Greg Woods

Joining the ranks of the Linux noobs!

2006-08-19T20:49:00-05:00:00

Well, I finally decided to seriously try out Linux. Several things have led to this: 1) A work colleague had been playing around with Ubuntu and was enthusing about it. 2) I don't want to pay for 2 copies of Vista when it comes out. One is more than enough 3) You can't escape Linux magazines, so maybe it's startign to reach critical mass after all this time 4) There's always a temptation to try something new. So, here I am on a working copy of Ubuntu typing this blog entry. What's my verdict? So far, very mixed. The OS seems good. There are a lot more apps than I imagined. However, setting some things up has been infuriatingly difficult. Synaptic package manager - a great idea in theory, but it's easily confused. First thing I did after the install was do the updates. It's a habit when you're a windows user. Next, I try to install Samba and Swat for creating a network share. Problem is that Samba depended on a component I already had installed, but this component was a later version than the one Samba wanted. It took me two days to figure out I had to uninstall the shared component, then install Samba, which would download the correct version of the dependencies, then do another system update to discover both the dependent component and Samba had later compatible versions. I had almost identical problems with a video driver, VMWare and Swat. It seems the Ubuntu repository isn't kept up to date with the same files offered by the Update service. This is just a general description of the problems I've had. true, it feels satisfying when you find the answer, but it INFURIATING when a perfectly user friendly UI indicates that you should be able to do something, but then you can't. That brings me to another subject which I'll cover in another post. "Linux Geeks are holding back Linux" Shameless plug for a friends site I designed. I'm determined to get it into google! http://www.cedarhill.co.uk

Best and Worst Customer Service in UK... (and a bit about Linux)

2006-08-08T11:51:00-05:00:00

A couple of recent customer service experiences I've had recently....

1) Nationwide Building Society (Direct)- Their online mortgage application service and subsequent phone based customer services is definately the worst customer service I have ever seen. How can a mortgage application take from March to August to complete, when there are no special circumstances at all, just NationwideBS Customer Service incompetence?

2) Nationwide Building Society (Local branch) - being a geek I'd much rather do stuff online than talk to a real person. Sad but true. However, in desperation, after an email and complaint letter got no response, I went into local (Lancaster) branch to see if they could do something to sort my mortgage out. The service was excellent. I was always phoned back (sometimes an hour late, but that can slip), and they sorted the problem within 3 days. Nationwide Direct couldn't sort it after 3 months. Well done Emma!

3) Computer Manuals - Looks like Linux is starting to reach Critical Mass. I spotted 3 separate mags devoted to Linux in WHSmiths this lunchtime. I've had a play with Ubuntu, but soon get out of my depth when trying to integrate it with Windows. I needed to take a learning shortcut, instead of the most effective, but lengthy trial and error methods that have served me well so far in life. Local Waterstones had the 7th edition of Linux for Dummies in stock. It looked to be pitched at the level I was after, but the one copy in stock looked like it had been run over by a truck (if you're gonna freeload in bookshops, at least take care of the merchandise). Amazon UK only list the 6th edition, so a quick google, and ordered it from Computer Manuals (they're the ones at every tech event I've ever been to). Saved £3, opted for Slow But Free delivery, and to my surprise, got the book the next day. Well done Computer Manuals (http://www.compman.co.uk/)

ASP.NET Atlas CTP First Look

2006-07-04T12:20:00-05:00:00

I've been spending a few days looking at the Microsoft Atlas CTP tools and samples. http://atlas.asp.net . It's been an uphill battle with poor documentation being largely to blame. It probably doesn't help that I had some very specific ideas about what I wanted to accomplish using an Ajax framework, and it's difficult to map my requirements with features of Atlas.

At first glance there appears to be plenty of info on the Atlas website, but it's poorly organised and quite shallow. It's good at showing what can be done, but pretty poor at showing how to leverage it in your own code. The whole site seems to be more of a technical sales site than source of real info. It could just be that none of it appeals to my learning style. Comments welcome on your own experiences with the site.

As to Atlas itself, it does look impressive. The sales job worked! The underlying javascript object model looks superb. The declarative programming model built on top of it looks promising, but as a web developer, it's something else that's completely new to learn. It seems to be another attempt by Microsoft to make the nasty world of web development, with it's mix of server and client side processing, into a more fluffy warm place for softie Windows Forms developers :)

Anyway, I'm going to look at one of the samples and try to dissect it. It's a client side only example, so you could even use it ona classic asp or even an html page, by removing the server side ScriptManager tag (and other 'runat="server"' attributes) and replacing with an html script tag linking to Atlas.js.

Brief Dissection of a Sample

Demo: http://atlas.asp.net/docs/atlas/samples/controls/simple2_control.aspx

Source: http://atlas.asp.net/docs/util/srcview.aspx?path=~/atlas/samples/controls/simple2_control.src

I'm going to look at the second example on this page. (I wish they'd stick to one example per page) I've simplified further by highlighting just one button, the visibility button.

Input Field:

Corresponding Declarative client side markup:

Visibility button:

Corresponding Declarative client side markup:

Description:

What follows may not use Microsoft's terminology, just the terms that make sense to me. After all, this page is mostly to help me understand what is going on.

I originally thought it odd that the <click> calls a <binding> which acts on the <textBox>. Why the 2 step approach? Why not <click> which acts dirctly on the <textBox>? A little digging and experimentation showed that for many actions we can miss out the <binding> stage. Whilst looking up invokeMethod from the client library reference http://atlas.asp.net/docs/Client/Sys/Action/default.aspx I discovered that invokeMethod is one of 3 actions. The others are postBack and setProperty. We could set a property using:

<click>

</click>

</button>

This doesn't help us to toggle though. It makes the control invible but can't make it visible again. In imperative code this would be done with an if...else block. To avoid that Microsoft added the transform="Invert" property to the binding. More information of the <binding> control and the transformations built in here:

http://atlas.asp.net/docs/Client/Sys/Binding/default.aspx

http://atlas.asp.net/docs/Client/Sys/BindingBase.Transformers/default.aspx

Concluding Advice

I already had a UI design I wanted to implement using some Ajax framework, and I wanted to do it as quickly as possible. If you're in a similar position, SLOW DOWN! Start with really really simple examples that you code yourself. Don't be content with the MS examples. They look good, but until you do it yourself, you won't learn a great deal. I know we all know this already, but we're also all impatient and want to take shortcuts. Don't! This is brand new stuff with new concepts, and it all needs time to sink in. If you need inspiration for your own sample code, just think of common things you do in javascript in your web pages already. Show/Hide toggle, show an error message when values are incorrect, show a popup when something is wrong, Change enabled/disabled status depending on values in other controls etc.

Current thoughts on Atlas

It's very promising. My main worry is that the Declarative script is a brand new syntax to learn, and it's very, proprietory. It's anyone's guess how long it'll last, especially with XAML being touted as the next big thing. By the time I've finished my evaluation of Atlas, I may come to conclusion that it isn't worth using the declarative code. The alternate javascript model is very good, and it's familiar to any web programming team. Also, javascript Atlas looks much more compact, and can be put into an external js file for local caching. All these advantages come with other frameworks as well. The Yahoo UI Library looks very good, and has much more complete controls for dropping straight into pages. Wheter it's as suitable for building on top of, I don't know.

All comments welcome.

SyncToy - fantastic (and iRecover aint bad either)

2006-02-23T13:10:00-06:00:00

Having recently lost 10Gb worth of non-backed up photos, (yes I am utterly stupid) I've been giving some serious thought to backup strategies. It's made real easy by the fact I have a second low spec PC in a cupboard which I use as a file server and file sharing client (all legal of course).

I've always wondered why seemingly routine tasks such as backup is not catered for in the OS. Sometimes, Windows XP seems to bear little relation to what today's users want to do. I'll save my rant about organising my pictures and mp3 for another post.

Well, Microsoft have gone some way to redeeming themselves when I discovered by accident "SyncToy 1.0" http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=e0fc1154-c975-4814-9649-cce41af06eb7&DisplayLang=en . This is a seriously useful utility. With it, I can backup my 10Gb of photos, AND my 8Gb of music, and stuff like Outlook PST files etc etc etc, from my main PC to the second PC with a single click. I could even schedule it to do this nightly. I'll let all 0 readers know just how it goes in practice.

p.s. Thankfully I got 80% of my pics back by using iRecover http://www.diydatarecovery.nl/ . It cost me £50, but it worked when a dozen other utilities failed. Very impressive (though the UI has some very odd quirks which I duly ranted to the developer about!)

Introduction

2006-02-23T12:44:00-06:00:00

Greetings, and welcome to the blog of Greg Woods, Software Developer.

Why am I jumping on the blog bandwagon? Well, because I frequently have things I've got to get off my chest. Often they are computer related. But, I may also occasionally write about frustrations with my toaster or other items that I come across which appear to be designed by a fool (or a committee). It's hoped that if I write about this stuff, I won't bore my friends with my rants!