March 2004 Blog Posts
There are a couple of Amazon reviews of Beginning ASP.NET 1.1 querying the use of Web Matrix as the tool in the book. I thought I'd use that as an excuse to explain some of the choices we have to make when writing books The issue of the development tool was a tough one for us, that perhaps in hindsight we didn't get quite right. I quite freely accept that the cover doesn't explain the tool usage - we're talking with Wrox to see if this can be rectified when the book is reprinted. The reason we picked Web matrix...
I despair of software sometimes. I'm currently updating a chapter and just wanted to switch to outline view, whereupon I'm met with an error message from Word saying "There is not enough memory or disk space to display the outline". Funny, very funny. I have three disks, with 4Gb, 6.3Gb and 10Gb free respectively and 2Gb of memory, of which only 512Mb is in use. How much memory does Word need for a 28 page document?
Well, it's official. Alex and I will be at TechEd USA. SAMS have invited us over to help promote the new Insiders book. I'm quite excited - I've never been to a TechEd in the USA before, and am hoping to actually get to see some sessions. At PDC I spent most of my time in meetings. We're staying the Westin Horton Plaza, where you'll no doubt find us in the bar.
My ASP.NET Masterclass wnt well yesterday. Code and slides are available here.
Julia links to some satire regarding Microsoft and the EU. I for one, as an EU citizen (a reluctant one at that - I'm English) think this is a bad move for the consumer. There's plenty of talk about home consumers don't want these features supplied as default with the OS, but no one asked me. I want these features. If I want another media player I'll download one; I happen to like WMP. Plenty of my friends don't and they've downloaded other players. I respect others views and their likes and dislikes. The EU is going to make it...
A story of poor customer service. The car has been booked in for a week, and this morning I drive down to the garage. It's a 40 minute drive. There is a local Ford dealer, but it's still under warranty so I took it to the original dealer. I hand the letter from Ford over, with the keys, and sit down with the laptop. A 20 minute wait ensues, when someone wanders over - "Sorry, we haven't got the part". Great. An 11am appointment and you didn't think to ring me. I love wasting my time. And it's not as...
So far I've refrained from having blogs on any of the main .NET sites for a couple of reasons. Most of the time what I'm working on I can't actually talk about - NDAs and all that. Also I already have a blog so didn't want the admin nightmare of double posting, or remembering where I'd posted something. But tonight I finally got off my backside and did something about it and wrote a tiny front-end for .Text that cross posts to multiple blogs. I'ts not very complex - just the FreeTextBox component and few extra bits, sitting on top...
Got home at about 7:00pm last night from a meeting and muttered to myself "cold enough to snow", not thinking it really would. Moderately surprised therefore to find almost 3 inches of snow this morning. Still the daffodills look nice. Dan decided to be intrepid, wrapped himself up, and cleaned his car.
Back in September I got myself a new car. Well, 18 months old, but still with that new feeling. Lots of gadgets, which is nice. Anyway, this morning in the post I receive a letter from Ford with the words "This is not a circular" large and bold on the front. I open in trepidation, to face "Product recall". Uh oh. An image of exploding engines or tyres that mysteriously fall off quickly flashes through my mind. Luckily it's less worrying, and goes something like this:
... whereby the handbrake, if not applied as directed in the owner literature, may not...
Well, probably. I remember around 4 years ago when BT first announced ADSL and I was the first on our exchange to sign up, after the promises of free installation. We spent several years without a trigger point, BT essentially saying it wasn't worth upgrading the exchange, but in November we were given a trigger of 250. It's a rural community, so it was always going to be worrisome as to whether we'd even get that many registrations. The exchange serves 4 or 5 villages, so we coordinated our campaings, and at 14:50 today we hit the trigger point.
The only...
In this small little village that I live in we have general lack of facilities; shops, buses, and most relevant of all, natural gas. So all our heating is from oil. The tanker arrived yesterday to fill up my tank, which is alarmingly low, only for the driver to tell me that he can't fill it because it's rusting underneath. "It may last 5 years, who knows" he says in a somewhat offhand manner, "but if it leaks I get blamed.". Gee, thanks for the support. So now I have to get the tank replaced quickly because I've got very...
I got some great coding done on Sunday. Went really well. Then spent three days trying to get something else to work, only to figure out yesterday that it's not actually possible. Ugh. The ControlDesigners in VS 1.1 officially suck now. Still, I've learnt a lot about them, especially what does and what doesn't work. The good thing is that they are greatly improved in Whidbey.
Rory is writing about hobbyists, and how Microsoft shouldn't cater to them. The comments show some interesting, and rather opinionated, responses. I think they all seriously underestimate the number, and importance, of the hobbyist. There are several points:
Anything you do in your spare time is technically a hobby. If you're a professional developer and code in the evenings that's a hobby. I know there's a big difference between bobbyists and professionals doing their day job in the evenings for fun, but bear with me.
Do you use the same tools for your hobby coding? Did you buy a copy of...
OK, I finally gave in and bought Developing ASP.NET Server Controls and Components. It wasn't a 'give in' because I didn't want to buy on, on the contrary I've been meaning to buy it for a while, but more a case of realising two things.
I really don't know enough about this subject. I've written some basic server controls, and some designers, but have come to a brick wall on the designer front.
The documentation is woefully inadequate in this area. Not just inadequate, but inadequate in a bad way. There are so many areas that just don't explain what something is...