Private Agenda

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My new-fangled PDA has got Microsoft Voice Command in it. This is a totally wonderful application that lets you use speech to control your life. It is like having a little person inside the device that you can ask to do things like place calls, tell you what is coming next, play you music and so on. It works extremely well, and is pretty unique amongst these things in that it does not require any voice training.

My PDA therefore presently announces all my appointments in a robotic American voice and will also read me the heading of incoming urgent emails, when they arrive.

This is all very useful, but all my appointments are pretty boring. I think I'm going to set a few more interesting ones so that in the middle of an Information Services Committee meeting my device can go "Bing Bong - Secret Weapon Briefing in fifteen minutes" or "Bing Bong - Tony Blair call at four o'clock" or "Bing Bong - Kill them all. Do it now. DO IT NOW!!!"

Robs Laws

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I was talking in a Software Engineering lecture today about "Rob's Laws" amongst other things. I think it is time these were finally written down.

  1. Any given computer is too slow. No matter how fast you think it is when you get it, after a while you will think it is too slow.
  2. Any given project will take longer than you think. Even (or especially) if you allow for this. The only exception to this rule is a project you won't get paid for, or one where you have massively misunderstood the requirement and are therfore doomed.
  3. A program that is useful will have bugs in it. The only programs that can be proved to be correct are too small to do anything that you might want.
  4. A highly successful, fully working, system which contains hardware components will just about always have a massive "kludge" somewhere in the middle of it. This is the bit that has to be there, otherwise it won't work. Nobody will completely understand why it has to be there, or what it does, but they do know that if you take it out the system stops working.
  5. A customer will never ring you up and tell you their program is working fine. Never. If the phone rings, it is always bad news. Silence either means they haven't got round to testing it yet, or it is working fine. At the point where you think it has gone quiet for long enough for it to be definitely working the phone will ring and they will tell you they've just got around to testing it and have found something they don't like.
  6. As soon as you assume something about what the customer wants you are doomed. For sure.

Does this make sense?

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Yesterday I bought an extra large aerial for our WIFI router at home. This should help us get good network reception in the living room. I can recommend these, the one I got was from Maplin and cost 15 quid, which means they are probably available for a bit less elsewhere.

Anyhoo, it works well, but I'm a bit confused about one thing. The aerial comes with a magnetic base, so that you can easily stick it to your fridge or whatever. 

Great for a quick and easy way of mounting I guess, but I'm not sure how sensible it is to put a device designed to send and receive radio signals right next to a big lump of metal. Very strange.

My Ambition

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As you get older it is best to make sure that you still have a few ambitions left. I've decided that my number one ambition is now to buy Bill Gates a drink. I'd like to be stood next to him at bar at a Preston Foster Appreciation Society meeting (I'm sure that Ian and Pete would let him become a member of the society and as the barmaid pulls his pint of Tetley I could turn to him and say "No, it's OK Bill, I'll get these". And I would.

A Peek at Office 2007

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Yesterday I took my life in my hands and upgraded from Office 2003 to Office 2007. Of course I had a backup. Of course...

Anyhoo, unlike the move to 2003, where on the surface things were pretty much the same as before, when you go to 2007, your whole world changes. The file menu has gone, and in its place you have an Office Button which sometimes glows for no reason that I've been able to establish.

In use I'm reminded of when I got to use a posh SLR camera many years ago. The arrangement of the controls seemed rather arbitrary and counter intuitive. Until I started using it. Then I found that the buttons and levers were actually just where you needed them. Someone who knew a lot about the business of taking photographs had put the features on the hardware in just the right way.

Office 2007 is very like this. After a while you find that commands you used to use a lot and had bother finding (undo and the Format Painter in my experience) have been made big, bold and easy to find. The grouping of tools into particular tasks makes it much easier to find what you want to do, and encourages you to try things that you hadn't seen before. I've only used Word and PowerPoint, but they are shaping up very well.

So far I only have one major grouse. Like most people, I use Styles a lot. Therefore I was pleased to see that Styles have been given an overhaul, which much better preview and the ability to sort the list of styles into alphabetical order. Finally.

However, there is one thing which they do seem to have got wrong in a big way. In the old Word you could click on a paragraph and the style of that paragraph would be instantly displayed in the toolbar. In the new Word the styles are shown on a kind of rotating panel which is good because you can see more than one and easily select from those available. But they don't automatically change to show you the style of the paragraph you are presently typing.

Even if you get a full list of the styles on the screen this still doesn't help if the style you are using is not on the part of the list you can see. So when I'm typing there is frequently nothing telling me which style I'm presently using, and I really hate that.

For me this is a major step backwards and almost, but not quite, negates the good things that they have done in this area. Perhaps there is an option you can select which will make this work better. I certainly hope so.

I'll write more about the shiny new bits as I find them.

Put some magic into your life

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Now you can have one....

My all new "Magic Message System" is now available for download. If you've ever wanted a message system as good as the one in Computer Science at Hull University then you can have one... For now. I'm going to make it play videos and do 3D next. And I might not give that version away......

Because it uses Windows Presentation Foundation you will need either Vista or XP with .NET Version 3.0 installed.

So, what does it do? Well, it will display a slideshow of your Flickr pictures and at the same time read messages off an RSS feed reader of your choosing. We are going to use it on our plasma screen in the meeting area.

You can find it here.

Infinite Power

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In the pub tonight conversation turned to wind power. It is presently fashionable to put a wind turbine on the top of your house (one of our political party leaders here has got one). Apparently, for the outlay of only fifteen hundred pounds you can get a device which, during a hurricane, produces almost enough electricity to power your hairdryer.

I'm not convinced by this, I think the answer has got to be reducing consumption by insulation and other clever tricks. However, now that you no longer need planning permission to put up a windmill on your roof, I suppose they are going to become fashionable.

However, if they ever become de regeur I have a plan. I'm going to make a balsa wood wind turbine and stick on the roof. Inside I'm going to put a tiny electric motor so that the blades always turning. Always.

Whilst my neighbours bemoan the lack of wind and the fact that they have spent all this money on something which is actually useless I'll be able to point up at my roof and talk about the kilowatts of power that I'm presently generating. Not exactly eco-friendly I suppose. But fun. 

Party Time at the Bank

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Some time ago I used know someone who knew someone who worked in a bank. For some reason we were chatting one evening and the conversation got around to "What would you do if someone came in and said 'I've got a gun, give me all your money'?"

Apparently the bank had a special code phrase which was to be used in this situation. The drill was to ask the cashier at the next position "What time is Andy's party?". Apparently the appropriate action involving silent alarms, marked notes and giant falling cages (or whatever) could then be taken.

This has bugged me for years. Viewed from the perspective of the robber this would be highly confusing. I'm presenting the person in front of me with the business end of a firearm, demanding money with menaces and the first thing they do is sort out a few social engagements before getting on with doling out  the cash. At very least this would make me inclined to increase their motivation a bit, perhaps by shooting up the place. Bonkers.

I've since figured out that the code phrase has now been changed slightly. Now, they way that they signal miscreants is by not offering them life insurance, a new mortgage or a car loan as they hand the money over....

Early but not bright

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Went into Hull at 7:00 am this morning. Not because of some confusion updating the clocks (that was weeks ago) but to review the papers for BBC Radio Humberside. I've been doing this for a while, and I usually take the camera in case any nice photo opportunities arise.

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Early Hull looking good

I managed to muddle my way through the reviews OK (note to self, you seem to run a bit slow on Mondays - go for other days of the week in future) and with a bit of luck they'll ask me back so I can get up early all over again.

Cortina Nostalgia

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Ours was maroon

When I was very young (and probably even more impressionable than I am now) my dad bought a Mark 1 Cortina. At the time this was the epitome of style and taste. Nowadays it would be regarded as somewhat primitive. I mean, the dashboard (not the fascia) only had four buttons on it. And nearest thing we had to airbags was an empty crisp packet in the "glove compartment". Which curiously never seemed to have any gloves in it. Ever.

I was reminded of this chunk of my personal history yesterday as I was standing in W H Smiths reading magazines for free. There is one called "Classic Ford" or somesuch, which had numerous pictures of the MK1 Cortina Owner's national rally. They even have their own web site. What memories.

Dragging down Vista

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Well, today's the day. I've been involved in the Connect trials of various versions of Vista - even posted a bug report or two - and this morning I got my reward in the form of a free copy of the new operating system. All I had to do was haul my browser over to the download site and grab it. Just me and a few million other people.....

Well, after a few fits and starts during the day I've managed to get a whole DVD's worth of the new magic and I'm starting to install it. I've been generally impressed with the Vista experience and I've been looking forward to getting hold of the genuine article. I was a bit scared when the screen came up with "..this upgrade may take several hours." but as I write this my media PC is running the final version.

Just in time for me to go to bed....

Man with two brains

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I've been acting as a customer in our software engineering practicals. Student companies have been interviewing me to find out what is really required, and I've been delightfully vague and unhelpful. Not at all like me, but probably a good learning experience for them.

Thing is, I'm also offering a consultancy service where, for the princely some of 2% of their overall mark, student teams can have a few minutes of my time to comment on their designs. What surprises me is how few teams have come along for a chat, for the potential improvement in the marks this is very good value.

However, one of the teams for whom I'm the customer is coming to see me tomorrow. This means that I'll be commenting on the behaviour of myself, and giving advice on how to deal with me to find out what needs to be done. Very strange.

One Day and Counting

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Now I just need to add the movie playback...

My wonderful new Message Display program has now managed to keep going for a whole day. It is my first ever Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) program and it is running on Windows Vista RC2 on the machine in my office all hours of the day and night.

Since the real thing is required to run for weeks, and any failures of the system will be very visible (and therefore highly embarrasing) I've embarked on this soak test. The program is running in "dog time" (i.e. around seven times faster than it should) so that the results are better than realistic. Later this week I might dare to go live with it on the big plasma screen.