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Archive for the ‘Random Stuff’ Category

Visual Studio Source Control and Dropbox!

Aug 12th
Posted by: jamesakadamingo | Tags: , ,
4 comments

Dropbox Platforms Image

Dropbox works on all three of the major OSes.

As anyone that reads this blog should realise (that’s if anyone is actually reading it, comment people please!), I am a Applications Developer.  I work for a large law firm writing Visual Basic .NET applications, along with a fair amount of SQL work.  However I also do a lot of personal development outside of work, building websites and applications for private contracts.  I wanted a similar Source Control solution to the one that we use at work (Source Gear’s SourceVault), but I wanted one extra feature!! Distributed Source Control!

For those that are not 100% on what Source Control is here is a little explanation.  Source Control systems are designed to keep a historical copy of your source files; whether they be source code, websites or even documentation. The crux of the matter is you “check” files in and out of the repository (the source control container), most systems also give you the option of tagging comments to your “check ins” so that you can remember what changes you made to your code!! The whole purpose of a SourceControl solution is to save you from disaster when it all goes wrong! Should you make a change that breaks your application, or need to roll back when the plan changes, you can simply pull out an historical copy of your file from a previous check in!

The other major benefit of Source Control systems is that they allow for collaboration between multiple developers. When Developer A checks out a source file to work on, the repository allows Developer B to access the file but it prevents him from checking the change in until Developer A has finished with the file.  Once both Developer A and B have both finished with the files, the repository offers to merge the changes together.  Some Source Control solutions store the details and content of the source files in an SQL database (as SourceVault does), however the tradition is to use a file structure (like SubVersion and Microsoft’s SourceSafe).

My custom SourceControl solution is SubVersion and Dropbox running on Windows 7!! Read More for instructions on how to re-create it!

Read the rest of this entry »

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O2 Drop Unlimited Data Contracts

Jun 13th
Posted by: jamesakadamingo | Tags: ,
No comments

In the wake of Apple’s WWDC 2010 conference, it appears that network providers around the globe are now dropping their unlimited data packages (and not just for the iPhone). It seamed that only minutes after Steve Jobs sat down, AT&T dropped their package, and the next day @O2 did the same in the UK.

This instantly angered me and my fellow O2 iPhone friends, being limited to 500MB a month seamed painful. It got me thinking about how I use my phone, as I see myself as a relatively heavy user. I use my phone regularly to check Twitter, The Register, SlashDot, Google Blogs, Twitter Blogs, the BBC and much much more. And of course the odd bit of YouTube and WeRule (sad I know). I thought that this would surely mount up to a lot of data usage.

To my surprise I have only used 2.1GB of data since I got my iPhone (in October 2009), however the surprise was short lived. When I am at home, I have WiFi, when I am at work/the cafe/my Girlfriends/etc I have WiFi, so it all comes down the pipes rather than over the air!

So yes O2 are about to limit us, but as they say most of us won’t even notice!! My only concern is that with the incoming iPhone 4 (and iOS4 for the 3GS) some of us will start having streaming programs running in the background as we walk from A to B (listening to spotify or similar), so perhaps O2 should use a different model than just limiting us all! They say that the problem is the 1% that use crazy amounts of data, perhaps just put it in the fair use, and charge them rather than limiting us all!

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The Official Twitter iPhone Application

May 19th
Posted by: jamesakadamingo | Tags: ,
2 comments

Twitter for iPhone App Icon

Twitter for iPhone App Icon

So here it is the long promised Official Twitter iPhone Application, first impression upon loading it from the Apple AppStore was that the icon needs a bit of work, almost like it had been rushed.

But more importantly what is the application like? Opening the app up for the first time presented me with a screen showing the latest tweets of interest and trends. I would show you a screen shot, but stupidly I rushed passed that page and logged in (you get a similar page once logged in).  What did surprise me was the basic authentication method that was used, “please enter your username and password”. Surely the official Twitter app should be using oAuth? If someone like me can slave over a PHP oAuth system, then Twitter’s dev team can create a layer for the iPhone!??

But what do my tweets look like I hear you shout (or I might be imagining it), well they look like this.

Official Twitter iPhone App - Timeline

Official Twitter iPhone App - Timeline

They appear to have taken the standard layout, author image to the left (unless its your’s, then its to the right). @kaivana ‘s tweet is shown with a blue background I presume because it is tweeted at me! Oh and @Tony_Hillier is trying the new app also, hence the random “Tweet Tweet”.

My current iPhone Twitter client is TwitBird Pro, and the only thing that I feel this page is missing is the background image feature that TwitBird Pro offers.  Perhaps @Twitter will take notice and do an update!

The icons along the bottom of the screen provide a few extra views,

  • Speach bubble provides your standard home timeline.
  • @ symbol unsprisingly provides a list of tweets in which you are mentioned.
  • Letter provides your direct messages, grouped by user which is a nice touch.
  • The hand glass provides the more interesting feature allowing for trending topics and searches.
  • The triple dots gives access to the settings and your favourite tweets and lists.

Clicking onto a tweet performs the usual action of showing the tweet along with and links for #hashtags and @usernames. If the tweet is geo-tagged then it will also show a nice little map which can be extended with a click to a full screen view.  The normal access to a users bio is also available when you click on their name, which gives a funky feature allowing you to import their info into an iPhone contact!

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Bye Bye Facebook! Deleting my account

May 9th
Posted by: jamesakadamingo | Tags: , ,
2 comments

Well it has now happened, I have deleted my @Facebook account (and yes I am aware how fitting it is for me to use facebook’s @twitter address!). There are a few factors which have driven me to this, some more basic than others. In recent weeks I realised that I was only using facebook for one purpose, and that was the events features. All I did was check if my friends were holding a party or a pub trip and then log off.  One thing that I did notice each time that I logged in was the shear amount of rubbish that was in my news feed, why would I care if so and so only needed two more bricks to build their barn!! Add the fact that people were always bulk inviting me to their bands gig on the other side of the country and I got fed up!

The bigger issue of course is (or now was!) their stance on history, I really dont want every website I visit to know everything about me just because I happened to be logged into facebook at the time. There is also the issue regarding  the “facebook-positive”, and yes I did just coin that term. On facebook (and for that matter any site which uses facebook) you can only “like” something, you can’t dislike it. As such with facebook’s iFrames (seariously iFrames in this day and age!), any website I visit is instantly “liked” and “liked” even more if I choose to click the “like” button.

So the process of actually deleting my account! A quick search of the internet gave me enough impotus to actually delete all my data before I even deleted my account! It appears that facebook does not actually delete your data when you close the account, it simply lies dormant on their servers. As such I removed all traces of my facebook life first:

Remove two Email addresses (having to type my password each time!)

  • Set up a fake email and add it to FB allowing me to delete my other email address (another two password inputs!)
  • Remove my Mobile Number.
  • Remove all 37 applications that somehow had found their way into my profile.
  • Trash the content of my profile page (including my picture!).
  • Delete all my likes and dislikes (three clicks for each one!!).
  • Remove my contact information.
  • Delete my photo albums.
  • Delete my links and notes.

I started the process at 15:30 and finished 63 minutes later, every action I took to delete something was slow, and many times facebook just crashed out and I had to login again. So not a quick fix.

The last few stages were easyier, however I did like the “please don’t leave us” page.  It picked three friends and told me how much they would miss me, needless to say it didn’t stop me from leaving!  Following that I got a simple captcha and another password request, I was amused to see the captcha text it was rather fitting.

Leaving Facebook Captcha

Leaving Facebook Captcha

All in all leaving facebook wasn’t that hard, taking the extra precaution of removing all my data too a little longer but should be worth it.

Now I just need someone to re-create facebook’s events system via twitter and all will be sorted! Perhaps I could write it myself!

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Google Maps Earth View

Apr 29th
Posted by: jamesakadamingo | Tags: ,
1 comment

Evening everyone, it’s been one hell of a long week this week.  I have been working on a major project which is going live in the UK Legal sector tomorrow morning at 6am, my part is ready but everyone else’s isn’t!  So having only just eaten my tea, I really can’t be bothered to do any work or continue with the PHP oAuth Twitter scripts that I am working on!

So I am listening to This Week in Google (TWiG), and taking a look at @Google ‘s latest offering in the maps department.  Google Maps has now integrated Google Earth into the web browser interface.  Meaning that you get all the great Google Earth items via your browser with out the need to install and run Google Earth.  I will point out however that there is a plugin that is required, it works in @Firefox / Google Chrome and IE on Windows, and Firefox / Safari on mac.

The reason that I post about this is because I was amazed how many 3D buildings have been sketched up in Bristol (UK).

Google Earth via the Browser, 3d buildings in Bristol

Google Earth via the Browser, 3d buildings in Bristol

For those that do not know, that is the centre of Bristol.  Not only is a building that is only a few months old there, but even the little pillars down the middle of the parade are there!  Who ever sketched these up, thank you!!

The only down point of this, is now I can easily use Google Earth when I am meant to be doing something else!

Signing Off another pointless post!

jamesakadamingo

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