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 It's interesting (at least, I think so) how the issues we face here at p&p in creating useful and practical guidance are almost exactly mirrored in other industries and technologies. OK, so the world is becoming more complicated, as are all the increasingly sophisticated gadgets that it seems we can no longer survive without. Yet, in a large majority of cases, guidance on how to use these wonderful examples of modern technology is often - to say the least - less than useful. ahomer@microsoft.com Sun, 25 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://blogs.msdn.com/b/alexhomer/archive/2010/07/25/photographic-forgetfulness.aspx You'd think that going minimalist in terms of interior design would be easy. Just decide which three items you want to keep in each room, and throw the rest away. In fact, if you are unfortunate enough to subject yourself to my weekly ramblings, you'll probably recall that we are in the process of going minimalist in our lounge at the moment. We've tossed out the old gas fire and surround and ordered a modern remote controlled "rectangular sheet of black glass" fire that pretends to be a real one using some surreal combination of video, audio, computing power, and pulsating LEDs. ahomer@microsoft.com Sun, 18 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://blogs.msdn.com/alexhomer/archive/2010/07/18/minimalism-is-made-in-china.aspx We had one of those disastrous spells here at chez Derbyshire a couple of weeks back. It started with trying to switch our mobile phone contracts from one supplier to another, and ended with what seems like half of the hi-tech equipment in our house deciding it had, with disappointing lack of excitement, reached the end of its useful working life. ahomer@microsoft.com Sun, 11 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://blogs.msdn.com/alexhomer/archive/2010/07/11/why-doesn_2700_t-stuff-go-bang-any-more_3f00_.aspx If you have a few minutes to spare, why not pay a visit to the UK Advisory Network website? How could you resist reading about how it is "promoting closer working between Government and the private sector", and "consists of members with essential knowledge and invaluable expertise who have completed a robust application process"? Oh, and by the way, that click just cost £11.78 (around $15). ahomer@microsoft.com Sun, 04 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://blogs.msdn.com/b/alexhomer/archive/2010/07/04/how-to-build-a-website-for-less-than-three-million-dollars.aspx One of my previous jobs involved travelling to a variety of locations selling things. Amongst those locations was the British Rail Engineering works (BREL, more familiarly known as just "The Plant Works") in Doncaster, South Yorkshire. It was one of those amazing old Victorian factories where you felt like you had stepped back 100 years as soon as you walked into one of the huge old brick buildings. It reeked of history and those wonderful engineering aromas of cutting fluid, oil, engines, and ancient machinery. ahomer@microsoft.com Sun, 27 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://blogs.msdn.com/alexhomer/archive/2010/06/27/more-railway-stuff.aspx Let's face it, those of us who work in the hi-tech world of computing tend to think of ourselves as being - well, not to put too fine a point on it - intellectual; even skilled artisans of our trade. We string lumps of extremely complex hardware together so they can talk to each other, write clever code that executes mind-boggling tasks in the blink of an eye, and build wonderfully intuitive and interactive interfaces for our applications. And all before lunch some days. ahomer@microsoft.com Sun, 20 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://blogs.msdn.com/alexhomer/archive/2010/06/20/artist-or-artisan_3f00_.aspx I was reading a story (a.k.a. urban myth) this week about an eminent quantum physicist who was stopped for speeding in his car. When told by the traffic cop that he was doing 63 miles per hour, he responded by asking if this was an accurate measurement. Being told that it was he explained that, therefore, they could not definitely determine if he was inside the 35 miles per hour zone at the time. Alternatively, if they were sure that he was within the zone, it was physically impossible - due to the fundamental laws of quantum mechanics - for the speed measurement to be accurate. ahomer@microsoft.com Sun, 13 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://blogs.msdn.com/alexhomer/archive/2010/06/13/how-to-avoid-a-speeding-ticket.aspx A holiday weekend, and it rained. What a surprise. Still, it meant I actually got round to fulfilling a promise from a few weeks ago about firing up the film scanner and digitalizing some of the better ones of my collection of old railway slides. So, if you are not a railway fanatic maybe should stop reading now and find some other technical blog about computers (or play another game of FreeCell). The rest of this post is full of old pictures of trains... ahomer@microsoft.com Sun, 06 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://blogs.msdn.com/alexhomer/archive/2010/06/06/_2200_trainspotting_2200_-_2e00__2e00_.-the-photos.aspx Two thousand and ten is, they say, the year of the Cloud. Yes, I know they've been saying that for a few years, but it really does seem to be a technology that is heading skywards (ouch, sorry) this year. And I'm about to climb on board. Though, hopefully, not equipped with pan pipes or tendering my CV to St. Peter. I've finally managed to dig an escape tunnel and flee the clutches of Enterprise Library 5.0 now we've got the Hands On Labs done, and before they think of anything else I need to write about. ahomer@microsoft.com Sun, 30 May 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://blogs.msdn.com/alexhomer/archive/2010/05/30/On-Cloud-Ten.aspx Watching a rock music documentary on TV the other day, I heard one of my favorite presenters, Mark Radcliffe, utter the wonderful phrase "Lead guitarists are people who create the soundtrack for our lives". Maybe you have to be of the right generation (it's probably less relevant if your music tastes are limited to folk music, garage, or grunge) but to me it really, if you'll pardon the pun, struck a chord. ahomer@microsoft.com Sun, 23 May 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://blogs.msdn.com/alexhomer/archive/2010/05/23/The-Soundtrack-for-Our-Lives.aspx Oh how we Brits laughed when the people of the US couldn't seem to decide who was going to be their next president! With their hanging chads, threats of legal action, and people standing in queues for four hours to vote - how could all this happen in a modern, technologically advanced, democratic society? And then we decided to have an election here in Britain... ahomer@microsoft.com Sun, 16 May 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://blogs.msdn.com/alexhomer/archive/2010/05/16/And-The-Winner-Is_2E002E002E003F00_.aspx Some weeks ago, I rambled on for a while about making a use case for scenarios. It came about through an experience working on a project where a specific set of features of the software were so complex and unintuitive when you randomly played with them that it seemed almost impossible to provide potential users with any useful guidance on what they were actually there for. I can now reveal that the software in question was the new configuration tool for version 5.0 of Enterprise Library. ahomer@microsoft.com Sun, 09 May 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://blogs.msdn.com/alexhomer/archive/2010/05/09/It-Configures.aspx Ever since we moved into this house some ten years ago, my wife has irregularly reminded me that she hates the rather cheap and nasty, imitation coal effect, fan driven, generates hardly any warmth, gas fire that the builders installed. Besides which, since we put a flat screen TV above it, we can't actually use it anyway. I took out all the unrealistic imitation coals years ago and replaced them with a nice contemporary array of pebbles, but - I have to agree - it's not exactly an attractive focal point. Especially since we're art deco in terms of the rest of the furnishings. ahomer@microsoft.com Sun, 02 May 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://blogs.msdn.com/alexhomer/archive/2010/05/02/Firing-Up-The-Imagination.aspx Talking with a colleague the other day about how a pre-agreed plan can morph over time so that the final outcome bears almost no relation to the original specification, I tossed into the conversation my opinion that he should think of it as being like a Government election. The truth changes over time, based on requirements. Perhaps it's a bit like an agile development approach to software development. And, by some fortuitous coincidence, we're having a general election here in Britain in a couple of weeks time! ahomer@microsoft.com Sun, 25 Apr 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://blogs.msdn.com/alexhomer/archive/2010/04/25/Agile-Government.aspx I'm glad I'm not a doctor or a dentist. They say that, if you are, every conversation you have with people who know you starts with a description of the pains in their feet, or asking for advice on which tooth-whitening product is the best. It's bad enough with the business I'm in - once people find out I work for Microsoft I can pretty much predict how long it will be before the conversation comes round to a moan about Windows crashing, advice on getting rid of a virus, help fixing their CD-ROM drive, or a discussion on how they get their favourite photos back after their hard drive died. ahomer@microsoft.com Sun, 18 Apr 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://blogs.msdn.com/alexhomer/archive/2010/04/18/How-Broad-Is-Your-Band_3F00_.aspx There's an ongoing discussion about how we, as a society, should be archiving our heritage to make it available to future generations; that is, if global warming, financial crises, and energy shortages don't finish us off before then. I suppose, for most people, the main focus for domestic memory archiving is all about video, still photos, and music. One of the topics that regularly surfaces is whether a digital format is better, or the old-fashioned "hard copy" approach. ahomer@microsoft.com Sun, 11 Apr 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://blogs.msdn.com/alexhomer/archive/2010/04/11/Recovering-Old-Memories.aspx Life was a lot more positive when my grandfather was alive. If he felt ill, he simply had to pop into the local pharmacy, explain his symptoms, and they would sell him a bottle of liquid or a box of pills that were guaranteed to cure him. No prevarication or hint of doubt. The bottle or box would say that "Mr. Smith's Patent Stomach Medicine is guaranteed to cure wind, bloat, queasiness, cramps, and sickness". It probably even cured baldness if you rubbed it on your head, and was also useful for removing boy scouts from horse's hooves. ahomer@microsoft.com Sun, 04 Apr 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://blogs.msdn.com/alexhomer/archive/2010/04/04/Drowning-in-Vagueness_2C00_-Maybe.aspx Technical writers, like wot I am, tend to be relatively docile and unflappable creatures. It comes with the territory (and, often, with age). Especially when most of your life is spent trying to document something that the dev team are still building, and particularly so if that dev team is resolutely following the agile path. You know that the features of the software and its capabilities will morph into something completely different just after you get the docs on that bit finished; and they'll discover the bugs, gotchas, and necessary workarounds only after you sent your finely crafted text to edit. ahomer@microsoft.com Sun, 28 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://blogs.msdn.com/alexhomer/archive/2010/03/28/Making-a-Use-Case-for-Scenarios.aspx If I told you that my wonderful wife bought me a Vantage Pro 2 for my birthday, you might be thinking I was now spending every afternoon outside polishing a gleaming new custom sports car, or happily installing loads of exciting new applications on a super-fast new computer. Or perhaps even spending my weekends taking flying lessons so we could pop over to the Continent for day trips. Well, not quite. The aforementioned piece of equipment rather worryingly resembles a large black bucket with a propeller sticking out of the top and a small white concertina hanging off the bottom. ahomer@microsoft.com Sun, 21 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://blogs.msdn.com/alexhomer/archive/2010/03/21/Weather-It_2700_s-Musical_3F00_.aspx One of the most amazing things about being in the US is the unending choice of stuff - everywhere. And that fact that everything seems to consist of all kinds of other things. Waiters in restaurants (except for the very high class ones) look at you gone out if you try to order a steak without three different kinds of stuffing inside and two sauces on top, not to mention the choice of five dressings for the side salad you don't want, and a selection from the option of six different kinds of potatoes. ahomer@microsoft.com Sun, 14 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://blogs.msdn.com/alexhomer/archive/2010/03/14/What_2700_s-In-Your-Sandwich_3F00_.aspx Perhaps it's just anecdotal evidence, but it seems like you often hear about people who are afraid of the countryside. For those of us brought up amongst fields, trees, and wildlife, this seems an extraordinary concept; though I guess - as I have a deep-rooted fear of cities - the converse is not as unlikely as you might imagine. Personally, I hate the bustle, noise, and smell of city centres such as London and Birmingham, and I can't imagine living in the midst of a constant rush of people, cars, and trucks; and the torrid sense of panic that life in general seems to require in these kinds of places. ahomer@microsoft.com Sun, 07 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://blogs.msdn.com/alexhomer/archive/2010/03/07/Location-Dependent-Narrative.aspx Like most computer geeks, my needs are simple and few - a quad core box with a big disk, a decent connection to the 'Net, plus occasional injections of coffee and cold pizza. My daily bread-winning tasks generally involve only three applications: Outlook, Word, and Internet Explorer. Perhaps, when I feel exceptionally expressive, Visio might have an airing; though it's generally limited to a few boxes and arrows in boring colors. ahomer@microsoft.com Sun, 28 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://blogs.msdn.com/alexhomer/archive/2010/02/28/Image_2D00_inary-Complexity.aspx I was rather concerned to discover this week how little I know about socks. I have a colleague who is a sock expert - even to the extent of knitting her own in a most startling range of textures, colors, and styles. But it's not a topic that I personally considered to be vital information for life. OK, so I've been wearing them for more than 50 years, but - other than when playing rugby or being a boy scout - I've stuck with just plain boring black ones on the grounds that the daily foot adornment process then consists of simply grabbing any two from the sock drawer and putting them on. ahomer@microsoft.com Sun, 21 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://blogs.msdn.com/alexhomer/archive/2010/02/21/Sock-It-to-Me.aspx Maybe we've just been lucky with car insurance. When somebody reversed into the side of my wife's parked car some weeks ago, our insurance company sorted it all out with one phone call, got the car fixed within a week, and even aggressively pursued the other insurance company to get the excess we paid refunded. Somewhat different to a friend's experience where their budget insurer led them a merry dance for several weeks, and left them severely out of pocket at the end. After paying the premiums for years, they suddenly discovered they were barely covered for anything. ahomer@microsoft.com Sun, 14 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://blogs.msdn.com/alexhomer/archive/2010/02/14/In-Search-Of-An-Up_2D00_to_2D00_Date-Definition.aspx Why is it that the U.S. manufacturing industry seems unable to make anything with an electric motor in it that works without generating enough noise to wake the dead (or, at least, the sleeping)? Its 2:00 AM in the morning, so the bathroom light has been turned off for more than three hours. And I'm not much in the mood for a Margarita, so I can quite happily manage without a constant supply of ice cubes. Though, as it's about 40 degrees (F) outside, I would like to have some heating please... ahomer@microsoft.com Sun, 07 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://blogs.msdn.com/alexhomer/archive/2010/02/07/Cum-On-Feel-The-Noize.aspx Reading a UK computer magazine last week, I came across the delightful phrase "like playing a recording of a swarm of hornets to a group of blindfolded mime artists". It conjures up a vivid mental picture of events such as might occur at a product development meeting where somebody suggests rewriting a whole legacy application in Objective Fortran and linking the components using DCOM. Or allowing the marketing department to choose the name for your wonderful new product. ahomer@microsoft.com Sun, 31 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://blogs.msdn.com/alexhomer/archive/2010/01/31/Your-Giraffe-Is-Upside-Down_2E002E002E00_.aspx Funny stuff, wireless. We take for granted that we can wander aimlessly about the office or home while maintaining a robust connection to the outside world, or just to the server down the hall. Let's face it, modern kit and the connection it provides is pretty reliable. And, rather annoyingly, after the not inconsiderable effort of hard-wiring my house with CAT-5 and a 10MB switches, it even seems that the new generation of Wi-Fi is faster. ahomer@microsoft.com Sun, 24 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://blogs.msdn.com/alexhomer/archive/2010/01/24/Living-in-a-Cage.aspx If any UK-based Internet users noticed that the Web was running a bit slow last Thursday, I apologize. Probably I was partly to blame. I managed to send an extremely large zip file on a four hundred mile round trip just to move it three quarters of an inch. I'm expecting a large invoice from my ISP to arrive any day now. ahomer@microsoft.com Sun, 17 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://blogs.msdn.com/alexhomer/archive/2010/01/17/Honey_2C00_-I-Shrunk-The-Internet.aspx As a full-time 'Softie, I am - of course - a fully converted Binger. However, I occasionally pop across to the competition just to see what graphic they've used for the search engine name, designed to illustrate the particular day of the year. It's an interesting way to keep up with other cultures and see how clever the artists are that create meaningful designs using images that look like letters. ahomer@microsoft.com Sun, 10 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://blogs.msdn.com/alexhomer/archive/2010/01/10/A-Picture_2700_s-Worth-a-Thousand-Wg8nX.aspx ...possibly. ahomer@microsoft.com Wed, 06 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://blogs.msdn.com/alexhomer/archive/2010/01/06/Derbyshire-Does-Global-Warming_2E002E002E00_.aspx So we're out of the noughties and into the tens, and I suppose I should decide on some New Year (or, more likely, recycled from the last several years) resolutions. Of course, one of the nice things about being a married man is that you generally don't have to spend a lot of time trying to think of suitable topics to be resolute about. You can usually rely on "the better half" to provide some useful direction in these matters. Suggestions such as losing weight, getting more exercise, giving up smoking, going to bed earlier, and generally increasing the possibility I might live to see old age. ahomer@microsoft.com Sun, 03 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://blogs.msdn.com/alexhomer/archive/2010/01/03/Being-Resolute_2E002E002E00_.aspx Archived posts from 2008 and 2009. ahomer@microsoft.com Fri, 01 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://www.daveandal.net/alexh2009.xml