Java Installer

I just went down the usual path of agreeing to install some update to the Java runtime. I figure, "whatever, maybe something on my system runs on it." This time, I noticed the installer includes a step to install the Yahoo! toolbar.

I can't say that I am terribly surprised that both Sun Microsystems and Yahoo! are circling the drain. Desperation like this only highlights the facts.

Things like this really irk me. This is precisely the reason I haven't installed the Real Player in years. I do remember a time when there was content on the internet that was only accessible through Real. I decided then that such content wasn't a good enough reason for me to install the player. I think now is the time to make the same call for Java applications. Instead of completing the installation, I am going to uninstall all Java runtimes from my PC. I am sure this will blow up more than one other bit of software that I currently have. I'll just have to see how painful it is to live without.

Good bye and good riddance Java.

Google ... working hard

I take exception to this blog post from the GMail blog. They state that, "We on the Google Calendar team work hard to play well with others".

They say that they, "synchronize your calendars with a number of mobile devices and desktop applications." Well, for mobile devices, that number appears to be two: Blackberry and Android. But what about WinMo? And, more importantly to me, what about iPhone!?! Actually ... I am a little torn on that one. Probably, this is Apple's fault for not building it into their Calendar app. OK ... nevermind.

Here is another, unrelated, example. I use several different aliases with my Google Apps gmail accounts. When I send an email from one account as an alias, recipients who use Outlook will see, "From: user1@domain.com on behalf of user2@domain.com." This has been a problem for years. Google's response is, "Most email clients don't display the sender field, though some versions of Microsoft Outlook may display ...". Most email clients? Except Outlook? OK, I sort of understand. I don't use Outlook either. But most of the world does. Outlook, all by itself, IS most email clients. It's like saying, "Most humans, except for the ones on Earth."

Prism & Caliburn

Spent a little time tonight getting a high level look at some MVC tools for WPF. Microsoft Patterns and Practices group has one called the Composite Application Guidance for WPF (codename "Prism") and then there is another one called Caliburn.

Here's a notes page (psudo-mindmap) I jotted while reading.


Here are some links

• Composite Application Guidance for WPF
• Download details Composite Application Guidance for WPF
• caliburn An Application Framework for WPF and Silverlight - Home
• Caliburn and Prism

Harvest Gadget

My company uses Harvest for time tracking. It seems like a pretty good tool. However, sometimes I get really far behind on keeping it up. I would like something that I can interact with in under 10 seconds. They have a pretty good iPhone web app ... but it is just barely klunky enough that I don't use it. I am going to give their Windows widget a try. They also have one for the Mac, but I don't have my Mac powered up right now. Writing this is enough distraction for me for the moment. Anyhoo, I haven't done anything with it yet except install it, so I don't have any good feedback. Here's a screenshot.

Microsoft Word 2007 slow to alt+tab

Just found this happy little gem that fixed a problem with tabbing back and forth between Word documents. Thanks to author Anthony Curreri.

Here's the text of his post (just to make sure I don't loose it).

1. Log in as Administrator.
2. Open Microsoft Office 2007.
3. Click the Office Button in the upper left.
4. Click Word Options in the lower right.
5. Click Add-Ins on the left.
6. At the bottom, make sure ‘Com Add-ins’ is selected in the Manage: drop down and click Go…
7. Un-check ‘Acrobat PDFMaker Office COM Addin’ (Or whatever you think might be making Word 2007 slow).
8. Click Ok.
9. Close Word.
10. Open Two Word Windows. Now you can switch back and forth instantly!

To append to his post, he does indicate that you need to log in as an administrator. In Vista, for some reason, you cannot right click Word and choose "Run as Administrator". Instead, I opened a command prompt that way, navigated to "c:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12" and then ran WINWORD.EXE. That should allow you to change the add-in settings.

My prefered SubVersion client for XCode is ...

At first, I thought that the integrated tools for XCode were pretty good. Then I started working with Ben on the project. Yeah, they blow. We have switched over to Versions. It seems to work very well.

Renaming an iPhone App

Renaming an iPhone app can appear to be a pretty clunky deal the first few times. It is particularly irksome that Apple explicitly states that once you generate an AppID in your developer program portal, you cannot delete it.

This graphic is helpful in navigating the change in XCode.



Also, I have learned the hard way to make sure that the URL in your info.plist "InfoDictionary version" property matches your AppID. So, for instance, you generate a new AppID like "WER4ERF4.net.framewreck.tehdumbapp" then make sure your info.plist value is "net.framewreck.${PRODUCT_NAME:identifier}"