July 2005 - Posts
Yes, yes I was one the suckers to rush off and hammer the MSDN download site to be one of the first to play with the long awaited IE7...
So it is installed and working, cool .... BUT
I still don't like it! and here's why ...
- FireFox has a built in download manager that can queue multiple downloads, pause & resume etc. IE still does not have one!
- The bookmark capabilities of FireFox far outweigh the simplistic favorites of IE:
- In FireFox you can right click a bookmark and say “launch in new tab“ IE you cannot!
- In FireFox you can have your bookmark panel open whilst browsing, IE you cannot!
- FireFox provides searching functionality for your bookmarks, once again in IE you cannot!
There are SOME things i do like about the “new” IE though;
- The “fishing” filter where they scan pages for you and warn you if the page you're viewing is in fact “fishing” for information. This seems to be the only new feature in IE.
- IE7 now also supports tabbed browsing! at last guys! thank you ....
- The new cleaner looking UI is nice; the lack of a HUGE stop sign freaked me out a little at first, but i eventually found it ... top right of the address bar, and once the page has loaded this switches to a refresh button ... nice touch!
So in summary my thoughts and feelings about IE7, well it appears to be a pretty(ish) new UI on top of an old IE with tabbed browsing support. and that's about it ...
I still like the added value features of FireFox and that will still remain my browser of choice, for now ... except for those pesky web designers that refuse to acknowledge FireFox (and it's implementation of HTML 4 standards) as a browser and not ensure their sites work all is well in the land of FireFox.
you know what has annoyed me beyond all belief in the recent months ... the desire and ability to go on strike over just about anything! previously striking was a good thing when you doing so against poor working conditions, abuse, opression etc. etc. now it seems you can go on strike for just about anything.
just this week we've had THREE groups of people striking! SAA, municple workers, and PnP (a giant retailer in SA). the reason for the strike, well because people were not happy with the annual increases being offered.
firstly; be happy you have a JOB!
secondly; where the hell do you get off demanding an increase of 12% when you're being offered one over the current inflation levels. in today's world an inflation linked increase is a good thing. hell i have not had an increase in 3 years!!!!!! i'd love the 5% these mongrels were offered!
and finally; how the hell do you thinking crippling your company is going to give them anymore money in order to help them pay these exhorbetant amounts you hold them ransom too.
come on people ...
ok so you've all seen it before; that annoying window that you HAVE to fill in before you can bounch a Win2K3 box ...
whilst it may be nice in a production environment to know when & “why” the server was rebooted, do we really care in any other case, like on a dev machine or staging server etc? i certainly never fill in anything useful when it prompts me anyways; it's usually the first key i can hit in frustration that gets logged ... so can you kill it you ask? well sure you can; use the group policy editor on the server [start | run | gpedit.msc], navigate to Admin templates and select the “ Display Shutdown Event Tracker “ setting.
then the next time you bounce your trusty windows machine instead of the annoying screen before you now see this ....
ah i feel better already! calm & peace return to my world ....
Whilst i am on the topic of C# 2.0 ... yes it is nice to have customers that are willing adopters of the “early adopter” program from Microsoft, it let's you “play” properly with all the new toys during “normal” work hours.
One nice little quirk that the kind folk on the C# IDE team have fixed is the case-sensitivy issues of the previous intelli-sense.
What do I mean I hear you ask; well anybody ever noticed what happened in C# 1.1 when you started typing “consol” .... well nothing initially unless you remember to hit Ctrl+Space. Not a big deal you say ... well what happens when you type “console.” ... still nothing, why? well because the previous IDE does not know about console with a small c.
C# 2.0 IDE has thankfully have fixed that ...
as you start typing “conso” the intelli-sense window pops up and displays the correct capitalised Console. Even if you do not decide to select the entry and continue to type out the full console in lower case, as soon as you hit “.” the inteli-sense auto fixes you case problem and the proceeds to supply you with the next level of help.
ok it's silly i know ... but there have been an number of times during fantic development when i hit Ctrl+Space expecting the IDE to prompt me what to do next and nothing happens simply cause i forgot that pesky Shift key at the beginning. call me lazy but i love it, when you have so much typing to do in one day remembering to hold down the Shift key every time is a real pain.
it is these little things that make me look forward to launching VS everyday.
now let's hope and pray that some of the major issues from VS 2003 have been fixed .... i'll post about this soon watch this space ...
Oooh man i gotta say this is one of the best new features added to C#. it was asked for by the community, it was rumored almost to death during early betas, but thankfully Microsoft once again listened to what it's customers wanted and decided to throw us a little lifeline here with this one.
Yes, yes i know the "purists" out there call it evil and refuse to see the point of it but hear me out ...
Imagine that you are trying to debug a hectic application. whilst you are stepping through your code to see whether everything works as it should you see that you've made a small mistake; a database query is missing a comma between fields. Cursing your torrid luck, you stop the application, make the correction and start all over again.... welcome to the life of a C# 1.0 developer ...
What a pain in the butt! yes i know you should've just done it properly the first time ... but how many of us do that ?!?
Now step in C# 2.0 with edit & continue; now you can simply fix your sql query on the fly and continue onwards without taking the PT (physical torture) of stopping the debugger, editing the code, recompiling your entire project, then painstakingly stepping through everything again to get back to the point where you were 10 minutes ago.
So time for a demo ...
Create a simple Console application in C# 2.0, and do something simple as shown below ...
static void Main(string[] args)
{
string s = "this is sooooo boring!";
Console.WriteLine(s);
}
Set a breakpoint on the Console.WriteLine line and run your app. when the code hits your breakpoint, change the value of s using your autos window,
Now press F11 and go look what happened;
simply wicked!
yes i know this is a trivial example but with Edit and Continue you can do so much more ...
you can change code on the fly;
static void Main(string[] args)
{
string s = "Hello World";
for(int i=0; i
Set a breakpoint on the Console.Write method call and start your debugger ...
this silly code sample has a subtle error-by-one bug in the for loop (did anybody spot it???). Now thanks to Edit and Continue you can fix this bug without stopping and rebuilding. Whilst you're stopped on your breakpoint, change the for loop to the following and continue your application.
for (int i=0; i
continue now hit F5 and watch pure “magic” at work ...
It is simply brilliant!
I do not want to try and imagine what the poor compiler and the CLR have to do in the background to get this working, but they did so well done C# team! I know this kind of thing will save me many many hours of frustration and make me a much more productive developer.
Now if I could just somehow stop doing these silly things from the word go then all would be better!
Sure there are some things that you cannot do with Edit and Continue like;
- Add new methods
- Adding or removing parameters from a method
- Changing the name of a class or method
- etc.
But with what it gives us, already I'll be far more productive.
oh and before I get hammered on from the VB.NET development *cough* community, yes I know you've had this since VB3 or something, but I don't care; we've finally got in C# and that is all that matters ... well to me anyways :-D
well yes i would know cause it has happened to me ....
I realized when I crashed so badly that if I had slipped unconscious I would
have been in serious trouble. I had a cell phone with me yes, but it got
obliterated by the impact of a 5ton truck. I was riding with friends yes,
but how many of us know each other's next of kin's contact details or what
medical aid they're on?
The first thing the paramedics asked was whether or not I was on medical
aid; had I not been conscious to give them my details and give Roland my
fiancé's number things may have been VERY different.
I heard a very scary story of a roadie that out on his own during a ride,
got hit by a car; unfortunately in this case the rider did not remain
conscious and nobody on the road could contact anybody nor did they know his
medical aid details; this guy lay in the Johannesburg general hospital,
unconscious whilst the hospital tried what they could to find his family. It
took almost a week before they got somebody at his cycling club to identify
him.
This could have been avoided completely if the cyclist in question carried a
simple laminated card with the appropriate details on board.
so step in MediSMS.co.za;
You will never be alone again!
The MediSMS.co.za system gives you the opportunity to embrace SMS (short message service) technology that can save
your life and the lives of your family in a medical emergency. This technology can speak a million words when you can't.
The concept uses rubber bands, similar to the "LIVESTRONG" bands, with an individual, unique
engraved identification number. These identification numbers enable paramedics and emergency personnel to get all the medical information about you they need to save your life. By using their personal pin codes via a short SMS number, medical personnel can instantly obtain all your relevant particulars, including personal and medical aid details which are updatable by you on our server, for which you receive your own password to maintain your information. In the event of a paramedic accessing your medical information, two additional SMSs are sent to two nominated relatives, to notify them there has been an emergency. The nominees are given a reference number and the MediSMS.co.za call centre number to contact, from where the crisis will be managed on your behalf.
I'm signing up now; i think you all should!!!
so you think you're safe behind your 10ft walls and nobody will ever know what you're up to in your own “private” space; well not anymore! Google now publishes satelite photos of the ENTIRE planet for all to see.
go check out Google Earth, it's a windows app that you can download and install to your pc.
here is a picture of Rome taken this morning ....
it's incredible; it even shows the booms that i drive through each and every day ...
and i never thought i'd ever say this; but credit and respect where due is what i always say, so here it is .... (abuse expected)
Eurosport | Armstrong foregoes yellow
Following in the footsteps of Eddy Merckx and Greg Lemond, Lance Armstrong said he wouldn't wear a yellow jersey earned through the misfortune of a fellow rider.
Armstrong said he wanted to respect the history of the race, and that, since "nobody has ever taken the yellow jersey from a crash," Discovery wouldn't either. David Zabriskie's fall yesterday has Armstrong in the race lead.
In 1971, Merckx and Ocaña contested an epic Tour stage in heavy rain. When race leader Ocaña fell, Merckx refused to wear the maillot jaune until the following day. Similarly, in 1991, Greg Lemond didn't wear the yellow jersey after race leader Rolf Sorenson lost the race lead when he hit the pavement in a final sprint.
Today, at the end of the neutral zone, Armstrong put the yellow jersey on, but over his Discovery jersey; the OLN team suggested race organizers may have intervened.
Here's what BBC Sport has to say:
Stage five of the Tour de France has been briefly delayed by a stoppage at the official start in Chambord.
Six-times Tour winner Lance Armstrong did not want to wear the race leader's yellow jersey, out of respect for fellow American David Zabriskie.
Tour bosses halted the race before the start and told Armstrong he had to wear the jersey for the 183km to Montargis.
so hat's off to Lance (now you'll never hear me say that again i'm sure)