Still – I’m going to try and resurrect this with some posts over the next few weeks (as I’ve got nothing else planned apart from work), and in the meantime I shall leave this post with a photo from a recent trip to Scotland (click to go to the flickr set with the rest of the photos):

Now, I was never going to get an iPhone – I don’t run Windows or Mac OS, so I wouldn’t have been able to use it anyway. The Palm Pre, whilst much advertised before launch by O2 (and at the time my only non-iPhone upgrade option) was a bit of a non-starter for a few reasons – most notably that they were already being removed from stores in the US (and soon after Palm were bought by HP). So I was left with the choice of either Nokia’s N900, where the OS has now merged with Intel’s offereing, or an Android based phone.

Having played with both the N900 and a HTC Desire, as far as I was concerned it was an easy decision to go with the Desire. It won out due to three main factors: the device is a more sensible size when already carrying a blackberry for work, Android offers more applications and a proper multi-touch interface, and the contracts available were much better for me.

Decision made, I sorted out all the stuff related to migrating my number and got the phone. Since thebn, there’s been no looking back. The phone is as good as I hoped and probably more: I find myself recommending it to anyone who’s interested – and from other people with them I haven’t heard any stories of dissatisfaction.

The one thing that I will note is that the battery life isn’t fantastic. I’ve found that if I use it heavily (especially with lots of network traffic) it will need a full charge within the day. Turning off data and not playing around with it all the time, however, sorts a lot of this out and it will last a lot longer.

In terms of apps, I could probably go on for a while about those, so I’ll leave that for another post, as this one has gone on a bit already. However now I have a device I can blog from (most of this post was written on it), hopefully I’ll update a bit more often.

However, when I do have a day where I don’t really need to do anything and have the time to spare (like today) I inevitably end up wasting it through watching TV/films, playing on the XBox, or writing blogs like this. I’ve convinced myself that the main problem is that I spend 40+ hours a week in the office looking at one project or another there. This might involve writing actual code (as most of last week did), integrating various components to solve problems that way, performing analysis on what we need to do or any number of other activities, most of which are things I’d need to do on the personal projects. Given this, I guess I’ve been subconsciously avoiding doing anything on them as it seems too much like work.

Of course, by being apathetic in regard to these projects, they’re ever growing in number as I come up with an idea for something that I (or others) might find useful, and therefore add it to the list. A prime example is the Choob functionality I mentioned in passing in my previous entry about Code Style last month (which was a lot of hot air, and no real action), but there are also a whole load of other things that I’ve been thinking about for a while and should probably do something about.

So, what do I do about this? Well, I guess it all comes down to forcing myself to sit down and write some code, rather than wandering off and parking myself in front of the TV for an entire day. With this in mind I’m going to try and set aside a couple of hours each week (be it at the weekend, or one evening), where I can get something written. This will mean that I need to actually think about what needs doing, and break it up into suitable chunks – but that’s something that would need doing anyway if the projects are to avoid spiralling out of control.

I guess if I can manage that, then I should also be able to keep this blog a bit more up to date, especially with progress, so I may even start updating this more often. Of course, it could all fail miserably, so I guess we’ll just have to see!

From what I can tell (I wasn’t on the original team – so only have the code and documentation to go from) there was never a set of style guidelines drawn up when the project started. This, along with people like myself submitting code later through the project, has lead to a mix of code styles being used – and as a result the code is a bit of a mess in places. I’m pretty sure I’m to blame for some of this, so I’d love to fix it, but that’s a bigger problem than it first seems for a couple of reasons; the sheer number of lines of code it would touch, and getting everyone to use the new format going forward.

The first of these problems is less about the logistics of making the change than the problems posed afterwards. If I change the format of every class in the project, I’m going to have my name against pretty much every line of code when viewed in the source control system. Sure, my change was only superficial, but this doesn’t matter when it comes to running “svn blame” to work out who broke what. This is a tricky one, and one I’m not sure there’s a good solution to, other than to make sure that the commit with the format changes in only has those, such that people can then look at the previous revision, which hopefully has the name of the person responsible in it.

Looking at the second problem there’s a whole other set of challenges faced. Choob doesn’t have too many active developers, which I’m not sure would make it easier or more difficult. The numbers being small certainly makes it easier to get the word out, but because of the infrequency with which work is done – it’s entirely possible that they’ll forget that there is now a proper style and eventually the code base ends up back where it started. This can be made easier through IDEs with formatting features, and the ability to distribute a set of rules (I certainly plan to do this with Eclipse if I do reformat the code), but there’s no doubt at least one developer who doesn’t use an IDE, or uses one that hasn’t had the settings created for.

These are both great reasons why you not only should, but need to set out some code style rules at the start of the project. At work we’ve got projects that have strict rules as to how code should be laid out (with the Java ones having approved formatter settings ship with the internal build of Eclipse), and as a result the code base is consistent. Admittedly there are also measures in place, such as code reviews, that wouldn’t be practical in the case of something like Choob (where all the developers are working on it in their spare time around work/university), but having had an agreed style from the start is a huge bonus.

So, what makes a good code style? Well most languages have a set of conventions or even a set of “standards” specified by the creators of the language (for example Sun’s for Java), so in my opinion it makes sense to use these. This way it’s consistent with what developers are likely to find in other code bases (at least, I hope so) and therefore reduces the barrier to entry. There is obviously the problem of ending up with a lot of idiomatic code, but as long as it’s a widely known way of doing things – you should be able to get away with it (Perl’s returning undef for failure for example).

Unfortunately even with this there’s bound to be some argument that comes down to the braces – and I have to admit to there being one element about coding that frequently irritates me with them. Unlike the majority of arguments, however, it’s not about where to put them – but the lack of them when the language makes the optional. Sure for a one line if statement the additional braces can seem like a lot of wasted code, but what happens when a year or two down the line someone comes along and needs to add something? If they’re not careful they can very easily fall into the trap of not adding in the now required braces, and all of a sudden some of the block isn’t conditional. Equally the other side of the argument exists, where a conditional statement is followed by another that is expected to be run regardless, but is indented to the same level – making it impossible to spot at a cursory glance. Having seen both of these it’s never pretty, and for all its sins Perl manages this well be mandating braces in these very situations (obviously Python’s use of whitespace also avoids this problem).

Of course, part of that problem stems from indentation, and I’d hope that requiring sensible indentation goes without saying when discussing good code style. This, when combined with clear code and written in a consistent manner should make it easily maintainable – which is very important in any project that’s actually going to last.

With all of this in mind, I’m currently trying to find a sensible set of format guidelines that work well on the Choob project and can be automated within Eclipse, which I’m hoping I’ll be able to get into the code base and improve the experience for everyone. This is likely to be a bit of effort, and involve looking for the most common code style at the moment, but hopefully I’ll get something sorted this month (and then get nothing but complaints for the months afterwards!)

The install process was nice and smooth, with everything just working out of the box, which was certainly a nice feature. The one thing that needed a bit of manual intervention was the installation of some non-free components, such as the nVidia graphics drivers so as to get 3D acceleration, but this wasn’t too much trouble (although editing the XOrg.conf file is probably beyond a real beginner).

Given that almost two years has passed, I was hopeful that there’d been progress, and I wasn’t disappointed. The niggles that I had previously noticed with KDE 4 were gone, and I can now have a sensibly sized panel, displaying only the current desktop’s activities in the task bar, along with a couple of useful widget on the desktop. The settings are all there, and applications that were missing last time, like Kontact, are now back and ready to go.

One of the other applications that has been updated since I last used KDE is Amarok. Now on version 2.2, a whole load of changes have occurred – including some rather drastic ones to the UI. Unfortunately, it seems to me that performance has dropped considerably – with it taking minutes and 100% CPU in order to do basic tasks such as adding a track to the play list. I’m currently wondering if this performance (or lack thereof) is down to the database, as previously I’d migrated to using MySQL rather than the default SQLite. I’m tempted to look into this again, as the performance is a bit of a joke at the moment. One other thing I’ve noticed, is that the on screen display doesn’t always work – instead only appearing intermittently and with no real consistent cause for it (not) appearing.

All in all the experience is a lot better than where it was, and it’s great to see that it’s come on in such leaps and bounds since the original release almost two years ago – and I’m certainly not looking at other desktop environments to move to!

A month later I actually got round to having the console collected, and off it went on a jaunt to Germany. Procrastination is seemingly still rife for me when it comes to some things, despite having a job that should supposedly make me get stuff done.

Still, just over a week later and it was returned to me – complete with a month’s free XBL gold and a sheet explaining that not only had they replaced the motherboard (which was expected given the RROD) but also the DVD drive, which was unexpected. This has seemingly caused my Xbox to get quieter, as the DVD drive was never particularly subtle and the fans make one hell of a noise, and I’m certainly not going to complain about that.

All in all, excepting the fact that some shoddy design has been involved and has lead to it failing, I’m quite happy with how the process has worked. I’d have probably had it back working within 10 days had I been more efficient with getting it sent off, and Microsoft have been quite good with the communications as to the repair status. Of course, I know people who have had multiple failures, and I’m going to be wary of that happening again – but touch wood I’ll avoid that problem.

With this in mind I took the easy option to solve this problem and went on the hunt for a new MP3 player so I could listen to my own music on the train to/from work (rather than the tinny crap from other passenger’s headphones). After some pondering Sadiq linked me to the Sandisk Sansa Fuze, which is just over £50 from Amazon, and with a free trial of Prime I had it rather quickly.

The device itself is flash based, and the version I got has 4GB of on-board memory, with a microSD card for additional storage. It’s simple USB mass storage for putting files on, so no more messing around with additional applications like I had to do with my old Creative Zen, and this also means that it works nicely without any drivers on any OS I care to throw it at. The battery life is fantastic, and manages to keep going for over 20 hours on a single charge before it finally gives in and demands more juice. The other nice thing about the Sansa is that the jog wheel used for controlling the device actually moves. I’ve never liked the lack of tactile feedback found on iPods, and this is a big plus for me in terms of providing tactile feedback.

So far I’ve not had many problems with it, although I’m not sure how well it supports SDHC, as the 8GB card I got doesn’t seem to work too well as the refresh of the internal library hangs when I use that. Admittedly the refresh is slow as it is with a 2GB SD card, but as it hadn’t finished after 30 minutes of waiting, I’m going to presume that it didn’t like the card. This is something I still need to investigate further, but for the time being I’m happy with 6GB of music.

The only other downside that I can think of is that it charges via USB, so either needs plugging into a computer, or the additional purchase of a 13A to USB adapter. Then again, this is common with the iPods these days I believe, so it’s hardly a big issue.

All in all I’m very happy with the Sansa, and would recommend it to anyone else after a small, cheap MP3 player.

The time between being roped in and the trip coming round seemed to disappear, along with money on various things such as clothing, insurance and then hire and lessons for the week itself. We were going to Alpe D’Huez in France, apparently one of the better resorts for beginners such as myself (and most of our group) with plenty of green runs, but also with enough more difficult runs for the more experienced members of our group.

So it was on the morning of the 21st of February that a few of us met at London Bridge train station at the early time of 8am (which was especially early given my going out the night before…. whoops) such that we could head to Gatwick. Our flight wasn’t until noon though, so once we got there and checked in this left a few hours to kill. Still, the flight was fine and we even got a meal, which was unexpected given that the flight was only 90 minutes, before landing in Grenoble.

Once in Grenoble we walked to the shed (there’s no better description for it really) that is arrivals, and proceeded to wait about two hours for our bags to come off the plane, before we got on the bus for the two and a half hour drive up to the resort. This drive took us along part of the Tour de France route, which winds its way up to Alpe D’Huez via 21 hairpin corners, which was bad enough on the bus so I dread to think what it’d be like to cycle. Once at the top we got to our chalet, and went to collect our ski hire before some food and then grabbing some sleep ready for our first morning’s skiing.

The first morning started with a load of us attempting to find where the ESF (who we had our lessons booked with) met and therefore getting to our lessons. Once we’d managed this we were split into various groups, with the majority going off with one instructor and me and one other from our group joining another few others in the slightly lower group (or, as we termed ourselves “Team Special”). We spent the first day practicing our snow-plough so we could actually stop, and everyone fell over a couple of times (especially when they had us doing little hops). After a rather expensive pizza lunch we tried our hands at a few other slopes, one of which was clearly a bit too much for me as I ended up off piste and in a foot of snow (probably for the best given I had no control). A few games of pool filled the evening, with Matt and me taking the undefeated record for Warwick. Not that we wasted our time at uni in the bar playing pool. Honest.

Day two saw us learning how to turn during the lessons, and then having lunch at the top of the Marmottes 1 lift (2300m). Another valuable lesson was learnt here, a “large coke” is actually a litre, and cost 11€. I didn’t order one of those again. The afternoon was spent on slightly more sedate runs than the previous day, and was much more fun as I didn’t feel like I was completely out of control. That night a few of us ventured out on a bar crawl, and explored the old town a bit better with beer and shots in a number of different bars that lead to plenty of amusement and not so much sobriety.

The next few days saw us learning more control in the lessons, and slowly increasing our speed and the difficulty of the runs before finally on the Thursday afternoon I gave the blue run down from Marmottes 1 a go. This was great fun, and I only fell over twice right at the top. Sure it took us an hour to get down (compared to about half an hour for the others) but I was happy that I’d made it.

The last day skiing saw us collecting our certificates of completion of the lessons and then a nice relaxing afternoon skiing, including making it back to the chalet without having to walk in our boots – which was a great improvement on previous days. The evening started with a 5-course meal (including frog’s legs) and then continued with the anticipated drinking, including watching the France – Wales six nations game, various games and Jaegertrains, before we headed back to the chalet and got some sleep before returning to the UK.

All in all I thoroughly enjoyed the trip, and am hoping to be able to get another week in before my annual insurance policy runs out early next Feb!

Of course, these days snow can still prevent me from getting to where I need to be, as Monday’s mass-failure of the entire transport network in London showed (I think at one point there was a single tube line operating a normal service, with all buses being cancelled at that time). This means that as long as my internet connection is still functional I still have to work, through the wonders of modern technology. This is all well and good, but my working from home setup is severely sub-optimal compared to the office, mainly due to only having a single monitor and not having a proper desk phone with headset for long conference calls.

Fortunately I had Monday booked off anyway (so as to get some sleep after the Superbowl) and by the time I came to head to work on Tuesday the transport system wasn’t too broken. We’ve also seen no snow since (and hopefully won’t have a tonne fall overnight) so even the woefully prepared councils around here might be able to get away without doing anything and I should still be able to get into the office tomorrow.

Of course, snow isn’t always an irritation – I’m off skiing at the end of the month, where a lack of snow would be quite frustrating. However in the case where I’ve got other things to do (like work) it’s going to prove to be an annoyance.