Vietnam

Going to publish some writing about my trip soon (promise!)

For now, here are some pics from Sapa.

http://picasaweb.google.com/jonathan.conway/VietnamSapa

Upgrading to ASP.NET MVC 2 Preview 2

Well it’s been a long, long time since I blogged anything, so here’s a quick post to break the ice.

I’ve been using ASP.NET MVC for a client project over the past 7 or 8 months (yes, I was using it pre-beta).

There have been good and bad times, but overall I’m optimistic about the framework.

Version 2 (preview 2) was just released and now features support for ‘Areas’ within a single project.

This is awesome and just what I was looking for, as I’m using the areas feature to separate the back-end “admin” portion of the website from the live portion.

(Previously I had put the Admin stuff in a separate project, which made things more complicated in all sorts of ways.)

After installing the update and 25 minutes of refactoring I had everything working and had moved Admin in-project.

If only framework upgrades were always this easy…

Plugging Earphones

Phew! After months of on-and-off searching, I think I’ve found the ideal headphone set to suit my noise-a-holic lifestyle. It’s the Sony DR-BT50 bluetooth headset and I got it off eBay for a couple of hundred and a bit (they’re not available in Australia).

I also got this sweet little adapter for my iPhone, because Apple decided that we’re not allowed to stream our music over bluetooth (A2DP), at least not out-of-the-box.

My workmate has been using Seinheiser in-ear-phones, which he says are OK but overpriced. Apparently there’s only one distributer of Seinheiser in Australia, so they can charge what they like. Makes me wonder how much of this goes on in Australia.

Anyway, you’ll hear more about the Sony’s when they finally arrive.

Where’s Google Transit for Sydney?

Google Transit is a new feature that will integrate public transport data into Google Maps.

This would be an excellent tool for Sydney-siders!

How many times have we been frustrated with the lousy user experience offered by 131500.com and WhereIs.com.au, when trying to figure out how to get somewhere on public transport?

My question is, since Google Transit has already been implemented for Adelaide and Perth, why not Sydney?

NB. I’ve started a discussion on this.

Kubrick, Software and Iterations

How this post was written

I didn’t sit down and write this post from beginning to end. I wrote the way most people write – they type something, then hit Backspace a few times then write something else, and repeat the process until they have something they’re relatively happy with.

Kubrick’s Secret

I recently watched “Stanley Kubrick’s Boxes“, an hour-long documentary about what a drooling fan (not myself) found in the late film director’s basement.

Kubrick wasn’t such a genuis after all. But he did have a brilliant method of achieving his brilliant results. He just did everything hundreds of times.

What they found in the basement were collections of photos of the same kind of scene shot in multiple locations. Thousands of gate photos. Thousands of street scenes. Thousands of hooker doorways (eek!).

It doesn’t stop there. Remember the classical music in many of Kubrick’s films? Well I think this was just an easy way to sample hundreds of different pieces to find out which one was most suitable. Certainly saved having to pay professional composers (well most of the time).

And recall how Kubrick would shoot a scene hundreds of times, to the chagrin of many an actor.  He didn’t do this because the actors themselves were crap. He did it so he could sit down later in the editing room and hand-pick the best possible performance. Which also explains why he often took the editing upon himself.

Software development

There are a million people saying this in a million different ways (SCRUM being one of them), but basically, you don’t write a software program from beginning to end. It’s an iterative process. It’s more iterative than other comparably processes (such as building a house) because anything and everything can be changed instantly.

When you’re fiddling with bytes in computer memory, what better way to come up with the best solution than rewriting the program again and again until you get it right? This is called iterative development.

The point?

I guess what I have to say at the end of it all is, iteration is a very powerful tool for achieveing the best possible results. It can take time, but it’s going to save time if you want to build something that will last. That’s why, 30 years later, everyone still loves The Shining.

Top 5 reasons the iPhone 3G sucks

I’m beginning to get what Maddox was on about… post-purchase of course.

1. Crippled hardware – no video, no VOIP and crippled bluetooth.
2. Poor battery life – 5 hours isn’t much better than most laptops.
3. Closed-source, heavily proprietary software and hardware architecture. And you thought Microsoft were evil?
4. Bad call and receiption quality.
5. You’re locked into a service provider from the work go. And getting it unlocked isn’t as easy as they said – after waiting four weeks, Apple still won’t sent me the unlock code.

UNSW-Tube

Innovatively (or at least conveniently) UNSW has videotaped an entire course and released it on YouTube. There are 44 videos in total, each running for an hour, give or take.

Although I’ve been developing software for some years, I always find it interesting to go back to the basics. And this course digs into the deepest layers of computing – the first few lectures even touching on electronics and logic circuits.

Great geek stuff!

Career 2.0

Has anyone noticed the colourful assortment of start-up career sites popping up here in Australia?

• JobReel.com.au – A nice, plain job site – it’s a searchable list of job advertisements, with contact details supplied by the employer. Click the gig board link at the top if you’re looking for short-term/contract work.
   
• Gurus.com.au – Bumped into this site only today. It’s mainly focussed on the IT job market, and you can filter by Category. A filter by technology would be nice.
   
• Whirlpool.net.au/jobs – Simon must have been getting tired of seeing job postings in forum threads (as I certainly was). Whirlpool now has its own Jobs board, and in very good taste, they’re only allowing ads direct from employers (no recruiters or head hunters).

Websites like these will become invaluable to the job seeker, and perhaps more so, to employers, during the current skills shortage.

Interoperabilityism – IE 8 delivers to the masses

Masses of developers, that is.

Some of us have been pining for better standards support. Some of us have been pining for improved JavaScript handing. Most of us have been pining for something.

The IE team have promised to save us all.

I installed IE8 Beta last week, and so far it’s been a good experience. Crashes less than FireFox 3, retains an IE 7 compatibility mode and has some interesting new features tucked away.

They’ve extended the “IE Developer Toolbar” somewhat – it’s becoming more like FireBug, which is a good thing. Of course IE 8’s JavaScript handling will be more “normal”, but it’s still nice to have built-in debugging — just in case!

Before IE8 runs on the machines of the real masses it will have proven itself useful to web developers.

▲ ExplorerBug

Top 5 Tools for Front-End Developers

Just thought I’d blog about this because, amazingly, not every web developer knows about these tools. They’re not only time-savers – they can be life-savers, when working to deadline!

Please hold your applause…

• Firebug
  
  Modify styles & debug JavaScript within the browser!

• IE Developer Toolbar
  
  For those who want Firebug capabilities within their IE browser.
• Visual Studio 2008
  
  Microsoft sweetens the deal by including JavaScript & CSS intellisense and JavaScript debugging capabilities on par with what .NET developers get. Download the Express edition for free!
• JRuler
  
  Probably the handiest (and fastest) Java application I’ve used, JRuler is the ruler of rulers, especially useful when working off a design spec.
• Notepad++
  
  The bestest text-editor ever. All the features, with none of the bloating, lag or priceage found elsewhere.