rwandering.net
The blogged wandering of Robert W. Anderson
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March 26, 2009 at 10:44 am · Filed under Miscellaneous
I’ve been seeing lots of problems with Live Messenger connectivity lately. I see this message a lot:
I don’t ever want Live Messenger to interrupt my work with that dialog.
If connectivity fails, use a notification balloon, or better yet, do nothing. The red X on the tray icon already signifies trouble. Let me drill down to find out more info. This is a bad design decision.
If I dismiss the dialog, it will happen again. And if I don’t dismiss it? Well,
I left my machine from 9pm till 11am today and found my taskbar full:
Apparently Live Messenger thinks it is so important that I can’t connect that it needs to keep telling me. Or at least telling the task bar. This is a bug.
Live Messenger Team: Please fix this. I’m sure several of your myriad guidelines for Windows developers eschews any and all of this behavior.
Tags: Bug, Live, LiveMessenger, Microsoft, Windows
March 19, 2009 at 1:06 pm · Filed under .NET, Web 2.0
While the changes coming to SQL Data Services (SDS) are not exactly news, I wanted to weigh in on it.
I was familiar with SSDS before I knew anything about Red Dog Storage Azure Storage. When I found out about the latter, my initial concern was that Microsoft would confuse developers by offering two overlapping services. Such overlap isn’t too surprising considering that these two projects came out of competing parts of Microsoft. At the time, there was a pretty consistent message that SDS would someday support relational operations, but to me that meant they should hold off on SDS until that day came.
Microsoft often offers multiple technologies to solve specific problems — often this is a result of legacy technologies — in this case it seemed a shame to start off with such overlap.
Because of all this, I am very happy to see this clear differentiation between the Azure and SDS services. This is a good decision for Microsoft, Microsoft developers, and given the roadmap for SDS, an excellent decision for Microsoft’s enterprise customers.
Tags: Azure, Microsoft, RDBMS, SDS, SSDS
March 3, 2009 at 6:46 am · Filed under .NET
Some time ago I took a quick look at Patrick Smacchia’s NDepend. While I was impressed with it, I never took the time to dive into it. Recently, I took another look to see if it could help inform some refactoring of the Digipede Agent.
If you aren’t familiar with it, NDepend is a static analysis tool that allows you to dive deeply into your code base. Its feature list is truly truly impressive. Here are a few things that stand out for me:
- The Code Query Language (CQL) allowing SQL-like queries of your code base, with a set of pre-canned queries targeting code quality, design, naming conventions, and much more.
- A visual tool with dependency graphs and matrices and more
- Ability to compare between different runs of the same project – at an incredible level.
- Of course, A command-line tool for incorporation into your build process.
I loaded up the Digipede Agent assemblies and – kind of like a kid in a candy store – I found myself heading off in 10 different directions at once. My thought process went kind of like this:
- Wow, look at these matrices and graphs, and all these CQL queries.
- This is really cool to have this level of information available with build integration!
- Wow, there sure are a lot of warnings here.
- Let’s fix them! Wait, let’s prioritize them and customize them and, etc.
(The experience reminds me of when I started using FxCop.)
I highly recommend this software . . .
- To help you make informed refactoring decisions; and
- to add design and code-quality criteria (and enforcement) into your build process.
So, why do I say this is a “must-have” tool? Because code quality is not a nice-to-have. Quality reduces maintenance and support costs and allows you to spend your time and money on more profitable endeavors.
Go buy it.
BTW: I would like to post some of the results I’ve gotten with the Digipede Agent, but I’m not ready to share that yet.
Tags: .NET, Digipede, NDepend
February 25, 2009 at 5:16 pm · Filed under Miscellaneous
Here are my initial impressions on my new Vado HD:
Pro:
- Quality of picture and sound are pretty good (haven’t tested it much).
- Fast startup.
- It mounts as a drive.
- Movies can be viewed and the drive managed without running the Vado Central software.
- The software / codec are installed on the drive making it easy to plug it into any computer and use it without going through a painful installation step.
Con:
- The battery door is pretty flimsy. One of the benefits of this device is supposed to be its replaceable battery, but I wouldn’t trust this door to last for a long with frequent battery changes.
- The battery door doesn’t actually close fully with the battery inside. This problem is solved by putting on the included skin.
- Like the Flip, this has an extendable full-sized USB adapter. While I understand the benefits of this approach, I would much rather they used a mini USB port instead. This would allow for either a smaller device – or my preference – room for a stereo microphone input and output.
- Documentation is bad. Normally I don’t care about that, but there is no information about the different quality settings. This can be easily found online, but it should be in the manual.
Bonus Con:
- I bought the Creative branded waterproof pouch assuming it would be sized for the Vado. While it will work, it could be much smaller. The Vado swims in it. With the skin on the Vado it keeps stationary inside of the pouch.
So far I’m happy with it.
Tags: Flip, Review, Vado
February 18, 2009 at 12:56 pm · Filed under Attention, Web 2.0
Yesterday I posted about the change in Facebook’s TOS. I thought they might back down, but I didn’t think it would be this fast.
The old terms are back in effect: delete your account and so goes your data.
A minor success for users everywhere – even those who don’t think this stuff matters.
Tags: Attention, Facebook, GestureBank
February 17, 2009 at 6:58 pm · Filed under Attention, Web 2.0
Plenty of people are up in arms about the recent Facebook TOS change.
The change? Before Facebook relinquished their rights to your data if you deleted your account. Now they don’t.
I don’t have a problem with this new policy. I do have a problem with the new part.
Of course, I’m not arguing whether Facebook can legally make this change, but it does violate their user contract. I’m not talking about a legal TOS, but of an understanding with their users. What is the problem?
- Facebook has just asserted ownership to something that they didn’t claim ownership to before. And this isn’t future data, this is past data. Data you already contributed to Facebook with an understanding that they wouldn’t keep it.
This is another example of what I call the user-beware contract – where the TOS can change at any time without notification.
So, what is the user-aware way to make such a change?
- Maintain their old policy for data in Facebook before the change. This bifurcates user data between before and after the policy. Delete your account? Old data goes away, new data does not.
OK, but this is still a user-beware contract. What else should they do?
- Require users to opt-in to the new policy. If they opt out, either delete them or let them continue the old policy.
I’m sure Facebookians (and any one hosting a large service) is rolling their eyes at this point. But just because being user-aware is inconvenient doesn’t make it infeasible.
And a shout out to Ned Sykes for prompting this post: no, I’m not concerned about Facebook stealing my tweets, but as a voice in user rights, I am interested in promoting TOS that are pro user.
BTW: The user-beware/user-aware terms are defined in my post User Contracts – Part II: User Beware.
Tags: Attention, GestureBank
February 17, 2009 at 6:29 pm · Filed under Attention, Web 2.0
I just recommended the new Live Writer for having a “check for updates” feature, but apparently that feature didn’t work. From Joe Cheng of Microsoft:
Well… this is embarrassing. We just released an update that’s newer than 14.0.8050.1202. One of the two bugs it fixes, is that our “Check for updates” mechanism broke irrevocably in 14.0.8050.1202 and earlier builds. 🙁
If you download the new version from http://download.live.com then “Check for updates” will work again. Sorry for the inconvenience!
So, if you aren’t at least at version 14.0.8064.206, then you should upgrade again.
Tags: blogging, Live-Writer
February 17, 2009 at 7:14 am · Filed under Attention, Web 2.0
I just upgraded to the latest Windows Live Writer.
It looks better and now it renders my blog template correctly. Maybe there are more features I’m missing.
It is worth upgrading it just to get the “Check for updates” feature. So you never again have to figure out how to upgrade it (see Jim’s rant here: Sighcrosoft – Why Can’t I Just Love Live Writer Without Confusion?).
Strangely enough, its now easy to upgrade here: http://download.live.com/writer.
Tags: blogging, Live-Writer
February 11, 2009 at 9:02 pm · Filed under Grid Computing, Miscellaneous
I’ll be at the University of California, Berkeley EECS Annual Research Symposium (BEARS 2009) tomorrow, February 12th.
Looks like it will be an interesting program.
If you are going and want to meet up, email me at robert at digipede dot net.
Tags: BEARS2009, Digipede, Events
February 10, 2009 at 6:49 am · Filed under Miscellaneous
In December, I blogged about National Bankruptcy Day. That was the term coined for today, February 10th, 2009. Why? Because of a piece of very bad – and according to these claimants, illegal – legislation: the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA). A law intended to make our children safe by requiring companies to test all children’s products to prove they are free of lead and phthalates.
The problem with the law is mainly that the tests are unnecessary in so many cases and the tests themselves are expensive and produce hazardous waste. Lead in metal toys? Reasonable to test. Lead in fabric clothing and linens? Unreasonable.
A great many businesses are already endangered in this economy, but these extra costs would drive many under.
Good news?
On January 31st, a stay of enforcement was granted (Stay of Enforcement of Testing and Certification Requirements). This is because the CPSC has recognized that this law is a bad one and that they need to spend the next year providing guidance for a reasonable implementation of the law.
It is clear that the CPSC is attempting to provide clarification to and a reasonable framework around this whole issue. Further clarification of the current policy was released yesterday.
So, no National Bankruptcy Day?
The answer is mixed. Much damage has already been done. The confusion created by this law and the CPSC’s poor handling of it has already hurt many small businesses. In some cases this is merely the loss of productivity while the founders divert most of their attention to compliance. In other cases, companies have already chosen to close their doors.
So, today is significant in that the law does go into effect today. The limits are in place, egregious violators can be punished. All good, but there has been much collateral damage along the way.
So I’ll say yes, today is still National Bankruptcy Day. The new, as yet undrafted, policies will go into effect and be enforced on February 10th, 2010 – and they may be just as unreasonable as the current ones.
You can celebrate by giving a giant air-quoted thank you to the politicians and environmentals who rushed this terrible law into being. I’ll keep my invectives to my self.
Tags: CSPC, Government, HR4040, kukunest, PSIA, Startup
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