So it's been a little while between updates on the blog, sorry about that!

I've been on a bit of an OS roller coaster ride of late.  I tried the latest LonghornI mean Vista beta (beta 2) on a couple of machines.  I didn't do a lot of homework because I have this bad habit with operating systems - I just grab the bootable disc and dive in the deep end.  I did this with Linux in '98 and it took me 6 years to kick the habit!   

The two machines were:

1. Dell Inspiron 1100 laptop, P4 2Ghz, 1Gb RAM, integrated Intel graphics, 80Gb HDD
2. Home-brew PC, P4 Dual Core 3Ghz, 2Gb RAM, 512Mb 6800 graphics, 1.2Tb storage

First thing's first - they both run fine.  The install was painless, the new features and UI are discoverable and I am well impressed with the direction Vista is taking. 

My problem is that the laptop needs to run Visual Studio 2003 to maintain some Web Services projects.  These require Front Page extentions on the local IIS to do debugging when I am on a train or otherwise not close to a server.  So after a week of new-OS glow and fighting uphill against IIS 7.0 (which does not and will not support FPE) I am presently formatting the HDD and putting XP SP2 back.  *sigh*

The desktop box runs a treat with the "Glass" enabled and all.  I am looking forward to running the final release on it. 

As an aside both these machines are running the Office 12 beta too!  They have taken things back to real core usability in this release and I think it's a very good thing.  There are some cool new features, sure- but the killer for me is in its usability improvements. 


After blog mint [?]:  I love Linux to bits and it has come along leaps and bounds in that time - I'm just a Windows guy at the moment.  2003 Server played a bit part in that.  I harbour no ill will to the penguin, it's just not me right now.  that's all.

Again, I'm sure that there is an easy resolution to this and I know I haven't read every page of the administrators guide, or every blog post, but this one is really getting to me.

Just say 2 development teams in the same company each have their own site, tracking issues for their own product.  The rules for the problem:

• They would like to record the client who reported the issue against the issue.
• We all work in the same company, and therefore we all have the same clients.  Each client may have a product from either team, or a products for both teams.
• It is not apropriate for these issues lists to be in one site, because different partners work with different teams on different products.  These need to be kept seperate for reasons of commercial confidentality.
• It must be scalable so that more teams can be brought online with minimal effort.
• Custom development must be kept to a minimum.
  

I want to maintain one client list and one client list only that has views into each teams site.  I can't seem to make this work for me.

Lately I've been receiving spam that seems to have no payload. 

No links to knock-off phallicpharmaceuticals.
No promise of promiscuous foreign brides
Nada!

They just have a dozen lines like:

oziuyebjrukdebrrpzewciungdjfapa 

So yes, they are successful in getting through my heuristic filters, but to what end?  What is in it for the spammer?

Here's my XML Hammer.  Useful for getting some XML into places where instinct might guide you to other choices.

I'm new to Sharepoint, so here I'll start a list of Sharepoint Annoyances :)

#1:   It lets you think you are designing relational data... but you are not!

Some examples:

I have a list of clients, and I have a list of contacts (or individuals) at that client's site.  I am designing a form for entering job details and I want to link in to a job both the client who requested it and the contact at that site. 

I want the user to pick a client and then a contact that is valid for that site, but I can't seem to filter them!

Secondly, there is no validation!

I want to have a form where the user can enter a start date and a finish date.  No problems so far but logic dictates that the finish date cannot be before the start date!  I don't have a way of enforcing that.

I'm sure there are ways around these, but right now they are annoying!

I had mentioned model-view-presenter pattern in passing before, because after I saw it it struck me as a pattern that could be a really good solution to having the most decoupling between the UI and, well, everything below it.

The chance came  up to try it during the week on a small project so I gave it a go.

The View was a windows forms app.
The Model was a .NET Class Library with classes that roughly wrapped a set of SQL Server stored procs.
The Presenter was implemented as a .NET Class Library.  This library also contained the definition of the interface that the UI was to implement.

Some of the key advantages of this pattern:

• The actual logic of the application is self-contained so it can be easily unit-tested.  Code that is easier to unit test is easier to get right.
  
• The data layer is self contained and can be unit tested.
• You can implement a couple of different data layers supporting different back-end data stores.
  
• The only code in the UI is just to display the properties on the interface and raise events in the logic layer from the UI.

The key advantage I see for my kind of stuff is that as far as the Presenter is concerned, there is no UI past the interface that it implements.  It would be trivial to replace the Windows forms app with a ASP.Net app that implemented, or to have it feed a serviced componant over remoting, or....

Is it that time again?  Seems like only... last year???

Oh well, I'm registered - see you at Tech.Ed 2006 in Sydney.



Thanks Frank, for confirming that there is too much to read on the Aussie tech blogosphere.

Hypothetically...

Just say I have a folder full of images and Windows had generated a Thumbs.db in that folder, now I burn the whole folder (including the thumbs file) and give it to you.

What can you know about my PC (OS, hardware, anything) from the Thumbs.db file alone?

When I find out, I'll post the answer here, or feel free to leave a comment.

A week since my last blog post!  Here's a quick summary.

• My head has been spinning at work.  Hit a busy period and I can't seem to work fast enough.

• Sydney is starting to get C-O-L-D cold!
  

• Gates is leaving Microsoft (later rather than sooner), Scoble is leaving Microsoft (I've been the web site for half an hour and I still don't know PodTech do)... would the last one to leave Redmond please turn out the lights? :)

• The continuous integration thing is moving along.  Draco.Net, NAnt and NUnit all rock. 

• Here's the trick for testing database code:  have your test setup put a transaction on the wire and have your test cleanup roll back the transaction.
  
• I know I have only read the doc 8 times this week, but I think I'm starting to understand the DI pattern.

• Microsoft renamed InfoCard to now be CardSpace.  WTF?  Still no cards?  Infocard is still a good idea - identity management is still very important but please guys drop the "cards" thing.  Not everyone follows WinFX developments up to the minute and you're starting to confuse people.  And I still don't have a satisfactory answer as to why we are doing this over protocols like HTTP and SMTP.  Why not another rev of these protocols to natively include identity, encryption and authentication, and then build identity management frameworks on top of them?

• Neofiles has been doing my head in with talk of transhumanist singularities, cognitive liberty, liberation biology and nano-biotech.  For some reason I put my strongly skeptical BS-Filter on hold for this show and I am starting to think about these things.  I'm definately not sold on some of these topics.  Maybe I'm just short on sleep.
  

In light of everyone talking about Australia's chance or otherwise in the soccerfootball world cup, I thought it was time to mention Ambrose Bierce's Devil's Dictionary on my blog.  His entry on Patriotism is as follows:

Patriotism, n
combustible rubbish ready to the torch of anyone ambitious to illuminate his name.
In Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary patriotism is defined as "the last refuge of a scoundrel."
With all due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer I beg to submit that it is the first.

I enjoy the Devil's Dictionary sometimes beause of the wit, and at other times because the cynicism expressed therein makes me feel like my own thoughs are a ray of sunshine.