Merry Christmas - ho ho ho...

Just a quick note to wish everyone a merry Christmas and a happy New Year.

ActiveSync multi device support...

Now that I have a Pocket PC and a SmartPhone I would like them to be connected to my machine at the same time, synchronising at the same time. Trouble is ActiveSync can only handle one device at a time and you have to disconnect one, then connect the other for ActiveSync to find the new device and do its thing. ActiveSync needs to allow multiple devices to be connected at the same time and provide functionality to select a connected device to change settings etc. So, Microsoft, how about you look to upgrade this tool to make mine and other peoples lives easier to synchronise - please!

i-mate SP3i...

Yesterday, in what will be my last gadget related purchase for the year, I went out and upgraded from the i-mate smart phone 2 to the i-mate SP3i. Now when I got the first phone I thought that was cool, albeit a bit bulky. This new version just rocks, perfect size and weight. I just love it!

Dell delivers finally...

Well the Axim I ordered from Dell on December 3 just arrived today - what took so long? Well it was meant to arrive last Tuesday, except the delivery didn't turn up; so I ring Dell and they tell me they will call me back to let me know what happened. No call, so two days later I ring again and change the address to the office to see whether that makes it easier or not - new delivery date then this Monday. This has been my week since:

do

{

    RingDellDeliveryNumber();

    SitOnHoldForAVeryLongTime();

    TalkCalmlyThenAbuseDellDeliveryRep();

    DellAdmitNotSureWhereItIs();

    DellPromiseToCallBackLaterInDayWithStatus();

    EndOfDayArrives();

    DellFailToReturnCallAsPromisedSoGetAngry();

    GoHomePissedOffAndWaitUntilNextDay();

}

while (DateTime.Now.Day <> 23);

 

CelebrateAndOpenBoxThatHasBeenSoEagerlyAwaited();

Robi-dobi...

One of my best friends, robi-dobi, from New Zealand has been staying over the last week and just left earlier today. It was just awesome to catch up as it has been some time since we last saw each other. It was a pretty hectic time, I took some time off work and we saw a couple of movies, drank lots of beer (aussie and kiwi), went for an MTB ride (was a bit hot for him), went to train museum (so-so), ate dinner at a laughable Indian restaurant (really poor service and food), went to a Christmas show, looked at some amazing Christmas lights on a house, went to a great pizza restaurant, went shopping, the park, and lots more. It was just great to hang out with robi-dobi and the family for a week; the boys will really miss him. Just need to convince him to come and live in Brisbane ;-)

That's way too early...

Yesterday, I had to go down to Canberra for a presentation in the morning. And with the rest of the Eastern states of Australia being on daylight saving (damn you Brisbane), this meant getting the really really early flight. So it was up at 4am, cab at 4:30am, flight at 5:10am - this is all way too early. Got home late in the afternoon and was absolutely stuffed; fell into bed just after the kids. Not to self - avoid having to catch that flight ever again!

.NET embedded platform...

This is kinda cool, a .NET embedded platform kit. Quote-ish: "Each .netcpu development kit includes the .netcpu CPU Module, a general purpose microcontroller for programming embedded solutions using C# and the .Net Embedded CLR.". If only I had the spare change to be able to play with stuff like this :-(

Tissot T-Touch...

Here is a review of my watch, the Tissot T-Touch. This watch rocks, it keeps the time (duh), has a bunch of other cool features like: alarm, stopwatch, altimeter, barometer, thermometer and compass - all accessed by touching the screen versus navigating around a series of tiny buttons. I have had this watch now for two years and it has been awesome. It is water resistent to 30m and it can take real abuse like when I go for mountain bike rides. Highly recommended, with extra points for style and geekiness.

Telstra suck...

Just recently I have got Telstra Bigpond Cable hoping to realise all the benfits of the improved speed and always on access. Alas, my experience has not been good :-( Several times a day I have issues with the connection and am unable to get on. The stupid Telstra phone support technicians are next to useless; some idiot even told me it would be better if I ran without my firewall (yeah right!) Or everyone's favourite dip s**t support idiot response; please reboot your PC - sure that will be it; everytime I have a problem I'll reboot, hey I have a great idea why don't I set up a job to reboot the machine every 30 minutes - yep that will make it better! And it seems I am not the only one experiencing these issues with Telstra! Aaarrrggghhh…

Psycho cleaning day...

This is a day in our house where Ange (my wife) and I just go nuts and clean it from top to bottom; it's not fun, it's certainly not pretty, and we pity anybody who enters during this process! The kids really hate it as they also get dragged in to help out (haha - that's why we had them!) But in the end it is worth it - the place is spotless and ready for all our guests to enjoy over the Christmas/New Year period.

Missing operating system...

Classic, very funny! The story of a guy whose OS has died. My favourite quote, "Gasp. I returned from lunch only to find my computer in the middle of a blue screen. Let me tell you folks, this is the computerguy-equivalent of finding your wife in bed with your brother".

My next trusty steed...

Once upon a time, about a couple of months ago, after a training ride I jumped into the 4WD and reversed it straight into a tree - the only stupid tree in the entire car park! Normally, so what? The tragedy was that my bike was on the rack; so the tree and car instantly became the slices of bread in my bike sandwich. The result was one mangled wheel and a cracked frame :-(

To me this was no ordinary bike - this was my carbon fibre Giant MCM Team – my pride and joy. This was the best hardtail, in my very humble opinion, on the planet – light and fast.

Fortunately, with some tragedies there can also be some cause for joy and celebration. I had thankfully insured my bike and the insurance company have decided to kindly honour their commitment in paying me the replacement value. So I have spent the last couple of months performing extreme due diligence in finding an appropriate replacement. There is one major requirement for the new bike having competed in this years Mont 24 - it must be full suspension - my butt says so!

In the end it really came down to a number of very nice bikes: the blur, the 5.5. EVP, the epic and the 575. In the end I have chosen the Yeti 575 for its clean lines, its 5.75 inches of rear travel, its relative price, the great handling and almost hard tail cross country feel that it has for all its plushness.

Now all I have to do is complete the savings to make up the difference between what the insurance company will give me and what the bike shop would like me to pay, then go and take delivery of my next trusty steed...

What's up with chullybun...

What is the meaning behind "chullybun"? Nothing really! It basically relates to the kiwi accent and the chilly bin (see here and here). Not many results returned on google either - so I figure I can have it as my own ;-)

Deploying .NET CF Apps...

Here is a good summarised post that contains a bunch of helpful links for those looking to package and deploy their .NET Compact Framework applictions.

Visual Studio 2005...

Have been playing with the Beta 1 of Visual Studio 2005 a bit over the last couple of weeks. In general it is looking pretty solid. Although my first attempt at playing with the new Compact Framework did not go well at runtime in the emulator, see the bug report here.

I have been largely playing with the new generics stuff and it is way cool - it will save so much code, simplify development and improve quality. So far I have one suggestion and one bug; but otherwise, all is very good indeed.

The IDE is looking really good and the integrated unit testing is also a great addition. I have a question related to the unit testing; when a test fails how does one then debug the test through the test infrastructure (I see someone else is having the same issue) - as yet I have not discovered how and have resorted to creating a quick and dirty console app to replicate and fix. A less than ideal scenario :-(

Am looking forward to playing with the new Windows Forms stuff over the coming weeks to see what improvements have been done here. At first glance there looks to be a bunch of groovy new controls; plus the Click Once stuff is a welcome addition to simplifying the Smart Client deployment.

Dell Axim X50v...

I have been a bad bad boy; I think I will be in trouble with the wife tonight. I have just ordered the Dell Axim X50v PocketPC - it is the last day for their 20% off promotion and it just was too good to miss. It has integrated wifi, bluetooth and consumer irDA - plus it is VGA - nice :-)

MSN Messenger 7 Beta...

The latest version of Messenger is available here. It is kind of fun, with the nudges and winks - although I think they may become pretty old (read annoying) pretty quickly. It will be interesting to see what the porn industry does with the winks - a new means for delivering the rude stuff to your mates I am sure ;-)

.NET 2.0 BackgroundWorker...

I think it is fantastic that there is greater support in the framework for performing asynchronous programming so we can create more responsive applications that do not annoyingly lock the UI for a period of time; and also provide the means for the user to cancel if they are tired of waiting. As good as the BackgroundWorker is I do not think it goes far enough.

It does not support a true thread cancel (Thread.Abort). Basically you have to implement the logic to check whether a cancel has been issued and then code to complete the cancel. Which is fine where you control the code being invoked async; what happens where you want to call a long running component that you don’t own – there is no way to cancel – therefore it could still run for a very long time. From what I can see you can not get to the Thread of the BackgroundWorker to cancel if required either. So although I think it is ok, I want more flexibility to cancel the thread there and now. I would like to say Cancel and if not cancelled in a nice fashion in n milliseconds – then go ahead and really cancel the thread.

First past the post...

This is the blog of Eric Sibly; focusing on mountain biking, .NET development and the family. This is my first post, and hopefully not the last. More to follow...