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.

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.

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.)

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.

Working from home is great, I get loads done and a lot of this work (despite being mostly programming work) requires communication. We mostly use chat (or email if anyone’s away from their machine) but there is a sterility in the chat conversations, most of them are one on one aimed at finding something out, and I think this along with familiarity, which may turn to cabin-fever, of spending more time than ever at home (yeah I do go out and I do have my ‘work room’ so I don’t feel like i should constantly be working) is leading to a state where there is no more stimulation.

How to overcome this…

• Meet up with work colleagues, try for once a week (it depends on how remote you are!)
• Have informal group chats on the go as well as the get to the point one to ones
• Don’t forget that the person hasn’t turned into a robot just because you talk to them by computer!
• Use Skype/ googleTalk etc to actually talk, even if it may take longer
• Get out! go see people, I do an art class, photography workshops and go down the pub, everyone needs people! It’s all things I did before I started Home Working but without them I think I’d go mad! make sure you leave the house every day even if it’s just to walk round the block.
• Keep learning, and keep sharing what you you learn.

It’s been nice having the chance to do some home working and I think there are loads of situation where it’s advantages are huge. One idea I had to encourage the social side of work yet keep the ‘home’ ease was to have local centres, you could have a community hall, or a purpose built one, but having a local hub where you can get a coffee, some technical help, access to some of the kit you may not have at home and… people. The hub could be a business centre with all the facilities like meeting rooms or it could just be a glorified network coffee shop or internet cafe. I know that there are some remote trading floors where the traders work from their towns trading floor instead of going in to the City, they still get the social, and the tips! but don’t have to commute (as far), so why not expand this for anyone who doesn’t need to be in the office.

Anyway I’m starting a new job in a few weeks, office based, but with developers working from two locations so the remote working skills and discipline will be handy.

So here’ a bit of feedback on how it’s all been going.
There have obviously been a few teething problems but in general its been great. We were lucky in that our team was all working centrally to start with so we have a good team bond and know each other well.

We’re using Google Apps for business and have transferred our e-mail over to them (after a bit of an MX record phaf) and now that is working nicely, once you get used to the way Google groups your e-mail (no problem to me as I’ve been on gmail for a while but some of the others did think they’d lost email). The Google Docs suite seems to be upgraded frequently and with Google Gears for offline sync is just totally awesome. We do still pull documents down and format them in Word to send out to clients but in Google apps we can all get stuck in and get the content right.

The problems we did have were that our source control was on a local server which we couldn’t make accessible to the whole world, and we didn’t realise that our RDP to our remote server and remote SQL access were locked to our old office IP address… good security not so good for remote working) all easily overcome though.

We’re using Clocking IT for time management and tracking projects which is also going really well, as long as everyone ensures the log their time and keeps their projects up to-date, and with a Google gadget in our Google Apps start page we can see what’s on at all times, great integration.

We have all now moved out of the office and productivity is still high, chat (with logging into gmail) is great just like in the office, but now I don’t have to commute!

What I do miss is the social side, whilst we do have offline chats, it’s not the same as going to make a brew and putting the world to rights, the range of music that people brought in to share (although I suppose we could still do that) and the people at our building who we didn’t actually work with… hmm yeah and sharing a building with a chiropractor was always handy!

Anyway Bruce’s presentation was fantastic. It was basically looking at the psychology of feeling secure over being secure and the impact this can have. I really like this idea because it fits with my theory of ability and gives me a much more eloquent model to describe it, my model of knowledge/ability is basically people who tell you they are an expert in something generally know so little they don’t even realise the enormity, I’ve had ‘Flash Gurus’ who don’t even know what ActionScript is ‘Expert MS Office’ user who don’t know what a macro is and can’t write an Excel formula.) Anyway.

As I understand it Bruces’ theory of security is based on a model of:

• Reality – what the potential threat/situation is
• Model – the way the understands Reality, based on knowledge (books, experience, news, peers)
• Feeling – how the user feels emotionally about the situation

Bruce suggested that we are poor at making security decisions because our models and feelings as humans have evolved over millennia to help us in a fight or flight situation. Not in a pragmatic sort the facts out and adjust our models kind of way. The problem is that our context for these decisions is wrong.

To me it shows why the experience gained by doing a job is so important, your model is adjusted by constant feedback of what has and hasn’t worked. Why do you know that… because I’ve done it. This experience is often overlooked and people assume that someone with a higher qualification in a subject will be better at a job in that area – not necessarily true.

Anyway to find out more about what Bruce said read his article the Psychology of security.

An opportunity to listen to people who I really respect as bloggers and as developers. I love both their Blogs but really the podcast was dull, to me it was Joel talking a lot, talking over Jeff and then leaving big pauses where he wanted Jeff to say ‘right’ or ‘wow’ a few times and they don’t talk about Stackoverflow until about a third of the way through.

I liked the Vista discussion halfway through. That did seem like a proper discussion, if the whole of the cast was like that, that would be better. (I agree with Joel though, what is the advantage of upgrading to Vista… no new features and you’ve moved everything… learning overhead for no return).

A square 45 degree angle?

So stackoverflow .com sounds like it will be good, their podcast… average, I’ll listen again to see if it gets better, and I hope it does, and with the ability to call in i’m pretty sure it will.