Google Analytics

November 17, 2005 By Leave a Comment
Google Analytics

Well, the codes been in since Monday and still no results. I've been hearing similar stories from others (Dave 5, Rod Drury). Could it be Google might be having some technical dificulties? And on one of the one product that DOESN'T have the word "Beta" appended to it's name! :-) Oh well, there would appear to be light at the end of the tunnel as Dave 5 reported this morning that the gravy is now flowing and full of yummy googly goodness! I wait, with baited breath! (I'm just so eager to find out where that guy who reads this is from! yes YOU! :-D ).

UPDATE 25.11.05: They say the first step to getting well is admiting you have a problem, well Google have taken that first step. In my gmail this morning, a note from the Analytics team letting users know that they have had a few "Teething" problems and what they are doing to correct them, such as limiting new signups. The good news… I have been recieving statistics for a few days now and the reports are very informative and interesting!

Filed Under: Web

Successful Application Design

November 9, 2005 By Leave a Comment

I came across this very interesting article on
the (web) application design process this morning and thought I'd share.

Having worked in both traditional design studios and small corporates
I definatly agree with the concept of allowing design teams to operate in a more free
form creative environment as opposed to the sometimes overly ridged corporate environment.
I do my best work when I can run with an idea and experiment, sometimes in directions
even I wouldn't have envisaged early in a projects life cycle.

Filed Under: Design

Why Visual Studio SUCKS!!!

October 11, 2005 By 7 Comments

Visual Studio 2005Where I work we use Visual Studio for the development of our main product application as well as various web and support applications. As these developments rely on a number of MS and third party controls the code is pretty tied to Visual Studio as an editing environment and editing it in another tool generaly breaks stuff. (The other developers don't like that!)

So here's my problem (and the reason Visual studio sucks…). It's a tool for developers, and I mean ONLY developers! Microsoft in there infinate FrontPage induced wisdom decided to include a "Design" view… erm, no… design view it ain't! Now I understand it would be harder to market if they called it what it was… a "useless misrepresentitive F$#@ up your code" view but that's exactly what it is! I mean seriously…

First let me make it clear, I'm a web developer, so we're talking ASP.NET here… Visual studio may do an admirable job with Windows forms (note I say "may") but I don't care, it does a piss poor job with ASP.NET so why try? So far, and I'm damn sure there's more, Visual Studio's "Design" view has reformatted/rewritten large chunks of my standards compliant code, changed lower case tags to upper case and get this… removed closing tags! WTF!!! The result? It actually breaks things!

Problem is, and I have looked, I can't seem to find any kind of configuration setting that will prevent it from doing all of this. I know I know… don't use design view… well I don't! but other developers who occationally work with my code DO! And that's not the point… if it doesn't work it shouldn't be there!

Having come from a graphic/web design background I have used Macromedia Dreamweaver, since about version 2 and although it has been an offender itself in the past it has matured into a very capable editor that has some real smarts and know's when to leave your code alone! It's handy to have a design view that works… including the ability to include live dynamic data in pages during editing and view fully representative CSS layout. That said, I rarely use the WYSIWYG design view, preferring to write my own code but at least I know it won't destroy hours of my work at the press of a button!

Having looked into the problem a little however, it seems there is no easy way to work in any other application so long as the primary development environment is Visual Studio so for now I guess I'm stuck with it. So if anyone can shed any light on this or offer up viable solutions please feel free to comment.

Roll on Visual Studio 2005 and ASP.NET 2.0… and Microsoft… PLEASE get it right this time!

Filed Under: Microsoft

iTunes for Windows Mobile

September 29, 2005 By Leave a Comment

I was just reading about the launch of iTunes for Windows Mobile. Rod mentioned on his blog that this could indicate a willingess from Steve Jobs to allow Windows Mobile devices to compete directly with Apples iPod.

One thing that is still going to prevent a Windows Mobile device competing with iPods is going to be the UI. iTunes is a great app and, done right, will beat the crap out of Media Player for Windows Mobile but the pda just lacks the simple user interaction that the iPod has.

I haven’t seen a copy of Windows Mobile 2005 so I can’t really comment on it, but I own an iMate JAM running Windows Mobile 2003 and it’s no iPod killer. I have tried (unsuccessfully) to use it as a player for podcasts and music and it is in a word “Hopeless” and I don’t believe that iTunes would change that.

If Microsoft want Windows Mobile devices to compete with Apple and the iPod they are going to have to fix a lot more than the just the software. For example, if you ‘soft off’ so the screen is inactive in your pocket it stops playing.

I would love nothing more than to be able to use my JAM as a music player. But right now I’d go for an iPod every time.

It will however KILL the piece-of-crap Motorola ROKR dead! :-)

Filed Under: Apple
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