Scott Kuhl

XBOX 360 Failure #4

Scott Kuhl — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 21:01:33 GMT

Good grief. Yet another XBOX has failed, this time it’s the new one from last year. The DVD drive stopped spinning up right after the NXE update.

Microsoft is footing the bill again and thankfully we have 2 so nobody will have to stop using their Lancers. I made it in just under the 1 year maintenance agreement.

But this is by far the least reliable product I have ever owned.

It was this same time last year we had failure #3.

Technorati Tags: microsoft,xbox

Why Microsoft’s Free Anti-Virus Will Matter

Scott Kuhl — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 19:01:25 GMT

This is in response to a post by John Viega entitled “Why Microsoft’s free AV won’t matter”.

Yes, Microsoft failed with OneCare. But I don’t agree with John on why. (Keep in mind John works for a company that produces AV software, so he is biased, even if he is knowledgeable.)

Let’s look at the three major different kinds of anti-virus users.

Type A – Anti-What-Now?

A large number of consumers don’t care about anti-virus. They might know what it is “sort of”, and they may want to know that their new computer from Best Buy has it, but beyond that, they know nothing. These are the home users that never purchase an anti-virus beyond the 90 day trial or they bought the upgrade simply because a pop up or sales guy told them to.

Type B – Tech Savvy Consumer

You know know what your looking for and you can find it for free. AVG does a great job in this market. These users do not need to be told this stuff is important and they certainly don’t need to pay for help.

Type C – Corporations

From large to small, you know you need it. What you need is very different depending on the size of your organization, but you are likely to buy something because of restrictions on the free licenses. Some small shops will simply use the free stuff anyway. Other very small shops with no tech support will likely fall into the Type A above.

Microsoft failed with Type A because it’s not, and they can’t without legal action, bundle OneCare onto new PCs like Norton can. Microsoft failed with Type B because OneCare cost money and wasn’t as good as many free options. Microsoft failed with Type C because the enterprise was not the target of OneCare and was missing a lot of features.

Microsoft CAN succeed with the free model.

Type A are still lost unless Microsoft more aggressively pushes the availability of the product in Windows Live. Not only do they need to get more people to start downloading Windows Live, but they need to show people that AV is in there and they can happily uninstall the software they are paying for and save money. A campaign with Best Buy and Walmart would go a long way.

Type B is an easy sell if the product works well. This group know about the product so its a matter of trust.

Type C small companies will be the easiest sell. Microsoft will have a free alternative to a paid service and be more visible. My company falls into this group, and while AVG is great, I’ll switch if its going to save us thousands of dollars per year.

Type C large companies are going to be tough unless Microsoft builds in central monitoring. They certainly have the tools and experience to build this into easy network deployment and control. But it will take a few years of a proven track record to start winning them over. Large companies move slow. This adoption along with Type A is going to hurt the AV companies the most.

So yes, Microsoft will make a difference. The rules are changing when a product nobody wants to buy is now free, easy to get and comes from the biggest software company in world. The only thing stopping Microsoft from succeeding, is Microsoft. Push it and adoption will follow. Toss it out there and hope people will use it, and it will fail.

But in the end, free AV should be bundled into the OS like Defender. Screw anti-competitive practices. The companies they are competing with are making a living based on vulnerabilities in the system. Microsoft should have the right to bundle software that secures the OS. And the other guys can sell software to improve or manage it, for those who really WANT it, not everyone who really NEEDS it.

Technorati Tags: microsoft,security,anti-virus

Looking for Load Testing Software

Scott Kuhl — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 01:51:02 GMT

We are currently using WCAT because we have the Pro version of Visual Studio, not Team System. It's not exactly the easiest or best tool, but it is free.

I'm looking at Web Performance Suite and NeoLoad as a possible replacements but I'm not very familiar with either.

This is what we need:

Ability to load test many users (of course).
Fairly easy to use.
Trace listener would be nice.
Test the output for values using simple matching and regular expressions.
Functional testing in the same package would also be nice.

I could probably solve my problem if I could just run our existing unit tests that also include WatiN tests, but I haven't found a way to do that without spinning up a hole bunch of IE instances. And I would have to create my own reports.

I use to use WAST but that is dying on the vine and I can't get it to run probably on Vista x64, so I need to run it in a virtual machine.

We have tried JMeter, which is quite versatile but the reports and graphs suck.

Suggestions?

Technorati Tags: load test

Ah, the Tech Market in the 90s!

Scott Kuhl — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 17:53:56 GMT

Great quote from Martin Sheen in the new Paris for President video:

It was the go-go 90s. People invested in a web site that sold dog food because a puppet told them to do it.

ASP.NET Cache and HtmlAnchor HRef Bug

Scott Kuhl — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 19:28:02 GMT

I just ran into a strange problem where all the links on a list are getting dropped. The anchor tag was still there but the href was gone. I tracked it down to a bug in the cache.

Here is the scenario.

I am building a fairly complex bullet list in code that will change very infrequently so I cache the user control for 24 hours. The problem is anything being built with an HtmlAnchor control is losing the Href value, but not anything else.

This breaks:

var anchor = new HtmlAnchor { HRef = "http://www.juggle.com/", InnerText = "Juggle" };

This works:

var anchor = new HtmlGenericControl("a") { InnerText = "Juggle" };
anchor.Attributes.Add("href", "http://www.juggle.com/");

Now if I try to re-create the bug with a simple test, no luck. It is some other deadly combination. Maybe caching the entire UserControl?

Anyone else seen this bug?

This was the only thing I could find about it.

Problem with HTMLAnchor and ASP.Net Cache

Technorati Tags: asp.net,cache

Are Too Many Good Reviews A Bad Thing?

Scott Kuhl — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 04:51:30 GMT

Last week I was trying to decide whether to finally go ahead and order Learn and Master Guitar. I'm not sure how I originally found out, but it seems to be a very popular system.

The reviews for it are great. Almost too great. Every review seemed to be so good that I started to question the authenticity of them.

First, take a look at these Google search results for learn and master guitar.

So why not believe them?

The reviews seemed a little too close to the same.
Every link title "is this a scam" lead to an "absolutely not" review.
Why were there so many links with scam in the subject in the first place?
Why were there so many paid advertisement links to reviews?
(This one is the worst.) The site always has a limited time offer sale of $100 off which is about to end. Check back after the expiration date, and the 3 day clock resets.
The award it won seems a little shady.

Everything started to feel like an infomercial or a get rich quick scheme.

So why believe them?

Forums, forums, forums. I really could not find any bad reviews. The worst I found were comments that the system was good but don't expect a magic bullet, or good for beginners (me) but not intermediate players.
Same results on Q & A sites.
Same results on blogs.

Is it really possible that this company is trolling all these sites to put up fake positive reviews?

I know there are some guitar players that read GWB. Anyone know more about this? I plan on supplementing this with real lessons from Melodic Rhythms and The Principals of Correct Practice for Guitar.

Now let's see if I can find time to learn to play, launch juggle.com and start posting more again. My track record of late on GWB has been abysmal.

Technorati Tags: music,guitar,guitar principles,melodic rhythms,learn and master guitar

Steve Ballmer Egged in Hungary (VIDEO)

Scott Kuhl — Wed, 21 May 2008 02:11:59 GMT

He seems to take it better than Bill did the pie.

Steve Ballmer Egged in Hungary - Watch more free videos

Technorati Tags: microsoft,humor,video,steve ballmer

Heroes Happen Somewhere Else

Scott Kuhl — Tue, 06 May 2008 20:30:36 GMT

Just got back from the Microsoft Heroes Happen Here event in St. Louis. It was awful. This is the first event from Microsoft I have walked out on.

The first track was titled Next Gen Web Apps and the presenter spent 15 minutes talking about CSS as if it was new and no one in the audience had ever seen it before.

Next he moved on to LINQ and then lost me as he typed out the samples.

Then we left. Maybe it was going to get better, but I couldn't make it any longer. It was definitely catered to the lowest common denominator and I think most of the people there just wanted to be anywhere but the office. (and free software)

Oh, well. Maybe I'm just having a bad day. Back to the real fun - work.

Technorati Tags: microsoft,heroes happen here

Justice?

Scott Kuhl — Thu, 01 May 2008 00:47:51 GMT

I use to own a Creative Zen. Looks like they got sued and I am entitled to a settlement. But the lawyers are the only winners here.

The two people who filed the suit get $5,000 each.
Everyone else gets a discount on a new product made by the company that screwed them in the first place.
The lawyers get $900,000!!!!

I think the lawyers should get paid in coupons too.

In addition, if you submit a valid claim, you will receive either a 50% discount off the price of a new 1 GB MP3 player, or a discount certificate good for 20% off the price of any single item purchased at www.us.creative.com. To receive the discount player or discount certificate you must submit a claim form available at www.creativehddmp3settlement.com by August 7, 2008. You may submit a claim for each Creative HDD MP3 Player you purchased.

If the settlement is approved, plaintiffs’ counsel will apply for an award of attorneys’ fees and expenses not to exceed $900,000, plus incentive awards for the two representative plaintiffs in the amount of $5,000 each, to be paid separately from and in addition to the relief available to plaintiff class members.

When Are TV Episodes Posted To The Web???

Scott Kuhl — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 20:20:31 GMT

I'm looking for a site, or software, that will tell me when a television episode has been posted to the web.

Much like the way Tivo records. So if I want to watch episodes of Monk, the service should let me know that a new episode has been posted.

Anyone know of anything that provides this? And I don't mean illegal bittorrent versions, I don't have a problem watching the web streaming version.

I might be able to do something myself with Yahoo! Pipes and maybe some screen scraping, but if it already exists that would be better.

Technorati Tags: tv

1,000th Post!!!!!

Scott Kuhl — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 05:26:23 GMT

I can't believe I did it. I am the first to reach the 1,000 post mark on GWB. I know Chris and D'Arcy had the lead but I never gave up and I have finally reached the unthinkable goal.

I know what you are thinking. The front page only shows that I have 741 posts. But that number is incorrect. You see that number does not include posts I made on my previous blog that I intended to port over, my posts about my weight loss that I never posted but obviously should have, and my draft posts which I never finished.

But what really pushed me over the top were the "super-posts" which can only be seen by special delegates of the blogging community. They all now agree that I am a much better candidate to award the 1,000 post trophy based solely on the quality of my recent posts and the firm belief that only I can carry us through the next 4 years!

But don't worry Chris or D'Arcy, whoever crosses next, you are welcome to be my vice-poster.

Guess What Day It Is

Scott Kuhl — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 04:45:31 GMT

Happy Steal A Car And Kill A Prostitute As Long You're Seventeen Or Older And Socially Responsible Enough To Tell The Difference Between A Virtual Prostitute And Your Real Prostitute Which You Shouldn't Be Sleeping With Anyway Because We Live In A Country That Has Accepted Victimless Crimes As Punishable Possibly Or Maybe Not Because Of Real Or Only Perceived Puritan Origins But Which Has Created A Black Market That Quite Probably Will Give You A Disease Unless Of Course You Live Near Las Vegas, But Not In Las Vegas, Where It Is Legal (Sleeping With, Not Killing And Burying In A Shallow Grave In The Desert) But Don't Even Mention Hot Coffee, Crap I Just Did, Day

Technorati Tags: grand theft auto

GTA 4 - PS3 or 360

Scott Kuhl — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 00:37:15 GMT

This seems to be a hot topic right now. Are you getting GTA IV and if so are you getting it on the XBOX 360 or PS3? The answer to this question for most people is probably on the console they own. D' uh.

But we have both. We bought a PS3 for Bluray movies and have a far larger collection of games on the 360. But I am buying it on the PS3! Screw the extra content on the 360.

Why I am doing this? 360 hardware failures. I am sick of them. If you have read my blog for any length of time, you may already know this saga. Our 360 failed 3 times. Last Christmas we bought a new 360 and that one is now failing. It only reads disks about 50% of the time.

Microsoft you have failed!

The 360 hardware failure rate is unacceptable and that is the sole reason we now buy games for the PS3 instead of the 360.

I hope someone from Microsoft reads this and passes it along. Because I am tired of calling support. We are loyal Microsoft customers, and if you lost us, how many more people have jumped ship?

Technorati Tags: GTA,PS3,XBOX

VB.NET or C#

Scott Kuhl — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 15:02:24 GMT

There have been a couple of posts here on GWB about VB.NET vs C# stats. (It looks like the report includes VB and VB.NET together.)

I write in both languages and I don't really have a preference for one or the other. The fact is the languages are equals. You can get anything done in both languages with the same amount of work. There are some differences but it mostly is a matter of preference.

I'm a little sad to see that combining the numbers from VB and C# still fall short of Java.

When we started Juggle we had a blank slate. We could choose any language but .NET was obvious based on our background. What was not immediately obvious was VB.NET or C#. When the decision was firmly made there were only two of us working on the project, myself and my wife.

We decided on C# and here is why.

As a consultant I worked with a lot of different people from both languages, and my experience, most of the better people were moving to C#. Sorry Chris. There is no scientific data behind this. It's just what I observed.
The St. Louis market has more C# development positions. I double checked with recruiters to confirm this. They were also seeing a lot more C# resumes. And based on our work environment and project I was more than willing to compete against everyone else for the talent.
Kendra said we are using C#. Period.

Notice the reasons aren't technical. And honestly I am more than willing to hire someone that is a great VB.NET developer as long as they are okay with writing C#. There is no need to introduce an additional language if we don't have to.

And we probably would have been okay choosing VB.NET. So, pick the language you like and have fun. But more times than not, the language will be picked for you, so learn both.

But just don't pick Java.

Technorati Tags: juggle.com,vb.net,c#

Earthquake Part 2

Scott Kuhl — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 15:27:40 GMT

Here it comes again! This one seemed less intense.

People in California are probably thinking we are a bunch of babies, but you don't get these in the mid-west very often so you really start to wonder what's going to fall down.