September 2006 Entries
Windows Vista Fonts
Add the Vista Fonts to your XP setup, and make your Desktop feel fresh and new again! There's an added bonus that Consolas is incredibly nice to code with as well. One of the clients that also benefits from this is the good old Notes client - update the default fonts to use the appropriate Vista choices and the thing looks positively modern (Thanks Sonic!).
Windows Vista Cursors
The Windows Aero cursor theme is very cool, especially the wait icon. Amazing how small subtle changes like that can make a difference. A quick file copy, a small registry hack,...
Is Your IDE Hot or Not has some Visual Studio themes available for download, including one which uses reversed colours. The theory being of course that light text on a darker background can be a lot more soothing on the eyes (for some) than dark text on a white one. Interesting to note that their font of choice is Consolas (which is one of the new Vista fonts), which has been my coding font of choice for quite sometime now.
Mythbusters beat "unbreakable" fingerprint door lock shows how biometric security can be broken, and fairly easily it seems. The point is that biometrics is not authentication, as authentication requires a 'secret' of some kind. Anything you leave behind (such as a fingerprint) can never be secret. I mean, didn't anyone out there watch Gattaca?
I've seen a lot of smallish Notebooks out on the market these days that are touting biometric security. I'd be ok with using my fingerprint as a substitute for my login name, but I think I'll stick with entering a password manually thank you very much.
XML Notepad is Notepad, for XML. There's not really a lot more to say about it!
Note that if you downloaded the earlier release which crashed all the time, that this is an updated version which fixes that.
This made me chuckle a little. On my work b0x, I have a project (not solution) which is listed in my Recent Projects. I don't want it there, and it will never cycle off the list as I'm using the same 3 solutions over and over here. Microsoft solution - delete the project, and try and open it. It works, but it's still kind of amusing.
So, I might elaborate more at some point later, but for now let me just get this out there of off my chest.
AA VEHICLE INSPECTIONS ARE COMPLETELY FUCKING USELESS, AND A WASTE OF TIME. They employ moronic substandard mechanics who miss basic facts. They're lazy, and overpriced. The service is a complete waste of time. This is not just commenting on a single experience. This is the second time personally I've been fucked over by them. While talking about it this time, and the last time, I was joined by a chorus of people sharing similar horror stories. So...
Say you're the international product manager of a product which has previously enjoyed success, but has been suffering a little lately. Now, say you were going to be visiting a region where things were "not going so well" for your product . Possibly your company as a whole has very little market share here, especially when it comes to new business. You might encounter a lot of highly trained Consultants who have specialised in your product here who are finding that there's quite simply no demand for their skills. These consultants might be a little peeved, or they might have...
By default, when you attach to the ASP worker process in Visual Studio 2005, it'll try and attach to debug all types of code (Managed, Native, Script, and T-SQL). By default, this will cause most people issues unless you've set your environment up to handle it. So, simply click 'Select' before you attach, and change the option from "Automatically determine the type of code to debug", and select Managed code only.
Analyzing 20,000 MySpace Passwords talks some telling facts about MySpace users. My favourite comment:
The results of the parsing were rather interesting. Some passwords were terrible, and others were decent. A lot of them are simply “password”. An odd amount of them also contain the word “poop”.
Poop indeed. There are plenty of other interesting statistics there, check the full article if you're interested.
Tags: Amusing
The Vaio VGNUX17GP is one of those things you look at in a magazine and think "Wow". A full(ish) laptop spec in a tiny package which weighs only 500 grams. It all looks and sounds like an ideal solution for someone who might be looking for a small personal machine to take to and from client sites, and to use on the train occasionally.
However, I popped into the local Sony Store and tried it. It's awkward to use, and you'll end up typing with your thumbs as if you were typing a text message. The fact that theres no ability...
Another in the series of 'links I post here so I can find them later'
SET TRANSACTION ISOLATION LEVEL (Transact-SQL)
..so you write about them somewhere, in case you forget them again!
I've just setup a new b0x for work, so there might be a couple of posts like this ;)
The current one is for Visual Studio 2005: Tools \ Options \ Projects and Solutions \ General \ Show output Window when Build Starts
Essentially, when you build, it takes you to the output window so you can see what's happening. I really didn't like it's default behaviour, which sort of feels like nothing is happening (apart from the small text in the statusbar). The setting above lets you see what's happening...
Vanguard Screenshots @ GU Comics
Is it wrong that I really hate that EQ font so much? There's something about it which just looks wrong! Some of the other shots are using different fonts, so it looks like it might be a settings option (thankfully). Other than that, the screenshots look like typical screenshots of the genre - there are many others out there which look similar. The proof of the game will be in the gameplay, and these days, there's the question of whether it makes it out of beta at all.
Under weird lighting conditions and being held up in the air, the K750i Camera does pretty well I think.
Gabe from Penny Arcade brings up an interesting point when he reviews a review. It sounds like the reviewer he's talking about didn't even play the game past the tutorial, and has a suggestion:
I’m not saying reviewers should post their cards along with a review but it might be helpful.
I'd not really thought about that before, but it's an incredibly good idea. Especially in this age where companies are paying people to write positive stuff on random boards about their products.
The next model in the P9xx series of phones is finally out. Unfortunately, the review is not so flattering.
5ives.com is a site that is based entirely of 'lists of 5 things'.
I'm sure that's a niche which is going to appeal to some of you at some point, right?