I have had a HTC Touch Cruise for about 6 months now. It is a very nice phone with GPS, turn by turn software, wi-fi, camera, expandable memory and more, and I have been fairly happy with it. The HTC UI certainly masked the underlying Windows Mobile 6.0 OS, with a more finger friendly UI. With this UI, you could swipe to view different “sides of a cube,and this was pretty cool.
A few months after this was released, HTC released another phone called the Touch Diamond. This had a lot of the features of the Touch Cruise, but looked a bit better. What was a lot better was the UI. They totally reworked the UI to be far more finger friendly. They also released a ROM upgrade to Windows Mobile 6.1.
Soon after this, HTC released a ROM upgrade to Windows 6.1 to the all geographies except Australia. This really dissapointed me. And I was starting to notice the deficiencies of the SPB shell, which was starting to make the device a bit unstable.
So I started hunting around for alternatives. In my travels I stumbled across the xda-developers site, which hosts a number of forums dedicated to various HTC phones. I started browsing the HTC Polaris forum (Polaris is the HTC name for the Touch Cruise), and was immediately lost. So I gave up for a while.
Recently though, I was getting more frustrated with the device,and was really hunting for a fix to the phone keypad. The one annoying feature of the phone keypad is that there is a 1/2 second delay between pressing the number on the screen and the tone sounding and the number appearing on the screen, and also looking for a Windows Mobile 6.1 ROM. During my hunting, I became intrigued by the prospect of installing a new ROM, and started hunting for a Windows Mobile 6.1 ROM. I read a *lot* of forum posts before I made the decision to install a new ROM.
So with my courage held in my hand, I found a download for the World Wide English version of the ROM, and tentatively started flashing the ROM. My heart skipped a beat when during the initial flash stages, it errored. Having bricked a motherboard doing just this ort of thing a few months back, I hastily restarted the process and thankfully it worked.
I was impressed by the new ROM and the few new features that Windows 6.1 brought.
But I was not totally satisfied. During my research, I became even more intrigued by “cooked” ROM’s. I settled on a ROM by Itje called a M2D 3.6 ROM. This ROM seems to be a dump of the Touch Diamond ROM and ported to the Touch Cruise. I bit the bullet and installed it and man, was I impressed. One of the things that the guys on the xda-developers site have done is to implement a new graphics drivers (which HTC seemed less than enthusiastic in fixing) which really made the device sing. What was a usable but sluggish UI, became a very fast, fluid UI that to me rivaled the iPhone for fluidity.
After a day or so I started to notice a few issues with the ROM, so decided to attempt another ROM. I settled on a ROM by M-Amine. Well, I was even more impressed with this ROM. It finally made the device truly usable. All my apps still worked (including my copy of Copilot Live).
The only issue I seem to have had so far is with the Daylight Savings time. Since I am in Brisbane, and we are a bit behind the times, we do not observe Daylight Savings. However, Windows Mobile 6.1 and Outlook 2007 seem to have trouble with it. My calendar times were out by an hour, the time would always be wrong. I found a fix online that required a registry hack on the device, and this seems to have worked a treat. (The fix can be found here)
The final bit of goodness for me, was the accidental discovery of how to stop the phone keypad from delaying showing the pressed numbers on the screen. I simply turned of the keypad tones.
So I now have a device that is a great business tool now. It is also a fun tool (I really really like the Weather widget: If the forecast is for rain, the weather pane shows drops falling on the screen, with a windscreen wiper to clear it. Not terribly useful, but cool nonetheless.) Also, the inclusion of a You Tube App, and a Google Maps Search applet really makes this ROM a very nice one. One other benefit I have found is better reception and battery life.
Pardon me while I rant.
This afternoon I was looking at my finances. Not a terribly exciting task, but a task that needs to be done. When I last rebuilt my PC, I had neglected to install my copy of MS Money 2004. This was not a great issue, as I had been using a spreadsheet for a while.
But something was missing. You see, I am planning a few OS trips next year, and need to plan the finances. I needed to see that my assumptions would hold up. In short, I wanted to see pretty pictures, and I am lazy enough to not want to bother with the analysis etc of creating these.
So I started looking about for some alternatives to MS Money. I did this because it seems that Microsoft have left Australia off the map again (not surprising considering our small population) and the only versions available are now US only. This rankles, but I can understand the reasons for it.
Quicken is top of mind as an alternative of course. I used to use Quicken a few years ago, but was “forced” to go to a competing product due to their draconian licensing practices.
Let me explain. I had Quicken 2002 installed, and was very happy with it. It did everything I wanted it to do. 2004 came around, and they started bombarding me with upgrade notices, essentially telling me that I would no longer be able to use the product to its full as they were stopping support etc. Instead, they wanted me to upgrade to the newer version. The one catch with this, however, was that it now required activation.
This is not a problem in itself, but the licensing terms were draconian. For example, if I needed to re-install the software (for example due to re-imaging, hard ware failure etc), they would charge for re-activation. This was going to far in my mind. I mean, I am not even using their services, and have a legitimate reason to re-install, yet am treated like a thief. As a direct consequence of this, I switched to MS Money, as they did not have this requirement. They did, however, have something almost as bad: having to login to the file using a passport account. I was ok with this, as I had one anyway.
MS Money has served me well for the last 4 years, but the interface etc is looking a tad old and worn and I am hankering for a change.I thought I would have a look at Quicken, and see if they had mended their ways.
Well, I shouldn't have been surprised, but I was. After trawling through their site, I downloaded a trial of Quicken Plus 2008. No problems. Installed and ran. This is where I started to get annoyed.
The program crashed a number of times. Now, I admit that I am running Vista 64 with all the latest patches, and that they say that 64-bit is not supported, but I mean, really. This is 2008 guys. Kinda unacceptable, particularly when you are looking at shelling out AUD$170!
Then I tried to import my MS Money file. Amazingly, they do not have an import utility. Something so simple, yet they do not have it.
Then I noticed on their online store, that the only way to purchase Quicken Plus 2008 is via a subscription. A AUD$65 a year subscription. What they fail to mention is that if you go and *buy* the software from a retailer, that you can get the non-subscription versions. AND they still require activation and force you to pay for re-activation. I don’t know about you, I don;t buy a car and ask the dealer every time I want to park it in a new garage whether I can do it or not. Why do we, as consumers put up with this crap?. It seems that they have been taking their ideas from the Music industry.
Just out of curiosity, I browsed to the American site, and lo and behold. There is no activation requirement, and there is even a place for customers to give feedback, and function conspicuously missing from the Australian site. And software companies wonder why their software gets pirated? If you get ripped off, don’t you feel like ripping them off back?
The saddest thing about all this is that there are no real alternatives here. You have Quicken, and you have Money. Quicken is like sleeping with a morally corrupt politician (they will take your money and promise the earth but actually do nothing), while MS Money is sooo not interested in you.
I think that I will stick to my trusty spreadsheet, and spend the time to create the charts etc.
Thank you for your patience during this rant.
This morning was the coldest ride I have been on. When I left home at 6:20 AM, the apparent temperature at Archerfield was -1.2 Celsius. As I went through the park to get to Paradise Road, I snapped this picture:
And yes, that white stuff is frost!
My cheeks were aching with the cold. I must be totally mad.
I remember when I was at University and we were taught this new thing called UML that was going to change the world and make all software development predictable and manageable. Like most things that you are taught at University, the teaching is disconnected from reality: no one knew about it, it was hard to grasp, it went against all conventional wisdom, etc. For an industry that changes so rapidly, there are plenty of examples of the inertia that people in the industry exhibit.
So I come to the question of whether using UML is a good thing. Logic would say that it is a good thing: the ability to model a software artifact before coding holds the promise of better implementation, less time spent in coding, etc. This is in contradiction with the current wave of agile methodologies, which espouse overall design and instead focuses on short development spurts to deliver small pieces of functionality. Does UML have a place in this new world?
So what is a Software Architect to do? Well, for my 2 cents, using a great UML tool allows the modeller to abstract the design from an implementation, which makes the model more flexible. However, this does bring a lot of issues to the surface, such as the developers losing control of the design process, and developers then being relegated to nothing but code monkeys. Management loves this idea, because it allows them to "offshore" the actual building of the model, lowering costs. Developers must, therefore, change the what they do, which can be very hard due to the inertia that a lot of developers display. From my observations, resistance to change is very high, and brings a whole new set of stresses to the Software Architect.
So back to the question in hand: Is there a place in this new agile world for Model Driven Architecture? Well, I guess that depends on the size of the software model. For an enterprise, using a Model Driven Architecture approach brings great benefits in terms on standardisation, and adherence to a plan that is more aligned with the business. The downside is that the business may not be as agile as a smaller organisation that does not use an MDA approach.
- Really good article on Database Modelling. It explains some of the proposed extensions to the UML to cater for Data Models.
I am being slack today and only posting the links
Today I got all excited about Inversion of Control after listening to a a .NET Rocks Podcast by James Kovacs on IoC. Trouble is, I was tired as heel, so here are the links that I did not get around to reading (weekend task I suspect)
I stumbled across this today while I was trying to figure out who the better carrier/plan is.
http://www.mobchoice.com.au/compare-cap-plans-spreadsheet
Give it a go - you might be very surprised. I also had a look at the forums of Whirlpool.net and found them extremely helpful.
Just goes to show: The mobile phone market is so confusing it takes a hell of a lot of research to make sure that you are not being ripped off.
Macs are cool. They look cool. They ooze cool. But they also ooze a price tag that is so not cool.
Take for example my Dell XPS 1530. I bought this off of the Dell site 4 months ago. I configured it as follows:
Intel Core 2 Duo T9300
4GB 667 RAM
320GB HDD
3 Years on site warranty
Vista Ultimate
DVD Burner/Reader
The price? AUD$2100.00. Delivered. With a 24inch high def monitor it was $AUD2600.00
It looks ok. It does the job very well. Vista is awesome, and I have come to rely on a lot of it's features/ I leave UAC on - because it has saved me from installing a cruddy app. It works. It takes some getting used to, but it does work.
I would like a Mac for the coolness factor. Everyone seems to be buying them, and I am the kind of person that struggles being not being cool (which is strange considering that I have never ever been cool). So I go the store, and configure a similar Macbook Pro.
Intel Core 2 Duo T9300
4 GB 667 RAM
200 GB HDD
Apple Care
Max OS X
DVD Burner/Reader
The price? Well, try AUD$4697.00. With a 23inch High Def Monitor it is AUD$6096.99. So I am paying a premium for coolness. There is nothing in the OS that is better (apart from the perception that Windows is just pure evil, and that Vista is so so crappy which I totally disagree with). As well, I am buying into a limited selecting of hardware, I am beholden to apple for my products (this does have it's benefits, but we are buying into a closed market where Apple sets the price).
As well as this, I would then be migrating all my data from a Windows machine to an Apple.
Now I am sure that I am going to get comments along the lines of "well, you are doing it wrong, man. You can get it cheaper by doing this or that". Which is fine, if you are part of the clique. But what if you are a consumer? My view is that people are being ripped off enormously in the name of cool.
But then again, hasn't it always been that way? The cool kids always pay more for cool stuff.
So I admit that Windows is no longer "cool". It has become a commodity. Cool kids don't like commodities.
Let the flames begin. :)
Well, after a few months of quiet, I am back.
So, how slack have I been for the last few weeks?
Well, not really. I have been scrambling to finish my part of a project before I leave the Unisys fold. Yes, I have finally made a decision and am leaving Unisys for a change of direction. After 8 1/2 years, it is feeling a little bit scary. But this is a good thing.
So, here are my links for the day:
So there we have it for the day. Hopefully the next few weeks will be a bit more productive for me. After that, I think that I will go dark for a month or so as I settle into the new role, then I should pick this up again.
So for all of you out there who are hanging on my every word: hang in there. I will be back ;)
I came across this problem the other day, and I could not find an answer from google (not that that means anything)
Anyway, I found a solution - below is an example
CommandArgument='<%# String.Concat(Eval("EQUIP_KEY"), "|", Eval("EQUIP_ID"))%>'
Hope that helps someone
- The project I am onis using an Oracle database as the data store.2 of the fields that we are storing are CLOBS (or Character Large Object). This is posing a few problems, as updating the data is problematic, and you have to jump through some hoops to make it work. Below are a few links that I found that give some examples of how to deaal with CLOB data:
- An article on Behaviour Driven Development
- Terry Pratchett is indeed onof my favourite authors. This comment about a moles ares in this article alone says all there is to know about the humour of the man.
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