Shane's Blog

Penne with a tuna and tomato sauce

2008-04-12T18:51:00.001+02:00

Penne with a tuna and tomato sauce

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

Serves: 2
Points per serving: 4

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

Tomato: 400g tin : 0 points per person
Olive oil: 1tsp (1tsp = 1 point) : 0.5 points per person
Tuna: 150g tin drained weight (50g = 1 point) : 1.5 points per person
Garlic clove: 1 : 0 points per person
Penne: 200g uncooked weight (50g raw = 75g cooked = 1 point): 2 points per person

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

Heat up the oil in a frying pan.
Crush the garlic cloves and add them to the oil.
If the tomato is not chopped chop roughly.
Add the tomato to the oil..
Add in some salt.
Heat til simmering, then leave it at this temperature, stirring occasionally.
Add some pepper afer a few mins.
Boil a pot of water.
Add the penne to the boiling water.
Add a handful of salt if you're using large crystals, or 1tbs of salt granuals.
Drain the tuna.
Add the tuna to the tomato sauce and mix well, breaking the tuna up as you stir.
Drain the pasta when it's cooked and add it to the tomato sauce.
Mix well in the pan (still over the heat for a minute or so).
Serve.

Spaghetti and prawns

2008-04-11T18:28:00.003+02:00

Spaghetti and prawns

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

Serves: 2
Points per serving: 5

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

Prawns: 180g cooked and peeled weight (60g = 1 point): 1.5 points per person
(We used fresh prawns, but I'm not sure what weight we started off with.)
Spaghetti: 300g uncooked weight (50g raw = 75g cooked = 1 point): 3 points per person
Olive oil: 1tsp: 0.5 points per person
Chilli flakes
Black pepper
Parsley
Salt
Garlic cloves: 3

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

If using fresh prawns boil them til cooked, then drain and peel.
Boil a pot of water.
Add the spaghetti to the boiling water.
Add a handful of salt if you're using large crystals, or 1tbs of salt granuals.
Heat up the oil in a frying pan.
Crush the garlic cloves and add them to the oil.
Add the chilli flakes.
Add the prawns.
Cook for a few mins, adding water from the pasta if it looks too dry.
Add in some pepper to the prawns.
Drain the pasta when it's cooked and add it to the prawns.
Mix well in the pan (still over the heat for a minute or so).
Serve.

Baked cod and potatoes

2008-04-11T09:27:00.008+02:00

Baked cod and potatoes

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

Serves: 2
Points per serving: 6

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

Cod: 400g (whole fish without the head or innards, cleaned) - (90 - 100g = 1 point): 2 points per person
Olive oil: 3 tsp (3 points) : 1.5 points per person
Rosemary stem (about 8-10cm long) and some more rosemary leaves.
Garlic cloves: 3 (0 points)
Potatoes: 500g (100g potatoes = 1 point. 500g for two people) : 2.5 points per person
salt
mixed herbs

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

Line a baking sheet with baking paper and place the fish on the paper.
Rub some salt into the skin and the flesh.
Stuff it with the rosemary, whole garlic cloves and rub 1.5 tsp oil into skin and flesh.
Peel the potatoes and chop into chips or wedges.
Place them around the fish.
Sprinkle with the other 1.5 tsps of oil, some salt, the mixed herbs and the rosemary leaves.
Mixed the potatoes, rubbing all the oil, salt and herbs into them.
Put in a medium oven and bake for an hour or so until fish and potatoes are cooked.
Check to see if fish is still moist half way through. If need, add some more oil or water to keep it moist.
Serve.

Forcing SSL and Redirecting non-HTTPS requests to Home Page

2007-02-08T09:03:00.000+01:00

I setup an ASP.NET 2.0 application on a website recently that required users to login and be recognised by the different roles they were assigened to. I was subsequently asked to have it run exclusively under SSL in order to encrypt the login information. So, I got Saverio to publish me an SSL certificate which he then set up for the application in IIS. He then checked the box in IIS in order to force SSL for that website. All was going well until we realised that we should manage non-HTTPS somewhat elegantly.

My first thought was to write some code in the application's Master Page that checked to see if the request was HTTP or HTTPS then redirect to HTTPS, but that would require a change in the code. This wasn't a problem for my current application, but I thought it would be nicer to be able to write these in a modular fashion so that it could be easily added in to another application.

I did a quick search on the web and came across this article [1] posted on Paul Wilson's blog on the asp.net website. It discusses using a Custom Error page in IIS for the 403.4 HTTP error code: the code that identifies the request as being forbidden as a result of SSL being required. The posting describes how to setup your custom error to be an ASP.NET page that performs a redirect to another page. I thought that it would be acceptible to redirect all non-HTTPS requests to the home page of our application, as the only url the users would be likely to type would be that of the home page, so I created an HTML page with a simple META refresh rather than an ASP.NET page.

A short while afterwards we got a call from a user saying that the home page of the site was giving them an error. We had a look into it and noticed that our redirect was working in Firefox but didn't work in IE. Remembering about IE's "Show friendly HTTP error messages" it seems that when the browser requests a page over HTTP that requires HTTPS, the server returns a 403.4 error along with the URL of a page where you can find the error page. When "Show friendly HTTP error messages" is select in IE it doesn't request the error page from the server but rather uses its own one. Seeing as "Show friendly HTTP error messages" is selected by default in IE, we had a problem.

We did some more searching and happened upon this article [2] from Scott Guthrie's blog. He explains that i) if you are using IE, ii) your requested HTTP request returns a status that is not 200, iii) the associated error page is < 512 bytes, and iv) "Show friendly HTTP error messages" is checked, then IE displays its own error page that corresponds to that error code. He follows on to say that all you need to do is make sure your Custom Error page is > 512 bytes and Bob's your uncle. He adds in an HTML comment to his page to bulk it up, so that's what we did too.

Thanks again, Scott!

References:

Visual SourceSafe - HOWTO

2007-01-31T17:12:00.000+01:00

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CREATING A NEW APPLICATION
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Visual Studio
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File -> Open Web Site
In "Open Web Site" dialog select "Source Control" button on left, then "Select Source Control Project" on right
In "Open SourceSafe Database" dialog selected "Add" button on the right

Add SourceSafe Database Wizard
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
i) In "Welcome to the Add SourceSafe Database Wizard" click "Next"
ii) In "Database Selection" select the "Create a new database" radio button and click "Next"
iii) In "New Database Location" click on "Browse"
We keep all our SourceSafe Databases under the \\nerone\d$\VSSBD
In "Browse For Folder" dialog you can create a new folder to hold your SourceSafe Database under \\nerone\d$\VSSBD by either:
i) expanding the tree to find this folder, left clicking once on it to select it, then clicking on "Make New Folder", or
ii) type \\nerone\d$\VSSBD, press the return key, click "Browse" again in screen 3 of "Add SourceSafe Database Wizard" dialog, (this selects the specified folder) then click on "Make New Folder"
Rename the folder (still in "Browse For Folder" dialog), make sure the newly created and renamed folder is selected, then click "Ok"
Back in "New Database Location" verify that the path to your new folder is in the "Location" textbox and click "Next"
iv) In "Database Connection Name" enter a name for your Database (I left the default - the same name as the Database file) and click "Next"
v) In "Team Version Control Model" select the radio button beside (I prefer "Copy-Modify-Merge Model") and click "Next"
vi) In "Completing the Add SourceSafe Database Wizard" verify the Name, Database Path and Team Version Control Model and click "Finish"

Finishing the "Add SourceSafe Database Wizard" will return you to the "Open SourceSafe Database" dialog with your newly created Database selected.
Before opening this database, you should setup the access rights in the Visual SourceSafe Administrator (see I below)
Then you should create your "development branch", the development project in your SourceSafe Database (see II below)
Once you have setup the access rights in the Visual SourceSafe Administrator and setup the Development Branch, change the "Username" you created for your self in Visual SourceSafe Administrator
Click on "Open"
In "Create local Project from SourceSafe":
(You must do these in the order written below, otherwise you will have to select the location twice)
i) select the development branch (the project with the name of your Application) in the "SourceSafe project to download" tree
ii) click the "Browse" button beside the "Create a new project in the folder" textbox, and choose the folder in which you wish to have the data checked out to. This folder will not be your root folder.
(example - In the SSPWEB Database, I choose the SSPWEB project node and choose e:\src\sspweb as my local folder)
Click "Ok"
"Open Web Site" dialog should now have a "Web settings" area with "Save to local folder" set to the location you chose in the previous step.
Leave the "Run as IIS Web site" UNCHECKED and click "Open"
A "Source Control" dialog will appear with some information "The Open from Source Control operation is still in progres but you can start working now. The rest...".
Click Ok

You have now created a new application! Well done!

I) Setting up the access rights in a Visual SourceSafe Database using Visual SourceSafe Administrator
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Open Visual SourceSafe Administrator.
If your new database is not already opened (the name should be in the title bar of the Visual SourceSafe Administrator window):
File -> Open SourceSafe Database
In "Open SourceSafe Database" dialog select the database
Note that a user for your Windows' user was automatically created using your Windows' user name
Select Admin user (left click on user name), then
Users -> Change Password
Leave "Old SourceSafe Password" blank
Set "New SourceSafe Password" and "Verify" to new password
Click "Ok"
For each user:
Users -> Add User
In "Add User" fill in the user name (see list above) and set the password
Click "Ok"
Select the user name that is associated with your Windows' user (for example, the automatically created SDonnelly for me, rather than the newly created Shane):
Users -> Delete User
Click "Yes" in response to the "Are you sure you want to delete?" prompt
Delete also the Guest user (deleting performed as has just been described above)
Close Visual SourceSafe Administrator

II) Setting up the development branch in a Visual SourceSafe Database
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Open the Visual SourceSafe client - this opens the Visual SourceSafe Explorer
If the Database selected in the "Log On to Visual SourceSafe Database" dialog is not the one you wish to use
i) click "Browse"
ii) in "Open SourceSafe Database" left click on the Database name and click "Open"
Fill in the "User name" and "SourceSafe Password" fields
Click "Ok"
Ensure that the Database name in the title of the "Visual SourceSafe Explorer" is the one you expect
In the left hand pane, right click the root node ($/)
Select "Create Project"
In the "Create Project in $/" dialog, put in the name of your Application, for example "SSPWEB" and fill in the comment textfield with something like "The development branch of SSPWEB"
Close Visual SourceSafe Explorer

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CREATING A BUGFIX BRANCH
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Open the Visual SourceSafe client - this opens the Visual SourceSafe Explorer
In the left hand pane you should see the root of your Database and under the root your Development Branch
Right click on the root and select "Share to $/"
In "Share to $/" dialog, under projects on the right hand side, select your Development Branch
Put a check in the "Brach after share" checkbox
Click on the "Share" button
In the "Share $/<development branch name>" dialog, replace the name in the "New name" textbox field.
I just added Bugfix to the end of it - so SSPWEB branches to SSPWEBBugfix
Fill in the "comment textfield" with something along the lines of "This is the bugfix branch for SSPWEB 1.0"
Put a check in the "Recursive" checkbox.
Click "Ok"
Click "Close" in the "Share to $/" dialog
You now have your bugfix. You can now perform a checkout from Visual Studio

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BUGFIXING AND MERGING BRANCHES
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I started off by making a change to the bugfix branch. This took the form of changes to a few files, which I all checked in together. Seeing that VSS has no changeset, I installed CodeMiner VSS Manager (http://codeminer.adventnet.com/vss-manager/index.html) so that I could see check-in reports listed by date.

TO FINISH

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LABELLING A PROJECT
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Open the Visual SourceSafe client - this opens the Visual SourceSafe Explorer
Decide on what you wish to label this version of the PROJECT (for example, the Bugfix branch).
i) To see what the latest label for this project is, right click the project and choose "Properties"
ii) Under the "General" tab on the right of the dialog is the text "Last label" followed by the label number
Right click on the project (for example, the Bugfix branch) you wish to label
Select "Label"
Type the label name in the "Label" textbox
i) Bare in mind the labelling rules :
Visual SourceSafe defines a label as a string of up to 31 characters. Any of the following is a valid label: "1.0", "2.01b", "Final Beta", and "Approved for QA". Label names cannot start with a capital "L" or "#s".
Add a comment
Click "Ok"

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
GETTING A PARTICULAR LABELED VERSION
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Open the Visual SourceSafe client - this opens the Visual SourceSafe Explorer

Set working folder

Right click on Project
"Show History"
Check "Include Labels"
Click "Ok"
Left click on label
"Get"
Check "Recursive"
Click "Ok" - Note: files that are "Got" are listed in bottom pane in the main SourceSafe window
Click "Close"

Known Issues with Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1

2007-01-31T11:02:00.000+01:00

We had some problems in work installing Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1 on Windows 2003 and found the following blog posting:

Heath Stewart's Blog : Known Issues with Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1

We ran into the Error 1718.File '...' was rejected by digital signature policy error which we resolved by following the steps in Microsoft's KB925336, creating a new Software Restriction Policies and setting the "All users except local administrators" option as detailed.

Somethings to notice

2007-01-30T18:13:00.000+01:00

Births
FEENEY - Larkin, Jen, Isabel and Arthur are delighted to announce the birth of Linus Seán on January 19, 2007. A thanks to Sinéad and all the Community Midwives, Dr. Declan Keane and all at the NMH.

Date: Friday, 19 January 2007
Published: 27 January 2007

Births, Marriages, Deaths Notices in Ireland – ireland.com

Engagements
ELLEN DONNELLY SEBASTIEN LE CALLONNEC Ellen and Sébastien together with their parents, in Portmarnock and St-Mars-du-Désert, Loire-Atlantique, are delighted to announce their engagement.

Published: 27 January 2007

Births, Marriages, Deaths Notices in Ireland – ireland.com

Bennett Robot Works

2006-10-01T12:00:00.000+02:00

From technabob.com

Who said that robots needed to be all clean and shiny (or functional for that matter?) The Bennett Robot Works designs sculptural robots made from junk.

Each (non-functional) robot is unique and handmade by Gordon Bennett and made from a carefully selected assemblage of old and new parts. The robot designs are inspired by the 1940s and 1950s “futurama” visions of Norman Bel Geddes and Raymond Loewy.

Robots each take about a month to build and range in size from 14″ to 34″ tall. Since each bot is a unique work of art, they’re not inexpensive (from $850 to $2500 depending on size and complexity.) However, for those with an eye for original art, they are extremely cool pieces.

[technabob] » bite my shiny metal a** - technology news, gadgets, video games, home theater, hdtv and weird science

technorati tags:art

Martin O'Neill

2006-10-01T11:52:00.000+02:00

Aston Villa manager, Martin O'Neill, interviewed after his side's 1 - 1 draw at Chelsea, agrees the referee was right to have advised him to stop the repeated questioning of his decisions, but offers some advice of his own:

"He's absolutely right to come over to say to me that there's only one referee on the pitch, absolutely. But perhaps maybe tonight, and, em, rather than going out for something to eat, maybe he just has fish and chips at home and watches the video of the game."

technorati tags:quotes

Mina and Lucio Battisti duet

2006-10-01T10:56:00.000+02:00

technorati tags:music

Visual Studio 2005 and Visual Studio 2003 side-by-side

2006-07-20T10:20:00.000+02:00

I did a little research to see what Microsoft say in relation to installing Visual Studio 2005 and Visual Studio 2003 side by side on the same machine.

According to Microsoft, cf [1], Visual Studio 6.0, 2002, 2003 and 2005 can all be run side by side on the same machine. If, however, you open a project created in Visual Studio 2003 in Visual Studio 2005, you cannot open it again in Visual Studio 2003.

Regarding Visual SourceSafe, Microsoft explains, cf [2] that the SourceSafe database format has not changed between SourceSafe 6.0 and SourceSafe 2005, therefore, you can access a Visual SourceSafe 6.0 database from a Visual SourceSafe 2005 client installation. From what I've read, cf [5], [6] and [8], you can just use Visual SourceSafe 2005 with Visual Studio 2003 and it works fine. Some new features of Visual SourceSafe 2005 are not available from within Visual Studio 2003, but that seems quite reasonable to me. While you can install Visual SourceSafe 2005 and Visual SourceSafe 2003 on the same machine, it seems, cf [7], that only one Visual Studio plug-in (ssscc.dll) can be registered at a time. There are tools to allow you to re-register the appropriate dll, cf [9].

Regarding IIS, in order to separate them, you can apparently, cf [4], run different version of the CLR in different application pools.

So, I would suggest installing Visual Studio 2005 and Visual SourceSafe 2005 on our pcs. I don't think it should be a problem leaving Visual SourceSafe 6.0 installed, but if you want to uninstall Visual SourceSafe 6.0, I would recommend doing it before installing Visual SourceSafe 2005 in order to avoid causing registrations problems with the plug-in dll for Visual Studio.

References:

Non-Microsoft.com forum posts:

[6] VS 2003 and VS 2005
"With ASP.Net you must just keep in mind that after installing ASP.Net 2.0 the default framework on the machine might be 2.0 and not 1.1. Normally if your site have changed to 2.0 you can just change it in IIS back to 1.1. I know this is an issue for some stuff like Report server (2000)."

[7] side-by-side install of sourcesafe 6.0d and 2005?

Non-Microsoft blogs:

[8] SourceSafe 2005 and Visual Studio .NET 2003

Non-Microsoft tools:

[9] Source Control Provider (SCP) Selector

Eat Your Heart Out, Richard Clayderman

2006-07-18T18:12:00.000+02:00

The Marx Brothers rock big time.

I saw this linked to on Boing Boing. When I grow up I want to be Chico Marx. For the moment I'll have to be content to draw a fake moustache on my face.

Visual Studio 2005 e Beyond Compare

2006-07-18T15:08:00.000+02:00

Update 6 Febbraio 2007

It seems that the settings have changed after SP1. I could no longer find the "Advanced" button under "Plug-in Settings". However, seeing as I was running Team Foundation Server and the Team Explorer plug-in, I

Original Post

Come visualizzare in Visual Studio 2005 Professional Edition le differenze nei file con Beyond Compare:

installare Beyond Compare;

aprire Visual Studio 2005;
dalla barra menu scegliere "Tools > Options...";
selezionare "Show all settings" in basso a sinistra;
nell'albero a sinistra espandere "Source Control" ed evidenziare "Plug-in Settings";
con il drop down di "Plug-in Settings" evidenziato premere "Advanced";
fare il logon di VisualSource Safe quando si apre il dialogo;
evidenziare la scheda "Custom Editors" ed impostare i seguenti parametri:
- per "Operation" selezionare : File Difference
- per "File Extension" inserire: .*
- per "Command Line" inserire : "C:\Program Files\Beyond Compare 2\bc2.exe" /fileviewer %1 %2
  
  (presumendo che il PATH di bc2.exe sia "C:\Program Files\Beyond Compare 2\bc2.exe")
premere "Add", "OK" e ancora "Ok" nella finestra "Options";

chiudere e riaprire Visual Studio 2005.

Adesso Beyond Compare sarà il tuo "File Difference Viewer" di default.

Grazie, Piero, per le correzioni.

At the ends of the earth

2006-07-14T10:06:00.000+02:00

Optimistic Concurrency

2006-07-12T15:17:00.000+02:00

Was playing around with data access in .Net 2.0 today and I found something interesting.

The SqlDataSource control in .Net 2.0 gives you the possibility of avoiding db locking while allowing users to not overwrite data in the db using Optimistic Concurrency.

Basically, what they do is add the original values the user loads to the web page they're using to the WHERE clause in the UPDATE statement

example

instead of a simple:

UPDATE table1 SET col1 = @new_value WHERE id = @id

do the following

UPDATE table1 SET col1 = @new_value WHERE id = @id AND col1 = @old_value

That way, if col1 has been changed since you loaded the page, the AND col1 = @old_value will no longer be true and your update will not update any rows.

If you were to do this in a stored procedure, you could get the stored procedure to try to execute the update, then return a status flag back to your application telling it whether or not the UPDATE passed!

Courgettes ahoy

2006-06-27T10:05:00.000+02:00

There's no stopping them. Once the sun got into it's stride, the courgettes just can't stop growing. Needless to say with an average of 12* new, 30cm long courgettes every 4 days, there has been a need for creativity in the kitchen.

Last week our dinner menu went a little something like this:

Sunday: Boiled courgettes with olive oil
Monday: Baked courgettes stuffed with minced meat
Tuesday: Spaghetti with garlic and courgettes
Wednesday: Courgette omlettes

*not a scientifically calculated average

Sue Rubira

2006-06-15T07:59:00.000+02:00

Was just having a quick look at my blog and followed a link through to Drawn! to see what they've added recently. I saw the post about Sue Rubira and decided to have a quick look at her site. Her portraits are quite cool and worth a look.

Everybody loves Magical Trevor

2006-06-12T09:29:00.000+02:00

Well, maybe not everyone, but I certainly do. Look at him now

While I'm at it, you might as well have a look at iiiiiiii. Sound required.

Later that day...

Over at gprime there is the wonderful cow maze, along with many other great, and not so great games, such as Kill The Pacman and Star Wars Pinball.

Go banana!

Drawn!

2006-03-21T08:56:00.000+01:00

I was checking out a few sites this morning and found a link to a drawing competition over at Sacks10

The competition was to "Draw your favourite Fat Albert and the Costby kids pic." The picture above was the Grand Prize Winner.

Anyway, on that site, I found a link to Drawn!, a really cool animation blog. I thought Patrick would dig it. So, I started writing him an email but decided it would be more fun to blog it.

So, Check out the item Somewhere between punk rock and lollipops. The art studio that produced it, TVM Studio, also produced the website/game The Streaking Game where you control a streaker hired by companies to display their brands at sporting events!

Also, check out the link to the Blog of Kells, a blog for studio making the animated movie The Book of Kells.

"Why Windows Vista Won't Suck"

2006-03-01T11:37:00.000+01:00

There is an interesting over on ExtremeTech discussing the changes Vista will bring to the Windows OS entitled Why Windows Vista Won't Suck .

The article discusses the question "why should I upgrade?" and talks about how the kernel has been completely overhauled, how many drivers have been moved to the user level from the system level and how the OS has been basically rewriten with security and stability in mind.

The author, Jason Cross, breaks down each section and has a nice "Why should you care?" section at the bottom of each section.

So, should you upgrade? Cross reckons that there "are simply too many questions that won't be answered for months yet" such as "Will there be compatibility problems", "Will all the changes...to improve security and stability be successful", and "how much will [performance] improve". Nonetheless he agrees that "it's a giant improvement to the way we use our PCs" and puts it on the same level as an upgrade from Windows 3.1 to Windows 95, or Mac OS 9 to Mac OS X.

It's definitely made me want to have a look!

GMail your domain

2006-02-20T10:34:00.000+01:00

Google are inviting people to sign up to be beta testers for "Gmail for your domain". I've signed up!

Here's what they say about it:

This special beta test lets you give Gmail, Google's webmail service, to every user at your domain. Gmail for your domain is hosted by Google, so there's no hardware or software for you to install or maintain.

Gmail for your domain

Opera coming to the DS

2006-02-18T13:05:00.000+01:00

Tired of waiting for your computer to boot in the evenings?

Tired of looking at a computer but wouldn't mind checking your mail?

Fear not! Sometime in June Opera will be available for you Nintendo DS

In less than 10 seconds from power on you'll be browsing the web and using all the touch screen goodness of the Nintendo DS.

Near-Future Ubiquitous Networking Devices Visualized by Designers

2006-01-31T09:21:00.000+01:00

Piero sent me a link to an article on Punto Informatica that describes a computer system concept proposed by NEC which comprises of five small pens. This concept, named P-Ism, is basically a computer/mobile phone/scanner system in which each of the five small pens provide a different function but all work together via a wireless connection to provide a computer system. The "computer" connects to the internet through the Mobile phone pen, one of the pens scans data and provides handwriting data input function, another projects a virtual keyboard and another projects the display/monitor.

It's a cute idea so I did a quick search for it and found the NEC Design page entitled "Resonantware - Near-Future Ubiquitous Networking Devices Visualized by Designers." Nice title. This page has a bunch of different device concepts. Just in case you get over-excited and think they're actually activily producing these things they provide the following reminder:

(These are concept models and not planned to be commercialized at this point.)

NEC : Design Activity : Future Design

I liked the idea for the duo products. The duo-pc is a laptop that has two screens, one of which doubles as a keyboard, so you can use the laptop as an eBook reader, a double screened monitor when you're at your desk and as a normal laptop when you wish to use it...as a laptop. Sweet.

Dual booting fun

2006-01-27T14:32:00.000+01:00

Last week we got back our HP Officejet d155xi "all-in-one" printer at work, so I decided it would be a good idea to connect it to my computer. How wrong I was. Seeing as my computer had Windows Server 2003 installed on it, I soon realised that HP's doesn't make drivers for Windows 2003.

Undeterred I thought it would be a good idea to install Windows XP on my computer too as I had been thinking about it for some time. Why? Well, I installed 2003 when I started working here so that I'd get used to using it and had starting feeling that it might be nicer just to use XP Pro. With Visual Studio 2005 out I thought it would be good to be able to use that as well as Visual Studio .NET, therefore allowing me to switch back and forward between them.

So I decided on creating a new partition and installing XP Pro, VS2005 and Office 2003 on my shiny new partition.

Here are the steps in brief (will beef these out when I get the chance - or maybe not):

1) Paritioning in 2003 - Partition Magic doesn't work on 2003
2) Tidied up data into nice neutral partitions, reformatted an existing 18gig partition into two 9 gig ones.
3) Installed 2003 (after finally finding the cds and the serial numbers) on one of the new partitions.
4) Installed Win XP
5) Ran updates...many times
6) Installed VS2005 Pro
7) Installed Office 2003
8) Ran Office updates. Updates failed - out of space
9) Installed partition magic on xp. Determined best course of action to be to reallocate space from C drive, thus allowing my 2003 and XP partitions to be roughly the same size - approx 25 gigs each.
10) Successfully ran Office updates.
11) Installed browsers
12) Installed textpad and WinRAR
13) Found out Win 2003 partition no longer booted (can't find KB which shows how to fix)
14) Tried to run fixmbr from Repair Windows XP install, but couldn't remember my local pc Administrator password.
15) Removed Admin password using Hiren's Boot CD 7.7 (thanks Giovanni)
16) Fixed MBR. Still no dice.
17) Found an MS KB from some group that said I needed to copy over Ntldr and Ntdetect.com from the i386 folder in the Win 2003 install disk to the root of the C: drive and change some attributes.
18) Rebooted sucessfully into 2003.
19) Celebrated.

Sometime during this process Piero suggested we use his server Phoenix as our print server as it had XP Pro already installed on it. Subsequently we found out that you did not really need to install the drivers in order to get all the functionality from the fax. As you can imagine, we still can't receive faxes but we can do pretty much everything else thanks to the printer's own display and the fancy JetDirect network dohickey.

Another idiot

2006-01-27T09:02:00.000+01:00

Fueled by a nice cup of tea and a successfully completed Irish Times Simplex crossword I decided this morning to see what Flock was like. Seems like a nice little browser so I'll give it a whirl and try to a load of this blogging lark.

Any good? Well, my template is a bit pants so I'll have to get that sorted.

So, what have I been up to recently?

Well, over Christmas Bea bought me a Nintendo DS and Paul H bought me Bruce Campbell's autobiography - "If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B Movie Actor" so entertainment was close at hand. Still haven't played Mario Kart DS against Trickshot Tsang yet, but it's only a matter of time...

For my birthday last week Ellen bought me a one year subscription to the Irish Times online (hence the crossword this morning) so I've been catching up on that. Jen got me the "Nouvelle Vague" cd and a great Gift Grub t-shirt with the brilliant Hector/Tom Cruise phrase:

Taispeáin dom de airgead!!

Bea bought me "Hary Potter e la camera dei segreti" and "Harry Potter e il prigioniero di Azkaban" amongst other things. Mum and Dad bought me the Damian Rice b-sides cd and 8Ball's cd, which I'm just about to have a listen to.

Well, as I become another idiot publishing a blog, it's time to get back to work.

Shane's Blog

Penne with a tuna and tomato sauce

Spaghetti and prawns

Baked cod and potatoes

Forcing SSL and Redirecting non-HTTPS requests to Home Page

References:

Visual SourceSafe - HOWTO

Known Issues with Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1

Somethings to notice

Bennett Robot Works

Martin O'Neill

Mina and Lucio Battisti duet

Visual Studio 2005 and Visual Studio 2003 side-by-side

References:

Microsoft Articles:

Microsoft Blogs:

Forums on microsoft.com, but not necessarily Microsoft's opinions:

Non-Microsoft.com forum posts:

Non-Microsoft blogs:

Non-Microsoft tools:

Eat Your Heart Out, Richard Clayderman

Visual Studio 2005 e Beyond Compare

Update 6 Febbraio 2007

Original Post

At the ends of the earth

Optimistic Concurrency

Courgettes ahoy

Sue Rubira

Everybody loves Magical Trevor

Drawn!

"Why Windows Vista Won't Suck"

GMail your domain

Opera coming to the DS

Near-Future Ubiquitous Networking Devices Visualized by Designers

Dual booting fun

Another idiot