The daftest random disconnected diatribes of a documentation engineer http://blogs.msdn.com/alexhomer/default.aspxen-gb Alex Homer http://blogs.msdn.com/alexhomer/about.aspx ahomer@microsoft.com ahomer@microsoft.com According to Nintendo, the name of their family games console expresses their direction to break down the wall that separates video game players from everybody else, puts people more in touch with their games, and with each other. The two letter "i"s emphasize both the unique controllers and the image of people gathering to play, and the pronunciation "we" emphasizes that this console is for everyone. But I think they only called it this so people in England could make up silly jokes. ahomer@microsoft.com Sun, 31 May 2009 00:00:00 GMT http://blogs.msdn.com/alexhomer/archive/2009/05/31/I-Need-a-Wii_2E002E002E00_.aspx OK, so we don't actually make cheese sandwiches here at p&p. Well, as far as I know we don't (but if we did, they'd probably be the best cheese sandwiches in the world...). When I'm over in Redmond I have to stroll across the bridge to Building 4 and buy one from the canteen, though it's worth the effort because you get four different kinds of cheese in it - as well as some salad stuff. Only in the USA could someone decide that you need four different cheeses in a sandwich. Here in England a cheese sandwich is basically a chunk of Cheddar slapped between two slices of bread. Take it or leave it. Maybe it's because there is always so much choice over there, and people can't make up their mind which cheese to have. ahomer@microsoft.com Sat, 02 Aug 2008 00:00:00 GMT http://blogs.msdn.com/alexhomer/archive/2008/08/02/How-p_2600_p-Makes-Cheese-Sandwiches.aspx I suppose I could try to impress people by telling them how I spent a pleasurable evening at a concert at the Buxton Opera House a week or so ago. But as I don't have any posh friends, and only a few posh colleagues, I guess it's safe to admit that the trip was actually to renew an infatuation from my younger days. No, honestly, it's safe to read on. I promise not to descend into tales of a depraved, wanton, and wasted youth (though I wish I'd had one). ahomer@microsoft.com Sun, 19 Oct 2008 00:00:00 GMT http://blogs.msdn.com/alexhomer/archive/2008/10/19/A-Phantom-At-The-Opera.aspx You know when you go to a car dealer and they say the one particular car you're looking at has "had only one careful lady owner", what they really mean is it's been owned by five boy racers, a bus driver, and a DIY freak who rewired it for a bet. In fact the last car I bought was described as a "demonstrator that the Managing Director uses occasionally". Yet, when the vehicle registration documents arrived a week later, it turned out to have had two previous owners. Luckily for the dealer, they are 350 miles away so I never got round to going back to complain. ahomer@microsoft.com Sun, 22 Jun 2008 00:00:00 GMT http://blogs.msdn.com/alexhomer/archive/2008/06/22/So_2C00_-I-Just-Bought-a-Car-from-a-Lady-Prison-Officer_2E002E002E00_.aspx So I was on-site at a dev shop the other day watching three guys fighting with a printer. It seems they needed some particular project report to send to a customer, and the printer was refusing to play ball. I watched them try various combinations of "press-and-hold" buttons on the printer, check the network cable, try printing from another program, try printing from another computer, ping the printer, and reinstall the printer drivers a couple of times. ahomer@microsoft.com Sun, 09 Nov 2008 00:00:00 GMT http://blogs.msdn.com/alexhomer/archive/2008/11/09/Rusty-0s-and-Broken-1s.aspx After the "hot stuff" article of a few weeks ago, I thought I might as well shift focus towards another similarly inane topic, like showers. You see, one thing they seem really good at in the U.S. is doing showers (the bathroom type, not the weather type - though Redmond does seem to have an equal share of both). Even when I stay in relatively down-market hotels, the rooms always seem to have a good shower. In fact, in one I used a while ago, I actually get a wet room; though my wife would probably suggest that any bathroom I use is a wet room after I'm finished. ahomer@microsoft.com Sat, 19 Jul 2008 00:00:00 GMT http://blogs.msdn.com/alexhomer/archive/2008/07/19/Wet-Stuff.aspx I read in the newspaper this week that scientists have discovered why men are better at reading maps, while women are more able to find things like car keys. It seems that it all goes back to pre-history behavioral patterns and responsibilities. Men had to travel long distances hunting, and so had to be able to navigate. Women foraged locally for food, so needed a keen eye for detail. Now I don't want to appear sexist, but I have to say that, at least in our house, reality tends the match that assertion. Mind you, one guy wrote in to the paper to say that his wife was really good at map reading - as long as they were heading north. ahomer@microsoft.com Sun, 08 Mar 2009 00:00:00 GMT http://blogs.msdn.com/alexhomer/archive/2009/03/08/A-Categorical-Approach-To-Compatibility-Theory.aspx It may seem like this week's disjointed ramblings follows on from last week's topic, in some lexographically eerie and unexpected way. I can assure you that this wasn't intentional - the capability to avoid straying off topic during the course of a single short article has so far always eluded me, and I see no reason for that situation to have changed. After all, there's no sign yet that I'm actually getting the hang of this blogging thing. Still, at least I'm not frightened of computers, as are some people in my age group... ahomer@microsoft.com Sun, 16 Nov 2008 00:00:00 GMT http://blogs.msdn.com/alexhomer/archive/2008/11/16/Top-10-Tips-for-New-or-Nervous-Computer-Users.aspx Maybe I've been asleep for the last few months, or just head-down working on my current project, but it seems I am the only person in the world who wasn't aware that a new version of Windows was on the way. Well, the only geek anyway. I don't mean the "Mojave" stunt - I mean what is currently referred to only as "Windows 7". And, rather strangely, my first thought when I read about it in a UK computer magazine was "Wow! Has there only been two and nine-tenths other versions since the Windows 3.1 that we all knew and loved?" That introduction to millions of the Windows world of GUI seems so long ago now... ahomer@microsoft.com Sun, 05 Oct 2008 00:00:00 GMT http://blogs.msdn.com/alexhomer/archive/2008/10/05/Convoluted_2C00_-Devoluted_2C00_-Or-Just-Engblish_3F00_.aspx It's a strange experience when you open the curtains in the morning to be faced by men in high visibility jackets and hard hats only a few yards away, and 30 feet above the ground. Mind you, the noise made by the assortment of cranes, diggers, and other plant they use - combined with regular hammering and occasional swearing - means you don't get to overlay in the mornings. I've even got to know most of them, and give them a cheery wave as I try and convert from half-asleep to some state of semi-awakeness. Though they do seem somewhat reticent about waving back to a zombie-like character with a dragged-through-a-hedge-backwards hairstyle, and still adorned in a bright blue check dressing gown. ahomer@microsoft.com Sun, 02 Aug 2009 00:00:00 GMT http://blogs.msdn.com/alexhomer/archive/2009/08/02/Agile-Development-in-the-Bricks-and-Mortar-World.aspx Here in our quiet little corner of the People's Republic of Europe, our Government decided a while ago to flog off the radio spectrum in order to pay for their countless spin doctors, pointless focus groups, endless ministerial jaunts, never-ending quangos, and failed experiments with Socialism. In return, they gave us the opportunity to enter the brave new world of Digital Broadcasting. And, rumor has it, they will eventualy build enough transmitters so that those of us who don't live in London will actually be able to receive it. Last I heard, the target date is 2013. Meanwhile, I've had to fill the entire attic of our house with bits of bent aluminium to try and drag some scraps of DAB (Digital Audio Broadcasting) out of the airwaves and down to the kitchen so my wife can have rock music on loud enough to drown out the sound of me washing the dishes. ahomer@microsoft.com Sat, 09 Aug 2008 00:00:00 GMT http://blogs.msdn.com/alexhomer/archive/2008/08/09/Whose-Time-Is-It-Anyway_3F00_.aspx Oh dear, could it be that my brief career as a documentation engineer is about to come to an abrupt and unexpected end? Has my recent sin been so dreadful that I will be thoughtlessly cast aside, and once again reduced to wandering aimlessly around conference circuits and local dev shops with all my worldly goods in a shopping cart, trying to scratch a living by talking and writing about enterprise software architecture? Next time you see a sad and lonely figure dressed in a grubby (but geeky) T-shirt and scruffy jeans, clutching the tattered remains of a book on design patterns in one hand and a seriously out-of-date laptop in the other, spare a thought - it might be me. ahomer@microsoft.com Sun, 26 Oct 2008 00:00:00 GMT http://blogs.msdn.com/alexhomer/archive/2008/10/26/Oending-Letters.aspx Before we start, I want to make it clear that - although I often use US spelling in stuff I write - I refuse to accept that "tire" is a way of spelling the round black things that you put on a car. I'm English, and tired (sorry) of seeing that weird spelling, so from here on in we'll be using the proper spelling: "tyre". And, annoyingly, Word has just red-wigglyed that now I've typed it. I guess an indication of how I have to produce most of my verbiage with Word set to US English. And this post is not even about spelling or languages. What is it about? I suppose it's kind of another grumble about technology in general. And about measuring stuff. So, if you are already in a bad mood, this might be a good place to stop reading and go off and do some yoga or listen to a Coldplay album. ahomer@microsoft.com Sun, 15 Mar 2009 00:00:00 GMT http://blogs.msdn.com/alexhomer/archive/2009/03/15/Unit-Protesting.aspx I reckon it's a Government conspiracy. Obviously continental drift has speeded up while we weren't looking, and England has drifted north into the Arctic during the last couple of weeks. I did check on Virtual Earth, but the maps are three months old (it takes a while to erase all the UFOs at Area 52). I suppose the experts will blame global warming, and point to "cataclysmic climate changes becoming the norm". So it's fairly predictable that the most commonly heard comment around here this last couple of weeks has been "I'll be glad when we get some of that global warming they keep promising us..." ahomer@microsoft.com Sun, 15 Feb 2009 00:00:00 GMT http://blogs.msdn.com/alexhomer/archive/2009/02/15/Leicester-Talk-About_2E002E002E00_.aspx Last week I mused about how some instruction manuals ("guidance documents" in p&p-speak) are wonderfully accurate, really useful, and may even have helpful pictures. I guess the quality of the documentation depends to some extent on how much you pay for the product; and, hopefully, how dangerous it can be if you get using it wrong. But, in terms of "can be dangerous", a colleague recently reported that she had an example of just the opposite. ahomer@microsoft.com Fri, 27 Jun 2008 00:00:00 GMT http://blogs.msdn.com/alexhomer/archive/2008/06/27/Hot-Stuff.aspx A couple of initially unconnected events last week conspired to nudge my brain into some kind of half-awake state where it combined them into a surreal view of "automatic" stuff. One of the events was the return from Tina, our editor and proof-reader, of my article about the Team System Management Model Designer Power Tool (a product that, thankfully, I'm legally permitted to refer to as just "TSMMD" - and will do so from now on). The second event was deciding that I ought to get a laptop sorted ready for an upcoming trip to Redmond. The combined result is some manic ravings on the meanings of stupid words, and the fact that Windows Vista obviously hates me. ahomer@microsoft.com Mon, 18 Aug 2008 00:00:00 GMT http://blogs.msdn.com/alexhomer/archive/2008/08/18/Easter-Bonnets-and-Adverse-Automation.aspx One of the features of working from home is that, if you aren't careful, you can suddenly find that you haven't been outside for several days. In fact, if you disregard a trip to the end of the drive to fetch the wheely bin, or across the garden to feed the goldfish, I probably haven't been outside for a month. I suppose this is why my wife, when she gets home from work each day, feels she has to appraise me of the current weather conditions. ahomer@microsoft.com Sun, 01 Nov 2009 00:00:00 GMT http://blogs.msdn.com/alexhomer/archive/2009/11/01/Suffering-Suffixes_2C00_-Batman.aspx I suspect that there is a crisis at our local council offices at the moment. They've obviously run out of things to waste taxpayer's money on, so they decided to publish a ten page full-color pamphlet containing really useful information about our local community. On page three, it says that - in case we hadn't noticed - work is underway on the open-cast coal mine just across the fields from where I live. Really? I would never have guessed that the brand new railway, dozens of huge trucks, and a hole half a mile wide and a hundred feet deep were connected with that. ahomer@microsoft.com Sun, 12 Apr 2009 00:00:00 GMT http://blogs.msdn.com/alexhomer/archive/2009/04/12/Miss-Spellings-and-Bad-Grandma.aspx