BenHollis.net

I haven't been updating this blog too much recently. I never meant for this blog to run on a schedule, but I did intend to post more frequently than this. My original idea was that the blog would serve two major purposes. First, it is a place for me to announce new projects or updates to software and websites I've already released. It's done that quite well, though I haven't had much to announce recently. My job has been taking the majority of my development time, and most of the projects I've been working on at home are either private or haven't been released in the form I'd like to because my employer hasn't approved them for release yet.

The second major purpose for my blog is as a place for me to record the solution to problems I run across while developing software, so that others won't have to spend hours Googling or using trial and error to come to the same conclusion. I didn't intend to rehash things that were easily found or that had already been discussed - only to post when I felt it was something that added value to the internet that hadn't been there before. So a lot of the blog posts are not really a narrative or running commentary - they're not meant to be subscribed to, but found individually. It's for this reason that my most popular posts tend to include the exact text of error messages. This type of post has suffered both because I haven't been doing as much development, because I can't discuss a lot of what I've learned due to the nature of the projects I'm working on, and because I've been learning new stuff (like Ruby on Rails) and haven't done enough to have solved problems others haven't already posted solutions for.

The third reason I have this blog is to occasionally talk about my thoughts on different technical topics, from web development to video games. Again, I don't like to make a post unless I think I'm adding something new, and most of the topics I've wanted to talk about have already been covered. I had a lot of draft posts sitting around about web development, web standards, and the evolution of browsers, but then I discovered Alex Russell's blog and it turns out he's already said most of what I wanted to say, and better than I could. Other stuff, like my impressions of Windows Vista, critique of stackoverflow.com and suggestions for the Xbox Live Arcade lineup, have been covered to my satisfaction in plenty of places. Maybe some of them will end up posted, but probably not.

Another part of the reason I haven't posted much is the sheer weight of unfinished posts I have. Right now I have 64 drafts and only 52 real posts! So I'm going to attempt to clear things out by writing a little about what I haven't posted. A lot of this stuff wasn't posted because it fell under that third point above, but some of it I was just too lazy to flesh out into real posts. Some of it's just random stuff. So here's what's been happening in the last year:

Another crazy little Windows tip – I can't remember if this was a Windows XP problem or whether I'd also seen it in Vista, but I'm cleaning out my blog drafts and wanted to flesh this out.

Basically I had a network printer set up that would work until I rebooted my machine, then it would fail. I couldn't figure out for the life of me what was going on (I think it said something about me not having permission, though – I should have written down the error message). If I removed and readded the printer it'd work again.

Every time I try to set up IIS7 on a Windows Vista machine I run into the same series of problems. You'd think I'd have learned by now, but I usually just struggle through the cryptic error messages and get it working one way or another, then forget about it until the next time I need IIS7 on a machine that doesn't have it. Finally I'd had enough and so I decided to write myself a little guide here so I won't waste as much time next time. These instructions are basically the same as these, but with additional detail and screenshots.

The other day I tried to move my Hogmonitor application to my Vista x64 machine, so that I could shut down the XP machine that has been running it. I thought it'd be a nice way to save the power used by running the XP box 24/7, since it is otherwise used infrequently. However, I quickly hit up against a brick wall - Windows Vista 64-bit doesn't allow you to run drivers that haven't been digitally signed. Since the Hogmonitor uses the InpOut32 library, which relies on a custom driver, I'm out of luck. InpOut32 even has a 64-bit port, so I could have used it fine on a Windows XP 64-bit machine, and it would work on a 32-bit Vista machine. But on 64-bit Vista, there is no way around driver signing.

Update: It does work! See the note at the bottom of this post.

I've had this post in my “drafts” for about a month now. Originally it was titled “How to use Macintosh shares from Windows Vista”, but I was waiting to actually figure out how to get them working. Unfortunately it looks like it's simply not going to happen.

One of the first things I noticed in Windows Vista were the toolbars. Certainly they're prettier now, and the fact that the main menu is on the way out is exciting. But the most interesting thing is that they're different colors. Windows Explorer gets a blue-green toolbar, Windows Mail and Windows Calendar are blue, Windows Media Player and Windows Photo Gallery are black, and Internet Explorer gets a silver variant. This seems like a cool way to divide up the built-in apps, but the question that comes immediately to my mind is what color a third-party app should choose. It turns out that the Vista User Experience Guidelines are silent on this issue.

I've recently given up Dreamweaver entirely in favor of Aptana, a great (and free!) Eclipse-based web development IDE. It features great JavaScript IntelliSense, document outline view, AJAX library function autocomplete, and an FTP component that should make Dreamweaver users very comfortable. Even better, with plugins like Subclipse, you get source control for your websites. Basically, it's one of my favorite programs.

A little while after setting up 64-bit codecs for Windows Vista, my Windows Media Sharing suddenly died (taking my ability to connect to Windows Media Center from my Xbox 360 with it) with what might be the most infuriating error message ever displayed:

A few months ago Microsoft released an update to the Remote Desktop client that, among other things, added compatibility with Vista. I've just recently had the chance to try this out, and it's pretty neat - it looks better, and seems to perform better too. I did hit one snag though. When I enabled Remote Desktop on my Vista machine, I checked the box that said only clients using Network Level Authentication (NLA) could connect. I thought this would work, since the release notes for the new Remote Desktop client said that it supported NLA. However, upon connecting from my XP laptop, I got this:

Getting my Xbox 360 to work as a Media Center Extender was no walk in the park. The first major obstacle I had (before even worrying about how to get XviD transcoding working) was a strange error message I got every time I connected to the Media Center from my Xbox. The Media Center interface would load, show me everything for half a second, then switch to a screen that just said “Connection Terminated. The Xbox 360 has been disconnected because an application has launched UI unexpectedly. Would you like to reconnect?” A few seconds later it would reconnect, go through the startup sequence, and drop right back to that error. Over and over again.

I've been spending the past couple weeks playing with a brand new machine I made for Windows Vista, and it's been great. One of the things I've been looking forward to the most is Windows Media Center. Aside from the fun I can have developing WMC addons, I've been meaning to try out the Windows Media Extender functionality of my Xbox 360. Hooking up my laptop to my TV every time I want to watch things just doesn't cut it. Unfortunately, I have one problem - most of what I watch is already encoded in XviD format, which the Xbox 360 lacks a codec for.

I'm still waiting for enough free time to build a brand-new machine for Vista Ultimate. While I dream about a computer that isn't over 5 years old, I figured I could still get a head start on the Vista look & feel. First, install the Zune Desktop Theme to get that black, shiny Vista look. Next, go to Display Properties » Appearance » Advanced and set all your menu, title bar, and dialog fonts to “Segoe UI”, the default UI font in Vista. Make sure you've got ClearType turned on or Segoe UI will look awful. That's as far as I've gone - I'm sure you could get icon packs and cursors and such, but I really just wanted to get used to the dark colors and more rounded font.

I've been meaning to write about my impressions of the various Windows Vista previews since I first tried it out in January. My thoughts (and my feedback to Microsoft's beta site) have been piling up since then, but I never got around to putting virtual pen to even more virtual paper. However, Paul Thurrott's recent article on where Vista fails really sums up a lot of my feelings here. Thurrott's always been the type who'll try his hardest to find the positive in even the worst Microsoft releases, but as a long time reader, I can tell that he's very, very frustrated with Vista, and as a Windows journalist it really pains him to see something that promised so much deliver so little. He's not alone. I've tried my hardest to like what I've seen of Vista so far, but it's nearly impossible, especially when Mac OS X is out right now, and in many respects better than Microsoft's late update to XP.

This is going to be a pretty long rant, so if you want more you'll have to click inside.