#[elsewhere] that last sentence in the first para doesn't sound like a laudable goal
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#But they did vote Bean

They pulled Daniel's name off the waiting list yesterday and offered him a place. Yay! I told not that if I saw Ms Firman I'd give her a big kiss (were I not so frightened off her, obviously, I mean she's a headteacher and everything).

Later in the afternoon, we all went to the park. Natalie and Harry left before Daniel and me. On their way back, they met Ms Firman in the street and Nattle told her what I'd said, thus ensuring I'll be too embarrassed to ever speak to her again.

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#[linkfarm] Martial arts film actor Jackie Chan has become a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations
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#[linkfarm] SetACL - Windows permission management
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#They didn't vote Jez

Well some people did, bless 'em, but not enough.

The results of the governors election are now glued up on the school door for all to see. The highest number of votes cast for any one candidate was 170 or so, I got 70-odd and the lowest number was 17. The school has around 700 pupils. Pupils, in the main, have two parents/guardians, both of whom are eligable to vote. Voters had seven votes to distribute among 11 candidates. I'm sufficiently brainy to put together a model for all this, but I'd guess that 250 votes out of a possible 1400 were cast. No idea if this is a good figure or not or whether it means anything in particular.

Daniel is now 19th on the waiting list, which is pretty cheering. The secretary expects to offer him a place within a couple of weeks. Yay.

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#[linkfarm] the history of llamasoft - part three
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# Have rested Cocoon away from sitemap.xmap. Might be starting to understand just how deeply twisted it is.
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# Dropped another 100 classes - down to 309 now. I've carved out all the big lumps, so progress is slowing. Having to poke and prod a bit now.
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#[linkfarm] Manic Miner - in JavaScript
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# Blair confirms EU constitution poll
I'll be voting Yes.
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# Repackaging bits of Cocoon for a client at the moment. Starting by ripping bits out, then seeing if everything still works. 200 or classes killed so far. Only another 300 odd to go.
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# Theme park 'pushing absenteeism' - The Federation of Small Businesses is angry Alton Towers has recently paid for the web address ihatework.co.uk. The group claims the park is acting irresponsibly - but Alton Towers argues it is not its job to cut absenteeism.
I'm a member of the FSB. This kind of thing explains why I don't usually mention it.
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#[linkfarm] Seinfeld and Superman
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#"Nobody was there but me, so I felt like, 'I'm elected. I have to work on this. If not me, who?'"

from Free As In Freedom - Richard Stallman's Crusade for Free Software by Sam Williams.

I obey LinkMachineGo. Obey me.

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 23.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.

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# Back in the attic this morning. Brain still feeling a bit full. Must concentrate hard.
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#[elsewhere] seems to be both exciting and tiring
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#

Bobbed back home from the conference for the evening - catching up on email, eating pasta and brocolli and emptying out my brain a bit for tomorrow morning.

Cracking keynote by Herb Sutter this morning on the C++ to the .NET CLI. Herb's always gives a good talk, but I think it's fair to say that this year's conference was a mildly hostile audience. Microsoft taking C++ seriously is still pretty new, and not everyone believes it. Herb, bless him, cracked a few jokes at his own expense to loosen everyone up, and by the end of his talk actually had me pretty excited about developing on Windows again. He closed out by announcing that on Monday, Microsoft will be releasing their C++ compiler and library suite for download, free and unrestricted, for commercial or non-commercial use. Everyone took notice - they really are serious. Check here on Monday.

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# Packing my bags for my trip to the ACCU conference. Anticipating severe brain failure by mid-Thursday, followed by complete brainmelt at the weekend.
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#[linkfarm] colinux
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#[linkfarm] The Osborne 1 is one of the first portable computers
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#[linkfarm] Osbourne 1
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# Laptop is here. Only fits the definition of laptop if you have an extremely large lap.
Update many hours later - What a beast it is. Came with a wireless card, which I'm pretty sure I didn't order, but harrah for that. Been downloading, building, installing all the stuff I need to actually do any work. C++ compilers, two versions of Java, Firebired, Emacs, Cygwin, VNC, sshd, WinAmp, Yahoo (ok those last two arn't strictly necessary). Still not done but must sleep. Swimming with Nattle at 7 this morning, so need to have dog walked by then.

anonymous said firebire? - Is this your first comment from a Chinese ip? [added 9th Apr 2004]

Doh

[added 9th Apr 2004]
And no - many, many comments out of China here - http://www.jezuk.co.uk/jez/spam/chinaMotorcycle [added 9th Apr 2004]
How's your holiday, btw? Can't be that great if you feel the need to read this while you're out there. [added 9th Apr 2004]

planetcutie said "Only fits the definition of laptop if you have an extremely large lap"

Well, you said it. Not me... [added 10th Apr 2004]

I did - and I meant it in a good way. I wanted a big-arse machine I could work on, not some namby-pamby ponce-machine for showing off in airport lounges with. So that's what I got - a bloody great machine that's portable in the same way that an Osbourne 1 was portable. [added 11th Apr 2004]

prashton said Jez - this is scary. I was actually intending to buy the Osborne "luggable" when the company went out of business. Osbourne was one of the many entrepreneurs of the IBM-PC clone days, just like the three founders of Compaq (who lasted a lot longer before being ousted one way or another). The early Compaqs were also huge but more desirable because they were made locally (northwest Houston). Many years on I remember drolling over the first Mac Portable, again a very heavy machine with little to commend it.

Your comment about airport lounges is interesting. Continental's President's Clubs in Newark and Houston have discrete booths (and free wireless internet connections) so you can hide your monster from view! And get some serious work done. [added 13th Apr 2004]

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#

Another long and frustrating day yesterday, which I ended by calling Cardiff and putting off my delivery today. I suggested Tuesday, which was countered with "I'm away all next week, lets sort it out when I get back". Suddenly the pressure all lifted. Hurrah.

Today, I'm doing something else instead.

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#Longest route ever ...

New luggable travelled up to Coventry last night. Then it trundled off to Nuneaton.

But! But! But! That's away. Bring it back!

Web tracking is a terrible thing.

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#

Had two of the worst days at work for about 7 or 8 years. Yesterday was especially awful - I haven't raged round a room cursing whatever idiot came up with the software I'm using for years. I probably made one useful keystroke all day. Sadly, it's largely my own fault for ignoring my own advice. Client insisted on MSI install packages (which NSIS doesn't do) because one of their clients requires it for whatever funky network deployment jobber they use. Building MSI installers turns out to be almost completely a pain in the arse. I'm using Wise, mainly because InstallShield was utterly incomprehensible, but I don't think Wise is responsible. The finger of blame points, I feel, squarely at the Windows Installer and its crappy, underdocumented, table-driven nightmare so-called database.

It's almost working for me now - the remaining problem being an inability to register services so that they can actually be started. As it turned out, I needed a wrapper .exe anyway (Note to self - use NSIS if you're stupid enough to ever to an installer again - don't forget!) and I suspect if I register the services in that, they'll work.

Today, a guy on Microsoft staff released WiX - Windows Installer XML toolkit. It takes a big description of what you want to do and munges it into, you guessed it, an MSI package. He says:

First of all, I would say that the WiX toolset is pretty close to Beta2 quality. That means core scenarios (compiling/linking) are very solid, less core scenarios (lib'ing/decompiling) still have some bugs, and the documentation leaves much to be desired. Part of my motivation for pushing the toolset external to Microsoft is to encourage me (and maybe find others) to update the documentation. I'll talk more about that in future blog entries.

That said production quality MSI and MSM files can be produced from the WiX toolset today. Internally, teams such as Office, SQL Server, BizTalk, Virtual PC, Instant Messenger, several msn.com properties, and many others use WiX to build their MSI and MSM files today. When someone encounters a bug, the community tracks the issue down and fixes it. Now, via SourceForge.net, you have an opportunity to be a part of the community as well.

Now, let's talk about why WiX was released as Open Source. First, working on WiX has never been a part of my job description or review goals. I work on the project in my free time. ...

Is it just me, or is it amusing and rather telling that some of the highest profile Microsoft products are packaged using a tool that someone worked up in their free time?

Today brightened considerably by this email

To: Jez
From: Dell

Your order number left Dell's European Manufacturing 
Facility on 05/04/04.

Last spotted in Holyhead at 14:00. Maybe tomorrow ...

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#[elsewhere] New kids on the blog
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#[linkfarm] The Ballad of Bettie Page Announced
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#[linkfarm] the history of llamasoft - part 2
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#[linkfarm] the history of llamasoft - part one
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#Dead Kennedys - haven't had fun like this for years
Pete has words and photos.
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#[linkfarm] Why I Fear Aspect-Oriented Programming
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# Boing Boing picks up the Batmobile from the latest film. Looks like it was lifted from The Dark Knight Returns, a comic about the end of the Batman, but the film is called Batman Begins.
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