Wish I’d known about this before, now I do. Let’s say you need to refer to Custom.Session and NotCustom.Session within the same class. Refering to Session alone is clearly ambiguous but it’s annoying, and clutters the code, to have to type those full paths in every reference. C# allows you to alias them in the using call:

Sorry for getting violent, or hinting at violence with the written word, but I really can’t stand Visual Basic.

Fine, I get it, C# and vb.net are almost indistinct from a functionality perspective. In the end it’s all compiled down to MSIL but no one writes MSIL, okay some probably do but not 99% of the development community.

As Nigel Shaw sums quite nicely in Not Another C# Versus VB Article, it is ultimately a culture issue. In the end Microsoft took such a soft road with vb.net that they left the door wide open to every ‘worst practice’ imaginable.

Some other quotes I had lying around in notes that I don’t know who to attribute to:

• “C# is a future language with international standardization muscle; the others are just legacy language reruns. Don’t write new code, especially class library code, in them!”
• Microsoft’s developer roadmap specifies that C# is intended for class library development while VB for RAD development.
• C# has much greater potential for widespread adoption, not only by developers but also by platforms, already having been released on other platforms (Mono 1.0).
• C# has the lead in language extension while VB continually plays catchup.

To start, I love Flock and I really really want to switch to using it fulltime. I began writing this post in Flock but had to switch back to Firefox as the latest release doesn’t appear to support basic cut and paste.

It’s a great browser that will excel at it’s promise, to make it easier to work with social web-based software such as blogs, flickr, del.icio.us, etc. They will nail that and are already close. It’s got me hooked on flickr.

Flock is early release software, I expect bugs and can’t wait until they reach the 1.0 release. As of today the only actual feature keeping me from switching from firefox to flock is the lack of keyword support for bookmarks.

I hate switching from keyboard to mouse and back so I use keywords extensively. “CTRL-L tsn” takes me to tsn.ca, “CTRL-T b” opens a new tab to bloglines. I’m now using del.icio.us and the tag idea is great but it ain’t no bookmarks.

Other than that it’s just bugs that I assume they’ll work out. Scrolling doesn’t work correctly. Keyboard based searching is buggy. They don’t get the timezones right for blog entries. So when I post from flock, the post shows up as having been written 5 hours ago. Oh, and with today’s update I can no longer post blog entries which is a big one.

I started testing Flock late last week and I’ve all but made the complete switch from Firefox. I wrote this post using Flock. They’ve managed to take a series of tasks people commonly perform through a browser such as blogging, mapping, photo sharing, etc and build a browser that makes all that simpler.

"Flock is the free web browser that makes it easier to share and connect with your friends."

This is the direction I’ve long assumed most applications will move. Instead of building a fully functioning web client plus some type of smart client or full GUI, just extend the browser itself. I’d like to play with this idea for a ClearSpace client., any volunteers? Maybe build a flock extension specifically for their application?

I’m giving FeedBurner a try for serving this site’s feed. If you were using the old feed directly, and you don’t mind, please switch over the new feed.

We’ve all made the joke about selling our parking spots when leaving a prime location during a busy time. Apparently these guys didn’t realize it was a joke. Link from SpringWise.

“SpotScout claims to be the world’s first mobile exchange marketplace for parking spots, connecting parking spaces with drivers that are desperately seeking them.”

I picked up some family members from the new terminal at the Toronto airport over the Christmas holidays. The parking garage in the new terminal has sensors over every parking spot. At the end of each parking lane there is a display indicating how many empty spots are in that lane.

Instead of this ‘pay people to post empty parking spots’ junk, what if we incorporate these sensors into the city parking meters? You could then use that information in lot’s of cool ways. Have signs at the end of streets indicating the number of empty spots, have a city webpage accessible from mobile devices showing a map that indicates available spots. The information could also be combined with the meter information to make the whole meter-maid business simpler. Wow, redefining the meter-maid industry, how exciting.

Having said all that I cringe at the idea of living in a town that wired….

I plugged in a phone I’ve had collecting dust in order to use it’s speaker phone. It’s a nice phone that works well. It’s one of these 390 phones and looks identical to the image below.

The problem is that whoever designed this phone clearly didn’t actually try it. If they had then they would have used the speakerphone for conference calls and they would have used the mute function while on those conference calls. While on one, probably more, of those conference calls, they would have been asked a question by someone on the call. Quickly they’d turn to the phone’s buttons in order to unmute so they can be heard. They would have then hung up on the call. Why? Take a look at the buttons

They placed the mute button beside the speaker button. If you’re using the speaker and it’s muted then that little red light is flashing. At some point in the past we humans were trained to press the button beside the red light that’s flashing. It sort of makes sense. In the rush of a call when you need to respond quickly or a client’s going to think you’re surfing tsn instead of paying attention to the call, you see flashing red light which means muted. You want to unmute so hit that button. Done, dial tone, no con call as you’ve just hung up.

I suppose the issue isn’t really the close proximity of the buttons as much as the flashing red light on the speaker button. In either case I have to explicitly train myself not to hit that damn button beside the flashing red light to unmute. I have to be conscious of it which to me screams of terrible usability, or a dumb user.

I own a 1/2 GB Ipod shuffle that gets a decent amount of use. The iTunes software and it’s slick integration with the device impressed me from the start. As well, iTunes made the process of ripping and cataloguing my cd’s dirt simple.

What I have not done, and have no intention of doing, is spend one cent at the iTunes store on digital albums, even at the low cost of $9.99. What’s my reasoning?

• I still listen to cd’s on my stereo often and I can hear the difference between an iTunes downloaded tune and a cd. Try it, turn your stereo up and play the same tune on both formats one after the other.
• The resulting album is restricted. I can only play it on five authorized computers simultaneously. I’m not sure what that really means but it sounds like a hassle.
• I can’t translate into other formats. So when the mp999 format comes out next week and I want to listen to this album on it I’m out of luck. I could, of course, convert my iTunes album to an audio cd and then rip it back into the mp999 format, however, that will result in more quality degradation.
• “An intentional limitation of Fairplay is that it prevents iTunes customers from using the purchased music on any portable digital music player other than the Apple iPod”, yike. Link.

So I can pay $9.99 for an ‘album’ that locks me into Apple products OR I can continue to buy used albums for about the same price and play them wherever I choose, including my iPod.

For the time being I’ll continue to buy my albums used from a locally owned chain called the Beat Goes On. They have wish list functionality that allows me to maintain a list of cd’s I’d like to buy. I receive email notification when a cd I’m after comes into stock in any of their stores. I can then have them ship it to my local shop for me to pick up or have it delivered to my house.

As for iTunes, open up or shrivel into non-existence…..

First visual studio, now I’ve come to learn that in-car GPS systems also rot yer brain. I spent the first half of this week at a friend’s place who has in-car GPS systems in both his cars. They’re cool. You don’t have to know a thing about where you’re driving, what signs to look for, landmarks, directions, etc. You just punch in where you’d like to go and start driving. A lovely voice tells you when to turn, what to watch for, everything you need to get where you’re headed. Next time I’m somewhere new and renting a car I will inquire how much to add one of these to my rental cost since it makes it so simple to get around in a new town.

It does not, however, do anything to help you learn and understand how to navigate your surroundings. In fact it does quite the opposite. You don’t have to pay any attention at all. You don’t have to watch the signs, you don’t have to look for visual cues, landmarks, anything.

It left me thinking of intellisense and what it does for, and to, developers. They’re both very slick useful tools but you’d be hardpressed to convince me that intellisense makes you a better developer or in-car GPS makes you a better, more aware driver.

Just hope that thing keeps working so you can find your way back home.

I’ve often wondered myself, does visual studio rot your brain? I openly admit I’m a vi and vim bigot. I used vi back in university, however, it wasn’t until my mks days that I solidified my bigotry. I worked primarly on a java codebase with the odd bit of awk or make files mixed in.

So without further ado, here are the top x reasons I’m in love with a text editor that’s name begins with the letters “vi”:

• Command mode. For me, that is the key feature in vi. I have access to my entire keyboard for commands instead of having to use key modifiers like alt, ctrl etc. I tried emacs, if I was good at chords I’d have played piano. This is also the biggest hindrance to new users adopting vi.
• I despise using a mouse. To be more precise I hate moving my right hand between my keyboard and my mouse.
• At times, I work in various operating systems, most of which have some flavour of vi out of the box. I know I can login to any *nix OS, open a shell and type “vi” and be up and running. Contrast that with an IDE like visual studio.
• I’m part of a club. Let’s face it, vi is a clique bordering on a cult. In order to get in the club you have to tolerate months, if not years, of being utterly unproductive in this crappy editor if you want to have any hope of getting in. The average person’s experience with vi consists of opening it, trying to type a line, getting three key strokes in before the computer starts beeping. They then look around the room for anyone who has any clue whatsoever how to close this shitty editor. After rebooting they type in “pico” and get back to work. It’s an editor that comes with a built-in hazing ritual. That alone is enough to solidify my love.