BINGberry =bitter pie

Verizon Wireless pushed out a new app to it's RIM Blackberry users on December 16th. Some of you may have noticed an orange bing logo on your handsets desktop. This wasn't actually the new app, but an installer for a new app. Once you click on it Bing is installed on your device promising powerful search features and mapping content.
I figured why not. Microsoft has been batting 1000 lately so I will give it a chance.
Now having had the Bing app for a month it has to go.
It looks very nice. Wonderful job done in the UI side of things. Very Stylish.
the searches provide very nice results and are helpful and relevant to what I am looking for.
Reasons it has to go;

1. Slow to the point of pain- It takes too long for Bing to find and display search results. when one of the search results is a location and a map is going to be displayed you may as well order a refill of that coffee.
   
2. Crashes badly- When you try to just say screw it and exit to the blackberry desktop before it finishes fetching content (maybe to get a faster result from google?) Bing just folds in on its self like the house at the end of Poltergeist. Usually necessitating the blackberry equivalent of the 3 finger salute; depress silver button, slide back cover up, pull battery down and out, re-insert battery, wait for your berry to finish re-booting.
   
3. Maps are not any better than Google-The splash screen graphics are pretty and follow the same graphic conventions as bing.com. which is stupid. This is a mobile device! Even at 3G speeds this is too much data to be fetching. Especially when I am trying to find the Caltrain stop in South San Francisco (which is pretty well hidden!). The Google maps app on my Blackberry is easily 10 times faster. Google maps satellite view displays much better and is easier to navigate by.
   
4. Can't get rid of the Bing Icon-So the affair is over. Or should I say fling? Bing is a pig, hogs the covers and flirts with my roomates. I go to the uninstall page and yank that sucker out of there. Fleeing back to the waiting arms of google. Go back to the desktop to be greeted by...the same Bing icon. Even after it is uninstalled, the Bing installer will still hang out on your desktop. You can not remove it. All that you can do is "hide" it. It will still be there later on when you click"show all". Ready to be re-installed as if you had never had this awful experience.
   

XML

I have been doing some web work for a friend of mine. While I am not a hot shot web designer by any means, I am familiar with most of the technologies involved and have put together a few websites. Though I am not nearly artistic enough to 'design' a site nor crafty enough to put together all those fancy clever scripts and such that coders use to coerce the DOM into doing what it should in the first place.
This website was interesting to me as it is based on Flash. Flash is used in those annoying animated ads you see on your webmail page, as well as in those design-ey websites. It is also how more than a little 2D animation gets done these days. South Park being a well known example of Flash being used for broadcast production. I am under the impression that much of what is done over at Williams Street is based in Flash as well.
At first I thought I had an onerous Flash website task in front of me, so I downloaded the whole site to my drive and dug around looking for some FLA files.
Nothing! If you are going to design a site for someone it is only common courtesy to give them the source code of any live deliverables in case future updates need to be made. Sure they could come back to you for future jobs but guess what, you may be dead, had your laptop stolen or switched careers by then.
After further tinkering with the local copy of the site I deduced that even though it is based in Flash, the content is configured in a few XML files. This is fairly clever as editing Flash requires a copy of Flash CS4 be installed on your computer, while editing XML can in theory be done with the simplest text editor you can imagine, like Notepad or Simpletext.

I mapped out the directories and dug around in the HTML to figure out which directories were live. This was not easy. Some images appeared in multiple directories. The HTML basically only shows that a Javascript is pushing out the Flash content.

I ended up viewing "page info" in firefox to ascertain which flash files were active in which HTML pages.
I changed the name of the image directories until a name change broke the code and made the Flash literally draw a blank.

Then I was looking at the XML directory's files thinking that it might belong to the webhost's site control panel. Maybe it will give me a site map? I already unsuccessfully tried mapping the site manually into an Excel table. What can I say I like organizing things in Excel. All that did was waste a day and point out that a previous webmaster had been backdooring the site to host their (or a friends) resume!
Turns out the XML files pointed to the directories I had already sussed as likely the correct picture repositories.
So then I do the responsible thing and make a safe copy of the XML files. Then I start monkeying with them. Looks like I am on to something! I change the name in the XML. The name changes in the Flash! Well it works for the text. For images I have to clear my browser cache and restart the browser before I see changes.

Well I got all the pretty pictures up, but the text, which I thought was the easy part, is not cooperating. It shows up properly in the right place and time. However for some reason when I duplicate the syntax as it appears in the old version I get double spaced line breaks. The original is somehow able to get single spaced line breaks without resorting to any XML properties that I can see. Okay, well maybe the problem is that I am not seeing all of the XML attributes properly when I open it in Notepad. I think I need to try an XML editor? So I make the big mistake of downloading and installing Microsoft's XML Notepad 2007. Not a good idea. Completely hosed all the XML that I had already edited! Do not download XML Notepad 2007. Do not install it. Do not open work that you only have one copy of and edit it!
The edited work has a bunch of escape characters everyplace I inserted whitespace or tabbed things into place. This has the effect of breaking the XML and causing the Flash viewer to parse it as garbage.
So do I go back to my saved version and edit out the garbage or re-do it?
I am a lazy man so this is quite a conundrum.
I drink more coffee and do it all over again.
As of this writing I havent solved the double line space problem. It looks alright, but not as tight. I think I may need to edit it on a mac?

O'Reilly plus Microsoft redux

Wow so this is the future of the Microsoft Press under O'Reilly? Note the AppleMacbook and Iphone front and center. Not sure if the brand clash is intentional but pretty sure someone is angry in Redmond.

O'Reilly plus Microsoft?

Wow this is either awesome or awful. Apparently OReilly press, the alpha and omega of IT and programming books, will be co-producing and distributing Microsoft press books.
I am hoping this will mean that future Microsoft press books will be a bit easier to follow, less error riddled, and will stick to the exam topics for which they are intended.
I have had some bad experiences in the past with studying for an IT exam, then when exam time rolls around I am presented with questions that were not covered in the book. Or more commonly, the books cover material that is quite out of date. (IPX SPX?)
Now I am off to play another game of HRmageddon.

Its HERE!

My Windows 7 Party pack has arrived. There have been a lot of posts about this elsewhere. Even an unboxing on youtube. Which was posted on October 3rd? How did he get his so damn fast! I also have to say that I am disappointed in the balloons. Plain color balloons. No "Windows 7" logo or even a "Microsoft" logo? How else will my prospective guests find their way to my hovel, and not to all of the garage sales or bounce houses which infest my neighborhood on weekends. Jeez, printed balloon technology is pretty mature Steve Ballmer. Bill Gates used to spring for em all the time. and you know if you dont measure up as cool as Gates. Thats saying something.

I haven't seen any mention of the other contents. Or perhaps my box is "regionalized" for the cynical west coast with extra incentives? In addition to all the other goodies, there are a good wad of flyers or what may better be described as handbills.

1-"Thank you for attending our windows 7 launch party" cards. Business card sized containing a URL which will allegedly have special offers on Oct 22nd and thereafter.

2-14 day free tryouts for Zune. Apparently Zune is a monthly fee with unlimited music. Still I can't see installing a media program like Zune for only a 14 day tryout. A month, maybe.

3-Flyers for Corel WinDVD pro and Digital Studio. Also with a discount code for 50% off. Neither of these appeal to me as I already have Sonar 7, Cubase 4 and Logic 8. I also already play DVDs on my computer everyday, woth no problem. ($99 for dvd/blue ray software? What does a standalone player cost, $101 dollars?)

4-Postcard sized flyer from Sonic Solutions for a package deal on Nero 9 and "Backitup and Burn it". Never heard of the latter product. Nero has worked well for me in the past.

5-A postcard good for a 40% discount on Norton Internet Security 2010. Nothing good to say about Norton.

6-Finally, postcards for a free download of Kaspersky and an entry into their contest for a Kaspersky themed martini party. Yeah that sounds like fun, distilled spirits and anti virus software. With olives.

Yeah, pretty mundane stuff.

Virtual Shmirtual

Went to an IT event last night at the Ritz Carlton. The focus was desktop virtualization. Noticably absent were Oracle and Sun who have been huge proponents of the thin client/virtual client thing. It was an HP, Citrix, Intel Micorsoft party.
The food was excellent. The prizes were neat (an HP netbook and some core 2 duo processors). I wish I had won one! There were some gee whiz demonstrations of the flexibilty of the technology. I like the one where the guy opened up powerpoint in an XP desktop, then opened vista and it migrates there, then he opens a windows 7 desktop and it automatically migrates there as well.
A couple of questions come to mind though.
If everyone is accessing their desktop 'virtually' over the network this will mean you probably need to upgrade network infrastructure. Especially if they are relying on thin clients that cant do any lifting of their own. A network outage will be even more paralyzing than with regular desktops!
Also, this seems like it takes work away from low paid entry level workers and shifts it to middle management, back end MIS types. So the job you used to pay 5 guys $30k to do, you are now paying 2 guys $80k to do. and youhave less coverage of the 'floor'.
It's like with printers. Network printers are supposed to put a stop to waste and make things more efficient. But almost every company I work for has multiple local printers in addition to the big HP 8100's at teh end of each cubicle row.
I dont think virtual desktops will replace regular desktops. They do fill a niche rather well. For instance for telemarketers and customer service people that have a high turnover and not much personalization. Also for medical profession workers this may have some benefits.
I think I will download the demo and play with it for kicks though.

Party Pack!

My UPS notification came on Thursday. My "party pack" is on its way! The contents of which are intended for my Windows 7 party.
The alleged items in the box;
win 7 ultimate "Steve Ballmer signature edition"
Win 7 64 bit upgrade disk
Win 7 playing cards
10 Win 7 tote bags
Win 7 napkins (no table cloth?)
a Win 7 puzzle
Win 7 balloons
and a poster.

There may be some other stuff as well. If there is it slipped my mind.
I had originally intended for my party to be a "Win 7 does music production party".
Instead I think I will make it more a Win vs Mac party. I have a mac mini running 10.5.5 and my Lenovo laptop running Win 7 RC. They both have the same Intel 945 chipset, almost identical cpus and ram. The laptop has a much bigger faster hard drive though.
The laptop shreds the mac mini! It can't be just the hard drive. The Mac mini is'nt just slower, its agonizing!
I think it will also be interesting to see the differences and similarities between the two.
BTW I snagged the photo of the box from another fellows blog. Interesting story. He went to the Win 7 House Party website and tried to sign up as a host. Apparently his tiny Carribean nation was not represented! He wrote Microsoft about this (or emailed I am not clear) and was sent a full party pack! So even though he isnt officially hosting a party he seems to be among the earliest folks to receive their party packs!
It also bears mentioning that some people are selling theirs on ebay. Not very sporting, but not surprising.