SteveX Compiled

If you're trying to figure out boost::bind, read this.

Major Nelson's podcast interview with Marc Whitten indicated that there isn't going to be the usual Spring Update this year (one of two yearly updates). At least, not in the sense of the usual update that adds new features, like the DivX support added last fall.

And, on top of that, they're going to be removing content that is currently available.

This is a problem because the Xbox 360 comes with a small hard drive, and depends on the idea that you can delete content at any time knowing that you can log in and re-download it if you want to play it again. At some point, for some content, that will stop being true.

These both seem like bad signs.

Microsoft is a fierce competitor when it's motivated, but when it's not motivated, it's quite capable of basically parking a product that it considers to be "good enough". Look at Internet Explorer. They were all over IE development up to IE6, and then shelved it for years until Firefox started eating into their lead enough to get them working on IE7.

If there's no big Spring update, then it's clear that a lot of the folks that have been working on the 360 firmware since launch are doing something else. Working on the Zune perhaps?

And what of Blu-Ray on the 360?

The only way having no Spring Update would be forgivable would be if the folks that should have been working on it have been working on Blu-Ray support instead. That would be a good strategic move, because Microsoft is losing console sales to the PS3 because of Blu-Ray. I have a PS3 now to use as a Blu-Ray player, but this means now Microsoft is competing with Sony head-on for my accessory and game dollars. So far the only game on the PS3 I've actually bought is PixelJunk Monsters, but Home and LittleBigPlanet are looking pretty good. More interesting than anything coming on the 360, actually.

So what is it? Is Microsoft hunkering down for some real updates? Or have they made their bet on the 360 and now they're going to let it ride?

Wow.. the Ottawa Citizen has a summary of the new DMCA style law that's coming in Canada, and I can't believe our politicans would even consider something like this. Check this out:

The proposal includes “civil enforcement” measures which would give security personnel the “authority to order searches” (without a lawyer present) “and other preliminary measures.”

and

Anyone found with infringing content in their possession would be open to a fine. They may also have their device confiscated or destroyed, according to the four-page document.

So police could stop you on the street, demand to see proof of purchase for the songs on your iPod, and if you can't produce it, fine you and destroy your iPod?

I needed to scan a document today, so I pulled my trusty Canon LiDE 30 scanner off the shelf. I haven't used it since the Mac switch, so I went looking for a Mac driver, and found one.

Installing it was fun. The installer disk image is a pile of folders and something that might be an installer but with the "I don't have an icon" icon:

I ran the installer, and apparently it wanted to find some "install locations":

I guess it didn't find any, so the installer proceeded with none selected. Now, this installer apparently lets me install to more than one location. That's handy for the times when I want to install something in more than one place, but only want to run the installer once. Which happens never.

Well, I added my Applications folder as an Install location and the Install button lit up. Looks like I'm good to go:

Or not:

Why is it we tolerate such bad installers from driver developers?

No scanning for me today, I guess.

I just submitted a little job to RentACoder (converting an ASP.NET site to PHP for easier hosting - I'm not much of a PHP developer) and part of their new wizard has a bit about estimates. You can supply a deadline, or you can ask the bidders to estimate how long the job will take, based on your specifications.

But there's a warning:

Even the best coders do not estimate accurately. If you don't understand and account for this, it will probably cause you unnecessary problems.

Do you understand that it's wisest to multiply any coder estimate by either 5 or 2 to get a more realistic estimate?

I like that. Multiply by either 5 or 2. Pick one. That's about as accurate a method as any.

Haven't blogged much lately. Been busy. I'll be back.

Meanwhile here' s a cool picture I took of some lightning.

I discovered, after taking a few dozen long exposure images on my Canon 40D, that there are two spots on the sensor that return solid red data. Lightroom seems to sense and remove the errors, but still. I wonder how bad it has to be before I can get it fixed under warranty.

I ran into a problem installing some software updates on a Mac and thought I'd post the solution here in case anyone else runs into the same problem.

I was logged in as one user, and ran Software Update, but didn't install the updates. I then created a new user account and logged in as this new user to actually install the updates.

But Software Update refused to install some of them, with this error: "You do not have appropriate access privileges".

Software Update downloads updates into /Library/Updates and the updates were there, but it seems that because they belonged to someone else, Software Update was having trouble. Deleting the updates from this folder and running Software Update again fixed the problem (the updates were downloaded again the next time I ran Software Update).

Ars Technica is posting a series on Cocoa (the Mac UI framework) and part of it is a comparative look at the .NET Framework. And in my opinion, it's not very fair.

Here's a quote:

The .NET library does work. It more or less has all the main pieces you need, but it's full of areas where you have to deal, directly or indirectly, with the obsolescent mediocrity of Win32. On their own, none of these issues would be a show-stopper, but they all add up. It's a death of a thousand cuts.

He's talking about Windows Forms, where I find some of what he says to be true. A bit too much of Win32 shines through in Windows Forms. But still, as a wrapper for the Win32 API, it takes it from the death of a million cuts which is straight Win32 development to a death of only a thousand cuts. It's a big improvement.

And when working with the rest of Win32, things like files or sockets, it's a much cleaner environment.

I haven't worked with WPF, but since it's not based on Win32 at all, I'd expect it to be a clean, well-architected UI framework. Anyone with experience working with it care to say?

In picking on Win64 he says:

Another example; Win32 has a function for getting the size of a file. File sizes on Windows are limited to 2^64 bytes, and so they need a 64-bit integer to be expressed easily. But the API call to get the size of a file doesn't give you a 64-bit value. Instead, it gives you a pair of 32-bit values that have to be combined in a particular way. For 32-bit Windows, that's sort of understandable; 32-bit Windows is, well, 32-bit, so you might not expect to be able to use 64-bit integers. But if you use the same API in 64-bit Windows, it still gives you the pair of numbers, rather than just a nice simple 64-bit number. While this made some kind of sense on 32-bit Windows, it makes no sense at all on 64-bit Windows, since 64-bit Windows can, by definition, use 64-bit numbers.

But .NET gives you exactly that. All integers in .NET are 64 bit, and there's no futzing to do to get the 64 bit size of a file.

Of course:

So Windows is just a disaster to write programs for. It's miserable. It's quite nice if you want to use the same techniques you learned 15 years ago and not bother to change how you do, well, anything, but for anyone else it's all pain.

As I said recently, I'm not using the .NET framework at work, so that's the world I live in. What can you do? If you want to sell software, Win32 is still where it's at.

Jeff Atwood has a post insanely recommending the Nuvi 200W, but I wonder if he's ever tried a Mio.

I bought a Garmin GPS and found the startup time just too frustratingly long.

I'm still very happy with my Mio C520 GPS.

That the Xbox 360 will be gaining Blu-Ray support is the rumour that just won't die. But how likely is it?

I'd say about 50/50. The hardware part is easy - and the that's the part that the rumours always focus on:

The website ... states that MS has contracted Korean firm Pegatron Technology to build a Blu-ray Xbox 360. You can't get more direct than that. They say it like it's a FACT and 100% true.

But I doubt Pegatron is doing the firmware required to play Blu-Ray discs, a significant portion of the work. Probably an order of magnitude harder than doing the hardware portion. Blu-Ray is a complex specification.

But Microsoft is an adept implementer, and the death of HD DVD has shown the way. Future versions of Windows are going to need to play Blu-Ray, the next-gen Xbox is going to need Blu-Ray, Apple is rumoured to be building Blu-Ray drives into the next-gen Mac laptops, so any investment in developing Blu-Ray software is going to be money well spent.

So in some ways it's really just a matter of time.