Fall Schedule is complete

Well, the Fall schedule is now complete, and it looks like it’ll be an interesting one. Some shows that I’ve been watching won’t be on the schedule (Conviction was one of them), but that’s the way it goes. For a change, there weren’t any shows that I really liked that got cancelled. I was very happy that The Unit was renewed; its a great show; it’s sort of what the E-Ring was slowly becoming.

I’m a little intrigued by Fox’s new network, My Network TV, that’s filling the gap in Fox-owned stations orphaned by the merge of WB and UPN (channel 13 here is one of those, though I don’t know if they’ll be carrying the My Network TV programs yet). The mini-network will be running programs described as using the “telenovella” style common on Spanish language channels. These shows are essentially limited run, with a story line that completes in a season. It sounds similar to the Japanese “home drama” shows that I miss here in the Northwest (I used to watch them when I was living in Hawaii). Who knows? they may be interesting.

5/18/2006 10:45:55 AM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00)      Comments [0]  TV

So far, bad reviews for the Da Vinci Code movie

The early reviews of the movie are in, and they’re not good.

Urban Cinefile said, “There might be a riveting adventure thriller to be made from Dan Brown's controversial bestseller, but this is not it. Melodramatic, overlong and dare I say occasionally boring, Ron Howard's The Da Vinci Code gets lost in the maze of its puzzles and media”.

Sounds a lot like the book to me. I guess Ron Howard was true to the source.

5/17/2006 1:52:10 PM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00)      Comments [0]  general

Microsoft continues to aim squarely at their own foot
Today, Microsoft unveiled CodePlex.com, a new SourceForge-style collaboration site. For years, we’ve had their GotDotNet.com site for this, and it seems to have worked fine. Now, all of a sudden, we have a second site. What’s the difference? I don’t know. I doubt if anyone knows. Once again Microsoft has gone out of its way to confuse its own development community.
5/17/2006 8:35:23 AM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00)      Comments [0]  technology | development

Superman disappointment

I watched the Superman trailer recently, and was very disappointed. It looks like they’re basically writing (yet another) sequel to the ‘70s & ‘80s movies instead of finding their own vision. That was over 20 years ago, guys. There’s been a lot of character development in the Superman genre. Frankly, if they were going to do something derivative, they should be looking at the Superman animated series. It had a much more “modern” view of Superman, Lois Lane, and Metropolis as a whole. While, I’m sure the movie will do well (they’re already planning the sequel!), I was hoping for more of a “Batman Begins” approach, where they would show off a new facet of the Superman character.

Oh well. That’s Hollywood for you.

5/16/2006 10:19:17 AM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00)      Comments [0]  general

It looks like Thursday nights are going to be really busy

This week is one of those important ones for a TV-phile like me. The networks are announcing their fall schedules this week. So far, NBC and ABC have announced. CBS is announcing tomorrow. But, it already looks like Thursday nights are going to be a battlefield. This is especially true for the 9:00 hour. I’m sure that CBS will be leaving its powerhouse, CSI, in that slot. NBC is placing Aaron Sorkin’s Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip on opposite it. For those out of the loop, Sorkin is the creator of the West Wing, and if this show is as good as that (it should be, its got the cast for it), then its going to be a big Emmy winner. To top it off, ABC is moving Gray’s Anatomy to this slot. That means 3 must-see shows on at the same time! Boy, am I glad that I can record 4 shows at that time  …

By the way, the 8:00 and 10:00 hours could be just as bad.

5/16/2006 10:04:47 AM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00)      Comments [0]  TV

Philosophy of Testing

Hey, what gives? This isn’t about American Idol…

I said it would end.

I was going over our latest test results and how it is affecting our schedule, and it occurred to me that I’ve never really shared my basic “Philosophy of Testing”…

When developers plan schedules, they may remember to include test time; but more often than not, the forget to include re-work time. And, when I say “developers”, I’m including myself. This is why I have my basic “Philosophy of Testing”:

The only reason to do testing is because we expect to find errors that we have to fix. Otherwise, why test?

Some of you may be thinking “well, duh!”, especially if you work in QA. If so, go back and read my introductory paragraph again. By and large, developers don’t think this way; it takes effort for them to remember this.

By the way, in my experience, this is the main reason that Validation tends to break the schedule: it isn’t the raw test time, its that the schedule rarely includes time to fix the bugs that were found!

5/12/2006 3:00:58 PM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00)      Comments [0]  development

Where are they now?

Yeah. More American Idol. I know, I’m in a rut. Don’t worry, it’ll end soon…

As I was writing that last post, I started thinking, who came before and where are they now? Here’s a little recap:

AI 1:  Kelly Clarkson: Grammy winner, hit CD. Took a while (and a change in management) to get here.
AI 2:  Reuben Studdard: MIA. The guy’s fallen off the face of the Earth. His runner up, Clay Aiken,  has had much more exposure. I suspect that its once again due to Clay having better management.
AI 3:  Fantasia: Wrote an autobiography (ironic, since she reveals that she was illiterate), now working on a TV-movie of the book. Where’s the music? I suspect her “story” is more compelling than her singing. I thought that her runner-up, Diana DeGarmo was a better performer anyway.
AI 4: Carrie Underwood: She’s had some early success as a country western singer. I expect that she’ll do well in the long run, because she fits her market so well. Maybe they finally got the management mix right.
AI 5: Who knows? Right now, it looks like Elliot Yamin wins, with Taylor Hicks as a runner-up. But, I think (unlike the previous years) that all of the top 4 finalists will get “deals” from their exposure.

5/12/2006 9:30:47 AM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00)      Comments [0]  TV

The Politics of American Idol

Yeah, its another American Idol post. You know what to do…

John Podhoretz has an interesting analysis of the “Chris Daughtry debacle” on American Idol. He says its a lot like presidential elections. Basically, its all about building coalitions. As people get dropped from the show, their supporters have to go somewhere. So, the folks that can draw in these now “undecided” voters stand to gain the most.

Related to American Idol, Chris had a big following from the start, but he never grew his base: he was a rocker in the beginning, and he stayed a rocker. So, all the votes that have been freeing up have gone to his competitors, until the camel’s back broke, and he suddenly found himself at the tail end of the votes with no time lagging near the bottom.

John goes on to say that Elliot Yamin has probably been the biggest beneficiary of the freed up voters because: 1. He has improved over the weeks, and 2. His sound is the most like that of the contestants who have left.

In looking at the remainders, John thinks that Elliot is the most likely winner, as Katherine McPhee leaves next and Elliot picks up her votes. He sees Taylor Hicks as another Chris Daughtry: someone with a large following which hasn’t grown much over the weeks due to is unique “sound”.

As much as it pains me to say, I think he’s right. However, I think that Katherine has a great career in front of her; she just needs the right management. I think Elliot will be another Fantasia or Reuben: his win will not result in any great success.

5/12/2006 9:16:16 AM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00)      Comments [0]  TV

Tamyra Gray all over again

Fair warning, readers. This is about American Idol. The uninterested should leave now.

Last night, Chris Daughtry, the “fair haired boy” of the current American Idol, got dropped. For those unfamiliar with the current contestants, Chris was the favorite to win. All the previous speculation was about who would be with him in the final. Well, that all changed last night.

It reminds me of the first season and Tamyra Gray. She was also the favorite (not mine, I was a Kelly supporter from way back). Then, she had a bad night and she was gone. That fast. It doesn’t take much at this stage of the game.

At this point, I’d say that its all up for grabs. Frankly, I didn’t expect that Elliot Yamin and Taylor Hicks would make it this far. Taylor’s more of a “novelty act”, and Elliot just isn’t in the same league as the others. As far as Katherine McPhee goes (McFever, my favorite), she’s been struggling for weeks. She has a great voice (the best of those remaining), but makes lousy song choices. If she can pull it together, she has an outside chance. But, everyone (including her) expected her to go last night.

We’ll see what happens next week…

5/11/2006 9:59:48 AM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00)      Comments [0]  TV

Technological Myopia

Today, as part of his column on The Microsoft Search Tar Pit, John Dvorak criticizes the attitude at Oracle and Sun that “shrink wrap software is dead”. Dvorak points out that shrink wrap software has been around for at least 30 years, and the attitude of Oracle and Sun seems to be tied to the fact that they don’t sell shrink wrap software. This seems to boil down to a kind of technological myopia on their part.

Now, the thing I find interesting about this is, a few months ago, I heard Dvorak and Leo Laporte say on Leo’s “This Week In Tech” show that most people use Firefox, not IE. The basis of that comment was that they and everyone they know use Firefox. This is just so much more technological myopia. Now, it could very well be that the vast majority of techy-types use Firefox over IE, but that is certainly not the case in the real world, where most people are quite happy sticking with the browser that came with their PC.

5/9/2006 10:46:07 AM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00)      Comments [0]  technology

Remember ATL?

I’m trying very hard to forget. However, I received a huge shock today: ATL Internals, 2nd edition, is available for pre-order! I’d figured with all of the .NET hype at Microsoft, the book was dead. Apparently, not. For those still doing COM development, the book covers ATL 8 (which I assume is the VS 2005 version).

According to Barnes & Noble, publish date is July 2006, but you can pre-order now. And, for those of you who don’t mind the way they treat their customers, you can pre-order from Amazon too.

Hey, anybody remember when Amazon got sued because there was already an Amazon Bookstore in Minneapolis (for 30 years prior!) that was being confused with the internet store? Ah the good old days…

5/9/2006 9:11:33 AM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00)      Comments [0]  books | development

Microsoft has (finally) released Web Application Project (WAP) 1.0

I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned this before. The Web development interface in VS 2005 is vastly different than that in VS 2003. I’d say gratuitously different. My .NET study group took a look at it when VS 2005 first came out and were thoroughly confused by it.

Well, for whatever reason, Microsoft has been working on a thing called the “Web Application Project” for VS 2005. It adds a project type very similar to the VS 2003 Web project, but takes advantage of .NET 2.0 and ASP.NET 2.0 features. (I’d like to think that its because they realized the error of their ways, but come on. this is Microsoft.

According to Scott Guthrie, this will be part of the VS 2005 SP1, and will continue to be supported in the future as part of VS 2005.

Well, version 1.0 is now released.

5/9/2006 8:51:01 AM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00)      Comments [0]  general | development

Resharper 2.0

I’ve been trying the Resharper 2.0 beta at home, in order to present it to my study group. I’m currently using Resharper 1.5 at work, and have become very dependent on it. The refactoring and cross reference features are fantastic, better than what’s built into VS 2003 (at least the cross reference features. It’s easy to be better for refactoring since VS 2003 has nothing there).

Resharper 2.0 add tons of new features, including a “Test Driven” style unit test runner built into VS (who needs Team System  ). I highly recommend the tool; anyone using VS for .NET development should look into it. You can find it at http://www.jetbrains.com/resharper/.

5/4/2006 9:02:53 AM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00)      Comments [0]  development

Star Spangled Banner Nonsense

I can’t believe that I’m writing about this. Up until now, I’ve ignored the whole “Star Spangled Banner sung in Spanish” pseudo-controversy, because its extremely dumb (knowing the history of the Star Spangled Banner itself).

But, since I’m reading other lame comments on the topic, I feel compelled to add my own.

The lyrics of Hawaii’s state song (state anthem, if you will) is in the Hawaiian language. This makes sense, especially since it was written by King Kalakaua (the Merry Monarch  ) in 1874 and was the kingdom's anthem from 1874 to 1893. There’s also (several) English translations of the song, but (as far as I’m aware of) its always sung in the native Hawaiian. Is this “unamerican”? I don’t think so, and I doubt that any (rational) “natives” (that is “locals”) of Hawaii would think it was. It just makes sense that a place with a non-English tradition as long as Hawaii’s (a tradition that predates the United States of America) would have a non-English anthem.

I say if folks want to sing the Star Spangled Banner in Spanish, French, or Serbo-Croatian, let ‘em. After all, they’re singing our song (all of ours).

5/3/2006 5:46:31 PM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00)      Comments [0]  politics

Presidential one-two punch

That’s right: the category is “TV”. So, this is about those “great” presidents, Bartlet and Allen.

The ending of the West Wing is pretty bittersweet for me. At the start, this was a great series, one of the best on TV. But, it fell on hard times a few years back, and (from my thinking) never recovered from the firing of Aaron Sorkin, the creator of the show.  Granted, the writing is still some of the best on TV, but its still a far cry from what it once was. And, I’m sorry, but Matt Santos was an embarrassment of a Presidential candidate. And Josh Lyman has no business either running a campaign or being chief of staff. It was pretty clear that Arnold Vinick was the better man for the job, and then he only lost because of a cheap “writing stunt” of a nuclear accident in his home state. At least Santos is shaping up to be a better President than he was a candidate; I guess he learned that from Bartlet. Josh is still a piece of work. The show keeps trouping people through that would obviously make a better Chief of Staff than him (heck, Donna would make a better Chief of Staff!), but because its the finale, the “story” has to end with him in that job I guess. On the one hand, I’m sad to see a good series end. On the other hand, I’m relieved that I won’t have to watch the train wreck that will be the Santos administration.

On a happier note, it looks like Commander in Chief will also be going bye-bye. Yay! Hooray!

Now, don’t get me wrong. I was looking forward to this show when I first heard about it. It has a great premise: First female President. Gains office through succession. Nice. It reminded me of an old movie, The Man, about the first black president, who gains the job through similar means (in his case, he was President Pro Tem of the Senate; we weren’t ready in those days for even a black Vice President). It had lots of potential. But, the producers of the show turned an interesting concept into a Good vs. Evil show where “Evil” equals “right wing” and “Good” equals “not right wing”. The show is basically a left-wing fantasy show that has very little in common with the real world. I’m soo glad that its going away.

5/3/2006 3:41:02 PM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00)      Comments [0]  TV