schwuk.com

Once upon a time, I complained about Scott Hanselman pimping a piece of commercial software when there was a perfectly good open-source alternative available.

Except there wasn’t, and I was wrong. Mea culpa.

Since then it will be obvious to regular readers that I am no longer so adverse to commercial software, especially when there is no clear free/open-source alternative.

FinePrint

The other day, Scott once again waxed lyrical about some life (or rather paper in this case) saving software called FinePrint. I read it, it vaguely piqued my curiosity, and then I promptly forgot about it.

Until today.

Now, normally I try to be as paperless as possible, but sometimes you can’t beat holding a lump of dead tree in your hand. I find this especially to be the case when dealing with books (although I’m also a big fan of eBooks) and long technical papers. When I read stuff on the screen, I always find I skip stuff.

Today I needed to review a document written by a colleague. I needed to make notes on it, and also create a new document from it. Unfortunately I don’t have a multi-monitor set-up at the moment, so I decided to print it out. Then I realised it was 30 pages long, and my aging EPSON Stylus Photo 890 doesn’t do duplex. It does do multi-page though, but I wanted to use as little paper as possible. I was just figuring out how to both multi-page and manual duplex when FinePrint came to mind. A few minutes later and the problem was solved and I could move on.

Fantastic piece of software, and highly recommended.

Of course if anyone knows of an F/OSS alternative, let me know.

I’ve posted about Ruby on Rails before, although it just isn’t a good fit for me at the moment I still keep an eye on it.

Today I saw a post asking is anyone using the dynamic alternatives to .NET? (from one of the creators of RoR) which incorporated quotes and comments about how bad and slow developing with .NET is compared to RoR.

All I can say is that they must have been bad .NET developers.

From Christian Romney:

ActiveRecord is responsible for the great majority of the productivity on the Rails platform. If I never have to create another SqlConnection, SqlCommand, or SqlParameter object again, it will be too soon. Yes, I have rolled my own Data Access layer, but for goodness sakes, how many DALs have I built in the Windows world in the last 10 years?!

If he has written that many DALs, then why hasn’t he picked up the tricks of the trade? Code generation is the key here. When I’m writing a DAL, all the database related code is written by CodeSmith for me. More recently I’ve taken to using db4o – an object-oriented database that allows me to focus on logic instead of storage. Either of these remove a large chunk of the DAL headache.

Realisation

Proofreading this entry made me realise something I’ve never fully considered before – technically I’m the bad .NET developer, not those RoR converts.

Why?

Because I don’t do thing the “official” Microsoft way. I use the power and flexibility of .NET to get things done my way. I use the Data Access Application Block to virtually eliminate my database code instead of using SqlConnections et al. I use HttpHandlers instead of Web.Forms. I use additional components like Ajax.NET, db4o, log4net and others to enhance my applications. None of these are the “standard” way of doing things, but they’re the main reason I like coding with .NET (and Mono). If I couldn’t do this, then I would probably be as hacked off with .NET as others seem to be.

I guess originally learning to program in Perl taught me the most valuable lesson of all:

There’s more than one way to it.

Well Mrs. Schwuk picked up Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince for me last night. I started reading at around 9pm yesterday, went to bed some time after 3am and finished around 12pm today. I know lots of people belittle the quality/originality of JK Rowling’s writing, but I will unashamedly say she writes a damn good story, and I honestly could not put it down (apart from when I was so tired I could no longer focus on the page). A damn fine read, and and excellent continuation of the story.

If you like Harry Potter, then you’ve probably already got it. If you don’t, try it again. If you haven’t tried it, then you are missing out…

Xalior (courteous provider of Planet #lugradio ) has followed the movie (list|meme) I posted yesterday.

It appears we have similar tastes, and I agree with his summary of #17 (and it’s numerous re-uses) wholeheartedly.

From Peter Provost.

The rules:

Italicize the ones you’ve seen and Bold the ones you actually liked.

1. Titanic (1997) – $600,779,824
2. Star Wars (1977) – $460,935,665
3. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) – $434,949,459
4. Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (1999) – $431,065,444
5. Spider-Man (2002) – $403,706,375
6. Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, The (2003) – $377,019,252
7. Passion of the Christ, The (2004) – $370,025,697
8. Jurassic Park (1993) – $356,784,000
9. Shrek 2 (2004) – $356,211,000
10. Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, The (2002) – $340,478,898
11. Finding Nemo (2003) – $339,714,367
12. Forrest Gump (1994) – $329,691,196
13. Lion King, The (1994) – $328,423,001
14. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001) – $317,557,891
15. Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, The (2001) – $313,837,577
16. Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones (2002) – $310,675,583
17. Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi (1983) – $309,125,409
18. Independence Day (1996) – $306,124,059
19. Pirates of the Caribbean (2003) – $305,411,224
20. Sixth Sense, The (1999) – $293,501,675
21. Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back (1980) – $290,158,751
22. Home Alone (1990) – $285,761,243
23. Matrix Reloaded, The (2003) – $281,492,479
24. Shrek (2001) – $267,652,016
25. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002) – $261,970,615
26. How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000) – $260,031,035
27. Jaws (1975) – $260,000,000
28. Monsters, Inc. (2001) – $255,870,172
29. Batman (1989) – $251,188,924
30. Men in Black (1997) – $250,147,615
31. Toy Story 2 (1999) – $245,823,397
32. Bruce Almighty (2003) – $242,589,580
33. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) – $242,374,454
34. Twister (1996) – $241,700,000
35. My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002) – $241,437,427
36. Ghost Busters (1984) – $238,600,000
37. Beverly Hills Cop (1984) – $234,760,500
38. Cast Away (2000) – $233,630,478
39. Lost World: Jurassic Park, The (1997) – $229,074,524
40. Signs (2002) – $227,965,690
41. Rush Hour 2 (2001) – $226,138,454
42. Mrs. Doubtfire (1993) – $219,200,000
43. Ghost (1990) – $217,631,306
44. Aladdin (1992) – $217,350,219
45. Saving Private Ryan (1998) – $216,119,491
46. Mission: Impossible II (2000) – $215,397,30
47. X2 (2003) – $214,948,780
48. Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002) – $213,079,163
49. Back to the Future (1985) – $210,609,762
50. Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999) – $205,399,422
51. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) – $204,843,350
52. Exorcist, The (1973) – $204,565,000
53. Mummy Returns, The (2001) – $202,007,640
54. Armageddon (1998) – $201,573,391
55. Gone with the Wind (1939) – $198,655,278
56. Pearl Harbor (2001) – $198,539,855
57. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) – $197,171,806
58. Toy Story (1995) – $191,800,000
59. Men in Black II (2002) – $190,418,803
60. Gladiator (2000) – $187,670,866
61. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) – $184,925,485
62. Dances with Wolves (1990) – $184,208,848
63. Batman Forever (1995) – $184,031,112
64. Fugitive, The (1993) – $183,875,760
65. Ocean’s Eleven (2001) – $183,405,771
66. What Women Want (2000) – $182,805,123
67. Perfect Storm, The (2000) – $182,618,434
68. Liar Liar (1997) – $181,395,380
69. Grease (1978) – $181,360,000
70. Jurassic Park III (2001) – $181,166,115
71. Mission: Impossible (1996) – $180,965,237
72. Planet of the Apes (2001) – $180,011,740
73. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) – $179,870,271
74. Pretty Woman (1990) – $178,406,268
75. Tootsie (1982) – $177,200,000
76. Top Gun (1986) – $176,781,728
77. There’s Something About Mary (1998) – $176,483,808
78. Ice Age (2002) – $176,387,405
79. Crocodile Dundee (1986) – $174,635,000
80. Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992) – $173,585,516
81. Elf (2003) – $173,381,405
82. Air Force One (1997) – $172,888,056
83. Rain Man (1988) – $172,825,435
84. Apollo 13 (1995) – $172,071,312
85. Matrix, The (1999) – $171,383,253
86. Beauty and the Beast (1991) – $171,301,428
87. Tarzan (1999) – $171,085,177
88. Beautiful Mind, A (2001) – $170,708,996
89. Chicago (2002) – $170,684,505
90. Three Men and a Baby (1987) – $167,780,960
91. Meet the Parents (2000) – $166,225,040
92. Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991) – $165,500,000
93. Hannibal (2001) – $165,091,464
94. Catch Me If You Can (2002) – $164,435,221
95. Big Daddy (1999) – $163,479,795
96. Sound of Music, The (1965) – $163,214,286
97. Batman Returns (1992) – $162,831,698
98. Bug’s Life, A (1998) – $162,792,677
99. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004) – $161,963,000
100. Waterboy, The (1998) – $161,487,252

I thought I’d do this just to see how it turned out, and you can easily draw a couple of conclusions:

1. I’ve seen a lot of films (this list barely scratches the surface)
2. I’m not particularly choosy about the films I like

The trouble with this list is that theres no granularity – you either like it or you don’t. The other problem is that the films that I liked, I liked when I watched them,. If I were to sit down and watch some of the films on this list for the first time today, I would probably hate them. I could have been more ruthless in my ratings, but on recalling how I felt when I first watched them I generally enjoyed them at the time.

A much more telling exercise would be to:

• Only list the top 10 (or 20) films from the past year
• Include a couple of levels of ‘liking’ – i.e. I enjoyed Revenge of the Sith, but I wouldn’t put it in my top movies of 2005

Maybe if I remember (not likely) I’ll do such a list at the end of the year…

Via The Daily Grind #662

Someone has put together a 3D File System Visualizer using Avalon. Whilst this shows the power of the technologies used, it is as Mike says:

exactly the sort of horrid user interface that I fear Avalon is going to enable developers to saddle us with

I hate apps that tout skinning or theming as a significant feature, and I’m worried that if Avalon makes it easy to do 3D interfaces, then they will become a new pet hate of mine (and others).

To quote Uncle Ben¹:

With great power comes great responsibility

…or to put it another way, just because you can (do fancy 3D interfaces/representations) doesn’t mean you should.

¹ Not the one who makes rice

I’ve been using CodeRush for Visual Studio for some time now, but it turns out I had no idea of what it was really capable of…

I was watching some of the GrokTalks I pimped yesterday – in particular Scott Hanselman’s 10 Utilities in 10 Minutes which is an extremely cut down version of his 2005 Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List. In both of these he covers CodeRush, saying:

Apparently my enthusiasm for CodeRush has been noticed by a few. It just keeps getting better. However, the best kept secret about CodeRush isn’t all the shiny stuff, it’s the free Extensibility Engine called DxCore that brings VS.NET plugins to the masses.

…and I figured fair enough, I’ll agree with that – I’m using it and I like it. Then I watched his GrokTalk and realised I was just seeing the tip of the iceberg!

You see CodeRush has Code Templates. Obviously I’d seen these in action (because you can’t help but trigger them), but I didn’t realise how extensive (and customisable) they were. Now I can write huge swathes of (clean) code with very little effort.

I love any tool that makes my life easier, and this is one of them!

I’ve written a small utility for myself which I’ve now decided to release publically. It will most likely end up as an open source project, but in preparation for releasing it I’ve been prettying it up.

…or at least I’ve been trying to…

A major stumbling block for the hobbyist (which is how I class my personal developments – yes I do write code for a living) developer is a lack of decent artwork/icons that don’t cost a fortune.

Sure, if I’m going to release a piece of software commercially I could justify paying for some artwork, but for a freeware/open source project I can’t.

Surely there will be some resources out there, but try googling for “free icons” and see how far you get!

Viral Licensing

Another thing I’m not sure about is whether I can use GPL icons in a non-GPL app? I’m pretty sure I can’t unless there is specific exemption, or they are LGPL. Stuff licensed under Creative Commons is more obvious (although harder to find), but it’s not completely clear.

Speaking of Tech-Ed, the GrokTalks (10 minute mini-sessions presented by the Regional Directors at Tech-Ed ‘05 (the “proper” one)) have been published.

I’ve only watched a few so far, but the ones that I have seen have been pretty good so go check them out.

MSDN Nuggets

In a similar vein are MSDN Nuggets – short (10-15 minutes) on-demand webcasts covering various topics.

Although I’m pretty happy with my aging Palm Vx, recently it’s picked up a few serious scratches to the screen which are really annoying me. I don’t want to pay the premium for a brand new device, especially with Windows Mobile 5.0 based devices and the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet around the corner, so I’ve been scouring eBay (my new addiction) for options.

Currently I’m limiting my choices to:

• Replacing the screen on Palm Vx (not something I want to do without having a backup device available)
• Replacing the Vx with another one, or maybe a slightly higher spec one (m505 maybe)
• Getting a Microsoft Smartphone (probably an Orange SPV E500)

I could easily get a brand new Smartphone by getting another contract, but a) I don’t know if I’ll like the platform, b) again there’s new devices on the way and c) I’m not a big fan of contract phones. I want to upgrade when I want, not when they let me. Although there’s loads of E200s available, I’m playing a waiting game to see if I can get myself a bargain.

Of course I’ll probably get sick of waiting, and shell out for a brand new Dell x50V like my friend Mat just has…