use spotify, or grooveshark.
I have a flickr account, which I don't have the time to fill with all the photos I would like to.

I do listen to internet radio, though. My personal favourite is accuradio, as it has a wide range of genres, is pretty simple and direct, and just works. I'm listening to the Christmas channel, at the moment, as I'm really looking forward to it this year as it will be my first as a parent.

Hopefully not as extreme as this.

"I think they're excited!"

No kidding.

Moving... Not

2009-10-19T21:57:00.003Z

So. You find a house. You agree to rent it. You put the holding deposit down and sign a piece of paper about the holding deposit. The landlord accepts your offer and you agree the rent. You've put down your holding deposit, and the landlord asks you some questions about moving in. You give notice to your current landlord.

Then the agent passes on a sale offer to the new landlord, who accepts.

Leaving you stuck.

Great, isn't it?

Space

2009-10-02T12:03:00.006Z

Well, we're wanting to move, at the moment, and although we can't move back to where we'd like to be, yet, we need somewhere more appropriate for a family to live.

Now, moving is all very well and good, but the accumulation of stuff is a real problem. Over the last few months, I've said goodbye to many a posession on eBay. Swapping stuff for cash is a good thing (except when you factor in how much the stuff cost you in the first place), but then you reach a point where you get to the stuff that has value but can't be sold (especially when you factor in eBay's idiotic postal charging policy).

Getting rid of things is a good example of catharsis. It certainly makes things easier; the number of boxes you have to carry is decreased, the burden, both physically and spiritually is reduced. You lose something, too, but I'm not sure that that's a bad thing.

I'm currently wondering what to do with the 300-400 books I'd like to give away. Ideally, I'd like them to go to people who'll read and look after them, but my local library doesn't seem to want donations. The charity shop already has more than it seems to need, and I'm not sure I'd like to see them relegated to a back room as people buy more Dan Brown and Jeffrey Archer books.

Any suggestions there would be appreciated.

Hiatus

2009-07-12T20:16:00.003Z

Wow

October 2007, hey? What a different time that was. I can barely remember what it was like then, so much have things changed.

It's been a turbulent time. Not always bad, but not always good. Some great things happened:

I got married, in Las Vegas of all places!*

I welcomed my son, Spencer, into the world!

I'm planning on posting some more now, although I've said that before. There's a lot to say, and to talk about.

* Yes, it was planned, no, we weren't drunk, and no, Elvis was actually busy doing something else :-)

Liverpool Turnering Heads

2007-10-20T21:25:00.000Z

Weak puns aside, Liverpool is hosting the Turner Prize Exhibition this year; this is the first time the prize has been hosted outside of London and is meant as a prelude for Liverpool's year as Capital of Culture. I visited it today with Peter and Lisa.

It was interesting; I don't claim to be an expert of modern or installation art, but there was a lot there that was thought provoking. I agree with Peter's summation - and in particular, I did not get Mark Wallinger's work at all.

I'd like to be non-committal and sit on the fence by saying, that although it's not something I can appreciate, I'm sure it has some worth as art, but then I'd be lying through my teeth, so I'll label it as pretentious rubbish masquerading as art instead of hiding behind some polite half platitudes. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that if I wanted to watch some bear prance around in a room, I'd watch old episodes of Rainbow.

That being said, I'm sure it has a good chance of winning; after all, it has started the is it art? debate again.

Peter also pointed me in the direction of this little gem.

Unprepared

2007-10-14T18:25:00.000Z

Barbados was hot. And Sunny. And Humid. And Hot. Did I mention that?

I got quite sunburned, as, living and working in London I've grown apart from that strange ball of fire that hangs in the sky and occasionally graces us in Britain with it's presence, this year especially.

However, the unprepared in the title of this post relates mainly to the camera gear I took with me; I'm still waiting for my 70-300 nikkor zoom to arrive so I had to make do in some instances. I also managed to forget my lens hood, and my polarisation filters.

Knowledge wise, I wasn't prepared for the humidity; carrying the camera from air conditioning to outside often resulted in waiting for minutes for the condensation to dissipate from the lens. I also wasn't expecting the sharply curved horizon when looking out to sea (even though I've read about it I've never really spent enough time looking out to sea to "see"), however, and my 18-55 lens only accentuates this curvature at wide angles.

I learned some, but, despite my plans to the contrary, the beach and pool proved very, very tempting on more than one occasion.

:-)

Post Holiday Blues

2007-10-10T22:54:00.000Z

I admit it. I want to be somewhere else. Somewhere sunny. Somewhere hotter. Somewhere simpler.

Why?

I just got back from there!

Spent the last 10 days in Barbados on holiday, staying at the Hilton on Needhams Point.

Plenty of swimming, plenty of sightseeing, plenty of rum!

It's certainly a beautiful island, although my viewpoint is skewed as I was only there for 10 days, as a tourist, staying in a 5 star resort; as a quick dig around shows that the island does have it's fair share of problems, mostly economic, as it's main industry, the production of sugar cane, has declined and has been replaced by tourism.

Things don't seem quite as important when the average temperature is 31°C and the skies are mostly blue with perfect clouds.

Took a trip round the island, both by car, and around the island by catamaran, where I got to go snorkelling with turtles.

Had a look round the Mount Gay production facility just outside of Bridgetown, which is the capital of the island (which, incidentally, has a total population of approximately 280,000 across the whole island), and isn't massive, but, shares, with the rest of the island, distinctly British street names and areas (for example, just along from Broad Street is Cheapside!) as a result of the island's colonial past.

Plenty more to write about, and more to post - in particular, I was fortunate enough to be able to visit the Cliff - certainly the most beautiful restaurant I've ever visited. Eating by the ocean at night, listening to the waves lap across the beach, whilst watching fireflies dancing in the air created a sense of wonder that I find hard to dispel even now.

100th Post

2007-07-22T19:09:00.000Z

I've made it to 100 posts, although the frequency of posting has been way down as of late (see the title? top right hand corner? starting to make sense? :D)

I popped by Peter's blog and saw a ton of posts; I guess, more than anything, that that was the catalyst for my 100^th post.

Peter mentions wine - I recently had a fantastic white whilst visiting Gauchos (although, as usual for restaurant wines, a quick internet search reveals the hefty markup) - an Argentine Catena Chardonnay (and it's more expensive companion, the Catena Alta) - which are summed up here. Now Gauchos is a great steak restaurant, so red would have perhaps been more appropriate!

I've been a steady buyer of albums for the last 5 years, and my most recent addition is an album by the Delays called You See Colours, which I adore at the moment. Their first album, Faded Seaside Glamour, is also a must have. I also picked up the new Manics album (yet to decide if I really like it - it's good, I just haven't been in the mood for it), the Bluetones BBC Radio sessions, and am wondering what REM are up to these days.

Peter also mentions privacy, and Facebook. This is nothing new - the same thing rolled up around friends reunited, blogger, flickr (hey, post intimate pictures of your girlfriend online - no one is watching. Except google.). Even people who have their own website get this to some extent; freedom of information leads to abuse of information - which is not to say that freedom of information is wrong; just that once something leaves your control you have no idea of what it will be used for/with. Which is why privacy controls are essential, but education (and sensible defaults, online webdevelopers, please take note) is more so.

I'm onto my 4th month with Vista, and this week, I've been mostly having fun with Windows Mail. First it wouldn't empty out the deleted items when closing the mail client (thanks to a Windows Update, apparently). Then it decided that the filter "Hide All Read Messages" was most appropriate for my mailbox (leading to a few seconds of huh! from me). Finally it decided that it wouldn't automatically send and receive. 1 kick later...

I like Vista, I really do - it's much faster to boot and it's all very whizzy looking, but with some neat features too (which I'll write about at some point) - but I've been lucky because all of the software and hardware I use and own is supported. Contrast this with people I know who own printers, scanners, software that isn't compatible with Vista and have met the attitude "So What!?" from the manufacturers or developers.

But Vista is annoying too. Which is leading me up to writing a rant...

I am Luke Skywalker!

2007-05-29T15:16:00.000Z

I wont reveal how long it took to get a favourible outcome :-)

Photos

2007-05-20T10:01:00.000Z

Was just wandering around with my camera last night. Took a number of terrible photos, but in my defence, I was actually playing around with the settings on my camera, learning about how to use the d50 in full manual mode. I'm not blaming the tools here - just my inexperience with using the camera completely unaided :-)

I keep my photos here.

The default lens that came with it isn't great. I need to replace it, and get a longer zoom. I am looking at investing at one of the Nikon VR lenses with image stabilisation built in - I've seen this technology work and it's impressive.

That's going to have to wait for a bit as I'm changing jobs at the moment. I resigned last week, having accepted a new job at another organisation.

Amazing

2007-05-04T10:06:00.000Z

You'll just be playing about on the internet one day, when suddenly, you'll come across something like:

http://www.xrez.com

Which is just amazing - gigapixel photography combined with a GoogleMaps style interface.

To War

2007-05-02T12:30:00.000Z

One of my best friends, Andrew Tang, travels to Basra, Iraq, as a part of the AMS (Army Medical Services) to support his country and his fellow service men and woman. It's no light undertaking; recent events have shown that it's a very dangerous place to be, but that did not deter him from doing what he saw as his duty.

May God* keep him safe.

*(or any other entity that is listening, can intervene, and exists)

Recent experiences with .Net 2.0

2007-05-02T09:43:00.000Z

I've been using .Net 2.0 in earnest for sometime now, but it wasn't until I had to do some work on a 1.1 project that I really realised what I was missing :-)

For example:

Generics: Being able to create a collection using List is handy (but not unmissable), but I've used anonymous methods to help create some useful utility classes.

Property Accessors; being able to finally specify protected internal for property set is handy.

Application Settings - configuration is more structured; support for new elements like connectionstrings, and the much improved intellisense makes life easier.

MARS: Multiple Active Result Sets - Essentially (if you are using SQL Server 2005, that is) you can reuse the same SqlConnection - connection pooling meant that this wasn't a huge issue in 1.1, but a side effect is that multiple calls to separate queries that return sqldatareaders (for example) can be nested, making code look more compact and neater.

Viewstate Serialization. The new viewstate serialization format actually does result in smaller pages!

Threading: Some other features that make life alot easier are described more elegantly here.

Ajax.asp.Net - provides some fantastic controls and ideas for web developers using .Net 2.0 - the calendar control and update panel have proved useful recently:

I don't use Edit and Continue for our asp.net applications - the new compilation model is just too slow. I still produce Web Application projects rather than using the new Web Site model (support for Web Application projects was via an optional add in pre VS2005 SP1, and is "baked in" when upgrading to SP1).

Which also leads me on to complaining about Visual Studio 2005 and (even post SP1) its frequently halting, annoying pauses, and occasionally randomness (intellisense parser service has crashed a few times now on my work machine). Interestingly, though, on my Windows Vista machine at home, VS2005 flies along for the most part (don't forget the additional update for SP1 for Windows Vista users). Both the work and home machine have the same amount of RAM (2Gb), but the work machine, is, of course, a "wonderfully configured computer based upon Windows XP SP2 but customised for the particular enterprise that own the machine," i.e. dubious.

Not a relaunch

2007-05-01T09:53:00.000Z

Although I intend* to post again soon, for now, here's something cool:

Brass Eye makes it to Google Video

*intentions and the road to hell

Time, time, time, See what's become of me

2006-12-12T13:25:00.000Z

I haven't posted for a while. Again. And this is no big thing (although from my perspective, I'd like to write more and, crucially, get better at it).

A lot has happened.

I doubt I'll ever look back at my blog and think of it as a chronicle for these times - I don't even keep a journal anymore.

I've been very busy with life, too.

My grandfather passed away recently [which is all I want to say about this]

I went to Switzerland (specifically Zurich) on business.

I resisted the urge to buy a Nintendo Wii.

I hardly played any computer games at all.

I booked a trip to Las Vegas.

I installed Windows Vista.

I read with a little wry amusement, and much sympathy, Peter's misadventre. I have a spare room, and for once was around, so you can call in future if you need to :-)

I removed Windows Vista.

I saw Guys and Dolls (at the Theatre), Casino Royale, On the Waterfront.

I bought a laptop for my sister to use at university (a nice "refurbished" Thinkpad T23)

I got very annoyed with seeing "Happy Holidays" everywhere. What's so funny about Peace, Love, and Understanding?

I lived life.

But probably not the way I want to.

Inspiration fails me...

2006-10-20T09:32:00.000Z

...when searching for a title for this post, because it's not really about anything!

It's been over two months since I last posted, and there isn't really a good reason as to why I haven't.

Well, apart from time.

I've been to Berlin in this time, explored more of London, Liverpool, and Manchester. I've taken over 1000 photos, about 10 of which were any good.

*sigh*

In other news:

Peter's site has sprung to life again.

Really like the new focus, it's good to see more posts, although Peter's investment portfolio makes me feel a little inadequate as I seem to be pouring all my money into stuff at the moment.

:-)

Strange, but true. Jake's site has been blocked by our corporate siteguard software. I knew he was subversive :-)

More later. Honest. Maybe.

Puzzles

2006-08-15T13:50:00.000Z

I've been sending out weekly puzzles to a number of people. If you are interested, by the way, drop me an email and I'll add you to the list.

The puzzle that least people have solved so far is this one:

A 1000 Conquistadors have stolen the treasure of El Dorado, and want to divide it between themselves.

The conquest has left them all greedy, heartless, and extremely pragmatic.

The 1000 Conquistadors were formed over a number of years, and are ranked in the order they joined; the earliest first all the way down to the newest, 1000.

They have decided to split the treasure via a vote. Everyday, they will kill the lowest ranker, or split the treasure up between the survivors.

If 50% or more vote to split, the treasure gets split, or else they kill the lowest ranker and repeat the process until half or more of the survivors decide to split the treasure.

At what point will the treasure be split?

It's quite fun once you work out the answer :-)

Soap

2006-08-03T11:33:00.000Z

This is a fun idea.

I've been itching to undertake a little project like this.

Hugo Boss have a very interesting history

2006-07-10T13:33:00.000Z

Hugo Boss were behind the German uniforms seen in World War II.

Krupps, maker of coffee machines etc, also had a very interesting role in this time and place

We wont mention Coca-Cola

Much.

Just mention these out of curiosity value. The ethical debate is for another time and place.

iPod Nano 4Gb

2006-06-20T23:21:00.000Z

I took the plunge and bought my first iPod. I say first because it may not be the last I have to buy if articles like these are anything to go by.

I have quickly fallen in love with mine though. It's small. It's intuitive to use. It's clever. iTunes is nowhere near as annoying as Sonic Stage.

I like it.

We'll see how long this love affair lasts :-)

If you haven't...

2006-06-20T23:19:00.000Z

...seen Peter Allen's Flickr photostream then you should go look - some great pictures there.

I hate to be so gushing but there are some pictures on there that make me feel really homesick!

MSXML Vs XslTransform

2006-06-08T09:39:00.000Z

A colleague was having some issues with the speed the XslTransform class (.Net Framework 1.1) was performing at. A transformation was taking over 60 seconds.

I took a look but couldn't see anything wrong; he was using strings so I increased the size of various string buffers to see if there was any effect. None.

Now I know that the MSXML4 parser is faster than the framework parser, so I thought I'd do a little test. Importing the references to the MSXML4 parser and rewriting a portion of the code to use the MSXML2.DOMDocument40Class resulted in the transformation executing in less than a second.

Less than a second. Ouch. I knew MSXML was faster, but not that much!

I have some other transformations that use <xsl:key to grab a unique collection of certain nodes from my document. These seem to take a lot longer using the .Net parser compared to MSXML.

A bit of research reveals the answer.

XslTransform has been deprecated in Framework 2.0. Heh.

Spreadsheets and Word Processors

2006-06-08T09:31:00.000Z

I got my invite to Google Spreadsheets.

Not bad - simple, but it will grow I bet. I kind of like it, but will need a real use for it to see it's worth.

Then I noticed Writely - the online word processor, which Google are also acquiring.

I don't think Microsoft have too much to worry about - they aren't Word or Excel, but it is entertaining to watch the industry pundits predict the fall of Microsoft again!

United '93

2006-06-05T20:54:00.000Z

Generally, cinema can be quite a non-interactive process for me.

This film was one of the few that were different.

It is hard to describe this film. It's not patriotic or gung-ho - it's not Die Hard II or Passenger 57. It's not a poster boy for the war on terror - it's too factual and it's depiction of the terrorists is nothing like what I expected it to be. It pulls no punches in showing just how little anyone knew; confusion ruled.

Confusion was a common theme in this film; there was no joined up response to the situation; air traffic control couldn't speak to the military; the military couldn't find someone to make the difficult decisions; the fighter jets they got up in the air were in the wrong place and were unarmed. No one quite knew the extent of the situation; 4200 planes up in the air on Sept. 11th over the US - which had been taken over and which hadn't?

No one really had anyone else to turn to. The people on the plane were scared; they'd seen people murdered in front of them; they were afraid of the terrorists but the true horror of what was to happen didn't become apparent until information started to leak onto the plane; the twin towers had been hit - the pentagon blown up; their plane was not going to land...

The film wasn't about saving the world; and it's tasteful, factual portrayal of events for me seemed to serve as an excellent condemnation of what those men did in the name of others. By displaying the facts, showing the weaknesses, by making no attempt to hide mistakes, fear or anger, by telling the story of what happened on that day it should become a memorial to what happened.

There was a scene where a mother talks to her children over the plane phone - telling them goodbye. You might think it was schmaltzy, that it was a blatant attempt to win the audience over with sympathy maybe, until you realise that this conversation - one of many - happened - it exists on tape, and really was the last contact with her family that this woman had, word for word.

The headlong rush towards the ending is so brutal; you know it's going to happen but it doesn't leisurely spiral towards it; it feels far too realistic. When the film finished, I found it hard to speak - although it probably isn't the whole story - it's presentation of what happened - the humanity of everyone - was powerful enough to emphasise the terror of the events.

Watch this film if you want to. I can't find the will to recommend it - it's not that kind of film as it isn't entertainment.

Yet it is powerful.

Draw a Mouse

2006-06-05T10:03:00.000Z

Find out more about your personality by drawing a mouse.

How you draw a mouse says alot about you.

Draw a Mouse

Honest!

Google Does Recipes

2006-05-26T20:08:00.000Z

I logged into Gmail earlier (for the first time in a while) and I was clearing out the Spam bin when I noticed the recipe just above the email area.

:-)

One thing that tends...

2006-05-16T13:55:00.000Z

...to annoy me is how your name looks when you send an external email from your place of work. It still amazes me that "Last Name, First Name" is still the accepted default for most places; whenever I see someone get it right, i.e. "FirstName LastName", then I do find myself nodding.

When I send an email externally, I'd hope it turns up in someones inbox saying "Daniel Redican" and not "Redican, Daniel"

However, I understand that it is probably easier for people to file this way; especially for long term storage, but I can't help but feel that it looks a bit, well, rubbish.

:-)

Those of you who receive email from me at home will have noticed that my display name is "danredican". But that is because I'm too cool to be consistent. Yup.

Prophylactics by Text

2006-05-15T18:58:00.000Z

This is a novel idea:

Safe Text Services

I strongly suspect an on demand service would be more useful to people looking to make use of this!

Made me laugh though - I was searching for phone backup software and this was one of the sponsored links on Google.

Obviously made up? Illegal in the UK

2006-05-05T12:15:00.000Z

I present the text of a recent forward out of interest - I would love to know how tropical fish stores get an exemption, for example!

In London, Hackney taxis must carry a bale of hay and a sack of oats.

It is illegal to be drunk in a pub or club, or any other licensed premises.

Oddly, it is illegal to consume a mince pie on Christmas Day.

In Hereford, you may not shoot a Welsh person on Sunday with a longbow in the Cathedral Close.

However, in Chester you can only shoot a Welsh person with a bow and arrow inside the city walls and after midnight.

Also in York, excluding Sundays, it is apparently legal to shoot a Scotsman with a bow and arrow.

In Liverpool, it is illegal for a woman to be topless in public unless they are a clerk in a tropical fish store.

It is illegal for a Member of Parliament to enter the House of Commons wearing a full coat of armour.

Sleeping with a consort of the queen is classified as treason, and as such, until recently carried a maximum penalty of death.

Placing a postage stamp of the queen upside down, is also considered treason.

It is unlawful to impersonate an Chelsea pensioner.

It is illegal to sell most goods on a Sunday. It is however legal to sell a carrot. It is also legal to sell it at any price, and to give free gifts with it, such as anything else one might want to buy on a Sunday.

The following are legal though:

a male may urinate in public, so long as it is on the rear wheel of his motor vehicle, and his right hand is on the vehicle.

all English males over the age of 14 are to carry out approximately two hours of longbow practice a week, supervised by the local clergy.

Running without Internet Security

2006-05-01T15:00:00.000Z

I remember asking a former boss of mine about what anti-virus software etc he had installed.

The basic answer was none - he didn't need it as he didn't download anything he considered unsafe and steered well clear of attachments from people he didn't recognise - that is, he used the computer in a fairly cautious way when it came to inputs and outputs.

I've followed this methodology by uninstalling commercial AV and firewall software. The net results have been a faster computer - in fact, a fairly disturbing lockup problem disappeared completely when I removed SIS (Symantec Internet Security) from my computer - and generally happier usage.

I left the Windows XP built in firewall on, but again, I probably don't need it - I am connected via ethernet cable to an ADSL modem/router (with wireless off) and that has a perfectly good hardware firewall built in. NAT (Network Address Translation) is the icing on the cake.

I tend to play games on the 360 these days so don't download the demos I used to.

Spyware would possibly be a problem but I run IE in limited mode and a Spybot scan found nothing a few days ago (one month in). Or I just use Opera (which beats Firefox in my estimation anyway).

Anti-spam software is still essential though.

April disappeared too

2006-05-01T14:40:00.000Z

In a markedly worrying new trend, it would seem that the bulk of my recent posting is to complain about not posting for ages. But instead of flogging that horse, I thought I'd have a think about some stuff. Any stuff, in fact.

First off is that I've fixed a few computers for some folks recently. Some of it has been the usual spyware nonsense where it's somehow the end user's fault for not being a member of the BCS (British Computer Society) and instead they are just a consumer who bought something of the shelf that they expected to just work because they paid alot of money for it and it didn't. These are a pain but are fixable and you can mitigate the end user's ignorance (justifiable ignorance? That's a debate for another day - but they don't have to update their fridge or washing machine... yet!) by installing software that arguably should be placed on there by the seller for example.

Some of it has been faulty software; Symantec Internet Security is a major culprit here as it has limited people's internet or email access without indicating that it is to blame (hint - remove any rules relating to internet/email applications from within the admittedly annoying to get at personal firewall interface and try opening those applications again to set up new rules). My disgruntlement at this consumer aimed software is further increased by the EULA (End User License Agreement) which disowns any responsibility for the software not working correctly and the fact that recent updates for the software seem to have caused these problems.

Some of it has been hardware related. Upon opening a Time (now defunct, you might guess why after reading the following lines) computer it became obvious that anything the user might have tried to upgrade had been glue-gunned in place - it was very difficult to remove the memory but a bit of work with a scalple fixed that. Plus, it was a P4 and it had no AGP slot (something else I've also seen recently) making a decent graphics upgrade nearly impossible anyway.

There's a lot of reasons to like computers. It seems that there are even more reasons to hate them.

Xbox 360: Initial Comments

2006-03-20T11:48:00.000Z

Here's a cut down version of a 360 review. I'll post the full version when I can learn to write English professionally :-)

The Xbox360 is Microsoft's latest attempt to 0wn the video game market. Using high definition output as standard, the 360 promises to bring a new level of graphical realism to the gaming world. Combined with it's streamlined design and online functionality, the 360 appears to be a strong contender.

Plus Points:

More attractive than the original Xbox
Excellent control pads; wireless as standard with the premium pack, that work well
Some games (particularly Project Gotham 3) look fantastic - real next generation graphics - and play well
Live functionality is fun; Xbox Arcade is excellent!

Negative Points:

Noise. It's NOISY. No, it's REALLY NOISY. I have a vacuum cleaner that makes less noise than the Xbox360!
The power supply is bigger than the original Xbox (not really, but it is huge).
The emulation of original 360 games is rubbish. Very, very bad, except for Halo and Halo 2...
Where are the games? About 10 launch titles, and that's it. Some are starting to come through now, but still...
Accessories - you might be able to get hold of the 360, but accessories like the VGA cable? Forget it!

Noise is a real issue. This is one loud bas***d. The noise it puts out is ridiculous; it is very distracting. Then there are the games; 3 or 4 excellent to average launch titles, with the rest being barely indistinguishable from today's games. Plus you can't buy accessories for it in the shops in anywhere near the quantities you'd expect.

The whole thing is a rush job. If it had been launched this month, they could have ironed out the noise issues; had more stock available, and had more games. And with the PS3 launch now pushed back to November they still would have had a significant head start.

Playing the Games:

PGR3 is very impressive, especially visually, but it's not really *that* different from PGR2. The same goes for the other games - eye candy for sure, but nothing really special. Xbox Live Arcade is great, but then I stop and think that I am enjoying playing games from 10-20 years ago more than the specially designed games that shipped for the console! Playing original xbox games is a disappointing experience; if they work at all then the emulation is often patchy.

Overall:

Too quick to market. That's what the 360 is. Undeniably powerful (at least I think that's what the noise suggests), it has not reached anywhere near it's potential yet, and no one seems to be pushing it in the right direction.

My advice? Wait and see before buying one. Oblivion is out this week - this is the make or break game for me at the moment.

Where did January and February Go?

2006-03-12T19:09:00.000Z

Well, for me, they went in a frantic dash to get a new system out the door. It's out. Maybe now life can return to normal - or as normal as it ever gets around here.

Developer Fatigue

If you've been working on a project for too long, do you get sick of it? Thinking about the same things? Tired of incrementally changing things because requirements were never gathered correctly or because the goalposts have moved? This is what I think of as Developer Fatigue.

Xbox360

Whoops. They're not very good, though there is a lot of potential. A more thorough review will follow.

Paris.

Town planning has come a long way in 2000 years people. And what's with this turning right into a pedestrian crossing?

DVD Boxsets

2006-01-06T23:05:00.000Z

The British people get ripped off. They get ripped off alot.

One example of this is the DVD boxset. It is often the case that when TV series are released here, it is in two parts per season, for example, take the recent release of CSI:New York.

In the UK it was released as Season 1 Part 1 (First 12 or so episodes) and retailed for around £26 with a RRP around the £40 mark.

I was able to pick up the American boxset of the series, which has ALL of the episodes on for around $50 including shipping.

I wanted to find out why this was the case, so I wrote a fictional letter to the studio boss. Here is the fictional reply:

Dear Dan,

I am glad you have noticed that we charge you more for less in the UK versions of our TV offerings. This is because we believe in quality, not quantity, and am sure that you understand this.

Also, we charge you more because we can, because we hate you (just like Nintendo does), because you never complain properly, and you live on a stupid shaped island. Plus we can use stupid import and VAT excuses for the price hikes! You guys are screwed!

Thanks for taking the time to write to me. I'm off to set fire to more five pound notes that you idiots keep giving us. Still, you can look forward to the Season 1 part 2 releases! Losers!

Sincerely,

J Rippingtonofferton (the Third).

Says it all really.

Only the first Matrix was good...

2006-01-04T23:33:00.000Z

...well, although I enjoyed the sequels, they didn't have the same impact and weren't nearly as good. Too much fluff, too little emphasis on story, didn't work very well, smelt of cash in rather than labour of love (like the first one).

The Wachowski brothers did well with the Matrix... however, they need to be careful and avoid travesties like this (requires QuickTime):

http://media.putfile.com/ending-part-1
http://media.putfile.com/ending-part-2
http://media.putfile.com/ending-part-3

These are examples of how bad things can get when you lose perspective (e.g. George Lucas - although not this bad).

These are your "reward" for completing the computer game "The Path of Neo" by the way.

Merry Christmas

2005-12-25T23:44:00.000Z

Not Happy Holidays - Happy Christmas!

Increasing your attack surface

2005-12-07T14:45:00.000Z

I've been looking at a lot of web applications recently, and have done some interesting experiments with them. Too many developers put values into ReadOnly or Hidden Fields, confident in the knowledge that they are safe. After all, they can't be seen or updated... can they?

Well! I've been using the javascript: handler for years. When I started at my place of employment, no one had seen this, but it's surprising how useful this is. To demonstrate, simply type the following into the address bar and hit return: javascript:alert('hello world');

You should see a javascript alert dialog box pop up.

Extend this to it's natural conclusion, and you begin to see statements like: javascript:document.getElementById("ReadOnlyBox").value = "blah!";

That is, you can update anything on the client that can be accessed through the DOM!

This method has become deprecated with the release of the IE developer toolbar - in many situations, it's alot easier to use the dev toolbar to change values of controls on the page.

In effect, with web applications, you are giving your interface to a third party that can be quite hard to validate. You need to be very careful about what information you give to the third party, and you have to be very careful about just accepting the values posted to you.

It's probably best not to do the following whn writing secure applications (I'd love to see rebuttals!):

Rely on hidden or readonly fields to pass data about someone to and from the server. It's safer and easier to associate some server side (session based for example) data with the request that the user can't see, but is persisted between page hits. Or, if you need to put data on the client, encrypt it!

One log in prompt allows access to all functionality. Although less convenient, it is far safer to periodically ask the user to revalidate their credentials. As long as your validation process isn't too onerous, you've secured functionality. This is especially useful if the user is in a situation where they could leave their workstation.

Rely too much on client side javascript in an Internet Environment. Let me elaborate on this one... javascript is wonderful, it is possible to create brilliantly interactive user interfaces al la Ajax (and I use it alot:-). It's also a pain in the ass to debug complicated javascript, and it runs on the client machine and thus exposes further vulnerabilities. So if security is of prime concern, it's probably best to limit javascript to simple client side validation... which should never replace server side validation. It goes without saying that you can get away with more (not that you should) in an Intranet environment - you are more likely to be able to successfully validate your user's identity for example.

Top 9 (yes, 9) albums

2005-11-29T20:27:00.000Z

I just found a piece of paper stuffed away inside a book... it's from 6 years ago, and purports to be a list that I wrote detailing my then top 9 (yes, 9, not 10, because obviously 10 was too passé, and, lets face it, 9 is a much better number anyway. Or something.) albums.

I decided to list them here for posterity - in no particular order. I'll put up the list as it would be today at some point.

Gracelands, Paul Simon

Bridge Over Troubled Water, Simon and Garfunkel

Automatic for the People, REM

Tracy Chapman, Tracy Chapman

OK Computer, Radiohead

Expecting to Fly, the Bluetones

Third Eye Blind, Third Eye Blind

Ogden's Nut Gone Flake, The Small Faces

The La's, The La's

It's surprising how many I don't like anymore! Also, where are The Beatles and Bob Dylan?

Newspapers: Society is Doomed!

2005-11-28T11:10:00.000Z

It seems to be the case that balanced news doesn't sell papers. Maybe no one wants to read about how things are in context anyway.

Have a quick read of the majority of newspapers and you'll probably be convinced that society is falling apart at the seams - a new ice age on the way, not enough electricity to keep people warm this winter, crime getting worse, hospitals getting worse, working until you are 734 years of age, etc, etc. Are things *this* bad?

Well I think things aren't great - they could be better, but they aren't that bleak. Not yet. I hope.

Balanced news would be nice. Or how about an alternative viewpoint? A new newspaper - the Daily Smile - only reporting on nice things.

But then it would probably be about 3 pages long. With adverts.

:-)

Consent

2005-11-24T10:55:00.000Z

I just checked dictionary.com:

1. To give assent, as to the proposal of another; agree. See Synonyms at assent.
2. Archaic. To be of the same mind or opinion.

You see, things like this and this make me angry. Really angry.

They send out the wrong message.

What follows is an opinion. However, I also happen to think it is the right one:

Consent can only be given. It cannot be taken, assumed, or forced. If a person is incapacitated then consent cannot actually be given. I feel that the concept of consent is not valid in these situations and it is an opportunistic crime to take advantage of someone under these conditions. To take advantage of another person's incapacity is cowardice too. Then there are those who pile on the drinks or seek other ways to put someone in this state - in a state where consent cannot be given, where a person cannot defend themselves, where a person cannot even remember what happened - this is even worse as it has been planned.

To say that someone deserves it because they got themselves into that situation shows an astonishing lack of understanding, compassion, honesty, and justice.

I've always felt we should strive to be better than this. I'm no expert, but people who dress up to go out on the town are going out to have a good time. I'm pretty sure they are not advertising themselves as a target. Society should be better than this.

ASP.Net, the Context Identity, and Timers/Threads

2005-11-21T22:33:00.000Z

Every now and again, I like to add a post to my blog to remind me of something useful. If anyone else finds it useful, then all the better. I'll come and tidy this one up a bit later.

I write alot of ASP.Net applications at the moment. I'm a big fan of REST (REpresentational State Transfer) and AJAX too, and have used them alot recently to implement some nice solutions.

When connecting to data sources, the most common model I've encountered is the Trusted User model. In this model, the application runs in the context of a user who is trusted to access network resouces like fileshares and databases. This is not to say that users do not log on to the applications; it's just that any actions they perform that require the application to connect to a resource is usually done in the context of this trusted user. The other common model is Impersonation/Delegation, which tends to involve logging on users then using their credentials to access resources (i.e. the user is impersonated by the application, and then delegation is used to allow the application to present their credentials to remote resources).

This is all fine and dandy. You can set up either model at the application level by adding the <identity/> element in web.config, which, amongst other things, allows you to define a specific identity to run the user as. Impersonation/Delegation required a little more work if you want the credentials to survive numerous resource hops; If I remember correctly, your domain has to be native (all Windows 2000 or above with "Kerberos" authentication), and the server the application is hosted on has to have a flag set in Active Directory to allow it to be trusted for delegation.

However, when you start the application up and start a timed event or create a separate process thread (the two are basically the same thing), then things start to break. If you look at the thread identity when the timer elapses and its event fires, or some code executes in the child thread, you find it is null. This is annoying, because it means that your thread/timer event cannot make calls to other resources that require authentication.

What you need to do is grab the identity that the application starts with. You can do this most simply in Global.asax, in the Applcation_OnStart event by storing it in a field, by using

m_ImpersonationIdentity = WindowsIdentity.GetCurrent();

(you'll need to be using System.Security and System.Security.Principal).

You can then pass this identity to your other event/timer when you instantiate or start them and store them in a field there. When you want to make a remote call, you change the impersonation context:

//Create a principal
WindowsPrincipal currentPrincipal = new WindowsPrincipal(m_ImpersonationIdentity);

//Assign the principal
System.Threading.Thread.CurrentPrincipal = currentPrincipal;

//Begin an impersonation context.
WindowsImpersonationContext impersonationContext = m_ImpersonationIdentity.Impersonate();

try{
//Do Stuff
}
finally{
//Undo the impersonation context.
impersonationContext.Undo();
//"unassign" the thread principal - very important - think thread pooling.
System.Threading.Thread.CurrentPrincipal = null;
}

(Again, you'll need to be using System.Security and System.Security.Principal).

Et voila, you can now make calls in the context of whatever identity you want too when launching child threads in an ASP.Net application.

10 Things...

2005-11-14T10:27:00.000Z

Why are these so hard?

10 Ways to Please Customers

Designer's are still bad, M'kay?

2005-10-29T15:13:00.000Z

The main thrust of the latest post over at fairview is that code designers, code generation tools, etc are bad.

Well, I agree, mostly.

My biggest hangup with the Visual Studio designer is it's destructive nature - as discussed before.

I see where Sam's coming from, too. But just because GUI designer tools aren't living up to their potential is no reason to dismiss them. And yet...

Visual Studio is surprisingly schizophrenic in this area - it's quite difficult to write code wihout some form of graphical helper butting it's way in sometimes (hiding files from the user is a particularly bad habit of VS.Net), and I've seen some demo for the new intellisense helper, and it looks way to complicated, with filters on member type, protection level, object type - stuff I might only ever use when I'm investigating a new class.

The form designer is poor at outputting maintanable code, and the idea of writing a whole application just using the GUI designer is laughable, given its shortcomings.

But sometimes, it is nice to drop a control onto a form and see all of the tedious stuff done for you... but I guess this is something that could be added to the code view.

I spend most of my time when I use a new PC hiding all of the GUI stuff, making sure everything defaults to code view, then hiding all of the other windows so the code view occupies almost all of the screen. I think, however, that one reason I do this because I distrust the Visual Studio designer based on experience, otherwise I might be happy to drop controls onto the page, then switch to code view to make everything just so. I could never live with just the designer though.

The Petzold article is fantastic. Over 60,000 properties and methods in Framework 2.0? Wow! I'll store that one for the .Net quiz.

Developer Day

2005-10-28T08:26:00.000Z

I missed the Developer! Developer! Developer! day. Again.

There's a good review over at Sam's blog:

Sam's Review of Developer! Developer! Developer!

I know there is also a regular event held in London for the dotNet developer user group, website here: London DNUG

Now I've linked to another post on Sam's blog, will this increase the worth of mine...? :-)

My Blog is worth...

2005-10-25T14:02:00.000Z

My blog is worth $999,999,999,999.99
How much is your blog worth?

Although I may have overestimated (a little).

:-)

XPathNavigatorReader

2005-10-25T09:30:00.000Z

I've recntly worked on a project where I've replaced the existing XML-XSLT engine with one that is more performant. The existing system took a large Xml document, in some cases larger than 80Mb, and performed multiple XSL transformations against it.

It was written in VB6 and used MSXML. The main work was done by the transformNodes method, but several steps were involved before hand in reaching this point - generation of the XSLT based on the main XML for example. The output from these transformations usually resulted in tens, even hundreds of HTML documents.

It wasn't performant, and it used alot of memory, a consequence of DOM based processing, especially for large documents. Typically processing time would be in the minutes, tens of minutes in some instances. As the process was an asynchronous publishing system triggered by results becoming available, performance wasn't the most important thing (except that if lots of requests came in at once, the system would *really* slow down, and there were occasions where a client would have expected some results to be available, but they hadn't finished yet).

Analysing the application, I could see that a major performance hit came from loading the Xml documents into memory. C# is the main language I work with these days, and I throught I'd use the XPathDocument class along with the XsltTransform class. Simple choice, really, as the process is about transforming the document, so I don't need a DOM - I'm not altering the original Xml tree in any way.

My first experiments got the process down to performing about 700 XSL transforms in 27 seconds. This is a vast improvement, and memory usage was lowered too. Still, I could see that a lot of time was spent in moving between nodes using the MoveNext() method. Also, awkwardly, I still needed to get at the Xml of certain nodes within the document, something that the XPathDocument/XPathNavigator combo doesn't really cater for easily.

I did some research and discovered the XPathNavigatorReader (in the MVP.Xml namespace). Apparently, it adopts many of the features of the Xml classes found in Framework 2.0.

It's cool, as it allows me to efficiently move through the XPathDocument and get at the Xml when I need too. Implementing this over the XPathDocument further increased performance - about 700 transformations in 3 seconds.

Which was nice.

Faster Google. Kill! Kill! Kill!

2005-10-23T22:01:00.000Z

An interesting coffee break read on news.bbc.co.uk.

The comment about why there is little UI homogeneity between Google apps was an interesting one - how the culture has brought about a diversification of UI's - with the main suggestion being that, at least at first, that a google app is about bringing an idea to fruition. For me, a Google app is recognizable as a Google app because of the Google logo - instantly distinctive, as well as the colour scheme. Most Google apps have an ergonomic hook for me - maps the scrolling, suggest the immediacy, gmail the keyboard shortcuts...

I was also amazed by the Ballmer-Google thing. I mean, is that conversation becoming public domain kind of embarrassing? Throwing a chair? Is it even true? Or is it jus a ploy by Kai-Fu Lee's legal team as part of the Microsoft-Google dispute over his employment at Google?

Microsoft could kill Google. Google could kill Microsoft. And yet, owning the desktop - is that more powerful than owning the browser? And Microsoft kind of own both, but...

Google seem fast already? Faster? We'll see.

Jagged Little Pill

2005-10-23T21:34:00.000Z

In yet another seemingly (well, actually, actually) pointless posts about stuff I like, I thought I'd mention another of my favourite albums. As the title indicates, it's Jagged Little Pill, by Alanis Morissette.

In particular, I recently bought the acoustic version (from Tesco, where I seem to buy a lot of music these days.), and, I was impressed. It sounded fresh, different, and alive.

Great album. My favourite track is "Hand in my Pocket." Don't know why.

GMail to GoogleMail

2005-10-19T11:14:00.000Z

Hmmm...

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=27051

MP3 Players

2005-10-12T22:23:00.000Z

I remember letting a friend at University know that I liked R.E.M. They loved R.E.M.

I never thought I would be a massive fan, though, liked to listen to their music, never thought I'd be as devoted as they were (who, it must be said, is very unlikely to be reading this).

I was going through my CD collection last night, when I noticed something strange. I have a about 8 million R.E.M. CD's! Well, not quite that many, but all the albums, a few bootlegs and some other stuff. Arghhh, I've somehow managed to become a compulsive album collector!

However, the main thrust of this post is not to reveal that I own the Cheeky Girls CD (although I don't, no, really, I don't), but to mention how awkward it is to transfer all my CD's across to my MP3 player. It's a pain in the backside. In. Rip. Tag. Transfer to Player. Out. Repeat with next CD.

Sonic Stage (Sony's music management software) is a fine example of how to write a piece of software based on how you think someone will use something without ever using it yourself. Unghhhh.

And now I've noticed something else. Now it's on the player, the music has lost something. It's too immediate. Gone is the joy of selecting a CD at random, pulling it off the shelf. Instead, I now have to navigate through a UI that isn't really any good at managing large number of songs and select the music I want to hear with a button press.

Ho hum.

How not to write your documentation (1)

2005-10-05T10:55:00.000Z

I'm developing some software to run under a 3rd party infrastructure.

This infrastructure supports components written in a variety of languages. Java, .Net, C++, blah, blah.

Unfortunately, when the company who decided how they were going to write their documentation, they decided that they would try and produce 1 document, covering how to do each bit in each language.

They've ended up with a mess. .Net implementations next to java implementations next to... for each and every bit, or well, for each and every bit where they've felt like providing an example in your language. Well, if you can do that bit in your language, of course.

It would have made everybody's life easier if they'd produced separate documents for your language. E.g. a .Net developers guide, a Java developer's guide, and so on.

Grrrrrrrrr.

I blame Sam :-)

2005-09-26T22:21:00.000Z

You Are A: Bear Cub!

Bears are strong and independent creatures who roam in the forest in search of food. Bears are usually gentle, but anger one and be prepared for their full fury! You're big, you're tough, you won't back down from a fight, you have a bit of a temper -- classic attributes of a bear. Intelligent and resourceful, though lazy at times, you are a fascinating creature of the wild.

You were almost a: Pony or a Duck
You are least like a: Chipmunk or a Mouse What Cute Animal Are You?

Prophetic... and sad.

2005-09-06T11:51:00.000Z

An article was published in Scientific American, almost exactly 4 years ago, that underlines the recent disaster centered around New Orleans.

Twisted Tower

2005-09-06T11:49:00.000Z

A feat of architectural brilliance.

The Island

2005-08-22T11:08:00.000Z

Recently watched "The Island"

I thought it was good, very farfetched in places, but an enjoyable movie nonetheless.

It had some great lines, in particular:

"What is God?"

"You know when you really want something, you close your eyes and wish
for it really hard? God is the guy that ignores you."

Comment Spam

2005-08-22T09:26:00.000Z

Wow! My last post got comment spam.

Really Bad Films?

2005-08-18T10:47:00.000Z

Remember, this is a matter of opinion.

If your favourite film ever is on this list, then tough :-)

Best Web Game Yet

2005-08-14T12:03:00.000Z

I love this, it's superb.

GROW RPG

These people are geniuses!

You might want to start with a village.

Graphical User Interfaces: "Designers are bad"

2005-08-14T11:51:00.000Z

Interesting list of the shortcomings of using a GUI Designer to create form based layouts.

Beware the GUI Builder.

I say interesting, but I mostly disagree.

For all the reasons here.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ5

2005-08-14T10:35:00.000Z

Looks like a great camera for the price; pretty much the same feature set as others in its class, the Canon S2 IS and the Sony DSC-H1, but whereas these two support only JPEG output, the Lumix can output TIFF too. Also, the Lumix and Canon support SD, the Sony uses Memory Stick - not a memory format I've invested in, really.

No RAW shooting mode in any of these, the best I've seen for that in the price range is the Canon S70, which also has a 28mm wideangle mode, but an upper limit of 108mm. However, it's compact format was also a put-off. I liked the Pentax Optio 750z, it has a lot of functionality packed into its retro-styled body, and is available on Amazon.co.uk for an amazing £250. Handling one in the shop, though, revealed some build quality issues, although I didn't observe any of the optical issues dpreview mentioned. This was my second choice, overall.

The Lumix has won it for me though. With all of its features, and it's low price point (Amazon is about £100-120 overpriced here, amazingly) make it a good buy.

I also like the styling. It looks like a camera, with the lens center placed, a decent handgrip, and well positioned controls. Compare that to the overly rounded Canon or the off-centered Sony and the Panasonic is a clear winner ergonomically.

£70 Million? £70 Million?

2005-08-07T10:17:00.000Z

Spotted on http://news.bbc.co.uk this morning; the English mansion selling for £70 million!

Looking Backwards

2005-08-06T22:20:00.000Z

This blog has been up for awhile now. I've really enjoyed posting using blogger - even when I finally get my site up and running again, I will still use this place as the source for any blog I publish on my site... yeah, right :-)

I've been thinking about blogs in general for a while now. One of the things I wonder about the most is some of the people I've known and lost contact with (through every fault of my own) and the people I still keep in touch with.

I wish having a blog were mandatory. Out of the people I like and respect, only a few of them have a blog (not all of whom I link too - I keep meaning too...). I miss talking to some of the people I knew, I guess.

And there are those people who you thought were your friends, but turned out not to be. This only happened to me once, 6-7 years ago, when an interested thirdy party let me know what was going on (but I would say that I was to blame for that). From that point onwards, there was this massive gulf. I was helpful but never friendly.

You see? Elements of the past, looking backwards. If someone were to read this blog and understand the context, they would immediately be able to establish their relationship to the content and the author.

But blogs aren't a silver bullet here. Nor is Friends Reunited, email, post, or any other form of communication that requires effort. Unlike many of the other alternatives, though, with blogs, you have a lot more chance of finding people as at some point, Google will probably patiently spider the entries and add them to it's magical inner workings.

I'm not sure what I started this post for. I know, though, that this is one of the things blogs are really good for. You can put down any old rubbish, come back later, review it, wince and then continue.

Blogs, email addresses, telephone numbers, real addresses, they might all move or get lost. But blogs in particular, due to their nature and publishing mechanism, I think are a great way of keeping in touch, and maybe even rediscovering people.

I think this is why even most portal and content management solutions include some form of blogging component. For knowledge and thought distribution, blogs (and wikis) go a long way towards making information public, archivable, and accessible in ways that email and instant messaging don't, for example.

I think I'm going to edit this post or do a follow up in the near future when I work out exactly what I want to say. Apologies for the rambling nature of this one.

Robin Hobb

2005-08-04T23:34:00.000Z

I've run out of superlatives for describing Robin Hobb's books. Just go and read them. Now.

You'd probably want to start here though.

Filemon and Regmon

2005-07-31T15:36:00.000Z

I cannot recommend these utilities enough. Absolutely superb.

They've come in especially useful this last week when debugging configuration issues for Asp.Net applications.

Filemon watches disk access from applications. It presents a list of all the file system events that happen whilst it is monitoring, and was very helpful in showing me a directory on the machine that the aspnet worker process was trying to access, but did not have sufficient rights to, causing an error to occur whenever an asp.net application was launched. The error message itself was unhelpful.

Regmon was similarly useful, as it monitors registry access. Having it monitoring while an application was being started showed me the exact key in the registry that the aspnet_wp.exe process was trying to access, and failing.

Utilities like these are so useful. Not only do they give you a better idea of what is happening on your machine, but they also free you from being so reliant on Google :-)

And they are free.

Available from:

http://www.sysinternals.com/SystemInformationUtilities.html

There are some other great tools on this page. Check out Mark's blog, too.

Designing a UI

2005-07-26T11:23:00.000Z

Interesting discussion about whether significant effort should be expended upon UI design.

Opinion One:

The best UI's are undoubtedly those that are intuitive and reinforce the user's actions thought text, graphics and actions. It should be obvious what the user needs to do. The increased development time is rewarded by the building up of a suite of controls that tackle these issues over time, user satisfaction, and decreased training costs.

Opinion Two:

Significant effort should not be expended upon bells and whistles for the interface. It should meet requirements. Any usage issues can be countered by training, which would be cheaper and faster; as any usage issues cannot be tackled by increased development time, which implies that the application is delivered faster.

Opinion Three:

Why doesn't your app have full keyboard support, you losers.

Opinion Four:

Usability is less important in Intranet Applications as these can be countered by training; also, by maintaining the look and feel of existing applications, there should be fewer usage problems as people will encounter nothing new.

Personal Comment:

I note that none of the standard project documentation mentions usability testing. Nor are there any recommendations regarding UI design for people with disabilities.

Useful: Classic Search in XP

2005-07-15T15:27:00.000Z

I was never convinced that the XP Search interface was better than the Windows 2000 one.

That's why it's good to find this:

http://www.petri.co.il/restore_classic_search_in_windows_xp.htm

I want one of these

2005-07-14T11:53:00.000Z

Such a cool idea

Rory Blyth's in town

2005-07-13T13:38:00.000Z

Rory Blyth, MSDN presenter, developer, and borderline genius/madman ;-) (I think the line between genius and madness might be thinner than a forward slash, like say, a |) is in London this week.

Anyone going to the dinner?

http://neopoleon.com/blog/posts/15251.aspx

Leaving Work

2005-07-07T22:15:00.000Z

Announced this evening, over the PA system.

"Will all employees please move away from the windows overlooking Cabot Square. Move to the other side of the building."

London

2005-07-07T11:38:00.000Z

So. It's happened.

Tony Blair confirmed multiple terrorist attacks on London today, resulting in loss of life, injury and damage to infrastructure.

It was chaos this morning. Total lack of communication. Rumours flying.

Power surges on the Tube leading to explosions. Well, apparently, "Power Surge" is a stock explanation designed not to instill panic into people. It seemed to work.

People worried for family, friends and colleagues. As information became more readily available, a general sense of confirmation - everyone seemed to know what it was already.

And now people are worried about the side effects. No transport, apparently for the rest of the day according to Charles Clarke. So people are going to have real difficulty getting home.

We shall wait and see. But I've got confidence in people.

F!"£%^£&^%£&%&£ Packaging

2005-06-27T11:09:00.000Z

I offer this, with no further comment:

http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/?t=archives&date=2005-05-30

The Developer's Sixth Sense

2005-06-22T15:17:00.000Z

Call it what you will. Call it experience. Call it a sense of timing. Call it sixth sense. But it seems to be built into many developers.

It's that moment when you run some code that compiles but is going to throw a runtime exception... and you know it. Maybe it's that pause. Maybe it's the undermind, just having caught up with the code you've wrote and has realised that it's going to break.

You know what I mean.

That instant *before* the error dialog pops up. Before the yellow screen of death appears.

Longhorn != .Net

2005-06-02T09:50:00.000Z

For some reason, maybe it was the blogs I read, maybe I heard it somewhere, but I was certain that Longhorn was being built on top of .Net

Turns out this is wrong:

http://www.microsoft-watch.com/article2/0,1995,1820607,00.asp

I'm not so sure how important this is though. As an application developer, the fact that the framework is there, along with the new plumbing like Indigo and Avalon is enough for me... but maybe I should be bemoaning the loss of possibilities?

Want your Function keys back?

2005-05-20T14:02:00.000Z

Alot of people have complained about how annoying this has been in the past... this looks promising:

Function Keys

How to write Unmaintainable Code

2005-05-19T13:39:00.000Z

Looking to really annoy other developers?

Let this be a weapon of choice:

http://mindprod.com/unmain.html

The Beatles vs The Rolling Stones

2005-05-17T21:02:00.000Z

Easy one this:

http://www.googlefight.com/index.php?lang=en_GB&word1=%22The+Beatles%22&word2=%22The+Rolling+Stones%22

John Lennon wins...

2005-05-17T20:57:00.000Z

Although that actual fight is a lot harder to decide, googlefight gives the following:

http://www.googlefight.com/index.php?lang=en_GB&word1=John+Lennon&word2=Paul+McCartney

Giving Lennon the winner versus McCartney.

Which is kind of difficult for me, as I think that Paul was behind so much of what made the Beatles so listenable - he's a master of melody, writes some great lyrics, and knows how to structure some of the best hooks I've ever heard.

Maybe, just maybe though, the real answer lies in the combination of talent.

Any one have any other opinions?

Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band

2005-05-15T21:58:00.000Z

Great album. Simpy astonishing.

Wanted to find out more about it. Some interesting stuff here:

http://www.sgtpeppers.co.uk/

Given the general quality, it seems interesting that only Paul thought it was amongst their best works.

After seeing the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy movie, I noticed this poster in the toilets. On every wall.

Based on the comments on the album analysis, I wonder what John would have though of it...

Darth Vader is blogging...

2005-04-23T10:30:00.000Z

...but (if we accept that he exists :-) isn't he dead?

http://darthside.blogspot.com/2005/04/i-am-surrounded-by-idiots.html

Cool...

2005-04-14T10:52:00.000Z

Running ASP.Net applications without creating a Visual Studio.Net Web Project

Visual Studio Rant

2005-04-12T21:17:00.000Z

I like Visual Studio.Net. It rocks. However...

When I switch between the designer and code view, especially on a html page, I wish it would just leave my code alone. Look, just f**k off. You never work as you are supposed to - if I wanted your help, I wouldn't spend all my time trying to turn you off in the menus. I'd press CTRL+K, D, for example, then you could do something.

Chances of the dev team reading this are almost zero. But still, this is poor. Very poor, but mainly, not because it's bad (although it is), but because it's destructive.

And it p***es me off.

~This post has been heavily edited~

Bloggy

2005-04-06T10:33:00.000Z

...is a device that looks suspiciously like a send up of Clocky.

Maps

2005-03-26T18:52:00.000Z

Greenwood's Map of London 1827:

http://users.bathspa.ac.uk/greenwood/

Booth's Map of Partial Poverty (1889):

http://www.umich.edu/~risotto/

Why...

2005-03-15T23:22:00.000Z

...post poetry?

Well, I've posted a few (Coleridge, Keats, Eliot) mainly because when I've read their work, it's effected me in a different way. The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock is one such, with it's unique and often melancholy prose (I stole that line) leaving me feeling, well, feeling - provoking both a liking and admiration, as well as many other emotions, which, astoundingly enough, the author probably intended. So, for people who just stumble across this blog, for people who read it, and for anyone not in either/or, I invite them to do the same.

To read them, and to hopefully enjoy them.

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

2005-03-15T12:39:00.000Z

S'io credesse che mia risposta fosse
A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo
Non torno vivo alcun, s'i'odo il vero,
Senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo.

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question...
Oh, do not ask, "What is it?"
Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening.
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains.
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys.
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me.
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?"
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair--
[They will say: "How his hair is growing thin!"]
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin--
[They will say: "But how his arms and legs are thin!"]
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all:
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all--
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all--
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]
Is it perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?
. . . . .
Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? . . .

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
. . . . .
And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep. . . tired . . . or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet--and here's no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: "I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all"--
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: "That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all."

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor--
And this, and so much more?--
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow, or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
"That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all."
. . . . .
No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous--
Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old . . . I grow old . . .
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

T.S. Eliot
1917

Nintendo DS

2005-03-14T14:26:00.000Z

Small secret: I've had my Nintendo DS for over a month now.

The street release date was Friday 11^th, and, judging by my local emporium of computer games, business was good. Which is fine, especially because I think it's a great piece of hardware from Nintendo. It packs so many innovative features into one small package; much has been made of the 2 screens (DS = Dual Screens) and touch driven control system (via the stylus, the thumbstrap or fingers!), but it also features a version of wifi (for wireless multiplayer and potentially connecting to the internet), a microphone, and some great extras like PictoChat (a chat program to be used between DS owners). Including backwards compatibility with the Gameboy Advance is a good idea, but it does mean I will have to leave my original GB version of Tetris behind on train journeys (unless I take the GameBoy Advance SP) as it will not play Gameboy Color or Gameboy Original games.

Build construction is good, but not exceptional; for whatever reason, much of the casing is plastic. Offset this with it's rugged feeling, though, and you have less to complain about. It does not have the exceptional looks of the Playstation Portable though...

Battery life is astounding. It came charged, and I've been playing on it intensely at points, and have only had to charge it a few times. Charge time seems short too, and the charger seems to be the same as shipped with the Gameboy Advance SP.

The launch games are probably the weakest area. Every set of reviews (Edge, GamesTM are what I read) has held high regard for WarioWare (Dan: it's great) and, to a lesser degree, Polarium (Dan: It's good), but less so for the other release titles, with a distinctly average feel across the board. The best is yet to come here, clearly.

Still, I don't care, I need to go slice some more food, pick some noses, eject some pencil lead and put out fires by pointing a "tasteful" statue at them.

Yahoo! Netrospective

2005-03-04T23:44:00.000Z

10 years of Yahoo! and 100 key moments in the history of the net, here:

Yahoo! Netrospective.

One thing though. Something's missing. Something big. Here's a clue - it started on September 7, 1998.

Hmmm.

Introducing Custom Controls

2005-02-22T22:57:00.000Z

If you've worked with ASP.Net, you'll know that User Controls are (mostly) a Good thing. What you might not know about or have used are Custom Controls.

I built one for a specific project in work a few days ago, and, to make it easier for colleagues to use, added designer support. Now, to use my control, they just have to drag it from the toolbox and drop it onto the webform. It's a dll, so all the html etc it emits is embedded within the control, and it has some resource directory properties you can set (for custom j(ava)script, css etc).

Perfect.

More information from here:

Custom Controls.

When I was younger...

2005-02-21T22:18:00.000Z

...so much younger than today, I hated the Beatles in pretty much every way. But now those days are gone... :-)

Seriously, I hated the Beatles, and for no good reason. I was sick of living in Liverpool and having it always come back to the Beatles, regardless of their (undisputed) talent. I remember going on the open day to university there, and it being hammered home all the time - this is where the Beatles were from!

Shock! Horror!

And then I moved away. Got the space to want to, and the money to buy the CD's. And loved them ever since. My current fave is I've Just Seen a Face.

The reason for this post? No reason. Not really. It is, however, empowering to be able to just write something down that other people may read, and either agree, disagree (or, at worst) completely ignore.

Sometimes bad things happen...

2005-02-20T20:53:00.000Z

...in your life, and you don't want to write or speak about them. Yet they still remain.

I find myself listening to Bob Dylan right about now, and have just realized how great Percy's Song is. I mean, I must have listened to it in the background about a zillion and one (I was told a million times never to exaggerate) times, but have only just started to listen to the words.

Other songs I've listened to properly in the last 20 minutes or so and really enjoyed are Tombstone Blues, The Times They Are A-Changin' (You'll have to decide whether or not the Simon and Garfunkel version does it for you more) and Subterranean Homesick Blues.

Good music for just listenin' too.

The compilation is Biograph btw.

I remember a friend of my at university once said that listening to compilations of an artist's work was a waste of time - that hearing them in their arranged composition (the album (-:) was more important. Yeah, whatever. This way, I get to hear fantastic track after fantastic track

Twin Peaks

2005-01-29T14:20:00.000Z

Just finished watching the first series, and thought it was brilliant. An interesting story, filled with memorable characters, and eerie supernatural overtones.

However, the series' cliffhanger ending does present a problem. There does not appear to be a release date for series 2; although there is an online petition to bring it to dvd sooner rather than later:

http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?tpdvdnow

I want closure!

:-)

Flickr

2005-01-17T18:07:00.000Z

I've been playing with Flickr.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/frequentlyrare

Initial feeling: Cool. More impressions soon.

The Incredibles

2005-01-10T22:48:00.000Z

I'll get this straight now. I admire Pixar. I think everything they've produced has been wonderful, from the quality of the animation, to the diverse levels of humour hidden throughout their films. So don't expect a non-partisan, unbiased opionion!

The Incredibles is, in my opinion, their best work yet.

It's been a while since I've laughed so much during a movie (Airplane! and the original Naked Gun as well as about 60% of Spaceballs also fit into this category in case you wanted a baseline comparison). It's just so full of good humour, satirical in-jokes, and has an almost affably sly knowing quality in it's asides and references that I can't imagine there being an individual who wouldn't find any part of it humourous.

And the cgi was stand out jaw-dropping at times.

Visual Studio.Net has detected...

2005-01-10T22:43:00.000Z

...that you are trying to get some work done, and will now be very annoying.

Upon opening some asp.net projects recently, I've been confronted with the message:

"Visual Studio .NET has detected that the specified Web server is not running ASP.NET version 1.1. You will be unable to run ASP.NET Web applications or services."

If you ignore the popup, everything still works. It is, however, irritating.

Contrary to many suggestions, running %WINDOWS%\Microsoft.Net\Framework\{Version}\aspnet_regiis -i did not fix this for me.

Instead, the answer can be found here (curiously, there seems to be a knowledge base article, but searching the kb didn't turn this up):

http://www.aspnetresources.com/blog/WhatIsGetAspxVer.aspx

The Timewaster Letters

2005-01-08T00:27:00.000Z

In a recent post, Sam Meldrum mentions this "fantastically funny book."

Couldn't agree more... picked it up in the Works (a chain of budget book shops in the UK). Amazon have it as well.

The downside is that I now tend to burst into laughter at random when reading it.

(This is of course different to "bursting into random laughter", which is just messier)

I also bought the "Book of Knots" after reading an article about this piece of Math.

Which is why this is also on the way.

Windows AntiSpyware continued...

2005-01-07T17:42:00.000Z

Installed perfectly well to it's default directory (Program Files\Microsoft AntiSpyware).

When launched, it sits in the system tray and appears to be monitoring for "threats", pretty much in the same way an AntiVirus solution would. Realtime monitoring appears to be taken care of by "agents", divided into 3 categories, Internet Agents, System Agents, and Application Agents. These agents appear to be watching the so called "soft points" in the "attack surface" of your computer; things like watching dialup connections (protection against rogue diallers), monitoring changes to the Hosts file, monitoring the Windows Services list and more.

There's also a scanner; much like AV software, it relies on definitions/signature files to identify threats. A default scan on my machine revealed one registry key that had been added by some page or piece of software or other that was classed as spyware; a wizard popped up and walked me through removing it. These definitions/signature files can be set to be retrieved automatically as and when they are available.

Checking the "About" box reveals that the software is set to expire on the 31st July - interesting, as it might indicate a commercial approach. This might alleviate the fears of Norton, McAfee et al somewhat about it mutating into free AV shipped with every copy of Windows, thus shrinking their market (but distributing any software with Windows automatically gets it onto a huge number of desktops...).

Looking at the files in the program directory (GiantAntiSpywareMain.exe), and at the readme, indicates that this is not an inhouse product, though - it seems to be the fruit of Microsoft's purchase of Giant. Indeed, visiting the homepage http://www.giantcompany.com/default.htm reveals this to be the case!

First impressions are positive; I like the fact that it monitors constantly for threats (I would guess that this is similar to Spybot's approach), seems to be quite lightweight, and has a polished interface.