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Henry ODIASE web log
October 02
Living with Windows 8 - II

The “Ribbon” interface has come to Windows Explorer.

I wonder if storing files in a database and having the explorer display as a virtual view, will make it back?

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October 02
Visual Studio 2011 preview - III

 

A previous annoyance was that when adding items to the toolbox, there was a freeze while the available items for the current framework were enumerated, Now you get a visual indicator of where things are at. Thoughtful.

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October 01
Visual Studio 2011 preview - II

Searching is better – a small box appears in the main window and stays there until it is “X”-ed away.

 

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Searched for items are highlighted in yellow, even in commented out sections.

 

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October 01
Visual Studio 2011 preview - I

Solution Explorer defaults to class view which is cool.

 

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October 01
Living with Windows 8 - I

The main obstacle I found to using the new Windows 8 OS preview was the fact that it opened into the App interface with App tiles. Anything opened from there is not really “sticky”. The workaround has been to go to the desktop (the tile for the desktop is one of the Apps). Things opened from the desktop stay opened there and I have reverted to the pre –XP days – shortcuts to open my “Applications” (not Apps!) are on the desktop, and when launched from there appear in the taskbar and stay there. A long winded way to get back to the normal way of working but there you go.

My other quick impression is that Windows 8 is really fast. Fast to start up and does things fast. Looking promising.

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September 18
Windows 8 Developer preview first impressions

I am not quite sure what to think about Windows 8 as it looks now. It opens with a tiled Apps interface that is front and centre, very in your face and resists all attempts to push it aside and get closer to the underlying OS. Everything is an App and it is not quite clear how it all hangs together. One of the things I tried to do was to use remote desktop (an app), but I didn’t figure out how to keep a session open while I went and did other things and came back. Maybe MS is targeting people with the attention span of a gnat.

I am early MS OS adopter – an MSDN subscription for most of the last decade sees to that. I soldiered on throughout the long trek with the Longhorn livestock throughout the 4000 and 5000 series builds until the Vista promised land and even hung in there with Vista as it was improved and rebadged as Windows 7 to regain acceptability by the harsh world of tech critics.

So I am not sure what to think. I don’t want to seem stuck in the mud and not understanding of new ways of doing things but again, just like an on-line business must deliver good numbers for the bean counters, an OS and its interface must make sense. The ribbon interface for Office is still iffy with many people, is it that it is being counted as success, and a reason to march still further ahead of the average user, by the Windows 8 design team? Are they seeing a world of tablets where there are no PCs? Maybe me with my PC which I am not giving up soon is the anachronism. Yet I have an IPad first gen which sees heavy use. I had the first gen IPhone. I am that kind of person. But my PC is not being retired anytime soon.

So I don’t know. And so we shall see. And no I don’t like the new Windows 8 preview. It is not useful to me, as in not easy to use.

I also Mac, and Mission Control in Lion similarly does not make sense. The desktop is not a tablet. if you lose the tablet wars don’t go overboard and try to fight it again. Make the desktop OS better – Get rid of the interminable updates – do it in a seamless manner. Improve start up times. Make file copying better. Let me see less of the spinning circle. Use less power. And so on.

The user interface should be a means to use an OS, not the reason for its development.

September 01
A "rational case" for GOD

Isi Odiase ©2011
 
Several hundred years ago the state of medical science had no consistent explanation for the higher rate of mortality amongst women who came to the hospital to give birth as against who women who gave birth at home. The link between germs and disease was not yet established. Distinguished consultants fresh from autopsies on diseased corpses would thrust their unwashed hands upon pregnant women. The women mostly fell ill and many, many died. The cream of the medical profession pontificated about "miasmas" and "humors" amongst other probable causes. Dwell on that a minute, for even today you have met such pomposities, brimming with knowledge and self-belief.
 
Fast forward to now, our science laughs at their "ignorance".
 
1000 years ago, the wisest and most learned of the time could not envisage air travel between continents - indeed they had no concept of continents. We laugh at the science of that time because we know so much now, and our scientists have explained that it all started with "a singularity of infinite mass which started expanding". OK.
 
What are the odds that 1000 years from now, the ideas we have now would not seem quaint? Indeed they could have interstellar travel then which we can't envisage now - as our forebears 1000 years ago could not envisage life now. Certainly, 1000 years from now, they will laugh at our science.
 
So why do we think now that Science gives us all the answers, and there is no God? A millennium hence, our mastery of Physics, Chemistry, Biology, our environment, will be immeasurably greater than now. We might even be able to count the grains of sand on the beach, which is a biblical metaphor for insufficient understanding, but we will still be unable to rationalize the nature of God.
 
God is faith. God is true meaning, which science with successively "better" explanations which displace each other, is not.
 
So know that you do not know, and there is an explanation for all, that is beyond your ken. That is God. Abandon your self-importance in your "knowledge", and understand that you are less than a pin prick in the continuum of time.
 
God is all.
 

August 08
Cannot evaluate expression because debugging information has been optimized away

​Repeatedly coming across this in application I am working on at the moment which is heavy with Refllection plus WPF and WF. The best a relatively quick search came up with is this - 

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jmstall/archive/2005/11/15/funceval-rules.aspx

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jmstall/archive/2005/03/23/400794.aspx


It doesn't help that I am told that "funceval is evil". What the heck?

June 17
Binary Notes #20110617

​I went into a Vodafone shop at lunchtime for a transaction or two and had a quick look at the current crop of phones while I waited. Nothing really compelling at the moment apart from the usual suspects - Iphone 4, but no Samsung Galaxy 2 in sight. The two handsets that most impressed in the pick-up/snug in the hand/turn it over and it looks solid test were the HTC Cha Cha and .... the Nokia C7.

So Nokia still make very good phones, and I can't help thinking that when their Windows 7 phones come out soon, the pundits will all be proved wrong once again (remember the "IPad is niche, can't see it taking off" etc etc) and Nokia will fly once more.

We shall see.

May 08
Adding Google search to Internet Explorer – IE7, IE8, IE9

Microsoft try to make this difficult if you don’t make the selection at initial set up. Just go to this page -

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/searchguide/en-en/default.mspx#

For good measure, choose to make Google your default search provider.

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