Charlie Barker

Grok'ing nServiceBus

2009-04-20T10:05:59.687+01:00

First read this nServiceBus overview.

I'm recording my learning so I can refer to it later.

Messaging Concepts

Transport

For messaging to work you need to transport messages from one endpoint to another, once an application has created the message addressed it and put it into a queue it is up to the transport to attempt delivery. MSMQ is the default choice of nServiceBus.

Command Query Separation (CQS)

Wikipedia describes CQS as a pattern where "… every method should either be a command that performs an action, or a query that returns data to the caller, but not both. More formally, methods should return a value only if they are referentially transparent and hence possess no side effects." Udi Dahan's Blog Post on CQS

The Cost of Messaging

Using a messaging approach to building systems offers lots benefits that other approaches don't but you rarely get something for nothing, Ayende's article discusses the cost of messaging.

nServiceBus Concepts

Publish vs Send - Wiki Article

The Distributor

The distributor as it's name suggests distributes work to be done to worker services. This avoids the need for the service that decides what work is to be done from having to contact all workers or have logic that handles balancing the work load.
Worker services inform the distributor how many idle threads they have available and it dispatches the same number of jobs. When a thread completes the distributor is notified so that if any jobs are in the work queue one will be sent.
This means an administrator can monitor the work queue to see if there are enough workers to handle the load.

Install an SSL cert on your local machine for testing

2009-04-17T10:59:57.03125+01:00

One of the devs in our team here at Wonga came accross this useful tool.

If you find the need to install an SSL cert on your local machine for testing purposes, such is the requirement for testing the WongaAPI, you can download the IIS 6.0 Resource Kit Tools from Microsoft, which contains a tool called SelfSSL.

This is a simple command line utility which will install an ssl cert on localhost.

the tool kit can be downloaded from here:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=56FC92EE-A71A-4C73-B628-ADE629C89499&displaylang=en

How MSMQ works

2009-04-16T09:07:06.21875+01:00

I found a this great analogy on how MSMQ works

URL : Full MEssage

"MSMQ works similar to how USPS works.

You write your letter, write in address (queue format name), attach stamp and put it into your mail box with raised red flag (send the message using MSMQ).

Your mail (message) then sits in this mail box near your house (outgoing queue). Note at that point you can get address wrong on your letter (bad format name), however that won’t stop you from putting letter into mail box (sending it).

OK, so later one mail man comes (network connection is established). Mail man picks your mail (MSMQ connects to the destination server) and if everything is OK it goes through the system (network) and ends up in receiving mail box (destination queue). Recipient (your application on the server) don’t have to be near (don’t have to be running) this mail box (queue) for mail to arrive.

At some point somebody (your application) opens mail box (application on the server reads from the destination queue) and gets mail.

What could go wrong here? Well, you can get address wrong. Mail man can never come (no network connection on device). Destination might be inaccessible, say avalanche blocked the roads (server is down or no network path to it) or there’s civil disturbance and it’s blocked out by the police (firewall or security configuration prevents connection to the server).

Another thing: I’m not absolutely sure, but you might have to install web server and configure MSMQ ISAPI DLL for SRMP to work."

Southern Trains Announcement Ringtone for your iPhone

2009-02-20T15:34:10.40525+00:00

For your enjoyment a ringtone of the Southern Service to Ashford International, oh the automated announcement goodness.
Warning this may confuse your fellow passengers unless you happen to be on that train to Ashford.

AshforInternationalSpeed.m4r (192.71 KB)

iPhone 3G Rip off

2009-02-20T13:55:11.749+00:00

Before you let Steve Job's and his posse firmly place their arm up your back passage here's a few things you should know.

Firstly Apple have effectively fitted the iPhone with a chastity belt, if you want to have your wicked way with it you will have to Jailbreak it first, if you don't the following is a list of things you will have to put up with.

1 - You'll have to pay for custom ringtones and you can only choose from the songs / tones available on iTunes.

2 - If you want to make use of App Store and download apps (even free ones) you will have to setup an iTunes account, you will need a credit / debit card and have at least £1.50 in your account.

3 - If you want to load your own mp3's (not purchased via iTunes) you will still have to install iTunes to do this.

I have only had the phone a short while so there may be more gotcha's to come.

Update:
It turns out iTunes is lying about No 1. you can use itunes to convert mp3 / Wav files in to AAC then rename the extension to M4R, reimport the file and it will appear as a ringtone.
+1 for it being possible -1 for lying to your customers Apple

Vodafone Broadband Dongle Review

2009-02-08T10:37:21.761+00:00

I bought one of these a couple of weeks ago, to use on my commute to london.

The Good:

Uber convienient have BB on the move
Signal on the train is good without to much drop out.
You can plug in a 4gb mcro sd card and turn it into a memory stick
In a good signal area the downloads are fast 170kbps

The Bad:

This is a relatively expensive way to roam the WWW at 15 quid per GB but it only costs 39.99 to buy and you only pay for what you use unlike the pay montly alternatives. Perfect for me as I will only use it for small periods.

The Ugly:
The vodafone software that installs when you plug the device in to your Pc/Laptop is possibly one of worst programs I have had the misfortune to encounter in a long time.
If you plan to use this device whilst stationery and in a good signal area you will not have any problems. If you use it on a train / in a car then expect constant pop-ups that cannot be minimized.

The unecessary:
Adult Content Blocking is on by default, included is Skype.com ???
WTF Vodafone since when do Skype serve adult content.... Hmm they do however offer internet telephony, I wonder if that could be the real reason.
Which ever knob jockey at vodafone thought up this trick should be shot. It just annoys paying customers who can download skype the moment they are connected via WiFi, seriously misjudged move by Vodafone.

Make SQL Server 2005 Address more than 2Gb on Windows 2003/2000 32bit versions

2008-12-18T13:55:21.507+00:00

If you are using Sql Server 2005 straight out of the box on 32bit Windows 2003 / 2000 and you would like Sql Server to be able to address more than 2Gb of RAM you have to enable AWE.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms190731(SQL.90).aspx

Project Garden Shed

2008-11-13T10:34:05.359+00:00

I have decided to put a shed in the garden this is an account of what was involved and what the various bits cost.

Here she is a 5m x 5m Conrad from Factory Cabins Direct. She cost £2300 inc vat with 44m thick walls and double glazing and took about four weeks to arrive. I notice the price has just gone up to £2700. The shed arrived on the back of a truck with a Hiab crane, the driver was able to hoist the pallet off the truck an on to our drive. As you would expect the pallet was about 5m long and 1m high by 1m wide.

Leveling the site and running services to the shed

I found man with a digger who came and spent a day leveling a 5.0m x 5.0m site, he also dug a trench and laid an armoured cable and water pipe from the shed to the house, for this he charged £180. I wasn't able to be on site when he was working which was a mistake as he did not do a great job of leveling the site. I should have put up some visual markers for him to work to.

UPDATE:

The shed is up and part painted, it took about 10 man days to get to this stage.
The biggest lesson I learned was that it would have been much better to do this in the dry. A couple of times water got into the roof and floor boards causing them to expand and lift.

The total cost of the project worked out at five grand. About a thousand for the concrete base which required 10 tonnes of concrete due to the gradient. 800 for the cedar shingles. The rest went on paint, electricals fittings and fixings.

Configure WinSCP to upload automatically to SFTP

2008-10-13T17:48:43.309125+01:00

I needed to automate the upload of csv files to an SFTP server for print fulfilment. It was a bit trickier than I thought it would be so I recorded what I did in case I need to do it again someday.

1) Download and install WinSCP from here: http://winscp.net

2) Create a folder where files will be uploaded from and a sub folder called Archive

3) Open WinSCP go to Options Select Storage and Set Configuration Storage to INI file (WinSCP.ini), close WinSCP.

4) Add a the PATH to the WinSCP install folder in the Environment Variables

5) Create a file in the upload folder called SftpScript.txt

6) Create a .cmd file and add the following command, modify the path to SftpScript.txt

winscp.com /console /script=C:\Files\PrintFulfilment\SftpScript.txt >> SftpUpload.log

7) Add the following code to SftpScript.txt, update the parameters highlighted in red.

# Automatically answer all prompts negatively not to stall the script on errors

option batch on

# Disable overwrite confirmations that conflict with the previous

option confirm off

# Connect using a password

open user:password@ftp.somewhere.com

# Force binary mode transfer

option transfer binary

# Change to home directory

# Upload the file to current working directory

put C:\Files\PrintFulfilment\*.csv

# Disconnect

close

# Exit WinSCP

Exit

8) To prevent the same file being uploaded next time the command runs add the following to the .cmd File, updating the file mask and archive folder path.

MOVE *.csv C:\Files\PrintFulfilment\Archive\

New Job - Wonga

2008-09-29T14:17:28.797+01:00

I have recently changed job, I have moved from the relative safety of Tradeweb to Wonga an 18 month old startup. It's a very exciting place to work offering a very dynamic working environment.

The company is very focused on becoming the number one source of cash on demand. It offers cash direct to your bank account with in a few minutes of being accepted if you apply before 3pm. This presents a lot of challenges as nearly all customer scoring and verification has to done automatically.

The service is for people who need to borrow a small amount of cash for a short period of time (up to 30 days). It is only designed for use in emergencies. If you are accepted for a loan and repay on time your Wonga Trust rating increases and so does the amount you may borrow.

It's good to be back in a small company where I feel I can make a difference.

Uploading IIS or Event log files to SQL Server using Microsoft Log Parser

2008-09-20T20:28:36.162+01:00

Every now and again I stumble across a tool that does exactly what I am looking for no if's or but's just exactly what I need. It is a rare moment and something to savour.

Today it happened and the tool is Microsoft's Log Parser. This is a tool that knows how to read IIS and Windows event logs out of the box, it allows you to specify filters and columns using a SQL-like syntax and dump the result straight into a SQL server database. How freakin amazing is that! To build this yourself would involve writing scripts that use WMI or .NET to interrogate the logs then produce text files in a BCP friendly format then shelling out to the BCP utility to import to a DB, in other words lots of work. This can now all be achieved in one line of code:

LogParser -i:EVT -o:NAT "SELECT * INTO c:\Output.txt FROM System"

The example above takes all the fields from the Windows System Event Log and places them into a text file called Output.txt. Once you have installed Log Parser you can copy that line of code into a command prompt on any windows machine and if you have the necessary permissions you will dump the entire system event log to a text file. It's quick too I processed ~2600 log entries to a text file in 0.7 secs on my laptop.

I am still investigating all the features, if you specify the SQL output format -o:SQL you have either to setup a DSN to your database or supply the Sql server & database (if using Sql Auth you also need username & password). After the INTO you specifiy the table name, when the command executes if the table does not exist it will be created for you using the columns in the input format. If want to import into an existing table the column names, data types and order of columns must match. Read the excellent help file that comes with the install. See the example below.

Finally there is one more cool feature I would like to mention, if you wish continually upload log entries from a log file as it grows but you wish ignore records you have already processed you are in luck! Use the iCheckPoint parameter and Log Parser will create a file where it stores the position it last read up to in the log file you are processing. This removes the need to clear out the database and reload everything which means a lot less horsepower will be required for processing your logs. You can reduce the intervals between log uploads to make your database more current.

It also has a Com+ api so you can call it directly from C# or VB. I can't believe it took me this long to discover such a useful tool.

SQL Server Example:
LogParser -i:EVT -o:SQL "SELECT * INTO EventLog FROM System" -server:Laptop\SqlExpress -database:Keeper -driver:"SQL Server" -createTable:ON

UPDATE:
If you have IIS set to create Daily log files (the default) then a bit of code is needed in your batch file to determine what the current filename will be. The following example will work on an XP/2003 server that has is local date format set to the UK. If you are deploying to a server with US date format you will need change code that sets the CurrentLogFile variable.

REM Use on servers set to UK date
SET CurrentLogFile=ex%date:~8,2%%date:~3,2%%date:~0,2%.log

REM SET the path to the IIS Log Files Folder. NOTE: If your IIS server has multiple Websites you may have to change the path.
SET LogFilesFolder=%SYSTEMROOT%\system32\Logfiles\W3SVC1\

ECHO Attempting to process IIS Log File: %LogFilesFolder%%CurrentLogFile%

PAUSE
LogParser -i:IISW3C -o:SQL "SELECT * INTO IISLog FROM %LogFilesFolder%%CurrentLogFile%" -server:Laptop\SqlExpress -database:Keeper -driver:"SQL Server" -createTable:ON
PAUSE

Update: Found a Gotcha
I discovered a gotcha with using the flag -createTable:ON when importing IISLogs into SQL server, this will set the column length to 255 max. Often columns like csReferrer, csUriQuery, csUriStem and csUserAgent will exceed 255 chars. To fix this problem simply increase the length of the columns.
I used csCookie: varchar(5000), csUriQueryString: varchar(5000), csUriStem: varchar(1000), csUserAgent: varchar(1000)

A Review of Mark Steel's book: What's going on ?

2008-09-20T10:29:14.943+01:00

I am a big fan of Mark Steel's, I loved the "Mark Steel Lectures" series that he did for the Open University. He is very good at explaining ideas in plain english, de-jargonising them and adding touch of humor to the learning experience. The majority of the series seems to be on you tube, just search for his name and you will find them.

In his latest book he talks mostly about the last ten years of his life, the birth of his two kids, his split with his partner and the end of his membership of the SWP. If your thinking what's so interesting about that well i'm 35 year old and he is 46 so I am just about to go through what he is talking about in his book (hopefully not splitting with my wife and I'm not an SWP member). My wife is eight months pregnant with our first child. The book is honest and amusing and very reasuring that my complete lack of preparedness for becoming a father is the norm.

The book is an entertaining read and well written, I took it on holiday and it only lasted three days a good sign for me. I don't share Mark's views on Capitalism but enjoy reading his arguments, which do have merit because they are well thought out.

4/5 for me.

Schema Design Rules

2008-08-13T09:26:17.226375+01:00

These are the schema design commandments I live by, they are kept here purely for my reference.
Rules marked with * are absolute and if not implemented will result in karma so bad you will be reincarnated as a bottom feeder.

1.) Pluralise table names.
2.) *Every table in the db will have a primary key, without exception.
3.) Be consistent with Case and separators when naming tables and columns
4.) Enforce referential integrity with foreign keys.
5.) Avoid acronyms wherever possible when naming tables and columns.
6.) Avoid using the float datatype for columns that will store monetary values.
7.) Use varchar instead of char(n) unless specifically required.

If you have any rules you swear by then please comment with your reasoning.
This is a work in progress.

New Social Gaming Network - Playfire

2008-07-30T18:33:57.630625+01:00

I have a friend I'll call him Aaron because that's his name.

He has joined the company behind a new social networking site focused in the gaming community.

The have just revamped their site, it is still in beta though you wouldn't know it.

The have areas for all the major consoles and of course pc games.

Check Playfire out here.

The interesting thing about playfire from a developers point of view is that the platform is developed on Django a web development framework developed in Python. It is based loosely on the RoR MVC framework and seems to be gaining some traction. I intend to check it out soon.

New search engine - CUIL

2008-07-29T09:19:00.224375+01:00

There is a new search engine on the block, you've got to admire someone who's got the balls to take google on!

Check CUIL out.

My first impressions are that it's fast, it doesn't have a geographical filter like google which might make looking for online stores in your country a problem, unless it handles this behind the scenes.

As you would expect it's index is not as complete as google, I have a three websites and it only found one of them but it may just take some time to get round to the others.

I'm hoping it will be Bot unfriendly, last time I trawled my weblog's live search was referring very open ended searchs to my site, i'm guessing this is bots submitting search words from a dictionary and then working through the list of results, but i'm not sure. One thing I know is that google does not show up in the logs in this way.

One thing I know is competition is healthy if this new site can steal some market share from google it will help to keep google honest.

Robert Scoble has posted on his blog about it.

Centro - Entity Definitions / Work in Progress

2008-07-16T10:07:37.202+01:00

Entity Definitions
==================
Center - An organisation that runs courses
Center Admin - A course administrator
Center Instructor - A course instructor
Organisation - An organisation that sends people on courses
Organisation Admin - An administrator at an organisation that sends people on courses
Attendee - A person that attends a course

Complete First Aid Course Bookings
==================================
- These will be administered by ProHealth to begin with
- Add certification duration to Course Types
- Add course attendee certificate issue date / expiry fields - This should be the same date that is on the certificate and will be used to trigger reminders to be sent out.

Nice to have's
==============
- Course Search Form - Search by category / date / type / status
- Upcoming Course list - set max in list / period i.e 3 months / both
- RSS / Email Notifications for upcoming courses
Enquiry form
- filled out by PH admin when enquiry is received by phone / email / fax
- Should allow searching for repeat bookings by existing customers by post code / company name
- Will track enquiries as they become bookings
- Sends an email to prospective customer containg a link to book on line / pdf to faxback
- PDF contains enquiry ref will be keyed by ph admin when fax is recieved will save time.

Expiry Tracking System
======================
Because a company would be nuts if it didn't chase repeat business
- Inteligent tracking of certificate expiry dates
- Issue reminder letters, calls, or emails to org's, companies and individuals.
-- Currently this is done once a year
-- Organised companies book an entire year in advance
-- Disorganised companies book at the last minute.
-- The system should try and make life easier for both types of company
- Optout/in facility will allow reminders to be turned off

Company Portal
===============
Will follow when all in house admin functionality is complete
- Customer will be issued a login and password

Occupational Health Website in Monorail for ProHealth

2008-06-27T22:23:17.944125+01:00

I wanted a way to get into the guts of monorail so I offered to create a website for the occupational health company that my mum works for. It is very much a work in progress, you can check it out here ProHealthUk if you want to see the CRUD click the admin link. When the site goes fully live you will have to login but for the time being you can edit data.

nPower Sucks

2008-06-27T22:09:10.8035+01:00

So tonight at about 8pm I sit down on the couch with a beer when I hear a knock at the door. When I answer it there two ladies and a gent all smartly dressed in suits. The woman asks me to confirm my name and address as shown on her clipboard she then starts a vauge diatribe about how I could save money on my energy bills. At no point did she identify that she was from nPower. I learnt this from looking at the logo on her Id badge.

The lady's sales pitch continued for about a minute until I twigged what was going on. I asked her straight out "Are you offering to change my provider?" she seemed disinclined to answer the question so I asked it again. She said yes to which I replied I am not interested in changing my provider. She asked if it was due to the hassle, I said no I just do not want to change. That was the end of it.

What annoyed me was the underhand way in which the salespeople misleadingly explained their presence on my doorstep. If they had identified themselves as N-Power and offered to quote me a price for supplying fuel I would have given them a chance. I like the next person would always rather pay less for my fuel but I felt like they were trying to con me into changing without even realising I was doing so. I am now very unlikely ever to contemplate using n-power in future. They should stop this practice as they will get some very negative pr from people like me. IMHO door to door sales is about as low as it gets anyway.

Rant over.

centro a new open source project in monorail

2008-05-26T22:59:14.426+01:00

I am building a course booking system in monorail and in the process of uploading the source to google code. This is basically a way for me to understand the MVC approach to building websites using the castle monorail project. I figured the code may be of use to others tackling similar tasks or who just want to hack around with existing code to see how it works. I am not by any means a monorail expert so some of the approaches I have taken may be wrong or ill advised but that is kind of the point learning by experience is my favourite approach. Let me know if you spot any. All help gratefully received.

This will be a system designed to help administrators organise training courses. The initial need is for it to be able to handle first aid courses run by a health clinic.

The system will be used by non-technical admin staff who are familiar with email and basic word processing on windows pc's.

The development of the project uses the .net framework 2.0 and an MVC pattern with the Monorail Castle framework. It makes use of the Active Record ORM to handle data access. SQL Server is used for the database. I have elected to use nVelocity for the view templates. I have also elected not to write tests and use tdd. I know I should it's just that my brain cannot absorb that many new things at once.

The system allows new courses to be setup, new course types to be configured. Courses can be managed with new attendees booked on to courses.

If the courses are for certification purposes if an attendee passes the course the certificate issued can be tracked so renewal notification can be sent out.

The system allows attendees to be moved from one course to another and for their booking to be cancelled.

The system will produce reports for invoicing, courses and reminders for expired certificates.

You can find the project here:

http://code.google.com/p/centro/

What happens to your Blog when you die?

2008-04-17T11:05:14.8392906+01:00

I was having difficulty getting to sleep last night and started wondering what happens to a persons blog when they die.

Currently this blog lives on my server at home so I wouldn't reckon on it lasting too long after my passing should I be struck down by a Bus or Psyclist in london.

Most folks who blog use a company that they pay to host or will host for free, I wonder what there policy is.

Then I got to thinking wouldn't it be nice if there was a website that offered to host blogs of the deceased.

On the face of it this would seem to be an altruistic service but I sure there is a VC out there trying to figure out the ad revenue business model.

I'm going to do some google based research and report my findings here, watch this space.....

Crazy Invention #1 - Cable tidy for your Pc

2008-04-17T10:56:29.8250151+01:00

Every now and then I have a half baked idea for a new kind of Gizmo, today I was staring at the mess of cables on my desk and thought up this.

A device that replaces the multitude of cables that inhabit the back of your desk with one single fat cable for neatness.
Could also develop a wirless version using wimax technology.
Including:
- 2 x A/C Power for monitors
- 2 x DVI / VGA for Dual screen
- 1 x USB (built in powered hub
-- Four ports for:
--- Keyboard
--- mouse
--- Other peripherals

The Best Merge and Diff Tools

2008-04-12T14:53:14.921+01:00

So I am relatively new to using merge tools. I have been developing with them for about a year. Merge tools become a necessity if you are developing in a team, or working on branches in your source control system. You do have to be ultra careful when you are merging against another developers changes. The merge tool you use for this is key, a good tool will help you quickly assess the differences and let you combine them quickly and accurately.

Tools that cost $$$

At work we use Araxis Merge and it is a great tool, it is a very polished piece of software it makes merging files easy, it supports three way merges and has a fast folder comparison utility. It is relatively expensive at $79 but represents good value for money.

Jeff Attwood wrote an article on his blog about Beyond Compare, I am going to try this out as I need a tool for my dev work at home and this is only $30 according to Jeff it is every bit as good as Araxis and a lot cheaper.

Tools that are free

Scott Hansleman has written about free Diff Tools on his blog his pick of the bunch is WinMergesome of the others he mentions are KDiff3 and DiffMerge .

T-SQL Reserved Keywords List

2008-03-27T18:34:58.1767188+00:00

I always try and avoid using these keywords when naming objects in SQL Server:

ADD	EXCEPT	PERCENT
ALL	EXEC	PLAN
ALTER	EXECUTE	PRECISION
AND	EXISTS	PRIMARY
ANY	EXIT	PRINT
AS	FETCH	PROC
ASC	FILE	PROCEDURE
AUTHORIZATION	FILLFACTOR	PUBLIC
BACKUP	FOR	RAISERROR
BEGIN	FOREIGN	READ
BETWEEN	FREETEXT	READTEXT
BREAK	FREETEXTTABLE	RECONFIGURE
BROWSE	FROM	REFERENCES
BULK	FULL	REPLICATION
BY	FUNCTION	RESTORE
CASCADE	GOTO	RESTRICT
CASE	GRANT	RETURN
CHECK	GROUP	REVOKE
CHECKPOINT	HAVING	RIGHT
CLOSE	HOLDLOCK	ROLLBACK
CLUSTERED	IDENTITY	ROWCOUNT
COALESCE	IDENTITY_INSERT	ROWGUIDCOL
COLLATE	IDENTITYCOL	RULE
COLUMN	IF	SAVE
COMMIT	IN	SCHEMA
COMPUTE	INDEX	SELECT
CONSTRAINT	INNER	SESSION_USER
CONTAINS	INSERT	SET
CONTAINSTABLE	INTERSECT	SETUSER
CONTINUE	INTO	SHUTDOWN
CONVERT	IS	SOME
CREATE	JOIN	STATISTICS
CROSS	KEY	SYSTEM_USER
CURRENT	KILL	TABLE
CURRENT_DATE	LEFT	TEXTSIZE
CURRENT_TIME	LIKE	THEN
CURRENT_TIMESTAMP	LINENO	TO
CURRENT_USER	LOAD	TOP
CURSOR	NATIONAL	TRAN
DATABASE	NOCHECK	TRANSACTION
DBCC	NONCLUSTERED	TRIGGER
DEALLOCATE	NOT	TRUNCATE
DECLARE	NULL	TSEQUAL
DEFAULT	NULLIF	UNION
DELETE	OF	UNIQUE
DENY	OFF	UPDATE
DESC	OFFSETS	UPDATETEXT
DISK	ON	USE
DISTINCT	OPEN	USER
DISTRIBUTED	OPENDATASOURCE	VALUES
DOUBLE	OPENQUERY	VARYING
DROP	OPENROWSET	VIEW
DUMMY	OPENXML	WAITFOR
DUMP	OPTION	WHEN
ELSE	OR	WHERE
END	ORDER	WHILE
ERRLVL	OUTER	WITH
ESCAPE	OVER	WRITETEXT

Draytek 2820 Review

2008-02-28T10:19:42.293+00:00

Model Name          : Vigor2820 series
Firmware Version   : 3.1.1
Build Date/Time    : Nov 8 2007 11:10:43
ADSL Firmware      : 211801_A Annex A

Price: £135 inc VAT

I have just bought one of these to use in a small office.

First impressions are it is good value for money in terms of the features if offers.
The web UI is uninspiring a little better than a Netgear or a DLink but nowhere near as good as a m0n0wall. It is responsive but not intuitive.
One bad point for anyone who has to administer several units the config file is backed up in binary format, a more sensible choice would have been XML to allow tweaks and roll-outs.
You can't see recent log entries in the web admin screens you have to install the syslog tool on a pc on your lan, and configure the router to send logs to it, not good if you are a remote admin.
PPTP I have failed to get this working so far, I wanted to use the windows built in PPTP client to connect to the router, so far a connection can be established but authentication fails, I haven't given up but it would be nice if this had worked straight out the box like m0n0wall. Draytek supply a Smart VPN client of their own but this too fails to authenticate.

I will update this review in about a month, if I can get PPTP working I will be pretty happy if not it may have to go back to the shop.

zero punctuation game reviews LMAO ROFL

2008-02-24T19:08:52.106+00:00

This has to be the funniest most original game reviewer on the web. He is also very knowledgable

The Escapist

Use your Wii as a Media Center with Orb

2008-02-22T22:22:12.515625+00:00

This will r0x0r your b0x0r's!

http://lifehacker.com/357869/use-your-wii-as-a-media-center

The article explains in several easy steps how to turn your wii into a media center.

I tried it and could not believe how well it works!

Some things you will need:

A Wii with wireless access to the internet
The latest version for the Wii Opera Browser (You have to buy this $5/£3)
A pc to install the Orb Software

So how does it work?
Well I don't know the detail but so far as I can tell the client software you install on your pc stream's media to the Orb server which streams it back to your browser.

I had to unblock some of the ports on my pc's windows firewall to get the streaming to work.

It's early days but so far i'm impressed with the Web UI nice big fonts for the TV and very intuitive I think I have seen the future.

Hyundai BlueH - 22in Widescreen LCD Tv/Monitor

2008-02-06T14:49:44.0108885+00:00

The HM22W is a nice TV for a bedroom, the picture is good with no ghosting and a wide viewing angle.

The built in speakers are a bit limp so don't expect high volume.

The remote control is easy to use if a little more complicated that is necessary.

The unit only has an analogue tuner so if you want freeview you will need a digi-box.

It has a good range of inputs, 1 Scart, Video, Composite, VGA, HDMI. The VGA connector allows the unit to be used as a PC monitor. I have a SKY box connected via scart and a PS2 connected via video to mine and both are fine.

I bought this just before christmas and paid just under £200 which was cheap.

Ebuyer sells these in the UK

Multicore processors, the C++ STL & Heap Allocation

2008-02-05T15:00:43.907+00:00

A few weeks ago one of the devs in the trading system team hit a performance issue, running four threads on a multicore machine ran slower than running when processor affinity was turned on.

Turning on processor affinity basically was limiting his application to one core so he expected a performance hit.

After three weeks of searching he found the answer: smartheap

He was making extensive use of the STL and with the default VS memory allocation and a multi processor machine this was causing problems.

The answer was to replace the standard library with smartheap (there are other alternatives) and this fixed the problem.

I am blogging about this in case there are other people out banging heads on desks trying to work out why their app is slower on a multicore server rather than a single core one.

If you nose around this blog you will see I am not a C++ developer so don't ask me for any more detail.

New Version of DasBlog and a new look for 2008

2008-01-22T21:51:31.823+00:00

One of my new year's resolutions was to upgrade to the latest version of dasblog and host it on ASP.NET 2.0.

Well this is probably the only resolution I will keep.

I chose the MadsSimple theme I really liked the business theme but the blog post font was a little small and this is a personal blog so MadsSimple seemed to work better.

With this update of DasBlog many more asp.net hosting companies become usable, as the "Medium Trust" hosting issue has been addressed, hope you enjoy the new look.

Wikimapia

2008-01-10T18:21:40.89+00:00

What is wikimapia ?

Well it seem's appropriate to quote Wikipedia...
"WikiMapia is an online map and satellite imaging resource that combines Google Maps with a wiki system, allowing users to add information (in the form of a note) to any location on earth.^[2] It is one of the top 1000 websites visited,^[3] and has over 5 million places marked.^[4] It was created by Alexandre Koriakine and Evgeniy Saveliev, and was launched on May 24, 2006 with the aim of "describing the whole planet Earth".

It is a great site, where you can tag anywhere in the world* with a box and some details about the location. The site is geared towards commercial enterprises but anyone can tag anything (within reason). You can tag your house, school, gym, place of work whatever you like.

* Image resolution will vary

Ford and Microsoft SYNC

2008-01-07T18:25:24.735625+00:00

At last a car manufacturer has realised it is about time they put some computer technology into their vehicles.

I am a fully paid up member of the geek club, I have often toyed with the idea of installing a pc in my car but worried that my wife might kill me if I did.

With the advent of 3G networks and GPS there are more and more reasons for having technology on the move.

What would be cooler than on your next road trip having a wifi access point in your car so your friends / familly can surf on the journey, you could check the traffic reports. You could also look for good places to stop on the way.

SYNC looks like the first tentative step towards what a geek like me would consider an automotive utopia. Microsoft have developed voice activated integration for mobile phones and ipods (and their own Zune player), as of right now this is only available in the US but the early signs are customers are warming to it, so it should be long before UK vehicles are being offered with the system

Find out more here: http://www.syncmyride.com/#/overlay/overlay_what_is_sync

The last post from a blogging soldier in Iraq

2008-01-07T18:18:04.641875+00:00

This is a very sad story, a blogging soldier who was killed in Iraq had made arrangements with a friend to put up a final blog post in the event of his death.

http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2008/01/andy-olmsted.html

"Just enough education to perform"

2007-11-30T12:17:48.0054072+00:00

The sterophonics have got it spot on, and this applies equally to software development when it comes to architecture. I went to the last DNUG meeting where Ian Cooper gave a great one hour presentation on Monorail one of the points he emphasised during the talk is to employ "Just enough architecture" is all you need. Over architehcting will usually lead to uneccessary complexity in your application.

The question that logically follows the above is, how much is enough? Well if you find yourself writing a lot of code to do something that is fairly trivial and the consumers of your application are not deriving any gain then the chances are you have over engineered the solution. As a developer it is easy to be lured by fancy patterns and advanced architectures, as you are probably fueled by a desire to improve your own understanding of them. A good developer's first loyalty should always be to employ the most elegant and efficient means to complete the task.

So what are the consequences of a needlessly complicated design? For starters you will be less agile, decisions to implement changes will have to be more considered due to the possible impact they could have. New team members will take longer to get up to speed and will need more guideance. The amount of resources needed for maintaining the application and the quality of that resource may also be greater.

In the end it comes down to this, you wouldn't use a sledge hammer to open your boiled egg at breakfast, so don't use a polymorphic, OO, MVC solution when a batch file will do.

US Credit Market Meltdown - Possible Repercussions for the UK housing market.

2007-08-30T14:48:58.203125+01:00

Credit is endemic in the developed countries of the world, it is the oil between the cogs of the economy, if you remove access to credit what will happen?

Firstly even a worst case scenario would not see all lines of credit dissapear, applying for credit would become a more rigourous process both on the high street and commercially. Interest rates may increase this would have a knock on effect of reducing spending power and increasing the cost of production. The first place this will have an effect is in the housing market, typically this is the biggest loan taken out by consumers.

It is a well know fact in the UK where demand for housing outstrips supply that cheap credit (low interest rates) increases peoples purchasing power and thus causes house prices to rise. The banks willingness to lend money or access to credit is another factor, in the UK banks have been lowering the bar and increasing the ratio of income multiples. Five years ago the standard income multiples used by all banks was 2.5 x joint salary or three times single salary. This lending criteria was introduced by banks as a straighforward sanity check to prevent customers over commiting themselves. Increasing this ratio as quickly and by as much as 4.5 times joint salary and five times single was a bold move by the banks. It is understandable why they did it, more and more of the customers coming to them were priced out of the market and could not afford to get on the property ladder. They were creditworthy but could not borrow enough cash to buy the house / flat they wanted, the solution was simple but the consequences of the solution may be unpleasant.

Second mortgages and remortgaging your house can be an effective way to finance a purchase, the security of your home will often mean a lower interest rate, however, some consumers have deluded themselves as to what they can actually afford. The increased security of lending against your property will also mean you can borrow more than an unsecured loan. Finance and mortgage companies will pay less attention to a customers credit history and ability to pay if they can offer some security (their house), in this situation responsible lending is less likely to occur.

So what is the worst case scenario for the UK housing market? Well a house price crash, fuelled by higher interest rates and consumers inability to obtain credit. This could easily lead to a recession due to people repaying their more expensive mortgages not having any spare cash to spend on fancy meals and in the shops. We could re-live the 80's bust all over again. In the longer term this would probably be healthy for the economy by lowering house prices. The fundamental problem the shortage of good housing would not have been addressed, only the government can tackle this by removing some the restrictions preventing new houses from being built.