Entries for Massif

Windows shut down order. [Windows shut down order.]

Massif — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 08:21:48 GMT

This may have been approached in a video somewhere, but I thought I ask actual people instead of trawling through hours of footage to find a possible answer.

When I log off / shut down - how does windows decide which order to shut down applications in? I originally assumed it just sent the same shutdown message to all applications. But is it smarter than that? Does it send large applications shutdown messages early? Does it only try to shut down N processes at a time. (Where N is the number of processors the machine has.)

Just idle curiosity really.

in reply to Windows shut down order.

home.live.com is facebook. [home.live.com is facebook.]

Massif — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 16:28:28 GMT

Blimey, I mean, I know MS had a reputation for arriving late to a party, figuring out what games everyone was playing and then starting a new round with all the other people who didn't get tired of playing the first time. But this is pretty impressive.

But now all my friends are on facebook, and skype. Awwww...

in reply to home.live.com is facebook.

Almost done... [Almost done...]

Massif — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 17:39:47 GMT

So the stuff I've been working on since I almost completely stopped posting here is about to be launched.

Maybe I'll have a little more time to see what you've all been up to without me, but for now it's nice to be involved in something hugely public that even my parents will be able to understand.

Also I've been given the role of build manager, which means more free time, which I'm naturally using to the full benefit of the company... Not browsing reddit... Oh no...

Anyway, what'cha all been up to? I see littleguru is a star now. Anyone else become famous while I was away?

in reply to Almost done...

WebAii!!!! [WebAii!!!!]

Massif — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 07:44:44 GMT

Anyone used this?

We're doing ASP.NET development in VS2005 at the moment, and having an easy way of unit testing the web layer would be teh awesome.

in reply to WebAii!!!!

Hey Minh [Hey Minh]

Massif — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 15:17:01 GMT

I thought you might appreciate this:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/25036088@N06/2383099076/in/set-72157604307009478/

Don't know why...

[edit: actually you'd probably like this one more:

]

in reply to Hey Minh

Windows Desktop Search and the Blue Screen of Death, kinda sorta related [Windows Desktop Search and the Blue Screen of Death, kinda sorta related]

Massif — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 08:44:53 GMT

In that, when I have WDS installed I get frequent Blue screens, and when I don't I get fewer blue screens.

The root cause seems to be either an encrypted file system called Pointsec, or the fact this Dell Laptop they gave me at work is a pile of pants.

(This image represents a dell Latitude D620)

Anyway, it would appear that WDS pushes my laptop over the edge of unreliability, and I was wondering whether anyone else had experienced software pushing their system a tad too far. This is irritating because it means I can't use WDS on this machine, and have to find things... shock horror... by hand. (metaphorically)

in reply to Windows Desktop Search and the Blue Screen of Death, kinda sorta related

Stupid thought for the Day [Stupid thought for the Day]

Massif — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 08:17:14 GMT

Having seen a lol-cat type picture of a cute kiddy dressed as Hitler this morning my thought for the day is this:

"How long is it until someone creates lolcatsthatlooklikehitler.com?"

I think not too long, just give me a page of hitler quotes and a credit card...

in reply to Stupid thought for the Day

Gaah!!! (Virtual PC Rant) [Gaah!!! (Virtual PC Rant)]

Massif — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 20:10:58 GMT

<insert venomous stream of bile here>

So, I have precisely this problem. In that, installing virtual PC kills networking dead on Vista x64. Now I'll grant you, that problem has been reported on the connect site for the Workflow Foundation, so it's hardly the correct place. But there is no connect site for VPC now, the beta is closed. And there appears to be only a forum there anyway.

It's frustrating to the point of apopletic rage, and the fact there's no feedback route, and I'm not the only person with this problem just makes the whole thing so much worse.

I've always regarded MS relatively kindly, probably because of my obtuse manner of doing the exact opposite of everyone around me. But over the last few days is the closest I've come to physically damaging my PC over software problems. I'm seriously considering moving Apple.

It's not just this though, at the moment I have the following issues:
Vista x64 machine won't go to sleep or hibernate, by itself or when I tell it.
The aforementioned VPC networking problem.
Expression blend is PAINFULLY slow inside a VPC.
The laptop won't resume from sleep reliably, which is even more irritating when using hybrid sleep and it turns on, stores the hibernation file and remains on until the battery dies or the end of time. (Depending on whether it's plugged in.)

Anyway, I'm going to blow things up, because at least games work, most of the time.

Plus numerous other things which aren't with microsoft products.

in reply to Gaah!!! (Virtual PC Rant)

Loopy virtualization question [Loopy virtualization question]

Massif — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 09:59:27 GMT

So, I want to be able to work anywhere, anytime on my pet projects. To that end I thought of using Virtual PC to have a "virtual development machine" set up, and sticking said "machine" on a USB hard disk.

Now comes the tricky part.

Obviously my personal machines can have virtual PC installed so using those machines is no problem, but is there a way of running up a virtual machine without having to install client software on the machine I'm plugged into? (For example, making the USB drive bootable, and somehow booting into a virtualisation environment which will then boot the VM.) Is there anything around that does this? (HyperV for example, as obviously VPC doesn't.)

Thanks.

in reply to Loopy virtualization question

Crossing the Memes [Crossing the Memes]

Massif — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 11:13:01 GMT

and no, internet old-hands, this has nothing to do with ye-anciente Temple Ov Thee Lemur memes crossing thingamy.

I just find it strange when parts of the internet I know interact; such as our ~~dear~~ own Barry getting mentioned on Kim Cameron's Blog, should have expected that sooner or later, given there appear to be about 5 people using Cardspace out there. Or Rory getting mentioned on Fake Steve's blog.

I wonder if there's a service out there to trawl my feeds and favourites and find cross references?

Hmmm... Now there's an idea for a way to burn VC cash if ever I heard one.

in reply to Crossing the Memes

Testing Question [Testing Question]

Massif — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 15:40:42 GMT

So I have an already developed set of code which I want to test.

At the moment the code's going all the way down to a database to get some details that I'd like to be able to insert by hand. Initially I thought "ah ha! I'll try mocking" (never having tried it before) but NMock won't let me, as I'm not trying to implement an interface in a dummy version. There's already a class in existence, so nmock says I can't play. (Which I should have realized earlier, but I didn't have time to read all the documentation before having a stab at getting it going.)

I know that I just need to set a few properties, and block a call to a function I don't need, is there any way to mock a single function, or replace a function at test time with a crippled version?

The alternative, deploying a test database onto every machine running tests, would be extremely tedious.

in reply to Testing Question

TFS built dlls fundamentally different? [TFS built dlls fundamentally different?]

Massif — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 10:53:47 GMT

So we have a system, wherein dlls built by team system server (2005 I believe, although we have little to no access so I have no idea the exact version and patch setup.) are used in a different visual studio project.

Except recently, replacing the old dlls with the new has led to the new dlls not being recognized. (Previously the old references would be fine, and reloading the project would show any code changes or new types.) Now the references are all broken (marked by the yellow warning symbol. Reloading the reference seems to fix them, but there are a heck of a lot, and builds seem to go wonky now claiming "no public types".

Reflector and ildasm both show very little different between dlls built locally and on the server, except local dlls work (and are twice the physical size) whereas the server-built dlls don't.

Anyone got a clue as to what's going on?

in reply to TFS built dlls fundamentally different?

Who just made my day? Come on, own up! [Who just made my day? Come on, own up!]

Massif — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 18:47:52 GMT

:D

So I get home from another boring day at the office (mainly caused by literally having nothing to do). And what do I find?

Well, okay I do find a stack of moo cards, which I ordered for myself. But aside from that I find a parcel from Amazon! (Pics to follow when I get bluetooth working between phone and lappy)

Amazon is remaining inscrutable, so it's up to you guys to come clean. Who's responsible for putting a big smile on my face? I have my own theories...

Right, now I'm off to figure out why bluetooth works in other people's accounts.

Woo hoo!!!!

:D:D:D

in reply to Who just made my day? Come on, own up!

Bizarre Career Change Idea [Bizarre Career Change Idea]

Massif — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 11:45:24 GMT

Actually, not so bizarre really.

But I was looking at a job advert the other day for a technical writer position. And it kind of appealed. Given that I'm obsessed with reading and learning about stuff, but have difficulty dealing with the horrible grind of making code production-quality. (I'm more a prototype guy :D)

Anyone here do that job? Can you tell me what the day-to-day actual life of a technical writer actually is like (actually).

It seems an odd role for someone who was diagnosed dyslexic at school, but I've become a pedant since then. (I think I developed pedantry during puberty, I'm not sure when I developed verbosity though...)

in reply to Bizarre Career Change Idea

Honeymoon! (Two Weeks away!) [Honeymoon! (Two Weeks away!)]

Massif — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 10:41:56 GMT

So today's my last day at work, and my last full day in the country for a couple of weeks.

As we're finally taking our honeymoon, we only got married about 8 months ago, but we had to figure out how much we could afford (from the wedding presents, which were donations to the honeymoon) and where we wanted to go.

So, tomorrow morning me and the lovely wife are off to Gatwick, to fly to Houston, and then Sunday morning we fly from Houston (as who would want to honeymoon in Texas ;)) to Belize. Woo!

We're really living it up as friends and family were astonishingly generous, so if y'all want to be sick with envy you can check out the awful websites of the hotels we are staying in.

The hotels are Pook's Hill, Blancaneaux Lodge and Portofino. I'm really excited as this is easily the most exotic and expensive holiday I've ever been on.

Anyway, I thought I'd post this now, so I could at least see your envious reactions before I jetted off. [H]

in reply to Honeymoon! (Two Weeks away!)

Terrifying detail [Terrifying detail]

Massif — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 13:31:27 GMT

Now either games consoles represent the peak of HCI design, or people in the army spend too much time on their playstations.

Because this quote at the end of an article about high-tech tanks perturbed me.

Article wrote:

Terrier
This digger tank can be controlled from up to 2km away using a PlayStation controller.

What with that, and the Unmanned Air Vehicle featured in the British Army adverts using an XBox controller I'm wondering two things:

1 - Are console controllers really that good?
2 - Does a young man holding a games controller and watching a video screen still feel connected to the very real situation he's connected to?

Somehow I find the whole thing a bit odd... But that's probably the luddite in me.

in reply to Terrifying detail

So Paolo, does this happen to you? [So Paolo, does this happen to you?]

Massif — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 15:56:45 GMT

I imagine this would get pretty tiring if it happened all the time.

Damn Cowboys!

See this video on MSN Soapbox

[edit: how do you embed videos from soapbox again? Ah ha!]

in reply to So Paolo, does this happen to you?

There is no love, like that between a man and his headphones. [There is no love, like that between a man and his headphones.]

Massif — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 10:04:24 GMT

Is it wrong to love an inanimate object so much? Even one which only offers an incremental improvement over the object they replace?

I got myself a set of Ultimate Ears, (the absolute bottom of their range ones, Metro Fi.) And they're a little taste of luxury, from the packaging, to the actual experience.

It's hard to accurately judge, but comparing them to the bundled headphones on my Clix they're quite a big leap. It's something like the audio equivalent of SD versus HD (well, 720p anyway).

I just hope this isn't the beginning of some audiophile slippery slope.

in reply to There is no love, like that between a man and his headphones.

Friend Assemblies and Generics [Friend Assemblies and Generics]

Massif — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 15:47:13 GMT

So I've got a set of classes that I want only created in a given Factory class. To annoy me intensely the factory class is in a different assembly to the classes I want the factory to create.

So I thought "I know, I'll hide the constructors as internal, and make the other assembly with the factory class a Friend Assembly." and that would sort things out.

Except the factory class uses a bit of generics, and now I get messages all over about not having a blank constructor for all the types which have their constructors made internal.

In short:

---- Assembly One ---

[assembly: InternalsVisibleTo("Assembly Two")]

class Bob
{
   //This'll fox people who may arbitrarily create my class
   internal Bob(){}
}

---------------------------

--- Assembly Two ----

class BobFactory
{
   T Maker<T>() where T : new()
   {
      ...
   }

   SomeMethod()
   {
      //This causes an error due to Bob not having a public default constructor
      Bob thing = Maker<Bob>();
   }
}

--------------------------

Any ideas?

Perhaps I should abandon this idea and just trust my implementers (ha!).

[edit: hang fire on being helpful people, I may have been targetting the wrong assembly doh!]

in reply to Friend Assemblies and Generics

Dude... Where's my thread? [Dude... Where's my thread?]

Massif — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 10:28:05 GMT

So I was going to go back and dig up an old thread of mine as the current IE8 meta tag thing reminded me of my old "Is there an MS safety-net" post.

But instead I shall point out that going from page one of the "
Also, I should probably have put this in the feedback forum shouldn't I? Where's the option to change where to put a post once you've gotten half-way through writing it?

in reply to Dude... Where's my thread?

Spam Spam Spam Spam! [Spam Spam Spam Spam!]

Massif — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 10:03:48 GMT

Wonderful Spam!
Wonderful Spam!

It's surely getting to the "it's probably worth setting aside some time to introduce a few more anti-spam features" point isn't it?

As it's a long long time since I registered I have no idea how it currently works, but surely a "CAPTCHA on register, CAPTCHA on first post" type scheme would make a dent in this rubbish?

Maybe even a facebook-like "CAPTCHA until we're pretty darn sure you're a human" scheme is in order.

Of course, there are solutions other than CAPTCHA, but I like typing it.

Welcome to the other edge of the "high google ranking" sword. Still, at least it's a good problem to have, as they say.

in reply to Spam Spam Spam Spam!

My moment of fame! [My moment of fame!]

Massif — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 15:55:20 GMT

You know you're a geek when you get all excited about getting a link on the front page of reddit.

13th! Who knows where it'll end.

in reply to My moment of fame!

Hmm? Mixing Attributes from different namespaces: [Hmm? Mixing Attributes from different namespaces:]

Massif — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 15:15:52 GMT

in reply to Hmm? Mixing Attributes from different namespaces:

Associate Xml attribute with type [Associate Xml attribute with type]

Massif — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 10:34:42 GMT

Whoa, I'm hitting the techoff hard at the moment. (I'll get you all cake later.)

Well, I've inherited an xml document and want to read it into its specific types using XmlReader.ReadContentAsObject() and rely on .NET to do its magic and convert things into the correct type.

Now, at the moment the XML elements have a "type" attribute which the document creators thought would be a great thing, and it close matches what you'd expect an XML type to be.

So for example:

<element id="Sample" type="boolean">true</element>

but, of course, .Net has no comprehension of these types. Is there a simple way (in, for example a schema of which I have only the briefest knowledge) to essentially associate one of these "type" attributes with a proper XML type?

in reply to Associate Xml attribute with type