Wednesday, November 30, 2005 Borland has posted a video from the 2005 Borland Developer Conference that includes a demonstration of the new Borland Developer Studio 2006. I don't know about you, but I am anxiously awaiting the release of Delphi 2006 and the new Dev Studio. I'm really excited about the new features included in the upcoming release. posted by Kirby | November 30 10:48 PM | comments (0)
I have had a week to play with my new Xbox 360 and overall I'm happy with the purchase. However, unless you are a hard core gamer who wants the latest hardware or there is a must have, must play now game title out there, I recommend waiting until after the holidays, maybe longer, to buy an Xbox 360. Here's why.
Although the hardware is impressive the launch titles I have played don't really push the hardware. In other words, I'm still waiting for a next-gen game that really shows off what the Xbox 360 can do.
PGR3 and Call of Duty 2 look great on HDTV. New York City streets in PGR3 look real and Call of Duty 2 makes you feel like you are in a movie at times. Both games look good on a standard TV but really shine on HDTV. HDTV support is one area that makes the Xbox 360 a better console than the others on the market today. But if you don't have HDTV, games look about the same as you would expect on Xbox 1 or PS2.
One thing I do like is the new Xbox Live. The new Xbox Live combines a market place with gaming. I also like the gamer card and score. I find myself consistently comparing my score to other gamers and I'm consistently working on gaining more Xbox Live achievements.
Another impressive new feature of Xbox 360 is the media capabilities. You can play music, watch videos, view digital photos and more. The console does a good job of being a complete entertainment console. The Xbox 360 can connect to a Windows PC running Media Connection software or Media Center. Once connected you can listen to music streaming from the PC or watch a movie or even browse digital photos.
I'm excited about streaming music since I have a server of 40+ GB of MP3 that I prefer listening to. Since my Xbox 360 is connected to my sound system and it can connect to a Windows PC over my home network, I am now able to listen to my music from the server through my sound system. This of course is nothing new but the Xbox 360 makes it easy to setup.
The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
So you have just read the good. Now time for the bad and the ugly. The bad was my first experience with the Xbox 360. As I previously mentioned in a different post I had hardware failures when I first setup the Xbox 360. The hardware failures were caused by the video card not receiving enough power to operate properly. I was on hold for what seemed like forever with Microsoft Support but eventually gave up. I searched the forums and found I was not the only one experiencing problems. In fact a lot of people were having problems.
The solution that worked for me was to wipe down the mental connectors on the power brick. Apparently there was residue on the mental pieces that prevented the console from receiving full power. There are some individuals in the forums who say this is ridiculous and that wiping down the mental connectors will not fix anything. All I can say is I have not had a hardware failure since so the solution appears to have worked for my case.
Speaking of the power brick, it's the one part of the hardware that is a real let down. Sure the console is slimmer than its predecessor but the power brick for the Xbox 360 is huge making it a pain to carry the console to a friend's house. The power brick even has its own built-in fan, which adds to its size. Speaking of which, the combination of the console and the power brick make for a noisy experience. Yep, the fans are loud.
The Xbox 360 is louder than all my laptops and Dell servers, firewall device, network hubs and switches, wireless access points, printer, and external USB hard drivers combined. You will not notice the fan noise during game play since the game will have its own sound and music but when the Xbox 360 is powered on and there is no music or game play in progress you can definitely here the roar of the fans. Over Thanksgiving weekend I was asked a couple of times "What was that noise?" Of course I had to say it was the Xbox 360.
And lastly the travel bag. Those who know me know I am a bag junkie. I believe having the right bag is key to travel and transporting goods. I'm not talking about a purse. I'm talking about big bags and small bags with a specific purpose. And I have a lot of them so it was only natural for me to buy the Planet 21 Xbox 360 Sling Bag.
This bag looks nice but it does have some design flaws. First of all, there should be a handle at the top of the bag. This would make it easier to carry the bag when you need to walk through say the turnstile at the subway station or throwing (not literally) the console into the car. Also the shoulder strap sucks. There is no padded shoulder rest and believe me if you are carrying the console with the heavy power brick to a friend's house and you have a 30 minute walk you want a padded shoulder strap.
But the number one disappointment I have with the Sling Bag really isn't the bag itself but the power brick. Yes, again with the power brick. While the Sling Bag supposedly was designed for the Xbox 360 there is not good place to store the power brick. The bag has lots of pockets and compartments which I really like. Unfortunately many of them become useless once you put the power brick in the bag. I really hope a 3rd party or Microsoft comes out with a replacement power brick in the near future.
Anyway, back to the bag. It's a nice bag and it's okay for carrying your Xbox 360, a couple of controllers, the power brick, and a game or two especially given the price, $50 USD. But a more expensive laptop bag might make packing away the hardware and accessories easier.
And Finally
I'm really enjoying my new Xbox 360. Games like Amped 3 and Call of Duty 2 are great launch titles, but I haven't found a launch title that really shows off the hardware. I expect this will change in 6 to 12 months after game developers have had more time to explore the potentials of the console. The new Xbox Live is great and is the one saving grace (for the moment) for the Xbox 360 in my opinion. While I don't think the new Xbox Live is a reason to buy a new Xbox 360 it is nice to have if you already have the console. And lastly, given the initial problems reported by many Xbox 360 owners and the lack of a kill launch title that shows off the potential of the new hardware, I believe Sony has a chance to trump the Xbox 360 with its upcoming PlayStation3. posted by Kirby | November 30 02:08 PM | comments (12)
Wednesday, November 23, 2005 I'm almost hesitant to say this but my Xbox 360 has been running problem free for the last 4.5 hours. Maybe the residue problem was the cause. Time will tell. I plan to play the heck out of the Xbox 360 this holiday weekend. I'll make another status posting at the end of the weekend along with my reviews of Amped3, PGR, and Call of Duty 2.
Updated: I've gotten a lot of gaming time in (over 20+ hours) on my Xbox 360 and I have not experienced any new hardware problems. I guess the problems I experienced on Day 1 were related to residue on the metal connectors of the power brick. Also, I'm having a blast with Amped 3 and Call of Duty 2. I'll post my reviews of these games later. posted by Kirby | November 23 11:04 PM | comments (0)
I just read from the Xbox forums that the problem I am experiencing might be caused by the power supply connectors. Apparently some believe there is residue on the metal and pins preventing the power supply from send full power to the console. I wiped down all exposed metal pieces. Hopefully this will fix the problem. posted by Kirby | November 23 06:25 PM | comments (0)
Santa came early at the Turner house. My Xbox 360 arrived this afternoon! I was impressed by the size of the console but not so impressed by the size of the power supply. It's huge but I can live with that.
Setup was easy. It only took me a couple of minutes. I powered on the console with the plan to convert my Xbox Live account to Gold before playing any games, but low and behold the video card crapped out. Yep, that's right.
The box was on for less than 5 minutes when the video card crapped out. The screen got fuzzy with red dots all over then thin black and white lines were displayed. My first thought was the video card was fried. I powered off the console and called support.
I was put on hold so while I waited I decided to unplug the console, plug it back in, and try it again. The console booted up fine and the video was okay. Whew, maybe it was just a freak one-time video problem.
I was still on hold with Microsoft Xbox support. I decided to stay on hold while I worked my way through the network setup and Xbox Live account conversion. Luckly I wasn't experiencing any more hardware problems. I did have some problems converting my Xbox Live account and had to do the process twice. Microsoft could improve the conversion process user interface a bit, in my opinion.
Still no hardware problems and still on hold with customer support. 20 minutes had past so I decided to drop in my first game, Amped3. I decided to hang up the phone too. 2 minutes later, red dots everywhere! The dang video card went crazy again!
So my first impressions are not good based on the first 30 minutes or so. I felt like I did yesterday when I saw Microsoft demo pre-release version of Visual Studio Team Services on Launch Day and it did NOT work. I have been browsing the Xbox support forums and it seems others are having problems with their new Xbox too. I'm glad I'm not alone but I'm very disappointed with Microsoft.
After powering down the console, unplugging it, plugging it back, and powering it up again, I was finally able to play Amped3. The next 40 minutes were problem free. I'm heading out in a few minutes so I had to turn it off. I think I will turn it back on while I'm gone to do a burn in test.
I noticed the manufacturing date on my console is Nov 14 2005. Barely a week ago and it makes me wonder if Microsoft ever performed a burn-in test on it. Well, one thing I do know is if the video goes out one more time I'm returning the console and games. posted by Kirby | November 23 05:52 PM | comments (0)
Tuesday, November 22, 2005 In an earlier post I mentioned my disappointment with Microsoft for not including wincv.exe in the .NET Framework 2.0 SDK. Like many developers I have found this tool to be very handy and I use it a lot. But all is not lost. WinCV.exe can be used with .NET 2.0.
WinCV.exe has a config file called WinCV.exe.config identifying the assemblies loaded and exposed by the tool. I modified the config file to include the .NET 2.0 assemblies. Low and behold this worked. I can now use WinCV.exe to examine class definitions for 2.0 classes.
I recommend copying the WinCV.exe and WinCV.exe.config to a clean directory if you have .NET 1.1 and 2.0 installed on the same machine. This way you can use one instance of WinCV.exe for .NET 1.1 and the other for 2.0. You can declare the 2.0 assemblies in the same config file as the 1.1 assembly but this can lead to confusion when looking at the class definitions in WinCV.exe. I like to eliminate confusion so I copied WinCV.exe and its config file to a different directory, which I use to browse 2.0 classes. I use the instance at the default location to browse 1.1 classes.
I have posted the WinCV.exe.config file containing the 2.0 assembly declarations here. Note I had to rename the file stored on the web server to WinCV.exe.config.xml so ASP.NET would not block you from downloading it. You will need to remove the .xml from the file extension or copy|paste the XML if you are viewing it in the browser window.
Lastly, for those of you wondering where you can find WinCV.exe, look in your Visual Studio 2003 install directory. The default location is:
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003\SDK\v1.1\Bin
Kudos to the Microsoft developer who had the smarts to use a config file for WinCV.exe.
Update: The WinCV.exe.config file posted above has the <startup> section needed to force WinCV.exe to run under .NET 2.0 when multiple versions of the .NET Framework are present on the same machine. Thanks to Don Jayamanne for recommending the the
This is more of a rant then anything else but I gotta say it. I'm really disappointed with Microsoft today. It started at the NYC Product Launch event for Visual Studio 2005, SQL Server 2005 and BizTalk 2006.
Today's event was a let down for me. I have been to many similar Microsoft events over the years and have always left thinking "This was well worth my time." Today's event was only worth my time because of the free giveaways. The actual event itself was a let down and left me wondering if Visual Studio Team Services is really ready.
For starters the demo of VSTS used a pre-RTM version. This was a launch day event and pre-released software was demoed...WTF! On top of that many of the features demoed did not work, presumably because the pre-RTM release was used. Unit tests did not run, web tests did not run, load tests did not run, reports could not be displayed, and in certain cases bad practices were demoed such as saving the list of work items in SharePoint as an Excel spreadsheet. I would not want my team working from a static list of work items when Foundation Server is installed and live information can be used.
Disappointed with the event I decided to return to the office early to get some work done. My plan for the rest of the day is to evaluate the SqlBulkCopy class for a customer. I wanted to quickly see the class definition for SqlBulkCopy so I went to load wincv.exe.
For those of you who don't know what wincv.exe is, it is a class viewer for the .NET Framework classes. I often use it to identify property and methods names, which is faster using wincv.exe then the MSDN documentation. But to my surprise wincv.exe is NOT included with the .NET Framework 2.0 SDK. What gives? I found it to be a very useful tool that I used on a regular basis. Now it is gone. Even the wincv.exe page says it ships only with version 1.0 and 1.1 of the .NET Framework.
I have been using this tool for 4 years and I'm disappointed that I cannot continue using it with the new release of the framework. Needless to say this adds to my disappointment in Microsoft today. If only my Xbox 360 had arrived today. Things might seem different. posted by Kirby | November 22 04:09 PM | comments (2)
Tuesday, November 15, 2005 For those of you who have been asking me "When are you going to post new pictures?" Well, the answer is "Today". Check out the gallery for almost 6 months of pictures. From the NYC Pride Day March to summer camping trips to family vacations to our trip to Italy...You finally have some new pictures to keep you occupied for the next few minutes. Enjoy. posted by Kirby | November 15 05:50 PM | comments (3)
Thursday, November 10, 2005 Recently I mentioned the RSS feed for this site had a bug in it. The link for each blog item was incorrect. The reason this happened is because I was using Blogger.com to generate the rss.xml file and Blogger had no way of knowing the link used on the site. I finally fixed this today but it means Blogger is no longer generating the XML file. It also means the URL to the RSS feed has changed.
If you are reading this blog from an RSS-based aggregator you will need to update the URL for the feed. The new URL is:
http://www.thecave.com/rss.aspx posted by Kirby | November 10 05:33 PM | comments (5)
Wednesday, November 09, 2005 Is there a place in the .NET development world for typed data sets? I use to think resounding "No". I despised typed data sets ever since I was first exposed to them in a VB.NET training class back in 2001. Actually, until last week I have not even looked at typed data sets since that class.
I love writing code so custom business entity and handed-rolled CRUD classes are a-okay with me. But I'm starting to develop a change in opinion about typed data sets in .NET. It all began last week when I started evaluation ADO.NET 2.0.
First of all, loading data into a DataSet or DataTable is much faster in ADO.NET 2.0, night and day faster. For instance, I ran a speed test that loads 1 million rows into a DataTable. The test took just over 52 minutes to load the 1 million rows using ADO.NET 1.1. The same test took only 27.36 seconds using ADO.NET 2.0. Now that's a performance improvement. If you previously discard DataSet and DataTable because of performance reasons, you owe it to yourself to take another look at them in ADO.NET 2.0.
A typed data set is nothing more than code generated by Visual Studio that inherits from the DataSet and DataTable classes, among others. You can view a typed data set as nothing more than a set of generated business entity and CRUD classes. Because typed data sets inherit from DataSet and DataTable, they share the same performance boost given to its parent classes. But this alone did not convince me that typed data sets finally have a place in the development world.
Visual Studio.NET 2005 really impressed me on how easy it is to now create a typed data set. The wizards make it easy to associate your CRUD stored procedures to the table adapter, and you can just as easily extended the functionality to include adhoc queries and other non-CRUD stored procedures. And Visual Studio will generate over 800 lines of code that handles concurrency checking and other ADO.NET best practices with a simple drag and drop action. As much as I hate to say it, this is faster than writing your own business entity and CRUD classes.
The invention of a type data set is about improving a programmer's productivity and Visual Studio 2005's implementation of typed data sets does just that. It is one of the most productive ways I have seen to build data access and entity classes. I will definitely consider using typed data sets in future .NET 2.0 work. posted by Kirby | November 9 09:39 AM | comments (3)
Friday, November 04, 2005
You Passed 8th Grade Math |
 Congratulations, you got 9/10 correct! |
posted by Kirby | November 4 10:10 AM | comments (7)
Tuesday, November 01, 2005 Check out these latest announcements.
ANN: SMTP Diagnostics 1.4
ANN: New Web Site Design
As you can see, even thecave.com has been included in the new web site design. The goal of this redesign was to bring a similar look and feel across the 3 main sites, www.thecave.com, www.smtpdiagnostics.com, and of course www.whitepeaksoftware.com.
I hope you like what we have done. posted by Kirby | November 1 09:12 AM | comments (1)
