Archive for March, 2008
Visual Studio, Windows Server and SQL Server 2008 launch in Guernsey
The various Heroes Happen Here community events in the UK/USA to celebrate the launch of Visual Studio 2008 etc. made me envious that we don’t get such events and goodies here on the little island of Guernsey so I thought I’d so something about it!
We at the Guernsey Software Developer Forum are hosting a community event in conjunction with Microsoft to celebrate the launch of Visual Studio 2008, Windows Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008.
The event starts at 6:30pm on March 27th (next Thursday) at La Rocquettes hotel in St. Peter Port, Guernsey.
We will be giving away a bunch of goodies including the Heroes Happen Here launch packs with promotional copies of Visual Studio 2008 Standard, Windows 2008 Enterprise Server and SQL Server 2008 Developer as well as demonstrating some of the new features of Visual Studio 2008 and .NET 3.5.
I’m hoping this event will be bigger than normal GSDF events given the cool stuff we are giving away and the interest from non-developers in Windows 2008 and SQL Server 2008 so tell your friends (if you’re in Guernsey of course)
[)amien
Safari 3.1 includes developer tools
Safari 3.1 has just been released and besides the partial CSS3 (fonts) and partial HTML5 (media tags, off-line storage) support there are some new developer tools included.
Safari has had a hidden Debug menu for some time and WebKit featured developer tools but with 3.1 Apple have unleashed them to the masses.
Head into Preferences > Advanced and choose Show Develop menu in menu bar to get this new Develop menu.
It includes:
- Open Page With (Internet Explorer, Firefox 2/3, Camino, MobileSafari etc.)
- User Agent switching
- Show Web Inspector (inspect element)
- Show Error Console (including HTML errors)
- Show Network Timeline (like Firebug’s network view)
- Show Snippet Editor
- Disable Caches/Images/Styles
- Disable JavaScript/Runaway JavaScript Timer/Site-specific hacks
Here’s the Network Timeline in action on OS X:
There are some odd drawing issues within the snippet editor and inspecting from the inspector on Windows but with this, Firebug and Internet Explorer 8′s Developer Tools we’re spoilt for choice!
[)amien
And no, it doesn’t pass the rather abstract Acid3 test
Facebook’s bizarre search algorithm
I’ve been having some problems trying to locate friends on Facebook and now I know why.
Facebook’s search algorithm is the most bizarre search algorithm known to man.
If you know how to spell their name exactly and type it all in lower-case that works fine. As soon as you introduce a capital or partial then spacing, which letters are capitalised and the length of the match all seem to play their part in the bizarre matching process that never delivers what you would expect although does deliver the same results every time.
I’ll use my name as an example (~ indicates additional space character):
Damien Guard / damien guard
Finds me, two coast guards named Nick Zieser and Patrick Fernandez, a person called Romy Domingo and two groups that match on description. The other people have nothing in the “Matches” field to indicate why they were bought in but not too strange.
Damie guar
Finds me, Damien Guarnieri and Kyle Damien Guarco. This one makes sense.
damien guar / ~damie guar
Should return same as above but oddly excludes Kyle.
Damien Guar / damie Guar~ / ~Damie Guard / dami Guard~ / dami guar / dami guard / dami guar
No matches at all.
damie guar
Curiously only Damien Guarnieri. Worrying given that many people search with lower case.
damie Guar
Damien Guarnieri and Kyle Damien Guarco only. No sign of me.
dami gua
The above two plus Damian La Guardia but still no sign of me or Damian Guard.
Damie guard / damie guard / damie Guard / Damie Guard / damien Guar / ~damie Guar~
Just me.
dam guar
Finds a Damian Guard in Tulsa but nobody else.
~dami gua~
Includes most of the people mentioned here but excludes my partial-namesake Damian Guard.
Damia Guar
Finds Damian Guardia and Damian La Guardia which didn’t show for “Dami Guar” yet excludes Damian Guard again.
It’s likely a case of devs trying to be intelligent and ending up with a usability nightmare but until they get their act together be prepared to try all sorts of combinations for partial matching.
[)amien
Access AIM and ICQ via Google Chat
Google just added support for AIM to Google Chat so you can just enter your login details and chat right away from your GMail or Google Apps for Domains account as if they were Google Chat users.
Better yet you can actually enter your ICQ number in the user-name box, fill in your password and integrate your ICQ account although this is seemingly undocumented and likely just a result of the ICQ and AIM integration from some time back.
It’s not as comprehensive as the fantastic Mac-app Adium or the clever Meebo web-interface and doesn’t offer support for MSN Messenger like those two but it’s a great extra tool to have at your disposal when stuck behind a proxy needing to get hold of someone.
[)amien