The Bigs Dreams of a Little Mind

The Blog is Dead, Long live the Blog

2006-09-27T13:56:00.000+01:00

At long last I have got a blog running on my own website (Streambyte) so its time to say goodbye to blogger and ignore another blog

A Small Percentage But Still Big Numbers

2006-07-21T09:48:00.000+01:00

In the PC Developer world many developers ignore the MAC because its market share is so small. But in a huge market small percentages still mean big numbers as Apples last quarter results show as they shipped 1.3 million new MACS last quarter.

Can a Market that has 1.3 million new customers a quarter really be considered as small. For the solo developer looking to write a software product the MAC market has to be considered. Yes there are 20 times less MACS than PC's but there are Probably 50 times more PC developers than MAC developers meaning the MAC platform has a better customer to developer ratio. Also the PC market is awash with free (and usually crappy) software while the MAC market still (and hopefully will continue to) demands quality and is on the whole prepared to pay for it. So yes its a smaller market .... but its not a small market , less competition and a customer base that doesn't expect everything to be free, its got to be worth considering.

4Chaps Go Wild

2006-06-27T14:02:00.000+01:00

Last weekend I attended the first social meeting of the 4ChapsFromBlighty. We met up in beautiful Swindon for a beer and a chat and to generally throw abuse at one another in person instead of over email.

You may have already read reports of the evening on one of the other chaps blog...... I have to say as much as the intention may have been for a meeting of the type described on the afore mentioned blog the reality of it was rather more sedate.

Having met up just after 5pm and hitting the bar the 4Chaps all showed signs of their rapidly approaching middle age by being knackered by 9pm ..... moving to soft drinks by around 9:30pm and then managing to stay up until a staggering 11:00pm before having to retire.

What is even worse is a couple of the Chaps showed that maybe they were already well into middle age when they revealed that they now woke early , couldn't stay in bed on Saturday morning and demanded breakfast was no later than 8am.

As for the whole of Swindon being on alert , I would be surprised if even the landlord of the Carpenters Arms where we met was fully aware of our presence.

I do have to say that the evening may have been slightly more exciting than I remember because in the photo shown on guys blog Brian is most definitely having a broom handle pushed up his bottom, and I am sure I would have remembered that.

Still it was enjoyable none the less and I look forward to our next meeting where we look to move slightly up market and meet in Slough.

MAC Fun

2006-05-02T15:15:00.000+01:00

Not sure how long they will be there but check out the new ads on the the Apple website.

There are some things you just cant avoid

2006-04-21T17:34:00.000+01:00

Ok heres my latest findings.

After much research I have had to conclude the best OS X office suite is................ MS Office.

Its not that there are not other good office suites on OS X. Apples IWork 06 has a great word processor and excellent presentation package (no spreadsheet) but the main problem with all the suites I have trialed over the last month or two is ......MS Word Compatibility.

You cannot survive in the world without being able to read and write MS Word documents and even though most of the suites claim to have this compatibility when they open the documents it doesn't look exactly as it does in Word. Even with documents as simple as my company invoices the layout wasn't close enough. Another issue (that is also solvable in a different way) is fonts. Windows has default fonts that OS X doesn't , when you buy MS Office 2004 for OS X you get all these fonts which makes life a lot easier. So my first purchased software for my MAC is from Microsoft....... life is strange.

MAC OS X 10.4.6 Released

2006-04-07T11:23:00.000+01:00

Apple release OS 10.4.6 this week , this upgrades from OS 10.4.5. With Apple a sub point release add both features and fixes.

The update is about 46MB for PowerPC and a little larger for the Intel based Macs and can be installed via Software Update

Windows XP on Mac (Real this Time)

2006-04-07T11:00:00.000+01:00

Yep its official Apple have released a boot loader that allows you to run Windows XP and Mac OS X on one of the new Intel based Macs.

Apple supply real windows drivers for all the Mac hardware in the new MACS including bluetooth, wifi, USB etc. Providing you use FAT32 and allow the MAC Utils to set yp and create the partition then Mac OS X can see the Windows XP partition. (The reverse is not true)

Check it out on the Apple Web Site

Windows XP Boots on MACBook

2006-03-30T10:48:00.000+01:00

Its official this site shows Windows XP Boots on one of the new MACBook Pro notebooks.

The Eagle has landed

2006-03-20T22:42:00.000Z

Well the Guy Smith-Ferrier post happened just as predicted on this blog earlier today. In fact not one post but two. One of those posts is detailing a live appearance at Bristol Golf Course for VBUG with a session called "Automating Builds Using MSBuild"

Check it out , get his autograph and sell it on eBay

Breaking News.....

2006-03-20T14:02:00.000Z

Once again you will be able to say you heard it here first, as I can this afternoon reveal to you that an inside source has let it slip that the icon of internationalization Guy Smith-Ferrier is about to blog. It is expected that the event will happen sometime this evening or possibly tomorrow.

Mr Smith-Ferrier has not blogged since the 14th of November leaving many fans disappointed that there was no Christmas or New Years message from the .NET Globalization giant. Still it may have been a long wait , but I am sure that the man himself will make up for his extended absence with a post that will keep his loyal following satisfied for the foreseeable future.
Early rumors of the post have caused some fans to stock up on food and prepare sleeping bags next to their computers to ensure they are there to read it the moment the post is made.

The UK Prime minister Tony Blair has advised the cabinet that a post will be made and has put the security forces on high alert. The head of the UK Police force has commented that he is sure his team can cope with the likely street partying that will occur once the post is made and has called upon people to make sure the party stays “Good Natured”.

It is also believed that the Queen has prepared a congratulatory telegram to send to Mr Smith-Ferrier once the post is made.

DDD hotting up

2006-03-20T10:47:00.000Z

The deadline for session proposals for DDD has been extended to the end of today. Even so the threading session I submitted on Saturday didn’t seem to have been included on the list. I have re-submitted it this morning and this time it seems to be there.

Friend and colleague Guy Smith-Ferrier seems to have taken an "If I flood the market someone might buy one" approach to session proposal having submitted no less than five abstracts.
Brian Long has come in with a more modest three proposals leaving my meagre two looking sad and pathetic at the rear.

Anyway if you intend voting (starts Tuesday) then obviously my two sessions will be your first choice but after that I highly recommend both Guy and Brian as excellent speakers who really know their onions.

Trying to creep in under the wire

2006-03-18T12:57:00.000Z

I've just submitted another session for DDD. The trouble is the deadline for proposals was last night. Still when when I went to the website this morning the submission page was still there so I stuck it in anyway. Now I will just have wait and see if it makes it onto the list for voting. If it does then please VOTE FOR ME

Threading 101

Multi-Threading brings many opportunities to the developer to produce more responsive programs. But as usual along with power comes responsibility. When you move into the world of Multi-Threading it's up to you to ensure that the CPU switching between threads won't cause BAD things to happen. This session will introduce and examine the opportunities and responsibilities of the multi-threaded program and examine techniques for making things work safely and smoothly.

Is my MAC Experiment Over

2006-03-02T16:07:00.000Z

The memory upgrade for my MAC powerbook has now arrived, but the performance gains I was hoping for in Virtual PC have not.

Virtual PC for the MAC seems perfectly OK at running MS Office and other business applications but once it gets faced with an application like VS2005 that is continually running multiple threads to support things like intellisence then the performance just isnt there. I'm not saying it would be imposible to develop under it and in my life as a consultant I have seen people trying to develop applications on PC's slower than Virtual PC but really I cant justify the performance penalty to use it as my daily development tool.

This now leaves me in a difficult situation. You see I have fallen in love with my MAC. It is wonderull in so many ways that I just cant even contemplate giving it up. For email , web browsing , word processing , accessing my digital camera, news reading etc it is just so darn good.

So I am now condemed to carrrying around two laptops until I get totally fed up or Virtual PC becomes available for the new Intel based MacBooks and I can try my experiement again. So much for progress.

The Sixth Sense of Windows Update

2006-02-20T17:13:00.000Z

I have decided Windows Update must have a sixth sense, well it might not be a sixth sense as I'm not sure it has the usual five in the first place, but if it were a human we would call it a sixth sense.

You see on any day you really need to shut down your computer and get out of the office on time Windows Update makes sure it has some of those updates ready that it can only install on shutdown. Thats why today when I needed to leave the office at a particular time the copy of windows running in my 256MB virtual PC decided it had 37 of the previously mentioned updates to apply. When I started writing this it had done four, now its done eleven so I guess I might as well go put the kettle on.

VS2005 up and running

2006-02-20T16:30:00.000Z

Virtual PC is installed and VS2005 is up and running on the Powerbook. I cant really tell yet if its all going to work out. The new memory for the Powerbook hasn't arrived yet so the virtual machine can only be given 256MB of RAM.

A very quick test with a Winforms "Hello World" app shows VS2005 running about the same speed as a BETA 1 version of VS2005 running in a VPC that was allocated 512MB of RAM on my 1.6ghz centrino laptop did.

If you used VS2005 BETA 1 on a similar spec machine then you will have an idea of what I am talking about if you didn't then tough you'll have to wait until I can find a better comparison.

First Post From a MAC

2006-02-17T21:09:00.000Z

After bit of thinking I decided I could live with the MAC that was delivered. The 1.67ghz processor is the same as in the latest model, 1400 x 900 is a useable screen resolution and PC2700 RAM runs at 333mhz just like PC-PC4200 so its not a huge leap. I guess in the end though it came down to the fact that after a bit of negotiation the company I bought it from offered me almost £400 back on what I had bid so I took it. (who says money doesn't talk). This spec was the current spec until November last year so its almost current and what it boils down to is I now have a brand new 17" MAC Powerbook with 1 years warranty for roughly half price , so I am not going to complain.

The MAC Experiment stalls with eBay frustration

2006-02-16T13:04:00.000Z

I love eBay, my wife calls it my second home, while my children call it my Ebaby. But love sometimes is strained. Some of the people on eBay drive me mad. Let’s take the new MAC I ordered for example. I don’t think it’s unreasonable when a machine is advertised as having a 1680 x 1050 screen, 120GB HD and PC2-4200 RAM to be a bit upset when it arrives and it has a 1440x 900 screen, 100GB HD and PC2700 RAM.

So how did this happen.

1. Afore mentioned company has new MAC Powerbook as excess stock

2. Thinks we will sell it on EBay

3. Goes to Apple website, cut and paste latest spec

4. Put item up for sale without even checking if the Powerbook they
have in the box is the same as the one they just advertised.

In late October Apple upgraded the Powerbook range (Apple don’t bother changing model names/numbers etc just because a spec changes) while this Powerbook must have been bought before that.

Ok in fairness I rang the company, they are going to take it back at their expense and give me a full refund but it’s still annoying. Now I also have to wait to see if Crucial will take back the 2GB of PC2-4200 RAM I bought from them to put in the Powerbook. If they won’t? Well I guess its cut and paste some specs from the Crucial website and put it on eBay. Life’s a vicious circle I guess.

So has the MAC experiment died a death before it has even begun? Watch this space while I watch eBay.

DDD3 Session Proposal

2006-02-16T09:51:00.000Z

I havn't spoken at a user group meeting or conference for over a year now and have decided its time to throw my hat back in the ring. I have posted a session proposal for the DeveloperDeveloperDeveloper day at Microsoft on the 3rd of June.

Examining the Composite Application Block
The Composite UI Application Block (CAB) was recently published by Microsoft's patterns & practices group. This application block provides practices and components to build complex smart client user interfaces. This session will examine the various features of the CAB such as SmartParts, Events, Commands, UIExtension Sites and WorkItems as well as looking at the CAB Baseline Architecture Toolkit (BAT) which acts as a reference project to help you get up and running with CAB

Unlike most conferences that have a commitee or advisory board the sessions at DeveloperDeveloperDeveloper are voted for by the development community so get on over to the DeveloperDeveloperDeveloper website and take a look a the currently proposed sessions but above all when the time comes VOTE FOR ME.

DDD3

2006-02-14T14:48:00.000Z

The next DeveloperDeveloperDeveloper day has been announced for the 3rd June 2006. (Not the 10th as originally published)

This FREE one day event builds on the success of the previous DeveloperDeveloperDeveloper Days. As before it is all about developers learning, sharing and interacting with each other in an informal and relaxed atmosphere.

There will be NO Microsoft speakers presenting, just speakers from the UK .NET developer community; although some of the Microsoft UK Developer Team on hand to help out and chat to attendees.

The day is put together by the community for the community, in other words you. With Microsoft UK very kindly providing the venue, logistic support and a free lunch.

Check out the website.

Traitor in the House

2006-02-14T14:43:00.000Z

I’ve only gone and done it, done what? , I’ve ordered a MAC. I’ll say that again I’ve just bought a MAC. What’s worse it’s an out of date MAC, yes its brand new but it’s a powerbook based on the now aging G4 PowerPC processor, while the newest latest Mac Notebooks (MACBooks) are Intel dual core machines.

So Why?

I had an itch and it had to be scratched, no longer could I speak from a place ignorance and to be honest there just plain drop dead gorgeous looking machines.

My current laptop is now two years old. Its doing OK it’s a centrino 1.6ghz which is only just behind the current defacto 1.83ghz. The screen on my current laptop is 15.4 inches and supports 1600x1200 so that wasn’t a problem either. The main problem is it can only take 1GB of Ram. These days I do everything in Virtual PC leaving the main OS install as clean as possible (just MS office and Anti-Virus) Running a VPC and the main OS in 1GB of RAM is OK but 2GB would make it a lot better and give the option of running a second VPC.

So a Mac Powerbook supports 2GB of RAM, has a beautiful 17 inch 1650 x 1050 screen, runs the very good looking MAC OS X Tiger and most importantly MS Virtual PC. My theory is if I am only using my main machine for office type stuff and VPC for everything else why not have the best of both worlds and do that on a MAC. Yes I know that VPC will be slower because it also has to translate processor instruction sets and the Powerbook processor is only 1.67ghz but lets be honest how often is a PC processor the bottleneck in modern PC’s. Its normally RAM or Graphics both of which will be better (2GB Ram instead of 1GB and 128MB Graphics instead of 64MB) on my new MAC.

So the last argument is price. Well I just bought my Powerbook on Ebay for £500 less than Apple is selling it for and about the same price as a similar spec laptop would have cost. Yes I would have liked one of the new MACBooks but they only start shipping next week, cost a bomb and are a version one product. So I’ll make do with the tried and tested for now and in a year’s time who knows.

So over the next few week lookout for me being smug about how clever I’ve just been or ranting about the moronic world of Mac users.

Another Blog Not To Post To

2006-01-27T09:31:00.000Z

I'm sat here realising its been almost 2 months since I last posted to “The Big Dreams of a Little Mind” so why in the world do I want to start another Blog. (”Waffle with Meaning”)

Well the truth is I live two lives. One amongst geeks and nerds and the other with friends and family. These two worlds very rarely meet. My friends have no interest in how I have been researching Object Persistence Frameworks or the latest Application Blocks, while the geeks and nerds don’t really want to know how much I just enjoyed my holiday to Egypt. (Just so no one gets upset, especially the geeks and nerds I fully acknowledge there are some geeks who I also consider friends)

I guess many technical people manage to successfully mix personal and professional information on their blogs but I have to say I find it annoying when I subscribe to the blog of some product team member because I have an interest in the product only to find myself spending days receiving posts on how their latest child is being potty trained.

So now I have two blogs to not post to. If you are interested in my professional life then monitor “The Big Dreams of a Little Mind” , if you are more interested in who I am personally then watch “Waffle with Meaning”. The truth is you probably wont learn much from either but at least I will feel better that I am not talking about potty training my Application Blocks.

Lots of ways to Blog and no time to do it

2005-12-01T11:20:00.000Z

Just trying out the Word Plug-In for blogger.com so if you’re reading this then I guest its working. So now I can post to my Blog from IE, Outlook and Word all I need to do is think of something to write. In fact thinking of something to write is not really the problem it’s more about just finding the time When I do find a minute or two I seem to write trivia like this because I haven’t really got time to dig into the nuts and bolts of the things I do want to talk about.

Maybe publishing this statement will inspire me to actually write something useful.

CAB Issue

2005-11-17T16:58:00.000Z

I've discovered a problem today in the CompositeUI Application Block.
If you create a WorkItem descendant and you are referencing the CompositeUI assembly as a binary reference rather than a project reference (as in all the sample code) then the VS2005 designer thinks your work items classes are actually components and will try to launch a non existent designer to display them in the IDE whenever you navigate to one of your work items in the solution explorer.

A work around for now is to edit the code in the WorkItem.cs file in the CompositeUI assembly and remove the

[ToolboxItem(false)]
[DesignerCategory("Component")]

Attributes from the WorkItem class. (Dont forget to recompile)

I’m not sure why these are on the class in the first place but the guys in the Patterns and Practices team are onto it.

CAB Released

2005-11-15T11:52:00.000Z

Microsoft patterns & practices Smart Client Team released the Composite UI Application Block (C# version) last night.(UK Time).

For those who haven’t looked at the CAB it is basically an application block designed to facilitate the development of UIs based on the Model View Controller or Model View Presenter design pattern.

There seems to have been some reorganisation of the assemblies with the utility assembly disappearing all together. The UIElementService also seems to have gone walkies being replaced with a UIExtensionSites collection on the workitem.

A small application I have been writing was converted in about 20 minutes but I still have a few warnings in my workitems about types not being found that I haven’t yet been able to track down.

I am still running the RC1 version of VS2005 so maybe these will disappear when the download of the final release version finally finishes.

One thing that is interesting is that the unit tests provided with the CAB are for both VS Team System and NUnit 2.2. It seems that with MS pushing test driven development but not implementing it in VS2005 in any edition lower then one of the Team System derivatives the popularity of NUnit can only increase.

Blogs really do work

2005-11-11T14:46:00.000Z

Within minutes of my first post the Guy Smith-Ferrier blog was back in action.

Life again feels complete and I didn't even need to post for three days.

A BLOG is born but will it last

2005-11-11T14:06:00.000Z

Why start a blog now. I’ve had years to do it but never got around to it so why now. In all honesty I have to blame Guy Smith-Ferrier. He started a blog that burned brightly and overflowed with interesting and useful information for two days before it began to wane. It’s now been almost three weeks since his last post. I have pointed this out to him on a number of occasions to which his response has always been "Hows your Blog?". Well no more can this pathetic response be thrown this way. I’ve got tired of sitting here waiting for something to read and I need Mr Smith-Ferrier to post soon so that my life can return to its previous state of fulfilment I had so wonderfully found in the comfort of Guys blog.

So my goals for this blog are as follows

Last a least 3 days so that its better than Guys and he can no longer use my lack of a blog for his own failure to bring fulfilment to my life

Provide a public place where my harassment of Mr Smith-Ferrier maybe available for the world to see and hence be more effective

Provide a place where I am sure a reasonable percentage of the worlds six billion people may find simple enlightenment and of course a link to Guys blog

So my first mission into blogdom is complete and my small but active mind is now weary, so its time to rest before going and checking the new posts on my favourite blog