I Wish I Knew Now What I Knew Then

More Ubuntu Settings

2008-05-04T12:21:06+01:00

I was going to call this entry "More Ubuntu Woes" and maybe I should have.

Ubuntu makes certain things that should be difficult, easy and some things that should be easy, difficult, like assigning keys to commands. I'm a keyboard jockey, I'm way happier using the keyboard than the mouse> I tell my self this is because the keyboard is quicker, but it's probably because I cut my teeth in the days before mouse, and and in Emacs where key chords are king!

This means I am lost without my keyboard shortcuts, in Windows such things as W+L to lock (where W is the Windows key). I use Windows a lot, and if I'm using Ubuntu I'd like the same keys to work. This should be easy, however it appears that having Compiz enabled, Compiz and Gnome clash!. Gnome has dialogs to set up keybindings, but you have to jump through hoops to get it to work.

First hoop is getting Ubuntu to recognise the Windows key (called the Super key in Linux) as a key modifier, like Control and Alt. To do this go to System..Preferences..Keyboard, select the Layouts tab and then Layout Options. From here select Alt/Win key behavior and then choose "Super is mapped to the Win-keys"

Once you've done this you can now edit the Gnome keyboard preferences. From System..Preferences..Keyboard Shortcuts, scroll down to Desktop. Here you can click on the "Show the panel run application dialogue", select this and hit WindowsKey + r on the keyboard. Do the same for Run a terminal, but select WindowsKey + t. You may think you can do the same thing for the Search, Home Folder and Lock screen commands (assign them to Windows + f, Windows + e and Windows +l respectively), however, those commands cannot be assigned from here and if you try, not only will the commands not work but you may have trouble re-assigning the keys elsewhere. Instead to assign these key you will need to you the Compiz Configuration Manager

Select System..Preferences..Advanced Desktop Effects Settings. In the dialog box select General and then Commands. I have my first three commands set to "beagle-search", "nautilus" and "gnome-screensaver-command --lock" respectively and the key bindings set to f, e and l. And this all works.

There's more here on this.

Now, if only I can get Ctrl+Esc to bring up the main menu!

CruiseControl.Net

2008-05-01T07:09:44+01:00

I'm working with CruiseControl.net this week. First time I've worked with the product and I'm finding a couple of issues (that are all my mistakes) but that aren't particularly well documented. So this is as much for my benefit as anything else.

Firstly, last night after editing the config file I couldn't get the build to run. Now, there are several config files. in c:\Program Files\CruiseControl.NET\server, the main one is the ccnet.config file, this is the default location for this file, that location can be changed, to do that you'd edit the ccservice.exe.config file.

The ccservice.exe.config file is re-read when the CCNet service is (re)started, as is the ccnet.config file. When you edit the ccnet.config file it appears that the service does re-read the file, however, if the file is invalid the service ignores it, and doesn't appear to log this fact anywhere. Re-starting the service will force a re-read of the config file and then log an error if the file is invalid.

I was changing a CCNet config file to do multiple checkouts, after a bit of trial and error the source control section of the file ended up looking like this

<sourcecontrol type="multi">
	<sourceControls  autoGetSource="true" applyLabel="true">
		<vsts autoGetSource="true" >
			<server>http://server:8080</server>
			<project>$/FOO/SharedUILibraries</project>
			<username>user</username>
			<password>user</password>
			<domain>nt</domain>
			<workingDirectory>
                               C:\...\FOO\SharedUILibraries
                        </workingDirectory>
			<cleanCopy>true</cleanCopy>
			<workspace>WS_MINE</workspace>
			<deleteWorkspace>true</deleteWorkspace>
		</vsts>
		<vsts autoGetSource="true" >
			<server>http://server:8080</server>
			<project>$/FOO/SharedEnterpriseLibrary</project>
			<username>user</username>
			<password>user</password>
			<domain>nt</domain>
                        <workingDirectory>
                            C:\...\SharedEnterpriseLibrary
                        </workingDirectory>
			<cleanCopy>true</cleanCopy>
			<workspace>WS_MINE</workspace>
			<deleteWorkspace>true</deleteWorkspace>
		</vsts>
		<vsts autoGetSource="true" >
			<server>http://server:8080</server>
			<project>$/FOO/WD</project>
			<username>user</username>
			<password>user</password>
			<domain>nt</domain>
			<workingDirectory>
                            C:\...\FOO\WD
                        </workingDirectory>
			<cleanCopy>true</cleanCopy>
			<workspace>WS_MINE</workspace>
			<deleteWorkspace>true</deleteWorkspace>
		</vsts>
	</sourceControls>
</sourcecontrol>

And this worked, however there was one gotcha.

Before getting this to a working stage I was getting a status in the CCNet dashboard of CheckingModifications, whatever I did I'd get this status, even forcing a build wouldn't change it. It turned out the reason for this was that I had put the wrong name in the project element. This meant that CCNet was trying to look for bits that didn't exist, and sat there spinning its wheels. Once corrected everything worked fine.

So if you get the CheckingModifications status, check that your source control settings are correct and that you can do a checkout

LINQ Nasties

2008-03-26T14:28:52+00:00

This was raised on an internal mailing list by Brock Allen, and as he isn't blogging much (not that I can comment) I thought I'd raise it here.

Look at this query:

NorthwindDataContext db = new NorthwindDataContext();
db.Log = Console.Out;

var supp = (from s in db.Suppliers
           select s).FirstOrDefault();

var prods = from p in supp.Products
           where p.UnitsInStock > 10
           select p;

foreach (var p in prods)
{
   Console.WriteLine(p.ProductName);
}

Looks pretty harmless, get a supplier, then get the products fromt that supplier where the UnitsInStock > 10.

Problem is if yuou run this, you see the following in SQLProfiler

exec sp_executesql N'SELECT TOP (1) [t0].[SupplierID],
[t0].[CompanyName], [t0].[ContactName], [t0].[ContactTitle],
[t0].[Address], [t0].[City], [t0].[Region], [t0].[PostalCode],
[t0].[Country], [t0].[Phone], [t0].[Fax], [t0].[HomePage]
FROM [dbo].[Suppliers] AS [t0]
WHERE [t0].[SupplierID] = @p0',N'@p0 int',@p0=1

exec sp_executesql N'SELECT [t0].[ProductID], [t0].[ProductName],
[t0].[SupplierID], [t0].[CategoryID], [t0].[QuantityPerUnit],
[t0].[UnitPrice], [t0].[UnitsInStock], [t0].[UnitsOnOrder],
[t0].[ReorderLevel], [t0].[Discontinued]
FROM [dbo].[Products] AS [t0]
WHERE [t0].[SupplierID] = @p0',N'@p0 int',@p0=1

The first statement is executed when you call FirstOrDefault(), the second when you execute the foreach. Notice anything about the statements? They are almost exactly the same, except the second statement loses the TOP(1) part. This means that the where clause is happening on the client! Not a big deal you may think, unless of course the select returns 1000s of rows.

Fixing this is easy

var prods = from p in db.Products
           join s in db.Suppliers
           on p.SupplierID equals s.SupplierID
           where s.SupplierID == 2
           && p.UnitsInStock > 10
           select p;

which gives:

exec sp_executesql N'SELECT [t0].[ProductID], [t0].[ProductName],
[t0].[SupplierID], [t0].[CategoryID], [t0].[QuantityPerUnit],
[t0].[UnitPrice], [t0].[UnitsInStock], [t0].[UnitsOnOrder],
[t0].[ReorderLevel], [t0].[Discontinued]
FROM [dbo].[Products] AS [t0]
INNER JOIN [dbo].[Suppliers] AS [t1] ON [t0].[SupplierID] = ([t1].[SupplierID])
WHERE ([t1].[SupplierID] = @p0) AND ([t0].[UnitsInStock] > @p1)',N'@p0
int,@p1 int',@p0=2,@p1=10

Which is probably what you want.

I like LINQ, especially LINQ to XML, but this reminds of the dark days of EJB Entity Beans. You really have to profile the generated code to understand exactly what LINQ is giving you, don't be seduced by the ease of use.

Update

Ian Griffith pointed this out:

"One subtlety with your LINQ Nasties post is that you kind of make it look like the solution is to use one query instead of two. In fact, the key is understanding which operations will evaluate the query and which won't."

And he's dead right, Ian's blogged about this here. Even if you don't read Ian's full post, read the "Know Your Tools" section at the end.

ASP.Net Page_XXX events

2008-03-20T10:03:08+00:00

In ASP.Net the engine looks for various methods to call to handle events such as

public void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e) {}

I had always assumed that the framework searched for these methods based on their full signature, turns out this isn't the case. The ASP.Net MVC framework uses a

public void Page_Load() {}

method, and I was trolling through the code trying to find where this is called from, when I ended up inside the Page ProcessRequest method, i.e. the default ASP.net processing. Which meant there was no special processing for this version of Page_Load.

I quickly create a bog standard web app and added a no parameter Page_Load to it, and sure enough it fires!

Note that if you have the parameterised and no parameter Page_Load only the parameterised one is called.

Good Things With MVC

2008-03-20T06:02:53+00:00

I've just started playing with ASP.NET MVC (or Microsoft's Homage to Ruby on Rails as Tim Ewald labelled it!), it's good to see a community growing up around this.

Upgrading SQL Server

2008-03-20T05:11:21+00:00

As a developer I constantly use Visual Studio and SQL Server, and it turns out thatn when you install these, the install order is important. If you install SQL Server before VS200x then you get all the SQL tools such as the Management Studio and the Profiller. However, if you install VS200x and then install SQLServer the tools do not get installed. This has annoyed and frustrated me for years, then I discovered it wasn't just me, other people were having the same problem.

If only I'd read the warnings!

This week when I was going through the process again, having already installed VS200x I paid attention to what the SQL Server installation was telling me. When you install SQLServer it goes through a systems check to make sure you are able to install the software, things such as how much memory you have, whether you have IIS etc. One of the warnings I got was an "Edition Change Check (Warning)". Normally I ignore this as it's only a warning. But this time I took notice

The warning says

To change an existing instance of Microsoft SQL Server 2005 to a different edition of SQL Server 2005, you must run SQL Server 2005 Setup from the command prompt and include the SKUUPGRADE=1 parameter.

and this time I did take notice. I fired up a command prompt, flipped to the Servers directory and ran

Setup SKUUPGRADE=1

and joy of joys all the tools appear as part of the install.

Of course, the annoying thing is, why doesn't the installer do this. It's detected the problem, one little 'Do you want to upgrade?' checkbox wouldn't have hurt anybody!

Ubuntu Suspend

2007-10-21T17:18:42+01:00

Suspend was was working in Feisty but when I updated to 7.10 (Gutsy) it stopped. When I resumed all I'd get a blank screen.

This post seems to have fixed things for me.

Having played with these settings it looks like I only need
POST_VIDEO=false
from the
/etc/defaults/acpi-support
file

Books I've Read Recently

2007-10-05T15:10:53+01:00

Somebody was asking about books on an in internal DevelopMentor listserver.

This is a list of recent books that I've read (and these are just the ones within the last three months)

Revelation Space series by Alastair Reynolds. Hard Science Fiction. First two books are great, the third was slightly disappointing.
Harry Potter an the Deathly Hallows I'm sure you all know this one. It's unremittingly dark
Slaughterhouse5 by Vonnegut
Occupational Hazards by Rory Stewart. Required reading if you're interested in Iraq and what will happen there
Salmon Fishing in the Yemen. Because I'd run out of books on holiday, and yes, it is a novel, and it's actually quite good.
God is not Great by Christopher Hitchens. For all us non-believer's out there.
This Book Will Save Your Life. Another Novel. Get the doughnuts instead!
A Short History of Tractors in Ukranian by Maria Lewycka. Very funny. You'll like all the characters by the end
The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson. This is laugh-out-loud funny. If you haven't read it, treat yourself and go and buy it. On holiday I read it, my wife read it and the kids read it.

And that was just on holiday Since then it's been

Exit Music by Ian Rankin. Crime fiction at its best
Makng Money by Terry Pratchet (say no more)
iWoz by Steve Wozniak

IgNobels

2007-10-05T12:34:13+01:00

The IgNobels were awarded this week

I especially loved this one:

Literature - Glenda Browne of Blue Mountains, Australia, for her study of the word "the", and how it can flummox those trying to put things into alphabetical order.

Sounds like the sort of thing Douglas Adams or Terry Pratchet would write.

Drumming Gorilla

2007-09-12T11:26:42+01:00

Made me smile

Running With Scissors

2007-09-11T11:06:42+01:00

I've spent the last three weeks or so running Ubuntu Linux on my laptop as my primary OS. Why? Well, I installed Vista (I had to for some work I was doing) and couldn't get on with it, I felt that it was very resource intensive. When it came to un-installing I was left with a choice, go back to XP or try Linux again.

I have run Linux on a laptop before, but gave up after not being able to get things like Suspend to work, but I figured that it was time to try again. I've been using Ubuntu for a little while and I've always been a fan of Debian's package management so figured it was time to give it a try.

Mostly, it's been a very good experience. I'm running a Dell Latitude D820, which is a dual core machine with 2GB memory. Everything I have installed works (sound, wireless etc) which is exactly what I expected to happen. There are two acid test's for me though, the first is Suspend, and the second is the ability to get the laptop output sent to a projector. Suspend worked originally, but after a while restore started to fail.

One other reason for putting Ubuntu on the machine was the eye-candy, so I've installed Beryl/Compiz and the binary NVidia drivers and the display is great, wobbly windows and all. I've also bought VMWare Workstation so I can still do the Windows work I'm paid for.

Last week I took the machine on the road for the first time since I configured it like this. Now I could test the projector stuff.

I configures TwinView and the external monitor worked, however I discovered (and I don't know if this is me) that the output to the external monitor is the same resolution as to the laptop monitor, i.e. 1900x1200, this meant that the display on the external monitor was way to big and I ended up panning. After much configuration I couldn't change this. A quick Google pointed me in the direction of xrandr. This changes the size of the X Desktop. Tried it to switch to 1024x768 and it works. Switch back to 1920x1200, and that work. Try it once more to be sure, and...the machine hangs (well the desktop hangs, not the machine.

After searching for this and finding some references on xrandr and Beryl, I decided to disable Beryl and then try xrandr, sure enough it now works (I'm on the road again next week so it'l be interesting to try this with a different projector).

The suspend problem was also down to Beryl. When the machine resumes the entire screen stays blank apart from about one square centimeter of it. I can move the mouse but can't use the keyboard. As Beryl was controlling the screen I decided to disable it then suspend. Sure enough, resume now works.

So currently I'm happy with the setup - although I'll probably be bored again in a week and want to try something else!

How the CI Example From MS Works

2007-06-05T16:34:02+01:00

Continuous Integration is not built into the current version on TFS, however MS ship an un-official CI solution. I've never had reason to dig into how this worked until the last day or so and thought I'd post what I found.

When the CI example receives a check-in event it queues a new build. It does this by calling QueueUserWorkItem which means it uses the .Net thread pool to do the work. The web service calls QUWI for each unique build type that's been scheduled. So if I have two build types called typeA and typeB, if I schedule typeA and typeB they get separate thread pool threads, one for each type. If while typeA is building and another notification comes in then the build type doesn't get re-scheduled. What happens is that the thread running the typeA build looks at a flag to see if another build has been scheduled for this type. If a build is pending then it simply loops around and runs the next build in the queue. So there's only one build type per thread. If a given build type is already executing and another notification comes in then the build runs again.

This means that each check-in does not kick off a separate build. A build will run after 1 or more check-ins and after the previous build has completed.

Let's Crush This Myth Now or VSTS does do TDD!

2007-06-05T16:14:52+01:00

I've just read a post part of which made my blood boil (and I'm not going to link to it but just say that he's not "my very good friend"). The post was comparing VSTS to NUnit and said "Moreover, it's solution inside VSTS is not able to be used in a way that supports TDD as we know it, with its emphasis on generating tests from code." This is complete bullshit. There is nothing inherent in VSTS that stops it supporting TDD. VSTS unit testing is incredibly like NUnit. As an NUnit user (and I am) you can easily move to using VSTS, it's simply a matter of adapting to different attribute names for setting up the tests and different method names for the asserts. In fact it could be argued that with the ability to generate method stubs from within the code VSTS is more able to support TDD than NUnit.

For example I can do this

public void MyTest()
{
   User u = new User();
   u.CallANewMethod();
}

where

CallANewMethod

doesn't exist.

At this point, click on

CallANewMethod

and select 'generate metod stub' and bingo, test driven development. I've written the test and generated stub from the test.

VSTS Guidance

2007-05-24T07:59:45+01:00

For the last month or so I've been working with J.D. Meier and his Patterns and Practices group at Microsoft. The guys have just released a beta copy of the Team Foundation Server guide which I've made a (small) contribution to. You can see the guide here.

Read!
Enjoy!
Comment!

No Comments

2007-03-08T16:39:54+00:00

I've disabled comments for the time being as I'm getting stuffed by spam (bastards!). I'll re-enable when I get a good solution

Still Alive

2007-02-23T20:44:14+00:00

Just to prove I'm still alive I'll be at DevWeek next week.
See you there.

What a Final

2007-01-14T22:10:48+00:00

I love sport, all sport, so long as it doesn't contain horses. I used to be a huge fan of darts when I was a teenager, I played the game (poorly) and back in the days when 8m people watch the World Championships on the BBC I really enjoyed the game. These days there are way to many other distractions in my life and darts now seems so '90s! so I don't watch it that often, however this year there have been two epic tournaments, the PDC World Championships and the BDO World Championships (don't ask). In the first Raymond Van Barneveld came from three sets down to beat Phil Taylor (probably the greatest darts player to ever live) by 7 sets to 6 with a tie-break dart in the final leg! And now, tonight, Martin Adams has just beaten Phil Nixon 7 sets to 6. In this case Adam's, (who believed he was destined never to win the title) was six sets to nothing ahead against the qualifer Nixon. Nixon won the next six and Adams finally clinched the trophy by winning the final set.

Even if you hate darts, if you like sport you'd love this. Utterly gripping and compelling stuff!

Man on a Mission

2006-11-15T11:10:48+00:00

Starbucks. Paris. Two words that don't normally go together. When I was here last there there were four Starbucks in the whole of Paris. Now there are 23 (and probably more by the time you read this). Can I find one? can I hell! It's not that I really want a Starbucks, it's just that now I know they're here I'm on a mission to get one. Apparently there's one in the Printemps store. So today I walked down Avenue Haussman, found Printemps, and asked an assistant who spoke English was there a Starbucks in the store. There is, but not that particular Printemps, it's the Printemps on l'Opera. So this evening I'm, walking to l'Opera to get my Starbucks (I hope)!

Arriving Somewhere

2006-11-12T11:10:48+00:00

Today I'm in Paris. I left home at about 10:20 this morning; sat in Birmingham airport for two hours drinking coffee waiting to get my flight. I was hoping to buy a Playstation Portable but it turned out I was in the wrong terminal, Birmingham has two, and I was in the one with no restaurant and no shopping. Didn't get the trip off tothe best start!

I arrive in Paris and get to the hotel at about 5:30 local time. The hotel is right in the center of Paris, just off the Champs Elysee on rue Washington, it's actually called the "Hotel Champs Elysee". It's a typical Paris hotel (at least in my experience), they do breakfast in a small room that also doubles as a bar, and there's no dinner. My TV promises movies (in English) and a BBC channel, but I can't get either to work!

I get that normal arrival feeling, not loneliness, I like my own company, but rather isolation. This is always much worse in continental Europe than in the US. At least in the US I can talk to people, whereas here I can't. Even hearing English as I pass by people helps. After wandering around for about 30 minutes looking for somewhere to eat I settle on an 'African' restaurant, the 'Impala Lounge'. It takes 30 mins to find because when I'm on my own I'm hopeless at deciding where to eat. I know that wherever I go I will get have to sit with smokers (which I hate) and I won't be understood, so it's a matter of plucking up the courage to go in as much as anything else. It's also a matter of limiting where I eat. I know I'll be here for a few days, so if I see a nice looking restaurant I'll pass it by and go back there later in the week!

Hinglish

2006-11-09T11:10:48+00:00

Excellent article[1] of the growth of 'Hinglish' - "a hybrid of English and south Asian languages, used both in Asia and the UK"

[1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6122072.stm

Well Done Southend

2006-11-08T11:10:48+00:00

As my friends know I'm a Manchester United fan/supporter/follower/whatever you want to call somebody who doesn't go to see them very often. Last night United (top of the premiership) lost to Southend (bottom of the Championship) by a goal to nil and this wasn't a weak United team by any stretch. For many fans this would be upsetting but I must admit to smiling at the result. Sometimes it's good to see the underdog win.

New Start

2006-09-04T10:38:52+01:00

I couldn't let today go without an entry. About 9 years ago in September 1997 myself and three colleagues (Simon Horrell, Martin Gudgin and Steve Rodgers) went the the Microsft PDC in San Diego. As well as having a great time at the show, we also approached Mike Abercrombie and Don Box of (at the time) DevelopMentor with the idea of creating a Developmentor UK. After a few discussions and then technical interviews with Don, Chris Sells, Tim Ewald and Keith Brown, it was agreed to create DevelopMentor UK.

The doors of DevelopMentor UK opened in March 1998.

Over the years DevelopMentor has lost all of the people I listed above apart from myself, Simon and Mike Abercrombie, but for various reasons I've also decided that I can no longer work for DM full time. So three months ago I (along with Simon) gave DevelopMentor notice that I would be leaving. My notice period elapsed last Friday, so as of today I am no longer a DevelopMentor employee. Having said that I will still be contracted to DevelopMentor for the foreseeable future, so it's not a clean break, but still, after nine years today is a very strange day!

Security Engineering

2006-08-31T14:29:08+01:00

Just picked this up on Schneier's blog. You can now download Security Engineering free and legal.

It's a great book, go get it!

ASP.Net Web Project Details

2006-08-23T09:09:48+01:00

I've been asked this on a course several times so I thought I'd mention it here. By default ASP.Net 2.0 web projects don't have a project file, but project specific information has to be kept somewhere. That somewhere is in C:\documents and settings\[user name]\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\WebsiteCache

Thanks to Simon Horrell and Brock for getting to the bottom of this.

SpeedTest

2006-08-21T13:29:02+01:00

This is very cool

speedtest.net