Caught in the (dot) Net

Developing as non-admin. It's not all roses!

richard@dynamisys.co.uk — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 00:00:00 GMT

A year ago I decided to try the delights of developing as a non-admin. It’s been great, I didn’t regret it.

My machine has been showing the symptoms of software rot. Yesterday evening I repaved my machine. I organize my disk as a partition for the O/S plus software and a separate partition for data. I did a total ground-zero reinstall of the O/S (Win XP Pro), on a freshly formatted partition. One effect of that is that my new account has a new SID. All the old files on my data partition allow me to read them – I’m a User, but they don’t let me delete/write/update because my new SID is different to the one they were created with.

I think I am going to have to live with manually changing file permission settings for many months to come – I’d be *very* interested to hear of any cute shortcuts to that process. More important – I’m expecting to have to re-pave again, annually seems about normal for me. What I'd really like is some ideas on what I can do to stop this problem next time?

Who is behind 0023222270680? Feels like a scam.

richard@dynamisys.co.uk — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Got a text about a parcel? Ignore it!

First time at the Fringe

richard@dynamisys.co.uk — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 00:00:00 GMT

I'm working in Edinburgh this week and it's the Edinburgh Festival time. Definitely .

Laura is up here too, ready for next term. We were planning to go to see Paul Merton's improvisation show, but we only had one ticket. I'd got the last one when tried to book for both of us. We hoped we might be able to get a press return.

We couldn’t get a press ticket at the box office, she tried calling in a favour from someone who was working in the venue, but no joy. So I was just keeping her company in the queue. A venue worker went past collecting ticket stubs – “I’m just standing here – couldn’t get a ticket.” Five minutes later she was back – "There’s a guy farther back in the queue with a spare ticket." He sold it me for a tenner but I'd have given him £15. Whoo-hoo. I don’t think Laura stopped laughing for a whole hour – it was *that* good. I'd seen them before, but hey - it's improvisation. They were the same people; the show had much the same basic structure; but wasn't the same show. Fantastic. Go see them if you can.

And the bus went sailing by

richard@dynamisys.co.uk — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 00:00:00 GMT

I've been away this week and using the local bus. Mostly it's worked pretty well.

To IBM for C#

richard@dynamisys.co.uk — Thu, 22 May 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Having a great time at IBM this week.

Who is behind 07530306640, 07736362471, 08716232828, 08716235868, 08716238929, 08719511030, 08719511035, 08719511086?

richard@dynamisys.co.uk — Thu, 22 May 2008 00:00:00 GMT

I get calls to my mobile from these numbers. The phone only ever rings once. Even that ring is truncated as if the call is disconnected as soon as it possibly can be.

As it's clearly not a real person there I never call back. I figure if a real person really wanted to talk to me then they would let the phone ring out. Heck they might even leave a message.

So - more interesting - does anyone know who these people are? Leave a comment if you have any ideas? Double leave a comment if you know how to stop them!

Boy is the Royal Mail slow with claims

richard@dynamisys.co.uk — Thu, 01 May 2008 12:00:00 GMT

I sold an item on eBay and it didn't arrive. Fair enough it did get caught up in the industrial action back then. But still they lost it.

Entity Framework talk at NextGen Southampton

richard@dynamisys.co.uk — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 18:40:00 GMT

Went to NextGen Southampton last night to hear Mike Taulty of Microsoft speak on the Entity Framework. Good talk. Nice folk down there. Recommended.

How do you look after your passwords?

richard@dynamisys.co.uk — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 22:03:00 GMT

I use Keith Brown's essential Password Minder. With what that guy knows about security and good practises I am convinced.

Is Google responsive enough?

richard@dynamisys.co.uk — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 17:25:00 GMT

OK - it's entirely selfish - but new material on my site shows up far sooner on MS Live search (http://search.live.com) than it does on Google - if it ever shows up on Google.

Now I can face the truth that I am an Internet minnow, but it's not much fun being treated as beneath contempt.