Stu's Blog

Edinburgh Fringe Festival

2007-09-17T02:47:00.000+12:00

One of the big festivals that occurs every year in Edinburgh is the Fringe Festival. Basically a couple of thousand performers, comedians, musicians and actors show up, convert every uninhabited room in the city into a venue and spend pretty much the whole of august entertaining audiences. Oh, and the Military Tattoo is on each night, performed in front of the stunning backdrop of the Castle.

We'd heard a little bit about it before coming here and in the weeks leading up to August there was a definite sense of anticipation in the air.

During the festival the atmosphere is amazing. Each night feels like a friday night. An evening stroll down the royal mile shows off large crowds watching street performers and there tonnes of people handing out flyers, advertising some of the thousands of shows on offer.

Over the 3 or so weeks we tried to get to as many as we could. I think it ended up being 7 stand up acts, 3 concerts and the Tattoo.

The comedians we got to see were Karen Dunbar, Tripod, Kristen Schaal, Rhys Darby, Frankie Boyle, Hattie Hayridge and Brendan Hunt.

All were very entertaining, although I laughed the loudest and longest when watching Tripod, Frankie Boyle and Rhys Darby.

Concerts, we saw Silverchair, Foo Fighters and Jamie T - all were great and it was nice to be able to go to a few concerts in Edinburgh for a change.

The Tattoo was amazing, the pipe bands and the Moscow Military Conservatoire were brilliant just the music and the timing was superb - we'll definitely be attending next year.

Top 5 places to eat in Edinburgh

2007-08-31T06:38:00.000+12:00

Over the 4 months we've been here its safe to say we've had a few opportunities to dine out.
Thought we'd note them down, just in case anyones visiting and feeling peckish.

Heres our top 5 (so far):

Bella Italia - Great food and excellent service. Theres lots of italian places around but we've been here twice, usually on the spur of the moment, and thoroughly enjoyed it.
Wannaburger - Aussie burger joint on the Royal Mile, very good burgers. They also make the best milkshakes.
Thai Orchid - Went here for Carols birthday, yummy thai food and they stock NZ wine.
Hogshead - This a typical scottish bar complete with football on the telly. This place does a really nice burger + fries combo - 2 meals for £7 too.
Monster Mash - Bangers and, not surprisingly, mash are their specialty. They also do a good Haggis, Neeps and Tatties.

So there you go. Kinda feeling a bit hungry now, actually :)

If you know of any other good places, feel free to mention them.

It's been a while

2007-08-30T06:25:00.000+12:00

It's been a while since I last posted so I'll try and make up for it in the next couple of weeks.

Carol and I sat down and figured out all the things we've done since the last blog post and it's actually been a fair bit so I'll try and log a few tales when I can.

Hope everyone is well, and taking care of themselves.

Edinburgh Sevens

2007-08-30T06:18:00.001+12:00

Dan, Joe and I, originally uploaded by stewartr.

When we found out that Edinburgh hosted a Sevens tournament we were definitely keen to go along and watch. Considering the hassle it is to get tickets for the Wellington tournament, it was a nice surprise to find out that the tickets for this one were A) readily available and B) fairly cheap (£20 for the weekend).

An added bonus was that my mate (and best man) Joe was taking the train up to watch it.

The Saturday showed good Scottish form and, although threatened to rain all day, stayed relatively dry. We took our seats in the quarter-filled stadium in Murrayfield and it happened to be right next a very large group of rowdy/drunk kiwis. That meant there was plenty of entertainment to be had, on and off the pitch.

Being a 2-day event, the finals day was a bit of a struggle, but we faired better than some of the ex-drunk, now-hungover crowd alongside. It was kept interesting as, due to Fiji dropping out in the quarter finals, NZ had the chance to win both the tournament and the overall series.

And win they did much to the kiwi crowds delight -at this point the rest of the crowd had got kind of fed up with the rowdy kiwis situated near us, so there was little love to be had elsewhere.

Still the team came over after the award ceremony and performed the haka for us so at least they appreciated the support.

The photo kind of sums up the days, lots of black, face paint and flags. It was Joe and Dan's (pictured) first time up in Edinburgh and, although they spent most of it inside a stadium, I think they thoroughly enjoyed themselves.

Lightspeed by Mindscape

2007-06-19T03:37:00.000+12:00

Although I've been blogging mainly about my travels lately, I still feel like I want to blog about technical things that interest me when I can -I'm still learning heaps at work and find it helps focus my energy.

Anyway, my good friends at Mindscape are working on a product that I will be following with great interest.

LightSpeed is an Entity Modeling framework that follows the convention over configuration mindset that is popular with the Ruby on Rails crowd.

The benefits of Lightspeed over alternative frameworks (from the documentation):

Convention over configuration.
Support idiomatic .NET domain models: (Validation, databinding, change notification etc.)
Highly usable API and low barrier to entry.
Internalizes best practice patterns: Session per request, Unit of Work etc.
Testability built in.
Small, lightweight and fast
Solve the 95% case – i.e. more like Rails than NHibernate.

I imagine this approach would suit green fields development where the Domain Model is very closely modelled on the underlying database.

As Rails has shown there can be a huge productivity gain from keeping the simple case simple and it's a great option if the accompanying constraints fit within your requirements.

They are taking a page out JetBrains book and offering an Early Adopter Program where you can download weekly beta releases to test it out and provide feedback.

General Update

2007-06-02T00:56:00.001+12:00

Well things seem to be settling down nicely.

I got a job with an Investment Management firm, very nice bunch of people, not too big, not too small and they're keen on things like Agile and Domain Driven Design (thats a good thing).
Just moved into a more permanent address, quite close to the city centre, Carol did all the work on that one, its just right for the two of us, can put a matress in the lounge if we have visitors, and my favourite bit, it had an Xbox in the cupboard. YE-AH.
Carol's still job hunting at the moment, but things are looking promising, watch this space.
Played a couple of games of hockey and Carols well into her rowing, which is a lot more laid back than she's used to.

Other than that, we want to head down to London for visiting at some point and we're looking forward to people coming up and staying. My best man, Joe, is coming up this weekend to watch the rugby sevens at Murrayfield and NZ chances are looking pretty good.

Peterhead Road Trip

2007-06-02T00:20:00.000+12:00

Last weekend was a bank holiday weekend so we took advantage of the extra day to travel up north and visit some of Caroline's extended family in Peterhead.

Warning! Descriptions of family relationships many cause dizziness and confusion.

We had a few issues hiring a car - due to our lateness, the place we had booked from was closed and it seemed the only company cars available was at the airport - 20 mins from town. Nevertheless we did manage to get our wee car and set out on the highway.

The roads weren't too busy and the countryside heading north is quite pleasant so it was quite relaxing getting out and about, after having to rely solely on public transport for last few months.

It took around 3 hours to get to Peterhead, driving through Dundee and Aberdeen, with the last part of the journey following the rugged coastline. Seeing as it was all new sights, the time passed quite quickly.

Upon arrival we were warmly welcomed by Caroline Bachan, a cousin of Caroline's grandmother. We were well fed and on Sunday we were given the royal tour of Peterhead by John and Isabell, Caroline's grandfather's brother and sister.

It was quite interesting to hear about the family history, where Carol's grandparents played when they were young and stories of how Peterhead was affected by WWII. Although the local accent was what I would call strong, I found I didn't struggle understanding what was being said - for the most part.

Unfortunately, even though we'd given ourselves 2 days to explore and go visiting, it definitely wasn't enough so theres quite a few people we still need to meet at some stage.
We thoroughly enjoyed our visit and have already said we'd return in the not-too distant future.
It's quite nice to know that even though we're a long way from home we still have close friends down in London and family up here in Scotland.

But we still miss everyone else :)

Code Monkey

2007-05-25T22:29:00.000+12:00

http://sstjean.blogspot.com/2007_04_01_archive.html

This song thats going around made me Laugh Out Loud. It's spawned quite a few YouTube vids as well.

As for the song lyrics - lets just say that they weren't too far off the mark in some respects. Whats scary is that in the ukelele remix - he could have described my job - except I'm still having fun :-).

Code Monkey dance video

Code Monkey ukelele remix - Live

Top 5 moments: Auckland to Edinburgh

2007-05-21T07:06:00.000+12:00

5. Bodyboarding on the standing wave at Wild Wadi Water Park (Dubai).

4. Opening scene to the theatrical adaptation of the Lion King in London's West End. The music and the way the animals were presented - just awesome.

3. Early morning breakfast on Sydney's waterfront - a great way to kick off our travels,.

2. Italian dinner, a few beers watching Chelsea vs Liverpool and that fateful sampling of Double Apple shisha with Nigel and Bevan.

1. Our first afternoon in Edinburgh. With our impressive initial sighting of Edinburgh castle and introduction to our new flat.

What I've been reading : Malazan Book of the Fallen Series

2007-05-12T05:16:00.000+12:00

In the past few weeks I've spent a lot of time sitting around, whether in airports, or on planes, trains and buses. But even without that excuse I would have had my nose buried a book - this series has me hooked.

Written by Steven Erikson, these books tell the tale of the exploits of the Malazan empire and its people and the world the author brings to life is one of the most vibrant and gritty that I've ever encountered.

We're thrown in the deep end at the first page, with lots going on and very little of the handholding that usually starts a series.

Instead the concepts are usually given meaning by using it over and over again in context.
So in it's way we're spared explanations on things that are obvious, as for things that aren't that obvious, the mystery is maintained.

I'm up to book 6 in the series (out of a projected 10) and I haven't felt the story is getting out of control. So if you're a keen fantasy reader and you're looking for new material, give this series a try.

1 Week in Edinburgh

2007-05-05T03:43:00.000+12:00

It's hard to believe we've been in Edinburgh a week already. We've settled in really quickly, in part due the comfortable flat I mentioned previously, but also due to the fact that Edinburgh is such a beautiful city with loads of friendly people and, contrary to all accounts, good weather.

Yes, its been sunny most days we've been here, the hot days max out at about 18 degrees in the sun, and although it hasn't rained yet the forecast for this long weekend doesn't sound promising. One thing we have noticed though is even if it's sunny the wind is often very cold and has a bit of a bite to it.

The last few days have been pretty busy - I've been in suit and tie most of the time attending interviews and meeting with recruitment agents.

One of my interviews was in Perth, an hour north of Edinburgh by bus, so Carol and I got to see a bit more countryside outside of Edinburgh.

We also spent some time in Glasgow yesterday, just 45 - 60 mins West by train, for more interviews but also to check out the shops. Glasgow seems to be a lot more shopper friendly with the main shopping street feeling like downtown Auckland but with the roads blocked off to cars.

As far as job prospects go we both have second interviews with companies lined up and a few other options are on the go too. I personally have been fielding about five or six calls a day from agents with job opportunities, which is a little overwhelming.

Also, the Scottish elections were held yesterday which is big news around here obviously, not too sure who won yet, or what that means for us, so keeping an eye on it. The big election issue is around full independence for Scotland so will be interesting to see how things go.

Finally, Carol got in touch with both some rowing and hockey clubs and we bought some running shoes so hopefully we'll be able to get back some of our fitness. Its been two months since the rowing season ended and we're both feeling the lack of exercise has affected our energy levels a bit. So with that I think we'll head off for run....

PS. got Skype hooked up so if you want to contact me send me an email and I'll get you my username.

Stu and Carol Go Mad in Scotland: Edinburgh

2007-04-28T04:00:00.001+12:00

Stu and Edinburgh Castle, originally uploaded by stewartr.

After waking up on Thursday with huge hangovers (we're never drinking again) we hurriedly packed our gear and headed to Kings Cross station to begin the last leg of our journey.

The night before had been good - dinner at a local italian restaurant with Nigel and Bevan. The food was fantastic and very filling - I couldn't finish my meal. We then made our way to White Swan and Cuckoo - a local pub - to watch Chelsea beat Liverpool in the football. One drink lead to another and before we knew it we were pouring ourselves into bed at 12:30 - looking to get up early (ish) for our train.

The train ride was quite pleasant - whizzing through a very green countryside at 200 kph. The train had power so we plugged the laptop in and watched a movie.

Edinburgh surpassed our expectations - very beautiful and it was a mild spring day so we did well there.

We went to the real estate agents to sort out the accomodation we had booked and then took a cab to our flat.

The flat is fantastic - we didn't have high hopes cos you never know what you're going to get booking over the net - but we are very happy with it. Very spacious and gets a lot of sun - even has a small out door bit with a wee table and chairs.

The rest of thursday saw us doing some grocery shopping and just chilling out.

Friday, bussed to the city centre to have a look around and enjoy another nice spring day.

There is a definite nip in the air here but most indoor places are heated pretty well so you just need to wear something warm when you're outdoors.

Stu and Carol Go Mad in Scotland: London part 2

2007-04-25T22:48:00.000+12:00

Tuesday - Carol ventured out (on her own) and navigated the subway system to catch up with Kirsty in the morning (to look at wedding dresses), while I had an appointment to set up our bank account.

We met up with Cookie at Piccadilly Circus for lunch and then went for a wander (through hyde park - past the ANZAC memorial) over to Harrods. A couple of chocolates and a brownie was the sum of our purchases there - it was all we could afford. We saw the Diana and Dodi tribute and Cookie found the most expensive watch - 145,000 pounds.

We followed that up with a visit to the Hawleys a five storey toy store on Oxford Street. Got our picture taken with a huge teddy bear and I looked downstairs to see how much a Nintendo Wii would cost (will have to wait till I'm earning pounds).

Last stop of the day was to buy me a suit - we had looked at a few on tuesday and found a place that was a having a half price sale - the suit I got was 150 pounds in the end - looks pretty nice - hopefully it will score me a job.

Chris and Danella cooked us dinner at their place that night peking duck and BBQ pork - yum.

For our last day in London we are going to catch a matinee of one of the shows playing in West End (Lion King, Le Mis, or The Blue Man Group), apparently you can just turn up at the ticket office and can sometimes pick up cheap seats (ticket prices usually range from 50-70 pounds for a matinee). Bevan is trying to organize a dinner at an Italian restaurant near where we are staying – good last chance to catch up with everyone before we get the train up to Scotland.

Starting to get pretty excited about getting to Edinburgh – and settling in (it will be nice to stay somewhere for longer than a week). But, have also started to think about where we would like to go to next (for a holiday), both of us would like to go back to Paris and Rome and explore a bit more – Iceland, Prague, Berlin, and Spain are pretty high on our lists as well.

On another note - we are trying to get a couple of tickets to the New Zealand Vs Scotland world cup game in September (rugby), sounds like it will be a lot of fun and its being played in Murrayfield (Edinburgh).

Stu and Carol Go Mad in Scotland: London

2007-04-25T22:26:00.000+12:00

So we have been in London for a few days now. Heathrow wasn't pleasant -but it never is. One tip - dont split up to go to different visa lines! If your partner has a british passport or equivalent then you can go in the line with them. It's a difference between 30 mins in a line or an hour.

On Saturday we caught up with Chris and Danella – they have been in London for about six weeks. It was good to see them and we got to see their new place. They took us in to Covent Gardens to do some shopping – Chris went crazy at Lillywhites (sports shop – similar to Rebel Sports) and managed to get a snowboarding jacket and pants for 40 pounds ($120 NZD). We went to little china and had Yum Cha for lunch, which was nice – plus Chris and Nella shouted us – so that made it even nicer.

Later that night we met up with Bevan and some of his friends at the pub and then went to the Gourmet Burger Kitchen (NZ owned burger bar). The burgers were huge, and the served New Zealand beers Steinlager and Macs Gold – there were about 14 of us at dinner (all Kiwis) so that was pretty cool. The burgers were probably a little expensive 6-7.5 pounds ($18-20 NZD), but they were very filling!

On Sunday we caught up with Nigel and went to the Tower of London – spent about an hour looking around – though you could easily have spent half a day exploring (tickets cost 16 pounds). Watched a bit of the London Marathon – the weather was beautiful (sunny and warm) there were thousands of people taking part in the event and even more cheering the runners on from the side of the road. Later that arvo we went and played soccer in the park near where we are staying with Bevan and his flat mates – that was great fun – it was so nice to be outside kicking the ball about. Met up with Kirsty and her partner Brendan in Kings Cross for dinner and went to a lovely Indian restaurant (had the best Indian meal ever) and got to hear all about their wedding plans.

Monday saw us start to get into sorting out jobs – I had 23 messages on my cell phone from recruitment agents, all wanting a call back (one message for Carol – advising that she had been short listed for a job and they wanted to arrange a phone interview). We have a couple of things to sort out in London before we head up to Edinburgh. I went to a meeting to find out about contracting and setting up a company (for pay purposes) and Carol went to an event targeted at Public Relations people seeking work outside of London.

While Carol was at her meeting I wandered the streets to kill time and ended up at Trafalgar Square where they were trying to break the Guinness World Record for the Largest Coconut Orchestra event. The beat the old record of 1789 with 4382 - well done. After which they played Monty Python and the Holy Grail on the big screen - a great way to kill a few hours if you ask me.

Stu and Carol Go Mad in Scotland: Dubai

2007-04-20T17:21:00.000+12:00

So we got into Dubai at 7:30am - quite a few hours after leaving Sydney. The first thing we noticed is the plane had parked at a Terminal that had yet to be built. So all the passengers were escorted onto the tarmac where a bus picked us up and transported us to the arrivals terminal (10 min bus ride).

Our hotel transfer was handy and took us into Bur Dubai where our hotel was - our first impression of the place was a bit of a culture shock - its seems Nova hotel could have been a top notch hotel - in the 80s - the area we were staying in was not where the usual tourists stay and so our expectations of a very western experience were a bit off. Not a problem though - by the end of the day we were feeling a bit more at home.

We were let into our rooms early and had a power nap - since it was still only 8:30am after lunch we did some exploring and managed to get bit lost thanks the warren of streets and alleys and lack of detailed maps - thankfully we ran into a American ex-pat who gave us a 5 min tour of some cool sights and showed us the way to the Abra station (water taxis) - the going rate is 1 AED - although someone did try and charge us 20!

After exploring the Gold and Spice Souks (that shops in arabic) we bought a Big Bus ticket which let us you jump on and off at all the main sites for 24 hours.

We visited one of the more popular malls - Diera City Centre- got some New Zealand apples from the supermarket.

That night we went on a Dhow cruise where dinner and a magic show were included. The guy shoved a nail up his nose - magic.

Wednesday saw us use our Big Bus ticket to head out to the beaches where all the construction was happening. Saw the Burj Al Dubai - a 7 star hotel - sticks out like a sore thumb. And saw the construction of the palms - islands that are being built in the shape of palm trees to house residential homes and hotels.

The Mall of Emirates is where the Ski Dubai is - that looked quite tempting but we didnt have the time to explore too much as we had to get back to our hotel for our desert safari.

The desert safari was pretty cool - jump in an SUV and tear up and down some sand dunes for 40 mins then stop and have dinner out in the desert - with some belly dancing to finish it off.
Definitely worth doing if you're in Dubai.

The last touristy thing we did was the Wild Wadi Water theme park. This place was a maze of hydro slides and swimming areas - the coolest thing was they had these jets of water to push you uphill so you never had to leave your inflatable tube.

I also had a go on the wave rider there - that was pretty fun - harder than it looks though.

So now we're going for a quick look around the museum before heading to the airport for our next leg of our journey - London. Looking forward to catching up with our friends there - not looking forward to turning on my phone and seeing how many messages the HR agents have left!

Stu and Carol Go Mad in Scotland: Sydney Part 2

2007-04-19T18:32:00.000+12:00

Saturday night saw heading into town for a romantic dinner in The Rocks (downtown) and then watch the high rollers at the casino.

Sydney at night is very impressive as well - the opera house and the harbour bridge under lights made the extended train ride (we went the wrong way to start with) worth it.

Didnt win any money at the casino unfortunately.

Sunday was Zoo day -which coincided with Steve's sons 2 year old birthday - good thing we were out of the house and so not witness to the swarm of toddlers and parents that arrived. Although we did see the aftermath. Clare saved us some yummy party treats too.

Sydney Zoo was pretty cool - you arrive by ferry from the city and take a gondola ride to the main entrance - passing over the elephant and orangutang enclosures on the way. Best sight was the gorilla family but we also looked at some snakes, tigers, bears and kangaroos. Stayed away from the spiders though - ick.

Cronulla beach on the monday was a bit of a fizzer - a bit too windy to enjoy the beach - although we did manage to go to every surf shop looking for the perfect boardshorts for Carol. Just a pity we didnt get to put them to use.

Finally, we boarded our (late) flight at 7:45pm Sydney time - got into Bangkok about 10 hours later - got off the plane just to re-board 15 mins later - then a shorter 4.5 hour flight to dubai where we arrived at 7:30 am local time -needless to say we were pretty tired - but I'll talk dubai in my next post.

Stu and Carol Go Mad in Scotland: Sydney

2007-04-13T21:56:00.001+12:00

Sydney Opera House
Originally uploaded by stewartr.

Well we've said our goodbyes and boarded the plane. Fingers crossed all visas, insurance, flights and accommodation have been fully sorted.

The first stop - Sydney, Australia.

Neither Carol or I had been to Ozzie before so we'd thought it would make a first good stop - have to look around your own backyard after all.

We started our first day by taking the train into town with Steve to have a wander around the shops.

Good tip - get a day tripper pass ($15 AUD) - it gets you into town and back, round on the buses and best yet, gets you on a few ferrys which is a great way to see the Opera House and Harbour Bridge.

After having breakfast on the waterfront we took the ferry to Manly. Not really sure what I was expecting there but I must say Manly is a pretty cool place - golden sand, surf, and a relaxed shopping atmosphere. Even bumped into a guy we went to high school with - Marley - which is pretty random.

For the next couple of days our plans include visiting the Taronga Zoo, hitting the southern hemispheres second largest mall and maybe going for a swim in Cronulla.

Iron Python for ASP .NET

2006-11-22T12:00:00.000+13:00

Scott Guthrie has blogged about a new CTP build that allows you to use Iron Python as your language of choice in an ASP.NET application.

I've dabbled in Python a bit and like how little code is required to get things done. I've also followed IronPython's progress closely as working at a .Net shop, I figure its the only way I'm going to get to use it in anything significant. :)

It's good to see how seriously these new CLR languages are supported by Microsoft.

More IronPython Links:
IronPython for ASP.NET whitepaper
IronPython Source Code and Install

Unit Testing is a Dev Task

2006-11-03T12:07:00.000+13:00

These days, I find myself playing unit test evangelist to my peers a fair bit . Someone will suggest an argument why unit testing isn't feasible and I'll spout off counter-arguments that I've either learnt from wise people, or made up myself (generally the former).

And if (when!) my peers eventually concede my point (to get me to shut up) - they usually ask one more question:

"But will our project manager let us introduce unit testing in this project?"

And to some people this can be tricky. But it really depends or your point of view.

It's safe to assume that most Project Managers would expect you to deliver working code. Features that are sent to QA that break if you insert really bad data might be OK in the scheme of things, but if you send in features that you don't even know work, I'd say there would be some questions asked.

So that means that some testing is expected of developers - its just not usually explicitly stated, or if it is then it would be rare for the method of said testing to decreed.

Lets think about how development without a suit of repeatable tests usually goes:

Lets say you need to add feature X to your application, once X is implemented, how do you check that it works?

Perhaps you can run up the app, click a few buttons and eyeball the results. And sure, that can work, especially if the results are easily visualised. But what about when the feature X is altered or we introduce feature Y?

Do you do the same "test" (need to know that X still works), plus check for feature Y? Again, probably- it's definitely how I used to code. Sometimes, if I was feeling rushed or confident I wouldn't even test that feature Y didn't break feature X.

I would suggest, then, that most development tasks do in fact require some form of unit test - its just unfortunate that the bulk of these tests are unrepeatable and are never thought of again once a feature is complete.

I think moving one step further, it wouldn't be a whole lot of effort to formalise those adhoc tests into a suite of repeatable, automated tests that can be run for every check-in, nightly build or release to ensure that intent matches reality.

So, from my view, the question "But will our project manager let us introduce unit testing in this project?" can be countered with another question-

"Why do you have to ask your project manager how you should develop your application?".

Inflector .NET

2006-10-04T14:07:00.000+13:00

Andrew Peters has completed a port of Ruby on Rails Inflector.

From the man himself :

The Inflector primarily allows you to determine the plural or singular of a given word, which can be useful for things like code generation. For example:
Inflector.Pluralize("address");
produces “addresses”. Whereas,
Inflector.Pluralize("species");
yields “species”;

Nice - Hopefully we'll see more of these sorts of tools ported to .NET

Picasa Web Albums

2006-09-20T13:56:00.000+12:00

I've already posted about the wonders of Picasa.

Now it looks like Googles moved onward and upward with a new release and online storage facility called Picasa Web Albums.

Picasa Web Albums seems to offer similar features as other photo sharing sites, such as Flickr or Ringo, but the ability to upload is nicely integrated into the destop application. Along with, I assume, the existing tags and other metadata that you've defined.

So far as I can tell, you need to sign up for an invitation (with your GMail account) to be able to upload photos - and the basic account is currently limited to 250MB but, knowing how quickly GMail grew its size allowance (its now over 2GB), I wouldn't be surprised if this allowance gets bigger later on.

Oh and I nearly forgot - the latest Picasa release lets you do GeoTagging to work with Google Earth, so you view your photos by location on a 3d globe.

Debugging NUnit in Visual Studio Express

2006-09-14T12:52:00.000+12:00

Early on into developing with the Visual Studio Express Editions the lack of support for a few things become quickly obvious. Namely, no Add-In support and no ability for the debugger to attach to a process.

Well the first one I heard has been overcome for certain tools (well briefly anyway).
As to the second issue I found a workaround on my net travels - thought it would be good to document it here.

Basically you modify the .csproj.user file to include this snippet

<StartAction>Program</StartAction>
<StartProgram>C:\Program Files\NUnit-Net-2.0 2.2.8\bin\nunit-gui.exe</StartProgram>

under the PropertyGroup element.

Now when you press 'F5' it should fire up a debuggable NUnit session.
This could be used to fire up any process - Windows Live Writer instances to test your plug-ins for instance ;)

Note: Untested by me as of yet - will test when I get a chance and I'll remove this note.

TiddlyWiki

2006-09-13T13:04:00.000+12:00

This is pretty cool.

A wiki written only in HTML, CSS and Javascript.

Good to use as a simple and cheap way to stored any sort of related content - project ideas, todo list, personal diary/mindmap etc. - could even be edited and stored on a usb stick!

I'm constantly amazed at the ideas some people come up with.

Blogger Beta

2006-09-01T22:02:00.000+12:00

I finally got switched over to the blogger beta. It has cool things like labels and well..... thats about all I've used so far. But its a biggie for me because I post such random stuff :)

Now people that aren't interested in coding are able to view just my travel and personal posts and coding people can skip all the personal posts.

Nice.

$1 for a Digital Camera?

2006-08-31T13:49:00.000+12:00

Ok, this is pretty random.

I was wandering in downtown Wellington at lunchtime, and walked past a video arcade. I thought I'd pop in and play a few shoot-em up games, just to kill some time.

By spending $10 you get this swipe card with $11 credit - of course the catch is that most games cost $2 to play. Anyway as I was on the way out, I thought that I might as well spend that last dollar on one of those "win a toy" machines.

I ended up winning a digital camera - its a cheapie ($170 NZD) - but its 3 MegaPixels and is about the same size as my cell phone.I think the last thing I won was an XBOX (original) about 3 years ago. I guess I should have bought a lotto ticket instead but I can still think of a few uses for a cheaper camera (I'm thinking outdoorsy stuff or anything involving alcohol).