Latest postings for The Lounge

Rain, rain, come again!

Vikram A Punathambekar — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 13:52:00 GMT

Been raining on and off a bit over the last week, but it's been raining almost continuously since last night. It's brought down the temperatures to the mid-20s, and I'm sitting around in a T-shirt and pyjamas. Just returned from buying a gift for a function tomorrow (although if it's anything like today, I won't be going) and some food.

Nearly 24 hours of straight rain, and IT'S AWESOME!

I know the British (and perhaps to a lesser degree, other Europeans) and North Americans think sun = fun and rain = terrible, but I (and many of my countrymen) love rain. This weather is great for a weekend; my only regret is I'm single and live alone, it would be perfect to have some company. Oh, well, c'est la vie.

Here is a song from a 90s Tamil film shot in Madras: Chinna Chinna Malai Thuligal. I love to play this every time it rains.

How does your culture react to rain?

Cheers,
Vikram. (Cracked not one CCC, but two!)

Remote Access (Development)

Tony.1 — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 13:05:00 GMT

Hi,

This is the first time I have posted a question and I couldn't find a forum that I thought was relevant to it, other than here.

I am a contract software developer currently located in the UK but moving to Melbourne in 2 weeks.

A previous client has asked me if I could work remotely in Australia, connecting to a machine in their UK office, to continue developing software for them (.NET Web/Win SQL etc.).

I know that technically it is quite straight forward, I have worked remotely in the UK before (VPN) to a local office.

However, I am investigating whether or not this is feasible from the point of view of response times, because I would be working intensively and therefore sending many key strokes and expecting a rapid response from Oz <=> UK.

Do you have any information that may help me decide whether or not the proposal is workable?

Upgrading multiple PC's to W7?

Rocky Moore — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 12:53:00 GMT

Family pack can upgrade three PC's for $150:

http://store.microsoft.com/microsoft/Windows-7-Home-Premium-Upgrade-Family-Pack/product/87DFFF11[^]

Rocky <><
Recent Blog Post: Win2008 Server without FrontPage Extensions, really?

Something that made me laugh

Simon Stevens — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 11:32:00 GMT

I just came across this quote on a forum:

"Rumour has it that if you play Microsoft CDs backwards you will hear Satanic messages.
Worse still, is that if you play them forwards they will install Windows"

I'm not anti MS but it made me laugh anyway. Sorry if it's really old, but it's the first time I've seen it.

Simon

Jaundice and work!

Gamzun — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 10:38:00 GMT

I've just received exoneration from jaundice, after two weeks of bed rest I'll be joining office from Monday (actually Tuesday as we've public holiday on Monday ) I was just wondering should I do programming or even if do, how much time I should give time to it? Shouldn't I be given my brain cells some more rest
Have a nice weekend

Kash

Second Opinion About New Article Needed

Richard Andrew x64 — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 05:39:00 GMT

Could someone take a look at the new article by "Xomega Team" and help me decide if it's just an advertisement in disguise?

I'd like to be fair, but I'm skeptical.

Introducing Xomega for XML Object Modeling and Code Generation[^]

Sitting close and working

N a v a n e e t h — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 04:29:00 GMT

I joined with my new company[^] and finished the first two days. Got a brand new Dell Latitude E6500[^] laptop and a nice bag with company's logo. Everything went fine so far. The one thing which I am not comfortable yet is the seating. All people sit close together without any cubicles[^]. I found it hard to work (may be I am used with the cubicles).

Do you enjoy such seating?

Best wishes,
Navaneeth

Silverlight Fun Badge !

Quartz. — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 02:28:00 GMT

Hey guys
I created a simple fun badge for Silverlight , let me know what you guys think ?

http://silverlightfun.com/2009/11/silverlight-fun-badge-is-here.html[^]

Omit Needless Words - Strunk, William, Jr.

Vista Gadget Book: Creating Vista Gadgets using HTML, CSS, & JavaScript. Sample chapter here Selling Your Gadget

I did not know Avenged Sevenfold were as good as this

Lloyd Atkinson©☺ — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 00:30:00 GMT

Just listening to Avenged Sevenfold - Second Heartbeat.

I Love it!!

If everything was not true, would it be not true that everything is not true? So by saying everything is not true, you are automatically denying that everything is not true.

Useful links:

Creating a bootable CD with several operating systems on.

Why Dell suck today

LabVIEWstuff — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 19:55:00 GMT

My partner desperately needs a new laptop so she can set up her petfood business after being made redundant. She actually likes the Dell Latitude I use for work so we head on over to the Dell UK website and see an Inspiron 15 with 4 GB of RAM for a very reasonable £349 all-inclusive.

So far, so good. Add a bit extra disk-space, click through on most of the options, head to checkout, hand over the debit card details and et viola! success - your machine is being built and will be dispatched on the 3rd November.

< sits and waits >

Nov 4th comes and goes . . . no Dell.

Nov 5th comes . . no Dell - decide to check email.

email from Dell: your order has been cancelled.

THAT's IT! No reason, no explanation, no alternative being offered not even an apology - this is dire customer service and I'd warn anyone considering buying one for Christmas NOT to risk it - your order could be cancelled in just the same way!

Suddenly going to the local PC shop / PC-World and just saying 'that one please' seems a lot more appealing.

Dell suck!!!!! Did I mention that already?

Andy B

Looking For Video Software

Roger Wright — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 19:48:00 GMT

A while back I posted about video cameras for my company to buy. We settled on the Canon Vixia HF20, and it's an excellent unit - perfect for our needs. One problem though; the Pixela software that ships with it is useless.

It does a nice job of editing and assembling clips, and will burn a DVD or BlueRay disk, but that's all it does. There is no way to create a file in some format that is universally readable, like WMP or AVI. We did manage (one of our employees, but not me) figure out a way to save a MPG file, but we haven't found anything that can view it except on a machine with the Pixela software installed. Even the latest download of Windows Media Player is unable to recognize and play the MPG file.

Is there a good, preferably free program that can convert the native Canon files to other formats that can be emailed, posted on the web, etc? The files saved in the library by the existing software have the extension .MTS if that's a help.

Thanks!

"A Journey of a Thousand Rest Stops Begins with a Single Movement"

Looks like a really big banana?

Steve Mayfield — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:40:00 GMT

Ford introduces inflatable seat belts [^]

Steve
_________________
I C(++) therefore I am

What did he say?

Steve Mayfield — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:34:00 GMT

Crying Baby translator - there's an app for that [^]

Steve
_________________
I C(++) therefore I am

JOTD

SimulationofSai — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:50:00 GMT

Leaving a party late, two guys compare notes. "I can never fool my wife", the first one says. "I turn off the engine, coast into the garage, tiptoe upstairs, change in the bathroom. But she always hears me, wakes up and yells at me for being late".
"You should do what I do", says the second one. "I roar into the garage, slam the doors, stomp up the stairs and start kissing my wife. And you know what? She pretends to be asleep".

SG
Aham Brahmasmi!

Thats it, I'm off!

Dalek Dave — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:39:00 GMT

Beer, curry and poker!

Everybody have a great weekend.

So Long Suckers!

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

In science, 'fact' can only mean 'confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent.' I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms. Stephen J Gould

Flippin' problems

ian dennis — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:46:00 GMT

For the last few weeks we have been having problems with an overnight automated procedure. We need to be able to turn off a vendor's service that interacts with one of our main databases before the db goes down for maintenance (about 12:30 am) and turn the service back on again after the db is back up (approx 3:30 am).

So we created a couple of batch files that uses the -stop and -start switches on the service manager app to stop and start the service, and ran those two batch files from Windows Task Scheduler. From early last year until October 9th this year, the service was stopped and started without problem, but since then we've seen all sorts of problems.

Typically the start command is given, but never notifies completion, so the batch file never ends, so the Task Scheduler task times out. The service doesn't start properly, so the clients start work at 5am, find that the application isn't running and get the HelpDesk guys to reboot the application server.

The problems seemed to start about the time a new anti-virus was installed, so the first thing we did was to uninstall that. We still had the same problems. So next we disabled the Task Scheduler tasks and someone runs the service manager app to stop and start the service manually. The stop happens between 3:30 pm and midnight and the start between 4am and 5am.

For the last two days the application has been running when the clients log on. (I realize that two days is too small a sample to base any results on, but I'm quietly confident).

I've noticed something interesting. When I was checking the server's system and application event logs, I saw that the service had been started at odd hours ... even I had apparently started it on one occasion, even although I had no recollection of doing it. After digging further, I found that if you run the application administration tool when the service is not running, it automatically starts the service!!! It would have been nice if that had been documented!

This is mostly a rant but, seeing as the problem seems to point to the Windows Task Scheduler, have any of you had problems using the Windows Task Scheduler? Are you aware of any automatic updates to it around 10/9/2009?

My Oops moment of the day

Dalek Dave — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:36:00 GMT

Chap complains he cannot save to a shared folder on the network.

I go look, and the OS can see the folder, I can go in an click on a file and open it under excel, save it etc.
I go back to excel and create a new spreadsheet and try to save to the network folder, and no luck, there is no sign of it.

OK, Thinking time.

Do a "Repair Network" and still it doesn't work.

Ok, I say carry on for now I will get back to you after I think some more.

He phones me up and says that it works in Word, but not Excel.

This is worrying, there cannot be a fault like that.

Inspiration!

"Turn off Excel and go back in." say I

"Oh, it works now!" says he.

Of course it does, I repaired the link but didn't re-establish it in Excel, so it was using the previous broken crappiness.

I sat back, happy in the knowledge of a job well done.

Memo to self, REBOOT OFT SOLVES MANY OF LIFE'S LITTLE PROBLEMS!

Why website designers suck today.

OriginalGriff — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:48:00 GMT

Put on your sunglasses (or preferably welding mask) and take a quick look here[^].
Make sure it's quick though, you wouldn't want to stay long!

No idea if it is KSS or Work Safe, I didn't wait for the whole thing to load...

No trees were harmed in the sending of this message; however, a significant number of electrons were slightly inconvenienced.

This message is made of fully recyclable Zeros and Ones

Don't you just hate it

Jörgen Sigvardsson — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:19:00 GMT

when you go ahead using some technology X for the so called cross platform environment .NET, only to find out that technology X isn't supported on some older operating systems? I suppose it's in the MSDN docs, but it's frustrating once you've made an effort, only to find your app fail when you do platform testing.

Luckily I had a bag of old tricks up my sleeve. In my case, X is CNG (Crypto API Next Generation) that isn't supported in Windows XP. Luckily I had some old "legacy" CAPI code from another project that I could quickly adapt to my needs.

40 more minutes and I'm out of here. Have a nice weekend everyone!

--
Kein Mitleid Für Die Mehrheit

VS 2010 beta 2

Rajesh R Subramanian — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:09:00 GMT

Is it just me or the IDE is really, really slow?

“Follow your bliss.” – Joseph Campbell