Thursday 25 December 2008

Happy Christmas!!

Happy Christmas!!! :-)

Wednesday 24 December 2008

Rediculous Error Message

I'm getting a bit sick with writing posts on the train and then copy 'n' pasting them into the web interface on blogger and then having to faff around with the formatting, so I thought I would download Windows Live Writer and see how that pans out. I've heard some good things and I've heard some bad things, but I'm willing to give it a go.

However, when I was downloading the installer and trying to install the thing it runs through the download routine and then checks for other Live programs running ... I don't know why, but it does ... if it goes on for a long time and the progress bar gets to the end and starts again the error message changes into something rediculous ...


Also, I've managed to write this post and upload the image in the time its taken to fill up that progress bar ...

... just checked it ... its started again! I give up!

I guess I'm staying with the web interface for now :-(

Tuesday 23 December 2008

Exercise Week #8 & #9

The past few weeks have been very manic at work and I have not been able to find time to update this as often as I usually do. This is partially down to Christmas parties, but also due to the increased pressure at work to get a certain project through the UAT criteria which is pretty tight. I didn't have to go in at the weekend (20/21) but a lot of the chaps did and worked really hard. I think we're all looking forward to some time off over Christmas to see the families and recover ... ready for the new year.

Bad time for the beer ratio, really need to try harder over the festive period and on into next year :-)

Week #8
Monday - 1 gym visit
Tuesday - rest
Wednesday - Working late
Thursday - rest
Friday - Work Christmas Party
Saturday - Recovery
Sunday - rest

Week #9
Monday - 1 gym visit
Tuesday - rest
Wednesday - Feeling rough
Thursday - Off work ill
Friday - Lau's Work Christmas Party
Saturday - resting (recovery and due to lack of sleep due to Lau's coughing keeping me awake)
Sunday - 1 gym visit + 10 lengths swim (b,2f,b)


Week #8 Beers
Wednesday - 1 beer
Friday - 6 beers (Christmas Party)

Week #9 Beers
Thursday - 2 beers (Medicine wasn't working)
Friday - 6 beers (Burger Friday & Christmas Party)
Sunday - 2 beers (Parents after Carol service)


Current Status : Bad!

Beers: 131
Miles: 33
DG Rounds: 19
Gym visits: 16
Lengths : 40 (week: 10; total: 400)

Key
Good => Exercise > Beers
Level => Exercise == Beers
Bad => Exercise < Beers

Monday 8 December 2008

Exercise Week #7

Weights week #2 - I didn't get to the gym as much as I'd have liked to this week due to a few reasons. It's been an unusual week at work (can't say anymore) and then there was the epic thank you and Christmas card writing epic on the Saturday.

Exercise
Monday - 1 gym visit (workout)
Tuesday - rest
Wednesday - 1 gym visit (workout)
Thursday - rest
Friday - rest
Saturday - stuck indoors doing wedding thank you and Christmas cards
Sunday - 1 round dg with Nige

Beer
Tuesday - 1
Wednesday - 1 (with lunch)
Thursday - 2 evening
Friday - 1 (burger friday)


Current Status : Bad!

Beers: 114
Miles: 33
DG Rounds: 19
Gym visits: 13
Lengths : 39 (week: 10; total: 390)

Key
Good => Exercise > Beers
Level => Exercise == Beers
Bad => Exercise < Beers

Thursday 4 December 2008

Visual Studio Solution Structure

I've been playing about with Visual Studio 2008 and the new features of c#3 on and off for a couple of weeks and lining up to get a couple of small projects up and running. One of them is my own website, one is a survey for next season for TDs and participants in national tour events.

I wanted to get the solution construction right for my website solution so that I can add a lot of stuff in over time and not have to re-work it to fit more things in. After setting up a subversion source control server for personal usage I decided that this was the time to mess about and I can always roll back bits if something goes wrong.

I wanted to keep the structure so that it was separated and also unit testable (yes I'm a unit test geek). This lead to having separate projects in the solution into different areas ... Data access, Model classes, Services and UI (using Solution folders works wonders for this ... more later).

*Top tip* To get your namespaces as you'd like them start by naming the projects as you'd like the namespaces to be. A good starting point is . as all the files in the projects will start with that namespace as standard unless you change them.

The data access project is self explanatory. I've decided to start using/playing with the Microsoft Entity Framework for this. I'm still learning how the EF works and best practices and I'm sure I'm still not using this properly but ah well; we live and learn! I've been reading about the Linq2Sql vs EF madness which has been going on over the past month since PDC, but I don't think it'll affect a little single "out of hours" home coder.

The model project is where all the domain model classes go. I'm still trying to work out how this goes with the EF in the data project so if any one can point out how these should operate together *properly* then some pointers would be much appreciated.

The service project is there for a wcf service project. I've put this in place so that I can access the data asynchronously via javascript in the future for an ajax look and feel with responsive UI and to avoid unnecessary postbacks.

UI is made up of a couple project types. The main one is a MS MVC project template which will serve as the main "website" in a traditional sense. It is made up of pages or views which will display different images / inputs / data and will also serve as host pages for the second UI project type; a silverlight 2 project. I've added this in as I want to start playing about with silverlight, and the eventual plan is to do my own site in both postback/views way, responsive UI javascript/async calls way and to have a RIA with silverlight.

To enable the solution to be grouped into logical I have used Solution folders to group the project and associated test project together. Solution folders are not related to the file structure they are purely there for organisational purposes. They also have more functions which can be found my reading the above link.

In addition to the grouped projects I have also added in a separate class projects for extension methods and global definitions. These projects will be referenced by one or more projects and will not reference any other project (as circular references are bad!).

Another tip I would use if you are going to go down the Unit test route would be add a file structure folder in a logical place in the solution and add in your mocking / helper dlls in this folder. You can then add in single references into each unit test project to one set of dlls. If you are putting your code into a source control system then add them into your solution and file them away into a "External" solution folder so that you can hide them away but still have them "under control".

Well this is the structure I am going to work with for a while and see how it gets on. You have any thoughts on the matter or pointers to improve this structure then please let me know.

This is the first post I've done of a technical nature so any comments about that would also be appreciated :-)

Monday 1 December 2008

100th Post

When I started this I didn't think I'd actually get to the 100th post. I know there is a very limited audience to this blog but this has become a good place for me to just note things down and keep track of stuff - keeps me happy.

It's not quite turned out as I'd originally thought it would, having not posted any technical/coding related posts since starting this madness, but I think it will get there eventually especially as I start playing around with new technologies (yes I'm starting to find time for this ... kinda) and doing some other stuff and mainly catching up with everyone else in the world :-)

Well the week has started and the month is a new one (where the hell has 2008 gone?!?!?!) so will crack on with work and try and get as much done as possible before having some time off over Christmas.

Laters :-)

Exercise Week #6

01Week 6 of exercising was Weights Week #1. I've decided that I am going to workout, reasonably hard, for the next few weeks and then get back into the swing of swimming regularly over the Christmas period when I'm off work for a week or so. Once we get past Christmas and New Years it will be back into training / practicing quite hard ready for the return leg of the Hyzer cup and also ready for Frostbreaker on the 7th/8th Feb '09.

Exercise
Monday - 1 gym visit (workout) + 10 lengths (b,f,b(2))
Tuesday - rest
Wednesday - 1 gym visit (workout)
Thursday - rest
Friday - rest
Saturday - 1 gym visit (workout)
Sunday - rest


Beer
Tuesday - 2
Friday - 1 (burger friday)
Saturday - 1 beer (with dinner)


Current Status : Bad!

Beers: 109
Miles: 33
DG Rounds: 18
Gym visits: 11
Lengths : 39 (week: 10; total: 390)

Key
Good => Exercise > Beers
Level => Exercise == Beers
Bad => Exercise < Beers

Spam Update - Nov

Well after the shut down of one of the largest spam networks in the world this month my spam folder has decreased in size ... yes I said decreased ... to a whopping ... 19,361. Which is over 15k drop in the last 30 days. That's incredible!!!