April 27, 2010
Development, Strategy
No Comments
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.
March 25, 2010
Books, Development
No Comments
97 Things Every Software Architect Should Know
When I bought this I was thinking it would help me design new systems… It won’t. But… it provides amazing insight into what the role and the actual job of being a software architect is. Which I actually found a lot more useful. It was a bit odd to see people I’d worked with in there (especially as I’ve worked on code and systems they’ve designed, I guess those experiences must have taught them a few lessons!)
A very interesting book with many perspectives, but it won’t tell you how to architect software, it will give you many insights into the job of software architect.
March 17, 2010
Books, Development
No Comments
Rocket Surgery Made Easy, Steve Krug
If you design anything used by people and you’ve never done any user testing then you must read this! It sets out a simple way to get started on the road to user testing.
I have done some user testing over the years both as facilitator and as observer, so a lot of the book isn’t ‘new’, however there is always more to learn and it’s always good to get other peoples insights and ideas, so it was still extremely useful.
The book is a quick and simple read (Krug’s aim is to make it short enough to read on a flight) , it has the same ease of access as Don’t make me think, and whilst I now want to run off and do more testing, I didn’t feel quite as ‘changed’ at the end of reading it as I did with Don’t make me think. Perhaps I felt more connection with Don’t make me think as I read the second edition and the ‘new’ chapters in it were the same concepts we’d just published some research papers on so I felt a real connection to it.
(* co-naturality, the same idea can be thought up by different people across the globe at the same time, it doesn’t belong to anyone, and especially if you are researching the same topic the fact that two sets of researchers came to the same conclusion just adds weight to the idea.)
October 31, 2009
Development
No Comments
I went to one of the Stackoverflow DevDays the other day and I’m still not quite sure what to make of it.
It was fun, it was useful, I learnt stuff, but I just couldn’t help feeling a bit deflated when I left.
Not sure if this was due to the fact I felt like a couple of the seminars were thinly veiled sales pitches or if it was down to the fact that everyone else seemed to work for companies that care about their developers… I’d taken a days holiday and paid out of my own pocket to go!
July 31, 2008
Development, Random
No Comments
Google has been the big daddy of search for a long time, is it because it provides the best search or is it because it was in the right place at the right time. Now everyone has it as their homepage, and seeing results laid out differently is just odd. It may not be the best but why leave, there’s a mental overhead (no matter how small) which just keeps people doing the same thing.
I’ve tried, I used Exalead for quite a while but just found that google did give me the results I wanted, although I do still use it from time to time. Usually to give me a fresh perspective. It’s like asking different people for advice.
Cuil was launched this week, and sees to have had a good kicking in the press, again, it didn’t give me the results I wanted (is that my fault or theirs?)
After the news of Cuil I was True Knowledge which worried me as I’d been less than I’m pressed with Cuil, but then the purpose is different, it’s not trying to compete on search but on answering questions, and that sounds brilliant. This could be another leap in knowledge evolution.
As long as they have a way to update their facts, I mean when scientists realise that the earth isn’t flat, and the solar system doesn’t revolve around the earth, there will be some important facts to change- 13 things that don’t make sense.