@ Head : Rant

Windows crash recovery

bill — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 03:17:31 GMT

Last night I accidentally pulled out the wrong power plugs, crashing my computer. For some reason this meant it wouldn’t start properly. I don’t quite get why that would mean it wouldn’t start as the hard disc didn’t fail, but none the less it wouldn’t : the computer would seemingly just hang and the keyboard was no longer responsive and its lights went out. The good news is that start-up offered a recovery, and that recovery fixed it and life is good again. The thing to be aware of though is the recovery boot seemed to be hung for a long long time ; I’m talking like 20 minutes or half an hour.

If this happens to you, just be patient: it worked for me :)

Is C# unacceptable ?

bill — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 00:50:00 GMT

Well if you mark your methods as being void from the outset …….

Why Live Maps sucks compared to Google maps

bill — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 07:22:52 GMT

The user experience of Live Maps completely sucks compared to Google Maps. It’s that bad I really don’t think they even bother testing it.

Live Maps experience:

go to maps.live.com. Here it redirects to http://maps.live.com.au/? which seems to fail to properly load every single time. Instead you have to hit refresh.
the page loads with a script error :
Message: 'dapMgr' is undefined
Line: 480
Char: 9
Code: 0
URI: http://network.ninemsn.com.au/share/js/spac_adx.js
as I scroll to zoom, the zoom ignores where my mouse is, meaning I have to often drag the map to centre it before continuing zooming
once I have zoomed in, the map lacks allotment boundary details.
the “aerial” view seems a lot older and a lot less detail compared to google
there’s no context menu !! I can’t right click and add a pushpin or get directions form or to there, instead I have to type in an address (how utterly lame !!)
when I click on directions so as I can add an address, the map goes back to a view of Australia, meaning I lost all that zooming and scrolling I just did.
If I can’t specify an address I’m rooted (as opposed to being routed <g>). So I guess nearby addresses but then aren’t able to move them.
I can’t re-route directions, instead I have to try to add stops.
I can’t hide that directions pane

Google Maps experience:

No redirection. I get to choose if I use the .au one or not !!
Pages load first time without any script errors !! (OMG what were they thinking. How dare they actually test it !!)
As I zoom in, the zoom centres on my mouse and gives me a visual indication it is doing that. (a responsive UI. What the ???)
the maps show lots of details including allotment boundaries. Aerial view is really good.
I can right click. OMG, a “context menu” : this app must have been written in the last 15 years !
I can add pushpins for directions From here and directions To here
I can re-route the journey simply by dragging the route line. It seems these guys have heard of a mouse !!
I can hide the directions pane

That’s just a brief synopsis of the very obvious user experience. I found Live Maps totally useless for planning my afternoon’s bike ride. Seriously Microsoft if you are going to go to the bother and expense of licensing the maps and aerial images, of setting up servers etc, then you can at least try to compete. At present it’s just a pathetic waste of money. Say “yes you can” or go home.

The floppy: It’s back …….

bill — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 00:56:33 GMT

In breaking news today Microsoft announced it will be releasing Windows 7 and Office 2010 on floppy disk !

Microsoft said it heard complaints from customers that their old floppy drives were made obsolete because Microsoft didn’t release software on floppy disks. They also heard complaints that people felt detached from the software installation process. An alledged Microsoft spokesperson was said to have said “Bringing back the floppy disk means people will feel more involved, getting to change the disks as quick as the data can be read”.

A leak form their product survey test data showed that one set of customers loved the 150 disk set for Windows 7. They loved that getting something substantially huge and heavy for their money. Interestingly enough many of these people owned SUV’s or Hummers. Another spokesperson said they hope to capture the excessive consumption market.

A secret pilot program was run which had customers install an early beta of windows 7 using 142 floppy disks. Results were mixed with some people not being able to install due to a bad image format or read failure on the second last disk. Microsoft said this was a problem with their quality control as they only tested the first 3 disks and the last disk in each set. Microsoft has apparently already fixed this problem and in the future they will also test the second last disk.

Rumour has it Apple plans to go one better and bring out a retro model, which has not one floppy disc drive but two ! An unnamed apple fanatic said the plan is to give you that same interaction with the installation, but make it quicker by allowing you to have the next floppy in the other drive. Plans also include making the disks all white, not just on the outside but as a bold fashion statement also on the inside. A leaked prototype showed some rounded corners as well, but currently only works with apple’s own drives.

Microsoft is already planning to launch an advertising campaign showing how the Mac double floppy drive system costs more then twice as much. At the same time Microsoft is working with other hardware vendors to develop the auto floppy disk changer.

Microsoft: make VB like C#

bill — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 11:48:24 GMT

I was reading yet another VB versus C# rant: I don’t want to get sucked into wading into that, but I will say that anyone who thinks folks that use VB can’t use C# has really got things back the front. Most people who use VB can read and write C# quite well; they choose VB knowing both. Whereas so many C# developers I’ve met have absolutely no idea about VB or concepts such as declarative event handling etc, etc. For them they don’t have the basis of choice.

The reason VB folk have to read and write in C# is because a lot of SDK’s etc are all in C# originally. Even things like the enterprise library provide source code only in C#; this even after Soma promised to do better in regard to that. So for VB folks there is a real need to learn C#.

The big problem though is if you want to use C# source code in your VB project: you often have to re-write it or separate into different assemblies. That’s not productive. What I want is for VB to like C# and vice versa. I don’t mean make them the same, I mean for them to like each other; to get along well inside the same project. I’d like to be able to add a C# class to my VB project and happily compile it. And I bet some C# folk would love to have some concurrent basic or XML literals in their C# projects without all the current barriers.

Maybe the talk of compilers as a service type thing will give us that true cross language project, where VB and C# like each other so much that they then are free to diverge again :)

What we have here is a failure to communicate

bill — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 02:33:49 GMT

you can tell from the title there’s a Friday rant coming can’t you ? Well yeh, sometimes what should be a simple task of writing code becomes painstakingly slow. Take for example this one line of code:

  Dim doc = XDocument.Load("abc.xml")

Now if you like to write robust code, somewhere in your mind there should be that voice saying, “ah but what if the file is not there or can’t be opened or isn’t valid xml “…etc, etc. So the first thing you probably think of doing is look at what exceptions the method can throw, or so you’d hope.

Problem 1. VB doesn’t display the exception information from any xml documentation. Our first failure to communicate that then leads us on a great chase.

Problem 2. Who ever wrote the XDocument.Load method actually failed to provide the exception documentation. The Load method calls external methods such as XMLReader.Create and the exceptions from that are unchecked, allowed to bubble through. The documentation should indicate an include statement to say the XMLReader.Create exceptions bubble up. The author(s) of XDocument.Load failed to communicate the exceptions that could be thrown.

Problem 3. If you like to keep current and have installed the SilverLight 2.0 SDK, F1 help will take you to a SilverLight topic even if you are writing a Console application. That little voice in your head that first said “what if …” is now screaming. There’s a failure to communicate between Visual Studio and MSDN help.

Problem 4. Your only resolve is to do the lookup in msdn help yourself, only to find the documentation has no exception information because it relies on the xml documentation (see Problem 2). The failure to communicate cascades.

Problem 5. As a last ditch desperate measure you use Reflector and walk through the code. Thankfully in this case the code is reasonably simple. The problem now is how do you get that information back into your code, so as you handle the correct exceptions ? This isn’t Relector’s fault as such, as the same problem exists if you do find the exception information in Visual Studio’s object browser. This is a failure to interact, but it can result in you not handling exceptions or documenting which exceptions bubble up from your methods, causing your code to fail to communicate. (see Problem 2.)

If religious wars were still in fashion, we’d be saying “hey what about checked exceptions al la Java ?”. The more I am frustrated at how hard it is to write robust code because of these often cascading failures to communicate, the more I want to sign up with the holly sect for checked exceptions.

An alternative is to provide rich tooling and analysis. Some years ago, myself and Geoff Appleby with some help from Mark Miller wrote a plug-in for refactor that did a look up based on the code you selected. It would match the method calls with their xml documentation, refine and sort the list based on inheritance rules (most specific first), and let you choose which ones to add to your code. It really was simple once you got the method info, which is where refactor (or more accurately DXCore) came in. Unfortunately we hosted that project on the now defunct GotDotNet site :(

Such a tool helps break the cycle here, but such a tool also needs to be used by Microsoft (see Problem 2 above), and there needs to be analysis to ensure exceptions are either handled or the documentation says what exceptions can be thrown. Writing robust code needs to be easier: we cannot just ignore exceptions.

D ??

bill — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 14:56:27 GMT

So if OSLO and the new language for it named “D” are part of Visual Studio, that means we’d have VB, VC++, VC#, and now VD. I wonder if Visual D and OSLO will still let you use Strongly Typed Datasets.

OSLO: for VD with STDs

I can see marketing has been busy ;)

Apple’s giant font for email

bill — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 15:45:09 GMT

Via Nancy’s blog, I saw the link about Apple’s claim for accessibility features on the iPhone. Have a look at this picture of their claimed “Giant font for Mail messages”

Maybe they could have made the picture a bit bigger, but if you have good eye sight you might notice that it appears you have to scroll to read each line then scroll back. That’s just plain shameful design .

Stairs or ramps ?

bill — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 07:14:29 GMT

(photo courtesy of wikipedia)

As software architects today we are faced with an increasing dilemma of do we design our application to have stairs or ramps. In building terms, stairs can make a grand visual presence, but provide no access for those in wheel chairs. Wheel chair access is often only tacked on as an after thought, and only as required by the relevant local legislation. Consider the Lincoln Memorial, and it’s grand stairs. Where’s the ramps ? It wasn’t designed with that in mind.

As we architect our software monuments, we have conflicting forces. Rich mouse interaction and animations, versus accessibility. Designing for both is hard, so it often gets put off to the “afterwards” pile, where accessibility might eventually be retro fitted. That then becomes a cost in dollars and time, that tends to be cut. The result is it becomes too expensive to provide accessibility features for the sake of employees. So as we focus on the beauty of building our stairs and grand entrances, we effectively discriminate against large sections of the potential workforce.

It’s ironic that computer software, probably the leading technology with the ability to provide access for many people who are otherwise disadvantaged in what work they can do, is tending to discriminate more as we “advance” the “user interface” . When M.L.K stood on those stairs and told of us of a dream for the future, he obviously had bigger issues on his mind than those stairs and the discrimination they caused, but part of that dream was that all people be treated equal.

It’s not easy. It’s a difficult task. We may not achieve it overnight, but if we all try a little bit, we can get there. Next time you start building stairs, please stop and consider the ramps.

How many files ??

bill — Sat, 31 May 2008 15:34:57 GMT

Windows Defender told me it scanned 12,843,673 objects !!!

Admittedly that included another drive with Win 2008 on it, but that's still a lot of files. I noticed that the objects includes the contents of help files including MSDN. Even still, I figure it would take me half year to look at each of them for just one second !!

So this got me curious as to how many files there are on my Vista drive. It has Visual Studio, Office and some other stuff.

At root level, there's over one hundred and forty thousand files (140,000) and nearly twenty thousand folders !! Twenty thousand folders I thought, nah couldn't be... that's crazy. So I looked around a little more..

The windows directory tree contains over 70,000 files and about 14,400 folders ! 14,400 folders... you've got to be kidding me ....

The windows\winsxs directory tree has 41,400 files and 10,560 folders ! All this sxs compatibility sure does take up a lot of space and folders. But there's still 3,800 or so folders elsewhere in the windows tree...

There's almost a thousand folders inside the Windows\System32 tree, but turns out the main source in there is almost 700 that are in the DriversStore, (again a compatibility thing). Of the remaining 2,800 folders or so in the windows tree, Microsoft.Net was 100, the Inf tree was 220 or so,the installer tree about 100 or so, etc. The remaining big one was the Assembly path (aka the GAC) which had almost 1,700 folders !!

Sure does seem a lot........

Update Foxit PDF reader !

bill — Sat, 24 May 2008 02:33:00 GMT

If you have Foxit PDF reader, make sure you update to the latest build, V2.3 Build 2923. This fixes a potential bug in the way script is passed that could lead to a buffer overflow exploit.

If you don't have Foxit, get it now, and dump that old Adobe Acrobat Reader bloatware stuff. Foxit is light weight and fast. I've been using it for a couple of months now, and won't go back to Adobe, that's for sure.

Oh, and if you do have Acrobat Reader installed, also make sure it is patched. You will probably also find that Adobe loads a quick launch into your system's startup to make it *appear* it start's quickly, when in fact it just slows down your system's startup times. (run msconfig to remove it)

The download for foxit reader is about 2.3 MB.

Enjoy :)

Accessibility

bill — Thu, 22 May 2008 04:55:00 GMT

I was reading Kathleen's recent blog entry about Office and Windows and accessibility. Kathleen was referring to the cases where you don't have a mouse, only keyboard, and the fact that CTRL+I wasn't discoverable in that scenario. I have mixed feeling about the Office 2007 UI: I actually think it is a step in the right direction *visually*, but lacking a lot of features especially customization. But as far as accessibility for the visually impaired goes it is terrible.

Please take the time to try this at home :

Put on a set of dark glasses and turn your monitor to dim as possible, or if you are really game, make it so as you can't see the monitor at all.
Turn on Microsoft Narrator from Windows Ease Of Access tools
Try using a simple app like Notepad. It takes some getting use to, but you will get clear information about the application bar, how many menu items, etc.
Now try using Word. Try using the ribbon.

At this point you should now be saying like "oh my god .." or "those bastards ..." or something in that vein. Please do take the few minutes it takes to try this.

One positive takeaway, I need to be always testing this for my apps.

Oh, and I should point out that discovering keyboard shortcuts for the visually impaired is virtually impossible even with the old style menus :(

Windows 2008 (and Vista) f'ugly

bill — Sat, 17 May 2008 08:35:19 GMT

I turn off Aero and themes, and all is good except for the start menu shut down and log-off icons which are just incredibly ugly:

Notice the search icon is showed in colour, but the shut down and log-off are some crappy black and white images. What the f is up with that ?

The trials and tribulations of installing VS 2008 SP1

bill — Fri, 16 May 2008 21:38:03 GMT

I wasn't going to install VS 2008 SP1 Beta on my main development machine until I read a MSDN blog that said the final SP1 will install over the top of it. So I figure there's more good in getting feedback into the system now, than waiting. Installing it on my VPC's would provide limited feedback in comparison. So I decided to dive in ....

First problem was the installer needs an internet connection to download the files. That's actually a real pain if you are using Windows Firewall locked down to only allow known programs. And because the way the installer extracts, and then spawns another exe, it's close to impossible to add a program based rule. You probably could just open up whatever port it is, but the documents don't tell you. For the record, if you have outbound firewall rules, blocking this kind of application that spawns another exe to call home is exactly what you want to do. I was almost at the point where I was going to turn off the firewall while downloading, but I wasn't sure how long that was going to be either. In the end I used a VPC to run the setup to download the files for an administer install. See Heath Stewart's blog entry on the details

So the entire download experience could be a lot better such as up front saying what firewall rules your need and how big the entire download is likely to be. For the record, my SP1 Beta install folder is 785 MB !!

Next came the install process. First time round it failed. I tried again.. it failed. This time I clicked on the install log, and at first it didn't seem to tell me much at all, just that one part failed. At this point, I'm thinking ... oh no, wading through install logs looking for the cryptic clue. Then I noticed the check boxes on the html page that is the install log. They filter what you see. Check the "warnings" box, and the log expands to show lots of stuff (noise <g>) PLUS the warnings highlighted ! So this was a simple scroll, read the highlighted warnings. One warning told me I had to uninstall a VS hotfix.....

Now I'm really not sure why the installer would have explicit details as to what KB's had to be uninstalled, and yet not be able to prompt me to uninstall them, instead forcing me to read the log and repeat the process, but in any case I really do like that error log feature... some good concepts to borrow from.

So I uninstall the known deadly hotfix KB, and try the install again. I waited and waited.. finally the install failed, and it's back to the error log. This time there was something about another KB to do with VSTO being installed. So I uninstalled that and try again.

This time the install ran further, then after a while I get a message about Machine Debugger, saying that it should be closed, and giving me the options of Retry, Ignore and Cancel. I decided to kill the Machine Debugger process, and then clicked on Retry. The installer then said that something failed and that it was rolling back or something like that, but it seemed to be doing nothing. I waited, and waited, and waited... Finally I killed it, and decided to reboot and try again.

This time (I've lost count) the installer got almost as far, and then started that apparent do nothing but saying it's rolling back, and again seemed to be hung. My patience by now is wearing thin, so I only waited and waited instead of three lots of waiting <g> I decide to manually roll back the last few KB's. I open up Programs and Features from Control panel, and order "installed updates" by date, and remove the last four or so. Two of these wanted a reboot, so I let the second prompt for a reboot actually reboot the system.

So I try the install again... at last success :)

Then I open VS 2008 and it says configuring it for the first time ... I have to pick a default profile, all my settings seem lost :( I tried to import what were my previous settings, but they don't restore the IDE to how I had it configured. Finally, I dug up an old settings file from a different OS & Drive, and use that. I still had to go through and make a few changes, such as exe paths etc.

Ah, the funs of Beta :(

Microsoft continues to treat VB as a 2nd class citizen

bill — Thu, 08 May 2008 15:43:28 GMT

It's bad enough when the Windows Live team continually releases their SDKs omitting VB, but when XNA 3.0 CTP is released and STILL NO VB support, it's getting beyond a joke. XNA 3 is for Visual Studio 2008 and lets you do cool things like create games for Zunes, unless of course you want to do that in VB.

Why developers shouldn't do tech support...

bill — Mon, 05 May 2008 09:15:42 GMT

I got an email inviting me to take part in some great deals on some books from a certain company ( name withheld to protect the innocent). As the site was new, they were also encouraging some feedback. As it turned out a lot of the site didn't work for me on my development machine. Here's what I posted:

When a user signs up, deal with non alpha numeric characters, such as ' in addresses. At present it appears as if nothing happens except for a notification of a script error: server returned a 401 from line 605 char 13 I'd also check if the same applies to names, such as O'Brien. Might also be nice if you look at the site on Win 2008 in IE, protected mode on. This is the only site I have problems with, and had to add it to trusted sites to get it to work properly. The accordian panels don't display until that is done. (Works fine on a Vista box though.)

Funny thing is, I reported the issue with ' in address fields, but of course their web based comment gathering stripped all four out of the above message <g>

Here's the "tech support" response:

"We can’t support windows server 2008 protection mode. We’ve been running and testing on windows server 2008. However we’ve disabled Internet explorer protection mode because most websites don’t work correct.

I’ve just registered a new account and it all works fine, although I’m not using windows server 2008 with Internet explorer protection mode active.

If his using windows server 2008 as workstation, well firstly Microsoft offers windows vista as workstation not server. Additionally if he really wants to run windows server 2008 as a workstation like vista, then he should read a Microsoft blog. I’ve personally convert a windows server 2008 box to workstation and I’ve tested the website using this win 2008 box. "

Wooo ! I should " read a Microsoft blog" ??? Gee thanks for the advice.

Sad thing is, this person clearly has no clue what "Protected Mode" is. It isn't peculiar to Win2008, in fact most folks running Vista with UAC on will be running with protected mode on. I think they are probably confusing it with IE Enhanced Security Configuration (or IE ESC for short). Perhaps they should read a few more Microsoft blogs themselves ;)

And note, they seem to have totally missed the problem about apostrophe's !! I'd be a bit worried if the server returns a 401 error rather than dealing with that elegantly. Seems they should probably read a few Microsoft blogs about code security and SQL injection... actually make that some books, not just blogs ..... Hey I know just the site as long as your name isn't O'Brien ;)

SQL Timestamps

bill — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 11:36:16 GMT

I was just reading a work around for timestamps with LINQ or WCF, and I must be stupid, but I just don't get it. In fact, ever since dotnet came out mapping timestamp to a byte array or SqlBinary, I never got why they did that. Timestamp is 8 bytes, so why not just map it to Int64 or UInt64 and for nullable timestamp columns map it to Int64? or UInt64?

Is there some reason why .NET maps it to a SQLBinary type even though we know it's a fixed size not a variable size ?

Apple = Malus or is that "Malice"

bill — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 02:56:01 GMT

What is up with Apple Computers ? Now they are taking GreenNYC to court because they use an apple as their logo. What's next, they'll be telling me I can't refer to any of the individual apples in my orchard as an Apple, instead I must call them Malus domestica ? I think the term "malice" more aptly describes Apple computer's attempt at taking a natural symbol and trying to claim it as their own. Will New York slogans all have to be renamed from "big apple" to "big Malus" ?

that strange feeling of déjà vu ?

bill — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 16:05:00 GMT

Why do they make it that we need to get up at 3AM to set the clocks back to 2AM ? Is it so when you go back to sleep you get to have the same dreams again ? And what about those poor shift workers ? Imagine if your shift finished at 4AM, then as you see 3AM come around the clock goes back to 2AM.... bummer ! Now imagine if they instead changed the clocks during the day (like any sane person would do) ... Let's say the change time was 1PM. You'd go for lunch, at 12 or so, and then just as you were winding up lunch and about to get back to work, it's lunch time all over again ! :) And in the case of daylight savings starting, you'd come back from lunch and it'd be 2PM !! :)

Sounds much better than getting up at 3AM just to change your clocks .

Oh, and don't forget to change the batteries in your smoke alarms !!!

no triffids there ?

bill — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 14:31:56 GMT

I'm in utter disbelieve that people don't automatically know the 1962/63 cult classic film, "the day of the triffids"