Well, I just wanted to put together a short post about Microsoft Connect. For those of you who don’t know about Connect (and if the response at Tech.Ed was any indication, many don’t know!) it’s a great way to participate in Beta programs for new software being released by Microsoft. […]
Avast! Well today is International Talk Like a Pirate Day so yee’d best be gettin’ into the spirit of the occasion, so says I! There be an official site where land lubbers and sea salts alike be meetin’. Should you be needin’ some help wiv the pirate-speak why don’t yee […]
Notes taken from the SQL Server Summit in Sydney Australia September, 2008. I/O considerations fall into the acronym: GASP$ – Growth, Availability, Size, Performance and $(Price). See http://www.microsoft.com/SQL/AlwaysOn for more on availability/failover. Core I/O requirement is stable media (drives/disks) and write ordering (preserve the correct order of operations). […]
…On why I like to drink Pinot Noir in addition to decent aged Shiraz.. I’d like to credit Paul Giamatti’s character Miles in the excellent movie "Sideways (2004)" for introducing me to the world of great Pinot from this little monologue: Miles Raymond: Uh, I don’t know, I don’t know. […]
Recently I’ve been in "interpret draconian license" mode. For a V2 product (Team Foundation Server 2008), Microsoft has not held back in ensuring that everyone pays to use TFS (regardless really of the how and why factors). Personally, I think that making the licensing open and fair ought to be […]
Well, fresh from my previous post on Madden, I’m in a new and potentially blocking situation: I can’t save. I’d really, *really* like to hear from anybody who has suffered from “Freeze syndrome” – i.e. random console locks when playing Madden NFL 2009. It seems that I’ve had a lockup […]
Later I will be updating this entry to explain the drawbacks and dangers of blogging in anger. Stay tuned!
I’d like to help London Studios (creator of the very successful SingStar franchise) sell a few more games. There are a number of tracks I’d like to see – these are songs you might find if you wander into a pub and hear the odd tune. This isn’t just a […]
Well, I’ve been fighting Kerberos so I thought perhaps this might be a good time to document it. Hand up if you love Kerberos? …If you like Kerberos? ..If you have to live with Kerberos? Well, anyway, it’s often a necessary evil. Let’s start at the beginning. Event […]
New year, same glitches. So fans of this blog and of EA Sport’s Madden franchise (in particular on the Xbox 360) will know that Madden NFL 2008 was basically a release which no one in their right mind would have enjoyed given the heinous defects encountered – especially in franchise […]
So there’s been some recent controversy towards Microsoft Australian and Readify which I’d like to address. The shame of it is that I think the sentiment is misguided. Microsoft Tech.Ed (Australia) happens to highlight Readify’s contribution to the Microsoft development community in Australia – mostly by the number of Readify […]
Hi Everyone, The annual SQL Server Code Camp is on again this year in Wagga Wagga (NSW), Australia. The dates are October 11th and 12th at Charles Sturt University (CSU). There are some very good sessions (some backing up from the recent Tech.Ed 2008) which will be worth the journey. […]
This is going to be a long post. In fact, I’m very unlikely to finish it in one session, so check back for updates. This year I was very lucky enough (a huge thank you to Readify) to attend the SQL Server 2-day conference event (The SQL Server Summit) which […]
This evening I finally uploaded my Tech.Ed 2008 Chalk Talk presentation slides [zip file] (SQL Server 2008 CE and the Entity Framework) for those who are interested. The complete presentation will be given at SQL Code camp next month. Here’s the slide deck and the sample code from SQL […]
Mitch Denny recently passed this link around an internal tech list. Now, as developers (or software engineers) we do have some odd eccentricities. We typically work in far different environments to the contrast of many traditional industries/work environments, and the challenges of day to day life seem to be somewhat […]