Community developer blogs

Ed Courtenay

Recent Posts

• These Boots Are Made For Walking...

  Posted: 23 Apr 2008 at 15:44

  Well, it had to happen sooner or later: after 8 years with IS Solutions, it's time to move on to pastures new - I'll be starting a new job with Clarks in the next few weeks as a Microsoft Architect. It's been an eventful time at IS and I'm going to miss everyone there, but the lure of a job on

• Vista SP1 + Flash

  Posted: 19 Feb 2008 at 09:35

  I installed Vista SP1 last night and all appeared to be well, but when I tried to access YouTube this morning, the Flash video player wasn't working; instead, I got a dialog pop up complaining that it couldn't load a DLL. The solution however was very simple; download the Flash uninstaller from the

• Repton.NET Reloaded

  Posted: 21 Jan 2008 at 16:49

  I was contacted the other day by someone who couldn't get my (now ancient) port of Repton 3 running under Vista; mostly because Microsoft seem to have hidden the .NET 1.1 runtime download (or made it more confusing than necessary for mere mortals to locate and install). Seeing as Vista comes with .

• Opening .NET

  Posted: 04 Oct 2007 at 14:12

  Scott Guthrie's blog entry "Releasing the Source Code for the .NET Framework Libraries" details how Microsoft are finally going to allow access to the .NET framework source code without having to resort to using Lutz Roeder's fantastic Reflector utility - under the terms and conditions of the Micro

• Untouchable Virgin

  Posted: 28 Sep 2007 at 11:26

  The BBC News website has an excellent Q&A article up at the moment dealing with the implications of DRM infested music files in the wake of the closure of Virgin Digital. In case you've not heard about this yet, Virgin Digital is closing its doors which means that any Club subscribers will now

• Cracked Pepper

  Posted: 30 Jul 2007 at 13:39

  I've just stumbled upon one of the best mash-up albums I've ever heard; it's called "Cracked Pepper" by ccc / Ill Chemist which takes each track from Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band in turn and mashes them with tracks by other artists making completely new songs while leaving the originals re

• Shambo-lic High Court Ruling

  Posted: 16 Jul 2007 at 16:04

  Here we go again; why is it that the moment a group of people invoke their own version of the ‘magical sky-fairy’ myth, they're imbued with some form of special privilege? Today’s case in point is the frankly idiotic ruling by the High Court to quash a destruction order on Shambo the bullock - beca

• Celebrity Lookalikes

  Posted: 11 Jul 2007 at 14:11

  Just stumbled on this face recognition system on MyHeritage.com (via Phil South's blog) and just had to have a go. And the results are, well, slightly dubious! David Lloyd George? Naah.

• Wendy Houses Of The Soul

  Posted: 26 Apr 2007 at 13:44

  I just stumbled across this video by Pat Condell while I was looking around www.earthsgreatestlawsuit.org (I hope they're serious; if there's one thing I despise as much as religion it's slimeballs fleecing those guillible enough to believe in the first place. Step forward Benny Hinn, Peter Po

• Happy 25th Birthday!

  Posted: 24 Apr 2007 at 14:06

  As various sources have reported, yesterday was the 25th birthday of the ZX Spectrum - the launchpad of many a software developer (myself included). The speccy was my first home machine, originally in the 16k flavour before quickly getting it returned and upgraded to a whopping 48k. In honour

• Petition

  Posted: 03 Jan 2007 at 16:55

  As a long standing atheist (product of a Roman Catholic education), I have long been uneasy about the grip on education exerted by various religious groups – be they Islamic, Church of England, Roman Catholic or Pastafarian. One of the presents I was given over the festive period was Richard Dawkin

• Testing Times Concluded

  Posted: 08 Dec 2006 at 12:03

  I shouldn't have got myself so wound up about the 70-536 exam I did this morning. The 'real world' questions were not nearly as bad as the Training Kit had me expecting, and there certainly weren't any howlers like the example I posted yesterday, so it came as a great relief to pass comfortably. Mi

• Testing Times

  Posted: 07 Dec 2006 at 10:45

  I'm sitting the 70-536 (Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 – Application Development Foundation) exam tomorrow, and I sincerely hope that it's of a higher quality than the learning materials Microsoft provide for it. I've been testing myself using the official MCTS 70-536 Training Kit, and running the ex

• Elevate Privileges Shortcut

  Posted: 30 Nov 2006 at 10:37

  I stumbled across a useful shortcut in Vista for elevating privileges; often you'll need to run a command prompt or another application as an administrative account (if you want to run bcdedit for example). One way is to bring up the Start menu with the Windows key, and type cmd (or the name of the

• And What Have You Done With My Body, God?

  Posted: 22 Nov 2006 at 23:55

  I've just finished having my mind mangled again for the umpteenth time by the Art Of Noise - probably one of the most infuential 'bands' of the 1980s, or at least before Anne Dudley, J. J. Jeczalik and Gary Langhan jumped the good ship ZTT and went their separate ways with China Records becomi

• One Born Every Minute

  Posted: 20 Nov 2006 at 17:19

  Good to see that the scalpers are out in force on eBay, proving that you can sell any old crap; how about a boxed copy of Windows Vista RC1? Sheesh... (You've gotta love the comment - "This is a prerelease versaion[sic] of Windows vista , works perfectly "!)

• Monad Moanin'

  Posted: 20 Nov 2006 at 13:44

  Last week, Microsoft quietly released Windows Powershell 1.0 (formally known as Monad) to the world. This is a great piece of technology that's worth taking some notice of - it's destined to become my Windows shell of choice; at least when a version for Vista is released. As it is, I'm stuck using

• Vista RTM - free!

  Posted: 20 Nov 2006 at 11:31

  Over the years I've been given a bunch of stuff by Microsoft; replacement keyboards for out of production units, replacement mice for malfunctioning drivers, Picture It! (which I'll admit I've never used) - and on Friday I got Vista for free, because I'd submitted a bug report while on the Beta. Now

• SQL 2005 Upgrade Gotcha

  Posted: 31 Oct 2006 at 12:23

  Damn, this sorta thing makes me so mad....! I've just been fighting with a SQL Server 2005 Enterprise Edition upgrade at my employer; it should have been a simple upgrade from SQL Server 2000, but halfway through the installation process I was getting a "SQL Server setup could not validate the serv

• XML Woes

  Posted: 15 Jun 2006 at 11:59

  Amongst the many roles I seem to undertake at my current employer (.NET Evangelist, NHibernate Evangelist, ATLAS Evangelist and so on), I also spend a large amount of my time dealing with XML technologies - whether it be transformation, serialization, querying or whatever. Over time I've seen some t