Click through to read this collection of rantings…

First Rant: Three’s Online Store

I’m leaving Telstra, so I’m losing access to the staff plan. Plus, I’m moving to Sydney, and won’t have my own place for at least a month or two. So, I need a new mobile, and having some sort of broadband would be great.

After going through all the available options, I think Three’s $29 Cap, plus X-Series Gold would be the best bet. 

I get onto the Three website, and decide to purchase online (for an additional $50 credit). I select the phone and plan I want, and  enter all my details (including my medical history and what I ate for breakfast for the last 4 years). After clicking submit, I get an error message saying “Please complete all required fields marked with a red asterisk”. I go back over the form, but can’t immediately see anything incomplete (there’s about 80 questions on the page). 

I pull out Firebug and review the Javascript, that quickly points me to this handily displayed error message: “Please tell us the time you have lived at your current address”. Which I had set to “5+” years.

Except that it still wants you to select the number of months too. Given I’ve been here for about 8 years, I don’t know how I can fill that in correctly.

Anyway, in the mean time – I’d taken too long to fill out the form, and so it’s forgotten what I’m ordering (hint guys: don’t use sessions for big-ass forms, save the details to DB or cookies or form variables). I go back to the start and fill in all the forms again.

This time, I get through the process Ok, confirm my order and…

Sorry, ThreeStore cannot process your order at this time. To order now:
- Call 131 683
- Visit a Three Store

Just to rub salt into the already gaping wound: Their phone sales line isn’t available at 7:30PM on a Saturday night. 

Second Rant: Valve / Steam and Offline Mode

I think Valve make a few really great games. Their online game distribution and community system Steam, is a really great concept. It’s just that the implementation has… lets just say room for tmprovement.

My main gripe with Steam is that it’s very network-dependant. Folks in the US might have a higher broadband penetration, but they still don’t have internet everywhere. Steam’s Offline mode is provided by Valve so that you can play Steam-protected/distrubuted games when an internet connection isn’t available.

The problem is that Steam Offline mode doesn’t work, unless you specifically set it to start in Offline mode. And this is only possible to do if you have an internet connection. Valve support insist that it will start in Offline mode if you have it set to remember password, and log on automatically – but experience has proven them wrong.

Clicking Start in Offline Mode gives this little gem:

Third Rant: Melbourne Skybus’s Website.

A few weeks ago I was organising my itinerary for going to Paul’s Wedding. Due to a quirk of distance most of that Journey will be on a V-Line train from Melbourne out to Drouin.  But, to get there I needed to use the Skybus service from the Airport. They don’t list timetables, and instead insist that you use a search based function. This doesn’t work quite so well, as can be seen in the screenshot I took at the time:

Last Rant (for the moment):  Vista, or specifically it’s behaviour around Sleep mode. Plus a quirk regarding multi-monitor displays.

I have a reasonably new Dell laptop, and I run Vista. For the most part, this is a happy setup – but there’s a few strange quirks. 

Quirk #1: It (sometimes) doesn’t go into Sleep mode when the lid is closed.
This is semi-random, and unless I ensure that the thing has actually gone to sleep I will occasionally pull the laptop out of my bag 2 hours later to find that it’s trying to bake itself in my laptop bag.  It doesn’t seem to matter if I have external things plugged in (like power, mouse, drives, etc) or if I’m running in a particular power mode.

Quirk #2: Upon opening the lid after putting the laptop to sleep, it will occasionally refuse to do anything.
The laptop comes out of standby, turns on the screen and Wifi/Bluetooth, and spins up the drives… but thats it. I don’t see anything on-screen, and I have tried leaving it for 2+ hours. I have to force the power-off (it won’t gracefully shut down or go back into sleep mode.  Vista appears to be doing *something* (as evident by disk and limited network activity) but doesn’t grace us with the knowledge.

Quirk #3: After forcing the laptop to power off, without shutting down (Usually after the previous two) – Vista plays silly buggers by reading/writing huge amounts of data to disk, and also occasionally using 100% CPU indefinitely too (NT Kernel and System uses 100% CPU – yeah, both CPU cores).

This is something very strange. It appears that it’s doing some sort of ‘cleanup’ after a forced shutdown, but it also appears to be reading all the files on the drive (eg: photos, videos, etc).

Either way, the only thing that fixes it is killing the power (it won’t shut down nicely, and it’ll stay in this broken state indefinitely too), NOT logging on, waiting 30+ mins until disk activity stops, and then logging in. Failure to wait until it’s finished thrashing the disk, means that you won’t be able to connect to a wireless network (wired only works if you’ve got a staticly configured IP), and all apps will run slow (due to disk thrashing and 100% CPU utilisation)

The other two quirks are annoying (particularly if your battery has been used up in the process of baking the laptop), but the last one really pisses me off (usually because it happens right when I want to do something).

Quirk #4 is related to multi-monitor setups.

I have a rather nice Dell 24″ LCD Display at home, and I usually plug this into the laptop so I can play movies/etc on the external display. Also, because of the physical arrangement – the external display is actually above the laptop.

So, I like my display setup like this:

So I can drag things up to the external display. Unfortunately, for some reason Vista keeps forgetting these settings. For the first two weeks it kept resetting to display at the right hand side, and also not extending the desktop. Now it seems to remember the setup – but it will still randomly reset this. Very annoying!

Reserved seating is, in my mind, meant for places where there’s either a need for people to sit in specific seats. Or where most, or all of the capacity of the place is being occupied. Think planes, coaches, or sports stadiums.

So, when I went to the local Greater Union Cinemas, I was surprised when I was asked where I wanted to sit when buying my ticket. Given I was already running 15 minutes late to the film (10 of that due to the slow process of actually waiting in line for the 6 people infront to get served), I just said “Wherever”, not knowing that they were actually serious about this seating business.

I got into the theatre, trying to be as unobtrusive as possible, and sat at one of the first seats I could find. They wern’t great seats (off to the side) – but hey, Donkey, Shrek, and Fiona were already on screen. I did note that the cinema was 3/4 empty – and that there were plenty of seats infront, behind ,and beside me.

About another 10-ish minutes afterwards, I saw someone walk past me (given I was sitting in the second-from-the-end seat), and then walk back out.
A few moments later, theres a manager beside me “Sir, you’re sitting in someone elses seat”. I was a bit stunned/confused, given the large number of empty seats around me – and replied something like “Uhh, there’s an empty row infront and behind me”. But the Manager persisted “Sorry, but I’m going to have to ask you to move”. Given I was missing the movie, I couldn’t be bothered arguing over it and got up and moved the next row down.

Heck, if the mother and daughter who wanted to sit there had been disabled in any way, or I was sitting in specially assigned seats, or I was just in the way of them getting to the rest of the group they were with, I wouldn’t have had any issue moving. But, no, there wasn’t any reason I could see – it was just a pedantic manager and (presumably) mother.

Windows Vista’s Scheduled Tasks & Windows Update
I really like Windows Vista. There’s a whole bunch of small things that add up to make it a real pleasure to use.

There are two things, however that do drive me up the wall.

The recommended option in Windows Update is for it to download and install items for you automatically. It’s a good idea too, after all – having most users be in charge of which critical updates get installed isn’t usually the best way to keep a PC secured and up-to-date.

The thing that really annoys the crap out of me, is that it will automatically reboot your computer, regardless of what you had open or what it was doing. So, if you were, say, downloading a large file, or processing a report – your computer reboots, and unless the software is designed to resume from it’s last point – you’ll have lost all that effort. This is especially annoying if you’re trying to download/process some data in an after-hours/off-peak timeperiod. Because Windows doesn’t return you to the point at which it rebooted (technically infeasable without security issues) – the software can’t resume from it’s last point.

The only work around I’ve found is to disable Windows Update from installing updates automatically.

Scheduled Tasks
Another thing that’s kinda cool about Windows Vista (and possibly XP too, however I never experienced it) – is that Schedule Tasks can wake the computer from a sleep, hibernate or even shutdown mode – as long as the computer still has power.

The most visible example of this is Windows Media Centre. It will wake the computer automatically to record TV Shows, which is good – however it also wakes the computer to update the TV guide. At 3am. Some people happen to have cases which in certain circumstances can vibrate, seting up a resonance in the desk which amplifies the sound of the vibrating case. So, everyone in the house, at 3am, knows the computer is downloading TV guides. Resulting in the power cord getting yanked out.

A more, err, sociable setting would be to wake it during the day, if the guide hadn’t been updated in the last 4 days or so.

The good news from it is that there is confirmation that Canon will be releasing a RAW codec for Windows Vista.    I just wish they’d hurry up and join Nikon and others that already have that support ‘out-of-the-box’.

I shoot almost exclusively in RAW now – So I usually need to install some bits of software to actually get at my photos (even for just a basic preview).

Well,  this application for the British Library gives a perfect example of why you should care – and where it can be put to very good use. 

In Tim’s article, it says the application took about 12 weeks to build – from being given the brief, to having a pre-production application. They don’t however mention how many people worked on the project, or whether that time included importing the resources.  The fact though, that someone can build a mass-deployable application with all the features they’ve implemented – in just 12 weeks is, frankly, amazing.

Hey Will,
What is your view on MS Vista?? Is it worthwhile getting the upgrade and if so, which version??
I currently have XP (home ed.)

I like Vista, it offers a number of subtle improvements, none of which, however is a must-have. I use Windows XP at work (on pretty decent hardware) – and it works just fine, and I have no issues continuing to use it for the next 18 months or so (the expected life of my work PC).

At present, my simple answer for most people is: Wait until you buy a new PC (that comes with Vista).  

For three very simple reasons:

1. The software you are using now, will probably need to be updated to work correctly under Vista.
2. The hardware you are using now, will probably need to have updated drivers to work correctly under Vista. 
3. It’s going to cost you a bunch of money to upgrade. 

Software

To be honest, a lot of software works just fine. There are, of course, hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of applications out there.  Some of it will work fine, with no problems. Applications which you wouldn’t think of as causing a problem, will have issues.

Take, for example a popular Podcast-receiver application called Juice. This, simply will not work for me under Vista at the moment. 

Any utility software you have, such as Antivirus, CD/DVD Burning, or Disk Maintenance software will probably need to be upgraded - depending on the manufacturer, this may be a simple free update, or it may require that you purchase their latest version. 

Hardware

Sure, Vista can be somewhat demanding on a PC. But it will typically work on any mid-range entry-level PC purchased in the last 3 years. (Bargain Basement PCs excepted)

If you have a scanner, printer, webcam, digital camera, or media playing device, you may not be able to use it at first. Again, most of these will work when you download an updated driver.

If you’re running a custom setup (like me), or a PC that was built by a local-generic computer store, then you may find that certain important bits don’t work. For me, that included my CDROM Drive, until I spent a whole lot of time fiddling around.  Of course, most reputable manufacturers will release updated drivers in the coming months – it may mean that you have to wait a little while, however.

Cost

Vista isn’t cheap to buy from a store.  APC gives this quick run down of prices for Australia.

• Windows Vista Home Basic – $385
• Windows Vista Home Basic Upgrade – $199

• Windows Vista Home Premium – $455
• Windows Vista Home Premium Upgrade Academic – $179
• Windows Vista Home Premium Upgrade – $299

• Windows Vista Ultimate – $751
• Windows Vista Ultimate Upgrade – $495

• Windows Vista Business – $565
• Windows Vista Business Upgrade – $379

If you qualify for an Academic licence (i.e you, or someone in your household is a full-time student or teacher), then the price you’ll pay is $179 to upgrade your existing Windows XP machine.

For most of us, however, we’d be paying $299 to upgrade from Windows XP to Windows Vista Home Premium.

Windows Vista Home Basic probably isn’t worth getting unless you really want Vista, and don’t have the hardware and/or cash to upgrade. You get most of the features, but few of the niceties (Media Centre, Aero, Flip 3D, etc)

It’s also worth noting that if you buy an Upgrade version of Vista, you must have a valid Windows XP licence. In addition, once you have upgraded – you cannot go back to Windows XP – Microsoft will disable your Windows XP registration key.

From the article:

It said Microsoft’s XAML markup language was “positioned to replace HTML,” the industry standard for publishing documents on the Internet. XAML would be dependent on Windows, and discriminatory against systems such as Linux, the group said.

Uhh… XAML is positioned to replace HTML? Looks like someone is somewhat lacking in the “checking facts before making ass of self” area.

As Wikipedia puts it:

When used in WPF, XAML is used to describe graphically rich visual user interfaces, such as those created by Adobe Flash. XUL and UIML are other examples of XML-based user interface languages. The language allows for the definition of both 2D and 3D objects, rotations, animations, and a variety of other effects and features.”

Sorry folks, but it’s meant for “rich” interfaces – like for traditional applications such as Word, Media Players, or 3D Games.

Sure, you can embed it in a web page – but it won’t replace the web page. It’s also highly dependant upon having a rendering engine (typically Windows Presentation Framework) available. It’ll spread to desktops running Windows XP, and the .NET 3.0 Framework, and also Windows Vista – you might even get some people creating browser-based applications, but they’ll probably be for either a custom deployment environment (Kiosks, POS Machines, etc), or for corporate Intranet things.  In that case, it’s no different to having an ActiveX control, or Java applet embedded in a page - it requires something else to run it, even though it’s started through your browser.

* = I can’t figure out who it should be attributed to – there’s three different people all mixed in there

So, I go copy all the files I’ll need to keep onto another drive – no problems.

Now, Where do I find my MCE Schedule so I can back that up? It’s fairly large – about 22 different recurring schedules. I’m sure others have larger lists. 

Well, after a whole bunch of searching online – noone seems to have written about it – so I did some digging. Turns out, it’s all stored in %SYSTEMDRIVE%\Users\All Users\Microsoft\eHome\Logs- under Vista. I presume for XP it’d be under Documents & Settings in a similar space.

I’m going to copy out \Recording\Recordings.xml and see how it goes.

The performance specs they quote may not seem like much (wow, a 8 second saving in booting Vista – wow!) – it’s actual app performance that makes a huge difference.

I used a 1GB Sandisk Extreme III Compact Flash card as a ReadyBoost cache last year, and it actually makes things much faster. Of course, I’m using a fairly decent system (Core 2 Duo 6600, with 2GB DDR2 in Dual Channel) – but application start performance, and general responsiveness were improved significantly.

Joel’s got a nice screen shot, which I’ll nick for the purposes of this article (I’m not near my Vista box).

Basically, you could summarise Joel’s article down to this, since it seems to be the root of Joel’s annoyance with Vista:

Every time you want to leave your computer, you have to choose between nine, count them, nine options: two icons and seven menu items. The two icons, I think, are shortcuts to menu items. I’m guessing the lock icon does the same thing as the lock menu item, but I’m not sure which menu item the on/off icon corresponds to.

I’m stunned, really – They give you two options. “Turn it off” or “Lock it”. I’m guessing if you’ve got a “Home” edition with no passwords on, it’ll get rid of the Lock option too (though, I can’t verify it).

Inevitably, you are going to think of a long list of intelligent, defensible reasons why each of these options is absolutely, positively essential. Don’t bother. I know. Each additional choice makes complete sense until you find yourself explaining to your uncle that he has to choose between 15 different ways to turn off a laptop.

Dude, seriously – tell your Uncle to hit the power button on the start menu. It’s what I do, I’ve never seen anyone (even the computer-phobic people) who has had an issue with clicking “Start” and then “Shut down” and then “OK” under the Windows 9x/2000/XP line, a simple “Start” then “Power off” should be even easier on Vista.

Yes, you get inquisitive users that’ll call you up at odd hours going “I’ve got this flashing c colon slash Microsoft thing — what do I need to use this for?”.
I don’t see Joel asking for the Run command to be taken away though.

Joel ends up asking for one giant “b’bye” button which locks the PC initially, and then uses power management to eventually decide to hibernate the PC.  Joel advocates pulling the plug if you really want the machine off right now,  and trusting in new (more expensive) Hybrid hard drives to keep all our data safe.
Because, y’know – telling a user to yank the power out at random times helps keep your hardware in good working order, and your data safe. 

I do agree on a few things though – giving users too many options leads to confusion generally. The “Just click OK” syndrome.  Which is why the power off has a hilight vs the padlock. It’s also a bit of a recognition thing – their vacuum cleaner, dishwasher, TV, and DVD Player all have that same “Power off” logo on their on/off buttons.