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Published on 22 Mar 2006 from
The world's largest computer maker buys Alienware whose PCs are famous for their "Alien" UFO style look.
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Published on 22 Mar 2006 from
The Team Foundation Server (TFS) Installation guide, which can be found here is excellent and makes the whole process very straightforward. I've installed TFS in Single-Server configurations within virtual machines a couple of times now and there are a few issues that you should know about before installing that may save you some time:
Software Installs and Configuration prior to installing
Windows 2003 Server (Standard or Enterprise) - I used Release 2 Enterprise Edition which worked just fine.
IIS (don't install Front Page Server 2002 Extensions as outlined in the guide)
Excel 2003 - install .NET Programmability Support for custom installs.
Project Professional 2003 - install .NET Programmability Support for custom installs.
Office 2003 Service Pack 2
Visual Studio 2005 - Team edition SKU or Team Suite.
Have the following software to hand
SQL Server 2005 (Standard or Enterprise Edition) - have a copy of this to hand as the Developer Edition does not function with TFS apparently! but do follow the install guide instructions.
Firewall Ports
Ensure the appropriate firewall ports are opened up for SQL Server 2005 and Team Foundation Server (these are listed in the install guide). Both SQL Server 2005 and TFS open up the required ports during each of their own setup routines, make sure that Windows Firewall is running and switched on so that each setup routine can modify (add) the appropriate exceptions to the firewall configuration.
SQL Server 2005 Hotfix
After installing the SQL Server 2005 Hotfix AS2005-KBnnnnnn-x86-ENU.exe as outlined in the install guide the option to start the SQL Browser Service from the SQL Server Configuration Manager may be unavailable and remain so, even after a reboot. I found the service gets disabled after applying the hotfix. Re-enable and restart the service through Services under Administrative tools.
Pre configure SMTP Server
Ensure you have an SMTP server and a valid email address that will be used for TFS email alerts, already pre configured. You will be prompted for these in the TFS install although these don't necessarily need to be valid, i.e. the install will not block you if either is incorrect.
-installations performed in Microsoft Virtual PC with the TFS Single-Server Configuration option-
More later if I discover anything else.
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Published on 22 Mar 2006 from
The Team Foundation Server (TFS) Installation guide, which can be found here is excellent and makes the whole process very straightforward. I've installed TFS in Single-Server configurations within virtual machines a couple of times now and there are a few issues that you should know about before installing that may save you some time:
Software Installs and Configuration prior to installing
Windows 2003 Server (Standard or Enterprise) - I used Release 2 Enterprise Edition which worked just fine.
IIS (don't install Front Page Server 2002 Extensions as outlined in the guide)
Excel 2003 - install .NET Programmability Support for custom installs.
Project Professional 2003 - install .NET Programmability Support for custom installs.
Office 2003 Service Pack 2
Visual Studio 2005 - Team edition SKU or Team Suite.
Have the following software to hand
SQL Server 2005 (Standard or Enterprise Edition) - have a copy of this to hand as the Developer Edition does not function with TFS apparently! but do follow the install guide instructions.
Firewall Ports
Ensure the appropriate firewall ports are opened up for SQL Server 2005 and Team Foundation Server (these are listed in the install guide). Both SQL Server 2005 and TFS open up the required ports during each of their own setup routines, make sure that Windows Firewall is running and switched on so that each setup routine can modify (add) the appropriate exceptions to the firewall configuration.
SQL Server 2005 Hotfix
After installing the SQL Server 2005 Hotfix AS2005-KBnnnnnn-x86-ENU.exe as outlined in the install guide the option to start the SQL Browser Service from the SQL Server Configuration Manager may be unavailable and remain so, even after a reboot. I found the service gets disabled after applying the hotfix. Re-enable and restart the service through Services under Administrative tools.
Pre configure SMTP Server
Ensure you have an SMTP server and a valid email address that will be used for TFS email alerts, already pre configured. You will be prompted for these in the TFS install although these don't necessarily need to be valid, i.e. the install will not block you if either is incorrect.
-installations performed in Microsoft Virtual PC with the TFS Single-Server Configuration option-
More later if I discover anything else.
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Published on 22 Mar 2006 from
Interesting article from Zapthink about Web 2.0 and SOA, or as they call it Mashups and SOBA's. The start with the asking if web 2.0 is important for the enterprise and their conclusion?
The writing is on the wall: the enterprise mashup is the future of the SOBA consumer
Yup, that’s why we held spark!
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Published on 22 Mar 2006 from
D’oh. Looks like I can’t use script/console just at the moment on my VPS’s install of Ruby, which I seem to remember just installing via my host’s apt repository for Red Hat Enterprise 4.
Anyway, here’s the output of the command::
Loading development environment.
/usr/local/lib/ruby/1.8/irb/completion.rb:10:in `require':
no such file to load -- readline (LoadError)
from /usr/local/lib/ruby/1.8/irb/completion.rb:10
from /usr/local/lib/ruby/1.8/irb/init.rb:252:in `load_modules'
from /usr/local/lib/ruby/1.8/irb/init.rb:250:in `load_modules'
from /usr/local/lib/ruby/1.8/irb/init.rb:21:in `setup'
from /usr/local/lib/ruby/1.8/irb.rb:54:in `start'
from /usr/local/bin/irb:13
Do I have to rebuild Ruby for readline to be included? Or is anyone aware of any clever hackery to avoid it? I’d just rather not be tinkering with Ruby on my server which would surely kill a few things whilst I do.
Incidentally I need this because I’m trying to get a clever way of migrating data from MySQL to Postgresql and rather than hacking away at SQL statements I thought it’d be much nicer to bend Chad Fowler’s suggestion in Rails Recipes to extract data to YAML from MySQL and then back from YAML to Postgresql and let Ruby and ActiveRecord do the legwork.
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Published on 22 Mar 2006 from
I posted two articles on doing efficient data paging with ASP.NET 2.0 and SQL 2005 earlier this year:
Scott Mitchell just posted two great articles discussing custom paging and the ObjectDataSource control even further, and includes SQL profile data and traces to quantify the performance gains you can realize from it. You can read them here:
Definitely worth checking out!
Hope this helps,
Scott
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Published on 22 Mar 2006 from
The latest bits of Atlas (the March Community Technology Preview) are now online.
Atlas is a free framework that uses AJAX techniques for building a new generation of richer, more interactive, highly personalized standards based Web applications. If you have not seen it before, take a 15 minutes out to watch Scott Guthrie create a simple Web application with ASP.NET 2.0 and then add Atlas capabilities to it.
Atlas Web Site
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Published on 22 Mar 2006 from
Three executives at Samsung plead guilty on charges of conspiring to fix the price of computer memory chips.
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Published on 22 Mar 2006 from
Bill Gates has delivered another keynote - this time at the Office System Developers Conference yesterday (view the recording here...). I listened to the recording, and even though I'm not a developer, I wanted to hear what he has to say about the new way that the 2007 Office system connects, interacts and exchanges information with another application. I really love this version of Outlook - since I've installed the 2007 beta I can't go back to my other PC version (using Outlook 2003). So it's certainly changed the way I manage my team (I love the way that if I don't get round to completing a task one day, it hops onto the next day, so I get an ever increasing list of stuff to do..). Bill talks about the ribbon (which takes a bit of getting used to, I can tell you!) and about the new server side of Office.
There's a nice demo too on how Sharepoint 2007 server connects to back end data stores too, talking information from Excel services (which is programmable) and publishing it into the portal, using custom actions to create different UI's. The demo also covered using Infopath forms services to submit a form to a form library to be used by workflow. Impressive demo of collaboration between products.
By the way, if you want to stay in touch with what's going on with Sharepoint by subscribing to the Sharepoint Team blog and don't forget to keep in touch with whats going on in XML land on Brians blog...
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Published on 22 Mar 2006 from
Recent conversations over at 456 Berea Street on the subject of whether a new solution for clearing floats without structural markup is needed, required an answer. So at MIX06 I sat down with seven's developers to find a recommended answer to the question.
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Published on 22 Mar 2006 from
If you’re viewing this through your web-browser then you will (hopefully) notice the new theme that I’m trialling. I was previously using Hemingway a brilliant theme produced for the original Typo theme contest at TypoGarden.
Although I loved its two column layout, it could become a little difficult to read the home-page, and for the usual sidebar stuff (links to archives, searching and the like) you had to scroll to the bottom of the page, not that great a usability thing.
Then today I noticed Brighthouse on the TypoGarden site. It’s a much lighter, brighter looking theme, and hopefully just as clear and perhaps even a little more usable?
So, to all those who have seen the site both pre and post Hemingway, how do you feel? Think it’s worth the swap? Or am I to expect a great swathe of unapologetic apathy :)
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Published on 22 Mar 2006 from
Thank you Microsoft for
this now freely available bug fix to the bug, described in KB319740.
This is one of those bugs, and one that has bugged me for a long, long time. I use a mail and news product called Turnpike. It has many advantages over OE but I
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Published on 22 Mar 2006 from
As Scott Hanselman has been so enthusiastic about Watir (Web Application Testing In Ruby) I thought I ought to give it a try, and have been mighty impressed. It basically allows you to "drive" IE and then query the DOM to check that all is well. Bonuses are:
- Integrates well with Ruby unit test framework
- Recorders are available (Scott's own, which I can't find a link for, and Watir WebRecorder for Ruby [also free]). These are pretty basic, though, and I actually prefer the "exploration" approach using
irb
And to help you on your way, I've posted a helper class and module with an example over in the Code Samples section of my family website. Enjoy...
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Published on 22 Mar 2006 from
This is the first story I've seen thus far around MS delaying Vista (again). I hate the delay, but I think it's the right answer.
{later}
There are now lots of more articles on line about this! This post notes the impact the delay is having on MS sha
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Published on 22 Mar 2006 from
The BBC's plans for an internet TV service are to undergo new public value tests before they go live.
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Published on 22 Mar 2006 from
On March 21 to coincide with Office Developer Conference, Microsoft has lifted all NDA restrictions with the exception of a couple of products not yet announced.
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Published on 22 Mar 2006 from
Chris Lanier posted a link to a great thread on The Green Button about how to get Sky working with a DVB-S card on Media Center.
Its not 100% but its on its way to being better that using analog capture cards.
I would love to see Sky and Microsoft get together to create an official solution
The Green Button Thread
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Published on 22 Mar 2006 from
If you've got some time free and want to know about SQL Server 2005 SP1 then the webchat is starting in a few minutes.
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/community/chats/default.mspx#06_0322_TN_SQL
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Published on 22 Mar 2006 from
If you've got some time free and want to know about SQL Server 2005 SP1 then the webchat is starting in a few minutes.
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/community/chats/default.mspx#06_0322_TN_SQL
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Published on 22 Mar 2006 from
So as the final day begins heres my thoughts on day 2. All the WPF sessions I attended were great, yesterday was a real WPF day. I was expecting a little more from the WPF\E session but its early days yet I guess. Highlights of the day was putting faces to names with Phil and Erine, seeing the WPF\E stuff and the end of day party that myspace held. Low of the day was taking a tumble down some stairs, it rained yesterday in Vegas and the steps were very slippy, bruised my arm for the trouble.
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Published on 22 Mar 2006 from
Explicit content warning! Wow! That got your attention, I bet!
Actually I just wanted to warn you explicitly that this blog item contains nothing that is the slightest bit VB.NET related. So if you were hoping for some meaningful insight into a nagging technical VB problem, you’ll probably be disappointed.
Then again, if you’ve read my other blog items that are VB.NET related, you’ll be no stranger to disappointment.
Anyhow, moving quickly on, I was browsing a newsgroup recently where somebody came up with the tongue in cheek question; “What’s the plural of spouse – is it spice?” As in variety … of life.
<Sigh> I know, I know I don’t have to explain it for a switched on cookie like you , but it’s the others, you know …..
That post kind of got me thinking about things like that. You know, questions like:
“What’s the singular of spouse - is it divorcee?”
Or is the past participle of spouse: girlfriend?
And one for the mathematicians; “Is the negative of spouse: space?” - something my wife would attest to as she mutters her way round the house picking up my computer clutter.
Which made me wonder - if you attest twice, have you passed the whole examination, or is that just two tests?
And is the future tense of “Marriage” having to meet the father in law? Or "true love" the definite article?
Words and grammar is lots very confusing, innit?
I mean, for example what’s the definition of definition?
Or what’s the opposite of apposite? (And is it appropriate to ask?)
And is the plural of opera: Winfreys ? Or the plural of Song: a Korean couple?
Questions, questions, questions. Luckily, I’m not going to ramble on with answers, answers, answers. Enough of this nonsense - back to the coding board and get some real work done. Er, that’s me I’m talking to, not you. You obviously have nothing to do if you’re still sat there reading this drivel .
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Published on 22 Mar 2006 from
Apple strongly criticises a French law that could force it to open up music from iTunes to all MP3 players.
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Published on 22 Mar 2006 from
I've been using a power toy from Microsoft called SyncToy v1.0 for Windows XP for some time now. It works great for syncronizing various file types between multiple machines. In one example I syncronize a projects folder across 5 machines (3 laptops and two pcs) so I can work on these projects on whichever machine I feel like doing so at the moment. I also use it do some syncronizing of video files recorded with Media Center Edition to the laptop(s) so I can watch these videos on the go. Of course, by syncronizing, I'm meaning that it only has to copy what is different; thus reducing the copying time.
It appears that a new version of this power toy was released sometime after 3/9/2006 and it's called, appropriately enough, SyncToy v1.1 for Windows XP. Not really sure what has changed from a functional standpoint... but I can tell you what has changed from a visual standpoint. AND IT'S NOT A GOOD CHANGE!
Before I move on to what the problem is, let me show you two screen shots.
SyncToy v1.0 for Windows XP
SyncToy v1.1 for Windows XP
See any difference in the UI? (Hint, look at the buttons.)
I know I might be a little anal in regards to this particular issue, but when I see something that is called:
SyncToy 1.1 for Windows XP
Then, to me, there's just some things it should do. First and foremost, it should look like something that is designed to run on Windows XP; meaning, it should utilize XP Visual Styles. Obviously it was done correctly in 1.0; but for some strange reason this somehow got “removed” from the 1.1 version. Why?
What I installed this new version on a new machine, I thought I had some sort of configuration problem. At first I didn't realize that there was a new version and running the 1.0 version on one machine looked correct and on the new machine (running 1.1) the buttons, listview, etc. were using the non-visual styles UI elements. Once I realized that the “new” version somehow dropped this; I had a WTF moment.
Why?!?!... Why!?!?... Why?!?!.... Oh! Why!?!?! has this changed? How is it possible that some lines of code, or a manifest file, from the previous version managed to “remove” itself from the new version/build?
Yeah... I know it's a free product... but come on... XP has been out for how long now? You'd think that XP Visual Styles would be the norm in software today... even more so... you'd think that if it supported visual styles that it would have continued to support it as a new version was released. Grrrrrr!!!
Note: As this is a visual issue, this doesn't mean I'm going to stop using the tool. It's just downright annoying. If you haven't looked at the power toy... do yourself a favor and do so. Lots of options to handle lots of scenarios.
(And for those reading my blog for a while... yes, this isn't the first time I've pointed this type of thing out.)
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Published on 22 Mar 2006 from
According to this article Microsoft is planning on bring a subset of WPF to older versions of Windows and Smartphones. Great, they're both MS OSs that have .NET available already. The article also states that it will support MacOS as well though.
This isn't full WPF as it seems to be designed for running through web browsers as a sort of Ajax replacement I guess, but what can you do with just Javascript? I wouldn't want to write anything serious in Javascript so it's going to be limited to small applications with server back ends. I really can't see the point as it's going to have to be such a small subset that it's only going to be able to be useful for the most basic of things.
I've been wrong many times before though, so it may be a brilliant move for all I know.
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Published on 22 Mar 2006 from
Why is the S-Video output from my MacBook Pro so much better than I've managed to get from any PC that I've tried? What is the Mac doing differently? I don't believe that everything I've tried (including very expensive PC laptops) just has substandard hardware.
In other news: Vista delayed again. Not by much, but it's another boring setback. I wish it would just hurry up and be released so I could use it because XP just looks so primative after you've used the new accelerated UI for a while.
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Published on 22 Mar 2006 from
I know a whole load of people who are complaining about connecting to there PC with the new ActiveSync 4.1, I was one of them until I got some friendly advice from Neil Chapman about firewall settings. These can be found here.
But unfortunately that wasn't the full solution. Some of you are having problems when your connected to the PC via USB, but still not initiating a sync...
Well I found a workaround;
- Open your network connections Start > Connect To > Show All Connections
- Select the properties for the device named Windows Mobile-based device
- Ensure all the items are checked in the list box below the following This connection uses the following items
Don't ask me why these are not set as default sometimes... But hey, I'm sure it will in the next update.
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Published on 22 Mar 2006 from
OK well I got into the beginnings of a discussion with Daniel Appelquist this evening about how we go about defining the Mobile Web 2.0 movement. The first question that came up was do you mean mobile-web 2.0 or mobile web-2.0? So to define... I think there are 2 parts to this discussion, firstly web 2.0 in relation to mobile devices (mobile-web 2.0)i.e. the extensions of web 2.0 applications to mobile devices, and secondly the mobile version of web 2.0 (mobile web-2.0) i.e. the recent distinct steps that mobile has taken to get from stage 1. (Wap is C***) to stage 2.(where we are now -> where we are going to go!)
The cause of this discussion was to work out a panel of people to put forward for Mobile Monday in April. Initially Daniel asked me if I would be interested but I don't think that I necessarily have the experience for that if he means mobile web-2.0. For a start I've never had the time to create a mobile phone based rss reader, and I rarely blog to my site using my mobile and I have never ever tried uploading my photo's on my mobile to Flickr. (mainly because I hate inputting large quantities of data over mobile! It's clumsy, expensive and unusable!) If he meant how mobile has changed over the years... then possibly... I started playing with mobile applications when Visual Studio 2003 first came out in Beta test version and the first things I started playing with were web services and mobile applications over wap via gprs. (what a nightmare! no documentation, full of bugs and sooo unusable it was unbelievable) Today it has all changed rather a lot and we now have more usable, simple mobile apps online and also on devices that are starting to do useful things. I say starting because I believe they have an awful lot further to go before they really become mainstream, but there needs to be a lot of things that happen before that happens.
The key drivers for mobile applications and the mobile web to really take off in my mind seems to be very different to what the mobilists and the network service providers seem to think. To me mobile web and mobile applications will take off when the cost of data transfer is dramatically reduced, be it by open wifi access, cheaper data transfer through 3G or Wimax taking off and completely opening up the data transfer market.
Secondly I think that there needs to be a simple way of creating mobile interfaces cross platform and cross device. Easy as it may sound when people say just use the browser... what happens when you don't want to do that! What happens in sometimes connected systems? There are solutions for the PDA style phones but they aren't your average phone, they are for business use and for field service staff really... you can't easily fit them in your pocket for a start!
The usability of the interfaces to mobile really do need a lot of work doing on them to ensure that anyone and everyone can interact with their device. I think here a key factor is voice recognition and voice commands. How often in mobile devices do you find that you don't have enough time or hands free to do everything you need to do? How often is your attention caught by something else when working with a mobile device? How often are you trying to drive a car when needing to use your mobile? All these things need to be considered (and many, many more!)
I could go on further.... but I think that may be part 2, for another day!
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Published on 22 Mar 2006 from
I’ve been so busy with Rails of late, as well as working on .NET 1.1 code that I’ve not really had the opportunity to dive into using Visual Studio 2005.
Over the last 2 days I’ve been using it almost exclusively (the rails work is a lower priority right now). Most of it I’d say is a big improvement, at least in terms of it not hanging (which 2003 used to do almost hourly for me).
However, the thing I’m really hankering after is the solid release of ReSharper from the brilliant guys at JetBrains. And here’s why …
I’ve been using ReSharper with Visual Studio 2003 for probably 15 months or so now, and have found it to be one of the most invaluable tools I use (along with Reflector, CruiseControl.net, NUnit, TestDriven.net, Clover.NET, the list goes on :). But ReSharper just makes the development process nicer.
I can add references and not worry about having to add the using statement myself, ReSharper pops up the red for me automatically. It makes writing code test-first easier, I can write a statement then have ReSharper write the new class/property/method when it recognises it doesn’t already exist. And now, with ReSharper 2 (via. their EAP program) I’ve been using their built-in unit testing runner.
Previous EAP builds have been a little buggy, and the unit test runner has been pretty darn slow, but this seems to have improved with the latest build. At least to the point where I can use it and tolerate the occasional unhandled exception message appear. I just can’t wait for it to be released, which I believe is very soon!
In fact, I find their unit test runner experience to be superior to TDD.net’s, and NUnit GUI’s.
- It sits in a window giving me a constant green/red bar. With TDD.net it kind of hides away after I run the tests and go back to the code. It’s a good constant reminder of progress. A positive psychological thing.
- When I then update the code and rebuild, it will colour the tests that existed and ran previously a slightly different colour. Obviously these should all be green, but, its nice to see which tests I’d just run and just added etc.
- It has a very nice assertion message viewer that is formatted. It’s surprising just how much nicer this is to use. Both NUnit’s GUI and TDD.net just display regular text. It can be difficult to separate messages from the stack trace, and messages can even be hard to read.
- For
Assert.AreEqual(string, string) assertions, it’s posssible to get a diff view of the comparison. This would’ve been extremely useful where we’ve previously done stuff in the past to compare generated HTML and templates for mail merges, where its often just an Environment.NewLine out, or a space misplaced in a sea of markup.
In fact, it makes me wish that Ruby’s Test::Unit unit test framework had a way of colouring the messages it displayed so my Rails’ rake test_units and test_functional commands would be easier to see at a glance in the terminal window.
Don’t worry, despite my happiness with a ReSharper + Visual Studio 2005, I still have hankerings to get back to the Ruby on Rails development later tonight and tomorrow! Let the fun begin! I’ve got some great projects lined up, including one or two multiplayer online games! More on those soon!
Oh, and apologies for the lack of regular updates, it won’t happen again. I promise.
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Published on 22 Mar 2006 from
We have a requirement to restore a database every night to a back up copy. This back-up copy will have people using it at times so there may be active connections that will stop the restore job from taking place. To get around this problem, we add some Transact-SQL to the restore job to clear all connections to the database. This Transact-SQL code looks like this:
use master
declare @vcdbname varchar(50)
Set @vcdbname = 'DatabaseName'
set nocount on
declare Users cursor for
select spid
from master..sysprocesses
where db_name(dbid) = @vcdbname
declare @spid int, @str varchar(255)
open users
fetch next from users into @spid
while @@fetch_status <> -1
begin
if @@fetch_status = 0
begin
set @str = 'kill ' + convert(varchar, @spid)
exec (@str)
end
fetch next from users into @spid
end
deallocate users
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Published on 22 Mar 2006 from
A blogger apologises for turning comments from actor George Clooney's interviews into an entry on her site.
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Published on 22 Mar 2006 from
The year 2006 is only 3 months old but it has been crazy for me! "Busy is implicit" (that has been my IM personal message text) doesn't begin to describe it. In random order here is what I have been up to.
* Principles of Architecture II course. A week-long intensive internal course about software and infrastructure architecture. Maybe my fault for expecting a lot more from this, but on the whole I was left unimpressed.
* BizTalk 2004 CSS. Internal self-study course, for which I was given a ton of material and resources. Did not have high expectations, but found it rather interesting. Good to know about the technology but, no, I have no plans to sign up for any project using it (too much mouse-pushing for my liking). Very powerful tool and its price tag reflects that...
* Completed the SharePoint project I was working on. This was a big win, as the client was delighted with the work I did there…
* Working for Avanade means that you *must* get Microsoft certified. So I thought I'd play game, even though I've always looked down on these. So, after 3 MCP exams, I am now a MCAD (Microsoft Certified Application Developer). To be honest, I did have to study for the exams and I did learn quite a bit (in a broad, shallow sense). Not that I have some new found respect for people that hold the certification, but I don't have any contempt either (if that makes any sense :-S).
* As well as speaking at the "swimming pool" room at Microsoft’s offices in London, I also attended an MSDN event there on Indigo (or WCF, if you like) by Mike Taulty and Mike Ormond. A lot of great events take place there so, if you are in London, you should be monitoring the activity...
* Speaking of "speaking", I've been waiting for my name to appear on the official list before sharing this but I am fed up of waiting now so here it is: I am on the INETA speaker list! If you run a user group, feel free to contact INETA to arrange for me to speak on a topic of interest to you...
* While I didn't attend DevDays in London, that week I had the pleasure of having dinner with a handful of smart people organised by the Wintellect guys (Jeffrey Richter wasn't there but Jeff Prosise & Justin Smith were :-)).
* Anyone that has been through a house purchase in the UK knows how hectic the procedure is. Well, I went through the house hunting, negotiation, surveys, mortgage applications, estate agent fighting and solicitor chasing... all this for a flat in London. It sounded like a great idea back in October and a few days ago we reached the point where I must sign the contract and transfer the money. Guess what I did? I pulled out! This has cost me unbelievable amounts of stress, time and money. It just didn't make sense anymore due to another change in my life as summarised next.
* A couple of days ago I handed in my resignation to Avanade. Maybe my career desires will change one day and/or maybe Avanade UK will have a different direction one day. Should such a day arrive, I'll be happy to go back. Working for Avanade for 6 months has been an experience...
* Later today I will be at the DNUG meeting if you want to say hi
* Next Monday I will be attending a private 2-day MVP event held in Cambridge. I am looking forward to catching up with all of you who will be there :-D
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Published on 22 Mar 2006 from
The NSPCC is to receive cash donations when computer users search using a special search portal.
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Published on 22 Mar 2006 from
Somehow, in Malarkey world conversations often take an unexpected turn down memory lane. Yesterday I was trying to explain to (a slightly bewildered) Molly about one of my favorite animated cartoon classics, Mr. Benn. So now you know that I'm sat in a chair with a rug over my knees, dribbling and feeling really old.
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Published on 22 Mar 2006 from
Hi Everyone
This is just a quick one to let you all know that the DDD3 sessions have now been finalised and you can vote for the sessions that you would like to see run on the day. Bear in mind that if you vote for them you should at the very least try to attend the ones you vote for. It makes it easier for the organisers to work out what sessions to place when and where. :)
You can vote for your sessions here!
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Published on 22 Mar 2006 from
I'm working on porting my site to ASP.NET 2.0 at the moment. The best part of it is the satisfaction when I look at the latest bit of progress I've made and think "that wasn't there before I started". :)
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Published on 22 Mar 2006 from
In Seattle that is... Microsoft Office System Developers Conference
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Published on 22 Mar 2006 from
Less than a week ago I spent 24 happy hours on a 747/400 in the care of Air New Zealand (who did a great job) returning from Auckland via Los Angeles. Along the way we enjoyed the fun experience that is US immigration - about an hour in a queue to get into a secure transit lounge that you have to leave 5 mins later (though I have to admit the immigration office was polite and courteous - I'd even go so far as to say friendly on this occassion).
Yesterday I spent a (not quite so happy) 18 or so hours travelling in the care of SAS from London to Seattle via Copenhagen. This was to enjoy the benefits of premium exconomy (or "Economy Flex" or whatever SAS call it). My other option was economy direct with BA but the thought of all that time in a cramped BA economy seat was too much for me to contemplate so I thought I'd explore the "long way for a shortcut" option.
I can't complain too much - the flight wasn't bad but Air New Zealand score in a number of ways. Their in-flight entertainment system was *way* better (I noticed it happened to be based on Windows CE) being true "on demand". With SAS I had an individual screen and controller but if you miss the start of a film well, you miss the start of the film. The film choice was also much more restricted (on the trip to NZ I watched The March of the Penguins,