Vista Media Magic

Just got the TV tuner on my Vista Media Centre working. The first program it found was Star Trek....

Kewl.

Dragging down Vista

Well, today's the day. I've been involved in the Connect trials of various versions of Vista - even posted a bug report or two - and this morning I got my reward in the form of a free copy of the new operating system. All I had to do was haul my browser over to the download site and grab it. Just me and a few million other people.....

Well, after a few fits and starts during the day I've managed to get a whole DVD's worth of the new magic and I'm starting to install it. I've been generally impressed with the Vista experience and I've been looking forward to getting hold of the genuine article. I was a bit scared when the screen came up with "..this upgrade may take several hours." but as I write this my media PC is running the final version.

Just in time for me to go to bed....

Man with two brains

I've been acting as a customer in our software engineering practicals. Student companies have been interviewing me to find out what is really required, and I've been delightfully vague and unhelpful. Not at all like me, but probably a good learning experience for them.

Thing is, I'm also offering a consultancy service where, for the princely some of 2% of their overall mark, student teams can have a few minutes of my time to comment on their designs. What surprises me is how few teams have come along for a chat, for the potential improvement in the marks this is very good value.

However, one of the teams for whom I'm the customer is coming to see me tomorrow. This means that I'll be commenting on the behaviour of myself, and giving advice on how to deal with me to find out what needs to be done. Very strange.

Strange Flying Man

I love this. I'm not sure what motivates people to do this kind of thing. But I'm jolly glad they do.

One Day and Counting

Now I just need to add the movie playback...

My wonderful new Message Display program has now managed to keep going for a whole day. It is my first ever Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) program and it is running on Windows Vista RC2 on the machine in my office all hours of the day and night.

Since the real thing is required to run for weeks, and any failures of the system will be very visible (and therefore highly embarrasing) I've embarked on this soak test. The program is running in "dog time" (i.e. around seven times faster than it should) so that the results are better than realistic. Later this week I might dare to go live with it on the big plasma screen.