tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-45155270556829998682024-03-08T12:31:46.002-08:00Fast and fluidSometimes brutal, Always honest.The work-related blog of Ian Smith, a developer using Microsoft, HTML5 and iOS technologies.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13442419547110456696noreply@blogger.comBlogger41125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4515527055682999868.post-42674441730942898422014-02-02T06:33:00.000-08:002014-02-02T06:35:28.450-08:00Wahlin's "Web Weekly" at ng-conf<p><strong>Dan Wahlin</strong> has published the four 'Wahlin's Web Weekly at ng-conf' video interviews I recorded a few weeks ago for him at <strong><a href="http://www.ng-conf.org">ng-conf</a></strong>, the world's first conference dedicated to the AngularJS framework.</p>
<p>The ".NET Community Leaders" panel discussion with <strong>Jeremy Likness</strong>, <strong>John Papa</strong> and <strong>Ward Bell</strong> (as well as Dan himself) is the one
I was most excited to record, and it exceeded my expectations. I really think it should be mandatory viewing for any Silverlight or ASP.NET MVC developer! My only regret is that we ran out of time
and so didn't get around to discussing security. But there's lots of interesting stuff in this panel, and different takes on the best way forward with Angular and other helper libraries.</p>
<p>Below I've embedded the original YouTube videos that Dan has published.</p>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/_4jWsRHjm20?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/QfEb1SphUv8?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/4THtRtXS7dg?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/tKWkpZtFZ8c?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<p>If the arguments about Angular's advantages, especially for the Silverlight developer, made in the panel video don't convince you, I strongly recommend listening to
<strong><a href="http://jesseliberty.com/2014/01/27/yet-another-podcast-119-asp-net-angular/">this podcast (Jesse Liberty's 'Yet Another Podcast' series</a></strong> from earlier this week. This
episode on Angular and Breeze is where Microsoft's <strong>Scott Hunter</strong> and <strong>John Galloway</strong> talk about future tooling for AngularJS.</p>
<p>At one point Scott Hunter, a team lead for Visual Studio, says that customers kept
asking which SPA framework they should use with a Microsoft back end and that Microsoft avoided an answer - until now, when they're recommending AngularJS!
He also talks about the tooling that's being added to Visual Studio to make Angular 'a first class citizen'.</p>
<p>Watch the panel discussion and give the podcast a listen. You might be surprised by what you learn!</p>
<p>If you're wondering why there's a couple of jump-cuts in the panel discussion, the first one is because the DSLR I used to record the discussion automatically shuts down after 30 minutes
and stops recording (it's to avoid paying higher taxes on camera equipment that can record video - with an arbitrary limit set for Europe) so I had to go back and ask Jeremy to
re-start his comments. The second jump-cut towards the end one is because Brad Green, interviewed in a separate video, knocked on the door while we were recording, so we had to stop recording
to let him in.</p>
<p>And if you're wondering why there's a bit of corpsing from Dan and Ari going on halfway through Ari Lerner's interview, it's because John Lindquist arrived for his interview and knocked on the door mid-interview and I
crept out from behind the camera on all fours to go and answer the door without appearing on camera. I don't know how Dan and Ari managed
to keep mostly straight faces as I suddenly started crawling around on the floor in front of them!</p>
<p>Most of the interviews have an 'out-take' after the end titles sequence ;-) and if you're wondering why the zoom bits are so jerky and messy it's because the videos were filmed with a
DSLR which lacks auto-focus and motorized zoom. Hopefully it doesn't spoil things too much.</p>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13442419547110456696noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4515527055682999868.post-82505774010053962702014-01-18T21:04:00.000-08:002014-01-18T21:28:09.616-08:00ng-conf - It's a Wrap!<p>I started to write a long blog post about the last day of the conference, but with a flight back
to the UK early tomorrow, and a bunch of video title editing work still to be done before I leave, I didn't have time to finish it, and you probably don't have time to read it anyway!</p>
<p>In brief, it's been an awesome (I know! I know! That word is ridiculously over-used) conference. The phrase 'passionate community' is the last resort of a lazy marketing department wanting to create smoke and mirrors around their own inadequacies, but I've seen it in evidence for real here each and every hour of every day. The conference, and indeed AngularJS itself, is a testament to what passionate community can achieve when it's real and not just a cut-and-paste marketing cliche.</p>
<p>Bottom line: If I was enthusiastic about AngularJS before the conference, I'm even more enthusiastic about it now. The commitment, hard work, passion and focussed determination to succeed and do the best job possible from all those around me is quite intoxicating.</p>
<p>After several third rate, over-priced, poor value Microsoft conferences that meant I assumed my conference days were over, this one has come as a very pleasant surprise, and it's astonishing to think that this is the first conference the organisers (all volunteers) have put together for the developer community. They've done themselves and all their attendees proud. We really couldn't have asked for more!</p>
<p>I really can't find anything to criticise (Long time readers will know how hard that must be for me<br/>;-))</p>
<p>In summary...</p>
<ul>
<li>The hotel has been superb and great value-for-money.</li>
<li>The sponsors have been generous, friendly, helpful and not at all pushy.</li>
<li>The organisation has been excellent.</li>
<li>The speakers have universally been excellent, as have the topics chosen for them to present.</li>
<li>The swag, the party, the vibe... all brilliant!</li>
</ul>
<p>Judging from the conversations I've had over the last few days, I'd say the vast majority of attendees hail from the Java rather than the Microsoft .NET world. I've seen resistance to do anything other than cling to the sinking 'Windows Store' ship amongst friends who can't face yet another huge learning curve after years of huge learning curves from one failed 'strategic' product after another at Microsoft.</p>
<p>That resistance is a great shame because there's a lot in Angular that will just feel natural or right to those .NET developers (particularly Silverlight developers) happy to make the leap and understand the myth vs the reality of that 'toy' language JavaScript!</p>
<p>It's a more awesome language than you (or I) probably realised, with a fantastically supportive community, and an elegant, powerful, productivity enhancing framework called AngularJS to boot!</p>
<p>I decided to bring my DSLR, pro lens and audio recorder over here, and rented a tripod (from the wonderful folk at PictureLine, just around the corner from the hotel) hoping to get a video of a panel discussion with some of the .NET thought leaders, who I knew were attending, on the whole Silverlight fallout story, and the correct way to approach Angular if you're from that world, particularly for those of us having to work with large enterprises building large apps.</p>
<p>Thanks to <strong>Dan Wahlin</strong> that panel discussion happened, with developers I've long admired, like <strong>Jeremy Likness</strong>, <strong>John Papa</strong>, <strong>Ward Bell</strong> and <strong>Dan Wahlin</strong> himself engaging in honest, thoughtful, open debate in a discussion that went on for an hour, but could easily have gone on for several hours more.</p>
<p>It was a privilege to listen to (and video) these guys talking for an hour yesterday, and I can't wait for people to hear and see the results themselves when Dan publishes the results after I've edited them for him on my return to the UK.</p>
<p>As well as that panel discussion, I got to witness Dan talking with AngularJS team lead Brad Green (Google's AngularJS team manager), John Lindquist (founder of Egghead.io and full time employee at JetBrains) and Ari Lerner (author of ng-book and co-founder of ng-newsletter).</p>
<p>Having seen a rough cut of his first video panel with Brad, John and Ward, Dan says he's 'excited' to see these videos published, and I am too (although, unfortunately, it's unlikely to be before the end of next week given current travel and work schedules).</p>
<p>ng-conf 2014 may be physically over for now, but the repercussions of meetings and events that happened here will be ongoing for months to come.</p>
<img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/Blog/2014-01/WebWeeklyScreenShotForBlog.jpg" width="570" height="321" alt="Forthcoming Web Weekly video podcast from Dan Wahlin features an ng-conf panel discussion with Brad Green, John Papa and Ward Bell"/>
<p>Thank you <strong>Joe Eames</strong> and your team of organisers for having the dream of putting on this event and exceeding all expectations. Thank you <strong>Dan Wahlin</strong> for your constant enthusiasm, encouragement and support. Thank you to the AngularJS development team who inspired everyone with their framework, and continue to inspire everyone with their determination to do the right thing and engage with developers. Thank you to all the new friends I made this trip.</p>
<p>In his talk with Dan, John and Ward, Brad dropped the tantalising suggestion that the next ng-conf should be held in Europe or Asia. Fingers crossed, but even if it's not held somewhere closer to home than Salt Lake City, I'll try and be there. You should too!</p>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13442419547110456696noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4515527055682999868.post-82632973505179936112014-01-17T08:03:00.001-08:002014-01-17T08:03:47.669-08:00NgConf - Day 2 Start Update<p>Ngconf officially kicked off yesterday, and has been pretty manic.</p>
<p>I managed to get a quick 'teaser' video edited and up covering the Angular Bootcamp pre-conference workshop day with John Lindquist yesterday over on my <strong><a href="http://vimeo.com/channels/ngconf">Vimeo Ngconf Channel</a></strong> but little else.</p>
<p>If you want to get a feel for what we learnt at the conference's first day (yesterday) I recommend reading <strong><a href="http://csharperimage.jeremylikness.com/2014/01/ngconfg-report-day-1.html">Jeremy Likness' blog post on the subject</a></strong> which is far better than anything I would have written.</p>
<h2>Angular JS Utah Meetup Group</h2>
<p>On Tuesday, thanks to the kindness of strangers (Rob Stinogle - thanks Rob!) I attended the local Utah Angular JS Meetup group, held approximately 30 miles from the hotel. It was a very well organised user group held on AtTask premises which were impressive to say the least.</p>
<p>The two talks on "Angular Gotchas" and "Directives for dynamic Angular Forms" reinforced a common theme that's come up when talking to other Angular developers over the last few days here at the conference: a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing, and there's a lot of 'blind leading the blind' going on (myself included in that group, although hopefully I'm a lot wiser on that front than I was this time last year!)</p>
<p>Utah seems to have a very vibrant user community here, and I'm jealous. All the big tech companies are here and actively recruiting Angular developers - demand is way higher than supply. The AngularJS Meetup group organiser (Matt) who works at AtTask, told me they (Utah) have five JavaScript focussed meetup groups so that it's possible to attend one user group meeting every week.</p>
<h2>AngularJS Bootcamp Day</h2>
<p>The challenge for Angular folk is to understand best practices (a Best Practices doc has been promised from the Angular team for some time but there's still no concrete date and of course 'best practices' are changing the same way Angular is changing all the time anyway). Unfortunately, not everyone has access to the Pluralsight course that covers a lot of this stuff in an easy to understand way, and the difficulty of putting that document together is perhaps demonstrated in Joe Eames course where examples sometimes contradict advice given just a few minutes earlier anyway. There are a lot of opinions that don't necessarily gel when it comes to things like how to structure your code, whether lazy loading is a good thing given the current state of Angular etc etc</p>
<p>The AngularJS Bootcamp pre-conference 'training' session from <strong>John Lindquist</strong> who works full time for JetBrains but out of hours runs Egghead.io, was excellent. As expected (and hoped for on my part), the majority of attendees appeared to be fairly seasoned developers, rather than complete beginners which the originally advertised course was aimed at, which meant that there were some great discussions around some of the basic things new Angular developers struggle with.</p>
<p>I thought John's comment about using just the HTML to judge the 'quality' of any Angular app he's asked to look at, not even going near the JavaScript, was a good reminder to all of us of the original design goals of Angular (developed to help designers rather than developers perse) and getting your head around the different approach and 'the Angular way' that so many here are talking about, but don't necessarily appear to have fully grasped.</p>
<p>John's advice re directives - to just dive in and write them even if you were pretty sure you wouldn't use them for any particular scenario, just as a way to avoid being afraid of them - was an excellent one, although as the "Dynamic Forms" talk at the user group demonstrated, you need to understand Angular thoroughly if you're going to avoid writing lots of code in directives to perform functionality that's already there without the need for any new code!</p>
<p>Angular documentation gets a lot of flack for being the reason the learning curve is so hard, but it has recently been updated and as Angular creator Misko Hevery said at a Q&A panel at the end of the first day, there are two problems with the documentation, but one of them is people not reading it.</p>
<p>Compared to the situation a year ago, life is much easier for the Angular developer now that we have excellent resources like the free Egghead.io videos (they were around a year ago, but nowhere near as many of them as now), and a whole raft of new books, including ng-book which looks to be excellent, as well as a whole raft of excellent Pluralsight online training courses presented by a whole bunch of folk far cleverer than me.</p>
<h2>This is a Hasty Blog Post!</h2>
<p>I'm typing this blog post in the main ballroom as the second day of the conference is about to kick in, after attending a Firebase 'office hours' session which started at 7.30am, and with a bunch of hack talks that are scheduled to run through to 10pm tonight (despite this being the last day of the conference) it's unlikely I'll get a chance to update this blog until after I return to the UK.</p>
<p>For me that's a positive thing that shows there's no 'flab' in the conference schedule. Ngconf has been excellent, and a huge improvement on the last couple of Microsoft conferences I attended. The enthusiasm here for the basic technology is genuine, as opposed to artificially injected by a large marketing team giving away 'free' hardware along with the endless marketing pitches on 'strategic' technologies they've just thought up, sometimes only a few days beforehand (yes, that's a dig at the PDC WPF/E, which later got renamed to Silverlight, annoucements. Silverlight has been the subject of a ton of jokes here, despite the overwhelmingly Java-oriented rather than .NET-oriented attendee crowd)</p>
<p>The single track approach, which I was initially disappointed with when it was announced, has worked incredibly well just because every session has been interesting and the organisers have clearly picked the best speakers and the best topics. The fact that the main room has people assembled ready for a 9am formal kickoff speaks volumes about the passion the developer community has for Angular and its keen interest in what's to come.</p>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13442419547110456696noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4515527055682999868.post-9178417314979221592014-01-13T18:14:00.001-08:002014-01-13T20:06:18.080-08:00ng-conf Trip - Day 1<img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/2014-01/NgConfBlogBannerDay1.jpg" width="570" height="125" alt="Ian at Ng-Conf, Salt Lake City, 13th January 2013" />
<p><em>DISCLAIMER: This blog entry was written by a Brit, new to this part of the USA, and still recovering from jet lag. As such, some of the advice may turn out to be rather naïve. However if you're new to Salt Lake City and about to head out to ng-conf it hopefully contains some useful information.</em></p>
<p>If you have no interest in <strong><a href="ng-conf.org">ng-conf</a></strong> - the world's first Angular conference in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA - you may want to unsubscribe from this blog for the next couple of weeks as it's likely to get quite 'noisy' in here. The conference doesn't officially kick off until Thursday, but there's an <strong><a href="http://egghead.io">egghead.io</a></strong> training workshop on Wednesday, and I'm going to be conducting (depending on availability of participants) video interviews with various bloggers and organisers which I'll be publishing here on this blog over the next couple of weeks.</p>
<p>But first, with so many folks starting to head out over the next day or two, a few quick 'lessons learnt' from the last 24 hours for those who, like me, are new to this part of the world, or just maybe curious about the conference hotel and Salt Lake City.</p>
<h1>About the Weather</h1>
<a href="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/2014-01/LgItWillSnow.jpg" title="Weather Warning! (click for larger version)"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/2014-01/SmItWillSnow.jpg" width="570" height="380" alt="Weather Warning! (click for larger version)" /></a>
<p>It's much warmer than I was expecting. There is snow on the ground, and there were a few flakes this morning, but the snow is definitely thawing, and by mid-afternoon the sun came out, blue skies appeared and I found it so warm I stripped down to a t-shirt. The forecast for the rest of the week is blue skies and sun :-)</p>
<img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/2014-01/5DayWeatherForecast.jpg" width="570" height="671" alt="Weather Forecast for the next 5 days - sunny!" />
<p>Even this morning when it was grey and cold I saw folks in shorts and thin shirts. Certainly it was warm enough that the gloves I bought with me weren't needed and are likely going to waste.</p>
<h1>Getting to the Conference Hotel</h1>
<p>The conference hotel is about 8 miles from Salt Lake City airport, but the hotel does not run a courtesy shuttle service. Their web site recommends taking a taxi which they say should cost USD20. If my experience is typical this is more likely to be USD25 once you factor in a tip (which you should). The journey will take about 20 minutes - not because the roads are busy or congested (quite the opposite) but because the taxi drivers seem to drive very slowly over here.</p>
<p>To save money you may prefer to take the 'trax' (a tram/train system operating from the airport to right outside the hotel). See below for more information on how this works.</p>
<h1>About the Hotel</h1>
<p>From the outside, the official conference hotel - the <strong><a href="http://saltlake.littleamerica.com/">Little America Hotel</a></strong> - doesn't look very impressive, especially when contrasted with its 'big brother' the Grand America Hotel which is directly opposite, just across the road. However, external appearances can be extremely deceptive!</p>
<a href="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/2014-01/lgHotelFrontFromMainRoad.jpg" title="Unimpressive Hotel Façade (click for larger version)"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/2014-01/smHotelFrontFromMainRoad.jpg" width="570" height="380" alt="Unimpressive Hotel Façade (click for larger version)" /></a>
<p>But don't just take my word for it - here's what the visitor's assistant at the official Salt Lake City information centre had to say about the hotel: "I always recommend people to stay there. I should probably recommend one or two others as well, but I recommend it because they're over-the-top about excellent customer service " I have to say I have been most impressed with the customer service, the value for money (free high-speed broadband and wi-fi, huge rooms, two bathroom areas, basic like iron and coffee making machine etc) and think the organisers have made a great choice, at least when choosing a venue for attendees to stay. I guess we'll find out about the conference rooms later in the week, but initial signs are very encouraging!</p>
<a href="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/2014-01/LgHotelReceptionArea.jpg" title="The Hotel's main reception area (click for larger version)"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/2014-01/SmHotelReceptionArea.jpg" width="570" height="380" alt="The Hotel's main reception area (click for larger version)" /></a>
<p>So, despite the rather uninspiring exterior, the interior is lavish to say the least. It reminds me of the best hotel I stayed at in Cologne, Germany when I worked there for six months - more like a small palace than a hotel. Except that unlike Cologne all the fixtures and fittings are modern and this conference hotel doesn't have that slightly run down feel that the Cologne hotel had.</p>
<p>Assuming my room is typical (I'm pretty sure it is as I went for the cheapest option available) the rooms are huge, with generous bathroom suites, a large bed area and then a separate office/seating area.</p>
<a href="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/2014-01/lgHotelRoomInterior.jpg" title="My hotel room - or rather, rooms! (click for larger version)"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/2014-01/smHotelRoomInterior.jpg" width="570" height="380" alt="My hotel room - or rather, rooms! (click for larger version)" /></a>
<p>My room is on the 14th floor and has some great views of the city, as you can see below.</p>
<a href="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/2014-01/lgHotelRoomViewAtNight.jpg" title="View from my hotel room at night (click for larger version)" ><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/2014-01/smHotelRoomViewAtNight.jpg" width="570" height="380" alt="View from my hotel room at night (click for larger version)" /></a>
<a href="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/2014-01/lgHotelRoomViewDay.jpg" title="View from my hotel room in the early morning (click for larger version)"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/2014-01/smHotelRoomViewDay.jpg" width="570" height="380" alt="View from my hotel room in the early morning (click for larger version)" /></a>
<p>Apparently the hotel was owned by a self-made man (he sadly passed away last year) who started off as a petrol pump assistant and hit upon the idea of providing a stop-over for truckers who he felt deserved the very best customer service and facilities available. He and his wife travelled across Europe picking up furniture and fittings for the hotel, and I have to say I think it's impeccably decorated. The forecourt at night, looks stunning with magical 'ice lighting' around all the trees.</p>
<p>An excellent restaurant serves great cold and hot buffet breakfasts (will cost you around USD20 with tip but seems to include as much as you want of everything you want), and there's a coffee shop and then a general meeting area with a huge log fire blazing away. It's homely but palatial at the same time.</p>
<a href="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/2014-01/lgSeatingNearReception.jpg" title="Seating area near reception (click for larger version)"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/2014-01/smSeatingNearReception.jpg" width="570" height="380" alt="Seating area near reception (click for larger version)" /></a>
<h1>Getting Around the City</h1>
<p>The downtown area in which the hotel is situated is compact enough to walk around. However, if you get tired of walking the <strong>Trax</strong> (tram) system can be used, and is free within the main downtown area. You need to be careful you don't stray outside the 'free' area to avoid fines though (the airport is well outside the free area). Trax consists of three main lines called Red, Blue and Green. Green eventually takes you to the airport, Red to the University, and Blue to Salt Lake City Central. The conference hotel is right opposite the <strong>Courthouse (450 Main Street)</strong> stop which is on all three lines, making it easy to find regardless of where you get onto the Trax system. If you decide to use Trax instead of a taxi to travel from the airport the Green line runs every 15 minutes on weekdays at 12, 27, 42 and 57 minutes past each hour. The hotel stop is the tenth on the route and the journey time is officially 24 minutes.</p>
<a href="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/2014-01/lgTraxColours.jpg" title="The Courthouse 450 Main Street Trax stop is right next to the hotel (click for larger version)"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/2014-01/smTraxColours.jpg" width="570" height="380" alt="The Courthouse 450 Main Street Trax stop is right next to the hotel (click for larger version)" /></a>
<p>If you prefer to drive then you will love Salt Lake City because, unlike other cities around the world, it is not congested. Traffic flows freely even in the downtown area, and parking is plentiful. The area has seven blocks to the mile, as opposed to the ten blocks to the mile usually found in cities like this.</p>
<h1>Maps</h1>
<p>The Official Visitor's Guide states that "You really don't need your GPS in Salt Lake City. The city is built on a grid and there's public transport everywhere." While this is true and makes finding places really easy, I recommend picking up a map of the area to get the best out of exploring 'the grid'.</p>
<p>There is an <strong>Official Map</strong> available for free from <strong>The Visitor's Centre</strong>. The Centre should be your first port of call, not just for the free map but also for the excellent Official Visitor's Guide - a free book which covers not just the downtown area, but also the different ski resorts. You can find it on West Temple just below South Temple and it's about 10 minutes walk from the hotel or just a hundred yards or so from the Temple stop using the Trax tram system. The staff are friendly and helpful, and there's an attached shop which sells tourist t-shirts and gifts if you want a souvenir of your trip. If you want value-for-money you can also buy a 24 hour pass to the 'Top 11 attractions' which offers a discount equivalent to somewhere between 40% and 80% on the usual entrance prices.</p>
<a href="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/2014-01/lgTouristInfoCentre.jpg" title="The Visitor Centre - a must visit if you have want to explore Salt Lake City (click for larger version)"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/2014-01/smTouristInfoCentre.jpg" width="570" height="380" alt="The Visitor Centre - a must visit if you have want to explore Salt Lake City (click for larger version)" /></a>
<p>So far as maps go, I preferred the map available from the concierge at the conference hotel (the concierge is in a small room immediately to the left of the main reception/check-in area). This map has been laid out in graphics software, but unlike the official map it names all the key stores/places of interest in place on the map, instead of just a select few. It also highlights very clearly the 'free' areas of the Trax system and the areas where it becomes payable. It's printed on a sheet of A4 and my copy is already worn out from over-use.</p>
<h1>Areas of Interest</h1>
<p>The main areas of interest/tourist attractions are well highlighted in the official guides, and easy to find just by exploring the immediate vicinity of the hotel. These include the zoo, the planetarium, the IMAX, a seemingly never-ending series of eateries and hotels, and several large malls selling, for the most part, what I can only describe as 'luxury goods'.</p>
<a href="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/2014-01/lgBarnesAndNoble.jpg" title="Barnes and Noble book store in one of the more luxurious shopping malls (click for larger version)"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/2014-01/smBarnesAndNoble.jpg" width="570" height="380" alt="Barnes and Noble book store in one of the more luxurious shopping malls (click for larger version)" /></a>
<p>Personally I found the outer lying edges of what is shown on most of the maps most interesting. On the left-hand edge, mere yards from the IMAX and planetarium, the area becomes much more 'urban' - with rundown buildings and graffiti everywhere, and large groups of homeless people congregating around charity venues that offer meals and accommodation. You'll also find grungy music venues like 'The Verge' (which I'm hoping to visit tomorrow night) here. To the South you'll find the more interesting and less 'This could be a store in any mall in the country' stores, like 'The House of Guitars' or 'PictureLine' (photograph equipment for hire and sale) or the classic car museums.</p>
<a href="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/2014-01/lgClubSound.jpg" title="Barnes and Noble book store in one of the more luxurious shopping malls (click for larger version)"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/2014-01/smClubSound.jpg" width="570" height="380" alt="Barnes and Noble book store in one of the more luxurious shopping malls (click for larger version)" /></a>
<h1>Can You Spare Any Change?</h1>
<p>The only thing I haven't liked here has been the continual begging from the homeless. In one hour's walking I must have had more than a dozen 'Can you spare any change?' requests. In one case I had to listen to the most tedious, infantile 'rap' from a stranger who seemed to think this constituted 'entertainment' that was worthy of the price of a ticket. Unlike other dense population areas, the beggars are clean and not the worse for drink. They are also very polite. But the continual pestering becomes annoying very quickly. It seems bizarre in a city with so much wide open space and luxury on display to encounter so many of the less well off of society in these very up-market areas.</p>
<a href="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/2014-01/lgPioneerPark.jpg" title="Pioneer Park - an open space in the city (click for larger version)"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/2014-01/smPioneerPark.jpg" width="570" height="380" alt="Pioneer Park - an open space in the city (click for larger version)" /></a>
<h1>Video Reports</h1>
<p>Tomorrow (the last day before the conference workshop kicks off) I'll be exploring the area more, and producing my first 'video report' on the area, which I'll post here. In the meantime if you're coming to <strong>ng-conf</strong> and have any burning questions, feel free to ask in the Comments section below. Happy travels!</p>
<a href="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/2014-01/lgCuteHousesOnEdgesOfDowntown.jpg" title="The outer edges of downtown have some of the more interesting sights and views (click for larger version)"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/2014-01/smCuteHousesOnEdgesOfDowntown.jpg" width="570" height="380" alt="The outer edges of downtown have some of the more interesting sights and views (click for larger version)" /></a>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13442419547110456696noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4515527055682999868.post-73167287455147069462013-10-22T08:06:00.000-07:002013-11-05T00:04:47.906-08:00Windows 8.1 on the Surface Pro<p>In June I blogged about my nightmare experience <strong><a href="http://fastandfluid.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/microsoft-store-buyer-beware.html">buying the Microsoft Surface Pro</a></strong> and summarised with 'Buyer Beware!' and a strong recommendation that potential purchasers avoid this item. Since then we've had the <strong>Surface Pro 2</strong> announced and I don't know whether to laugh or cry at all the hypocrites who raved at how wonderful the Surface Pro was, now telling us just a few months after it launched how much <strong>better</strong> the Surface Pro 2 and its new keyboard cover (no refunds on the old one, sorry!) is!</p>
<p>The Surface Pro has largely been a useless paperweight since I bought it. Way too heavy with too little battery life for a tablet. Way too under-powered for a laptop.</p>
<p>But I thought I'd give it another go, now that Windows 8.1 has been released. This, by the way, is the release that had so much quality control applied to it that the version for the Surface RT had to be pulled within hours of release because if totally trashed the Surface RT. You really couldn't make this stuff up! So, anyway, I downloaded and ran the upgrade and the Surface Pro did some reboots and then told me...</p>
<p><strong>Couldn't update to Windows 8.1 0xC1900101 0x30018</strong></p>
<p>Updating Microsoft software on Microsoft hardware I should have known!</p>
<p>I'm not even surprised any more. Apple announce their new iPad today and I'm afraid after all the pain they've caused me and so many friends and family it's hard to see how aside from some niche enterprise scenarios there's anything to stop them a decade from now having gone the same way as Kodak. Time to start learning node.js I guess!</p>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13442419547110456696noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4515527055682999868.post-82248060420269797712013-09-19T07:19:00.000-07:002013-09-19T07:22:51.418-07:00Windows 8: The Official Magazine R.I.P.<p>The postman delivered two separate items this morning: a magazine and a letter.</p>
<p>The magazine was issue 13 of <strong>Windows 8: The Official Magazine</strong>. It included the following flyer, as it does with every issue:</p>
<img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/Blog/2013-09/Windows8MagThanks.jpg" alt="Subscribe for years to come!" width="570" height="191" />
<p>'Subscribe for years to come' they exhort. Chance would be a fine thing, because the separately delivered letter contained the news that the magazine has been cancelled. No explanation at all given other than it has been a 'tough decision'. Yeah, right!</p>
<p>But here's the funny bit. They are transferring all remaining subscriptions to a new magazine. Can you guess what that might be? What might be most appropriate for the purchaser of a new PC with the Windows 8 operating system installed?</p>
<img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/Blog/2013-09/Windows8RIP.jpg" alt="Can We Suggest Windows 7 Help and Advice!" width="570" height="470" />
<p>Yup. You read that right! <strong>Windows 7: Help and Advice</strong> magazine!</p>
<p>Classy, official Microsoft magazine. Classy! So presumably since this issue coincides with the release of the free Windows 8.1 upgrade the 'official' advice is to hold off that and instead go and install Windows 7?</p>
<p>Actually that's probably pretty good advice, as it turns out.</p>
<h2>Oh yeah, and about that Windows 8.1 Upgrade</h2>
<p>The good news is that after a huge backlash from developers who pay through the nose for their MSDN subscriptions and early access to Microsoft operating systems and software, only to be told they'd have to wait the same as the general public to get any sniff of the new operating system their applications are supposed to run on, Microsoft decided to let them have access to the RTM (Release-to-Manufacturing) version of Windows 8.1, before its release through retail outlets next month, after all.</p>
<p>Keen to see if the much-touted 'improvements' have actually rescued Windows 8, I tried installing Windows 8.1 on top of the Dell pre-installed Windows 8 Pro softwre on my Dell XPS One (I'm not stupid enough to run Windows 8 on my main workhorse PC - continual switching between two completely different operating systems every time you want to start a new program is a real productivity killer).</p>
<p>The only options the upgrade offered were to retain my data (and lose all my installed applications) or lose everything including my data!</p>
<p>An option to 'keep my applications' isn't offered, although I discovered such an option should be available. A quick question on StackOverflow bore little immediate fruit except a 'downgrade' in my reputation points from some malicious, anonymous little Microsoft shill. My bad for having the temerity to ask how Microsoft could be so stupid as to offer an upgrade that didn't let me keep my applications.</p>
<p>Eventually, thanks to Twitter, I spotted a suggestion that implied Microsoft can't cope with taking an 'en' (English) installation and installing an upgrade that says it's an 'en-gb' (English-British) upgrade.</p>
<p>I think journalist <strong>Jon Honeyball</strong>, who was suffering the exact same problem on the exact same hardware, summed it up best when he said that something as simple as a language pack being so tightly bound to an operating system install was 'hackery of the worst kind'.</p>
<p>Yup. Hackery of the worst kind. Or, to put it another way, Microsoft business as usual. God help Joe Public trying to upgrade his Windows 8 system when this upgrade hits the shelves next month!</p>
<p>That decision to switch <strong>Windows 8 Official Magazine</strong> subscribers to <strong>Windows 7: Help and Advice</strong> suddenly looks like a very canny move!</p>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13442419547110456696noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4515527055682999868.post-90594234100688859452013-09-17T02:41:00.002-07:002013-09-17T02:41:57.939-07:00'Positive' Discrimination at Angular 2014 Conference Is Just Plain Wrong!<img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/Blog/2013-09/Discrimination.jpg" alt="Discrimination graphic" width="570" height="794" />
<h2>Some Thoughts About Conferences in General</h2>
<p>Until 2009 I used to attend a Microsoft conference every year.</p>
<p>The cost of attendance wasn't cheap but, at least in the early days, I found them particularly useful when I was feeling a bit jaded. These events presented an opportunity to learn, network, and generally re-invigorate your enthusiasm for an industry where the daily realities of the job and the poor work/life balance can prove stressful and de-moralising.</p>
<p>Our industry has a high 'burn out' rate, and conference attendance can be an excellent way to try and combat that.</p>
<p>In many ways the proliferation of 'free' user groups, especially for those of us living and working in the London area, made many of these advantages somewhat redundant. With so much user group choice (in the days before the reliance on Microsoft funding suddenly dried up so that many user groups simply vanished overnight) I realised that the last few conferences I'd attended had been a disappointment, and very poor value-for-money.</p>
<p>Of course if you're a permanent employee whose company are happy to pay for the cost of admission and give you the time off work to attend, any 'cost' arguments don't apply. But if you're a self-employed contractor who has to not only pay around £3000 to attend a conference that may only last a couple of days, but also take the hit of a week's lost earnings (once you've factored in additional time to cope with jet lag), the cost of attending a conference can be almost impossible to justify.</p>
<p>As a result, particularly after the huge disappointment of the last two Microsoft conferences I attended (where much was promised, but little actually delivered), I've made it a matter of policy to stay away from conferences. Talking to other contractor friends who've attended recent Microsoft conferences like <strong>Build</strong> or <strong>TechEd</strong> it doesn't seem like I've missed out on anything at all.</p>
<p>In fact the introduction of video streaming or downloads over the last few years means that 'virtual attendance' often provides a better experience than 'in person' attendance anyway: No extensive travel time or over-priced business hotels; If you hit a poor training 'session' you can just hit the 'stop' button and quickly dive into another one, rather than walking half a mile to find you're too late to be let in to a possible alternative; Wi-fi 'just works' at home unlike most conference venues and hotels; And, thanks to social networks and Twitter, you have the advantage of being able to see what other attendees are saying about a session before commiting to it. Even announcements from these big conferences typically appear on the internet hours before the 'on the ground' attendees have woken up for breakfast!</p>
<h2>The Angular Conference 2014</h2>
<p>But the announcement of the first annual <strong><a href="http://ng-conf.org/">Angular conference</a></strong>, to take place in Salt Lake City in January next year, was too much to resist. I love using Angular, and can't wait to find out what others are doing with it, and to learn tips and tricks from the experts, as well as the opportunity to network with others who've been working with the technology on a day-to-day basis.</p>
<p>After booking the hotel and flights ahead of time, I thankfully managed to get a ticket in the mad rush that took place yesterday evening UK time and lead to 200 'early bird' tickets selling out in less than 2 minutes.</p>
<p>The fast 'sold out' time is a testament to the interest in Angular. For a new, untested conference, held away from the usual big US cities I think that's unprecedented, and shows the enthusiasm and traction AngularJS has attracted from the developer community: traction that's been won in an incredibly short period of time.</p>
<p>So I'm excited to be attending, and it will be good to catch up with some former Silverlight developers who also managed to get tickets and who, like me, have undertaken quite dramatic career change choices by fleeing the sinking Microsoft ship and looking instead at more open source alternatives like Angular, at least on the front-end.</p>
<p><strong>However, I am extremely disappointed to see that after the initial 'early bird' tickets sold out so fast, a decision to give special priority to 'girls' was announced.</strong></p>
<h2>'Positive' Discrimination is Still Discrimination!</h2>
<p>An update email from the conference organisers yesterday said that more tickets would be made available on a 'first come, first served' basis next Monday at 7pm UK time.</p>
<p>That's the good news.</p>
<p>But the email also said that 'girls' would be able to effectively 'jump the queue' for tickets by applying through a specially set-up email address rather than just waiting for the next batch to be released and competing with everyone else to grab one.</p>
<img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/Blog/2013-09/GirlTickets.jpg" alt="Positive Discrimination email" width="570" height="212" />
<p>I think this is just plain wrong, and manifestly unfair. A quick informal survey amongst friends on Facebook both inside and outside the industry showed 100% agreement with my viewpoint. One has to question why the hell this 'preferential treatment' decision on ticket sales has been taken.</p>
<p>For me, it boils down to this one single question: "Are girls less able to go online and order tickets the same way everyone else has to?"</p>
<p>If so, I've missed something.</p>
<p>And if you're going to give special concessions to one group of people, why stop at 'girls'? (Does anybody else think that term for women is at best patronising, and at worst insulting?) Let's have 'positive discrimination' for any and every 'minority' group: bloggers, gays, students, people of colour, people paying a lot more to attend because of the distances they have to travel, people whose middle name is embarrasing... Where do you stop?</p>
<p>'Positive discrimination' is, however you word it or try and justify it, DISCRIMINATION. And discrimination is just plain wrong. The fact that the Angular Conference organisers have not chosen to explain the reasoning behind their peculiar decision, beyond saying they 'want to include more girls' for me sets a worrying tone for the conference. I thought this was to be a developer's conference not a dating one!</p>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13442419547110456696noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4515527055682999868.post-61157517397544842072013-07-07T05:57:00.001-07:002013-07-23T23:41:36.743-07:00AngularJS Video Transcripts<p>Earlier this year I started working with a team of .NET developers writing a Single Page Application using a whole bunch of JavaScript libraries and frameworks. Transitioning from the world of .NET, Silverlight and CSLA to the new 'wild west' of JavaScript, whilst trying to remain productive and deliver working functionality has been a huge challenge.</p>
<p>I made an early decision to use <strong><a href="http://pluralsight.com">Pluralsight</a></strong> training as the basis for getting everybody up to speed as quickly as possible.</p>
<p>John Papa's <strong>Single Page Architecture</strong> in-depth and fast-paced courses on Pluralsight were a huge jump-start, but even with a concentrated six to seven hours running time proved so intense that developers who'd 'completed' (ie viewed) the courses three times in total were still struggling to remember crucial guidlines and coding methods, and when they really needed to re-reference it struggled to find where in the video a specific, quickly talked through code sample had been.</p>
<p>I ended up spending far too many weekends transcribing the video contents of key chapters from different Pluralsight courses into readable PDFs to try and get our team up-to-speed a lot quicker. Since Pluralsight is a paid-for subscription service, unfortunately this material can only be used by my fellow team members who all have paid up Pluralsight subscriptions.</p>
<p>However, there's a host of similar video training material (mostly user group talks) that's available for free. Our biggest learning curve (which is ongoing) was around the awesome <strong><a href="http://angularjs.org/">AngularJS</a></strong> framework. After flirting with <strong><a href="http://durandaljs.com/">Durandal</a></strong> and <a href="http://knockoutjs.com/"><strong>Knockout</strong></a> to get up and running with our SPA application, we switched to Angular (with <strong><a href="http://www.breezejs.com/">Breeze</a></strong>) as the main framework on which to base our Single Page Application. Its ability to dispense with many individual libraries, dramatically reduce the size of our code base, strong community support with increasing momentum, and its sheer elegance were factors in deciding to use Angular.</p>
<p>Thanks to the generosity of the original video speakers, I've been able to make publicly available these "Angular PDF transcripts" for those who, like me, find re-watching video a poor way of revisiting excellent reference material.</p>
<p>I should stress that my recommendation would be that you watch the videos (links in the individual PDFs) first, and simply use these PDF downloads as backup - a quicker way to revisit the video contents when you want to, and get to the relevant material. (Video 'jump to' timings are shown directly underneath each slide in the PDFs if you really want to go back and view the original video material on a given topic).</p>
<p>The transcripts I've received permission to make available are as follows:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong><a href="http://fastandfluid.com/PublicDownloads/AngularBestPractices_2012-12-11.pdf">AngularJS Best Practices</a></strong> by <strong><a href="http://misko.hevery.com/">Misko Hevery</a></strong></li>
<li><strong><a href="http://fastandfluid.com/PublicDownloads/AngularJSAnimations_2013-06-21.pdf">AngularJS Animations</a></strong> by <strong><a href="http://www.yearofmoo.com/">Matias Niemela</a></strong></li>
<li><strong><a href="http://fastandfluid.com/PublicDownloads/AngularV1.2AndBeyond_2013-06-11.pdf">Angular Version 1.2 And Beyond</a></strong> by <strong>Brad Green</strong> and <strong>Igor Minor</strong>
<li><strong><a href="http://fastandfluid.com/publicdownloads/CRUDAppsWithAngularAndBreeze_2013-03-12.pdf">CRUD Apps with Angular and Breeze</a></strong> by <strong>Ward Bell</strong></li>
</ul>
<p>My thanks to <strong>Misko Hevery</strong>, <strong>Matias Niemela</strong> and <strong>John Lantz</strong> (on behalf of <strong>Ward Bell</strong>) for giving permission for these transcripts to be made publicly available. The material available here is the results of their hard work and not mine, and they own the intellectual copyright. I hope you find them useful.</p>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13442419547110456696noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4515527055682999868.post-77248235828256402012013-06-13T08:41:00.000-07:002013-06-23T04:20:03.469-07:00Microsoft Store - Buyer Beware!<p><strong><em>This blog post was updated on 23rd June 2013. Please see the end of the article for the update with the eventual resolution by Microsoft</em></strong></p>
<p>I honestly didn't think Microsoft's handling of the UK launch of the Surface Pro could have got any worse. I should have known better of course!</p>
<p>The Surface Pro is essentially an over-priced, albeit niche product with terrible battery life and poor weight and handling characteristics that FINALLY officially launched in the UK on 23rd May 2013 - several months after its much hyped debut in the USA, and almost a year after it had been first announced and demonstrated as Microsoft's answer to the all-domineering iPad tablet.</p>
<p>On 23rd May, the morning of release, the <a href="http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msuk/en_GB/home/"><strong>Microsoft UK Store</strong></a> officially launched the Surface Pro in the UK and took pre-orders. I placed an order online.</p>
<p>My bad!</p>
<p><strong>This blog post documents how at EVERY SINGLE customer 'touch point' Microsoft have demonstrated staggering incompetence.</strong></p>
<h2>1. Microsoft Store Web Site - Frequently Broken</h2>
<p>I've lost count of the number of times I visit the Microsoft Store, fill out a ton of details, click to purchase something and encounter the screen shown below which then sits there for hours. You eventually give up and try and process an order again, re-entering every detail of your order, only to get the same screen over and over again for hours at a time until somebody somewhere wakes up to the problem and fixes the web site. How do these people stay in business?</p>
<img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/Blog/2013-06/1MicrosoftStoreProcessingYourRequest.jpg" alt="Microsoft Store - they're always processing your request with broken images and it takes forever" width="570" height="260" />
<h2>2. Microsoft Store - Order Status? 'Processing' aka 'Completely Unknown'</h2>
<p>I was one of the first people to order a Surface Pro for work. I ordered on the morning of Thursday, 23rd May - the supposed day of launch. My order showed as 'processing'. It stayed at 'processing' for a week. I phoned the Microsoft Store to ask when it was likely to be despatched. They said they had no idea and couldn't give me ANY kind of date as 'demand was higher than expected', which is odd since all the media reports are full of stories of poor sales of the product.</p>
<p>I cancelled the order by talking to real people in a real call centre.</p>
<p>Twice!</p>
<p>It still showed as 'processing' three weeks later!</p>
<h2>3. Customer Priority Ordering - What Priority?</h2>
<p>A week after the Surface Pro launched I had no delivery date or even suggestion of when my order might be despatched. And yet a friend (Hello Brian!) who ordered THE DAY AFTER ME received his 128GB Surface Pro the following Wednesday.</p>
<p>In other words, it doesn't matter when you place your order there is no priority, rhyme or reason around the delivery system. No 'common sense' approach that says 'first come, first served'. It's a complete lottery.</p>
<h2>4. We can't supply the product but we've started and charged for your extended warranty...</h2>
<p>I ordered the extended warranty for the Surface Pro because everything I've read about this device says it runs hot and will be a pig to get repaired because the design is so bad parts are impossible for Microsoft engineers to get at. If you purchase the Surface Pro from the Microsoft Store you can buy an extended warranty for £65. Not cheap - especially when the only other place offering to sell the product (John Lewis) bundles it in free. I ordered it. I was charged for it immediately. The Microsoft Store rep I spoke to actually admitted that the extended warranty had started and been charged for EVEN THOUGH THEY HAD NO IDEA WHEN THEY COULD SUPPLY THE PRODUCT THE WARRANTY WAS TO COVER!</p>
<h2>5. We cancelled your order.... but we haven't</h2>
<p>Fortunately there is one alternative source for the Microsoft Surface Pro if you really need one (ie you work at a Microsoft 'shop' that has mandated their use because of the device's inherent security benefits over the iPad): John Lewis. Friendly staff, and a two year warranty for free instead of £65, and they had stock a week after launch. I cancelled my order by phoning the Microsoft Store, sitting in a 'hold' queue and speaking to a real person who was friendly and helpful. My order was cancelled I was told. My credit card would not be charged. Phew!</p>
<p>Next day however, the store is still showing my order as 'processing'. Whatever happens I don't want to be charged twice or have a second item shipped. So before heading out to John Lewis I phone the Microsoft Store again. Hold queue again, but eventually I get to speak to another friendly, helpful lady. She tells me that the Microsoft Store 'back office' systems are slow to update. Uho! How slow? She can't say, but tells me I am not to worry because she will ESCALATE my cancellation to make sure my credit card is not charged. Blimey! What would have happened if I hadn't called and just assumed the cancellation had happened as I'd been told the previous day? I think we all know the answer to that! She can't tell me when the store status will change from 'processing' to 'cancelled' but she gives me a long cancellation reference number and apologises for the fact the Microsoft Store web site has no concept of what an order status really is.</p>
<p>I go to John Lewis and purchase my Surface Pro</p>
<h2>6. Two weeks after we cancelled your order we took your money</h2>
<p>Two weeks after I've confirmed my order as cancelled by speaking to a real human being and getting a cancellation reference, I get an automated email telling me that my items couldn't be cancelled and have been sent and charged for!</p>
<p>I also get another email telling me not to worry because I can refuse to accept the goods (me: "but the courier will just leave them with a neighbour - how will that help when I'm not at home?") or I have 30 days to return them at my own cost... to Holland! Then 2 weeks after that I might get my money back. But probably not the interest charges that will have been applied because I don't have the money to pay the charges because I already spent them at John Lewis.</p>
<p><strong><em>UPDATE: A couple of hours after posting this blog entry (and nearly 24 hours after receiving the original return instructions) I received emails telling me I could print off pre-paid labels for UPS to return the cancelled goods, relieving me of the cost of shipping everything back. It seems odd that this should happen (a) so long after the original 'How to return the items' email (b) two hours after I'd been lucky enough to be at home when UPS attempted delivery of the items and therefore able to refuse to take them, making the labels completely redundant. A knee-jerk reaction to this blog post maybe? Hard to tell!</em></strong></p>
<p>In summary, "our back end systems take more than two weeks to process an 'escalated' cancellation and as a result you will have to pay significant costs to cover our negligence and incompetence". Thanks Microsoft. You really are truly unbelievable!
<h2>6. Customer Service - just follow this link</h2>
<p>Each email from the Microsoft store has a 'Customer Service' hyperlink. It takes you to a completely grey empty page:</p>
<img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/Blog/2013-06/2MicrosoftStoreCustomerSupport.jpg" alt="Microsoft Store Customer Support Page - yup, they've got nothing!" width="570" height="319" />
<p>I wish I could say I was surprised. This is Microsoft. I'm NOT surprised. It's just business as usual. I know what you're thinking "Heh, give them a break. It's not like they write software for a living or anything". Oh wait!....</p>
<h2>7. We'll say we shipped one thing, but offer to reimburse you for another (cheaper) thing!</h2>
<p>The email detailing what has been sent two weeks after cancellation correctly identifies my order as being for a 128GB Surface Pro. The email I have to use to return the unwanted goods to Holland, and on which presumably refund costs will be based, says what is being returned is a 64GB Surface Pro. How on earth can this happen? Is the Microsoft 'Back office' system that generates these things a monkey with a pencil? It sure looks that way. </p>
<h2>8. Customer Service - I can't give you a name or address to complain to</h2>
<p>One thing the online web site DOES have is interactive chat which appears to be designed to help them sell you stuff. Desperate to avoid high phone charges sitting on hold and unanswered emails I tried to use it to find someone I could complain to. Nope. They can't give me the name of a manager or an address to write a letter of complaint to. They can email me 'in 10 minutes' and I can reply to that email address with my complaint but that's all. What's the point of emailing the minion I've already chatted to about the complaint? Completely pointless!</p>
<p>I've been round this 'send us your complaint' loop before. Some years ago I purchased an expensive online introductory training course for WPF that was truly terrible. I tweeted about it, warning potential purchasers to avoid at all costs. Three Microsoft employees contacted me asking for details on what was wrong so that they could rectify things. I spent significant time putting together a detailed report documenting everything that was wrong with the course. I was thanked for my comments and told someone would get back to me. 3 months later nothing had happened. I asked why. Nobody could say, other than to say the report had been forwarded to somebody in the States, and a shrug-of-the-shoulders suggestion that the course had probably been put together by 'a partner' who hadn't bothered to read, let alone respond to, the detailed report I'd sent. This is of course the classic Microsoft reaction to terrible customer service like this: sympathise, say 'I'm sorry I'll look into that' ... and then do absolutely nothing!</p>
<p>Microsoft truly is in danger of becoming the 'Kodak of the 2010's. It seems to be rotten to the core: full of smiley snake-oil covered young 'passionate' sales and marketing people with Teflon shoulders who will smile and say "How can I help?" before emptying your wallet with promises of what's to come or what's 'strategically important' (ie about to be killed off) before they quickly move on to something else or if they have any sort of self-respect somewhere else (seems to be mostly Telerik if they're a software engineer!) when you start asking "Wait a minute. What happened here? I think I just got shafted.... again!".</p>
</p>If you're considering purchasing ANYTHING from Microsoft or the Microsoft Store, I suggest you bear all the above headline points in mind. Every single Microsoft rep I've spoken to when I've had a problem has said they're 'sorry'. Every single one has, when pushed, privately admitted they can't actually do anything because ... well find your excuse: it's this partner or that partner, or somebody in Redmond that's the cause of the problem. Nobody takes account. Nobody takes responsibility. Nobody addresses the problems. And in the meantime you've lost a whole ton of money and time for no good reason.</p>
<p>Like the title of this blog post says: Buyer beware!</p>
<h2>Update 23rd June 2013</h2>
<em><p>Journalist <strong>Tim Anderson</strong> linked to this blog post in an article he wrote <strong><a href="http://www.itwriting.com/blog/7456-microsoft-and-mediocrity-in-programming.html">Microsoft and Mediocrity in Programming</a></strong> which seemed to stir Microsoft into action.</p>
<p>Last Wednesday I received a call from a Microsoft employee in Toronto (!) apologising for my experience and giving me contact details as he tried to get to the bottom of the situation. Refunds for accessory items were made in the middle of last week and although I haven't officially been notified yet, it appears my credit card was credited with the main cost of the Surface Pro itself yesterday, 22nd June - the day after my credit card statement which means I'll get stung for the charge but have a credit on my account for future purchases (sigh!) Microsoft also, by way of apology, refunded the cost of the 'Limited edition' Wedge Mouse for Surface which I separately had ordered and kept - which is generous given it retailed for £69.99 (For other Pro owners I should point out this is identical to the 'non-limited, non-Surface' edition Wedge Mouse that retails for about £40 on Amazon, except for the fact it has black ends instead of silver ends - just in case you were wondering, like me, what the heck the difference in this 'Surface limited edition' accessory was!).</p>
<p>Given my experience, albeit with a happy ending eventually, would I use Microsoft Store again? Not if I have ANY choice in the matter. See the 'Comments' section below for others who have struggled to get refunds or cancellations out of Microsoft for orders placed through their store!</p>
<p>Unfortunately if you want Surface Pro accessories you have little to no choice. John Lewis, the only other reliable supplier I've been able to find, don't stock most of the accessories (yet?)</p>
<p>Having had the Surface Pro for two weeks now I regret my rather imulsive purchase - it's a shame I don't follow my own advice as the signs were all there BEFORE I bought the Pro!</p>
<p>I can see this is a niche product for niche users, but the poor battery life and overall clumsy form factor and weight when added to the "Windows 8 and touch on hi-res screens just doesn't work" problems mean it will be of little interest to most. The 'hack' of including a stylus pen that occupies the same slot as the power lead (doh!) is an interesting attempt to solve part of the problem, but it's a hack, and not a very good one! Add in the exhorbitant costs: of the unit, the £110 keyboard, the £70 mouse, the £65 spare power supply etc and the appalling battery life and it's hard to justify buying the Surface Pro when you can get so much more for a lot less money in an ultraportable Windows 8 PC.</p>
<p>No doubt next week at Build we'll get the same shills who were over-promoting this Frankenstein's monster hardware last year doing the same for its "improved", smaller 'Surface Mini' (really?!!) version that many have predicted will be announced. Take all the hype with a pinch of salt until you can actually try units that are available to buy in the UK (a year from now if the usual pattern is followed)!</p></em>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13442419547110456696noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4515527055682999868.post-39168557658196820282012-11-12T04:55:00.001-08:002012-11-12T05:01:05.342-08:00My Week With Windows 8: Conclusion<p>My 'Week working exclusively with Windows 8' to give it a second chance (as suggested by journalist <strong><a href="http://www.itwriting.com/blog/">Tim Anderson</a></strong>) is over. Actually it was over a few days ago but I've been struggling with getting this 'summary' blog post together.</p>
<p>So what's the verdict?</p>
<p>I wrote a blog post summarising my findings over the weekend.</p>
<p>I then rewrote it several times to try and make it less ranty, and less obsessed with all the nit-picky problems I found that were more to do with my main apps than the operating system itself.</p>
<p>I re-edited it again to avoid sounding like a broken record on the subject of where Microsoft is headed and how badly it's handled the Windows 8 launch. After all, it's not like I haven't done that particular subject to death over the last 18 months ;-)</p>
<p>Then I decided that trying to get this 'Windows 8 summary' into a well-rounded 'honest' blog post was just turning into a HUGE time sink.</p>
<p>So, the bottom line is this: Tim was kinda right - <strong>Windows 8 is a lot better than I thought it was going to be.</strong></p>
<p>I had problems, but all my desktop apps run fine on it after a couple of support calls were made and in one very particular case a quick fix obtained.</p>
<p>More interestingly, I actually love the 'modern apps' stuff that's plumbed in, even if the poor APIs underneath mean that even the apps that initially look great (<strong>MetroTwit</strong> and <strong>Evernote</strong> I'm talking about you!) and almost had me enthusiastically shouting 'The emperor's wearing clothes after all' turned out to be highly varnished turds that just aren't of sufficient quality for day-to-day usage.</p>
<p>I'm sure that with time, service packs and new APIs things will improve.</p>
<p>In the meantime Windows 8 isn't the car crash that Vista was so far as ordinary users are likely to be concerned. You just need to spend a couple of hours learning the new way of working (ALT + F4 is my new best friend, the Windows key on its own the other!) so that you can get back to the trusty Windows desktop environment you're used to with Windows 7. So if you're feeling brave, just avoid buying any ARM tablets or 'modern style apps' for that tablet until they've ironed out all the nightmare issues around the poor APIs and buggy controls and go for it.</p>
<p>I'm NOT going for it. But for mostly arbitrary reasons around the usage of Windows Key + M being taken away for no good reason (I use that combination a lot!) and not liking the 'thin barrier' the new 'modern app' Start Page puts in my way. Well that and the fact no client or potential client has ever expressed any interest in running Windows 8 and I'm a firm believer in developing on the platform you're going to be deploying to.</p>
<p>At the time of writing I have <strong><a href="http://superuser.com/questions/504504/cant-create-a-new-homegroup-in-windows-8">one outstanding problem (a big one)</a></strong> where I can't create a home network (Windows 8 wants a password from a PC that was running a beta and has since been repaved and refuses to offer any kind of new 'Create a new HomeGroup' option instead) but otherwise the operating system seems pretty solid. Even using it with just mouse and keyboard.</p>
<p>I can see consumers really getting to like 'modern apps' and 'live tiles' as demonstrated with the pre-installed apps (the biggest disappointment here is that none of the apps in the app store seem to support live tiles or contracts when they should). I can see those same users then realising they'd like the same experience on their phone.</p>
<p>This can only be good news for the uptake on the third attempt at launching Microsoft's phone operating system, assuming the retail chain forces Windows 8 onto consumers via the 'new PC purchase' route (although a quick visit to computer stores doesn't indicate that this is actually happening, with most stores I checked still selling only PCs with Windows 7 preinstalled - what's that about??!)</p>
<img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/Blog/2012-11/AWeekWithWindows8/DilbertOnMicrosoft.jpg" alt="Dilbert on Microsoft the weekend after the Surface RT tablet launched" width="570" height="178"/>
<p>Those expecting the usual long rant and disappointed not to find one might want to check out <strong><a href="http://vimeo.com/53237950">this video 'The Microsoft Roadmap'</a></strong> from last week's Oredev conference instead.</p>
<p>If you don't have time to watch an hour long video summarising the last five years of Microsoft I hope the speaker (<strong>Scott Barnes</strong>) doesn't mind me summarising the whole thing with his closing line "The takeaway is you've been part of an experiment for the last five years".</p>
<p>As a footnote to this post, I made a similar comment in a tweet some months back. A relatively high profile contractor/community member working for an investment bank replied that my tweets were always 'too negative' and that he was perfectly happy with the current Microsoft situation. Although he's an MVP and so has to pay the 'public shill' tax of being publicly positive about everything to do with Microsoft, in private he's always been as 'negative' as I am about Microsoft, so his public tweet surprised me, and I couldn't resist asking him if his clients who had now wasted millions on a 'dead man walking' technology were equally happy and loved putting a 'positive spin' on things instead of being 'too negative' at their wasted millions.</p>
<p>The reply of 'I've earnt good money, and continue to do so. What's the problem?' probably says all that needs to be said about the average contractor/consultant, their sense of responsibility for those who've followed their advice and paid them big sums of money, and the Microsoft software industry as a whole.</p>
<p>That being said, it's probably true to say I'm jaundiced where the investment banking industry and Microsoft are concerned. A couple of weeks ago I lost a potential 'big bucks' client through pointing out that 'No, actually you CAN'T just take your big enterprise Silverlight app built on MVVM and various frameworks and '<strong>just recompile it</strong>' to run as a Windows 8 XAML/C# application. The interviewer visibly sulked throughout the remaining 40 minutes of the 'tell us what you've done' interview (pointing out his incompetence in front of a colleague probably wasn't one of my best moves!)</p>
<p>Oh well, if nothing else it's good to see so many of those in the investment banking industry have learnt from the big crash of the last few years and can now justify those big salaries and big decisions </sarcasm></p>
<p>We reap what we sow I guess, and whilst carping on about how dreadful most of this stuff is isn't helping me win friends and influence at a certain Redmond-based software company or within its rewards-based 'community', I can at least satisfy myself with the fact that I'm not the business owner paying for all this incredible incompetence and greed!</p>
<p>If you're a business owner who wants software built by someone serving YOUR best interests rather than their own, feel free to drop me an email! I haz references - lots of them :-)</p>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13442419547110456696noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4515527055682999868.post-61377460294213427882012-11-02T04:48:00.000-07:002012-11-12T09:57:06.029-08:00Week With Windows 8. Day Zero: Dell XPS One Review<p>This is the second of several 'resource' reviews that will be appearing as part of my <strong>Week with Windows 8</strong> series of blog posts.</p>
<h3>Background Information</h3>
<br />
<h2>My Current Hardware</h2>
<p>I've looked at Windows 8 twice before now - first in its 'Build 2011 release' beta form around this time last year, and then again when the Consumer Preview was issued, which I think was about six months later. For those early releases I didn't want to screw up my main laptop, so I used an <strong>HP DV-2</strong> netbook. I had regretted buying this PC within weeks of getting it - an impulse purchase made just before a trip to the States for a Microsoft conference when I wanted something small and portable to take. It was small and pretty, but was seriously overpriced (just under £700, at a time when most other netbooks were more like £300-£400). I paid that high price because it was one of the few netbooks available with 4GB memory at the time I got it, which made it potentially usable for running Visual Studio. Also HP had announced they would be releasing an optional Blu-ray player for it. I work away from home a lot during the week and like to be able to take new Blu-ray movies with me to watch so this seemed ideal. HP totally reneged on the promises they used to get the sale (no Blu-ray drive was ever released) and to add insult to injury the 64-bit AMD Athlon Neo chip is dog slow, the battery life was terrible (2 hours at best), and when connected to an external 'touch' HD monitor I'd purchased specifically to test Windows 8 I discovered the graphics card can't go high enough resolution-wise to make the touch screen in any way usable.</p>
<p>By the way, this was the PC that made me scoff at all the Microsoft echo chamber iPad nay-sayers when it was first announced because as I said at the time: I used my iPad more in the first two weeks I had it than I'd used this more expensive 'netbook' in a year!</p>
<p>Initially Windows 8 looked like a way to make this slow hardware a useful bit of kit again, but the lack of touch support and the horrible user experience of endlessly being thrown between the 'Metro' interface and the desktop interface killed both it and any interest in Windows 8 for me. Windows 8 DID make it slightly more usable than Windows 7 had done in a couple of ways: startup was MUCH faster, and overall performance seemed slightly better. But the hardware was still a dog and the software and inability to find things killed my productivity rate. Most independent reviewers have pointed out that Windows 8 has a 'steep learning curve', and in my experience most end users just want their new PCs to work out the box like their old one did.</p>
<img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/Blog/2012-11/AWeekWithWindows8/CurrentWorkhorsePC.jpg" alt="Dell XPS 17 laptop with 42" Panasonic TV as dual monitor - my current workhorse" width="570" height="472"/>
<p>At the start of the year I bought a Dell XPS 17 (pictured above), maxed out to 16GB memory, with 256GB solid state drive and all the extra's (digital TV card, Blu-ray player, backlit keyboard, 3D screen etc). I love this PC and it's by far the best I've ever owned. It oozes quality. Ideally I'd have gone for a MacBook Pro, but that was limited to 8GB memory, had no Blu-ray player and would have cost over £1000 more so I had to pass on that. I don't regret it in any way. The only thing I'd change is maybe ordering the non-3D option. Not that the 3D option isn't great with Blu-ray, but that the screen is artificially boosted in brightness to make the most of 3D and I prefer to work with a properly color-calibrated monitor (the XPS 17 can be calibrated but then 3D would become pretty much unwatchable, and I found the calibration process a confusing mess - a Windows issue rather than a Dell one).</p>
<p>I've only had one problem with the XPS 17. After moving house the 'i' key started playing up - it would 'stick' or randomly repeat. With terror in my heart I had to contact Dell Support. They are a very different company from the one I dealt with 10 years ago. The support call was all dealt with in about 5 minutes, and the next day an engineer arrived at my home and fitted a brand new keyboard at no cost and with minimum fuss. Dell get a lot of bad press but I'm VERY happy with the service I received on the laptop.</p>
<p>The XPS 17 is my main work machine. There is no way I want to 'break' that work machine with Windows 8. The whole point of taking up Tim Anderson's challenge to exclusively use Windows 8 for a week is to see if I really can cope with having to live with my workhorse PC running Windows 8. There are some horror stories about people installing Windows 8, hating it and finding it impossible to go back to Windows 7, so there was no way I was going to risk my 'bread and butter' work horse on this one week challenge. I needed to get a new PC.</p>
<h2>Why Did I Choose the Dell XPS All-in-one</h2>
<p>I didn't want another laptop. I have my 'large' Dell XPS 17 'workhorse' laptop PC, my 'test' HP netbook laptop if I really do just want something more portable, and an iPad3 with the Logitech keyboard cover for when I'm away from home. My main home office is already cramped with these PCS (and secondary monitors) a Mac Mini, two HP Proliant servers and a ridiculously large HP Colour LaserJet. I've been meaning to replace a desktop machine that went to the recycling dump for the last 3 years but somehow never got round to it, and the trouble is my office is already 'full' and I don't want anything 'ugly' in my main lounge/dining area which is where the new PC would have to go. An all-in-one PC that looked 'sexy' seemed like a good idea.</p>
<p>Googling Windows 8 PCs the Dell XPS One kept coming up in the results list. HP make an all-in-one but were out of the running just because of my recent experiences with them: don't buy from a company you don't trust! Reviews for the Dell All-in-one were universally enthusiastic, describing it time and time again as being 'great value for money'. It even included a Blu-ray player as standard!</p>
<p>Even better, the day I decided this was probably the new desktop PC I should buy I saw a tweet from Quidco (the discount scheme company), offering an 11% discount (for 2 days only) on the advertised online price for any Dell XPS PC, with an additional 15% cashback from Quidco 30 days after purchase. Wow! This brought the price down to not much over a grand. The XPS One was already getting rave reviews on pricing that assumed it would sell for about £1500, and here was an opportunity to save an additional 26% if I acted quickly.</p>
<p>I acted quickly!</p>
<p>The big worry with the XPS One was that it would be in high demand, since there seemed to be so few other PCs around boasting Windows 8. When I ordered my XPS 17 laptop earlier this year there was a 'build' time of several weeks and a week before the advertised delviery date I was told there would be an additional 2 week delay (until I got on the phone to cancel the order, when it miraculously reverted to its originally promised delivery date!) At this week's Build Conference <strong>Steve Ballmer</strong> boasted that demand for Windows 8 PCs was '20% higher than expected' - a figure he later explained as having been supplied by Dixons in the UK. It seems odd to me that a big US corporation would use a UK-exclusive retail chain to show high demand for a product rather than a big US chain, and to be brutally honest I think what Ballmer said was total spin and the use of Dixons was cynical and deliberate. If Dixons could see what was coming and set 'expected' demand way lower than is usual for a new Windows release then it would make sense to quote their figures rather than anybody elses! My suspicions seemed to be confirmed when I ordered the Dell XPS One only to be told its delivery date would be THE NEXT DAY!!! In the event UPS let me down and it was a day late, but nevertheless two days for a new Dell PC is unprecedented in my book. Especially for a machine where 'demand is 20% higher than expected'!</p>
<p>There is ONE big disadvantage to ordering the Dell XPS One that's available today: There is only one configuration available, despite the fact all the published reviews are based on a second, higher-specced configuration. The unit currently available has just 6GB memory and uses an Intel i5 processor. The reviews I found appear to all be based on an 8GB model with an i7 processor, and in fact Ballmer showed the Dell One at the Build conference keynote with the 'i7' badge proudly displayed on the video title bar - more 'spin' for a machine that he claimed was 'available today' but isn't. If you go to the Dell web site the i7 model is listed but there is no 'Customise' button for that option and the 'Purchase' button is greyed out and unclickable. One review indicates that Dell have stated the i7 processor model won't be shipping until December so presumably they're having some teething problems with it. I wasn't prepared to wait until December as I have some down time right now that I can't guarantee I'll have in December. Hence the lower-specced model.</p>
<h3>Packaging</h3>
<p>The first thing that needs to be said is the packaging used to ship the Dell XPS One is not good. I would be surprised if Dell don't find they're getting damaged returns because of the weak packaging. The shipped package weighs 24kg and is encased in cardboard that is easily bent or torn. Four plastic "bolts" are used to try and keep the bottom cardboard section holding the bulk of the weight to the top section, with a single 2" band of sellotape added as backup. In my case one of the plastic "bolts" was missing and the others were lose with the cardboard around them crushed and bent. This meant that the top half of the box had a good 5 to 6 inches of height movement and you could feel the PC shaking about inside as you carried the box, which just added to the box damage.</p>
<img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/Blog/2012-11/AWeekWithWindows8/DellXPSOne_1.jpg" alt="Dell XPS One Packaging - not strong enough for what's inside!" width="570" height="422"/>
<p>Stripping off the outer packaging, youa re faced with a polysteirine cage which again I felt was insufficient for the weight of the unit enclosed within.</p>
<img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/Blog/2012-11/AWeekWithWindows8/DellXPSOne_2.jpg" alt="Dell XPS One Packaging - Outer Cover Removed" width="570" height="421"/>
<p>Aside from the PC itself there are two cardboard boxes. One contains the small keyboard and mouse with two AAA batteries for the keyboard and two AA batteries for the mouse, and diagrams showing how to fit the batteries printed inside the box lid. The other contains a disc of drivers and utilities, presumably just in case you decide to reinstall Windows 8 from scratch using a disc that isn't supplied with the PC, a safety sheet and an 8 page colour pamphlet 'Getting Started' that basically tells you what to do to turn on the PC and gives you some links to get to grips with Windows 8. Two pages give an annotated diagram of the top side and various plug sockets to familarise you with where the microphone, camera (which comes with a handy flip cover switch), power button and various plug sockets (HDMI, USB etc) are. </p>
<img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/Blog/2012-11/AWeekWithWindows8/DellXPSOne_3.jpg" alt="Dell XPS One - Packaging Contents" width="570" height="586"/>
<h3>Initial Impressions</h3>
<p>The PC itself is heavy but manageable. It feels solid. Unlike other Dell Touch monitors it can't be laid completely flat, which is a weakness for a touch monitor, but the angle of rotation is otherwise quite generous. The resolution of 2560x1440 is stunning and the display is bright and colourful.</p>
<p>The keyboard is small - not cheap and nasty but not exactly exuding luxury either. However it's certainly better than the God-awful Apple wireless keyboard that is not only smaller but has horrible 'chiclet' keys. The mouse is extremely basic but does its job. Both keyboard and mouse are wireless and 'just work' when tiny switches that turn them on are used.</p>
<p>The power switch for the PC is, rather oddly, placed on the right hand side of the unit rather than the front. I found this to be a pain when adjusting the monitor angle - twice I accidentally shut down the PC when all I wanted to do was change the monitor angle. It's far too easy to hit the button by accident. There is a one inch bevel around the main display area and then a further dead inch of plastic at the bottom of the display. I don't understand why the Power button wasn't placed here where it wouldn't be so prone to accidental exposure.</p>
<p>I'm working in a very quiet environment and am aware of the system's fan running as soon as the unit is powered on. It's not loud (certainly much quieter than the fan on my Dell XPS 17 laptop) but I am aware of it in the background, where I'm not aware of the fans on my 65" Panasonic plasma TV next to it and which has received some criticisms for being 'too noisy'.</p>
<p>The supplied Cyberlink DVD/Blu-ray player software works well. The drive itself is on the thin right-hand side of the monitor. The software requires you to set a Region Code (which can be changed up to five times before being locked) and then modifies the screen resolution to fit the 1920x1080 (1080p) standard. Remember that the native resolution of this monitor is ordinarily higher than HD! I thought the audio was more than acceptable for a unit of this size. I own a couple of Dell ST2220 21.5" touch screen monitors and for the price they're fantastic displays, but the audio on them is terrible - a gnat would struggle to hear the audio even at maximum volume. The XPS One is MUCH better.</p>
<p>On top of the unit is a simple slider switch to cover the in-built webcam. When you buy the XPS One as part of the customisation process you'll be offered a Logitech HD webcam as an available accessory. Shame on Dell for offering an accessory you don't need! Oddly the delivery time on the Logitech webcam is 4 weeks as opposed to the 2 days for the '20% higher than expected demand' Windows 8 PC! Like I said, I'm finding the whole 'demand for Windows 8 PCs is 20% higher than expected' very hard to swallow!</p>
<p>The specs of this 'entry level' all in one (the only one available at the time of writing) include a 32GB Intel SRT SSD, a 1TB SATA 7200 rpm hard drive, 6GB 1600Hz DD3 memory, a Blu-Ray/DVD combo drive (Blu-Ray is read only, DVD is read/write), a 2GB NVIDIA Geforce GT 640M graphics card and Dell 1703 802.11b/g/n and Bluetooth v4.0+LE wireless. There is no TV card. Software includes the 64-bit version of Windows 8 and a copy of Cyber Link's Power DVD BD to enable DVD and Blu-ray movies to be played as the in-built Windows DVD player included in Windows 7 has been removed from Windows 8.</p>
<img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/Blog/2012-11/AWeekWithWindows8/DellXPSOne_4.jpg" alt="Dell XPS One - The All-in-One" width="570" height="358"/>
<h3>Initial Windows 8 Set-Up</h3>
<p>On power on you are asked to set the language and keyboard, which annoyingly default to US, despite this being a UK-shipped unit with UK keyboard. You are then asked to select a colour scheme (a single colour which defaults to yellow - pretty pointless since you have no idea at this stage what this single colour will actually affect but fortunately it is easy to change later via the Metro 'Settings' charm). I didn't have a wired connection in my lounge, which is where I want my All-In-One to sit, but the next setup screen correctly identified my wireless network with a strong signal, as well as several others in the area and it was a very simple case to select the network, enter my network password and move on. The next screen offered an 'Express Setup' or 'Custom Setup' for what essentially looked like a bunch of privacy settings. Those which would be set by selecting 'Express Setup' were listed and I went with this option. I was then prompted for my email address to set up my Microsoft account. I'd already done this when playing with the beta version and consumer preview on my netbook, and this is where the magic started to happen. I was asked to confirm my email address and previously entered phone number and then the Windows Start screen appeared with a very obvious live tile that switched between photos of some of my friends and a group of strangers. Very scary! How did that happen?</p>
<img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/Blog/2012-11/AWeekWithWindows8/DellXPSOne_5.jpg" alt="Dell XPS One - Live Tile with friend photos" width="570" height="320"/>
<p>I say 'scary' because most of the pictures were marked with a small LinkedIn logo! I hadn't explicitly said 'Use my Linked In contacts' but the software had found them and was displaying them the first time I logged in.</p>
<p>One other thing that impressed me, but also confused me, was the Weather app. This defaulted to London, so I clicked on the application and it asked if I wanted to share location information and I said 'yes' at which point it automatically switched me to Bursledon, the Southampton suburb/village where I live. This impressed me because my iPad and iPhone which have 3G connectivity as well as router connectivity always show my location on Facebook posts as "Sholing" which is quite some way from here. I have no idea why the two different ecosystems (Apple and Microsoft) should show different locations and I would have expected the Apple devices which have 3G connectivity, which the PC doesn't have, to have been more accurate.</p>
<h3>Confirming the new PC's authority</h3>
One of the nice touches to the account registration process was that I got an automatic SMS text message on my phone asking me to confirm that I wanted this new PC to be trusted with my Windows account, giving me a URL to visit and a confirmation code to enter. Entering the code confirms that the PC is now fully trusted.</p>
<img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/Blog/2012-11/AWeekWithWindows8/Win8AccountConfirmation.jpg" alt="Dell XPS One - Account Confirmation" width="570" height="91"/>
<p>However after I'd done this an email also arrived asking me to click on a link to confirm the PC was trusted. This actually gave an error, presumably because the SMS phone message had already done what was needed. I think the registration process should probably have asked me if I wanted to use my email address OR phone number to confirm the account rather than use both, which would have avoided confusion.</p>
<img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/Blog/2012-11/AWeekWithWindows8/Win8EmailAccountInfoLink.jpg" alt="Dell XPS One - Double Confirmation Error" width="570" height="147"/>
<h3>Performance</h3>
<p>I haven't done extensive tests on performance but the PC feels slick and fast. Start-up time for Windows from a cold power-up is currently about 15 seconds which is very nice if you're used to Windows 7, Vista or XP startup times. The interface feels fast and fluid, and the multi-touch screen supports up to 10 points of articulation and seems responsive. So far as the disk space is concerned I'm not sure why the SSD isn't showing unless it's somehow RAIDed in with the SATA hard drive. All that shows up in File Explorer is a single C drive (together with the DVD/BD drive) listed as having 885GB of 918GB free after the 'important' Windows Updates available as of 1st November 2012 were downloaded and run. I know figures for hard drives get rounded up using some nasty 'let's pretend 1000 bytes is really 1024 bytes' algorithm but I'm still struggling to understand how 1TB plus 32GB can equate to 918GB!</p>
<h3>Dead In The Water</h3>
<p>So Windows 8 installed and was activated with my account details in less than 15 minutes. All seemed good. Unfortunately I then left the PC for 10 minutes ... and returned to find it powered off.</p>
<p>Powering it on again just sat on the Dell startup logo. Powering off the device and leaving it a few minutes made no difference. Suddenly I had a dead paperweight whose only job was to display the Dell logo. And I hadn't installed a single bit of software or even a hardware driver of my own!</p>
<p>Fortunately Dell Support proved as good this time as they had been the last time I had to use them. My call was promptly answered (no 'Please hold due to unexpected demand' nonsense here!) but it took the best part of 90 minutes to get the PC working again, and it's still not clear what the problem is/was or whether it might recur again. Dell firmly pointed the finger at Windows 8, trying to imply that once activated Windows 8 applied updates and these could cause a temporary glitch in the BIOS setting for SATA. However watching the remote debugging session where by flipping the BIOS SATA setting from its default 'RAID' setting (presumably needed to present the 32GB SSD drive and the 1TB hard disk as a single C drive?) to each of the other two settings after numerous frownie "something went wrong" Windows 8 screens the engineer was able to get Windows 8 desktop up and running and apply six important Windows updates via the usual Control Panel 'Windows Updates' window. However the Windows Updates screen clearly showed no updates had yet been applied, with the last time update was run showing as 'never' so the Dell engineer explanation, repeated several times, didn't hold water. When I pointed this out I got an explanation that 'Windows 8 is very new software. It's less than a week old. There are problems with it'. Wow!</p>
<p>I started this exercise cynical about how robust the new O.S. was, minimised risk by ordering a new PC with the software preinstalled and here I was with a 'dead in the water' piece of kit and the hardware manufacturer was insisting it was because of the software. Not good! To pre-empt the 'It must be Dell's hardware or drivers that are broken' in any comments to this post I can only repeat the answer the Dell engineer gave me: 'Everything is working fine now, so it's not the hardware'. I have no idea why faffing around with the BIOS SATA settings (which finally had to be reset to their original RAID setting) and putting a few Windows updates on should have fixed a 'dead in the water' PC. But it gives me little confidence in the underlying O.S. Buying a new PC was supposed to avoid exactly this sort of problem, and it makes me VERY wary of attempting to upgrade my workhorse laptop PC.</p>
<h3>Someone Moved The Cheese</h3>
<p>With Windows 8 finally up and running I had a little play and was reminded of what I'd hated about the O.S. when playing with the early beta's. I wanted to check the display resolution. I right clicked on the desktop which works in Windows 7. In Windows 8, regardless of whether you're in Metro mode or desktop mode, that doesn't do what it normally does. There's no Start button to get to Control Panel and if I wend my way to it using the 'Charms' in the Metro interface I get what looks like a drastically cut down version with no option telling me the resolution anywhere to be found. I'm sure this is just part of the 'steep learning curve' that will get resolved when I read some guides, but it's symtomatic of why I think Joe Public will get frustrated and ranty with it. The only thing keeping many from moving to Apple Mac is the new learning curve. Now that learning curve is just as bad if they want to stay on Windows but run the most current version.</p>
<h2>Getting Started Videos</h2>
<p>On the Metro desktop there is a tile for 'Getting Started with Windows 8 on Your Dell', with videos for touch (confusingly showing a tablet rather than this All In One PC) and for mouse and keyboard. These are cartoony videos and just a minute or two long and are almost content free. They basically say "swipe from one of the sides of the screen" or "touch one of the corners of the screen with your mouse" and not much else! The idea that you would be 'good to go' after viewing these videos is beyond laughable, and reminds me of this joke about computer documentation:</p>
<img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/Blog/2012-11/AWeekWithWindows8/WindowsDeveloperDocumentation.jpg" alt="Windows documentation (joke)" width="570" height="1191"/>
<h2>Final Verdict on the Dell XPS One</h2>
<p>Although this post is headed 'Review of the Dell XPS One With Windows 8', I don't feel it's safe to give a final verdict at this stage. The poor packaging and the fact that the machine died before I had the chance to do anything other than register my account and connect to my wireless network gives me great cause for concern, although touch wood it seems to restart just fine at the moment. The 'auto-sleep' mode is very unpredictable. Sometimes I leave the PC for 10 minutes and return to find it in 'sleep' mode where a simple press of a key on the keyboard brings it back to life, other times I leave it for an hour and it's still all lit-up and displaying live tiles on the Start screen. I hate inconsistent and unpredictable behaviour!</p>
<p>More importantly, a new user should not have to phone Support and spend the best part of 2 hours trying to revive the machine within 10 minutes of starting it up, and it's unclear at this stage whether the problem's the hardware (the Dell XPS One) or the software (Windows 8). I'll try and give a final verdict on the PC itself at the end of my 'Week with Windows 8' but for now the jury's definitely out.</p>
<h2>Verdict on Windows 8 at the end of 'Day 0'</h2>
<p>I think Windows 8 is going to be a frustrating exercise for most who will try and use it without proper support resources. Tomorrow is officially my first 'exclusive' day with Windows 8, although I suspect I'm going to be hopping back to my workhorse laptop for mail, Twitter and Facebook until I'm more comfortable with finding my way around the O.S. and have got all my basic software installed under Windows 8 which will more likely be on Day 2.</p>
<p>I'll be using the <strong><em>PC Pro Ultimate Guide to Windows 8</em></strong> to try and get over these frustrations and initial hurdles of working out precisely what's moved where. If the PC Pro Guide doesn't give me enough confidence to get on and install all my core applications I'll move on to the 800 page (really?!! To explain just how to use the O.S.? Wow!) <strong><em>Windows 8 Step-by-Step</em></strong> book I've purchased from Microsoft Press.</p>
<p>Expect an update 'Week with Windows 8: Day One' blog post tomorrow!</p>
<h2>Update (One Week Later)</h2>
<p>Having lived with the Dell XPS One for over a week now, using it (almost) exclusively I thought I should add a post script to the above review</p>
<p>Firstly the machine has had no reboot problems since the initial one and has performed flawlessly. That's the good news.</p>
<p>The bad news is that 32 GB SSD. A Dell engineer confirmed that this is not accessible for user data or programs, which is why it doesn't show in Explorer. He claimed that it is used 'for caching' and that this makes the performance of the machine much better. That may be true, but nothing on the web site advertising the product and not one of the reviews mentioned the fact that this 32GB SSD is not in any way directly accessible by the end user. They all imply you're getting a PC with two drives - one, the traditional 'rusty' type, the other an SSD. I think that is misleading if not downright lying!</p>
<p>I should also add that although I love the high resolution of the screen and the 10 touch points seem to work well MOST of the time, there is discoloration in all four corners of the monitor and along two edges where on white backgrounds (which are used heavily throughout Metro) the 'dark blue/black' tinge is extremly distracting. This is not a set-up I'd recommend for someone wanting to do good colour work. It's reminiscent of the old CRT monitors and the problem you'd get if you put a pair of speakers or something with a strong magnet near them, and in this day and age is not really acceptable. For a so-called competitor to the Apple Mac all-in-one this is a glaring weakness in the product.</p>
<p>Those quibbles aside, I'm generally happy with the All-in-One. At the price I paid for it (with the various quidco discounts) it's good value for money. At the full recommended price I'm not as enthusiastic as the other traditional print reviewers have been. The price implies luxury. The actual product falls just a little short of that promise.</p>
<h2>Update (Two Weeks Later)</h2>
<p>On trying to run the Windows Phone 8 emulator inside Visual Studio 2012 I got a message saying I needed to 'purchase additional Windows 8 features' in order to be able to run the emulator, and advised I would have to pay £49.99, which subsequently turned out to be £58 once some VAT had been added (no I can't make it add up either, given UK VAT is 20%). This is nothing short of a rip-off given that I can buy a full copy of Windows 8 Pro from BT Business Direct for £42, or from Amazon for £49. It seems Dell have cut corners in the version of Windows installed and short of doing a complete reinstall using an existing license key (the update dialog insists on payment BEFORE offering you the chance to enter an 'upgrade' license key) I'm forced to pay through the nose if I want to do Windows Phone 8 Development. To say I am not best pleased to discover this late surcharge is putting it mildly. Another cost to factor into your likely purchase costs!</p>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13442419547110456696noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4515527055682999868.post-50851968886046653692012-10-31T08:08:00.000-07:002012-10-31T08:08:02.716-07:00Review: Windows: The Official Magazine Launch Issue<p>This is the first of several 'resource' reviews that will be appearing as part of my <strong>Week with Windows 8</strong> series of blog posts. The week will officially kick off as soon as my new Dell hardware gets delivered (Dell say today, but....)</p>
<h3>Background Information</h3>
<br />
<h2>The Week of Windows 8 Challenge</h2>
<p>As a (recently disillusioned) developer in the Microsoft world I've been unimpressed with what I've seen of Windows 8 and have not not wanted to waste any time on something I perceive to be 'another Windows Vista - but worse!'. However I've accepted a challenge from journalist <strong><a href="http://www.itwriting.com/blog/">Tim Anderson</a></strong> to try Windows 8 EXCLUSIVELY for a week and give it a second chance. I'm not going to be using it in terms of developing specifically for the platform (that would require more time and a bigger learning curve), but in terms of switching to using it as the main Operating System for my day-to-day work.</p>
<p>I'm interested in approaching it as I think most of my application end users would rather than with my 'developer' hat on. After all if end users don't get a good experience then they'll likely migrate elsewhere (or avoid migrating altogether) and there won't be any clients for Windows 8 specific development anyway.</strong>
<br /><br />
<img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/Blog/2012-11/AWeekWithWindows8/WindowsOfficialMag.jpg" alt="Windows: The Official magazine - Launch issue front cover" width="570" height="804"/>
<br /><br />
<h2>Why 'Windows: The Offical Magazine?'</h2>
<p>I think Google/Bing and blogs have become a waste of time for learning new mainstream stuff like this. It seems like the only people who blog are those who like working at the 'bleeding edge', and experience has taught me that you google stuff like 'Windows 8' and end up with a bunch of outdated and inaccurate information based on early preview releases where the author has forgotten to point out that it was based on an early preview rather than what actually ended up shipping.</p>
<p>By the time a product goes 'RTM' the bleeding edge crowd have moved on to the latest alpha or beta product so nobody's blogging about the stuff people actually use day to day. For the man in the street the usual recourse is to pick up a 'starter' publication like this (with a cover promoting 'Windows 8 is here') or two of the other titles I hope to review before my week's up: <strong><em>The PC Pro Ultimate Guide to Windows</em></strong> which is a 'fat magazine' format available at many newsagents, and <strong><em>Windows 8 Step-by-Step</em></strong> a Microsoft Press book which I had to order from Amazon because for the first time I can remember local book stores don't seem to be selling Windows 8 books, at least if the large Waterstones in Southampton City Centre is typical. This is disappointing because several titles are already available.</p>
<p>To be honest, I would have preferred to have started with the <strong><em>PC Pro</em></strong> guide, but it doesn't seem right to review that until I can compare it with a typical book offering, and I'm still waiting on Amazon to deliver the <em>Step-by-Step</em> book. <strong><em>Windows: The Official Magazine</em></strong> is easier to review whilst I'm waiting for my new hardware to arrive because it's a 'standalone' product and the first issue of a monthly magazine that will be focussed entirely on Windows 8. The magazine title might lead you to believe it also covers Windows 7 and earlier releases, but it doesn't, if this first issue is anything to go by.</p>
<h2>Full Disclosure</h2>
<p>I have some 'prior history' with this publication (or more accurately, its predecessor, since this seems mainly to be a relaunch of the old Windows magazine, timed to coincide with the public launch of Windows 8).</p>
<p>A few years ago when I was 'between contracts' <strong><a href="http://www.craigmurphy.com/blog/">Craig Murphy</a></strong> forwarded me a request from Future Publishing for a reader to go to their offices in Bath to do a review comparison of four consumer video cameras. As the 'go to' guy for London-based user group video with some time on his hands Craig thought I might be interested. There was no money available, just expenses - ie the train fare and lunch. I never got the train fare because it took Future Publishing over a week to get the admin sorted to send me the tickets which arrived the day after they needed me on site. Promises to refund the money I had paid for the tickets never materialised despite several emails promising it would get sorted. I was kept waiting an hour in reception for reasons that were never really made clear and when I finally got access to the magazine's offices (actually an open plan area hosting many different Future Publishing magazines) at midday it turned out that one of the cameras for review had been 'lost' and they'd forgotten to actually charge the batteries for one of the others, so we had to wait until after lunch to start the 'full day' review. Lunch was a sandwich from the local Marks and Spencers so that was a bit disappointing too. An hour spent mostly posing with different cameras just outside the company offices with a freelance photographer who had to cope with endless rain, meant that I had about half an hour to sum up my findings and declare a 'winner' despite not having time to seriously analyse any of the footage I'd managed to get with the three cameras or to read through the user manuals that came with the cameras.</p>
<p>After that experience I started to understand why reviews in magazines rarely seem to reflect reality, and Future Publishing titles in particular are infamous for being 'thin' on editorial content (although their <strong><em>Total Film</em></strong> magazine is excellent, being the exception which proves the rule). I got the impression on my visit that most Future Magazine titles in the building effectively employed three or four school leavers on very low salaries who spent their working day surfing the web for content, with one of the computer gaming titles being an exception in that they had a big plasma TV where games were noisily being played all day!</p>
<p>There is a funny postscript to this 'full disclosure' backstory. When I recounted my experience to a friend at the BBC she shook her head. 'We used to have to deal with them for some of our magazines years ago. The outfit down at Bath, yes? They were terrible and shambolic. Always have been. I'm amazed they're still around to be honest'</p>
<p>Suffice to say, my expectations going in were set to 'low'.</p>
<h3>Target Audience</h3>
<p>To be fair, I'm not the target audience. This is a magazine for the casual buyer looking for something to read on a flight or train ride. The emphasis is on being a light, easy read. The launch issue seems to be aimed at people looking to buy a new PC as it proudly boasts '33 pages of new gear', with the main splash being 'Windows 8 is here'.</p>
<h3>What do you get for the money?</h3>
£5 gets you 116 very nicely designed glossy pages with an overall 'Metro' theme that reflects the look and feel of Windows 8 itself. 21 of these pages are adverts.</p>
<p>The advert breakdown is interesting in that 7 of the pages are 'Get More Out of Life' adverts encouraging you to subscribe to the magazine in different formats (digital, Zinio, paper trial subscription etc), whilst another 4 are for sister publications (T3, Nikon Photo, PC Gamer and an Xmas special offer on all Future Publishing titles). There are no big double-spread ads from the big PC makers here, with Dell just taking out a single page ad for the AlienWare X51. There are ads from FastHosts, Tesco (buy your Windows 8 retail box from us) and HMV (vote for our awards). The low advert page count comes despite the 'official magazine' tag which suggests to me the title will struggle to survive long term unless Microsoft are subsidising it to some extent.</p>
<p>Most of the reviews are just a few sentences and even when the hardware reviews get a full page or two the detail is extremely lacking. Most two page reviews are of the 'double-spread photo with just a small paragraph of type' variety. This makes the magazine look attractive and professional, but mean that it comes across more like a brochure than a proper magazine. I doubt it would take anybody more than half an hour at most to read the entire editorial content, and frankly it's hard to distinguish between the editorial and bland advertising copy. Look at the screenshot below and judge for yourself if this is a one page article about tech style and design or a paid for ad by Nokia (the page shown is the complete 'article').</p>
<img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/Blog/2012-11/AWeekWithWindows8/EditorialOrAdvertorial.jpg" alt="Glorious Technicolor - Is it editorial or an advert? Hard to tell!" width="570" height="889"/>
<p>Diving into the 'reviews' there's little to see here other than a very crude basic feature list. None of the laptop reviews, for example, mention the screen resolution and there's an inconsistency of style (other than general vagueness) and quality of appraisal across the reviews! This is fluffy light brochure-ware rather than real editorial, despite the presence of a 'Verdict' box on each of the main laptop reviews. I found it hard to match up the verdicts, separated out with a star rating and a one-sentence summary, with the associated written main review. All of the PCs bar one get four out of five star verdicts, with many getting no real criticism at all! And yet the one five star review that appears criticises the unit (you'll have to go buy the mag to find out which unit it is) for its high price compared to its competition, before going on to complain about how it shows up fingerprints, has a 'dated design' and a 'cramped design and bulkier tablet'. Go figure!</p>
<p>Aside from the main reviews there are a lot of Windows 'introduction' articles along the lines of 'Here's a Metro screen overview', 'Here's a two page summary of the gestures you can use' etc which will be useful to those new to Windows 8. A three-page overview of the Bing Weather app is also of interest, if only for the fact it manages to make so little go such a long way. The longest article is '10 Ways to Become an overnight wine expert' which in truth could have been written for any smart phone or PC, or even no PC at all since it focusses on books as well as web sites.</p>
<h3>Final Verdict</h3>
<p>I'm not the intended audience, but I can't help feeling that for the asking price there isn't a big audience out there for this. It feels like a very glossy brochure advertising the Windows 8 ecosystem that should be given out at Windows launch events rather than something you should buy at a news-stand. I appreciate that home users want a general purpose magazine, but if I compare this to an equivalent like <strong><em>Mac Format</em></strong> from the same publisher, that magazine has much better editorial despite the 'lightness of touch' mandate, and is sufficiently interesting each month to make me subscribe to it. I can't say the same for this, although clearly it's very early days for Windows 8 and the 'new' magazine itself. For me, although I liked the slick, professional design and layout, the title lived down to my low expectations. If you've got money burning a hole in your pocket and a long journey ahead or a bit of time to kill, by all means pick it up and make up your own mind, but if you want to get to learn something useful about Windows 8 my advice would be to save your money for one of the other titles I'll be reviewing later this week.</p>
<img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/Blog/2012-11/AWeekWithWindows8/WindowsMagSubscribeForm.jpg" alt="Windows: The Official Magazine subscription form" width="570" height="404"/>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13442419547110456696noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4515527055682999868.post-61701206518440071112012-10-30T07:45:00.000-07:002012-10-30T07:45:26.713-07:00Build 2012, Stockholm Syndrome and (upcoming!) A Week of Windows 8
<p>Microsoft's annual developer conference <strong>Build</strong> (formerly <strong>PDC</strong> aka Professional Developers Conference) kicks off today.</p>
<img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/Blog/2012-10/StockholmSyndrome.jpg" alt="Stockholm Syndrome" width="570" height="303"/>
<h3>One Year On</h3>
<p>It's a year since I posted about waking up and seeing the light, and not falling for the Windows 8 hype.</p>
<p>I announced, in a 'Reboot' blog entry, that I'd decided to focus my learning efforts elsewhere after more than 15 years as a developer dedicated exclusively to Microsoft technologies, most recently Silverlight.</p>
<p>Looking back, the truth is that when I wrote that blog post, after 15 years of endless unpaid hours outside of those I was paid to work for clients, spent learning and working on Microsoft rushed-to-market 'tactical' products in a world where the term 'legacy' is used to describe anything that's 3 months old, I was burnt out. Wiped out. Depressed.</p>
<p>Totally burnt out!</p>
<p>I won't say anymore on that subject but suggest you go Google 'Scott Hanselman' and 'burn out' for more on how prevalent this is in our industry. I would just add (as ever) to be a little careful with taking on board everything that you read there. There's something kind of ironic about someone complaining about the false 'drama' people create in our industry, while simultaneously tweeting endless snippy comments about products made by a rival company to the one that pays your salary!</p>
<p>So, it's a year since I promised to post about my 'reboot' experiences with iOS and HTML5 here. It's a promise I didn't keep because shortly after making those blog posts (in some all-too-familiar serious unpaid 'down time but work time' between Silverlight-based contracts) I started an intensive six month contract at a software start-up that needed Silverlight expertise to finish a demo product that was going to get the startup's first potential customer to sign on the dotted line (alas, for all kinds of reasons that have nothing to do with what was developed, still not signed at the time of writing, a full year later :-( )</p>
<p>We all know what start-ups are like: spare time to study and blog is never there because resources are limited and fires have to be put out on ridiculously short timescales in the name of survival. That last Silverlight contract was an exhillerating, if ultimately futile, six months of 'work' where I had a good time and learned to fall in love with my day job again. Good people. Fun work. Work that felt real instead of being yet another pointless vanity project or prototype for some big, bureucratic enterprise whose big chief had mandated the use of a very specific technology without doing even the most basic checks around that technology or how they could deliver the demands of his business (Silverlight on an iPad - yeah of course that works!)</p>
<p>Sadly, six months in, the startup realised the error of their ways in having selected Silverlight as the technology on which to base their vision (it's not like I hadn't told them at my interview!) and decided to go the route I'd told myself (and you) I would take six months earlier: adopting an HTML5 and iOS-based approach to client-side development (whilst sticking with Microsoft on the server side).</p>
<p>In truth, the iOS development path and learning curve has not been as easy as I had hoped. Not that iOS is bad - just that it's different. It's like being a toddler all over again because most of the training material has to walk you through complicated IDEs and software that you don't understand through lack of familiarity. IDEs and software that typically have already moved on from when the 'just do this without understanding it for now' training material was produced. As a toddler you have none of the usual tricks available to get you out of the lack of understanding and mess you find yourself in. I found myself hitting one brick wall after another and in a world of 'agile' where the word documentation is a nasty word to be sneered at, it's only forums that have gotten me out of some really tough scrapes. Plus I'm in my mid-50s now. Enthusiasm and the best will in the world aside, learning new stuff just isn't as easy as it was when I started out in this industry in the late 70s (as an IBM CICS mainframe programmer!) </p>
<p>More on that particular 'reboot' topic another day! In the meantime bills have to be paid and money earnt. Which can be tough when all you really have to sell that the market's interested in is a CV boasting of your existing Microsoft expertise. After all, we can't ALL just go and join Telerik ;-) Even the 'living on borrowed time' Microsoft option means having to keep your mouth shut when some naive Stockholm Syndrome sufferer at a big bank tells you at interview for a new contract that a complex Silverlight 4 enterprise application can simply be recompiled to run under Windows 8 as a C# XAML application. Obviously, where this particular scenario is concerned, I failed at the 'keeping my mouth shut' part, which is why I'm at home writing this blog post instead of earning silly money at a big plush office in Canary Wharf!</</p>
<p>One year on from my long series of ranty posts about the fakeness of all the 'rah! rah! rah!' Build 2011 nonsense from the usual suspects (MVPs and those desperate to brown-nose Microsoft to ensure their MVP renewals or lucrative 'partnership' deals), it seems apt to do a quick review of the technologies that got over-hyped at the Build conference this time last year, if only so that people (including me!) don't fall for the same tricks this year.</p>
<p>Let's have a look at the current state of play, shall we?!...</p>
<h3>Microsoft 'Truth at Build' Scorecard</h3>
<h2>Silverlight 5</h2>.
<p>Last year was the beginning of the end and the recognition (finally) from the 'Microsoft echo chamber' aka 'circle jerk' aka 'community' crowd that maybe those saying Silverlight was a 'dead man walking' had
been right all along. In fact the launch around Build time was so low key nobody really noticed.<br/><br />
One year on nobody even mentions Silverlight any more, except to make bad jokes about Microsoft's new tablet supporting its main rival (Flash) but not its own product having originally used the Flash weaknesses to explain why it was killing off
Silverlight on Windows 8, the RT variant. Kudos to Microsoft - this shows the power of announcing you have a 'new release' (Silverlight 5) at the eye of the backlash storm, even if you don't have anybody actually working on it when the press start to move in with those 'They're killing it off and have screwed you all' scare stories. It still makes those who pointed out what was happening at the time 'haters' though, right?! (all together now: 'Yeah. Haters! Burn them. Burn them. They turned me into a cynic' (It's OK. I'm inflammable ;-))</p>
<h2>Windows Phone</h2>
<p>Two years ago this was going to kill the iPhone and Android phones etc. A year on it had failed miserably with pitiful sales and lack of any kind of consumer awareness. But this time last year there was nothing to worry about because after a year of incompetence and zero sales
Nokia were announcing their sexy new Lumia 800 phones and it was going to trash all the competition and have all the marketing Microsoft couldn't be arsed to do the year before behind it which would make everybody see the light. A real iOS and Android killer at last. Hoorah! (echo to rapidly diminishing fade: Rah! Rah!) The usual echo chamber devotees happily ignored all the basics (like the fact the new hardware spec was a good two years behind what the competitors were currently offering), and promoted it as proof there was still life left (and a migration path for developers) in that old dead horse, Silverlight upon which Windows Phone 7 was based. Hoorah! Ignore the haters. Developers! Developers! Developers! Say no to negativity and cynicism! Hoorah!<br/><br />
One year on, those phones are already obsolete. Not that they were much cop in the first place, having suffered a whole ton of problems around rushed design and release and terrible battery life. With Windows Phone 8 announced just a few months
after their release, and offically launched yesterday, it became clear that the new 'version' of the phone operating system requires completely new hardware with no upgrade path for those who bought into the lies. I'm sorry, but I refuse to call it 'marketing' any more - it's lies and deception, pure and simple, and was and always has been deliberate on Microsoft's part. Microsoft don't care how much time and money their 'customers' waste on development of 'tactical' solutions whilst they lumber
from one strategic and PR marketing disaster to another. Why should they? They're not the ones paying the cost! In a repeat of the Silverlight 5 'let's stop the bad press by making an announcement about a new release for those who bought into this Windows 7 Silverlight-based development crap and are now angry' story Microsoft attempted to placate angry developers and the media with the 'We have a new release for those who believed what we said a few months ago and committed to the hardware story: Windows Phone 7.8'.<br /><br />
This 'new release' (snort!) promised some enhancements to the now 'dead in the water' Windows Phone 7 software and hardware. So there's no need to panic folks. Please ignore those 'haters' pointing out it's the same old smoke and mirrors always pulled out of the hat when the company gets caught in a boatful of spin. By the time the reality hits they'll have forgotten what we promised.<br /><br />
At yesterday's launch of 'the new Windows Phone' not a single mention was made of Windows Phone 7.8. Was anybody surprised? Really? My guess is that the intern who gave up working on <strong><em>Blend</em></strong> for Silverlight 5 and left it in
'Preview Release' mode for a year is the guy who's now been assigned to do that Windows 7.8 stuff, assuming there's anyone at all doing it now that the smoke screen appears to have done its job! Too cynical? Let's wait and see!<br /><br />
In the meantime Nokia have announced their shiny new Windows Phone 8 hardware in the form of the <strong>Lumia 920</strong>, and in a classic case of Stockholm Syndrome the usual suspects spent weeks after the initial announcement shouting about how this kills Apple's iPhone and Google's Android phones before any devices are even on sale. Honestly, life in the Microsoft developer world feels like a continual re-run of Groundhog day! All that needs pointing out here is that Nokia were so confident in this new hardware that they used professional Red camera gear to shoot video that they then pretended originated from their phone, and did something similar with their still photo's too. But heh, if you're suffering from the Stockholm Syndrome that constitutes being a member of Microsoft 'community' now what does that matter? Ignore history, make a wisecrack about how a fifth row of icons on a phone is hardly 'innovation' and maybe nobody will notice, eh? More cash/MVP awards/special favours please Microsoft. Job done. I'm earning a great living here.<br /><br />
Early reports have indicated that there is little to no mention of Windows Phone 8 sessions at the Build conference that kicks off today. Surely they haven't given up on it already?!!</p>
<h2>Microsoft's Surface Tablet</h2>
<p>Ah yes, the 'iPad killer'. It lets you run Office! Hoorah! 'Microsoft gets its mojo back with slick hardware and killer apps'. Hoorah! (Rah! Rah!)<br/><br/>
Except there aren't many apps and the hardware performance is almost universally being described as 'laggy'. Over the weekend my Twitter stream has been chock-full of UK Stockholm Syndrome sufferers complaining that the ordering process has been a disaster and nobody in the UK knows when they'll get their new toys. These are people who got excited even before the battery life and pricing (the same price as an iPad - for something that has no apps and is clearly an early beta product? You're joking, right?!) were revealed so I have little sympathy.<br /><br />
But over the weekend the first reviews appeared and guess what?! The performance sucks! It's described in review after review as 'laggy'. Even the Stockholm Syndrome sufferes are complaining that video and audio stutter. Nobody's quite sure if it's the hardware or rushed-to-market Windows 8 software. Can't be the software because Microsoft have decades of experience with that, right?!<br /><br />
But at least it's got Office!<br /><br />
Ah yes, Office ... and in partcular Word. The product that had one MVP publicly blogging (isn't negative blogging about Microsoft products a sackable offence for an MVP?) about returning his Surface tablet because the words he tried to type were taking several seconds before they appeared on screen, with video attached to the blog post to prove it. It's subsequently been claimed that it was the MVP's fault because he foolishly hadn't worked out a last minute (as in 'the day the hardware went on sale') hard-to-find update that wasn't automatically loaded was needed to paper over the cracks of this early beta release. Oh dear! The Microsoft software update facility sure doesn't sound like 'iPad killer' functionality to me. Does it to you?<br /><br />
The Surface is the same 'iPad killer' design that forgets most of us are right-handed not left-handed, has a power connection lead that is a nightmare to fit, and a 'home' button that can't be reached with your thumbs because the tablet's too long.<br /><br />
But it's 'amazing', 'awesome' and 'superbly designed' according to... Steve Ballmer and Steve Sinofsky. So that's alright then. My carping aside, it's sold out so I doubt they care. Is now a good time to point out that the phrase 'sold out' is completely meaningless without any figures indicating how many units were actually made (Heh! I want to know how many Stockholm Syndrome sufferers there are out there in the world ;-))</p>
<h2>Windows 8</h2>
<p>Ah. The biggie. The one that really needs to make up for all the disasters since Apple first introduced the iPhone and started on its path that has changed the entire industry. My views on Windows 8 are well known: I think it's a Frankenstein's monster of an operating system. Two competing, completely disparate, operating systems trying to pretend they're one and marry desktop and tablet worlds, continually throwing you from one world to the next, seemingly at random: a complete nightmare that I've advised any and all friends and family to studiously avoid. I'm not prepared to deal with all the 'Help' falllout phone calls!<br/><br/>
Windows 8 has officially launched now as a product you can buy. The reviews have been mixed but not terrible. They are certainly no worse than the Vista reviews were at the time of its release (funny how history's rewritten that launch as a failure when in fact it was heralded as a good release at the time, before real users got hold of it and started to express their opinions).<br /><br />
Not that you'd notice it's been officially released. I went into my local <em>Waterstones</em> on the day of release. In previous Windows launches there's been big stands promoting the new books to cover the new operating system. On Friday: nothing. The titles are there (on Amazon) but the stores know nobody's rushing to buy them so aren't stocking them.<br/><br/>
The harsh reality is that nobody cares! Nobody (if my friends and family are typical) even knows. Aside from a 'launch' on the BBC flaghship 6 o'clock news which essentially pointed out that Microsoft had screwed up for the last 5 years, there's been none of the usual brouha in the mainstream press. Oh dear! Just bear that in mind as you attend this year's Build conference and get the usual lies - sorry I mean marketing spin - about how there are hundreds of millions of PCs out there running this stuff waiting for you to pour hours, days, weeks into development to make a pile of cash (the same pile of cash you were promised for your Windows Phone 7 development?).<br/><br/>
The truth is it's only Stockholm Syndrome sufferers who've rushed to buy and install Windows 8. It turns out that most of Joe Public aren't as stupid as the average Microsoft developer after all. Who knew?!</p>
<p>OK, the above is pretty harsh, but entirely born out by the facts, and if nothing else this post is an attempt to say to all my fellow Stockholm Syndrome sufferers "when Microsoft talk about 'haters' and negativity and
cynicism at this year's Build Conference (as they undoubtedly will), just try looking at the facts and reality of the last few years" before swallowing total bullshit as fact! Remember what Microsoft have said at each
previous conference or launch event of the last few years and then compare it to the reality of what actually happened!</p>
<h3>OK. I'll Try and be more objective</h3>
<p>I do have one nagging doubt about what I've written above about Windows 8</p>
<p>A couple of people that I really admire and respect (and really it is only a couple - how sad a statment is that on the current state of Microsoft 'community'?!)
seem to like Windows 8.</p>
<p>They tell me that it's a good quality product, albeit a flawed one, and one that needs time invested in it to prove itself.<br />
<p>One of those people is journalist <strong><a href="http://www.itwriting.com/blog/">Tim Anderson</a></strong>. Tim is one of those few journalists who doesn't give in to PR and spin and 'tells it like it is'.</p>
<p>And he's a Windows 8 fan (also a Windows Phone fan too - yikes! Actually I would be too if it were out of beta and the hardware were a lot better)</p>
<p>Earlier this week on Twitter Tim challenged me to 'try Windows 8 exclusively for a week' before I rushed to dismiss it. There was a hidden implication that I would be convinced of the error of my ways if I spent a week using the O.S. all day every day instead of 'evaluating' it in isolation.</p>
<p>Needless to say, I'm sceptical, but the tagline on this blog is 'Brutal but <strong>honest</strong>' and whilst I doubt anybody reading this would question the veractiy of the first part of that tagline, many inside and outside Microsoft are publicly questioning the last part, like I have some weird sort of vested interest in Microsoft failing, when actually the opposite is true.</p>
<p>The Windows 8 development story alone has me shouting 'alpha product, missing APIs, a world of pain and 2 years of hell until Windows 9 fixes things when it will be too late because the competition will have moved the goalposts even further'. And that's before we even get into the Application Store story.</p>
<p>But in truth, the developer story is kind of irrelvant where Windows 8 and Microsoft survival is concerned.</p>
<p>It's the 'end user' story that will make or break Microsoft.</p>
<p>I respect Tim enough to question my early dismissal of Windows 8, based on a few days playing with the preview and looking at the Windows RT APIs, reading between the lines on endless blog posts and tweets from those dealing with the pain as part of their 'partnership' agreement with Microsoft on which they're totally reliant, and over a decade of specialising in Microsoft technologies.</p>
<p>I owe it to myself and others to take up Tim's challenge and see if I am being as objective as I think I am, instead of succumbing to rage about five years of what I see as deliberate lies, deciet and utter incompetence from Microsoft. It is possible that I'm dismissing it unfairly, based solely on my previous experience with Microsoft and limited Windows 8 exposure.</p>
<p>At the weekend (when the Build rah! rah! rah! conference nonsense is over) I will dedicate a week to using 'Windows 8 exclusively' to see if Tim's right and I'm wrong. I'm accepting his challenge!</p>
<p>I'll give Windows 8 a fighting chance by doing so on hardware that's preconfigured to show the best of Windows 8 (a <strong>Dell XPS One</strong> which, by common consent, is currently the best Windows 8 offering out there, with a big touch monitor, very high resolution, a beefy CPU and plenty of RAM). And I'll post here on my experience at the end of it, if not daily on how I'm getting on.</p>
<img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/Blog/2012-10/DellXPSOne.jpg" alt="Dell XPS One - a Touch screen All-in-one PC that is supplied with Windows 8" width="570" height="232"/>
<p>Stay tuned!</p>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13442419547110456696noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4515527055682999868.post-70831001044122676732012-06-04T06:59:00.000-07:002012-06-14T01:18:56.534-07:00Good Stuff #2: Pluralsight Training<img alt="Pluralsight screen offering screenshot" height="456" src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/Blog/2012-06/GoodStuff02_2012-06-04/Pluralsight.jpg" width="570" /><br />
<br />
<h2>
A Phone Call From A Friend</h2>
<p>
In September last year - around the time I launched this blog with a series of posts around the Windows 8 announcements at the Microsoft <strong>Build</strong> conference - a programming community friend who had worked with me on some presentations to the <strong>Silverlight UK User Group</strong> and who runs his own training business got in touch with me.</p>
<p>
He'd been so impressed with the 'presentation' style and content of the <strong>Daily Report</strong> material I was producing around Windows 8 he contacted me with a suggestion that maybe we could work together to launch a new subscription-based online training venture oriented around Microsoft technologies.</p>
<p>His on-site business was struggling, and it was clear to him, as it had always been to me, that online training was the future. On the surface it seemed like a timely offer - I was looking for work after a disasterous experience in Switzerland, emigrating for a job that was supposed to last for 2 years but crashed and burned after just 3 months.</p>
<p>I think he was quite surprised when I laughed and said we didn't have a hope of succeeding, and I wasn't interested!</p>
<p>The bulk of my 'negative' arguments against doing something was that there was no way we could possibly hope to compete with a company already excelling in that area. A company that already had a huge back catalogue of excellent courses. A company that was already in partnership with Microsoft and heavily involved with the Microsoft community. A company that had access to people at the highest level to such an extent that excellent new online training courses were being added on an almost weekly basis.</p>
<p>
That company was, of course <strong><a href="http://www.pluralsight-training.net/microsoft">Plurasight</a></strong>, and in the 9 months since we had that conversation they've just got better and better!</p>
<p>
How could a couple of guys, already working full time as freelancers in order to pay the bills and put food on the table, possibly hope to compete?</p>
<h2>
Some Lessons Learnt From A Job as a Full Time Instructor</h2>
<p>
A few years ago I'd set up a new company, <strong>RIA View Mirror</strong> (I thought it was a clever name for a company focussed on online training of the 'I show you, now you do it' variety, but admittedly it works better when spoken!) specifically to do what the friend who called me last year was suggesting. It didn't take me long to realise what an impossible task I'd set myself.</p>
<p>I de-registered the company last year!</p>
<p>In a former life (as a mainframe systems programmer, specialising in the IBM CICS TP monitoring system), I'd spent two years working as a full-time instructor for Amdahl's Education Services, having transitioned within the company from a role as a Marketing Systems Engineer (MSE). What I'd liked about my job as an MSE was the technical work and presentation/mentoring work, often to new, extremely sceptical, potential customers. What I hadn't liked about the job, which was essentially to be a 'techie' who supported a mainframe salesman, was I had a couple of large customers where the job mostly seemed to involve schmoozing in the pub listening to managers who seemed oblivious (contemptuous even) of the strengths of the developers and engineers they had working for them. I've never suffered fools gladly, and there seemed to be quite a few fools who'd elevated to the position of 'key purchase decision maker'. Unfortunately I've never been very good at pretending to be best buddies with people I don't have much respect for.</p>
<p>Moving to Education for two years seemed like a good move - embracing the strengths of the MSE role I'd mostly enjoyed, whilst removing the parts of the job I hadn't enjoyed. Win-win!</p>
<p>In those two years as a full-time instructor I mainly taught courses written by other people. These courses were typically delivered just a few days before I had to deliver them because they were purchased from the American parent company, who in turn had commissioned an external third party to write them. We only got the material when we knew we had enough people booked to justify going ahead, and decisions on this always ran very close to the wire.</p>
<p>Delivery of these courses mostly relied on my ability to improvise and fill out what was often weak, dull 'read the slide out loud' material where the length of the course in days was based on the assumption that they were being delivered at an American location near Disney World that could get away with late starts and very early finishes and a lot more coffee breaks than we Brits are used to. When I questioned the amount of material vs the length of the course with an American colleague teaching the same material he explained that the material was thin because course attendees weren't the ones paying for the courses (their bosses were) and in the States the philosophy was much more one of 'give the employee a course as a reward for good work because we can't commit to a salary increase', rather than a requirement for new training per se. Most attendees, my American colleague assured me, just want a good time away from the office, which is easy when DisneyWorld and sunny weather is on your doorstep, but not so easy when you're stuck out at Heathrow with typical British rainy weather and the expectations are rather different!</p>
<p>I survived two years of delivering those courses, partly by telling lots of anecdotes based around more than 10 years of 'real world' experience in a system that hadn't changed much over the years, but mostly by smiling a lot and basically doing a theatrical 'smoke and mirrors' stand-up act that diverted attention from the poor course content and instead screamed 'Like me! Like me!' at the captive audience.<br />
It was an approach that seemed to work. The ratings were invariably excellent, even when I myself knew that the course I'd delivered was sub-par, bordering on poor. In fact my biggest problem was persuading my boss to let me rewrite any of the courses since the student critique marks were skewing much higher than other curriculum delivered by my colleagues.</p>
<p>My worst week as an instructor came when I had to deliver a 'new' 5-day course to a group of people that had already had exactly the same course a few weeks earlier - the course writer had just seen fit to give the exact same material two different titles (one titled 'for programmers' the other titled 'design') and not seen fit to explain this until the material arrived a couple of days before I was due to deliver it! I guess it says something for my ability to 'rewrite on the fly' that the attendee critiques for the second 'repeat' version of the course actually came in slightly higher than the first time (and had already been excellent) but it was definitely the longest week of my life!</p>
<p>
I did eventually get permission to write a new, rather basic, 2-day introduction course replacement from scratch. I had a week to do it, but in reality took 2 weeks of crazy long days and weekends to write it to the quality I thought was required. The course was different from others in our curriculum in that in the days of overhead projectors it used full-colour acetate 'foils' (Who remembers Corel Draw in the days when the software alone justified the purchase of a CD-ROM drive?!) that mainly consisted of diagrams and pictures, instead of never-ending streams of black and white words on an acetate, and it comprised an additional course manual: an instructor's manual that gave details of those 'ad hoc' white board anecdote 'real world' scenarios I would typically deliver to pad out the old course material. This way the students got some quality reference material in the form of a student manual, while we held back some good stuff and had enough added value to encourage their colleagues to actually pay out to attend the course rather than just photocopy the student manual previous attendees might have received.</p>
<p>The initial feedback on the course from other instructors around the world was phenomenal. They loved the new material and I received nothing but praise for the 'dramatic improvement in quality' over the previous version of the course that had been written by an outside party.</p>
<p>
I couldn't wait to personally deliver the course and see the course ratings go through the roof!</p>
<p>When I did deliver the course, the student feedback was very good - but actually turned out to be slightly lower than the previous, poor version of the course had been!</p>
<p>It taught me a valuable lesson about training: quality of the actual material delivered and the course content is actually not what's important. What's more important is that people feel they had a good time and enjoyed themselves.</p>
<p>When delivering the first version of the course, I was on an adrenaline-fuelled mission to hide the 'smoke and mirrors' of the poor course material. When delivering the much improved version of the course I thought the material would carry itself and its brilliance would be automatically recognised. I was probably more relaxed and less frenetic as a result. The improvement in quality was recognised by my peers - but not by the students themselves.</p>
<p>These days I rarely pay for onsite training. Invariably when I do I find it extremely poor value for money, presumably because instructors face the same issues I did when I was an instructor: poor material delivered just days before it has to be delivered, insufficient time to prepare, with an audience who for the most part have no idea how much money this training is costing their employer and a 'rating' process that has to be completed long before they can possibly know if what they were taught was correct or not. And, to be quite frank, the vast majority of instructors I've seen don't have the experience to 'fill out' the material with real world experience and 'off the cuff' examples the way I was able to when teaching was my full-time job and I had 10 years of experience to back it up.</p>
<h2>
Why Online Training Is Even More Difficult</h2>
<p>Online training is a very different proposition from onsite training. The material can be viewed and reviewed multiple times in great detail.</p>
<p>If I thought it was tough writing a two day course to be delivered in person to a room full of 20 people, it's a whole different ball game writing material that can be scrutinised multiple times by thousands, if not tens of thousands, of people.</p>
<p>Writing good online material is a time-consuming, and prohibitively expensive proposition unless you can cash in on the whole 'Me! Me! Me!' 'rock star' culture where good people will produce good material for free (or as near to free as makes no difference) just for the recognition it gets them. I don't have the contacts, or willpower, to try that 'cash in' approach, even assuming it can be made to work.</p>
<p>Which is why I laughed at the idea my friend had that we could simply produce a mass of courses that people would pay good money for, when we had a competitor who already had many courses, that were, from what I'd seen, top notch. The only way I could see us being able to compete was perhaps on quality of the presentation collateral itself. I felt this could be improved in two areas: the slides themselves: where most Pluralsight training courses comprise slides of the tedious Powerpoint 'read the bullet-point out aloud' format that seem to dominate the whole of the Microsoft ecosphere; and by providing a transcript of the video material because nobody has time to go and revisit a 40 hour video course a few months later when they're trying to remember what they thought they'd learnt.</p>
<p>On balance, with such slim potential advantages, I told my friend that there was no way we could compete with Pluralsight.</p>
<h2>
Why We Couldn't Have Competed with Pluralsight</h2>
<p>Collateral issues aside (which they've since improved - eg they now provide transcripts for many of their courses), there was no way a new startup without <strong>significant</strong> venture capital funding could possibly compete with a company that had such high quality offerings, and at such a ridiculously low price, and with such high visibility in the world of Microsoft community through their partnership deals and user group sponsorships. It would be like Microsoft and Windows 8 trying to play catch up with Apple and the iPad. Much too little, much too late.</p>
<p>When I first looked at Pluralsight training a few years ago, I recall that the premium membership that included downloadable exercise code cost between 2000 and 3000 UKP a year, and the company had a much smaller range of courses than they have today. We could maybe have competed with them back then.</p>
<h2>
Why Pluralsight is a bargain</h2>
<p>But today, could we compete with them? No way! Here's why:</p>
<ul>
<li>They have a plethora of 'rock star' instructors, seemingly recruited through their innate ability (unlike Microsoft with their MVP program) to weed out the poseurs from those who really know their stuff and how to teach it.</li>
<li>They produce new courses on a seemingly endless basis (weekly!)</li>
<li>Their customer support is superlative, and it's not the 'lip service' that you get from other organisations (After I tweeted about a bad experience with Microsoft online training for WPF a couple of years ago I was mobbed by Microsoft employees wanting to help. Impressive, you might think. So I spent a weekend putting together a detailed critique of why the material was so bad and not 'fit for purpose'. Six months later I still hadn't had any feedback, and when I pointed out that 'support' appeard to be just 'lip service' was told 'The course was done by an outside partner - they haven't responded' which says all you need to know about what Microsoft understand about customer service vs what Pluralsight understand by it. Needless to say when I had some problems with iPad offline downloading of some courses, the Pluralsight approach was VERY different from Microsoft's and they dealt with the problem quickly and efficiently. They made me feel that I wasn't 'whinging' but had genuinely helped them and were thankful for raising the issue).
</li>
<li>They offer their entire online training catalogue at a price point that means it's a complete steal. About 300 UKP a year for far more training than you could possibly hope to consume. It's a bargain, trust me on this!</li>
<li>Their material is individually optimised for all the different bits of hardware that are out there. PC, you'd expect, but you want to run offline with an iPad or iPhone or an Android device? They can deal with that too.</li>
</ul>
<strong>The price vs value of what's offered is so ridiculous that if I were in the recruitment business I would seriously question hiring a freelance contractor who was too mean to pay for a year's subscription.</strong><br />
Yes, the company's offering is that good, and the only real problem with Pluralsight is that there just aren't enough hours in the day to consume everything they make available to their subscribers.</p>
<h2>
OK, so is there any alternative to Pluralsight?</h2>
<p>
If you're interested in Microsoft technlogy-focussed training, I'd say if there is I haven't found it. Pluralsight is a company that doesn't sit on its laurels and say 'We're the best'. Its seemingly one that continually asks itself 'How can we improve this?' and then actions the answers it receives. Whenever I've contacted support I've always had a timely response, usually followed by a fix that shows my issue has been taken seriously and dealt with as a matter of urgency. That's impressive!</p>
<p>
In some areas, notably the more 'open source' areas around basic HTML, CSS and jQuery, there are some better online courses out there (I'll be covering a company specialising in the Adobe space in next blog post later this week). I recently took advantage of the <strong><a href="http://www.codeschool.com/courses">Code School</a></strong> 'free weekend' where it was clear their material was far less dry and more involving, including interactive testing at the end of each course module to make sure you'd fully absorbed the material presented. But the number of courses offered is infinitely smaller for a fee that is essentially the same, and the focus is a LOT narrower than that of Pluralsight.</p>
<h2>
Some Specific Course Recommendations</h2>
<p>I should probably wrap up this 'way too long' post with some specific courses that for me have been highlights of the whole Pluralsight curriculum.</p>
<p>When learning <strong>LINQ</strong> I must have purchased every available book on the subject. I found almost all of them dry and uninvolving, clearly written by people who weren't natural teachers. To be brutally honest I didn't really 'get' LINQ (I'm old with a failing memory, sue me!) Pluralsight's course on the same subject from <strong>Scott Allen</strong> was like a breath of fresh air compared to these books. So many light bulbs lit up I became a strong advocate overnight. I can't recommend his course highly enough. I was so impressed with it I wasted weekends transcribing it so I had a handy reference guide I could use - it was that good!</p>
<img alt="Pluralsight screen offering screenshot" height="737" src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/Blog/2012-06/GoodStuff02_2012-06-04/PluralsightTranscript.jpg" width="570" />
<p>More recently I've completed <strong>Billy Hollis</strong>' 'User Experience' course and <strong>Shawn Wildermuth</strong>'s 'LESS and SASS for CSS' courses. Both are solid courses, aimed squarely at the Microsoft developer, which are fun, involving and for me also included several 'lightbulb' moments. They more than warrant the time spent on taking them and the cost of a Pluralsight subscription.<br />
Yesterday I started on <strong>Scott Allen</strong>'s 'Mobile jQuery' course, and the introduction alone did more to enthuse me than any number of books and long, dull blog posts on the same subject. It's another course written by someone with a deep undersanding of the technology, who knows how to condense and compress it into the essentials for developers who are time-pressed and struggling to stay up-to-date.</p>
<p>Bottom line: If you're a professional developer working in the Microsoft ecosystem, you really owe it to yourself to take out a Pluralsight subscription. There really is no excuse for not doing so!</p>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13442419547110456696noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4515527055682999868.post-20801799853821472392012-04-01T06:36:00.000-07:002012-04-01T06:48:52.799-07:00Good Stuff #1: TemplateMonster<img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/Blog/2012-04/GoodStuff01_2012-04-01/TemplateMonster1.jpg" alt="Template Monster blog screenshot" width="570" height="371"/>
<p>A few years ago when I was first starting out with Microsoft's Silverlight technology, good examples (other than tedious 'hello world' drag and drop demo-like nonsense which was at a very superficial level) was very hard to find.</p>
<p>Silverlight, to me, was about two things: "writing .NET code that could run in the browser" but, perhaps more importantly, about "adding 'the sexy' to user interfaces".</p>
<p>The problem was that it was very hard to find well documented 'sexy' examples where full source code was available.</p>
<p>In my search for good quality design-oriented examples I discovered the wonderful <strong><a href="http://templatemonster.com" alt="external link to TemplateMonster.com">TemplateMonster.com</a></strong> who, even as recently as last week, were continuing to produce interesting Silverlight designs for typical industry marketing web sites.</p>
<p>If you're a developer who doesn't 'get' design (but knows he needs it to 'sell' his product) TemplateMonster.com is a GREAT resource. And no, I don't just mean for 'dead man walking' Silverlight.</p>
<p>It's also a brilliant resource for learning the latest HTML5, JavaScript and jQuery tips and tricks. It appears to offer a 'best practice' set of framework code that designers who've worked with this stuff day-in, day-out have put together - at least if the few samples I've purchased are typical.</p>
<p>In theory, the site is there to provide templates or starter packs for web sites for different industry market sectors: "templates" that for the most part are intended to be used 'as is' or can be customised for an additional fee. But for developers they're a great way of finding great animation effects and cool new user experience designs. Designs that are clearly documented and include all source code, even down to the original layered Photoshop files for all icons and photos used. For the asking price of around 60 USD they're a steal - as a starter for your own web sites, or as a training vehicle for the newer web technologies!</p>
<p>If Silverlight is a 'dead man walking' you may wonder why I'm enthusing about TemplateMonster templates now. The thing is TemplateMonster.com don't just do Silverlight. They do HTML5 and what they call 'animated JavaScript' sites (as well as Facebook, Wordpress, Drupal, Flash and a whole host of templates for other stuff too).</p>
<p>They provide beautiful creations that are there for you to use as a starting point to learn the new technologies like HTML5 and CSS3 and responsive designs, for a very acceptable price.</p>
<p>The pricing model can appear a little strange for newcomers. You basically pay around USD60 for the source code for a given template that you purchase under a 'non exclusive' deal. This 'non exclusive' deal means others can purchase the same template at the same price. Or you can pay a lot more (typically around USD3000 - USD4000) to say 'I want this to be my new industry sector website. Don't sell it to anyone else.'</p>
<p>Just one warning if you decide to purchase. The company has recently taken to automatically adding the 'customise with my logo' option at around USD50 when you decide to purchase a template so don't get caught out like I did and end up paying double what you need to. Make sure you untick that option before purchase if you know how to edit HTML (and if you don't I'm not sure why you're reading this blog post!) otherwise you're going to end up paying double the price you thought you were going to pay.</p>
<p>As a learning resource for some of the coolest effects, animations and designs around I think the USD60 asking price for each template is a good deal, with most incorporating cool but subtle animation and sound effects for things like menu navigation, page transitions and other animated tricks.</p>
<p>If you sign up for the daily newsletter you get a daily email with the latest additions (typically there are 12 to 15 new templates a day!) and an extra 5% discount for that day's deals on top.</p>
<p>More importantly you get sent links to interesting blog post articles geared towards web designers that don't get posted elsewhere. For example this <strong><a href="http://blog.templatemonster.com/2012/03/28/css3-tutorials-2012/" title="link to article on best CSS3 tutorials">recent blog post on 'Painless techniques to implement CSS3 Latest Tricks'</a></strong> is a 'Must Read', comprising 30 of the best tutorials on sensational CSS3 effects that I've seen.</p>
<p>Customer support is excellent and if, like me, you're somewhat artistically challenged, a TemplateMonster template can make a great starting point for a sexy 'fast and fluid' new web site that makes it look like you have great design skills on top of your development skills too. Use new images and text in the existing source code and add new pages to the basic hierarchy you've given and people will never know your site was sourced from one of these templates. I strongly recommend checking the company out.</p>
<p>And yes, the new Fast and Fluid company web site which at the moment is an embarrassingly poor placeholder web site, is going to be replaced very soon - based on a sexy 'fast and fluid' design from the folks at <strong><a href="http://templatemonster.com" title="link to TemplateMonster.com">TemplateMonster.com</a></strong>. I'll post the details here when it's launched after I've integrated it into ASP.NET MVC 4.</p>
<img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/Blog/2012-04/GoodStuff01_2012-04-01/TemplateMonster2.jpg" alt="Template Monster blog screenshot" width="570" height="738"/>
<p><strong>Apology</strong>: I've only just discovered there were a bunch of replies (five) to my 'Reboot!' blog post from last week. Replies here are moderated to avoid spam (NOT to censure!) so apologies to those who took the time and trouble to make a comment that it's taken me so long to publish your comment. I'm trying to sort out why the auto-comment emails are not getting through. Thanks for your patience.</p>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13442419547110456696noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4515527055682999868.post-9743150245278237992012-04-01T05:53:00.001-07:002012-04-01T06:56:54.315-07:00Microsoft Windows 8 TechDay<p>Walking home from Microsoft's Windows 8 TechDays event, held in London last Friday, in the glorious sunshine (I left an hour before the end) I was thinking about how I could best blog about it without going into my 'default position' of posting yet another rant which attempted to explain the importance of learning the very basics around good presentation.</p>
<p>You'd think by now that Microsoft staff would not need a grandmother to tell them how to suck eggs. After all, it's not like Microsoft's own <strong>Scott Hanselman</strong> hasn't tweeted several times over the weekend about the availability of his own excellent <strong><a href="http://www.hanselman.com/blog/VIDEOTheArtOfSpeakingWithScottHanselman.aspx" title="link to Scott Hanselman video on Presentation tips">The Art of Speaking</a></strong> video course that is available, and was made availble free over the weekend through a 'free pass' offer from training company <strong><a href="http://tekpub.com/hanselman" title="TechPub video from Scott Hanselman">TekPub</a></strong>.</p>
<p>A developer launch event like this ('the biggest changes since we introduced Windows') is about the importance of invigorating your audience. It's about doing the basic prep work and understanding and knowing the slide deck you're about to present. It's about enthusing your audience to do the work needed to get ready for launch. It's about NOT boring everyone to death by just reading each slide or web site SDK sample out aloud.</p>
<p>Sadly, this event was not about any of these things, and was, as a result, a big fail on Microsoft's part.</p>
<p>I wish I could say I was surprised. But I've been to enough of these things now to know better. I really shouldn't have wasted the day in attending.</p>
<p>On the walk home I had decided it was probably best to just ignore the event and do my 'Sunday morning blog post' as the first in a kickoff to a quick series of short, sharp blog posts about stuff that I really CAN get excited about (that will appear later today :-)). The usual post-Microsoft event 'Brutal but honest' moans get rather monotonous for readers (especially Microsoft employees) and this writer after a while. And, after all, if Microsoft were going to change they'd have done so long before now. It's not like I haven't been carping on about the same basic 'easy to fix' things for months, years, even decades now!</p>
<p>But then I saw Microsoft re-tweet a tweet from one attendee (one out of over a hundred) saying this was the 'best Microsoft event' he'd been to.</p>
<p>To say I was staggered is an understatement. It was, of course, like red rag to a bull. So please accept my apologies if you're one of those readers waiting for a world of 'non-Microsoft' positivity blog posts from me: You'll have to wait just a few more hours yet.</p>
<p>Presumably the attendee who thought this was the 'best' presentation event had only been to one other Microsoft event (one that was even worse than this)? Either that or he is in a job he hates so much that any day out of the office that he still gets paid for is a good thing and he wanted his bosses to see his tweet so he could get another day out the next time another similar event rolls along? But to see Microsoft staff re-tweeting it as if it were fact and this had been a great event... I thought 'How can people delude themselves so much? Or is it perhaps that I am the one deluding myself at thinking how boring, dull, completely ineffectual and extremely amateur this event was?' A quick conversation with the Development Director at my current main client and a couple of other developers indicated, (phew!) that it was not me who was the one being self-delusional.</p>
<p>Yes, I know it really is time for me to move on and blog about stuff that fills me with enthusiasm rather than the endless 'Meh!' that is Microsoft Mediocrity in all its many shapes and forms. Mediocrity that these days it seems to me is there in every nook, cranny and fibre of the company's being. But, sorry folks, I'm afraid that 'best Microsoft presentation' tweet presented as if it were fact to the outside world means I couldn't resist one last quick post to 'correct' false impressions being given to those that weren't actually at the event.</p>
<p>You can blame this entire blog post on that one ridiculous re-tweet!</p>
<p>By the way, as an aside on the subject of Microsoft = Mediocrity, they say a picture speaks a thousand words so here's a picture of an otherwise impressive big video display promoting Windows Phone that was in the foyer area where all the event attendees congregated for coffee.</p>
<img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/Blog/2012-04/GoodStuff01_2012-04-01/CounterfeitingVictim.jpg" alt="Microsoft counterfeit software problem on their big exhibition stand" width="570" height="330"/><br />
(What the picture doesn't show is the 'Windows has not been activated' warning also appearing at the bottom of the massive display)</p>
<p>OK. So your job is to launch Windows 8 to the developer community and get them excited. I've worked in marketing for a computer company before. Windows 8 is not a hard sell if you concentrate on the positive, and ignore all the negative (mainly Metro vs Desktop schizophrenia and lack of quality control) We all know presenting to developers as an audience can be tough, but for the love of God at least make SOME effort when you've asked over a hundred people to take a day off work to learn about the 'biggest changes since we launched Windows'.</p>
<p>Putting your best, most respected, 'rock star' speaker on at the beginning (instead of the end so people can leave on a high note) and then just giving him the very basic overview stuff to cover is a nonsense. Use him for what he's best at - the detailed stuff that developers are interested in and need to be told about. Get him to cover the difficult stuff in the way audiences are used to, with clarity, comprehension and understanding. Don't waste him on the stuff an intern with a day's experience could do.</p>
<p>To follow that with a developer who has been given a set of designer-oriented slides intended for a different audience and which he seemingly hasn't had time to look at beforehand, and have him simply try and read the very few words on them out aloud as he progresses, because he doesn't really 'get' this funny UX stuff so can't speak passionately about it is just insulting your audience and wasting their time.</p>
<p>To follow that with a 'proper' developer presentation that started off so well but clearly had to be delivered when only the first third had been written added insult to injury, especially when the speaker suddenly realised he didn't have a clue what slides were coming next and had to start complaining he'd missed lunch as if that somehow explained the total confusion and endless audience yawns that inevitably resulted after what had been a good start. If I give a presentation to six people I make sure I know my slide deck and I rehearse. To not do so with an audience of over a hundred at what should be a major launch event is beyond being amateur - it's insulting!</p>
<p>But next up was the real clincher - the one that made me so angry (actually I'm at a point now where I just laughed, this sort of thing is so commonplace with Microsoft stuff) I left at the next break, an hour before the end of the event. The audience got an example that actually made me silently go "Yes! I was SO right to get out of this client-side crap from Microsoft and look elsewhere to a world of far less pain. A world where I can take some pride in what I do and not have to continually face end-client incredulity'....</p>
<p>The presenter complained that a new Windows 8 input textbox control (used on the Windows 8 SDK demo site, which was being used for demonstration purposes) kept moving the cursor away from where he was actually typing. There was no visual indication of where the text he was trying to input would appear. The mouse was consistently several characters away from where he was typing. He was trying to correct a typo and it was like trying to play a complicated maze game whilst drunk.</p>
<p>The presenter explained that he found this 'mouse isn't where I'm typing' behaviour 'annoying'! To which the ONLY intelligent response can be 'YOU find it annoying, and yet you expect your developer audience of millions to take this s***, use it in real world apps and have happy customers at the end?!?! WTF is in that Kool-Aid you're drinking?'. FFS. This is TOTALLY unacceptable. Just fix the f***ing thing already! How hard can it be? IT'S A SIMPLE TEXTBOX CONTROL!'.</p>
<p>I swear to God you couldn't make this stuff up! I kept pinching myself, expecting to wake up and find it all a bizarre, horrible dream. But no. No tweets about how nasty the control is and it MUST be fixed before release. No comment at all on how broken it is. Instead I see Microsoft re-tweeting a message from one attendee saying it was the best Microsoft event he'd attended.</p>
<p>Forgive my language - but this is un-f***ing-believable.</p>
<p>Look, I know it's nice to get a cool t-shirt for free. And the 'brown bag' lunch provided (also free) was nice too. And there were some nice attendee raffle prizes. But you (or, more likely, your boss) just lost a day's pay on this lazy, medicocre nonsense. What value did you really get out of it? Events like this should not be about the 'free stuff' - that's just the trimmings. From Microsoft's point of view the event should have been about invigorating their existing and potential new customers. It should certainly not have been about having so many of them complaining about how 'boring' the event was or leaving early, as so many seemed to be doing at the time when I left (early).</p>
<p>In fairness, I'm not sure what the Microsoft UK problem is - whether it's people who've been too long in the same job getting lazy, or just people stretched too thin because they're having too much to do without proper support or resources. It may be a problem where their feedback about quality (that shockingly bad textbox example) is ignored because of the American 'not invented here' syndrome. But I am pretty sure it will be the last Microsoft event I attend. Life's too short to put up with such mediocre s*** that would be so easy to fix, but which Microsoft over and over and over again have so frequently proved they're incapable of fixing. That 'best Microsoft presentation' tweet nonsense suggests that not only are the UK arm of the company incapable of fixing the problem, their way of dealing with it is just to deny it exists. Which is really, really sad and depressing.</p>
<p>(Good Stuff #1 will be posted later today to counteract all the negativity that Microsoft just seem to generate these days).</p>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13442419547110456696noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4515527055682999868.post-10532984132561544392012-03-24T18:58:00.000-07:002012-03-24T19:37:10.794-07:00Reboot (but first some parting shots ;-))<img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/Blog/2012-03/NewBeginnings_2012-03-24/Reboot1.jpg" alt="Reboot!, 24th March 2012" width="560" height="418" />
<p>It's four months since my last post. Yikes!</p>
<p>My last post was (again!) another rant around the directions and poor decision-making Microsoft were demonstrating with the killing off of Silverlight. A killing which Microsoft and their army of MVP (or MVP-wannabe) shill supporters were still publicly denying. I would add at this stage that I've worked exclusively with Microsoft technologies for over 16 years, so my rants are not those of a confused newbie.</p>
<p>However, whilst taking continual flack for pointing out that 'Silverlight is dead' I was actually still drinking the Microsoft Kool-Aid. The Microsoft shills I've upset over the last couple of years may scoff at the idea of this, but I think the name of my 'reboot' company makes it clear I was still addicted. 'Fast and Fluid' was the winner of the 'keyword bingo' phrase most used at the Microsoft 'Build' Conference keynote which launched Windows 8. My subsequent launch of 'The Daily Report' highlighting and promoting the best new articles around the early preview release of Metro and Windows 8 show that like a drug addict looking for his next fix I was still hooked on the marketing drugs I was being given, even whilst publicly criticising them. My bad!</p>
<p>Once an addict, always an addict I guess, and Microsoft and their 'community' of 'rock star' supporters sure make it hard to break the addiction, or even stop for a minute to think and realise that 'actually, the Emporer's got no clothes', even when all the evidence around you is screaming 'He's completely naked'.</p>
<p>Simple maths showed the time and effort needed to research 'The Daily Report' was simply not worthwhile given the number of daily hits. Higher profile bloggers would Direct Message me congratulating me on the blog which was flattering, but never publicly doing the same or even revealing its existence (Jeremy Likness is probably the sole exception that proves the rule). Even with my thick skin I realised that my involvement in the whole 'Silverlight is dead and they're not telling you the truth' controversy meant I was suddenly the 'fart in the space suit' of Microsoft community - apparently a 'loose cannon' that couldn't be relied on to carry the 'correct' message.</p>
<p>So this blog quietly went dark while I concentrated on finding work that paid good money and resulted in less controversy and lower blood pressure instead!</p>
<p>Thankfully I found a new client that involved working with an interesting, worthwhile and 'real' project written in Silverlight after two years of tedious, vanity 'proof of concept' Silverlight applications for different organisations that should never have been written in Silverlight in the first place: projects that highlighted out-of-control IT departments squandering business money to play with shiny new toys instead of delivering what the business wanted and needed and was paying for. Projects that did nothing to make me feel good about the work I was doing. Things seemed to be back on track at last, but given the short-term nature of the work (the client quickly realised that they would be better off using a platform that had more 'reach' than Silverlight had) I quietly started re-evaluating my 16 years working exclusively with Microsoft tech. The problem is that although it's a great technology Silverlight is terrible at 'reach' even if it did start off life with promises that it would be "WPF/EVERYWHERE".</p>
<p>The WPF "Everywhere" marketing bullshit, at a time when one person was trying to make initial guesses at what it might be, is indicative of the problem I have with Microsoft. A problem that might politely be described as being somewhat flexible with regards to defining what the word 'truth' actually means. There have been countless other examples of this problem over the years, although I am continually surprised at how quickly people forget. Am I really the only living person who remembers all those Visual Interdev/Visual Studio keynote launches where Scott Guthrie or some other poor fool would get up and announce 'We have JavaScript debugging working in our new release' to great rounds of applause... only to have to announce the exact same thing the next release round... and again the release after it. Or the 'We've fixed the XAML designer in Visual Studio so it actually works' as a more modern variant of the pattern. The most obvious example of the problem of course is that decades old chestnut 'We now have proper W3C standard support in our browser' (check the HTML5 feature compatibility charts, people - it's not rocket science to see which browser is the WORST, even in its '12 months before public release shiny new tech preview' version!) These are just simple examples of the sort of 'truth' Microsoft is happy to put out in the lead up to product launches. Claims that unfortunately in today's world of social networking get amplified as fact a million times over in the circle-jerk that is sold as 'Microsoft community'. It's not like the lessons and evidence aren't there for anyone to find and reveal! But we live in a lazy 'follow the sheep and don't question anything' world, and it's easy to get hooked on the Microsoft Kool-Aid marketing drugs when the message is so loudly and often repeated on blogs and Twitter that it seems like the whole world is speaking with one true voice. Everyone's saying it, so it must be the truth, right?!</p>
<p>Three years ago I sparked outrage in a pub conversation following a user group meeting when I said that the phrase 'user group' was now a meaningless term that described a strategic alliance between Microsoft and a partner company, usually one wanting special favours and thinking it would get them by taking on the burden of organising a promotional group, pre-announcing its formation, rather than genuine users getting together to try and improve products, raise awareness and feedback common sense. I was told I was being 'paranoid' and 'hysterical' in suggesting that such user groups were not as altruistic as they should be. The disappearance of so many Microsoft-oriented London user groups over the last 18 months simply because Microsoft cut off its funding shows that my 'hysterical' warnings that these were not real, sustainable user groups or genuine communities but instead a strategic controlling of 'community' by Microsoft prove my point I think!</p>
<p>But people forget the history lessons, and Microsoft seem happy for them to do so. It enables them to keep repeating the mistakes of the past, which until now they have been able to get away with because their monopoly position and the abundant supply of gullible new recruits ready to fall for it hook, line and sinker has enabled them to do so. The trouble is that in the era of the iPhone and the tablet (aka the iPad) those gullible new recruits are not growing at the same rate they used to. Microsoft fell behind quite some time ago, and each new decision they make seems to put them further and further behind in the desperate rush to play 'catch up' with a competitor who seems to outpace them at every turn.</p>
<p>One high profile blogger pointed out at the end of last year that I seemed 'bitter' where Microsoft and the way it had 'shat on' its Silverlight developers were concerned (sorry for the language, but there really is no other way to describe what they did, using lies and obfuscation every step of the way: from pretending Chief Technical Architect and Silverlight champion Ray Ozzie had simply moved division when they knew he'd left, to suggesting Bob Muglia had spoken out of turn when he told a journalist about the Silverlight 'change of emphasis', to promising to reveal what the future of Silverlight was at Build (and then refusing to do so). The blogger had a point - but in my defence, it's hard not to be bitter when you've spent so much unpaid time and effort based on Microsoft lies about their 'strategic' direction, only to continually have them refuse to come clean about their real intent long after it's been publicly exposed. How many useless, broken, rushed-to-market, world-of-pain 'shiny new toy' technologies do you have to endure, repeating this endless unpaid learning curve cycle, before you realise you're being screwed and working untold hours for free just to help Microsoft sell stuff that's just not fit for purpose?! In my case, with 16 years of Microsoft experience behind me, far too many. And I've really got nobody to blame but myself for believing shills and self-aggrandising charlatans calling themselves 'community leaders' instead of trusting to gut instinct based on experience and the available facts. In one sense I suppose I should be grateful for the 'Silverlight is not dead' bullshit and the mess that is Windows 8 that helped me realise the depth of my self-delusion, or I might still be stuck in the same exasperating version of 'Microsoft Groundhog Day' that signifies burn-out and continual disappointment as the reality vs hype gulf of unbelievably mediocre products gets continually re-exposed.</p>
<p>Another high profile MVP said on a couple of occasions last year that he didn't understand why I didn't just abandon Microsoft as I clearly hated them so much. Apparently at the age of 54 switching a 16 year career of experience in Microsoft-centric enterprise development and finding gainful employment elsewhere should be as simple as writing on my CV 'I've got no real world experience in xxxx, but I've been playing with it in my spare time and want to switch away from Microsoft so please pay me enough to pay all my bills'. Yeah, right! I mean I know Microsoft MVPs have ther own reality distortion fields, but come on! It's my own fault of course - if only I was prepared to compromise and sell my soul to earn my 30 pieces of silver living as a Microsoft 'partner' working on showcase 'demo' nonsense for new shiny toys every few months, instead of trying to earn a living doing real work in the real world for real clients paying considerable sums of money, life would obviously be so much easier!</p>
<p>All the 'hater' and 'whiner' name-calling I've received for pointing out quite obvious lies ('Silverlight is not dead', 'We've been working on Windows 8 and Metro for three years', 'Silverlight is installed on 60% of all internet-connected devices', 'Windows Phone 7 is selling well', 'Windows 8 is awesome') would be mildly amusing if the shills doing the name-calling weren't being so utterly hypocritical. How many of those Silverlight MVPs so strongly insisting 'Silverlight is not dead' 6 months ago have done anything other than write fresh blog posts, training and conference talks on Silverlight's main 'rival' HTML5 technologies? I can count those still blogging on Silverlight, the sole subject for their output for the previous two years before the 'Silverlight is dead' furour went public, on the finger of one.... finger (Thanks for keeping the faith Jeremy!) But heh, Silverlight's not dead. No, honestly. Come back. It's not dead. Really! Trust me on this (whispers: can I have my MVP renewal and any other goodies you've got now, Microsoft?)</p>
<p>An apology of some sort from those 'community leaders' who've so wilfully denied the facts and led 'community' down a blind alley of wasted expense and pain should surely be in order? But no, they keep schtum, hoping that nobody will notice that the 'haters' and 'whiners' insisting Silverlight was being killed off were right all along. After all, people remember who were the 'whiners' and 'haters' more than they remember what it was they were hating or whining about, or who subsequently was proved to be right or wrong! And there's plenty more pieces of silver to be made by travelling along with the Microsoft marketing gravy train - at least until it runs totally dry. Walk this way folks, we've got Windows 8 and Metro to be promoted and there's lots of new gravy to go round!</p>
<p>Let me be quite clear on this: Windows 8 is an immature world of pain. More importantly, it's a schizophrenic mess of an operating system that makes Vista look like a shining beacon of light and end users will hate it as they get endlessly thrown around from 'Metro' mode to 'desktop' mode and back again. It's a Frankenstein's monster of an operating system. The rush to cannibalise iOS and compete with the iPad whilst still carrying Windows users forwards has over-ridden common sense, so more fool you if you're wasting hours and hours of unpaid time helping Microsoft sell their 'new' rushed-to-market and incomplete Windows 8 and underlying Windows RT API as if it were in any way ready for prime time. Good luck with all those missing APIs and the 'everything's asynchronous' world that means everything you wrote and which is 'easily converted' (if you've got hours, days, weeks of free time to spare) works completely differently from the way it used to work. This mug's played this game one time too often, and the toys may be pretty in the same way a turd with varnish on looks shiny, and the marketing drug may be addictive, but deep-down we all know how this mess will end up. Expect Windows 9 to be 'rushed' out in 18 months to 2 years time to magically 'fix the problems' and prove 'totally awesome' and a 'Google/Apple/Adobe -beater'. It's all so tedious and predictable, based on past performance!</p>
<p>Next week I'm going to a Microsoft TechDays event promoting Windows 8! You're probably thinking "WTF? After all you've just written?" Unfortunately, the reality of day-to-day business means the bills get paid by pretending that sometimes shit is not TOO far away from gold (heck, they're the same sort of colour, kinda!), or at the very least be up-to-speed on what the marketing messages being dished out are. But the reality is that three years too late I'm trying to jump onto other gravy trains - trains where there's real demand and attempts at achieving real quality especially in the user experience department, and real conviction instead of endless, mindless shill fabrication and twisting of facts. Hopefully they're not gravy trains that require endless unpaid hours trying to get just the most basic stuff doing what it's supposed to do. Fingers crossed, and maybe I'm deluding myself, but the initial signs are good!</p>
<p>So this blog is being rebooted as of today, and it's going to see a change of direction. I'm NOT going to be blogging about Windows 8 because, quite frankly, none of my clients seem to care about it and none of them appear to believe the hype that Microsoft are putting out. While shills keep talking about Enterprise 'still being on XP' and 'always slow to adapt new technologies', my Enterprise clients have been working with iPads and iPhones and rushing into new technology at a far quicker pace than used to be the case four or five years ago. They see no future in a weaker, copycat 'jam tomorrow' product over better products that have been in the marketplace for a few years, especially one that's so obviously been rushed to market as a too-late knee-jerk reaction to a competitor's success.</p>
<p>I AM going to be blogging about learning new technologies. My early tentative steps with HTML5, CSS3, jQuery and JavaScript technologies have been a real eye-opener (they've moved on - a LOT since I last worked with them) and got me excited about programming again, in a way I haven't been for years. Finally!</p>
<p>My first experiments with Objective C and iOS programming have got me even more excited. Talking to other developers who've made the switch from .NET to iOS all I hear is 'I wish I'd done this earlier.' Admittedly it's early days, and it's like going back to school again. But I feel more positive about my career and the industry I work in than I have since I left the mainframe environment 20 years ago (where the word 'legacy' was used to refer to technologies that were DECADES old, not WEEKS old as tends to be the case with anything Microsoft). If you're still not convinced, ask yourself this question: what other company could pat itself on the back and brag over and over again about the death of one of its own products, the way Microsoft has with Internet Explorer 6?!</p>
<p>I'll be using this blog to document my steps and learning experience as I branch out. I can't promise it will be in-depth or deeply technical at this early stage. But I can promise that it will be honest and independent, to the point of being positively brutal if it needs to be. When was the last time you could say that about ANYTHING written by a Microsoft MVP blogger? Enough said!</p>
<p>So. In summary (finally!) welcome to the reboot! It's time to put all the negativity around Microsoft behind me and move on to fresh pastures. For those who started following this blog because of an interest in Windows 8 and Metro: I hope you stick along with me for the ride. There's a world of exciting opportunities out there, and they don't all involve having to park your brain at the door and simply swallow whatever marketing crap you're being given by Microsoft and its shills! I hope you'll stick around.</p>
<img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/Blog/2012-03/NewBeginnings_2012-03-24/Reboot2.jpg" alt="Reboot!, 24th March 2012" width="560" height="418" />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13442419547110456696noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4515527055682999868.post-77274066148383117382011-10-26T08:34:00.000-07:002011-10-26T08:48:23.204-07:00Daily Review #15: Windows Phone, Nokia World... and Business Ethics<img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/2011-10/Headers/DailyReview_2011-10-26.jpg" alt="The Daily Review - 26th October 2011" width="560" height="350"/><br />
<font size="1">Photo © <a href='http://www.dreamstime.com/Smithore_info'>Bidouze Stéphane</a> | <a href='http://www.dreamstime.com/'>Dreamstime.com</a></font><br /><br />
<h2>Revisiting Windows Phone</h2>
<p>If you're wondering where I've been for the last week or so, I've had my head buried in Windows Phone.</p>
<p>I know, I know... I've often said I regard the whole Windows Phone thing as a huge failure, that Windows Phone is something that nobody apart from a few Microsoft Silverlight shills and MVPs with vested interests care about. The product is a classic example of 'Microsoft silo' development and tactical thinking: Over promise, Under deliver, and Deliver late.</p>
<p>The classic Microsoft approach meant we got a 'strategic' product launch that mainly consisted of blind panic and under-achievement, without even the basics of common sense, planning or even a basic consistent marketing vision statement ('Its a product specifically for the consumer market.... (beat)... but it's for business too') being put in place.</p>
<p>But when there are bills to be paid and, as one recruitment agency recently put it to me, "You're a Silverlight developer - and that market completely died four weeks ago. There's nothing out there!" what's a guy to do?! Windows Phone uses Silverlight.... kinda, and maybe there's Phone work available out there that's real as opposed to 'partner' work for Microsoft marketing?!</p>
<p>Windows Phone developers are, as one agent told me back in May, "rarer than rocking horse shit" and were able to command a ridiculously high daily rate IF THEY COULD SHOW THEY HAD PROVEN EXPERIENCE.</p>
<p>Five months on, and that agent's story has changed. "There's no interest at all at the moment. All the mobile work is ios and Android. The market for Windows Phone developers seems to have gone the same way as that for Silverlight: There is zero interest. Na-da. The market's dead!"</p>
<p>So why would I be considering moving from one dead end (Silverlight) to another (Windows Phone), and looking at putting yet more hours of my own unpaid time training up on Microsoft short-term fixes like Windows Phone 7 (we all know that a rewrite based on Windows RT is coming, right?!)? Well, like I said, bills need to be paid, Windows 8 and real Metro apps are more than a year away, and with a general absence of Windows Phone developers, Silverlight developers are apparently the next best thing if you are a company that's decided for some reason that they need to do Windows Phone development.</p>
<p>The contract I was asked to tender for was for a fleet delivery management company, and despite my concerns over the Windows Phone aspect, it had a few obvious advantages (although primarily one of being able to pay the bills!)</p>
<p>It offered the advantage of being able to work largely from home (a must, given that the client was in the middle of nowhere with an expensive taxi ride from the nearest station on top of long and expensive rail and tube journeys, and great for my new 'go to the gym and get more exercise' regimen!) It also offered the opportunity to work with shiny new stuff like <strong>DevExpress</strong> controls (I am so tired of trying to defend <strong>Telerik</strong> controls when other developers and the business get upset about how buggy and awful they are because the client just assumed they were the only choice).</p>
<p>The contract work also included development of a new desktop WinForms application in .NET 4 using LINQ, SQL Server 2008 and a simple ORM <strong>AutoMapper</strong> that I haven't worked with before too.</p>
<p>I saw this as essentially a chance to build up 'non-silverlight' expertise on a project that was going to be real, rather than some silly short-term vanity project for a company with more money than sense who were using Silverlight inappropriately for what the real business requirements were (which, sadly, has been the case for most of my Silverlight contract work). How could I resist?</p>
<p>Some alarm bells did go off at the start of the interview process to win the business though. The worst part of any contract negotation, and the common gripe of most self-employed developers, is having to deal with recruitment agencies to find the work. These agencies act as the interface between client and supplier but seem to do nothing but get in the way of a business they don't understand, whilst commanding a big fat percentage of earnings for the duration of the contract for having done little other than get in the way. In this instance, I hate that former clients get hassled for references before even the passing on of a CV to a potential client will take place, and I normally refuse to allow this, but in the current economic climate beggars can't be choosers.</p>
<p>This contacting of referees is not a good or even professional approach, and it risks the goodwill of people who get no direct benefit from being hassled. If it happens more than once, as it will do if agencies all insist they have to do it before even submitting a CV, they will typically turn around and refuse to help in future, but what can you do?! In this instance I agreed to bend my own rules, referees were contacted, and I was then awarded an interview with the agency itself before the CV could be submitted to the client.</p>
<p>This time around, the first interview in the contract negotiation process consisted of me travelling across London 'suited and booted' to brief an enthusiastic young recruitment agency consultant from another office than was actually dealing with the contract on what was new in Windows 8, but heh, at least I got a day out, right?! And, to be honest, I'm always impressed when an agency actually takes the time to meet a supplier and interview them before passing on their details to an end-client, even if it represents additional time and cost on my part.</p>
<p>When I got to interview with the client themselves they were friendly and enthusiastic. The sort of people I could easily work with and enjoy working with. They were going Windows Phone because... well they wanted to work with WCF Services because the existing code that the phone would be talking to used it, and so Windows Phone seemed like the sensible option. In trying to find out a little about the existing application (still about to go live after a year's work by contractors rewriting a very old application fraught with issues - no agile, frequent iteration, releases here!) the statement that interface-based development had been a mistake and a late change to use base classes instead, seemingly because of some problems with AutoMapper, set off the first alarm bell. Another was the otherwise knowledgeable technical lead's complete belief in domain driven development but confession that he'd never heard of the CQRS pattern.</p>
<p>The final little alarm bell was the fact that the company had won, and was now servicing, a major contract with a big household name recovery service which had been won based on the fact they already had a traffic management system in place. This was the same traffic management system that I was going to need to write from scratch as quickly as possible because the household name now wanted to see it. I found this a little worrying in the 'business ethics' department. But it does seem that's the way most businesses operate these days . Presumably I should have gone to the interview bragging of non-existent Windows Phone contracts and experience I'd got to ensure I got the business that was being offered!</p>
<p>So I've been buried in two big fat Windows Phone books (good stuff from <strong>Charles Petzold</strong> and <strong>Adam Nathan</strong>) as well as some excellent Windows Phone courses by <strong>Pluralsight</strong> (I can't recommend subscribing to their online training highly enough - it's a steal at the asking price). I've also been rushing to put together in my own time, and at my own cost, a crude prototype of the delivery system the company needed 'yesterday'. Hence no 'Daily Report' updates over the last week (I HAVE been collecting and reviewing Windows 8 -oriented links, so there will be a 'catch-up' daily report later in the week)</p>
<p>Last Friday morning I was sent the draft contract to start paid work on Monday, and I spent most of the day faffing around with all the usual requested paperwork, insurance, company formation documents, VAT registration etc before getting a call at 4.30pm on Friday requesting that the referees who'd been contacted by the agent now call the client directly to recommend me again, and that I prepare an urgent email explaining why my company really was the company to do the job.</p>
<p>It turns out that the agency hadn't had exclusive supply, as they'd been lead to believe, and that on Friday morning, after asking for the paperwork to be raised for my Monday start, the client had interviewed another supplier and now couldn't make up their mind who to go with.</p>
<p>I could write pages and pages on the 'business ethics' of the approach taken, and would defend the agency involved were it not for the fact that after making me jump through hoops on Friday afternoon and evening, there has been a deafening silence since. (Update: late Wednesday after getting hold of the agency rep who'd promised to call on Monday they're apparently not getting their calls returned by the end client so have nothing new to report).</p>
<img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/2011-10/PullQuotes/2011-10-26_ExitStrategy_PullQuote.gif" alt="Trying to find a Microsoft exit strategy whilst still paying the bills" width="560" height="185" /><br /><br />
<p>Anyway, I digress with this talk of business ethics and agency handling. The point I wanted to make in this post is that I've had to revisit Windows Phone, and it's not been a bad time to do it with the release of <strong>Mango</strong> just a week or two ago (aka <strong>Windows 7.5</strong>, or if you're a developer using Visual Studio: Windows Phone Tools 7.1 - yup, Microsoft really can't organise a piss-up in a version naming brewery can they?!)</p>
<p>Windows 8 and the whole Metro look and feel comes from Windows Phone so it's been interesting to 'catch up' after initial interest in the marketing that kicked off early last year, but quickly evaporated once the reality of what Microsoft were doing set in around June last year.</p>
<p>Last night I attended the first Windows Phone User Group meeting I've attended since their inaugral meeting over a year ago. That meeting, co-incidentally, was what made me go out and upgrade my Apple iPhone 3 to an iPhone 4 the very next morning rather than wait for Windows Phone as it was hosted by Microsoft marketeers twisting the big vision of 'It's a consumer device' with additions like '... but it's for business too' and telling us all how open the new Microsoft was, whilst also telling us we couldn't tweet or blog about such bland 'secrets' as how long they were hoping to make the turnaround time in the App store, or what the demo phone (already posted all over the internet by Microsoft employees in the States) looked like!</p>
<p>As an interesting aside, I tweeted about the Microsoft 'secrecy' nonsense (I say 'nonsense' because I believe it's a deliberate marketing trick Microsoft use to make 'partners' feel 'special' - and it's really, really lame!) with a 'rolls eyes' comment. Remember that this was a so-called 'independent user group' inaugral meeting for which nobody had signed any non-disclosure statements. As a result of my sarcastic tweets about how 'open' the 'new Microsoft' were proving themselves to be, the UK's phone evangelist tweeted me next day, saying it sounded like we needed to talk and he'd be in London the next week: Could we meet? I said sure, but since I was about to launch a new video podcast, could we make the meet an interview on camera about Windows Phone? I think you can guess what the response was (answer: deafening silence and no meeting!)</p>
<p>One of the other things that had really put me off the Windows Phone at that initial user group meet were the user demo's of apps for the app store which Microsoft said would certainly get approved. Of the five applications demo'ed by their developers one (from a Microsoft partner) was very slick and professional, the others were like bad hobbyist apps from the late 70's - complete with a microcomputer-like user interface. What happened to the 'superior UX' that was the whole raison d'être of the new phone?</p>
<p>A large part of the problem of course was the lack of the crucial pivot and pan controls at the time (which eventually showed up long after the original Visual Studio Tools add-in for phone development, not very long before product launch). But the confirmation that simple Microsoft greed meant that these apps would get approved for the App Store just to be able to boast as large a number as possible of apps, regardless of quality or cost or consistency showed that the whole Windows Phone 'consistent UX' vision was now completely lost. The enthusiasm I had for the new OS at those first demo's in February/March last year (at last! something that isn't an Apple iPhone rip-off!) completely evaporated in minutes.</p>
<p>No vision, no consistent marketing message, no free phones for developers to work with (even for those of us who coughed up 3 grand to get to MIX on the promise of one) - Microsoft were taking the piss, and when you've been as burnt as I have by all the drag and drop marketing lies over the years, experience indicated it was most definitely time to walk away. I think Ballmer's own admission 18 months on that the phone sales have been much lower than expected, together with the low profits developers who rushed to get apps into the App Store have made because of its pitifully low take-up, shows who in the user group room that night was right, and who was wrong!<br/>:-P.</p>
<p>Last night's more informal meeting in the basement of a pub was far more encouraging, even though the main presenter was the same Microsoft evangelist who spoke at the inaugral meeting, and one got the impression that there really are still just less than a handful of people doing anything real with the phone with the evangelist on first name terms with all of them. It does look like Mango has provided the basics for what should have been there from day one, and the two apps demonstrated looked far more like real apps than the nonsense I'd been shown a year before. There was even talk of having some basic phones available for developers who wanted to develop for the phone but didn't have the cash to pay for a real device. It seems that after the huge failure of the phone over the last 18 months (despite all those shills and MVPs over-promoting it for all they're worth, together with some pretty good reviews from the genuinely independent media who really don't have any particular axe to grind) Microsoft appears to have at least lost the arrogance it displayed at that inaugral user group meeting with all its insistence about what could or couldn't be tweeted or blogged, and that can only be a good thing.</p>
<p>But the main message I took away from the meeting and my own research of available hardware the day before, was that Windows Phone hardware is still some way away from being ready for prime time so far as the general public are concerned (Nokia's phones announced today at <strong>Nokia World</strong> are claiming to change that - which I'll comment on in a moment) and I find it astonishing that only one piece of hardware available in the UK (the brick-like <strong>HTC Titan</strong>) actually has the gyroscope that was being much touted for future app usage at last night's meeting - a fact that is consistently avoided in any of the hardware marketing, spec sheets or Windows Phone product reviews I've seen.</p>
<p> More interestingly, in three separate conversations with different self-employed developers I heard the same story - of developers struggling to 'find a strategy as quickly as possible for exiting Microsoft development whilst still paying the bills with contract work that requires proven experience with a technology'. It seems I'm not alone in my position and long-term view of where Microsoft are headed!</p>
<p>This morning, with the keynote launch of the two-day <strong>Nokia World</strong> here in London, we got news of the two new Nokia Windows phones, already widely leaked last week. The shills would have us believe that these will (just like Mango was supposed to!) turn everything around for Windows Phone.</p>
<p>In all honesty, I don't know if the two new phones will help, although certainly the Nokia support after Dell and the Three network jumped ship, will help raise the profile. Certainly the top-of-the-range model, The <strong>Lumia 800</strong> is the first Windows smartphone that even attempts to compete with the likes of Apple and Android hardware. And the marketing from Nokia has been superb - the sort of marketing that Microsoft should have had in place over a year ago. It's impressive that most of the main online stores and carriers, as well as Nokia themselves, have marketing material up and are taking pre-orders for the phone (due 16th November) within hours of the official announcement.</p>
<p>But will the Nokia name be enough? I actually like the phone O.S. - especially now that it's Silverlight 4 in its Mango form, rather than the hacked version of Silverlight 3 with some bits taken out, some bits from Silverlight 4 hacked in, and some new bits just for phone added in too, that it was in its original incarnation. But the hardware needs to be sexy if the O.S. is to have wide take-up, and while the new Lumia 800 certainly looks sexy (it should - it's a complete steal of the Apple iPod Nano!) it is fundamentally flawed in two ways: it has no front-facing camera (forget the poor quality typically associated with second camera's on a phone - yoof don't care about picture quality - they just want to take pictures of themselves and their mates for Facebook and be able to pre-viz and frame them correctly) and it has a pitiful 16GB memory (more like 12GB when you subtract what's used by the O.S.) with no expansion facilities at all. 12GB in a world where people want to carry around their music and video collections is woefully inadequate!</p>
<p>And none of the Nokia phones will be available in the States until some time next year (Europe effectively becomes a trial market for the real one in case the phones stiff!)</p>
<p>So, overall even after Nokia's big announcements Windows Phone remains a bit of a "Meh!" from me. Will I waste any more time on this 'stopgap to Windows RT' version of the phone O.S. as a result of what Nokia revealed today? Sadly not. And that's the big missed opportunity in my view.</p>
<p>And, yet again, it's an example of 'too little too late' with Microsoft running out of time with generation -1 products while their competition are already preparing generation+1 products.</p>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13442419547110456696noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4515527055682999868.post-73697253650480547602011-10-14T07:37:00.000-07:002011-10-14T17:45:59.598-07:00Daily Review #14: XAML, HTML and MVP Hypocrisy<img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/2011-10/Headers/DailyReview_2011-10-12.jpg" alt="The Daily Review - 12th October 2011" width="560" height="350"/><br />
<font size="1">Photo © <a href='http://www.dreamstime.com/Photojay_info'>Jason Schulz</a> | <a href='http://www.dreamstime.com/'>Dreamstime.com</a></font><br /><br />
<h2>XAML, HTML and MVP Hypocrisy</h2>
<p>First off, welcome back and apologies for being 'off air' on the blog for so long. Life gets complicated sometimes and a lot has happened since the last 'Daily Report'.</p>
<p>Technology -wise perhaps most notable while I've been away has been the <strong>release of the iPhone 4s</strong>, the deaths of <strong>Steve Jobs</strong> (Apple founder and figurehead) and <strong>Dennis Ritchie</strong> (co-creator of UNIX and C) - and of course the usual 'echo chamber' Shill reaction to all of this.</p>
<p>'Shill' does seem a rather harsh phrase to throw around, and I've had some MVPs get very upset with me about my liberal use of the word. Not all MVPs are unpaid Microsoft shills of course, but as time goes on it's becoming more and more evident to me that the vast majority are - whether they're prepared to admit it or not.</p>
<p>The last seven days have really brought home to me that if anything I've been too diplomatic in not pointing out that most MVPs are just unpaid (well actually an MVP award and its perks isn't exactly unpaid when you look at it) shills is an accurate one. Nowhere has this been more evident than in the endless tweets around the Apple iPhone 4s vs the Windows Phone 7 Mango release, and, far more alarmingly, the whole debate over whether one should focus on HTML or XAML when writing Metro Style apps for the new Windows 8 operating system.</p>
<p>When Silverlight MVPs tweet endlessly about XAML in the new Metro world being a 'first class citizen' and 'the one true way', whilst simulatenously starting to blog for the first time about JavaScript, or tweet about new courses and books they're writing on this HTML5 feature, or that HTML5 feature, it's very hard not to add the word 'hypocrite' to the term 'shill'.</p>
<p>It's proven that there is a distinct lack of any sort of real independence from those keen to curry favour with Microsoft and either (a) get their MVP status renewed, or (b) keep their careers through working for companies whose ONLY source of income seems to be writing demo applications for Microsoft (no names, but it's glaringly obvious who these companies are!)</p>
<p>The reason I beat on about shills so much ("We shill overcome" t-shirts coming soon?) is that this whole ridiculous, brown-nosing, "got to stay 'in' with Microsoft, whatever happens" so-called 'community' culture is a large part of the reason Microsoft are in the sorry shape they are in now. You really don't want to surround yourself with nothing but 'yes' men if you're in trouble and want to find out whether what you're doing is anywhere near approaching what the market wants and needs or not!</p>
<p>And, sadly, there's a complete lack of any kind of 'real world' common sense in all the re-blogged and re-tweeted marketing rhetoric.</p>
<p>Too harsh? Let me pose a few questions you might want to ask these shills who, when you complain, won't fail to point out how they work so tirelessly on your behalf, in their own time (Hmmmm), for 'nothing' (double hmmmm - have you seen the perks you get as an MVP, or as a company doing demo apps for Microsoft?) whilst maintaining their integrity ;-))</p>
<p>Did you hear any of these folk, who have been continually hyping up Windows Phone 7 as if people actually cared or had bought it, tweet or blog the link to Steve Ballmer admitting sales were significantly lower than expected?</p>
<p>In their 'independent' Windows Phone 7 tweets and news did you hear any of them mention the story that Dell, whose Windows Phone 7 series phone they were so keenly over-hyping a year ago, has decided to drop Windows Phone 7?</p>
<p>Did any one of them carry the story that 2 weeks ago the Three network in the UK accidentally tweeted that they were no longer going to offer Windows Phone 7 handsets?</p>
<p>Did you hear anything other than how lame, useless and disappointing the 'competing' (erm. It's only competition when you actually have some market share, Windows Phone 7 fans!) Apple iPhone 4s is?</p>
<p>By the way, that's the Apple iPhone 4s which has the largest pre-orders in phone history - yes, a lot bigger even than the iPhone 4!</p>
<img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/2011-10/PullQuotes/2011-10-12_iPhone4sSales_PullQuote.gif" alt="iPhone 4s sold more in 24 hours than Windows Phone 7 in a year" width="560" height="130" /><br /><br />
<p>The responses to the launch of the iPhone 4s, just like those when the iPhone and iPad were first released, are as depressingly predictable as they are laughable, and nobody seems to be learning from the lessons of the past and pushing for change or any kind of reality check at Microsoft or within its shill 'partnerships'. This 'circle jerk' (I'm too annoyed to use the politer term 'echo chamber') mentality really needs to stop before the last shill standing who's actually got a real job realises he's sat in a circle of one!</p>
<p>And then these people get upset when I point out EXACTLY what they are - shills for Microsoft. How is it possible to call them anything else, given their biased, one-sided reporting that endlessly promotes just one company and its products, or those that feed off it, and constantly denigrates alternative, superior offerings?</p>
<p>There are MVP exceptions to my generalisation of course, but I'm struggling to count them on more than the fingers of one... erm finger (Hello anyway, Jeremy. And thanks for pointing out some of the independent posts and tweets instead of burying your head in the sand, pretending it's not there as pretty much all of your fellow MVPs do).</p>
<p>But, what really annoys is not the lack of vision outside a very narrow Microsoft Marketing one - after all we all need to make a buck and need gainful employment - but the total hypocrisy that is often so clearly evident when these people try to defend what they're doing to make their Microsoft bucks.</p>
<p>The constant referral to anybody who dares point out Apple makes stuff that's pretty good and very popular as 'Apple fanboi's, from a group constantly touting the 'success' of a phone (Windows Phone 7) nobody in the real world has bought or cares about is bad enough.</p>
<p>But then there's the whole HTML vs XAML 'Silverlight isn't dead' nonsense they've been pushing for a year now, and still keep pushing, with anyone who dares to point out any kind of reality instantly dismissed as 'negative' or 'bitter' or 'a hater' or 'a trouble-maker' or any other kind of insult they see fit. By comparison the term 'shill' seems positively polite!</p>
<p>To believe these folk, Silverlight isn't dead because the future is XAML, a true first-class citizen in the world of Windows 8. So 'first class' in fact that nearly all the downloadable samples are in HTML/JavaScript, and there isn't even a version of Blend available that will cope with XAML in the Developer Preview, just HTML but oh, there I go being all "negative" again and pointing out facts instead of recycled Microsoft marketing guff.</p>
<p>And not one of these 'community leaders' seems to be saying a word about Microsoft's refusal to say anything concrete about what happens after Silverlight 5 or WPF 4.5 etc, despite Microsoft having promised us for the last six months they would make a definitive statement at Build (the reality is, of course, that we all know there won't be a Silverlight 6 or WPF 5, but none of these shills have got the balls to actually say that, for fear of the media running with it and Microsoft getting the bad rap it deserves).</p>
<p>"It's still supported." "It will be around for years" (so's ASP without .NET in some shops. Your point is?). "No need to panic". Blah! Blah Please renew my MVP award Blah!</p>
<p>"XAML is the same as Silverlight" is the nonsense the shills are currently peddling, taken in by a ludicrous con trick at the Build keynote where a silly Silverlight 2 tutorial app was magically converted in a few minutes.</p>
<p>Tried porting your Enterprise app yet? Have you discovered that the MEF stuff you need isn't there (you were using modules? oops - that doesn't fit the app store model), nor are behaviours, nor is whole bunch of other stuff because it won't fit with the 30% money-making app store? Heck even simple basic controls have been renamed so that you're going to have to go through your code changing element names and attributes left, right and centre, with no condition 'if' statement logic available to maintain a single XAML code base and.... Well I won't bore you with all the details. After all, it's easy to port. It must be because Carl Franklin on yet another 'partner' spin-off echo chamber show says so (there's gold in them thar special relationships and sponsorships).</p>
<p>Last night I attended an excellent user group talk on the new stuff in Windows 8. But when it takes a first class (and he really was first class) developer and presenter 10 minutes just to show all the XAML changes needed to take a simple 'About' page in Silverlight (that should never have been written in Silverlight in the first place - it would have taken 10 minutes to write it in HTML and have it running on all available devices), and port it to Windows RT you know that the 'it's simple to port' message is marketing lies and has no relevance to porting REAL apps in the REAL world.</p>
<p>And marketing MVP shills telling you it's simple are lying to you, but then they're not the ones going to have to pay the cost of all this completely needless re-work.</p>
<p>The reality is this 'It's all just XAML' is marketing bullshit, just as it was marketing bullshit when Microsoft pretended that VB.NET was 'the same' as VB6. Does NOBODY remember the lessons (and pain) of the past?</p>
<p>The number of 'flavours' (I'm being polite in calling them 'flavours') of XAML are now six - that's more than the number of browser versions I typically have to worry about when writing HTML5 code, which everybody knows is a nightmare of incompatible bits and pieces not supported by different browsers. But at least with HTML5 I have a great set of libraries like Modernizr.js that sort out most of the problems for me! I'm certainly not having to maintain multiple copies of HTML, the way I have to with XAML, if I want to support any more than one of these 'flavours'.</p>
<p>If I'm an XBox 'Silverlight' developer (Did you see all the excited 'Silverlight is coming to XBox - told you it wasn't dead' tweets - laughable!) I have to deal with a hacked version of Silverlight 3, some bits from Silverlight 4, some bits from Windows Phone and some bits that are new, complete with a hacked version of Blend that apparently gets released and patched every few weeks. And 'you can't get help from your usual Silverlight contacts because this stuff is supposed to be still secret'. Weren't we talking Silverlight FIVE this time last year, but a hacked version of Silverlight 3 is still in 'secret' mode?! But, heh, it's all XAML, right, what's the problem?</p>
<p>The fact that XAML isn't one thing, but six different things right now is a fact that has seemed to escape those eagerly retweeting the exciting XBox has Silverlight. news! "Yay! Proof that Silverlight is alive. It's NOT dead. Pah to those nay-sayers who said it was dead. It just got a shiny new platform!" (one that, for the record, was over-promoted and first promised two years ago, as I recall from a Scott Guthrie London .NET User Group talk given in July 2009 - I've still got the video if you want to go look see!)</p>
<p>Just to be quite clear here: there is NO 'one' XAML. There are now six different, variant flavours. That's more flavours than HTML which the shills keep telling us is way too fragmented to be considered by 'professional developers'. You have to laugh at the utter hypocrisy of it all.</p>
<p>Except, as you've probably guessed, I don't feel like laughing.</p>
<p>It's just adding insult to injury when these same shills let slip in the odd tweet here and there that despite the fact that XAML and C# are the future, and nobody in their right mind would touch Javascript and HTML5, that they're blogging about Javascript, or writing new courses on HTML5 features, or writing new chapters for upcoming books about canvas or video or whatever in HTML5. The hypocrisy in doing this while claiming they're totally committed to XAML and C# really is unbelievable.</p>
<p>I chose the picture at the top of today's daily report quite deliberately. Some may think it somewhat fudges the case in favour of HTML4 and HTML5, but in reality HTML5 is just HTML4 with a bunch of extra stuff added on top so if anything I'm exaggerating the HTML mismatch. This XAML mess is all a result of the Microsoft approach to marketing, which is all about 'putting out fires' TACTICAL nonsense instead of any proper STRATEGY or VISION.</p>
<p>Where is there any sign of leadership? Of real commitment to something? Of vision? Did Microsoft learn NOTHING from the security fiasco, the Vista fiasco ('Clarity' my arse!), the Entity Framework v1 fiasco, the Silverlight fiasco... because yes, despite what the shills keep saying, by any reasonable yardstick Silverlight has proven to be a TOTAL fiasco. Those who didn't waste any time on it (the vast majority of .NET developers) are rightly laughing from the sidelines going 'You muppet, why did you think Microsoft would ever stick to their commitments on that and waste time learning it?' Mea culpa. I took Ray Ozzie's "strategic UI" at face value, forgetting that whenever Microsoft say strategic they ALWAYS mean 'short term tactical'.</p>
<p>And I say Silverlight is a fiasco because I know - I've had multi-million pound clients seriously pissed off at the way Microsoft have handled Silverlight and all its associated 'bits and pieces that don't really gel' technologies, and they're RIGHT to be pissed off - it's cost them a bloody fortune! Just because a few companies who earn all their money through writing Silverlight demoware apps for Microsoft at nice fat juicy fees keep telling you Silverlight has a long future ahead of it and isn't dead does NOT make it fact!</p>
<p>Saying 'Windows 8 XAML is the same as Silverlight' is as ridiculous as saying 'Apps are just code''. It may be true in a very general way, but the customer paying for this stuff and then wondering why it is he can't just take a cheap specialist in xxx technology and have him immediately produce the app he needs in yyy technology isn't going to see it as 'the same' at all.</p>
<p>I even saw a tweet today from a Microsoft employee suggesting that developers who didn't expect such ridiculous constraints and limitations in a software product as Silverlight developers have struggled with over the last few years (constraints and limitations that exist solely because Microsoft didn't do their job properly) then they probably shouldn't be working in the industry. The arrogance in that statement is unbelievable. I mean, really, you couldn't make this stuff up! And they call themselves 'professional'. Now that's REAL irony!</p>
<p>If you really pin these 'shills' down with facts and reality, as I've tried to, you invariably get the 'Developers need to learn more new stuff. They're not good developers if they don't keep learning' speech, along with an explanation of how all these differences and change 'are good'.</p>
<img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/2011-10/PullQuotes/2011-10-12_ThreadsXPlatform_PullQuote.gif" alt="Silverlight had threads. Shame Microsoft abandoned their Cross-Platform solution" width="560" height="130" /><br /><br />
<p>See what they did, there? They're not the problem. YOU are. Well sorry to butt in here but you're completely wrong: NEEDLESS CHANGE IS NOT GOOD. Microsoft's continual re-invention of a wheel that doesn't need reinventing is not good. And the only reason this 'change' is happening is because there's no strategy, no consistency, no damned clarity of vision to what was forced on the market in the first place. That change benefits nobody, least of all the poor sods paying for all this over-engineered, poorly performing shit, other than those shills who find they have new stuff to peddle that they can get money from Microsoft for. And to trot out a hackneyed 'Change is good. Embrace it' excuse for such a lame lack of foresight, strategy or even the most basic planning, is just insulting.</p>
<p>Anybody who does REAL work, as opposed to riding on the Microsoft partner 'shiny and new' partner promotion gravy train, knows that working in this industry is already a time-pressed 10-14 hour day just coping with the existing crap, let alone the new stuff Microsoft shove out seemingly every couple of weeks.</p>
<p>But don't take my word for it. Talk to the people who deal with real developers day-in, day-out - people like Microsoft's developer evangelists. They work for Microsoft, they won't be biased (snort!) and they'll tell you the ONE CONSISTENT MESSAGE they keep getting from developers is that Microsoft are pushing out much too new stuff much too frequently, and nobody can keep up.</p>
<p>Well guess what guys? The shills say you need to keep learning even more if you want to be able to call yourself a 'professional' developer.</p>
<p>What a crock! The word 'professional' has been hijacked by a bunch of poor marketeers to justify their own weaknesses and hide their own hypocrisy.</p>
<p>It makes the story of the Emperor's new clothes look positively idealistic, and THAT my friends is why I will continue to call such charlatans 'shills'.</p>
<img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/2011-10/PullQuotes/2011-10-12_JumpOnHtml5_PullQuote.gif" alt="Stand and do nothing or jump on the HTML5 bandwagon" width="560" height="230" /><br /><br />
<h2>Today's "News" Links</h2>
<table>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/MustReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Must read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/10/03/evolving-the-start-menu.aspx">Evolving the Start Menu</a></strong> (Steven Sinofsky, Microsoft)<br />There's been much criticism of the Windows 8 start page and start menu in the Developer Preview, much of it unwarranted in my view. In this blog post Microsoft explain their decision making process and give clues as to what they're going to change before the public release.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/MustReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Must read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/10/11/reflecting-on-your-comments-on-the-start-screen.aspx">Reflecting On Your Comments on the Start Screen</a></strong> (Steven Sinofsky, Microsoft)<br />A follow-up piece and companion post to the one above about the Start Menu, reacting to comments made on the original post, and sharing new information about future plans.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/MustReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Must read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/10/07/reducing-runtime-memory-in-windows-8.aspx">Reducing Runtime Memory in Windows 8</a></strong> (Steven Sinofsky, Microsoft)<br />Crucial information on reducing runtime memory and improving battery life so that a WinPad slate can compete with competitor offerings in this space.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://blog.galasoft.ch/archive/2011/10/03/mvvm-light-toolkit-for-windows-8-preview-mvvmlight-win8.aspx">MVVM Light Toolkit for Windows 8 Preview Available</a></strong> (Laurent Bugnion, Galasoft)<br />Arguably the most popular MVVM helper kit, MVVM Light, has been ported to Windows RT in an early preview format. Me, I've recently become a Caliburn Micro convert, so I have no idea how solid or usable this preview is.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://www.winrumors.com/microsoft-preparing-for-windows-8-beta-with-developer-preview-install-fair/">Microsoft Prepared for Windows 8 Beta with Developer Preview Install Fair</a></strong> (Tom Warren, WinRumors)<br />If you jumped on the shill gravy train quickly enough, you may have been invited to a special Microsoft-run Developer Preview Install Fair last weekend. Oddly, my invite seemed to get lost in the post ;-) Blogosphere has been surprisingly quiet since the fair took place, so I'm guessing it was a bunch of 'non disclosure' stuff that was revealed.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://www.winrumors.com/steve-ballmer-awarded-2-pay-increase-by-microsoft-board/">Steve Ballmer Awarded 2% Pay Increase by Microsoft Board</a></strong> (Tom Warren, WinRumors)<br />Buried in the small print of Microsoft's annual proxy statement was the news that Steve Ballmer recently got a pay rise. Must be for all the wonderful work he's been doing on mobile and tablets over the last 2 years (snort!)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://blogs.msdn.com/b/visualstudio/archive/2011/10/04/visual-studio-11-developer-preview-survey.aspx">Visual Studio 11 Developer Preview</a></strong> (Lisa Feigenbaum, Microsoft)<br />Microsoft are soliciting early feedback on the Visual Studio 11 Developer Preview so they can improve things before final release. Take the survey to make sure your feedback gets heard.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://www.yourbrowsermatters.org/#/home">Microsoft launch 'Your Browser Matters' Marketing Site</a></strong> (Microsoft)<br />With Metro Style look and feel this site purports to be about getting users to upgrade their browser to a newer version for better security. It seems mostly to be about spreading FUD on other vendor browsers. Internet Explorer 9 gets a 4 out of 4 security rating where Google Chrome gets 2.5 out of 4 and Firefox gets just 2 out of 4. There's a surprise! <sarcasm></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://dharmeshmistry.wordpress.com/2011/10/12/the-bbc-does-a-u-turn-on-html5/">The BBC Does a U-Turn on HTML5</a></strong> (Dharmesh Mistry)<br />The BBC have changed their policy on HTML5, after dismissing it as a 'ship that was sailing off-course' and are writing an HTML5 version of iPlayer, according to this report.</td>
</tr>
</table>
<br />
<h2>Today's "Opinion" Links</h2>
<table>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://gigaom.com/2011/09/27/enterprise-html5-mobilize-2011/">Enterprises Not Fully Embracing HTML5 Yet</a></strong> (Erica Ogg, GigaOM)<br />Quotes from some Enterprise folk about why they're treading cautiously with betting on HTML5.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://www.infoq.com/news/2011/10/GUI-Less-Windows">Windows 8 Server Marks Shift to GUI-less Future</a></strong> (Jeff Martin, InfoQ)<br />Or 'Windows catches up with UNIX' as one rather biased pundit put it.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2011/09/still-on-windows-xp-dont-wait-until-windows-8-to-upgrade.ars">Still on Windows XP? Don't Wait Until Windows 8 To Upgrade</a></strong> (Jon Brodkin, Ars Technica)<br />Gartner are warning customers they need to move from Windows XP to Windows 7 today rather than wait for Windows 8.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://www.techradar.com/news/software/operating-systems/15-cool-things-windows-8-does-that-windows-7-doesn-t-1030905">15 Cool Things Windows 8 Does that Windows 7 Doesn't</a></strong> (Mike Williams, Tech Radar)<br />Good high-level overview of some new features that make Windows 8 a joy to use.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://gigaom.com/2011/10/03/adobe-creative-cloud/">Adobe Gets Serious about Mobile, Cloud and HTML5</a></strong> (Colleen Taylor, GigaOM)<br />Good overview of the announcements made at the recent Adobe MAX Conference. It's HTML5 all the way apparently (some cool CSS3 recommendations that should have Silverlight developers scared, too)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://paper.li/DotNetDoug/1313622880">Windows 8 Daily</a></strong> (.NET Doug)<br />One of those 'newspaper' compilations of stories from the web dedicated exclusively to Windows 8. Of course you don't get my incisive editorial comment and story ratings, but heh, this guy doesn't keep skipping days because he's found more fun things to do ;-)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/microsoft-windows-8-testers-clamor-for-more-interface-customization-and-may-get-some/10893">Microsoft Windows 8 Testers Clamor for More Interface Customization (and may get some)</a></strong> (Mary Jo Foley, Ziff-Davies)<br />An analysis of the 200+ comments made on Steve Sinofsky's blog post about the Windows Start feature.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://www.ghacks.net/2011/10/04/windows-8-supports-zero-power-optical-disk-drives/">Windows 8 Supports Zero Power Optical Disk Drives</a></strong> (Martin Brickman, gHacks)<br />There's a registry key setting to disable this feature if it's giving you grief.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/if-you-want-a-microsoft-winpad-this-is-what-you-get-until-next-year/10922">If You Want a Microsoft WinPad This Is What you Get (Until Next Year)</a></strong> (Mary Jo Foley, Ziff-Davies)<br />Good overview, but why would anybody want to pay way over the odds for something with less than 3 hours battery life? Meh!</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://www.riagenic.com/archives/751">Metro Colour Designs</a></strong> (Scott Barnes, Riagenic)<br />Scott Barnes isn't a fan of Metro's primary colours, and shares some sensible thoughts on palette colour design when writing new Metro apps.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://neverindoubtnet.blogspot.com/2011/10/windows-8-metro-apps-in-javascript.html">Windows 8 Metro Apps in JavaScript</a></strong> (Ward Bell, DevForce)<br />Ward's been writing his first Metro apps in Javascript rather than his beloved Silverlight XAML. He's sticking with XAML... for now!</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/MehRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Meh!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://xamlgeek.net/2011/10/05/windows-8-will-be-free/">Windows 8 Will Be Free (I think)</a></strong> (XamlGeek)<br />Hmmm the (I think) wasn't there in the link-bait tweets that promoted this blog post. Nothing to see here. Move along. Ding! Ding!</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/MehRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Meh!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://www.slashgear.com/ipads-less-desired-than-windows-tablets-says-study-05185728/">IPads less Desired than Windows Tablets says study</a></strong> (Rue Liu, SlashGear)<br />Total spam-bait. It turns out that what the study actually says is that users would like Windows on their ipad (well, duh!) which is NOT the same as saying a Windows tablet that's way more expensive and has crappy battery life is what people want in preference to an iPad!</td>
</tr>
</table>
<br />
<h2>Today's "Technical" Links</h2>
<table>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/WatchItRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Watch It!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://blendinsider.com/technical/hands-on-intro-to-blend-for-htmlvideo-plus-code-2011-09-29/">Hands-on Intro To Blend for HTML Video Plus Code</a></strong> (Lori, BlendInsider)<br />The video is just the Build talk, but this blog post tells you where to get the source code so you can follow along.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/DownloadItRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Download It!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://colorful.codeplex.com/">Colorful Expression Add-in for Blend</a></strong> (Codeplex)<br />Colorful Expression is an add-in for Expression Blend and Expression Design that brings you the Adobe Kuler community directly into your toolbox. Nice!</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/DownloadItRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Download It!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://colorful.codeplex.com/">Colorful Expression Add-in for Blend</a></strong> (Codeplex)<br />Colorful Expression is an add-in for Expression Blend and Expression Design that brings you the Adobe Kuler community directly into your toolbox. Nice!</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good Read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://blogs.xamlninja.com/blend/expression-blend-4-does-not-start-after-installing-the-net-framework-4-5-developer-preview">Blend 4 Does Not Start after Installing the .NET Framework 4.5 Developer Preview</a></strong> (Richard Griffiths, XAML Ninja)<br />Richard has some fixes to get around this issue.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good Read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/hh456402.aspx">Async Performance: Understanging the costs of async and await</a></strong> (Stephen Toub, MSDN Magazine)<br />Stephen explains some possible pitfalls you should avoid when using the new C# 5 await and async commands.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good Read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://blogs.msdn.com/b/seealso/archive/2011/10/04/learning-windows-development-with-quickstarts-and-how-to-s.aspx">Learning Windows 8 Development with Quickstarts and How To's</a></strong> (Microsoft)<br />If you're suffering information overload, this blog post has some good pointers as to the best place to start with regard to getting started with Windows 8 App development.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good Read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://www.tozon.info/blog/post/2011/10/06/Windows-8-Metro-declarations-Protocol.aspx">Windows 8 Metro Declarations: Protocol</a></strong> (Andrej Tozon)<br />Andrej continues his examination of the commands available in the new Metro app application manifest.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good Read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://www.tozon.info/blog/post/2011/10/11/Windows-8-Metro-declarations-File-Type-Associations.aspx">Windows 8 Metro Declarations: File Type Associations</a></strong> (Andrej Tozon)<br />More from Andrej on the new Metro app application manifest, this time covering file type associations.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good Read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://lunarfrog.com/blog/2011/10/03/winrt-storage-overview/">Windows RT Storage Overview</a></strong> (Lunar Frog Software)<br />All about the Windows.Storage namespace.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good Read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://www.wynapse.com/Metro/FirstMetroApp.aspx">My First Metro App</a></strong> (Wynapse)<br />David (I think it's David - no information on the blog that I could find) has been writing his first Metro application and shares his code and thoughts.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good Read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://metroapps.wikispaces.com/">Metro Apps Wiki</a></strong> (Carl Franklin, Plop Productions)<br />The DotNetRocks founder kicks off a Metro Apps wiki. It was a bit sparse when I checked, but there's some info on porting Silverlight apps to WinRT on there that many will find useful.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good Read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://blogs.msdn.com/b/visualstudio/archive/2011/10/07/improving-developer-productivity-with-visual-studio-11-developer-preview.aspx">Improving Developer Productivity with Visual Studio 11 Developer Preview</a></strong> (Steven Clark, Microsoft Visual Studio Team)<br />Nice overview of some of the new productivity features you may not have noticed in the preview version of Visual Studio 2012.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good Read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://blogs.msdn.com/b/visualstudio/archive/2011/10/11/visual-studio-11-developer-preview-search-everywhere.aspx">Visual Studio 11 Developer Preview: Search Everywhere</a></strong> (Radhika Tadinada, Microsoft Visual Studio Team)<br />More tips and tricks for improving productivity using Visual Studio 2011, this time focussed on new Search functionality.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good Read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2011/10/how-windows-8s-memory-management-modifications-make-for-a-better-user-experience.ars">How Windows 8 Memory Management Modifications Make for a Better User Experience</a></strong> (Peter Bright, Ars Technica)<br />Nice gentle overview of the Windows 8 Memory Management implementation.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good Read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://michaelcrump.net/archive/2011/10/12/adding-an-application-bar-to-your-xaml-metro-applications.aspx">Adding an Application Bar to your XAML Metro Applications</a></strong> (Michael Crump, Telerik)<br />Nice straightforward tutorial on how to add a Windows Phone 7-like App bar to your Metro Apps.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/MehRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Meh!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://www.thewindowsclub.com/install-windows-8-metro-ui-apples-ipad">Install Windows 8 Metro UI on Apple's iPad</a></strong> (Tammay P, Windows Club)<br />Or not. More spam-bait. It's about remoting in from your iPad and not about installing at all.</td>
</tr>
</table>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13442419547110456696noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4515527055682999868.post-20093831036978984782011-10-11T09:06:00.000-07:002011-10-11T09:06:08.137-07:00Apologies!<img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/2011-10/Headers/DailyReview_2011-10-11.jpg" alt="The Daily Review - 11th October 2011" width="560" height="350"/><br />
<font size="1">Photo © <a href='http://www.dreamstime.com/Jcjgphotography_info'>Jovani Carlo Gorospe</a> | <a href='http://www.dreamstime.com/'>Dreamstime.com</a></font><br /><br />
<h2>Apologies</h2>
</p>.. for the deafening silence over the last week or so. I did post a quick tweet on Twitter about the unplanned absence but forgot to warn people here on the blog itself.</p>
<p>It was time to take a break after an intense few months in Zurich and then the Build Conference and follow-on. But the break to sort out 'real stuff' lasted longer than I originally intended (Blimey! I'm starting to get a life ;-)).</p>
<p>There will be a 'catch up' post on the important links from the last week ((with "XAML, HTML and MVP Hypocrisy" editorial :-O)) early tomorrow and then probably a catch-up post again at the weekend before the usual Daily Report format resumes.</p>
<p>Thanks for visiting!</p>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13442419547110456696noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4515527055682999868.post-69198428429104990122011-10-03T12:04:00.000-07:002011-10-03T12:22:14.794-07:00Daily Review #13: Someone on the internet is wrong...<img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/2011-10/Headers/DailyReview_2011-10-03.jpg" alt="The Daily Review - 3rd October 2011" width="560" height="350"/><br />
<font size="1">Photo © <a href='http://www.dreamstime.com/Shawnhemp_info'>Shawn Hempel</a> | <a href='http://www.dreamstime.com/'>Dreamstime.com</a></font><br /><br />
<h2>And the biggest story of the weekend is ....</h2>
<p>A bunch of Microsoft MVPs got renewed.</p>
<p>Of course, when I say 'biggest' story of the weekend I'm basing this on the percentage of congratulatory posts dominating my Twitter stream. In the year since I left Twitter because of the echo chamber 'noise' vs signal it seems nothing much has changed :-(</p>
<p>Anyway, moving swiftly on...</p>
<img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/2011-10/PullQuotes/2011-10-03_HTML5_PullQuote.gif" alt="HTML5 is HTML4 with extra stuff" width="560" height="100" /><br /><br />
<h2>Someone on the internet is wrong....</h2>
<p>Late on Friday a <strong><a href="http://plus.google.com/u/0/112950854346918395328/posts/eWhEUxpioxN#112950854346918395328/posts/eWhEUxpioxN">very ignorant post about Silverlight and Silverlight developers appeared on Google+</a></strong>, seemingly in response to <strong>Jeremy Likness</strong>' post <strong><a href="http://csharperimage.jeremylikness.com/2011/09/top-10-over-engineering-mistakes-in.html">Top 10 over-engineering mistakes in Silverlight</a></strong>.</p>
<p>The post was from <strong>Kevin Darty</strong> who apparently works for a Department of Defence contractor (shouldn't they be a bit more informed?!) and displayed unbelievable naivety, bordering on downright malicious untruths, about the technology and developers who've been using it.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, it displays all the sorts of ignorance that is all too common in this 'get the traffic up, whatever you have to do' journalistic world we live in.</p>
<p>Here are some of the more annoying statements he makes in his post:</p>
<p><strong>Silverlight is on the scene and all the .NET Developers jumped on it like it was some amazingly new technology.... something revolutionary</strong></p>
<p>Hardly "all"!</p>
<p>Talk to any recruitment agency and you'll soon discover that heck, <strong>HARDLY ANY</strong> .NET developers jumped on Silverlight for ANY REASON AT ALL.</p>
<p>Just because a small, but influential, vocal group of MVPs keep 'talking up' Silverlight doesn't make this statement about all .NET developers knowing it fact. Kevin, do the research. Ask recruitment agencies what percentage of .NET developers have Silverlight skills. You will find it's nothing like 'most', not even close to 'half', and far less than you've implied in your ridiculous post.</p>
<p>Last year I worked on a 3 month prototype for a large application intended for roll-out in 2013 to retail showrooms across the land. The prototype was a success on all the goals that had been set for it, but the decision was still taken to abandon Silverlight and go 'traditional ASP.NET/HTML/Javascript etc'. Admittedly, there were several reasons for this (mostly around perceived risk because of Microsoft's contradictory and confusing statements about whether it really was their 'strategic UI' or not - how prescient was that?!), but key amongst them was the lack of Silverlight developers in the .NET marketplace. As the hiring manager put it to me in my last week "'It took us 3 months to find you, Ian, and if this went ahead we'd need 8 of you. What chance do we have?"</p>
<p><strong>Now Silverlight Developers are a dime a dozen</strong></p>
<p>I'm going to quote that hiring manager again: "Quite aside from the fact that if we do find a Silverlight developer [because there are so few around] he's invariably more expensive than his ASP.NET, HTML, CSS, JavaScript counterpart!'. But, heh! Kevin says they're 'a dime a dozen'.</p>
<p>The situation hasn't changed in the last year. If anything it's got worse. There just aren't the developers out there. It's become a self-perpetuating tragedy that the lack of developers causes a reduction in the number of Silverlight projects undertaken, leading to a reduction in available contracts, leading to even less .NET developers wanting to waste time on Silverlight when there are far too many demands on their time already.</p>
<p>But heh, Kevin, let's not let any facts get in the way of a good article on engineering mistakes!</p>
<p><strong>For Silverlight developers their scope goes no further than Internet Explorer</strong></p>
<p>Dang! I must have imagined the support and testing I had to do in Google and Firefox, and Safari on a Mac. How stupid am I?!</p>
<p>Even if you took Darty's ridiculous 'intranet' accusation at face value his 'standard set of tools' that he berates Silverlight developers for not using (apparently they're trying to put a square peg into a round hole) work differently from one version of IE to the next, requiring multiple hacks and fixes that waste developer time and have real negative cost to the project. But again, why let facts get in the way of a good argument?</p>
<p><strong>Microsoft has been telling Silverlight Developers for the last 2 years that they should focus on HTML5</strong></p>
<p>Utter rot!</p>
<p>One year ago when I first started talking about how Microsoft were abandoning Silverlight and appeared to be pushing HTML5 (ONE year ago, not TWO Mr Darty), two weeks before the infamous Scott Barnes tweet that started the whole initial "Silverlight is dead!" shitstorm, I was laughed off the planet as being "malicious" or "too negative" or just plain "dumb for thinking Microsoft would even consider that"". Even as recently as a year ago Microsoft were NOT telling anybody about HTML5 (that happened first with the unveiling of the first platform preview of Internet Explorer 10, and then got real emphasis just a few months ago when they gave first previews of Windows 8). I only sensed HTML5 was the new favoured child because of a chance encounter with someone from inside MSFT who talked about how "internally, everybody seems to be reading HTML5 books and the Silverlight team have been loaned out to Phone or PRISM". If Mr Darty thinks Microsoft has been telling Silverlight developers for the last two years that they should focus on HTML5, he should provide just ONE link proving his ridiculous claim.</p>
<p>The disappointing thing is that even today Microsoft won't give advice one way or the other, consistently saying 'It's your choice', while senior staff make jokes about the 'promises' of JavaScript vs the guarantees of C# and XAML.</p>
<p>What's really sad about Mr Darty's piece is all he can apparently do is equate Silverlight with some sort of web page ad Flash clone - something for showing a bit of video or advertising on a web page. In my experience, that is NOT what Silverlight is being used for predominantly today, nor has that been the case since Silverlight 2 launched. The point that Silverlight gives .NET developers a way to write .NET code that will run inside the browser seems to have escaped Mr Darty. He's probably been far too busy hacking stuff together in HTML, JavaScript and CSS to have the time to do even the most basic research!</p>
<p>Alas, I think this pitiful attempt at explaining the history of Silverlight is just one of many incompetent analyses we're likely to see in the month's ahead, as the realisation of what Metro and Windows 8 really means hits the mainstream and gives the JavaScript kiddies and Microsoft bashers a chance to say 'Told you so'! :-(</p>
<img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/2011-10/PullQuotes/2011-10-03_CarSickness_PullQuote.gif" alt="24 hours with WinRT, Javascript and HTML is like car sickness" width="560" height="165" /><br /><br />
<h2>Today's "News" Links</h2>
<table>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-09-30/ibm-tops-microsoft-for-first-time-since-1996.html">Bloomberg: IBM Tops Microsoft for first time since 1996</a></strong> (Sarah Frier and Dina Bass, Bloomberg)<br />Microsoft loses second place after Apple to IBM.</td>
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<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://expressioniq.com/?p=3221">Expression Design (September Preview) has been released by Microsoft</a></strong> (Microsoft)<br />More software preview versions from the Expression team, but where's a version of Blend 5 for XAML?!?!.</td>
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<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://weblogs.asp.net/fbouma/archive/2011/09/30/orm-profiler-v1-0-has-been-released.aspx">ORM Profiler 1.0 Has Been Released</a></strong> (Frans Bouma)<br />The folks behind LLBLGen Pro release an ORM profiler that works with all the big ORM players. Very reasonable pricing for the initial offering too!</td>
</tr>
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<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://www.zdnet.com/blog/security/microsoft-security-tools-nuking-chrome-browser/9515">Microsoft Security Tools Nuking Google Chrome Browser</a></strong> (Ryan Narraine, Ziff-Davies)<br />So this is what Microsoft meant by 'no chrome' on Windows 7! Nasty!</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://www.netmarketshare.com/2011/10/01/Microsoft-s-Strategy-With-Internet-Explorer-9 IE9/">Windows 8/IE9 has 20% of worldwide market, more in USA. Ie6 Drops to About 9% worldwide.</a></strong> (Netmarketshare)<br />Latest browser stats with story indicating that Ie9 and Windows 8 story are helping stop the decline of IE browser market share.</td>
</tr>
</table>
<br />
<h2>Today's "Opinion" Links</h2>
<table>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/MustReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Must read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://www.macworld.co.uk/procreative/news/index.cfm?newsid=3297234">11 Hard Truths about HTML5</a></strong> (Peter Wayner, MacWorld)<br />The HTML5 boat has already sailed, but Peter rightly points out there can be nothing but choppy waters ahead.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/MustReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Must read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://www.misfitgeek.com/2011/09/whats-wrong-with-microsoft/">What's wrong with Microsoft</a></strong> (Joe Stagner, Mozilla)<br />Former Microsoft employee Joe Stagner explains what's wrong with the company, whilst insisting he's not sharing any 'inside' information. Hard to disagree with anything stated here.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2011/09/30/windows-8-anti-virus-has-a-long-way-to-go/">Windows 8 Anti-Virus Has a Long Way To Go</a></strong> (Chester Wisniewski, Sophos)<br />Well they would say that, wouldn't they?! Nevertheless highlights some serious shortcomings.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://www.infoworld.com/t/windows-security/windows-8-security-stronger-gentler-174404">Windows 8 Security: Stronger but Gentler</a></strong> (Robert Lemos, InfoWorld)<br />Good news all round, by all accounts.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/OKRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="OK read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://visualstudiomagazine.com/articles/2011/09/30/windows-8-animations.aspx">Windows 8 Animations Library Creates Better User Experiences</a></strong> (John Papa, Visual Studio magazine)<br />Quick overview of what's in the Windows 8 Animations Library.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/OKRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="OK read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://newkindofbook.com/2011/09/redmond-on-reading-digital-book-design-ideas-from-windows-8/">Redmond on Reading: Digital Book Design Ideas from Windows 8</a></strong> (Peter Myers, My Kind of Book)<br />If you haven't got time to watch the video of the Build '8 Traits of Metro' talk, or read our transcript, this blog article gives a nice condensed summary of the main ports as they apply to digital books.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/OhDearRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Oh dear read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://plus.google.com/u/0/112950854346918395328/posts/eWhEUxpioxN#112950854346918395328/posts/eWhEUxpioxN">Over-Engineering and Picking the Right Rule for the Job</a></strong> (Kevin Darty, Google+)<br />Don't you love it when 'experts' give opinion on technologies they haven't done even the most basic research about? Me neither. See today's editorial.</td>
</tr>
</table>
<br />
<h2>Today's "Technical" Links</h2>
<table>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good Read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://blogs.msdn.com/b/visualstudio/archive/2011/09/30/microsoft-windows-simulator-touch-emulation.aspx">Microsoft Windows Simulator Touch Emulation</a></strong> (Mynor Ivan Muralles, Visual Studio Team)<br />More on the recently released Simulator Preview for Visual Studio 11, this time it's all about touch emulation.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good Read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://blogs.xamlninja.com/xaml/metro-controls-jump-viewer">Metro Controls - The JumpViewer Control</a></strong> (Richard Griffiths, XAML Ninja)<br />Nice walk-through of the JumpViewer control in the Metro controls for Windows 8.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good Read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://www.tozon.info/blog/post/2011/09/30/Windows-8-Metro-style-application-manifest.aspx">Windows 8 Metro Style Application Manifest</a></strong> (Andrej Tozon)<br />Walk-through of the Visual Studio GUI for the application manifest.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good Read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://www.charlespetzold.com/blog/2011/10/SpinPaint-for-Windows-8.html">SpinPaint for Windows 8</a></strong> (Charles Petzold)<br />Cool stuff with Metro and porting the SpinPaint application.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good Read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://brendanforster.com/build/migration-tips-and-tricks.html">Windows 8 Migration Tips and Tricks</a></strong> (Brendan Forster)<br />Good technical post on the problems Brendan had porting an app to Windows 8 Metro.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/MehRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Meh Read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://vasudevg.blogspot.com/2011/09/windows-8-weather-app-tidbits.html">Windows 8 Weather App Tidbits</a></strong> (meraTechPort)<br />Not so much tidbits as an explanation of what you see when you run the app!</td>
</tr>
</table>
<br />
<h2>Today's "HTML5" Links</h2>
<table>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good Read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://www.catswhocode.com/blog/10-online-tools-to-simplify-html5-coding">Ten Online Tools to Simplify HTML5 Coding</a></strong> (Jean-Baptise Jung, Cats Who Code Doctor)<br />Thar be gold in this here blog article.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good Read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://www.wabbaly.com/38-websites-coded-in-html5-for-your-inspiration/">38 Websites Coded in HTML5 for your Inspiration</a></strong> (Wabbaly)<br />Silverlight developers, be afraid! Be very afraid!</td>
</tr>
</table>
<br />
<h2>Today's "Fun" Links</h2>
<table>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good Read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://www.presentsformen.co.uk/voice-recording-message-mug-prod9698/">The Talking Mug (Christmas Present for annoying co-workers)</a></strong> (Presents For Men)<br />Hot sunny day and already the stores are full of Christmas gifts. Presents for Men have some fun stuff. As well as this talking mug they do talking loo-roll holders too. Very reasonable prices.</td>
</tr>
</table>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13442419547110456696noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4515527055682999868.post-61890389473112866562011-09-30T04:01:00.000-07:002011-09-30T04:01:15.742-07:00Daily Review #12: Nothing but The Links<img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/2011-09/Headers/TheDailyReview_2011-09-30.jpg" alt="The Daily Review - 30th September 2011" width="560" height="350"/><br />
<font size="1">Photo © <a href='http://www.dreamstime.com/Shawnhemp_info'>Shawn Hempel</a> | <a href='http://www.dreamstime.com/'>Dreamstime.com</a></font><br /><br />
<h2>Nothing But The Links</h2>
<p>A very short Daily Report today as things went a bit quiet yesterday, with nothing new of any real interest to note.</p>
<p>I don't THINK it has anything to do with the Kindle Fire announcement.</p>
<img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/2011-09/PullQuotes/PullQuote1_WpfUi_2011-09-30.gif" alt="I've got a WPF UI that I want to make 'fast and fluid'. Too bad I've got to get a new OS to do that!" width="560" height="125" /><br /><br />
<p>There has been a lot of speculation/demand for WinRT on Windows Phone, and if I were a Windows Phone 7 developer I'd be wondering what the heck the future held and why Microsoft were being so quiet about the platform now that Mango's out in the wild.</p>
<p>Given the paucity of new information 'The Daily Report' will be back on Monday, with no weekend reports unless a major new story breaks.</p>
<p>Have a great weekend!</p>
<img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/2011-09/PullQuotes/PullQuote2_MetroDie_2011-09-30.gif" alt="Every time i hear 'Metro-style applications' I die a little bit on the inside" width="560" height="135" /><br /><br />
<h2>Today's "News" Links</h2>
<table>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/OKRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="OK!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/goldman-microsoft-android-2011-9?op=1">Goldman: Microsoft Is Getting $444 Million Annually From Android Patent Licenses</a></strong> (Jay Yarrow, Business Insider)<br />Apparently this is an empty victory :-O</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/OKRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="OK!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://blogs.technet.com/b/terminology/archive/2011/09/29/help-us-figure-out-how-to-translate-charm-in-windows-8.aspx">Microsoft Want Help to Figure Out How to Translate 'Charm' and 'App'</a></strong> (Palle Petrsen, Microsoft)<br />Like most, I found both of these terms irritating, but since Microsoft want them translated to other languages it looks like they're here to stay. Wonder if insistence on saying App instead of Application all the time is anything to do with fight over right to use the term 'App Store'!</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/OKRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="OK!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://www.infragistics.com/Windows8.aspx">Windows 8 and Infragistics Controls</a></strong>Controls vendor Infragistics explain how they'll be moving forward with their various component models in the light of the recent Windows 8 announcements.</td>
</tr>
</table>
<br />
<h2>Today's "Opinion" Links</h2>
<table>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/OKRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="OK!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://blogs.telerik.com/blogs/posts/11-09-29/radchart-for-windows-8-winrt-a-prelude.aspx">RadChart for Windows 8 WinRT - A Prelude</a></strong> (Georgi Atanasov, Telerik)<br />Nothing much to see here. Mainly pre-marketing for upcoming launch of Telerik's Metro controls. But don't worry Silverlight's not dead! ;-)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/OKRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="OK!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://www.itwriting.com/blog/4946-windows-runtime-must-come-to-windows-phone.html">Windows RunTime Must Come to Windows Phone</a></strong> (Tim Anderson, IT Writing)<br />Tim is unimpressed with the number of apps and the quality of those apps in the Windows Phone 7 App Store. He thinks Windows RT support is needed to make it a development platform to love.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/OKRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="OK!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://www.sitepoint.com/amazon-kindle-fire-silk-browser-web-development/">Amazon Kindle Fire, the Silk Browser and its Impact on Web Development</a></strong> (Craig Buckler, Sitepoint)<br />Important, but not a reason to set fire to your iPad apparently.</td>
</tr>
</table>
<br />
<h2>Today's "Technical" Links</h2>
<table>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good Read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://blogs.msdn.com/b/visualstudio/rss.aspx">First Look at Windows Simulator</a></strong> (Navneet Gupta, Microsoft)<br />Help with Debugging Your Metro Apps</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good Read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://michaelcrump.net/archive/2011/09/29/enabling-frame-rate-counters-for-html-applications-in-windows-8.aspx">Enabling Frame Rate Counters for HTML Appplications</a></strong> (Michael Crump, Telerik)<br />Michael follows up his XAML-oriented post of a few days ago with changes for the HTML5 developer!</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good Read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://blogs.msdn.com/b/avip/archive/2011/09/29/windows-8-development-tip-dispatching-calls-to-the-ui-thread.aspx">Windows 8 Development Tip: Dispatching Calls to the UI Thread</a></strong> (AviP, MSDN)<br />A slight changes although not needed so often now that Windows 8 is all async and stuff! Make sure you also read Avi's previous three Windows 8 tips which deal with things like the missing Tab control, packaging and loading files and 'ObservableCollection doesn't work'.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good Read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://www.codeproject.com/KB/gadgets/MetroPuzzle.aspx">My First Windows 8 Application: Metro Puzzle</a></strong> (Shai Raiten, Code Project)<br />Soup-to-nuts walk-through of creating a Word puzzle game in Metro.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good Read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://www.wadewegner.com/2011/09/running-the-windows-azure-tools-sdk-on-windows-8/">Running the Windows Azure Tools SDK on Windows 8</a></strong> (Wade Wegner)<br />Jump through hoops time (again!)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good Read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://www.codeproject.com/KB/cpp/WinRTVisualCppIntro.aspx">Visual C++ and WinRT/Metro: Some Fundamentals</a></strong> (Nishant Sivakumar, Code Project)<br />"Using C++ to write Metro apps is the way to go because when you do that it's metal on metal!", says the author.</td>
</tr>
</table>
<br />
<h2>Today's "HTML5" Links</h2>
<table>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good Read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://html5doctor.com/html5-briefing-notes-journalists-analysts/">HTML5: Briefing Notes for Journalists and Analysts</a></strong> (Bruce Lawson, HTML5 Doctor)<br />Devs new to HTML5 should find it interesting too.</td>
</tr>
</table> Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13442419547110456696noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4515527055682999868.post-42200490100185778672011-09-29T00:25:00.000-07:002011-09-29T00:37:58.672-07:00Daily Review #11: Kindling the Fire<img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/2011-09/Headers/TheDailyReview_2011-09-29.jpg" alt="The Daily Review - 29th September 2011" width="560" height="350"/><br />
<font size="1">Photo © <a href='http://www.dreamstime.com/Shawnhemp_info'>Shawn Hempel</a> | <a href='http://www.dreamstime.com/'>Dreamstime.com</a></font><br /><br />
<h2>Kindling the Fire</h2>
<p>What a fickle lot you are!</p>
<p>Last week it was all "Windows 8 Tablets. The iPad is dead. Pah!".</p>
<p>Yesterday, it was every Microsoft employee and MVP boasting on Twitter that they'd pre-ordered the shiny new <strong>Amazon Kindle Fire</strong>, with the obligatory phrase "for the wife" added as a late retweet just in case Mr Ballmer should be listening in.</p>
<p>No doubt next week (with Apple's announcements due) it'll all be "I'm getting an iPhone 5" (while the 3 people who actually bought a Windows Phone 7 jump in and tell us all how disappointing the new iPhone is now that Mango's just been released)!</p>
<p>It was impossible to miss the big Amazon launch - it even made the main 6 o'clock news and the mainstream newspapers this morning (see how early I get up and how much research I do to put together this Daily Review for y'all?!). And if you thought the Windows 8 reveal at Build excited the stock market for Microsoft shares - well let's just say that what the Kindle Fire did for Amazon's shares yesterday put that pitiful little spurt to shame.</p>
<p>Not that Microsoft will be worried. They've got about USD 5 a handset coming in from every Blackberry - and as of yesterday, if some reports can be believed, every Samsung - handset running their rival Google's Android operating system, thanks to their playing the whole patent game in what Google have referred to as sheer 'extortion'. Like anybody was surprised. I mean, really?!</p>
<p>This is where the lawyers really get excited, because with a competing device that sells for less than half the price of the cheapest tablet in the range that has over a 75% share of the market AND THE CONTENT TO BEAT IT (Pah! Take that Microsoft!) you can bet your bottom dollar that Apple's lawyers will be all over Amazon saying anything that resembles anything is theirs and they have a patent on it.</p>
<p>And here's the real rub about the Kindle Fire. It has a shiny new browser - called <strong>Amazon Silk</strong> - AND IT SUPPORTS PLUG-INS!</p>
<p>Oh the beautiful irony of it all!</p>
<p>Silverlight is gasping its last dying breaths, but along comes Amazon to give it a few more breaths. You couldn't make this stuff up in a Silverlight MVP's wet dream!</p>
<p>In all seriousness, yesterday's announcement of a new sub-USD200 device that's multi-touch, full colour, smaller than the iPad, has eight hours battery life, supports Flash and uses Amazon's cloud-based services (oh the data mining opportunities!) really puts Microsoft in a bad position, no matter what spin the echo chamber may try and put on it. As I've been saying like a broken record for the last 18 months Microsoft continually ignore the market and then wake up to deliver "Way too little, way too late".</p>
<p>Admittedly I haven't checked recently (life's too short to keep spending unpaid hours/months/years helping Microsoft sell their never-ending stream of 'new shit') but this time last year their Azure cloud offering was an embarrassingly immature offering that guaranteed never-ending pain for anybody stupid enough to take the evangelists and the marketeers at their word. It would have been less painful to just stick forks in your eyes than try and get around all the flakey, partial release crap that constituted developing and deploying applications for Microsoft's offering in the cloud!</p>
<p>Amazon have always done a better job on the cloud front. Look at all the video/photo social network sites and check where they actually store everything!</p>
<p>As for the tablet..., Well that Samsung tablet device given to Build developers may be able to run "real code" - but what is that real code again? Oh yeah, in the new shiny Metro world it's "HTML5" that's the first class citizen of coding. That'll be the HTML5 technologies which are also supported by devices like the Kindle and the iPad will it? Ooops!</p>
<p>Suddenly that heavy, 'barely 3 hours battery life', seriously over-priced Samsung tablet isn't looking QUITE so sexy, is it?</p>
<p>And that's before we get into discussing THE CONTENT. Because make no mistake - it's all about the content baby, and Amazon have so much of it they can afford to sell Kindles as loss leaders until the cows come home (about a month or so before Windows 8 actually ships!)</p>
<p>Amazon aren't stupid - they're not revealing any figures, but their recent announcement that sales of electronic books now outsold the paper variety clearly put the writing on the wall about where the future is, and why they're being so aggressive in this tablet space.</p>
<p>In the meantime we're all waiting for Microsoft's answer - the one that Build session after Build session told us they'd been working on for two years. TWO YEARS!</p>
<p>Wasn't that the same period of time they told us they'd been working on mobile Silverlight before showing us incredibly immature prototypes of Windows Phone 7? The phone that in its second release (yesterday) some sad sacks are saying is going to trash the competition and take over the world (How I laughed! No really, I struggled to get home what with the queues around the block and all after yesterday's release of Mango!)</p>
<p>Funny that 'two years' figure though because in the same breath as they're telling us all this stuff has been worked on for two years Microsoft will talk about the problems they had with for example, putting the Portable Library together, the problem being that when they started they had to support limitations and differences of things like Windows Phone that had already shipped. That'll be the Windows Phone that shipped about a year ago, right? Oh, wait. One year? Two years? What's the real story here?</p>
<p>Either someone has a really bad memory and can't work out how many months there are in a year, or all this 'two years' nonsense continually promoted at Build is a big fat, white lie.</p>
<p>Microsoft lying to its developers? Surely not? It must just be a "re-imagining" of the calendar!</p>
<p>Oh well. We only have to wait another year for the fruits of all that hard work, however long it is that it's really taken! That'll be Microsoft being 'fast and fluid' while their competitors are presumably 'slow and lethargic'!</p>
<p>In the meantime while everyone else cleans up in the mobile space, Microsoft can always live off all that 'exortion' money from Android handset sales!</p>
<p>Like I said, you really couldn't make all this stuff up!</p>
<img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/2011-09/PullQuotes/PullQuote1_KindleiPad_2011-09-29.gif" alt="You can now buy the entire Kindle range for less than the cost of a 32GB iPad" width="560" height="100" /><br /><br />
<h2>Fast and fluid Update</h2>
<p>Despite all the snarkiness above, I like Windows 8 a lot. I've updated the company home page with a teaser video that gives a clue as to something that's in the pipeline. Because I know you lot are too lazy to go and click on a link I've also included a smaller version of that video below.</p>
<object id="xrPfd44a224cfc942c48d01462e95a49db6" width="480" height="270" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" data="http://exposureroom.com/flash/XRVideoPlayer2.swf?domain=exposureroom.com/&assetId=fd44a224cfc942c48d01462e95a49db6&size=sm&titleColor=%23ffffff"><param name="movie" value="http://exposureroom.com/flash/XRVideoPlayer2.swf?domain=exposureroom.com/&assetId=fd44a224cfc942c48d01462e95a49db6&size=sm&titleColor=%23ffffff" /><param name="allowNetworking" value="all" /><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="True" /><param name="wmode" value="opaque" /></object><div><div class="viewOnXRDiv"><a href="http://exposureroom.com/fd44a224cfc942c48d01462e95a49db6" class="viewOnXRLink" title="10 Minutes a Day Teaser Trailer by Ian Smith - View it on ExposureRoom" target="_blank">View on ExposureRoom</a></div></div>
<p>Unfortunately, there is one nasty side effect of all this recent activity: The <strong>Fundamentals of MEF</strong> product review I promised for Friday is now going to slip to next week. Nothing to do with the fantastic Summer weather we suddenly started experiencing in London yesterday honest (whistles nonchallently) - just the result of higher priority projects taking precedence!</p>
<img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/2011-09/PullQuotes/PullQuote2_WinRTPhone_2011-09-29.gif" alt="WinRT would make a better phone OS than the current wp7 - native code, JavaScript, better design" width="560" height="165" /><br /><br />
<h2>Today's "News" Links</h2>
<table>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/MustReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Must Read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15096655">Amazon Kindle Fire to Enter Tablet Computer Market</a></strong> (BBC)<br />News and quotes about yesterday's big Amazon announcement.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/WatchItRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Watch It!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://amazonsilk.wordpress.com/2011/09/28/introducing-amazon-silk/">Introducing Amazon Silk</a></strong> (Amazon)<br />Amazon engineers/marketeers hype up their proxy in the cloud. Suddenly the launch date for Microsoft's Windows 8/Windows Live/cloud offerings look even more like 'too little too late'</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/MustReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Must Read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://www.engadget.com/2011/09/28/microsoft-and-samsung-sitting-in-a-tree-patent-s-h-a-r-i-n-g/">Microsoft and Samsung sitting in a tree, patent s-h-a-r-i-n-g</a></strong> (Engadget)<br />Microsoft just grabbed itself a hefty wedge of money. Google can't be happy!</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good Read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://techcrunch.com/2011/09/28/microsoft-samsung-extortion-google/">Google on Microsoft's Android Tactics: It's Extortion</a></strong> (M G Siegler, TechCrunch)<br />Google actually used the word 'extortion'! Wow!</td>
</tr>
</table>
<br />
<h2>Today's "Opinion" Links</h2>
<table>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good Read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://csharperimage.jeremylikness.com/2011/09/top-10-over-engineering-mistakes-in.html">Top 10 Over-Engineering Mistakes in Silverlight</a></strong> (Jeremy Likness, Wintellect)<br />Silverlight? I thought this was a Windows 8 Daily Review?! Thing is we don't want to go repeating the mistakes of the past do we, and this is all good stuff which as Jeremy pointed out in a tweet is probably applicable to other technologies too!</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good Read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/how-will-windows-8-tablets-fare-against-amazons-kindle-fire/10845">How Will Windows 8 Tablets Fare Against Amazon's Kindle Fire?</a></strong> (Mary Jo Foley, Ziff-Davies)<br />Too many of the reviewers are pitching the new super-cheap, super-content driven Kindle against the iPad, but they're foolishly ignoring Windows 8 tablets, says Mary Jo.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good Read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://blogs.gartner.com/neil_macdonald/2011/09/28/windows-8-raises-the-bar-for-security/">Windows 8 Raises The Bar for Security</a></strong> (Neil MacDonald, Gartner)<br />Bullet point list of security improvements in Windows 8 from The Gartner Group</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good Read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://gadgets.itwriting.com/?p=606/">Amazon Silk: Fast Cloud-Powered Browser, Or a New Way to Mine Your Data?</a></strong> (Tim Anderson, IT Writing)<br />All the excitement for the Windows 8 slates seems to have dissipated with Amazon's new tablet announcements yesterday. But Tim thinks there's some over-hyping of basic caching going on.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good Read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://www.engadget.com/2011/09/28/is-a-10-inch-kindle-fire-coming-amazon-says-stay-tuned/">Is a 10 inch Kindle Fire coming? Amazon says 'Stay tuned'.</a></strong> (Engadget)<br />If the Kindle Fire seems too small at 7 inches, Amazon Kindle's VP has hinted that a 10 inch version is on its way.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good Read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/BUILD-Conference-Highlights/Behind-the-Windows-8-UI">Behind the Windows 8 User Interface.</a></strong> (Channel 9)<br />Channel 9 are publishing more of their live broadcasts from the Build Conference. This 30 minute interview features Sam Moreau, giving a bit more background filler material to the big overview '8 Traits' presentation. Easy watch but nothing new here. 'Should we migrate all apps to Metro?' 'We don't know. That's for developers to figure out.'</td>
</tr>
</table>
<br />
<h2>Today's "Technical" Links</h2>
<table>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/MustReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Must Read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/09/28/extending-quot-windows-8-quot-apps-to-the-cloud-with-skydrive.aspx">Extending Windows 8 Apps to the Cloud with Skydrive</a></strong> (Stephen Sinofsky, MSDN)<br />Good overview with instructions for how to set things up to use the Developer Preview of the Live SDK. This stuff is important.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/OKReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="OK!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://blogs.msdn.com/b/seealso/archive/2011/09/28/viewing-the-windows-developer-preview-documentation-offline.aspx">Viewing the Windows Developer Preview Documentation Offline</a></strong> (Gus Class, MSDN)<br />Windows 8 documentation has moved into an 'encapsulated experience' meaning some folks are struggling. Gus tries to walk you through the thinking and how best to use the documentation!</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/OKReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Meh!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://rd3d2.wordpress.com/2011/09/28/installing-the-windows-8-developer-preview-on-a-dell-inspiron-duo/">Installing the Windows 8 Developer Preview on a Dell Inspiron Duo</a></strong> (Ian Walker)<br />Short walk-through of how a Dell Tablet PC running Windows 7 to Windows 8. Brave man! Mainly just some screenshots of Windows Update screen and Dell Drivers web page!</td>
</tr>
</table>
<br />
<h2>Today's "HTML5" Links</h2>
<table>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/MustReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Must Read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://www.sitepoint.com/how-to-choose-between-canvas-and-svg/">How to Choose Between Canvas and SVG</a></strong> (Patrick Dengler, Sitepoint)<br />Excellent article highlighting the differences between the two vector graphics formats, with illustrated examples.</td>
</tr>
</table>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13442419547110456696noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4515527055682999868.post-91529669809025104362011-09-28T01:39:00.000-07:002011-09-29T03:26:07.520-07:00Daily Review #10: Build Session transcripts<img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/2011-09/Headers/TheDailyReview_2011-09-28.jpg" alt="The Daily Review - 28th September 2011" width="560" height="350"/><br /><br />
<h2>Build Transcripts</h2>
<p>As well as being a C# .NET and Silverlight developer who's looking at Metro and Windows 8, I'm a video guy (you can see some of my videos <strong><a href="http://exposureRoom.com/irascian/">here</a></strong>, although you might want to avoid the most recent wedding video trailer that heads up the list!)</p>
<p> For the last few years I've been recording video for UK user groups like the <em>Silverlight UK User Group</em>, <em>The Edge User Group</em> and <em>The Azure User Group</em> and even a guest slot for the <em>NxtGen User Group</em>. I'm a big fan of video for capturing good user group talks and making them accessible around the world.</p>
<p>But I know the limitations of video, and to my mind the Microsoft Build Conference videos, just like those of training companies like <strong><a href="http://www.pluralsight.com">Pluralsight</a></strong>, <strong><a href="http://www.lynda.com">Lynda.com</a></strong> and <strong><a href="http://www.totaltraining.com/">Total Training</a></strong> are of limited usefulness without backup in the form of collateral representing the reference material that was presented. They're missing a trick here!</p>
<p>After all, if you go on an external training course you get a course manual - something to help you refer back to the material that was presented and which you haven't got the time to go back and sit through all over again.</p>
<p>Why should online training - and many of the Build sessions were effectively online training - be any different?</p>
<p>This whole thing about online training and the lack of support collateral is no doubt a subject I'll come back to on Friday when I publish the first official <strong>fast and fluid Product Review</strong>. This will be for the new <strong><a href="http://www.informit.com/store/product.aspx?isbn=0321787021">Fundamentals of MEF</a></strong> video course put together by <strong>Jeremy Likness</strong> for <strong>Addison-Wesley (Pearson)</strong>. Like all product reviews it will be a product I've paid for, rather than the sort of 'favour to friends' review that pollutes so many of the blogs these days. That being said, the teaser preview for the full reviews goes something like this: Outstanding!</p>
<p>The lack of summary collateral from any of the online training companies is something I find so irritating that you can expect to see an announcement about some better video online training, WITH SUPPORTING COURSEWARE, from a company not a million miles removed from the one behind this blog ;-) Watch this space!</p>
<p>Anyway to get back to Windows 8 in general, and the Build Conference in particular: At the time of writing MSDN really doesn't have the collateral that Windows 8 developers need.</p>
<p>There are some basic bits there, but lots of holes and gaps, as might be expected for an operating system that's a year away from being stablisied and launched. What's irritating is that there is actually a treasure trove of information to be found amongst several hundred hours of Build videos that nobody in the world has the chance of sitting all the way through, even if you do have the good sense to play them back at double speed.</p>
<p>A few days ago I was watching <strong>Krzysztof Cwalina</strong>'s excellent <strong><a href="http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/BUILD/BUILD2011/TOOL-930C">A .NET Developer's View of Windows 8 Application Development</a></strong> talk and it occurred to me that here was training material that answered pretty much 90% of the questions and complaints and misunderstandings I see being raised and re-raised in my Twitter stream. Small sections of it seemed to provide the source for whole pages of blogs, most of which, as I pointed out rather tersely on Sunday, didn't credit the original source.</p>
<p>It occurred to me that a transcript of a fact-packed talk like Krzysztof's would prove an extremely valuable reference document.</p>
<p>And so began my plan to publish transcripts of the more information packed Build talks.</p>
<img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/2011-09/Headers/TranscriptPreview2.jpg" alt="Page screenshot from the first Fast and fluid Build transcript" width="560" height="381" /><br /><br />
<p>The problem was deciding where to start. Krzysztof's talk was perhaps an obvious choice, but there was one <strong>Big Overview</strong> talk that, although padded out with a lot of repetition and marketing material, was absolutely essential to understanding the background to the new operating system BEFORE starting to dive into the developer essentials.</p>
<p>I then had to choose how to best present the good stuff from these talks. Should I go for short, edited 'key point' transcripts, or should I go for full transcripts which, in the case of long talks like the Big Overview ones, would represent up to 200 pages of transcript - a veritable book that even with a decent table of contents would take some time to pick through.</p>
<p>To avoid accusations of 'censorship', or 'picking the most controversial bits', I decided to go with the full transcript approach, and today sees the <strong><a href="http://fastandfluid.com/transcripts/BuildBigOverview1Transcript.pdf">first transcript available for download at the Fast and Fluid web site</a></strong>.</p>
<img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/2011-09/Headers/TranscriptPreview1.jpg" alt="Page screenshot from the first Fast and fluid Build transcript" width="560" height="390" /><br /><br />
<a href="http://fastandfluid.com/transcripts/BuildBigOverview1Transcript.pdf" title="Download 8 Metro Traits transcript (PDF)"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/2011-09/Headers/DownloadTranscript1.jpg" alt="" width="560" height="75"/></a><br />
<p>The videos, of course, should be your primary resource.</p>
<p>However the transcripts will hopefully be good reference backups - the missing 'course handbooks' that I feel are needed given the paucity of information about Windows 8 that's available other than from these videos. The transcripts have the advantage of being portable on laptops, netbooks, iPads and even phones if need be, with an index that enables you to dive in to the appropriate section of the talk, and frequent cross-references to the timing of the video so that you can go back and check the original source if you need to. For those talks missing PowerPoint downloads (which annoyingly are not stored anywhere on the associated video download pages, and are missing for many talks) they also offer hard copy of the slides that were projected.</p>
<p>I hope you find these transcripts as useful as I do. The plan is to release Krzystof's talk transcript early next week, with <strong>Anders Heljsberg</strong>'s excellent <strong><a href="http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/BUILD/BUILD2011/TOOL-816T">The Future of C# and Visual Basic</a></strong> to follow shortly after.</p>
<p>Please let me know if there's a particularly strong talk you really want to see in transcript form from <strong><a href="http://fastandfluid.com">fast and fluid</a></strong>, or if you have any suggestions for how future transcripts can be improved, based on your analysis of the first one.</p>
<img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/2011-09/PullQuotes/PullQuote1_SilverlightMurder_2011-09-28.gif" alt="WPF murdered, Silverlight taken into custody" width="560" height="165" /><br /><br />
<h2>Today's "News" Links</h2>
<table>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/MustReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Must Read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://mashwork.com/blog/?p=1241">Windows 8: Through the Eyes of Consumers</a></strong> (Mashwork)<br />An analysis of social media and the public reaction to Windows 8. It all looks very encouraging for an operating system that's a year away from delivery.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good Read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://www.engadget.com/2011/09/27/firefox-7-now-officially-available-promises-significantly-red/">Firefox 7 Now Officially Available. Promises 'Significantly' Reduced Footprint</a></strong> (Donald Menelson, Engadget)<br />Mozilla are claiming 'up to' 50% reduction in memory usage. This has about as much validity as me claiming that I've improved my productivity by 'up to 95%' when I've barely made any difference at all! Remember when Scott Guthrie told us that Silverlight was installed on 'up to' 60% of all internet connected devices?! See what I mean!</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good Read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://blogs.technet.com/b/msrc/archive/2011/09/26/microsoft-releases-security-advisory-2588513.aspx">Microsoft releases security advisory on SSL 3.0 and TLS 1.0</a></strong> (Jerry Bryant, Microsoft)<br />There's a problem, but apparently it's "industry-wide" with "limited impact".</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good Read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://www.fastcompany.com/1782958/adobe-vp-on-html5-why-were-not-giving-up-on-flash-yet">Adobe VP on HTML5 and Why He's Not Giving Up On Flash Yet</a></strong> (Austin Carr, Fast Company)<br />He likes HTML5 but thinks Flash is faster to innovate!</td>
</tr>
</table>
<br />
<h2>Today's "Opinion" Links</h2>
<table>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good Read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://techpinions.com/10-days-with-windows-8-developer-tablet-too-early-to-tell/2933">10 Days with Windows 8 Developer Tablet: "Too Early To Tell"</a></strong> (Patrick Moorhead, Techpinions)<br />Patrick highlights some important issues around his first 10 days (as a non-developer) using Windows 8 on a tablet.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good Read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://blog.discountasp.net/build-conference-developers-have-decisions-to-make/">Build Conference Developers Have Decisions To Make</a></strong> (Takeshi Eto, Discount ASP.NET)<br />Apparently Microsoft has not really taken something away, just given us something new to develop on. Hmmm. So removing plug-in support from Metro is not really taking something away, huh? My bad! </sarcasm></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/OKRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="OK!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://www.jondavis.net/techblog/post/2011/09/26/So-I-Was-Wrong-About-Silverlight-On-Windows-8-.aspx">So I Was Wrong About Silverlight on Windows 8</a></strong> (Jon Davis)<br />"Think of Metro as Silverlight's Windows counterpart rather than as Silverlight's would-be host / container.", says Jon. Sounds about right to me.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/OKRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="OK!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://www.geekwire.com/2011/windows-live-id-windows-8-microsoft-privacy">Windows 8 & Windows Live Id: Microsoft's Privacy Policy</a></strong> (Todd Bishop, GeekWire)<br />"A recap of yesterday's announcement from Microsoft.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/OKRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="OK!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://blogs.computerworld.com/19008/did_microsoft_employees_really_walk_out_on_ballmer_at_microsofts_annual_meeting">Did Microsoft Employees Really Walk out on Ballmer at Microsoft's Annual Meeting?</a></strong> (Preston Gralla, Computer Weekly)<br />Basically the answer is "Nobody knows."</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/MehRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Meh!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://www.dailyblogging.org/technology/a-gentle-comparison-between-windows-8-7-and-vista/">A Gentle Comparison Between Windows 8, 7 and Vista</a></strong> (Praveen, Daily Blogging)<br />Gentle??!? More like 'extremely thin'.</td>
</tr>
</table>
<br />
<h2>Today's "Technical" Links</h2>
<table>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/DownloadItRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Watch It!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/NET-45-David-Kean-and-Marcea-Trofin-Portable-Libraries">.NET 4.5 Portable Libraries</a></strong> (David Kean & Marcea Trofin, Channel 9)<br />Channel 9 (50 minute video) walk us through the Portable Libraries in .NET 4.5. A bit long and meandering, but there's good information in there. They neglect to mention that you need to be an MSDN subscriber though since the Portable Library project template isn't in the Express edition SKU of Visual Studio 11.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good Read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://mattduffield.wordpress.com/2011/09/27/inotifypropertychanged-woes-too-much-ceremony/">INotifyPropertyChanged Woes? Too Much Ceremony?</a></strong> (Matt Duffield)<br />Matt introduces the INotifyPropertyWeaver project to remove all that databinding fluff from your viewmodels.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good Read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://www.webscopia.com/2011/09/windows-8-all-you-want-to-know-help-guide-how-to/">Windows 8: "All You Want to Know" Help Guide</a></strong> (BitHacker, Webscopia)<br />If you're struggling to find your way around the new Windows 8 UI, this should help.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good Read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://pureinfotech.com/2011/09/27/windows-8-how-to-close-tile-apps-and-how-do-they-work/">Windows 8: How to Close Tile Apps and How do They Work?</a></strong> (PureInfoTech)<br />Short and sweet comparison between Metro and Windows 7 closing of applications.</td>
</tr>
</table>
<table>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good Read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://www.stephenforte.net/PermaLink,guid,b8bb5410-b6a0-4792-b7db-32597a101a3d.aspx">Day 2: Building a Metro App with Visual Studio Express</a></strong> (Stephen Forte)<br />Stephen's written his first 'Hello world' Metro app and even has a video of the finished results for you to watch. If you haven't yet dived into Visual Studio 11 you might find this a fun place to start.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good Read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://www.jonathanantoine.com/2011/09/24/wpf-4-5-%e2%80%93-part-8-no-more-airspace-problems-integrating-wpf-with-win32/">WPF 4.5 Part 8: Finally I can Use the WebBrowser Control</a></strong> (Jonathan Antoine)<br />Part 8? How did I manage to miss parts 1 to 7? Click on the Home page link to get to the other parts if you're using WPF on Windows 8.</td>
</tr>
</table>
<br /><br />
<h2>Today's "Fun Stuff" Links</h2>
<table>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good Read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://www.winrumors.com/microsoft-sends-an-ie9-cupcake-to-mozilla-for-shipping-firefox-7/">Microsoft Sends an Ie9 Cupcake to Mozilla For Shipping Firefox 7</a></strong> (Tom Warren, WinRumours)<br />Actually I'm not sure this should be filed under 'Fun Stuff' rather than 'Extremely Childish Stuff'. As my old schoolteacher used to say 'First time was't laff. Second time was't bore. And third time was downright rude'!</td>
</tr>
</table>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13442419547110456696noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4515527055682999868.post-84875688759385440622011-09-27T06:13:00.000-07:002011-09-27T06:20:37.482-07:00Daily Review #9: Is Windows 8 The Last Windows?<img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/2011-09/Headers/TheDailyReview_2011-09-27.jpg" alt="The Daily Review - 27th September 2011" width="560" height="350"/><br />
<font size="1">Photo © <a href='http://www.dreamstime.com/Shawnhemp_info'>Shawn Hempel</a> | <a href='http://www.dreamstime.com/'>Dreamstime.com</a></font><br /><br />
<h2>Is Windows 8 The Last Windows?</h2>
<p>OK, so maybe that title is a little sensational. My excuse is that it's the title <strong>Simon Bisson</strong> used in today's 'Must Read' blog post <strong><a href="http://www.zdnet.co.uk/blogs/500-words-into-the-future-10014052/the-last-windows-10024432/">The Last Windows?</a></strong></p>
<p>I think he overstates the case, but there are signs that the 'death' of Windows - at least as we know it today - is not far off.</p>
<p>Of course pundits have been pointing out that Windows and Office and the whole desktop application concept is living on borrowed time, and that 'borrowed time' has been shortened by the predominance of Apple and Google over the last few years.</p>
<p>Now it seems Microsoft itself is doing the shortening!</p>
<p>The point Simon makes is that with its introduction of <strong>contracts</strong> in Metro the operating system is one based primarily on Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and "inviolate APIs", presented as a subscription system that Microsoft have control over (where before developers wrote their own interfaces). In such a world, he argues, "the desktop is just another application".</p>
<p>After years of promise, the increasing dominance of mobile has forced Microsoft down the SOA route right at its very core. Windows 8 may not be the end of Windows, but it's certainly the beginning of the end of Windows as we've long known it.</p>
<p>Some think this whole move away from the legacy 'desktop application' world view is an over-simplification, but I think Simon makes a very strong case.</p>
<p>The reality is that mobile is now where it's at, and Microsoft have had decreasing market share and influence in this space. The rot set in when they took two to three years to recognise the impact of the iPhone. By the time the company got their act together it was too late, as the pitiful sales, despite strong critical reviews, of Windows Phone 7 have proved.</p>
<p>As if that wasn't bad enough, Microsoft didn't learn from that experience, pooh-poohing the iPad in the same way (Ballmer's infamous dismissal of it as an irrelevance, insisting that what people wanted was Windows and a stylus on their tablets, two months after it started shipping), so that it's more than a year after the iPad first shipped and completely changed the market that they've announced their plans for a competing product THAT'S AT LEAST A YEAR AWAY FROM SHIPPING.</p>
<p>Oh dear!</p>
<img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/2011-09/PullQuotes/PullQuote1_NoVirtualTechDays_2011-09-27.gif" alt="No Silverlight sessions at Virtual Tech" width="560" height="135" /><br /><br />
<p>It's not as if the writing wasn't on the wall from the get-go. Back in 2009 it was estimated that 3.6 billion people, in a world population of just over 6 billion, had access to a mobile device, with 1.6 billion (25% of the world's population) having access to the web through a mobile device.</p>
<p>Those figures aren't that interesting, but what's more interesting is the figures for desktop internet access at the same time.</p>
<p>As <strong>Brian Fling</strong> pointed out in his 2009 book <strong><a href="http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780596155452.do">Mobile Design and Development</a> (O'Reilly Press)</strong> "just 1.1 billion have access to internet-connected desktop computers". Even before the launch of the iPad, mobile was the bigger market.</p>
<p>A market Microsoft had, and still has, no real foothold in.</p>
<p>More than two years on, you can be sure the ratio of those desktop vs mobile figures have significantly changed - and NOT towards the desktop!</p>
<p>For those who've followed an SOA approach in their application design, the 'death' of Windows, or the 'desktop app' is good news. They are well positioned to take advantage of those 1.1 billion users AND the larger number of mobile users with internet access. Windows 8 is now (finally) going down the same route, and the real message in Simon's piece is not the death of Windows, but the 'coming of age' (finally!) of the SOA dream.</p>
<img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/2011-09/PullQuotes/PullQuote2_LikeCOM_2011-09-27.gif" alt="Metro Apps are just like COM" width="560" height="135" /><br /><br />
<h2>Today's "News" Links</h2>
<table>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/MustReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Must Read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/09/26/signing-in-to-windows-8-with-a-windows-live-id.aspx">Signing in to Windows 8 with a Windows Live Id</a></strong> (Stephen Sinofsky, Microsoft)<br />Stephen Sinofsky's blog details the Windows Live Id/Windows 8 integration, with a nice video demo too. Maintain your Windows and Metro settings across all your devices!</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good Read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://www.itwriting.com/blog/4925-miguel-de-icaza-talks-about-windows-8-and-the-failure-of-linux-on-the-desktop.html">Miguel de Icaza Talks About Windows 8 an the Failure of Linux on the Desktop</a></strong> (Tim Anderson)<br />Interesting interview where Miguel says he thinks Linux has blown it on the desktop. 'Interested in porting Metro apps to iOS and Adroid?' He's not going to spend any time on WinRT for other systems apparently.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good Read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/5850.html">UEFI Secure Boot Part 2</a></strong> (Matthew Garrett)<br />The source of the whole 'Linux won't run with Windows 8' spate of articles last week responds to Microsoft's blog post on the subject. "What's interesting is that at no point do they contradict anything I've said." is his unimpressed verdict.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good Read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://chriswoodruff.com/2011/09/22/introducing-the-microsoft-build-conference-webinar-series/">Introducing the Microsoft Build Conference Webinar Series</a></strong> (Chris Woodruff)<br />Every Thursday for the next few weeks Chris is going to be running a series of webinars with the key take-aways from this year's Build conference.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good Read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://blog.ressoftware.com/index.php/2011/09/23/notes-from-the-road-part-4-windows-8-and-the-client-hypervisor/">Windows 8 and the Client Hypervisor</a></strong> (Sean Donahue)<br />Sean speculates on what client-based Hypervisor-V in Windows 8 might actually mean.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good Read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/how-microsofts-windows-8-will-sync-users-settings-and-apps/10811">How Microsoft Windows 8 Will Sync Users Settings and Apps</a></strong> (Mary Jo Foley, Ziff-Davies)<br />Mary Jo looks at the latest Microsoft announcement (see News Links) and gives her opinions.</td>
</tr>
</table>
<br />
<h2>Today's "Opinion" Links</h2>
<table>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/MustReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Must Read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://www.zdnet.co.uk/blogs/500-words-into-the-future-10014052/the-last-windows-10024432/">The Last Windows?</a></a></strong> (Simon Bisson, Ziff-Davies)<br />Metro changes things. It's all about the contracts and the SOA!</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good Read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/257363/Moving-from-Silverlight-to-MVC3">Moving from Silverlight to MVC3</a></strong> (Jonathan van de Veen, CodeProject)<br />After two and a half years blogging about 'Enterprise Adventures in Silverlight', Jonthan's jumping ship and moving to ASP.NET MVC and HTML5. Here he explains why, but heh! it's OK Silverlight isn't dead ;-).</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good Read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://www.infoworld.com/d/application-development/silverlights-fate-dont-let-microsofts-silence-fool-you-173794?page=0,0">Silverlight's Fate: Don't let Microsoft's Silence Fool You</a></strong> (InfoWorld)<br />Nice source that quotes several of the high profile bloggers about why Silverlight will still be around for a year or two yet.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good Read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://www.geektieguy.com/2011/09/26/a-brief-history-of-five-touchsmart-generationspioneering-ideas-for-windows-8/">A Brief History of Five TouchSmart Generations: Pioneering Ideas for Windows 8</a></strong> (Geek Tie Guy)<br />Live tiles, fixed layout sizes for apps, parallax scrolling with an expandable space and touch-first design - all pioneered by HP before Windows 8 arrived on the scene. Nice history of HP UX, but the link to Windows 8 seems a little tenuous.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good Read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://www.winrumors.com/microsoft-employees-allegedly-left-in-droves-during-ballmers-company-meeting-speech/">Microsoft Employees Allegedly Left in Droves during Ballmer's Company Meeting Speech</a></strong> (Tom Warren, WinRumours)<br />I suspect the most import word here is 'allegedly'.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/OKRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="OK Read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://www.examiner.com/web-2-0-in-tampa-bay/microsoft-windows-8-already-misunderstood">Microsoft Windows 8: Already Misunderstood!</a></strong> (R. Chase Razabdouski, The Examiner)<br />Short post saying the mainstream pundits have got it wrong. Apparently they are all just Apple fanboi's. Me, I think it's too early to call yet.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/OKRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="OK Read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://blogs.technet.com/b/next/archive/2011/09/26/building-on-the-momentum-of-build.aspx">Building on the Momentum of Build</a></strong> (Steve Clayton, MSFT)<br />Steve Clayton was impressed by Sam Moreau's Build talk on 'Designing Metro Style: Principles and Personality'. So was I.</td>
</tr>
</table>
<br />
<h2>Today's "Technical" Links</h2>
<table>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good Read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://oakleafblog.blogspot.com/2011/09/problems-connecting-to-windows-8-vms.html">Problems Connecting to Windows 8 VMs Isn’t Related to Developer Previews; Windows 2008 R2 SP1 Is at Fault</a></strong> (Roger Jennings, OakLeaf Systems)<br />Nice source that quotes several of the high profile bloggers about why Silverlight will still be around for a year or two yet.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good Read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://blogs.msdn.com/b/virtual_pc_guy/archive/2011/09/26/running-the-windows-8-developer-preview-on-microsoft-virtualization.aspx">Running the Windows 8 Developer Preview on Microsoft Virtualization</a></strong> (Ben Armstrong, Microsoft)<br />Ben has a fix for Hyper-V on Windows Server 2008 R2. And Virtual PC/Virtual Server support? "There is nothing more to say there" apparently.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good Read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://www.timmykokke.com/2011/09/discovering-expression-blend-5-listview/">Running the Windows 8 Developer Preview on Microsoft Virtualization</a></strong> (Timmy Kokke)<br />Timmy continues his illustrated walkthrough of features in the new preview version of Exprssion Blend.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good Read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://devlicio.us/blogs/derik_whittaker/archive/2011/09/25/lighting-up-your-c-metro-apps-by-enabling-search-part-1.aspx">Lighting Up Your C# Metro Apps By Enabling Search Part 1</a></strong> (Derek Whittaker, Devlicio.us)<br />First of a three part series that looks at the new Search 'Contract' features available in Metro.</td>
</tr>
</table>
<br />
<h2>Today's "Fun Stuff" Links</h2>
<table>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><img src="http://fastandfluid.com/images/blog/Ratings/GoodReadRating.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Good Read!" align="top"/></td>
<td><strong><a href="http://mrdoob.com/projects/chromeexperiments/google_gravity/">Google Gravity</a></strong><br />An interesting variation on the Google home page.</td>
</tr>
</table>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13442419547110456696noreply@blogger.com0