GrantRi's WebLog [MS] : House and Home

Remodel Marches On

grantri — Thu, 16 Jun 2005 06:59:01 GMT

Well, my house is half torn apart and the new parts are about half-built. There's not much to talk about here at work, as we're busy finishing off the last few bugs and getting everything up to snuff. The question in my mind is which will finish first, my house or Whidbey...

--Grant

Home Remodeling and Software Maintenance

grantri — Wed, 04 May 2005 03:35:00 GMT

I just finished signing the final paperwork to begin remodeling our home. Along with the paperwork came a fairly large budget. What strikes me as interesting is that it actually costs more to add on to a house than it does to build things from scratch. After thinking about this for a while, it kind of makes sense. Being a programmer, I related it back to writing code: it's sometimes faster (cheaper) to write new code than it is to debug somebody else's code. The poor contractor can make rough estimates about what is actually under the foundation, or in the walls. Until he actually opens things up, it's just a guessing game.

So back to software a little bit. If we always wrote code with the assumption that 10 years from now some poor person is going to have to read and debug the code to fix it, what would we do differently? I'm a big fan of readability, but too often I think I fall into the trap of writing comments to remind me about why I did what I did, rather then writing to an unfamiliar audience.

Well, enough rambling. Hopefully I'll come up with some better stuff (and more) to talk about next time.

--Grant

My new toy

grantri — Mon, 21 Jun 2004 23:43:00 GMT

As I mentioned a few posts back, I was forced to upgrade my Pocket PC. I went with a new Dell Axim X30. I got the mid-range one with built-in WiFi, but a slower processor. My old one was a Casio E-200. I know some of this stuff has been around for a while in various devices, but I've never owned any of those, so I can't use them as points of reference.

Since I've never really been a 3-D gamer, there's not much I can say about it's performance besides 'perfectly acceptable'. Everything I want to do with it seems to work just fine. There are no noticeable delays. Most of the time I run it in PowerSave mode (208MHz) or Auto. Even at the slower speed everything seems about the same or faster than my Casio.

Hardware wise it's a good device. I love the 30 MB of built-in storage. It's a great place to put most of my apps without using precious RAM. The built-in WiFi seems to be more powerful than the old CF card I was using. I haven't found a use for the bluetooth yet. The consumer IR has a nice geek-factor to it, but I doubt it will replace my simple TV/VCR remote any time soon (although I have used it a few times). I'm a rather engineer/geek/square sort of person so the form factor is really appealing (I've always hated the iPaq's silly 'smile' at the bottom). It also seems to sync faster over USB (not sure if that's the OS or device, or just perception). It syncs really fast over WiFi!

The upgrade from 2002 to 2003 SE wasn't exactly big, but does have a lot of nice little features. I'm finally able to sync wirelessly at work now that I can do 802.1x (2002 would only do it if you bought the expensive cards with the fancy drivers). I like being able to easily rotate my device screen, although few apps really take advantage of it, yet. WMP9 is a little bit nicer (it can plan more formats). I like the built-in backup software. Transcriber seems to do a much better job recognizing my hen-scratches, but I still frequently switch to the soft-keyboard.

Here's my few minor complaints so far:

I dislike the rear-mounted speaker. I automatically muffles most sounds when I'm holding it in my hand.
The stylus is about 1cm too short for my hand, but I think eventually I'll get used to it
My casio seemed to work most of the day and only use half the battery. The Axim almost seems to burn through the battery. That might be because I'm using WiFi way more, but even with WiFi off, it seems to be rather power hungry. Of course that is offset by being able to charge via USB cable.
I don't like the oblong-shaped cursor pad. It's just too small for my big fat fingers.
Although the device is 'instant on', the WiFi isn't. I often find that I have to disable the radio and re-enable it to get it to switch networks, or even just base stations here at work.

I've only had it about a week, but overall I think it was worth every penny.

On a slightly different note, don't order any non-Dell accessories from their web-site. Yes you might save yourself a few bucks in shipping, but if something goes wrong, you'll be hating life. I spent 4 hours on the phone just trying to figure how the would replace the non-functioning AC adapter that was part of the belkin 3-in-1 travel sync cable I bought.

Nobody seemed to know the right department or how to transfer me. Axims are handled in some other department, but we don't list that on our phone menu. 3rd Party accessories are handled by someone else. Customer Care says you have to talk to tech support before they can arrange an exchange (I guess to make sure idiots aren't exchanging perfectly functioning units), but tech support wants to charge you for 3rd party accessories (even if you bought it from them, and is still under warranty). If you complain though they'll send you back to customer care. Then you can tell customer care that, “Yes I've talked with tech support“ and they'll do the exchange. Then when I finally got somebody who said they could arrange a return, he said it would take a while so he'd email me with the instructions and return codes when he'd finished.

Within 30 minutes I had an email from him, saying he was working on it and would send the info when he was done. That was Saturday. Anybody want to start guessing when he'll actually get back to me?

BTW I had a great Father's Day. Hope you all did too.

--Grant

It's Friday

grantri — Fri, 02 Apr 2004 19:41:00 GMT

It's a bright beautiful Friday afternoon and all I can think about is, “I wish it would rain so I don't have to water my new lawn.”

On a different note, I just want to say I love working here at Microsoft. This morning we decided last minute to bring my daughter to work. She really likes riding the buses (probably because she's not strapped into a car-seat). So while my wife, Rachel took my oldest son Alex to preschool, Emily and I rode the bus to work (thank you Microsoft for the free bus pass). She was very excited to point out all the trees and flowers, and generally just enjoyed being with me. When we got here, she took full advantage of the free sodas, juices, and milk. She also found my private stash of cereal and decided to have a second breakfast. Because I have my own office (not just a cubicle) I closed the door to prevent her constant chatter from disturbing others. Of course everybody had to comment on how cute she was (yes even the caffeine-induced-code-for-life-single-guys could enjoy her cuteness with sacrificing their manlyness). After Emily was done playing with some of my prized lego collection (I keep a fairly large stash of less-prized legos in my office specifically for these occasions), Rachel was done with her errands and picked Emily up on her way home.

I personally don't know of anyplace else where they pay you for doing something you love (yes I do love writing compilers), and they let you bring your kids to work to make even better!

--Grant

Why I'm a software engineer...

grantri — Mon, 22 Mar 2004 05:23:00 GMT

I'll be the first one to admit I'm lazy. I purposefully avoid meaningless manual labor. Things done solely to look better or or impress others generally fall into the category of meaningless. In high school I was socially adept enough to realize I wasn't popular or even liked by many. So I've long since given up trying to impress people by how I look or act. That has also applies to my car, house, workspace or anything else somebody might associate with me. My wife on the other hand still thinks it's somewhat important to keep up reasonable appearances just so we don't offend the neighbors. If I was a bachelor. I'd probably be sharing a townhouse or condo with a couple of good friends, with several $1000's worth of high tech gadgets, and the closest thing to a chore would be doing my own laundry (no dishes or cooking because I'd always eat out). Instead I have a house with a big back yard so my kids can run and play. Well this year Uncle Sam blessed us with a larger than average tax refund, so I told my wife to go hire somebody and stop pestering me about all these maintenance tasks. The short story is that I ended up doing way more work getting ready for, or taking care of all the stuff done to our humble yard, than I would have if I had just bought a nice new computer.

The moral of the story: Unless you're rich enough to have a full-time gardening staff (you know the kind of people who you just say, “I want it to look nice” and they do the rest), don't let anybody do stuff to your lawn/yard/garden, because somehow it's going to end up causing you more work. Just stop complaining and keep mowing.

--Grant