Software Architecture in practice

Wednesday 10 September 2008 at 08:16 am Today. I am mostly coding in Powerpoint..... (more)

Windows Vista....it's just an operating system, dude!

Thursday 03 January 2008 at 04:31 am I bought a new laptop a few months ago - the trusty old Dell Inspiron had been warning about imminent hard drive failure for a while, and it turned out that getting a new hard drive would cost a decent chunk which I could put towards a brand spanking new laptop.
It's another Dell Inspiron, and it came with "Vista Business" as the operating system. It's nice and shiny, feels a touch more stable and responsive than XP. I like the way it works with the network - it's pretty much seemless when connecting to the Roku Soundbridge in the bedroom, it recognizes my Linux media centre PC in the living room, and can automatically stream music from the MP3 vault.
I was curious, however, to see what the difference was between my "Vista Business" edition and the other flavours - after all, I use it only for home use, so is there something I'm missing out on? (more)

My experiences with Zune

Friday 05 October 2007 at 10:27 am Okay, it's my own fault. I'm a touch contrarian, and when my old MP3 player finally died, I bought a Zune. Okay, I realized it wasn't officially released in the UK - but that's what Ebay is for. Okay, I'd seen the reviews, slating the sharing feature - but all I really wanted was to turn my CD collection into portable joy. The price was right, too! (more)

Laptops and meetings go together like...

Thursday 06 September 2007 at 08:29 am Well, like 2 things that don't really go together at all. Rands writes about this very well - and when an uncaring universe finally elects me emperor for life, I'm going to ban laptops from all meetings! (more)

Improving performance

Thursday 23 August 2007 at 05:00 am

Okay, I'll come clean - I used to own an O2 XDA II. I bought it, with my own money. I was young, and foolish. So, when it was time to upgrade, I didn't hesitate - a Sony Ericsson P990, please! It's a fine phone - things just work the way you expect them to. You can dial a number without needing the stylus, for one thing.

It has some flaws - battery life is disappointing; I never get through the weekend without recharging. The web browser has some quirks. The "answer call" button does not end the call - it puts the call on hold. But the major problem is that every now and again, when I receive a call, the phone spontaneously reboots. I mean, camera, games, MP3 player, all that stuff is great - but the primary function is to make and receive telephone calls, and that just has to work! That's not unreasonable, is it?

So, the one thing worse than rebooting when receiving a call is the message that's displayed when the phone finally comes back to life: "The phone has rebooted to improve performance". I'm not kidding. Apparently, "improved performance" includes, you know, not being able to take a phone call.

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