"If you need me, I'll be in the Glossary"

I'm presently writing the last, last, bits of the XNA book at the moment.

Pre-order it here in the UK and here in the US. You know you want to. You know I want you to. So go on. The best book on programming ever written. And the only one with cheese based gameplay.

The plan is to have a glossary at the end which describes all the programming terms. Good idea, except that I have to write it. Each time I used a term that I wanted to expand on I put a note in the glossary file that I needed to go back and fill that bit in. And the time has come to do the filling in. That means over 40 pages of writing.

I'm around half way through ("N is for Namespace") at the moment. It is due for the end of tomorrow.....

Deadly Toasters

Never had much luck with toasters. The old one repeatedly tried to kill me, and the new one doesn't work at all. Ages ago we bought a shiny toaster, mainly because the picture on the box had a funny misprint. It worked fine, but it wouldn't give us the toast back. Kind of a pop-down design. It was practically begging me to insert a pointy, preferably metal, instrument into its innards to try and prise the hot bread out of its steely grip. Instead I used to turn it upside down and shake it, which spread crumbs around the kitchen and nearly set fire to the base, what with heat rising the way it does.

So on Saturday we bought a new set of toaster and kettle. The toaster has three buttons  and lights, a big dial and comes with a "User Manual". But if doesn't work. Of course by the time we got round to testing it we'd thrown away all the boxes and packaging, so I'm going to have to go down to Tesco armed only with a receipt and an aggrieved manner. No fair. I like toast.

What Can't You Fix with Cable Ties?

Some aspects of life seem to have an irresistible attraction to me. Take car window winders for example. I seem to be acquiring considerable familiarity with the darned things, mainly because the cars that I own have windows that go down. But not up.

Thus it was with the Scenic, and now car of number one wife has the same problem. My first solution,a length of duct tape over the gap was not entirely successful, and definitely not elegant, so today it was out with the big spanners and into the fray.

Last time I tried to take the door of the car to pieces it won. I was so concerned about damaging the thing that I gave up and got out the sticky tape. But this time it was different. I had no such qualms. Truly I was a man beyond fear. Although I didn't want to break any fingernails.

There is something a bit embarrassing about forcing something off with a hammer and chisel and then finding that there is a perfectly simple, and really neat, trick to removal. But there you are. I won.

Anyhoo, once I had the thing to bits the problem was obvious. The car maker had sent a plastic boy to do a man's job. The most important component, the link between slide and window, was a bit of bent, and now broken, plastic slide. Ho hum. Time for a really subtle and cunning invisible mend. As I went to get a bit of wood to prop the window up I mentioned the problem to Dave next door.

"I'll just be a minute" he said.

He came back with some jumbo cable ties, linked slide and window and presto. Fixed. What a guy.

Bag Yourself a SkypePhone

I wish I had more friends. Or more people who wanted to talk to me. The two free Skypephones that were very kindly sent to me for testing have languished on my office desk for the last week, whilst my iPhone keeps reminding me that I've not actually made a call for several days. I'm obviously not the kind of person who will go for the Skype part of the Skypephone, but the way that it provides cheap mobile network access for my notebook is attractive.

Today I saw someone up town offering the phones for 85 quid a pair, which is a very enticing price. And you can get them in white too.

If you want one for free you can take part in a little competition here. The idea is you pitch just how much you really want one, how it will change your life etc etc. The best pitches get a phones. My suggestion is not to go too far overboard on this though. A big production number with dancers and a sky-written message at the end would probably cost more to produce than the 49 quid or so you have to lay out for a phone of your own. But a cheap, heartfelt, plea might hit the spot.

By mentioning this I suppose that this means I'm actually taking part in some kind of viral marketing but what the hey, I like the product.

Audience Boosting

Apparently, according to research posted on the Internet (so it must be true),  a blog post which expresses deeply held personal beliefs and opinions actually gets more comments and interest than one which just conveys information.

I've been looking through my last posts and decided that they don't actually do either. So, with all this in mind here goes:

"I don't like broccoli very much"