Mercedes, Dell, Reading

Went to Reading.  Won a Dell Mini netbook laptop courtesy of Intel.  Drove there and back in a Mercedes.  Awesome.

Wow, it worked!

My powers of persuasion must be awesome.

Classic programming question

Hello All -

I need to do this: I need the exchange server to embed an image into each outbound email message, the image size is small (less than 50K).

I need to use a transport agent i have succesfully started up visual studio 2008 and copied the necessary dll files over, the refernces have also been loaded.

however at this point i think i would “Program” which i do not know how to do, is there a programmers manual that would explain in the necessary detail as to how to accomplish tihs?

Please advise…

(Emphasis mine; from here.)

Conversations with Dell

Me:

I want to connect my laptop to my LCD monitor via the DisplayPort, but I can’t find any cables/adapters.  Nothing came with the laptop and I can’t find any DisplayPort accessories on the Dell web site.

Dell:

First of all, I apologize for the difficulties you have experienced, and I can certainly understand your frustration. Please be assured that I am concerned with the problems you are having with your computer and wish to resolve them within the shortest period of time.

VGA cable is not available so what I can suggest is you can get or purchase VGA cable from any computer stores. Any VGA cable will due.

Me:

I’m sorry I don’t understand what you mean.

I don’t want to use the analog VGA connector.  How can I connect with the DisplayPort connector?  Why does the laptop have a DisplayPort output if Dell doesn’t supply any cables or adapters (even to buy) to use it with?

Dell:

First of all, I apologize for the difficulties you have experienced, and I can certainly understand your frustration. Please be assured that I am concerned with the problems you are having with your computer and wish to resolve them within the shortest period of time.

Your system is working fine. The only question is that why a VGA cable was not provided where the notebook has a VGA port. Your system is working properly. The reason why it does not come with a VGA cable it is because the notebook has its LCD built-in, no need for an external monitor. The reason why it has a VGA port, it is for enhancement where you can connect a projector or external monitor which is only optional.

Me:

Thanks for your reply but I don’t think you understand my question.

My laptop has the following display outputs:

* VGA
* HDMI
* DisplayPort

I’m not asking about the VGA port or a VGA cable.  I understand how to connect a monitor using VGA or HDMI.  What I’m asking about is DisplayPort.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Displayport

I want to connect my laptop to an LCD monitor via the DisplayPort output.  Or, to put the question another way:  Why does the laptop have a DisplayPort output if there is no cable to use it with?

Dell:

First of all, I apologize for the difficulties you have experienced, and I can certainly understand your frustration. Please be assured that I am concerned with the problems you are having with your computer and wish to resolve them within the shortest period of time.

I understand what your query is. What I am trying to explain is that Dell systems especially notebooks does not come with third party cable if it is an optional peripheral. Not all Del users uses the display port, so it is an option for the customer to get or purchase a display port cable upon system purchase.

In your case, you can purchase a display port cable from any computer store.

Me:

Thanks for your reply.  I understand that it’s an optional peripheral, but I cannot find anyone in Australia who sells a DisplayPort cable.  That includes the Dell Australia web site.  Do you know of any computer stores that sell them?

Dell:

First of all, I apologize for the difficulties you have experienced, and I can certainly understand your frustration. Please be assured that I am concerned with the problems you are having with your computer and wish to resolve them within the shortest period of time.

Display port cable is not yet mass produced because there are limited monitors using it. Display port came with Dell systems is an advantage on your part. As of the moment monitor manufacturers are still working to have a display port. Display port cable will be available soon. I apologize I cannot provide information where you can purchase a display port cable.

English: The last line of defense against malware?

The other day my mum-in-law called and was worried about her PC.  It was displaying messages that there was a virus and asking what to do about it.

So I figured I’d have to try and find out where these notifications were coming from.  Were they from a legitimate source like Windows Defender or an antivirus program?  Or was it some web site displaying hoax popups, trying to get the user to download and run some nasty piece of code?

But I didn’t have to go down that route, as she went on to say something like, “But what it says isn’t even correct.  It says, ‘A virus on your computer has been founded’.”

That was enough to convince me that it was a hoax.

So to all you malware authors out there in my blog readership:  If you want to trick someone into downloading your nasties then work on your presentation, grammar and spelling.

Facebook Addiction Test

In the style of David Letterman’s Top 10, here are my:

Top 5 ways to know that you’re addicted to Facebook

5.  More than half of your Facebook friends are people you’ve only met once in real life.

4.  You’d rather turn on your computer and log into Facebook to send a message than call/text from your mobile phone.

3.  You spend more time on Facebook chatting with obscure friends from Primary School than with your loved ones.

2.  You’ve become really good at remembering the names of new people you meet, only because you later want to add them to Facebook.

and the top way to know you’re addicted to Facebook is…

1.  You change your Facebook relationship status to ‘Single’ before you tell your partner that you’re breaking up.

I got a D for programming

D

Occasionally when I get a free moment I’ve been checking out D, a programming language from Digital Mars, and decided it was time to write down my thoughts.

D is syntactically in the C family (C, C++, C#, Java) but isn’t an evolution from one of those languages.  Instead, it’s more like C++ redesigned with modern features from Java and C# (and C++0x).

From a C++ perspective, some of D’s features that interest me are garbage collection, modules, anonymous & nested functions, contract programming, and auto type inference.

D compiles to machine code so doesn’t have the overhead of a runtime framework or virtual machine.  The language keeps a lot of C++ features, including multi-paradigm programming, though isn’t fully backwards compatible with C/C++ code.  Although a D compiler can’t compile C/C++ code, a D program can call C and C++ functions, though with restrictions for C++.

So far I’ve been quite impressed with D.  It’s still a very young language, though, and doesn’t have a lot of commercial support or backing.  Only Digital Mars and GNU have compilers for it.  It seems quite popular in open source circles, but I think D really needs an IBM/Microsoft/Borland/Apple to get behind it.

I shall report back sometime in the future after I’ve had a chance to play more with it.

The Return of Software Rendering

Courtesy of Slashdot, the following is an interesting interview with Tim Sweeney (game software developer, co-founder of Epic Games, who produced the Unreal engines) where he discusses the decline of the dedicated, fixed-function GPU and the future of software-based rendering:

Twilight of the GPU

Excerpt:

I expect that in the next generation we’ll write 100 percent of our rendering code in a real programming language—not DirectX, not OpenGL, but a language like C++ or CUDA. A real programming language unconstrained by weird API restrictions. Whether that runs on NVIDIA hardware, Intel hardware or ATI hardware is really an independent question. You could potentially run it on any hardware that’s capable of running general-purpose code efficiently.

Billion to the rescue!

Our ADSL modem/router has been slowly dieing over the past few months, with more and more disconnects and decreased performance.

Well I finally bit the bullet and upgraded to a Billion 7404VGP-M.  And wow, what a difference!  I’d heard many good things about Billion in the past but have now been able to experience it first hand.

So far, up-time has been perfect and ping times have improved by about 10-20 ms.

I’d highly recommend Billion to anyone considering their options.

Curse of the Credit Card

Some months ago our credit card details were fraudulently used to purchase a couple of train tickets in Italy.  It seemed to be an odd choice of purchase for the fraudsters but maybe they were really strapped for cash!

We had to go through the process of canceling the cards, waiting for replacements, and then updating various services that require the credit card number, such as GoDaddy for automatic domain-name renewals, or PayPal.

Well, the bank called today to notify us that a fraudulent transaction was attempted on our new card.  So once again we have the same process to look forward to.

Maybe that Nigerian Prince I’ve been emailing can help me track down the culprit!