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January 2007 Entries
No, not me :-) I mean the person who made these marzipan sculptures. 
 
 
Has anyone else noticed that ASDA seems to have removed it's 'Smart Price' options from their online shopping channel? Also, you can't get many bulk savings, i.e., you can't buy the kilo bag of something, you have to buy two half kilo bags at a greater price. This makes me wonder if the large multiples will use the same tactics online as they used in the real world. In the real world, they opened large super store and priced everything cheaply. Then, once the local bakers, green grocers and butchers had all been put out of business by the competition, the prices at the super store began to creep up. Looks like they are doing the same thing online. Go in low to get market share then slowly increase the spend / person. Then again, why am I surprised? ASDA are owned by WalMart now aren't they? 'Nuff said really.
Disclosure: I work for the company responsible for the Carnoustie Golf Links website. So, what's all the fuss about? "Visitors seeking 'local' restaurants and attractions during The Open Golf Championship at Carnoustie were given directions to premises in Edinburgh by a major tourism website." Oops, well that's not good, how'd it happen? "The operator of website visitscotland.com last night apologised for the blunder, blamed on a “glitch” with links between pages." Well these things happen, I'm sure it's not been going on for too long. "It is feared the problem may have gone unnoticed for more than two months, and local hoteliers and businesses have missed out as a result." Well if local business have known it's been a problem for two months, why'd they not do anything about it? "A local hotelier said she approached Patrick O’Shaughnessy, VisitScotland’s area director, on the issue more than two months ago but it seems nothing was done." Erm, why not? "She said, When I first pointed the issue out to Patrick he insisted that we must be ‘Googling’ the wrong site" Well that's because he knows best dear. You should have asked him to check it out for himself. "when he checked it out himself he saw what we were complaining about and assured me that it would be sorted." But it wasn't eh? Hmm, sounds like you should have been talking to the people who operate the site. "Site operator eTourism Ltd said, “We were alerted to a linking error on the website this morning which was fixed immediately.” See that's better isn't it? So, what did the guy at Visit Scotland say? "He was unable to explain the links fault and did not recall it being raised with him. He pledged to take steps to investigate." Ah well, all's well that ends well eh? Source: The Courier
Well actually the title should probably be "How Secure was Outlook" because, in a "blast from the past", I was doing some research on the Net and came across an article I wrote on how to make Outlook give up your email password. I'd forgotten I'd even written the article, which can't be a good sign :-) Anyway, if you are interested you can read it here. Technorati tags: Outlook, Security, C#
The Paragraph below sounds bad, but if you read the whole post, it doesn't seem that what Microsoft did was so bad, and it does look like Microsoft had used the "proper route" to have the articles edited. Read the whole article and make your own mind up though. "Microsoft has landed in the Wikipedia doghouse today after it offered to pay an Australian blogger to change technical articles on the community-produced web encyclopedia site." Source: theage.com.au
... has been released. Get it while it's hot! :-) Technorati tags: ASP.Net, AJAX
Yep it's my birthday today; you can check out the other (less important <grin>) things that happened on this day here and here. Technorati tags: Birthday
Yesterday, I got an email asking how you find out the size of an online resource, like a video or a podcast. The code below will do the trick. HttpWebRequest hwr =
(HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(URL_TO_ONLINE_RESOURCE);
hwr.Method = "HEAD";
HttpWebResponse resp = (HttpWebResponse)hwr.GetResponse();
string length =
resp.ContentLength.ToString(CultureInfo.CurrentCulture);
resp.Close();
Vista ships at the end of the month but it's not perfect yet. "Since Vista was released to MSDN subscribers back in November I have started using it on my primary development laptop. I would love to run it in a VMWare session while I am developing, but it is still not possible to get Areo Glass to run this way (I need glass running to get our Remote Control Applications to work with it). After a month and a half of using it I have found a number of things that have irritated me, and only make me more angry as time goes by" Source: IntelliAdmin.com Technorati tags: Microsoft, Vista
"In the earlier days of computing, innovations that were created for corporations gradually seeped into consumer products. But now, the traffic is going both ways—and moving quickly. The most significant example of this trend is the social networking phenomenon." Source: Business Week IBM brings social networking to the workplace via a suite of products under the name Lotus Connections. Good competition for Microsoft's Office / Exchange platform.
Over on his site, Steve Clayton has a post about the "Blue Monster". In this post Steve says that Microsoft is in a transitional period from the Microsoft of old, to the Microsoft yet to come. He also says that Microsoft has great stories to tell and they should do more to bring them to the attention of the public. Whilst this is undoubtedly true, it isn't the full story. Any good news that Microsoft bring to the attention of the public will be seen as publicity, for that is what it is. Now that doesn't mean that Microsoft shouldn't do it, it just means that they also have to be more subtle. What Microsoft also has to do is to enthuse bloggers like me to write about (and use) their products. Only then will Microsoft's stories get out to the wider public.
| Tuesday, January 30, 2007 | | 7:00 PM | Digital Forensics
Russell May will give a brief PowerPoint presentation on the basic rules of data recovery which must be followed for any recovered data to be admissible in a court of law. Then he will give a live dem... | | Dundee University |
"MySpace.com and News Corp. are being sued by the parents of girls who were allegedly solicited and sexually assaulted by adult users of MySpace." Source: CNET News.com
"Jade Goody's spokeswoman has insisted the Celebrity Big Brother contestant's behaviour is not racist" Source: Yahoo! News UK Later, a spokeswoman for ducks insisted they don't quack! Technorati tags: Jade Goody, Racist
"Okay you've asked for them and now we've got them, the winners of the Seagate drive contest!" Source: PodTech.net: Blog » Blog Archive » Seagate Contest winners announced Cool, check out number 17! Oh yeah, it looks like I may have won myself a Seagate pocket drive. I don't know for certain yet as I've not heard anything official, but it certainly looks that way :-)
"Although Microsoft recently touted the 100 millionth installation of Internet Explorer 7, Web measurement firms said that the new browser is simply being swapped out for older editions and hasn't had an impact on Firefox's continued climb." Source: InformationWeek Despite what you might think, this is good news for Microsoft. It's competition that will drive the IE team to innovate and to "keep ahead of the pack" which is good for Microsoft and good for users too. Technorati tags: IE7, Firefox, Microsoft
"L/Cpl Mathew Ford, of 45 Commando Royal Marines, died during an attack on a Taleban fort in the Helmand province. When his colleagues regrouped and found he was missing, they flew back. Four strapped themselves to two Apache helicopters which landed inside and outside the fort's wall. But they discovered he was already dead." Source: BBC NEWS Okay, I want you to pause for a moment and just think about that. Not only did these guys go back for their colleague, without a moments hesitation, but they strapped themselves to the wings of a helicopter to do it! It reminds me of the Falklands War, when all their transport helicopters were sunk on the Atlantic Conveyor, the Marines just marched across the island to engage the Argentineans! I shit you not, if you are ever in trouble, you want to see these guys coming over the hill.
I had to read this statement by Dave Winer a couple of times just to make sure I read it right. "Something that's remarkable to consider. As closed to developers as Apple is with the iPod and now the iPhone, it's pretty amazing that Microsoft, a company with a long tradition of offering developer platforms, hasn't managed to offer a product that's even worth considering by developers as an alternative to the non-existent option of producing software for Apple's mobile devices." Source: Scripting News: 1/16/2007 He can't be serious can he? How can you compare the opportunities that exist for developers on Microsoft's mobile platform, with those that (don't) exist on Apple's iPlatform? They're like chalk and cheese.
At a time when Dundee most needs it's enterprise company, they seem to be having problems of their own. "Scottish Enterprise Tayside, the local enterprise company whose role it is to help create and retain jobs, today denied that it was “rudderless” at a crucial time in Dundee’s industrial fortunes." Source: Evening Telegraph Well if it's not rudderless then I'm sure their Chief Executive will tell us every thing is under control. "SET has been without a chief executive since the end of October following the departure of the former incumbent Shona McCormack." Ah, well probably not then. Mind you, it's hardly their fault if she resigned suddenly is it? "Although SET is understood to have known about Ms McCormack’s decision to leave since last summer, her successor has yet to be appointed." Oh dear, seems like they can't even run their own organisation properly, let alone advise others how to do it. Makes you wonder what the point of SET is doesn't it? "A spokeswoman for SET maintained today the lack of a chief executive was not having an adverse effect on the company’s performance." Really? Maybe they don't need a Chief Executive in that case. :-) Technorati tags: NCR, SET
Problem You need to convert a string from lowercase to uppercase or vice versa. Solution Use the built in String functions asLowercase and asUppercase. 'HELLO' asLowercase. 'hello' asUppercase. As always evaluate these expression in Dolphin Smalltalk.
"The pirates of the world have fired another salvo in their ongoing war with copy protection schemes with the first release of the first full-resolution rip of an HD DVD movie on BitTorrent." Source: ars technica More proof that DRM does not stop the pirates, it just stops lawful users getting fair use.
"Netflix is introducing a service to deliver movies and television shows directly to PCs, not as downloads but as streaming video." Source: New York Times It would appear that Scoble's rumour of Netflix's death may have been greatly exaggerated. :-)
"Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom, the duo that brought the world Skype and Kazaa, have chosen a name for their new online-video start-up. The two want people hungry for Internet entertainment to roost at Joost." Source: CNET News.com This has been chatted about for months on the video blogging groups, under the code name project Venice, and looks to be a pretty solid product. Technorati tags: Project Venice, Joost
More comment on Apple's lock-in via DRM and the tie up with Cingular. "The iTunes/iPhone/iPod combo is a roach-motel: customers check in, but they can't check out." Source: Boing Boing It seems that Apple just don't get it. As the rest of us move to Web 2.0 and PR 2.0 practices, Apple seem to be entrenching in the old world of lock-ins and walled gardens. I wonder if its a strategy that will pay off long term. Technorati tags: Apple, DRM, Cingular
"OK so Jobs didn't use the word "ain't". But in a Newsweek interview with Steven Levy, Jobs put the kibosh on any talk about the iPhone opening up its platform for third party developers:" Source: Read/Write Web Hmm, I can't help but think this is a mistake. If you open up your platform to devs (professional or hobbists) then you get a much richer vein of applications for your users to use. That might be the deciding factor in the up coming Smarphone vs iPhone war. I think Microsoft has gotten on the right side of this battle by opening up their platform to devs. But then again, as a dev, I would say that wouldn't I? :-)
It seems that Cisco may have lost the iPhone trademark earlier last year. "An investigation into the ongoing trademark dispute between Cisco and Apple over the name "iPhone" appears to show that Cisco does not own the mark as claimed in their recent lawsuit. This is based on publicly available information from the US Patent and Trademark office, as well as public reviews of Cisco products over the past year. The trademark was apparently abandoned in late 2005/early 2006 because Cisco was not using it." Source: ZDNet.com Technorati tags: Cisco, Apple, Trademark
"The power struggle between Yahoo and Google for your desktop just took an evil turn, with evidence that suggests Yahoo is covertly trying to switch Google search users without their explicit permission." Source: Marketing Pilgrim Technorati tags: Yahoo, Google, Evil PR
Gemma's friend brought over his Wii tonight and we had a game of bowling. The Wii is pretty cool and great fun. Check out Emily the drama queen around 4:55 :-) 
Mac | Windows Technorati tags: Family, Wii, Fun
Andrew Rae, of the Edinburgh branch of BCS just pinged me an email to let me know about a soft skills course that he's organising. If it's the sort of thing you think you might benefit from then you can find out more details and sign up here. Technorati tags: Soft Skills
"Mozilla has published a wiki page detailing its plans for the next version of Firefox, codenamed "Gran Paradiso". The target release date is sometime in the third quarter this year and it hopes to release a major version of Firefox every year." Source: Read/Write Web
"Cash machine manufacturer NCR has announced plans to cut 650 jobs at its plant in Dundee." Source: BBC NEWS Hmm, I wonder why they cut so many jobs "The firm said ATM production would continue at its plant in Budapest, opened just over a year ago, and at factories in Beijing and India." Ah right, they found cheap labour abroad. Hold on though, what did NCR say when they opened the plant in Budapest? "NCR said in 2005 that the Hungary operation would 'complement' the Dundee factory." Okay so it just semantics really, when NCR say "complement" what they mean is replace because it's cheaper. Still, not to worry, our Scottish politicians are on the job. "First Minister Jack McConnell said the Scottish Executive would look closely at the situation." Look closely? Well that's a relief, for a moment there I thought they weren't going to do anything. The mincer McConnell went on to say "I and fellow ministers take this matter seriously." Well that's good, 'cos the rest of us thought it was a huge joke. So, why do NCR say they closed the plant? "Despite our efforts to take cost out of our operations, it costs us more money to build ATMs on a unit-by-unit basis in Dundee than in any of our other manufacturing plants." Indeed, but do you know why? No? Well I'll tell you, it's because Dundee have the most experienced staff, and when there's a snafu anywhere on the planet, who gets sent? That's right, engineers from Dundee; and who bears the cost of that? The plant that has the problem? No, Dundee, because that's where the staff are from. Doh! Now answer this question. Once all the highly experienced engineers from Dundee melt away, like snow in June, the next time there's a snafu, who ya gonna call...?
"Today’s announcement from Cisco regarding our suit with Apple over our iPhone trademark has spurred a lot of interesting questions. Most importantly, this is not a suit against Apple’s innovation, their modern design, or their cool phone. It is not a suit about money or royalties. This is a suit about trademark infringement." Source: News@Cisco You should read the whole post, it's really good. If it pays off for Cisco, we could see more companies going "over the heads of lawyers" and bringing their case to the court of public opinion.
C# 3.0 introduces a number of small enhancements to the language Source: Miguel de Icaza It amazes me how every day the the language I now use gets more like the language I learned to program in 17 years ago. The question is, why'd it take them soooo long to catch up? Technorati tags: Microsoft, C#, Smalltalk
Now you never have to leave the house again. :-) Here’s what they were demoing: a peer-to-peer system for selling and distributing high-def videos. It really rocks. I downloaded a movie while there in the booth and the quality wasn’t distinguishable from the HD-DVD’s I get from Netflix. Source: Scobleizer Technorati tags: Movies, CES
Problem Given a set of characters to keep, you need to build a filtering function that, applied to any string s, returns a copy of s that contains only characters in the set. Solution Use the built in select: and includes: methods. Given the set of characters to keep (aeiou) filter the string "aeiouXYZ" to keep only those characters. 'aeiouXYZ' select: [:each | 'aeiou' includes: each ] As always, evaluate this line with Dolphin Smalltalk
And it is cute!:-) Technorati tags: MACWorld
I decided that I wanted to write a web based application using the completely free Microsoft tools (never mind why, more on that later). So I downloaded Visual Web Developer and SQL Server 2005. One of the things I want my application to do is to filter data based on location, so I need the users to be able to select the country they want to filter on first. I went to the ISO site and downloaded the text file of country names and codes so that I could load it into the database. I opened up Management Studio Express and created the table to load the data into. I then selected the database, right clicked and selected Tasks -> Import; or rather I would have, if it hadn't been missing! I looked round some obvious places. Nothing. I then checked the help files, no mention of an import facility. Feeling a little apprehensive I started to search the Net, and sure enough, there I found confirmation that there is no import/export facility in the Express version! Yup, that's right, a database engine into which you can't (easily) bulk import data. Fantastic. :-( Now what I should have done was uninstall the product and move straight to MySql, a free (for what I want) product that does everything I need, including bulk import. However, as I've said, I wanted to build the application using the free Microsoft tools, so I set about finding the approved Microsoft way of bulk loading data into your database, since you can't use the shiny Management Studio Express. It turns out that what you are supposed to do is to use the command line utility BCP. You are kidding right?! Have you ever used the utility? It's a bit of a nightmare. You tell the software which table you want to use and where the datafile you want to load is (well that's what you do when you are loading a datafile like I was, it does other things too). The utility then goes on to ask you a number of obscure questions regarding the format of your file and if you get any of them wrong the upload fails. Great! :-) Well, needless to say, I didn't use the utility. I wrote a C# app to load my data in less time than it would have taken me to work out how to use BCP. It did make me think however, how do none developers manage and what the heck was Microsoft thinking about putting out a database product (even a free one) without an import/export facility?
"Gates and Bach announced several new products and services that include new Windows Vista™-inspired PCs, never-before-seen Windows Vista features, an Internet Protocol Television (IPTV)-enabled Xbox 360™ video game and entertainment system, and a new partnership with Ford Motor Co. that will extend digital experiences to the car. The company also unveiled Microsoft® Windows® Home Server, which provides a central place to help store, protect and access all the digital content in the home." Source: Microsoft
"LAS VEGAS (CES Booth #14200), Jan. 7, 2007 – Sony Electronics today introduced a 70-inch flat-panel, high-definition LCD television, the world’s largest TV compliant with x.v.Color™ technology here at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas." Source: Sony Now wouldn't that look great in your living room? :-)
"LAS VEGAS — January 7, 2007 — NETGEAR®, Inc. (Nasdaq: NTGR), a worldwide provider of technologically advanced, branded networking products, today announced the Digital Entertainer HD (EVA8000) to bring the universe of digital content to television sets. The sophisticated set-top digital media receiver enhances entertainment choices by offering an attractive, highly intuitive user interface and powerful search capability for high-definition televisions to display media files and Internet content streamed from Windows® as well as Mac® computers, network storage devices and USB media devices. NETGEAR is showcasing the Digital Entertainer HD at the 2007 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas." Source: NETGEAR.com Just what the world needs eh, YouTube on the tube. :-)
"...it all starts tonight. We’ll be streaming Bill Gates keynote. But check in here later today for a few surprises. My video camera is gonna get onto some interesting stuff. Big hint: Frank Shaw came over last night while we were having dinner. There are two hints that you need to read between the lines in his post. Can you find them both?" Source: Scobleizer I'll be covering it from the comfort of my home in Dundee. Hey, who wants to go to Las Vegas anyways? :-) Technorati tags: CES 2007
"Referential Integrity, whatever that is..." :-)
The Royal and Ancient have decided that they no longer wish Carnoustie (the host venue for The Open 2007) to blog and vlog their preparations for the great event. They have made this decision clear to the Carnoustie Links Management Committee and the Committee have decided to take down the site. For the purposes of posterity, I have saved the videos and the podcasts here in this post. Video Introduction to Fiona Gilbert
(Open Championship Administration Assistant)
Introduction to Karrie Fyffe and Lynn Fraser
(Open Championship Administration Assistants)
Environmental Walk #1
Environmental Walk #2
Environmental Walk #3
Tea Hut
Head Tee Starter
Sky Sports Director
Caddy Master Podcasts Hoylake Briefing
Post Hoylake Update
John Philp (Links Superintendent)
Sandy Reid (Head Greenkeeper, Championship Course)
"Have you ever made a profit from a catering business or dog walking? The right answers could help get you a job at Google." Source: New York Times I used to work for a catering company and I own two dogs; does that count? :-)
Here's an interesting web site if you use OS X.
Steve Clayton has a great post on Microsoft R & D at the end of which, he asks "Does that herald the future of how more Microsoft technologies come to the mass market?" I think it probably does. Agile is the key here; and by that I mean the ability to move quickly in a given market. To do that one needs a wide and deep knowledge of that market; clearly Microsoft cannot have that sort of knowledge in every market they are working in. Therefore, it makes a lot of sense for Microsoft to invent and to innovate and then to license the technology to companies with that knowledge to bring the technology to market. Technorati tags: Microsoft, R&D
... boy I hope so. 2006 pretty much sucked for us; we both lost close members of our families (at a tragically young age) this year, so we are hoping for something much better in 2007. Whatever happens, I pray 2007 brings you all that you hope for.
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