.NET Performance : OT

Handango not posting negative reviews

nick — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 23:49:52 GMT

A couple of weeks ago I purchased the eGlass BookReader from Handango, partly because of the problem with WMDC that I spoke about in my last post. The reader was pretty poor, particularly in its reading experience of PDF books. In reflow mode, you have to change back to scaled view before you can advance to the next page in the document, which makes for a tedious reading experience. In the end, I ditched the eGlass reader out of frustration.

I got an email from Handango asking for a review, and as the product had been particularly useless, I decided it was worth the time warning others not to waste their money. The rules for reviews on Handango are quite restrictive, but I made sure I stayed within the guidelines and only mentioned I was unhappy with the product because of the clumsy paging-turning support in the PDF reader. For the record, I gave the product the lowest review of 1 star.

Suspiciously, my review has yet to appear, and I've received no feedback or confirmation from Handango. Here is the page for the product, which miraculously contains no reviews at all.

It seems my sensored review is not an isolated case. Another one here. And another.

Filling in a technical support web form, and getting a response- well done DiskView!

nick — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 09:53:59 GMT

A couple of months before Vista was release, I purchased a copy of DiskView to track down where all my hard disk space was being eaten up on a Windows XP install (it turned out to be several multi-gigabyte files that DivX converter had left lying around).

A version of DiskView that support Vista has recently been released, but when I tried it, I got an error with code 2738 during installation. I checked the website support page, and didn't see any resolution for this issue, so I tried filling in the support page without much hope of ever receiving an answer. Only a couple of hours later I got the following email:

Error 2738 may occur in Windows Vista when a custom install action is required by a software installer and VBScript is not registered. I'm not sure why it is occurring on your computer, as it seems to work fineon other Vista installations. I also just installed DiskView with no errors on a fresh Windows Vista Ultimate virtual machine.

Can you try the following?

Start Button > All Programs > Accessories Right-click on "Command Prompt"
Select "Run as Administrator"
Type cd \ and press ENTER
Type cd C:\Windows\System32 and press ENTER Type regsvr32 vbscript.dll and press ENTER You should receive a message that the DLL has been successfully registered.

Try the DiskView installation again. Please let me know how it goes.

Re-registering vbscript.dll fixed the problem
So, not only is DiskView a really good product, there technical support is excellent.

The Zion NP Adventure - Getting Bogged in the snow and locked out of the car

nick — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 22:25:02 GMT

At the end of my trip in Zion I had a real adventure on the Sunday afternoon while attempting to drive up to the Kolob Reservoir. The road up to the Reservoir goes through some of Zion's highest country, and as I drove up the road the snow kept getting deeper and more frequent. As I got towards the Lava Point trail-head, there was a family stopped by the side of a snow patch, and I waited for them to clear the road and gunned the Ford Explorer I was renting to try and get through the snow, which didn't look that deep to me.

About a third of the way through I got beached on a thicker patch of snow, with none of the wheels touching the road. As I was chocking wood and rocks under the wheels to try and get some traction and reverse out of the snow, I left the car in slow reverse to get the stuff under the wheels further. As I was doing the passenger-side wheel, a gust of wind blew the drivers door shut, and as the wheels where turning slowly in reverse, the anti-car jacking system kicked in, and auto-locked all the doors.

This left me locked out, with a hire-car in slow reverse (and with a cliff a hundred or so meters behind the car), and the snow that the car was beached on slowly melting from the heat of the engine. Thankfully, the family by the side of the road where extremely friendly locals, and we got the jack extension arm from their truck, and unscrewed the radio aerial from the rental car, which after some bending, could make it through the gap between the door of the car and the roof. The door was being prized open with the jack extension arm, and we could eventually get the areal to make contact with auto-window controls and open the window. The local family then towed me out.

I bought a dent-puller when I got to Las Vegas, and spent an hour or so doing some amateur panel beating in a North Las Vegas car park fixing some of the more creative attempts I used to get into the hire car. Thankfully, the car was in an appropriate state when returned to the hire company to avoid any charges .

I'd especially like to thank the family from Hurricane UT that where instrumental out of the snow - much appreciated.

At the bottom of the pyramid

nick — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 02:22:03 GMT

In response to Glav's tag, here are five things you didn't want to know about me:

Software is actually my third career - the Australian Army (4 years) and Coastal Engineering (3 years) preceded it. I much prefer software.

I have a Masters Degree in Engineering from RMIT that I did by research. The topic was The Effect of Beach Dewatering as a Viable Coastal Protection System in Micro-tidal Environments.

I only drive Toyota's, but would consider a Lexus

My last date of full-time employment was 25 Feb 2000.

I had an MSDN subscription back when you used to get all those foreign language discs. My CD contain IE 3.02 Estonian remains unused. I keep it just in case.

Glav tagged most of my small circle of Sydney-based .NET. Derek and Sam doesn't blog. Has young Paul been done?

Update Pre- and Post-MVP Summit Plans

nick — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 06:09:15 GMT

2 Mar - Arrive LA 10:00AM (crossing International Date Line - Leave work after work Friday).
Fly/ drive to Flagstaff. Drive to Grand Canyon. Night at Grand Canyon Lodge

3,4,5 Mar Grand Canyon Trekking
3 Mar - South Kaibab Trail to Bright Angel
4 Mar - Day trip to Ribbon Falls. Colorado River
5 Mar - Bright Angel Trial to ~~Nth Rim~~ back to Sth Rim. Night at Grand Canyon ~~Lodge~~ Village or Page

6-7 Mar Travel to Yosemite via Zion National Park, Page (Antelope Canyons)
6 Mar AM. Antelope Canyons
6 Mar PM. Zion National Park. Night at Springdale.
7 Mar AM. Zion National Park
7 Mar PM. Travel to Yosemite

8,9,10, 11 Mar Yosemite Trekking

12 Mar Travel to Seattle. Drop car SF

15, 16 Mar Olympic National Park

Planning some hiking/ photography pre- and post- MVP International Summit

nick — Sun, 22 Oct 2006 11:13:16 GMT

I'm currently planning on doing some site seeing pre- and post- the MVP Summit (12-15 Mar 2007). The initial plans are:

2 Mar 2007 - Arrive LA 10:00AM (crossing International Date Line - Leave work after work Friday). Fly to Flagstaff by 2pm (or drive). Grand Canyon by 4pm. Camp first night near start of hike

3,4,5,6 Mar Grand Canyon Trekking

7 Mar Travel to Yosemite via Zion National Park, Page (Antelope Canyons)

8,9,10 Mar Yosemite Trekking

11 Mar Travel to Seattle. Drop car off at San Fran - fly

15, 16 Mar Olympic National Park
Drop me a line if you're going to the summit and planning something similar or would like to come along. More details on hikes coming soon.

Life with a newborn

nick — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 06:47:10 GMT

As my previous post announced, Linda and I are the proud parents of a healthy new son called Alex. Alex is coming up to two weeks on Thursday, which marks a third of the way through the first six weeks. Six weeks in the real first milestone where the newborn becomes a baby, and is one of the more interesting phases because of the complete lack of predictability in sleep patterns. Its a real paradox that a newborn can spend something like 60 - 75% of their time asleep yet keep you up all-night. We've been a fair bit more organised this time around, and have found the process smoother.

One of the mistakes we made when Jess came along was to plan a number of family get-togethers, BBQs and events to celebrate the new baby and to show here off. This time around we haven't made anywhere near as many plans, and have get the weekends for resting and spending time together. At a personal level, I haven't planned any leisure activities at all. I have activities that I can do if the opportunity arises, things like going for a surf-ski, but have no definite plan when I am going to do them. When an opportunity arises, I go for a surf-ski, but if Alex decides that he is going to be unsettled all day, I am not upset at having missed out on a planned activity. Also, I've organised a number of books and magazines I can read while cradling Alex in my arm - I spent way too much time with Jess watching crappy Foxtel programs because I didn't have a secondary activity organised when Jess was sleeping in my arms.

The other thing that Linda and I have done pretty well this time around is being clear who is on-watch and who can get some rest. One of the big mistakes with an unsettled newborn is for both parents to mill around for hours, and both end up fatigued. Newborns are guaranteed to have some unsettled periods where they are impossible to calm down to sleep, but that doesn't mean you both need to be missing sleep because of it.

Alex arrives safe and well

nick — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 06:01:58 GMT

Little Alex finally made it through at 6.30pm last night (28 Sep) after a couple of hours of labour. He was 3.345kg (a lot smaller than Jess), and was 50cm long (which was about the same as Jess). Linda and Alex are doing great - he hasn't really woken up yet. Here are few shots:

Alex with his big sister Jess and Aunt Louise

The new addition with Mum and Dad

On the move

nick — Tue, 02 May 2006 10:15:00 GMT

This weekend we move from out unit in Cronulla (Google Earth link) to a house in Yowie Bay (Google Earth link). We tried hard to find a house in Cronulla, but they where just too expensive for the quality of house. Funnily enough, the house is across the bay from my parents house where I grew up (Google Earth link). The Google Earth links are zipped because WebHost4Life won't serve KAZ files for some reason.

For those without Google Earth, here is where the new place is:

Child No 2 on the way

nick — Tue, 28 Mar 2006 00:15:00 GMT

We got the 3 month ultra-sound this morning. All in well. Mother and child-to-be are doing well.

Virtual PC and Inspiron 9400

nick — Thu, 23 Mar 2006 23:12:00 GMT

This helps a lot to decrease the crash rate of Virtual PC on an Inspiron 9400. I've had reports the VMWare doesn't have these problems...