June 17, 2010
Books
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Release It!, Michael T. Nygard
A stunningly good book! I really wish I’d read this book earlier. If you are responsible for developing any kind of web system that needs to be up 24/7 then you must read this. The book is full of useful design patterns and anti-patterns, and I must admit the number of times I thought, ‘yup, trying to fix one of those problems right now’!
My only complaint is that the examples are all Java related, and I develop C# systems, even still the lessons, concepts and patterns are cross platform (some is a bit specific).
If it’s not a course book then it should be! and if it’s not then it should be the first book you read before trying to build a real enterprise level web system.
June 12, 2010
Random
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Gone Tomorrow, Lee Child
Another thrilling installment in the Jack Reacher series. It’s great to be part of another episode in Jack Reachers life. From witnessing a bizarre suicide on a let night subway to a full on conspiracy, with the men in dark suits out to track dowand silence Jack . Brilliant.
May 23, 2010
Random
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1 month late but finally it’s here.
After popping down to the Post Office to pick up the eagerly (and longley) awaited phone and being told that they didn’t have it! then ‘oh no here it is…’ there was much relief and excitement!
It’s a bit of a change going from a ‘proper’ phone to a smart phone is a bit of a shock. I think it’s going to take a bit of getting used to, but it’s already proved it’s usefulness just with the off the shelf apps: navigation, Internet and gmail.
Time will ultimately tell how useful it really is and we’ll have to see how the battery lasts.
May 5, 2010
Random
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This would be a long rant about how poor the customer service has been, but quite frankly I’m just exhausted now.
If you need to know:
<rant>
No one in the shop can actually change your address (tried 3 times)
You can’t do it online (tried 3 times)
The website doesn’t remember who you are, so you log in, then go to contact us and have to retype everything again! and in the shop…. come off it that’s like web 0.7 kinda stuff.
Then when (3rd attempt) I finally got someone to talk to who knew what they were doing and managed to change my address and order my new phone…phew… Your phone will be with you in 2-4 day, 7-10 days and then 6 days ago I got ‘tomorrow’ but yeah it’s still not here.
So ring again, and today I got the … sorry for your in convenience, oh no you’re a web customer I’ll put you through to them… even though they went home 2 hours ago!
So still phoneless and none the wiser.
Maybe they think it doesn’t matter as I’m just a pleb… but I can assure you when I do take over running the company infrastructure you can guess whose not getting the mobile phone and broadband contract… ha hah ahahah ahahhahahaha
</rant>
UPDATE:
The phone was dispatched a week ago but with the wrong/incomplete address – even though my billing address is correct, not sure how they do it!
So now I have corrected them…. it is again on it’s way it is unlikely to arrive within 30 days of placing the order!
April 27, 2010
Development, Strategy
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ARRRGGHHH! is probably the best way of putting it.
Why does Microsoft insist on telling me my copy of Office is not genuine? I have an account on MSDN (Microsoft Developers Network) which says I can install Office, so I downloaded it, from Microsoft, got the key, from Microsoft, and installed it. The next day having run Windows Update it says its not genuine! how genuine do you want it to be, you gave me the key yesterday.
I asked a couple of friends if they’d had any problems and one said (a teacher) that their school had recently started showing that too. ‘So what do you do?’ I asked ‘There’s nothing we can do it’s installed by the council we just use it’ she replied… So all the kids in the local Primary School are learning that Windows Genuine Advantage is something to ignore, Brilliant. Do you think the money they are making from corporations at the minute (who would pay anyway) out weighs the effect of teaching the next generation to either ignore the ‘We think you’re a pirate’ message or to just switch to something which doesn’t nag, like Google Docs, Open Office…
I was talking to the network admin at work, he had a shiny new Mac on his desk, I asked if we were all getting them, he replied ‘No, this is mine, after a day of this s#!t I just want a computer that works when I get home’. The only conclusion I can draw from that is that expert Windows users prefer Macs and after the trouble I’ve had (2 days to re-install all this nagware) I’m starting to think the same too.
And now for a developer rant at .net 4 now… I may as well go all out while I’m here!
I went to one of the .net 4 launch events the other day. I went because I wanted to know more about how to use the tools, these are days for developers after all! Half the day was pure sales pitch, look, I’m here, I’ve bought in (to an extent) now show me how to go back an impress.
Then, the content when it did come pointed to the fact that a large chunk of the improvements in VS2010 and .net 4.0 are actually things they should have just done right in the first place (standards compliance, not using bloated names for IDs), or already exist in 2008 as add-ons (MVC). Ah! so that’s why the whole morning was a sales pitch… you haven’t actually got much to show me, but yeah I am excited that after 8 years you finally managed to make your HTML output W3C compliant, 8 YEARS!
As for Silverlight, well 4 looks like it has potential (finally), it’s a shame that I tried to use Silverlight 1 (or 2?) to do something useful…We’re currently narrowing down the plugins used across our sites from 5 to 1 and we’ve chosen Flash.
Perhaps now Silverlight could challenge Flash, but again they’ve shot themselves in the foot, I have a day job to do and I’m going to use the tools I know will get the job done, when I lost 2 weeks work trying to do it in Silverlight you not only lost me but you lost my boss, who 2 years later ‘knows’ that Silverlight isn’t up to the task, and he’s not going to be going to any of the MSDN brainwashing sessions, and if the boss decrees ‘no silverlight, it failed last time’ then you’ve lost the battle.