* Posts by Stuart Jones

20 publicly visible posts • joined 20 Aug 2007

DIY aerial drone monitors Wi-Fi, GSM networks

Stuart Jones
FAIL

Fail

Looks like from the photos that the laws of physics would agree with you. The photo of taxing is followed by a photo of a busted nose and broken wings!

Facebook unveils 'next-gen' messaging system

Stuart Jones

Lars Rasmussen - the Google Wave developer was allegedly defecting to Facebook

According to this:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/10/31/rasmussen_leaves_google_for_facebook/

Lars Rasmussen - the Google Wave developer was allegedly defecting to Facebook

CarderPlanet founder charged in $9.4m RBS WorldPay hack

Stuart Jones

Anti fraud

My understanding is banks are generally responsive to this kind of thing. I know of at least three incidents of card fraud (including current accounts) from colleagues and friends and all were reimbursed without too much hassle. Maybe you've had a different experience

iPad alert: Are you a selfish elite or an independent geek?

Stuart Jones

Jury is out

I own an IPad because we got given them at work. I have mixed feelings about it and I definitely think they are over priced.

For me at the moment the killer app is as an ebook reader. I generally read big tech books so they are lighter and have the benefits of things like search, colour etc so the reading experience can be better than paper or e-ink readers (subject to reading indoors)

They are useful for casual browsing when looking stuff up but not as good as a laptop for serious work

The email client is appalling. I am trying to use my ipad in meetings instead of a laptop because it is less obtrusive but I have to say I struggle if I need to refer an email.

I do use it for the notepad application fairly successfully. Typing is almost as quick as on a laptop and it is nice to have electronic notes ready straight after a meeting without having to type them up.

Overall - interesting but not worth £500. I think £200 is probably the right price

Empires built on free code aren't cheap

Stuart Jones

Not necessarily true

If you run Microsoft technology anyway then you can easily move away from Azure assuming you avoid Azure specifics. Azure will also run PHP and will happily run things like NHibernate

Google is more vendor lock-in because afaik you cant host your own GoogleApps

Either way, my point just taking Amazon as an example you can scale up quickly without huge infrastructure investment

Stuart Jones
Go

Yes, but...

With people like Google, MS and Amazon offering very scalable hosting solutions, it might just provide a mechanism to scale until the product is monetised sufficiently to break out. In addition a lot of the hard work earlier web companies have done in creating scalable frameworks is now done (e.g. NoSQL etc.)

Old PS3s locked out of PlayStation Network

Stuart Jones
WTF?

Mine too

Didn't see this post until looking up the issue - just decided to try and have a game of PES2010 and that doesn't work either. Internet access including the iPlayer seem okay - just seems to be playing games which is the problem. Typical as I am on holiday today. Will just have to work instead :(

Tories swallow Web 2.0, spit out £1m crowdsource prize

Stuart Jones

RE: Let me get this straight...

That's crowd sourcing

Microsoft's latest open-source release catches a wrinkle

Stuart Jones
Thumb Up

MVC

http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1185923&cid=27435131

Nuff said.

As an aside, we've been using ASP.NET MVC through the CTPs, Beta and now the final release in our upcoming product - it is excellent. Much better than bloated web forms.

Microsoft cloud to get 'full' SQL Server soon?

Stuart Jones

Performance and Support

@Eddie - I assume you are someone who doesn't work with SQL Server and are blinded by MySQL's freeness. MySQL = poor scalability over multicores, MyISAM prone to corruption etc. SQL Server is fairly expensive, especially if you go Enterprise, but it is extremely solid and reliable and has got consistently better with each version.

@Jay - seriously have you ever phoned Microsoft for support? I have been amazed at their response. We've had Microsoft remotely configured ISA Server, helping us restore a corrupt Active Directory through the night, issue us a patch for Windows Server 2008 within 24 hours of us discovering a bug. All we have is the regular MSDN support incidents that come with being a certified partner - otherwise each incident would be £50 (which is refunded for bugs).

Finally, data in the cloud makes a lot of sense if the application is in the cloud. It is very early days at the moment but the potential benefits are clearly there to be seen. As long as Quality of Service is guaranteed (such as TPC equivalents) then I think it will become mainstream within the next 5 years. Why manage the hardware layer when that can be abstracted away for you.

Vista SP1 downloaders bite back

Stuart Jones

Er.....

How many people managed to get everything working first time with every new Linux release? Or even OS/X release?

E.g. The first time I tried to install Ubuntu (latest version, 3 weeks ago), I couldn't get past an early install screen because on my default 800*600 resolution the next button didn't fit on screen. Now that's polished. Not.

7000 Leap Year Babies attack Steve Ballmer

Stuart Jones
Gates Halo

Excel

Excel implements the leap-year bug by default but you can switch to the 1904 date system by going to Tools -> Options -> Calculation -> select 1904 Date System.

Microsoft's smiley browser face turns sour

Stuart Jones

Compatibility

I am truly shocked by the number of people that throw flippant comments like "sod backwards compatibility, just force people to re-write old applications". That sort of attitude is what causes IT and business to clash so badly.

First of all, a de facto standard is still a standard, and the fact many hundreds or thousands of development hours are spent on applications targetting an earlier platform should not go unnoticed. Of course it is nice to always have the latest and greatest but it is very ignorant to assume it is always possible.

The other thing is it is very short sighted not to see the meta-tag solution as an interim solution. With reasonable time the default position can change as old applications are phased out. Of course within 3-4 years it is probably acceptable to change this.

Finally, how people can slate IE7 like they think they know something others don't. The fact of the matter is IE7 works very well and despite using Firefox for testing, I still prefer IE7. It is faster starting up, more stuff works currently and I get SharePoint and Project Server integration - and this is the sort of stuff that is actually important.

MS 'disappointed' with Xbox Live connectivity woes

Stuart Jones

PSN

Having used to own a 360 and currently having a PS3 - I can safely say the 360 was a hell of a lot more stable than the PSN. If the 360 ever became as quiet as the PS3 I might just buy another one....

Sony BMG to drop Custer stance on DRM

Stuart Jones

@Gavin

A lot of DJ sites were offering DRM free 320kbps songs a couple of years ago and now even offer lossless and wav formats - hence will be as good as CDs (and some better). As bandwidth becomes more common place I'd expect this to make it into the mainstream.

On the other hand I refuse to buy CDs any more now because it feels so last century....I'd rather pay my 79p etc., or even better subscribe to a monthly service.

Why simplicity starts with design

Stuart Jones

Eh?

What exactly is the point of this article?

Incidentally, simple designs do not neccessarily = simple to maintain. A simple design could be argued to be with the least amount of abstraction, the least layers etc. However, as soon as you add new features, make changes you start to get all sorts of problems with lack of proper isolation, no injection etc. Therefore simple design should mean clean, consistant design that it actually difficult to break.

I'm also a little confused by the don't try to test designs - surely the design should actually be the test in this day and age? Or is that too complicated?

Microsoft surprises itself with six-month late Hyper-V beta

Stuart Jones

CTP

Well we ran and evaluated the CTP which was released a while ago. It seemed okay but had limited hardware support so we've temporarily reverted to VS2005. However, I am looking forward to the formal release of the Hyper-V. Whilst it may not currently have management tools, it is easy to deploy and the virtual disks are interchangable between VPC and VS easily enough. Also, MS releases loads of beta and CTP stuff as VHDs which are definately useful.

Mind your languages with Microsoft LINQ

Stuart Jones

Linq

Anyone who is dismissing Linq or ORMs is probably a luddite who hasn't tried them or doesn't have enterprise apps to build and maintain

Microsoft throws unified communications party

Stuart Jones
Thumb Up

Good News

I'm personally happy with this development. We're a Microsoft shop and therefore it is far easier to support everything from a single vendor, not to mention the licensing benefits of being a certified partner. As long as it all works, which unlike what most Microsoft bashers think, usually does.

Pirated Simpsons movie traced to phone

Stuart Jones

Au Revoir le cinéma

Whilst the cinema "experience" may be liked by some, the fact of the matter is my sofa is far more comfy than the cramped seats in our local Odeon (and that's only if you are lucky enough to get tickets to the latest films at a reasonable time). The argument for the big screen and directors vision is now removed with most HD TVs and a pretty basic surround sound setup.

RIP Cinemas, nice knowing you but ultimately I couldn't care less if you were replaced with video on demand.