Tooey ( Stuart James )

 As many developers do I always "try" to use source control all the time for every project. There are a large variety of different source control and I am far from used them all and I'm sure you could argue that this does x better and that does y better. But for ease of use I have to commend Sourcegear Vault.

I have used a couple of source controls enough to have a opinion on so far in my development career. Many would argue the worst two 

• Visual SourceSafe (VSS)
• Team Foundation Server (TFS)

I do all my development on Windows using Visual Studio and I use a variety of Visual Studios from 6 - 2010 for all sorts of reasons. My current main is VS2008.

VSS is a very very starter source control, I would never recommend for really more than 2 people even me working on my smallish projects have caused problems within VSS, it has a web component too it but I have never managed to get it to work even running on my SBS Server.

Team Foundation Server is a professional source control software BUT has a huge problem of you need a professional to install and maintain the beast. I've managed to install it all but it took a long long long time to get it right and several uninstalls and many many restarts. This is a source control not for the faint of heart and with its heavy price tag and demanding requirements its not cheap.

So now we get to my new one SourceGear Vault, this I installed today it has a perk that for one user its free! This works well for me. Now I am a little naughty and am using it on my VPS and to be honest I didn't think it would work I've never managed to have much luck working remotely with source control. But to my astonishment after setting up it took just minutes to upload my current 3D Engine... 

I was a little astonished how successful SourceGear worked I have alot of way to go to really get to grips and it did take me a while to correct my very stupid mistake of using the wrong Vault Server address, just to note after you install and have got up 

 http://domainname/VaultService/VaultService.asmx

That should look like this:  

Then all you need for the Vault Server address is hostname/VaultService/

So your login looks like this 

Finally just so you know you can run it on a VPS with low spec's mine is a Windows Server 2003 Enterprise 64bit VPS with 1gb RAM and installed is SqlExpress server running several websites. 

Have a look at http://www.sourcegear.com/vault/ for more details about Vault.

I'm starting to think I am running a hair salon, I've died my hair with the help of Nettles a couple of times I've died her's a couple of times and tonight I helped my sister die hers too.

Maybe there is a lucrative trade in this ? equally I've never got paid for doing it some I'm guessing probably not.

Anyone got any cool hair colours they have gone?

Ive been Dark Blue and Brown 

Well if you are reading this you have probably seen the changes to my site, I'm still working on the theme but i was hoping to get peoples opinions on my homepage, is it cleaner and nicer ?

Well anything can be an improvement on the previous i hope

For work we recently invested in a SSL certificate, we had a quick search and GoDaddy had a promotion for £10 for an SSL that is pretty good value its limited no wildcards or anything but thats all we needed for the site.

Well we signed up with GoDaddy and there system and service is slow to say at the least. I was quite disappointed with everything going online and being fully automated I expected a lot better performance. I know there has to be checking done on SSL Certs but everything took 24-48 hours. I struggled a lot with there automated validation tools i tried doing the Website check where you upload a HTML file with the name of a specific code, this just went badly i failed the first time with the process taking 3 days to then start again. I tried to get there support and got a message back saying please provide more details that was annoying.

But we got it all working after about 4-5 days and with no support from GoDaddy, not a company I would trust todo anything again. Maybe thats why they do things cheap.

My quest for good quality support continues...

Everyone with a 360 should of watched The Guild Series 1 and 2 well there's the 3rd series out, and i recommend everyone watch add it to your download queue online

• Episode 1
• Episode 2

I've been using a Nokia E90 Communicator for a while now, its a very good business phone but lacks some of the nicer features, but thats not what this post is about.

I have tinkered with Twitter and set up my phone to receive updates and be able to update twitter from my phone so that's nice. Also while going on the O2 site i found that you can now text 21202 on pay monthly contracts and get the update of your balance, pretty neat I've wanted that for a long time

I often sing the praises of MojoPortal, and today is no different I've been using mojo for a while and it has been great I run a couple of websites on it including this one and I have a new project I'm developing that uses it too with some customisation and expansion.

But today is different I wanted to say thanks and thought there's two ways to do that one financial i know Joe Audette struggles with finance for Mojo since its all based on the community donating and buying features, so I've bought Joe a coffee to keep him going, and also by giving him a shout out on my blog that links through to friendfeed and twitter it should help people see MojoPortal and give it a try.

I often complain about companies bad customer service, but I had an experience of truly amazing customer service. Last Christmas I got Nettles a sewing machine that sadly for what ever reason experienced a problem with the alignment.

Well we contacted Brother the manufacturer of the product and after fiddling around to find the number for some reason the number in the manual was wrong, but after a quick look at there website we found the number. Promptly giving them a call navigating I think it was 2 menu's with in about 5 seconds i was through to a support guy. He gave us some advice to try following the cleaning instructions this often solved a lot of problems. So we gave it a try and unfortunately didn't work so I rang back less than 5 seconds again and through to the same support engineer and he arranged delivery of a new sewing machine via TNT next day delivery... wow, so they sent it out arrived next day and my wonderful Nettles has 2 weeks to contact a person to arrange collection of the old sewing machine. I was amazed no questions just quick rapid support.

Some people do get it right and Brother have proven to be one. 

I've been running a SBS2K3 for quite a while storing emails and all my files a source control and all sorts of other little bits of fun and giggles. But today that goes offline for the foreseeable future, my emails have been returned to standard POP3 and I'm all set up and working on my new config.

Well out with the old in with the new, I'm working to sort out a new home for a small project I'm working on hopefully it will prove to be a success but we shall see for now. Its new home is being setup that's one of the main things my server was remaining alive for.

Thank You ickle server you have done me proud

Ages and ages ago i watched a demonstration for web developers to compare there website on different browsers at the time I was really impressed and thought that would be something very very useful for the future. Like many things do this got puut to the back of my mind and I completely forget where and what product this function is in. Then while trying out Expression Web 3 I found it and reminded me of the wow how useful smiles I had during the original presentation.

The feature is called Super Preview and is very useful for comparison. A few screenshots:

Have come out of interview with FireFly, went really well I got along with the guys well and am fairly hopeful i will get a second interview with there lead dev.

They do a diverse job that is really nice to see lots of challenges and everyday i think will be interesting and an experience. I am looking forward to hearing from them

Only time will tell

May be i should go into testing, i was doing my normal Mojoportal update process today and completed it fine on my Streamline hosting. Then when i repeated the same process for the company i work for and there website hosted on EUKhost, well yets just say i broke it

Woop Woop for instant online support though

haha, for those billions of people who have never heard of the BCS basically its computer society for people with qualifications and experience in the computing world. Many Universities offer it with there degrees and when you graduate and have two years of experience then you can get a MBCS that is a professional member of the BCS. I applied recently and have got it so I thought i would use the letters after my name for the first and last time

Woop for being a Professional Member!

Things are going well on the job front I've already stated about the test I'm going to do tomorrow that I'm actually quite excited about. Its probably quite geeky that I'm excited about a test

Anyway, I have an Interview a week Tuesday  so woop woop go me

We will have to see how it goes  but its exciting times

My Parents have gone away for a week to the US for the 25th Wedding Anniversary (Woop Woop to them) my dad rang up a couple of days ago to confirm that his mobile phone contract would work in the US and they confirmed it would.

Now he's over there he has no signal and the phone is unusable useful hey?

I give Vodafone a ring and explain the situation and they say there is nothing they can do since i am not my dad, so they want my dad to ring them on a phone that doesn't work? I'm thinking this is stupid its not like I'm asking to change billing contact or any information just for them to do a diagnostic and probably say "theres nothing we can do".

Now I'm one to understand the importance of security but i think this seems to be going a little too far? or am i being unreasonable?

I have been talking to a recruitment agency about some positions and one of them has a 24 hour test, a little nervous i delayed it a little despite the guy saying it wont really help there isn't much you can prepare for. None the less I am quite concerned if a recruitment agency says that a test is hard.

We shall see how it goes feeling a mixture of emotions fear and excitement :) time to get studying :)

This video was sent via the usual pipeline of Roybottics, original source from, http://www.symbian-freak.com/news/009/08/simulation_of_an_asteroid_hitting_earth.htm

Well there you go the end of the world good post for new install ?

While installing Windows 7 RTM i hit an issue, the always scary blue screen of death, but not to worry lucky for me i recognize the culprit good old NVIDIA. This error i don't remember occurring in the Beta or RC1 but guessing during one of the updates the error has been created.

Configurations at risk:

Multiple Graphics cards, possibly only heterogeneous graphics cards. (aka 2 Graphics cards of different model)

Symptoms:

While installing after the first reboot, when finalizing your installation the screen flickers and resizes to your maximum supported range then within 30seconds blue screens.

Blue Screen Error: nvlddmkm

Solution:

• Remove your secondary graphics card during install, i know it is a little bit of a brute way but i removed mine and it installed fine since in my case ripping the card out took 30seconds that seems the fastest solution.
• Finnish Install
• Install Latest Driver from NVIDIA
• Shutdown
• Plug in Second Graphics card
• Restart and hopefully all is well...

My Configuration:

• Intel Core 2 Duo 3.0GHz
• 6gb Ram
• Nvidia 9800 GTX
• Nvidia 7950GX2 (Extreme or X)
• Mulitple HD's 300gb main

I've finally got around to installing the RTM of Windows 7, its actually installing as i write this. The install experience is somewhat interesting for some reason when I install on VM's it installs really quick with no lag between screens but on the actual PC install it lags on a lot of things like between copying Windows files and Expanding windows files, before it showed a % it just sat there for ages, guessing there is something in my hardware it doesn't like. Equally my PC is a little bit hacked together being built over many years with pretty much nothing removed

I'm doubting I'm going to go wow to the RTM since as many others have stated it was pretty much a finished product from the Beta onwards. But hey its always good to have a proper install

There are many times in which to do sales, when your asking for sales before you buy after you have been with a company for a while to advertise new products.

There are two times when you should never do sales:

1. Contacting for Support a big NO NO!
2. Contacting for Billing

Now this is fairly simple but BT have decided they don't want to stick to basic courtesy and decide they want to ask you if you would like to move your phone line every time you ring we moved Internet about a month ago i had exactly the same sales then and i didn't go for it so why when I'm ringing up to fix there screw ups would i go for it ?

BT really have gone down the pan it seems will probably do a lot more shopping next time broadband is up for renewal.

Well after my original post a while back about us being desperate to find a new home for the business i work for's Website i had several responses and got an interesting range. After we have decided to go with another of these i wanted to tell everyone about the different companies and what they offer.

I was contacted by two different companies one that i would consider to be large and one that i would consider to be smaller.

The large one that actually put a comment on my blog was Everycity now this is a company that are selling to the big scale customers selling some impressive VPS solutions at good prices. Sadly the company i work for wasn't really of the size to handle such a big solution until our Website gets a few more hits i don't think this is the one for us but they are worth a look if you are looking for Managed/Unmanaged VPS they provide solutions to give your Website a quick experience. The guy i spoke to at the company was very friendly and was quick to get me a quote.

The smaller company was called Cactus Internet the person i spoke to from them actually went out of his way to contact me on messenger to be honest i was impressed its unusual to have such a personal experience with a hosting company. It may not be a 50 man company but they do offer a lot of good services at very fair prices. The person i spoke to was very supportive and although was encouraging me to go Linux to get the cost down knows what hes talking about.

So why didn't we go with these two companies, well Everycity was very good but the price was too steep for a company our size. Why didn't we go with Cactus then i don't know if its my experience with fasthosts that have made me crazily over protective but EUKHost offer a slightly better fall over system. Is it worth the extra cost I'm not sure but we are hoping it will work out in the long run.

Conclusion:

Does your site get a lot of traffic and are you looking for a business colleague? If yes then take a look at everycity.co.uk

Are you looking for value for money and a person you know? If yes then take a look at cactusinternet.com

Want a middle ground a little bit more comfort of mind but lose a bit of the personalization?  try eukhost.com

Well my magical book ... brick has arrived the updated notes say it still managed to get from Glasgow.

I asked the delivery guy and apparently he came from Bristol and was out by about 6am so something has gone wrong ther but never mind.

The book is impressive a nice back breaking 794 pages, is a big exam think this ones going to take a lot of studying for.

Well today I've decided to take an MS Exam so I've ordered the first book on my shopping list, and saw amazon had a free trial for amazon prime where for a month i can order anything i like and get free next day delivery. Now this doesn't sound unusual the strange part I'm finding is when i went on Website to track my order i got this information.

Call me pessimistic but if its out for delivery at 6:21 AM in Glasgow i live in just south of Bristol then its got to travel 388 miles, assuming that he is just delivering to me that will take6 hours and 28 minutes (according to Google) and this is the nice pretty route he will have to take.

View Larger Map

My big question is will he make it ?

(To Note: Yes i am flying with my beautiful Nettles)

Finally got upgrade for my PC I've been waiting a long time and decided to just go for it :) I upped my ram that has been a lousy 2gb to 6gb and am loving it. Is nice to have a smooth running PC and with the upcoming reformat that i am scheduled to-do then hopefully the trash will be cleaned and my PC will fly :)

But what do you do with 6gb of RAM that justifies having i already ran a lot of programs that pretty much pushed me over my 2gb really do i need to run even more programs to have use of the 6gb... my other idea is to write a nice memory leak i know not the best use.

Guess its back to VM world run up a few VM's although will come in handy really since i am going to be doing a lot of work testing multiple OS's with TooGaming very soon.

Well we shall see what i can do to abuse my ram i do have a talent for abusing memory