Entries for Manip

C9 Moderation Needed or I'm leaving too... [C9 Moderation Needed or I'm leaving too...]

Manip — Sat, 01 Jul 2006 15:23:34 GMT

How many niners have left now? ... Or perhaps I should ask how many niners have stayed? ...

I'm an a-hole, I know that, but I don't like being in the company of a-holes... The Channel 9 team has been talking about fixing moderation / adding / changing it since the day I arrived, and they haven't done much to that end. OK, so they added Larry and Johnathan as moderators, but now they've left too!

Now, there are SO few great niners left, no Microsoft participation and no dialog that there is little point staying.

I might go find another technology forum to chat on, somewhere with harsh moderation rules and the balls to back them up.

If the situation is the same by September this year I'm leaving C9 too... I'll randomize my password and logout.

This isn't some kind of blackmail, I'm not so full of myself that I believe without me the site will die off... But this is my way of letting you know that the few of niners that have stayed are reaching the end of their rope.

I have spoken to a couple of other niners still around, and they feel the same way... There IS a ticking clock...

PS - If Charles posts something along the lines of "What has happened TODAY that's made you say this?" ... I'm leaving right now...

in reply to C9 Moderation Needed or I'm leaving too...

Microsoft free gift (bug?) [Microsoft free gift (bug?)]

Manip — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 13:15:52 GMT

I tried to contact them to let them know, but like with a lot of big corporate entities they are contact-less.

Microsoft sent out the following e-mail:


Hello Windows Live Messenger Beta Tester,

We run beta programs to make our products the best they can be. You’ve helped us do just that with the Windows Live™ Messenger Beta.

To show our appreciation, we’ve created an exclusive Messenger® theme pack that we’re sending to you and the other Beta testers who’ve helped us so much. This free Kung Fu Bunny theme pack for Messenger, complete with dynamic display pictures, Messenger backgrounds, and a wink, is a token of our thanks.

Why a rabbit skilled in the martial arts? We could tell you it’s because you’re a bug-busting samurai of the beta-testing world but, really, it’s just because he made us laugh. We hope you have fun with him too.

You’ll only be able to download this free Messenger theme pack for the next 30 days, so get it now!

Again, many thanks for your help!

Sincerely,

The Windows Live Messenger Beta Team

Pick up your Windows Live Messenger theme pack here.

Thank you for taking part in this Windows Live Beta program, we appreciate your participation and feedback. If you have questions about Microsoft privacy policies, please read our privacy statement at: http://privacy.msn.com/.

The web-site they provided everyone doesn't work correctly. After speaking to someone else beta testing Messenger Live, and after we both experienced the same thing, I don't believe it is an isolated case.

The web-site presents an error message when you try and use it, and if you try again you get told your e-mail address has already downloaded it.

So if anyone working in or across from the Messenger Live wants to comment then that would be appreciated.

PS - I don't use third party themes. But as Microsoft has sent the same thing to tens of thousands of people they might want to fix it or have some angry thirteen year old girls on their hands

in reply to Microsoft free gift (bug?)

Girls taking "equal rights" a bit too far... [Girls taking "equal rights" a bit too far...]

Manip — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 15:52:15 GMT

Twin sisters fighting to play hockey with boys

Article wrote:
Girls who play on female hockey teams don't have as much passion or take the game as seriously as boys on male teams, say two 17-year-old girls who are fighting for the right to play on an all-boys hockey team in Winnipeg.

"Women's hockey is a lot slower. It doesn't appeal to me," said Amy Pasternak, who took the stand yesterday at a Manitoba Human Rights Commission (MHRC) hearing. "I have a lot more passion than they do."
Amy and her identical twin sister, Jesse, say they've been discriminated against by the Manitoba High Schools Athletics Association (MHSAA). [...]

Click header for full article

Damn that's bull ... It isn't some form discrimination that makes the girls play poorly or without "spirit" it is just how they play. Adversely the boys could be the ones playing that way under the same rules.

Let's say that they get what they want and instead of a girls and a boys team they instead had upper and lower skilled teams (unisex).

What happens if the best players happen to be the bigger stronger guys and you end up with a male only upper skilled team? Are they going to cry discrimination and sexism then, and go after some positive discrimination? Or will you end up with a token female on the upper team?

And should the guys have to worry about hurting the little ninety pound girl on the other team? And if the girls do get badly hurt are they going to revert back to their "I'm a princess" victim role and make the guy that hurt them look like some kind of monster?

in reply to Girls taking "equal rights" a bit too far...

Does reverse Public/Private key encryption exist? [Does reverse Public/Private key encryption exist?]

Manip — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 12:13:56 GMT

Disclaimer: I'm not a crypto expert :)

Public key encryption works like this... You give everyone a copy of your public key, they encrypt some junk and only you, with the private key can decrypt it... Simple... Effective...

But does the reverse exist? ... Can you effectively give everyone a copy of the private key (to decrypt stuff) but only allow you to encrypt it, thus assuring them of whom the sender is?

I am talking about using it as sender authentication/identification, not as a method of encryption (the encryption is a means to that end).

in reply to Does reverse Public/Private key encryption exist?

The US to go bankrupt in the next three years? [The US to go bankrupt in the next three years?]

Manip — Sat, 17 Jun 2006 21:25:19 GMT

The article is too long to post here so click this overly long link.

in reply to The US to go bankrupt in the next three years?

Why Vista Slipped? (Explanation by the slipee) [Why Vista Slipped? (Explanation by the slipee)]

Manip — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 13:29:58 GMT

Blog wrote:
The term stirs the imagination to conceive of beautiful possibilities just around the corner. And “just around the corner” is what Windows Vista has been, and has remained, for the past two years. In this time, Vista has suffered a series of high-profile delays

Link to article (Doesn't work in IE 7, and is getting slashdotted)

in reply to Why Vista Slipped? (Explanation by the slipee)

Google a one trick pony? [Google a one trick pony?]

Manip — Tue, 13 Jun 2006 16:35:51 GMT

Google is a great search engine, or it is the great search engine. But Google as a company haven't shown that they are good at anything else.

Their other products are gMail, and Desktop Applets and now Google Spreadsheets. None of which are competitive in the market... GMail is an alright mail provider, but it hasn't stolen a large amount of market share from Hotmail or Yahoo! Mail ... And after trying out Google's new spreadsheet web-app, I can honestly say that it will not be a huge hit... Excel from Office 95 puts it to shame in almost every way, as does Calc from OpenOffice.

Everyone expected Google to be this new innovative company that would come in and create something nobody had thought of... Has it? What do so many tallented engineers spend all day doing? This junk?

in reply to Google a one trick pony?

Nine killed in Israeli air strike [Nine killed in Israeli air strike]

Manip — Tue, 13 Jun 2006 10:17:13 GMT

BBC News wrote:
Nine Palestinians, including two children, have been killed and up to 20 others hurt in an Israeli air strike in Gaza, witnesses and doctors say.

Link to story

You remember the

in reply to Dual Core CPU, or Single Core (that is 400 Mhz Faster)?

TV: Numb3rs [TV: Numb3rs]

Manip — Fri, 09 Jun 2006 23:53:26 GMT

You guys ever heard of this TV show called "Numb3rs" ... It is like CSI, but a few thousand times as geeky... I discovered it on iTunes under CBS earlier today.

They use high level applied mathematics (real maths mostly, not "TV Maths") to solve crimes with the FBI.

It is kind of cool... But as I said it is very geeky so if you aren't into that kind of stuff then keep well away. I'm enjoying it so far, and there is a second season, so it could be around for a while.

in reply to TV: Numb3rs

Internet Explorer SUCKS [Internet Explorer SUCKS]

Manip — Fri, 09 Jun 2006 01:50:31 GMT

Wow... So Vista just completed download, took a few hours consuming 100% of my connection (meaning I can't use the internet for anything else)... But guess what? Internet Explorer DELETED IT

Why? because it is a poorly designed pedazo de mierda!

Internet Explorer in its infinite wisdom decided to store the downloading 3.2 GB file in the Temp folder, NOT in the resulting location...

So my C: drive runs out of space... I am then forced to shift stuff over to my other drive... Then the download completes, IE tells me the other drive doesn't have enough space (I WONDER WHY!!!) and then goes ahead and deletes the f*cking 3.2 GB file from the temp folder!!!!!

So NOW I have to start ALL OVER AGAIN and can't even get a frigging connection with the frigging server because frigging Microsoft is too egocentric to use frigging BitTorrent technology created someone frigging else!

NICE JOB GUYS! I LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING WHAT UTTER GARBAGE VISTA IS!

in reply to Internet Explorer SUCKS

What character's super-power would you have? [What character's super-power would you have?]

Manip — Mon, 05 Jun 2006 20:01:49 GMT

Which character's super-power(s) would you have and why?

I would have Sue Storm's from the Fantastic Four... She can do invisibility and force fields of various shapes, two very handy abilities if you want to fight crime or not. :)

in reply to What character's super-power would you have?

Intelligent Design, degradation of science or a degradation of religion? [Intelligent Design, degradation of science or a degradation of religion?]

Manip — Sun, 04 Jun 2006 00:07:59 GMT

A lot of scientists / atheists are worried about ID's increasing popularity in places like the United States.

Intelligent Design, is the belief that evolution happened but [a | the ] god[s] designed it all to begin with and or were designing it during the evolutionary process.

Some scientists believe that ID and Creationism are watered down science but did they stop to consider that in fact it is watered down religion?

There is a general decline in religious following, even in a place as religious as the US. If religion were to disappear completely that would take generations and I'd imagine it would be a slow chipping of belief, not a clean sweep. Is ID and Creationism part of that process?

I suggest to you that this new half religion half science theme is in fact a good thing for the scientific community and will eventually result in the erosion of religion.

At the moment when conflict between science and religion occurs a lot of people will generally side with their religion but with these new half and half religions they will have to side with the science.

I think Creationism and ID will slowly get less and less religious and more scientific until the result is that any 'god' is a vague memory until the religion is gone completely.

in reply to Intelligent Design, degradation of science or a degradation of religion?

Concise MFC reference? [Concise MFC reference?]

Manip — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 18:43:57 GMT

I have an open-book exam on Monday, and am wondering if anyone knows of any to-the-point references to C++/MFC? The text doesn't have to be readable, but must be accurate and ideally well indexed.

The amount I can take in has to be sensible... It can't be 5,000 pages, because apart from not having time to read though it, that amount also wouldn't fit on the desk.

PS - I don't have time to go to the bookshop

in reply to Concise MFC reference?

Scoble isn't a mindless drone after all... [Scoble isn't a mindless drone after all...]

Manip — Tue, 30 May 2006 02:26:04 GMT

I liked Scoble's most recent blog post and I don't even read his blog... Unlike his other posts which actually contain little or no real insight I thought this one had interesting questions. I would normally quote it but this one is far too long, and would result in a page and a half thread starter.

So just this once here is a link.

PS - Does anyone else find it funny how people replied with answers to his questions? Clearly they completely missed the point.

in reply to Scoble isn't a mindless drone after all...

Why I hate Software Development? [Why I hate Software Development?]

Manip — Mon, 29 May 2006 03:08:32 GMT

Why do I hate Software Development? ... Simply put its complete lack of passion. Irrespective of Microsoft's bull, there is no passion in software, there is rarely any in the entire I.T. industry and why should there be? It is not an artistic endeavour - regardless of what some who develop software would have you believe.

Frankly the more I learn about developing software (the process[es]) the less I like and the more removed from real human existence it becomes.

Can I develop software? Yes. Can I fix computers? Yes. Can I follow all the bull processes surrounding the two? Perhaps. Is it something I want to spend the next 40+years of my life doing...

Note: This is a thread I'll likely regret making AM tomorrow so there it is...

in reply to Why I hate Software Development?

RSS Virgin Question [RSS Virgin Question]

Manip — Thu, 25 May 2006 08:22:18 GMT

I've decided to try this RSS fad out using Outlook 2007 and would like to know if there is a way to get it to RSS replies instead of just new threads?

I subscribed to the coffeehouse but am just receiving new threads, and only the first post within those threads. What I would like to do is to get it to work like a newsgroup, adding replies to the threads and letting me know that there is a new one.

But at the minute I'm not even getting any replies.

in reply to RSS Virgin Question

Office 2007 Reviews [Office 2007 Reviews]

Manip — Tue, 23 May 2006 19:17:49 GMT

Post reviews of the new Office 2007 beta here.

Here's something interesting:

And moments later, I run a search, and...:

On a positive note I love the preview functionality:

If you accidentally click the numeric date in the month view within the calender it automatically goes to the day view which is surprisingly annoying and surprisingly easy to do....

Outlook also broke my connection to University without informing me... Because it didn't like the SSL cert. 8-)

You can't automate a web-save of your calander.. You need to do it by hand each time or use Microsoft's lame Office Live product.

Here's an interesting thing... What is wrong with you guys? Why does "remind me later" mean "remind me each time I load outlook?"

Your desktop search SUCKS ... It eats CPU like crazy!

OHH JOY! It seems Outlook requires me to accept the certificate EVERY TIME IT LOADS! ... I hope Verisign is giving you guys a lot of cash - Microsoft because your going to loose customers if you keep up this "a cetificate for every man, women and child -- from vertisign."

in reply to Office 2007 Reviews

Poll Suggestion [Poll Suggestion]

Manip — Sat, 20 May 2006 15:43:26 GMT

Has being a Channel 9 user:

- Improved your opinion of Microsoft
- About the same opinion as before
- Worse opinion of Microsoft
- Who's Microsoft?

in reply to Poll Suggestion

IE 7 runs on .Net? [IE 7 runs on .Net?]

Manip — Sat, 20 May 2006 04:56:26 GMT

Uhh I thought IE 7 was unmanaged? Why is it loading the .Net framework each time?

in reply to IE 7 runs on .Net?

Where will you be in five years time? [Where will you be in five years time?]

Manip — Fri, 19 May 2006 22:54:41 GMT

Where would you like to be in five years time? And where do you expect to be?

(One is a 'wish', the other is a prediction).

in reply to Where will you be in five years time?

Anyone else sick of Flash Player? [Anyone else sick of Flash Player?]

Manip — Wed, 17 May 2006 21:29:02 GMT

I'm SO sick of these stupid flash ads that are animated and blink away when your trying to read... I bet I'm not the ONLY one that can't concentrate when there is some flashing thing on the screen.

I use notepad to cover them up... So in long texts when I am tired I might have two instances of notepad open covering over these stupid ads.

I blame Flash but IE can take some of the blame too...

Why is it that flash doesn't let you STOP flash animations THAT RUN ON MY COMPUTER and why is it that flash doesn't let you MUTE sound that is being played ON MY COMPUTER?

The people who wrote the Flash Player must have contempt for their users... Who would design a player that gives complete control to content providers?

I said IE gets some of the blame... The reason being that they don't allow you to write plugins that block content from pages... They only allow toolbar and menu items to be added... When Firefox and Opera allows people to write plugins that block this content and Firefox user's have enjoyed using these plugins now for years.

These types of ads have resulting in me NOT using a number of sites including howstuffworks.com. </Rant>

in reply to Anyone else sick of Flash Player?

Final Year Engineering Project - Help Please [Final Year Engineering Project - Help Please]

Manip — Mon, 15 May 2006 22:25:48 GMT

I've got to pick my Final Year Engineering Project topic soon, and I could use some help...

*I actually need to code something*

What they are looking for is a "Unanswered Question." It is essentially a piece of research into a particular area... It just happens to also count as 1/3 of my final year grade.

Here are my self-set requirements:

- Must be a theory (e.g. "QUERTY is slower than DVORAK") or a question (e.g. "Can a text-less UI be created that users understand?")
- Must offer a personal technical challenge
- Must involve programming / development
- Must be completable in the alloted time (300 hours)
- Must look 'good' on a CV (degree projects are a common interview discussion topic), but that doesn't mean it has to relate to a particular job

So not too hard, but not too easy either...

I am looking for any tips, advise, thoughts, options, experience, suggestions (topic area or specific project), anecdote's and anything else you can add to the topic.

Here are some previous years projects (these are only projects that got a 'good' grade):

Previous Projects wrote:
Online recruitment system
An improved stock control system for Sainsbury's
Library Management And Maintenance System
Web based indexing application( Investigating web services)
Online Booking System for Small Niche Market Tourist Businesses
Samares Soap eShop
Computer Role Playing Game
Java computer based training course
Web Portal for the Department of Creative Technologies
Database driven football card game written in visual studio .net
SwaleElectricalServicesShop.co.uk
Electronic Voting System
CAL project for UML
web-based tools for teaching business requirements
Computer Based Learning - Food for Thought
Bluetooth and Mobile applications
3D GPS track builder

edit: These are an unrepresentative example... There are some more "research focused" projects.

in reply to Final Year Engineering Project - Help Please

Vista Public Beta Release to coincide with WinHEC Conference [Vista Public Beta Release to coincide with WinHEC Conference]

Manip — Sat, 13 May 2006 22:50:20 GMT

I hear from the rumour mill that Microsoft plans to release a public beta of Windows Vista at the same time as the WinHEC engineering conference (May 22^nd to 24^th). And I must say I like the source of this information...

We will see... But I am pretty optimistic.

PS - I am now signed up to receive "More information" about a Vista Beta five times... In five different ways... So if they do release something I'm going to get lots of 'fun' e-mail from different Microsoft sites. :)

in reply to Vista Public Beta Release to coincide with WinHEC Conference