On The Other Hand

Did you know you could have Facebook in pirate English?  Go to Settings -> Languages and give it a shot.  Arrr!

My local Atlantic Superstore has a sale on 2GB USB drives for $9.99 this week.  Unlike most cheapie drives, these ones actually pass the Windows ReadyBoost test with respectable numbers of 4809 KB/sec for random read and 1920 KB/sec sequential write.  As an added bonus, the case looks like it might actually hold together for a while.

Get ‘em while they’re hot!

After nearly three years, I finally decided to upgrade my venerable first-generation Motorola Razr to something a little more modern.

The iPhone 3G seems to be the new hotness, so I patiently waited on the list for a few days until last Thursday when I got a call from my friendly neighborhood Rogers dealer to come pick up my new phone.

I’ve got to say, I really like the new unit. I finally understand what Blackberry owners have been talking about all these years. Having email and a usable web browser in your pocket really does change the game.

That being said, there are problems. First, most of the apps crash a fair bit, bringing you back to the home screen. Next, only the web browser respects your proxy settings. If you’re behind a proxy, your Exchange based mail won’t come through. The GPS works great, except if you’re inside, in which case the results are, umm, unpredictable. If you have a stereo Bluetooth headset like I do, you can’t use it for listening to music, even though the internal chipset apparently supports it.

The good news is that these problems are really all software problems that can be fixed. Hopefully they will be. Even if they’re not, it’s still a heck of a step up from the old Razr.

P.S. I wrote this post on my iPhone.

After ten years with my old Kenwood VR-206 home theatre receiver, I’ve finally decided to upgrade.  The winner is, the Yamaha HTR-6160.  I’ve always found Yamaha receivers to have a natural sound, and this one supports the newer standards including Dolby True-HD and DTS-HD Master, both of which are commonly found on the Blu-Ray movies I watch so often.

I looked at it locally and it was available for anywhere between CDN$500 and $650.  However, after a recommendation from my friend Matt, I ended up purchasing it from Big Buy City for a savings of about two hundred and fifty bucks, even after shipping and customs.  I wonder if prices will ever catch up with exchange rates.

I took a sick day yesterday.  Somehow, I always manage to get some work done anyway.  I hope I never get really sick.  I don’t think local hospitals have broadband.

If you submit a comment here, you may get an error.  I’m looking into it.  At any rate, your comment is not lost and I will be able to approve it.  Sorry for the inconvenience. 

Here’s a simpler example of the previous post.  This won’t compile either.  Once again, the compiler reports that not all code paths return a value.  Is it wrong?

    string ThisWillNotCompile(bool input)
    {
        if (input)
            return "Hello, world.";

        if (!input)
            return "Howdy, world.";
    }

Consider the following C# program.

class Program
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        ThisWillNotCompile(MyEnum.Foo);
    }

    private static string ThisWillNotCompile(MyEnum input)
    {
        switch (input)
        {
            case MyEnum.Foo:
                return “Hello, world.”;
            case MyEnum.Bar:
                return “Howdy, world.”;
            case MyEnum.Baz:
                return “Hi there, world.”;
        }
    }

    enum MyEnum
    {
        Foo,
        Bar,
        Baz
    }
}

This code will not compile.  The compiler returns, “Program.ThisWillNotCompile(Program.MyEnum)’: not all code paths return a value.”  Is this wrong?  Discuss…

If you look at some of the back-end structures of Group Policy Manager, you may notice some odd names.  First off, most of the dll’s in the Program Files directory start with "Quest.Avalanche".  Avalanche is the internal code name for the product.  Like many software companies, we don’t necessarily know what the final product name is going to be when we start development.  In addition, the dev team often doesn’t know what the version number will be at the beginning of a cycle.  Therefore, we rely on code names for versions as well.  On the Avalanche team, we use the names of mountains.  Here is the list of code names we’ve used over the last four years:

• 1.0 - Citadel Hill (named retroactively) - Sept, 2004
• 2.0 - Wentworth - May, 2005
• 2.5 - Matterhorn - Nov, 2005
• 3.0 - Stoneham - June, 2006
• 3.1 - Fuji - Dec, 2006
• 4.0 - Nevado - Dec, 2007
• 4.1 Mont-Blanc - April, 2008

Given that development began in June 2004, that works out to seven releases over a period of 46 months - or about one release every 6.5 months.

Bob Dylan is one of the world’s great songwriters, but as a performer he can be hard to love.  Some of my friends were disappointed with his performance at the Metro Centre last week, but I knew what to expect.  He doesn’t look at the audience.  He doesn’t talk to the audience.  He just plays the tunes.

Of course, when your first song is Rainy Day Women # 12 & 35 and your encore is Like a Rolling Stone, you can afford to be a bit eccentric.