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Showing posts from August, 2012

What Killed the Linux Desktop - Miguel de Icaza

Someone had retweeted this blog post from Miguel on Twitter. There's some interesting points made. I still use Linux on several machines but one thing I can't stand is Ubuntu's Unity. I am currently holding out using just the command line and the Gnome desktop. As said though, the arrogance put into Linux is just such a pain in the arse. I don't think it's going anywhere as a server OS but unless there is some sort of Steam breakthrough, the desktop usage will continue to contract. It's worth reading the comments on this post as well as there's some good points made both for and against Miguels opinion.

Messing about with WCF Test Client

Hopefully this will come in handy if you are just messing about with some WCF services and you want to test them (and you aren't able to just run them through Visual Studio using the defaults for whatever reason). Don't forget that when you run it through Visual Studio, all it's really doing is adding the WCF Test Client as a command line arg to your program.? You can confim this by going to your project properties, debug tab and looking at the command line args.? You can run this program yourself. The easiest way I find is to open a Visual Studio command prompt and run WcfTestClient.exe. You can then add services by adding the wsdl location of the service you want to test.? Again, this may be obvious to some but I hadn't thought of doing this before :-)

Apartments

Just messing about with a bit of sketch up. This is the start of a modular building design for apartments. These two modules A and B can be replicated and stacked. I'll add some detail when I get a little more time and post again :-) I seem to have lost some of my Sketchup prowess after having not really used it on a daily basis for a couple of years.?

Synthesia, Piano for Everyone

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDIkjYKIsVg?feature=player_embedded] This looks like an excellent tool. I am very tempted to get a keyboard with a USB port on. Ah by the gods themselves! How can I continue this existence without one!? Combining this program with a cheap keyboard like this  http://www.gear4music.com/Keyboards-and-Pianos/MK-906-Keyboard-with-USB-Midi-by-Gear4music/F5F  would make me very happy. I may have to hint to Leanne what my 30th birthday present should be....

How to toggle multi line comments in Notepad++

I always do this in Visual Studio and had been using ctrl+k+c in notepad++ but never knew the opposite command.? Turns out I was wrong anyway but it just so happened to work. The actual commands are:? Comment ctrl+k Toggle Comment ctrl+q The ctrl+q command is the most useful of the two really. It just so happens that as I am so used to doing the VS key strokes the ctrl+k variation works out well for me as well.? Hope that helps :-)

Star Wars Command Prompt

via 0.tqn.com Found this whilst looking into a completely different problem. Thought it was worth sharing. The whole of Star Wars A New Hope in Ascii. Nice! Found via.... http://pcsupport.about.com/od/commandlinereference/tp/command-prompt-tricks-h...

Visual Studio Solution doesn't rename the folder when renaming a project

This really rustles my jimmies. If you rename a project in a solution. I would like the folder to renamed and the solution to be updated. Instead you have to rename the folder in explorer and then manually change the .sln file.? Annoying.?

Setting multiple start up projects in Visual Studio

For some reason I have never noticed that you can set multiple start up projects in Visual Studio. This is very handy when testing a client and a server at the same time! I am currently?reacquainting?myself with WCF services as I haven't done any in several years. The project itself is essentially a WCF web service with a Silverlight client. Although in general Silverlight has little future, it's still used for Windows Phone 7 development so I am looking forward for a chance to improve in this area.? Anyway, to set multiple start up projects, go to the properties on your solution and select as in the picture.? Nice!

Judge Judy gifs

via fourfour.typepad.com If you run out of Judge Judy Gifs, check this out...

Sony shuts Wipeout video game studio in Liverpool

Update Saw this on BBC News. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19350856 A very sad day for gaming. Who know if the old guard are still working there but in my dreams they are. I suggest they start up making XBLA games / ports of the Pysgnosis games. I suppose most people will now them as the team behind Wipeout. Thanks to Wipeout, gaming became super cool! It's easily one of my favourite racing games. They made some real bad ass games on the Amiga. Lemmings, Armor Geddon and many more. They also made my favourite humdinger of a game - Last Action Hero. I remember being so excited about it and then the shock of how actually poor a game could be. Nevertheless, they'll be missed!

Using Evernote as a testing tool

I have been using Evernote? http://evernote.com/ ??as a testing tool recently. It works out quite well. You can save snippets, pictures of testing, problems, tables of data etc...? It makes it very easy to organise your testing notes by giving you different notebooks (you can seperate projects by notebooks) and then you can tag notes (you could tag these by however you work, ie job number, iteration number, feature). You can also share the notebooks with others so if there's a group of people involved in your testing you can add notes together.? Very useful :-)

Dixon Hill - The Big Goodbye - Star Trek Poster

via cafepress.co.uk How cool is this poster?! There are a series of Dixon Hill posters on this site that I think I could get past my wife without her realising it's massively geeky. Needless to say this will be ordered at some point soon!

BBC News - BT hit by OnLive cloud video games firm's shake-up

via bbc.co.uk Could have told them for free no one wanted this.

Soon.....

via i2.kym-cdn.com

Zoltar - The fortune teller machines

via zoltarmachine.com I can't believe you can get a Zoltar machine for as little as $6000.00 delivered. And here I am wasting time buying mobile phone watches and hidden camera sunglasses. FFS! I need to get saving!!!

Lucene Tutorial Site

I tend to have trouble with Lucene whenever I am doing anything even remotely non trivial. Answers to questions are either sparse, or I don't ask the right questions.? Either way, found this site which looks like it might be helpful... http://www.lucenetutorial.com/index.html

Video Cam Sunglasses

Plan on recording my cycle to work with these. May also come in handy on the beach....

Mobile phone watch

U mirin my mobile phone watch?

The Global Arms Trade Visualised (Declared)

http://workshop.chromeexperiments.com/projects/armsglobe/ A wicked visualisation of the Global Arms trade. Saw on a website this morning but I can't remember which one. Either way, it's well worth a look. It doesn't make for particularly surprising viewing though... obviously the data isn't all there. There are some big bright lines missing leading out from Russia I think.... I am sure the UK's could be a little more colourful than it lets on too.  I think it could more accurately be called, the (Declared) arms trade.

A nice 360 Field photograph

http://cdn.v360r.com/temp/tests/goprostick/17-07-12/GOPR5120%20Panorama%20expoptimize.html A nice 360 picture courtesy of my friend Jon (click on the link above for the actual 360) http://www.jonhassall.com/

Another rugged device manufacturer goes the way of Android

via engadget.com Looks like all the Windows Mobile enterprise people better get their Android skills up to scratch. I really wish they'd make the interface builder just that bit easier to work with. At the moment it's no better than silverlight or WPF :-(